Happy New Year everybody! Been taking a long break to enjoy the holidays here with the fam. Came across this today and thought I would pass it along.
Buy here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/GuitarPickCollection?section_id=11814989
Archive for the ‘Gear’ Category
Coin Guitar Picks
Posted in Blog, Gear, tagged Coin Guitar Picks, Etsy, gear on 01/07/13| Leave a Comment »
Stylophone
Posted in Blog, Gear, tagged Amazon, Brett Domino, Retro Pocket Synth, Stylophone, synth, ThinkGeek on 03/01/10| Leave a Comment »
The second I learned about these I had to have one. They are big fun. Adventures In… is playing with it as I type. I was first introduced to it via BoingBoing. Want a synth, but don’t have a lot of room? Get a Stylophone. I’m not going to type too much as I need to get back to it to figure out the theme to Doctor Who so what follows will be a bunch of links. But first, a picture of my brand new toy.
It’s for sale at ThinkGeek for $19.99 plus shipping which puts it at $24.99
Or better yet, do what I did, which is buy it from ThinkGeek through Amazon, which as of this writing has it for $14.99 plus shipping so it winds up at $19.99 or there abouts. This is basically my birthday gift to myself.
There are a lot of youtube videos so you can check it out. I recommend starting with Brett Domino
Stylophoniac: A Short Film by Brett Domino.
80s Hits Medley – STYLOPHONE
Looky there, I won me a contest
Posted in Blog, Gear, tagged 12AX7, AC-DC, Carvin, gear, Metallica, Roland Jazz Chorus, SX100, Vintage Series on 02/27/10| 1 Comment »
That’s right. I won a contest. Every month for the past 3 years I have entered Carvin’s online contest to win a gift certificate and I finally won. I didn’t believe it at first when I saw the email in my inbox, but sure enough after reading it 18 times and checking the originating email address I was convinced. I had more doubt and stress after that. You see they had to mail, yes MAIL, me the gift certificate. I then had to call them up and place my order and then mail, yes MAIL, them the gift certificate back. I was convinced it wouldn’t work out and that something would get lost somewhere. I was wrong! I received my order this past Tuesday. I ordered some strings and mic cables and an amp stand and a mic stand and a Carvin SX100 1×12 combo amp, in red tolex of course.
I am very excited. I’ve played it a bit and I really like the sound. It has emulator tech in it, but instead of Carvin trying to make it sound like another specific amp (i.e. making a Carvin sound like a Mesa Boogie Rectifier) they tried to make a solid state amp sound like a tube amp. An amp with 12AX7 tubes in it to be precise. What I love about Carvin is that their amps have a meatier, beefier, sound to them. I dig Marshalls, but they can be too tinny for me sometimes. The clean on this is reminiscent of a Roland Jazz Chorus minus the chorus. It has chorus, just not that Roland chorus. The gain channel can do light to pretty saturated distortion. While it may not work for some death metal it is great for classic rock AC-DC style and even Metallica type sounds. There is also a blues button that switches the gain sound to, well, a blues sound. Additionally, it has Reverb, Chorus, Flange and Echo. Though you can only choose one effect at a time (I’m sticking with reverb for now) it is great to have options while recording. Which I hope to do so I can give you some samples.
One last bit that is exciting: extension speaker out. In my dream world I would get the Vintage 1×12 speaker cab to go with.
Carvin 1×12 Vintage Series Extension Speaker
So there you have it. This was meant to be a simple post about my good fortune, but, apparently, there was a ton I wanted to write. Thank you for taking the time to read a somewhat lengthy post (if you did) and thank you for just looking even if you didn’t read this (which means you didn’t read that).
And because I still don’t feel this post is long enough, here are the specs of my new amp from Carvin’s website:
Features:
– Active tone circuits for individual contour and extreme range
– Each channel features custom tailored Bass, Mid-range and Treble controls
– SmartEffects™ – Reverb, Chorus, Flange and Echo with 2 parameter controls for 256 total variations
– One Carvin British Series BR12 12 inch speaker
– Sealed controls
– Classic black knobs
– Classic red jewel lamp
Specifications:
– Strong poplar plywood enclosure – not particleboard!
– Covered in black tolex (they actually have many choices for the tolex)
– Premium components and solid design for years of reliable performance
– 100W Output
– Carvin British Series BR12 12 inch speaker
– CH1 EQ @ 80, 700 & 11.5k Hz
– CH2 EQ @ 50, 500 & 11.5k Hz
– Cabinet Voiced Line Out, Headphone Jack, External Speaker Jack
– AC Power: 90V to 255V, 50-60 Hz
– Dimensions: 19.5 inches wide X 10.25 inches deep X 17.75 inches high
– Weight: 37 lbs.
– Made in San Diego, California
Carvin SX-200 from the 90s
Posted in Blog, Gear, Reviews, tagged 2x12, 4x12, British, Carvin, Carvin SX-200, Celestion speakers, Cry Baby 535Q, SmartEffects, speaker cabinet, Tube Screamer on 04/13/09| 3 Comments »
I recently acquired an older model Carvin SX-200 that I think is from the 90s. I got a pretty good deal. I traded a Cry Baby 535Q and a little cash. It doesn’t have the SmartEffects™ that the newer models have, but this baby is awesome. The clean is super clean, almost no breakup unlike Marshall or Fender and and it is not as tinny or twangy as either as well. The dirty channel is a lot like a Tube Screamer with heavier gain. The two 12″ speakers are Celestion which matches really well with the tube emulator circuit. It has a British feel and yet is wholly unique. Also, this amp is LOUD. You would have no trouble in a small to medium venue. And if you wind up in an arena it has a speaker output to connect a 2×12 or 4×12 speaker cabinet if you want, plus, you know, they have PA systems typically. I must admit I have a bit of a dilemma. I got this amp mostly to combine it with some other items and trade for a really awesome 1×12 since I don’t need anything bigger than that. But, I really love the sound and the look. Anyway, here are some pictures for you.
Koblo Part 2: Defnitely Not For Me
Posted in Gear, Reviews, tagged garage band, iMovie, K-Echo, K-Verb, Koblo, MP3, music sharing, music system, open source, Plugins, Remix Kits on 02/20/09| 2 Comments »
I wanted to do something simple like record a guitar. I had my guitar into my Zoom G2.1U into the computer. I have used this set up before with Garage Band and iMovie with no issues. With Koblo I couldn’t get a signal at all. So, I tried to find some answers. I chose the “Get Started” option from the Koblo menu which took me to their website to an area, as I have previously blogged, with useful sounding phrases, but they linked to squat. I also tried a Google search and found no help there. Now, admittedly, I am getting sick and my patience is just about nil, but this was too much for me. Koblo shows a lot of promise, I love the concept, and some people have done a lot of really cool things with it(visit their website and check out other peoples projects). The support and user friendliness are just not there for an impatient and getting sicker-by-the-minute nob like myself. For now will stick with Garage Band, but I will keep checking in with Koblo and see how it develops.
Noteflight
Posted in Blog, Gear, Reviews, tagged Frank Zappa, iCompositions, musical scores, MusicXML, noteflight, online music sharing on 01/29/09| 2 Comments »
From the Noteflight site:
“Noteflight, […] is dedicated to reinventing the way that people create, share and use written music. Our product doesn’t merely improve on other music notation software: it lets written music take advantage of the full power of the web as we know it today. Noteflight is a powerful full-featured application to edit, display and play back music notation in a standard web browser, integrated in an online library of musical scores that anyone can publish, link to, or embed.”
And from what I have experienced this is fairly accurate. It only took me a few moments to figure out exactly how it works. Start out clicking the measure you want to use and a ghost note appears. You then have the option to pick your value, eighth note or whole note etc. You can also pick your rests, sharps and anything else you need. All with the click of your mouse. Noteflight also has playback capability after you create your score. The sounds are all piano though, so don’t get too excited. Still, it’s a rather nice feature. Some how I missed the instrument choices. There are way more options than just piano. You can choose, bass, guitar, drums, violin, and different wind instruments. Sorry for my incompetence.
Screen capture of one of my attempts at scoring musical fusion.
You can choose to share your score or keep it private. You can also search using keywords or browse and see what you can find. Think Flickr, but with musical scores instead of pictures. There are other music sharing sites, such as iCompositions, though you must have instruments and the ability to record to participate. For Noteflight all one needs is a computer, which admittedly not everyone has, but you get my point.
Current issues include some keyboard shortcuts not working in Internet Explorer for Windows. Unfortunately these are the most used shortcuts: C (Copy), X (Cut), V (Paste), S (Save), Y (Redo) and Z (Undo). You may, however, use the mouse to perform these functions, so no biggie. An additional issue is that very large MusicXML compositions or MusicXML compositions with more than 20 parts may not import correctly. Two things about that. First, they are only on Beta version 3 and it should be an easy fix. Second, who the eff is doing more than 20 parts with this? Pretentious blowhards, that’s who (disclaimer: if you are one of these pretentious blowhards I am totally not referring to you, it’s some other pretentious blowhard). One other problem is that you are limited to using the volume on your computer only and mine is kinda quiet. I would like a volume option built in so I could boost it even louder. (insert obligatory Spinal Tap joke here)
I have actually been hoping for a program like this for some time. I can read a little music and have always wanted to be better at writing it to save the songs I create. Noteflight is a great way for me to ease back into it and get my knowledge level up. Where I think this program really excels,however, is in the experimentation. Even if you have no clue that there is this thing called music and that it can be the most beautiful or most ugly thing the world, sometimes both at once(I’m looking at you Frank Zappa), you can use Noteflight. Log on, create an account and just start clicking. Go there now and have some fun before they get wise and start charging for it.
TROZ
