FM Dr. Tony Balls built me this Pentode Box, and then we had him build 2 more stereo units.
If I travel, I always bring one with me. Saves a lot of time "dialing in tone" and helps recording guitar pedal bands immensely.
My studio partner used it and immediately fell in love with it. I record other recording guys and they're like "how did I live without this?"
Simple, elegant and powerful.
Totally a must have.

DBX 263x de-esser
Saves me a lot of headache when recording assholes with these newer cheap synths (of which I have been doing less and less of).
Must-have? Maybe.

airloom wrote: Sun Mar 05, 2023 2:36 pm FM Dr. Tony Balls built me this Pentode Box, and then we had him build 2 more stereo units.
If I travel, I always bring one with me. Saves a lot of time "dialing in tone" and helps recording guitar pedal bands immensely.
My studio partner used it and immediately fell in love with it. I record other recording guys and they're like "how did I live without this?"
Simple, elegant and powerful.
Totally a must have.

What kind of applications did you use the pentode box for? DI from a pedalboard?

Coming back to this a year later, I got to shout out the Drawmer gate. Two channels, precise control of attack, release, sustain and can switch from gate to duck, as well as infinitely variable from zero (no reduction) to negative infinity. Tons of utility for cleaning up a drum mix, but the creative options are endless. "What if every time you hear X, Y goes away?" Or visa versa.

My favorite application was on a Latin band's song they had a bridge that swerved into old school hip hop. They wanted a hard turn on the production there so aside from adding some lofi 36 Chambers style grit to the drums I ran a sub bass synth into the gate and keyed it off the real drum. My favorite was when the drummer emailed me after testing a mix in his truck, super psyched all, "WTF did you do to my bass drum?!".

Those kinds of reactions are surprisingly rare in this business.

I think those gates go used for like $150.

$150 category:

I always have an FMR RNLA inserted on to something! It holds its own up to tube stuff sometimes.

I think the RNC had its time in ye olde archive days - transparent hardware compression on the cheap seems to have gone out of style but I like that one too.

If you deal in MIDI at all, a Conductive Labs MRCC is a absolute must have.

If you are working on a computer, a Stream Deck is fantastic.

High quality powered USB 3/Thunderbolt Hubs.

A good cable tester, Multimeter, and something that can generate tone and noise at a known calibrated level.

Comfortable headphones. Comfort is a higher priority to sound quality for me with Headphones. I don't mix through them, But people hate wearing hot, scratchy shit on their heads all day.

4' or 6' power strips plugged in all over the place. and front facing rack mount strips or power conditioners in every rack. Looking for outlets blows.

Sand bags, bricks, car break drums to weigh things down.

Apple boxes to get things higher up.

As many flashlights, screw drivers and pliers as you can buy placed everywhere you will ever need them. I keep a little tool box right next to the drum kit.

Real Gaffers tape, blue painters tape, and real white board tape. As much as you can get your hands on.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Mon Jan 15, 2024 3:52 pm I think the RNC had its time in ye olde archive days - transparent hardware compression on the cheap seems to have gone out of style but I like that one too.

I've had one forever and it hadn't been used in almost forever. I put it on my pedalboard. I very rarely want compression on guitar, and when I do I'm apparently fussy about it because I didn't like either the Keeley compressor or a dynacomp, but the old RNC works great.

It’s funny you say that - I’m picky about compression, too. FMR has a floorpedal called the Arc that I’ve been wanting to try, but I never once thought about trying the RNC straight into an amp. If it gets the overtones dancing a bit instead of squeezing them out I’d probably like it.

For me personally, doing sound art / homebrew musique concrète etc., the revelation has been recording absolutely everything (live shows, studio jams, experiments, ad hoc stuff outdoors or elesewhere) with a field recorder (an Olympus LS-5, bought used for under 100€, now have three of them for back-ups) at 24/96, instead of recording with a laptop and DAW. I only ever use the laptop to assemble pieces in Logic, which can be a painstaking process, but still the essential recordings are all to digital two-track basically, and not multi-tracks in a DAW that I first have to mix down and bounce before collaging/composing. I started doing that maybe seven years ago, and it has been the best decision I've ever made in terms of workflow and creativity. Even if I fuck around with laptop sound generation or processing apps, I'll record to the Olympus through an interface and then import the files to my sound library for later use. I like having the material gathering and generation and the final assemblage/composition as two discrete steps, done with different hardware, and especially that the computer only gets involved (and things only get visual) when it's time to put it all together.

jimmy spako wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2024 3:14 pm ..the revelation has been recording absolutely everything (live shows, studio jams, experiments, ad hoc stuff outdoors or elesewhere) with a field recorder

I need to do more of that (I have a Tascam deal). Inspiration is so fleeting for me at this point that running into the side room, creating a session, hooking up the interface, a handful of mics/stands/cables is a momentum killer (or the original idea is forgotten). Plus they sound pretty damn good for what they are: definitely one of those "I would have killed to have one of these at age 15" devices.

Definitely. It started with recording shows with the field recorder as a backup to the multitrack on a tour in 2016, and then just realising that the live sound was solid and I could rely on those "two track recordings" and not be daunted by the huge hassle of mixing and rendering multi-track audio later. To be clear, I mostly use it to record directly through the line-in, unless I am recording ad hoc installations, and then I use some little LOM field recording mics into the Olympus, or just the built-in mics if it is domestic stuff that sometimes finds its way onto record. It would be different with more of a live band kind of music, but the idea is still adaptable to a lot of things. Decent, affordable field recorders are a godsend, no doubt.