Dirt cheap Dolamo D-8 overdrive from eBay turned out to be absolutely fucking awesome. $A31 delivered so probably $US 20? Beautifully cranked on my Tele, wide range of tones, no background noise, goes from a bit burred to snarly in very good ways. Apparently it’s a Timmy clone. Nice quality for no money, and I can dial in the sounds I want to hear very easily.

matttkkkk wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2024 7:56 pm Dirt cheap Dolamo D-8 overdrive from eBay turned out to be absolutely fucking awesome. $A31 delivered so probably $US 20? Beautifully cranked on my Tele, wide range of tones, no background noise, goes from a bit burred to snarly in very good ways. Apparently it’s a Timmy clone. Nice quality for no money, and I can dial in the sounds I want to hear very easily.

Super cool.
I have no need for pedals, but I've often thought that if I was back in a band that played sketchy shows that I'd build up a small pedalboard with Amazon mini and super budget pedals.

Metal picks where a good idea but know I'm worried about fucking up my guitars body. Anyone use these? I know bluegrass palyers use metal finger things.

Mickey242 wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2024 8:53 pm Metal picks where a good idea but know I'm worried about fucking up my guitars body. Anyone use these? I know bluegrass palyers use metal finger things.

I shredded the pickups on my EGC with copper picks, otherwise I've used them extensively with other types of guitars with and without pickguards, maybe a scratch or two here and there.

GuyLaCroix wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2024 10:30 pm

Mickey242 wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2024 8:53 pm Metal picks where a good idea but know I'm worried about fucking up my guitars body. Anyone use these? I know bluegrass palyers use metal finger things.

I shredded the pickups on my EGC with copper picks, otherwise I've used them extensively with other types of guitars with and without pickguards, maybe a scratch or two here and there.

I totally fucked up a strat when I used copper picks in high school, but at that stage I was super cool and had my guitar slung pretty low. At this point I keep it up at approaching-middle-age-dad height centered just below my belt buckle and I don't really have any issues with chewing up the wood or pickup covers.

FMR Really Nice Compressor and FMR Leveling Amp

ElectroVoice EVT 4500 rack mount spring reverb

I've made it so long without compressors. Well, I've got a Joe Meek C2 from the Ted Fletcher era and it's great, but I didn't really understand the controls and overused it in a way that left me skeptical and overly cautious about a decade ago. Anyway, I took the plunge a few months ago and I am so happy with these two products and they are astonishingly inexpensive. I know this isn't going to be news to anyone here but I still want to share my experience.

The RNC was B stock from Adorama for something like $125. I've been using it rather subtly to fit a dual vocal (male and female) into the mix better. I've used it during mixing on 3 songs so far and I love it. The singers (my wife and I) are not the best with controlling our volume and mic proximity. I did not want the compression as a vocal effect, just to get it under control a little bit so it sits better in the mix. I'm very happy with the results and it sounds natural.

One of the songs we are dubbing vocals onto was recorded over 10 years ago in a huge empty room and there is a lot of natural reverb. I wanted to add reverb to the vocals (also during mixing, after the RNC) and I got to really try out the Electro Voice EVT4500 reverb for the first time, beyond just testing. Damn this thing sounds good! I thought the dual tank design (short and long reverb tanks both inside the unit with a blend knob between the two to control the character/length of the reverb) was a gimmick but it was actually very useful. I was able to get a vocal reverb that was believable and worked well with the other elements. I really like this thing and look forward to running some HR-16 snare through it in the future and pushing it way out of "subtle" territory.

I added a combo organ part on that same recording and there are some differences in key volume between the octaves. It's all working fine, but you know how jagged some notes can pop out of an old Italian combo organ. I needed more than subtle on this, I needed to squish it a bit to smooth out the volume of the individual notes. The Leveling Amp was perfect for this. I also wanted to have the organ quite low in the mix, sort of barely there, and that would have been impossible without this tool. If it were higher up, I'm sure the compression would be more obvious, but as it is the overall effect is still pretty transparent. Just what I needed.

It's weird to be at a point in my life where I can consider these things to be "practical purchases", but each of these three pieces of equipment are solving problems and improving my recordings.

Tom Wanderer wrote:
ElectroVoice EVT 4500 rack mount spring reverb

As a total side-note, I was annoyed af to do a price check on these and see that the ebay seller formerly known as 9guitar or something like that still has their shop going apparently but under a different name...and still owns one of literally every weird box ever made and then jacks the price up 3x. The 3 plants and flash photos are giveaway.

Yeah that seller has been at it forever. A while back I bought a Biamp MR140 for cheap that I was so excited about, but it didn't work. Like no wet signal. I checked everything I could, checked and double checked leads, swapped tanks, all sorts of stuff. Seemed like it should have been such an easy fix, but I couldn't sort it out and opted for a return while I could still get my money back. I saw that plants n tablecloth seller had one (of course) for way more than I was willing to spend. I looked for another Biamp for months with no luck and eventually found that EV for $275 and felt like I was overpaying and settling for less, but I think I came out on top in the end. It works beautifully, seems indestructible and has a much broader reverb palette with the two tanks and blend control.

PMC's finally in place
Pretty absurd. the folding table is going to have to go and I'm building a new desk. They sound great at low to moderate volume (where I like to work anyway) but quickly overwhelm the space if pushed a little. Its a lot for what is basically a control room built into a large walk-in closet.

Goodtimes

So badass. Good on you man