Award Sounds

I'm glad that Kontakt and Logic work together. I just wish it were easier.

Versions

The upgrade to Logic 8 has helped a lot. For me, the Logic upgrade was a no-brainer. I waited a couple of moths to see what the bug reports were coming through, then took the plunge. Regardless of how it interacts with Kontakt, the Logic upgrade was worth it. If you include the tighter integration, then it becomes even better.

Templates

The BYOC Overdrive is a guitar fx pedal which comes in kit form. You receive all the parts, you download the instructions, then you assemble and solder it all together. It's based on old circuits and is meant to be a clone of the TS9 and TS808; essentially it's a tubescreamer pedals in a kit.

The Build

Background

These files were recorded using the Build Your Own Clone Overdrive pedal. This is the now-discontinued version featuring 3 knobs. The newer version (Overdrive2) features 4 knobs, a toggle switch and two footswitches.

Signal Chain

Background

These files were recorded using the Build-Your-Own-Clone Triboost pedal.

Signal Chain

The signal chain was an Eggle LA Pro (closest popular guitar is a Fender Fat-Strat in S/S/H configuration) into a Matamp 1224GT and a 2x12 Vintage 30 cab. Any reverb is ambient or from the amp itself. No effects (i.e. no reverb, compression, chorus, etc) have been added. The only processing was to align the signals of the close mic and the room mic.

Background

These files were recorded using the Build-Your-Own-Clone Tremolo pedal.

As mentioned in that article, the internal trim-pot was a little too high, however the distortion is still musical in quality so I thought it worth recording.

Signal Chain

December was good; I received two FX pedal kits. They were the Build-Your-Own-Clone Tremolo and Build-Your-Own-Clone Overdrive.

I've already built a BYOC Triboost and was so impressed with it that they're now the first supplier I look to for pedals. I chose the BYOC Tremolo because I've yet to find a tremolo pedal I'm happy with. That might sound odd at first, but I wanted one that I could modify easily to fit my needs.

The Build

I like it when something just works, but I always feel a bit ambivalent when I can't really notice it working.

The Kit

In this case, I've just been using the Radial Engineering Reamping Kit. It consists of two main components (the J48 active phantom DI and the X-Amp amp driver) plus a power supply for the X-amp and a plastic box to hold it all in.

Plugging In for Re-Amping

Mention an octaver to a musician, especially a guitarist, and you're heading for a conversation about Hendrix.

It can be used for other styles. So here's a quick trick for writing funk. Forget the bass when you start. I half-expected to get lynched, but bear with me, at least until the end.

Background

I like the old P-funk of Funkadelic and Parliament. I think what made me hear it more was the inclusion of a distorted guitar in a funk show. This was often played in sync with the bass guitar.

Setting the groove

I've talked about tremolo as a musical feature before, this time I want to go into more detail.

First things first, let's sort out the guitarists: I don't mean using the tremolo arm/whammy bar or whatever you want to call it ("handle" as my girlfriend called it - and no she won't be picking up my guitars for a while). The whammy bar creates a vibrato feature, not a tremolo. Vibrato alters pitch.

Amplitude

Create a random part and modify it until it becomes musical. I'll describe a few options for taking a random parts and the processes I use for making them more musical.

1. Creating the randomness

I set Logic on a 4 bar cycle and hit keys at random on my keyboard. I chose a clean electric piano sound since they highlight any dissonance. It's not truly random because it's difficult to unlearn how to play, but after cycling through the 4 bars a few times it did become a mess of notes.