BILL HOLLAND: Welcome back to Gearwire.Com. I'm Bill Holland, and I'm here with Britton Wetherald...

BRITTON WETHERALD: Hey.

BILL HOLLAND: ...and Henry Bianco. Henry, tell us a little bit about yourself.

HENRY BIANCO: Sure. I am a Virgo. I am 23 years old and playing guitar for about 12 years now, touring the country for a few of those, and I'm happy to be here.

BILL HOLLAND: Nice. All right, well let's move on to site news. In site news this week, we have the Robot Guitar from Gibson which is a device that essentially has a computer built in that allows you to tune on the fly whether you want to do open tuning or just tune your guitar instead of having to do it manually. It goes for a pretty hefty price tag of about $2,500, but let me ask you something. Britton, is it worth it?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Is it 2,500 or 25,000?

BILL HOLLAND: It's 2,500.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Are you serious? Only 25? I think it' a stupid idea but that's just me. And --

BILL HOLLAND: So you think 25,000 would be better?

BRITTON WETHERALD: No. I think it's just stupid, period. I don’t want -- I mean like I like having my guitar like at least -- there's some ideology of like sweetened tunings like intervals and like, you know, harmonics and stuff like that phase with each other, so when your guitar naturally goes out of tune, sometimes it goes out of tune and sounds better than a strict pitch, especially when your bass player doesn't have a robot bass, all right? And you know all these other factors that you have to take in, a robot guitar just sounds like a dumb idea. And who's freaking too lazy to like tune their own goddamn guitar?

HENRY BIANCO: I would tend to agree with you but I mean listening to this new crop of musicians that seem like they're popping up these days like a lot of the kids aren't learning how to tune their guitars so maybe it'll be better for all our ears if they just have a robot tuning it for them, especially with intonation. Most people really don't even know how to intonate their guitar, and Robot Guitar really just visually shows you how to do it.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I don't know, man. I think that's just retarded.

BILL HOLLAND: Although then again if you're in a band where you don't know how to tune your guitar, you're not going to be afford the robot guitar anyway, which is just $2,500.

HENRY BIANCO: Right. To me, it seems like the sort of thing that it's a really cool technology but probably will be better suited once Squier can get it cheap enough on their guitars.

BILL HOLLAND: Well that's one thing. If you get like 400 or 500 then yeah it makes sense but --

BRITTON WETHERALD: I don't know but it just seems like the advent of making people just stupider and lazier. I mean what about alternate tunings? I mean because you don't have just standards and then drop standards and opens. You also have people who want to tune in A, people who want to tune in you know like other tunings. You know what I mean? Like I know guys who actually take their two highest strings, you know as normally known as the B and the E string and tune them to the same note to create a phasing effect -- or chorusing effect, excuse me, so I think like honestly this guitar is only applicable towards like, you know, super rock musicians who are extremely like lazy. I mean it's just like only lazy people wouldn't tune their guitar and want an excuse not to and only people who are so only interested in like strumming power chords and not interested in knowing your instrument wouldn't know how to intonate it. I mean like --

BILL HOLLAND: Right. Well then again, I mean this would great if it were offered as a cheap alternative for kids who are like you are starting a band, you want a guitar, you don't know how to tune your guitar, you're like --

BRITTON WETHERALD: It's not even great --

BILL HOLLAND: I know it's against the principle! I know that!

BRITTON WETHERALD: It takes everything away from playing guitar!

BILL HOLLAND: I agree! I agree!

HENRY BIANCO: I'm sure a lot of people said the same thing when MIDI was invented too, man, and you use it, I use it, everybody uses it.

BRITTON WETHERALD: No. See that -- See it's like saying that MIDI is actually not a lazy device because it's actually just a protocol. It a protocol...

HENRY BIANCO: Of course.

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...to recall sequences. You still have to play this out. You know, you still have to have some degree of [OVERLAPPING].

HENRY BIANCO: The Gibson Robot Guitar doesn't play itself in all fairness.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, but it tunes itself and that just makes people -- It makes people like -- Basically, you know that perception that Americans are just fat and stupid?

HENRY BIANCO: [LAUGHING] Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Thanks for reinforcing that, Gibson!

[BILL HOLLAND AND HENRY BIANCO LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: That's [EXPLETIVE] excellent! You got [EXPLETIVE] pride! I mean it's stupid.

BILL HOLLAND: All right. Well moving on: Reason 4. We've been looking at this up on our site this week. We took a look at the arpeggiator, the Thor synthesizer. You guys have played around this a little bit. Henry, you have a copy of this, right?

HENRY BIANCO: Oh yeah. I've got four.

BILL HOLLAND: What do you think about Thor and the arpeggiator. I'm really curious [OVERLAPPING]

HENRY BIANCO: I haven't really gotten into the arpeggiator yet but I think Thor is way badass.

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah.

HENRY BIANCO: The modular aspect of it of being able to put in the different oscillators and things is really cool and pretty endless, you know, especially combining it with the Combinator -- combined with the Combinator, yeah I like it a lot so far actually, and I really like the improved sequencer. I think it's all -- the way that they have the tracks all combined, I'm really liking that a lot.

BILL HOLLAND: They way you can drag the tracks is great, you know, drawing envelopes, all that stuff is so much easier now.

HENRY BIANCO: Way easier.

BILL HOLLAND: It's a lot more like an actual DAW in the you way you control it minus the fact that you can't put audio.

HENRY BIANCO: You can't of course.

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah. But --

BRITTON WETHERALD: I'm still stuck in the Stone Ages actually.

BILL HOLLAND: You have Reason 1?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Actually, I took in -- No I meant like I have got Reason. I have 2.5.

BILL HOLLAND: I have a lean copy of Reason 1 from like way back.

BRITTON WETHERALD: See I have 2.5 still and I'm like I was like trying. I was like, "Dude, I'm going to totally like load this on my computer because you know I got the benefit of working here sometimes, and I went to go my computer and I realized that I don't have a DVD-ROM.

[HENRY BIANCO LAUGHING]

BILL HOLLAND: Are you serious?

BRITTON WETHERALD: I'm dead serious dude. I'm just like --

BILL HOLLAND: Go out and get one at Micro Center like 20 bucks.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Dude, it's a P3. I don't even think I can run Reason 4 on there. You know what I mean?

BILL HOLLAND: Like a Playstation 3 or moke like...?

[HENRY BIANCO AND BRITTON WETHERALD LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: More like...

HENRY BIANCO: A Pentium 3.

BRITTON WETHERALD: A Pentium 3. Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: Wow.

BRITTON WETHERALD: So this is we're talking I'm poor.

BILL HOLLAND: I feel like we should have a party for you. Have a little fund raiser.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I can't even afford the O-R. I'm Po.

BILL HOLLAND: Wow.

BRITTON WETHERALD: All right but yeah. So I'm excited. I looked at the screen shots. I've seen the demos. They look really awesome. It looks like a good next level towards electronic musicianship. I live -- my roommate has a modular synthesizer. His critiques are a little bit more harsh because he's actually using --

BILL HOLLAND: What's he using? Like a Doepfer or?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, a Doepfer. He's got like two racks -- like two [OVERLAPPING]...

BILL HOLLAND: [OVERLAPPING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...little cases and he's got good gear and he says -- you know like his view on Reason is kind of Jaded because he uses Logic and what-not.

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: And so he's kind of -- He's disinterested. I'm interested because it's just an easy tool for me to sketch down electronic ideas.

BILL HOLLAND: You know, it's good to use it with like Ableton or Logic though.

HENRY BIANCO: As VST, I use it with Live every day.

BILL HOLLAND: It's great.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, and Live is -- like using it with Live is just like -- it's kind of like --

BILL HOLLAND: It's kind of a powerhouse, really, because then you have everything you need.

BRITTON WETHERALD: And then you can do remixes on the fly and then add things like synths, synth elements on the fly and on top of it and you get all crazy and -- Now, I'm just rambling. Awesome.

BILL HOLLAND: All right. Well then, we're going to move on to the next segment of the show. We're going to over to J. Irving-Giles's house. We're going to take a look at his new Digitech Vocalist 4, and see if that can actually do something for us or if we think we should save our money. I'm Bill Holland for Gearwire.Com, and this has been Crosstalk.

[BRITTON WETHERALD PLAYING GUITAR AND SINGING]

[PEOPLE LAUGHING]

[BRITTON WETHERALD PLAYING GUITAR AND SINGING]

[J. IRVING-GILES SINGING AND PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH DIGITECH VOCALIST 4]

BILL HOLLAND: Hey J. What's going on, man.

SPEAKER: [INDISCERNIBLE]

BILL HOLLAND: What have you got there?

J. IRVING-GILES: How's it going, guys?

BILL HOLLAND: I heard you got the Vocalist 4, right?

J. IRVING-GILES: Yeah, the Vocalist Live 4. It's brand new.

BRITTON WETHERALD: What was that song you were just playing, man?

J. IRVING-GILES: Oh man, that was Fastball's "Over My Head".

BRITTON WETHERALD: Oh. It was pretty intense.

HENRY BIANCO: [INDISCERNIBLE]

BRITTON WETHERALD: I was about to say, man, you just went down to Mount [SOUNDS LIKE] Mantown.

J. IRVING-GILES: Yeah. I'm practicing. I got a big gig coming up. I'm going to be playing at the Borders Open Mic Night on the 23rd everybody.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

J. IRVING-GILES: So everybody come out, and I'll have this --

BILL HOLLAND: Which border?

J. IRVING-GILES: Well, the local borders all over.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: You mean the borders in Man-On-Man-Action-Ville?

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

J. IRVING-GILES: I don't know where that one is, Britton, but anyway --

BRITTON WETHERALD: It's down on Halsted. You take a left --

HENRY BIANCO: Just give us a card before you leave.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

J. IRVING-GILES: Anyway, I'm going to be bringing this Vocalist Live 4 with me, and ever since I got it I couldn't take it off my table in my house.

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah. Let's take a look at it, man. Oh damn. I can't get it off your table.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Away from your [SOUNDS LIKE] like effect.

BILL HOLLAND: No. Yeah, check that out. It's pretty cool. It's got effects, harmonies, but is it actually worth having? I mean what would I use this for?

J. IRVING-GILES: Well I think so but that's because I'm just a singer-songwriter who performs like on many open mic nights around town.

[PANELISTS GIGGLING]

J. IRVING-GILES: It depends on what you want to use it for.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Could you use it for praise song applications?

[PANELISTS GIGGLING]

J. IRVING-GILES: Oh, you definitely could. I mean there's lots of great patches on here, an Alternative Gospel patch that's really good.

BRITTON WETHERALD: For all those Jesus-loving needs?

[BRITTON WETHERALD LAUGHING]

J. IRVING-GILES: Let me find that one for you.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Awesome!

J. IRVING-GILES: Yeah. This is the Alternative Gospel.

BILL HOLLAND: This is Alternative Gospel. All right, let's hear it.

J. IRVING-GILES: Why don't we turn it on, [WITH DIGITECH VOCALIST LIVE 4 SWITCHED ON] and this is Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails covered by me.

[J. IRVING-GILES PLAYING AND SINGING JOHNNY CASH'S VERSION OF "HURT" BY NINE INCH NAILS]

HENRY BIANCO: That was beautiful.

BILL HOLLAND: That was tender.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

J. IRVING-GILES: I tried to do the original justice and then the original cover justice. Thank you but --

BRITTON WETHERALD: Is that a hit at open mic night?

J. IRVING-GILES: Oh, it's a big hit. Everyone loves it. A lot of people come up to me and talk to me about the set.

BILL HOLLAND: I mean what would somebody use this for ideally besides open mic nights and coffeehouse? I mean can I take this on tour? What do I do with it?

J. IRVING-GILES: Well, I suppose you could take it on tour. Basically, if you're one person singing, you don't have anybody that can do backup vocals --

BILL HOLLAND: And you want to do Fastball covers?

J. IRVING-GILES: Yeah. Exactly.

BILL HOLLAND: Okay. Let's hear another patch. Let's hear some of the crazy stuff. Yeah. You can't always have Kansas. I'm sorry. I know you love Kansas.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Let's do the Eaglets.

BILL HOLLAND: Eaglets? Yeah. Let's try the Eaglets. Yeah.

J. IRVING-GILES: [SPEAKING THROUGH DIGITECH VOCALIST 4] Sounds like with this one. It's just kind of a dropped harmony there. Could you just turn the Muse IQ off.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. That's on now.

J. IRVING-GILES: Well anyway, what that is, the Muse IQ, that analyzes the guitar chords you're playing and puts out a harmony that should sound good with the chord you're playing.

HENRY BIANCO: How effective is that.

J. IRVING-GILES: It's pretty effective. It makes it really easy to use right out of the box. If you want to get more in depth, you can turn that off, select major or minor or any of the- -- any really exotic too. They have those on here the patch edit section. It allows you to customize your presets, pick how many steps up or down you want the harmony to just function at. It gives you up to four different harmonies that you can use on one patch, so.

BILL HOLLAND: Awesome. Well, here's one thing we should do. Why don't you sing, start playing a song, and Britton, I want you to scroll through there and see what patches you can come up with, and then we'll have you do your finale that you talked to me about.

BRITTON WETHERALD: So we're going to look at the Muse IQ -- Are we going to just start with the Muse IQ on?

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah. Let's start with the Muse IQ on. Let's see what that hit sounds like, so it's on right now.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah. So play.

[J. IRVING-GILES PLAYING AND SINGING THROUGH DIGITECH VOCALIST LIVE 4 BEING TWEAKED BY BRITTON WETHERALD]

BILL HOLLAND: So you're taking out the vocal?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: Taking out right now?

BRITTON WETHERALD: I'm taking out the vocals right now just to kind of hear the wet signal. I have to make sure [OVERLAPPING].

[J. IRVING-GILES CONTINUING PERFORMANCE]

BILL HOLLAND: It should be noted you can bring down the guitar as well.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah I mean like --

BILL HOLLAND: Pull that out of the mix.

[J. IRVING-GILES CONTINUING PERFORMANCE]

BRITTON WETHERALD: You can turn both of the up so you can have like the, you know, equal --

BILL HOLLAND: Oh yeah. I know.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Equal sort of thing.

BILL HOLLAND: That's cool. All right. So we're at -- We're at the Eaglets right now. Let's take at some of the other presets real quick. So we'll scroll through. Let's see what 3 Up is.

J. IRVING-GILES: Three Up is a pretty simple one, as you can hear right now. It's taking it three steps up from just my normal voice so let's for something '90s.

BILL HOLLAND: You like that, don't you?

J. IRVING-GILES: I do. It's the best decade ever for open mic night songs.

[J. IRVING-GILES SINGING AND PLAYING SILVERCHAIR'S "TOMORROW]

BILL HOLLAND: Okay. So what else is really cool on here? I mean I saw there was --

BRITTON WETHERALD: I was actually messing around the...

BILL HOLLAND: I heard that.

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...the voicing, the balance, and the variation of this thing, and then there's like gals, guys. There's one called "Drunk".

BILL HOLLAND: Drunk? Let's hear that.

J. IRVING-GILES: [PROCESSED THROUGH DRUNK PRESET ON VOCALIST LIVE 4] Yeah, let's see how this sounds.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Well, I think we just answered that question. There's a "Be Friends" patch too.

BILL HOLLAND: Wow.

J. IRVING-GILES: This one is really for...

BILL HOLLAND: Like "Why Can't We be Friends"?

J. IRVING-GILES: ...one of my friends who is no longer with us...

BILL HOLLAND: Drew Krag?

J. IRVING-GILES: ...who was with you guys.

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah. He died in a fatal...

J. IRVING-GILES: Explosion.

BILL HOLLAND: ...explosion.

J. IRVING-GILES: Yeah. I heard about that.

BRITTON WETHERALD : I can't believe he just [INDISCERNIBLE] that patch.

HENRY BIANCO: Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: It was -- He blew up from the inside.

J. IRVING-GILES: Everybody, this is a song I wrote for my now departed and dear friend, Drew Krag, who came out to support me, most of the open mic nights I played. He wasn't at the last one but we can forgive him for that. He spontaneously exploded in a tragic accident earlier, and I wrote this song for him [SOBS] and so I'm going to play it.

[J. IRVING-GILES USING DIGITECH VOCALIST LIVE 4, PERFORMING A PARODY TO THE TUNE OF "DUST IN THE WIND" BY KANSAS WITH MODIFIED LYRICS]

[PEOPLE LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: [SINGING WITH DIGITECH VOCALIST LIVE 4, HENRY BIANCO PERFORMING GUITAR] Harmonizer, harmonizer, I'm so sad. Oh I'm so said.

[HENRY BIANCO PERFORMING A LICK]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Give me an alternative gospel. We need Alternative Gospel [INDISCERNIBLE]. [SINGING] [SOUNDS LIKE] All those baseballs. Hail [INDISCERNIBLE] for Fantasy baseball.

[PEOPLE LAUGHING]

BILL HOLLAND: I'm Bill Holland for Gearwire.Com. We're back with Crosstalk. As you remember from last time, we went to J. Irving-Giles's house and we checked out the Vocalist Live 4. What do we say?

BRITTON WETHERALD: And I stole it from him.

BILL HOLLAND: You had a lot of fun, right?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. I mean it's really entertaining. I don't know if I can actually use it for any other purpose than laughing my ass off.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BILL HOLLAND: So it's a good party toy?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, dude. I mean I have my reservations about Digitech. I personally think that the best thing that they made and probably the only thing I'll actually buy is the Digitech Whammy. That's probably it, and this is not so far off of the Whammy that like it's like a harmonizer for voice.

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Instead of like, you know your guitar.

BILL HOLLAND: Guitar, but --

HENRY BIANCO: It seemed like the sort of thing that yeah, it's kind of cheesy and a lot of the presets were pretty unusable but I think--

BRITTON WETHERALD: They have one called "The Eaglets". [LAUGHS]

HENRY BIANCO: "The Eaglets". I think if, I don't know, if you sit down with it for a long time and you're like a singer-songwriter-type guy, I think you might be able to -- I mean maybe you should go out and try to make some friends until like you get some actual background singers but I mean short of that, if you have a really terrible personality this could be a really good thing for you.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I don't know because most of like the singer-songwriter people, like when they have really pretty voices, I kind of want to hit them in the face but that's a personal aesthetic issue.

[HENRY BIANCO LAUGHS]

BRITTON WETHERALD: But like other guys who like do the singer-songwriter thing and sound like Bob Dylan which is like atonal [EXPLETIVE], You know what I mean?

HENRY BIANCO: Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Like, [DOING A BOB DYLAN IMPRESSION] "I loaned some gum."

HENRY BIANCO: That thing's not going to be able to do that.

BRITTON WETHERALD: That's -- It's not going to --

BILL HOLLAND: No. That's not going to. The auto-tune will kick in and it'll sound like robot.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Dude, this is not Jesus. This is not going to save you.

BILL HOLLAND: Or so we think.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BILL HOLLAND: No. I mean it seems like to me -- Here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking like -- I mean look at the picture on the box here. We've got happy singer-songwriter girl. She's playing at her local coffeehouse. She's --

BRITTON WETHERALD: She is definitely not getting laid.

BILL HOLLAND: [GIGGLING] She wants to have some backup singers.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BILL HOLLAND: So I mean I think it's good for like, you know, you're a basic musician, you're like just you want to play out like coffeehouse but you want add a bigger sound to your vocals.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Why the [EXPLETIVE] would you do that?

BILL HOLLAND: I don't know!? I'm saying that could be why you use it for. I mean I don't think you'd want me to use this. I mean if you're touring, I don't see why you would use this. I don't know what you would use it for.

BRITTON WETHERALD: There's a better one on the market. This is a great one for poor people, because we're all poor, [SOUNDS LIKE] like a product replacement, but there's the TC Helicon Live, and I saw a lady who used that.

HENRY BIANCO: But those are really cool.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Those are really cool. Whoa my God. Those things are awesome. It's not like Auto-Tune pitch correction kind of stuff. It's like they really do like harmonies...

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah. Well it's --

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...and like really good-sounding harmonies like you're [EXPLETIVE] around with this thing and.

BILL HOLLAND: It's kind of muddy I noticed, I mean a few of them.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah I mean I guess you could screw around with it.

BILL HOLLAND: I'm sure that you could get a good sound out of it if you wanted to, and I'm sure that you could probably do something different with it if you wanted to, but honestly I mean I don't know. I've gotten similar sounds out of software...

HENRY BIANCO: Oh.

BILL HOLLAND: That's way cheaper.

HENRY BIANCO: Way cheaper.

BILL HOLLAND: You know, the Antares stuff, I mean I've gotten better sounds out of it.

HENRY BIANCO: They just put out 5 right.

BILL HOLLAND: I believe so.

BRITTON WETHERALD: You know, I really hate Auto-Tune, and I think we all hate Auto-Tune.

BILL HOLLAND: What? You don't like Cher?

[PANELISTS GIGGLING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: I don't like Cher. I didn't like Cher when she was like au naturale Cher, not freaky Goth Cher or '80s Cher.

BILL HOLLAND: I don't remember the freaky Goth Cher. That's sounds like at least bit more interesting.

HENRY BIANCO: That sounds like a Halloween costume [INDISCERNIBLE].

BRITTON WETHERALD: No. It's like didn't she like always dress in black? -- Oh, I'm thinking about Elvira.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Both of them have been around forever and they'll probably like melt in the dust at any point in time.

BILL HOLLAND: Well, you know for people who aren't familiar with Auto-Tune and what it sounds like, what does it sound like? I'm listening to an album and --

BRITTON WETHERALD: We talked about that Cher song [SINGING AN AUTO-TUNE IMPRESSION], "Do you believe in love [INDISCERNIBLE].

BILL HOLLAND: That's a really obvious I mean, but let's think something where it's less obvious, something --

BRITTON WETHERALD: I mean any sort of boy band group or...

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...every Britney Spears song to date, you know, they all use Auto-Tune pitch correction. It's a war -- It's like a slight warble like you know when something --

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: And this is my same critique as the Robot Guitar and my same like any sort of like...

BILL HOLLAND: USB guitar.

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...USB guitar. Any correcting software. It's -- It kind of messes up the chain of command because some guy who's going to play like a certain note and something on an acoustic guitar and then going to pitch-correct his voice, it's not going to sound right because A = 440 in Antares is A = 440, and your guitar is not playing A = 440.

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: It's playing like A at --

HENRY BIANCO: 438.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. 438.

BILL HOLLAND: Well, and it encourages people not to be at their peak and not to perform at the best of their abilities.

HENRY BIANCO: Well sometimes, I mean if you're strapped for time in the studio and like, you know, you’re not on a huge budget, sometimes you need to do that sort of stuff.

BILL HOLLAND: Well, I mean I'm not going to say I've never used Auto-Tune. I've used it a lot of times on singers. I mean they'll come in and you'll have like one word that you'll be like crap, you know. But I mean if you're a bad singer, you're a bad singer.

BRITTON WETHERALD: See, I had to use Auto-Tune once and this is where I swore it off, like I would never. Like I had this ex-boy-band guy that was doing spec work in for LA and he like were signed with Maverick at one point in time but then they dropped his group, it was really like fall from the throes of fame sort of thing --

BILL HOLLAND: Whoa.

BRITTON WETHERALD: It was -- it was really awesome.

BILL HOLLAND: Kevin Federline type of stuff?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah like basically on that same level but wanted to be the next Justin Timberlake, and so like this dude comes in to my studio and like he's pissed drunk and like he can't keep key at all, and he's just like like, "Dude, you got to sing in key," and he was like, "No." I was like, "[EXPLETIVE] I got to -- I got to use Auto-Tune," and this was like the one time that I used Auto-Tune, and then it took me so long to correct his like bad vocal takes because he was sipping along like some OE and just like, you know like...

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...you're getting toe up like homeless man style, and I was just like, "Whoa," and then I did and he was like, "Thanks, dude," and I was like, "All right. Sell the track so that you can give me some money," and he just like never did. Anyways, that's why I think Auto-Tune's the Devil.

BILL HOLLAND: All right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Because it doesn't do anything but make my time, my life a living hell and make it sound bad. It just sounds like poo in a bucket.

BILL HOLLAND: That's pretty bad sound I've heard that lately, but you know --

BRITTON WETHERALD: It's that squishy sound [OVERLAPPING]

HENRY BIANCO: I think we're reviewing it next week [OVERLAPPING]

BILL HOLLAND: I get that on YouTube. I mean I kind of [SOUNDS LIKE] but I looked that up on YouTube. We're going to be back in a little bit with our viewer mail on Crosstalk. I'm Bill Holland. This is Gearwire.Com.

[BRITTON WETHERALD SINGNING PRINCE'S RENDITION OF "KISS"]

BILL HOLLAND: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. Yeah. Great.

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah Fastball. Start with Fastball and when it hits the part that we all laughed our asses off about, then Britton with start walking in.

J. IRVING-GILES: Yes.

[J. IRVING-GILES PERFORMING FASTBALL'S "OVER MY HEAD"]

BILL HOLLAND: All right. This is the final installment in the latest episode of Crosstalk. I'm back with Britton and Henry.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Hey.

BILL HOLLAND: And we've got some viewer mail this week, so we're going to go ahead and then get some viewer mail. Britton?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Your mail.

BILL HOLLAND: With the viewer mail song please.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I don't have a viewer mail -- Oh, let's find out.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

[BRITTON WETHERALD PLAYING A GUITAR RIFF]

BRITTON WETHERALD: This is a good [INDISCERNIBLE]

[PANELISS LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: [SIGNING WHILE VOICE IS PROCESSED USING DIGITECH VOCALIST LIVE 4] You got questions and concerns, and you've go have something that burns: viewer mail, viewer mail, viewer mail.

BILL HOLLAND: Thank you, Britton. We have mail from J., who writes us regarding his interface. He says, "I have a question for Crosstalk cast that I'm hoping to get an answer to. I currently own a Presonus FireStudio that I run to my Mac Pro as a recording interface. At the moment, I own a Shure SM7..." -- not 57 --, "...because of the type of vocals I record, more aggressive stuff, but I'm finding it hard to get the amount of gain I need to really make the vocals stick out in the mix. My budget is about $500, give or take, 50. Is it really a new mic that I should looking for (condenser), or should I be more concerned with getting a really nice mic pre instead (FMR RNP, True P-Solo)? Either way, what do you suggest? Thanks in advance for your feedback. J."

Well, J. What do you guys think? Can we talk about this for a little bit?

BRITTON WETHERALD: See, the problem is not your actual like your mic or the preamp section. It's about like there's a certain amount of gain that you're going to max out before overloading your preamps on any sort of thing, and that is in ratio to like you having to actually mix like, you know, a guitar in a mix is always going to be louder than your vocals if you set them perceivably because there's more noise an frequency spectrum that you're dealing with, especially when you're like in the middle of like thrash-core and you're like [BRITTON WETHERALD PERFORMING GROWL VOCALS] woof! You know, like when you're need to get.

[BILL HOLLAND LAUGHING]

HENRY BIANCO: I think that was gore-grind actually, bro.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Gore-grind? Gore-grind? Woof! Anyways, so like in that sort of certain case like you have to remember that you're going to bring down the level on everything else and push your vocals up, and then you're going to compress everything on the end of your master compressor to smash it all together and make it seem like everything's perceivably loud overall. That has nothing to do with gain. Now, if you want to spend your money on a preamp, there's tons of great preamps that you can buy, but is it really necessary? I doubt it.

HENRY BIANCO: I don't know. I think I agree with a lot of what you're saying but that's more for the situation of like a real studio whereas with a lot of these interfaces, they do have kind of quiet preamps at least from my experience, and sometimes you do need an external preamp, I mean, just to get the decibels up there. I do agree with the mixing, and when it comes down to getting your levels and then boosting them all up with compression and equalizing and mastering.

BILL HOLLAND: Well especially -- I mean if you're talking like the lower ends, LEs, using a FireStudio --

HENRY BIANCO: The FireStudios are really nice.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I've done a whole album on a FireStudio with like, you know, in like two days. I guess one of these speed recordings sort of things where you're going to record a folk album and you do it as fast as humanly possible...,

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...and so like I didn't have any problem with the gain preamps. I mean like it's one of those things that I'm like I'm kind of like in awe like you would need to buy a preamp for like a dynamic microphone that you're only going to be screaming into essentially. You know what I mean?

HENRY BIANCO: Well, Shure even says it on their web site that sometimes a lot of their dynamic mics are going to be a little quieter with interfaces like that and you might need to get a separate preamp.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I don't know. I really -- I don't see that as a huge issue as much as like the mixing, because even if you're at like, you know, like -20, You know what I mean? You have enough gain -- You have level to actually push it because like what you can do is normalize the signal. You can bring it up.

HENRY BIANCO: Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: You can do a lot of processing that would save you that money, and you can go dump it in buying like a pair of Mackies or some really nice monitors.

HENRY BIANCO: Some really nice monitors. Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: Right

BRITTON WETHERALD: You know what I mean? Or like getting a really good compressor or really awesome limiter, like that money can be saved and put more towards the better thing because the only preamps that I would actually say are going to make are difference are not like these $500 preamps. I'm talking about, you know, you need to go out and get some API or Neve [EXPLETIVE].

HENRY BIANCO: Or an Avalon or something?

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: [NODDING HIS HEAD IN DISAGREEMENT] Stay away from me.

HENRY BIANCO: [LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: I have such a huge problem with that -- like that processor.

HENRY BIANCO: I'm sorry I said anything [LAUGHING].

BILL HOLLAND: I'm just keeping my mouth shut.

BRITTON WETHERALD: No. It's just like -- Dude, it's great for like pseudo-gospel bass. I mean that's only thing that I've found that I've heard that I actually like it on. Maybe R&B vocals but I -- It's not like it's not the end-all deal. I think it's -- Honestly, I've considered like a $700 or $800 piece of equipment, not a thousand dollars.

BILL HOLLAND: Okay.

BRITTON WETHERALD: The range it'll use is very limited. For you, you want Neve, man. You want coloration? You want balls? You want grit? Get a Neve preamp if you really need to spend that money, but you're looking at like at least $700 to $800.

BILL HOLLAND: Okay. His budget is $500 so what would you recommend?

HENRY BIANCO: New monitors.

BRITTON WETHERALD: New monitors.

HENRY BIANCO: To get a better mix. Cool.

BILL HOLLAND: Okay. Well let's move on. The next mail is pretty long so let's take a look at it. This is from Rich and he says, "Peace," to us.

"Here are two questions which you might not hear often but I bet a lot of people could benefit from knowing about. Okay, when I'm recording an electric guitar direct to my mixer audio interface, which is a TASCAM FW-1082, the raw tone I get is not great. The input has a switch for Hi-Z, which I have engaged. That's supposed to cover my impedance matching. Correct? Well it doesn't seem like it. Compared to the higher quality recordings I've heard from the guitar recorded direct to mixer, my recording sounds like they're mixing a bit of the high end. In other words, they are somewhat lifeless and dull. I'm getting good strong levels so that's not an issue. What's missing? Do I need a DI box to get a nice tone for my guitar. If so, please recommend a few. Otherwise, how can I get the best sound when recording electric guitar direct?

BRITTON WETHERALD: [LAUGHING SLYLY]

HENRY BIANCO: An interesting situation. You know, I never really would recommend recording guitar direct like that unless, (a) you're going to be reamping, or (b) you're going to using some sort of software that, you know, I'm sure we can talk for hours about the ins and outs and pitfalls of guitar software, but I mean you're just -- when you're recording direct to the board like that, all you're getting is your magnetic pickup. I mean when you're talking about the Hi-Z, we don't know what kind of pickups his guitar has so we don't know if they're active or passive. We don't know what [OVERLAPPING] it's supposed to be matched with.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Well, I mean like Hi-Z. Let's kind of define the term. It's a high impedance.

HENRY BIANCO: Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Most line level is at a lower impedance that's why it's called high impedance. Guitar high, line-level keyboard low. And then you have even lower impedance for your microphone (way low), and then your signal-to-noise ratio it differs between all three of those impedance levels...,

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...all right, and where it operates on the spectrum of what line level is concerned, which is supposed to be like zero, all right? WE can address that another day. That's just kind of a brief overview of what you got to take into account. The reason why your guitar sounds "are lacking highs" is that like (a) when you go direct into it, your magnetic pickups don't pick up high strings as loudly as low strings because of the mass. It's just solid mass.

HENRY BIANCO: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: You know what I mean? So you have to deal with that. What you do --

HENRY BIANCO: And it also depends on how his pickup is adjusted.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, you can like angle it.

HENRY BIANCO: Because you're usually supposed to have your bridge -- your lighter strings, the pickups are supposed to be closer to those because the vibrations are less; it's harder for them to pick it up.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. I mean but that's like those are whole bunch of factors, but that's not going to save them. The next thing sit that you're going to have to like let's say you want a clean tone. Just bust out the EQ, man. Just EQ it, gain it, and get done with it. I would say like if you're trying to like get some distortion and all that other stuff, my first inclination is to reamp. If you really got to use a modeler...

[PANELISTS LAUGHING MOCKINGLY]

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...go ahead, but I'll make fun of you.

BILL HOLLAND: Okay. I mean I recorded using a modeler through our Saffire interface last week.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I'm going to make fun of you.

BILL HOLLAND: I know you are, okay? But I mean it was a matter of necessity. They guy came over. He just got like done touring with the circus like all this craps and storage, and so we're like, "Okay, bring your guitar over. We'll figure it out," and we put in the Guitar Rig but the problem is -- I mean you can make it sound acceptable but the problem is you sit there tweaking for so much longer than you would if you just took the amp and we're like, "Okay. Here's my AKG Performance 400 mic, here's my amp, and send it into the interface." Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Well, I mean like the thing is that a modeler is not going to offer the same like actual, like sound levels, like SPL.

BILL HOLLAND: Well, I know. I'm aware of that but I'm saying in like if it's in a push come situation, you don't have a lot of money, you're stuck in that situation, that makes sense but what I'm surprised by is a number of guitarists who don't have, seem to have an amp.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Well I mean like that's just because everybody and their mom plays guitar. I mean I'm serious. My mom can play guitar, and his mom can play guitar, and your mom can play guitar.

BILL HOLLAND: Well yeah. I guess there's a difference between somebody like I have a full 88-key workstation.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: But that's because I've been playing piano for like 14 years...

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, yeah, but --

BILL HOLLAND: Versus somebody with a MicroKorg who's just like, "I have a keyboard," so that does make sense then.

HENRY BIANCO: Sure.

BRITTON WETHERALD: They're also in a [SOUNDS LIKE] noise pain in Lower Manhattan, and they're the [EXPLETIVE].

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Anyways, now like the best way you're going to do that is like, like I said, EQing and stuff like that, and what tone. Just really think about what you're trying to go for. If you're just trying to get like a clean jazzy tone, you don't really need to do anything besides just like EQ, neck --

HENRY BIANCO: Neck pickup, a little EQ.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, a little EQ, maybe normalize it, really like try to raise the levels by limiting and normalizing that signal-to-noise ratio so you get a louder perceived sound. Pretty much it, dude.

BILL HOLLAND: All right. Question two:

"If I use a high-quality plugin compressor such as Waves or UAD and record or print the compressed output to my track, does it give me the same bit depth i.e. quality that I would receive from an analog compressor positioned before the input. I'm weighing the option of buying a nice analog compressor but I'm happy with the compression I'm getting using different plugins. As such I'm trying to see what distinct advantages, if any, there are to having an outboard compressor whose primary function would be to transparently produce consistent levels when I'm tracking. Thanks guys. Looking forward to the next episode and I hope you keep it going. Peace, Rich

"

BRITTON WETHERALD: You're dealing with a whole mess of theory issues.

HENRY BIANCO: I think there's a kind of easy answer though. It just depends on the bit depth of the compressor plugin he's using. In the end,he's not going to get anything higher than what...

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

HENRY BIANCO: ...the bit depth on that compressor is.

BRITTON WETHERALD: See, all right. Like I talked about this and touched on that a little bit before like last time we talked about dithering and stuff like that.

BILL HOLLAND: Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: All right. So, remember when we talked about why dither is there.

BILL HOLLAND: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: It's adding noise so the bits crunch the noise so you get better frequencies and response. Same sort of a relationship and I's kind of a natural dither response as you take something to a compressor, your noise, because it's going to be noisy going out, and there's going to be noise coming back in. You're actually taking away, and you're inadvertently dithering audio when you do that. It has an advantage. There's also an advantage to actual circuit response if you buy a nice compressor. It just sounds very, overall, warmer. You know what I mean? Plugins do a great job modeling, and trust me: I've had to use a lot of plugin compressors a lot, but you know, if you really like all about them, just use them. It's cool if you're getting a good sound out of them. It's cool. I recommend getting at least one normal compressor because they just sound different than the digital.

HENRY BIANCO: Especially in the difference between pre and post.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah.

BILL HOLLAND: A huge difference.

BRITTON WETHERALD: So there it is.

BILL HOLLAND: Thanks a lot, Britton. And if you have any questions you want to send to us, feel free to email us at crosstalk@gearwire.com. You can send criticism, complaints, questions, concerns, and general gear problems. Again, I'm Bill Holland, this has been Bill Holland and Henry Bianco, and we'll be back in another two weeks with the next Crosstalk.

[BRITTON WETHERALD SINGING]

[PANELISTS GIGGLING

[BRITTON WETHERALD PERFORMING METAL GROWLS AND GRUNTS]