I've noticed quite a few singers lately have needed to resort to the one-ear headphone trick. (The one-ear button on my trusty, crusty ol' Behringer headphone amp certainly comes in handy.)

Then yesterday I was working on a new propaganda video for Killer Home Recording. It required my EXTREME voiceover talents. (Caps indicate sarcasm). Anyhow, at 192 samples, I couldn't tell what the hell I was saying. Okay, that may be a stretch, but the latency induced delay made it an AWFUL experience. In time, I gradually decided to ignore it. I can't say I ever got used to it. Switching down to 128 samples was noticeably better, but still "weird". At times it seemed like I was hearing distortion. ...the kind of thing my Distressor does in “British mode”. However, on playback, there was none. It was clear that this is FAR from an ideal vocal monitoring situation!

Conclusion: Singers aren't bitching entirely because they are crazy. They hate the latency when it mixes with the sound of their real voice. They can't hear what they are doing! With the voiceover work I was doing, I really didn't NEED to hear myself. I didn't care about my pitch or anything like that. In a real deal singing situation, this sound is entirely unacceptable.

Latency Causing Plugins

Another thing that shocked me was how random plugins added dramatically to the latency issue. For example, the stock channel EQ in Cubase 5 added significant latency. This got me wondering if using a brickwall limiter on the 2bus (which I use to save time as a way to keep song to song levels consistent in the headphones) is such a good idea. In fact, I wonder how many plugins I've stacked on vocal channels over the years. It's amazing that any singer managed to come even close to a performance. I worry that I've made a lot of really good singers sound bad.

Quick Points Of This Blog

1) Basically, when I used the same latency settings I've been given my clients for longer than I care to admit, I HATED it!

2) I wonder if I can improve things with a zero latency mix. Presently, I'm only aware of two interfaces in home recording land that can do a zero latency headphone mix with compression and reverb. One is the Steinberg MR816csx. The other is the MOTU 828mk3. I'm fairly confident I can scrape up a method with the DSP routing matrix in my Presonus Firestudio.

3) You MUST put yourself in the position of the people you are recording on a regular basis, particularly if they are complaining. There may be a problem and it may be your fault!

So that's all I got for this blog. The plan is to do a few A/B tests and report back to you guys. I've got a chick singer coming in who is notoriously crazy about here headphone mix. Maybe going with zero latency will do the trick.

Brandon

With my big plans of building my “superstudio”, I've found myself gearing up to provide a whole new level of service to my future clients. The idea of a big fancy analog console is something I can't get out of my head, even though I'm well aware of the number of hits mixed in the box. I find myself being drawn more to analog this and hardware that.

With that said, in this blog I'm thinking twice before I spend the kids college fund to get me a “real studio” from 1995. I'm seeing the “painful truth” of the old ways and I thought this would be a great place for us to duke it out.

This Whole Superstudio Thing

I've had plans of getting a real facility since the day I learned why a small room sucks to record in. It looks like the dream of great sounding rooms isn't too far away. As I move into that mindset, I keep thinking that I need to tap into a market that I've totally ignored. In my hometown there are the “affluent” who gladly take the 4-hour drive to Nashville to make their recordings on a regular basis because there are no big dog studios here. We are talking studios that cost as much as $100 per hour. My home studio is what it is, but these customers demand a REAL environment (regardless of the results we want get in my current not-so-ideal facility. I don't blame them. I've wanted a REAL environment for a long time.

So what is this “real” thing? The short answer: It's the kind of thing that makes your band choose Studio A over Studio B even though Studio A costs more assuming that both studios are cranking out excellent sounding work.

The Big Analog Console

Since I've taken this “real” approach to planning my studio, I find myself coming up with some mega functional ideas and some turbo-ridiculous ideas just for the sake of being “real” (but also to shake up my current view of the recording world to see if there is a better way.) The first one that comes to mind is a big analog console. I've said many times that almost no one needs a mixer for home recording. I still stand by that claim. For all practical purposes, few pro studios really NEED a mixer for pro recording. With fancy analog gear used on the way in and summing used on the way out, the needs for an old school console get dramatically reduced. (We've all already debated the impact of fancy pres and summing as well.)

My motivations for getting a console were to cover all my preamp and analog EQ needs on the way in, offer summing on the way out, and look cool. As much as I'm hoping for the usual 1% benefit for spending huge dollars, I want a console because it looks cool. Yeah, you heard me. I'm the world's least interested in aesthetics, but in my old age of 30 I've come to the conclusion that me and the other guy who feel this way are a bit outnumbered. As my brand new old saying goes, “If you can't beat 'em, exploit 'em.”

The greatest benefit of the console is it immediately allows me to increase rates. I could buy 3 API 3124s and no one would pay a dime extra to record at my place. The 12 preamps and 3 rack spaces don't add direct value that they can SEE to the client. The console does. For the record, I'm not talking about Mackie boards here. I'm thinking something like a Amek or Trident console.

The Dark Side Of The Analog Console

Another aspect of girls I've graduated high school with becoming “cougars” is I'm start to think a hair more like my grandpa (Not my parents!). You know that kind of advice you get where you say, “Sure old man! Whatever!”? Now I realize that after I don't listen, I end up giving the same advice to the younger dudes after learning my lesson the hard way.

In short, I'm hearing countless warnings about the upkeep and massive time and headaches spent maintaining an analog console. I'm hearing it enough to believe that I'm pretty much making a deal with the devil if I buy a not-so-great console. It appears the same logic that goes into buying an 8 year old American car goes into buying a console. For those of you who maintained your American pride after 'Nam and 'Nam 2.0, this analogy basically means you can expect to spend the price of the console keeping the damn thing going.

This may be a hair on the pessimist side.....or it may even be a hair optimist.

The Ass Pain Factor Of The Devil's Hardware

When I decide to use analog EQ or compression from my rack in a mix, it's not as simple as firing up a plugin and compressing away. I have to create an external effect bus in Cubase, patch the gadget in, cuss because I goofed something up for usually 10 seconds, and then start tweaking.

--Sometimes when plugins can't get a job done, the hardware can
--Sometimes I spend 30 minutes playing (because knobs are more fun) and I never really get anything done.
--Sometimes I listen and don't hear the superiority that was so obvious to me on another session and another situation.
--Whenever I bother to use the analog gear, I have to re-record it into Cubase 5 so I can actually maintain the ability to instantly recall (which is absolutely huge to me). So I always need to spend an extra 5 minutes on a mix for each track I want to run through analog stuff. This time can add up.

What Set This Off?

So why am I suddenly questioning all this hardware stuff when I've been drooling over the idea of my Superstudio for so long?

I was in need of a hardware reverb strictly for zero latency vocal headphone mixes. I decided to take my advice from How To Waste $10,000 On Recording Gear You Don't Like and go all out and get a piece of gear I've always wanted. I bought an Eventide H3000 - D/SE – Harmonizer. The idea was I would have its reverb for use in the headphones and then when I mixed, I'd have an awesome little effects processor. I remember coming back from Nashville after hearing it in use and not being able to scrape up anything as half as good with my plugins.

Well, today it came in. The unit is a dud. The Ebay seller won't take returns although I'm going to try anyway. The unit hangs constantly after “Loading Program....”. When I do get it to work, the pitch shift and reverb presets have more noise than your average Big Muff guitar sound. Currently, it's entirely unusable. Just getting the manual for the thing is $35 and I have no idea if there is some magic button I can press that can fix it or not. It may be some kind of electronic issue that I don't have the ability to solve.

So right now I have a $1,000 doorstop. I'm not a big enough prick (but I am growing!) to sell this thing on Ebay like this asshole did before me. I can pay to have it fixed for a minimum of $350, but it may end up being dramatically more. The word on the street is these things NEED maintenance every 4 years. Ouch! I didn't plan on paying $100 per year on this thing. That totally shoots down the whole idea of using it for free until I eventually sell it.

How Do I Fix It?
When a plugin doesn't load, I can usually cuss for 10 minutes and figure out what went wrong. Even if the computer is totally dead, I can swap out a power supply in 3 minutes. Even if the computer is fried by lightening I can spend $300 on Newegg, have a 4x faster computer and be good to go in a matter of days. I feel totally confident about my ability to solve computer problems (at least most of the time). At worst, getting money back for software can be easier (not always) because there is rarely a tangible exchange.

I now own my Eventide H3000 whether it works or not. I physically “have” it. Yuck! I have no idea how to fix it. I had no plans of NEEDING to fix it when I bought it. I'm used to my setup working day in and day out. Hell, I was aggressive about ditching my Presonus Firestudio and I've got a feeling that it's 100x more reliable than a console or an Eventide product. This is a HUGE point and something I need to think about.

Conclusion

Maybe a big, fancy studio with an analog console does give an aura of magic that pulls in the doctors, lawyers, and wallets. However, it also may be the equivalent of pulling out my intestines. I'm a busy dude and if the thing ain't working, I'm not working! To quote Bill Murray in Scrooged, “If I can't work late, I......CAN'T........WORK......LATE!!!!!”. That's bad! Really bad.

Even if I do get this Eventide H3000 to start functioning for an additional $350, I still have all the analog ass pains to go through and my workflow will suffer, although I'm still positive from a “vocal sound” standpoint, I'm about to gain a quantum leap. How does it compare to the Eventide plugins now available? I'm guessing there's a difference, but there ain't THAT big of difference.

As Mixerman, author of this stupid thing (which looks AWESOME btw) pointed out to me in an email, the mic preamps in the Trident 80b console are nothing to scream about, but they aren't going to get in the way of a great record. I like this “get in the way” concept. I'm sure the UAD version of the Eventide plugins wouldn't get in the way of me doing my thing. My Eventide H3000 sure is getting in my way right now!!

So right now I need to balance the mojo of the old days with the knowledge that when my grandpa wanted to talk to somebody across the globe, he had to use a pen, paper, and stamps. Yuck! There may be something to this modern appreciation for old stuff that is little more than a trap. It's hard to say. It appears I'm gonna have to drink someone's kool aid. I just can't decide on the flavor.

A buddy of mine in high school didn't do what everyone else did. (I seem to remember a slew of brand new 1997/1998 Chevy Cavaliers in our school parking lot.) His first car was a Corvette. It was a Corvette that was 15 years old. This means it was at it's all-time lowest value and would soon be going up. He bought the car for $10,000 and sold it for $11,000. He did have some upkeep bills that were certainly higher than my Honda Civic. I'd say he spent $3,000 on it.

The moral of the story was he got to drive a classic Corvette for six years for $2,000. I remember most of the Cavalier people paying $13,000 and selling them for $3,000 in that same time frame.

Why in hell would a person pay $10,000 to drive a miserable Chevy Cavalier when they could drive a Corvette for 1/5 the price?

This sort of thinking is quite common in circles of people with money. Why the hell I can't remember it is beyond me! (Besides the obvious fact that I DON'T HAVE MONEY!)

What's Magic Worth?

After going to Disney World, the largest digital camera vacuum the Earth has ever scene, I've really gotten into this “value of magic” idea. The bottom line is magical items are priceless. An otherwise poor recorder will pay $2,000 for a microphone that is going to give him the magic. The wife can't see (or hear) this magic and will tell him it doesn't sound any better than his $400 mic. However, most of us in recording land believe in this magic and can generally hear it, too.

Cubase 5 costs $499 (the upgrade is much cheaper). It has more automation, features, total recall, and convenience than many consoles costing over $100,000. We all know that there are many records out there these days that are mixed in the box even though it's probably safe to say the big consoles sound a little better. But why do people buy these consoles? Because there is magic in them! If you don't believe me, take a picture of your studio and then take a look at these pictures.

THAT is magic!

Where I've Screwed Up #1

I had a rack full of stuff I never sold on Ebay that I found this week. I had forgotten all about my Presonus M80. It's an 8-channel preamp that was a heavily marketed 10 years ago back when I was first starting. It sold for $2,000 originally, but I snagged it for $1,000 used on Ebay. That should have been a clue! If the preamp lost half it's value in a year or two, what's it going to be worth in 7 years?

I can answer that question because I watched a few of these on Ebay just to see. The answer is $350! Great. So this preamp has handed me a loss of $650. A person could argue that I got to use it all this time. They wouldn't be wrong. However, if I would have bought anything used with MAGIC in it, I could easily see that I had lost zero. My Vintech 1272 costs on Ebay now what I paid for mine back in 2001. (Ignore inflation, that's a political issue I'm choosing to ignore for your sake!) My Vintech is a superior product, too. So, because I chose to CHEAT myself out of a high end product and the improved sound that comes with it, I'm rewarded with $650 subtracted from my net worth. Great!

Where I've Screwed Up #2

Two years ago I was low on cash and my Delta 1010s, which had served me very, very well for 7 years, were toast. I decided to save money and take a chance with a Presonus Firestudio, a $700 interface, knowing there were some presumably fancier options out there. The Firestudio is fine on many levels, but always seems to get buggy when I don't want it to be buggy.

I did the math on a few recent sessions to calculate how many billable hours I had to take off a clients bill because I was restarting my computer 10 times to get the dumb thing to sync up. It became obvious that if I could get an interface that ran well pretty much every day, it would easily pay for itself in only a few months.

I've decided to try out the Steinberg MR816 CSX interface. If it doesn't offer bulletproof reliability, I'm off to RME. If that can't do it, I'll spend big bucks and just make credit card payments. Interest will be cheaper than refunded hours!

These Firestudio interfaces are going for about $350-400 on Ebay right now, so that means it's lost half it's value in just 2 years. Not good!

Long story short: The Presonus Firestudio bugs cost me A LOT of money AND I didn't get to have the fun of a “magical” interface AND the damn thing has lost half its value.

Where I've Screwed Up #3

After I got up to #8 I decided to simply say, YOU GET THE POINT!

Is Paul999 Screwing Up?

Paul999 runs a full blown studio with a big ol' console and a stupid amount of hardware most of us would give our left wife for. He was using the kind of logic that I don't seem to ever follow but am well aware of in this thread:

True cost analysis of ITB vs OTB. Is ITB actually cheaper?

I've got to say that it seems a little counter intuitive to think that a $2,000 compressor would be CHEAPER than a plugin. The idea of $20,000 in hardware compressors being cheaper than plugins is so extreme that a person MUST take a second look. Either way, Paul999 may be on to something!....or totally out of his mind!

Who Are You?

Guys like Paull999 and I may have different needs than you do. We'll be recording music until we croak. Thinking 2-30 years into the future changes the way a person looks at most of this stuff, and there are certainly savings to be made with a bit of strategy. Paul999 and I are also guys that want high end gear. Is it NEEDED? No. But it makes my job easier and I'm cool with making huge investments that give me 1% benefit.

The idea of buying magical gear because it is CHEAPER may not occur to you or you may not be in the position to invest so much into these magical items. However, if your needs change you find yourself going a little fancier, it may be cheaper in the long run to treat yourself to a big, ol' dumb purchase!

When Just Getting Started

When a person is just getting started, rarely are they thinking they are going to surpass X big boy production on the first try. Just finding the bare minimum gear for their needs is a total pain. (See the Killer Home Recording: Setting UP freebie ). It's when people start upgrading to marginally better that that things can go wrong in the long term.

Winners and Losers Is The Long Term Value War

Winners
-- Magic hardware items (mics, preamps, and compressors) with big time names (Neumann, Neve, API, SSL, etc)

-- Specific magic items (LA-2A hardware compressors) that people SPECIFICALLY search for.

-- Super hyped items. When Musician's Friend has a high end product, that product becomes an instant celebrity. I get asked by clients (who don't even know what a compressor is) if I have any Avalon gear. Why? They saw it in the catalog. This definitely spills over into recording land. I expect Avalon products to maintain their value for a long while. Then again, if Musician's Friend and a few other dealers pull the plug, the could be forgotten. Regardless, hype generally sticks when it comes to perceived value in recording land.

-- Anything You Can't Afford. You already know you can't afford a full-blown Pro Tools HD3 system, right? No need in looking, right? This whole “no need to look” thing is a big reason guys like Paul999 and my buddy with the Corvette have fun toys and get to play with them often for profit. Basically, this “can't afford it” business is a lie, more or less. While Pro Tools HD3 isn't going to be tip-top for 20 years, it may actually be less expensive than a “decked out” typical home recording setup. Maybe not. The point isn't that I'm pushing Pro Tools HD3. (Most people know my views on Pro Tools.) The point is that the very fact that everyone THINKS they can't afford something is why that particular item is so inexpensive, both in the long term and maybe even in the short term!

So So
-- High end brands that come and go or may take a quality hit – My Soundelux U99 ain't worth the $2,600 I paid for it anymore. Much of that has to do with the fact that Soundelux is long gone. The mic is still the mic, but it's value is not what it used to be. A Neumann U87 would have held all of its value for sure.

-- There are many high end companies that may or may not be around in a few years. As much as I like to buy “fringe companies”, some of them won't be around in a few years. Even worse, people won't be talking about them. The magic will be gone even if the products are stellar.

-- Ultra value companies. I'm talking about the current crop of mega bang-for-the-buck gear that is attempting to run with the big boys at a for cheaper price. Off the top of my head Peluso, Sebatron, and Chameleon Labs come to mind. These brands are cheaper to get your hands on, are very very effective, but don't have the pizazz of the magic gear. It's hard to say how the market will deal with them. These are the “Bud Light” of magic. I suspect the kid using duct taped adapters into his laptop that will be getting an Mbox for Christmas this year thinks a Peluso 47 is some serious magic. So....for the low end, there may be this “affordable magic” thing going on. We'll see.

Losers
-- Budget gear. Gear that is a bargain always seems to lose its value quickly. It has zero magical value. You'll see quite a few 8-channel preamps that cost $600-800 that end up going for $200 on Ebay in a few years. As a rule, the bottom feeders tend to have to reinvent themselves and their products constantly. Brent Averill doesn't need new products. In fact, he's built his business on racking up really old products. Regardless, find a budget 1980s Peavey 16-channel mixer and you'll see what I'm talking about.

-- Budget Companies Making Mid-Level Gear. This is where my Presonus M80 comes in. $2k for an 8-channel preamp isn't cheap. It's not exactly budget-gear. It may not be Mercenary caliber, but it's not cheap. However, the budget name automatically kills the long term value.

-- Computers. Have you ever had a buddy who went to the Mac website and did his “dream computer” for $16,000? This does qualify as what I'm calling “Marriage Magic”. In other words, it seems really good at first, but it won't be long and the magic will be gone. Until you've been ultra excited about a computer and then 10 years later smashed the thing into a dumpster, you won't quite get this one.

It's a given that computers have horrendous resale value. We all know they are disposable. The reason I'm emphasizing it here is I see practically EVERYONE feeling the need for a brand new computer every two years. A person buying a new computer every four years, in comparison, could add quite a bit of magic gear to their rack and their net worth.

Conclusion

Not everyone is a position to blow big bucks on the magic gear, but for those who can scrape up the cash now, there could be tremendous savings in the long haul. I'll be hitting 10 years of recording before too long. I suspect 20 years is only 2 or 3 years away. Plan ahead! If you are addicted to this stupid craft, adjust your habits for maximum domination.

Love,
Brandon

Note: I do want to emphasize this is a studio monitoring system. The brand/model of speakers is just part of the equation and it's possible that something I had done or the room I was using them in just wasn't working for me. There are people who love that particular monitor.

While it took a while to find the right girl, I now have my trusting wife. (Ignore all that males-needing-to-bang-everything stuff temporarily for this analogy.) In fact, I don't even think of any other women. (Again, work with me.) I've found the one.....pair. When this woman says something, I believe her. PERIOD. Why? Because she's told me many things in the past. Sometimes she's even just given me “crazy talk”. However, each and every time I check her story it ends up being dead on. This trusting wife is my current monitoring system featuring the Focal Solo 6Be studio monitors and Sub6.

Note: This is an expensive mo fo. I don't say “mo fo” (ever) but I generally can't get away with the necessarily explicative and so we have to reduce ourselves to white rapper jargon. I don't usually push such expensive gear here at RecordingReview. So don't feel for one freakin' second that you are SUPPOSED to have this kind of fancy crap. Out of pure desperation, I decided to blow a big ol' chunk of my money on monitors that may not have done anything. The odds are strong that you can find monitors for a fraction of the price that are adequate for you. I think maybe I was just unlucky with my first monitors. Regardless, after the huge investment, I feel it was worth its weight in gold....which may actually have been cheaper.

Focal Features

I don't know why magazines list the features of a product when this "inner net" can do that just fine. Head on over to the Focal website if you are looking for that kind of thing.

Firing Up The Focal Solo6BE Monitors

I never really thought the Mackie HR824s sounded bad. Listening to music for fun on them was just fine. Of course, “for fun” means I don't think about audio and that, by definition, kinda taints my opinion. The problem was with the way the monitors translated. (For those who've experienced my Killer Home Recording system, you know how important this is.)

Regardless, when I first fired up the Focals, I simply pulled the Mackies off the stands and replaced them with the Focals. My room, mixing position, and everything else were identical.

Getting Used To The Focals

The very first mix I did on the Focals was before I had the Sub6 subwoofer. I just used the Solo6 BE pair. I mixed a metal tune. I had no idea what the Focals really sounded like. I just wanted to jump in and see what happened.

The Focal Solo 6BE monitors definitely go down pretty low. They are certainly not “meaty” down that low, but I was surprised by the usable the low end on such small monitors. I tend to prefer more low end in my monitors as I otherwise mix a little bass heavy. For those kind of guys who are “happy without a sub” you'd be very happy with the low end. If you need to impress rap clients, you'll need quite a bit more.

After going with my gut and not expecting much, I took a listen on my trusty computer speakers. Holy crap! The very first mix, without really knowing these monitors translated 10x better than anything I had ever done on the Mackies on the first try. Amazing! I was immediately sold.

It turns out that I didn't have to get used to them. Not only did I not have to get used to the Focal monitors, I didn't have to move them around the room, or do any of the usual monkey jumping that I was constantly doing with the Mackie HR824s.

This taught me a few things:

#1 I had put too much emphasis on my room when trying to solve the translation issue.
My room is nothing pretty. I have unopened packages of 2'x4'x16” Rockwool all over the place along with quite a few Helmholtz resonators. From a bass absorption stand point, it's about as solid as you are going to find when working with a normal room in a normal house. To do better a person would need a mansion or a purpose-built studio.

This isn't to say that room treatment isn't extremely important. However, it seems that a good monitor in an okay room is going to translate better than non-okay monitor in an okay room. For those of you who've done significant room treatments and haven't gotten your monitors to translate well, you should probably try some different monitors. You can only go so far with acoustic treatments without bringing in the bulldozer.

#2 A good monitor doesn't require a ton of learning.
There is some inherent quality to the Focal monitors that works right out of the box. This isn't to say that they don't have their own personality . They certainly do. However, it seems that “unsmeared” quality of the Focal Solo 6BE monitors is instantly doable in way that never really worked in Mackies in nearly nine years of use.

Adding The Focal Sub6

While the mixes done exclusively on the Solo 6BE monitors turned out great, I was guessing a bit in the low end. Adding the Focal Sub6 ended up being just the ticket. It adds that extra meat down below that I've found I want to hear and bands want to hear. Using the fully variable crossover low pass crossover, I was able to dial in exactly what I wanted. I wish the high pass filter would have been fully variable, too, but I've made it work with the fixed frequencies.

After tracking and mixing with a sub I can't imagine every going back. How people mix without hearing those extra low octaves is beyond me. With that said, discretion is always key here. My monitoring system doesn't sound like the hat-turned-sideways neighbor's stereo in his 1991 Chevy Cavalier.

Focal Solo 6BE Personality

There are a few aspects I've had to get used to. Luckily, the few things that the Focals let slip by, my Audio Technica ATH-M50s (the best $109 I've ever spent) are completely intolerant of.

The Focals are a hair tame in the upper midrange. As a guy who generally mixes a hair light in that region anyway (I'm afraid of making a mix hurt) I find that this is actually a blessing in disguise. Guitars and snare drums end up having just a hair extra bite in them. Bass guitars have more definition. Vocals end up cutting through just a hair more. Once a person is aware of this, it's very easy to work around it in a very predictable way. My old monitors never seemed to be predictable and making generalizations about their sound was impossible.

The downside to this is sibilance can sneak through on you. You have to crank up you ear sensitivity in this regard several notches. In fact, I do feel this is the only disappointing part of the Focals. When I'm just about to render a mix, switching to my the above mentioned studio monitor headphones immediately exposes any sibilance issues. Those headphones are militant against sibilance and will definitely let me know if anything needs my attention. Problem solved.

Dramatic Improvements In My Engineering Ability

To put it bluntly, if you are guessing about your audio engineering decisions because of poor monitoring, you will NEVER meet your engineering goals. When your monitoring kicks butt, your skill level increases dramatically. Suddenly, differences in fancy preamps becomes not only more important, but more practical. Smaller and smaller details become more and more obvious in ways that your wife will hear. Long story short, you won't find a single greater improvement in your audio engineering ability than getting your hands on monitors you trust.

Focal Sub6 Subwoofer

The Focal Sub6 is a tremendous subwoofer. It can get very loud and I don't think I've ever heard it do the “one note bass” thing. It will easily expose any excessive buildups in ultra-low frequencies. Guys who've done local movies hate it when they watch them in my control room because the Focal Sub6 illustrates everything they missed. (Which means it's doing its job!). It, too, is highly recommended although a person on a budget could probably get a used pair of the Solo 6BE monitors and a cheaper sub to save a little cash without sacrificing too much. (I can't say for sure on that one. My experience with cheaper subs in mixing is limited.)

Conclusion

The Focal Solo 6BE studio monitors with Sub6 sub are winners. They are a flat-out badass products. I make no reservations about entirely recommending them to anyone and everyone. The only reason they are not on Brandon's Bulletproof Gear List is their price. (I don't want broke people feeling they HAVE to have super high end stuff so I'm excluding high end gear from the list.) I give them 5 out of 5 without hesitation.

Party On!

Brandon

So going into Recording Studio Design by Phillip Newell, I was looking for a book that:

• Told me exactly what I needed to meet my sonic goals
• Gave guidelines on the “usability” side of designing a studio. (Line of sight, electric stuff, practical stuff, etc)
• Gave alternatives so that I could figure out what best suited my needs so that I could choose when to compromise and when not to.
• Be halfway interesting to read.

So here we go......

“High End” Studios Only

I can tell you right now that Recording Studio Design is using the “old school” approach to building a pro studio. By “old school”, I mean they are coming from a time when the walls were 18” thick of solid concrete for near-100% isolation between rooms. (I'm exaggerating, the author never recommends 18” thick walls, exactly.) He does, however, present designs that are well beyond the scope of any home recorder or home recorder moving up I know. I realize the old timers like to say, “Back in my day, a studio was PROFESSIONAL!”. They are probably right. That's the same generation that spent $6 trilllion on nukes (Seriously!.....when accounting for inflation) and kept making more. This generation puts everything the credit card generation ever did to shame. Nowadays, we've got to keep a tighter pocketbook. I don't consider that to be a terrible thing. I don't need a studio that is bomb proof. I just want something that sounds awesome (way better than the house I've been making due with for nearly a decade) and is ergonomically solid enough to get some work done in. The end.

So right off the bat, if you aren't Mutt Lange, this book is probably overkill for your home studio needs. Even though the author has built an endless list of pro facilities, I'm not sure many of them could stay in business in the current climate of recording land. So basically, I'm looking for a more economical method of meeting my Superstudio goals.

If you are building anything “modest”, this is not the book for you. (I realize the definition of “modest” in studio land is perpetually changing, but if you use that word, it ain't gonna happen with this book.)

College Physics Required....Almost

Good ol' Phillip Newell is a smart guy. There is no doubt about that. The only problem is he assumes you are a fart smeller as well. Stephen Hawking's A Brief History In Time, is dramatically easier to read (at least for the first 80 pages or so). Recording Studio Design is packed with equations. He makes no attempt to dumb down any of the concepts. He assumes you have a strong background in Alebra. This is okay, but, generally speaking, I found this to be more of a philosophy book than anything.

Practical Overload and Underload

There are specific examples of numerous studios that the author has designed and these often support a concept he is trying to teach. These have strong value, but in terms of building up a plan of attack for my own studio, I never got that, “Ah ha! That's what I'll do!” feeling. It never came obviously clear to me what approach I should take in any given situation (vocal booth, live room, or control room).

Granted, I'm always reading this kind of crap and know much of the intermediate stuff. (For example, from day #1 I've planned my control room to start with 16' ceilings before I knock the “ceiling” down to 8' with literally TONS of Rockwool. So Newell's explanations on that were preaching to the choir.)

While the author goes into insane detail on certain aspects of studio design (again, much of it overkill for my needs) in the index you will not find “bass trap” anywhere. He certainly covers absorption heavily (but with a few problems for those of us living in the fattest country in the world*), but I still didn't walk out knowing the most economical method killing the low end reflections in a room. He's more covering concepts (from an academia standpoint) than actually teaching the whens, whys, and whats of selecting a method based on the reader's needs.

I'll give you an example of the overload I'm talking about. He states that the problem with Isaac Newton's theories of sound (apparently Newton got that one wrong) was due to the fact that he didn't take into account the heat from the friction of wave traveling through air space. [Nick_Nolte_Being_A_SmartAss_Cop]Ohhhhh, WHO GIVES A SHIT!!!!!![/Nick_Nolte_Being_A_SmartAss_Cop]

Here's another one. He discusses how to calculate the tension of the spring necessary for holding up a floated floor. That I can live with. Then he goes on to state that using two springs gets you into “double pendelum” mode. He then goes on to reference physics experiments and studies that discuss the chaotic element of what happens when you have to pendelums hooked together. As interesting as this is, I would have preferred him simply telling me, “Just use one spring and this is how you figure out what you need”. Ironically, I never quite figured out how to estimate the weight of my studio gear that would go on top of this floor and therefor, in my mind, this makes the whole damn section useless. Whatever.

I do want to point out that when the author says, “This is how it is” it's usually damn good advice. THIS, I appreciate! I wish he had sections of “If this is happening, DO THIS!” That would be awesome and be worth infinitely more!

The “history of room design” section wasn't nearly as interesting as the history of cold war planes book. So guess which one I DON'T want to read! I guess reading about why 60s control rooms sucked has it's merit, but we could cut out a lot of wasted time by just saying “X causes Y so you should avoid it.” Done. A virtual tour through the history of sound isn't going to beat out the space shuttle documentary. Sorry.

Commander Data Personality....Only Serious

Phillip wastes no time with small talk, emotions, or anything that would make this book interesting or fun on a level beyond covering concepts. He cracked one joke once which was BADLY needed. You can feel your bones rot while you consume the knowledge. I found myself needing to “go out and do something” after reading a chapter (if you catch my drift).

In comparison, Alton Everest's Master Handbook of Acoustics, while definitely a text book, feels dramatically easier to read. I mention this because I'm used to reading technical crap and I realize that not everyone on Earth is dumb enough to read such headache-inducing stuff.

Back to Recording Studio Design.......

How a person can go so far out of his way to dehumanize himself is actually impressive, but that doesn't mean reading this wasn't a total freakin' chore. I would have given this book a much more positive review if I hadn't felt like this was some kind of Buddhist test.

*No American Equivalent
The author mentions items like “Cotton Waste Felt” and “Deadsheet” often in his designs. THIS is good. The only problem is he never recommends a specific brand and searching in Google for this stuff turns up practically nothing. It appears I'm not alone as you can see on this thread at John L Sayers. Even experts have to guess at the materials he's using. Not good!

Why he doesn't have a little blog where it clarifies this is more than disappointing. It would probably take him 5 minutes to post it somewhere. As a guy who is looking for THE design for my studio, this lack of practicality reduces much of the book's hard hitting material to cerebral exercises. I'm certainly not going to say, “Ahh screw it! We'll just use pink stuff instead of dead sheet.” That could RUIN my studio.

When Science Goes A Hair Too Far

I'm a big science spectator. (I check the Large Hadron Collider updates almost as much as a half-assed sports fan checks the scores.) However, there are things that science can't explain yet. (Where did we come from? Why are we here? How can you make an “awesome” recording?) I think certain aspects of the book push really hard with equations and such. They use science to the fullest extent. I like that when it produces better results (as it does with fighter jets, for example) , but in many cases there is a huge push for equations and all this excessively technical jive (even for a guy who has a DRAMATICALLY higher tolerance for this than most), but ultimately ends up with a conclusion that says (paraphrased) “You are still screwed”. In other words, I don't want to deal with a rigid, technical methodology unless it IS going to deliver better musical results. You can't tell me to do calculus and then later on say, “Well, we really don't know yet.” That doesn't work for me. These types of issues popped up more towards the end of the book, but were worth noting.

Another thing that leaped out at me was what I'm calling the “military grade dilemma”. In Alton Everest's “Master Handbook On Acoustics” he's discussing air conditioning systems. He tells you right off the bat that with a few simple uses of specific common practices that your local guy WILL know how to deal with, you can get what you need. He says, “Don't overbuild this!”. I never got the vibe that Phillip Newell was concerned about overbuilding anything. This make sense for battle-grade military equipment where people die if their shoes come untied or whatever, but I rarely wear shoes in my studio anyway. You get the picture.

Some Of My Favorite Stuff

Stone / Rock – I had not seen a recording studio design / room acoustics book focus on the use of stone before. Aesthetically, rock walls look amazing (super close to a dungeon if done “correctly” although you may prefer some sort of unicorn-looking room for whimpy clients). It appears they do some outstanding things acoustically, too, when that sound is desired. I think I remember seeing quite a bit of stone in Tommy Lee's live room.

For anyone interested in building a room out of stone, I'd highly recommend that particular chapter in this book.

Control Room Ceilings – Newell presented one of the coolest methods for chewing up ceiling space in a way that absorbs low end that I had not seen emphasized in such a way before. (Again, Newell assumes everyone building a studio has at least 14' of ceiling height to play with for a control room.)

Conclusion
If you can handle robot-like-personality books, are extremely technical, understand a great deal about math and physics, plan on building a very high end studio, and don't have a strong understanding of acoustics and studio design this is the PERFECT book for you. It probably is THE book although I suspect you'll look for more specific practicality afterwards.

This can't be your only book on studio design.....not if you live in the United States and have no idea what materials he is talking about.

If you are looking to build a mega sounding studio, but maybe don't need a ton of isolation and are trying to max out your bang for the buck with as simple as setup as possible, this book is going to leave you hanging in a few areas. It certainly fills in some big blanks. I am glad I read it. I just wish it would have taken a more practical, ass kicking approach and made the thing fun to read. It wouldn't have taken much to inject a little personality into some really difficult concepts. It just seems smart to make a book a pleasure to read.

Maybe I was shooting for the sky, but I was hoping this was going to be “the book” for me. I can't say that was the case. It has extended my overall knowledge and I keep it on the shelf for specific reference, but I do feel like I just got done with a really tough job! I need a vacation!

I will need to dig deeper and find other books that can better address my situation and give me some more-specific advice.

I've encountered two exceptional deals in the past month (that may or may not be still going on). Regardless, it's fairly clear that many people in the virtual product world are dropping prices to compensate for what I presume to be slow sales.

Deal #1 – Superior Drummer 2.0 for $149.

Deal #2 – Native Instruments Komplete 6 upgrade for $80.

(Ironically, both of these pieces of gear are on my Brandon's Bulletproof Gear List.)

This quick blog really wasn't to push any particular special or anything. I just have noticed there have been some awesome deals and wanted to point out that I expect there to be a few more very soon.

Brandon

In this blog, I'm going to discuss advanced techniques to save you a few billion hours in time in the next few years. I'm making the assumption that you already know how damn good a performance playing IN TUNE sounds and how awful a performance that is 1% off sounds. While many bands may not have the budget, inclination, or ear to care, the serious projects will require mega tuning. It's easy to waste a weekend on a single riff. I know. I've done it.

Some guitar players don't have much trouble and can just jump in and rock. These guitar players are few and far between. If you've never had tuning troubles, odds are good that you haven't really heard in tune guitars before. Guitars that are REALLY in tune are dramatically clearer, bigger, meaner, and better on the engineering end and dramatically more musical. I'm convinced that the #1 reason people struggle with recording acoustic guitars is they are trying to compensate for the boxy sound of a barely out-of-tune guitar with mic placement and such. When you get the guitar REALLY in-tune, you will hear it and LOVE it.

#1 - A Tuner Is Just a Gadget

Tuners are nice little devices. They tell you the frequency of the note a person has struck. The problem is strings go sharp when you first hit them and go flat immediately afterwards. This means that just because you got a string to land on “E” or whatever on the tuner doesn't mean when you strike it with 10x more (or less) force in the take that the string will go sharp.

#2 - Never Tune Flat

One of my favorite tactics that I use daily is to never turn the tuning peg flat. If I'm tuning the G string and I end up being a little sharp, I don't grab the tuning peg. I simply bend the G string HARD. There is always slack hiding in the string and a hard bend will yank that slack right out of there. If you leave this slack in there, it will slowly come out over time and the guitar will drift flat as you play it.

If you aren't so great at bends (it amazes me as a crappy lead guitar player that some really talented guitar players look like something is wrong with them when they attempt to bend a string!) it's okay to physically grab the string with your right and and pull on it a bit. You don't want to yank TOO hard, but you can probably pull a little harder than you think.

This one takes a bit of practice as you have to nail your pitch by SLOWLY turning the tuning peg sharper and sharper. (Kinda like when getting gas for your car. No one wants to go over the magic dollar amount in your head.) Of course, if you go too far, you should just bend the string, and repeat.

In rare occasions when you go too sharp and there isn't enough slack, always go way down so you can come back up, bend the string, and tighten it some more. Repeat.

#3 - Stretch 'em Hard!

I see guitar players all the time who toss brand new strings on, tune up, and think they are ready to track. I'm not sure where they got that idea, but I'm positive all of 'em have fought through wild tuning fluctuations at first. I stretch strings AGGRESSIVELY. I always start with by placing my left hand over the 22th fret and press down pretty hard. My right hand will be under the 24nd fret pulling up. I give it a good, slow tug and attempt to pull everything I can out of that 23rd fret. Then I move down a fret and repeat. I do this for the entire guitar. I can do it pretty quickly and it's not a huge deal if you skip a fret here or there.

My right hand is usually fairly torn up, so I try to use some kind of cloth as padding.

If you take a guitar that was freshly strung and just tuned up without stretching, you can often pull a full step out of the thing. Some of that is going to be slippage in the tuning peg, obviously, but a nice chunk of that is slack that you would have had to deal with during tracking. Always stretch 'em!

#4 - Tune Up If You Have To Wait

While not an Earth shattering tactic, if I know I'm not tracking for a few hours, I'll go ahead and tune up an extra half step after doing all that stretching. Why? I figure the extra tension while I'm not doing anything will help work out a bit of the slack. It's probably not perfect, but it only takes a second. Anything that saves a ruined take is worth doing.

#5 - How Do You Tune?

I know there are quite a few guitar players that debate over how you should tune. Some guys claim they want the initial attack to land exactly on the note. The problem with this is the string will drop in pitch in a hurry immediately afterwards making sustained notes and chords go flat. Some guys claim you should wait a good three seconds to let the pitch fall. This will get the guitar in tune for the long sustained stuff, but the initial attack will always be a bit sharp.

I tend to take a hybrid approach. I like to give about one second to make sure the note just after the initial attack is in tune. This method is the best of both worlds approach for me. There are certain notes that I have to deal with during tracking, but this approach tends to be the most effective for me.

#6 - Take Note Of How You Play

I'm not sure why so many guys who smash their strings with the sledgehammer known as their right hand turn into delicate fairy princess mode when they stomp on the tuner, but it's an epidemic. Make sure you tune how you play. It'll save you decades of trouble.

#7 - Throw The Tuner Out

When it comes time to really get a guitar in tune, it usually takes a bit of abandonment of the tuner. The tuner is a good tool, but it can't compensate for problems with a guitar or with the hands. Almost everyone needs a little sweetening on the G string. (Usually this requires tuning it just a hair sharp, but not always.) The B and High E string are optional, but often benefit as well.

#8 - Tune Specific To The Chord

If one chord is giving you ultra-trouble, I recommend tuning to that chord and punching in. 95% of the time it's the player at fault, but you can compensate for that by tuning specifically to that chord. This is no different than a singer re-singing a phrase because of pitch. Take your time and get it right.

#9 - Can You Play A D Chord?

99% of all guitar players thing that playing a good ol' D chord is for babies. Then they start recording and can't the damn thing in tune. I've seen it happen hundreds of times. This happens to the seemingly best of guitar players. Usually, there is some much crappier guitar player in the band that can do it no problem. You may want to double check and make sure you can play a D chord in tune. The odds are not in your favor.

#10 - Practice Playing In Tune

I see plenty of guitar players who just obsess over flashy playing. I'm usually shocked by how few of them play in tune consistently. It's as if they never even thought about it. This is one reason why I love practicing guitar using an emulator through my studio monitors to drum loops. It forces me to play in tune and on time as if it were a real take. This skill is dramatically different from anything a person does in their practice area. It's something any serious guitar player SHOULD work on. If you aren't a guitar player, but just a recording guy, you should push this message. Make a big deal about this tuning business.

I remember posting on a recording forum, “I put all the mics in the right spot, but the drums sound like crap”. Fletcher, from Mercenary Audio, stood up said it bluntly, “If it doesn't sound good, you DIDN'T put the mic in the right spot”.

This was a hell of a shock for me, but also a tremendous eye opener. It occurred to me that all these little mic placement pictures you see in books, magazines, etc don't mean a damn thing. In the pursuit of robo audio, anything goes.

I can see how a person just getting started with audio recording may need a little bit of help with ballpark suggestions on where to place the mic.......actually.....SCRATCH THAT! NO, I DONT!

Audio engineering IS the pursuit of mega sound. This “pursuit” business is THE name of the game. PERIOD. If you aren't in the pursuit business, you aren't an engineer. You are just a musician with a mic in your hand. PERIOD. Even bothering to show a person a starting place is a bad idea. It implies that you can just follow some diagram and come up with killer tones.

The very first thing a beginner should be shown is that they shouldn't be shown. If they don't have a good guess where a mic is supposed to go, they need to go out and figure it out themselves. How? Easy. By listening! By trial! Be error!

I can imagine a few of you are shaking your head, as if we are doing a favor when we tell a beginner that a snare mic should go here, a kick mic should go there, bla bla bla. I guess some people put this engineering thing on a pedestal as if it's REALLY hard to learn. While engineer is a process, the biggest difference between a beginner and a guy who makes a nice living engineering is the fact that the big engineers accept the fact that there is gonna have to be a pursuit and they don't give in until they find the magic they are looking for. (There are probably a few other differences, obviously, but I'm positive this is the biggest difference.)

So if you aren't happy with the sounds you are getting, it may be time to start LOOKING for some better sounds.

Brandon

What You Get

I don't like listing features, as you probably know. So I'll do this my way. You get all the necessary amps, pedals, and rack effects a person will need under typical guitar recording situations. You get the ability to push the amps into power tube distortion (which is FINALLY convincing!....and even has speaker breakup), you get to utilize room sounds in ways I've never heard from an emulator, and you have pretty much every tool you'll ever need at your disposal. Basically, they've thrown in everything but the kitchen sink when it comes to guitar sounds.

So What! How Does It Sound?

If the top emulators from last year (minus the Amp Room stuff) were at 70% of real amps on a really good day, Amplitube 3 is running at about 92-94% of real amps on a really good day. It easily exceeds real amps on a bad day. What does this mean? It means if you have never gotten your real amp to sound awesome, the only reason to bother using it is for your own tinkering enjoyment. In terms of what the end listener is going to hear, Amplitube 3 is money!

To Who?

If you are robo real amp purist, you probably should check out last week's blog:

Better Than Cell Phones – The State Of Guitar Emulators In 2010

I think we are a year or two away before I recommend everyone toss their amps in the trash. In the mean time, I think 95% of us could kick 'em to the curb without losing sleep and/or business.

Tweaking Required

When I'm recording any of my real amps (1971 Marshall Super Lead, 5150, Rivera Knucklehead, or Fender Bronco) it's common for me to tweak about 45 minutes before I get what I'm looking for. Mostly, this is due to me needing something different every project I do. If a guy has “his sound” nailed we can usually get what we want with about 5-10 minutes of playing with mic placement, analog compression, etc. (I have no idea how much longer it's going to take now that I bought a 'Lil Freq analog EQ!) So, basically, it's a given that I've got to make a long drive to get to where ever I'm going.

Now that we've established that some tweaking is required for real amps, some tweaking is required for Amplitube 3 as well. Many of their presets are money right out of the gate. There are some surprising winners when you bypass some of the pedals and such as well. However, generally speaking, I had to play around for a good 45 seconds on average to get what I wanted at any particular time.

A few things you must know before using emulators:

• Emulators still require you to find the right guitar for the right sound. Some guys expect a Strat to sound like a Les Paul. No emulator I'm aware of can do this.
• Not all DI's are created equal. We established this in The Interrogator Sessions: Electric Guitar. I believe a Hi-Z input is absolutely required. Even those sound quite a bit different from box to box. The Waves Hi-Z input box is very good. I've found my Lil Freq's DI input to be vastly superior to the DI on my M-Audio Octane and Presonus Firestudio, for example.
• For high gain sounds, a Tubescreamer type pedal is required in my opinion. I use the yellow Modtone pedal I don't turn it off.
• For pretty much everything else, the Amplitube 3 guys have got it covered.
• Certain “Tweed-type” tones get a little boxy. I hate this, personally, but that's not any different than the real thing. The graphic EQ in the rackmount portion of Amplitube 3 is an excellent way to tweak without using the Algebra side of your brain.

Room Sounds

The room sound options are EXCELLENT in Amplitube 3. I can't remember any other emulator getting this THIS right. It's a very realistic room sound in a really good way. Not all guitars require such a room sound. I'd guess most of you would prefer the rackmount reverb thing to this, but for us guys who know and love using just the right amount of room in our guitars, this thing kills. You Iron Maiden kind of guys are going to love this.

CPU Usage

In “high quality” mode this thing slaughters right through my Intel Q8200 Quad Core with latency at 192 samples. (I've been upping that lately...I used to be a die hard 128 sample guy...not anymore!) In “low quality”mode, the CPU usage is dramatically reduced. I did notice a hit in tone, but it wasn't THAT big of deal. I'd say it lost 5% of it's “quality”...whatever that means. In that mode I could use quite a bit more instances. I never counted them up, but the CPU usage seemed to be in line with pretty much all the other emulators I have used.

Power Tubes

Unlike most emulators out there, this thing feels really close to what you get with cranking the power section. It's different with different amps, but the amp darkens, thickens, and gets more harmonic content going in a usually good way. (Of course, not all real amps like being worked this hard....Dual Rectifiers come to mind. Not all real amps do anything when turned all the way up....5150.) I've found this power tube feature to be entirely useful many times, particularly with the cleaner amps.

Speaker Breakup

If you push the power tubes hard, you can also hear the speakers breaking up. This can be very, very useful for some sounds and not-so-desirable for others. However, the fact that they've got it and sounds good is the key. Very few home recorders really get to use this aspect of electric guitar recording.

Pedals

I made a 3 page list of what I felt about each effect and ultimately decided not to include it in the interest of keeping this a review and not a book.

There a ton of pedals included. I think they all sound very good. I'm kinda hit or miss about random effects. For some effects, I want crappy sounds with plenty of lo-fi digital artifacts and such. On other effects, I definitely want the “boutique pedal” sound. If you find you need a $400 chorus pedal to be happy, you probably won't be happy with the chorus pedal included. The same goes with just about all of the effects. I thought the swell pedal was better than I had ever heard. The flange and phaser pedals were usable, but not quite up to the real deal MXR pedals. The EQ was extremely useful.

So basically, if you are ultra picky about your pedals, the emulators only "emulate". Purists will want more pure options, but for effects that aren't ultra critical to you, the included effects definitely fit the bill.

Rackmount Stuff

They've included a rackmount section which allows for all kinds of cool toying around. There's a 31-band graphic EQ, parametric EQ, tube compressor (that DOES have character!!!), fake ass reverb (in a great, Lexicon way....I get tired of room emulators sometimes!), digital delay, and this resonator thing.

The resonator alone is one of the coolest things ever. It reminds me of an old school version of the Native Instruments Spectral Delay....only better and worse. There is less control, but you can do some WICKED effects with this thing. If this was a $399 plugin and the only way to get it was to spend $400, I'd buy it in a second and use it all over every album I could. It would be awesome! I LOVE IT!

The rackmount thing was smart. Very smart! Some sounds simply need to be placed after the amp. A person could do this with their own plugins if they really wanted to, but there is something to having it all right here so you can save presets and such. Some sounds (particularly with delay and reverb) need to be placed after the distortion. You just can't get these sounds in front of the amp or even in the effects loop.

Flexibility

As you can see, they've pretty much hit each and every angle. The dumb thing is jammed pack with all the stuff you need to rock. It's obviously extremely well thought out by guys who play guitar, super easy to use, and the kind of thing that isn't too bad to tinker with when you have a guitar in your hand.

Reliability

I've been totally impressed by the consistent reliability of Amplitube 3. There were a few small issues with the original version that were completely solved by downloading the second version. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a newer update out now that is even better.

Downsides

I am a believer in Amplitube 3. I think it's the best thing out there, in my opinion. However, there are some downsides.

Opening the plugin takes about 3 seconds longer than any other plugins I toy with. In reality, this is nothing. However, I'm so “on edge” and in a hurry all the time, that I can feel the stress in my spine every time I have to open it. So it's good to have it always on the screen, if you can. I expect them to eventually fix this one.

Some tones sound right to me right out of the box. The Ace Frehley preset with the effects turned off and the gain turned down sounds right to me right out of the box. (I've developed a new found tolerance for the Recto sound. I'm not sure why!) Sometimes when I start tweaking with amps, pedals, mics, mic placements, rooms, etc I get “lost”. It seems that nothing I do can get me back to the mega sound I may have had previously. If you get lost, I recommend you go through the presets and find a few that excite you and save them as your own presets. If you get “lost”, they can be invaluable for getting back to a good starting point.

The Marshall sounds didn't excite me much. I've always been a Marshall fan, regardless of the trends that were going on. A good Marshall on a good day is my dream sound. However, none of these emulations got the “good” Marshall sound. None of the Amplitube 3 competitors has gotten it right either, for whatever that's worth.

Conclusion

Amplitube 3 is the new standard in guitar emulation. It's getting harder and harder for me to justify the time it takes to record a real amp. On many days, I simply do not bother. They've put together a very, very, very good sounding setup with about every possible option you could ever want in a very use-to-use, reliable package. I am impressed.

I rolled the ol' dice and bought the guitar on Ebay without playing, touching, or seeing it in person. I had no idea what to expect, but I've grown to have faith in the Ebay feedback system. When the guitar came in, it was exactly as was described and all went well. One thing that was rather different, was the string size. I have been playing .10-.52s as long as I can remember and so my perspective was a bit off. I ended up liking the new string size quite a bit, but had no idea what size they were. When I asked the seller about the string size, he said they were 8s. Eights???? Really?????

I was shocked that I could go from .10-.52s to 8s without actually going into shock. More importantly, I was turbo shocked to find out that I liked it. I actually enjoy playing the 8s! I'm sticking with 'em.

String / Tone Business

More importantly, I told a guitar-tone-loving buddy about them and he asked, “Did you tone go to hell?”. I said, “No way!”. (Granted, I've not tried my .10-.52s on my PRS so I've not done an A/B comparison.) I love the way the way the guitar sounds. Correction, I LOOOOOOOOOOVE the way the guitar sounds. I'm 100% content and see no need to take the guitar to the shop to get setup. It's absolutely perfect, as is. In fact, I'm afraid that by switching back to the big ol' .10-.52s I'll actually lose something. When palm muting, even the B string (the little bitty guy by the high E) is percussive and chunky. I've never gotten that from any other guitar or string combo. I'm convinced I have stumbled onto something here. (Or rather, the previous owner stumbled onto something and I'm stealing it!)

This whole issue of huge string gauges being required for monster tone is complete rubbish in my opinion (at least for my own tonal tastes). The strings do affect the player and the player is obviously THE generator of tone, but to say that big strings equals big tone doesn't seem to hold up in my case. The fact that I can get little 8s to sound like they do is strong enough evidence to reject this idea that I need 12s or whatever to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughn or whoever. (Whatever SRV had, I definitely do not have. I sound more like a really drunk, less talented Van Halen when I'm sober.)

If you've heard a billion times than that 10s sound better than 9s and 11s sound better than 10s, do yourself a favor and try the extreme. Go with 8s for a few weeks. Force yourself to play in tune. (You SHOULD be doing that anyway!) I'm not saying you'll keep the 8s on your guitar, but I think many of you high gain guys may feel like you've been duped by the huge string myth.

Update: I just tried out 8.5s. The "b string chunk" is gone. The overall percussiveness of the guitar is gone. I'll be switching back to 8s immediately.

Brandon