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Month: April 2012

Guitar store adventures – 5 mini guitar gear reviews

Once in a while I make my way downtown (Vancouver) and waste an hour or two messing around with whatever guitars, amps, and pedals that catch my eye. On these outings I grab some gear, go into an iso booth and compare. For example, on my first trip I compared an Ibanez TS9 to a BBE Green Screamer and MXR GT-OD – each a Screamer style overdrive – and in 5 minutes found I liked the TS9 most. It takes a great deal of self-control to walk out of the store with just one pedal or nothing.

It occurred to me that writing down some first impression reviews of the gear I try out may have some value to someone. I’m certainly not well known for my guitar playing but you guys seem to respect my opinion on gear and sound, or else you wouldn’t read AGZ.

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Guest Post: De-Essing Approaches

I was recently working on a song and the sibilance was just a little too much for me. Like anything in audio there several ways of accomplishing the same task and different people will have different opinions but these are a few ways that I found to be effective.

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Review: ValhallaDSP Ubermod

My review was first published on The Home Recording Show episode 161 with guest Sean Costello (ValhallaDSP). The discussion after the segment is equally geeky and entertaining.

Valhalla UberMod is a unique multitap delay and modulation plugin. The various algorithms allow from 2 to 32 modulated delay taps. Ubermod can be used to create lush choruses, tape and bucket brigade style echoes, reverbs and many strange other effects. Ubermod costs $50 and is available for OSX and Windows, VST, RTAS and AudioUnit; 64-bit ready.

After my gushing review of ValhallaRoom on The Home Recording Show # 147, I got in contact with the creator Sean Costello and dove head first into UberMod. I’ve been trying out Valhalla UberMod for over a month now, and it is surprisingly hard to get my thoughts on it written down.

UberMod looks simple but its really a very deep plugin. I spent a few evenings just getting used to how it works and trying things out. I eventually gave up trying to control it completely and just let it do it’s weird and wonderful things.

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Double Tracking Guitars

Double tracking is a very common recording/production technique for almost any genre of music. When it comes to rhythm guitars, this technique is almost a…

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