Tone. At Home.
The things we can use to bottle up our tone and put it on display for all to marvel at!
I wasn’t supposed to buy anything at all this month. Christmas is fast approaching, and I’m one of those people who gets their Christmas shopping done super-early. Which, indeed, I have done 🙂
Then I found a couple of real bargains, and decided that I didn’t want to pass up those opportunities. Oh, and I needed a new power supply for my pedalboard too.
(And I got a sneak peak at a very special guest that’s coming before the end of the year!)
Continue reading “New Arrivals: October 2024”I’m lucky enough to own a physical Tweed Deluxe amp. I also think that a Tweed Deluxe amp rig for home use has become so expensive in 2023, it’s difficult to justify. So I’ve started looking at alternatives, to see how they compare to the real thing.
This time around, I’m looking at one of the most hyped products of 2024: IK Multimedia’s ToneX One profile/capture playback pedal, and a stock 5e3 Tweed Deluxe profile/capture that comes free with it.
Continue reading “#TweedTone: ToneX One Offers A Great 5e3 Tweed Deluxe Sound – At A Price”‘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.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #54: The Challenge Of Keeping Up With Fractal Audio’s Firmware Releases”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 …
‘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.
I’ve dialled in the amps and cabs for my 57 Vintage, 65 Clean and JTM pedal platform presets. Now I want to (briefly) explore the topic of gain-staging, and how it impacts my pedal platform preset (if at all).
[It turned out not to be a brief exploration at all – Ed]
Continue reading “Studio Diary #51: Gain-Staging Through The 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.
Most pedals that interest me will work best into a clean amp – either my 65 Clean preset or (for many tweed-tone pedals) my 57 Vintage preset. Every now and then, though, I take a look at a pedal that’s designed to run into a dirtier amp.
That’s where my JTM preset comes in.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #50: Dialling In The JTM Amp & Cab”‘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.
In the last blog post, I went through the amp & cab settings for my 65 Clean pedal platform preset. We’re not quite done with that preset yet though. You see, while testing it, I realised that I needed even more speaker choices …
Continue reading “Studio Diary #49: The 65 Clean Speaker Toolkit”‘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.
I’ve just finished documenting the thought process behind the scenes that I will use for my beloved tweed tone pedals. Now it’s time to switch my attention to the scenes that most pedals will use: a ’65 Fender “blackface” tone.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #48: Dialling In The 65 Blackface Amp & Cab”‘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.
Over-arching decisions have been made. So without further delay, let’s get into the heart of the pedal platform patch: the amp and cab emulations. And I’m going to start with the tones that are dearest to my heart: a vintage-voiced platform for my tweed-tone pedals.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #47: Dialling In The 57 Vintage Amp & Cab”Today’s the day I waved goodbye to my PreSonus Studio One subscription, and finally bought Apple’s Logic Pro to be my next major DAW.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #45: The Logic(al) Next Step”