Cerebellum Blues

Home Recording Basix for Guitarists: Mac, Pro Tools, BIG HARD DRIVE, Line 6 Variax, Amplitube 2, Doggiebox, Bass, Microphone w/stand.

Ever since I first got a Fostex multitracker (at left), I've been in pursuit of the perfect home recording system: something that would sound good, but not be too complicated or expensive. Today, I think I just might finally have such a system, and for anyone out there thinking about what to buy, here's The List, in my humble-but-born-of-experience opinion.

COMPUTER - Grab an Intel Mac computer, either a Mac Book Pro, an iMac with a 20" screen or a tower with a monitor. I don't recommend the cheaper Mac Book, because should you ever want to connect it to a larger monitor, its video system might not be up to it.

DAW - Go for Digidesign's MBox 2 because there is no better system for home / project recording. Sure, you could by Cubase or Logic or whatever, but why? Pro Tools LE is so refined and reliable. Plus, every pro studio worth a damn runs Pro Tools, so you'll never have to worry about compatibility.

HARD DRIVE - Just get the biggest, fastest FIREWIRE hard drive you can afford. I have a Seagate somethingorother. Also, get the BIGGEST, CHEAPEST USB hard drive you can find for backup.

RECORDING GUITAR - For me, the answer is the one and only Line 6 Variax. I got one of these a few years ago, and they are a true Magic Wand. In one guitar, you have acoustics and any electric you can think of. If it's going to be your main instrument, splurge for the higher-end model, otherwise just get the basic model. They all sound the same, more or less.

VIRTUAL AMP - Plug into IK Multimedia's Amplitube 2. For guitar simulators, you've got a lot to choose from, but Amplitube 2 gives you the most bang for the buck in my opinion. That said, the best sounding software amp rig is Virtual Amp Room, but it does not have Amplitube's crazy creative options.

SOFTWARE DRUMMER - Get a Doggiebox. Seriously, it's only $35 and with a little processing from Pro Tools, it sounds incredible. Plus, it's simple, simple, simple.

BASS - I have an old Fender Precision, but just get whatever sounds decent. No need to spend a lot of money here.

MICROPHONE - I know NOTHING about mics, nothing, but over the years, my trusty Shure SM57 has never let me down. Oh, and get a boom stand.

And there you have it! Well under $10,000. Hell, probably not much more than $4 grand, and good enough, from a sound quality aspect, to make a pro sounding record. Now all you gotta do is write the tunes!

Digidesign Pro Too's MBox systems: limitations.

Digidesign likes to tout its line of MBox systems as simple and affordable -- and they are -- but I've only recently come to understand the subtle differences between all the boxes, and why you might feel forced, er, inspired, to fork over serious bucks for an MBox Pro or 003 system when all you really need is a basic MBox.

Here's the deal.

 

If you record at 96K in the studio, say, and then bring your tracks home to mess around with them a bit on your own Pro Tools system, unless you have an MBox Pro or an 003, you will be SOL. That's because the cheaper MBoxes do not support 96k, and can only look longingly at your pristine high-rez session files and feed you messages like, "Darn, Butch, wish I could read that file for you but those varmints at Digi are standin' in my way. Want me to shoot 'em?" Oh, that I could answer, "Yes." Seriously, the lack of compatibility -- not even a way to import at a lower resolution -- has been a real pain throughout my recording process.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Darn, Butch, why the hell didn't you have the studio folk export lower rez files for you before you rode back to Hole In the Wall?" And to that I say, "Um, well, uh, it slipped my mind." BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT. The point is, there should be SOME WAY for my Pro Tools system to recognize the higher rez files and let me DO SOMETHING with them instead of just sitting here shooting rabbits with my six gun.

Les is once more.

Yesterday, I got a call from my friend Cory and his first words were, "I have your Les Paul." A HUGE, MONDO thanks to Cory for finding my old guitar and for opening the door to negotiations with the person who bought it from me back in the mid-90's. Stay tuned for more details and photos. Still in  a bit of shock...

My next quest: Getting back my old Gibson Les Paul.

I confess, I'm not quite sure when this photo was taken, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was 1979, give or take a few years. That's my friend Toby Germano on the right, and that's me on the left, playing my long lost, but recently found Gibson Les Paul Standard. This was my first electric guitar. I bought it at Gelb Music with money I had earned doing a LOT of yard work for my parents. I played this guitar in my first band (embarrassingly called Pegasus, I think) and in bands to follow, but over the years, my trusty Les Paul lost favor to my Strat. In fact, by the mid nineties, it would not be an exaggeration to say that my Les Paul had spent well over five years in its case. Unplayed. Unloved. Nearly forgotten. Then one day I decided I absolutely had to have a 17" computer monitor or I would never get my advertising career really moving forward and I would die broke in a trailer park in Tuscon. So I sold my Les Paul to raise cash. My friend Toby (the same one in the picture) called me a fool, said I was making a mistake, urged me to reconsider. Oh, how I wish I had listened to him. He was right. In the years that followed that fateful sale, the Les Paul became an ever more distant memory, as I climbed the ad latter and tried to escape my trailer park fate. But in late 2006, a brain injury took me out the the ad game for a spell and gave me time to think and rethink some of the choices I had made. The choice to sell the Les Paul was high on the list, and the time has come to undo it. Thankfully, unlike my old Fender Bandmaster amp, I think I actually have a shot at getting my Les Paul back. The guy I sold it to still has it and might -- might, I say -- part with it. I will make him a fair offer. Wish me luck. And a HUGE thanks to my friend Cory for tracking down the guitar.

Hunting for my old Bandmaster, I find money's true worth.

My recent quest for my old Fender Bandmaster Amp really proves to me that there are some things money can't buy. And that's good. I'm glad the person who owns it didn't sell it to me. Even after I said, "Money is no object." Because I now know that my old amp is in the best possible hands: a devoted musician's. And truth be told, if he had needed the money desperately, he probably would have sold the amp back to me, but then how good would I have really felt? No, I was hoping my amp was in a collector's possession, sitting comfy in a closet somewhere, existing only to satisfy someone's ego. Because, then, I'm sure I could have bought it back, and with no guilt whatsoever. The whole ordeal reminds me of the time my friend Cory and I were at a Bob Dylan concert, perched on killer seats, thanks to the Man In Nashville. Some Silicon Valley types came up to us and said something like, "How much for the seats?" As though they could just wave money in our faces and compel is to part with our seats -- seats that were given to us out of generosity and a shared love of Dylan -- and see us on our way to the nose-bleed section. We told them no. Politely, too, which is surprising since they really were rude. But then, as now with my amp, money came up woefully short, and that's refreshing, because it shows that even in this world where just about anything can be had for the right price, some things cannot. Although, i gotta confess, if they had offered us $100,000 it would have been tempting! Actually, I say that, but if I had taken the money, I'd regret it now. That Dylan show was one of the best concerts I've ever been too. But back to my amp: I really only wanted my amp. I'm not going to go chasing down a pre-CBS Bandmaster, fun though that might be. This was never about getting a vintage amp. This was only about undoing a wrong I committed years ago. With luck, I'll be more successful with my old Les Paul.

The quest for my old Fender Bandmaster ends as quickly as it began.

Today, I called Greg Hannig at Hannig's Fretworks in Redwood City, CA, to ask about my old Bandmasterm and at first he said he didn't have any vintage gear at all, never bought the stuff. Then he mused that maybe it was his brother who had bought my amp, in which case I would be outta luck because his brother "never sells anything". Still, Greg took my number and promised to look into things. Maybe an hour later he called me back! Yes, his brother has the amp, and no he would never sell it or trade it. His brother figured, rightly I suppose, that if he sold it, he just try to get it back someday. Just like me. On the positive side, Greg's brother is in a band and plays the amp all the time. Lucky bastard!

The quest begins.

Back in the 80's or maybe even the late 70's, I purchased a pristine Fender Bandmaster amp, which looked very much like the one pictured on the left (sans the reverb unit, which is sitting on top). If I believed in divine intervention, I would say that event of my spotting the amp in a small vintage amp store on University Avenue in Palo Alto was God's way of saying, "Behold, grasshopper. Cast aside your Book of Marshall, your Hi-Watt faith, your never-ending quest for a shitload (pardon my French) of gain at a reasonable volume. For this is what you seek." And goddamn if he wasn't right. Knowing that Eddie Van Halen talked reverently of the 'brown sound', which had something to with messing up the circuitry in old Fender amps, I promptly bought the Fender and took it to The Amp Lab, where I would "Halenize" it. Keith, the proprietor of the Lab said something like, "Uh, this is a collector's item. I don't think you should muck with it too much." He suggested using the tremolo circuit for the master volume, which would give me the ability to get distortion at sane volume levels, but could be undone, should I someday wake up and realize what a I moron I was. "Done", I said. Well, I never really did muster the tone Eddie had described, at least I don't think I did, and in time, my ever-roving eye caught the sight of some other amp, and I sold my Bandmaster for $500 to Hannig's Fretworks Guitar Repair. What I fool I was. For I had just parted with the kind of amp you hear stories about but never quite believe. I kid you not, but the G2 on my old Bandmaster was that it had devotedly served in a church choir for use with a Wurlitzer electric piano and had never been out to a club for a drink. The only blemish on the amp was a cigarette burn, very tiny, unnoticeable really, until someone pointed it out to you. And the tone. This thing was fatter than middle America, warmer than Finnish hot spring, and punchier than Ali in his prime. And I want it back. And as of Tuesday, I will play placing a call to Hannig to check on the amp's whereabouts, and if the impossibility of divine intervention happens again, the Good Lord will say to  Hannig, "Dude, sell the man his amp back. He's offering you a fair price. And if you don't, well, I hope you like bathing in molten rock you heathen." Stay tuned.

Digidesign expands Strike drum machine.

Just the other day, Digidesign announced an expansion pack for Strike, the company's software drum machine. Intrigued, I downloaded it (it's free, thanks Digi!), and tomorrow I will go through the new sounds/grooves and report back. Stay tuned.

About as good a reason as you'll ever find to kill a few trees.

When I turned 40 -- FOUR YEARS AGO -- my parents bought me the Gibson 336 CS at left.
Yes, I might have prodded them in a certain direction, but how else would they have known what to to write a check for? The first 336 I ordered, I sent back. I think it was from Musiciansfriend. But the second one arrived and I knew it was The One, with its dramatic flame maple grain and meticulous workmanship.

When I first got this guitar, I played it incessantly, noodling leads, chunking out my best Keith Richards imitation, even strumming a few jazz chords. The tone is woodsy and warm, with a but more projection than a solid body, thanks to the f-holes and carved top. Mahogany forms the back, sides and neck, and in an unusual twist, the back and sides are actually one piece of mahogany, which has been carved out. Gibson claims that this is why the guitar's tone is so woody, but I just think it's cool. Over time, I've played the guitar a little less, especially since The Maton arrived on the scene, but these days I play my Gibson about 50% of the time, The Maton the rest, and use my Strat only when an amp is involved.

Mom and Dad, THANK YOU for this instrument. I will keep it forever, and should I ever find myself onstage before a crowd of thousands (actually 10s would do!), you can bet that this guitar will make an appearance!

Welcome home.

Today, under a cool mid-afternoon sun, I headed toward Gary Brawer's guitar repair shop to pick up The Maton. I was excited, but worried: Would it sill be the same after the neck repair? Would ii still have songs and ideas to give? Gary Brawer did little to ease my anxiety, as he made me wait while he helped someone else pick out a bridge for his bass. Did Gary not realize that I was there for The Maton, the most incredible guitar he has ever worked on? After too many minutes, Gary finally acknowledged my presence, and when I announced what I had come for, he brightened, as damn well he should have. Within minutes, I was strumming out a few chords and I was floored, in a good way. The new neck joint was rock solid, but more important, The Maton was actually easy to play and blessed with perfect intonation, qualities the old Maton did not have. I gladly paid Gary and left, but I had to run a few errands before I could properly noodle on The Maton in the comfort of my apartment, so the moment of noodle truth was still a ways off. Well, as of now, I have noodled and The Maton is BETTER THAN EVER: It plays beautifully, and the new strings add a pleasing sparkle to the sound. The tuning pegs all turn the right way (before Gary worked his magic, the tuning pegs on the treble strings were reversed). And even the buzz in the pick guard is gone. Most important, The Maton still has its muse, and promptly offered me a cool solution to a vexing chord progression I'd been struggling with for A WEEK. What a guitar. Thank you again, Brad, for letting me borrow it.