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!!!
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