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.
We are finally finishing up our new studio space. As many of you know, due to our desire to keep music creation affordable and our lack of a sizeable benefactor we are often put in a transient position and have had to move and work out of many different locations. We have been working on a new location in Millersville PA on a farm. The views are incredible and it is a comfortable and mellow place. The building served as a tool shed and who knows what else but we have re-purposed it for a studio space where we can work at least until Mar of 2011. I am already starting to search for a home after this one. This means I can finally finish a couple of these projects that have been on the back burner. I am embarrassed that they have taken so long. But when you are running under the radar sometimes these things happen I have often referred to it as guerrilla recording and this is certainly part of it. Keep posted for upcoming news and events.
My friends in the Faux Minx are doing a show at the Whitaker Center this Friday. This is definately a show worth seeing. Not only do you have the Faux Minx but you also get The Reese Project. All this for just $10. Now I know this sounds like a cheesy advertisement, obligitory in nature, but don’t be fooled. Both of these bands are worth seeing and the musicianship on display is excellent. In a world where we are constantly being force fed music like Rhiannan and Lady GAGa, going to see 2 bands with this level of knowledge of there instruments are a breath of fresh air. The other factor that is worth mentioning is going to a show at the Whitaker Center. I went to see Jerry Douglas a few years back and the sound was superb. That is a great room. All you engineers need to be reminded to get out and see/hear live music being played by an excellent band in an excellent room on an excellent PA to hear what music should sound like. This will be a great night to renew your passion for music and what it can do for your soul. Tickets are still available so contact the Faux Minx to get them..
To get you pumped up and ready I am including an MP3 of a song I recorded for the Faux Minx at Building Character in Lancaster. This is a magical version of Maiden Voyage that the guys played last year. We set up in a wharehouse with doors all around that we used for some baffling. At the end of the night we tore down and the guys went their seperate ways not feeling to confident about there performance. I loaded all the gear up moved it back to the studio and loaded it back in to the studio and decided to do a quick mix just to make sure I got everything. I started with Maiden Voyage and was drawn into it. As I brought up all the virtual faders and started to add this and filter that the song really grabbed me. I quick ftp’ed a copy to David Green, the bass player to assure him it wasn’t a waste. To this day it is one of my favorite mixes I’ve done. It is not perfect by any means but the excitement of going with your first instincts and letting it be as opposed to reworking and second guessing yourself was refreshing.
I hope the guys don’t mind me posting this to get you pumped up for the show. Let’s keep it on the down low people. Go see this show you will not regret it.
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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.
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
It has been a busy Season here at FGP. I have spent the last 2 months getting a studio set up for my friends at Evole2Trust along with tracking for Crossway Church, Wallace & Gina, and David Green, and Mixing for the Lyrebirds and Big Red. I am now in the process of looking for a new studio location and building a new studio. There are many exciting possibilities on the horizon. Stay tuned for news.
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.
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.
It seems Daniel Lanois has a little side project operating under the name of Black Dub. He has teamed up with Brian Blade Daryl Johnson and Chris Whitley’s Daughter Trixie Whitley It is some cool stuff. Trixie is a powerful voice and has some of her dad’s spooky soulful bluesy vocals. As time goes on Daniel seems to get more and more wacky. I’m not sure if it’s the drugs or just his ego drug but even his interactions with Brian are awkward and they have been working together for years. It is also freaky how he ghosts around Trixie while she is cutting her vocals. Enjoy this video of him mixing a track.
My friends in the Faux Minx are doing a show at the Whitaker Center this Friday. This is definately a show worth seeing. Not only do you have the Faux Minx but you also get The Reese Project. All this for just $10. Now I know this sounds like a cheesy advertisement, obligitory in nature, but don’t be fooled. Both of these bands are worth seeing and the musicianship on display is excellent. In a world where we are constantly being force fed music like Rhiannan and Lady GAGa, going to see 2 bands with this level of knowledge of there instruments are a breath of fresh air. The other factor that is worth mentioning is going to a show at the Whitaker Center. I went to see Jerry Douglas a few years back and the sound was superb. That is a great room. All you engineers need to be reminded to get out and see/hear live music being played by an excellent band in an excellent room on an excellent PA to hear what music should sound like. This will be a great night to renew your passion for music and what it can do for your soul. Tickets are still available so contact the Faux Minx to get them..
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.
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