A few years ago Lori Linstruth made available her Behringer V-amp library. I still use some of her presets. They sound really great for a thick solo tone. You can download them here.

Lori rhythm
Lori Solo 2 wet
Lori Solo 3 wet

Lori Linsruth

I was in the market for a portable recorder. After some investigation I quickly decided on the Zoom H2 recorder and couldn’t be happier with my purchase.

I was looking for a flexible recording option that would work in a number of situations.

• Second mic for video camera
• field recording of rehearsals
• concert recordings
• quickly create clips of gear for YouTube

Some of the features I was looking for included

• recording time of at least 3+ hours on battery
• good sound quality
• records onto SD memory cards
• meters to monitor input levels

The Zoom H2 recorder is made by Samson and is available for $180-$200. The recorder comes with a bunch of cool extras like:

• carrying case
• mini tripod stand
• an adapter to use the recorder in a mic stand
• earphones
• USB cable
• audio cables

The H2 is about the size of a small digital camera and weighs 4 ounces. It is powered by 2 AA batteries which are supposed to last 4 hours.

The H2 is extremely easy to use. I was able to get going without reading the manual. If you can work an IPod you can work the H2.

The H2 is equipped with 4 microphones. The two on the front are angled for a 90 degree cardioids pattern. The two on the rear are angled for a 120 degree cardioids pattern. You can record with the front, rear or both together. This allows for real flexibility depending on the sound source. For example if I’m recording a guitar amp I might use the 90 degree cardioid pattern. For a chorus or live concert recording I may use the 120 degree pattern. To record a band you may find it best to place it into 360 degree mode and place the mic in the middle of the band.

Another pleasant surprise was the onboard automatic gain control (AGC). Zoom provides a number presets which include compression and limiting settings. You also have the option to turn off the AGC. There is also a low cut filter that can be turned on/off.

The Zoom H2 includes a 512MB card and can use up to 16GB card which would allow for crazy recording times. I set mine to record at 320Kbs mp3 and I can record well over three hours .

Recording of guitar amp
This is the H2 with recording close micing a guitar amp.
electric-guitar

Acoustic Guitar
I placed the H2 about 2 feet away from an acoustic guitar.
acoustic guitar 1
acoustic guitar 2

Concert Recording
I brought to Zoom H2 to a concert of Kellie Pickler and Trace Adkins. The Zoom fits nicely in the front pockets of my jeans with the mics poking out the top. The H2 has a switch for high/med/low levels. For Trace Adkins I used the AGC preset for concerts. I was 7th row on the floor. It should be noted it was very easy to use the H2 in the dark.
Trace Adkins
Kellie Pickler

Call me old fashioned but I really don’t think a distortion or boost pedal should cost over $50.

Consider the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face who’s circuit is below. I will tell you right now I would be surprised if there were $1.00 worth of parts in this pedal. The circuit is about as basic as it gets. Your grandfather will learn how to design this type of circuit within the first week of the electronic classes at the town senior center.

It’s kind of funny that they charge $100 for this pedal. There was a time when many guitarists didn’t like this pedal. The cork sniffers of the day hated all things transistor claiming it was full of odd order harmonics.

There are lots of great pedals near or under the $50 mark. The Boss DS-1 distortion, the SD1 super overdrive, the Digitech Bad Monkey etc… I think this is a fair price for a dirt box.

There are many stomp boxes with fairly complex circuits like the EHX Metal Muff and the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone. The circuits in these pedals typically have op amp based circuits and fairly complex tone circuitry. I can justify a little more $ for these distortion pedals as well.

If your are in the market for a talk box you more than likely have heard of the Heil Talk Box. The Heil is the classic talkbox made famous by such guitarists such as Peter Framptom, Joe Walsh and others from the 70’s and 80’s including Bon Jovi’s “Living On Prayer” and “It’s My Life” tones.

Normally I am a stickler for sticking to the original. Not in this case.

The Rocktron Banshee Talkbox is equal or superior to the Heil in just about every way.

The biggest plus is the ease of use of the Banshee. In order to use a Heil Talk box you need to connect the speaker outs from your amp to the unit to drive the internal speaker. Most of us with combo amps do have have the luxury of speaker out jacks. Plus if you use your speaker out how are you supposed to play through the amp for normal tones ?

The Banshee has a built in preamp/amp to drive the speaker. The diagram below is a basic setup. You can use the footswitch to bypass the Banshee. There are three controls. Gain, tone and output level.

The unit is plenty loud to practice with without mounting the tube to a microphone.

The tone out of the Banshee is excellent. It totally nails the classic tones of the Heil Talk box.

If you are in the market for a talk box do not hesitate to buy the Rocktron Banshee over the Heil.

[phpbay]rocktron banshee, 5[/phpbay]

All of the sudden I have GAS to get a Digitech Vocalist. I don’t have the greatest voice in the world and I can get a bit pitchy at times especially if the song is not in my range. I was always intrigued with the vocalist since the initial releases. It just didn’t seem worth the $300+ investment since I am just a studio hack. My own voice was usually good enough or I would have my wife sing.

Digitech is about to release new generation of Vocalists. The Vocalist Live 2 and Vocalist Live 4.
The Vocalist Live 2 can output your voice and two more harmonies. That is plenty for my needs. Also the Vocalist 2 will do one harmony above and one harmony below your voice. I kind of wish it had the option to do both harmonies higher. It seems like the Vocalist 2 does not have pitch correction, which is a bit of a bummer, but maybe it can. One of the harmony options is “Unison”. The manual states:

When Unison 1 is on (and Unison 2 is off), it doesnâ??t track notes in a chromatic scale, so it produces a tight double sound, even if youâ??re singing slightly out of pitch. When Unison 2 is on (and Unison 1 is off), it tracks chromatic notes. This can help you sing on pitch better.

So maybe it can do pitch correction. I emailed Digitech about this matter. There aren’t manuals available for the Vocalist Live 4 yet on the site.

These particular products are geared towards guitarists. Rather than create harmonies based on the key of the song or scales it actually tracks the chords you are playing on guitar and creates the harmonies based on what you are playing. It’s a pretty amazing concept and early reports are that it tracks well.

Being the “bang for the buck” guy that I am I am on the lookout for a used Digitech Vocalist Performer on Ebay. Another candidate may be the Vocalist Workstation EX will seems like it may have do pith correction capabilities.

I am also looking for Cakewalk/Sonar plugins that would be able to accomplish this same task.

I was poking around the Neil Schon web site. I notice a picture in the gallery of Neil Schon playing what looks to be a Korg GT6. It looks like he was playing the Star Spangled Banner at a baseball game.

In the early 80’s Tom Scholz introduced the Rockman X100. Scholz is an MIT graduate and the Rockman gear was designed to let everyday people achive guitar tones that took hundreds or thousands of dollars of studio gear and knowledge to achieve. It was revolutionary at the time and was truly one of the first stack-in-a-box devices.

The Rockman line was expanded to include rack mountable modules. Including the Rockman Sustainor, Chorus and Echo.

If you have any questions or comments about Rockman gear please leave a comment on this page.

All of the sudden I have GAS to get a Digitech Vocalist. I don’t have the greatest voice in the world and I can get a bit pitchy at times especially if the song is not in my range. I was always intrigued with the vocalist since the initial releases. It just didn’t seem worth the $300+ investment since I am just a studio hack. My own voice was usually good enough or I would have my wife sing.

Digitech is about to release new generation of Vocalists. The Vocalist Live 2 and Vocalist Live 4.
The Vocalist Live 2 can output your voice and two more harmonies. That is plenty for my needs. Also the Vocalist 2 will do one harmony above and one harmony below your voice. I kind of wish it had the option to do both harmonies higher. It seems like the Vocalist 2 does not have pitch correction, which is a bit of a bummer, but maybe it can. One of the harmony options is “Unison”. The manual states:

When Unison 1 is on (and Unison 2 is off), it doesn�??t track notes in a chromatic scale, so it produces a tight double sound, even if you�??re singing slightly out of pitch. When Unison 2 is on (and Unison 1 is off), it tracks chromatic notes. This can help you sing on pitch better.

So maybe it can do pitch correction. I emailed Digitech about this matter. There aren’t manuals available for the Vocalist Live 4 yet on the site.

These particular products are geared towards guitarists. Rather than create harmonies based on the key of the song or scales it actually tracks the chords you are playing on guitar and creates the harmonies based on what you are playing. It’s a pretty amazing concept and early reports are that it tracks well.

Being the “bang for the buck” guy that I am I am on the lookout for a used Digitech Vocalist Performer on Ebay. Another candidate may be the Vocalist Workstation EX will seems like it may have do pith correction capabilities.

I am also looking for Cakewalk/Sonar plugins that would be able to accomplish this same task.

I have a ESP M-350. I really wanted a Floyd Rose guitar again since I kind of miss my Kramer American Pacer from the 80’s. It’s fun to have a reverse headstock shred machine in the arsenal.

Anyhoo I hated the EMG HZ pickups in the ESP. I had a Seymour Duncan JB that I stole from my Korean Kramer for the bridge. I ordered a GFS Crunchy PAF for the neck position from GuitarFetish.com. If you’re not familiar with GFS pickups they are excellent quality pickups at a fraction of the cost of Duncans. I paid $22.95 for the GFS Crunchy PAF and I ordered a set of pickup rings. To my surprise the pickup came with a ring already installed and ready to go for the neck position. I lowered the middle pickup as low as possible to reduce magnetic drag on the strings.

The installation took a bit longer than I expected. I really don’t care for working on guitars anymore. I managed to change the pickups without changing the strings. Try that without a Floyd Rose.

I was little concerned about phasing of the pickups. I think I got it right. It really doesn’t matter though. There is no position on the switch that allows the neck and bridge pickup to be ran together. The guitar sounds in phase in the 2 and 4 position. So that was a relief.

The ESP M-350 has a mahogany body. The JB balances well with the ESP but it still has some nice bite. The GFS Crunchy PAF is not as “woody sounding” as it would be on say a Les Paul. With a 24 fret guitar the neck pickups closer to the bridge pickup than a regular 22 fret guitar. The sound difference is not as dramatic as it is on a standard guitar.

Let’s face it though, the neck pickup will not be getting used much on this guitar.

Here is the finished product.

The guitar next to the ESP is a Kramer (Korean) that I have had since 1983 or so. I have painted it a number of times, one time it was surf green. It has a totally crap plywood body. I had the Duncan JB in this Kramer prior to putiing it in the ESP. Although the Kramer body was totall crap the neck is actually half way decent and it sounded ok with the Duncan in it.

I just wanted to pay tribute to my DOD FX55 distortion pedal. I bought it new around 1985 or so. I didn’t know better. I really can’t say anything good about this pedal. It sounds nasally but not in a fuzz face kind of way. It’s not even good for slamming the inputs of a tube amp.

If you ever have the chance to buy one…don’t