Forgotten Genre Productions

I recently came across a boutique pedal maker by the name of Lovepedal. Initially I liked the aesthetics and vibe of the pedals but then as I watched some of the demo videos I was taken by the tone of these pedals. I have been wanting to have a tone night at the studio for some of my high end clients that are looking for more of a refined and pure tone than your average boss pedal. I also was killed by playing a DR. Z Carmen Ghia that absolutely ruined me for any other amps. The tone that came from this was quite possibly the best guitar tone I’ve ever heard. Since the amp was over a grand and my egnater rebel 20 is nothing to laugh at I started thinking about pedals. I called Sean Michael who designs and builds Lovepedals and next think you know I had 2 lovely boutique pedals on there way. I went with the Eternity Fuse and the Kalamazoo. The Kalamazoo I had to have because of the chrome finish and the glass know intrigued me. The glass know alows you to add high end to your tone without effecting the bass or low end. The pedal sounds great and reaaly gives me an excited edge to the tone. You have many options of tone with the 4 controls on the Kalamazoo. It gives me a really thick saturated tone that seems on the verge of feedback but the edge is controlled by the volume knob on my guitar. So I can roll up the volume to go over the edge or roll it town slightly to reign it in. it also gives a great drive tone for power chords. The Eternity became my favorite. It has a tone and a vibe to it that has won me over. This pedal to is thick but with the glass know allows my tone to be still chimy. It doesn’t turn your overdrive to mush like some cheap pedals do. You can still hear all the separate strings ringing out. Now again I have to give you this disclaimer. I typically do not go for tones that are super distorted. I am not a heavy metal guy and I hate that buzzy line 6 bumble bee tone. So when I set up my peadls I am looking for interesting saturation and harmonic color. I tend to set the drive lower and the level hotter. This is just what I’m into. It is possible that you could own these pedals and get something totally different tone wise from them. That is cool. It is fun to have vanilla and chocolate. Feel free to check these clips out and if you are a tone geek, contact me and I will put you on the list for a tone night.

So I get an email from Al Kooper this morning. Yea I realize it is obnoxious to open a blog post with that sentence but it actually happened. Al is mixing an album that a friend of mine is producing for the Legend Charlie Gracie. I have been preparing the files for Al to mix. Al is very particular about his workflow. First off, He hates Protools. Don’t even bring it up. Al works in Digital Performer (MOTU). The next thing is, Al has to have files in Aiff, not Broadcast wave which is the industry standard but Aiff. Al also likes everything on a disc. He did not like the idea of ftp’ing files or using a dropbox. They had to be on a disc. We sent him the album on 2 DVD’s, 10 songs in all, 5 on each disc. The second disc we sent him, he could not find the files on, so I rushed him out another disc the next day that I, of course, checked on a second computer to verify that files were on it. Today I get an email from Al Kooper addressing me as Anthony Boy. It seems that the second disc was “blank” but he was able to find all the songs exept one on the first “blank” disc I sent him. Now I need to send him the one song so he can complete the project. So here I am burning another DVD for 1 song and another 25 dollars to fed ex the songs to Al to make it right. The moral of the story is….. Don’t argue with Al Kooper. The guy mixed Freebird people. I don’t care if he likes his files with a ribbon attached to it. It is pointless to argue or defend yourself or explain that you checked it and it must be on his end or any other excuses that come to mind. Just make it right. Does Al care about me or my resume’? Of course not. Just make it right. So today I will be checking the files on 2 computers, Mac and PC to make sure Al gets his files.

Oh yea, and Al Kooper called me boy.

I just saw this new item that was debuted at the Musikmesse Conference in Germany. It is a great tool for tracking guitars at home with some finesse. It is a little pricey but the remote feature is very cool. Enjoy

I came across this video in a typical meandering social media progression. My old acquaintance Charlie Peacock has a blog that I suggest you check out, that he referenced on his facebook page which showed up on my news feed. From there I watched this video and discovered That the female here is Joy Williams who I did a show with years ago when I was touring with Waterdeep. They loved Joy and already had prior knowledge of her work but I heard her for the first time that night. She has a beautiful voice and has teamed up with this gent, John Paul White. This song is hauntingly beautiful and gets me in the way much of the Deadman music gets me. Also to note is the use of the Heil PR20 mic on Joy’s voice. As some of you may know I am a big fan of the Heil mics and have and use quite a few of them in the studio myself. Actually we used the same mic on Jennifer Lewis’ voice for the Trash & Glory project. Of course we used the gold grill and refered to it as the “Diva” mic.I will have to do more research on the Civil Wars but for now enjoy this video and check out Charlie’s post of the background of  it here.

 I realize I have been hung up on a lot of guitar toys lately but this one takes the cake, or at least fills a gap for something I have been waiting for. As all you gear savvy engineers out there know NAMM 2010 just wrapped up in Anaheim CA. For all you unsavvy engineers. NAMM is the trade show for the music products industry. This is the time when all the manufacturers show new gear and get you hyped up about it. Electro Harmonix released the Deluxe Memory Boy and a few other cool pedals but it is the Deluxe Memory Boy that catches my attention. Heres why. Back in the day (the zeros you know, naughts if you will.) I had a line 6 DD4 delay which I liked. It had some great sounds and you had the ability to have 3 different programs on one pedal. It also had the looper feature blah, blah, blah (not something I use or care about) of course one of the handiest features was the tap tempo which allowed you to quickly adjust to fit into different songs and helped me to pretend or at least try to convince others that I was playing the same song that they were. As is the case with much of life eventually the DD4 hit the wall due to over use and abuse by friendly borrowers and my self. I am not a big Line 6 fan as many of you know and this pretty much sealed their fate in regards to my meaningless support of their products. Their was no way I was spending another 250 or 300 bones to replace the delay. Of course the only delays that I used consistently in the DD4 was the analog w/ mod settings which consequentially was modelled after the EHX memory man. So in my travels I discovered the MXR Carbon Copy which I absolutely love. It is a tone machine and has a warmth and realness that I just like from the get go. I decided to replace the DD4 with a carbon copy. There was only one down side to this plan and that was tap tempo or the lack thereof as the case may be. I even considered some day adding another Carbon Copy and having one set to a lead longer delay and the other set to a shorter slap back kind of thing. Since my Egnater Rebel 20 has no reverb the extra option was even more intriguing. Then I discovered the Memory Boy and the Memory Toy from EHX. 2 different updated versions of the old Memory Man pedals. They were affordable and had that great analog tone. I thought that the memory boy was a little hard to control with the modulation being a little over the top for me but the Memory Toy was just right. I was demoing one for a while and liked what I was getting from it but felt some innate sense that I should just wait. I had long since given up on the tap tempo delay. Alas as I was dutifully trolling the NAMM releases to keep informed I came across my dream, The Deluxe Memory Boy WITH tap tempo people!!! It’s too good to be true. So now I have to wait untill they actually release them. Feast your ears on this video clip.

In preparation for this  recording session with Doug Plank and Crossway Church I have been getting my Guitar rig in order. As you see from my previous post I added a guitar. The other recent addition is the Wiggler from Electro Harmonix. Electro Harmonix makes some great pedals and the wiggler is definitely one of the greats. The thing I love about EHX is their pedals have a certain warmth to them. They usually go from subtle to over the top and have a definate analog feel to them. If you are looking for pristine sparkly clean EHX is not the way to go but if you are looking for character they nail it. I have found that when you are mixing in the box and have access to hundreds of plug ins things get a little too clean. I tend to prefer a more organic approach to tone. The only critique I have about the EHX pedals are they tend to be a little noisy. Now there are ways around this. I find as a player I need to be more aware of rolling the volume down when I am not playing. This is becoming somewhat of a lost art with all these processors and pods etc. out on the market. Back in the day as players tried to control the noise issues they discovered that their tone changed a little at different volumes and they used it as one more tone tool in their tool bag. They also discovered the volume swell which is a technique that I would certainly like to perfect. I am still refining the volume roll off.Ok, back to the wiggler. A couple of things that are interesting about the wiggler. There is an output control at the top left. You can use this to drive your amp a little for fatter slightly knarlier sounds. Oh yeah that brings us back to one of the clutch features; Tubes, baby, tubes. The wiggler has 2 12ax7wb tubes in it to give that tone mojo that we like. It is an all tube path and it sounds lush. You also have 4 different character options for vibrato and true amplitude modulation tremolo. Not only am I excited about using the wiggler with my guitar rig but I am anxious to use it on other sounds patched out of my recording rig. Sometimes having knobs to grab onto is more vibe inducing then clicking on a mouse so I am looking for another exciting tone mangler. I will keep you posted on the results.

For Christmas this year I decided I was going to get a guitar. The last couple of years for Christmas I used my Christmas money on studio gear. One year I upgraded my Studio computer, one year it was an ART Pro Channel tube channel strip, another year it was a mic I haven’t made any guitar purchases for a long time. This year however I am about to start on a project where I will be playing a little guitar and a little bass and I wanted to have the tools for tone that were necessary. I actually came close to purchasing a Les Paul Traditional Gold top. I never really saw myself as a Les Paul guy but I picked up a limited edition Les Paul for a customer of mine. There were only 100 of these models available and when it arrived in the shop I thought to my self, “what is the big deal here about a les paul. Aren’t these just over hyped over priced guitars with a name stamped on them?” So I pulled out the guitar and tuned it and played it and loved it. First of all the neck was solid on it. I like a big fat neck on my guitars, which is why I have kept my Washburn grover jackson designed MG410. If I could find another one of those guitars I would buy it in a second. They are worthless on the market but the neck is the fatest neck I have seen and the frets are these huge jumbo frets that are so easy to play. I am not a fast player I am really looking for tone. So much of the tone comes from the neck and thin little heavy metal necks do not cut it for me. Anywho, The Les Paul blew me away. I had this plan that I would put it on law a way and sell some gear and have the guitar some day. After dwelling on it for weeks I came to the conclusion that I could not justify spending that kind of money at this point in my life. I still wanted something so my quest went on. In searching I came across the JA-90 Fender Tele which is the Jim Adkins Signature tele. Jim is from Jimmy Eats World. I loved the idea of the P90’s and the different tonal options there. I started to lean towards this guitar and as I was researching it I discovered that the guitar was modeled after Jim’s TC90 tele that was no longer made when I saw the picture I loved the double cut away and the over all look. The guitar also has a set neck which is  a very nice feature. These guitars were made in Korea and the workmanship was excellent on them. On a whim I decided to do a search to see if Guitar Center had any used ones in the chain and sure enough I found one in Oklahoma City. I ordered it and waited. It arrived last week and I loved it. In the mean time I decided to take my lovely wife’s advice and clear out some of the gear that I was not using because I was waiting for the right project. I traded in a guitar and a couple of pedals that I had not used in a while and ended up paying much less than I would have for the Paul and I have a unique guitar that I love.

Ronan takes some time to talk to Larry Crane and John Baccigaluppi from Tape OP Magazine. Tape OP is hands down my favorite magazine and when it comes I read every single page. This is an interesting interview about how they got started.

Lately I have been on a quest to organize the studio a little, of course my wife’s gentle prodding was a small factor. I have a guitar rig that is on a pedal train pedalboard and is centered around a Tech 21 Liverpool pedal that provides my amp tone direct so I don’t have to lug around an amp. Also included is a TS9 Tube Screamer, a Voodoo Labs Sparkledrive, Boss FDR-1 pedal which is their 65 deluxe reverb pedal. I use it for a bit of verb and a tremolo that I can tap the tempo to. And then a crybaby wah and an MXR Carbon Copy delay pedal which I love. That covers me for now on live gigs that I am using in ear monitors for. I don’t need a loud amp on stage and the liverpool gives me that vox AC30ish tone. When it is dialed in it is workable. The problem was I had a lot of pedals left over that I was not using and instead of letting them clutter up the studio or being shoved in boxes, I decided to build a racked up guitar rig that I could use in the studio for tracking and re-amping. This rig is based around The Egnater Rebel 20 amp head and single 1 x 12″ cabinet. This is a sweet tone machine and boutique amp designed by Bruce Egnater. The cool thing about it is it is just 20 watts and you can variably select between 1-20 watts. This means you can get tone without blowing your ear drums which is important in a small strategic studio layout. The other thing that is flat out genius is the fact that the amp has EL84 tubes (Like an AC30) and 6V6 tubes (Fender etc) and you can also variably select and blend the 2 tube styles together to have the best of both worlds. It is a great amp and I couldn’t be happier with it except the fact that the amp does not have re-verb on board (Egnater now has the rebel 30 head which does add re-verb and 2 channel use. It is also quite tasty) I then have another TS9 tube screamer, a Digitech Hardwire CM-2 pedal that has surprising good tone. and a Frantone Peach fuzz that is a boutique fuzz pedal with some snarl. Then I have an old MXR Stereo Chorus pedal that sounds great, but is a little noisy. I also am picking up a Electro Harmonix Memory Toy which is a killer analogue delay that is reasonably priced. As you can see by the picture I have an opening for another drawer and I will probably put volume based pedals in one drawer and time based and modulation based in another drawer. I have a couple other pedals laying around that need to be added also. At some point I will add a Radial X-Amp re-amp box so I can use the rig for re-amping when I am mixing projects. Also some of you old timers might recognize the ART SGX2000 guitar rack effects unit. This was a terrible sounding guitar effects box from the 90’s that has some really bad distortions and re-verbs delays etc. This I will use when mixing to have another option of effects that I can put my fingers on instead of mousing around in the box, so to speak.

All of this is for a project I am starting in the early spring where I will be producing and playing some guitar and some bass. This is unusual for me since most of the time I just engineer or mix. I am looking forward to the change of pace. Enjoy the pix and if you have some old pedals that are lying around send them my way. I’ll provide a happy home for them.

This past week I have been trying to get my new dbx 900 rack up and working. To do that I have had to pull out the soldering iron and solder. Now for some, soldering is a terrifying idea that causes them to procrastinate doing or compels them to hire out for someone else to do the work. This is embarrassing and if this is you and you claim to be an engineer you need to rethink your title. Soldering is an important part of being an engineer and a necessary skill to have. Let me clarify something here. I am not saying I am good at soldering. I am certainly not a pro but I do enjoy soldering on some level. I received most of my soldering learning from my brief tenure with Clair Bros. I had to repair and test cables and make new cables and looms for various installs. For the most part soldering is therapeutic for me. Let me give you some of my rules for soldering so you can be encouraged to give it a shot. These are in no way definitive or official it is just what works for me.

1.) Always have soothing music playing while your working. For me, jazz works . This helps you get in a zone and relax. It is difficult to solder if you are tense and bothered. Last night for me it was Brian Blade & the Fellowship. I chose his Seasons Of Change album.

2.) Always have good tools. Weller is the industry standard as far as irons go. I use a Radio Shack iron that is less than stellar but allows me to choose between 20 watt and 40 watt which is nice. some things you don’t want the extra heat for (like board work or small pieces).

3.) Keep your soldering iron tip clean. Impurities can get into your solder and make iffy connections and you do not want that. Have a wet sponge handy and clean your tip after every solder. Also tin the end of your iron to keep it clean. Don’t cut corners on this. You can get a small “tin” of tinner at Radio Shack for a dollar or so.

4.) Use a holder for extra hands. Most of the bad, ugly solder joints I have done have been because I was too lazy to get my mini vice and because I couldn’t hold things properly I melted something or burnt my self. Come on people.

5.) Apply solder to both surfaces you are joining and they will go together more easily.

6.) Do not rush. Just don’t.

Like I say this is not a definitive list. I am certainly not an instructor or a pro as you can see by my work. For those of you wondering, this picture was of a connector partially done, that is why the solder is not full on pin 1 and 2. If you need some practice soldering try to repair some of those cables you have laying around that you keep forgetting are bad and throw back in with the good ones. Yea, I know how you roll. If you have any questions do some research. Google is your friend.

I will let you know when I get my dbx900 rack going. The 900 series racks were modular and dbx had different pieces that you could mix and match and put together to suit your needs. You can combine compressors with de-essers or parametric EQ’s or noise reduction or any of there other doo-dads. Aphex also made 9000 series modules that work with dbx900 series racks. Unfortunately that is all that works with this rack. I have six of the 903’s which were their compressors. They are similar to DBX’s 160 series and I am anxious to see how they do. I will probably use them on bass and drums but who knows until I try them maybe I’ll find other uses for them.