Well, it has been a while, but believe me, I have been busy as ever working on my guitar playing, my guitar gear, my stuio geqar,mystudio room and gear ideas. so let's get to it!!:
Denis bids a farewell to the mackie 32x8x2 8 buss mixing console
Ok, here is the scoop on th Mackie 8 bus 32x8 mixing console. I sold it after having worked with it and have created about 4 or 5 albums with it.Why dod I sell it? well, for many reasons. One, it is a great sounding mixing console. It's analog, it's warm, the mic pre's sound great in that things fit well in the mix and have there own space and the EQ's are very good as well. Now for one person, 32 ch's is a bit of overkill and many ch's I didnt use. Also, the thing is huge and my recording room was small, sure it was cool to have a big board like that, but when you try to cram that ,pc's,pa and a wall guitar amops and so on, it does get crowded. Also, beaue it has so many routing options ,its also not a very direct sound. Also, this particular baord was getting old and would soon need ribbon cables replaced as I had to constantly turn up the gain for a ch to activate and things. But not uncommon for an older board such as this. Also, I was going into recording with sonar so I would not need it quite as much. In any case, I sold it and was glaed to have it when I did and glad to be able to use and experience recording with it.As an alternative, I am interested in just working with some outbaord mic pre's , so heading in that direction.
2 Akai 42" LCD hdtv's as minotors
go one ande then another, these are jsut the best as pc monitors!!! 1080p ,great resolution ad they look great. I like these when recording with Sonar or doing video editing. anyway, the problem was getting a desk big enough for these. In the end, I lucked out and found three computer desks used that were the same and fit perfectly together to give me a 9ft desk area and it was the same size horixzontally and vertically, so perfect for the dual 42" lcd's. Sure I could have gone with puny 22 or24" lcd's, but I jsut love these, for audio I can see tracks horizontally and the virutally mixing console on seperate screens,etc...anyway, I got each one for about $400 which is a bargain but found a repair cetner in bloomington that refurbished thm for cheap. works great. however, just as I get them setup , my audio pc internet connection takes a dump, DAMN IT!!! No way to fix it. Tried for days, but lucky i had a laptop with internet access, so no big deal. but tim to replace these cp's which i had been thinking about for a while. now would be a good time.
XP internet access
ever sicne vista came out, xp seems to be getting crappier and crappier, coincidence? Probabkly not. Well, all of a sudden my audio pc interenet connection took a nove dive. No one can seem to fix it. No space for a new network card,maybe I can try a usb netork deal. anyway, it does slow me down. Well, isp has a tech coming out on thusday, but I doubt they can do anything for it. by then I hope to have ordered some new pc;s anyway,
Modern rock Guitar vol.136 is complete
YES!!!!! its done and lik many of my albums, it was done in the midst of chaos and experimentation in the studio room, this time it is changing the room aaround with new furniture and new monitors and chaning amps too. But ,littl by littl4 it took shape. turned out to b a prety cool album too!!! Also, have the intro track for vol.137 done. Lsitening to it now in fact. You know, I have to say, it is so hard to change your methods when you are use3d to doing things a certain way and it woudl be easy for me to continually jsut do what I did on the last album. but facing these challenges is the only way to progress musically!!! for example, I have been using my roland recorders forever, though after experimenting with sonar I see that I may be abl to get a better recoridjng sound out of it, but there is a big learning curve and adjustments that need to be made gear wise to accomadate it. But that is very difficult. anyway, it will be worth while!!!
TUbeOMANia Crate v33 tube amp
ok, here is the deal with these beasts!! The preamp tubes that come with them are total junk!?!! I mean the v33 was producing so much hiss in the clean ch and made the f/x loop totally useless and the reverb was jsut useles too.Solution: a $10 12ax7 preamp tube!!!! Hard to believe the difference. If you have one of these, replacfe the the last tube in the chassis and its like a miracle, all of a sudden the amp is crystal clear and no hiss, f/x loop works grat and is quiet and the spring reverb is actually in a useabkle range. So, I went out and bout 2 more. I used elextroc harmonix tubes and they worked grreat. I also have aq third amp and will try a JJ tube as they didnt have nay mroe electro harmonix. so we will seee. but the difference is night and day.Wonder if switiching out the remaing two preamp tubes might make a difference two. I also noticed that the speakers are set for a certian sound and they sound very good, but I am so used to a jensen tuype of sound and wonder about repalcing them for that. but may be not, as I noticed that some eq goes a long way. anyway, the difference of these crates and my utratwin amps is quite something. the crates are beasts and are clearere and louder yet somoother becasue of the power amo tubes. oh and grabbing the low end is something to experience!!! now will it trasnlate into recordings? We will see!!! note:I was very proud of doing the handy work of replacing the preamp tube myself which requires removing the chassie k, well really titlting it at 90 degrees.anyway i dont like doing that stuff or seeing the actual inner working s of the amp, especially when you have to play through it later, its asusperstitous guitar thing I guess haha. But the seocnd I plugged in, I was thrilled that it actually made the amps useable!!! they used to be hjsut way to noisy to do anything with other than annoy the neighbors.now they are clean enough to use on recordings!!!
BOSS 2 way footwitch
ok, I use alot fo a/b switches in my guitar rig.Its simple and eifficient. however, my morle a/b/y switches and my startouch stereo a/b pedals use these darn massive footswtiches, yes they are heavy duty and work great but one flaw: They CLICK loudly!!!! So when reocridng they are fine for loud passges but can be picked up during transients,drives me crazy!! Yes, I could move the footswitches to an other room ,etc...but for my home studio its not practical and I like playing by the amps.. Solution: Well iwas looking in a catalog and found this Boss a/b footswitch and isntead of the heavy duty clicker, they use a silent switch found on the boss rc-50 looper as well. well, when I was in a music store to pickup 2 12aqx7's preamp tubes they had a used boss switch. the exact same one I was looking at. so I bought it fo $29.00 used. As long as it works ok and is clean it should be a nice break from those dam loud clicker footswitches. we will see!!!
Expensive
music crap is so darn expensive, its horrible. locally after the 7 percent sales tax, I ended up spending $57 for one a/b swtich and 2 preamp tubes. Maybe its jsut me, but I thought it would be less. So much so, I had to leave the store when they told me the price and go smoke a cigarette hahaha!! I do recall a music store owner years ago who once told my friend about me "he just doesnt like to part with his money" hahaha after trying to get me to spend $1000 on a amp; how right he is. Not because i am cheap, but because I am trying to acocmplish something musci wise inclduing my cd recordings so I have to be very careful money wise. anyway, I spend the $57 bucks, but I dont know why it seems like quite a bit.But, those preamp tubes make those crate amps actually useable and sound vey very good. so it will work out well.
On the horizon
Amazon has gotten my latest cd's up for sale and are manufacturing them which is jsu awesome, rather than mp3 only albums. They have vol.119-135 so far. I think.so working on that. Also, am thinkging of getting an Alesis sr-18 drum machine, as i had an alesis sr-16 and I enjoy plying with drum machines more than samples because I play differrently with them. I hope to be able to use both. anyway just a thought.Also, looking at the digitech gsp1101-sounds nice!!! ALso looking into control surface for sonar, but i hate pc daws, so much can go worng, the roland standloanes jsut turn them on and they work everytime. not so with a PC dAW. anyway, we will see. I do know my next album will be very different as it will be reocrded with diferent amps and diferent hardware, should be interesting!!!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Looping pedals and pedalboards & more
visit http://www.dtguitar.com,Denis's official website
Line 6 variax 300 update
I bought this guitar used and it models all kind s of guitars such as acoustic guitars and banjo (a must
have if you want to rock) ,sitar, dobro, etc...(see a previous post on it). Well, this guitar needed a setup badly, the action was super low to the point where not all frets sounded. I fixed a lot of it by adjusting the truss rod a bit and got 5 of the 6 strings working perfectly. but the sixth needed an adjustment and I didn't have an Allen wrench. I took it to a local music store and they were very cool. The guy was really nice to take it to the back and he fixed it in a split second for n0 charge. That was really cool!!! Anyway, I dropped off an amp to be worked on there as well and bought a 12ax7 tube as I plan to attempt to change out one of the preamp tubes of the crate v332x12
Crate v33-212 update
WEll, I do lik
e this tube amp but I get hiss on clean ch and f/x loop to the point of being useless and the reverb is too huge. I read that swapping out one of the preamp tubes makes a huge difference, so we will . I got an electro harmonix 12ax7 tube ironically,but it just has to be better than these cheapo preamp tubes in the crate right now. we will see. Also, i am starting to really like the ballsy sound of the crate more than my solid state amps for regular guitar in my setup, though so far it stinks for f/x sounds. Hmmm, well, we will see....I guess I have a lot of fun trying stuff out and trying to work it into my system which is setup for live & recording at the same time.
I once tried out a $1000+ tube amp, a Genz Ben as I recall, and it sounded good, but I could not for the life of me get it too sound right with my setup?! Go figure. I actually am having better luck with the crates. bottom line for gear for me is very simple, it either works great with my other gear or sounds great and can fulfill one specific purpose or else I just cant use it. I actually have found that certain combination of amps,f/x and other gear works and some just doesn't work at all though each item may be of super high quality/reputation. Also, some of the cheapest gear sometimes works and sounds better than more expensive gear.
Looping pedals and pedalboards
Ok, an update. The two music stores did indeed refund me the total price for both the electro harmonix 2880 and 2880 foot controller. A hefty $500 or so. I just had a bad experience with it as it would not sync to midi very well at all,but may have been a faulty pedal. In any case, I got a chance to try it and I will say that the sound quality is excellent and by itself it could be a decent looper though very sensitive and the foot controller stwitches are way too loud and it takes way too many clicks to loop stuff. anyway, it did work well as a standalone looper (but I have too many that do that already) .it's gone!!!
Boss Rc-50 looper recap
the other loo
per that claimed to sync to midi was the Boss Rc-50 looper. Funny that both the rc-50 and the electro harmonix both took similar approaches to syncing to midi and both failed miserably in my book. In fact, to date and after a thousand dollars spent and recouped, the only true looper that syncs to midi is the lexicon jamman (the discontinued rackmount unit, not the cheap digitech imitation). Now, I have been harsh on the boss-rc50 and I did keep mine because I did find that by itself it was able to loop in a way that reminds me of old tangerine dream stuff and the sound quality is great. So its not bad, just the sync part is not up to snuff.
Overall, both unit s are good units, but I just dont like the approach they tried to use to sync to midi and if you want a midi looper hat syncs to midi, avoid these two like the plague, but both are decent for stand lone looping.
Akai 42" LCD Flat Panel HDTV Monitor
Ok, what the heck does a 42" LCD flat panel have to with guitar and audio studio gear?! Well, not much really ,but its es
sential as are lava lamps to provide the rigth atmostphere hahaha. Ok, sriously though, I happen to live in Bloomington, In and most of the broken or discontinued lcd hdtv''s in the country get shipped here to be fixed or liquidated by PTS,corp. Well, lucky for me they have an utlet store in town and they have incredible prices. I have long wanted to replace my 21"crt monitors with an lcd.So, I tried the outlet store and they had tons of 720 p hdtv's but only one size of 1080p and it was the akai for $400.25 which is an amazing price for a full 1080p lcd. In fact, online I have seen them average for $699-1300 plus $199 shipping.
Ok, the ones they had are more of a monitor than a TV as they dont have a built in tuner, but I didnt mind at all. I was going to ue it for my studio PC monitor for audio and video editing. I had read online from do-gooder nerdy wimps that "oh my, you will have to sit ten feet away to use a 42" size TV". YEAH RIGHT!!! I got it home and just plugged in my VGA cable into it and put it right on my desk and the picture came up at 1280x1024 85hz and was jsut simply amazing!!! I mean , it made my 21" monitor look like a puny little monitor, I even got the resolution up to 1600x1200 at 60hz which is nice ,things were a bit smaller ,more on the screen but duller too. And that is without hooking up a true dvi to hdmi which I plan to do to get higher resolution. Anyway, the difference is startling.
In my audio editing plugin's, they have graphics of hardware rackmont equipment and on this tv it is as if they are lifesize!! Crystal clear image and the resolution is high enough that the icons and text dont look stupidly big like old crt monitors when you set them to 800x600 or 640x480 god forbid. I mean I am sitting back in my studio chair about 31/2-4ft away and the picture is great. running multiple apps all on one screen a the same time is just great.Anyway, I highly recommen that you run out and get a 42" lcd and replace your pc monitor!!! MAn, you wont ever go back to puny little monitors ever again!! guitar wise its like playing through a cranked 50wt marshall 1/2 stack for the first time after plucking away on a 15wt practice amp. I also cant imagine anyone complainging abut the resolution at all, nothing looks jagged and the text is crystal clear!!
For sudio applications its great as I often monitor audio levels and use plug in's while also being 1/2 way across the room clicking on pdealbaords etc...so no more sqinting for that. I tell you I thought a 32" would be overkill, how wrong I was, I could even see a 46", but really a 42" is just the perfect size!!! you know those little you tube windows that the video's play in by default well on a 42" they dont look so small anymore. anyway, for the price of $400, I am considering getting another- yeah , dual 42" lcd monitors,thats the ticket hahahahah!!! Thrilled with purchase!!! and healthier for you too as you dont get that crappy radiation from those crt monitors.
Line 6 variax 300 update
I bought this guitar used and it models all kind s of guitars such as acoustic guitars and banjo (a must
have if you want to rock) ,sitar, dobro, etc...(see a previous post on it). Well, this guitar needed a setup badly, the action was super low to the point where not all frets sounded. I fixed a lot of it by adjusting the truss rod a bit and got 5 of the 6 strings working perfectly. but the sixth needed an adjustment and I didn't have an Allen wrench. I took it to a local music store and they were very cool. The guy was really nice to take it to the back and he fixed it in a split second for n0 charge. That was really cool!!! Anyway, I dropped off an amp to be worked on there as well and bought a 12ax7 tube as I plan to attempt to change out one of the preamp tubes of the crate v332x12Crate v33-212 update
WEll, I do lik
e this tube amp but I get hiss on clean ch and f/x loop to the point of being useless and the reverb is too huge. I read that swapping out one of the preamp tubes makes a huge difference, so we will . I got an electro harmonix 12ax7 tube ironically,but it just has to be better than these cheapo preamp tubes in the crate right now. we will see. Also, i am starting to really like the ballsy sound of the crate more than my solid state amps for regular guitar in my setup, though so far it stinks for f/x sounds. Hmmm, well, we will see....I guess I have a lot of fun trying stuff out and trying to work it into my system which is setup for live & recording at the same time. I once tried out a $1000+ tube amp, a Genz Ben as I recall, and it sounded good, but I could not for the life of me get it too sound right with my setup?! Go figure. I actually am having better luck with the crates. bottom line for gear for me is very simple, it either works great with my other gear or sounds great and can fulfill one specific purpose or else I just cant use it. I actually have found that certain combination of amps,f/x and other gear works and some just doesn't work at all though each item may be of super high quality/reputation. Also, some of the cheapest gear sometimes works and sounds better than more expensive gear.
Looping pedals and pedalboards
Ok, an update. The two music stores did indeed refund me the total price for both the electro harmonix 2880 and 2880 foot controller. A hefty $500 or so. I just had a bad experience with it as it would not sync to midi very well at all,but may have been a faulty pedal. In any case, I got a chance to try it and I will say that the sound quality is excellent and by itself it could be a decent looper though very sensitive and the foot controller stwitches are way too loud and it takes way too many clicks to loop stuff. anyway, it did work well as a standalone looper (but I have too many that do that already) .it's gone!!!
Boss Rc-50 looper recap
the other loo
per that claimed to sync to midi was the Boss Rc-50 looper. Funny that both the rc-50 and the electro harmonix both took similar approaches to syncing to midi and both failed miserably in my book. In fact, to date and after a thousand dollars spent and recouped, the only true looper that syncs to midi is the lexicon jamman (the discontinued rackmount unit, not the cheap digitech imitation). Now, I have been harsh on the boss-rc50 and I did keep mine because I did find that by itself it was able to loop in a way that reminds me of old tangerine dream stuff and the sound quality is great. So its not bad, just the sync part is not up to snuff.Overall, both unit s are good units, but I just dont like the approach they tried to use to sync to midi and if you want a midi looper hat syncs to midi, avoid these two like the plague, but both are decent for stand lone looping.
Akai 42" LCD Flat Panel HDTV Monitor
Ok, what the heck does a 42" LCD flat panel have to with guitar and audio studio gear?! Well, not much really ,but its es
sential as are lava lamps to provide the rigth atmostphere hahaha. Ok, sriously though, I happen to live in Bloomington, In and most of the broken or discontinued lcd hdtv''s in the country get shipped here to be fixed or liquidated by PTS,corp. Well, lucky for me they have an utlet store in town and they have incredible prices. I have long wanted to replace my 21"crt monitors with an lcd.So, I tried the outlet store and they had tons of 720 p hdtv's but only one size of 1080p and it was the akai for $400.25 which is an amazing price for a full 1080p lcd. In fact, online I have seen them average for $699-1300 plus $199 shipping. Ok, the ones they had are more of a monitor than a TV as they dont have a built in tuner, but I didnt mind at all. I was going to ue it for my studio PC monitor for audio and video editing. I had read online from do-gooder nerdy wimps that "oh my, you will have to sit ten feet away to use a 42" size TV". YEAH RIGHT!!! I got it home and just plugged in my VGA cable into it and put it right on my desk and the picture came up at 1280x1024 85hz and was jsut simply amazing!!! I mean , it made my 21" monitor look like a puny little monitor, I even got the resolution up to 1600x1200 at 60hz which is nice ,things were a bit smaller ,more on the screen but duller too. And that is without hooking up a true dvi to hdmi which I plan to do to get higher resolution. Anyway, the difference is startling.
In my audio editing plugin's, they have graphics of hardware rackmont equipment and on this tv it is as if they are lifesize!! Crystal clear image and the resolution is high enough that the icons and text dont look stupidly big like old crt monitors when you set them to 800x600 or 640x480 god forbid. I mean I am sitting back in my studio chair about 31/2-4ft away and the picture is great. running multiple apps all on one screen a the same time is just great.Anyway, I highly recommen that you run out and get a 42" lcd and replace your pc monitor!!! MAn, you wont ever go back to puny little monitors ever again!! guitar wise its like playing through a cranked 50wt marshall 1/2 stack for the first time after plucking away on a 15wt practice amp. I also cant imagine anyone complainging abut the resolution at all, nothing looks jagged and the text is crystal clear!!
For sudio applications its great as I often monitor audio levels and use plug in's while also being 1/2 way across the room clicking on pdealbaords etc...so no more sqinting for that. I tell you I thought a 32" would be overkill, how wrong I was, I could even see a 46", but really a 42" is just the perfect size!!! you know those little you tube windows that the video's play in by default well on a 42" they dont look so small anymore. anyway, for the price of $400, I am considering getting another- yeah , dual 42" lcd monitors,thats the ticket hahahahah!!! Thrilled with purchase!!! and healthier for you too as you dont get that crappy radiation from those crt monitors.
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