jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

Do I ever! I bought my beta 57 for under 100, not sure what they go for now but they're way better than a 57 and the tighter polar pattern excels on snare where hat rejection is not really the 57s strong suit... but the real 57 slayer is the audix i5. 99 bucks new all day. When you a/b it with a 57 on any source but guitar speakers it's a no question winner. On guitar amps it still wins but some feel really drawn to the mushy, hyped upper mid of a stock 57. I used to just put a 2nd mic up fir 57 guys and then name them a and b and let them pick blind for the mix and 50% of the time the dude thinks the audix is the shure... given my druthers I mic guitars (and hats) with my royer r10 though. I also put condensers on Tom's a lot of the time, use fatheads as cymbal spot mics and overheads, stick an re20 or md421 in the kick, track the analog signal from drum triggers to use as gate keys, record totally mono sources in blumlein or xy stereo and lots of other things that fly in the face of common web wisdom when I have time and resources.

I like the A88 a lot. I've been eyeballing those doepfer controllers in the spitfire videos but it's hard to justify when I haven't worked on my own music all year.

For me it’s shure sm57. That microphone sounds fantastic. Nowadays I use it all the time, even as a vocal mic

That's an investment that will last you your whole life, too. I've come across some very road-worn 57s beat to hell, with the finish half-gone, but they always keep working.

Good enough for snare if you're careful positioning it, makes an even better doorstop than a microphone and can definitely be used to knock out intruders... if you replace the awful output transformer it stops just capturing a signal that vaguely corresponds to the source and starts to transcend snare and home defense applications. But hey...

Re: competitors from Korg, Roland, and Yamaha. They all sound great too, unfortunately -- and the key action on some is as good or better than what Nord offers. The big difference between Nord and the others is mainly that the Nord has a more hands-on interface that doesn't require as much menu-diving and manual-reading as some of the more complex products from the big Japanese brands... but all these brands make great keyboards that will sound very nice and be a joy to play... that's why you just need to go play some in person and decide based on personal taste and instinct.

I was really surprised sitting behind that used roland fantom how easy it was. I dialed up a plain piano and just grokkedthe interface immediately and made a ashes to ashes sound... pulled up strings, fiddled with the loop points, got filtering and made an ethereal orchestral pad, no trouble at all. I made a slew of original patches and saved them in case I go back to buy it for my arsenal.

I always assumed it was a hard device to learn like the yami motif, but it's not. Maybe not as knob and slider laden as a nord electro but it only took me 10 minutes to figure out how to deep dive. There are so many good options these days I'm tempted to tell the OP just to price shop and maybe put the savings into a budget analog polysynth or an arp odyssey (because everyone needs one).

I agree though that a state of the art low latency interface and a really high end controller may just be the best way to go though it violates my hardware lovin' belief system! Unless we're talking live work... then I wouldn't trust any computer... only something like the new receptor distributed by peavy.

And kawai does make their own keybeds for hammer action models and man is it the best feel going. Theirs isn't just a fulcrum point, it has a good chunk of their acoustic piano mechanism behind the keys.

Arp odyssey?

Edit: I always pitch the odyssey lol. But it sounds like you don't really want a programmable subtractive synth so much as a tweakable all in one that can also cop some of those 70s 80s sounds adequately.

When looking at hardware that really does it all the buy in Is steep on a good keyboard with comfortable action that will sound better than plugins. That said i was playing a used roland fantom the other day and the action was great and i was making some really interesting patches, it's got some nice bread and butter pianos and organs with decent analog synth sounds... for me it was tempting because you can apply all the fx, virtual analog modulation and filtering to any sample so there's some amazing patches waiting to be unlocked from ethereal to industrial. The interface was fast and intuitive for a veteran synthesist but may be tricky at first for a new guy. It also may wind up being a rompler for you and if you're not using the hands on advanced feature set it's really no better than a rompler plugin. And some plugins offer much better acoustic and electromechanical sounds... most school the stock synth presets. I almost bought it if only for the nice keybed which has a good semi weighted feel... splits the difference between hammer action and organ/synth action.

But ymmv. You really aren't gaining anything if you're just looking for bread and butter sounds like a hammond and maybe a synth pad... on the other hand, if you want to quickly recreate the piano from ashes to ashes or a Rhodesthat's also a pad? BOOM. Maybe you don't have a really professional interface for your plugins and its throwing you're performing off or you just can't get down with a mouse anymore, maybe the grass is alwaysgreener and you need to stick with what works already. You gotta feel that out. But the roland fantom in my book is a surprisingly good instrument for the coin.

My best friend has a zplane filter. It's cool as hell.

Now THAT would be amazing

I'm really hoping for a proper rossum designed production model

There's no standard however there should be a wiring chart available from Gibson. The fingers have been in continuous production since I was a kid.

especially in the sub £1k price bracket I’m looking at.

Yeah, you really gave to know what you're looking at in the cheap seats and be ready to rebuild a PSU and maybe swap some coupling caps...

I've personally used console1 at a small studio and its well integrated enough with its plugin gui but as far as sound goes stacking up brainworx channels and busses is a lot more euphonic to my ear. The bx and lindell stuff from plugin alliance is pretty cool when you use it right but you lose the physical aspect that sofube offers. You also get a whole big variety of strips and summing busses to choose from.... but I don't know how well integrated any control surface will get with these plugins.

On the SSL surfaces, the guy I bought my 32:8 soundtracs inline console from replaced it with their Nucleus control surface and interface. It cost as much as a well serviced mid range british desk but is a heckuva lot smaller and since he doesn'thave as much high end outboard as I do it made sense for him to ditch the behemoth that's now in my mix room. Last we spoke he was very happy with Nucleus but apart from his seal of approval I can't give you anymore info. Im sure it integrates with their software well and thats all I know. I haven't used a lot of modern ssl gear. If they're not just trading on their name I'm sure the nucleus is a quality product. I have spent a lot of time behing E, G and Js and frankly, apart from the inherentpunch, you don'tgo SSL for sound quality, they sound fine but it's the feature set and amazingly well thought out routing options that have made them iconic... and they had the best damned OEM automation in the buz way back when although its getting rarer and rarer to find one hooked up to the computer. I digress.

There's also faderport 16, my experience with this is that it integrates best with presonus studio 1 but it has really nice feeling 100mm motorized faders which map pretty well in most DAWs over HUI. Ymmv fir othe features and 3rd party plugin mapping. If like me you have a number of popular DAWs so you can open client project files without hassle then this may add a level of hair pulling you just don't have time for.

But if you already like the softube sound the console1 hardware is a no brainer at its price point. I don't know you're going to do better. All the best stuff is very DAW specific and with your goal to get an analog studio sound? The best integrated stuff from avid and Yamaha is out.

I liked that Dave mentioned 'starting out' with this overpriced unit. The implication I took away from the press release was that a more practical follow up is in the works...

High quality used patchbays, Countryman active DI, deluxe bass bigmuff (gets used a lot mixing, no joke... don't ask me how though) or ART T8 isolation transformer rack... not a lot of purely studio gear I've gotten for under 100 clams that's immensely useful and 100% working and if I had to fix it my time is worth some cash so...

Probably my 6 proco patchbays.

They've been going downhill since eureka so fender can't break what's already broken. They're way more 'sumer than pro now and their best products are geared to live praise and worship with multi track archiving. Whatever.

If you're just concerned with a good mix seriously consider a desk, a 24+ out highly specced DA converter solution and a rack if well chosen outboard. My .02

http://www.rossum-electro.com/products/sp-1200-renovation/

Legit hip hop enthusiasts rejoice!

Welcome Tower. Best of luck with your gear quest... it's a lifelong obse--err romance.

I use the nanowebs myself. It took one hell of a coated string to pry me away from ernies.

Hello, I'm an mediocre guitarist who cant play and has 23 guitars, I like grinspoon, nirvana, regurgiator and the foo fighters and stp and rhcp.

Hello, I have a mediocre physique but I wear clothes. Keep on collecting! I love spoons... great soup gear. Grinding the solids with one's spoon is all personal preference assuming you have most of your teeth but ... grind on!

Concerning to my actual DIY Pedals: Is there a way to add pedals like this

I regularly buy PCBs and modify components as needed too

Sorry but I can‘t agree to this point that you need to have a official reverb item link or a shop link to add a new item.

I suggest to add an item if it’s normally listed at reverb but doesn’t have to have an extra item page.

Agreed

I can't drink alcohol due to my health condition anyway so yeah, that's a non-issue.

Then cabinets and a captor for apartment recording, my friend.

All this said I think it's great UA is becoming less exclusive. If SSL can do it they had no excuse for the arrow being their cheapest product!

So many good options these days. Its glorious to be recording now. I never dreamed I could have a homestudio like I do now as a young turk!

yeah I should buy an irig.

Or maybe go nicer. The thing about an iRig is you can't plud a microphone in. Or maybe there's one where you can but you're not getting a reasonable quality preamp like on a decent interface. Even stalwarts like the focusrite scarlet and steinberg UR series have tolerable mic and line amps. I'm no snob as engineers go but I pretty much don't recommend anything below the SSL2, MOTU M4 or the UA stuff of course.

Or just hit a line input on a cheaper 8interface with an outboard preamp. For a few buck one can obtain some nice symetrix preamps. Their De-essers with xlr inputs have a pretty good mic pre and some transformers in line and the de esser can be fully disengaged. Their 528 voice channels are fir broadcast but don't suck. Very good 80s designs in the whole neotek type camp and a good mod platform.

I digress. I would be looking for the best quality iPad interface you can afford with a microphone input as well as a DI. On fact the mic input us key. You can buy a DI box that sounds great for peanuts. A good passive DI box is great because it can be reversed to preamp guitar recordings too.

I would do that but I have business to run so I kinda need lots of playback with extremely good sound quality. Whatever the client sends can be recorded however but I can't be degrading it further. When I say playback, I mean into an analog desk. 24 channels at 192k would melt an ipad

Real cabinets are always best assuming the room can handle the air you're pushing. A tiny space with a raging stack will sound pretty poor unless it's been designed for that purpose. On the other hand, marshall cabinets are not best for your back and if you go that route I recommend a roadie. You can usually con a friend into this job for local gigs if you're willing to give away your free drinks and a guest list just spot for him but on the road it's another proposition.

I happen to own a captor now. A friend recommended it. I tried it out at home and it recorded pretty well but I haven't needed to use it extensively so it would tricky to post a review. Fir home studio use it's pretty darn practical.

I have my 828es and 24ao latency so low I can overdub without direct monitoring. I just monitor the actual recording as its printing. This is also how I'm mixing. Monitoring the converted stere track exactly as it will be heard by the client. I cant even feel the roundtrip latency when moving faders and we're talking 24+ playback back in as stereo.

That said UA rules. Those plugins with tje external DSP are mostly great sounding. I would think with the budget interface though you'll really want a sattelite too if you're working ITB and then it's not a bargain. I'm not really sure how you're doing things K-money.

I do know that the need for hot levels died with ADAT. In tape the concern was signal to noise so the practice of compressing to tape was really practical. Early digital formats supposedly wanted peaks at zero and a strong average level in order to use up all the bits of the storage medium and get max resolution. Neither of these things is an issue and the only reason to print compression during tracking is to get the sound of an old session right from the get go. But its not like it can't be done later. I would always opt for max dynamics because taking away dynamics from a recording is like liberally dumping salt in your soup without tasting it.

You really want to compress into your Dconverters? Superb dynamic range of modern converters?

Now, if one wants to simply make friends @ a rehearsal space, I'd suggest getting a liquor license and opening a bar next-door to a rehearsal space. :)

This.

Late to the party, but drinking helps. Everyone needs to go out for cocktails. Lots of cocktails. I'm not joking.

Theres really only a handful of circuit topologies. I've gone over the many times in the past if you look over old guitar forum posts.

Tonepros are pretty good upgrades from a stock Gibson , I think they're aluminum... theres a company called callaham that does all steel ones for a bright and ultra clear tone... though vintage correct was I think aluminum with chromed brass saddles or in the 60s nylon saddles at one point. I personally have had a number of schaller equipped axes and while the functionality of their bridges and tuners is always a cut above the extra fiddly parts and materials chosen for their bridges generally sound inferior when I change them out for tonepros. Great tuning pegs though. Ymmv

Thanks. It was a pretty snazzy 3 point grid to get all the details the writer asked for jammed in the big panel.

https://twitter.com/JamesMarchione/status/1439083116489056259?s=19

I drew diogenes as alan moore...

I came in really young. I was really unhealthy as a little boy and my dad would get me comics to cheer me up whenever I was hospitalized. I came in at the Secret Wars and learned to read from the FF and Xmen. I actually took DKR out from the local library as I recall because they had a small shelf of graphic novels. Anything that won awards.... including watchmen, V for vendetta...

It makes me sick, to see such a violation of people's rights. We have to strive to reintegrate the disenfranchised into society, not revel in their punishment. We have to show patience.

Excuse me? No, I'd never live in the city.

I read it when the 1st collected edition hit shelves. I had no idea as an 8 or 9 year old what I was about to read. I knew Miller from Daredevil and the Wolverine miniseries but DKR blew my mind. It's still on point politically and I still enjoy the way it skewers almost every point of view the characters represent without actually vilifying batman.

They really hit the nail on the head with pt1 of the DKR movie. It falls off in pt2 but the look is pure Miller/Jansen/Varley.

I'm still getting chops back but DKR has a road map for every sort of storytelling device... including the TV in a dark room. When Bruce is watching mask of zorro it's right there to learn from.

The dick knight returns

I knew you'd get it.... I wish I hadn't gone all Neil Adam's on Mz Adventure's face but whatever. It was fun.

shot a bit off kilter so its not crooked in real live but here is the latest SID promo....

https://imgur.com/a/L1Rz74B

only 1 LFO and really limited routing... its a very late 70s inspired synth, barebones analog feature set and the multi-engine is just tacked on there like an afterthought.... plus there's this perception that the oscillators don't sound good, which is nonsense propogated by guys who overpayed for an OB6 or prophet6 when brand new

I mean, if its your only (mostly) analog polysynth? you could get bored pretty fast and it has a pretty clean sound overall and the dirt it produces is not always that swell... but as part of an arsenal its impressive because its fast to program, has a customizable digital oscillator, sports a first rate keybed and excels at squeaky clean CS80 sounds with its own built in effects engine for live use.

click on your user image in top right corner, from the drop down select 'my equipboard', on the right under the orange 'share' icon there will be the word 'following' preceeded by the number of artists and sers you follow, click that orange number and it'll open a list page of your artists.... presto