the_last_factory

The Infinite Jets is my desert island pedal. I've always looked for a pedal that can make my guitar into something other than a guitar and the Infinite Jets delivers on that. From the choppy, stuttering leads and chords of Glitch B to the hazy, warbly tones of Blur. This pedal turns my guitar into an orchestra with only a few notes. I've always been a big fan of guitarists like Christian Fennesz who marry their effect pedals with digital processing to make something as basic as a guitar sound like a whole other instrument. It's such an innovative and inspiring pedal that I recommend any ambient guitarist and/or sound artist to buy it.

I've had the Rubberneck Delay for almost two years and it is an ambient guitarists wet dream. An analog delay that goes up to 1 second with an effects loop and pitch shifting capabilities and knobs to fully control oscillation and pitchshifting? Count me in. This thing can be a faux reverb and it can even act as a modulation pedal if you use minimal settings on the time and repeats. Also having a gain knob really helps give my repeats more weight and punch, so that's cool too. I recommend it to anyone looking for an experimental analog delay for their setup.

This is one of those limited run of pedals that, in this economy (2020), will cost you an arm and a leg. However, if you got the cash and you love creating soundscapes or just getting weird with your guitar and pedals than this is the pedal for you. What would've taken three or five pedals to make the sounds in this thing you can do with one of sixteen presets. I've only played it three times since I've gotten it, but it is amazing and I'm so happy with the sounds I can generate from it. I own a Infinite Jets and have played it in parallel with the microcosm and it only makes since that these two siblings would play well together. I won't get into to much detail or go over every preset and I know not everyone likes menu diving pedals, but if I could describe this pedal: It's like the bait you take fishing with you to catch ideas and you will always get a bite.

This is a beautiful delay pedal that I use mainly for swells since I lack a volume pedal, but I also use it for extending copies of my tape and analog delay repeats since I like how the copies degrade with time. I used to own a DD-500, but it was stolen and I used to think that this was a piece of shit pedal just because of the way that it looked, but as you can see I was so wrong and it is now crucial to my overall sound.

This pedal is what I have been looking for in a reverb pedal. It's got the best plate reverb I've ever heard in my life. It has an all encompassing algorithm called Spatium that can be any big reverb you want it to be (which I have no idea how to pronounce that word). It's got amazing atmospheric reverbs like Vortex which I think is amazing for drums, bass, synths and my glitchtar. It's also got this deep algo called Anti-Shimmer that yields itself to becoming a beautiful pad for Dark Ambient soundscapes which I use constantly. The reverb delay and diffuse delays are to die for. The delay algorithms are just as amazing and I love the sounds that I can generate from the Ambiental algo (shimmer reverb-esque delay), the Transposer algo is an amazing pitch-shifted delay that adds more color to my palette with chromatic echoes! I'm only scratching the surface in here describing the pedal, but if you are looking for a high-quality reverb for live sets and studio use this in my humble opinion one of the best.

What is there to say that hasn't already been said about the MXR Blue Box? -2 octave fuzz pedal with thick fuzzy tones that comes with bad tracking and volume suck. But if you place a compressor before the Blue Box to balance your dynamics, the volume issue disappears and the tracking somewhat improves. The thing that I will say is that I've learned from using it for the past 10 years, is that the bad tracking is part of it's charm and one must lean into it in order to get the most out of it. For me this pedal has become a center piece of my sound. I use this pedal for sludgy riffs and thick noise rock leads when paired with my HM-2 or Life Pedal. I also use it bass synth and drones as well. Since the octave is analog, playing chords or low notes causes a warm glitch in the tracking that can be used for rhythmic elements, but only if your balancing your dynamics with a compressor (it doesn't have to be expensive). If you're a fan of classic fuz tones that can go into really dirty, heavy and noisey guitar tones then you should give this is the pedal a try.

I used this a lot for the bass and atmos in my music. Dead Texan and New Night's Begin are actually pretty good examples of Xpand!2's capability. There's also some decent orchestral sounds and instruments on their own and can get some somewhat realistic sounds out of them, but nowadays I mainly use them to compose pieces for hired guns that will play those parts with the real thing.

I own the Vacuum Mono synth and mainly use it for bass and SFX and I didn't even know the polysynth existed. I use this as a substitute since I sold my analog synths and while it isn't an actual analog synthesizer, it gets the job done for me. I love this plug-ins lush pads and it really hits the mark for me on intuitive interaction and expression.

I have two dirt pedals that I utilize to either beef up my signal or absolutely destroy it, but when I don't want to go through the trouble of hooking up my outboard gear to setup I just open up Decapitator. It's one of those saturation/dirt plug-ins that can be used with subtlety to add warmth to your tracks or you can be abrasive by initiating the "punish" button and turn your signal into a glitchy fuzzed out mess. It goes great with everything and I'll probably be using it in place of my Life Pedal when I tour or play shows in town.

I don't want to blow my speakers by clipping my gear all the time. The Devil-Loc as well as the Decapitator help me achieve that sound. I love the crunchy drums on Tame Impala records and on Ben Frost albums, but since I can't find a Level-Loc available and I'm very selective about what I buy, the Devil-Loc is a great alternative and is a near-perfect emulation.

Ever since my gear was stolen two years ago I've been very wary of bringing my gear to shows all the time. So instead of taking my RE-20 or Rubberneck everywhere with me I instead just use the Echoboy as a substitute for those units. I love the Echoplex preset on it and I put tape saturation on all my samples and to give my DI guitar more warmth. It's very simple and intuitive and I recommend to any lovers of tape echo. Trust me, you'll get what you paid for and your back will thank you.

When I made my first album I used two VSTs exclusively. Xpand!2 for my pads, leads, and world instruments and Vacuum for SFX and bass. Sadly, I couldn't get Vacuum since it was exclusive to ProTools, but in recent years they released it as an individual plug-in that you could use on any DAW. I love this thing so much for it's killer emulation of analog mono synths and how rich the harmonics are on it. It is still to this day one of my go to synth plug-ins. My favorite sounds on it are bass and this preset that emulates vinyl crackling that you can create glitching and feedback with.

I bought this E. Piano to practice on and use as a MIDI Keyboard, but one day I wanted to mess around with my effects pedals and see what this puppy could sound like with added effects and when I started playing, I was surprised. Then I got Ableton Live and have been using it for it's Pad, Piano, and Organ presets just to mess around with them. As well as using as a MIDI Keyboard/Controller. It's pretty cool what you can do when you experiment with instruments people think are pieces of shit and are of no good use to you. But I think if you work with what you got you can do great things with what you have access to. Update: Fast forward to 2019. I'm now using it for it's piano, strings, and orchestra presets. As well as other instruments. I have it running through my Space Echo, an EHX Worm, and an HM-2 to create a Basinski-esque tape effect.

I've been using this in a lot of studio projects since I got it and just recently started using it for live gigs. It's a wonderful synth. If you're wanting to ambient, dubstep, glitch, or some jazz. Then the Novation Ultranova can do it. I love it because of how easy it is to use and it's never ending sound bank and modulation capabilities. You can make evolving soundscapes with it and even create some nasty glitch sound effects using nothing, but the many distortions and arpeggio.

I used Protools 8 to make my first solo album and Protools 10 to make the Ultimus album. It's great for big projects and especially when you're working with a lot of studio equipment. It's even more handy with all the plug-ins it comes with. https://theblakstarexperience.bandcamp.com/album/ep-elegiac-persona https://ultimus.bandcamp.com/releases

A lot of my favorite artists use this DAW and It's basically god's library of amazing sounds and instrument.

I don't use this as a DAW, but rather as a sequencer and effects processor for my backing tracks and samples during my live sets when I'm playing a more minimal set. I love it mainly for it's bitcrusher, reverb, and tremolo. Also it's amp simulators aren't the best, but it does make Xynthesizer sound really degraded. I'm not going to lie though I have made one song on my upcoming album with GarageBand. It's got great pianos and synths, effects, and drum machines. I recommend it to anyone who wants a beginner DAW or cheap and affordable sequencer. Especially if you got IOS.

I mainly use this as a controller for when I'm mixing something in the studio, but since I sometimes bring my Mac with me to shows I also use it to trigger the samples I have during my sets. It's very intuitive and straightforward. It's not as good the Ableton controller, but it works.

I bought this mixer for the sole purpose of recording my live sets, but I've mainly been using it to sub mix all my keyboards and samples. I like to use it's long delay in conjunction with my F. 13 flanger and dirt pedals in the FX loop, because it creates somewhat of a glitchy/tape sound (videos posted on 4/11 and 4/14 on instagram if you want an example). I also like overloading the FX loop to get a brunting chaos sound out of it to process through my Infinite Jets. It's a reliable mixer and I recommend it to any musician on a budget.

If anyone tells you the apple products suck when it comes to music. You should probably ask them what they use for their equipment cause it's probably PC (which in my opinion they suck unless you build your own which is an inconvenience). The MacBook Pro is the best laptop to use in both live and studio performances.

This was one of my first effects pedals and it's a great way to introduce yourself into the world of phasers.

I've seen a lot of my favorite artists use this as a portable substitute for their RE-201s on the road and it gets the job done. You can create the spaciest most atmospheric tone with the Roland Space Echo. It's such an amazing pedal even by itself and I highly recommend buying one for yourself if you're a fan of lush, dreamy warbley tape delay than this. Especially a tape delay with tap tempo and tape that never breaks!

This pedal cuts out the hum and buzz from the signal coming from your Bass, Guitars, Synths, and Mics to your amplifiers.

I use this pedal rarely with my guitar because I mostly use it to manipulate feedback which makes it have a rattling underwater noise. Which I sampled and added to my songs. It's a great and affordable pedal to get into the world of analog delay.

It's a great distortion pedal for any genre you're playing. Metal, Country, Blues, Shoegaze, anything. It can even take different instruments from bass to synths. This pedal can be everything from boost, overdrive, distortion that can almost become fuzz. This pedal does it all. At my last show I used it as a boost for my keyboardists Microbrute and really colored the digital pedals she was using.

. USB Cable (check) . Laptop (check) . Minilab (check) With the Minilab and any other Arturia MIDI Keyboard. You can't go wrong. With the Minilab you can take it wherever you go and jam on the spot wether you're at home or on the road.

The Moog Prodigy is usually meant as a bass synth. But I use it for more than a bass synth. It's got a great tone for Pads and Leads that no one seems to explore all that much. This synth has such a rich unique tone that you just can't help explore the beautiful, subtractive, monophonic synth that it is.

A lot of people say this synth is underwhelming and that it's biggest limitations were: shortest attack too slow for really percussive sounds, the sensitive vco frequency adjustment, and lack of chorus to thicken the chords. But I disagree with a lot of those, minus the chorus. I think it's one of those synths that just requires a lot of time and patience put into it to know how to get the sounds you want out of it. There's so many amazing sounds I've made with it that are truly insane and I suggest anyone with effects pedals get this synth, because it is a trip.

Everyone from Fripp, Slowdive, Adam Jones, Alex Scally, Adrian Belew and many other guitarists who use effects have had this amp for it's clean tone and compatibility with pedals. I've had mine for 2 years now and it isn't going to be leaving my studio or live rig any time soon.