The drums sound outstanding right out of the box, the room sounds are incredible, and the system is so damn flexible that pretty much every genre is covered. One thing I love about Superior Drummer 2.0 is the fact that it’s extremely reliable. It doesn’t suffer near the hiccups of other sample drum libraries do. It loads RAM incredibly quickly and I’ve found the included MIDI loops to be way more useful than I had ever expected.

In fact, I really can’t think of anything negative to say about Superior Drummer 2.0. (Something I’m usually exceptionally skilled at.) The Toontrack guys got it right.

And now they are have Superior Drummer 2.0 on a ROBO sale. If you’ve been tempted to snag Superior Drummer in the past, it’s STUPID cheap right now. Check it out!

Who Is This Review For?
This review is NOT for robo serious bass players who were never quite happy with their Tobias or Musicman Stringray and therefor upgraded to some $4,000 exotic thingy. If you’ve played on more than 15 bass amps in your life, this review isn’t for you.

This review is for the genre of recording human that I’m defining as the “self-recorder”. The self-recorder is the guy who is doing more-or-less all the production duties himself. A self recorder is probably good at one instrument and just fiddles around with others. When I get the rare free time to record my own junk / noise I fit into this realm.

So if you are just a guitar guy, drum guy, or piano girl and you wouldn’t mind having a dumb bass around for occasional low end duty, you are a self-recorder and this review is for you.

Looks
The bass looks fine. I don’t get too wound up about the looks of instruments, so as long as they aren’t pink, I don’t care. The flame thingy does appear fancier than you’d expect on a bass that costs less than my yearly toilet paper investment.

Playability
My first impression was the bass was extremely light….maybe a bit too light. This one was made of alder, which I guess explains it’s tendency to want to float into space. As a dude who used to goof around on those old Peavey basses that were formally used as boat anchors back during the Spanish Armada days, I can say with confidence that I’d much rather play a show with a bass that was a bit too light than a bit too heavy. Then again, I don’t have a confidence problem, so you won’t catch me playing bass live at all.

(I don’t have a self-destructive need to drive my car off a cliff (drummers) and I don’t have a self-destructive need to die via razorblades due to my relationship with my mother (singers). So that only leaves guitar playing. You better keep your girlfriend on a leash!)

My immediate thought when playing was, “Damn! This action is LOW!” The bass dude said there was a buzz in the 6th fret, but I didn’t notice any issues when I was playing. I’ve devolved into keeping my fingers on the very right edge of the fret to avoid that same problem. Regardless, while I’m not a serious bass player by any stretch of the imagination, pentatonic runs flowed as easily as I can recall.

Bottom line: This thing plays extremely well.

Sound
This SX bass looked more or less like a Fender Jazz. I don’t know jack about what wood goes into a real Fender Jazz. However, this thing is clearly intended to be voiced like a Fender Jazz. As a dude who’s recorded probably a dozen Fender Jazz basses over the years, I’ve come to love it.

The Fender Jazz is to recording as McDonalds is to road trips. You can always count on it. They always have a bathroom that usually doesn’t have brown stuff dried on the wall. They are often open late. Even fat people who wish they were skinny can get salads. Your chances of getting mugged are seemingly smaller than some of the less-corporationey places to eat. There may be more interesting options out there, but when you’ve got 932 miles to go, you need to get back on the road. Basically, it’s hard to hate a Fender Jazz, even if eating it 30 straight days will kill you.

Note: I drifted from the metaphor quite a bit. Don’t over think that paragraph.

I had a dude who emailed me because his bass was dull and muddy and he wanted something more along the lines of Tool or Rage Against The Machine. Another honorable mention is the Butch Vig produced “Save The Sorrow” by AFI in 2003. The bass is THERE even on a laptop. There’s no telling what kind of expensive setup this help-needing dude had, but when I plugged $150 SX bass into my Sansamp, I immediately recognized that way-up-front clarity of a highly defined bass (aka Exactly What I Want!).

I’ve recorded Fender Jazz USA’s that did not sound this good. This could be do to a billion factors, but the simple fact is this thing immediately passed all my tests. In fact, I probably said 15 times during the day “Man! I love this bass sound!”.

Bottom line: I’m at a point in my music career where I can tell if an instrument is usable with 2 notes. It’s either exciting or it ain’t. This $150 SX is exciting. I’m bought one.

Price
I have tuners that cost more than this SX bass. I have microphone volume knobs (preamps) that cost 15x as much as this thing. It’s a no brainer.

Possible Concerns
I can’t say anything about quality control, reliability, or durability. I’m hoping that I don’t get a dud when I order mine. Even if it takes three of them to find a good one, it’s still cheaper than a Mexican Fender Jazz Bass.

Update: I did order mine. It’s identical to the one in the review. Quality control based on the enormous sample of two seems to be dead on.

For Real Bass Players
A bass buddy of mine (Sam Carmack, the idiot who played bass on a big ol’ chunk of the Killer Home Recording Bass Interrogator Sessions) sat down with it last night. His rig is retarded. He seriously has seven switches on his Warwick and is more anal about bass tones than the last priest you jammed with. I’m sure some of you have used cars that cost less than his bass cabinet.

When he unplugged his heavily modded Warwick which I’m just gonna guess would cost you about $4,000 (who knows!) it was clear that the SX bass was a few notches in the boxy direction. I wouldn’t call it boxy. I’d just say the Warwick had a natural mean ass scooped thing going on. Of course, we didn’t change the tone controls one bit. I’m sure we fix that if we actually touched the amp. Some people would prefer that.

Sam tells ms that with a few simple upgrades in the usual (pickups, bridge, tuners, etc) that this SX bass can be a serious contender in bass nerd land. For my needs I’m not entirely sure I need to do any of that crap.

Conclusion
I needed a bass for self-recorder duties as well as you-never-know studio bass. I’m 100% confident that this SX bass is going to fit the bill. For a person who spends almost as much on bass crap as I do on mics and preamps it may need some help, but if you are that retarded your opinion doesn’t matter much anyway. (har har)

I’ve decided that studio monitoring is the biggest problem in my life (yes both personal and recording) that I can solve with money. If only lack of sex could be solved with money. (Wait a minute!) After endless moments of hesitation, but only one loud “SCREW IT!” my wallet just got quite a bit lighter.

I ordered a pair of Focal Solo 6BE and the matching Focal Sub6.

Most hardcore upgrades I’ve done in audio land have been to answer questions just as much as they’ve been about higher audio quality. While I’ve certainly made big improvements in my monitoring, I’ve never been able to sit down to work and entirely trust my monitors. This “trust” is the single most important impact on sound quality on this side of the musician line. It’s time for my mixes to skyrocket!….I hope.

Studio Monitor Questions I Hope To Answer

• Will high end monitors put me in a position to automatically improve my mixes after I’ve gotten used to them? Will my results immediately improve?
• Is there a point of diminishing return with monitors? Would I be just as happy with something of equal price but just different from my Mackie HR824s. I know people who are entirely content with the KRK V8 monitors, for example. (Are they are anally crazed about studio monitoring as I am?) Is it really necessary to spend THIS much cash on monitors? Do the high end guys focus on the robo tiny details that maybe I wouldn’t notice anyway?
• I’ve never been happy with my HR824s. I always felt they were the girlfriend out banging other guys. (I don’t trust them). Will I automatically gain the trust of the Focal Solo 6BE in my current room?
• Is my unhappiness with the HR824s due to the design of the speaker or problems in my room. (I have reasons to believe both although I’m totally aware of the impact and importance of the room.)
• One reason I question my Mackies. In one test I used one Mackie HR824. I tossed my cheapo Behringer test mic about 4′ in front of it and ran a sweep. Then I took that speaker off my cinder block stand and grabbed the other HR824 to toss it on that same cinder block stand in same position. It had a radically different frequency response. It’s clear my HR824s were not matched and room acoustics weren’t a factor. (Room acoustics would have been a factor if both speakers would have had an identical – if flawed – frequency response regardless of the position in the room.)
• My room is treated with about 20 2′ x 4′ x 8” Helmholtz Resonator bass trips which I’m fairly positive I screwed up in designing and will be modifying to a more “safe” design. Additionally, I have nearly 30 “super chunk” unopened packages of 4lb Rockwool (2′ x 4′ x 16” roughly) in my room which some people tell me is the most effect bass trap around although it takes up a bunch of space. Some people tell me the packaging on the Rockwool renders it useless. Room modes are out of control (but probably more in control than they would be with nothing).
• While my walls are about as treated as you can get (although possibly in very flawed ways), my ceiling is a bit light on treatment. I have a 9′ ceiling which is little light in the acoustical loafers. It has a drop ceiling which does absorb stuff in 1K and up range it. Above the drop ceiling I managed to get a single sheet of 2′ x 4′ x 4” Rockwool to fit. It’s possible that I need more aggressive treatments in the ceiling.
• The corners of the room each contain a pair of unopened Rockwool packages. However, the point in which the walls meet the ceiling have zero treatment. In an ideal situation, I’d like to have some kind of corner treatment running along the entire edge.
• I’ve tried dozens of new monitor placement positions this month. In all of them there has been a dip at 2Khz at between 5-10dB. A 2Khz wave has a wavelength of about 6 in give or take. In lab conditions this means it could be canceled out with a 2Khz signal that had to travel 3 in longer thus being 180 degrees out of phase. Note: I dedicate an entire chapter of Killer Home Recording: Audio Engineering to explaining this in as plain of English possible. I can’t think of a single reflection that could have possibly caused this but moving the test mic subtly seems to do no good. I’ve wondered if the Mackies are out of phase with each other in certain frequencies.
• It’s entirely possible that my Mackies have actually been a mismatch or maybe one malfunctioned. Maybe in a pro environment I would have noticed this immediately. Maybe my environment is more pro than I think and I haven’t been putting the blame where it should.

Conclusion
I just wasted a bunch of cash and it’s very possible I’ll solve nothing. If nothing else, I get to pass my potential misfortunes on to you. Regardless, by saying goodbye to the Mackies, I think few people are going to say I made a mistake.

My Results
I should be receiving my monitors at the end of this week. I have all weekend to get used to them and I have to make final tweaks to an album I’m 95% finished with mixing. Then I add my results in the studio monitoring chapter of Killer Home Recording: Audio Engineering which can also be viewed in the Turbo Member Forum.

I had an exceptional experience with Pintech, makers of high end edrums (among other things). I had purchased a Pintech edrum kit used and it was clear that the triggers were a little bit more worn than I was lead to believe based on the Ebay ad.

I limped by on the old triggers for some time in the pre-Killer Home Recording phase. It was time to fix the triggers and get the edrum kit to work like I knew it was capable of. I hopped on the http://www.edrums.com/ website to order the new triggers. I had absolutely no idea what the hell I was doing so I just bought what I thought I needed. It cost me a little over $200.

Laurie from Pintech gave me a call and said it looked like I had ordered like an idiot. Okay, she worded it much nicer, but the point was it was clear that she had a ridiculous order on her hands. She had me tear into my current triggers to figure out what model I had so I could get the right replacement. She was super friendly on the phone and didn’t make me feel nearly as retarded as she probably should have.

She immediately tossed out half my order because these parts didn’t even apply to my drum kit.

She also signed me up for their warranty dohickey which cost $45 or so but made my order half price, which instantly saved me some cash. Anybody who purchased a used Pintech kit can by this warranty thing for half price fixes. There were some other perks too involving cymbal upgrades, but I don’t remember the details. (The point of this is to point out exceptional service, not sell you a warranty!)

I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE companies that will give me the secrets of saving some cash with that company. I wish more audio companies lived by this “free insider secrets” thing. This is the way I do business and what I feel is the ultimate path to long term success.

All in all I ended up getting exactly what I needed and saved well over $100. I’m impressed! I’ll be dealing with Pintech more often!

Brandon

See instructions below to enter!

First off, every Recording Review member gets $15 of the Karma K35 if they order before 10/25/09

On to business.

You may be asking yourself, “How do I win?”. The answer to that is easy. You simply have to fill in the “Karma K35 Contest Entry” form below. You enter your name, email, and the LAST DAY to buy Killer Home Recording at the mega special price as part of the Recording Review Rocks promotion.

Listen to this piece of audio magic (sarcasm) for the crucial clue.

Crucial Clue Giver

Make sure you enter it in the format shown. (MM-DD-YYYY)
So July 20, 1969 would be 07-20-1969.

Your email will be sent to Belinda at Karma Mics so she can contact you if you win.

About The K35
I’ve got a review on the way for this thing. For the money, it’s tough to beat. It’s a hair on the bright side, but it has real usable character. It’s not nearly as bright as many of the mics in this price range and it has a tighter low end. In terms of character, it’s leaning in the direction of an Audio Technica AT4050. I consider it be dramatically more flexible than an M-Audio Nova or Studio Projects B3, but a little more fun than an AT4040 (which tends to be fairly neutral).

Brandon

A few notes:

• Killer Home Recording will only be available for 4 and a half days.
• We’ll be offering a special, exclusive introductory sale to RR members only.

Find out more on Killer Home Recording Launch

I’m doing voiceover for my Killer Home Recording System and I thought it would be fun to use two mics and let you fight over which one is which.

One mic is a Neumann M147. The other mic is a Karma K58.

Which one do you think sounds better? Vote now! This is a member’s only thread. Register here.

Vote for your favorite!

This is my teaser for the upcoming Killer Home Recording System I’ve been slaving on for the past two years.

I’ve got a bunch more updates which you can find here.

Brandon

If you are into metal guitar and want to KICK BUTT lesson in electric guitar recording, this is the place to do it!

Make sure to enter yourself. You can win a copy of Steven Slate Drums.

This is going to a quicky. Preamps don’t need a dissertation. They are a volume knob for Christ’s sake!

The True Systems P-Solo is a single channel mic preamp about the size of 2 or 3 Hi-C containers fit together in a line. It sells for about $535 (street). It has all the features I’d demand in a preamp.

• Phantom power
• Hi-Z input
• High pass filter
• bla bla bla

Features are boring. You can read about them on the P-Solo webpage.

The Knob
There is something about the gain knob on this P-Solo that is just fun to turn. I personally believe it triggers a similar portion of the brain that mammary tomfoolery engages, but I’d have to contact my Neuroscience pals for that one. (Yeah right! My friends play music. They can barely read!)

What does this knob do for the recording? Absolutely nothing. However, I still give it a fun point.

The Sound
Reviews of preamps are stupid, but so is my obsession with plastic spoons. I’m not stopping either today. I’ve included the True Systems P-Solo in numerous shootouts in Killer Home Recording. Make sure you check ‘em out if you want to hear this thing in action.

No Hype
What did Chuck D say about hype? (Seriously, I’m asking, I don’t know. I was more into Young MC than Public Enemy and move busting doesn’t help us here.) Regardless, there isn’t a bit of hype in this thing. I’ve not had a chance to get my hands on too many straight wire designs. (Some say the Martech MSS-10 is a straight wire design. I think these people need to go straight to the aural nut house.)

As you may know, I’m a big fan of colored preamps. I like preamps that get mean and dirty and aren’t afraid to bully around a signal that may be crossing the line here and there. My main weapon of choice these days is a Manley TNT, but I’d love get my paws on just about every Neve product I can. (I LOVED the sound of the Great River MEQ-1NV, but Manley suckered me in.) This straight wire idea is fairly new to me. I wasn’t sure how I’d like it.

It turns out I like it a lot. The P-Solo sounds good. In fact, I think it sounds damn good and I’m not aware of any dirty preamps that perform so well at this price point. You often have to spend double to get to the really good dirty stuff. I’m curious how it compares to something like a Grace. I suspect they have nukes pointed at each other. Then again, there is only so much enriched-Uranium and Plutonium to go around and I’m not sharing.

A Different Sound
The first thing I immediately noticed about the P-Solo sounds incredibly realistic. It gives the impression that the instrument is being played directly in front of you. I didn’t get that vibe with any other preamps I compared it to and I compared to a bunch of them that cost way more than the P-Solo. In fact, I can’t recall ever hearing this kind of sound before. I didn’t even know preamps had a “more realistic” knob. (Must be set inside the preamp.) It was a nice change.

I describe the sound of the P-Solo like this: You know when you over compress a vocal just a little bit? It does that “thing”. Then when you back off the threshold a bit, it cleans up and gets a little nicer sounding. That effect is what I hear when I compare the P-Solo to the dirty preamps. This is an exaggerated analogy, but it gets the point across.

When I compared the P-Solo to my stock Presonus Firestudio preamps, it’s obvious that the Firestudio has this extra layer of harsh junk. Remember the commercials with the “Bitter Beer Face”? Us partakers in the icy barley pop know a good beer. We’ve all taken a drink of beer that had that extra, bitter thing in it. It doesn’t take but just a smidgen of that slimey bitter stuff to kill the whole beer. The P-Solo is bitter proof.

There is not a hint of harshness in this thing. In my head I called it the “Neck pickup of preamps”. It has this way of making everything a bit smoother. There are certainly instances where I would prefer the Neve sound. However, it’s nice to know that there is another way of doing things. It’s nice to know that sounds like this are out there.

Since a majority of music I do is in the rock music world, I can’t say I’d pick the True Systems P-Solo as my #1 pick. The colored pres work too well for the rock and metal stuff. However, if someone made me use it, I wouldn’t think twice about it. I’d use it and I’m sure the record would come out just fine.

Generally speaking, rock and metal aren’t really intended to naturally recreate anything. These genres are meant to be over the top and in your face. A little distortion is bad. A lot of distortion is good. However, in other genres where realistic smoothness is absolutely required, I could see the P-Solo being incredible. When a realistic recreation of the sound is utmost importance, the P-Solo performs excellently.

I could see myself picking up the P-Solo or even the Precision 8 when I have more than enough colored preamps to go around. I wouldn’t be surprised to see these in any big time studio as an additional color to whatever else is available.

Conclusion
The P-Solo is the smoothest preamp I’ve ever heard. I like it. It gets you into the expensive sound without the heavy price tag. While it wouldn’t be my first choice for recording metal heads, I think it may just be my first choice for realistic capture of acoustic music.

Well done, True Systems!