mauricioibanez's Reviews
28 reviews Back to mauricioibanez's Equipboard
346
Beautiful guitar with great playability at an affordable price.
This guitar has been my baby for the last four years. I love the Autumn Fade Metallic finish, it goes really well with the maple fretboard. It has a lively, snappy tone and it's super comfortable. It's a versatile instrument and I like the sound of the stock pickups, so I won't be changing them anytime soon. The locking tremolo works well. It's a mid-price guitar that performs like a pricier instrument.
346
My experience with Windows 10 Professional.
I bought Windows 7 Ultimate years ago and first installed it on a Bootcamp partition on Mac. I always had trouble with dpc latency issues that ruined my recordings so I didn't like using it. Now I got a custom PC and got the opportunity to update my Windows 7 Ultimate license to Windows 10 Pro for free. It's the best Windows system I've ever tried. Very stable and rock solid!
346
Summary of the Mesa Boogie Road King II
This guitar amplifier is literally the king of Dual Rectifiers. It has all the bells and whistles. It features four channels that can be treated as four separate amplifiers. Each channel has 3 modes or voicings with the flip of a small switch next to the tone controls. Also the power tubes can be selected in different combinations per channel. It features selectable diode or tube rectification per channel as well. Like all rectifiers it features the classic spongy or bold switch on the back panel which changes the amp character. Spongy reduces the voltage which also reduces the headroom and makes the amp more bubbly and easier to play at lower volume. Bold turns the amp into a fierce beast and it's best suited for loud situations like live performance or band rehearsals. The main difference between the Road King I and II is that the second features the clean channel of the Lonestar series. Sparkly and beautiful. Overall it is a tremendously versatile guitar amp and I love it.
346
Summary of Vocaloid 4 Kagamine Rin & Len V4X.
I bought this vocal synth from Big Fish Audio less than a month ago. I love the Kagamine twins. They're cute and adorable. I'm very thankful that the package includes English voice banks. Their voices are sweet and pure. Easily identifiable from each other which is great. Piapro Studio is a joy to work with as a VST inside Reaper 64 bits to create melodies and lyrics. I feel I have much to learn about the engine yet to fully unleash it's potential. It sounds very, very good. This product inspired me so much, I wrote and produced an entire album of 10 original songs from scratch in one week dedicated to the Kagamine twins which will be released soon this year (2019.) It is really inspiring. Highly recommended.
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346
Summary of the Audix OM7
I bought this microphone because I found out Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree uses it for live performances. Also because it has exceptional feedback rejection. I've used it for studio recording purposes with great results. It needs a significant amount of gain from the audio interface's preamp though. The sound is clear and crisp. I love the fact it rejects feedback so well because I never get nasty squeals and noises of any kind when I use it. It is a quality product, very sturdy. Highly recommended.
346
Summary of the Ibanez SV5470F
I bought this guitar in 2010 as a guitar student at LACM: Los Angeles College of Music in Pasadena, California, USA. It quickly became my favorite due to its light weight, low action, good sustain and beautiful flamed maple top. This particular model came in three colours: Dark Sunset Burst, Sapphire Blue and Transparent Black. I chose the first one. It is really gorgeous and it gets a lot of use in my studio recordings. It has a push-pull switch that allows for the humbuckers to go into single coil mode. That makes it a very versatile guitar. It also has the SynchroniZR tremolo which is a very sophisticated piece of hardware. It is my main electric guitar.
346
Summary of Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2.
This is the mothership of synthesizers. The massive library, advanced synthesis parameters, FX, etc. make this product a powerhouse and a must-have for every serious music producer. I've used it on all my solo albums and other music productions as well. The sounds are to die for. Rich, detailed, pristine. The price tag is quite high but this synth is absolutely worth it. This is top of the line audio software.
Version: Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2
346
Summary of the Korg Collection.
This is the latest version of Korg's legendary bundle of virtual synthesizers. Now they have added the amazing Arp Odyssey to this massive arsenal of synthesizers. They dropped the "Legacy" title. I'm currently going through the sounds and they're incredible. All the previous synths have been updated as well. This is just pure synth goodness.
346
Waves Tune Summary.
Melodyne is the king of pitch correction on single and polyphonic sources but its price is enough to make people look for alternatives. Enter Waves Tune. This is an incredibly useful and flexible pitch correction plugin. It features formant correction and other very useful tools. The editing window is a bit small but once you get used to it, correcting vocals is a breeze. Highly recommended plugin.
346
Sylenth1 Summary.
This software synth has been around for quite some time. However, its sound quality is astounding. Leads, pads, arpeggiators, synth bass and more. The sounds are inspiring and very usable not only in electronic music productions but rock music as well. One of my favorite software synths.
346
Summary of the Waves Butch Vig Vocals.
This is my go-to vocals processor. The interface looks a bit convoluted but it's easy to get used to it. It's very easy to find different types of vocal processes browsing through the presets. Lead vocals, distorted vocals, filtered vocals (telephone FX) and more. It's easy to use and sounds great.
346
A quick review of the Peavey Revalver 4.
This is my go-to software amp modeller. It comes with a big array of Peavey amps as well as amps from other brands such as Mesa Boogie, Orange, etc. The FX list is quite large. I use it a lot in studio recording situations. The fact you can change the impedance interaction and also mess around with the schematics of each component besides the basic options of changing the cabs, impulse responses, mic position and so on to achieve your desired tone makes this software extremely powerful. For all that you get in this software, it isn't that expensive. A winner for sure.
346
A quick review of the Mexican Fender Stratocaster Standard.
This was my second Stratocaster. I always wanted one in Candy Apple Red and maple fretboard. I think it's a gorgeous classic. This guitar comes from Mexico but it is excellent. I couldn't detect any flaws in the build. The sound is all you could want from a Strat. Classic tone and very versatile too. This guitar can do most genres with ease. Rock, jazz, blues, even metal. This guitar will stay in my collection for sure.
346
Quick review of the Korg 01/WFD.
This is one of those old school 90's Korg synths. Successor of the Wavestation. It's made of aluminum so it's very heavy. That's not good news for any gigging keyboardist's back but fortunately for me I just keep it in the studio for recording purposes. It has some lovely sounds. Many of them are quite dated but have lots of character. I use it mostly as a midi controller with software on my studio PC.
533
The 01/W was a successor to the M1. Agree with your remarks concerning weight and sounds! I do regret I sold mine...
346
Quick review of the Shure SM57 mic.
This is the quintessential studio microphone. Most if not everyone who owns a recording studio has at least one of these microphones. I use it mostly to record electric guitar and snare drum. I've seen videos of people using it as a vocal microphone too so it's very versatile. It is also very durable. The sound is bright and focused, ideal for miking guitar cabinets. It makes a great combination with the Sennheiser e906.
346
A quick review of the RG2550EX.
I got this guitar in 2004. This is my second Ibanez guitar, the first being a SA160 which I no longer own. It came with Dimarzio IBZ pickups which I later replaced for a Dimarzio Steve Special/Air Norton combination ala John Petrucci in his Ibanez days. The sound is warm, full and clear. Another cool distinctive feature of this guitar is the unique mirror dot inlays. Very cool.
346
My thoughts on the Audio-Technica AT8202 in-line attenuator.
I own three of these attenuators and they're pretty much life savers! There is a very serious design flaw on the M-Audio ProjectMix. The console has a phantom power switch which applies to all 8 preamps when activated. In order to record acoustic drums it's necessary to use both condenser and dynamic mics. However, since the console doesn't have attenuation pads on it, the signal on the dynamic mics for snare and kick drum gets boosted way too high, clipping even at minimum gain settings on those channels on the console. This is where these attenuators come into play. By using them with the snare and kick drum mics, I'm able to tame the signal by -30db, -20db or -10 db to taste with a 3 position switch. I have a third one just in case I need to tame a tom, depending on the song I'm recording and the drummer setup. I'll get two or three more of these babies soon. Very useful!
41013
oh man, I have a few of these in a box somewhere, used to use them all the time when I engineered professionally... what a great little pad on consoles and standalone preamps that don't have enough attenuation for condensers close micing blastingly loud sources
346
Yeah jimmarchi1, they're fantastic! Great quality and super useful for all kinds of situations where attenuation is required. ;)
346
My thoughts on Valhalla VintageVerb.
If you want dark, rich-sounding reverbs this is the plugin to use. Absolutely stunning sound quality, whether you're using it for a light dash of reverb to give any instrument that special "mojo" or going crazy with 100% MIX settings for special FX purposes. This plugin will give you the "lonely clean guitar tone" used by Mikael Akerfeldt when used with the right settings and a PRS guitar. Such a wonderful sound! Valhalla rocks!
346
My impressions on Sonar Platinum.
I've been a long time Sonar user, starting with 8.5 Producer and eventually upgrading to X1 Producer, X3 Producer and now Platinum. With today's technology, where VST3 and 64bit plugins are the standard, the experience of working with this DAW is VASTLY superior to what it used to be 5 or 6 years ago. The WASAPI audio engine works even better than the dedicated ASIO drivers for my M-Audio ProjectMix which is amazing. Using WASAPI, I can also have a second audio interface (my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4) and use it along with the other one with no problems at all. In order to do that on Cockos Reaper, I had to use ASIO4ALL. As you would expect, the DAW would become really sluggish and unresponsive to the point of frustration. Not with Sonar Platinum. This DAW not only looks pretty, it's FAST, SMOOTH and can handle absolutely EVERYTHING you can think of in a session without even flinching. Too many tracks and too many plugins on a session? No problem. Sonar Platinum will handle it like a champ. It works even better than Cockos Reaper, which is the DAW I've been using for the past 4 years almost exclusively. I will be using Sonar Platinum from now on as my main DAW. You really have to give the Cakewalk guys a thumbs up for their LIFETIME UPGRADES deal recently. Plus, there's so much good content included on the package, it's just too good to pass by. I use this DAW with a powerful PC (mine is an 8 core 32GB machine with Windows 10) and it's just flies. I can imagine adding a SSD drive to really take it to the max. It's just awesome as it is already. Absolutely recommended.
Version: Cakewalk SONAR
346
An incredible piece of software.
Wusik offered this plugin for free for a limited period of time during August, 2016. I got it and I couldn't believe how good the sounds were. The library is quite big and varied. Later, I bought some soundsets that Wusik released after the freebie gift. I totally recommend this synth. It's awesome! :)