The SM57 Transformerless Mod: You Know, The One Everyone Talks About But Nobody Posts Clips Of...

Sometimes you offer a friend or a client to do a project for them.  Then you put it off.  Then you forget about it (with the occasional "Yeah, I probably should get that done" reminder).  After about 5 of these, you have 40 hours of work to do and it all ironically ends up being due on the same weekend.  Such is life.

Rather than do the work.  I decided it was much better to procrastinate.  So I got out my soldering gun...

After patching up a few necessary things, I still had the itch to break stuff.  So I looked around the ol' man cave for something that I could tinker with and saw my pile of SM57's sitting in the corner.  I had read about this "transformerless" mod once or twice before, but I was never able to find any direct comparison videos/audio files.  So for fear of making a crappy mic sound worse, I never did it.  But procrastination was beckoning me and I couldn't refuse her sweet call.  It's a pretty rudimentary mod requiring little to no skill, so there's no need to assume I'm some sort of genius.

Basically, you disconnect the leads, boil the bottom to soften the glue (not the diaphragm!), pull out the transformer, reconnect the leads.  Done.  There are a bunch of videos/articles on how to do the mod, but for the sake of convenience, here's the one I watched:

Here's some photos of the mod taking place in my lab er... kitchen.

    

The transformer is covered in glue/plastic to hold it in place inside the microphone.
So when you yank it out, it looks like something birthed from an alien.

Once it was all put back together, I decided to test it out.  My chain was Tele w/ Lollar pickups > Vox AC15 > SM57's > 3124+.  I put the microphones right in front of the speaker cone pushed into the grill a little.  I call it my "Chris Walla" method.  (Though he didn't originate it by any means, he's known to do this frequently to get that speaker really in your face on records.)  I couldn't eliminate all the variables, but hey, what can you do?

**I'll tell you my opinions at the end, so you'll wanna listen to the samples first so your brain doesn't make predetermined assumptions.

I tried as best as I could to grab the exact same piece of air
with both mics.  The "T" is the mic with the mod.

Running into my API 3124+.  I matched levels as best as possible.  During the "Dirty" clips, I had to put the pad
on the standard SM57.  There's about a -10dB difference in the mic without the tranny.  **Ignore
what the blue tape says**

I used my EHX SuperEgo basically to send a fake "sine wave" into the amp so
I could match levels.  I didn't want one mic to sound better/worse because it was
louder or was clipping differently at the preamp.  I ran straight into the amp after
I got my levels.

Here are the results.  Pardon the shitty playing.  **FYI Soundcloud does compress, so if you're nitpicky you may want to download them instead of playing them through the player.

So what did you guys think?  Personally, I like both but for different applications.  To my ears, the mod rolled off some of the highs and there was slightly better bass response.  I think the modded 57 really improved the overdriven sounds, while the stock 57 won out for clean tones.  I will mention that I do like my clean tones a little jangly.  I did some reading and the mod is supposed to give the SM57 similar qualities to the SM7 (the two circuits are pretty much the same, or at least very similar).  I didn't have an SM7 on hand to compare it with, but it's something I'd like to do.

I must divulge and say that the SM57 definitely isn't my first choice for most things (especially guitar). But to most guitarists the words "guitar cab mic" is synonymous with "SM57".  I personally prefer the sound of a ribbon or a "better" dynamic over the 57 on amps.  However, it just has too many applications NOT to be used sometimes.  If you blend the brightness of a 57 with the darker ribbon mic, you can get a nice full bodied sound.  But it all depends on the guitar, amp, speaker, room, and personal taste.

Cheers!

-  Stonewall

Catching Ghosts Pt. 2: Gear is Like Porn for Nerds

*I'm going to jump right into the technical aspects of making the Bud Heavy album, so if you want a little background before I dive in click here.

I must admit, that I am a bit obsessed with making records in precarious places.  A little floor creak never ruined a record and frankly, it makes it more fun for me to listen to on the back end while I'm mixing.  And lordy did some yips, squeals, telephone dial tones, and ghosts get caught on tape (of course not literal tape).

The Room
The Brownville Antiquarium has had many lives, but its current incarnation is that of a bookstore and art gallery.  Apart from the main room, there are a number smaller rooms (classrooms) filled wall to wall, floor to ceiling with books of every nature.  The main room is packed full of books, and I mean packed.  There's no space left on any bookshelf, and there are long wooden tables filled with even more literature.  It felt like every time I pulled a book off the shelf, a new book had annexed the space, leaving me feeling like an asshole with nowhere to return the book in my hands.

Credit:  Spencer Morrisey

The main room was originally the school gym, provided some nice wood floors for us to work with.  The second floor had been removed and now only a walkway about the perimeter still exists from that.  Normally, a room like this would provide almost unmanageable echo/reverb qualities.

But wait!  The books!

The books seemed to "soak up" a lot of that extra ambience.  Which is nice, because despite common trend, every song does not need to sounds like it's been bathed in a friggin' spring reverb tank.  The inlets of books and shelving also provided ghetto isolation booths if we needed it.

The Gear

Credit:  Maxwell Morrissey

At this point, some of the gear may elude me, but this is what we brought with us:

Mac Pro (SSD, lotsa Ram, Logic Pro 9 because Logic X blows)

RME Fireface 800 (Converters and "junk" preamps.  When you've got Neve, you use the Neve!)

Neze 1290 (x4 Neve 1073 preamp clones; thanks Ben!)

Ampex MX10 (x4 Channels of sweet RCA tube goodness, unfortunately it sums down to x2 outs, so we just used two of the 4 channels to prevent stuff from running over each other; thanks Mark!)

Yamaha HS8 pair (Monitors)

Mics:  AKG 414s, 451s, 112;  Audio Technica 4033, 4040;  Neumann TLM 103s; Cascade Fathead Ribbon;  Shure SM7b's;  EV RE20; various other dynamics and whatnots.  (Thanks Mark, Ben, Brad, and Chris!)

Recording Live aka What The Heck Is He Thinking

As I stated in the previous post, the goal was for this to be a very live feeling record.  On previous projects, I've isolated instruments and recorded in the standard scratch/overdub format.  Some have turned out great, some not so much.  However, Bud Heavy is a live band, so I wanted to capture what you would hear at a Bud Heavy show, but through headphones.  I'll write about a few difficulties we ran into doing it this way, but here was these basic signal path.  

*My engineer friend Mark did a lot of the legwork on this part, so please don't assume I deserve credit for everything.

Upright Bass:  RE20 > Ampex

Photo Credit:  Maxwell Morrissey

Placement:  I moved my head around to find the place where the bass sounded big, but not overly thumpy.  An upright can produce a heckuva lotta air, so I wanted to make sure I captured the full sound of the instrument, not just the BOOM!  Ultimately, I settled on about 6 - 8" from the bass, a couple inches about the bridge pointed between the strings and the F-hole.  That gave the musician a little bit of room to relax and not feel like he was glued to the mic.  Mark chose the Ampex (I think) for a nice warm tube sound, and we had the option of tube grit if we wanted it.

The upright was the only instrument we made use of our ghetto "iso booth" for.  We didn't want that low end to bleed all over the other stuff too much.

Guitar:  TLM103 > Ampex

Photo Credit:  Mark Hansen

Placement:  This took the most fiddling.  For the most part, the general placement was a couple inches away from the 12th fret pointing towards the sound hole.  It seemed like if we turned too much one way, we'd get lots of banjo bleed, and turning the other way would get bass bleed.  So we found a good balance and crossed our fingers.

*shrugs shoulders*  

I had a couple guitars with nice contrast to choose from:  my trusty Gibson Southern Jumbo and an old Gibson J45.  My SJ is one cannon of a guitar, while this particular J45 had a much softer sound.  With a bit of gain stage tweaking, I could easily swap guitars out for faster/slower songs.  I also used a crazy sounding Cigar Box guitar made by our Mandolin player, and a Nashville strung guitar was brought along, but never used.  Mark ran me through the Ampex again, for the same reasons as bass.  

Banjo:  AT4033 > 1073

Vocals:  SM7B > 1073

Placement:  Since the Banjo player was one of the lead vocalists, we tried our best to reduce the amount of bleed from the respective mics into the other.  As most people know, the SM7 has great rejection, so most of the time was spent with the banjo placement.  A banjo can produce quite a bit of power, and we had to be aware of the metallic sounds produced by the ring.  We found a spot where the sound of the banjo was full, but not boxy sounding a few inches back from the bottom left of the drum head.  

Mandolin:  AKG 451 > 1073

Vocals:  SM7B > 1073

Placement:  Most of the ideas from the banjo rang true for the Mando.  Again, the SM7B did a great job of isolation, although not as well as it did with the Banjo.  I wasn't involved with this placement as much, but in general the 451 was placed a few inches away from where the neck connects to the body facing back towards the F-hole.  Most likely to prevent the musician from swatting the mic with his hand while he played?

Fiddle:  Fathead II > 1073

Placement:  We tried a couple of different mics on the fiddle.  First the 451, but ultimately decided on the ribbon mic.  The ribbon mic resulted in a much warmer, sweeter sound.  Although a great mic, the 451 was too bright for our taste.  We put the Fathead up over the Fiddle player's left shoulder facing down and away from the Mando/Banjo.  As I listen back to the songs while I mix, the final fiddle sound has been my favorite overall.  

Room Mic #1:  414 > 1073

The 414 was flipped to Omni, and was about chest level in the center of the room, maybe 6-8' from the musicians.  

Room Mic #2:  TLM103 > 1073

This was put up in the air maybe 12', facing down towards the musicians about 15' away from them.

Wild Card:  451 > 1073

We stuck this puppy up near the ceiling and it had a pretty interesting result.  Lots of ambience!

Overall Impressions/Learning Points

I was very happy with all of the sounds we got.  While mixing, I have lots of options to choose from.  Room Mic #1 provides me with a type of "glue" while putting things together, and creates dimension in my mix.  My favorite sounds have been the fiddle mostly, and bass on a couple of the songs.  Not to say that the other instruments we done poorly, but those two were the ones that I notice made me start tapping my foot as I'm mixing.  

Recording live did not scare me from ever doing it again.  In fact, I'm pretty pumped to do more.  A few things I'd probably do differently next time:

1.  Use mics or outboard EQ that have a HPF on them.  Saves time doing this later on.
2.  A pair of outboard compressors.  I'm actually avoiding compression as much as possible in mixing, however, it would have been nice on the front end for vocals.

2.  Isolate "control room" better.  Mark had to get his gain stages set as best he could, while still being in the room with us.  What a champ!

3.  More time.  Our vocalists got pretty tired, and I don't blame them!  We also ran out of time for harmony vocals.  I don't feel like anything is lacking by any means.  There can always be more!

4.  This is a personal critique, but I wish I would have rehearsed more, primarily my harmony vocals.  I got too caught up in preparing the audio components for the recording that I didn't practice at home as much as I would have liked.  Oh well.  

5.  More whiskey....actually no, there was too much.

Whew!  Can't believe I typed all of that!

- Stonewall

Catching Ghosts Pt. 1: Recording that Old Time Music

I should begin with a brief apology for being on hiatus for so long.  Despite the endless supply of cluelessness which guitar culture provides me to make heinous/sarcastic posts, they take up quite a bit of time to write.  And time is something very few people have as they get older.  So to those of you asking, I will do my best to keep you entertained.

On to business.  I've had the great opportunity and pleasure of joining a very talented Old Time/String Band group known as Bud Heavy and the High Lifes.  While attempting to stay true to the ways of Old Time music, many members - myself included - have also come from strong punk rock backgrounds.  Thus the music reflects an interesting blend of traditional appointments and new energy.  Having played electric music for the majority of my existence, I must admit that I felt rather naked at the first rehearsal with them, being armed only with my trusty acoustic.

My lovely mistress.  A Gibson Southern Jumbo - True Vintage
 a gift from my mother.

After many shows, bottles of bourbon, bouts of nudity, and the like, it was natural for us to want to take our songs and amalgamate them onto a record.  For those of you naive to the world of record making witchcraft, there different avenues to track the album.  The most obvious is to spend some time at a legitimate business, and have an engineer - a person who makes it their business to actually know what they're doing- capture your magic.  After much deliberation, we decided that is not what we wanted to do.

I am a firm believer that an album, like a song, should tell a story.  There is something to be said about hiding away in an audiophile's man cave filled with glowing tubes and magnetic tape, only to emerge with a finely polished record.  It simply wasn't the story that we wanted this album to tell.  Most of the songs are older than atom bombs and automobiles (even a couple of US states).  It seemed fitting to do two things:  to track the songs in the same fashion as traditional Old Time music and to do so in a historic location.  So we put our feelers out to a handful of historic organizations, and received many enthusiastic replies.

In the end, Brownville Nebraska provided us with a deal much too swell to pass up.  Brownville is located in Southeastern Nebraska, and with enough Bourbon you could practically urinate across the border into Missouri.  The Brownville of old made much of its success operating steamboats down the mighty Mo' river, but also dipped its toes in clay mining and the business of the rail.  According to the the locals, Brownville is a legendary arts community.  The town used to provide local artists, musicans, and tradesman with grants and housing to sustain them while they honed their craft.  Modern-day Brownville proudly displays the original signs of old shoppes, while young local entrepreneurs move into the old shells like hermit crabs, and carry on businesses of their own.  The people are incredibly friendly and infinitely generous.  Brownville was the perfect setting for our story.

Brownvillite - (?) - Thomas Rudloff welcomed our project with open arms, and offered up his old Antiquarium Bookstore and Bill Farmer Gallery as a haven for our recording endeavor.  According to Thomas, the building was constructed in 1934, and has lived and been reincarnated in the forms of a grade school, gymnasium, artist residence, and presently a bookstore/art gallery.  The building is two stories high, but is one vast open room with wood floors and is illuminated by massive arched windows flanking the North and South of the building.
(Photos courtesy of Maxwell Morrissey and Spencer Morrissey)

Gotta include the artsy emotional photo.

After investigating the place thoroughly, we scheduled a date and began preparations for a long weekend in Brownville.  I will go more into detail on how we attacked the recording itself in Catching Ghosts Pt. 2, but the magnitude of the project requires multiple posts - sorry.  There will be much more gear and nerdery in the following post, and quite possibly a ghost story.

-  Stonewall

Collecting, Hoarding, and Minimalism

I was just having a conversation today with a good friend of mine, about whether or not he should sell one of his nice bass heads or not.  He has a two very nice bass heads, but he tends to prefer the sound of one over the other, therefore one gathers dust.  We've actually had this same conversation three times this week, and each time I gave him three different answers.  The first time, my gut reaction told him "Keep it!  You'll regret selling it later!".  The second time I told him, "Sell it, but only if you're using the dough to buy something you really want.".  And just now I told him, "If it has been sitting around, you may as well get rid of it.".  His situation never changed, I'm apparently just bipolar, er... tripolar.

After thinking it over, I've come to the realization that aside from being insane, I am equal parts hoarder, collector, and minimalist.  Doesn't make sense does it?  But it does.  I don't see each of those characteristics in a linear fashion, where one eventually evolves into the next.  I merely see different means to an end goal.

Hoarding

Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top is fabled to have an enormous collection of guitars, numbering (most likely) in the thousands.  Last year I watched a ZZ Top's Premier Guitar Rig Rundown with Billy's Guitar Tech Elwood Francis.  One comment that was made was "We don't change guitars nightly, we change a round of guitars a couple times a year..." Which means getting 7 and 8 brand new guitars from Gibson/Gretsch, and sending the old models to a storage facility.  Then Elwood goes on to say (16:15 in the video) "...just in ZZ Headquarters in Houston, over 12 years ago just in stage guitars, I counted over 450 guitars".  450 guitars... what the hell.  Jeff Tweedy is the same way.  I was the same way.  I use to keep every gadget I ever bought, and was picking up cool pedals on a regular basis.  I had some weird satisfaction knowing that when I returned to my mancave, I'd have 4 different versions of a Proco Rat awaiting me.  They all sounded awesome and slightly different.  Each little stomp or weird guitar carved out a little niche.

Why did I do it?  The ultimate goal was that if I kept this junk, someday I'll need that one sound for a recording/song.  It's not a bad thing, I suppose, and most people who hoard end up making a small studio out of it.  I just ran out of money.  I also was not getting any better at guitar, because I was too busy playing with all my toys.  But I get distracted easily.  Not everyone's like that.  My uncle has over 40 guitars and he gigs way more and writes better songs than I do.

Minimalism

If you're a semi-regular reader of my blog, I probably come off as a minimalist.  Yes to a certain extent, but I've still got plenty of shit at my house, so I wouldn't say that I'm a true minimalist.  However, I can greatly appreciate qualities of minimalism, especially on a gigging guitar rig:

1. More reliable.  Less patch cables.  Less shit to go wrong.
2. Less weight, size, and floor space.  Crap like that matters when you're loading a van, playing small stage, or being 25 years old with the back of a 75 year old brick layer.  
3. More focus on playing.  Less distraction with stomping correct pedals on.  I can't hide behind FX.

There was a certain time where I took minimalism super seriously, and sold everything except maybe 5 stompboxes, 2 guitars, and one amp.  Fucking stupid.  I sold off a bunch of stuff that I actually did enjoy, and ended up buying some of it back at a loss.  I did it to focus more on my playing, which was a success.  I learned how to read sheet music during this time, and I developed a healthy practice routine.  But in the end, I just got bored.  It's like having a paint brush, and only letting yourself use primary colors.  

Collecting

I think there's a nice middle ground between hoarding and minimalism, and I simply call it collecting.  I like what I like.  And I like sounding like me.  I enjoy having my 3 Moogerfoogers and getting crazy fucked up sounds when I record.  But when I play out with my electric rig, I tailor my pedalboard to the set.  It usually ends up being 4 -5 pedals, with maybe one fun one thrown in for me to play with.  I've filled in for a friends on acoustic guitar at churches, and the other guitarist showed up with a massive pedalboard.  I watched him play the same boring U2 licks/volume swells, and he just moved a capo around when the key changed.  I even had to explain to him how to add a 7th to a chord, and trust me, I'm not that theory savvy.  That's just silly.  

So I've got a nice little collection.  I play all my gear, all the time.  I don't really keep niche items around anymore.  If I can't swap it out and dial in a bunch of cool sounds to generate ideas, it usually doesn't last very long at my house.  I call it my 6 month rule.  If I haven't used it for 6 months, it gets moved to the chopping/trading block.  I'd much rather sell that stuff off and have a few extra dollars in savings.  Then when a guitar/amp/mic/whatever shows up for a great deal I can afford it.  I can think of at least 2-3 dream guitars that have slipped through my fingers, because I didn't have the cash and I couldn't sell my extra crap off in time.  Also to help curb my insatiable hunger for buying guitars, I've established a rule with myself where I can only buy one guitar a year.  A year is a long time.  It makes me really think about what I really want to get.  If I get a guitar, and I find myself wanting something different even more, then I probably didn't want the other guitar in the first place.  That Guild S-100 I kept promising pictures of is a good example.  It had a cool vibe and was a fun restoration project, but it held me back from getting a Rickenbacker I have been drooling over for years.  Now I have the Ric, and I'm much more satisfied.

YMMV.

-  Stonewall

Stereotypes II: Sellers

Do you remember when people use to go to the store to buy things?  That trend is pretty much dead.  Whether for better or worse, I have no opinion.  Eventually, it will probably completely die out.  I envision a day when I tell my grandchild that there was a place called "Blockbuster", where I used to rent/buy movies from.  And with a look of sheer disbelief, he/she will say to me, "Grandpa, are you making up stories to cover up the fact you sh$% your pants again?"  Maybe an exaggeration, but probably not.

The internet is not a "new" thing anymore.  Why talk to a microwave expert, when you can just look online and research it?  Then you can pretentiously bring up the fact you know all the specs on a 4-slot toaster at the water cooler tomorrow.  You can buy anything you want from the safety of the Men's Room stall.  Then eBay and Craigslist happened.  Regular people became not only expert consumers, but also expert sellers.  So on and so forth...

This is all well and good.  However, most people are idiots.  What does this mean for us buyers?  Let me show you:

Misinformed

This person is selling a "Gibson Les Paul Special II" for $125.  I assure you, this did not come out of the Gibson factory.  Maybe from the cesspool of expired lacquer that sits behind the factory, but this is in fact, not a Gibson.  I mainly find it odd that despite the fact that in fancy lettering up on the headstock, it says "Epiphone", this person decided it was a Gibson.  But of course, this type of seller never would include a picture of the headstock to confirm that.  This ad also falls into another category:

My Crap Smells Like Roses, Because It Was MY Crap

Do you remember when I sanded a guitar down to its sealer, and tried to sell it with no upgrades for $100 more than I bought it for?  Now you can drag your crusty panties out of the closet and put whatever price you want on it, cause it's got "stock parts".  Everyone wants to buy things for dirt cheap, and sell their stuff for twice the amount they paid, simply because they're magic and they owned it.

Terminology

People come up with the most hilarious adjectives for their stuff when they're selling.  I ran across this listing this morning, and almost died laughing.  What on earth is "swat"?  It sounds naughty.  Dirty.  Like some sort of fluid excreted from the nether regions of a person's body.  Needless to say, I am withholding my money for a "swat"-less guitar.  

Another term I see frequently is "MUST SELL ASAP!!!".  Maybe this is just me, but when I see that title, my brain immediately thinks "cheap".  But when I open the link, low and behold you've got that puppy listed for a pretentiously high price.  You're going to get low balled if you put that in a listing.  If you don't, please FWD me your email so I can low ball you.  

"Upgrades"

This is one that just blows my mind.  

Here's a guitar.  It was $700 new.  They blew them out in stores because they couldn't sell them for around $500.  But wait, he made upgrades.  Let's see *reads* they put $250 of upgrades into it.  Okay that makes $750 low, $950 high.... and they're asking a grand plus shipping.  But that would be if that guitar was new...

If you buy any guitar, from any store and your 30, 60, 90 day return policy goes away, that is now a used guitar.  I don't care how pristine it is or how little you played it, you own a used guitar.  But even more than this, all of my existence wants to smite people who try to sell a used guitar for substantially more than they bought it for.  Yes, there is a vintage market.  But what about stuff in the past 10 - 15 years?  Here's the hard truth.  Upgrades are nice, but they don't raise the value of a guitar much.  If anything, it makes it only slightly more appealing to sell at a reasonable used price.  If you really want to make your money back, you'll sell off the upgrades and try to get what you can for the stock instrument.  

Partscasters

I'm going to tread lightly on this stereotype because it seems to be hit or miss.  I've built up a couple Partscasters.  It's usually some extravagant scheme that will fulfill all my weird niche desires in a guitar, while having an original look and vibe.  I usually finish it, love it for a day, then realize that I've made some sort of ugly bastard guitar child and want to get rid of it ASAP.  I can tell you from experience, if you try to sell the guitar as a complete, you will almost never get what you have into it back out.  That's not to say it won't ever happen, especially if you build up a parts guitar modeled after a very famous retro guitar.  But if you have a super strat, with sustainer pickups, built in fuzz, and misting fan to keep you cool, it's probably not going to happen.  You're actually better off parting it out, that way people can incorporate pieces of your master scheme into their master scheme.  

Relentless Re-Posters

This is not Photoshop magic.  I kid you not, this is what my local CL looks like if you type in "piano".  If you scroll down, they keep repeating each day for a couple months (at least).  It has to be one person too, because these get re-posted in the same blocks of various pianos.  Someone even made a listing to try to get everyone to "Flag" these posts from popping up.  It worked for awhile, but they've crept up again.  I'm sure you've seen em too.  The WORST part about re-posters, is that they're typically unwilling to lower/negotiate price.  There was a guy with an Epiphone Casino on Craigslist a while back (he's actually resurfaced recently) who kept doing this.  I tried to get it from him at one point actually but he was unwilling to budge on price.  Now he's got a "PRICE DROP!!!" tag in the title, and it's -$25 less than he was asking in the first place.  I don't make the rules on selling, but if you haven't sold something for months or a year, you really should reconsider your price.

Now I don't rule the internet.  I don't make the rules.  These are just my observations.  I've been guilty of a few of these.  Let's just remember to turn that ole brain on when we're selling our old toys.  

- Stonewall

Stonewall Approved Gadgets #1: Electro Harmonix Cathedral

Long ago, when Stonewall's Guide was still gestating within the folds of my brain, I decided that I wanted to provide a resource to fellow musicians/nerds, without having to ball gag everyone with the latest hype and trends that plagues the forums.  Like music, I like to create things I would want to hear/read.  There's nothing more worthless to me, than reading a review about a pedal, which the writer has owned for three days, and ultimately claims "X pedal is the best thing they've ever heard."  If this is the case, you were probably born yesterday.  Tastes change, you get interested in other music, yada yada.  So I'm creating an installment, if you will, where I'll highlight some of my favorite pieces of gear that I'm particularly attached to.  Most of it, I've had for a decent amount of time and still use fairly regularly.  Since I don't get any free gear via sponsorship, I can give an honest pro/con.  I hate the term "review", because that gives off the vibe that I plugged it in for a couple days and formed some silly opinion, rather than really putting something through the gauntlet.  So welcome to the first feature of Stonewall's Approved Gadgets.

I'd like to kick this off regarding a very popular item these days, the reverb pedal.  It seems to be an ever increasing trend of buying/selling/trading reverb units, to get that latest "Shimmer" or "Grandma's Bathroom" reverb sound.  Prices on these puppies are getting higher and higher too (Blue Sky $300, Space $500).  To me though, most reverbs are just boring as F%&$.  (*turns knobs* big space *turns knobs* little space)  I'm still trying to wrap my head around why everyone wants a dedicated modulated reverb (I do have a deep hatred for most Flanger sounds).  I have two requirements that I look for in modern reverbs, decent plate sound and on subtle reverbs, the effect doesn't wash out when a boost is engaged.  I don't know why, but most companies never get the latter requirement right.  Any other added features outside of those requirements I just consider a bonus.  I used to just resort to using amp reverb, which I sometimes forget to shut on and off for various songs during shows, and is a pain.  I also don't want to deal with extra cables from FX loops and footswitches.  Solution?

Electro Harmonix Cathedral

 I will start by saying no, this is not the greatest reverb ever.  But damn, it is cool.  I'm not going to explain what all the knobs do, you're a big kid, but let me give you the basics.  It does 7 different types of reverb that you can save one preset for each type, and an echo.  The "Infinite", is a momentary switch that will hold sound that it captures when you hit the switch until you let it go.  Sort of like the Freeze/Slow Gear pedal, but very different.

Pros

An old pedalboard shot from a short tour I did.

Obviously, I like this pedal because it covers my two requirements.  The Plate setting is very big sounding, which I love for that droney shit.  And on most of the reverb types, it doesn't wash out.  The Plate will wash, but that's just what happens with real Plate reverb anyways.  As long as I have one other type of small reverb sound to emulate amp reverb (knob set to maybe 1-2), I'm happy.  Most people use too much reverb, I like it subtle.  The Room setting does a good job of that.

Added bonuses:  Cheaper than most reverbs.  I think it's maybe $220 street price?  Snag one used for $150 and you're set.  That's the price of the ever-so-popular RV5, and unlike the RV5, it doesn't sound like crap.  Presets?  Awesome.  It's nice to be able to just save a couple different 'verbs and recall them quickly.  I'm lazy.  Having an extra delay is nice too.  It'll sort of (I say sort of, and I'll address that in the Cons) of knock out the need to have a simple digital delay on your board for long repeats.  The Reverse doesn't really work like how a Reverse Delay would, but I actually use this a lot for a long, 90% wet, droning sound.  Very This Will Destroy You sounding.

The "Infinite" feature is definitely my favorite bonus.  I own a Freeze and Superego, and I must say, I really like the way this "freezes" the sound more.  A)  It swells into the freeze, rather than lock it in right away.  Sounds more natural to my ears.  B)  You can use the momentary switch to control how fast you want to release, by repeatedly releasing the switch for a couple moments at a time.  Like easing on the break in a car.  Again, more natural sounding than just killing the sound.  

The pedal is also built like a tank.  Which is actually pretty strange, because I've had a number of build issues with EHX stuff before.  This pedal has seen tons of shows, and I've even dropped it a couple times (yeah, like you've never done that).  Still works great.  As lame as this sounds, the graphic is pretty cool too.  

Cons

Since the goal isn't for me to gloss over the nasty stuff, here are a number of things that I wish could be improved about this pedal.  It's got the old Holy Grail algorithm as one of the preset types.  Which means all the old problems the Holy Grail had such as, being useless after 12 o' clock, volume drop, etc.  Again, some of the reverb types will wash out, which is really frustrating.  It basically means I can't use that reverb unless I don't anticipate doing any sort of gain staging.  But like I said, a majority of reverbs have this problem so I just choose to deal with it on this specific unit.  There's also a slight volume dip on a couple reverbs, especially the Accu Spring.  

As I eluded to before, the Echo is nice, but isn't very good.  For some reason it doesn't "cut through" very well.  I had heard about delays having this issue, but I've never really had this problem with any of the ones I owned, so it was very noticeable discovery for me.  Even if you turn the Blend (aka Depth) way up, it seems to duck out regardless.  I don't really use the delay much due to this (not that I really needed another delay).  

My final real complaint is that the white selector knob can be a bit sensitive.  Meaning if you're playing a show and the pedal is bumped too hard, it'll bypass your preset to whatever the knobs are at.  I end up just taping it down.  Not really a big issue, you just have to watch out for it.  

Improvements?

The last two "issues" I'll talk about, are more recommendations than cons.  I wish this pedal (actually any reverb) had a spillover circuit.  I'd like to turn it off and have the sound decay out naturally vs. stopping abruptly.  I actually have a looper on my board, just so I can sample short segments of this, and slowly fade it out, cause of this problem (some delays do this too).  I know that would require the pedal to "lose" its True-Bypass, but you're a child if you really believe all of your pedals need to be True Bypass.

Also, it would be super amazing if someone (Walrus audio?) offered a mod, so you could have an expression pedal control the "Infinite" function.  That way you could control the swell in and out better.  Not necessary but it'd be convenient.  

Anyways.  There are so many cool usable things about this pedal that I just love.  I've had since it came out, and I've used it on everything I've done ever since.  I think I tried to sell it once, but I put it at a stupid high price so no one would buy it (a big indicator that you really don't want to let something go).  I don't really care whether it has a Shimmer effect or not.  I tried a pedal with them shimmers, and I could never really use that sound in a musical context (it's harder than you think without sounding cheesy).  I've never been so blown away by more expensive pedals that I've felt the need to make an "upgrade".  If you're selling a $500 reverb, it should sound/have features that are $300 better than my $200 reverb.  I'm intrigued by the Eventide space, but it's way too much to shell out for.  So I just stick with what works.

- Stonewall

The Bane of My Existence: Sound Guys

I'm going to go on a bit of a rant, and I expect it will be slightly more grumpy than usual.

Unfortunately, my "normal life" has caught up with me, and my habit of blowing off responsibility has been put on hold.  My work has recently hosted a very large conference, and being an audio nerd, I was appointed the pretend title, "Head of A/V".  The beauty of this position, is that if all things go well, I don't have to do anything.  The curse, is that when the ever-lurking chaos strikes, everyone is looking at you to fix it.  So, blending a little bit of obsessive compulsive with my love technology, I set out to cover every angle for any disaster that could happen.  I reserved equipment, double checked reservations, recruited sound people, bought five of every possible adapter, dongle, and cable I could think of.  D-Day finally arrived, and I felt more confident about my preparation than ever.  Aside from a few minor user errors, things went very smoothly both Monday and Tuesday during the pre conference workshops.  My confidence evolved into cockiness, and I was sure this event would go off without a hitch.  

However, there is an epidemic that is directly related, but stretches far beyond our music community.  This epidemic is known as the Sound Man.  The idea of a sound man is wonderful.  A professional attentive to all things audio (usually video too), and to to deal with these issues as they appear.  Ideally, this person would also be someone who has a good ear for mixing, dynamics, quality of sound, the room, and have a good idea how to actually use their equipment.  But in reality, 80% of the population of sound men I've met, have absolutely no clue what they are doing.  What's even worse are sound guys who do know how to run the show, but are a entitled lazy sacks of shite.  Whether the sound man be "good" or "terrible", you almost always have to suck up.  Why?  Cause they'll make your experience a living hell if you don't.

I know many of you are beginning to grumble, and some are even plastering their computer monitors in frothy saliva from all of the F-bombs spewing forth from your mouths.  In no way am I implying that I am the golden poster child to be worshiped for my audio glory.  I like you, am learning more about this every day.  But, I have had the luxury of working with extremely talented and professional sound guys.  And in comparison, it's a night and day difference.

Let us return to my original story.  We had rented out a very nice auditorium, for a simple keynote lecture that was to be given.  One microphone, one channel, a projector, and a Power Point all hardwired.  They were to provide all the equipment and staff, we just had to show up.  Simple.  A job you could probably even have a slightly agitated Wolverine fulfill with success.  I arrived early, politely introduced myself, and met all of the A/V people.  I scope out the person who looked most in charge of the event, let's call him Randy.  I notice that there are a bunch of hanging microphones that are hanging in front our our screen.  I ask if they can be moved, and why they weren't in the first place.  "It's a lot of work to get them down, people will ignore them".  Good excuse I suppose.  I shrug it off.  I then ask Randy who I need to give my flash drive to for the presentation.  He points upstairs to the second level, and tells me there's a lady waiting for it.  I give it to her.  No sweat.

A few minutes before the presentation starts, Randy asks me to test out my slide show.  I tell him I gave it to the woman upstairs.  I am met with a blank stare.  I reiterate our previous conversation, and how he instructed me to bring it to the second level to give to the woman at the computer.  He replies, "Oh, she's just filming the event, she has nothing to do with us."  Ok.  Just a hiccup I say to myself.  I retrieve my slide show and ask him where to plug it in.  "Oh, you don't have a computer?"  I become slightly annoyed now.  No, I don't have a computer Randy, because there happened to be a contract that said that the auditorium would provide one.  Guess you didn't read it.  But I don't say that.  Instead, while Randy picks lint out of his belly button, I hunt someone down with a laptop I can borrow.  And we bring it up to the podium to be hooked up with a VGA cable.

By this point, most of the auditorium is full.  We're about a minute away from kicking this off, and I'm up on stage scrambling around last minute like a chump.  Once hooked up, I check the slide show on the screen.  The image displays brightly for a minute, flickers, gives a standby signal, then flickers on.  I ask Randy if that problem will go away.  He informs me that he's never had this problem, so he doesn't know.  I tell him we probably need a VGA Signal booster, because it's most likely that the projector is getting a weak signal from the computer (the cable goes from the main floor all the way up to the ceiling.)  He shrugs his shoulders.

Shrugs his shoulders.

You wanna make this wombat foam at the mouth like a pestilent beast?  Tell me you're going to do a job, and when an issue comes up, shrug your shoulders....

So my fate was in Randy and his incompetent crew.  I spent a good five minutes trying to wave the man at the board down, so he could lift the mute on the mic.  Whatever was on his cell phone was much more important though.  The presentation itself went fine, minus the blinking projector for most of the lecture.  Eventually, another technology person found a signal booster tucked away and swapped the cables quickly.

We had three other presentations at this auditorium which all went very similarly.  This whole fiasco merely supports my previous grumpy stereotypes about most sound men.  I've played too many gigs with absolute morons standing behind the console.

- Stonewall

PS (I'm hoping to start posting regularly again)
PPS (The gentleman who wanted to look at my DL4 for me, please message me!)