Speaking about his basic gear, Bodhi introduced us to his guitars and pedal preferences. “I use the Fender 57 Reissue Stratocaster (Limited Edition) and the Fender Highway One Telecaster – both made in the USA. “For effects I use BOSS Single Units, the Fender Bassman Pedal (FBM-1), the Super Overdrive (SD-1), the Blues Driver (BD-2), the Mega Distortion (MD-2), the Chorus Ensemble (CE-5), the Digital Delay (DD-6) and my BOSS GT-10. Regarding synths, I use a Novation Ultranova as my main synth and a Korg X50 as my accessory keyboard. Other gadgets I use are the Boss RC50 Loop Station and as for programming software I use Reason 5, Fruity Loops Pro and Acid Pro.”

But options are always more basic when anyone is a beginner. “I started out with the shittiest equipment possible! Because my parents first thought that music was just a hobby for me, I got a Hobner acoustic guitar and my first electric was a Hobner “Strato” made out of plywood! The selector switches looked like light switches and never worked. I used a Zoom 505 (which in my opinion is the worst processor ever) and I didn’t even have an amp to begin with. I destroyed my Philips Cassette player by plugging my guitar into the headphone jack.”

“During college, I upgraded to a 2nd hand Squier Strat and a Korg 1000G. My mom also bought me an Epiphone Les Paul, but soon I realized I am more of a Fender player. In 2007, I had to get a Fender Strat, because I could feel that the Squier Strat was physically getting in the way of things I wanted to play. So, my father gave me the greatest gift of my life – a limited edition Fender US 57 reissue Strat priced at 1700 US dollars.”

Upgrading, of course, is a continuous process – and with so many new gadgets and models coming out in the market, it is easy to get seduced into buying and upgrading to the latest gadgetry. However Bodhi’s take on this is slightly different and he does not necessarily adhere to the aforementioned principle and neither does he seem to be a follower of the “latest” gear upgrade cycle. “As far as pedals, synths, etc. go, I only upgrade when I have extracted all that I can from the particular gadget and I cannot get the sound I’m looking for. I still have a lot of exploring to do with my Ultranova synth and I will not upgrade it until I find any limitations. I am very happy with my GT10 and all the single units and will not trade them ever. My computer however needs some serious upgrading because I am having the need of more and more synthetic sounds with each passing day. Frankly speaking, I don’t know exactly what is the latest on the scene, but the Roland GR55 guitar synthesizer has really caught my attention. For experimenting guitar players who want to expand the sound of the electric guitar this is a must have. I am planning to get one real soon.” 

“I believe that my gear has helped me immensely to shape my sound, but I always believe that the thought comes before the machinery and not the other way around.”

So how does one translate his thoughts and ideas into the music we love to hear? “To be very honest the process is extremely difficult. Whether the idea is playing-oriented or design-oriented, it needs to be tested and reworked upon by continuous trial and error until the thought in my head and the sounds that I hear after the work is one and the same.” So wouldn’t his knowledge of guitars and their associated gear help him in the creation process? “Instruments are extremely important in this regard because one has to clearly understand the direction of sound-scaping which appropriately fits the idea. However, having said that, I must also mention once again that the musician comes first, not the gear. Even if one doesn’t have top-of-the-line equipment, he/she can create great music just by putting apt ideas in the apt spaces.”

But we were curious to know about the actual process that he generally follows – how, for instance, would he compose a small 30-second track, and what kind of gear would he be using for this? “When it comes to any kind of composing, I always do it on my acoustic guitar and record it on my phone. I listen to the recording again the next day and start working on the appropriate treatment required for that composition.”

Obviously the kind of gear used by Bodhi would depend upon the type of music that was being composed, and being a member of bands that range from the eclectic to the down-right experimental. Take for instance Intersections, the debut album of his pet project The Bodhisattwa Trio, an experimental jazz rock outfit – what was his choice of gear during the composition of this album? “For Intersections, I have used my Strat and my Tele, an OD pedal, a chorus pedal, a delay pedal, a wah wah pedal, plugged straight into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe tube amp. I have cranked the amp up to get the fattest and beefiest tone. Since the entire album was recorded live all at once, the main objective was to stick to the absolute basics when it comes to the equipment and focus on the playing bit.”

Again, in Atoms and Combinations the second album of indie quartet Zoo, Bodhi’s approach was quite different. “For Atoms and Combinations, I have used every digital device I have, including my programming software. As far as the guitars are concerned I used my Tele, plugged into my GT10, overdubbing the tracks as broad stereo signals, since there were so many layers, FX, sounds and modulations. I prefer to go the digital way rather than handling 20 pedals at once.”

He has even tried his hand at films scores but compared to the type of gears used for his bands, here his approach is a lot less complex. “For film scores, since it is impractical to carry my amp to every studio, I simply use my GT10 and record my guitar as a stereo signal.”

Bodhi is quick enough to provide us with a few useful tips which should be reassuring to guitar players of all categories. “For beginners, I strongly recommend a good, comfortable but not too fancy acoustic guitar. I started out with a Hobner acoustic guitar which was not very good but these days, you get very decent Chinese, Korean and Indonesian made acoustic guitars at very reasonable prices. Starting out with an electric guitar is absolutely disastrous because it completely shuts out all the options on your style of playing. At the intermediate stage, one must decide upon the style of music he/she wants to pursue and accordingly take a call. If you want to purchase an electric guitar then I recommend spending some money to buy a fine instrument as it will be a one-time investment and the instrument will become an extension of yourself eventually. Same applies for acoustic guitars. For advanced guitar players, the world is an ocean of choices. He/she will know exactly what is needed and it is only a question of application.”

As a parting word to all guitar enthusiasts in and around the city who not only avidly follow him but look up to him as a role model, Bodhi says “The player comes first, not the instrument. I always put special emphasis on tone extraction with the pick and fingers rather than using heavy duty instruments. A good player will always get a good tone even if he uses the shittiest gear. But of course, a good instrument will always bring out the best in you. In a nutshell, the story lies inside your body and mind. Practice and hard work is everything.”

Hardware and Features

The first thing you’d notice about the pedal is the relatively large number of knobs and switches. The pedal recreates three different guitar amps, with three gain modes and three mic placements, giving you a total of 27 possible configurations.

The three amps that are recreated are the Mesa Boogie(Calif), Marshall(Brit) and Fender (Tweed). Each of these amps can be set at three different modes: Clean, Hi-Gain and Hot. If you’re still not satisfied, you may even select how the “amp” should be “mic-ed”. There’s a simulation of where the mic is placed with respect to the cabinet cone. You can choose between ‘off-axis’, ‘center’ or ‘classic’. There’s also a ground-lift switch, which helps in reducing noise. You may also configure your tone via the four knobs present on the pedal: Drive, Bass, Treble and Level.

Tone

The pedal is extremely versatile. It gives you a good tone for almost any genre of music, from jazz to metal. The Mesa Boogie simulation has the beef to pump out some heavy gain, well-suited for thrash/speed metal. The Marshall simulation is perfect for some crunchy rock ‘n roll. I was successfully able to extract a close-to-authentic AC/DC tone (just for kicks). The Fender amp that’s simulated is the tweed. This is probably the best tone the pedal provides. The warm clean tone is reminiscent of an Ibanez Tube-Screamer.

How I use it

I set the pedal to ‘Brit’, at ‘Hi-Gain’ with the mic at ‘classic’ and ground-lift on. Keeping the drive at 10 o’clock, treble at 1 o’clock, bass at 11 o’clock with my Epiphone Les Paul Standard. With the Yamaha Pacifica, I use the ‘Brit’ for overdrive, with drive at 10 o’clock, treble at 11 o’ clock and bass at 1 o’clock.The pedal goes either into the amp or to my Zoom G7.1ut processor, which provides rudimentary cabinet simulation going out to my headphones.

The good

The pedal provides a “true bypass”, which makes for a pure clean tone, or however your native tone to the amp is set. The pedal, set to my needs, gives me a warm crunch that drives hard for the most part and cuts back to a driven clean when I cut the volume from my guitar, giving me a teasing tone that plays out like a clean tone that’s itching to unleash itself.

The pedal sounds more dynamic by setting the drive low and having the mod switched to hi-gain, as opposed to turning the drive up and having the mod switch at clean. They both achieve the same amount of gain, but the former has a beefier and more dynamic feel.

The bad

With all this tonal goodness, come two major drawbacks. Firstly, the body is not metal, but reinforced plastic. Now that can be a rather scary deal considering this is something you’re going to be stomping on when you’re playing live. Having said that, I’ve had this pedal for three years. Over the course of roughly 25 gigs, and playing daily at home, the pedal has not worn out in any form.

The second drawback is not a major one, but would definitely help in terms of tone. The EQ controls should’ve included a knob for mids. That one extra knob would make all the difference in tone and make it a truly great pedal. But you can make up for that with a dedicated EQ pedal or tweaking the EQ on the amp.

All in all, the Sansamp GT-2 is a heavenly pedal. Head-to-head, it outclasses the GDA21 in every aspect, be it the metal casing, or the subtle dynamics that propel your tone to a whole new level. There probably isn’t any reason you should pick the GDI21 over the GT-2, except the gigantic price difference. You can pick up a GT-2 for roughly USD450. The GDI21 is available for about 30 USD. That’s almost 15 times lesser the price of the GT-2. The sacrifice in tone dynamics hardly compares to the money you save, leaving you room to add more to your rig.

This introduction to audio interfaces (as “sound cards” are called more professionally) is meant to help out all those confused musicians, and other audio enthusiasts, out there who want to understand the various functions and the different varieties of audio interfaces, and determine which is best suited for what they want to do.

To those who aren’t very computer friendly, I may need to point out that every computer already has an in-built sound card. This is used primarily for audio playback from the computer, such as mp3’s, movies etc. They are not built to be high-quality recording devices. Just enough recording capability for voice and video chat. If you are reading this, then you probably want to do more with audio. Record instruments perhaps? Or maybe cut an album from home? You would then require a professional audio interface. I will discuss some of the basics of audio interfaces, so that the beginner may get an understanding of the specifications that differentiate the avaiable options. For the advanced reader, excuse my liberal usage of techincal words to explain some technical details. I don’t mean to misguide, but merely to use common language to get the idea across.

Technically, there are a lot of different parameters that characterise an audio interface. In this introduction, we will just go over the basic parameters involved, to get a rough idea of what are the fundamental parameters that will make the biggest differences to an audio interface. We will talk about, Analog-Digital Conversion(ADC), Bit Depth & Sampling Rate. We will discuss Inputs/Outputs(I/O), Pre-Amps and Phantom Power, in the context of audio interfaces, in Part-II of this article.

Analog-Digital Conversion(ADC)

The sound that you are trying to record is recorded as an electronic signal, either analog or digital (further reading, Digital Signals). You may say, “No, No! I’m only recording a tabla. That’s not an electronic signal!” Well, the tabla gets recorded through a microphone, which sends electronic signals to the amplifier. This is really what gets recorded. Let me put it this way, “Have you ever listened to recorded music without electricity?”. Well, you can’t because all recordings are stored electronic signals. A typical signal of this kind is shown.

Now, going ahead, the computer is a digital device, i.e., it can only understand 0’s and 1’s (digital signals). So, for you to get the microphone signal into the computer, the signal has to first be converted into a sequence of 0’s and 1’s that the computer will understand. This is the most important function of any audio interface. Anything else that it does is merely an additional feature. But today, these additional features have become so common that it is normal to expect your audio interface to do a lot of things. These additional features add to the complexity of deciding which audio interface to buy. But, I digress. Coming back to ADC, lets take a look at how the analog signal gets converted into digital signals that the computer understands.

Sampling Rate

The analog signal that you plug into your audio interface gets cut-up into tens of thousands of short pieces over one second. The speed at which this slicing happens is called the Sampling Rate. The figure shows how this is done.

The word Sampling, refers to the act of slicing. And the word, Rate, obviously referring to the speed at which this is happening. The lowest acceptable sampling rate for sound recording is 44.1KHz. This means that one second of sound is cut-up into 44,100 slices. Its hard to grasp the enormity of this number, but this is truly the lowest acceptable number (further reading, Nyquist Criterion). Ideally, your audio interface needs to be capable of sampling rates of 44.1Khz or more. Audio interfaces come with sampling rates of upto 192Khz. The most commonly used sampling rates are, 44.1Khz, 48Khz, 88.2Khz, 96Khz and 192 Khz.

Bit Depth

It is not enough that the signal gets sliced with time. It also needs to be sliced with amplitude of the signal. The number of times this amplitude-slicing happens is called the Bit Depth. The figure shows how this is done.

The figure shows distinct levels of slicing. But, in the real world, amplitude varies continuously, not in steps. Ideally, this would mean that we ought to have an infinite number of sliced levels. But, in practice, as long as we are making the number of levels very large, we won’t be able to tell the difference. This is where bit depth comes in. The larger the bit depth, the more the number of sliced levels. (further reading, Bits)

8 sliced levels corresponds to a bit depth of 3bit. The standard bit-depth of an mp3 player is 16-bit, which corresponds to 65,536 levels. Studio grade, professional audio interfaces, have a bit-depth of 24-bit. This corresponds to an astronomical number of 1,67,77,216 sliced levels!

In the specification of any audio interface, it is important to mention the bit-depth and sampling rate together. These are independent parameters, and together they make a sensible assessment of the capacity of the audio interface. The figure shows how the bit-depth and sampling rate togther slice any sound into little boxes, which the computer can now understand.

To assess any audio interface, you have know what are the acceptable standards in the industry. Most studio grade recordings are done at 24-bit, 96Khz these days. But 24-bit, 44.1Khz and 24-bit, 48Khz are still acceptable. An audio interface which is 16-bit is not considered professional quality these days, whereas it was about a decade ago. So, do look out for 24-bit, 96Khz audio interface if you intend to studio quality recording. Its a worth-while investment even if it is a tad expensive. If you are just interested in converting some old tapes etc and are happy enough with mp3 quality, then opt for a 16-bit audio interface. It should get the job done at a considerably lower price.

With this basic understanding of audio interfaces, this author hopes that your hunt for an audio interface becomes easier. I also do music tech consultancy at my start-up, Minim Sound Labs, so do leave me message if you want to know more, or have any questions.

Jumping right in, the M50 is a cut down version of the already legendary M3. With features like Open Sampling, KARMA 2.0, the RADIAS expansion option and the aftertouch being removed, the M3 is identical to the M50! And this is saying something, since the M3 itself borrows its waveROM from their then flagship workstation, the KORG OASYS. This means that you get the powerful EDS synth engine at a throw away price! The list of cuts might look large, but it’s really not that bad. KORG took everything essential from the M3, and removed all the fluff. This really gives semi-professionals a huge amount of power with their music, without complicating the machine with too much. Let’s take a quick look at what this beast is capable of.

The first thing that catches your eye with the M50 is the huge blue touch-screen. KORG is the only manufacturer that gives you pleasure of navigating menus with the touch of a finger. This allows the top of the workstation to be very uncluttered. This is by itself a very, very big deal. Just how easy it is to move around makes a big difference to how you work with your music. I personally find this feature very satisfying. The next thing you would probably notice is the orange back-lit joy-stick. The XY joy-stick allows 3 assignable parameters to be controlled, while many manufactures still retain the ancient two wheel combination, allowing only two parameter controls, a pitch bend and an assignable mod-wheel. I personally prefer love this joy-stick! I think it’s a matter of taste, and what you’re used to. Coupled with the joy-stick are two assignable buttons which let you do what you want while fiddling around with the joy-stick.

Other obvious controllers are the four assignable knobs on the main panel. They are assigned to some very useful parameters like Filter cut-off and resonance, and EG intensity and release. These knobs are freely assignable so that you can tweak any parameter within the workstation. The menus can get deep, and yet, they are very logical. Once you understand how they are laid out, you’ll be doing things that you didn’t know could be done, in seconds!

The M50 also has dedicated chord buttons right on top where you can store four commonly used chords and just press a button to trigger an intricate 8-note jazz-voicing, with each note playing at different levels of hardness/softness! This along with the drum track function allows you to jam along for hours and hours! The M50 also has two dedicated arpeggiators, so if you are into electronica or dance music, this is perfect. Or if you just want to mess around with the arpeggiator, it’s just as fun. ‘On The Run’ from Dark Side of the Moon is one very legendary application of an arpeggiator. I’ve programmed my M50 to replicate that, and it does it so well, I have no words to express how awesome it is – you just have to listen to it!

Getting a little more technical, the M50 boasts a jaw-dropping 256MB of sample data! This might seem like a joke, but in the keyboard world, what this translates to is quite amazing. With 1032 multi-samples and a whole bunch of stereo multi-samples, KORG has really changed what one expects at this price range in the semi-pro market. Each ‘tone’ on this workstation, (Programs, as KORG calls them) can consist of two independent oscillator sections. Each oscillator can lay its hands on four multi-samples, and these multi-samples are velocity split! All this translates to each Program giving you up to eight different sounds set-up across the keyboard and being played depending on how hard you press the keys! This allows you set-up a complicated song that might require you to sound mellow during the intro and sound insane when you rock out towards the end of the song! Each oscillator can access up to four filters (two filters each with four modes and four routings), two amps, five LFOs, and five EGs, all available simultaneously. All this gives you so much power, that it makes you want to cry with joy!

But wait! You thought THAT made you powerful? Ha! That’s what you come to expect if you haven’t dealt with KORG products before. There’s more – KORG has a mode called COMBI mode. Basically what Combi mode allows you to do is to combine upto 16 different Programs, and have them interact with each other in ways that will have you shaking with eargasms! Combi lets you multiply the power of the Program by 16. So just to summarise, let’s see what that lets you do: If you have the technical ability to play at different softness/hardness, you can trigger up to 127 different sounds just on how hard you play! And I haven’t even mentioned that in Combi mode you split up sounds across the keyboard, so that the lower part sounds like the intro bell from ‘High Hopes’ and the top part sounds like the piano parts! I even programmed my own Combi to sound like all the keyboards (about 4-5 keyboards) from the intro of ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’! You could probably pull off a very, very authentic sounding Pink Floyd/Dream Theater/YES cover with the right degree of know-how to navigate and program this beast. And that is saying something, considering how legendary those sounds can be.

The onboard sequencer is a little outdated, and feels ancient once you work with DAWs. But again, in the context of a gigging workstation, and a light and easy machine, the sequencer is quite adequate for basic sequencing. The sequencer has a lot of interesting features like the RPPR, which allows you to trigger pre-recorded loops with just one single key-press. So for those people who like to play with loops, Abelton Live users and DJ-type stuff, this is pretty cool. Here again, it can get as deep as your creativity takes you.

Moving to the sound processing, the M50 boasts an amazing DSP engine! You can have up to eight-effects chained together to get that perfect sound. 8-effects is a lot more than the competition offers on their flagship workstations. The effects section is filled with all the right kinds of effects that one might need and all the effects parameters can be controlled using the knobs or the foot-controllers. All this technical talk just tells you how deep one can go into editing each sound. With effects sections, LFO’s and DMod etc., your ability to express yourself becomes much easier.

About the sounds, well they are just as amazing as the specs. The pads are lush and beautiful. They move and evolve in spectacular ways. The brass sounds are simply phenomenal! You have everything from brass slides to drops, so you can play those big-band numbers with ease. The presets for acoustic guitars, the pianos and flutes aren’t as nice as say, the presets on the ‘Motif of the Fantom‘, but that is an unfair comparison. The M50 pianos/E.P.s are known to be a little thin. But again, you have to understand that unless you’re an audiophile, you will hardly notice that these sounds aren’t as good as the competition. I’m only talking about the presets though, so if you’re ready do some tweaking, they do sound quite nice. So for semi-pros, it’s just amazing. And even in studio, unless you’re a pro and you have access to better equipment, this does an amazing job. The power of the KORGs lie in their synth, sounds which I think, blow the competitors out of the water, even on their flagship workstations! The synth sounds are simply magnificent! Leads and Pads are the most common uses of synth sounds, and they are unbelievable. All the synth presets are so good, that you hardly have to edit them. I rarely have to edit presets, but when I do, I know that I have everything I could possibly want to get that perfect sound.

Overall, I have only two complaints about this machine. One, that there is no after-touch and two, no MIDI-Thru. These are pretty standard requirements for gigging musicians. I don’t know how KORG over-looked them. If they had put these two features in, even with a slight hike in price, I think the M50 could have been the staple on-stage keyboard for everybody. BUT, they didn’t and it’s not. That’s alright though, I’m just being picky.

Even after all of this, there many, many things about the M50 that I haven’t even touched! But I blame that on KORG. They packed it with such a plethora of features that it’s hard to talk about all of them.  I think I’ve done justice to the bare-bones functionality of the M50 though. This is such an amazing piece of hardware that it takes ages to describe what it does! Overall I feel that KORG have really hit the nail on the head with this one. It caters to the gigging musicians who want pro sounds on stage without having to invest in heavy workstations that have such a lot of fluff that it makes them bulky and hard to carry around. But it works equally well in the studio with its in-depth editing control.

The M50 is part of my current rig on stage with Bourbon Street. I’ve expanded it with all the possible controllers: Sustain Pedal, Foot-Switch and a Pedal. This lets me push my M50 to the limit. It has done wonders for me off-stage as well. I take it to all my recordings. I’ve even used it in a single that I co-produced. It’s that good!

Writing this review has got me missing my M50. I think I’ll go jam for a while!

The Fender Stratocaster has been the single most copied guitar in history. All the Japanese manufacturers came to the spotlight in the 70s because of their ability to make high quality knock-offs while the CBS owned Fender itself was struggling with quality issues. Why do we call a guitar with a double cut away and a dual humbucker combination a ‘Superstrat’? The answer is: its design was stolen from the Strat. These guitars combined the comfort of the Stratocaster with the power of the dual humbucker combination. At that time, people were looking for more power but the single coils were either too weak or too noisy so they pumped it up with humbuckers.

Some of the notable inventions of Leo Fenders magnum opus were the tremolo system, which according to me is still way better than the Floyd Rose locking trems. In my honest opinion, the Floyd Rose is only good at sucking the sweet tone from your guitar! All our modern guitar heroes like Slash, Tom Morello, Kirk Hammett come from a generation of guitar heroes wielding a Strat. The reason people don’t buy Strats these days is probably because they feel it is “not cool”. They don’t have a logical, sonic justification for not using one. Heck, the guys from Iron Maiden use Strats! With modern pickup technology, one can have the power in a single coil package along with the pureness of a clear single coil tone. Doubters must check out the Eric Clapton signature model. With the in build mid- boost circuitry it pumps out a level of gain which eclipses the EMGs of this world by a mile! People think if they own a Jackson RR3 its cool.

For me, the Fender Stratocaster isn’t the single most important instrument in rock history, it is also the coolest one. From the violin-like tone of Eric Johnson’s Strat to the Dreamy echo of Gilmour’s Strat to the Fuzz laden mayhem of Hendrix’s Strat , no other guitar has influenced the destiny of Rock music. From insanely vintage Strats of the 50s to the modern Shred machines such as Yniwe Malmseem’s, the Stratocaster rules the field; not even the great Les Paul manages to match the legend of the Stratocaster.

One often overlooks the curvaceous craftsmanship of a 50s Strat which is still continued in the modern American models. There is no cooler guitar than a completely worn out Strat; remember the little guy from Ireland whom Jimi Hendrix rated as the greatest guitar player on the planet? I’m talking about Rory Gallagher. Coming to modern players, the sight of John Mayer playing his worn out Strat is just iconic and people say wielding a Flying V is cool.