sE Electronics let us use their USB2200a microphone to interview their own Bob Reardon about manufacturing. Though sE does have a factory across the Pacific, it's nowhere near your normal outsourcing story.
If you like bloopers, Styx and need of a large diaphragm condenser for your budget minded home studio, this one's for you. The sE Electronics sE1000a features a hand built diaphragm and electronics at an entry level price.
Bob Reardon of sE Electronics and Owen O'Malley of Gearwire are back with another opportunity for Owen to show off his vocal range on a microphone with some range of its own. The Z3300a has three switchable polar patterns and hand-built circuitry. Plus, you can easily maim someone with it.
Bob Reardon of sE Electronics shows us the Gemini, a tube microphone with a lot of weight to its body and sound. We had Owen O'Malley lend us his pipes to test out the tubes.
When I used to record acoustic guitar, I'd inject local anesthetic to most of the areas on my body to keep my position in relation to the microphone constant. Thanks to sE Electronics GM10, I have no idea what I'm going to do with all the syringes I haven't used yet.
Collings Guitars' Steve McCreary walks us from station to station where various points of assembly are in action. We get a look at some sides and tops as well as some bracing as Steve gives us the skinny.
While Bill Webb was too classy to use some of Crosstalk's Britton Wetherald's favorite terms to describe amp modeling, he did weigh in on the subject. Bill notes that some tone tweakers are able to get amazing tones through modeling amps, but as you can probably tell from the amps he builds, he's a tube guy.
As a self-coined half-man, half-tree, full-hyphen-aficionado, I can verify that what Steve McCreary says about Bird's Eye Maple is true. My skin / bark develops various distressing signs in the grain whenever I hit a rough patch. I should really get it checked out sometime.
Bill Webb from Fulton-Webb Amplifiers shows us a few more Fulton-Webb models. Each is inspired by some of the more notable classic amps with features thrown in to expand versatility manifold.
This is one of those videos that may perpetually come back to haunt Eric Singer -- friend of Gearwire (you might know him for his work with LEMUR) and obviously very close friend of unusual MIDI controllers. The Sonic Banana was developed by Singer way back in 2000, but these videos are timeless.
Notion Music's Progression might scare guitarists away at first as notational software is quite an intimidating term for some. It's multitudinous features, ease of use and guitar effects capabilities make this software friendly for the notationally illiterate.
Steve McCreary of Collings Guitars talks about the process of finishing a guitar. When it comes to varnish, Steve weighs in on his preferences between lacquer and polyurethane finishes.
Mark Erlewine shows us the Erlewine Lazer, a sleek, compact guitar with no headstock and no time for nonsense. Touted by Johnny Winter, it's a portable, lightweight and tonally versatile force that'll shoot your eye out if you're not careful.
Currently, the Scion car company is running some commercials about how one small tweak makes a major difference. Perhaps they should have consulted with Bill Webb, whose tweaking on a Fender Blackface Super Reverb style circuit turned a classic electric guitar amp into a great acoustic amp.
We visit Mark Erlewine of Erlewine Guitars in Austin, TX where Patrick Ogle and Mark talk about trees and guitar legends. Mark has built guitars for some pretty notorious customers like Albert King and Jerry Garcia.
One obstacle that most bands will encounter quite a bit is finding an easy way to transcribe parts for each other. Notion Progression software makes it easy, catering towards both musicians as well as those who can actually read musical notation.
Bill Webb of Fulton-Webb Amplification shows us one of the pedals they produce -- the Textosterone. It produces tones from creamy drive to fuzz and was also the only pedal that Fulton-Webb hadn't completely sold out of at the time of this interview. Sounds like a nice problem to have.
Watching wood acclimate falls somewhere between watching paint dry and watching my beard grow. Still, it is a necessary process (as is growing my beard) for all wood hoping to be a Collings Guitar -- like waiting outside Tyler Durden's house to become a member of Operation Mayhem.
We take a look at more guitar building techniques from Collings Guitar where Steve McCreary stresses the importance of knowing your wood. Since Collings is a smaller operation, their size affords them more time to get to know each piece of wood and where it would fit best.
Resident Necro-Sorceror Patrick Ogle heads to Austin, TX for his annual collection of souls. His first victim, Bill Webb of Fulton-Webb amplifiers, tries to fend off Patrick by mesmerizing him with information.
We got contributor Patrick Ogle out of our hair for a while by trapping him in a wooden box marked "Austin, TX" and leaving that box for the post office. While there, Patrick visited Collings Guitars to tour the facilities and see some guitar making in action.
Without naming any names, Rob Fishman -- Technical Director at Old Town School Of Folk Music -- dishes on some of the best and worst-case scenarios he's had to contend with as the live engineer for the school's Gary And Laura Maurer Concert Hall.
The digital signal processor was the brain behind the whole PA system at the Gary and Laura Maurer Concert Hall at Old Town School of Folk Music, powering everything but the monitors. So what happens when the brain shuts down three hours before showtime?
Remember the penultimate Death Star Trench scene in A New Hope? Think of yourself as Luke, the RE204 Audio Analyzer as your X-Wing's targeting computer, and Matt Newport as Obi-Wan guiding you from the great beyond. Yeah, I thought you'd understand.
As technical director at Old Town School of Folk Music's Gary And Laura Maurer Concert Hall, Rob Fishman has mixed a bluegrass group of two-hundred. His preferred setup is single large diaphragm condenser, and musicians who know how to "work it."
