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Author Archive
The Hardwire line of Guitar Effect Pedals is made with the touring musician in mind. They are solidly built and full of useful extras (see upcoming full review of the full set for details). The promotional materials for the company’s reverb pedal RV-7 regularly and enthusiastically tout Hardwire’s partnership with Lexicon, a company that makes reverb rack effects and software. The result is a pedal crammed with seven different synthetic reverb modes, one more than Boss’s RV-5 Digital Reverb, a pedal with which the Hardwire directly competes, that costs the same and has an extremely similar name. Reverb is a tricky effect—unless you’re going for all-out surf madness, you just want it to insinuate itself into your sound by adding a godlike resonance to your noodling. The RV-7 offers plenty of options for fans of both and throws in what the RV-5 lacks, a reverse reverb mode. Hardwire’s RV-7 digitally models vintage favorites plate and spring reverb and adds room and hall modes for those looking to replicate the sound of an empty venue. The pedal also includes gated reverb, which is effectively reverb with a bit of compression, modulated reverb, which swirls a bit, and, of course, reverse reverb […]... Click on the title for more
One of the greatest challenges facing musicians recording in project studios is capturing great drum sounds. And while drum machines have come a long way since their early ‘80s Roland and Linn beginnings, the last several years have seen the release of very impressive virtual drummer products for computer-based studios. Never before has it been so easy to create professional sounding, studio-quality drum tracks without a live drummer, and in many cases, you don’t even need to know anything about programming drum patterns! XLN Audio’s Addictive Drums is one of the impressive virtual drummer plug-ins we’re talking about. With a relatively small hard drive footprint and compatibility with multiple popular recording platforms, Addictive Drums delivers great sounding drums, all with easily editable characteristics and effects. Version 1.5.1 introduces a number of new features, including direct compatibility with electronic drum kits, general MIDI compatibility, and highly editable sounds. Further, the introduction of MIDIpaks and ADPaks allows the user to not only add more patterns, but also entirely new sampled drum kits as well. – Read Music Players’ full review here.... Click on the title for more
Every effect manufacturer, from tiny boutique companies to huge multinational conglomerates, makes at least one distortion pedal. So when Fulltone announced the GT500, my first question was: “why?” Why are they competing with their own product line–which already contains some great distortions, overdrives, and fuzzes–in a market that could already be described as saturated? I did a little research and decided to try it out. Essentially, the GT500 is two effects combined in one sturdy steel enclosure: an overdrive/boost and a distortion. The unit’s controls are simply laid out, and even a novice user should be able to plug it in and start without even glancing at the manual. The really ingenious feature of the GT500 is a tiny toggle switch that allows you to decide the signal path—whether it goes from overdrive to distortion, or vice-versa. But enough about design. What does it sound like? The overdrive section is fairly transparent; it can give you everything from a gentle push for your preamp tubes to an absolutely alarming amount of volume, without drastically changing your tone. The EQ controls are effective, without being extreme. I was able to find a setting that I liked pretty quickly. The distortion side […]... Click on the title for more
There are Beatles fans and there are Beatles fans, but there’s a particular kind of Beatles fan that is unique – that is, the recording engineer geek Beatles fan. Many people (almost everybody) loves the songs, but few of us actually worship the way the songs sound. And even fewer of us really dig into how those songs were recorded and why the results come across as so special even today. Fewer still are moved to spend their time, indeed their lives, trying to create those special kinds of sonic footprints for themselves. But as big of a recording engineer geek Beatles fan as you may have thought you were, Kevin Ryan and Bryan Kehew have completely outdone you. They have spent years of their lives compiling an AMAZINGLY detailed book, appropriately titled “Recording The Beatles.” I absolutely love this book. It starts off with the background stories of Abbey Road Studios itself, the staff, the culture, the gear (piece by piece, mic by mic), the instruments, etc. Basically every detail you could want to know. You might imagine that such details could come across as dry, but Ryan and Kehew make this book read like a narrative. This book […]... Click on the title for more
I’ve been getting a lot of pressure from the singer in my band to hook him up with effects for his vocals lately. I’ve been reluctant to put together a vocal effects system for him because of the usually kludgey nature of adding effects to live vocals: running a mic straight into a guitar stomp box, then into a mic preamp. This tends to translate into anemic sound, noisy signal and angry live sound engineers. Enter the Boss VE-20 vocal processor, a dedicated microphone level, voice processing stomp box. The VE-20 is typical Boss, and I say that in a complimentary way: Boss effects tend to do what their box says they’re going to do, and are built solidly. The VE-20 is no exception: sturdy metal construction in a twin pedal housing (the left pedal controls global bypass and loop recording, the right pedal controls harmony bypass and patch selection, or can be assigned to several other functions as well. On the back panel, the input is a combo jack accepting either an XLR (with a full +48vdc phantom available) or 1/4” input. Outputs are a stereo pair of XLRs running at mic level, and a 1/4” stereo line / […]... Click on the title for more
The latest addition to the Abbey Road Plugins lineup is the RS124 compressor. The RS124 was a compressor that Abbey Road was known to make great use of throughout the 60’s, and it was considered to be an integral part of their drum sound on many famous recordings. Many of the custom pieces of gear from Abbey Road were actually modified versions of existing units. For example, the preamps in their famous REDD consoles, also used throughout the 60’s, were in-house modified Telefunken pres. In the case of the RS124, the EMI engineering team at Abbey Road took the American-made Altec 436B tube compressor and made it their own. Mainly, they took steps to make it work more efficiently with their gear and added a few important features – an output level knob and a “recovery” knob, which controls the release time. So, the RS124 units are basically pieces of gear to die for. Although I haven’t used the real units myself, I can safely say that this is a really great sounding compressor with its own unique sonic footprint: very smooth and slightly punchy with a lot of character. I found it very usable on everything, but for me […]... Click on the title for more
What do you need to look for in a recording studio? In this article you'll find all the advice you need about equipment, engineers, rooms, rates, and ways of approaching the recording experience. - 
Creative
Delay
Dirt
Dynamics
Filter+EQ
Lo-fi
Modulation
pitch
Reverb
Synth
Shopping Guides
Stompbox Exhibit
The now discontinued
