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NPD: MXR Custom Comp

Here we have a Ryu vs Ken moment. On one side we have the flaming multi-hit Shoryuken, and pretty boy looks matched with a rockstar arrogance that just jumps out of the screen and infects the player. On the other side we have a disciplined and focused lifetime warrior, complete with reverence, inner calmness, a more powerful hadouken and a tatsumaki-senpu kyaku that avoids projectiles. But pit the two against each other and time after time it is shown to be pretty much an even match.

This time, Instead of Capcom, we have MXR producing the characters: two high-quality and equally non-asian looking whippersnappers just waiting to jump into the fray and wrassle it out, and in this battle I have already selected my fighter--the MXR Custom Shop Custom Comp (In an actual SF match I would choose Ken of course). You will find out that like Ryu and Ken, deep down these two pedals have the same heart and soul.

In 2010, As Street Fighter II was approaching its 20th anniversary, pedal manufacturer MXR (or is it Jim Dunlop?) discovered a stash of legendary CA3080 "Metal Can" ICs, the principal component that provided the legendary tone of the original dyna comp. Being a fervent owner of the standard block M-102 Dyna Comp (it is the only pedal I keep on ALL the time, with low sensitivity and high output) I decided to follow this trend. The 00's standard dynacomps are OK but not great compared to the original dynacomp, which sounded more open and less restricting. For $69.99 new, they are still a good deal, offering a much needed boost to the natural guitar harmonics and increased sustain with enough accompanying noise to make you consider getting a noise suppressor. They also choke your tone and give you too much squish if you max out the sensitivity. All in all, they don't even touch the tone of the original. So, MXR decided to put their supply of NOS CA3080s to work and release a new reissue pedal true to the original 1976 dynacomp specs and tone, completely handwired, and just like the original with no DC jack (battery only) or LED indicator, and of course the fancy script font. It retailed for $174 and like Ken there was a tradeoff for being the cool kid.

People greeted the '76 RI with open arms and loved the tone and lower noise levels, and for the money many even preferred the '76 RI flavor to boutiques like the Keeley compressor. A lot of people were also sending their pedals to Analogman for his mod, which added true bypass, a DC jack, and an internal LED. Falling under the camp of modern conveniences I held out for the rumored 2nd edition of this pedal.

A few months later mid 2010 we get the MXR Custom Comp. Built from the same CA3080 Metal Can IC as the '76 RI, the custom comp includes the DC jack, LED, and internal trimpots for fine tuning the pedal. It isn't handwired, and has slightly cheaper jacks and switch than the '76 RI. Also, much like Ryu, the Custom Comp isn't as flashy as its counterpart, but the guts are the same. It is also much cheaper at $129 compared to $174 for the '76 RI. I've found it for as cheap at $105 new online. Tone? Just as good as the '76 RI, the difference between the two being negligible. So there you have it: two very similar-sounding pedals with different cosmetic features and vastly different price points. Also, as of 2011, MXR no longer manufactures the '76 RI, but the Custom Comp is still in production.

Now on to the Custom Comp. Much like a dynacomp it has two controls: Volume and Sensitivity (which controls the threshold of compression). Also there are two internal trmipots inside the unit. As another reviewer put it, nothing could be less BOSS than internal trimpots. I concur. The two internal trimpots in the Custom Comp control attack repeat time and trim, which is code for some kind of tone control. With trim all the way down I found the tone to be extremely bright and way too tinny, so I maxed it out in the opposite direction and discovered a much warmer full-body tone that i was going for. I also turned the attack repeat down to its minimum time (50ms). The pedal has a built in attack of 5ms, and the internal trimpot does not adjust this built-in attack time, but instead adjusts the delay after the compressor begins to work before it can retrigger again. You can hear the effect more if you play very quickly which I don't. With minimum attack and max trim settings on the internal trimpots I started to achieve a hi-fi approximation of the standard block dynacomp sound that I was so used to drenching my tone in. All with less noise, and clearer yet not boosted highs! If you thought that Dynacomp style compressors were only useful for Gilmour-esque style leads, think again. Rich harmonics. Sustained bliss. Chords work too. You never knew your guitar put out this much sound. Skip the standard block dynacomp and shell out a little more for the Custom Comp.

#ca3080 #custom comp #dyna comp #dynacomp #mxr #npd #csp202

NPD: EarthQuaker Devices Hummingbird II

We should really go back to the beginning. Sometime in the 1960s VOX began to produce these strange little boxes that would plug in to the front of your amp right into the guitar input. It wasn't a pedal per se, but instead a battery-powered module, close enough I guess, and when you played guitar through one of these suckers your tone came out the other end transmogrified into a choppy and stuttery mess, a type of tremolo effect not found on competitors' (Fender) amps. The name of this device? VOX V809 Repeat Percussion. VOX also built this effect in to some of their teardrop guitars produced in the '60s. Now unless I'm mistaken, and if that's the case I would love to be corrected with some youtube clips, it took roughly 25 years for people to first dismiss and forget about this niche item, store it away and later rediscover it, and finally write some good tunes inpsired by the Repeat Percussion, the first one I can think of being How Soon is Now, and later every Spacemen 3 song.

So, yeah, it didn't seem to make too much of a splash in the 60s when it first came out, but in hindsight the Repeat Percussion was a jawdropping tremolo design. I found myself in a conundrum last week being unable to get the choppy sounds that I desired with my modified boss TR-2, and remembering my past failures with the Ehx Stereo Pulsar reissue. I knew I had to get a tremolo based on the Repeat Percussion design so I began to look around. Several boutique efforts were in the running for this specific type of tremolo effect including the Catalinbread Valcoder, Sepukku Repeater, and EarthQuaker Devices Hummingbird. Time to listen to some pedal demos...

One of my big gripes against boutique manufacturers is a lot of them don't innovate--they just put out clones of classic pedals and make money off of someone else's design. Sure, it's not always that cut and dry and a lot of times the demand is there for good reason--the originals have either been destroyed or are so rare and expensive that when you finally find one you can't afford it, and if you did you would be holding a ticking time bomb: a box of aging capacitors and possibly out of production components just waiting to kick the bucket. I decided to embrace what I really wanted, a newer version of the V809 with the original percussive sound, new high quality components, and a few extra features in stompbox form. After a few days of research and going over my options I ordered according to my conscience, the EQD Hummingbird II (pictured at top) which also happened to be the cheapest of the three at $145. I also got it from a local pedal distributor with a cool name, Tronbuilder, from King NC. Free shipping. Triple Win.

Now lets talk about tremolo, or amplitude modulation. There are basically three ways to do this: subtractive, additive, or both. These describe how the original guitar signal is modulated to produce that breathing, throbbing and sometimes choppy pulse. Additive (obviously) adds gain to the signal according to the LFO, and the ear hears this as a louder signal. Subtractive tremolo designs cut the signal gain, which leads to an overall volume drop, as the ear determines volume as an average level. The third type, which is cut-and-boost leads to no apparent change in signal level. Most tremolos are subtractive (cut) type and will suffer an audible volume loss if they do not have gain built in to the circuit or a volume control. The Hummingbird fortunately has a level knob and more than enough gain on tap, and changing depth usually requires you to adjust the gain accordingly.

This tremolo does not do sine wave. You should know that going in. The Hummingbird is for fans of Spacemen 3, the Smiths' song How Soon is Now, the beginning of Ride's Leave Them All Behind, and last but also mutually exclusive, Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The LFO on this trem is a reverse sawtooth wave or close to one, that is, it peaks to begin with and then quickly fades. I've had trouble before with other tremolos when I have to play songs according to the tremolo tempo and I'm hoping the choppiness of this one can really pull through for me and change that. It is noticeable enough to control the tempo in a band situation with the depth turned anywhere over 60%. It requires some tweaking when you put different signal levels in front of it, such as going from clean to a louder distortion. I try and keep my levels pretty compressed and level though, I know boring.

The sweep of the Rate knob does not leave me wishing for more range, which is the definition of perfect to me. There is a switch that lets you go from slow speeds to high speeds on the LFO. The depth is only desirable set at 50% or more from what I've found and the gain knob I would hope would be a set it and forget it type of deal but I'm still messing with it depending on the tones going into the pedal. When there are boutique tremolos out there for 300+ this one seems worth the $145 price tag to me.

#hummingbird #smiths #tremolo #npd #earthquaker devices #effects pedal review #eqd #how soon is now #repeat percussion #spacemen 3 #vox #tr-2 #pulsar

The Evolution and Philosophy of Guitar Synth: Roland GR-55

I wasn't always a guitar synth guy, and I have NEVER been anti-guitar. I also have never been formally trained in guitar or piano and I don't feel the need to choose sides when it comes down to it. However, I fondly remember that fateful day when I first discovered a mid '90s Roland GR-30 covered in dust and stored away in my girlfriend's parent's attic and my universe changed for the better. That was two years ago, and back then I had no idea what guitar synths were or what they were capable of doing. I surmised and later confirmed that her dad dabbled as a hobbyist in sound composition sometime in the '90s as I pieced together a long-forgotten collection of several other mid '90s consumer grade Roland products stored away in the attic, unused for over a decade, and shrouded in a fine layer of dust. A full-size U-20 laying inconspicuously on a stack of boxes, a D-50 with two library ROM cards still peeking out of the back panel's expansion slots, a SoundCanvas 1/3 rack unit with GK and MIDI i/o just sitting in the corner. Some sort of mixer to tie things together. I could only imagine the scores of suburban soundtracks that had once flowed through these units like lifeblood coalescing into a common identity. I would have enjoyed hearing those lost sessions, but that was another day. Now it was my turn. I took the GR-30 as my own and set off on my journey.

Flash forward two years to the current day and I have now developed an entire philosophy of sound based around the tonal possibilities provided by a guitar synth (the same GR-30) played through a ton of pedals and finally a Jazz Chorus. Much like a DJ who is constantly mixing records, I constantly mix levels and juggle competing tones of every possible variety, beginning with the most basic dry guitar sound and finally adding in all sorts of wet synth patches, which in themselves are usually mixes of at least two layered PCM tones. The knob twisting never ends I tell ya. Which is why I am inspired to introduce you to the new Roland GR-55 Guitar Synthesizer which debuted at NAMM '11 in January, and is currently in high demand amongst guitar synth enthusiasts.

But first, a little introduction to guitar synthesis for the novice. With just a little non-invasive (or invasive if you prefer) modification to your guitar you will be able to recreate the cathartic sounds of popular '80s favorites like Tarzan Boy. That was supposed to be a joke. But really, there are a few things you need: A special guitar pickup usually a Roland GK-2a/GK-3 or a piezo pickup. Connected to the special pickup is a control module that is small but kind of obtrusive and will mount via velcro, sticky tape, or screw directly to the guitar body. The control module has a 1/4" or 3.5mm analog input jack where you are supposed to patch in your normal guitar output. These two signals, which represent your dry guitar signal and your GK pickup signal are sent together with a few control signals to the synth floor/rack unit through a special proprietary 13-pin cable which is both expensive and prone to going intermittent from continued abuse. Definitely my least favorite part of the whole ordeal. One last thing, from the control module you can adjust all of the main parameters you require to quickly define and fine-tune your sound such as synth volume, change program patches, and switch between different mix modes (gtr only, gtr+synth, synth only). Although I have been testing out a new mixing mode where synth volume is controlled via the expression pedal and guitar volume is controlled via the volume knob on the guitar.

When you use a guitar synth you are putting out a wide variety of tones that each have a unique frequency spectrum that is much different from your typical guitar tone. More high end in other words. The creators of the GR-55 know this and they have offered several output settings that as far as I can tell just affect the tone of the output signal. The output options include Lineout/JC-120/Small/Combo/Stack/Return/BassAmp and a few others. I play into an effects board so I chose JC-120. For the best sound and speaker performance it is recommended that you play through what is known as a keyboard amp or any similar amp with a flat frequency response, rather than your typical tube amp that has a characteristic midrange boost which is flattering for guitar tones, but not so much for synth. I play through a JC-77 with the stock "icepick" speakers for a shimmery crystal tone. If you ever plan on swapping out your speakers keep in mind that the vast majority of speakers are designed for guitar sounds, not synth.

The Roland GR-55 and the entire GR series isn't really designed to go in front of a pedal board setup like most shoegazers would have it. Instead they were designed with the mindset that this one floor unit would cover all of your tonal needs and you would preferably go from the unit directly in to an amp, or preferably two amps. Roland obviously didn't survey my friends when designing that feature, and I feel rather insulted. What I do is send my synth outputs into the pedalboard and finally into my rack setup for further processing. On the other hand, there is much to gain by running the synth output directly into a stereo amp configuration. Unfortunately I use a mono pedal chain so I lose out on that luxury. I'll also say that if you thought pedals sucked guitar tone, wait til you hear what they do to guitar synth. It really takes its toll on patches that contain a lot of high end sparkle and gradient-like shimmer. Ditto for the mono feature, you end up losing some dimension to your sound. In addition to the synth tones they have built in amp modeling (a feature of the VG-99) and several of the amp models sound good to my ears, but not quite the real thing. The Twin Reverb was pretty close to nailing that compressed scooped tone minus the warmth. The amp models sound terrible if you put effects pedals after the GR-55 so I won't be using them too often in that application.

Let's take a look at the I/O on the GR-55. From the screenshot above there is a Roland GK 13-pin input, stereo or mono unbalanced mix out, Guitar out which can be assigned to be a mix of your dry guitar signal with additional COSM modelling applied if you have it enabled (more on that later). You can set Guitar out to just normal pickup, just COSM, or both. There is MIDI in and out, USB, which is used to transmit midi or digital audio, and a headphone out, which is nice. Also on the side of the unit is a door that opens up revealing an internal flash drive slot, which opens up a lot of possibilities for backing tracks and sampled material. Roland also recommends you use the flash storage to backup your patch data. Since I am not a laptop musician (yet) I like being able to toy around with the idea of using backing tracks without having to haul around yet another piece of gear like a sampler, laptop, or even iPod. Cocteau Twins used to play their backing tracks with a reel-to-reel, but flash just seems more reliable to me. There are also four stomp switches which can be assigned to change patches, start the backing tracks, control effects, or anything. And lastly there is an expression pedal which can do typical volume stuff, wah, modulation and more.

Roland did not include any software with this unit for easy patch editing via midi/usb so the lovely interweb community of DIYers contributed to the creation of a wonderful open source patch editor program written to take advantage of the GR-55's endless list of customizable parameters and patch options. The project is ongoing and it is already functional with constant updates. The software is called GR Floorboard. Remember that name, a lot of work has gone into this program, including the author reverse engineering all the midi specifications himself using user contributed data. The dedication to detail and functionality shows. The level of customization for GR-55 patches is simply ridiculous, which to me means that you can control more parameters than you would ever want to. And as far as I can tell, this software editor may be mandatory if you plan on keeping your sanity while editing patches. GR Floorboard makes it all possible via your PC. For example, look at the screen shot below detailing the PCM Synth A edit screen. Keep in mind that the GR-55 has two PCM synth engines meaning that, yes, we are looking at only one half of the equation in this screen shot, and there is also a PCM Synth B waiting to be chopped up and edited. Not to mention the multi-fx that can be added in any conceivable configuration and routing order. LFO and filter controls allow for things to get as wobbly and cascading as you want them to be. My favorite synth tones usually have multiple LFOs that are tuned to play off of each other, and I can see myself fine-tuning the fuck out of this thing.

For the first few days with the GR-55 I have been editing using the onboard editing engine and I'm actually up to speed on where everything is located and it isn't that bad. Naming patches is annoying as expected but you only have to do that once per each new patch. Each patch is made up of 2 PCM tones, 1 COSM modeling tone and the normal guitar pickup tone. There are 910 PCM tones available to choose from, with several different categories such as brass instruments, pianos, electric pianos, organs, vox choirs, synth pads/lead, bass, winds, acoustic instruments, ethnic percussion, metalic tones, and for the indescribable, other. To me each of these tones sound like they were composed themself from two other more basic tones, meaning the 910 PCM tones are more complex than you would expect. I was unable to easily replicate some of my favorite GR-30 patches in spite of all the available parameters and options. The GR-55 stomp switches (including the expression pedal and GK buttons) are all assignable to any parameter which are patch specific (you can also default to global settings if you don't need such specificity). Also per patch, you can have different string tunings, apply tones 1/2 to any specific combination of strings, adjust various gain and balance levels, change guitar sensitivity if you are expecting to change guitars for the song, route the multi-effects differently for each PCM/COSM/dry tone and so on and so forth.

What's missing from the GR-55 is the harmonizer and the arpeggiator features from previous versions. I was fully expecting an arpeggiator, and am saddened to hear of the loss. I never really figured out how to work the arpeggiator on the GR-30 and was hoping that they would release an easy-to-use arpeggiator on the GR-55 but I guess they just gave up on the idea. You can crudely approximate both functions with the use of the built-in delay and pitch shifting effects, respectively. Although, I'd gladly trade the COSM functionality for arpeggiator. It's almost like they were trying to make this unit a jack of all trades but a master of none. They did include a tuner with multi-string or single-string tuning functionality and mute, and a looper that I will probably never use, because I have a RC-20XL and you can't use the built-in looper and audio playback at the same time. The GR-55 defintiely tries to be a guitar synth first and foremost, with some limited guitar modeling options included, some basic looping and playback options, and a multi-effects engine that covers all the classic effects, like flanger, phaser, vibe, wah, eq, distortion, overdrive, compression, tremolo, vibrato, chorus, delay, reverb, etc. The huge LED is nice. I like to stare at my song names. Presets are mandatory in this age of complex tunage. The unit is now metal and no longer hard plastic like the former GR-33/GR-20 units so I don't feel like I will break it anytime soon. However I did get a defective unit on my first try, right out of the box the 13-pin connector was internally damaged on the unit and strings 3-4 were really low volume and fuzzed out to hell and back, then they just died and I couldn't get any signal from strings 3-4. I had to bring it back to the store and exchange it for my current and fully functioning GR-55. I'm excited about the prospects of exploring analog synth like sounds because these are modeled much more convincingly than my MicroKorg. Tones inspire me to write music and that's what this thing is doing for me lately. I've had the GR-55 for about 2 weeks now and already love it but sadly there are not enough hours in the day to fully explore all of the sounds in this box if you have a day job. Less blog posts. More GR-55 patch editing. G out.

#guitar synth #vg-99 #gk-2a #gk-3 #gr floorboard #synth #gr-20 #gr-30 #gr-33 #gr-55 #pcm synth #roland #jc-77

FMR RNC 1773 Really Nice Compressor

There are two types of compressors: the first type is used to limit dynamic range of audio material in a transparent manner. The second type of compressor is far more prevalent in today's musical world and is used to impart character or colour to audio material. The FMR RNC is of the former type that aims to limit dynamic range in as transparent a way as possible. This little box is one of the best transparent compressors available for under $1000 and it rivals compressors up to 5 times its price of only $180. I was able to pick one up this weekend for even cheaper, a grand slam of a deal for $100, and I tested it out on a variety of material, from vocal tracks, to drum submixes, to entire 2-bus masters. I would recommend this item to anyone for that price.

The FMR RNC is a true stereo compressor that cannot be run in dual mono. It features a sidechain so you can get that ducking effect with the proper trigger. Think dubsteb, or even better chillwave: Toro y moi, Neon Indian, Washed Out all use the pumping trick and sidechaining the kick is pretty much mandatory for dubstep. Anyways, this compressor does the trick and can handle a lot of compression without being noticable. I have a lot of experience with different compressors and I know how subtle they can sometimes be: however the RNC is so transparent that I could not even detect its effect at very low settings--the gain reduction meter and resulting waveform confirmed however that compression was happening. It adds no tone coloring whatsoever, and only starts to noticeably distort when you crank the ratio and threshold to the limit. The signal path is entirely analog with digital controls (sidechain has one A/D conversion but the compressed signal path is pure analog).

The RNC has basic compression controls on the front panel including Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, and Makeup Gain, as well as two push buttons for Bypass and Super Nice Mode. Super Nice Mode is a 3-stage cascading compression where each stage has been dialed in as to not overcompress the signal and for minimum noise. This is not to say that you have no control over the Threshold and Ratio in Super Nice Mode, you do, the unit just responds differently with the 3 compression stages. You won't get audible pumping or overly squished sounding tones with SNM. I really liked Super Nice Mode for tracking vocals, as it is meant to be the most transparent of all settings for this unit. As for drums the RNC just comes across a little too transparent, and you might benefit from something like an API or dbx box to add some color. I recently got rid of my dbx 1066 and have not missed it one iota. I just didn't dig the dbx colouring which I will describe as a "band playing through a PA" sound, and I definitely didn't dig its crappy gate/expander and how it totally attenuated my high end even when it wasn't compressing.

You gotta pay attention to your low and high end when compressing. Low-end compressors are known to remove high end content and distort bass content, it's just an unfortunate consequence of cheap design. The nice thing about the RNC is that it doesn't suffer so much in this regard. I didn't notice any high end loss or tone shaping when compressing through the RNC, and this is the primary reason for its reputation as one of the most transparent compressors available. I have heard people comment that it can thin out bass tones however, and I cannot comment on that because I do not have a good bass monitoring system and don't usually deal with bass heavy audio. In contrast, colour compressors and all high-end preamps are designed to mainly provide a tasteful EQing of the signal to thicken and otherwise provide a unique character to the sound.

I plan on using my RNC for light compression on the White Cascade live vocal rig, and in my home studio for vocal tracking. You can really put it on anything you want due to its transparent nature.

Further Reading: FMR Audio Website

#fmr rnc #compressor #toro y moi #neon indian #dubstep #washed out #dbx

Tune: Ear Training VST For Musicians/Engineers

Do you have "Golden Ears?" That question could refer to one of many things--the first being a valuable skill known as perfect pitch, or the ability to recall chromatic tones without any reference. The other "Golden Ears" refers to a multi-volume ear training course by Dave Moulton that seeks to prepare your ears for the sonic demands of dealing with finely tuned audio in the recording studio. I dove right into Dave Moulton's excellent audio training program about two years ago, and it has gradually shaped my tiny ear hairs ever since. The audible frequency spectrum includes frequencies between 20Hz-20kHz and this is where you should focus your training should you one day hope to obtain golden ears. It helps you to realize that sound is everywhere and all around you all the time. Now, whenever my attention is grabbed by a humming refrigerator or a computer fan or even one of those vacuum trucks that pumps asbestos out of the buildings downtown I can't help but wonder, what is the frequency spectrum of this wonderfully annoying noise?

The benefits are endless. When listening to music you will understand what it is you like about certain tones. You will understand how low and high pass filters work and what they do. You will be able to use a multi-band graphic EQ (like a Boss GE-7 or an MXR 6-band EQ) to tweak your guitar tone and make it uniquely yours. You will be able to tell the difference between mastered and unmastered material and even begin to emulate the characteristics of albums that you love. You will be able to stop feedback at a show, or if you desire, summon it in waves. These are some of the powers granted to the musician/engineer who seeks to explore the hidden secrets found within the audible frequency spectrum of 20Hz-20kHz.

Enough exposition. This post is not about Dave Moulton's Golden Ears Training, but rather about a much more interactive and very promising (did I mention free) training VST that I just discovered called Tune. Much as I did when I first began to spend time training my ears, now you too can get stoned and listen to the wonderful sound of pink noise being boosted by 6dB at 1k because earPlugins has designed Tune to be used specifically for this type of ear training exercise. Ever tried to find meaning in the static on old analog television? Tune might just be for you. And if you don't like listening to just pink noise and want to dive right in to the music you can just queue up any audio file in your DAW and it will function the same way as the pink noise training, by boosting and cutting various frequency bands until you find your ears beginning to bloom.

The embedded video can get you up and running with everything you need to know in just 3 minutes. The VST itself will boost or cut random frequency bands in 1/3 or 1/1 octaves depending on your preferences (anywhere from -12 to +12dB), and it will be up to you to determine which band is being affected. After entering your guess via clicking on the proper button you will get instant feedback and continue to the next random band. Rinse and repeat until your attention begins to wander--that's when you should call it a day. You can track your progress via standard quiz results, and even view history and accuracy and other statistics reports. This may be a gear blog but I agree with the earPlugins motto: "Skill is stronger than gear."

http://earplugins.eu/

#ear training #recording #vst #dave moulton #golden ears #earPlugins

Listen to Dreamweapon II: An Evening of Contemporary Guitar Music

by Corbie Hill

The night started with dudes with banjos sitting in a circle, playing bluegrass standards, as six pedalheads packed in their walls of amps and arrays of pedals. It would soon be time to call the Tralfamadorian ambassador in his/her own language, that of feedback and delay. But that’s just the kind of story we tell ourselves in retrospect. In actuality, we were six musicians with a common weirdness. We thought guitars should do unconventional things. Uncomfortable things. Dangerous, painful things. Beautiful things. We told a few people we would be getting together on an off-night at The Nightlight, a phenomenal venue in Chapel Hill that’s always been a real supporter of strange and outbound music, and a few of them actually showed.

Not many, really. At best, there were as many people in the audience as there were onstage. Not to complain though. For one, Betsy – a tireless supporter of Chapel Hill music – came out for the whole show. For another, transcendence happened. Nine amps, seven guitars, and sixty-five pedals, total, hit that stage. The open bluegrass jam over, the mandolin, banjo, and O-type Martin crowd warily dispersed. And we had a quick few minutes to set up and get noisy.

When Matt Guess, who put this thing together, first invited me, I asked to open with about twenty minutes of solo freeform guitar in the guise of my solo identity: peripherals. Following the peripherals intro, the other five would join. Let me tell you a little bit about my friends…

Matt Guess: plays in The White Cascade. Loves disorienting shoegaze washes, but has grown past a near-obsessive focus on that genre to powerful insights on niche music from the standpoint of a pure tonefreak. His specialty: indrawn atmospheres. Clouds of sound.

Matt Robbins: also in The White Cascade, the band’s drummer. Plays ride-heavy drums like a jazz percussionist in low gear. This was my first time playing guitar with him. His specialty: precision that doesn’t hide, even when it’s been run through a half-dozen effects.

Allen Palmer: plays in Goodbye, Titan. Wears a Boba Fett hoodie. Went as Dr. Venture this past Halloween and occasionally talks like Gimli. His specialty: making addictive rhythm guitar come out of absolute nowhere.

Tilson: Goodbye, Titan as well. I swear, this guy simultaneously has the mind of a four-year-old, a fifty-eight-year-old, and a hallucinating fruit bat. He and Allen form a single guitarist, it really is amazing how well they write and play together. His specialty: looped bweeoops that merge seamlessly into mandolin-esque treble-picking.

Andras Fekete: of Boat Burning, Thee Dirtybeats, and I think several more. Plays a Jazzmaster through some seriously dangerous pedals (one of them’s this crazy proto-rotary thing from the 70s with a reservoir of noxious liquid that makes it sound good, but is probably illegal to transport across state lines). His specialty: improvised badlands psychedelia, perfect for your next showdown. Treble that hurts so good.

And me, Corbie Hill: of Where the Buffalo Roamed, Alpha Cop, and Battle Rockets (that one’s on extended hiatus). I got kind of carried away and brought three amps and two guitars, but I used everything. My specialty would probably be on-the-fly relative tunings.

We missed our friend Matt Cash, of The White Cascade, but he couldn’t join us. He’ll be on the next one.

So I started off with my set as peripherals, which I felt great about. I believe my tuning was CGDF#BB, but I did some spot-retuning during the set. I managed to properly slow myself down for my solo piece, which is the hardest thing about playing on my own. Last time I tried to do solo freeform in front of people (late September ’10: Tipsy Teapot, Greenville) I was nervous, and I didn’t get to really find a theme or establish anything beyond frantic noise. The idea behind peripherals is slow introspection, even on the noisebastard passages, and I felt fantastic about how I handled myself.

I believe I played for twenty minutes (I used my Washburn for this set), and then Matt Guess stepped up. He started with samples from some gun show. Funny shit. Then he chopped the samples, set them wandering around like telemarketers lost in a roto-vibe, and added baffling tonal slices like white noise as re-imagined by a fretboard.

We let him do this for a while. We really dug the sound. Then, one by one, the rest of us joined. We made strange noises as we saw fit. Yet at this point the narrative breaks down. I remember waving a power screwdriver in front of my pickups, and I remember when Allen and Tilson brought in desert rock themes. I remember tuning my low-E all the way down to the second C# below middle-C (!!!!), kicking on an ODB-3 and my Micro POG, and creating seriously subterranean low-end swells. And I remember, best of all, the very last two minutes. Tilson and I had a thought, after we had been playing for an indeterminate amount of time, and we rushed out to my car (leaving the other four still improving). We brought in my drumset and set it up. I rejoined the others onstage, and Allen and I felt around for a closing chord progression. When we found it, we began to play and Tilson attacked the drums like some caffeine-electric tarantula. For two minutes. And then the playing stuttered, dwindled, and was done.

A half-dozen people who had been hanging out in the courtyard wandered in, fashionably late, and demanded music. But what we held was more like church than a jukebox, so there was nothing to tell them other than “sorry, you missed out.”

Note from Matt: There will absolutely be a Dreamweapon III, very very soon. For now please sit back and open your ears to the sonic secrets transcribed below:

the night perpetual by peripherals Dreamweapon II: An Evening of Contemporary Guitar Music by White Cascade

#dreamweapon #noise #where the buffalo roamed #boat burning #dreamweapon ii #experimental #peripherals #white cascade #goodbye titan #spacemen 3 #raleigh

DIY guide to feedback loop pedals

Feedback loop pedals open up a ton of sonic possibilities and can bring new life to boring old pedals, but are rarely seen in use and never stocked in your average guitar store due to their highly unconventional and misunderstood functionality. Perhaps it's because they feedback too much? I'm not talking about feedback caused by strings vibrating from an amp that was turned up too loud, but rather man's desire to harness the power of sonic infinity--for a sound that neither ends nor begins because it's too busy looping back upon itself over and over. For those of us who seek this uncontrollable power but have yet to witness one of these noisy stompboxes in action today is your lucky day. The premise is simple: you have an Input, Output, Send, Return, and a single knob for adjusting the amount of feedback. The Send and Return work like your standard f/x loop except on crack, and in between the two you can patch in any combination of effects pedals that you would like to feedback upon itself repeatedly, usually resulting in some form of controllable self-oscillation or depending on the pedal often unique and unpredictable results. Ever turned the feedback up on your delay pedal until you could feel the repeats growing exponentially and cascading out of control into a noisy wall of oscillations? That's pretty much it except the feedback loop works in a unique way on pretty much any type of effect to bring out the most extreme properties of each effect. There is absolutely no signal processing done inside the pedal itself, as the goal of the circuit is to just route the f/x chain to properly loop back on itself. There are some pretty nifty looking feedback loop pedals out there like the Total Sonic Annihilation by Death by Audio ($150) or the Eye of God by Devi Ever ($100). But the truth is these items are terribly overpriced considering you can build your own feedback looper for less than $20 worth of parts.

And there you have it! Behold the wonderful True Bypass Looper with Feedback Loop schematic care of Beavis Audio Research! Consisting of a mere 4 1/4" jacks, 1 resistor, 1 LED, 1 3PDT switch, 1 SPDT switch, just 1 potentiometer, and lastly 1 cool pedal housing (not shown). You can even strip down this design even further, by removing the resistor, LED, and SPDT (and switch out the 3PDT for a DPDT) in exchange for sacrificing the true bypass functionality and the LED which you don't really need. You can generally tell if this effect is on or off without a little light telling you. The total cost of components for this project will run you around $20-25 at most if you purchase your components from Mouser or Small Bear.

For the complete beginner there are a few points to note about the above schematic. First, you will notice that all the sleeve lugs are connected together. This is called common ground and is typical of all circuit design. Second, the single potentiometer (or pot) is a variable resistor that controls the amount of feedback in the circuit--notice that it is nestled in between the switch and the Send regulating the flow of signal into the feedback loop. Lastly there are two switches: A 3PDT (3 pole double throw) which controls the true bypass loop and LED switching and a SPDT (single pole double throw) which turns on/off the feedback functionality of the loop. You may wonder if a DPDT (double pole double throw) exists, and it does but we don't require one for this project. The stomp switches are named in the following convention: the first two letters indicate number of contact sets, and the last two letters indicate the number of contact positions. This means a 3PDT switch will have 3 sets, with 2 contact positions per set, which actually equals 9 total contacts and visually resembles a tic tac toe board. In the case of the 3PDT the center column of contacts is connected either to the top or the bottom row of contacts, alternating between the two every time the switch is pressed. Logical, right? A 3PDT switch provides the minimum number of contacts required for true bypass with an LED and usually runs between $5-10 each accounting for the majority of the cost of this project. Resistors/LEDs generally cost pennies each and the jacks will run a dollar or two each. You can also get slightly blemished factory seconds BBE-sized pedal enclosures from Small Bear for $5-10 each or you can just cannibalize one of your older more unappreciated pedals for its pristine non-biodegradable case.

Once you have all of the tools it's just a simple soldering job and you're done. I'm going to assume that you have basic soldering knowledge but if you don't you can search Youtube for some quick visual learning. Double check your wires and make sure they are going to the correct leads as labeled on the schematic. The hardest part will be getting the solder to stick on the switch/jack lugs. To do this hold the soldering iron to the lugs for a minute or so to heat them up before you apply solder or you will have a cold solder joint that is an incredibly weak bond and is guaranteed to come apart with little pressure. Luckily you don't even have to mount a PCB for this project, although your enclosure will need the proper amount of holes to cover 4 1/4" jacks, 1 pot, 1 dc in and LED (if using an LED, otherwise you don't need any power source for this pedal to work), and 1-2 switches depending on whether or not you decided to include the true bypass feature into this pedal.

One modification that you can make to this project is removing the true bypass entirely and just having a permanent f/x loop while retaining the ability to turn on or off the feedback circuit. To do this you can completely drop the 3PDT in the schematic and use either a DPDT (if you want an LED) or even just the SPDT if you don't need an LED. For SPDT, wire the Input to Send, the Output to Return, and the center lug of the SPDT to Send, and one of the side lugs to the center lug of the 500k pot. Lastly wire one of the pot's side lugs to Return. Now the effects chain will always be on, but the SPDT will toggle whether the feedback loop is on or off.

Conversely, you can eliminate the SPDT that controls whether or not the feedback is on and just have the feedback permanently engaged whenever the f/x loop is selected. This is my preferred version, because I have no intention of using the pedal simply as a true bypass looper for normal effects purposes--I only seek extreme volume and oscillating feedback functionality for cooking up delicious noise soup. To achieve this goal you simply imagine the SPDT in a permanent ON position, and with that mindset look again at the schematic and you will know to wire the center lug of the 3PDT (red output wire) to the blue lug on the pot and voila, feedback is always on when the loop is engaged. Done. This guy seems to have the right idea:

Thanks to Experimentalists Anonymous for providing us freaks with the schematic and a wealth of information on this project, not to mention for fostering a thriving online community that is very friendly and welcoming to novice pedal builders. In addition to this project they host an enormous catalog of free schematics for any conceivable and inconceivable diy project and I highly recommend diving into their community if you are the least bit interested or curious about building your own pedals. Until next time.

#devi ever #beavis audio reasearch #death by audio #feedback loop #guitar pedal #experimentalists anonymous #mouser #smallbear

Effector 13 Console II: Coming Summer 2011

Vintage much? I can see it now: musicians stopping mid show to blow the dust out of their cartridges just like old NES games: "Hold on guys, let me boot up my flanger real quick. I think I got it this time...*blows into cartridge* ...Dammit! Anyone have a spare 72-pin connector?" It is an interesting idea although proprietary stuff has a way of becoming useless fast not to mention the limited market makes it hard to resell. I'll keep my eye on it, but it's hard not to imagine myself drunkenly misplacing a foot stomp and crushing the card and pin connection into the unit. Here is the official release, re-blogged from http://www.effector13.com/

What is the Effector 13 Console II? Quite simply it is a guitar pedal in which you can insert two specially designed cartridges to create your own unique effects unit.

What do the cartridges do? For now the cartridges designers will be focusing on Fuzz, Distortion, Overdrive, and Boost fx, but there is the possibility of expanding into other kinds of fx in the future!

What are the controls? The Effector 13 Console II consists of two "channels" that can be switched on / off independently, with the channel on the right cascading into the channel on the left (like a standard signal chain). Each channel has four knobs whose functions change depending on which cartridge is inserted into the unit.

So the controls change depending on the cartridge? That is correct. For instance, the devi ever Soda Meiser's controls are left-to-right, Volume, Tone, Starve, and Gain. The devi ever Punch Love's controls are Volume, Tone, Grit, and Gain.

Can I build my own cartridge? Unfortunately the current format used for the Effector 13 Console II requires a cartridge to be designed with SMD components which isn't very user friendly for the casual DIY enthusiast. Fortunately there will be an adapter available so that you can plug any standard breadboard into the Effector 13 Console II for prototyping purposes.

When will the Effector 13 Console II be available? We are currently aiming to release the Effector 13 Console II as well as the Devi Ever Punch Love and Soda Meiser cartridges by Summer 2011.

When will cartridges from other companies be available? The brilliant minds at Dwarfcraft, Fuzz Hugger, Infanem, Malekko, and Mellowtone have all committed to designing cartridges that will be available at various times through out 2011.

How much will the Effector 13 Console II cost? The Effector 13 Console II will be available for $135, and will include the Devi Ever Punch Love boost / overdrive cartridge.

How much will cartridges cost?

Devi Ever cartridges will be available for $50. We are hoping that the other companies will aim to sell at this price point as well.

#effector 13 #console II #devi ever #NES #atari

Experimenting with the Roland SDE-1000

Oh the things you can find on Craigslist if you are looking. Such was the case earlier tonight when I noticed a rack unit that seemed vaguely familiar, the Roland SDE-1000. I could tell I wanted it in less than 1500 milliseconds (ironically the max delay time on this unit). When I met the guy at his house he had it nicely setup with his strat and an amp ready to go for me. He claimed he didn't know how to use it, but within five seconds I had the feedback cranked and it went into oscillation so quickly it nearly blew his cheap practice amp and sent his dog running out of the room whimpering. Uh, here's your money, yeah, I gotta go.

A little history. This was one of the first budget digital delays released to the public. First produced in 1983, it was most notable for creating the sounds of, well, I'm not sure that the Edge actually used it, I doubt he did, but you can get some killer Edge tones with this box. I was thinking more like Cocteau Twins (see my demo below around the 4:30 mark for some Robin Guthrie). If you are searching for processed guitar tone then this is it. The delays are all 12 bit...that's right, 12 bit. Not exactly great when your CDs are 16 bit and everything else is 24 bit nowadays. On the other hand, lo-fi is always in vogue, so win.

Features on this thing: Four memory locations for saving presets, which considering this came out in 1983 makes the DD-20 Gigadelay look terribly late to the party. Adjustable modulation on the delays ranging from slight chorus drone to full on pitch-bending vibrato. Also the standard input gain/feedback/mix controls on the left of the unit, and several unique flavorings on the right. First the Time x2 button which doubles your current delay time. Push it again to go back to the original delay time. Nice for changing the character of the delay while staying in tempo. Also I already figured out a cool trick. Listen to the track below for what sounds like octave pitch shifting up and down. That's me hitting the button on and off while constant signal is going through the unit. Next is the Delay Phase button which I haven't figured out yet, but supposedly it changes the character of the modulation on the delays by inverting the phase. Lastly we have two more buttons to turn on/off Modulation and Feedback.

The back panel contains various foot switch control inputs and no MIDI control whatsoever. Also a dry out and a mix out. Nothing fancy like ping pong delay. So far I like it, and can't really tell much of its so-called grainy character due to the modulation being so thick and sweet. The track below is experimentation during my first 45 minutes with the beast using some moderately high feedback settings just short of oscillation. Don't fret though, I do manage to lose control of it briefly and it goes into oscillation halfway in. I'm playing through a Fender fat-strat on the bridge pickup (SD Screamin' Demon) straight into the SDE-1000 and finally into a JC-77 and recorded with a Sennheiser e-835. I'm a fan of Roland Gear in case you couldn't tell. The faint rattling in the background is unfortunately my fucking radiator.

Experimenting with the Roland SDE-1000 Digital Delay by White Cascade

#roland #sde-1000 #the edge #cocteau twins #noise #jc-77 #digital delay #modulated delay

Interview with Joey Levenson of SPC ECO

Joey Levenson is a multi-talented guitarist, pedal enthusiast, and leading provider of swirling atmospherics and vast textural soundscapes for the dreampop/shoegaze group SPC ECO. Along with Dean Garcia (Curve, Eurythmics) who provides drums, bass, guitar and production, and Rose Berlin who is gifted with an angelic voice reminiscent of Rachel Goswell (and also Dean's daughter) the three thus far have already released one amazing album (3-D, 2009) and a handful of equally impressive eps under the name SPC ECO (pronounced "Space Echo" and named after the famous Roland RE-201 Tape Echo). If you haven't checked them out yet I suggest you begin your musical journey here.

I was very lucky to spend some time getting to know Joey and asked him a few questions about his obscure and forgotten gear, textural excursions into the unknown, vintage electronics utopias in Japan, and ponderings on the current state of music. As always, there is a ton of listening material linked throughout and after the interview for your aural pleasure.

DIY: How did you first get into guitar pedals/music gear? Did you always gravitate towards less-traditional guitar sounds/methods? If not, what was the spark that set off your fascination with tone and experimentation?

JL: I bought some pedals when i was in college, like used Japanese stuff (it wasn't "vintage" back then). I remember in about 1992, I had wanted the Boss PN-2 tremolo/pan, and when it came up in a shop used for $50, I used all my money from my part time job to get it. No one else had one at the time, it was all shaky and I loved it

I guess the spark that set it off was I was living in Fukuyama, Japan in the late 90's. I walked past a shop window, a little speaker/electronics shop, and there was a RE-101 in the window, and I remember thinking "The Verve guys use that." Well, the shop owner had just passed away and they were trying to clean everything out. I ended up getting it for about $10 and some little plugs and connectors that I still have. Well, after that, I just would find these little used boxes in guitar shops full of old Korg/Guyatone/Pearl/Japanese-made pedals that were cheap, like 20-50 bucks. The Japanese guys wanted the US-made stuff, so, I just started collecting them and trying to create the sounds I heard on my favorite records. I eventually ended up with a small pile of "vintage" gear. I'm guessing it was about 250 pedals and racks or so, mostly old stuff. I've had like 7 Space Echos, tons of analog delays and modulation boxes, and quite a few fuzzes. Now, maybe I have about 65-70 pieces. It just got ridiculous. Still is!

I think I just like textures that make me sit up and notice. I have two rules I go by: it's got to be fresh and it's got to make me feel something.

DIY: Do you mod/bend/build your own gear? Do you use alternate tunings? How would you describe your guitar playing style? (minus effects, that is)

JL: I don't use alternate tunings. I believe J. Mascis said something to the effect of "If you can do everything, why do anything?" regarding guitar playing. So, I keep it straight and simple and expand on that. I like to work in certain confines. My guitar style? Well, I certainly love and respect many musicians, especially Will Sergeant, Roland Jones, Nels Cline, Bernard Butler, Bobby Gillespie, Tom Bailey, and Tim Holmes. I'd like to think of what I do as an expansion of Will Sergeant's more psychedelic sounds (esp. Electrafixion-era) as heard by Nels Cline. I do know a bit of theory and I do like to play acoustic or straight-to-amp sometimes. Maybe a bit of reggae thrown in, as well.

I don't build or mod anything. There's already so much gear out there, and I don't feel there is anything particularly I feel I need to express by building a pedal. I do always try to buy used. I think its a waste to take up another tree when there are so many cool used guitars at all price levels, and there's always some cool, beat-up soundmaker I can hook my guitars up through.

DIY: I've always thought of shoegazers as obsessive hybrid musician/engineers. Do you have any interest in recording/engineering and if so how do you balance being a musician and being an engineer?

JL: I don't try to do anything except play my guitar and improve on that. The pedals and sounds are just me sitting in front of my t.v. watching NCIS reruns, twiddling knobs and if I like it, I'll record some riff or pattern. Doesn't every guitarist sit on the floor, no matter what age, and play with their gear?

Obsessive? I'm obsessive about my sounds and the gear I use. Although I have Pro Tools, but I just use Garageband, because I don't process my sounds in the computer, except a tad of EQ afterwards, and I find GB is simple and quick. I don't like to stare at a computer to make music, I like to use my hands, and have my sensations wandering around the room, but you have to use computers nowadays, don't you? So, when I have messed with Pro-Tools, for me, I just kind of felt too..busy to concentrate on my playing.

I'd like to produce something one day. I think I have some good ideas. I've been asked to re-mix tracks more than a few times now. I may have to look into that.

DIY: There are a huge variety of boutique guitar pedal manufacturers today. Do you have any favorite brands/models and what direction would you like to see the boutique manufacturers go in the future?

JL: I'm left cold by a lot of boutique manufacturers, to be honest, when I think a lot of the old guys did it better. I think a lot of times, the only thing that some of these new players can really claim they've done is improve the bypass. That said, everyone who knows me knows I support Z.vex because I think his ideas and gadgets are really my cup of tea. I have a WMD Geiger Counter bitcrusher as well, and I can honestly say I don't get that pedal at all (which means it probably is great!). I also have this Colorsound Dipthonizer clone that was custom-built by GeekMacDaddy. Its kind of a fuzzed-up talk box/envelope filter Colorsound did in the 70's and I think I read there were only 30 made. It really out there and fun. I think that's all the boutique stuff I have at the moment.

I do want to say: don't just look at the high-end stuff, there is some great budget stuff, as well. The old Danelectro Fab Chorus (the plastic blue one) has a really sick vibrato that's quite original. I also like their mini Slap Echo. Electro-Harmonix has some cool stuff as well (though I don't have any of it now). I think Behringer has done some cool stuff making all of those cheap reproductions of the old Boss pedals. Sure, they may break, but they make some cool sounds before they do. Kids today have it so easy :)

DIY: Z.Vex Effects has rapidly established itself as a household name and the Fuzz Factory in particular has quickly achieved legendary status among pedal collectors for its versatility and glitchy tones. Tell us a bit about your Z.Vex collection and in particular any interesting pieces or unique gear that you'd like to share.

JL: I've talked to Mr. Vex many times and I like him a lot. He has a great sense of history in his products. I've used a Fuzz Factory for about 10 years now. At first, I felt it was a bit hi-fi for my tastes but I've gotten used to it now.:) You can hear it all over almost everything I play (SPC ECO's "Shine On Down" or (my own music) So Young's "Dirty"). I think I've had just about everything Mr. V has ever made, save maybe the Imp Amp. A special piece? Well, I have the Zvex Drip Guitar, but honestly, I bought it so I could pretend to be Will Sergeant in the Seven Seas video. I think I heard there's only 70 or so in the world. My Fuzz Factory is Korean script, and its the 2nd one ever made. Oddly, I found #3 in London.

DIY: How do you feel about newer amp modeling technology (like COSM), VST rigs, digital multi-effects floor units, and the overwhelming digitization of guitar effects processing?

JL: If some kid can play something awesome with all of that, then I'm all for it. Every musician needs to find connection to the gear he uses. I tried a VST rig for a bit, but it didn't sound deep enough for me, and also, I didn't like staring at a computer. But, a lot of dudes now do all of that and sound awesome, so its cool, and it wont break the bank.

I have some old/older digital pieces I dig a lot. I just bought a Boss SE-70 in Fukuoka because I want to play like Ron did in the Flaming Lips. It has some great sounds in it. I have an old Aria rack delay, the DEX-1000. Its one of my favorite vibrato "pedals." It's truly weird, and it was in the junk section of a shop, no one wanted it! I like to mix and match my boxes. I don't have a pedalboard. I just pull stuff off shelves and out of boxes and hook it up. I loved legos as a kid, and I think somehow my pedal collection is like my new legos…very..expensive..legos! You know, every piece of gear will react to another piece of gear differently, and sometimes its really cool sounding! I don't normally use multi-fx, but that said, I do have a couple old ones sitting around. The key to everything is find out what works for you, and experiment. Be curious.

DIY: You have claimed to own every vintage piece there is. We can all agree that gear comes and goes but give us a short list of the vintage gear that you swear by time and time again (ie. the desert island question) and what advice do you have for us vintage gear collectors on a budget?

JL: Well, I've had A LOT of vintage pieces (back before they were "vintage"), but oddly, I've never had a TS-808, I've never seen one in person! What are my desert island pieces? I cant say I have just one. That said, I do love my Pearl CH-02 chorus, its a great dark vibrato, the sine wave on it is just about perfect. I do like my old Guyatone 12-bit Delay, as well as my old DD-2 (listen to SPC ECO's Special, thats the DD-2 hold mode run into a Boss RC-2, so its 2 loopers going against each other). That said, I have about 12-15 old, lo-fi digital delays now, because I just love the grittiness of them all. My favorite fuzz I have is probably my Roland AD-50 Double Beat Fuzz/Wah. I got it from Music Life Dan's in Fukuyama, Hiroshima, and he gave it to me for cheap because he knew I'd love it. Its a very, very expressive silicon fuzz (there's 3 different tones in there).

I have the infamous BEEBAA, as well, but its just an elephant in a train wreck sound, isn't it? Turn it on and people fall down! Here's a story about the BEEBAA: About 2003 or so, it sat in a shop in Hiroshima for 9/10 months for about $80 and no one batted an eye at it. I've seen them go for $400-500 now!

Advice? Try to get to every store you can and to try to test everything you can, with your own guitar if possible. Try to avoid buying online if you can. I've mostly bought every piece I've had by going to the places and finding out what works for me. I don't use every kind of effect there is, but I've sure tried them all! Also, what sounds are you going for? What players do you identify with? I dig Eddie Hazel's sounds, but I sure can't play like him! Take out a pad and pen and write down who you like or what sound from what record you like. Then, try to go from there.

For me, some of my favorite sounds are the vibrato from Starflyer 59's "A Housewife Love Song," the dirt sounds from The Waterboys' tune "A Rock in a Weary Land", and ok, I'll admit it, MBV's elephant sound in "Only Shallow."

Also, learn about compression, equalization (esp EQ!), and volume, and how they affect each other. There's a cool little homepage called amptone.com. It is a bit dated, but the info is invaluable.

DIY: Could you tell us what you have been working on lately such as musical projects, touring etc, and what you have planned for the future?

JL: Like I said, SPC ECO will start up again soon, and I'm always excited about that. SPC ECO is a very special ride I am happy to be on with Dean and Rose and I think we create something that is rather unique and beautiful, and I'm very glad that so many other people are also enjoying it.

I also really like to doing guest spots on other people's music, mostly working via the internet. I'm playing on SLIDE's debut cd (they were a different band before called Sincerely Paul, and they had one of my favorite albums of the 90's (Grieve)) and I'm really psyched about that. I did some sounds for Bliss City East out of Chicago, and I've worked with Stellarscope's Tom Lugo on a few different things. I've done a couple trial remixes and guest spots for some other bands. If anyone else likes what I do, get in contact with me. I like playing in different musical universes, it just stretches out what I do.

DIY: What musicians/producers do you admire, both old and new and for what reasons? Who or what inspires your solo work?

JL: Well, considering the pedigree of it all, Alan Moulder. I'm so lucky that Dean got him into to do some of SPC ECO's debut CD. I heard he dug our sounds, as well, that made me smile a lot. I hope he will have time for our next record. I really love the Death in Vegas record "Contino Sessions" and began writing to Tim Holmes on MySpace a few years ago. He asked me for a cd of my stuff, and he reciprocated by remixing the SPC ECO track Telling You, which blew me away. Paul Weller said that most musicians spend their career rewriting their favorite song or songs, and one of mine is "Dirge" by Death In Vegas. I think sometimes when I make a loop or something, "yep. Contino Sessions." I do like some old reggae and dub, the sounds are so rough and lo-fi. Also, anything the guys in Primal Scream touches is gold, in my opinion.

One of my favorite bands of all time is the Thompson Twins, and that always surprises people. They were always really out there and still pop, always experimenting and mixing sounds, but still had a great sense of melody. I especially love "Set" and "Queer." I love both of those records so much.

For my solo stuff, I guess its just like that: I just find a wild sound or two and build it up from there.

DIY: SPC ECO is beautiful, mesmerizing, and spacious all at once. Tell us how you got involved with Dean Garcia and formed SPC ECO. Can you explain your approach to writing and recording music with SPC ECO? How do the songs develop? Is SPC ECO a long distance project or do you play together as a group live?

JL: I hounded him on Myspace to check out my page, and he dug it, and kept coming back, and then he asked if I needed some bass on anything, and then, he suggested we do up a MySpace page and do some tracks together. Within 5 days, we had an offer to play a gig, and at the first gig, Dean received an offer from AC-30 Records out of London to do a vinyl single, which was for You're Alright/Another Day. It just took off from there.

I went to London and we did some recording in Dean's special room while drinking copious amounts of tea and playing brick Game Boy Tetris. It was very fluid and relaxed and we got some great sounds. Mostly, I just record stuff here in my place in Korea or Japan or wherever I am, and then send it to him over the internet, and he works his magic, playing and adding, mixing and producing as he sees fit, and then Rose comes in and writes her lyrics and sings like a distorted angel. Sometimes the songs go back and forth and sometimes they just spring forth. Whatever the method to the madness has developed into, it works, and we are all happy.

As for live, you never know what the future may bring. Here's hoping.

DIY: Does SPC ECO plan on touring in America or elsewhere in the future? Any details on the new album? Vinyl release?

JL: Yes, I've heard the word vinyl a few times, so here's hoping. We do have that first single that is vinyl. I'm always doing sounds and loops and the like. Dean has announced he has fired up the Ableton, so there should be a new demo or two soon. We could possibly release our 2nd album this year, and then see where that takes us. It does seem a lot more people are talking about SPC ECO nowadays, and we are all happy and grateful for that.

DIY: Thanks for coming in Joey, and keep on rocking!

Additional Listening:

SPC ECO

SPC ECO on Youtube

SPC ECO on Bandcamp

So Young on Myspace

Joey Levenson on Youtube

#guitar pedals #alan moulder #fuzz factory #tim holmes #beebaa #joey levenson #interview #spc eco #dean garcia #curve #vintage #boss #roland #space echo #fuzz #analog #zvex

Sunlight showing through cracks in the walls by Jazz Tapes

sunlight showing through cracks in the walls by Jazz Tapes

DIY Guide to Boss Pedals: Part 1

I love Boss pedals. You can't be a shoegazer without owning at least one. Despite their conformity and common size each pedal has its own personality and unique function. They are all built "like a tank" and rarely fail. I have this theory that everyone is a collector of something, and for me it must be these pedals. They really nailed many legendary sounds on the first try, I can only think of a few effects that they never successfully made their own--those being wah, whammy, fuzz, and vibe effects.

The DS-1 Distortion is easily the most recognizable guitar pedal in the world, and many a DIYer's first step into the world of pedal mods. I don't know of a guitar player who has never owned nor played through one before. Kurt Cobain used one until he broke it and graduated to a DS-2. The CE-2 Chorus on the other hand is THE sound of an entire decade. Stomp on a CE-2 and its like taking a time-warp back to the '80s. Boss pedals are like memory boxes that capture a particular feeling--a moment in time. At least the older ones do. The new ones are made of crap.

I'm gonna skip ahead a little to 1988: The year that changed everything. Glam Rock was in full swing and the Boss warehouses in Japan could not stock enough harmonizers and flangers to satisfy the new generation of garage youth whose bedroom walls were plastered with Whitesnake and Poison posters, their palms blistered from constant high-fiving after watching Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure for the first time. They demanded an all-in-one box that would grant them the godlike abilities of the guitar virtuosos--sizzling pinch harmonics, light speed heavy metal pick sweeping, and laser beam tapping solos. Boss was netting record profits and the corporate decision was of course to ramp up production while cutting costs. 1988 was the year that they moved production to Taiwan and it's common knowledge among collectors that Boss pedals were never the same again. In Taiwan they began to use cheaper components, not to mention the designs began to favor the falling prices of digital technology to more costly and outdated analog design. As things got even more complex we got the wonderful yet somewhat sterile-sounding COSM technology, which opened up the Boss world to digital modeling, with the disadvantage of using surface-mounted devices (SMD), which are so small and complex that they exclude any possibility of modding, tweaking or bending these newer pedals.

You might think the newer Boss pedals sound great. They sound just fine, as long as you've never heard the pre-Taiwan equivalent pedal. But if you have played a 2008 Made in Taiwan (MIT) digital PH-3 Phase Shifter after playing a 1986 Made in Japan (MIJ) analog PH-1r Phaser you will know the difference. It is something that can only be described as a fuller, richer, and more organic sound. New Boss isn't bad, but I no longer spend my money on them when I can get MIJ pedals for comparable prices on eBay. Although, that hasn't stopped people from discovering some interesting mods that you can do to coax out some of that MIJ vibe from MIT pedals.

I'm sure you are now wondering about your used Boss pedal you picked up at the pawn shop. There are a number of ways to date your Boss pedal. The easiest way is to just use the BOSS Serial Number Decoder to find out when your pedal was originally produced. You can find the serial number in the battery compartment inside the pedal. You can also date pedals by the sticker on the bottom of the pedal, they made several different colors but it's kind of pointless for dating and more of a novelty. Lastly, the original Boss compact pedals produced from 1977-1981 have silver thumb screws holding the battery cover. Anything after 1981 has a black screw. Silver screw pedals are highly sought after. The most sought-after compact pedals are in my opinion the SG-1 Slow Gear, SP-1 Spectrum, and VB-2 Vibrato. Check out some of the MIJ vs MIT shootouts below and check out BossArea for the most comprehensive reference on every single Boss pedal as well as amazingly informational and active forum.

Next time: We go back to 1977 and the early days of Boss, and we also examine COSM technology, the '00s and twin pedals, and take a closer look at some of the oddball and very unique novelty pedals that Boss produced. Cya there!

*pictures via BossArea

#ce-2 #sp-1 #Boss #ds-1 #sd-1 #serial number #sg-1 #bossarea

Melting down gold records for warmth by Jazz Tapes

To show off my newly working U-20 I decided to improvise a short drone piece that ironically only uses 3-4 keys. Anyways it is very Windy & Carlish and mega heavy, this song is meant to be listened to in a dark room, hunched over 6 inches in front of your monitors with a head full of whatever makes your mind go blank. I made judicious use of the Microverb IV as it offers excellent lo-fi digital reverb that I've relied on for ages (listen for those rattlesnake-like digital artifacts in the 15-20kHz range). A secondary track consisting of white noise style sounds was recorded with my guitar going directly into a Roland VG-8EX and then through the Microverb. Just a bit of processing with Izotope Ozone and I sealed the track by gluing everything together. Enjoy.

Melting down gold records for warmth by white cascade

#drone #windy & carl #vg-8ex #jazz tapes #u-20 #microverb

Roland U-20 synth repair

I couldn't pass up a chance to get this steal of a synth. The Roland U-20 (originally released in 1989) is a PCM synth (ie. plays WAV samples) which isn't as flashy as FM-synthesis/analog but you take what you can get, and I got this one dirt cheap with a stand. Since my primary synth is a microKorg (digital analog modeler) I am severely lacking in the piano/strings/brass patch department and I knew right away that the U-20 would deliver the high-quality patches that I needed with minimal tweaking required. Due to a clunky interface and no knobs tweaking is a pain (although software to edit from a pc via MIDI exists) and you can adjust tone balance, pan, add reverb, chorus and delay, and adjust envelopes on all patches. There are also two ROM card ports for memory expansion. An easy to use arpeggiator and two adjustable chord modes round out the features on this synth.

Unfortunately I couldn't help but notice that several of the keys produced no sound, including all but one of the black keys and about 75% of the white keys. I decided to take it home anyways because I could always control it with MIDI. Last night, however, I decided to give resuscitation a shot and I began to disassemble the keyboard piece by piece in hopes of reaching the well-guarded contact pads on the keyboard matrix in order to give them a good acid bath--I mean cleaning. Years of neglect by the previous owner had shown in the accumulation of dust, dirt, grease, and hair on the internal electronics. Actually this turned out to be a common problem among U-20s, D-50s and the like. 20 Screws later and I finally had the back plate off and was staring at this:

Inside it was about 15 more screws and I finally got the keyboard assembly removed from the housing. I turned it over to reveal the keyboard matrix of circuit traces and the gray rubber shells which covered the board contacts. I opted not to remove the keyboard ribbon because it was unnecessary so it remained as an umbilical cord granting life from the main board. I removed the gray rubber shells and cleaned up the carbon contact pads with some 90% alcohol and then did the same to the entire matrix with special attention to the contact pads on the green circuit strip. Check it.

So that last pic was taken before I had removed all of the keys (a bitch) and those springs are covered with some sort of white adhesive/lubricant that had turned to a fine dust but was also sticky. I just cleaned it off completely and there didn't appear to be any problems with it not being there. With or without the adhesive and after I removed the keys, the springs were a pain to keep in place as all springs are. I turned my attention to the rubber strip that covers the contact pads. Inside the rubber strip is a carbon pad that makes the connection on the board when you press a key down. Blockage of this connection due to dust, dirt, and grime is the main cause for dead keys.

It was simple enough to remove the gray rubber strip and and I gained access to the contacts on the circuit quickly after. I'll gloss over the cleaning process but it was a 45 minute job with a few Q-tips and some rubbing alcohol. I also visually inspected the traces over and over with a magnifier looking for any sort of peculiarities or red flags before I decided it was time to put this thing back together. I cannot stress how helpful a headlamp was in performing this sort of maintenance.

Anyways, I was tired, and it was time to reverse the process. I was about 4 hours and 4 beers in and had already watched three episodes of It's Always Sunny amongst other things. The clock was approaching 3am but I made myself put forth one final effort to wash all the keys before I put them back on one-by-one (black keys first). Several exploding springs another beer later everything was back together and screwed down securely. I carefully plugged in the U-20 and tested out every key. Success. Sleep

View the entire photo gallery here

#u20 #synth #repair #roland

As simple as a cyclotron.

To dispel the rumor that Les Paul was full of shit (popular belief amongst 50's evangelicals) I now present to you the origin of multi-track recording.

VST Review: Cytomic's The Glue

I've begun to have a falling out with the SSL Waves collection and have been looking around for some new plugins to try out. The E-channel compressor is very destructive to audio when you hit it hard, and the G-buss compressor is just too coloured for my tastes. I think I can go elsewhere for my saturation now. Lately I've been achieving good results with the Waves API 2500 for individual tracks (and it too is a coloured compressor but of a different flavor) but I still need to get my 2-bus fix on. Interestingly enough my new baby, The Glue, is another SSL clone (a cross between E and G compressors). While I have never touched an SSL in real life, I have plenty of experience with the Waves collection. Round 1: Fight!!!

The Glue is another true to the original specs recreation of SSL with a few modifications. Non-linearities have been removed from the original design when they were determined to add nosie or otherwise degrade the sound. Perfect component values were used. Also, a range/mix (finally! parallel compression!) and a sidechain have been added allowing further control over the colouring. The glue is fantastic when used the way it was designed--on a mixbus. I find it to be more transparent than the SSL Buss compressor, which I just can't stand anymore. I've had some interesting results on drum buses too. It does what it advertises, and instruments are glued together yet distinct at the same time. The Waves SSL bus compressor on the other hand more often that not does this to a mix.

The range knob has crazy versatility, similar in scope to the filter knob on a RAT. Range determines the maximum compression applied which is useful in maintaining attack while still keeping the overall compression constant. I find that Range at -10 to -20db works great on a mix paired with higher compression ratios like 10:1 for massive yet not attack degrading compression, and up to -80db is a good starting point paired with a low ratio of 2:1 for a different soft extreme. You can dial in perfect parallel compression with the mix knob. Lastly the sidechain compressor, well you guys know where I stand when it comes to sidechain compression--right next to my buddies Toro y moi and Washed Out. Use it!

I don't know what else to say. This thing is easy to use and great sounding. The Glue is badass. Buy it now for $99 from Cytomic

#the glue #ssl #bus compressor #cytomic #vst

Happy New Year, Shoegazer!

Happy New Year and welcome to my new blog DIY Shoegazer! It seems like I've been doing this blog for years except back then I was just sharing my insight verbally and people were telling me to stop talking. I finally found the bypass switch for that online.

I have too many things to post about here. Too many interests. From oscilloscopes to budget stage lighting, to MIDI implementation, to VST collections and synthesizers that I have hardly explored fully. Guitar pedals both tank-built and the plastic ten dollar digital crap. It all has a place here.

I hope to share some very interesting interviews with some of my favorite musicians and recording engineers. Not just local either, but there are plenty here to satisfy my quest. This is a growing experience for me too. I will be playing a journalist kind of like I play a musician. Hopefully we can all walk a little closer to musical nirvana in the process.

I'm down for hypothetical discussions in 2011 about the state of music. Don't get me started on the loudness wars and brickwall limiting. There is a question that goes "If you were stuck on a desert island and could only bring one compressor what would it be?" Actually, I've never been asked that question but I guess I just asked you. Now which one is it?

I'm looking for contributors who want to write about music, gear, and recording. I am always down for a good record review and/or drone music. And coffee. This is not a business venture. It is bro-time for bros. Happy 2011 and be sure to email me.

Matt Guess

diyshoegazer at gmail dot com

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