jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

I see a vent for a tube.... hmmmm.... I know this brand, maybe a guyatone?

wow, I'm conflating a decade's worth of stuff, nevermind

lets be honest, the pieces they were taking were irreplaceable even today.... f you ask me there is no equivalent to most of it apart from great 303 clones finally.... and the MMT8 is bulletproof, I ahdn't turned mine on in YEARS and last time I fired it up in 2020 it was fine. It had been through 2 moves, jostled, and unloved.... if you can break an alesis MMT8 its ebcause you program it with a hammer

but I guess the filter factory came out later too, I can't remember when I got mine but it was new, why did I sell it?! it was 2000s not 90s, you're right, Ic an guess by who I remember working for back then... I got one after trying his and it was a lot of money to me then

oh wait, you don't have a tube amp? I somehow missed that tube amp payment line.... help me out here, I'm sleepy

frankly I'm hearing rave reviews form guys I trust on the captor X by 2 notes.... I might get a captor for the home studio sicne then ic an just run the IRs in my DAW, but the X has 'em on board.

you mean a guitar sound? I think a lot of my favorite sounds I've had were just obtained by getting something really good or unique and plugging into it and thinking it was great and doing that... I think everyone knows how to get those basic sounds and you can refine them with boutique add ons if you anna get fancy, but like the truly unique signature tones are a voyage of accidental discovery and exploitation like columbus looking for china but finding cuba or wherever.... the best is when you're trying to copy a tone you loved on another record and then get something different that's better! Or even in synths when you buy a vitnage piece and mine out the sounds you thought it would make and you're like, thatw as fun, now what? I think failure to immitate or being elt down when you perfectly replicate something you love from someone else is the greatest source of inspiration. Even mixing, I lvoe when i get asked to copy a mix style and I do it with my ears and tools and I feel like tis close-ish and the band says "no no, but that's cooler!"

My uncle is ina covers band with this guy who is a master of replicating album tones with a single amp and a good multi FX (helix I think), theya re clsoe and his playing is note for note down to idiosyncracies like vibrato technique.... but its SOOOOO boring, only my uncle loves it.... and hearing their jam recordings at practice he's lost without an album to ape and those album tones he has preset lose something in a different context....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5T1K-RS9k

When you guys are looking for gear to make a certain sound in your head now, how do you go about finding it?

like gear I don't already own?

a lot of people ditched their mutators and akai filters for effectrix filter factories and shermans at this time due to replaceability more than anything.... you could buy an effectrix in a guitar center so if yours didn't fire up you could get a new ne as long as you knew early enough ahead of the show.... its the reason only top name guitarists toured with the early boutique FX and vitnage stuff like tape delay went out, no one thought a PCM70 or a Buss DD3??? soudned better for guitar than a space echo or an echoplex but you can't replace a bad hhand made or vitnage unit last minute if it goes down while travelling but a Boss? If you're going to use a discontinued piece live, have 2 or more.

In a studio setting my tape echoes go down ALL the time, they don't travel, they still get finicky and I have to use something else and spend a day taking them apart and finding the tiny little issue and fixing it.... don't let the service guys kid ya, a perfectly serviced unit will still just flip shit and the tape will pull away from the head and the pinch roller will stop pinching and stuff because its thursday and god wills it...

but back to my point, I would think guys this clever wouldn't take a discontinued piece on the road

wow, they drew the shape on it and gave you controls to set the amount of pickup loading and the transistor bias, see without those the old ones were hit or miss.... you had to get a good one, although they're more consistent than say a fuzz face

Michael, did you get your tonebender? how is it treating you?

That works for what I'm doing here! Oh, and people could tag their gear to the songs they used them on! Check out what Celestial Effects has on its website.

I think this celestial effects setup is fantastic

okay so pedalboard planners out but that was the springboard to be able to show signal flow for OTHER THINGS guys....

I did mention ModularGrid.

maybe the whole idea is flawed.... I mean, my sound is my sound, its like a fingerprint... don'tget me wrong, I like to see what the big dogs use and I've aped a tone here and there as a reference on a record, but usually I get ideas of what people use and then figure out how I use it and walk my own path with that gear

okay so pedalboard planners out but that was the springboard to be able to show signal flow for OTHER THINGS guys.... OTHER THINGS which goes along to the embedded track to hear the gear

I like what micky_hennemann did here.

I did something like this as a joke for the grunge challenge when every band with a gated reverb snare form late 80s seattle was accused of sounding glam, Iw as like its the snare(!!!!!) and I posted the 'how to ruin a snare drum signal flow chart.' It got a lot of laughs especially when I said the lines were red because no one should do this to a snare drum!

right, that! what mickey did is the thing but maybe something generalized because we can't just have every pedal be movable we don't have good enough pictures for everything and well, what a job!

what if we just made a place on Equipboard where it is appropriate to do some self promotion? What if gear photos had embedded soundcloud links so you could assign certain tracks to gear photos so that you could hear the specific gear in the photo? I might like that.

okay, that's a cool avenue, but I think RIGHT NOW its not a place for self promotion nor should it be a palce to promote yourself to non-musicians, this is a peer group not a posting for your EPK....

we should do a classifieds/bulletin board like in old timey music stores 'band seeks drummer in UK', 'looking for remixers for EDM' or 'studio open cheap rates' too

I found myself liking the Vox AC4HW from Jim's demo, but I only found it through the forum post he made. It'd be cool if that was featured elsewhere too... maybe.

okay so 1 thanks, I'm not a big self promoter unless I;m really proud of something and I get drunk and want to share the love.... interestingly that guitar now belongs to Ace Frehly's personal road manager, totally weird day hanging with that guy with masks on in a hotel in NJ, I should call him.

But the signal chain thing for guitar you could have generic movable graphics for like overdrive, distortion etc and you would number them, then a generic amp combo or head and cab.... then you add detail with text everything would get numbered in order but for parallel or whatnot you could also allow connecting arrows to represent signal flow including splits.... I'm trying to explain it maybe if I draw it later

you think I ramble in print, wheew.... Lucian never stops.... he talks and talks, his poor 1st grade teacher

To be honest, I would be more interested in seeing community videos than community photos. They're much more dynamic. I can also put those on in the background as I work and I get to hear the equipment being used. It's also harder to hide a lack of practice in a video, haha!

The subreddit r/guitarpedals is very good about detailed outlines and video demos. They might be worth checking out.

videos are a pain, and your kid always susses out that you're shooting one and makes it into an oral history of sonic the hedgehog

I just had this happen.... Iw as doing a humorous how to mix video and he totally recked it.... I had a bottle of champagne in it and everything it was great

Today my Ramble FX Twin Bender V3 arrives, and I'm stoked. I'd love to know in detail what is similar about it versus what differs versus the original Tone Bender. It'd be so cool to have it tagged with circuits, transistors, etc. But right now, there is no hierarchy in the similar items, and they are not as obviously useful as they could be. Soon, we will introduce a hierarchy system, so the more similar the item the more prominently it will be featured.

I'm already doing that, I go from most schematically similar to least when I do a link up.... unless I can't remember :-[

so I posted 2 suggestions previously in my rambling way that I think are good: visual rig routing tool in 'my gear' and also a beginners hub that's more than guides

and if its got the correct HFE for the germanium transistors it doesn't matter if theyre glass mullards, you'll lvoe it

found what Tom as talking about: https://equipboard.com/items/focusrite-scarlett-2i2-usb-audio-interface the recommended no name mic

the youthful assumption that I don't know a fake 58 needs a preamp and converter to bring its signal into a computer is kinda charming but its reflects poorly on the site as a professional resource....

so maybe #2 is a 101 section, like, lets make it so no one has to bring this stuff up on a product page and allow it in getting started sections where new guys can comment and help eachother with beginner gear recommendations and there will be our clear cut getting started stuff.... I know we have gear guides like that but they could be living breathing hubs like the freshman labs in art school....

I don't even want to be involved in these basic discussions or see them but they need to happen...

Some people are even using the related items module as a platform for their own gear pairings now, such as a cheap microphone going into a popular interface.

woohoo, another samson knockoff shure into a xenyx! I can't wait to hear THAT record. Bet its L2ed into a brickwall... sorry, had to

by all means use what you've got but don't try to sell the world on the cheapest setup going.... I was definitely not advertising my radioshack mixer and tape deck as a kid

So if there is agreement around this sentiment, how can we do better?

1) just starting with guitar, because, look, I'm now accepting guitar will always come first.... we could have like a rig layout thing with signal flow like how the old guitargeek layouts were done.... so you can show your layout and add notes to share your methods.... that simple.... sometimes this stuff is better shown visually... this could grow to studios, I think a lot of younger people shy away from patchbays for example because its hard to visualize and loaded with electronic hurdles but its way better for workflow

who has #2?

This mythologization is the mixed result of 1) nostalgia for the golden ages of certain genres, 2) celebrity association ("if he's using it, it must be good"), and 3) the overhyped commercialization of the rock and synthpop tools during those genres' golden ages.

1 and 2 sure 3 I guess but the truth is that the more complicated items have a much greater impact on what reaches the audience (assuming there is one these days)... I own a lot of iconic instruments and devices but the desert island ones actually have an irreplaceable something that's not replicated by much if anything else.... they are simply not made with the same features and the same quality anymore. Or there's something new but the old one is cheaper. Other stuff? well I have it. Pedals? Such a disposable commodity. Some stuff I keep because I got it when it was newer and I;m used to it, its not because its special.

in short, I don't know that the devil wears prada quote is always applicable

but gear pics, I wonder what we can do to get new people to not only post their rigs but look at the pics that have been floating around here since you could only put up 3 photos. I'm always trying to get in discussions with people on these photos to share knowledge just as Michael suggested we need to do in the first post.... I get a little weirder about methods but its kinda goofy, I'm trying to be more forthcoming but then I get bombarded with mixes I feel obligated to listen to and critique and I'm always still learning myself, every mix I discover a new idea about making a record, its a lifelong chore

Understatement of the year, lol... but if guitarists are the ones merrily clicking the Reverb and Amazon affiliate links these days, and not the Martin Garrix-ers of the EDM craze a few years ago, I can't blame EB for leaning into it. The pandemic has been great for MI sales on many fronts, but I suspect guitar and pedal makers saw the biggest gains.

Look, I'm a guitar player... in theory.

I think knowing how people use their gear is something Equipboard could do better.

Agreed.

however you want.... I like using SM57es to prop doors open... haven't found a musical application yet

it seems like the site is so guitar-centric and guitarists make so much of their rigs but there's so little variation between all these circuits, I really like how we're doing related items.... you know there's like 5 cents parts difference here because the circuit is terribly similar even though this ones not in a green box. If that's not helpful I don't know what is. There are classic things that are mythologized with good reason, but I was thinking about the 90s comics boom last night and the pedal boom is starting to feel similar. Eventually will people just wanna go back to Batman on a regular size cover? Are the budget TC boxes a harbinger of times to come? I lost the script here, but these things have been running through my head lately as the site's goals change and I work on this comic book with my friend. Its ahrd not to question the permanence and relevance of the current landscape.

• Even you, Jim! - Colorsound Overdriver clone with EQ mod tagged as an original

oh wow, I should fix that.... its a master volume mod, we all did them because the real one I had was worthless for creating much of its own overdrive unless you wanted to totally blow out your first triode stage

people are mis-tagging their own gear?

<-----impressed, boys

Perhaps a live visual is needed.

that's exactly what's needed to be up to equipboard standards, this is hazier than the midi moog

no way to know, the change from the 305 to the chinese one is right smack dab in the middle of our timeline.... perhaps a 2000 was bought with the composer on the same day because the 305 became the 2000 to match the compser's designation, they seem to be from the same series.... but perhaps not, perhaps the 'improved' 305 is a chinese version versus a previous german one. Although behringer's timeline suggests 1u rack units all went to china when the composer came out, all the composers are chinese but previous 1u models would have become chinese if that timeline is accurate. So its a minefield.... is there a v2 305 that's chinese? or did the 2000 start up with the move to china.... can Uli be trusted? Who can remember this stuff?

Nevermind, here's a PEQ2000 user manual dated 1995... so the PEQ2000 is still in play as a possibility

I felt like the timeline a cobbled together earlier was probably about right....

Nevermind, here's a PEQ2000 user manual dated 1995... so the PEQ2000 is still in play as a possibility

I felt like the timeline a cobbled together earlier was probably about right....

I don't even have the energy to call people out anymore, whatever. If they knew how they looked they would stop.... I don't think we're the only people side-eyeing this behavior, its goofy.

mine's 3u but its a 90s SE1, the new midi-mini reissue looks to be 4 so perhaps the original is too.... I've never seen an 80s one in person, only behind depeche mode and other famous people in documentaries

also, at the time there weren't any other 3u analog rack synths I can think of.... that's a really limited niche at that point

its only a diagram

I don't see an LCD so eyah

yup, orit might be a later one like mine, the se1, its a gray period as to when the change came....

well the amp in that demo is awful, I'm obviously running it into something that's not awful.... perhaps its an acquired taste though, like the butthole surfers only a cheap diode clipping distortion from the 80s

also I'll add that the fx55 has this rusty chainsaw quality usually associated with shin-ei effects but its tamed down a lot.... its a very sanitized rusty sawblade distortion if you know what I mean. Its dying to become someone's signature sound....