Tag Archive for 'guitar'

Friday Links or The Noble Prize for Making the Web Less Annoying

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kubton
on April 25, 2008
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The ikea guitar

Guitarist silenced by ALS is making music again. A human interest story like this makes me feel like the local news. It something like Dr. Stephen Hawking the music produce I quess. It is pretty cool though and the best thing about PC’s is uses like this. Film at 11.

Call it LastTV. It is a good idea mashing you YouTube and LastFM. It works ok. I entered my profile and it did a fairly good job of finding video that I should like.

Also youtube related is ListentoYouTube. It will make mp3’s of YouTube videos. There is of course other ways to do this but this way is fairly painless. It makes it easy to sample YouTube easily. If you want mp3 of teenagers lip syncing and people creatively injuring themselves this will be your new favorite site.

Hometracked has 10 Myths About Normalization which is often misunderstood.

NPR has this interesting story(audio too) about a interesting mic builder reconstructing classics found via The Rambling of Some Audio Guy.

Now some cool DIY Stuff:

The 25 minute, $25 acoustic panel (or $42.00 bass trap) from the Recording Studio Design Forum is great way to economically make your space sound great. I never new why commerical option were often so expensive.

Make your own Gorilla Pod & Third Hand++: A multi-use helping hand for electronics and other delicate work are great Instructables for giving you a extra set of hands at your work bench. The are cooler than my helpings hands but it works too.

Another Instructable is this Isobaric Subwoofer for those that want to build there own floor rattler.

I found this “Ikea”  guitar on Guitar Noize it is kind of what you think. Maybe.  More info here.

Friday Links or Samples, Miking & Razor Blades

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kubton
on April 18, 2008
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Music Boot Camp has this comprehensive list of sites to get free samples and loops.

de la mancha has released the crazy and fun freq show.

Cosmic Boogie Collective reminds us of the days of razor blades and tape.

MusicPlayers.com has a good article on electric guitar miking.

Studio reviews has an interesting article entitled Why Don’t My Recordings Sound Pro?

DIY Talkbox Instructable or Rock Like a Geico Commerical

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kubton
on April 17, 2008
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diy talkbox rig

A while back a posted a link to a talkbox project for blamepro.   But that is not the only way to roll get that  crazy Frampton guitar mixed with vocals sound yourself.  Now here is a slick DIY talk box project on Instructables.  It is is pretty well illustrated and explained.  I will add one piece of advice for any talkbox project though.  Be careful because this project could damage you and most definitely your amp.  Any part used including the horn driver should be have double the watt rating of your amp.  Otherwise you will be looking for a new horn and possibly an amp as well.

LINK

Elvis’s Jazzmaster or No Not That Elvis

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kubton
on April 14, 2008
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I am not a very big fan of Elvis Costello. And hate tribute guitars normally. But the new Elvis Costello Jazzmaster is pretty cool looking axe. The walnut finish is nice. Jazzmasters have always kind of been the red headed step child of the Fender line. I think even the Mustang and Jaguar have gotten more love lately. But I like the look and the sound of the Jazzmaster. Looking at the Elvis model I discovered there is a J. Masic Jazzmaster also. I have always liked Dinosaur Jr and J.’s playing is wonderful and truly original. But it is sparkly purple. Even if it sounds great ick.

V-Pedal or Free Your VST’s?

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kubton
on March 15, 2008
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400_v-pedal.jpg

Some more cool gear from Musikmesse. SM Pro Audio has released 3 pieces of hardware able to host VST’s. Much like Muse’s Receptor only in smaller packages. The most interesting to me is the V-pedal:

The V-Pedal has been specifically designed for guitarists wanting to take the best guitar plug-ins (and more) out on the road in a rock-solid ‘all in one’ hardware unit. With mic/line inputs, programmable stomp switches and rotary encoders, TFT display, expression pedal, and a host of other features, the V-Pedal gives guitarists something they have never had before. The freedom to develop unique sounds from the thousands of available VST plug-ins. It’s no secret that some of the very best guitar tones and effects are now being created from within computer software plug-ins. The V-Pedal gives guitarists access to these and many more sound options in a dedicated floor stomp box. Built like a tank, simple to use, and with unheard of sonic flexibility, the V-Pedal rocks like no other.

Source Audio or Wave Your Hands Like You Just Don’t Care

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kubton
on February 5, 2008
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Somehow I have missed these but Source Audio have cool effects. If you have missed them too you might want to check them out. Motion control is cool but combine with wireless operation makes them even cooler.

ESP or Foretelling the Future

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kubton
on January 24, 2008
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ESP at NAMM announced 50+ new or improved models for 2008. You can read about on the ESP site and follow the link to the images.

23 Tubes or Sweet Zombie Jesus

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kubton
on January 21, 2008
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Metanonix makes “different” gear. Different meaning insane. N.O.S in most cases means “vintage” or “classic” in their case once again means insane. They have out done themselves this time with the G-1000. Pricey and probably not very practical but defiantly original.

From the site:

There is nothing like the G-1000. Not even vaguely. It is arcane and radical. It is 100% vacuum tubes, from input to output. It contains 100% new-old-stock (NOS) tubes. Types never seen in guitar amps.

The G-1000 consists of two totally independent amplifiers, with very different preamp sections. One channel is called the HAPPY channel. The other is called the ANGRY channel.

For damn good reason. One sucks your face, the other gnaws your foreskin off.

The HAPPY channel is a more-or-less conventional instrument amp. It has plenty of gain and distortion (if desired), it has a conventional guitar-amp tone control section, and it has reverb. Everything else about it is DEVIANT. It has a PHASE control, which allows mixing of normal and inverted signals—or it may be adjusted to cancel out the original signal and pass only the distortion products….and, it’s all made of unusual tubes. Mostly pentodes, ha ha ha.

The ANGRY channel is well-named. It is designed for instability and raw, berserk distortion effects. It, too, has typical guitar-amp tone controls and reverb. It uses a 6BN6 and two remote-cutoff pentodes. Ask your mother what those are. She’s already tasted your foreskin anyway.

Despite the identical output stages of the two channels, they sound TOTALLY different. In ALL settings.

The output tubes are 6BK5s. Obscure, yes, but great and forgotten. Phase inversion is done with 6GU7s. Various types are used throughout the preamp stages: 6AU6, 6BJ6, 6CB6, 6BN6, 5BQ7, 6AK5, and others. No 12AX7s, of ANY brand. How many tubes? TWENTY-THREE tubes in total. Including eight 6BK5 outputs. It might be the most complex tube guitar amp available today….

The output tubes are in a special self-balancing, self-biasing circuit. It is unique to the G-1000 among guitar amps. It does NOT NEED matched tubes, nor is any kind of bias adjustment needed. Output power is 15 watts per channel, and two speakers (or a stereo speaker) are needed.

Vast ranges of tone are available from the G-1000. We cannot even begin to explain its flexibility. The G-1000 is NOT intended for middle-aged “tone questers”, who believe that they will be able to play like Eric Clapton by simply spending a lot of $$$ on equipment. We HATE those people. The G-1000 is intended for the intrepid experimenter, not the pathetic imitator. Tone questers are invited to DIE.

No, you moron, it’s not available in combo form. Head only.
Speakers are available from other suppliers.

Artwork on the amp’s front panel by Dave Lovelace, of “Retarded Animal Babies” infamy. (http://www.umop.com)

Oh, the amp’s name? The idea came from Mike Brown of Livewire Synthesizers. Blame him. (It came from one of Dave Lovelace’s cartoons. Yes, the Fucking Fucker is a real, live cartoon character. A super-villain, come to think of it.)

G-1000 is made on a custom basis only and should be available in late 2008. Expected retail price is US $ 5000.

Guitar Hero or Who Needs a Full Stop

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kubton
on January 15, 2008
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I have heard a lot of guitarist rip on Guitar Hero. I have to admit I remember seeing the arcade game it was based upon in the film Lost in Translation and thinking it was pretty cool. Little did I know what a phenomenon it was going to become. It is more than slightly cheesy and a lot out of control and certain too much time has been dedicated to it. Still in has been called the greatest guitar gateway device and it is hard to argue with that. I imagine a lot of the people it turns on to playing real guitar give it up shortly after starting but many people do that anyway. Anything that gets people playing is good by me. The more people making music the better. I can’t imagine real pilots making so much fun or having so much bitterness towards people that play flight sims.

Anyway I wanted to post this review well because it is funny as hell. Yahtzee puts Guitar Hero to the flame. If you game at all or just like extremely critical reviews and dark humor delivered at the pace of a mongoose on meth you should check out his other reviews.

Monday Mississippi Blues Or John Hurt’s Right Hand

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kubton
on December 31, 2007
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2007 is has been mixed for me. Bitter sweet like Mississippi Blues. But today’s Monday Morning Blues is lined with the hopeful silver of a new year. Here is to a better 2008 for everyone. All sweet like teeny bopper pop.