Tone. At Home.
The things we can use to bottle up our tone and put it on display for all to marvel at!
I’ve been working on some recording today, and I ran into a problem that I never expected in a million years. I’ve got an audio noise problem that goes away if I unplug the Thunderbolt cable from my Mac.
With the UK about to leave the European Union, we need to talk about Brexit: the impact it has already had on guitars and gear, and what impact it might have going forward.
This post is all about us here in Britain, and the British guitar gear market.
Continue reading “2019 Review: Brexit And Buying Gear”Rather than do a ‘best of’ style post, every year I’m going to do a rundown of what home studio gear I’ve got, and why.
Continue reading “2019 Review: Home Studio Gear”I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.
One of the benefits of this autumn’s home studio mini-revamp is that it’s now pretty easy to use any piece of gear that I’ve currently got. I’ve been taking advantage of that, by revisiting old pieces of gear that didn’t get much use in the past.
Thanks to the cleaner cabling, I’m finally able to hear this gear at its very best. And – spoiler alert! – I’m rapidly falling in love with a couple of items that I never got on with first time around.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #15: Revisiting Old Gear”We’ve just had Black Friday, and Christmas is right around the corner.
I’m keeping my eye out for anything unusual, interesting or an outright bargain, but in all honesty, there isn’t going to be much left over to spend on gear after Christmas shopping for my family.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For December”My home studio revamp is in full swing. I’m hoping to complete it this month, so that I can spend the winter months getting to grips with it all and starting to record music for myself once again.
The second hand market on eBay has picked up a little since the horror show that was October. It feels like the number of items is up a little, but I haven’t really felt tempted by any of the items put up for sale.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For November”I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.
One of the main reasons I’m doing this studio revamp is so that I can use my stereo Synergy Amps rig regularly again.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #14: I Didn’t Need To Cable Up The SYN-1 FX Loops”I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.
For the past few years, I’ve been using the D’Addario (formerly Planet Waves) Cable Station system to make my own solderless patch cables. I like it because it gives me the convenience of making custom-length cables, and I rarely make a dud cable.
I used to have a huge pedal board with 20 pedals on it. I tore that down earlier in the year, giving me a lot of Cable Station connectors and cable to try and reuse – along with some new connectors that I ordered in for the studio revamp.
The results have been mixed.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #13: The Planet Waves / D’addario Cable Station Cables … Aren’t Very Reusable”I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.
I’ve spent the last two days getting the studio rack wired up at last. And, during the process, I’ve grown a bit frustrated with the Neutrik NYS SPP-L1 patchbay that I bought for this project.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #12: The Neutrik NYS-SPP-L1 Is A Pain”I’m currently getting my home studio more organised, and along the way I’m sharing my thought process, decisions, discoveries and regrets.
When I traded for the Apollo x6, I couldn’t test it right away. Universal Audio don’t include a Thunderbolt 3 cable with their Apollo units. I had to buy one separately from somewhere.
It’s frustrating that UAD (and their competitors!) don’t include an essential cable in the box. But I already knew that they didn’t. That’s an inconvenience, not a problem.
The problem is that Thunderbolt 3 cables are much shorter than Thunderbolt 2 cables. The Apollo x6 is in a studio rack about 3-4 metres away from where my computer normally sits.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #11: Thunderbolt 3 Brings A New Problem”