jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

Anyway, just wondering where this pressure is coming from to make a studio setup consisting of several vintage items road-worthy? What paying audience out there can hear the difference between a delicate boutique rig and a Helix or Fractal Audio box tastefully programmed to sound damn close to that boutique studio rig?

All of this is brutish, ill-informed blasphemy, I know, but NOTHING is worse than watching someone slowly die on stage because of a technical malfunction. Is it really worth the risk to ask so much from 30 year old electronics?

I don't concur, if I were using a fractal or helix I would need 2, I don't trust a small computer not to go out in certain environments....just as much a crap shoot. I have always taken backup gear even if its not visible in photos or videos its ready to go. If I can't live without it I take a backup for a pro gig. The most reliable gear I have used as a guitarist was vintage and well maintained. I never lost a plexi or showman live, but I certainly had backup. Processors? if they weren't new I ahd spares or they were just flavoring i could easily do without. When i did rack setups I definitely had doubles of anything indispensible.

I could say that I'm not too worried about my Synergy preamp and my Strymon pedals for now considering how they served me well for over a year, but yeah, that's saying a lot.

I would be worried about anything with vacuum tubes and PCB construction in a rack. And as I said, if its discontinued or unobtainable day of gig? You better have 2 or be prepared to live without it.

I'm not an acoustic player, but it looks like a Gibson Songwriter Deluxe EC. The only thing I really see different is it has a J-45 style bridge, but it wouldn't surprise me if Gibson made some like that or he modified.

Or he could've had the bridge changed for whatever reason, they're just glued down... I feel for everyone named Corey, that's a tough lot in life.

using that old software is much less likely to unlock any special mojo in the same way that using a very old guitar, discontinued pedal, or synth full of ancient parts might give you... in other words, using old software is a bad path to suggest/encourage impressionable new producers into trying.

its not unlocking any mojo unless you really like an old OS build that won't support the update.... and that's more to do with loving your old workhorse computer even if its obsolete (been there)... for the most part the software just has no sound and they don't typically do abrupt workflow changes, maybe in FL studio, it changed quite a bit over the years since fruityloops, but all the legacy beat box gui features are still there.... anyway.... to me the DAW is primarily a cheaper and easier alternative to a tape machine and hardware sampler(s) setup. It doesn't even succesfully replace an actual mixing desk at this phasewithout really going out of your way to fake the sound character and simulate the workflow. All this other stuff is just window dressing. If it does recording and editing, that's all I need.... and midi editing with a piano roll is nice too. All these versions and thing, it just doesn't seem all that important from where I'm sitting.... more features and virtual synths and things included ae nice but I wouldn't miss them and the core engine stays pretty well the same for most purposes.... the newst Live is easier to CV and trigger signals from but any DAW can be hijacked to do that with old or modular hardware synths and drum machines, you just have to know the tricks.... anyway, I haven't really seen any major advancements going on in computer recording other than increased sample rates every few years and that's driven by hardware. I hoenstly feel like the updates are msotly about utilizing the latest, fastest processors to the full and the other stuff is just an afterthought.... and part of the salespitch tog et your money again in the case of most developers........

always back up the most irreplaceable item first.... if it can be bought at a big box guitar store day of show its not as important to have a backup... if you have a pretty complex, boutique rig like this you better have 2 of most things.... there's not a lot of stuff in your proposed setup that's easy to lay hands on at short notice.

I need to get the bum voice fixed and spend a few good months with it before I could ever entertain letting 'er go. I barely had time to get comfy with it before that voice went.

I was just kidding....

Ooh, I'm belatedly coming to this thread after looking at my Equipboard and thinking "Huh? I don't own Guitar Rig version 6! Did I add the wrong one?". That, and my VintageWarmer v2 seemed out of place, because it was meant to rank below my v1...

I see I'm in the minority though!

preach on.... I think it as mostly me and Kenneth talking so we're not a majority, we're just vocal.... and we're both really hardware oriented.

so, you umm, wanna sell me yours?

Hope you feel better... was 'soldering on' versus soldiering on' a pun? Because this is the right forum.

Yeah I think this is pretty clearly not well intentioned. I've done some fairly critical reviewing of his gear now. I didn't go through the plug-ins and VSTs, most of which have no source provided at all.

I used to be fairly active asking people not to do this when i would spot these circle-jerk submissions, but I've stepped back lately because there are just so many kids doing this stuff it would take me all day every day to find them all and write a polite little note in the comments. I've got a studio to rewire, records to mix and.... oh yeah, a 7 year old to raise. There's been a lot of discussion amongst the admins and mods about how to prevent this going forward without making it too hard for people to add new artists who may be lesser known but nonetheless meet the site's notoriety criteria.... to date I don't think the admins have come up with a way to filter out every self-made pro page although it as at one time worse. Anyway...

EDIT: I really miss when you built notoriety on the street, not through youtube and social media. I remember when every band and each member HAD to start a myspace.... that was the end of the old model for new acts. This model may allow for more merit based success at times where a really great track might get internet traction and rocket an artist to worlwide success without a label but the old model of playing shows or DJing if you were a solo dance musician and promoting on a real in person level was merit-based in a 'doing the leg work' sense. If you weren't willing to travel, perform constantly, distribute flyers, hang at the merch table etc (I could go on and on about all the irritating things I've had to do when i wanted to be making music only to stall at regional success and plummet) it didn't matter how cool your music was. It took talent and hard work just to become locally known and it generally weeded out the lazy and unreliable.

I get that artists want to promote themselves, and maybe he does actually use all this gear. But if he doesn't provide sources or evidence of using them, it's just spam isn't it?

y'know, we're not a source for people's EPKs.... I see all of it as spam, its not well intentioned to create your own artist page for the purpose of puffing yourself up like a blowfish but my views here are well known

I knew someone would get it. I am moving at a snails pace rewiring here.... homestudios are hell

or are you saying only commercial studios count ? 😉

I come from the tape era so I'm.... biased **drum roll, cymbal crash***

people's home studios are SO variable being personalized.... I would describe studio equipment that's fairly common to most studios with an emphasis on commercial analog or hybrid operations, I don't even think a drummachine is that common to home studios, there's a still a lot of headbangers recording in the basement who wouldn't want or know what to do with a 909.... if that makes sense

as to grooveboxes I kinda think that anything in that synth or sample pattern sequencer mold of the good ol mc303 and 505 could have its own category, they're really distinct almost workstation type instruments with a distinctive interface style.

Searching within an artist's EB would be helpful for the minority of us who contribute to the database, for sure, but for the casual-browsing majority of site traffic, the fact that there are no Stratocasters visible on Jimi Hendrix's EB (without clicking "show more") seems like a more pressing concern, personally.

that is pretty weird

What distinction? Most drum machines are categorized as Studio Equipment at the moment. There is no category for drum machines, right?

why is that? I wouldn't really call that a piece of studio equipment.... some commercial studios have a machine or 2 but most don't, the artist would bring their machine. Is the drummer a piece of studio gear? If so that recolors a lot of my previous band dynamics.

it's not significant to me, but I feel like these durned kids really care about this stuff... and we cater to every nerd

If you all are so inclined, we'd love help identifying families of software versions that need to be unified. I'm aware of the big DAWs, but other things like iZotope RX I'm less familiar with... do all those need to be one!? 😯

I'm in your boat as I'm very analog and if i want a real master I go to Jeff Lipton, one of the Tarsia bros or Phil Nicolo.... no t-racks or izotope here, although I do have that one suite of repair tools that denoises, declicks and pops etc, whatever it is..... you get some weird, wildly messed up stuff as a mixer as it turns out, I have no control over the screwy stuff that people record... but otherwise I've gone 90% analog at this point

I've no experience with Soundtracs, but congrats on scoring one of these!

I'm really hoping to talk to someone who has used one for more than tracking, it seems like its a mackie-ized construction budget version of their jade or solitaire desk, the thing even had an automation package available at the time that no one sprung for... the guy's got the manual and service schematics so I guess I'll be sorting it out soon enough.... it was basically the only inline desk I could fit in my home studio that gave me more inputs, more auxes, similar EQ and 8 busses without sacrificing sound quality or entailing me selling a kidney or my first born... the only other direction I could go from here in my pricerange is a soundcraft saphyre (hard to find in full 8 bus).... I like those audient ASP desks, the new version with the output transformers and stuff, but man they're big and they cost almost as much as I typically make in a year when you start adding on the extra features.... at the base price you get a pretty barebones 24 channel desk and could easily get a trident 80b or C for less these days if you want to go back to a split format, anyway....

I'm trying to get a ghetto SSL signal flow going up in this joint while I have some time between paying gigs, see one of the coolest thing about the SSL desks with the short faders is that second path can be used to create a whole other mix that can be merged to the main output buss, not just sued to feed the studio or control room monitor path, this desk sort of does that, kinda, but unlike the SSL I don't think I can just assign the main line in to both paths which is annoying. I might have to loop the post fader tape out back into the tape return or soemthing weird like that with a bunch of little patchbay jumpers

I just bought a soundtracs topaz project8 32 channel.... getting it from the seller sunday.... I was wondering if anyone has insights on these little desks apart from the internet comments that they sound great for a mackie sized non-modular desk and are pretty reliable other than the internal part of the PSU? I'm trying to get an idea just how flexible the routing is, I know its inline but just what can I get away with using the dual signal paths? Anyone say looping their tape direct outputs back to the monitor path's tape ins to mult their main channel? the original owner isn't using it the way I would, he seems pretty limited in his mixing, it seems like it was more an easy tracking desk for him in what I assume to be a mainly commercial voiceover business....

Exactly. I may want to suppress Ableton Live Standard frequencies around in the 7 - 10kHz range & boost Live Suite around 11kHz. Results will sizzle.

might need a maag for true sizzle

email me, I'll make it right.... its only money, I'll straighten this out for you, I feel bad; j i m m a r c h i @ gmail.com no spaces obviously.... I'll even give you my cell via email we can fix this man

notch/peaking then, eh?

did you manage to get that mixer serviced yet?

did you say filtering? Low pass filtering?

As long as we could still sub-identify the specific editions, I wouldn't mind. I enjoy the historical posterity that the separation currently provides.

excellent.... my suggestion (and this could work in a modified form for any item) is a drop down for each major DAW that allows you to select either the version number, 'long time user' assuming its an artist who has been with that software for multiple updates, or 'unspecified' if you don't know and can't find out

Basically this.

he lives

excellent.... my suggestion (and this could work in a modified form for any item) is a drop down for each major DAW that allows you to select either the version number, 'long time user' assuming its an artist who has been with that software for multiple updates, or 'unspecified' if you don't know and can't find out

If it bothers anyone, it's an easy enough for that annoyed person to enter a quick edit and check/un-check what's needed themselves... and/or an opportunity for someone to add another layer of information onto an existing spot.

exactly, as long as anyone can make a correction it doesn't need to be part of the submission rating process.

I'm never going to say this again in this or any other context but my vote is not to frustrate people.

I went in an edited a few older submission to add context tags to try this thing out, and realized that, in some cases, I was tagging "live" and "studio" for entries that really only proved one context or the other, not both... I just happened to know that artist used that piece of gear in both contexts... so did I just vandalize these older submissions by adding context tags that lack complete evidence?

I was just worrying about the same thing when I played catchup on this thread thismorning and here you are having come up against the same question. I wouldn't just assume... Hendrix for example is reputed to have used fender amps and a supro in the studio on are you experienced but there's no evidence of what fenders and the thudnerbolt is some wild guess based on him owning one prior in the USA. But it doesn't mean he used his Marshalls as I trust Kramer's story even without any details.

That's a really good point. Recording would be done in a studio the majority of the time. Hmm, ok so maybe Studio/Recording gets combined into one?

that one blew right by me.... yeah, recordings are studio or live.... although studio might apply to say microphones that were selected by the engineer, they belong to the studio versus and amp you used just for the recording? I;m stretching to make you feel better

those are props sometimes though, the director picks them sometimes for looks

yes, that works for me and you should eb able to check multiples I guess

oh yeah, the 90s Laney amps thata re just modded 800s like the GH, VH and Iommi models are fairly robust, not as road tough as an 800 but not as finnicky and delicate as a dsl/tsl 2000... I've seen the 3 channel one go down on someone but never had a problem with the single channel with boost models I had. The most metal version would be the tonny iommi signature which he still uses to this day. Of course I don't think it comes in less than 100 watts so a GH50L in a combo might be your best bet. It really depends what era of metal you're after... you get to thrash and the mesas start coming in for a lot of guys as do the preamp/poweramp setups and then all these death emtal guys were using solid state and the blackmetal thing is like those god awful valvestates, right?.... you just gotta figure out what you want. Marshall's last great amp in my book was the silver jubilee and the 900 series was kinda a pale imitation with more bells and whistles, since then they've just been designing junk and maintianing their rep on the reissues.

if I needed to do anything with heavy gain and reasonable clean tone from the same amp without using a distortion pedal I would be looking to buy another soldano hot rod 50+. The clean have a smidge of hair to them, the whole gain range of the dirty channel is hyper useable. Amp cuts, sounds more british than the SLO100 (also excellent), is indestructible and easy to service... You can really balance some great tones one a hot rod series Soldano, Im not a switcher guy but this is the only channel switching amp I've ever regretted selling. It was a joy to play. Very modern if you want but capable of very old school hard rock and early emtal tones too. Its the closest I've ever come to getting hiwatt clean to crunch tones and cranked marshall tones from one amp without building something myself.

Hell yeah - Board-wiser, Beer of geeks!

I like Board-wiser; a class A adult beverage, all discrete ingredients with a minerally (iron, copper, tungsten) transformer balanced finished and smooth top end!

I'm a marketing genius.

you'll figure it out, I assume... remember, impedance

Just a simple design mod - give the forum more prominence by placing it towards the top of the column instead of off the screen at the bottom.

yeah, I had to add it to my browser favorites bar when I became obsessed with answering questions and bantering here.... it would be busier if it were more forward.... some questions aren't simple enough to be answered by all these expanded features that are being added

I also suggest equipboard brew its own beer... equipbeer, a boutique lager with a proprietary blend of unobtainium hops and leadless solder...

allnighter, meter bridge,, rolled up dollars.... been there done that kid

maybe we can start moving stuff like clapton's blackie

I'm going to have to recommend soldano although his more metal amps aren't typically smallish, but the build quality is there... friedman is another excellent choice. Cornford. This is a get what you pay for situation. Any 2 channel gain banger with roadworthy construction will cost a lot more than the marshall options, they reserve robust build quality for the reissues these days and also charge considerably more for them. PCB mounted tube sockets and ribbon connectors are a bad bet for tube amps that move around regularly. I had a bandmate with a DSL50 and shared rehearsal space with an endorsee who used the big TSL100. We all htit the road. Those JCM2000 heads were unreliable. The bandmate frequently had his in the shop and would need to borrow our neighbors JCM900 while the guy from the other band was just allowed to swap his broken head for new one at any large, authorized marshall dealer as part of his deal. Yes marshall made him pay for the head in the 1st place as is there custom but he got that perk of a free swapout in nay major city. On the other hand, my ancient suoperlead never went down. I never had cause to use my backups unless it was in for a routine rebias back when i didn't do that sort of thing myself. I also owned an ancient KCM800 that was a real road warrior. They made 50 watt combos, I would seek out one of those if you must go small. The channel switcher is nothing to write home about on the clean channel but its good enough for tom morello nd will never, ever break. Beyond that maybe a 900 dual reverb combo? Then there's boutique like soldano, friedman, cornford, bogner etc