Music Gear

[if6was9]

Picked up a coupla bits lately. Got the TC Eyemaster. It's missing a bit of the snarl from a HM-2 but it's defo in the same ball park. Also got a Mooer Baby Bomb for my second board set up. It's got a weird sweep on the volume knob. It goes from quiet to fucking LOUD in the space of a 1mm rotation. I'm using a volume switch box to tame it. Defo loud enough to gig with and fits on a pedalboard.

EHX Magnum 44 suffers from the same issue. It's volume goes from off, to barely audible, to too loud in the first part of the knobs rotation! 


Have a clone of the Strymon multiswitch from DS custom on the way. I'll be using it as the always-on controls for the Timelines Looper. I was considering getting the official Strymon multiswitch but they're 125 euro for 3 switches. The clone was only 40 including shipping!

Also did a Thomann order I'm waiting on, nothing too exciting though either. I bought a Zoom Q8 camera for recording gigs, rehearsals and video sessions, a Boss FS6 footswitch as I've a few different amps that all take different switches and a little midi controller for programming drums at home as well as usual cables, patch leads, mic leads etc....

[ochoill]

Got a Thomann order meself today.  Set of Bass strings and a new nut so I can try get the leftie bass I doctored into a right handed one in better shape.  Plenty of cables spare for home.  Best of all - an Arturia Microfreak.  Only barely scratched the surface of it for a few hours today after work, but the sounds out of it are top class.  Looking forward to digging in to it.  Using it alongside my drumbrute impact, synced them in two seconds and wrote a few bits off the bat, but still need to rig it up the way I want with MIDI in Reaper and get the whole set up operating together.  Might need to get something with a few more MIDI in and outs alongside my interface.

...A little midi controller for programming drums at home...

I've been using the Drumbrute alongside MT Power Kit in Reaper lately and it is a pure pleasure to write drum parts in it.  Obviously the machine itself has its own electronic sounds, and they are great, an added bonus is being able to use it as a controller for MTP, so I can swap between "real" drums and the electro kit alongside/over it for extra sport.  The pads play in velocity sensitive, all well and good, bit being able to program polyrhythmic patterns and do full song arrangements on the machine itself and 'play' the MTP with it outside of the DAW is unreal.  Couple of odd bits with it you'd have to get used to while writing, eg. if you're recording in sections and your time signature shifts you'd have to toy with it a bit to line it up, but in general it's real class.  Must drop it up to you some day so you can have a craic at it, if you like.

[if6was9]

Got a Thomann order meself today.  Set of Bass strings and a new nut so I can try get the leftie bass I doctored into a right handed one in better shape.  Plenty of cables spare for home.  Best of all - an Arturia Microfreak.  Only barely scratched the surface of it for a few hours today after work, but the sounds out of it are top class.  Looking forward to digging in to it.  Using it alongside my drumbrute impact, synced them in two seconds and wrote a few bits off the bat, but still need to rig it up the way I want with MIDI in Reaper and get the whole set up operating together.  Might need to get something with a few more MIDI in and outs alongside my interface.

...A little midi controller for programming drums at home...

I've been using the Drumbrute alongside MT Power Kit in Reaper lately and it is a pure pleasure to write drum parts in it.  Obviously the machine itself has its own electronic sounds, and they are great, an added bonus is being able to use it as a controller for MTP, so I can swap between "real" drums and the electro kit alongside/over it for extra sport.  The pads play in velocity sensitive, all well and good, bit being able to program polyrhythmic patterns and do full song arrangements on the machine itself and 'play' the MTP with it outside of the DAW is unreal.  Couple of odd bits with it you'd have to get used to while writing, eg. if you're recording in sections and your time signature shifts you'd have to toy with it a bit to line it up, but in general it's real class.  Must drop it up to you some day so you can have a craic at it, if you like.

I've never really gelled with drum machines, though they are great for making a beat and then writing on top. My issue with them is that since I play drums I often have a beat in mind already and can get frustrated getting that out of the machine. That being said, it's been a few years since I had a proper go on one too! I wouldn't mind popping up to you when it's appropriate to do so and see it in action!

My hope with this is that it'll be more like playing the drums. If this fucking thomann order ever arrives that is! Did the order 2 and a half weeks ago now

[ochoill]

Jesus that's a long wait.  I think mine was 10 days total, I know they're running slower but close to 3 weeks is fairly rough.  Yeah jesus once this whole craic dies down a bit you should see how I'm using it at least - might not be entirely what you're after either of course especially if you're coming at it from the angle of actually playing drums but I will say I find it unbelievably easier to get particular beat ideas out of my head with this than I have through any other similar method.  It has flaws (no midi thru what the actual fuck) and has a fair depth of possible functions to learn but even at its most minor uses it's quick to get a hang of.

[if6was9]

Got the Thomann order today. Very happy with the little midi drum pads- Akai LPD8 right out of the box. I've to do a bit of learning with midi about how to get the knobs to do things I'd like in Reaper but the drum pads work pretty well with MT Power kit so even at that it's 40 euro well spent in my mind!

I got to drop into my work a few days ago and brought home a few of my stage lights and have been learning the lighting desk and getting everything to play nice over DMX. A bit of a learning curve for me as I've never done anything lights related but I got it all working now.  When gigs come back to being a thing we'll have a right fun time of it!

[Floss]

I have one of those Akai LPD8's for a few years actually, grand handy little thing.  The midi-learn feature in cubase is great for assigning the rotary knobs, not sure if Reaper offers the same thing...

Waiting on a few bits to arrive for the studio today - I bought the Bugera 6262 - (a clone of the 6505/5150 but half the price).  Bought a B-stock Marshall 1W DSL1HR too for fun... 

[Emphyrio]

I was using that Bugera for a while. Really good amp.

[Floss]

Yeah any differences between it and the Peavys seems to be minisule from what Ive heard on decent monitors... early ones seemed to have issues, but not anymore. Lets see.

[Emphyrio]

The very first run had a few issues alright but within a year all that was sorted.

[Floss]

The very first run had a few issues alright but within a year all that was sorted.

Interesting... the 6262 head arrived and while it does indeed sound excellent, mine has a weird bug; the clean channel is never clean - its like a crunch channel, and to get full gain out of the lead channel, the gain on the CLEAN channel has to be turned up.  Very weird.  Likely gonna return it - hopefully its just my unit and not a design flaw common to all 6262's - because  (once both gain knobs are up!) it sounds great on the lead channel (but the clean is unusable) ....

[Emphyrio]

That is very odd. It was the older 6260 I had, and the clean channel also had a crunch button but that was totally separate to the lead channel.

[if6was9]

I have one of those Akai LPD8's for a few years actually, grand handy little thing.  The midi-learn feature in cubase is great for assigning the rotary knobs, not sure if Reaper offers the same thing...

Waiting on a few bits to arrive for the studio today - I bought the Bugera 6262 - (a clone of the 6505/5150 but half the price).  Bought a B-stock Marshall 1W DSL1HR too for fun...

Yeah Reaper has the same midi learn function.

The Bugera stuff sounds great but I know a few folks who've had their newer heads and they all had issues. One mate of mine has the v22 head and it only sees bedroom use and it just died on him about 6 months in!

[Floss]

Well a new 6262 head shipped to me today so let's see. If it has the same problem it can go back and stay back... my guess it was just an issue with that particular head rather than a design bug present in all 6262 units... lets see. The sound from it was savage so fingers crossed. 

I picked up a DSL20 head too having returned a 1W DSL one i bought... I only want it  (and it's tone) for recording (so the 1W was fine) but for some dumb reason they only offer a 16ohm output on the 1W version which doesnt work well for my setup ( 8ohm captor and 8 ohm cab) so it went back... The 20W version has a better set of specs overall (inc 8 ohm output)....

[if6was9]

Well a new 6262 head shipped to me today so let's see. If it has the same problem it can go back and stay back... my guess it was just an issue with that particular head rather than a design bug present in all 6262 units... lets see. The sound from it was savage so fingers crossed. 

I picked up a DSL20 head too having returned a 1W DSL one i bought... I only want it  (and it's tone) for recording (so the 1W was fine) but for some dumb reason they only offer a 16ohm output on the 1W version which doesnt work well for my setup ( 8ohm captor and 8 ohm cab) so it went back... The 20W version has a better set of specs overall (inc 8 ohm output)....

Thats so silly! If they're gonna just have it at a fixed impedance they should have had it at an impedance that suits hooking up more than just their 4X12.

[Floss]

yup, all amps should be switchable, they're really limiting their market that way, but hey...