MIKE PAYNE: Welcome to the Gearwire.Com Crosstalk podcast for Friday, February 16th. I'm your host, Mike Payne, and I'm joined by Mr. Drew Krag...,

DAN AGOSTO: What's up all?

MIKE PAYNE: ...Mr. Dan Agosto...,

DAN AGOSTO: Hello.

MIKE PAYNE: ...and the Dick to my Tracy, Britton Wetherald. How are you doing there, Britton?

DAN AGOSTO: [DOING A BRITTON WETHERALD IMPRESSION] Great. Whatever.

DREW KRAG: Shut up, Britton.

MIKE PAYNE: That's great, man. That's great.

DAN AGOSTO: What an ass.

MIKE PAYNE: Did you guys miss us? Because we missed you too. Since our last podcast, I spent about a month twiddling my thumbs, Drew has been rewriting his rock opera.

DREW KRAG: It's almost there.

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet. Good to hear. Good to hear. Dan has been growing his beard. It's pretty nice, isn't it?

DAN AGOSTO: Oh yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: His girlfriend loves it, and also Britton has been learning more about pulse width, which is great.

DAN AGOSTO: Ah.

MIKE PAYNE: I'm on this far too long but we're back, and we're not going anywhere anytime soon. So this week, we're going to be checking out some loop and sample sites. We'll take a look at some killer free plugins in the modern line by Antress, and we'll also be checking out SONiVOX's MUSE software, but first up, very exciting, we got some viewer mail to share with you.

DAN AGOSTO: All right.

DREW KRAG: Okay.

MIKE PAYNE: First up, Matt writes:

What's up guys? I've been watching your videos for a while and I was wondering if you'd give me your opinions on a few products, the Peavey PV 14 USB, the TASCAM US-122, and Ardour, which is a Linux software app similar to Pro Tools.

Matt says he hasn't used it himself yet but he's a heavy Linux user and he'll be trying it out soon. It also runs on Mac as well and it's free software similar to Pro Tools. PV 14, I don't really know too much about it. I know it's a mixer --

DAN AGOSTO: It's one of those USB mixers.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: I would guess it's probably better than some of the Alesis stuff.

DREW KRAG: Mmm hmm.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: And, you know, it probably does. He mentions that it's actually a good -- a nice product. He has one.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay. Gotcha.

DAN AGOSTO: So, you know, that's just basically ups to that Peavey PV 14, is it?

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. He actually mentions also that he has the TASCAM US-122, and I think I'm in for the price. It's a pretty good unit. It's like 150 bucks, USB 2.0, two XLRs ins with phantom, two analog line ins, 2496, bus powered, one MIDI channel, etc., etc., so for like 150 bucks I mean it's not a bad unit. TASCAM is a good name. They make good products.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. I believe you get Cubase with it.

MIKE PAYNE: Nice. Nice. Okay, sweet. And Ardour, I don't -- Personally, I'm not too familiar with it.

ROB WARMOWSKI: Ardour [PRONOUNCED AR-DR]

MIKE PAYNE: Ardour. Oh, okay. Thank you.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Corrections come from off-camera. [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Ardour, yeah. We have a canned voice back there that --

ROB WARMOWSKI: Yeah, whenever a Linux question pops out.

MIKE PAYNE: There we go.

DAN AGOSTO: Our Linux specialist, so he's not -- yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: Well, I think we should look into this a little bit more and maybe even do a review of it.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Well, it does run on Mac. You need like a couple of like Jack OS X and then also X11, which are two utility programs that help you run Linux programs inside of the Mac OS.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay. Can we get that? Can we set that up?

DAN AGOSTO: Probably. We can try that.

MIKE PAYNE: Well, Matt will do that. We will give it a chance to get that up and running. We'll toy around with it and we'll do a demo on one of the upcoming Crosstalk sessions. So thank you, Matt. I appreciate that email. Abe, from the Organ Loft writes:

Great show and I enjoy the information on equalization and mic'ing for instruments. Keep up the good work. Please excuse me for this but Mike, buy larger T-shirts and don't wash them in hot water. Please excuse me but I needed to say that. Mike is a great narrator and leader for this podcast.

DAN AGOSTO: Why did he need to say that?

MIKE PAYNE: I don't know. Well Abe, you know, listen. I love medium T-shirts. You know, I work very hard to maintain this girlish figure, and at the end of the day, you know, it keeps Britton very happy so, you know, that's important. But I don't know, I think I like this stuff that I rock. If you don't, send us an email and let us know so that [OVERLAPPING]

DREW KRAG: Or a T-shirt.

MIKE PAYNE: Or a T-shirt. Send me a T-shirt.

DAN AGOSTO: What should he wear? Yeah. Let's have Mike Payne's wardrobe furnished by Abe from the Organ Loft.

MIKE PAYNE: There you go.

DREW KRAG: I believe that this real estate can be purchased actually for a sum of money. Just send the email and a T-shirt.

MIKE PAYNE: It can.

DAN AGOSTO: Oh yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: It can. Yes. If you want to send me some PayPal like 20 bucks, I'll write whatever you want on my T-shirt as long as, you know, PG-13 or rated higher. I actually do have one quick shout out to go about T-shirts. Check out NerdyShirts.Com. They've got some killer, killer stuff. I'm a big fan of theirs. I own some of their stuff. Check our NerdyShirts.Com. I know I was not paid for that.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Just the shirt.

MIKE PAYNE: I just like their stuff. That's all. Next up, 85Dave writes:

First off, I'm just catching up on all your great gear demo videos. I know that you guys are great and I really like your shows. However, your videos could need some more lighting as it's hard to see a lot except for your computer screens. I'm just starting a few gear demos of my own for my gear and I've gone through TV production classes back in high school. Lighting was the first thing they went over with us even before teaching us all the new gear they installed.

Now, listen Dave. This is Mike. I'm not sure if you know but Steven Spielberg is actually the producer of our Crosstalk podcast, and the whole, you know, low lighting thing, that's all for artistic effect. I mean he does it. He wants this, you know, kind of garage, kind of low rent type of thing going, and I think it's working out pretty well.

DAN AGOSTO: [GIGGLING]

MIKE PAYNE: And people love it, I love it, you know, Steven Spielberg himself loves it so you know what, here's what I'd like you to do. Send us the name, the number, and the address of your high school TV production teacher, and we're going to kick his ass.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: So that's the goal. Thanks Dave. I appreciate it.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: We're here to spell.

MIKE PAYNE: An anonymous "Z" writes --

DREW KRAG: This is great. This is my favorite email.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. This is great.

I'm amazed how kickass this synth is, this Korg R3 looks to be. In fact it seems it has been overlooked on Gearwire. If anyone can set me straight with that, it would be supreme. Thanks for all of the otherwise truly outstanding work. I hit this site daily since I found the Korg padKONTROL video on here last year. I seriously make an evening out of the podcast. I get a bunch of beer and some heroin and some prostitutes and just ride the snake Gearwire style. Keep up the butt-puckeringly good work dudes.

DAN AGOSTO: Hmm.

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Thank you, "Z". You are definitely my kind of guy. We should get together, hang out, you know, get some beers, hookers, and get weird.

DAN AGOSTO: That's how we --

DREW KRAG: Sounds like one of us.

DAN AGOSTO: That's how Crosstalk is meant to be enjoyed.

DREW KRAG: Oh yeah, absolutely.

DAN AGOSTO: Heroin, hookers.

DREW KRAG: Cheeseburgers.

MIKE PAYNE: And I don't know if you can but actually right behind the camera, we've actually got that all lined up.

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: Can you turn the camera? Ah no. No worries. We'll just move on.

DAN AGOSTO: They don't want to sign releases.

MIKE PAYNE: That's true.

DAN AGOSTO: You can't get them to.

DREW KRAG: What's that, Britton?

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: There's belly motions and hotting.

DREW KRAG: [EXPLETIVE]

DAN AGOSTO: I see.

MIKE PAYNE: Oh come on, dude.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: Like that's insane.

MIKE PAYNE: I mean we're just joking around. We weren't serious.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: Where's Meat Loaf?

DREW KRAG: We're not going to show the camera your girlfriend.

MIKE PAYNE: Anyway, ignore him. Ignore him. We'll move on.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: I hate you so much right now.

MIKE PAYNE: So if you have any comments or questions, email us at crosstalk at Gearwire.Com. We'll make sure to read them on the air, make fun of ourselves, make fun of you, either way great times.

All right, so first up today, we got BeatHive.Com. BeatHive is a loop library retailer with some cool site functionality and plenty great loops to choose from. You can preview individual loops and purchase them as part of a library or selectively. Most of the loops cost about a dollar and loop packs are around four or five bucks and contain about 10 loops. You can also set up your own shop on the BeatHive site and get paid when your loops are purchased. Additionally, there's a DVD collection of 1,200 of the best rated loops on the web site, which is available for $99. So, let's check out some of these loops. Well, Dan's got a copy of the BeatHive sampler right there.

DAN AGOSTO: So, Kenny D, the guy who runs this BeatHive site, they're from out in...

MIKE PAYNE: Bangladesh?

DAN AGOSTO: ...San Francisco.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: [OVERLAPPING]

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Shut up, man.

DREW KRAG: [GIGGLING]

DAN AGOSTO: He sent us a copy of this DVD, 1,200 loops, a lot of loops, and the great thing about it is it's all from just dudes or producers who are putting their stuff up on the site, and then the users vote for them and then this is some of the stuff that's voted, so it's pretty sweet.

MIKE PAYNE: Oh, that's the best.

DAN AGOSTO: So it's very -- It's really varied.

MIKE PAYNE: Mmm hmm.

DAN AGOSTO: Now, it doesn't get as in depth as a lot of loop packages well but it really has a lot of different stuff and is a great way to diversify, and it's only a hundred bucks.

DREW KRAG: It's only a hundred bucks. That's a good price for many loops.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah, absolutely.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, compared to like other like loop creators, loop production companies, it's a pretty good deal.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: So first up, the first producer is Ben Leinbach. He shows up first on here. He has -- It's mostly like chill stuff, a lot of acoustic things.

DREW KRAG: Cool.

DAN AGOSTO: You know, chill Rhodes kind of stuff, and what you do is he basically separates all of these things into different like song sets so you can grab them and put them together and then have your own song, or you can just put together one or two things.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: Gotcha.

DAN AGOSTO: So, what you end up with is, you know, you can just use the drums or you can use them all together. There's some drums here. We've -- Actually, these are all drums. This is the Beat Bag folder, all acoustic.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: Down-tempo. It looks like all of them are below 90. It goes all the way down to 66.

DREW KRAG: Sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: Something I like. I think some on the BeatHive site, they like down tempo, really low-tempo stuff.

DREW KRAG: The beautiful thing about it is you can always speed up the down-tempo stuff but you can really slow down the up-tempo.

DAN AGOSTO: That's true.

MIKE PAYNE: That's true. Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: That might be why they might rate so well. All right, so let's check out something else on here. Let's see if we can find a song set. Let's see. How about Skeleton? That sounds like it might be a song set.

MIKE PAYNE: You know, personally I'm not really Pro Loops. I like to, you know, sequence as much as I can on my own but I like these acoustic loops. That's something that I can't do on my own.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, and like if you -- Basically what you can do is, you know, you start out with your drums, just construction kits, so I mean you can just those drums or you can just use the bass, if you have something that it goes with, and there we go, and just would go with the drums, right?

MIKE PAYNE: That drums, right?

DAN AGOSTO: It's really sparse.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: Guitar.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOPS]

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: Some organ.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOPS]

DAN AGOSTO: So let's say, you know, you're not really into looping, you have a whole band thing, but you want to put some percussion or organ over something in it and it fits in the groove of this one. Here's a percussion one.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOPS]

DREW KRAG: That's an interesting thing you bring out of because it's like a lot of people don't like to use loops and stuff like that. I'm a multi-instrumentalist. I play drums and all sorts of different things, so I like to use the loops in the event for time purposes. If I'm creating something, I want to hear what the bongos sound like or, you know, whatever I can just throw a loop in there...,

MIKE PAYNE: Right, right.

DREW KRAG: ...use it, and then over time, I can redo the part live when I have the time to do it. You know what I mean?

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DREW KRAG: So it's kind of a speed thing for me, just getting it done, and hearing how the timbre mixes with everything else, etc., etc.

MIKE PAYNE: I can understand that like one thing, that song that I'm working on, you know, I -- you're a fantastic guitarist and I'd love to have that. I mean it's that no way a loop could ever replace that, so it's nice to but I understand that when you're in the process of developing the song elements of that, it could be really helpful.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Totally.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: We'll do some Rhodes.

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

MIKE PAYNE: What do you think, Britton?

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: I was going to try to say something bad about it but I like it.

DAN AGOSTO: That's good.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. I thought you'd say something like that.

DAN AGOSTO: All right. Let's move on Ben Leinbach. Next we got Box kite. This is also -- Yeah, he's another producer. This is also mostly construction kits, pretty much more experimental though. We have our different [SOUNDS LIKE] clones here: drums, guitar chords, cymbal, bass, organ. Now, what's this one? Spring horn?

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Ah, see that's kind of cool.

DAN AGOSTO: Maracas.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Ha ha.

DAN AGOSTO: You got your drum skin.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: See, there's something. Maracas: That's a perfect example of something that you just throw in there. It's like I'm not going to sit there, I don't have a pair of maracas. I have a lot of percussion stuff, but honestly, something that simple I'm not going to really care if it's a loop or if I did it.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. That's true.

DREW KRAG: You know, I mean honestly, I won't really care because if it's there and it sounds good [OVERLAPPING].

MIKE PAYNE: Another [OVERLAPPING].

DREW KRAG: Yeah right.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DREW KRAG: If it's there and it sounds good then it's there and it sounds good.

DAN AGOSTO: Let's check out one more on here. This is Berlin. I'm guessing this is going to be kind of synthy.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: This is bass? Yeah. Here's the percussion.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: So, this actually has all the percussive instruments in different loops, so you can put them together, affect them differently, and it's kind of nice. Here's the snare.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Here's a pad.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: I like that.

MIKE PAYNE: Dirty.

DAN AGOSTO: Some noise. [LAUGHING] It's kind of cool. All right. Here's -- This next one is my favorite one. It's called David Phillip's Steel Guitar, pedal steel.

DREW KRAG: Oh, sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: And he has different song sets, so basically if you're writing -- this one is in B-flat major, and if you're doing like a I-IV-V thing like a lot of us do, he has different loops that go over different changes as well as just, you know, here's one that you would just play over the D-flat chord.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Nice.

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: But let's say you're going for -- you're doing a IV-V-I change.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: So there's a IV, there is a V.

DREW KRAG: Finally, I can make some country hip hop.

MIKE PAYNE: You know --

DREW KRAG: You know, I never thought in my entire life that I would hear a loop that I could buy of a pedal steel.

MIKE PAYNE: Huh. That's actually a good point.

DAN AGOSTO: Here's just a I-IV.

DREW KRAG: You know.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DREW KRAG: I never stop. [LAUGHING] It's awesome.

MIKE PAYNE: That is. That's sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: So it's got a few different ones. On this pack, there's one in B-flat major, B minor, E, G, all at different tempos. Let's listen to the faster one, and here's a IV-V change.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Nice. [LAUGHING] All right.

DAN AGOSTO: But also included in here is a folder just of effects, pedal steel effects.

DREW KRAG: Whoa.

MIKE PAYNE: Let's hear them.

DAN AGOSTO: So, let's listen to a few of these.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Oh, sweet.

MIKE PAYNE: Cool.

DREW KRAG: Oh yeah. Horror movie, right there.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

MIKE PAYNE: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: This is my particular favorite.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: That's awesome.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOPS]

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: This is pretty good stuff. You would not expect to hear that out of a pedal steel. Very nice, you know, sort of creative take on it.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Absolutely.

DAN AGOSTO: Okay. Next is Equinox Sounds, and I describe this one as old-school chill drum beats and then some techno stuff. Let's see. Here's an 80 BPM.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: So, we got a few things of a few folders of drum loops.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Actually kind of futuristic.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Let's check 115.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: It's electronic drum beats. There's also some ambient sequences. F minor.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: [LAUGHING] Reminds me of science class in '91.

DREW KRAG: Yeah, right?

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: That's a very good way of describing it.

MIKE PAYNE: And then the cell splits.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: You are about to learn about conservation of energy.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: All right, let's check out [SOUNDS LIKE] the ethereal material in these and then the synth lines and then move on. So this looks like it's going over change E minor E-flat.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

MIKE PAYNE: Next, the virus enters the cell and releases its seed.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Okay, here's a synth line.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: Check out one and two.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: And it's nice because, you know, you get both the BPM and the key.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

MIKE PAYNE: It's very cool.

DAN AGOSTO: All right.

MIKE PAYNE: That's a seizure waiting to happen.

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Next is Kenny D, and he's probably one of my favorite ones. You can tell he's getting some nice warm sounds. Probably he might have used some plugins but probably a good amount of them are actual hardware synths.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: And these are mostly just rhythmic sort of -- they're just weird noises.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Sweet.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Nice.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOPS]

DAN AGOSTO: Cool, so that's an evolution synth one, and these are sort of more old school I believe.

DREW KRAG: I like those a lot0

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. It sounds great.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. They're real -- nice sound to them. And then the [PH] Nova Synths which I believe are a little more...

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: ...electronic or techno based.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: That's badass.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. I like these there a lot.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

MIKE PAYNE: That sounds great.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: All right, so moving on we got Node breaks, IDM, that's how I kind of describe these, somewhat eclectic. The node drums are basically just your --

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: Usually highly effected electronic drums sort of these.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Let's check out some of the other ones.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Some industrial. They actually have a folder called Industrial Groove.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

MIKE PAYNE: [LAUGHING]

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: We also have a world beat folder.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: All right, so that's node. Next up, we got Patatomic. These are all live drums mixed pretty low so you can add your own gain to it, and there's a wide range of tempos. It goes all the way down to 55 BPM on this one.

DREW KRAG: Wow.

DAN AGOSTO: And these are all arranged in sort of song sets as well but just different parts so you got an intro and there's usually some lead-in time.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: And then you have a loop, you have a few loops so here you actually get your beat, you got some fills...,

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: ...and then you have an ending. This one doesn't seem to want to play. There we go. And so that goes from 55 all the way up to 140 and again, you get your intro...,

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: ...and then your just regular different loops, a fill, two fills here, and then your ending. Oh, that just sounds like a quick ending.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: There it is.

DAN AGOSTO: There you go.

MIKE PAYNE: Cool.

DAN AGOSTO: And there's a bunch of different ones too. Those were all from the Hyde St. Series. Let's listen to the ska one real quick.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: All right. So, next up we got P. B. Crabshaw.

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: And these are all construction kits, kind of like just a little bit of world influence on them. You got like bongos. On all of them, there's all like different types of percussion.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: But when you listen to the drums and stuff...

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: ...and guitars.

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet.

DREW KRAG: I like those drums.

MIKE PAYNE: Yep.

DAN AGOSTO: You get a sort of like idea of what he's trying to do.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Oh yeah. Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: This one is called "Arabesque", and there's one called "Whiskey" which is a bit more rocking at 160. Put the drums on those.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: We got some acoustic guitar.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Sounds pretty good.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Bass.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: And of course the extra percussion: woodblock, tambourine. So that's P. B. Crabshaw. Next is Radioactive Beats. This is the hip hop. Definitely the hip hop section of stuff.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: A lot of FM synthesis, not on the drums but if we listen to like guitar...,

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Uh.

DAN AGOSTO: ...it actually sounds real, but on some of these, you can definitely hear like the FM synthesis going on. This guy definitely has a DX7 or he's using the FM8 or something.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: And my particular favorite folder in this one is the Crunk folder.

DREW KRAG: Nice. Ha ha ha.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: You make some of them raw beats with the timpani.

MIKE PAYNE: Oh, that's sweet. That's sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: You're going to get the timpani over that. Yeah. And then this synth.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: [DOING A HIP HIP/CRUNK IMPRESSION] What!

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: What!

DREW KRAG: You have -- I think this is Britton's favorite.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah it is. It totally is.

DREW KRAG: The Crunk.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: I doubt Lil' Jon is really caring about this.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Crunk vocals.

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: I think we can actually hear those with -- here we go -- the drums with the vocals.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: [DOING A HI[P HOP/CRUNK IMPRESSION] What!

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: All right, man.

DAN AGOSTO: Next is Shiraz's World Beat, some Bhangra elements thrown in there. You get a lot of like...

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: ...this kind of stuff, Dumbek...,

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: ...real drums, dance hall like.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: I kind of knew I was going to getting something like this.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: I prefer Delay Lama.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Oh here’s a dance one. This has a lot of stuff in here.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: There’s bass.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Oh, crazy panning on that one.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Some tabla to go with that.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Of course.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: Getting ethnic up in here.

MIKE PAYNE: Wow.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. I like it. And then finally Trance Alarm. These are all just heavy beats, all drums, hip hop.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Woo!

MIKE PAYNE: What’s up?

DAN AGOSTO: Here’s some 90.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DREW KRAG: Ninety happens to be my favorite tempo.

DAN AGOSTO: Oh yeah?

MIKE PAYNE: Oh yeah? Interesting.

DAN AGOSTO: Well, everything is -- there’s 90, 80, some 60, and some 75, and 65 as well.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: Why is 90 your favorite tempo?

DREW KRAG: Because it’s also 180.

DAN AGOSTO: Oh yeah. One eighty is actually my favorite current tempo.

DREW KRAG: See? There you go. I just said 90 because it’s more PC.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Mine is minus four.

DREW KRAG: Uh huh. So, what are you using? Logic?

MIKE PAYNE: Yes.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Which one -- Do you guys know kind of which ones you liked in here?

MIKE PAYNE: Out of all of those?

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: I mean if I would have to pick, there was so many that we went through.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. And they were so varied.

DREW KRAG: The pedal steel was definitely a highlight.

DAN AGOSTO: Pedal steel?

DREW KRAG: For sure.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. There’s actually like demo mixes so they kind of give you an idea of what’s going on. Here’s the pedal steel.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK PEDAL STEEL DEMO]

DAN AGOSTO: So this is just all of the loops kind of mixed together.

DREW KRAG: All right, diddy. [LAUGHING]

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK PEDAL STEEL DEMO]

DAN AGOSTO: Well that -- Let’s actually -- I think we should go to one of the construction kits once...

MIKE PAYNE: Sure.

DAN AGOSTO: So we can actually see like what kind of stuff they do. I’ll do the fundamental from Box Kite.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK LOOP]

DAN AGOSTO: So, they all give you examples of like what would actually be in here and then they also include, you know, the parts that you put together yourself, and these all come in -- they included both an Apple Loop format and an Acidized WAV.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DREW KRAG: Awesome.

MIKE PAYNE: Nice. All right.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING BACK PEDAL STEEL DEMO]

MIKE PAYNE: So next up, Modern Plugs by Antress. These look very exciting. Well, I personally haven’t demoed them yet. We’ll take a look at these in just a moment but the skins on these plugs resemble classics here especially in their vintage collection, but let’s give them a listen and see what they are about.

DAN AGOSTO: Right on. Well, this is the Modern Plugs LA to me, and so it looks like the LA-2A.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: Let’s see if it does what the LA-2A -- what you would expect it to do. So, I have the Hyde Park, some of those Hyde Park drums...

DREW KRAG: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: ...from the Patatomic sample set...

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: ...of the BeatHive disc. So, this is just clean. I’m going to turn the power on, not much going on. If we do a different peak reduction, now we’re seeing some pumping. We can turn up the gain.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING A LOOP PROCESSED THROUGH AN ANTRESS MODERN PLUGIN]

DAN AGOSTO: We’re starting to hear some dirt.

DREW KRAG: Mm hmm.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: It doesn’t sound like an LA-2A though.

DREW KRAG: Not really.

DAN AGOSTO: And you can turn it to mono too. The meters actually are really good in these lots of the time. You can -- I mean you can switch them all from gain reduction for output.

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: There’s also limited compressing on here, so when I switch it up, it’s going to give me more, or should.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: It’s just really not that impressive.

MIKE PAYNE: Well, Britton, I mean honestly, one of the nicest things about these is they’re free. I mean they did a good job at this, this is a good compressor/limiter but it’s not, you know, of course it’s not going to sound exactly like an LA-2A.

DAN AGOSTO: To me, it sounds more like a distortion.

MIKE PAYNE: Really?

DAN AGOSTO: And that does some compression.

MIKE PAYNE: Sure.

DAN AGOSTO: But Drew, you were talking about one that you like.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. I’m not sure how to pronounce it.

DAN AGOSTO: I believe it’s the Illusionister.

DREW KRAG: There it is.

DAN AGOSTO: This is one of the weird -- This is probably the weirdest one.

DREW KRAG: I think it is pretty cool.

DAN AGOSTO: I’ve never seen a plugin that looks ike this.

DREW KRAG: Now, when I was messing around with this thing, I was just using it on one voice like we are now. It might be kind of cool to actually use it on a full mix like...

DAN AGOSTO: It might be.

DREW KRAG: ...just for imaging basically. Well, what it seems it does is kind of --

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. We’ll see what it does.

DREW KRAG: You’ll see. You’ll see.

DAN AGOSTO: So XY, we seem to have lost -- Well, we lost some volume because we took the plugin up, but basically when you move it left, it pans left. When you move it right, it pans right. Now, what does up/down do? It like changes the tone.

DREW KRAG: It’s getting kind of a timbre.

DAN AGOSTO: It makes it -- It just makes it more trebly, and you turn it down here, mostly bass.

MIKE PAYNE: So it’s a filter/pan.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Sort of.

DREW KRAG: Basically.

DAN AGOSTO: I’ve never seen anything like this.

MIKE PAYNE: That’s kind of cool.

DAN AGOSTO: You can move it around all crazy.

DREW KRAG: When you listen to this --

MIKE PAYNE: See that it doesn’t have an LFO where you can just modulate that.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. That would be really cool.

DREW KRAG: When you listen to this on your monitors in your studio, you can get the up/down imagery kind of like the what’s on top, what’s on bottom from the tonal difference.

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

DREW KRAG: So, it’s almost like, as you move it around in circles, you can kind of hear the sound kind of just...

MIKE PAYNE: Going circle.

DREW KRAG: ...moving up, moving down, moving side to side so, you know, it’s -- Like I said, I want to try it in a mixing environment where I take every single voice and put it somewhere, you know.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, you can kind of maybe help with cutting space out in the mix not only with EQ but with panning.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: Right. That’s cool. You know, something also that I noticed about these plugins that I liked without even hearing them was the fact that the only metering they show, they show the traditional VU meters, but you don’t have a graphical readout of what the EQ is doing. You don’ have a graphical readout of what the compression is doing so you’re forced to use your ears a lot more.

DREW KRAG: Beautiful.

MIKE PAYNE: And that’s something that I appreciate, and Britton, I know it’s something that’s always important to you as well.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Those great ears are really working out for you.

MIKE PAYNE: Absolutely.

DAN AGOSTO: Let’s listen to this.

MIKE PAYNE: You look really handsome today by the way though, honestly.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: [SOUNDING LIKE RICK JAMES] Oh yeah!

DAN AGOSTO: Oh, you shaved.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: All right, this is the Deep Purple. I believe this is probably -- I mean there’s a few different EQs in here but this is probably the best that I’ve tried of it. It has two filters. Here’s the high pass; you can turn it up, bring out some of the bass. It only goes up to 200 Hz so it sounds pretty all right and then the low pass filter, take out some of the treble; that goes down to 12k, turn that back up. And then the EQ actually I think sounds pretty good when you’re boosting bass and you keep the Q all like lower, so the Q’s at the middle here, and we’re going to be boosting around 80 Hz. We’re not sure exactly because it doesn’t really say. Turn down the Q a little bit. And so here’s your mid band, select around 1k, drop that, bring it up, I’m going to raise it up and sweep through the frequencies on here.

[DAN AGOSTO ADJUSTS EQ ON LOOP USING THE ANTRESS MODERN DEEP PURPLE]

DAN AGOSTO: It sounds pretty cool right there, and then your high band. It’s three-band EQ with two filters.

[DAN AGOSTO ADJUSTS EQ ON LOOP USING THE ANTRESS MODERN DEEP PURPLE]

DAN AGOSTO: And then there’s a switch for standard and high res. I have it in high res and it’s hitting the CPU meter on Sonar at 13%. If I turn it down, it just goes down to 9%, so not a huge difference but if we listen to the difference, this is off...

[DAN AGOSTO ADJUSTS EQ ON LOOP USING THE ANTRESS MODERN DEEP PURPLE]

DAN AGOSTO: ...and this is on.

[DAN AGOSTO ADJUSTS EQ ON LOOP USING THE ANTRESS MODERN DEEP PURPLE]

DREW KRAG: It sounds a lot better.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: Sounds pretty good.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: And then finally, probably the best thing in this whole suite is the Modern Analoger.

DREW KRAG: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: It makes it analoger.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: And mainly you do that with the coloring knob here, and you just turn it up...,

[DAN AGOSTO ADJUSTS EQ ON LOOP USING THE ANTRESS MODERN ANALOGER]

DAN AGOSTO: ...turn up your level a little bit...,

[DAN AGOSTO ADJUSTS EQ ON LOOP USING THE ANTRESS MODERN ANALOGER]

DAN AGOSTO: ...seems to be getting quieter. That seems the exact opposite of what I think it would do. We turn up the input just as I’m going to turn it on to high res mode. This is on...

[DAN AGOSTO ADJUSTS EQ ON LOOP USING THE ANTRESS MODERN ANALOGER]

DAN AGOSTO: ...that’s off.

[DAN AGOSTO ADJUSTS EQ ON LOOP USING THE ANTRESS MODERN ANALOGER]

MIKE PAYNE: Nice.

DREW KRAG: It’s got that sweet mid.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. This is distortion.

MIKE PAYNE: Yep.

DAN AGOSTO: It does a little bit compression in the knee too.

DREW KRAG: Cool.

DAN AGOSTO: Well, are we ready to move on?

MIKE PAYNE: Nice. Yeah, absolutely.

DREW KRAG: I think so.

DAN AGOSTO: Alright.

MIKE PAYNE: Absolutely. All right, so our plan was to try out the SONiVOX MUSE but it turns out we’re having technical difficulties. When we weren’t looking, Britton was messing with it and now it’s not working out. You know how he does. So anyway, we’re going to --

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: You’re a filthy liar. That’s what you --

MIKE PAYNE: Dude, come on.

[MIKE PAYNE HITS BRITTON WETHERALD PAPER PLATE REPRESENTATION]

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: [IN A RICK JAMES IMPRESSION] Wow!

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Motherf -- Anyway,

[MIKE PAYNE HITS BRITTON WETHERALD PAPER PLATE REPRESENTATION AGAIN]

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: [IN A RICK JAMES IMPRESSION] Wow!

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Anyway, we tried it out, it didn’t work out, so we’re going to come back next week and give the MUSE software a try, but in the meantime, sorry about that. I hope you enjoyed the rest of the show. Well I sure did. Britton sure did until that little thing that just happened, but yeah. Thank you for listening. That concludes the Gearwire Crosstalk podcast for February 16th. Thnk you so much for watching, listening, and we’ll see you next week.

DREW KRAG: Peace.

DAN AGOSTO: Later.

MIKE PAYNE: Bye bye.

MIKE PAYNE: Say goodbye, Britton.

DAN AGOSTO: [USING FALSETTO REGISTER] Goodbye Britton.

DREW KRAG: He couldn’t hear you. His face is on the floor.

BRITTON WETHERALD RECORDING: [IN A RICK JAMES IMPRESSION] Watch more videos! Yeah! [LAUGHING]