Here's a track I recently finished recording and uploaded to YouTube, but without posting about it on this blog. Actually, this is a slightly tweaked version of what I previously uploaded, as I changed the EQ and mixing some for this version, and not in a made-it-worse way, but, the opposite. So, this is like a remaster of something you might not have heard before to have known its preremaster sound.
And, here are some pictures of Autumn. If you'd like to download larger copies of some of these photos, you can from this link.
And, some animated gifs that my phone nicely auto-made for me from photos I took (just as I'd planned). Click em for the larger versions and be immersed.
I had wanted to make a long record of leaves falling, but this video is only 21 seconds long. Maybe that's enough.
This is a video I took of many salmon trying to swim upstream to wherever. By the way, it stunk very badly anywhere within like 20 feet of the riverside / streamside, which would be because of all the dead salmon that I could see lying against large rocks and tree roots in the water. Eugh.
I have my 20U rack mostly set up now, but I still have to do a lot of 1/4 cable making and then wiring. I also have to order some brackets for the 2nd pedal shelf, and the TC Electronic 1128 EQ won't be installed for some months still, as I need to get some work on it done before it's ready for this rack, and I don't have the funds to take care of that right now.
The preamps and EQs are not likely to be set up for MIDI switching through the GCX controller. I plan to manually connect or disconnect whichever I plan to use at a particular time. I might, at some point, look into a half-rack patch bay to go into the empty half-rack next to the BOSS GE-21 EQ.
I think that the 2nd pedal shelf is mainly going to be storage for pedals that aren't currently connected. I've made it 2 slots smaller than the first pedal shelf partly for that reason, and also because in the lower section of the rack rails ever other slot for the cage nuts is spaced too narrowly to be able to install any gear into, so I could either position the 2nd pedal shelf as it is, or two slots further down, which I think wastes too much space.
I think I'm going to have to figure out some way to make the unit less top-heavy, as, right now, the whole rack can tilt forward very easy when its wheels are turned a certain way. After I have everything installed, I'll check it again. Maybe I can just put some weight in the bottom space.
I spent a while yesterday swapping preamp tubes in my JMP-1 to find which combination of tubes I like the most.
The combo I was previously using, which was:
V1 EHX
V2 Tung Sol
This was a generally decent-sounding combination, but it lacked definition in the cleans, sounding a bit muddy and non-defined in the upper mids and high ranges. The distortion with this combo gave a pretty good distortion sound, very consistent sounding
Some different tubes I tried include Ruby, JJ, EHX, Mullard (new production), Tung Sol. I only have one Ruby, JJ, and Mullard, so I tried them with different other tubes. This is what I found:
Very nice sounding, more midrange, sounds a bit brighter and more cheerful in its distortion:
V1 Groove Tube
V2 Tung Sol
The nicest, clearest cleans, with a great sense of snap on the bridge pickup of my strats, but not as cheery-sounding as the previous configuration:
V1 Mullard
V2 Tung Sol
The nicest distortion saturation, which sounds thicker-bodied, on the dark side of things, and maybe a bit more complex compared to the previous combinations. Cleans are nice, but a little less clear than the previous configuration:
V1 Mullard
V2 Groove Tube
Any of these three combos are good, though there is a trade off between any of them. I'm currently gravitating towards one of the latter two configurations, but I'm going to play around with them some more before I decide.
April 17th addition:
V1 EHX
V2 Groove Tube
I was playing with this combo today, and kind of liked it. Not sure that it's my favourite, but I'll try it out some more.
For any mere mortal, it might have been a couple weekends of work. But for a deity of lethargy like myself, those weekends required some months to space them out.
Here's the complete recipe for what I did to revitalize this case:
Removed the nasty old foam that smelled of cigarette smoke gone especially rancid like it fermented and rotted simultaneously, or something
Wiped down the whole unit with white vinegar 2 or 3 times to neutralize the odour (didn't improve it all that much, it seemed)
Arduously removed the old glue from the inside of the outer case by heating it with a hair dryer and scraping it with a chisel (so boring and arm fatiguing!)
Let the case sit in my garage for months, until there was no more of its former scent (good idea or happenstance)
Polished the most of the metal on both cases
Cleaned the wheels of grime
Washed, wiped and vacuumed all wooden surfaces
Bought new polyethylene foam and adjusted its size where needed
Glued in the new foam with 3M 77 spray, and used heavy objects to compress the foam pads onto the surfaces while they dried
Put the inner case back into the outer case
Installed a Korg tuner into the top slot and admired the fact that there's actually some of my gear in it, now
Here are some photos of the process, as it progressed:
A photo from the original Craigslist listing for the case - shown with its covers off.
The inside of the outer case, after I pulled off the foam, with pieces of foam still sticking to the old glue that was holding the foam in place.
The inner case and rack, separated from the outer case.
One side of the outer case, after having removed a bunch of the old glue
Jumping forward by a bit, here's having done all the cleaning, polishing, gluing and foam-inserting, and having just slid the inner rack back into the outer case.
Installing some new "cage nuts" clips that the gear will be screwed into. I left a lot of the old clips on the rack rails, and replaced only the rusted and more nasty-looking ones.
And here it is looking all smart with the Korg tuner installed.
The next phase of my global domination plan is to move my rack gear from the 2 smaller racks and some miscellaneous piles that it is currently is in, and into the marvelous rack of blue.
Here is the tentative list of gear to be moved in:
Korg DTR-1 tuner
Furman conditioner #1
BOSS GE-21
TC electronic 1128
TC electronic 1140
Digitech Valve FX
Marshall JMP-1
ADA MP-1
Digitech DHP-55
Alesis 3630
Drawmer DS-201
Pedal shelf
Voodoo Lab GCX
Furman conditioner #2
Second pedal shelf
BBE 462 Sonic Maximizer
Aphex Aural Exciter C
I don't have the ordering or wiring scheme decided upon, yet. With variable good possibilities, I might just start putting the basics into the rack and work it out as I go.
Unbeknownst to the world before now, while working on For the Continuum, my had-been-crapping-out-for-years subwoofer / sound system base crapped-out a bit more and stopped feeding audio from one speaker channel, so that while finishing editing and mixing of the track I could only hear one side of the stereo mix. I just ran with it, put everything in mono, and then moved things to wherever I felt they should be.
So, since sometime after June 22 and until today, I'd been utilizing a little trick that worked to give me pseudo stereo sound: By pulling the power connector jack half-way out of the jack, sound would return to both speakers. However, it wouldn't be the full sound. It was missing some layers of playing audio completely, seemingly arbitrarily. So, I don't know what it was doing, but if Mono is a 1-point audio setup, and Stereo is a 2-point audio setup, then I guess what I was getting was like a 1.5-point audio setup.
Today I listened to the For the Continuum mix from a full stereo setup for the first time, and I think it sounds OK. I was able to do that because, also today, I finally felt like taking a go at fixing the audio system, and had an idea of what I might be able to do to do so. Basically, I took things apart, desoldered some parts, swapped some parts, soldered things back in place, and put it all back together. The result was success, and now this thing is performing as it hasn't been for years.
I didn't really take pictures of the fixing process, but the problematic connectors were under that metal shield, which itself was difficult to get out. But, cutting and melting the glue holding that PCB in place, and finding the secret hidden nut and removing it, and then yanking hard with some pliers all contributed to eventual success in opening that mystery box of malfunction up to being repaired.
In celebration of my fixing this old piece of now-working audio-enabler, I set up my SM57 and MD 421 microphones and checked out Cubase, which I hadn't loaded up since finishing For the Continuum. And see how aligned I had those mics positioned from the speaker cones on first try:
Phase status: perfection.
Testing the phase and sound, I recorded while I briefly strummed some chords, notes, melody pieces, and switched various pedals on and off. If you want to hear some of the sounds I had on tap for this process, you can, because I uploaded them.
Let's see if I can recall which pedals are used where. In addition to whatever is written below, each segment is EQ'd with MXR 10-band EQ, using some BOSS CS-3 and PS-5 pedal touches.
(0:00) 1. clean guitar
(0:45) 2. Electro Harmonix Cock Fight
(1:23) 3. Tubescreamer clone, RAT clone, OD-1 setting on JMP-1
(2:00) 4. Tubescreamer clone, BOSS MT-2... not sure what else.
(3:05) 5. NYC Big Muff, op-amp Big Muff
Well, I'm uncertain about 3 and 4. But the others are exact. Fun.
Btw, I'm aware that I haven't yet completed and put out Burst of Stars as I had intended to. Which I'm sorry for, for myself and for anyone waiting for it. I haven't the money for a drums take for it, and so I think I'm going to leave it as is, for now... which I guess I have a good head start on doing.
If you haven't already given it a listen, I recommend doing so. Some of the best guitar tones I've put together are in it, and I think the music is pretty powerful:
These are some photos and video I took at the end of September, and in October.
Sunken
Celestial antipodes
Inlet Overview
Red in Green
Scenic power plant
I think I may have posted a pic of this power plant before, but if so, I don't remember in which post to verify. So, regardless, voila.
There's an early X-Files episode that features Mulder running through this power plant at night.
Visiting bear scavenging the bird feeder for birds (probably not)
This black bear showed up at my place a couple of days in a row. He took down a bird-feeder, ate as much as he could get out of it, and rolled around a bit, playing with it.
Another piece of cool gear I acquired recently, is a Crate GX-15R practice amp.
The convenience of a relatively low-volume, small, tubeless practice amp is something I should have capitalized on a long time before now, because it is often making the difference between me playing and not playing.
I've had an interest in picking up a small "practice" amp, and also this particular amp for a while. I did previously buy a Crate GT-65 from somebody selling theirs through Craigslist, but, well... it was busted.
I spent a bit of time looking into what the problem might be, and it could be something simple (blown output transistor(s) are suspected), but the cost of getting the amp on a tech's bench to be looked at would be as much as I paid for it - and that would still leave me not knowing whether it was indeed a simple and cheap fix or not.
I let the seller know it wasn't working, and they offered to return my money and did through Paypal, leaving the amp with me till it would become convenient for them to pick it up. That was 6 months ago, so I figure it's abandoned, and I might as well look into fixing it, myself.
Anyway, I more recently spotted a Crate GX-15R on Craigslist for the inviting price of $50 CND (~$40 USD). This is the Crate amp I would prefer to have because of its use by the Smashing Pumpkins on their album Machina (and I've read a claim on, I think, the Gear Slutz forum that somebody talked to a MCIS engineer who told them it was also slipped into mixes on that album... though, I have not heard that claim anywhere else), and also live. And, what do you know, I'm a fan of classic SP music.
BTW, the timing of my spotting this GX-15R amp on Craigslist coincided with the Billy Corgan Reverb shop opening up, where BC was selling two of his own G-15R amps - one for $200, and the other for $6,000. Regarding the prices, I don't know why. Maybe one was used on the album and the other wasn't.
So, I really wanted The $50 CND Craigslist one, and I contacted the seller right away. But, my first (maybe bad) instinct was to try to haggle on the price, so I sent a text offering $40 CND. Then, I didn't hear anything for a couple of days, and I panicked thinking I lowballed them, and that it was dumb because I really want this amp, and I haven't seen it show up on Craigslist often, and this listing was really cheap, so I sent another text basically saying 'I'll give the $50 for it, just tell me when I can pick it up'.
Seller responded, and turns out they were out of town for a couple of days - probably.
When I was picking up the amp, I made a joke about missing my chance to haggle on the price, and the seller responded, 'well, here you can have this pedal', and threw a Punch Factory Optical Compressor on top of the amp while I was holding it, ready to leave.
I must be great at jokes. I was eager to buy the amp, regardless, but, awesome.
This is the only "practice" amp I've played, but I think its sound rocks. Except maybe for the reverb. So, the GX-15 part of it rocks. And the R part of it is still nice to have.
Here are a couple of videos I made after getting the amp. It's basically just the guitar going into the amp - only slightly boosted with a BOSS compressor out front. I also usually leave a BOSS PS-5 running subtly in front of the compressor, so it could be that it was running for these recordings.
The first one I recorded with my phone next to the amp, with the amp turned down a lot - but clearly not enough, since the amp's sound keeps choking out the phone's microphone. I flip through all of my guitar's pickups while playing. The second video is demo of how the amp sounds when using its speaker-out connector to hook it up to my 4x12 Marshall cabinet, which I believe should have G12T-75 speakers in it. I recorded it with a Zoom Q2HD camera.
Buying new old stock (NOS) is a thing with music equipment, and it refers to buying never-used old stock for products that are no longer available to buy, making them old stock that is still new. Usually, the term NOS is used to refer to vacuum tubes which are no longer manufactured (and in some cases haven't been manufactured for half a century or more), but which some people still have old stock of available for sale, and often at extremely exquisite prices.
I bought a Digitech DHP-55 effects processor a while ago, hoping to get one than runs on the v2.00 or higher firmware, though that earlier one that I bought ended up having v1.04 firmware.
The absolute latest firmware for the Digitech DHP-55 is v2.04. But anything above v2.00 apparently has some added delay, reverb, and filter effect parameters and improved MIDI controls, which are features I was interested in. v2.xx also has extra effects presets that aren't in the earlier version units.
I thought I'd leave it at that, but recently I saw this Reverb listing for a "Mint" condition Digitech DHP-55 for $150 USD, shipping from Canada (where I live). The listing had just been posted, and I saw it because I was signed up for email notifications. That deal sounded awesome enough that I decided to buy it, and figured I'll sell whichever of the two DHP-55s I'd have that had the lower firmware.
Also, the listing had just been posted. I saw it because I was signed up for "Digitech DHP-55" email notifications. It probably wasn't going to stay around long regardless of who bought it.
I received it today, and found that it had the original, untouched shrink wrap still on it.
When I moved the unit around, I heard some rattling coming from inside the chassis, so I opened it up, and discovered these loose washer nuts in it, and also a small plastic piece. No idea what they were doing in there, as it doesn't look like they're needed anywhere. Anyway, I removed those bonus items and proceeded with my review of the unit.
While the chassis was open, I saw that the firmware chips have v2.03 stickers printed on them.
So, I set the unit up for use, and turned it on. Powering it up, the LCD screen confirms it is running on the v2.03 firmware. Also, there are, as of yet, no custom user presets: All of the "User A" presets are identical to the factory "Mono" presets, and all the "User B" presets are identical to the factory "Stereo" presets - keeping with the NOS (new old stock) theme by showing that this unit has never been configured before.
I don't know what the range of years is that the DHP-55 was produced within (the LCD copyright date is different on both of my units, so that isn't a clue), but a sticker on this one shows that it's a 1997 production unit, making it 20 years old at the time of its first power-up.
Also notable about this unit's having been kept in its shrink wrap is that its faceplate has not started to push away from the chassis, as is common with the long-used specimens of this unit.
The new, v2.03 DHP-55's faceplate (palm prints because it is hot and humid here today):
My older, v1.04 DHP-55's faceplate:
On top of being an ideal unit, it was also priced just slightly on the lower side of what these units have been going for used. So, getting an unused one for the price is awesome. I even think that I'll be easily able to sell my older unit for a bit higher of a price than I bought this one for, and recoup the entire cost of this new one after paying listing fees.
The seller is a music shop in Ontario. Maybe they had the device sitting in warehouse storage and just came across it, and wanted to offload it to free up inventory space.
Whatever the story, I'm glad I found and bought it, and I'm going to enjoy using it.
One of the most recent pedals to be added to my arsenal is this clone of a 1970's op-amp Big Muff.
I completed this pedal some months ago, and I had started working on it a long time before that. But I stalled its assemblage at the point when I decided that I wanted to make a couple modifications to the build, and couldn't immediately do so.
I had soldered in the two IC chips / op amps, yet then decided I wanted to make one of them removable so that I could try different op amps in its spot. Different models of op amps produce different slightly tonal characteristics. pictured - an op amp
For example, I think that the only difference between the original op-amp Big Muff and this recent modified clone of it:
... is that the original uses the RC4558 op amp chip, whereas the Eye See Pi modified clone of the original uses an BA4558 op amp chip, which I think gives it a bit darker of a sound, and slightly different distortion characteristic.
So, I decided to remove the relevant op-amp and to install an IC chip holder that I could install in its place and then swap different op-amps in and out of. And I destroyed the original op-amp in the process - which didn't surprise me, and also wasn't a big deal since I already had to order the IC chip holder and other op-amps I wanted to use, anyways. I just ordered another of the original op-amp along with those other things.
The other modification I wanted to add to the pedal is a mid frequency-scoop switch, like there was on the original op-amp Big Muff pedals, and also like there is for that Eye See Pi pedal. The Big Muff has a pretty large mid frequency-scoop by default, and the switch gives an added option to take most of that mid-scoop away. I think the switch should be included in the pedal kit by default, since it was part of the original production run (though not the later production run), and I've personally found the modified no-scoop setting to be the one that I'm using a lot more.
Installing the switch was pretty simple, and just required a precision drilling of a 1/4" hole to fit a toggle switch through, and a couple of wires and resistors to connect each side of the switch to the pedal's PCB. I also placed some electrical tape between the switch components and the PCB.
So, I had this pedal sitting in a semi-completed state on my desk for probably many months until I decided to initiate those modifications - and then I finished it up quickly.
dramatic re-enactment of the alleged desk (actually, just not cleaned up yet at the time of its photographic capture)
There was a problem with the pedal when I was first testing it out, being that the emitted sound would not stay entirely on while the pedal was engaged, but would flicker on and off. So, I opened up the pedal again, and looked for shorts, particularly where I'd installed the mid-scoop switch. But found nothing wrong there.
However, I noticed large amounts of flux residue around the potentiometer leads, which can cause a short, so cleaned it away using isopropyl alcohol-soaked Q-tip / cotton swap / cotton buds, and, thankfully, that solved the issue. Since then, the pedal has operated perfectly.
After testing out the 3 op-amps I ordered, RC4558, BA4558, and BC4558P, I've ended up keeping in the original RC4558. Of course, I can swap it out for one of the others at any time.
