MIKE PAYNE: Welcome ladies and gentlemen. You're watching Gearwire Crosstalk show or program, episode number 28. How are you doing everybody?

DAN AGOSTO: Yo.

DREW KRAG: Wonderful.

MIKE PAYNE: This is Mr. Drew Krag, and look who's here. It's Mr. Britton Wetherald.

DREW KRAG: Oh. Where?

MIKE PAYNE: The hot water to my medium T-shirts, Mr. Britton Wetherald.

DREW KRAG: Ooh.

DAN AGOSTO: What's up, man?

BRITTON WETHERALD: [INAUDIBLE]

MIKE PAYNE: And of course, Dan Agosto to my right here.

DAN AGOSTO: Hey. How's it going?

MIKE PAYNE: Pretty good. So, where you've been, man?

BRITTON WETHERALD: I had a long spiritual journey in India.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. Are you a nicer person now?

BRITTON WETHERALD: No.

MIKE PAYNE: No? [LAUGHING] Good to know. [LAUGHING] So this week, we've got an orchestral synth listening test. We'll be shooting out three sofware and sampler sets against three hardware ROMplers. Next up, we'll be checking out the HomeBrew Electronics Fuzz Pedal and Steve Albini's very own muse, the Barge Concepts Harmonic Percolator. Okay, not really his muse, but --

DAN AGOSTO: Or, yeah, sort off...

MIKE PAYNE: A remake off -- yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: ...retooling.

MIKE PAYNE: The one that he loved so much.

DAN AGOSTO: The Interfax Harmonic Percolator.

MIKE PAYNE: Yes. Gotcha. Okay. So we will be watching a little bit of a clip of a video we had when we sat down with Mr. Albini last week.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Great job for messing up, dude.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: Anyway.

DAN AGOSTO: [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: You need to go back to India, bro, seriously.

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: All this makes for an exciting show plus Britton Whetherald. Before we get started, we got some business to get out of the way. First up, loved the emails last week. We had a lot of fun with that. Please feel free to send us your comments, love mail or hate mail to crosstalk@gearwire.com. If you want to send insults for Britton, go right ahead. I will read them on the air gladly.

DAN AGOSTO: He just loves to hate.

MIKE PAYNE: He does.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Oh, that's the kind of guy that I am.

MIKE PAYNE: Additionally, Crosstalk is growing, and we like to continue to grow with your help. Tell a friend about Crosstalk, you know, and the other musicians who should be watching our show, let them know. As you can tell, we don't have any sponsors. We do this mostly for love, so help us grow. We really do owe you one this far, and for those of you who have been a part of our audience, as always, thank you so much. We love you, but just as friends, not in a weird lingering hug type of way where, you know, lasts little longer than, you know.

DAN AGOSTO: Well, speak for yourself, dude.

DREW KRAG: Awkward.

MIKE PAYNE: That's true.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I don't know, man. You have a romantic love with the audience?

DAN AGOSTO: I love to hug.

MIKE PAYNE: Oh there you go. Maybe after the show, we'll do some hugging.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, and if you have anything that you'd like us reviewed, you know, no matter how independent you are, let us know. Send us a message to crosstalk@gearwire.com.

MIKE PAYNE: In fact, the more independent you are, maybe the better.

DAN AGOSTO: Yes.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Actually, I prefer that but I don't know about you, Payne, but I do this for the money.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: What? You're getting paid?

DAN AGOSTO: [LAUGHING] Oh oh oh!

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: All right. First up this week, we've got an orchestral synth listening test. We've got three software and sample sets versus three hardware sampler synths. On the software end, we've got SONiVOX MUSE, which retails at about $495, the Vienna Symphonic Library, available for about $645, and EastWest Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Silver Edition word salad which runs for about $295 and is off and on sale. What's that?

DAN AGOSTO: It's a mouthful.

MIKE PAYNE: It is a mouthful.

BRITTON WETHERALD: [BURPS]

MIKE PAYNE: On the hardware end, we got the Yamaha ME-100R, which is on the used market for about $425 and can be found for less. Also, we got the Yamaha Motif Rack, which now sells for about a grand, and the Roland XV-5050, which is on the used market for about $568 and 72 cents. Mr. Agosto, if you will, please.

DAN AGOSTO: I will. All right, so you guys, I'm just going to play these for you.

MIKE PAYNE: Did you bring the blindfolds?

DAN AGOSTO: No. I didn't bring the blindfolds but there's really no indication of which one is which on the screen, so I'll play these for you. I mean it's really small but it's just a short piece I put together just really quick, just a little cadence I put together.

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet.

DAN AGOSTO: So, I'll play each one for you. If you want to hear it again, let me know. So, here's number one.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER ONE]

DREW KRAG: Peace be with you.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Is that a Bulgarian hymn?

DAN AGOSTO: Church. I don't believe so.

BRITTON WETHERALD: No.

DAN AGOSTO: They're hymns were -- Oh, okay. You guys got that?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Mike is getting all Catholic here.

DAN AGOSTO: Right. Here's number two.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER TWO]

DAN AGOSTO: All right.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: SO, you hear the difference?

MIKE PAYNE: Mmm hmm.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Absolutely.

DAN AGOSTO: Here's number three.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER THREE]

DAN AGOSTO: All right. Here comes number four.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER FOUR]

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING SAMPLE NUMBER FOUR]

DAN AGOSTO: And number five.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER FIVE]

DAN AGOSTO: Last but not the least, number six.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER SIX]

MIKE PAYNE: [IN A MAJESTIC BOOMING VOICE] And the Lord saith unto Abraham, "Go forth amongst your flock."

DAN AGOSTO: [LAUGHING] And do not join with the Bulgarian.

MIKE PAYNE: Yes.

DAN AGOSTO: All right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Are you going to go start hanging out with altar boys now?

MIKE PAYNE: If you're not busy.

DAN AGOSTO: Well --

BRITTON WETHERALD: Call me.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Okay, so do you guys want to hear any of those again? Are you guys cool?

MIKE PAYNE: Um --

DREW KRAG: I'm all right.

DAN AGOSTO: I know it's a lot to take in.

MIKE PAYNE: It is. It is a lot to take in. I mean if you were to like put one against another like, you know, shoot out one against another then shoot out another two like have a whole bracket setup, I could probably nail it.

DAN AGOSTO: Okay.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I can't. I'm not going to lie to you, man. I am not trained in the art of picking out strings.

DAN AGOSTO: Too close? Okay.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Well, no. There was one that sounded like less than. It was not as good. Some other of them -- I mean they all kind of sound fake and cheesy, so I mean so.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Do you think any one sounded pretty good?

DREW KRAG: I liked, out of the group, I believe it was (I could be wrong), number three sounded the warmest to me, number two sounded the clearest to me, and number four sounded the most dramatic effect because there was some sort of I was almost hearing like some choir in the background sort of thing. The bass was real pronounced.

DAN AGOSTO: All right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: And the last one had a lot of string expression. What is the correct term for that like when they kind of...?

DAN AGOSTO: Oh, it was pretty marcato sort of.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Almost marcato but like they also like a tremolo effect on the long sustain kind of like [IMITATING STRING SOUND EXPRESSION].

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Well --

BRITTON WETHERALD: [IMITATING STRING SOUND EXPRESSION]

MIKE PAYNE: I agree with Drew absolutely on number two and number three. I think I like number three the most most likely.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Me too.

DAN AGOSTO: Okay. Let's listen. Since two and three are our top contenders, let's listen to those two again.

MIKE PAYNE: Sure.

DAN AGOSTO: Okay. So here's number two first.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER TWO]

DAN AGOSTO: And then number three is coming up.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Is this the part where I get my moment of clarity?

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER THREE]

BRITTON WETHERALD: I'm sorry folks. For now, I'm explaining pulse width model -- modulation correctly.

DAN AGOSTO: You can't even say it right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: No, and I'm sorry bashing Line 6 on a constant basis. I realized that it was unfair for me to make assumptions that subpar companies and subpar internet nerds would actually look at me and actually have a degree of fairness. I'm sorry, world.

DAN AGOSTO: What does this have to do with this, man?

MIKE PAYNE: I don't think this has to do with anything.

BRITTON WETHERALD: No, no. It was moment of clarity like the music was giving me my moment of clarity.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: He's born again.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yes, I'm born again. Thank you.

DAN AGOSTO: All right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Thank you.

DREW KRAG: You're fired. [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: So between those two, which do you guys like.

MIKE PAYNE: I'm probably going to go with number three.

DAN AGOSTO: Number three? Okay. Britton?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Man, I wasn't even paying attention.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: And he was seeing the light the whole time.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Let's just give it two.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Okay. So anyway, so it seems like -- okay -- two, three. My particular favorite is two but I already know which ones are which, so [OVERLAPPING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. You're realizing the results are stacking the deck.

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: The results of this test are going to be released on the next show.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DREW KRAG: Shoot.

DAN AGOSTO: So, what I'd like to do is actually we're going to have these sounds available for download in, you know, full frequency; it's not going to be MP3s, a ZIP file. We'll have the link on the Crosstalk page. We'll let people download them themselves and tell us what they think, so there'll be a forum link and everything like that. Make sure to check out the Crosstalk page because all the details will be there. Next week, we'll actually talk about it and review.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Play it again. I want to see the light.

MIKE PAYNE: Actually, the -- I know the guy that did engineering work on the Vienna Symphonic Library.

DAN AGOSTO: Mmm hmm.

MIKE PAYNE: He runs this web site called soniccontrol.com and Peter Alexander. We should put him to this test.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Ooh.

DAN AGOSTO: Good, but then we may have to wait until after the next episode.

MIKE PAYNE: That's true. That's true.

DAN AGOSTO: Actually, I think we actually have another test in the works for brass sections.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: So maybe we'll be bringing him in then.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay. Sure.

DAN AGOSTO: So anyway, yeah. We'll have those results released on the next show, and make sure to check out the forums: forums.gearwire.com/crosstalk. That's where the sticky will be. There'll be a sticky.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Okay now everybody. Now, close your eyes and take yourself to the happy place. Come on, and let's go see the light.

DREW KRAG: Cue the light.

DAN AGOSTO: This is number four.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYS SAMPLE NUMBER FOUR]

DREW KRAG: Man!

MIKE PAYNE: I kind of wish he was that paper plate again.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DREW KRAG: That's a miracle.

MIKE PAYNE: Looks like you did it.

DREW KRAG: There it is.

MIKE PAYNE: Hold that really quick. [SLAPS PAPER PLATE THEN LAUGHS]

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: All right. Let's move on.

DREW KRAG: All right.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay. Sweet. All right, so last week, we tried to give SONiVOX's MUSE a shot, and for some reason or rather random technical difficulties, I think Britton was messing with it backstage and caused some problems but fortunately we've got it all set up and running, and I've got the Nord Lead 3 here we're using as a controller through SONiVOX's wonderful MUSE. We're going to take a look and Dan is going to lead us through this mystical mugical -- musical, magical journey.

DAN AGOSTO: Mu-musical.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah whatever, but he's going to lead us.

DAN AGOSTO: We'll take that out of here. So anyway, yeah. We're now listening to the classical grand. This is in standalone mode. For some reason, we're having trouble running it through our Lexicon so this is running straight out of the sound card of the computer. It's a 2.1 GHz Pentium it's not all that fast.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. I hear some of the --

DAN AGOSTO: Some of the little pop some things.

DREW KRAG: The tone of the instrument...

DAN AGOSTO: The tone sounds really nice.

DREW KRAG: ...sounds good.

DAN AGOSTO: I mean the little pops and clicks probably has more to do with our machine than anything else.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, let me turn it up just a little bit so you can hear it a little better, but yeah this is one of the --

BRITTON WETHERALD: Can you do some Art Tatum?

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: This is one of the big things for most of these sample sets, you know, it's got a good [OVERLAPPING]

MIKE PAYNE: And now the -- Now the --

DREW KRAG: Yeah, it sounds good. It's difficult to get a good piano sound. You know what I mean? It's difficult to recreate a piano.

DAN AGOSTO: Let's listen to something else. This has tons of things. This is like a do-it-all sample set. So I'm going to detach this one or unload all of our instruments so that we can load more, and let's see.

DREW KRAG: Oh, it's that hard drive.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. It's a nice hard drive and there was that there.

MIKE PAYNE: Sounds beautiful.

DAN AGOSTO: Let's see. We got -- there's synth patches. There's other keyboard patches.

BRITTON WETHERALD: What synth patches do we got?

DAN AGOSTO: Let's see. I want to hear the pads. Let's hear the analog pad.

MIKE PAYNE: Sweet.

DREW KRAG: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: We got -- let's see

BRITTON WETHERALD: Let's see if we got a Prophet on there, the Prophet.

DAN AGOSTO: I would guess something like this would probably do like the Prophet one.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: It's got a good analog quality to them.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: Cool. I mean of course, you know, this is basically Gigasampler but the virtual instrument version. You get to, you know, I'm doing tune right there. I'm controlling the tune of it. You got a volume control, we got pan control. There's also -- We're looking at the mixer. There, you can load then up to 16 different instruments. There's also an edit view so there we actually see our sample. We got our controls like volume just the same as the mixer but just this one channel. We got modulation. You can control like the mod wheel. Here, try some mod wheel.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DREW KRAG: Nice.

DAN AGOSTO: So that's controlling the filter velocity curve.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Do you know any Herbie Hancock?

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: So now, I've turned up the pitch bend range to an octave.

BRITTON WETHERALD: You shouldn't have laughed because I was just going to keep on going with it, you know.

DREW KRAG: Sorry. It was just too funny. Art Tatum, that was classic too.

DAN AGOSTO: Can you -- There.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: Ah.

DAN AGOSTO: You just turn down the filter all the way.

MIKE PAYNE: Gotcha.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: You put in that pedal reversed.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: So now we got our pitch bend of 12.

DREW KRAG: There you go.

DAN AGOSTO: Twelve whole steps. You also got an effects send.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. That's sweet. Do that again.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: The Nord Lead has this, the pitch stick instead of wheel. You let go of it like fast and it goes back and forth a few times, but we also got effects for this. The reverb on this is pretty nice. I mean there's already a little bit of tail on that but we can add some reverb if we like. We'll go ahead then.

MIKE PAYNE: You know it's only a matter of time before I start playing some Chopin.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Hey. Do you know any Rick Wakeman?

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: No. I do know Flock of Seagulls though.

DAN AGOSTO: Let's hear that.

MIKE PAYNE: Good enough.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Let's hear a little bit more. I got the reverb on there now.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Do you know any ELP?

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: All right. So that's some reverb. Let's go back and check out some more of the sounds. All right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I think I want to hear a good Rhodes.

DAN AGOSTO: A Rhodes?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Do you want to hear some Rhodes?

DREW KRAG: I'd love to.

DAN AGOSTO: Let's see. Wurly as well but --

DREW KRAG: Nice.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Well yeah! Let's do the Wurly.

DREW KRAG: Wurly would be great.

DAN AGOSTO: We're going to do some Rhodes.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Do you know any Ray Charles?

MIKE PAYNE: No. I don't know any Ray Charles.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Damn.

DAN AGOSTO: Here we'll listen to Wurly with some vibrato.

DREW KRAG: Cool.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: Ooh that's hot.

DREW KRAG: Wow. That's some vibrato in there.

DAN AGOSTO: We'll turn that down. It's got a patch with softer vibrato too.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Hey, Wurlies were noisy to begin with, man. It's more authentic that way.

DAN AGOSTO: There's still noise floor going on.

MIKE PAYNE: Can you take me up an octave.

DAN AGOSTO: Up an octave? Let's see if I can do that. I'm not sure if I can.

MIKE PAYNE: No worries. It would be fine.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: So weird with this pedal reverse. We're having trouble.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: Wait. I got it. I got it.

DAN AGOSTO: Can't -- You can't just play at a higher octave maybe?

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: There we go.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Do you know any Stravinsky?

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: Igor?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yes. No. Oh damn.

DAN AGOSTO: All right. Let's listen to a few more of this stuff...

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. Let's do something else.

DAN AGOSTO: ...with samples. Let's see. There's so many -- There's kind of cool stuff like ethnic stuff kind of like MOTU Ethno.

BRITTON WETHERALD: On the reels though, he's a good piano player, so just -- I just.

MIKE PAYNE: No I'm not. No I'm not.

DAN AGOSTO: Here's some a Zheng, a Chinese [OVERLAPPING].

DREW KRAG: Oh, wow. That sounds pretty good.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Dude, that sounds better than a MOTU Ethno instrument.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: The one that you guys had to -- I mean try to make me find like good qualities about it. Remember that? Remember?

DREW KRAG: That's sounds pretty.

DAN AGOSTO: We didn't make you do anything, man.

BRITTON WETHERALD: They held a gun to my head and they told me that you got to be nice to it, and I was like, "No, I can't."

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: That's not our way, man.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: All right. We also -- Let's listen to some brass.

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: Here, pop brass.

MIKE PAYNE: Let's do it.

DREW KRAG: That should be fun.

DAN AGOSTO: All right, it's taking a second to load. See what it does when you're loading these sections, they're just kind of interesting, is that it loads in every instrument separately so we actually have, you know, a separate sample for -- let's see. There's two trombones, a separate one for the bari, a separate tenor quartet.

BRITTON WETHERALD: [LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY] Can you do like a wah wah wah?

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: No Mrs. Carson. I won't go to school.

DAN AGOSTO: So, as you can see, you know.

MIKE PAYNE: Anyway.

DAN AGOSTO: Brass has always been something hard to sample.

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: Right. I've never liked sampled brass.

DAN AGOSTO: It's still not all that great. I'm sure I mean --

MIKE PAYNE: Especially when the polarity of the pedal is reversed.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: It's making my life miserable.

DAN AGOSTO: SONIiVOX, I mean we can just take it out.

MIKE PAYNE: No it's okay. I'm just getting a hard time.

DAN AGOSTO: I mean SONiVOX, you know, I'm sure they have better samples for this.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: Actually, I know that they do.

MIKE PAYNE: Dude, that last one. Was that a koto?

DAN AGOSTO: The Zheng. The Zheng.

MIKE PAYNE: That was sweet.

DREW KRAG: That was awesome.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. That was really awesome. I like the little synth patches.

DAN AGOSTO: Let's check out some more of those ethnic ones.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. Let's do that.

DAN AGOSTO: Uh, India, we got tambura. Indonesia, we got suling.

BRITTON WETHERALD: See if they got sitar.

DREW KRAG: Hey, got a sitar on that?

DAN AGOSTO: I didn't see a sitar but I believe this might pass for one. I don't know.

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah, that's really --

BRITTON WETHERALD: No, this is a picked instrument.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. This is [SOUNDS LIKE] absent of a sitar.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I wanted to start a band that was all based on the idea that instead on an electric guitar, it would be like sitar death metal.

DREW KRAG: Cool.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah.

DREW KRAG: I'm actually learning how to play the sitar right now.

DAN AGOSTO: Really?

DREW KRAG: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: You should bring it in.

DREW KRAG: I will if you want. It's --

DAN AGOSTO: Let's just check out one or two more things.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Any good mono synths?

DAN AGOSTO: Mono synth, let's see. Analog leads, dadada, oh here's basses mono. Want to hear a mono bass?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. Sure.

DAN AGOSTO: Let's see. Let's do the Ballsy Sawtooth.

DREW KRAG: Sweet.

MIKE PAYNE: Ballsy Sawtooth?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Pick me out something funky, man.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: Woo!

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: I think there's actually something with portamento on it here. I remember the portamento is actually kind of weird.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DREW KRAG: That's something now.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DREW KRAG: That's just the mod wheel changing the filter on that. That's something.

DAN AGOSTO: No. That's just an envelope generator.

MIKE PAYNE: I can use that. I'd absolutely use that.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, and let's check out one synth.

BRITTON WETHERALD: That's funky, man. That's good funky little bass.

DAN AGOSTO: Here's a cyber flute. This will probably a Prophet-type patch.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: Some -- It's just like that bass or some other synth.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: I got to unload them first. Okay.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Do you know any [PH] Gatman?

MIKE PAYNE: No.

DAN AGOSTO: Cyber flute.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DREW KRAG: [LAUGHING]

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

DAN AGOSTO: Pretty cool. And now let's look at the [PH] Gigabin virtual instrument.

[MIKE PAYNE PLAYING THE SONIVOX MUSE]

MIKE PAYNE: Earlier this week, Gearwire sat down with the legendary Steve Albini for a video interview. During the interview, Mr. Albini talked about the Barge Concepts Harmonic Percolator which we happen to have right here in the studio. Let's take a look at that clip and after that, we'll take a look at the pedal which we've got in house here.

DAN AGOSTO: Cool.

DREW KRAG: Awesome.

[BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR VIDEO START]

There are two knobs on the far left called drive and output. I have no idea what those do so I've turned those all the way down. I tried turning them up and it didn't seem to make any difference. And I -- in any case, I believe that the red light on the drive button means that that's disengaged. When I use the Harmonic Percolator, it has two controls, balance and harmonics and I have both of them all the way up. By that I mean the harmonics is the distortion generation; I have that at maximum, and the balance is the blend between the distortion signal and the clean signal, and I have that turned all the way up as well. That's my normal usage of the pedal as for sort of sound effect, and so that's the way I've got this set. There appears to be a difference in range because the output of this pedal doesn't sound very much like the Harmonic Percolator I'm used to. I'll show you what I mean.

[STEVE ALBINI PLAYING GUITAR RIFFS AND TRYING OUT FEEDBACK EFFECTS WITH THE BARGE CONCEPTS BP-1].

The whistling microphonic feedback, it doesn't seem to be working as well. The low frequency content doesn't seem to be as preserved and just the general tone has kind of a raspier quality to it. This may be intended to simulate a version of the Harmonic Percolator that is not identical to the one that I own. The one that I own was, as I said, one that was sold by the original crazy dude from the Interfax company in Milwaukee, and this one may be simulating one of the many variations on the circuit. I don't know.

I'm going to fiddle around with it a little and see if I can get it to more closely mimic the original Harmonic Percolator here.

[STEVE ALBINI ATTEMPTING TO MAKE THE BARGE CONCEPTS BP-1 EMULATE THE HARMONIC PERCOLATOR MORE CLOSELY].

You'll see that it -- there's some sort of a high-frequency resonance in this pedal that doesn't exist in the original Harmonic Percolator, and I can't seem to tune it out...

[BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR VIDEO END]

DAN AGOSTO: All right, so Steve really didn't like the pedal but I think that's probably because of the situation that he was trying it in.

MIKE PAYNE: Mmm hmm.

DAN AGOSTO: He was trying it against a really, really, really like heavily distorted amp.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay.

DAN AGOSTO: And honestly, it's probably a different design. This pedal was designed mostly, according to the Barge Concepts web site, was designed mostly from pictures of the circuit diagram in like just put together from that sort of thing of the original Interfax.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Okay, so they didn’t even actually try to look at like the IC chips and what-not and where they got it?

DAN AGOSTO: Well, they found out which IC chips they used and which caps and resistors that they used through pictures and then experimented, according to the web site.

BRITTON WETHERALD: That sounds really fun. Can we open it at the back and actually look at it?

DAN AGOSTO: No, we can't.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: Not right now. Drew's got to get going. But anyway, I still think despite what Mr. Albini said, I still like the pedal. It's sort of a fuzzy pedal but it lets you play chords. When you play it on lower gain settings, you can still play like some dissonant stuff and you don't get just beating, you know. The tone actually comes through, so let's take a listen a little bit.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: Britton?

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: So, which knobs are you messing with right now?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Right now I'm just turning down everything, kind of the balance in the harmonics and just kind of setting an output at 12 o'clock. The drive is off, on bypass right now.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. One thing I did notice is that this is different I believe from the other pedal. I'm not sure but if you turn down either the balance or the harmonics knob, everything there's no sound basically.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

DAN AGOSTO: Either one.

MIKE PAYNE: Right.

BRITTON WETHERALD: So right now, I'm just -- I got everything turned down.

MIKE PAYNE: Can you turn the pulse width up a little bit? [LAUGHING]

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: So, this is the balance. Now expose it.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

DAN AGOSTO: What I thought it was supposed to be, the balance was supposed to mix between the clean signal and the distorted signal, but it doesn't really do that.

BRITTON WETHERALD: That's what -- That's what my Scrambler --

DAN AGOSTO: The Ampeg Scrambler?

BRITTON WETHERALD: The Ampeg Scrambler. That what those two knobs. Texture is the amount of distortion and octave like it does the octave so like if you turn it all the way down, it turns -- Wait, that's a different pedal, different time, sorry, but yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: But let's turn those up a little it.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, so everything is at 12 o'clock, the drive is off.

DAN AGOSTO: You get a lot of gain when you turn up those balance and harmonic knobs. I'm going to turn down the output a little bit.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Say, we're just kind of turning it up, turning up the harmonics now.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Right now, it doesn't sound more like a fuzz. It's just like distortion.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. So, why don't we turn those up all the way?

BRITTON WETHERALD: I like that idea.

DAN AGOSTO: And turn down the output a bit because then it would be clipping.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Are we clipping?

DAN AGOSTO: Here we go. I got it over here.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: All right. That's pretty warm sounding. You have the tone turned down on there, Drew?

DREW KRAG: All the way up.

DAN AGOSTO: It's all the way up? All right, I'm going to give it a little more treble on the pod over here.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: All right, now hit the drive up.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Drive's a 12 o'clock by the way. Am I okay on the...?

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: Now there we go.

MIKE PAYNE: Wow.

DAN AGOSTO: It's starting to do some weird stuff. If you turn down that drive, that's sort of adjusting input then, it cleans up quite a bit, but if we turn it all the way up, it just gets nuts, and I could see that feeding back quite crazily. It might be what Steve Albini refer to us as the horrible sound.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: I kind of like it

DREW KRAG: Sounds like scrambled eggs.

DAN AGOSTO: That it does.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: So anyway --

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

MIKE PAYNE: That's -- I like that.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, I like this pedal.

MIKE PAYNE: I like that.

DAN AGOSTO: But of course we're plugging it in where it's a very different situation. Drew's got a guitar with some P90's, Seymour Duncan P90's, and we're plugging into a POD and listening on headphones.

MIKE PAYNE: Right, right.

DAN AGOSTO: So it's a very different situation. I like this fellow too. I really do.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah. Yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Honestly, I'm not like wild on it, not -- I don't know.

DAN AGOSTO: That's fair enough.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I do like to see equipment. You know I have the passion for it, but honestly I'm just -- the -- let's listen for a second.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Notice how it's really cutting off the waveform horribly but it's not producing any sort of warm distortion. It's still just leaving it at a --

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, it's doing what a classic fuzz does I believe. If you turn down that drive, it cleans up quite well.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah but like the sounds are -- go down the scale a little higher.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE BARGE CONCEPTS HARMONIC PERCOLATOR, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, it's kind of -- it's underwhelming. I mean what's the street price of this thing?

DAN AGOSTO: Oh, let me check. You want the street price or list? One fifty.

MIKE PAYNE: Gotcha, gotcha.

DAN AGOSTO: That's not bad

BRITTON WETHERALD: It's actually not bad at all.

DAN AGOSTO: That's about the same price as our other pedal, which we should probably move on to.

MIKE PAYNE: Yeah, we should. Absolutely.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Anyways, I'm just -- I'm not wild on it. I can see why Albini is kind of like, you know. It just doesn't produce the amount of like when you're doing really trebly feedback-y like sounds.

DAN AGOSTO: I really like it. When I was playing with it, I really like it for the jangly chords type distortion, lighter distortion.

DREW KRAG: Yeah. Lighter distortion, that's what I like.

MIKE PAYNE: Right, right.

DAN AGOSTO: I think it really excels at that.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, but as a fuzz --

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah, as a fuzz not really.

BRITTON WETHERALD: As a fuzz like that.

DAN AGOSTO: But we can have another fuzz.

MIKE PAYNE: Right. Yeah, we do have. Let's check out the other one.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: We've also got the HomeBrew Electronics UFO or Ultimate Fuzz Octave, and let's take a look at that one.

DAN AGOSTO: This is a hand-built pedal. This is my pedal actually.

MIKE PAYNE: Okay. Gotcha.

DAN AGOSTO: We saw it at NAMM, this past NAMM, and I heard it and now --

MIKE PAYNE: Did you mean [pronounced "nahm"] NAMM?

DAN AGOSTO: NAMM. We saw it at WNAMM '07. Here, let me turn it up. I think you have it plugged in reverse. That's what we get for using the same cables on both sides.

MIKE PAYNE: [LAUGHING]

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: All right, so there's two knobs on this, or two modes on this. There is vintage and modern. I think you have the volume turned all the way down.

BRITTON WETHERALD: No. I do right now. I just kind of --

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: This is a really warm fuzz pedal.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: Let me turn it down a little bit.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: That's nice.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. I heard it and I just had to have it. This is actually around $168.

BRITTON WETHERALD: One sixty eight, right?

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DREW KRAG: Ooh. Can you see that relaxed fuzz right there?

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: More of that.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: And you can play chords with this fuzz too.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: That's in modern version?

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: Or the modern mode. Now turn down that octave.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: It gets kind of phasey, kind of weird.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: Let me turn it on modern now.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: This is nice.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: So, you can get a little more volume out of the modern setting.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. It seems it raises it up a couple of dB, but I like this subdued. I really like this.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: These are all hand-built pedals so I'm pretty sure that the Barge Concepts is as well.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: I actually end up using this pedal mostly with the octave off. Let's go back to that really quick.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Kind of like a maestro fuzz.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

DAN AGOSTO: The tone knob let's you dial in a lot of different settings I feel.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. This is like a good old one EQ. It's just like, you know.

DAN AGOSTO: It's got a little bit of resonance on it.

[DREW KRAG PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE HOMEBREW ELECTRONICS UFO, BRITTON WETHERALD TWEAKING]

BRITTON WETHERALD: It's like a one-band, you know, plus a shelving kind of thing.

DAN AGOSTO: I feel like -- I think its probably a low pass.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah.

DAN AGOSTO: With some resonance on it.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah. Low pass with a bump.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Cool.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Awesome pedal, man.

MIKE PAYNE: That's sweet.

DREW KRAG: This has a lot of different sonic variations in that field.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. Both of these I feel -- even though I am using this one mine, both of these I feel excel in the studio just because of the amount of sounds you can get.

BRITTON WETHERALD: I guess what I'm thinking for kind of just add some difference by different opinions are whatever. It's just that I have a different opinion. I'm looking at this as more of live setting stuff because, you know, a lot of guys have to use the same pedals for both studio and live, you really want a good versatile one. This one would do well.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah. I mean that's my situation right now.

BRITTON WETHERALD: Yeah, and this pedal right here is amazing for both. It sounds like -- I mean we're using it in a studio but I could just see this being way awesome on...

DAN AGOSTO: Oh yeah.

BRITTON WETHERALD: ...you know like a VOX AC30 or whatever.

DAN AGOSTO: I've actually been playing it through a bass amp to record, and it sounds really good that way.

BRITTON WETHERALD: It's awesome. Now, that's more of my problem with the Barge Concepts that comes in and say I don't think it would really that great in a live setting. Maybe cool during recording but it's just not that great with live.

DAN AGOSTO: Yeah.

MIKE PAYNE: Right, right. Well, that's sweet. So that's sweet. All right. Thanks for watching Gearwire Crosstalk show or program, episode number 28. Be sure to tune in next week. We'll be waiting here in the studio patiently for your return. Enjoy your week everybody. Thanks a lot.

DAN AGOSTO: Tell a friend.

BRITTON WETHERALD: We're also on channel 111 on your satellite TV also known as Spice.

[PANELISTS LAUGHING]

MIKE PAYNE: In between boobs.