A Sonorous Pose

The History and Future of Amp Modeling

2012-01-09T11:11:00.000-06:00

http://projectk2r4.com/2012/01/06/the-history-and-future-of-amp-modeling/

This is an exceptional read. Guitar Amp Vs Simulation in a nutshell. I think anyone who doesn't like the simulation side of the story can still argue some of these points. But it's still a debate until it becomes the norm....and it will. Well said Sir!

Studio Pics

2012-01-06T16:12:00.001-06:00

Just for the fun of it I thought I might post some pics of the studio. HAHA, not much I know.....

Yes, the keyboard is junk and I do use monitors that are straight out of a 1979 Radio Shack catalog....They sound fantastic. I produce everything on this site from this setup and I'm fairly happy the way budget sounds these days. Sorry, no pics of the $200k sound proofing job (comfy couch) behind the camera, the wall of guitars and amps (the Les Paul), the vocal both (closet), or drum room (actually it's still in the process of renovation, I've not yet completed the update to SSD 4.0).

Steven Slate Drums 4.0

2011-12-22T16:28:00.001-06:00

As a beta tester, I can tell you that this is total awesomeness. I hope most of our suggestions got looked into and I hope a few things got fixed. But all in all I've been very impressed. If you're already a Slate fan, you're gonna make a mess in your shorts over 4.0. If you're not a Slate fan, it might be in your very near future to become one. this software rocks my socks, the new player is MUCH better, the samples are totally unprocessed, the velocities are much better, the cymbals are better, everything is better! Here's a quick sound sample of a new song I've been working on for a few months now (ssd4.0(beta), X50 rhythm, Anvil Lead, BOD/Lextac bass: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/Dtest2.mp3

Thank you Mr. Slate for the great opportunity to test SSD 4.0. I wish the best for you and this great new addition to my arsenal.

Steven Slate Drums 4.0
Holiday PreRelease
December 22nd 2012
100 Drumkits, New SSD Player, and Much More!
Steven Slate Drums 4.0 is now available as a holiday prerelease!

3 long years in the making, Steven Slate Drums 4 Platinum is the most complete and versatile drum instrument containing 100 preset drumkits including the new Deluxe Series kits, which Steven recorded with the most extreme precision and detail resulting in amazing playability. The Deluxe series kits are unprocessed, yet sound so big and rich, very little processing is required to make them sit in the mix. SSD4 has everything you could ever want in a drum instrument, starting with the new SSD Player, a new VST AU RTAS drum sampler built from the ground up by the award winning Slate Digital team.

SSD4 contains kits in every genre you can think of, such as metal, reggae, funk, vintage, 60's, 70's, 80's, rock, country, electro, dance, urban, and even jazz and brushes. You have unprocessed kit, processed kits, and kits with both! There are even kits that model famous drum sounds from artists such as Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Metallica, Dream Theater, and more! Cymbals are all sampled from Soultone custom Turkish cymbals. Roland Vdrums, Yamaha DTX, and Pearl E Pro Live edrums are all supported. The internal groove player makes it easy to get real pro drum sounds in your mixes without ever having to hit a midi note.

UPGRADE from SSD 3.x or CROSSGRADE
If you own SSD 3.x Platinum or EX, or own a competing drum instrument (see crossgrade page for specific titles that qualify) you can get SSD4 for HALF OFF for a limited time!!
Visit our upgrade crossgrade page HERE

upgrades expire February 28th 2012, crossgrades Expire February 1st 2012
Watch the SSD4 Launch Video
The SSD4 Launch Video takes you through the new SSD4 Player, and has live kit performances by Jerry Lyons and Walter Turner III on the jazz drums.

You can also hear many more audio demos of new kits at our website,
http://www.stevenslatedrums.com

TO PURCHASE Steven Slate Drums, Visit Our Store:
http://www.stevenslatedrums.com/store/

IMPORTANT INFO ON PRERELEASE:
This is a holiday prerelease, and therefore, there will be a few updates coming within the next two weeks:
- 64bit versions
- Complete Groove Library

The Slate Team is committed to YOU, the CUSTOMER. If you have any problems, or questions, please submit a support ticket here:
http://www.slatedigital.com/support

Gibson Guitars Raid

2011-09-08T11:50:00.000-05:00

UPDATE:
Click Here to sign a petition to support Gibsom

Click here for Gibson's Website and the story

Wow, just wow. This is wrong. Read it and let others know.

Much love Gibson! Give it to 'em.

The Anvil - Ignite Amps Newest VST Plugin

2011-08-29T10:25:00.008-05:00

Description:
The Anvil is a digital emulation of a three channels tube preamplifier for guitar. It has been developed to accurately model its real hardware counterpart, designed by Andy Zeugs.

Features:
− Dynamic 12AX7 / ECC83 coupled triode stages analog modeling
− Three channels: clean, rhythm and lead, each with fully separated controls
− Mono / Stereo processing support
− Selectable oversampling rate (up to 8x)
− Global input / output level controls
− Double precision (64 bit) floating point mathematical model
− Fully automatable controls
- Zero latency

Fully coded in C++

Click here to Download

I was given the opportunity to test this beast before it's release. Thanks for the opportunity Alu! Although it's not my favorite, It keeps growing on me. and honestly, I still have mixed feelings about it. I could even change my mind about it again before I finish typing this. Having said that, two things are certain.

1. The Anvil plays like a dream. It's very responsive and tight. It responds well to dynamic changes and simply feels good. And I mean GOOD.

2. Most of you will absolutely love it.

The Anvil tends to have a very scooped profile. The first time I inserted it on a track, I already had the track recorded. Meaning that I heard it before I played it. I knew it was going to be more scooped than what I generally like, but I almost didn't even want to play it.

..But then I picked up the guitar and started playing.....and couldn't stop. I thought "This thing feels fantastic!" So much so that I stayed up way too late one night just playing. It responds well and just feels real.

I've found that I really like playing the Anvil with less gain. It sounds better to me with a (still on the lead channel mind you) little less gain than I would normally use. And I think you can hear it in the examples below. This less gain worked really well for the slide part as well (hear below).

So then I did my comparison tests and decided that I still like my NRR1/x50 tone better. It simply cuts through the mix better and has a little more uumph in those mids that I like. I also think the Anvil has just a hair too much upper end saturation, making it a little muddy at times. NRR1/x50, while a little brighter and a little harsh-er, has a slightly smoother curve up the frequency range to me. But I'm certainly not finished experimenting with this amp and I could completely change my mind in a few days.

For the nice feeling it has, I'll probably use The Anvil to track with. And with some more experimenting with cabs and post EQ changes, I can probably find a better way of fine tuning this amp to make it sound more like something I could use for everything.

Screenshot of my Settings
Anvil - Take 1
Anvil - Take 2 re-tracked, better playing and added slide
X50/NRR1 - Take 2 X50 on the left, NRR1v1 on the right - Understand that I've had months to refine this tone as well. I still love the bite it has!

Bass: TSE B.O.D., Lextac
Drums SSD 3.5

Thanks Ignite Amps for a beautiful plugin.

Steven Slate Drums 4.0

2011-08-04T11:27:00.003-05:00

Just got an email. Here's to even better sounding drums in the future, I'm excited:

The New STEVEN SLATE DRUMS Virtual Instrument

The new STEVEN SLATE DRUMS 4.0 Virtual Instrument is going to be the most massive drum instrument in the industry. New in 4.0 is the new SSD4 Player, a drum sampler built from the ground up by the same development team behind the award winning TRIGGER drum replacement plugin. Also new are dozens of new drumkits recorded by Steven Slate called the DELUXE series. These new unprocessed kits use Steven's years of experience in recording drums to create the most amazing sounding virtual kits you'll hear! New kits include multiple Rock kits, a Jazz and Brushes kit, a vintage early 60's Ringo kit, and even 5 new Electro, Dance, and Urban kits designed by producer Griffon Boice. SSD4 will also debut with multiple expansion packs in various genres by some of the top producers and mixers in the field.
So do you want to be one of the first people to try SSD4? Well.. there's a catch. We're looking for some people who will want to help us make this plugin a rock solid beast on all systems and in all DAWS. If you're willing to put the time in to help, then you should be part of our beta team! We're going to choose 50 new people to join the SSD4 beta team this week. Here is how:
1. Sign in to your TWITTER account and follow Steven Slate at @slateproaudio
2. Later today, Steven will announce how to apply to be an SSD4 beta tester.
3. That's it.

New Song - Mercury

2011-07-07T16:49:00.005-05:00

http://asonorouspose.bandcamp.com/track/mercury

It's been a long time coming....but here it is. The past year has been a little crazy. I've been working on this song since last September and I have finally finished it. I was going to wait to release it, but decided I needed something new on here. I currently have 2 other songs in the works, so hopefully it won't be this long on those.

"Mercury" was recorded in my usual fashion. I used the Vox sim from Revalver for the cleans and NNR1 and Lextac for the distortion. I think they make for a real nice mix. Tips on how I've set up the tones can be found in past blogs.

I hope you enjoy!

Please feel free to leave comments or questions. If you like the tracks, I would encourage you to buy it from my bandcamp page. Just click on the music player at the top.

Here's the skinny: I spent much more time on this one with editing, tweeking and getting everything just right, and I think it shows. Steven slate 3.5 just like all the others for the drums. Very little actually changed with the drums from past mixes. It's probably more about how the the guitars/vocals/bass are mixed. I spent extra time with the verbs and delay to put everything in the same space. Epicverb and taldubIII.The opening clean guitars are Revalver 3 Fox, redwirez Marshall IR's, double tracked with tal chorus (same dude who did tal-dub delays - WONDERFUL plugs btw if you haven't tried them) on each side, epicverb and taldubIII delay.....my cpu hates me.....I ended up bouncing everything to keep the cpu down. Distortion: And thank you, Alu, for NRR1....it's freakin awesome! The setup I used was the one we agreed was the better from my tests way back when, but with the volume on my LP rolled off about 2/3 of the way, Double tracked, panned 86%. One take with a lextac, slightly more gain than NNR1 (instead of doubled, it's a single play through with my old lextac settings at 100, 84, 84, 100% - you can really hear the difference at 4:40...the alllllmost wanting to feedback single note is Lextac and then the NRR1 comes in like I described above). The solo at the beginning is Lextac as described, the solo at the end of the song is NRR1.Vocals are done with a MXL 990 and run through so many fx I'm surprised my computer is not burning - Ni/Tim Exile's "the Mouth", Lextac, reatune, verbs, delays, more autotunes :P etc.... and double and triple tracked in places.Bass is BA500 from the old xgear for lows, lextac for high and string noise - all with ampeg implulses.

Police chatter used by creative commons permission, Thanks ERH!
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

TSE X50 Has Arrived!

2011-04-23T14:04:00.003-05:00

..DROOL... http://www.theserinaexperiment.net/website/software.htm 5150 anybody? I don't mind if I do. What I'm hearing from this sim is far better than even the Peavey Revalver MKIII version I have. It's still in a beta version and is quite high on the CPU consumption, but hopefully that will be addressed in the final version. The ability to switch between el34 and 6L6 tubes might just make up for it though. Between Lextac, NRR1, and x50, I think I'm done looking for amps. Metal heads rejoice! Thanks Onqel!

Ok, so I pushed the beat a little to much. The point here is the tone, not my lack of "metronomeness".

CLICK HERE FOR MY TEST (using 5150 cab from Redwirez): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/x50%20test.mp3

AND AN UPDATED VERSION (using Uberkab and Marshall IR's): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/x50%20test2.mp3

Ignite Amps TS-999 SubScreamer VST Plug-In

2011-02-16T10:18:00.004-06:00

With the quality stuff coming out these days, I'm finding more time to tweek and less time to make music and just play. On the other hand, it's real nice to have these quality tools available.

Enter the newest edition to the Ignite Amps family, The TS-999 SubScreamer. I've not tried it as of the time of this post, but looking at the quality of the NRR1 amp, I'm sure it's pretty rockin. I've also heard some real good things about it such as "Organic", "Realistic sounding", and "Awesome". Here's what the creator has to say about it:

Inspired by the most famous green overdrive pedal (version 808), based on the real pedal built by Ignite Amps for the italian thrashers Subhuman

Features:
- Dynamic 2N3904 BJT input and output buffers analog modeling
- Dynamic 1N4148 diode clipping circuit analog modeling
- Symmetric / Asymmetric clipping mode
- Normal / Fat mode
- Input level control for better response to different pickups
- Internal oversampling (selectable between 2x, 4x and 8x)
- Switchable input and output buffer modeling for better CPU performance
- Mono / Stereo support
- Double precision floating point internal processing

Fully coded in C++ using the Steinberg SDK 2.4

GET IT HERE: http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13011

Recabinet 3 Announced

2011-01-04T15:38:00.005-06:00

Click Here to Visit Recabi.net

"Kazrog has redefined cabinet simulation once again with the first effects plugin dedicated solely to speaker cabinet simulation. Recabinet 3 makes it fast and easy to find inspiring new sounds, avoiding the hassle of complex mixer routing and folder navigation associated with impulse response libraries. Recabinet 3 also ships with ready-to-rock factory presets designed by legendary artists and producers.

Recabinet 3 will be released on January 18, 2011 and will be available directly from http://recabinet.com. Recabinet 3 is not sold in stores.

New users can purchase Recabinet 3 for $129.99
Users who purchased Recabinet on October 23rd, 2009 or later can upgrade to Recabinet 3 for $59.99
Users who purchased Recabinet between November 1st, 2008 and October 22nd, 2009 are eligible for a FREE upgrade to Recabinet 3 by logging in to the members’ area between January 18 and January 26, 2011 and claiming their free upgrade. Past the grace period, they are entitled to discounted upgrade pricing."

You'll just have to take a look at Recab's website to see all the features, cabs and such. So what do I think about it? eeeeehhhh...well:

I understand I only paid $15 for Recab complete 2.1, I get that some stuff has been updated and improved, I understand that it's designed to be easy to use, and while I do think Recab sounds real good right out of the box....This plug just doesn't have the features or possibilities offered by iFace and Redwirez. I know redwirez IR's have their own problems and I've got to EQ the crap out of mine most of time to get them to sound as I like them. But When I can buy a much more functional iFace for $20 and select which cabs I want to purchase for $8 or $5 a pop plus I get MANY more IR's....

...Recab 3 looks and feels like a toy...not to say that it will sound like it, but come on. I really had high hopes for this before I even knew iFace was in the works. For me to spend $60 bucks on this thing, it better sound WORLDS better and short of a collection of cabs in my living room, I just don't believe it will at this point. Especially since ABG has plans of a similar to iFace plug that will work with Recab 2.

Sorry Recab, I just think it's too little too late and priced too high to even compete.

Acmebargig iFace Arrives

2010-12-20T14:20:00.007-06:00

iFace Trial

Support the good people at ABG and purchase iFace here

After quite some time of waiting, the wait is over. Sweet! If you are a Redwirez user, no more fumbling around thousands of files and folders to find the perfect IR (Impulse Response) for your tone. With iFace you can select Cab, mic and go. Actually move the mic on the user interface and the IR changes to that position, off axis, or ambient. It basically makes using IR's much more like a real studio setup and work flow. I know I'm going to put this to use within the next few weeks.

The trial version will work fully for 30 days. But at the low low price of around $20, I'm going to support my friends and buy it if it works as well for me as I think it should. You should consider that too.

***UPDATE***
I took a while last night and reorganized my Redwirez folders to the correct paths and got a few minutes to play with iFace. I'll be purchasing it sometime in the next few weeks. This thing works fantastic. No more clicking through 1000 folders to simply change an IR. Before iFace auditioning different IR's was hard and by the time you clicked through all the folders to a new IR, you forgot what the old one sounded like. Now, just move the mic. Wonderful. As much as I love LeCab, this thing is just too easy to work with to not use it. The only downside is that it takes a little more CPU per instance. Running 8 or 10 amps on one project could be a sizable cpu hit. But as easy as it is to move mics around now, I think I'm going to simply start bouncing tracks down to save the CPU anyway. Thanks Ken and everybody at ABG for this extremely useful plugin.

LeCab2 Is Here!

2010-12-03T12:18:00.011-06:00

Lepou has released his updated Impulse Response loader "Lecab 2". I haven't had the chance to play with it yet, but I can't wait. In the past few months I've shifted from using Revalver MKIII as a shell program to simply putting everything single, plug by plug in my effects chain. I've used the first Lecab extensively and it works great. This new version adds 4 more impulse slots for a total of 6, dropdown menu's for easy auditioning, and basically improved control over everything. It's sure to make routing, blending and using your IR library much easier.

LeCab2 is the evolution of LeCab1. It's a cabinet (guitar or bass) impulse loader. LeCab2 offers :
- 6 impulse slots
- Latency control (down to 64 samples)
- Dropdown menu built with the .wav files contained in the directory where the last impulse is loaded
- Next and Prev buttons to navigate through the impulse directory
- Solo button for each slots
- Channel selection for each slots
- Possibility to link the loaded impulse of 2 slots (other controls stay independant)
- High Pass and Low Pass filters for each slots
- Phase, Delay, Pan and Volume controls for each slots

You can see what the man himself has to say about it here:
Lepouplugins.blogspot.com

Look at me Mom, I'm a Ringback Tone!

2010-12-03T12:01:00.003-06:00

Ok, a very cool update.

If you are a Cellular South Customer, you can get my songs as ringback tones. There's a $0.99 monthly fee for the service, but the actual ringback is free and not subject to any charges except the monthly fee.

I know most people think Ringback tones are just annoying, which is why I've done it :P But you gotta admit, it's kind of cool too! I mean come on, it's not really that hard to get your stuff up on iTunes and while I do have some industry connections for stuff like this (It's a big part of my job to manage our digital catalog), It's not nearly as easy to become a Ringback tone.

Just search for "A Sonorous Pose" on the Cellular South Ringback web page. I'm under the "Emerge Artist's" category. I guess I should take this time to also mention the Android Emerge App. You can also find some of my music on that. Cellular south created it. It's designed to help promote local unsigned artists. While a good idea in theory, yeah, most of you can probably imagine - and I'll just leave it at that.

So if you're a Cellular South customer, go check it out.

Ignite Amps NRR1 Update

2010-11-22T10:43:00.006-06:00

I took a little more time to get this to sound how I want it, and with a little advise from the developer / instructions on how the tone stack works, I've got something I think I really like. Here's the clip:

Original: NNR1 demo

2nd try: Click Here

3rd try: Click Here

On the "2nd try" clip, I have 2 tracks, Reagate ->ts808-> NRR1-> Lecab -> ReaEQ (hi/low pass) -> verb -> Taldub III delay, both panned 86% and then into a bus track with the final Eq for a slight dip in the low mids and a slight (very small) boost in the upper mids and lower highs. This examples Ir's are the same as the first clip. I used Lecab to blend a Marshall impulse (75%, sm57 close to the cap) with an ambient room (actually a Royor 121, 12 inches off the cap) Soldano impulse (25%). Same thing on the other side except replace the Marshall with an Uberkab. The Soldano Redwirez cab is a little funny up close, but I've found a really good distances, it adds a nice little bit of mid creamyness when lightly added to the mix. The only difference between this and the very first clip is the settings on the NRR1.

On "3rd Try", the NRR1 is the same, but instead of blending the IR's, I routed the Soldano's to their own separate tracks and panned them 100%. So now you've got (soldano100%, Marshall 86%, Uberkab86%, Soldano 100%). Then all added back together in the bus track and eqed etc like above. I thought it might add a little more roomyness. I think it did add more, but it didn't quite turn out as good as I would have liked it to.

I like certain things with the "complicated" one. Like that the stereo field is a little wider or more separated when listening at optimal conditions, but it does take away from the punch a little - probably because the mids added by the Soldano cabs are now much wider. If you listen at a very low volume you can hear how it just drops out. Now I have to wonder if it wouldn't sound better with the Soldano's in the middle and the Marshall and Uber at 100%. I doubt it.

I think I'm going to stop messing with it and start tracking something with the "2nd Try" clip settings and see what happens.

Reaper Audio

2010-11-18T15:05:00.004-06:00

Click me: Reaper Audio

A good Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is essential to making a decent recording, along with a computer that is able to handle the load. If your machine is relatively new then you're probably ok for the most part. I use a quad core with 4 gigs of ram and it seems to work pretty well. If your machine starts to slow down you can always "freeze" or "bounce" your tracks (this lets you work with a completed .wav file, effects included, without the effects taxing your cpu). I also use an external hard drive to store my sample libraries, project files and anything else that might be used a lot, or constantly pulled from the HDD. This allows the C: drive to concentrate on running the programs while the external drive takes care of the busywork.

My DAW of choice is Reaper and it works wonderfully. With most of the same options and features as really expensive workstations, Reaper works just as well at a fraction ($60 noncommercial license, with an unlimited trial) of the price. You can easily spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on software that is, and I hate this term, "industry standard". Brandon Drury over at Recordingreview.com wrote a wonderful article on the topic - Digidesign Pro Tools: Rethinking The Industry Standard Mentality

I've never had a problem from Reaper. It performs wonderfully, accepts just about every vst I feed it, is very light on cpu, and a whole list of features that make my life easier like: a virtual midi keyboard, built in high quality vst effects, track templates, and simple to figure out controls.

While there is a learning curve with any new DAW, especially if you don't really know your way around a studio to begin with, Reaper is actually one of the easier DAW's to learn. If you understand the principals behind a simple mixing console, it won't take you long to learn how to use Reaper. What makes this even better is that on the Reaper Audio website, there is a user forum. Can't figure it out? Just ask.

How I use Reaper: I have track templates setup for everything including my guitar amps, drum sets, bass, certain vocal settings, certain tracking settings, master track etc. When I start a new project I can simply load the templates I need, arm the track, and press record. It's so simple.

I like to get some scratch guitars down first tracked with a simple drum pattern just to keep time. I then go back and edit the drum parts (more on this in a later post). I re-track guitars, bass and anything else. At this point the recording is pretty close to finished. All I need to do is add on the master track effects and tweak the mix. Because I started with a template for just about everything, and the templates came from a project I completed, the song pretty much mixes itself - with some exceptions.

My master track template takes care of the "Mastering" phase of recording for the most part. I use Stillwell's 1973 eq for a little bit of a shelving boost hear and there, Stillwell's Event Horizon limiter, Bootsey's FerricTDS for some saturation, Density Mark II for compression and Recording Review/Aradaz's Panipulator.

Stillwell Audio
Density MarkII
FerricTDS
Panipulator

Ignite Amps

2010-11-17T11:05:00.007-06:00

Mr. Alu of the Guitar Amp Modeling forums has just released his first amp sim - NRR-1. This thing sounds and plays great. I've got a quick little (slightly sloppy) demo I threw together last night with my first attempt using it. For the speaker cabinets, I used Redwirez Marshall, Soldano, and Uberkab blended IR's. I think with a little more tweaking, I'll start using it for some stuff. And just in time as well. I'm getting ready to track guitars for my next song. Right now I'm leaning toward this for rhythm stuff and the Lextac tone I've been using for lead. Check it out for yourself.

Read more about it here: Guitar Amp Modeling Forum Thread

Check out my audio demo here: NRR-1 Demo Audio

Song - I Need You

2010-07-01T17:32:00.005-05:00

A dip into the nether-regions of Drop B, triplets, high gain, a slur between major and minor keys, and yes....a hint of some vocal work. This is actually the first thing I wrote after my triumphant return (read that as any return is good) to the music making world over a year ago. It's simple but a lot of fun to play thanks to the triplet sections and the grindage. I hope you enjoy!

I went about the tracking of this slightly differently from the past 2 songs. For rhythm guitars, instead of 1 guitar track on each side, this has 3. It allowed me heavily layer some sections and still keep it relatively clean. The same with the solo work - it's actually 2 separate guitars combined.

Let me know if you like it. Let me know if you hate it. Download for free if you would like or throw a few pieces of loose change into the guitar case.

UPDATE** I've retracked the guitar solo starting at around three minutes to fix some minor tuning issues I kept hearing. It should sound better now.

Impulse Response (IR) Review - Recabinet, Red Wire, and Free!

2010-06-18T17:06:00.017-05:00

**UPDATED BELOW**

If you don't know, an IR is a very small .wav file that attempts to simulate something. In this case a guitar amp speaker cabinet (cab). You load the IR into a program that knows how to use it. This is my layman's explanation. For a more detailed answer, you'll have to look elsewhere. All I know is that it acts like a speaker cab with a particular mic at a particular distance and I'm not really worried about the rest. The end result is that it gives digital amp sims (like the ones I'm using) the equivalent of the speaker section. It's probably better if you don't worry about the technical stuff and just pretend it's a 4x12 guitar amp speaker cabinet. These days, IR's have gotten pretty good and make it hard to tell between the real speaker and the IR.

I recently decided to bite the bullet and go out and purchase a few IR's. Recabinet sells a full set that's composed of several different cabs, with different mics at different distances. Red Wire sells separate cabs individually, but many more IR's for that one cabinet (more mics, different qualities etc). And then there a lot of free sets out there, some good, some not so good. So which are the best? Which ones sound like what? Do they really sound like the real thing? I've thrown together a quick listen to try and get a decent comparison and find these things out for myself. Listen to this following clip and you can hear the different cabs, explanations follow:

Click Here for the Sound Clips

The only "real" hardward involved in this is my Les Paul guitar. All amps, speakers, mics, etc are generated inside the computer. This is not a scientific approch to compairing the IR's. I have EQ'd them to taste to remove fizzyness and other unwanted frequencies. I tried my best to take some time to do this so that they sound as much like the real thing as possible. There are 7 sound clips. Each one of them uses the same amp settings as I'll describe in a moment. My goal was to get a decent sound that could be used on my recordings. Some came out better than others and a few could use a little more work, I admit.

Amp settings: Lepou's Lextac amp sim, 1 instance of the sim on each of 4 tracks - 2 on left, 2 on right with slightly different settings. The amps are hosted in Revalver MKIII with Simulanalog's Tube Screamer pedal sim before the amp. Revalver's IR loader (RIR) holds 1 IR file per track following the amp and then the EQ on each track. The EQ consistes of a low/high pass filter and notch filters for specific frequencies. One playthrough for the 2 right and and same on the left panned 100, 86, 86, 100 respectively. This approch allows for more frequencies to come out and also makes each side sound slightly different lending a "bigger" sound in the end.

For the IR's, I tried to use the same mics and placement settings for each clip. This consists of SM57's on the grill at the edge of the cap in the 100% panned positions and the Royer 121 on the cone of the speaker set back around 12 inches or as close to that as I could get it. This is a fairly standard mic setup for recording guitar I think, and made it easier to have them all be as similar as possible.

Here are my thoughts and the descriptions:
CLIP 1: Red Wire's Uberkab v30. Nice mid-range sounds. Tight and agressive. I think I really like this sound, however it took the most tweaking of EQ to get it to sound how I wanted it. It's a little different from the norm. Does the difficulty to get it to sound good mean that it's a not-as-good IR? You be the judge. After some more playing with this one I think it might be put into my arsenal on a permanent basis.

CLIP 2: This is a wild card. Why? This is the setup I use on all my recordings these days for basic rhythm guitar parts. As you might notice, it mixes with the drums the best. It's the most production ready clip and sounds the "biggest" by far. What I only noticed just now is how mid scooped the sound is. I'm not generally a fan of mid scoop tones as much. I didn't do the mid scooping myself, the IR's just came like this. There are actually 4 IR's here working together, one on each track. This one also has the least amount of EQ of all the clips. The kicker: these are the free IR's found around the guitar modeling community. Alu's Engl new01, Dimi's Bogner 4x12, Recabinet's demo marshall cab, and Brohymn's MesaV30 respectivly on the tracks - Volume mixed almost exactly what you hear on my songs on this blogs.

CLIP 3: Recabinet's 1960a Marshall. Not tight but a good classic/British presence like these cabs are known for. With a little more work, this could sound better. Not so good for the chugga chugga, but the picked notes in the middle section really come through.

CLIP 4: Recabinet's Mesa IR. Well, it sounds like a Mesa....scooped, tight and punchy and fizzy on top. That's about it for this one.

CLIP 5: a combination of the Uberkab's left and the Mesa's right. This one isn't bad. It could use a little something else, but for the most part the tightness of the Mesa mixes well with the mid aggressivness of the Uberkab.

CLIP 6: This is another wild card. This is my most recent "We Die Young" tone. You can find more about this tone on that blog post. I'm sorry for sounding like a fan boy, but this sounds so good to me. It's so unique and simply does something naughty to my ears. mmmmm....tone. To bad it wasn't my idea.

Clip 7: This is a mix of the Uberkab and the Marshall above. It's not my favorite. While I believe these cabs would sound good if mixed correctly, I didn't get there for this test. The mids clash and it's kinda honky to me.

So what does all this mean? Nothing really for most of you. On my first experiences with "paid for" IR's I've determined a few things for myself though. I now own enough of these things. It might just be the Uberkab, but with the difficulty I had EQing it over the rest, I'm not convinced Red Wire IR's are all that much better than the others. Recabinet sounds great and for the price of $15 for the whole library, I'm not sure the incremental "better sound" from they're competitors is enough for me to buy another 1000IR files that I don't really need. I'm hard pressed to say the store bought IR's are better than the free ones. With the free ones, I had less trouble getting the sounds I wanted at the time. The only real difference I noticed in the libraries was the shear amount of different settings, mics and organization you get with the paid for IR's. But if you're like me and find one thing you love and go with it, most of those will never even be touched. It will be very nice to have them when I need them though.

I will wrap this up by saying that if you like having options and really know what you're doing when micing guitar cabs, Red Wire and Recabinet will certainly be for you. The more I get into trying different things, I'm sure that I'll appreciate them more and more. But I'm positive someone that has a good ear can do the same thing with a few hours to collect some from around the internet.

Please do not take my opinions personally. I'm very happy I've purchased what I've purchased and I think that both Red Wires and Recabinet have done an excellent job and have an excellent product. Feel free to leave comments and thoughts about your favorites or why you like or dislike any of these sounds. Thanks for reading!

*UPDATE*
Re-tracked a “little bit” cleaner and purchased the new Soldano Ir's from Red Wire, and Mr. Red Wire himself was gracious enough to drop the 5150 cab on my account. So I decided an update was in order. Here's the update before EQ: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/IR%20testing3.1.mp3

And after MASSIVE eg: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/IR%20testing3.2.mp3

VERY brief explanations:

All same Lextac settings for the most part, I did adjust here and there on a few of them though. I wasn’t going for so much a comparison this time. Instead I just wanted to make them sound as best I could without spending too much time.

Clip 1 - Same as clip 2 from the first test but this time with some mids added to the EQ. I think it's very smooth and powerful...Free Ir's, still my favorite but only more so now.

Clip 2 - The new Soldano cab. It's airy and a little strange, but I kinda like it.

Clip 3 - The Ubercab, much better in my opinion and quite useable now. A little more surgical eq might do it a little more justice in the mids.

Clip 4 - the 5150 cab and Lextac. This cab doesn't sound bad at all. In messing around I found that it's high end could be used to give some brights to parts/cabs that don't have so much high end.

Clip 5 - The 5150 through...the 6505+ in RV MKIII.... :D I just had to see what this would sound like. I think it's usable and might mix with something else for a great combination, but there is something still just not right about it. This amp is simply fizzy when it’s turned up to 11 (listening back to old recording of my real 5150 I’m not sure I realized back then how much high end noise this amp really has if you’re not careful). Embrace the fizz until I find time to mess with this one more… and I will.

Clip 6 - Since they seemed to be the crowd favorite from above, the 1960a and Mesa cab from the first test mixed. These cabs work well together for real, and they do here as well. This tone, including the post eq that’s been added took around 6.2 seconds to come up with. These IR’s are simply easier to work with. They sound good and give a nice powerful tone.

Feel free to tell me my ears suck or something, I can take it.

Ps sorry, there was something going on my machine during the tracking that created some high end spikes and odd ambience, almost siren like. I’m lazy and didn’t feel like re-tracking. Deal with it.

*END UPDATE*

Alice In Chains Tone

2010-06-02T10:57:00.015-05:00

UPDATE: NEW ATTEMPT
having recently purchased uberkab v30 from Redwirez, this is the newest attempt and the best sounding yet.

We Die Young Final Attempt.wav

The difference hear is only in the IR's. The amp settings are the same as below. Matrix's IR's on the left and right panned 100%. Uberkab v30 Royer 121 mic at 12" from the cone Panned 86% left and right.
END UPDATE

I just thought I'd share this quickly. This is a tone test where I try to recreate a certain tone. In this case - "We Die Young" (WDY) by AIC. The Idea came from this thread on the the Guitar Amp Modeling forums:

http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7829

This is probably my all time favorite tone. What makes this tone so unique I think, is that you can hear tons, and I mean A LOT of air being pushed by the real cabs. It's real hard if not impossible to fake that using sims. We know this already, but out of anything I've ever heard recorded, I don't think I've ever heard a "real" tone where you can hear it as prevalent. Listen carefully to the album version, it's almost like someone using their mouth and lungs and blowing across the tip of the microphone.

I came across something I haven't thought of yet while doing this and wondering why my tone doesn't sound quite right to me while listening back over all these samples and listening to the real "We Die Young". I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but oh well....

There are 2 "we die young" tones. One from the album version, one from the demo version. Both very similar, but by themselves actually have some distinct differences. When creating my tone from the shootout thing above [below], I was listening to the demo version without realizing it. Matrix I believe has been listening to the Album version. [Matrix is from the Guitar amp modeling forums and has created some wonderful IR's based on capturing the EQ of the master recording instead of a particular speaker/cab type. For more info on Matrix's work, visit:

http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=8461

In the below quick test, I compared all versions so that you may hear them. If you can't tell much difference between them, you probably need a good set of studio headphones. I'm not sure desktop speakers will do this justice. I'll go ahead and do the customary apology for the horrible playing on my part, I'm in a little bit of a rush to get this done this evening.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/We%20Die%20Young%20Tones.mp3

clip 1, Demo Version of the real song
Clip 2, My Original WDY tone - Lextac in Revalver, TS, New 01 IR, Bogner 4x12 IR, EQ to taste
Clip 3, Album version
Clip 4, Matrix's IR using my above settings with Lextac - small eq adjustments, but for the most part, I just added his IR's. I think I actually do like this one the best. Matrix, your IR really does sound great, Thanks!

But now so we've got some pretty good stuff going, what does it sound like if you combine them all together? You get this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/We%20Die%20Young%20Tones%20allinone.mp3

Which if I do say so myself, sounds pretty awesome.

Amp Sim Shootout

2010-05-22T13:12:00.010-05:00

Click the link below to hear 6 amp sim guitar tones.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/tone%20testing.mp3

This is what I consider to be the best of the best, however I do still have my likes and dislikes. What is your favorite? I'll post the answers to what they are later. Keep in mind this is how I would set up these amps, it might not be the way the general public of guitarists who enjoy these amps a certain way because x artist/guitarist said this is how to do it. Was that a runon sentence fragment? Who cares, I'm tired and don't care to fix it right now...enjoy the rock!

Thanks to redoubt9000 from the Guitar Amp Modeling Forums for the tracks in the form of DI .wav files.

UPDATE: this may be misleading, notice there are 6 sound clips and 5 amps listed. The sims used are Bogner Ecstacy, Soldano, Rectifier, Engl and 5150. Also note that IR's made using a particular amp might slightly color the IR with that amps characteristics. High/Low pass filters where used and there is no bass guitar. This is a biased test, meaning some of these have been disected and put back together in order to sound GREAT and others have been put together in 5 minutes. I highly recommend a good set of headphones while listening so that you may hear the little differences as well as the big.

*WARNING - ANSWERS BELOW*

I host all of these amps as if I'm using a real amp. For example, one amp sim instance for each speaker cabinet per track. using a different setting on the individual amps helps bring out more harmonics and I believe makes it just that much more realistic....and if not realistic, at least much "bigger" sounding. It's hosted inside Revalver MKIII because I like Revalver's IR loader. It does color the IR's slightly, but I like the end result much better than Kefir or Lecab or whatever other IR loaders. Also, when I refer to Tube Screamers, I'm using Simulanalog's TS with settings 0,5,8 for the most part. As stated before, these might not be the typical uses for these amps, but It's how I use them.

clip 1: the unprocessed signals

clip 2: this is my Alice in Chains "We Die Young" tone. It was my attempt at capturing that airyness of the guitars at the beginning of the song. 1 Lextac amp for each track, with Alu's new 01 on the left and Dimi's Bogner 4x12 IR on the right. The panning is a little weird on this one because it's compensating for the thought that Jerry Cantrell actually used 3 tracks, left ,right, and center to record this. I'm only using 2 here, so it doesn't quite sound right, but you can hear it's pretty close to the tone. I'm pretty sure I used a Tube Screamer on this, but I might not have. I really like using this by itself for solo's.

Clip 3: This is "My Tone". This is what I'm using for basic rhythm tracks on my recordings right now. Four tracks total panned 100%, 84%, 80 %, 100%. Volume is mixed to taste. Left side: Clean 1, doubled and Lextac red channel on each track, this is basically the clip 2 tone, but all in the left ear. Tube screamers on each track. Right side: clean 2, Doubled and lextac red channel on each track and tube screamers. Ir's for these two are a Damien (marshall from recabinet free trial) and Brohymn's Mesa V30. By far, I've spent more time working on this one than the others.

Clip 4: SoloC on 2 tracks, Catharsis Ir's, no tube screamer. This is a great little warm crunch to heavy setting. It actually works best for a warm tone that's not too over the top. Since at the moment there's no real great Diezel sim out there, I might use this for a very rhythmic associated guitar part, similar to what Tool's guitarist does with less distored parts.

Clip 5: Revalver's 6505, 2 tracks. I think I used Catharsis Ir's and Brohym's Mesa V30 on this, but for some reason I think I might have switch out the Mesa IR for Demi's Bogner at the last minute. One of the under-used wonderful abilities of the 5150 style amps is they've got a mid range that will cut through a mix like a knife. I like to bring that out because when mixed with something else, it can really be heard and sounds good. I use this for solos and parts that I want to stand out very clearly. Tube screamer on both tracks. Other than the normal high/low pass I believe I added a little extra mid boost post eq at around 1k.

Clip 6: I'm not a fan of the "mid cut" sort of tones from the past decade or so. But I do recognize that these amps sound great if that's what you're looking for. This clip is LE456 with Alu's New 01 on the left and x30TSE with New 01 on the right. Tube screamers on both tracks. I'll admit, someone else can probably do much better than me with these amps, but I hope i did them justice. I can't remember at the moment, but i'm pretty sure there's a notch filter to tame some fizz.

Clip 7: Last but not least, Revalver's MKIII Flathill (Mesa duel Rec). I've never hated an amp so much in my life than the Rectifier. It's not versitile and every guitarist who uses it sounds exactly the same (but that's opinion I know, please don't hate me :mrgreen: ). Anyway, I wanted to give this one a try so I can at least say that I tried it and I'm fair. 2 Tracks, Tube screamers and Brohymn's Mesa V30 (what else would I use :lol: ) Ir's. Modern channel. I used a notch to filter out some fizzyness in the upper mids just before the low pass filter.[/COLOR]

I hope that I did these amps justice. If you guys have any questions, I might get a few moments free this week to sit down and look over the project files better for more details.

Basic Recording Setup and Getting Started - My take on the subject

2010-05-18T23:59:00.010-05:00

This will require a little upfront recording knowledge, but you can find this anywhere on the web these days.

A wise man once said, "Keep it simple stupid." Sometimes it's hard to do that these days with all the options and hearing that this famous producer says do it this way or that. But in all honesty, if you're not a famous producer or engineer, chances are you don't know why it is you do it that way anyway. This is especially true when using software these days that makes it so easy to switch and swap and try this and that quickly. Now, I'll admit that if you're actually micing and recording a drum kit from scratch, the rules change a little bit. But for some amateur engineers, guitarists just trying to get a decent recording of their songs, or simple songwriters, we don't need to go to all this trouble. My entire setup consists mostly of software found for free on the internet. I have purchased a few things to make life easier, but all in all I've spent hundreds less than what a brand new Marshall half stack will cost you...and through the software I have just about any amp I could ever want.

First we need to start with good sounds. My guitar uses passive Gibson pickups, most likely along the lines of Burstbuckers or PAF's. I've heard people say that active pickups will work best for amp modeling because the signal is stronger. But in all honesty I'm not sure it's all that much better than a good set of passive pups. Decent cables will work and clean fresh strings of your choice. If you're using an interface of some type, you want the pickup gain to be strong enough so that you're getting a nice loud signal, but you don't want it to clip....at least until you know why you want it to clip. Add your amp sims or whatever until it sounds good. The same goes for drums. I make the kit sound good to start with, which makes the rest of the process much easier. There are plenty of tips and tricks that can be found on forums across the interweb or youtube. Test out different things until you find something that works for your ear.

Now on to a few more details. For guitars, I use Peavey Revalver MKIII as a shell program to host it's amps (this one might cost a little, but I was fortunate to be given a copy) and outside amp sims, like Lepou's amp sims (free - see the link to the side.) I use Revalver this way because I like the sound of the IR loader, or speaker cabinet simulation (there are free IR loaders out there that work great). If you're using guitar amp simulators, just plug it in and think of it like you would a real amp, only this one is in your vst chain. You have your amp, your cab, and your effects. If you can get a good tone through your real amp, all you need is basic mixing knowledge to get a decent tone from an amp sim (although some are better than others). And with all the options of free sims out there these days, you can get REALLY good tones. In fact, most people (even guitarists that won't admit it and say "sims will never sound like the real thing") can't hear the difference between real and sim when done well...and it will cost you nothing.

The only real recording knowledge you need is how to setup tracks like a real studio. Most studio rhythm guitars are 2 or 4 separate playthroughs. I usually use 2 playthroughs, one for the left side and one for the right. I then double them to make 4 tracks total. Pan them somewhere around 100%Left, 80%Left, 80%Right, and 100%Right. This will differ based on your tone and volume. I tend to use 1 amp instance for each track with all four guitar tracks using 4 seperate IR's (Impulse Responses) for the speaker cabinet simulation. After that, EQ is recommended as a high and low pass filter at least. You get rid of the high's to remove unwanted fizzyness and the lows to get rid of frequencies that can interfere with the bass guitar. I don't like mid scooping very much, but if that's your cup of tea, do a notch filter. Most DAW's will come with a decent EQ to get you started with this stuff. If your ear is good enough, you should be able to tell what you like and dislike. If I'm feeling froggy, I might send the 4 tracks to rhythm guitar bus for a little extra verb or something to help it sit in the mix a little better.

I use the same basic principles for bass guitar except that I tend to use two tracks. One with Ampeg SVX (free version) bass amp simulation for the lows, and then a guitar amp (I'm loving Lepou's lextac blue channel for this) for some highs and string noise. It's usually easier for me, not being a bassist really or knowing that much about mixing bass, to get my final bass eq after I've got a drum track and guitar track. This leaves me the ability to EQ around those parts, to add and subtract frequencies where they are needed to fit the other tones.

My drums are handled with Steven Slate drums EX. I picked this up not long ago for $20 on sale. It generally go's for around $99. This program sounds great out of the box. But to get it so sound good in the mix, you need a little more than that. I send the output to a separate track for each drum in my daw. Each drum is then EQ'd, gated, compressed, reverb-ed, etc to my taste (it might be best if you do your own reading up on drum mixing for more details). It's then send back to a master drum bus with more reverb and compression to pull it all together. Plugins of note that I like using for this process are Stillwell's 1973 EQ and Major Tom Compressor and Bootsie's Density MK II and Epicverb. The bus uses Epicverb to add a little extra verb than what you get from the room mics, Major Tom adds a first stage compression for a slight "pumping feel" and then a light touch of Density MKII brings it together as a whole. The only real headache of doing drums this way is the endless hours you can spend tweaking the midi note placements. But I actually kind of think it's fun and it really doesn't bother me that much like it does some people.

So this really isn't that much work yet. My philosophy of "keep it simple stupid" means that I save these tracks as templates or presets after they are individually sounding good. After that just bring up the volume levels. Although some settings will need to be adjusted, at this point, you should have a fairly decent sound and you didn't have to send kick and snare to a bus and do crazy routing things to do parallel compression and such. Last but not least I do a little more eq if needed on the master track, a limiter to bring the volume up, a tape simulator for some saturation and more compression to glue it all together. I actually prefer to mix into this final compression instead of adding it after the fact. I also don't use a lot of compression on any one compressor. I tend to stay around 4:1 or less on all of them.

While using more advanced techniques is of course the goal, it's not hard to get a good sound without them if you start with good sounds. I know this explanation isn't going to give anyone a step by step process, but it explains my theories a little behind the recording I'm currently working on.

Song - A Quarter Inch Crazy

2010-05-16T02:57:00.006-05:00

-An instrumental - The main theme of this song, the chromatic riff that appears over and over through the rhythm guitars, strings and even in the solo's, kept nagging at me. I experimented with speeding it up (which sounds real good, but made no sense for the expression as a whole - hear it much faster in the solo starting at around 6 minutes), but ultimately settled with it around 150bpm. In my writing of this song, I was initially thinking of it in similar fashion to a Canon and then Sonata, but settled somewhere in between but falling short of both.

I really liked this song when first coming up with the initial pieces, but never could get it to sound quite right. I finally came up with the "chorus" section that's played at the beginning middle and end of the song, and it finally came together. The song is quite modal and alternates between a feeling of Db minor and Ab Major. I really stopped short of taking it full circle, but it was getting too long and unfortunately I was getting tired of working on it. In the end, I think I'm happy with the results even if at this point I do believe it's a little more straight forward and less "prog" than originally planned.

Recording techniques are almost exactly the same as the previous song "Beyond the Beginning", with the exception of the lead guitars. The "wah" lead part is the 6505 from Revalver MK III amp sim and the other is a mix of two different IR's using Lextac by Lepou Plugins.

I also used the free version of East West Symphonic Orchestra for the string parts. I wish I had the full version (and with it a full orchestra for the low low price of close to a thousand dollars), but even this extremely basic version sounds great. If you're into that kinda thing, I highly recommend checking it out. I filled out a survey on their website which enabled me to download the "free version". It was a pain to get the program to work, but totally worth it.

In the next few posts I'll be discussing which plugins I like and why. Everything from amp sims to why I like this compressor and how I've got the computer setup to work best. I hope you can stay tuned!

Song - Beyond the Beginning

2010-05-15T16:41:00.005-05:00

This is the first multi-track song I've recorded all by my lonesome. One day it will get some vocals, but we'll save that for another time. This song went through many different versions, remixed and rerecorded several times before we get to where we are now.

All of my recording is done with Reaper, God bless everyone behind that wonderful piece of software. For this recording I use Lepou's Lextac amp sim, based on a popular Bogner amp, Revalver MKIII 6505 for the lead and additional parts, and impulses (IR's) found at guitarampmodeling.com. Credits for those impulses go to Brohymn, Dimi and Alu. Steven Slate Drums EX is used for the drums. Amplitube Ampeg SVX free version BA-500 bass amp for the bass. My guitar is a 1990 Les Paul standard and the bass guitar is a Dean Zone XM. There is also a whole mess of reverb, delay, compression, eq, etc. plugins used. I'll get into more detail about all this at a later date though.

The guitars are double tracked into 2 separate amp instances for each take. That's 4 amps total, one on it's own track. Lextac is loaded into Revalver and I use it's RIR to load the impulses. I just really like the RIR for an impulse loader. One impulse per amp and a different impulse on each track, blended to my ear's personal taste.

The drums, even though they are vsti and sound pretty good out of the box, I've eq'd them heavily. The midi channel is sent to a total of 15 different tracks. One track for each drum. Each mixed, compressed, gated, eq'd, reverb, delay, panned...well you get the picture...by itself as if it were a real kit, then sent to a group bus track for more compression and reverb.

The effects at the beginning are from the free Kore player from Native Instruments.

This song was created not only for the music, but for the recording templates and such that I'm going to use as a starting point for all projects until it gets packaged together on a full length record.

At this point I've left the standard charge of 99 cents for a quality download. I figure it's not that much and if you're just wanting to listen quickly anyway, you can right here as much as you want. But for the luxary to take it with you, what's a dollar?

Here We Go!

2010-05-15T01:35:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I've launched and we're live. This is going to be my attempt to actually do something with my music. I will hopefully be able to do a lot of stuff with this blog. I'm planning on putting the music here so that you can at least listen to it. I'll probably get around to some free downloads and promo codes for all my friends when I can get more in depth and learn how all this is going to work. Until then, if you like it, download it and tell me what you think. I'm always open for some good feedback. I'll also be posting about recording techniques I use, plugins, reviews, etc, all created digitally. In fact, the only "real" instrument I'll be using is my guitar. For the most part this will be instrumental, but I've got a few tricks up my sleeve for some vocals and I might call in a favor or two along the way. Also, I'll be happy to answer questions like "how to's" and explain this or that. Until I can get some time to actually do some blogging, check out the tracks I've done so far. Soon I'll tell you a little more about the songs and what I used to record them. Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy it!