Saturday, March 6, 2010

As I suspected...

So Apple came out with the new improved 10 inch iPod Touch, oops, er I mean iPad! I won't lie and say I don't want one, but do I really need a 10 inch iPod?!%#. I was really hoping for a full on tablet notebook from Apple, as opposed to having to buy a "ModBook" through Axiotron. Meanwhile Microsoft has announced Windows Mobile 7 coming out "later this year" per Steve Ballmer. What will the Microsoft Courier look like, and will it run Windows CE ? In the musical world I've got to give a hand to the folks at tc eclectronic. I just recently become the happy owner of a second hand M300 dual engine processor. My props to my sales guy Andy at Guitar Center for recommending at $75 as opposed to retail price of $250.The link above gives some great examples of what it can do. It's excellent, it has a multi-effects engine and a reverb engine with a ton of options for flexibility. It's outstanding in the studio and for live sound reinforcement. So the 'ol guitar rack is now complete. At this point there is a Peavey Rockmaster Tube Preamp(for a great lead channel-use the crunch channel almost as hi-gain as the Ultra channel), a BBE Sonic Maximizer 411, dbx 266XL Compressor/Gate(this thing totally got rid of extra hum and unwanted noise, I run one channel into the Clean EFX loop on the Peavey and the other into the Crunch/Ultra EFX loop), a Quadraverb 2, and the a fore mentioned M300. I have pedals for everything, (except for G foot pedal to control M300 remotely). All this fun sonic love goes into the Line 6 duoVerb modeling combo amp (to record to use the XLR recording outputs direct to the the XLR inputs on the Tascam FW-1082 mixer Mac or PC depending on the software needed. In addition to this I also have an assortment of pedals, as you can never have enough. I use a Moogerfooger-12 stage phaser, a Morley Bad Horsie 2 Contour Wah(this is the best wah I've ever used in 25 years of playing guitar), A Digitech Bass Synth Wah/Envelope Filter(this a super fun noise maker to the Nth degree!), a Behringer Digital FX600 Multi EFX(this pedal I got prior to the M300-there is no comparison the M300 takes the cake, but if I do not want to hual around my whole rack to a gig or a studio, it comes in handy!), Danelectro Fab Overdrive( for $15 this is great fix for a pretty great sounding distortion pedal), and a Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster(this is a great used as a preamp or to get extra boost for a guitar, bass, synth or drum sound for recording or live sound applications). As a musician you can never have ALL the equipment you need, because there is always something else you may want to get to tweak your sound. It's kind of like getting into photography, or collecting and restoring cars. You know you will never stop collecting. You just hope your significant other understands, supports and encourages your music fetish like mine does.
; )