Showing posts with label Music Gear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music Gear. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Gear Update

I am going to be doing some solo gigs soon. In order to make them more awesome I purchased a new piece of equipment. It is the Boss RC-20xl looping station. I traded in some stuff i don't need and only ended up having to pay $70 out of pocket for it- list is $250. This pedal is pretty amazing. It has 16 minutes of looping awesomeness, and you can create and manage different phrases while performing live. It's going to take a while to get used to but I'm sure it will be awesome.

I also got an MXR Dyna Comp compression pedal- it does the subtle job i need it to.

Here are the updated boards:
Acoustic:


Electric:


On another musical related note, I have decided to no longer play music with the Grumps. The sole reason is that the schedule is just too time consuming. It was a hard decision to make, but I was feeling exhausted after only a few weeks of regular playing out. I wish them all the best.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Did I Mention...

The clear bass is now HANGING FROM THE WALL.

Friday, May 1, 2009

New Pedal - New Plan

Phasing is one of my favorite effects. I love it in guitar, and use it on bass, vocals and synths lots. For the past few years I have been using the Boss PH-3 phaser. I noticed early on that it scooped my mid frequencies really bad as soon as I would turn it on. I constantly compensated for it by just turning up, but once i would kick it off, I would be too loud. This is a very shitty feature if you want any versatility. I never buy pedals for myself, so I figured I would splurge on this. After weeks of research, the MXR Phase 90 won on all levels. (Dean & Gene Ween's favorite pedal)

I was ready to pay a decent amount but ended up getting this MXR Phase 90 off of ebay for only $45. This pedal retails for around 70-120 depending on where you are, so I figured this was a pretty good deal. I had read about a modification online that seemed to be the way to go. Reviews said that the pedal had the same problem that the Boss pedal has, unless you do the mod, so I figured I would try my first major gear mod. I was so excited to do it I forgot to test it out to see if it even worked before opening it up.

The process involved removing the backplate, unscrewing everything, and taking the circiut board out of the casing. From there, I had to cut out three transistors/resistors. I was more than freaked out by using nail clippers to cut out the R28, C11, and C12 nodes, but I trusted the internet and went ahead with it.

Holy. Shit. Mang.


This pedal sounds amazing. It's stellar. One knob= Speed. It's like running the signal across the bottom of a lake. The phase is deep enough, but not too deep, with not too much effect feedback. I cant do it justice, but I plan on doing a side by side comparison of the PH3 and Phase 90.


The new plan is to get another pedal board to spread out everything a little more. There's a couple other things I want, but for now, the rig is for the most part complete.
I also picked up a new 1TB firewire HD. It's now home to all my Itunes. Bad Ass.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Acoustic, Mics and Recording Hardware

For acoustic guitars, I'm playing on a celebrity round back. It's very basic, i don't even know the model number. I bought it in New York City in 2004 for $300. It's a pretty nice beater guitar, and sounds real pretty when it's plugged in. It has a built in 3 band EQ, which is the real reason that I bought it in the first place. For recodring, it's pretty decent, although I would rather mic a better sounding guitar.

I also have an old Ibanez, I think its a 92-94 that needs to have the neck fixed. It's a real sweet sound, and plays great. Once I get that going again, I'll be doing some mic experiments and recording more acoustic stuff, probably playing more acoustic as well.

For gigs and the occational practice, I have the Fender Acoustisonic 30 Ampliphier. I had been wanting one for years when my SLF got me one for my birthday this year. This amp has a built in vocal input. It is one of the original models, as has a chours built into the guitar channel, not the DFX sound that came with the later models. I probably won't use the chorus all that much anyway, as I have pedals for all the effects I like. From what I can tell, this amp would be great for playing an open mic solo show, but since I'm too lazy to play in the winter, we will have to wait till summer to see how she really plays.

I use mics for a lot of reasons. For live vocals, I use a Sennheiser e838. It has a natural mid range boost, which is great for me, as I have no mid range. I wsa previously using a Shure SM58 for vocals, but it became too muddy in the mix. This mic kicks ass live, and is decent for studio recodring, although I prefer a condensor, like my Behringer B-2. The B-2 has it's own case, and picks up EVERYTHING. Breath, scratches, house noises, it's range is incredible. I use this mic for recording pretty much everything I can. It's a little too sensitive for guitar at loud levels, but other than that, it's pretty good. It has a very accurate response, and that's what I like about it. It really magnifies sound around you. I recorded rain during a thunderstorm once by putting it near an open window. The thunder sounds sweet.

For other instrument recording I use a pair of Behringer c-2's. They are tiny little condensors that are pretty basic. The response is good for a guitar amp, or a loud room. They would work with drums as well I imagine. I also use them for acoustic mic's from time to time.

I have a handful of other various mic's I don't really use for anything anymore. They are good to have and give me comfort.

When playing with a PA, I have a behringer PA. It has 100 built in preset effects. there are about 50 kinds of echo/delay/reverb, and 30 phaser, flanger, chours. the other 20 are mixes, and pitch shifts. I have two "Pog" (Rouge) speakers for the sound to come through. This PA is good and can pack a punch. I would like maybe a larger speaker someday once I get a band rolling.


When recording, everything goes into an M-Audio mobile pre USB. It has built in phantom power, and sounds pretty good. (I have a behringer pre-amp that can produce phantom power, however I never really have a use for it, even though it is tube powered.) That goes into my mac, into whatever interface I'm learning, and out puts through m-Audio studiophile AV-40 speakers. I also use the M-Audio Keystation 49e. It's great.

I had a photo of my computer in here somewhere. It's an iMac g5, running a intel core duo 1.8 ghz processor i think? i have 3 gigs of ram. I like my computer. It's a good boy.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Gear Report- Electric Rig

I wanted to take this chance to show off what I'm currently using, what works, and what doesn't. Always open for suggestions...

I have a good amount of gear for playing out solo, which is awesome, as well as a guitar rig worthy of playing with a live band. Let's take a closer look at what I'm using.



This is my guitar, Caprice. It's a 1997 Fender Strat Plus. It has 3 gold lace sensors, a mod switch to activate the neck pickup, mid range boost, locking tuners, locking tremelo, and a sweet sweet sound. I've had this guitar since 2000. I love it, it plays great and I like the way it sounds.





My chain is going to be official pretty soon. I go from guitar, into a dunlap crybaby wah pedal, into the boss OC-2 Octave pedal, into the maxon OD-9,(the Johnson T-OD9 may be used with the Maxon, not sure about that one yet) into a boss PH3 Phaser, into a Boss DD-3 (Made in Japan) Digital Delay, into a Digitech Echo Park (which I may devote to vocals). I also have a digitech RP-8 which is a multi effects processor, that I really only use on occations when I need a compressor or want to warm up my tone with the built in tube.

That goes into my Fender Deluxe tube amplifier. It cranks out 40 watts or something like that.
The only thing I don't have that I want is a tuning pedal, like the boss TU-2.

Coming later this week, the acoustic rig, vocal set up, and recording station.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Gear Update

New speakers (B+)
M-Audio Studiophile AV-40
Pretty tight, full sounding. There is a definite sweet spot in front of them, but the sound fills the room like no other speaker I have ever owned. I'm almost done getting everything I need ever to record, at least for now. I just need a TB hard drive to put all my junk on and free up my internal for recording. Seriously thought, these things sound bad ass. I'm very pleased. For the size of the room, nothing could be better.

New distortion pedal(A++++)
Maxon OD-9
For years I have wanted an Ibanez Tube Screamer and never could justify buying it for myself. On V-E day my SLF surprised me by getting me the Maxon OD-9. Maxon was the company that first made the tube screamer for Ibanez. in 2004 their contract ran out and they started making the pedals under their own name. The OD-9 is upgraded significantly from the Tube Screamer. The tone is amazing, and it has true bypass built in. It also is made with a chip that many people were paying to have added into the Tube Screamer. In short, it's the best distortion pedal I will probably ever own. Totally bad ass, kick ass present.

This weekend I'm going to archive all my gear in photo form, to be posted soon.