This amp was built by Steve Boudette in Massachusetts. The amps were featured in several large guitar magazines. I think John Scofield was playing one for a while, and I heard something about Jack White picking up one (although that might be incorrect). This one however is different.

Steve built this as his prototype amp that he was trying things out on.

Photos of the insides are here: http://whatisnoise.com/2007/09/more-soniccord-photos.html and http://whatisnoise.com/2007/09/soniccord-amp-insides.html

It has some weird features, including wheels on the bottom, a hole in the top to put a threaded lead pipe in so you can roll it around easier, easy to access handles (its heavy), and spring mounted controls on the front.

He also put in some neat stuff to tell if the polarity of the power is screwed up, or if the amp is ground lifted (potentially dangerous and always good to know).

On Steve’s advice, I put in the best speaker that I could find for the amp. It’s an Emminence Red Fang 12″ now. The stock speaker was a Jensen if I remember right and it just didn’t break up early enough or have enough low end response. The Red Fang fixes that nicely.

The grill cloth is made of burlap or something like that, and is a bit torn up from my cat thinking that it was a great place to scratch her nails. Keep it as it, or replace it (easy).

Sonically, its a really neat and unique amp. It’s rich, dark, but with a nice cut to it that will work well on stage. There are only two controls, “tone” and volume along with two inputs “studio” and “stage”. With the stage input, the tone knob effects how much distortion will come in when the volume is cranked. The knobs are very interactive and there is no bad setting. It is a loud amp however and there isn’t really much for a super-quiet setting.

Definitely a killer rock amp. I wouldn’t suggest it for your nu-metal band, but for anything else it works great.

Why am I selling it? It’s a bit loud for my apartment and I’d like to get something with a wider tone pallet. I have my eyes on the Egnater Rebel 20. Perhaps not as much of a solid vibe with the Egnater, but it will work better for studio stuff I think and at low volumes for me. I don’t care about getting money even if I can get the Egnater amp + cab in some sort of deal.

Audio used from the Dark Knight soundtrack, the Terminator 2 soundtrack, and a tiny clip of Kayne West’s “Robocop”. Used just Logic Pro for remixing, and a FMR RNC compressor on the 2-bus.

One of the most basic things that you need to figure out when starting a podcast is the format that you’re going to use. This is one of those things that you do not want to whip back and forth on, and you must make a clear decision. Let’s go over some of the considerations for a podcast in each format.

Audio

Audio, the older and more basic format (history of podcasting), is the easier of the two to produce and obviously non-visual. There are several distinct advantages to audio-only podcasts.

• Easier to edit. You can cut out phrases, words, and pauses without making it seem that a person is jumping all over a screen (as it would in video). Using “Strip Silence” or similar in a DAW can make a 10 minute interview easily into a 6 minute interview depending on who is speaking.
• Appeals to many listeners. Video you have to ‘watch’ but I can put on an audio-only podcast and the full content while doing the dishes or cleaning my apartment. Also, you have the ability of appealing to the millions of commuters in cars. Sure, more cars have LCDs in them, but you really shouldn’t watch a show while driving! Listening however is significantly safer.
• Consistent production is easier. Video requires lighting, perhaps makeup, most of the people being in the same room consistently, the same clothes from shot to shot, same location, etc. It’s a pain in the ass. Audio you can allows you to record the first part of your podcast first thing in the morning before shaving, the second part after lunch, and the third part from your friend’s house and it will all come out mostly the same and no one will know that it was done in three sections.
• Doesn’t matter what you look like. Let’s face it, we aren’t all photogenic. Have you ever met most radio personalities? Often they aren’t pretty people, but people love listening to them. Video however puts you (rightly or not) under the scrutiny of people’s visual judgement and we can’t all be awesome on camera like iJustine. Also it gives the bonus of recording in your underwear. I guess you could do that on your video podcast, with audio the listener doesn’t have to know about it.
• Cheaper. It’s 2009. Cheap is in. You can get a pretty killer audio podcasting setup for under $1000, if not significantly less. For around $1000 you’ll sound almost as good as NPR, if not better. With video $1000 doesn’t get you far and you still have to consider the audio quality.
• Longer episodes are ok. If I have to look at something for 50 minutes to get the content, that’s a lot of my time. However if I’m passively listening to something and doing other things then its mostly ok and I can deal with it. Few video podcasts can get away with being so long.
• Smaller downloads. While few people today in the US care about bandwidth, it still is a consideration. Distribution, storage, and portability are all easier with audio-only.
• Historically, The Bar is Low. Maybe you like the sound of FM radio, but honestly the over-compressed, over-bass boosted sound really doesn’t take all that much to beat. Modest gear and technique will give you truely pro-quality sound.
• Traveling is Easy. You get some killer mobile equipment, including all-in-one recorders that do a nice job at catching interviews.

The disadvantages of audio are few:

• Visual branding is harder
• People ‘think’ they like video better
• Some subjects are harder to cover with words
• Competition is fierce
• Advertising/sponsorship sales might be harder

You’ve probably figured out after reading those the strength and weaknesses of video but let’s look into them. Strengths first:

• Compelling video can be captivating. People do like seeing awesome things, and well shot video with solid content will appeal to people’s senses.
• Tutorials are easier, comedy too. When instructing someone how to do something, video definitely wins in most fields. Could you imagine Bob Ross on the radio only?
• Branding is easier. Your face, logo, office or whatever will be instantly recognizable in video format. Audio leaves the chance that someone who is an avid listener wouldn’t recognize you if they met you.
• Advertising and sponsorship sales are easier, bigger $$$. Likely obvious, but there’s more chances to bring in some income with video other than the “message from our sponsor” moment. Wearing a company’s t-shirt, putting in a trailer, something in the background, etc. Most of those aren’t effective with audio.

And finally the downsides of video. These are mostly flips of the upsides of audio.

• Consistent production is hard. People likely need to be in the same room, at the same time, on a regular schedule.
• High standards. We’re used to seeing HD video, with good lenses, multiple camera angles, killer lighting, teleprompters, makeup, and strong production. Revision3 dumped tons of money into making a studio that kept with the quality standards that people are used to seeing on TV.
• All the considerations of audio, few of the benefits. You still need audio production, but you don’t get many of the benefits, such as lightweight production, using a “strip silence” tool, etc. Bad audio will completely invalidate your killer looking video.
• Video is Expensive. Cameras, hard drives, lighting, sets, cases, etc. It racks up quickly. Cameras are getting relatively cheaper, but video is still probably 4x as expensive as audio. Are the benefits worth it to you? You can do 4 channels of audio production on a computer that’s 10 years old (or a netbook) with ease. Multiple streams of 1080p video and you’re looking at a new Mac Pro.
• More people are required. Ok, maybe not required, but if you’re shooting a good show you’ve likely got 1-2 technical people working with you or you’re doing karate to jump in front of the camera at the right time. With audio, you can do it mostly all yourself easily. See Howard Stern being in control at the soundboard.
• Post-Production is heavy. Audio takes little time for me to finish up after recording a podcast. Video takes time. Transferring the video, syncing the audio, color/exposure correction, editing, processing, compressing/encoding, uploading. You’re gonna be there for a while. Likely 4x as long to do the post-production than audio.
• Traveling isn’t fun. G4 covered ROFLCon last year, and they had a ton of equipment. Huge HD cameras, audio booms, lighting rigs, battery packs. The footage turned out great, but I wouldn’t have wanted to pay the bill for the airline to check that stuff, or carry it around (let alone allow the airline to handle the equipment).

Which is for You?

Its a hard call. It comes down to your budget, time, expectations and audience. If you have a podcast on wedding dress style, Photoshop tutorials, or sightseeing on vacations then those subjects alone probably dictate that you need to go with something visual. On the otherhand if you’re talking about politics, stock trading, or the merits of 17th century literature in France then you might be fine with audio. Larger budgets definitely leave more room for video, but workflow will still be a consideration.

There is always the possibility of doing occasional video production and mostly sticking to audio, but then you come against consistency problems and you’re still spending the money on the video equipment (and since its not a priority your video production will likely be subpar).

The CD contained a wide mixture of commercial, high quality, well recorded material with 12 songs, each with both CD and MP3 format on the the disk but in random order. The MP3s were originally encoded at 256kbs VBR, and at 48khz even. I felt that the shift from 44.1 to 48khz would give it away, as well as the encoding. I felt confident.

I originally intended to go into Taylor Barefoot’s recording studio and listen to everything in a well treated room, with stereo subwoofers, multiple monitoring options, and a Benchmark DAC-1 converter. However times scheduling that didn’t work out, so one day I at work I pulled out some pretty high quality Sony in-ear monitors/headphones and gave the test a shot on my Macbook Pro. I listened to each track, quickly writing on a sheet of paper which I felt was MP3 and which was originally CD. Threw it all into a quick email and sent it back to Erik. Only two of them did I mark as “hard/unsure”. I felt that the other 10 tracks were pretty clear as to which was MP3 and which was CD. The Macbook Pro with good headphones isn’t the perfect listening environment, but I felt that it should be ok for telling CD vs MP3 if there is such a huge difference.

I got my results back later that day. Out of 12 songs/24 tracks, I had gotten half right. Yes, I had lost. Half right is the same as rolling dice or a monkey choosing them. I felt pretty confident about my answers, and consider myself to really have an ear for audio. I was shocked, but Eric admitted that few people, himself included, pass the test with 100% right. This all goes to show, don’t believe everything you read in audio forums. Go with your own listening ability. I might have been able to tell the difference between 192khz/24-bit audio and the MP3, but between MP3 and CD I can say that there were differences, but I couldn’t tell which was “better” and certainly not which was which.

You can find all of the details on his test on his blog at: http://www.erikjheels.com/?p=1236

“Crank Dat ROFLcon” was made at ROFLcon by Kevin Driscoll during his presentation, “Work it, Move it, Bang it, Bump it: Crank Dat Online Dance Craze“. The presentation talks about Soulja Boy Tell Em’s rise to stardom via his heavy use of online video on YouTube, his fan interactions, his community, his music and the encouragement to learn the infamous dance and put videos on YouTube. You could think of the entire thing as an hour long interactive advertisement of the success of Soulja Boy. At the end it was capped off by everyone (myself included) attempting to learn the dance, and it was videotaped for putting back up on YouTube. We did a really bad job, but it’s a funny video with some kinda big internet people in it, including Bre Pettis, iJustine, Brookers and other totally cool people!

Hundreds, if not thousands of videos get taken down from YouTube daily. What’s the problem? Isn’t this a copyright violation as the takedown notice claims? Well yes, it could be viewed as a copyright violation. Yet, the slap in the face comes from the fact that Soulja Boy (or more presumably his record company and lawyers) need to remember where they are coming from. Without YouTube this kid would be nothing. Without people making videos of themselves dancing to his video, he would be nothing. This video wasn’t an attempt as disenfranchising Soulja Boy, or taking revenue from his record company. This is what made him famous. These are his fans. These people in the crowd ARE the influences. Copyright violation or not, its also the encouraged norm for his videos and music. In his own music video he even shows himself dancing in front of a huge screen with people’s home-made videos playing behind him. Half of his videos are about people learning his dance and spreading it online. In his posts he talks about and encourages such things seemingly. Not once have I heard him complain on YouTube about people taking his music and that they need to stop making videos of themselves.

This is akin to Jimi Hendrix going onstage at Woodstock and telling everyone that they are pothead druggies that need to get real jobs, join the army and take a shower. It’s a complete slap in the face and totall out of character. I don’t get it. I’m going to assume that it’s his overzealous lawyers and record company that are at fault and not Soulja Boy. However, he needs to keep in mind that these people are his representation. They are extensions of him, and its not a good excuse. He needs to keep them in check, and work with the right people. We can learn from John McCain that having poor representation and the wrong people around you can kill your career and people’s opinions of you.

So Soulja Boy, please tell your record company to send Kevin and ROFLcon an email to apologize for the mistake, and thank him for giving a presentation like that which highlighted your success.

UPDATE: Other bloggers have picked this up too. Fred Benenson’s blog had a good writeup and Rebecca Corliss also wrote about it. I sent a YouTube message to Soulja Boy asking him to check with his representation to see what’s the deal. I noticed that even in his YouTube Live thing the other day that they seemed to mention and encourage other people learning the dance and making videos. This is absurd. I want answers.

Original Video (still on Blip.tv for the time)

I got this nice set in the mail on Monday, and took them home and racked them up. I put one pair as inserts on channels 1/2 on my Mackie 400F for tracking, and the second set on channels 7/8 in a loop, so that I can use them with Logic Pro for content that needs extra compression (or as a bus compressor).

I haven’t had time to mess with it as a bus compressor yet, but so far for the inserts I’m very happy. I tried it out with my voice (using an AT-4060 mic), my Machinedrum, and my Moog Voyager.

My thoughts so far: It’s killer on voice. Really helps keeps things in control. It’s a VERY fast compressor. Fast like an 1176. The Super-Nice mode really is, super nice. It’s a bit slower on the release, but it makes it so that you only hear ‘louder’ but not ‘compression’. It’s a quiet unit too. The Moog doesn’t need much transparent compressions most of the time, since I don’t have most of my patches responding to velocity anyways. It does help to keep it in check however when making new sounds and preventing you from clipping out the track or blowing out the speakers. With the Machinedrum I’ve only gotten to use it only for the entire track, and it was nice to help gel things together.

This is a very clean compressor, with almost no character. Its downsides that I can see are not enough metering, no ability on the front to switch in and out the sidechain (a simple mod could fix that), cheapish pots, wallwarts for power supplies, and it doesn’t work all that great on bass for many settings. Its ok on bass, but I’ve used much better. They are unbalanced, but as an insert I don’t care… and if I really need to balance them then that’s just some simple transformers and wire and its done. No biggie.

In case anyone is reading this and thinking, “WTF is he talking about”, I’m talking about a hardware compressor. What’s a compressor? It’s a unit that helps level out the dynamics in audio. Basically it makes the quiet things louder and the louder things a bit softer. It sounds good.

These guys sell for ust $180 or so new. Killer deal. Unfortunately, now I was to get a pair of compressors with a little more character, and a better preamp with more dirt to it also… oh what have I done?

So here’s some gear that you may or may not know about, but you should! (I’m not paid by any of these companies)

Guitar Amps:

• Orange- Tiny Terror: This is a freaking cool little amp. It’s inexpensive, great sounding, flexible and just overall a great deal! I can’t think of a downside to owning/playing one of these. Ok, probably not your main stage amp for death metal, but for other things it’s one of the best deals in town for a tube amp.
• Epiphone- Valve Junior: It’s small. It’s cheap. It’s around $150. It’s easy to modify. Oh, and it’s a tube amp! Not all tube amps are great, but this one sure is a great deal and with a little work you can really make it sweet with some simple mods. There is no excuse for not being able to afford a tube amp with this little guy out. None. Ever wanted an easy way to have stereo on stage, but couldn’t afford it? This is the answer.
• Gabriel Amps: Ok, these aren’t cheap and there’s no way around that. But they are rather sweet amps that can do a lot. Not many people know about these, but they are well worth looking into. I have gotten some of the literal best tones of my life out of them. Period.
• Divided by 13: These are simply killer amps. Again, not cheap, but well worth it. Sir Paul McCartney is using these now for his band. Everyone else in the world is looking for 1963 AC30’s that Sir Paul has a closet full of, but yet chooses to use these as his main live amps these days (and often in the studio). If it’s good enough for the wealthiest musician ever, then it’s damn good enough for me.
• Diezel- Herbert: I am not generally a fan of multi-channel uber amps with loads of gain that are made on PCBs. However once you hear these amps your jaw drops. I know certainly if I was going to play something “heavy” that I’d go for a Diezel first and foremost. They aren’t buzzy sounding, they are just huge. Billy Corigan of the Smashing Pumpkins is using these for the most part now, and damn the amp takes over the stage. Oh, and these also qualify as “not cheap”
• Roland JC-120: A Jazz Chorus amp? Solid state? WTF? By Roland? YES! If you’ve ever wanted the cleanest clean on an amp (and on occasion you do need it) then this is the amp to grab for. Somewhat of a one-trick pony imho, but it does it very well. You can find them for $200-300USD on Craigslist quite often, although stores will often try to sell used ones for over twice that. It’s solid state and there’s not much to worry about being broken in there. If you’ve got more than 5 amps, you should have one of these laying around. They even made a head-only version, which is pretty cool but rare.
• Smoky Amps: These are weird little cigarette box sized amps that run off a battery. They are about $20. Get two or three! As your main amp? Hell no. To keep with your tuner in your guitar case? Yes. As something to layer up in a track for something ‘different’? Yes. To run a drum machine through and mic? Yes! Plus you can gang them into another amp and use as a fuzz pedal, or drive another cab with them. Freaking cool. Stupidly cheap. If you’re a photographer, think of it like a Holga.
• Selmer Amps: You aren’t going to find these in just about any music store. You’ll likely never see one live- ever. Yet if you should ever come across a Selmer Zodiac, you should really give it a shot. They were often used by the Beatles and other bands of the early 60’s. Between the glowing light on the front pulsing in sync with the tremelo to the insanely creamy tone these are jaw dropping. The prices have shot up in the past 5 years quite a bit. They are far more common in the UK than here in the States. Not something to tour with, but really an amazing amp to have in the studio.

When buying an amp, make sure to check it out at multiple volumes. Think about where you’ll play it. To be honest most guitar stores are pretty bad places to try out amps. Make sure they have a good return policy. Ask if you can test it out one night with your band. You need to make sure that the amp can ‘cut’ through in the mix of the band and stand out, but also you want a certan amount of blend and cohesion. A good amp with do both. Amps also generally sound far different recorded than they do in a room, so if its recording make sure to actually check it out by recording it!

Also for any amp tube or solid state, you should really consider having a backup or at least backup parts for quick repairs if you’re touring or playing live seriously. Extra tubes (complete sets) and fuses at least are must haves.

Check it out: