Author: Stuart

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Studio Diary #55: Tackling Noise In The Axe-FX 3 Pedal Platform Preset

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

Back in July, I tackled the major cause of noise by sorting out the gain-staging for my pedal platform preset. However, that hasn’t completely eliminated all noise in the signal chain. (Some noise is inevitable.) What can I do about the noise that’s still getting through?

That’s what I’m going to look at in this blog post.

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Studio Diary #54: The Challenge Of Keeping Up With Fractal Audio’s Firmware Releases

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

Today, I want to briefly talk about the consequences of (what is probably) Fractal Audio’s greatest strength: their regular stream of firmware updates to make their products get closer and closer to the real amps that they’re replacing.

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Studio Diary #53: Multi-Channel Virtual Instrument Support Finally Comes To Universal Audio’s LUNA

Earlier in the summer, I went out and bought Apple’s Logic Pro (in part) because LUNA lacked support for virtual instruments (like drum plugins) that had multiple output channels.

A couple of days ago, Universal Audio released LUNA v1.7.0. The big feature? They’ve finally added multi-output plugin support.

My other reason for moving away from LUNA still stands. UAD’s plugins are prohibitively expensive for an amateur band like ours who collaborate remotely.

But for my solo projects (if I ever actually get round to them … 🙄)? I do love tracking guitars in LUNA …

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New Arrivals: August 2024

I had a (very minor!) bit of emergency surgery at the end of July, which really limited how much time I could spend with the guitar this month. At the time this is published, I’m pretty close to being fully recovered, and looking forward to getting a few more blog articles written.

I did pick up a couple of pieces of gear to try. It’s fair to say that I had mixed feelings afterwards …

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#CoffeeAndKlon 39: A Deep Dive Into The JRAD Archer Clean

#CoffeeAndKlon is my (irregular!) Sunday morning magazine series, where I talk about whatever’s on my mind right now. There’s always coffee, and there’s normally chat about the Klon and its many competitors.

Always the bridesmaid, but never the bride … until now. It’s time that I finally take a deep dive into (perhaps) the most unusual Klon klone that’s out there.

Today, I’m discussing the JRAD Archer Clean.

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