jimmy spako wrote:A couple months ago, I bought a Squarp Pyramid sequencer used for relatively cheap from a guy who got it for a review and barely used it. I want to use it as the brain for all the MIDI stuff I've gotten into over the past years, for drum machines and synths, but mostly for 24 tracks of cassette tape that I run through 24 channels of MIDI gating to chop the audio up and make all sorts of weird, evolving, generative stuff. This thing is a blast. Just started trying to get my head around it and work out an efficient workflow here over the past couple days. Currently just fucking around with my own Boss DR 660 kits to get a feel for building structures, but will start applying it to the tape slicing/gating soon.Awesome! Do you have any recordings, compositions, etc. with this set up? I'm keen to hear some stuff.

Just bought a brand new Behringer NX3000. It's a modern class D/SMPS stereo power amp. You can get them for 300 bucks brand new. It fits in a shallow rack and weighs just under 8 pounds.It amplifies stuff in a reasonably transparent manner. I had it out in my bass rig Friday night and it sounded just like the Crest it replaced, at least when not driven too hard. I never lit up the -6dB lights. It has been my experience that with cheap modern power amps you want to buy something with way more power than you are going to need and never clip them. When run in this manner they are fine, if you try and lay in to them the way you would with an old Macrotec or something they start sounding poopy pretty quick.It has a ton of power, although the stated figure of 3000 watts bridged at 4 ohms is almost certainly optimistic. The spec sheet makes it look like they just took the voltage swing and did the arithmetic. I'd be comfortable dropping it in to a system where I really needed a third to half of the rated power.We have a bunch of the previous generation of these amps at work. In terms of reliability they seem to either come from the factory fucked up or they are fine. I've been running four monitors off of an NU6000-4 for years now and it keeps doing it's thing, and we have a handful of other NU series amps in an install and in the B-rig PA. The fan is kind of loud.I'm surprising myself here, but I'd recommend this piece of Behringer gear. If you just need a utility power amp it's light weight and cheap and useful. Shaved over 20 pounds off of my schlep.

VaticanShotglass wrote:jimmy spako wrote:A couple months ago, I bought a Squarp Pyramid sequencer used for relatively cheap from a guy who got it for a review and barely used it. I want to use it as the brain for all the MIDI stuff I've gotten into over the past years, for drum machines and synths, but mostly for 24 tracks of cassette tape that I run through 24 channels of MIDI gating to chop the audio up and make all sorts of weird, evolving, generative stuff. This thing is a blast. Just started trying to get my head around it and work out an efficient workflow here over the past couple days. Currently just fucking around with my own Boss DR 660 kits to get a feel for building structures, but will start applying it to the tape slicing/gating soon.Awesome! Do you have any recordings, compositions, etc. with this set up? I'm keen to hear some stuff.I've recorded a fair bit with that set-up in trying to fine-tune the technical side and exact configuration of gear to use. I've been folding that material back into the other practice, putting it on tape and sampling it with my "legacy" live rig when I play out. There's some stuff made with that kit in my first experiments that will get blended in to a record I'm working on that features a lot of different approaches. I want to start working intensively on material for a record that will feature this approach primarily. So, not yet, I'm afraid! But thanks for the interest as always I really need to just make a couple little videos showing that set-up in action, it's fun to watch. The Pyramid continues to be a blast, really worth it, especially if you can find one used, so well thought out.

excellent. I'd love to see a video eventually. It would be easier to wrap my head around it then.

Moog Ring Mod - hell yeah. I use it for a little halo of clanging overtones for weird lead sounds. Using an expression pedal with the frequency control is totally necessary to make it work for me. It s hard to dial in the exact pitch of a given key, but you can get close enough for different octave down or up effects. I don t like the drive dial, so using the LS2 with it is key. You could do without either the LS2 or expression and it would work great, but both of them put it over the top. I ve been using it with guitar, but these are still the absolute best with bass - the amount of stomach churning sub lows it puts out just doesn t come across through a regular guitar amp. Boss LS2 - I found one for cheap a while back and got it because of all the talk on the board about them. I have a simple little TB loop, but the extra options sounded interesting enough. The way I use it with the Moog would also work with an old Memory Man - set the drive to where it s not overloading the input or anything. This puts you below unity gain, so then you use the LS2 to bring the level back up to where it needs to go. Again, you don t have to pair the LS2 to either pedal, but it works so much fucking better when you do. The Moog and Memory Man both sound cool with the levels goosed, I just find that the overall sound quality and interaction with the amp and other effects are all improved.

Electrical Guitar Company P-Bass.I've logged some serious time on this bass now and have a few thoughts on it. For starters, despite the familiar shape, this thing has a sound that is entirely its own. It definitely doesn't sound like your typical Fender. The EGC humbucker is thick and kind of dark and it honestly has a sound more akin to a single pickup Thunderbird. Splitting the coil via the push/pull tone pot and running it as a single coil pickup tightens and brightens it up some, getting it a little more into Fender territory (I use it in this mode probably 90% of the time), but the EGC pickup is still very massive and heavy sounding and it's just never going to sound exactly like a Fender. I totally get why guys who lean towards so-called doom and stoner type stuff love these pickups.I'm still messing with the intonation and action, trying to find the perfect balance. I very much enjoy that the truss rod factor is nonexistent on these instruments, especially living in a region with drastic temperature and humidity changes season to season. All of my wooden instruments need setups pretty regularly, which is frustrating. Anyway...I have the bass tuned to CGCF for Secret Friends. I'm using 55-115 gauge DR strings. I'm getting close to having it set up perfectly with accurate intonation, good action and no fret buzz, but not quite there yet.I love this bass and am finally starting to get used to it. Down the line at some point I may send it to Kevin and have him add a second pickup (with the coil tap like the current one) near the bridge for a little more versatility, and for the fact that all three of my other basses have dual pickups and sound great. But for now I'm stoked on it. Every time I walk past our music room at home and see it, I almost inevitably wander in and just have to play it. It's an inspiring and very fun bass to play.

Colorsound Overdriver circuits.So I wound up with two of these in short time. One I built myself and another is a Vick Audio clone. Both pretty much sound the same. I'll sell the latter eventually. Man, this has an amazing fuzztone when maxed out. That's what I do with it nearly all the time. Power chords and bass string riffs have a fantastic sizzling quality that is great for early Black Sabbath stuff. This is especially true when boosting the treble. Barre Chords have this great Neil Young circa Psychadelic Pill vibe. Maybe the notes aren't quite as distinct as that or as much as I'd prefer. It cleans up with the volume knob just okay. I don't know, I'm not a big fan of that way of playing. I love how, even when maxed out, it has a great attack to it and almost feels like playing along with a clean note. Roll back the gain knob and you can get some decent medium gain fuzzy overdrive. This gives you more note definition and keeps that Neil Young sizzle. Single note riffs just have a great quality to them that way.I was pretty bummed out with the boost and low gain overdrive settings. There is a good sound that gets overshadowed by a staticy breakup that seems separate from underlying gain sound. If it weren't for this it might be my favorite dirt box. It might still be. I don't know. I figured this was a problem with my DIY build so I boxed it up in storage for ages. Recently I got a hankering for the sound so I got the Vick Audio model. It has the static sound too. It is really subtle on both, but I always notice it. The Vick sounds just like the homebrew model but a bit quieter. Apparently folks don't mind the little low gain sounds and I'm odd (I always want a good low gain sound but find something to complain about every example I find). It's kind of like the crackle ok sound on a Zvex pedal except you don't have to be moving the knob to hear it you just have to pick really hard. Anyway, I'm really picky about edge of break up sounds and this one doesn't do it for me there. But the last half of the gain dial is fantastic. It's not a Fuzz Face, it's not a Marshall in a box, it's something else. It sounded great when I got to crank up my Champ tonight. Stack it with another boost pedal and it goes nuts. Just nuts.

Rycote USM-l mic suspension mount, a review in haiku:Eighty dollar mountReplaced stock Blue POSBlueberry securehttps://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... phone.html

WeStartToDrift wrote:Came across a too-good-to-pass-up deal on a minty Beta Lead. The gent's father bought it new and it just sat in their basement for a couple of decades. It sounds exactly as a Beta should: next to no headroom and brutal, brutal, brutal distortion. At this point in time it might not be my main amp, but the distortion on it blows away any pedal.http://imgur.com/yNwYRDpNice Silvertone while we're at it.

1983 Yamaha SL-450S.Man this guitar is nice. I love my Greco lawsuit tele deluxe and wanted something similar that played as nicely. Didn't think I'd ever want a les paul but this thing just looks cool as fuck. Turned up looking brand new asides from some nice blue rust on the pickups. Skinny neck and its just lovely to play. Pickups sound bright and clear too. Great guitar, especially for 450 all in.