jimmarchi1's forum posts 8020

ooh, br00tal Vs!

yes, the designs are invariably solid state and quite distinct in preamp circuitry from electric solid state amps, as different as a keyboard amps are

not a channel but warreen zevon is sorely missed and this is my favorite comedic song ever;

https://youtu.be/wRWCK9zGynA?si=vx52_PZfa7ir-liG

patty hearst heard the burst of roland's thompson gun and bought it!

oh man, I was procrastinating today after I had my water heater replaced because after 4 hours of that BS you're like "can I work today? no, I want to think about what I do and drink beer, not do it, not after hearing all that clanging and dragging all that crap with the installers." So here's a VHS of the legend I found this afternoon, the god behind off the wall and thriller Bruce Swedien:

https://youtu.be/GEXA9sOY9QU?si=3mMKKBuFN1JLyoHu

and for the record, the red neumann logo means its a transformerless FET microphone, whereas purple is FET but transformer balanced

and this is how good produce like a pro has gotten where bob is on there explaining why we all like a G+ with vca automation despite the slight degradation from the vcas, no other vca automation is worth it... I enver had moving faders but I could get my automations down and then set the faders back to 0 without changing levels and switch to trim mode so my small adjustments were relative to the stored VCA data and I LOVED that, being able to automate and then weak overall level relative to the automation levels in the sweet spot of the fader... not a DAW function, you have to fudge that with a gain pugin at the tail end or a channelstrip with a fader like the BX stuff and use the DAW fader as trim or automate the daw faders ITB and zero your console faders for trimming:

https://youtu.be/6Bkf1dXh8xg?si=voyvyST1ixDCU0Rl

"the mix sounds weird in my car"

"how does your favorite record sound in your car?"

"weird"

"then don't listen to music in your car, my mix is fine, pay the invoice"

I wasn't joking.

he's probably just ahead of the curve, if you can't rustle up at least $500k of play money you're below the poverty line these days

this agartha guy can be pretty good based on the guest.... this one is okay, but the guest echoes my sentiments with car testing, headphones and even cosntantly flipping between monitors while mixing, but especially the old 'take it in the car' trick, it hasn't worked right for decades, I think he explained why to my satisfaction, check it out:

https://youtu.be/ul4GOLUA13k?si=3f5Vf1rZ42QfpBT4&t=1271

no kidding... I will say that there's a major overlap between car tweakers, pedal tweakers and amp modders. If I were wealthier I would build a shelby cobra kit in a heartbeat. It's a short step from building an elaborate pedalboard and tweaking your rig to melt faces to hot rodding a Porsche and marketing mod kits in my experience. Every good sized studio I've worked at was owned by a guy who spent all of his free time tweaking a vintage spots car, roadster or muscle car lol. Right before the pandemic I was really tempted to buy my neighbors mg midget, but there was no room for gear and no back seat for Lucian and I couldn't really afford to have a roadster AND a dad cruiser.

Hello Everyonr!

When i engage my Vintage OD pedal, there is a lag of signal of 1 sec between on/off position.

I have uploaded updated photos of my signal chain

Thanks for looking

doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I don't know what kind of switching behringer uses. Did it ever work properly? if so the switch is probably shot... the easiest solution is to buy a used ts9 mini if you want the tubescreamer sound. If you want to go even cheaper the EHX green river is a tubescreamer on a budget that's built a lot better than the behringer. I'm sure joyo makes one too and it probably has a better switch than the behringer for just a few more bucks.

I saw the tour (one of the tours, I don't think I caught them every time they were in town in the 90s) where they were using the ac30 and jcm800 rigs, might have been the 99th dream tour, it was so sweet sounding.... the prior tour they had hiwatts, even the bass player if I recall. That also sounded great but it was more pedal tone, whereas the vox/marshall rig had a really dirty/jangly 'clean' sound.

I definitely like catherine wheel too, I had this friend we called @$$hole Alex back then that turned me onto them. I also like that band catherine that used to share rehearsal space with the pumpkins.... different thing though.

yeah, bauhaus was really formative for me because of how experimental it was while still being loosely rock (despite what they thought)... I come from this really songwritery place by upbringing and I think Bauhaus was really liberating to dig into as I explored guitar behind my dad's back

been into these guys since they appeaed o the ps1 roadrash soundtrack, just respecting Adam and Co and informing you shoegazers about something from that scene with stooges level RAWK

just the first record's singles:

https://youtu.be/f1gi23R1iqo?si=ZkghPgdz3ZAHIPY5

https://youtu.be/eHcNU9qxSEE?si=OaxA1ZdEOH0k-LZW

apparently Rick is into these guys but that just shows they kill, rick is a weiner but he knows his $h!t

I can't stand Corrigan.... BUT David J!

https://youtu.be/dioB9tZTT2Y?si=Ug2KsFWtP2ciuofS

the ex5r has its problems but its a beast of sound design and I should use it more, but it IS a time suck, I should see if there's a 3rd party pc editor for it

What you're saying makes sense now that I think back to my late teens. I just wasn't using DAT that way because while a jazz disc was HELLA expensive, alesis adat compatible VHS tapes were still kinda expensive to me! ANd they could degrade. So I wasn't thinking of daft punk as a trash godz type improvisational outfit with the technology of the day and they're limited budget at the time, but I guess that was the case. I like those records a lot but I never had the slightest desire to know how they ticked because they're so distinctive that the methodology woudn't benefit me in any way. I figured whatever they were doing like the commonly known sidechain stuff would just make me a daft punk clone and I already struggle with cloning other stuff I grew up with. I gotta stop doing that. Anyway, it makes sense now.

Is this why you didn't hang on to your 77s/99s, or was it just a size & space concern?

welp, I discovered that the EX5 has the full sy99 engine with better fx (its like a full spx engine) and even more upscale conversion... oh and it has the virtual wind thing where you can model a wind isntrument the size of a building... so I had a 77, bought a 99 and then found out about the EX5 rack and sold both the 77 and 99 when I had the EX5r shipping to me.... the ex5r has some wonky midi implementation but the way I use it its not a problem, I'm not a workstation guy. The 99 was a better workstation implementation with tighter midi response, the 77 was the best with midi, but its neither here nor there for me creating sound fx... I like the low rent sy22 a lot, got mine for 100 bucks I think and I usually use it over the tx81z because the AWS and the joystick that can swing through sampled waves and FM stuff is just a trip. I think Dave Smith was involved in the vector joystick. But the EX5 gives you the biggest AWS engine, multiwave 6op FM and a mono physical modelling engine too... plus an spx990 type fx section with crystal clear conversion. It's hard to deny. The midi just isn't super tight on punchy ptches if you send it a sequence. Its fine from a keyboard and fine for pads and stuff... the workstation stuff like the internal sequencer can be weird but I don't use it, not my thing and too much menu diving. I don't think there's another machine that does all the things the ex5 does. I might be missing something, its insane. The keyboard EX5 is ENORMOUS, probably bigger than their current flagship motif or whatever.

I'm jealous of your TX7, BTW. I wish I'd scooped one up on craigslist before people started fetishizing the mk 1 DX7's output stage.

that was a lucky break when I was sick of having mk1s leaning around like stale bread, they're polysix heavy too and the membrane buttons are always wearing out whereas the TX7 has solid tac switches... there's no data slider, just +/- buttons, but its not like the slider isn't heavily stepped in real time, so sweeping it has limited utility and is more of a 1 time novelty trick... even when I remove a bad battery on a mk1 and do the socket mod for people I get it back as quick as possible these days... I can just keep the TX in a drawer and by the way it can also be programmed from dexed, same synth, the mk1 is unnescasarily big and heavy

That said, if I can't get what I'm looking for from Arturia DX7V (or the excellent & FREE Dexed), jumping back to the hardware isn't likely to be the thing that enables me to move forward.

can't argue either, I also have no beef with FM8 and FL Sytrus (which doesn't even attempt conversion coloration but is insanely powerful with an easy to grok matrix page)... I would feel weird without a mk1 or mk2 around but don't want the bulk, so I have the TX... you can't give a tx81z away, I've had it FOREVER, the sy99 is fast, fun and has converter coloration with the AWS engine as well as the vector stick... and the ex5 is insanely powerful and cannot be mimiced by any plugin I've tried

Finley knows all of the following quite well, but for everyone else's benefit, per the infamous 1999 Japanese interview:

Thomas Bangalter: “In the first step when making music with hardware, it goes through the mixer and the compressor and is recorded on the DAT. After that, effects are put on the sound source before going into the mixer to be recorded. We don’t use the AUX on the mixer."

“The second step is directly putting the sounds from the DAT into the S-760 sampler and editing/cutting the two tracks into however many pieces, like hard disk recording.

“Lastly, we recorded it directly from the S-760 to the DAT. From here we do the rest with the Macintosh.”

Given the above reveal, I'm amazed S-760s don't sell for more than they currently do.

never read that b4, mind blown, I'm not even sure what that process entails precisely, it seems so convoluted that there's unnescasary steps before hitting the macintosh

okay, the 77 and 99 can do anything in any prior yamaha FM but they have better converters and the sound is deeper, flatter and more crisp and open up top than anything that came before, no grit whatsoever, HIFI

that might not help since everything is EQed and compressed to hell on daft punk which mitigates some of the DA converter tone

by the way, this thread is nerd catnip

just a thought, what if the static velocity is just because they were triggering from a sequencer and they left the velocity static?

since its daft punk the sample theory is more plausible, but just an ssumption

That is 100% why the velocity is static, my point was that IF there was some velocity-based modulation of synthesis-related parameyers, we could more easily rule out a sample being used.

I was thinking the other direction that they might just be lazy programmers and in a digital synth every hit is the same at the same velocity, say, from a sequencer. The TX81z is particularly mechanical. It potentially supports both hypothesese and is therefore irrelevant.

just a thought, what if the static velocity is just because they were triggering from a sequencer and they left the velocity static?

since its daft punk the sample theory is more plausible, but just an ssumption

for the record, I'm really experienced with yamaha's FM/AWS synths of my youth... I've owned numerous DX7es, a DX7IIfd, SY77, SY99 and currently own a TX7, TX81z, SY22 and an EX5r. I also grew up with a DX7II that belonged to my dad and uncle when it was brand new. I often service DX7Is and IIs because the problems are usually minimal. Its not weird to have one in my house even though I'm done with the keyboard. I kept the 4 synths I own because each one covers a specific iteration of the DA conversion with what I find to be the most useful feature-set in the most practical form factor at the most cost effective price at the time of purchase. There's not a good interface on any of them, so I go for small unless its the 22 where the vector joystick makes more sense with a keyboard... don't get me started on the annoyance of owning an argon8m over a keyboard version. I should midiox my patch library and trade that up. I just don't know where I would put it, I have keyboards everywhere. The less used ones are lined up in closets... hence why I liquidate periodically.

I just confirmed Ken's statement that many producers opt to have a 7 and an 81z... I just took it further!

yeah, take my breath away and take on me first popularized that fm bass sound, or at least it was my first awareness of it as a kid

I have it on unimpeachable authority that trent and co. smashed a ton of dx7es on the downward spiral tour because they prefered them as their midi controllers because of cheapness and the nice keybed. They probably destroyed dozens, maybe hundreds, and that took the population down a lot LOL

I wouldn't be surprised if Todd Edwards brought tx81z samples he made himself from his tx81z. Odd are he owned one at some point. We all have. Everyone born before like 1985 that is! That's not fair though. My dad and his brothers were dx7 owners, but its mostly accurate. Every musician recording between the release of the dx7 and say 2010 in america had or has a yamaha synth that does lately or solid bass even if they never used it, Full Stop. I don't know todd so I can't reach out. Not one of my brooklyn aquaintances.

solid bass, that's the sine only version! I could not remember this morning! I'm not the biggest fan of those patches despite having multiple machines that do one or the other. I think my ex5 might feature BOTH, I can't recall. I so seldom use it and when I do its for the mighty sound design capabilities.

I think you made a lot of good points. I do not think its impossible that DP had a tx81z or borrowed one for that patch, they sold so many of them and by that point everyone knew about that patch. It's like the spx90. If you want lately bass or symphonic it's always been pretty easily attainable, I can't turn around without tripping over a tx81z or a spx90 or both. When yamaha hit on a good thing they cranked them out at scale and they're hyper reliable workhorses. I also wouldn't be surprised at all if they sampled someone's or had a sample lying around they got from somewhere else. I think its least likely that its sampled from a vinyl record because it would need to be soloed and even if there was a solo bass section to sample from you would probably notice the mix/master processing that was then processed some more... its possible it was sampled from a cd version of something though, that might be a little more transparent than cheaply pressed techno vinyl of that time.

not directly, but starting in 90 the sy series had lots of dx7 and/or tx81z patches as presets depending on if the fm section was 4op (ie sy22) or 6op (ie sy77)... theres a version of lately bass on all of those symths, sometimes by another name, but it's basically the same. it became a yamaha staple following its use on so many dance hits. the tx81z was wildly popular.

I'm pretty cautious with verification because there are so many artists now that I've never heard of and if it's just a stage photo I can't always be sure its them, especially if the photo isn't from an easily verifiable source like an article or a social media post that identifies the players by name. The gear part usually isn't my problem.

ditto, I've been taking weekends off... I have so much audio burnout by Saturday lately.

Gotta say...the cheapest and surprisingly BEST change I made to my gear....assortment of picks. Ive always just used whatever pick I could find (under furniture, in the couch, washing machine etc...) and rolled with it. When I was about to hang up the possibility of ever hitting harmonics, I was given a heavier gague pick than what I was used to using. YES!!! Picks....they work!

agreed, I'll settle for a fender heavy any time, but I've got every tortex, a bunch of hercos and stuff, filed down gold coins as well as all these wooden jazz picks my uncle carved out of tonewoods, snakewood is particularly rockin... then there's finger style for a tone and style adjust

gen X represent! I always consider building an amp with a mute footswitch and no controls, its either full tilt or off. Maybe a 50 watter on my jim-watt platform which is a higher gain hiwatt I built a while back. Anyway, I've dabled in attenuators but I only used to knock 4db off 100 watts, I play ludicrously loud, always have and won't change. If you play well, no one says a word... except maybe "my ear drum broke during the second song."

quoth the Kenneth:

Equipboard is all about specifics. This maybe isn't the best place to get advice on general approaches to blues guitar tone (yet!) -- but it's a great place to get specific info on exactly what gear and processes were used on a specific track.

but there are a couple basics to consider in blues tone, the first is era:

you can essentially divide this into pre and post Stevie Ray and Eric Johnson (you could also say pre or post hendrix I guess, but all the fx became prevalent thanks to those 2 guys)... if you're going for pre-SRV/EJ and you can't turn up a tube amp you'll be swimming upstream, it can and has been done, but you're just simulating a tube amp turned up til it sings or fully overdrives, if there's reverb its at a different stage of the signal chain as an on-board amp reverb than in a pedal chain, you may get closer with a modeller... if you're listening to modern stuff just pick an artist and search them on EB, you'll probably get a pretty good idea what's in their signal chain and possibly in what order

next is volume:

how loud can you play? even if the amp is set clean effects will sound different when the speakers are working a little harder... in fact, nothing shapes tone more than speaker selection but its seldom spoken about outside enthusiast circles. Consider your speaker or IR selection. Do you know what your reference tone is coming out of? Is there something similar you can use if you're playing a lower wattage amp turned down so you can make the speaker sweat at a reasonable level? Can you tweak FX settings to respond better at low volumes?

copping tones can be a rabbit hole

I think that copping an AI tone that's a complete digital mishmash of recorded tones from polished studio mixes that the LLM thinks people want to hear with no single reference in physical circuits will be an exercise in futility.

death's too good for them, Ken

yeah, I'm curious how stable it is, I'm always in the market for a flexible and portable keyboard stand, I'm never happy with anything that fitst in my SUV

wow, that was great! they GET IT

Right. Want to read some of my poems I wrote within the last 2 years?

got any limmericks?

Any of us that have studio monitors that are 5+ years old, we spent a lot more on those than they're probably worth now, and any of us that have vintage items we've held for a long time probably spent way less than the current value.

an't that the truth, I can't give my events away and I got a not-blown pair of tanoy pb6es for under 100 bucks when I missed my blown set... although sometimes vintage cancels out monitor devaluation like with the NS10s, B&W nautilisuses and the desireable tannoy dual-concentrics, especially if they have those Manley mastering units with the good crossovers and stuff... we're both prime examples of holding stuff for decades as is my old friend shok who sometimes turns up on the forum, I'm not even sure if he paid for his arp2600! But I'm also an example of someone who gets free or cheap stuff, old and new. I'm a notorious bottom feeder when shopping. People just give me broken sh!t sometimes and I fix it if I can. Clients give me gifts and I also get demo units to keep sometimes (shok still has a very early virus A he got as an evaluation unit)... that setup value kinda makes me look like a rich dude when I am not, I'm just in this gear thing on a whole different level than most folks

"Value by Category" would take up about the same amount of room, but that's just one person's opinion. It would be cool to see if anyone else has thoughts. Thanks!

I would like to refer to it as retail value?

If I ever part wth one of my SGs (unlikely) I'll sell it to you for the price I paid, which was low-to-fair at the time... even adjusting for inflation they're pretty affordable USA gibsons carefully selected for balance and unplugged sustain. I just don't think I can ever let them go, its so hard to find a winning SG, so many clunkers.

You're a prince, Jim. Thank you -- but even if your son doesn't play guitar now, there's a good chance he'd one day be a bit bent to hear you sold off any of your well-vetted pick-of-litter SGs.

you're probably safe from my son, if I was selling a vintage ac30 it would be one thing, but the SGs? I'm not selling them because I love them even when I'm not my playing them... right now my son has my candy apple red j-bass, he's way into it... he's also got my jimwatt amp modded so the normal channel has exra low and a 2x12 with fanes... yes I gave my 13 year-old a punchy 50 watt tube rig, it sounds hella good even at low volume, I designed a really clever ken fisher type I waster volume for it on a dual ganged pot that also vries the global negative feedback with a soecial emphasis on fizzy tones using a well placed 100pf cap, the presence circuit resides in the last preamp section, tone control recovery and fixed bias phase inverter bias supply/buffer, its a weirdy but it works great... if I decide to part with an SG I'll let you know, as you are probably aware I've liquidated multiple instruments, amps and pieces of gear for bargain basement prices to fellow EB mods; former moderator Narcist has my AC4HW which I sold for exactly what I paid and Eyesee got my ramsa mixer for basically shipping once I sent her out. There's probably other examples, but they're fx units and I forget. Its unlikely as I still occassionally play an SG, but I have too much stuff at almost 48, I'm so burried... in fact I'll let you know if I'm liquidating anything cool. I'm thinking of purging again.

Oh my god. It's so enjoyable to read things from experts. Thank you so much. I really love these kinds of tones. I want to create sounds with these tones in my home. So I knew I would get the best support by consulting you. Thank you.

Expert might be strong, but I'm an experienced repair tech and gear aficionado/collector. I've modified, designed and/or built plenty of functioning junk that sounds cool and can take a beating.

I found the official service schematics for the TH30 while I was having breakfast and it's a weirdy! It has elements of the tiny terror, vox ac30, early sound-city/hiwatts like pete townshend used and a really weirdly configured common anode stage in the OD channel. Usually a common anode or cathode follower is a low gain, high headroom buffer stage which is configured mostly like a common cathode with a gain of about 100, but with the output taken from the cathode before the bias resistor to ground and voltage applied directly to the anode (plate) and signal applied to the grid as usual. Now in This instance the term common anode is a misnomer because the anode is not 'common' at a ground or elevated voltage reference. In this instance voltage is applied to the cathode and the anode is grounded, signal is still applied to the plate as usual. Its a REAL common anode, the anode or palte is grounded to 0v while the cahode charges with electrons via a 290v line from the PSU, completely upside down of a common cathode, which I've never seen in any tube amp. I was puzzled at first and thought I was reading it wrong or there was an error in the drawing, but I think that its meant to work that way and its going to affect the tone, the stage question is both a buffer and it can easily be overload by the revious 2 common cathode amps (despite the fact that have 50/50 voltage dividers attenuating their full gain) and it probably overdrives different that a standard common cathode, even if it's cold biased like in a lot of british amps (2203/4 was the first to do this), soldanos, 5150s and mesa rectifiers. The tone controls are the same design on both channels, but the shape knob on the overdrive uses a dual ganged pot so bass and treble are adjusted simultaneously. Both are Vox top boost tone circuits where bass adjusts bass and mids inversely and treble has an effect on upper mids. Usually this type of tone control is driven by a cathode follower, but here its driven directly from the plate of a regulargain stage like in a pete townshend hiwatt, its very similar to that version of the vox tone controls, but the values are dialed in for each channel. So on the shape control on the drive channel in one direction mid is cut and treble and bass are boosted and in the other direction it's the opposite, on the clean channel its treble n bass pete townshend model hiwatt with slightly tweaked capacitor values and a few other very minor changes to sort of hybrid it with the classic 3 capacitor vox tonestack that likes a lowm input impedance. Its a pretty unique amp, even the power supply is more hiwatt than vox, no choke, just RC power filtering, but otherwise its pure vox power amp, but it won't sound that way with the big 5w resistor in place of the LC filter (a choke is an inductor, L means inductor, R resistor, C capacitor)... it also has weirdo common anode stage driving the FX loop, not sure why or what it'll sound like.... maybe its more transparent til it overdrives? I would have to build one, my math ain't mathing.

I have a special fascination with doom/stoner rock -- Remember when I was a breath away from getting an SG and an FZ-2 back in 2024? That threat still feels real, Jim... I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about finding an underpriced SG on Craigslist with a ratty body and an expertly-repaired headstock snap that plays like butter.

If I ever part wth one of my SGs (unlikely) I'll sell it to you for the price I paid, which was low-to-fair at the time... even adjusting for inflation they're pretty affordable USA gibsons carefully selected for balance and unplugged sustain. I just don't think I can ever let them go, its so hard to find a winning SG, so many clunkers.

I just wasn't going to assume that was all that was there or the only fx they ever use, but I wasn't paying that much attention to what I was saying/typing. Disregard if you want. The tone in the diggin the fuzz video is very Marshall 800 meets ac30 where you linked but us really fuzzy in other parts. The choice of TH30 is interesting because the clean channel and power amp are very much ac30 topboost right down to the gz34 rectifier... not exactly a doom platform although voxes can get heavier than most people think. Maybe the details are a little more matchless/badcat with more power filtering yadda yadda... or maybe they went fixed bias which only a handful of 84 designs do, but that would bush closer to 45 watts I think... seems like a very similar concept to the hot cat 30 with a top boost clean and a minimalist high gain but I guess with the rocker 30 voice knob. that 2×el34 rocker 30 was doomy as hell. I almost bought one. don't know why they discontinued it, it just needed some time to find its market.

edit: if the th30 is making the super fuzzy tones its impressively

welp, that looks like an orange th30, the small size of the model name and knob layout are the tip off

Thanks Jim. I came to same conclusion. I linked to a TH30 being demoed in a stoner rock context in my info dump reply.

did you? shoot

I know the OP was hoping we could point him to a pedal or two to capture that tone, but in the example he asked for, seems like high-gain channel on an Orange tube amp is the answer.

there might be a fuzz involved, not sure... fuzzpedals are very personal, they're so quirky that no 2 people sound the same with them unless its one with diodes for clipping or octave like a muff or superfuzz

EDIT: if one's Crybaby is white, as in the Burning Planet video, it's likely the 105Q model, right?

to the best of my knowledge