toiletbag

Aye, their hard drives rock.

Haha!

I think the rooms in there are actually alright; it's all the more baffling that they continue to use samples. I guess it's quite a 'current' trend.

I think a U47 might sound alright 1-2 feet out front of a kick, but I don't think it's capable of handling the SPL inside a kick drum.

I've not been in that many bands, but here it goes...

2001-2002 - ARGH!

This was my first 'band', formed in the latter years of my time at Arbroath High. We played loads of covers - really, really shocking covers of really, really shocking songs. I seem to call that we actually did a cover of Alien Ant Farm's cover of 'Smooth Criminal' - it was terrible. I played some bass and some guitar and did some singing. We never played outside of Arbroath because we were utter pish and mostly under age. We all liked different sorts of music, so it was never meant to be. We also spent quite a substantial amount of time arguing as well ('NO I'M SINGING WISH YOU WERE HERE FUCK'S SAKE'), but they were really nice guys.

2004-2008 - Juliet Kilo

I spent a couple of years learning how to actually play guitar to a semi-competent standard, then got asked to join this band. We initially started off sounding a bit base and generic, and recorded an EP called Carnival. It was pretty poor, but by the time it was finished we started writing another EP called Little Manifesto which was better. Amazingly, we never actually got either record pressed, for reasons too dumb to explain.

We spent most of 2008 cancelling gigs because by that point Andy and Allan lived in Edinburgh, and last minute work commitments made gigging outside of town impossible; I think we pissed off quite a few promoters, so we'd realised that it wasn't geographically possible any more. I had loads of fun in this band, and there's still some songs that we'd like to get together and record sometime.

2009-present - Pensioner

Another Dundee band called Alamos had split up just before Juliet Kilo called it a day, so Mike and I asked Mark to come play some drums with us. We roped in Mike's flatmate Cal to play some guitar too. I think this is the band that I've felt most comfortable in, and it's a relief not to be doing all the singing.

We recorded our first EP ourselves last year, and we played with loads of great bands last year. We're hoping to gig as much as possible this year as well, and get out on tour in the summer some time. Later this year, we're going to record our first LP; Robin's going to do the tracking and we're going to mix it. It should be really fun!

I don't think the prices would be such an issue if the quality, like Tom says was really good.

Captain Toms (don't get me wrong the place and the staff are great and I always buy my strings, picks etc and practice there) for example you pay 120 for most of a day. Go down to Dundee and you can get the Seagate studio for a similar price. The gulf in quality is enormous. I would say the CT recordings are good enough for free/cheap demos, but Seagate is defintely good enough for an album (for unsigned acts I guess) and with a bit more money even some airplay. Kaddish and Archives both have albums recorded there and are both very listenable. They're by no means perfect (the kick drum sound being the most noticable problem), but definitely value for money.

When Carson recorded with Robin sutherland he was 120 bucks a day too and he's done some really great, high quality stuff like Copy Haho's first seven inch, the most recent Stapleton album and the Avast! album.

Even Tom who used to play in Allergo is better and although I don't know his rates, I'm sure it's little more than fuck all. I would happily use his recordings (based on the most recent uncalm and Grader recordings) for an album.

Aberdeen just has very very little to offer by way of studios with good gear or top quality engineers that really should be doing better things, but aren't there yet and/or actually give a crap.

Nah man, Seagate's kaput. They're all about re-sampling every single drum hit in there, excluding the overheads of course (which are high-passed to such an extent that you only hear the washy cymbals anyway). That might seem harsh, but that's the way I feel about it. I hold a dim view of studios that sample drums for 'consistency' in any genre outside of metal; I like the minor inconsistencies in performance, it brings out the human element. While I think Seagate can be commended for their efficiency, it wouldn't do them any harm to slow the process down a bit and concentrate on getting good drum sounds as opposed to relying on ye olde faithful dry_kick.wav.

As much as I like the Archives album, the drums sound characterless. I think it's a shame because Iain's a great drummer. It'd be nice to hear someone playing the drums, rather than listening to what sounds like a martial arts sound track.

Having recorded with Robin twice, and continuing to turn to him for advice on all things audio, there's no competition in the North of Scotland, more so given the fact that his new studio opens very shortly.

Boo hiss etc. Go on! Valentines Day is coming up!

Thunk, splodge, etc.

Hi folks,

We're a new-ish band from Dundee, comprising of ex-members of Alamos and Juliet Kilo. We recorded our EP ourselves earlier in the year, and we've finally got around to getting it pressed. If you like bands, and you like music, then you might like our band that makes music.

If anyone likes what they hear and would like a copy, just head on through to the Big Cartel page we've set up; you can find the link on our myspace page. It'll cost you an achingly lofty 2.50, including the p&p.

Thanks a lot!

Pensioner on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

Look at the state of that. I'm surprised NASA haven't commandeered this yet!

I wonder what would happen if you turned everything on at once.

That could be a problem, though I guess the only way to get confident is to do more of it...

I don't know if this is any help, but I've built a boost pedal using one of the BYOC pedal kits. The process is incredibly easy, requires no knowledge of electronics and is a great way to get confident at soldering. The pedals themselves are pretty great, and it saves you messing up some of your own pedals in the pursuit of knowledge.

Check them out here. I built the triboost.

i don't play around with this shit nearly as much as I used to, but heres what I really like....

D 16 Devastator - This is one of the best plug ins ever made, its a multi-band compressor/distortion unit and the range of sounds you can create is just awesome, I love putting this on drums (particularly a room track), guitar, bass, vocals, synths, drum machines, ANYTHING! It only costs 35 fucking euros yet it will make your ITB mixes sounds like they are being cranked through quality vintage gear. There is literally too much you can do with it....they havea new one called Decimator which I haven't used so much but its a bit crusher I think, the two in combo can probably make some great noise...

Stillwell Audio Transient Monster - Amazing control of drums, you can really make snares snappy and short (the Epitaph/Fat Wreck Chords drum sound) or can make them huge...

Stillwell Audio Major Tom Amazing compressor based on dbx 160, this pumps and pulls in a controlled manor (input gain dependent) so flows very musically...great on the drum bus

URS - BLT The simplest EQ plug in there is and the shine this adds this awesome, really brings out the crack in snares and brings them forward, adds nice air to vocals aswell...

OVERLOUD - BREVERB - Great reverb plugin modelled on old hardware units, great sounding plate on this (I love plate on vocals and snares, 80s sound)...you can run one of these inserted in every track and its never going to kill your CPU like altivervb...

IZOTOPE - TRASH - There are a load of great amp sims but none really get that harsh sound of a cab like Trash..I don't think much of the distortion stages on it (although you can do some crazy stuff with it) but the speaker emulations are just huge and with a bit of compression in the pre stage, will just sound like an amp being cranked out and mic'd up. I always come across recordings ive made and forgotten I got the guitar sound using a plug in because it sounds just like an amp...

GSi - GSI200 - This is a clone of the Roland RE-201 and it just sound great, the spring verb sounds amazingly on vocals, and playing with the echo is just so much fun....you can make all those crazy watery sounds on dub records...very cool

I checked out some of your recommendations. I'm enjoying the Stillwell stuff - the Transient Monster is proving to be very useful, great for tightening up a drum buss. Not too fond of BREVERB, it sounds a bit too artificial at times I think, and I like plate reverbs for certain applications. I guess it depends what you're using it on.

My next planned purchase is the UAD Plate 140. I had a shot of the demo and it blew me away, it's just a pity that I couldn't commit it to a mix without printing the track.

I've got a G7th one, I think it cost me 20 when I bought it. Never had a problem with it.

I thought the scrambler pedal might sound good... it does not!

That thing's hilarious!

I think it's the first piece of amp modelling software that I've used that hasn't sounded utter baws.

Pretty much always use the SVT classic as well. I often find the 'mic' choice can make a significant difference, it's pretty much always a contest between the U87 rip-off and the 'dynamic 20'.

I use a Presonus Firepod, aiming to get another one so I can daisy chain them together for 16 i/o.

The preamps are fairly characterless, but useable. It'd be great if it had a variable impedance function. I'd like to get some more pres with a bit of character. Got my eye on a couple of Golden Age Project PRE-73s, which are modelled on the Neve 1073 (allegedly). They sound great.

It sounds identical to the behringer digital delay. Rotten. I'll check out SIR, i8s it cheap/free?

There's two versions of it, one is free (which is the one I use), and the other one costs...something, I can't really remember. You need to get impulses for it, the SIR web-site links directly to places where you can get impulses; some of them are shite though.

I know what you mean about the ambience but I found that without any it sounded SO DRY, so I just put the tiniest amount on to make it sound like it wasn't recorded in a vacuum chamber! I suppose if you reamped it that would solve that though.

my tuppence.

You're absolutely correct Huw. Most of my 'live' tracks have quite a lot of room (including the guitars), so I have to add artificial ambience to get any DI tracks sitting right in terms of depth; but I'd recommend getting something like SIR to replicate a room sound rather than the ambience slider in SVX. Ambience from what exactly? The local swimming pool?

I understand a few folk on here are either recording, or interested in recording, so it'd be nice to get an exchange of ideas going. Here's a few plug-ins that I probably wouldn't be able to work without:

UAD Pultec and Pultec Pro - pretty much the best VST EQ plug-in that I've ever used. It's capable of both cutting and boosting bass without sounding totally shicht, which is a welcome surprise. I've never heard an original Pultec, but this is so damn impressive on its own that it doesn't actually matter how well it compares. There's loads of other UAD stuff that I'd like to get, but it's a serious financial investment.

UAD 1176 - sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. It's funny how accustomed you become to this; your first impression is how squashy it is, but it also seems to impart a little bit of girth in the lower mids. As a result, I sometimes run guitars through this if they need thickening up. Sounds great on clean guitars. It's also incredible for parallel compressing drum mixes.

SIR Impulse Reverb - it's FREE and, providing you can find decent impulses, can sound incredibly realistic.

Ampeg SVX - surprisingly good bass amp simulator. So good, in fact, that mic'ing a cab can sometimes seem superfluous. Basically, this can make a flat DI track sound incredible, especially if your DI is a little lifeless (like mine). I often find myself re-amping bass, but still end up using the DI track most prominently in the mix. Avoid the 'ambience' slider though, it's well cheesy.

URS 1975 Compressor - my 'go to' compressor for bass. It's incredibly fiddly, but the sweet spot is very sweet indeed.

(I'm guessing you meant to say "recorded a bunch of tracks"?)

cubase, logic, protools, nuendo, reaper, reason, cakewalk....

I can't recommend Reaper enough. For the price ($50 I believe) you will not find anything with as much routing capability. I downloaded it when it was still freeware, but I understand that through beta testing it has improved ten-fold. Ultimately, it's a very powerful tool for very little cash.

Edit: Also, it's very light on the resources, and it's $60 now, not $50.

Thanks to everyone who came down; we had a time!

We've not got the EP pressed yet, but if anyone wants a CD-R then PM me with your address and I'll get one to you (for free of course). You'll get to see how neat and tidy our handwriting is and everything.

Ross 'Perfectionist' Middlemiss

'We've got to lose that sax solo...'

Hi Huw,

I've always found this site to be incredibly helpful when trying to troubleshoot problems with valve amps.

Tube Amplifier Debugging Page

From there:

Fuses blow quickly for massive overloads, like AC shorts to a grounded chassis. They blow with a some time lag - maybe only a second or two, up to minutes, as the overcurrent gets closer to the fuse's actual rating. Anything that uses enough power to cause the AC line current to exceed the rating of the fuse will eventually cause it to blow.

It is important to remember that a fuse NEVER blows without something else being wrong. It could be that:

* fuse is the wrong rating - replace it with the correct rating

* power tube shorted

* rectifier tube shorted

* power supply filter cap failing

* Carbon trails on the output tube sockets between the plate lug and the other electrodes, especially the heater electrodes.

* power tubes have lost bias or biased incorrectly

* power section of the amp is oscillating at too high a frequency to hear

* there is an ac wiring short or high leakage

* power transformer is faulty

* choke (if present) is shorted/leaking to chassis

* output transformer is faulty

* AC power wiring or B+ power wiring is faulty/shorted

Given that it could be due to any number of (complex) problems, you'd be best to take it to a tech to be honest. Take it to Dennis Marshall; he's the boy.

My 'gear':

Fender Japanese '62 reissue tele; it plays beautifully, but the stock pickups are really nippy in the upper mids - I might replace these with Kinmans or Bareknuckles. Apparently making your guitar sound like a mouse with the runs is 'vintage'.

Epiphone SG (piece o' shit)

Orange AD30 (single channel - damage)

Boss TU-2

SPF Greenline Overdrive

BYOC Triboost

Boss DD-20

I'm actually between cabs at the moment, but I have the borrow of an Orange 4x12 if I need it.

Things I would like:

2x12 cab with vintage 30s or blue alnicos.

A decent trem.

Some sort of looping device that isn't total horse.

My bump my bump my bump...

http://www.myspace.com/yourunclefritz

http://www.myspace.com/julietkilo

http://www.myspace.com/baddancer

http://www.myspace.com/deadoramerican

8:30 doors

£3

Oops, this does look like it's actually in the wrong forum. Many apologies. Could someone please move this to the Feedback Forum for me?

I don't get that. If I'm buying a pedal, one of my pre-requisites is that it should have a DC jack or a power supply of its own. If it doesn't, then it's not welcome on my board; it annoys me that some boutique builders can't comply with standards like that. They themselves might think that battery powered operation provides the cleanest signal, but they must realise that battery operation simply isn't feasible for some players - particularly touring ones!

That's fair enough actually. I heard there's quite a big problem with ground loops in the states, do you think it has anything to do with that? I don't think that sort of thing's a problem over here, but I could be wrong; mind you, this is the based on the grounds that I've never heard anyone complain of such a problem in the UK.