Tone. At Home.
The things we can use to bottle up our tone and put it on display for all to marvel at!
For the last couple of months, I’ve been dealing with a problem with my Fryette PS-100 Power Station: it emits an awful squeal.
I’ve figured out why: it was caused by a ground loop. Read on if you want to know the whole story.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #36: Why Does My Fryette Power Station Squeal?”When I listen to any demos involving the Axe FX 3 on YouTube, there’s no noise to be heard. But here, at home, and in my own demos that I’ve posted, there’s a background hiss whenever I let notes sustain.
I thought it was because I’m using the Axe FX 3 with my pedalboard, and it is. But it’s not the pedals causing the noise. And, thankfully, it’s incredibly easy to sort out.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #35: Reducing Noise With The Axe-FX III And The 4 Cable Method”#CoffeeAndKlon is my occasional Sunday magazine-style series, where I talk about whatever’s on my mind about guitars, gear, music and yes, sometimes my love of both coffee and the Klon pedal.
Fractal Audio recently released a digital Klon klone pedal for the Axe FX 3. Knowing Fractal’s reputation, it will have been meticulously modelled against a real Klon Centaur pedal – either one they own, or one they were able to borrow from the community.
Can a digital klone be a stand-in for the real thing? Let’s find out together.
Continue reading “#CoffeeAndKlon 32: A Digital Klone In The Axe-FX 3?”#TweedTalk is my occasional Tuesday column, where I talk about all things related to tweed amps and tweed-tone pedals.
This time around, I share my notes on how I’m capturing the sound of my Tweed Deluxe amplifier, and my thoughts on the experience.
Continue reading “#TweedTalk 4: Recording A Real Tweed Deluxe Amplifier”I recently rewired my home studio rack to replace unreliable home-made cables with professionally-made ones that would be noise-free.
Unexpectedly, the rewiring also revealed that I’d been losing some of the treble from my guitar without realising it. While testing all of the different signal paths that I have, I discovered problems with two of the signal chains that I use the most:
In this blog post, I’m going to explain the problem I found, and what I’m doing about it. I’ll also include audio samples, so that you can hear the problem for yourself.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #34: Gigrig G2 Goes For A Service”I recently bought a Fractal Audio Axe-FX 3 mkII rack unit, for use at home.
Why did I get it, and how am I getting along with it so far? Read on for my First Impressions.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Axe-FX 3 Mark 2 As An FX Processor”After a couple of months with no new (to me) gear, May has been a very busy month.
There’s a few items I’ve been after, both professionally and for home use. All of these things needed to be imported: some because they’re not sold in the UK, and some because they are sold here but are constantly out of stock.
With the UK government threatening to illegally break its own treaty and start a (doomed) trade war with Europe, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get them if I didn’t act now. On top of that, rampant inflation means that buying later means paying a lot more.
Now that they’re here, what do I think of them? And how was the import process? Read on for my First Impressions.
Continue reading “New Arrivals: May 2022”When I was doing my research into studio monitors, there was a concept that kept coming up time and time again. All the pros said the same thing: you’ve got to learn the sound of your monitors in your space.
This week – almost 18 months after getting my studio monitors – I finally understand what that means.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #33: Things Are Clicking With My Studio Monitors”Last week, I finally did it: I replaced all the home-made wiring in my rack with professionally-made cables. And, seeing as I was taking everything apart anyway, I used it as an opportunity to give everything a much-needed clean too.
Why did I do this? What was involved? How long did it take? And was it worth the trouble and expense? Read on to find out.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #32: Rewiring The Studio Rack”
Attenuators are one of the reasons we can enjoy valve amps at home without upsetting the neighbours. I’ve never really thought about how they affect the overall tone … until now.
In this blog post, I’m going to look at the two attenuators that I have – the Two Notes Captor and the Fryette PS-100 Power Station – and work out what they sound like. And I’m including some sound samples, so that you can hear the differences for yourself.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #31: Attenuators Colour The Sound”