Phil O'Keefe

The single ongoing spam thread was just getting too cumbersome for many users... so again, by popular request, we've switched it to a "weekly" spam thread. I will close the previous week's spam thread sometime each Sunday evening / early Monday morning. At that time, the previous week's spam thread will be unstuck and locked. Everyone will be able to still read it as it drops off page one, but it won't be "bump-able". Have fun, and I hope you can sell something you don't need, or find something you have been looking for. PS I've been getting some comments about the overabundance of OT posts in the spam thread. If possible, it would be great if we could keep this thread mostly on-topic posts, and anything you folks can do to help keep the thread size manageable (IOW, deleting items / posts for things that have sold) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Morley ABY - Utility device, but considering the possibilities with multiple amp setups, etc...it's a must have. I use mine to switch between two signal paths - one side going to a tuner, the other going to the effects chain. Silent tuning at the click of a switch. Of course, you can also set it so it goes to both the tuner and the effects at the same time, which can be useful live if you need to touch up the tuning on one string in mid-song without having to mute yourself...

Hey Mitch, how have you been? I have a buddy who owns a couple of the Visual Sound pedals - they're very nice. I've never had the chance to try the Zendrive, but I've heard good reports about it. If you do try one, please let us know what you think.

What's the model number on that Boss compressor Lee? What settings on the OCD are you using the most?

I've been using an OCD for over a year now and I can't say enough good things about. Everyone who has played it has loved it. As for Phil's question... The pedals most commonly used are- OCD Subdecay Liquid Sunshine Skreddy Screwdriver Keeley Modded BD-2 Catalinbread Semaphore Lil Big Muff Diamond Memory Lane I have other pedals, but if we need a boosted amp tone, its 98% of the time the OCD. And I have 4 nice OD's to choose from. Tim Thanks Tim - that's a very nice collection of high quality / great sounding pedals! :phil:

So, what other pedals do you guys like and find useful in the studio? Here's my current pedalboard setup: Board #1: Modded Morley A/B Switch Out A -> Boss TU-12 Out B -> BYOC Fuzz Face Clone -> GCB-95 Crybaby -> OLCircuits Sunkist Squeeze (Orange Squeezer clone) -> HBE Germania -> Fulltone OCD (V.3) -> MAD DD30 -> HBE Power Screamer (w/ fat boost) -> Danelectro Fish & Chips EQ -> OLCircuits Chunky Cheddar (Lovetone Big Cheese fuzz clone) -> Boss PS-5 -> Lovetone Brown Source Board #2 SIB! The Treminator -> Lovetone Doppelganger -> Lovetone Wobulator (splits to stereo at the output) => Line 6 MM6: Left output -> Danelectro Reel Echo -> Amp #1, Line 6 MM4 Right output -> Diamond Memory Lane -> Amp #2. I've got a few other pedals, but that's what's on my boards right now. I'm pretty happy with all of it, but I definitely want to ditch the TU-12 for a Strobostomp, I crave a Colorsound wah, and I am thinking about ditching the MM4 for individual modulation pedals and replacing the Reel Echo with a small analog delay such as a AD9 or something similar. Having some select pedals around the studio can be a very good thing IMO.

That's funny Lee - I just got one myself about a week ago, and I also really like it.

Let's PLEASE keep things civil folks. HC has their rules, but as long as this forum has my name on it, rule #1, over and beyond the HC site rules, is that while it's okay to disagree - even strongly / passonately, personal insults, threats and ad hominem attacks are not acceptable here. Ever. Period. "Be excellent to each other." If someone is late, I might charge them from the time they were supposed to be there. Not always - I try not to be a jerk about it - if the excuse / reason seems reasonable, and they're generally on time and good clients, I might / probably will let it slide. If it starts to become a regular or semi-regular occurance, all bets are off. Ditto that for clients who cancel without notice. On the subject of pay, I think it's not unreasonable to do things for free when you're still learning / starting out... but that dosn't have to be for the public at large. It can be for close friends or at school or whatever... but I think that you have to be careful about that because it can become "expected" and it might seem hard to break out of it and start charging for your time / services as your skills increase. Plus, it does devalue things in the eyes of your clients, and in a way devalues what engineers do in general. At least get something out of it - even if you're relatively inexperienced. Materials costs, lunch / dinner, help with building acoustic bass traps - something. You're doing something for them, and even if your not JJP or RTB, you deserve respect and some sort of compensation in return.

One of the best engineer/studio owners I worked with asked for payment at the end of every session (at least with us ). I'd say he was more firm than ruthless with regard to the clock. If the band kept him waiting (arriving late, being unprepared), they had to pay. That said, he often cut a "discount" at the end of the session for any of a number of reasons... sometimes it was just because we'd all spent ten or fifteen minutes joking around and talking... so I'd say the band's banker seemed to feel that the studio was firm but fair. That's more along the lines of the approach I try to take. If I am going to err insofar as time vs money, it's going to be to the client's benefit and not mine. I don't give the farm away, but if it's a question of a half an hour here or there, I don't lose sleep over it. I certainly don't want the band to leave, and then tell their friends that "he charged us for seven and a half hours, but we took a 45 minute lunch so it should have only been seven and a quarter..." or whatever.

If you had to pick one specific aspect of studio production / engineering that you feel is your weakest area, what would it be? It can be anything - scoring strings, EQ'ing, use of dynamics processors, getting parts to blend, mic technique, drawing out the best possible performances from talent, etc. Now, what are you going to do about it? Seriously, list what you've been doing or are considering doing to attempt to improve in that specific area. Feel free to quote someone else's post and offer suggestions on how you dealt with / overcame your own problems with that issue if you have a suggestion.

Um, no. I agree - and I disagree. In general, I hold to the theory that the smaller a room is in terms of cubic volume, the drier / deader it should be - not just HF absorption, but broadband. I also like natural room ambience, but only if it is a good sounding room, and only on certain instruments - not all over everything. If the room is dreadful, then I'd rather kill it and its effects and add my own ER and verbs via boxes and plug ins later than have to deal with too much of a bad thing printed on the tracks due to the poor acoustics of the room. IMO, Ethan's correct if he's saying that most home studio rooms - small converted bedrooms, etc. - should be fairly dry. However, if you have the room to do it up right, I think a well balanced room with a bit of ambience is better than a dead dry room - you can always dry it up more with goboes and so forth as needed... When vocals are done in large commercial studios, it's not uncommon to build a vocal "booth" out of goboes and moving blankets to dry things up. In general, I do not want a ton of room tone / ambience on my lead vocal tracks, although I might want a bit with BGV's, depending on what we're after.

http://www.smproaudio.com/MICTHING.htm Yup, that's the one I was talking about - thanks AJ. I have not tried any of the three yet, so no comment... Craig did review the SE Electronics Reflection Filter, and appeared to like it, so if anyone has any questions on that unit, I'm sure Craig would be happy to discuss it. Here's a picture of it: Of the three, the Real Traps product seems to be the largest. Does that translate to better isolation? On the surface, I would tend to think so, but short of independent, side by side testing of all three products, I can't say for certain. I do think that these products are probably useful and interesting for many of you, so I wanted to let you know about them.

There was another company with a similar type of product at NAMM... I'll try to dig up the lit and post on it later.

I got this press release in my email today - just passing it along FYI: ****************** REALTRAPS ANNOUNCES NEW PORTABLE VOCAL BOOTH New Milford, CT, USA - February 15, 2007 - RealTraps is pleased to announce their newest product, the Portable Vocal Booth. This clever device mounts on any microphone stand to create a highly controlled environment for recording vocals and spoken narration in acoustically hostile spaces. Unlike other products that are too small to be effective in noisy or live sounding environments, or that color the sound, the RealTraps Portable Vocal Booth is much larger comprising a pair of 2 by 2 foot absorbing panels in a fully adjustable V shape. The integrated base attaches easily and securely to any inexpensive microphone boom stand. The RealTraps Portable Vocal Booth can also be placed directly on a table or other flat surface. The RealTraps Portable Vocal Booth costs $299.99 direct from the manufacturer and begins shipping the end of February. Complete information is on the RealTraps web site www.realtraps.com/p_pvb.htm. Data on the Portable Vocal Booth product page shows how well it blocks unwanted sound, and a short video demo lets you see it in action compared with a popular competing product. The RealTraps site also contains educational videos, magazine articles, extensive advice on all aspects of room treatment, as well as showcasing their high-performance acoustic solutions for rooms of every size and purpose. RealTraps is owned by Ethan Winer and Doug Ferrara. Ethan is known throughout the industry for his many technical articles in audio and computer magazines, and he has engineered and produced several classical music CDs including a recording of his own cello concerto. Doug is a professional musician and has owned a recording studio for more than twenty years. Besides his interests in audio and recording, Doug holds an advanced degree in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic, and has been a systems engineer for Intel and Motorola. Product and contact information: www.realtraps.com Phone, toll-free: 866-RealTraps (866-732-5872) ******************

Yes, that's a Reel Echo. A buddy told me about them when they first came out, and I grabbed one because I liked his. It's pretty cool, but the delay time slider is a bit coarse in terms of fine tuning the delay time. Other than that, I have no real complaints. It's not a true tape echo, but it sounds pretty good. I've actually got two boards - one for dirt and one that is primarily modulation and echo. On the dirt board, it has: BYOC Fuzz Face Clone Dunlop Wah Demeter Compulator HBE Germania treble boost Ibanez TS-9 MAD DD30 overdrive HBE Power Screamer w/ fat boost Danelectro Fish & Chips EQ Boss PS-5 Pitch Shifter Lovetone Brown Source OD There's also a Morley ABY switch and a Bos TU-12 On the second board there is a... SIB! Mr Treminator tremolo Line 6 MM4 modulation modeller Dano Reel Echo Lovetone Doppelganger phaser / vibrato Lovetone Wobulator dual tremolo / panner Diamond Memory Lane (analog delay) Two Exp pedals I don't play out live very often, and so they mostly get used in the studio, but I do take them with me on those rare occasions when I play a gig, along with my Princeton Reverb II and Vox AC15cc (with a Weber Blue Dog AlNiCo) and run in stereo. I have a few other amps - a couple of the cool little Guytronix tube amp kits ( www.guytronix.com ), a modded Super Champ, a silverface Super, a THD Univalve... I've got a bunch of guitars - about 14 at last count. Pictured are my modded Tele Special, my Casino and my Epi Les Paul Ltd Ed. I also have a pair of Strats (one with a S/N that matches my birthday ), a Ric 610 (also pictured I think), a Dano DC-12 and Baritone, a Taylor Baby and 510, a Gretsch Pro Jet,a couple of basses... the idea is to give me (and my clients) different tonal options in the studio. At least that's what I tell my wife.

Thanks Mazi... I shall endeavour to rahque most diligenty!

Please add me to the list Mazi.

Processor Scheduling: Set this for Background Services Memory Usage: Set this for System Cache Do these two things and you're usually good to go... while some of the other tweaks are useful / good, IMO, these two are usually essential, as they deal with memory and sound card drivers / priority. Turning off auto play for any CD drives, and turning off hibernate / power management are also useful tweaks. Some say that turning off System Restore is a good idea, but if it saves your butt just once, IMO, it's worth the very slight amount of system overhead it costs you...

Great post AJ - thanks for the heads-up. I may well be among those who goes out to buy one last copy of XP... Well, here's the thing - they've already got a time bomb strapped to our XP systems - it's called "authorization". Once they drop XP for Vista, and once XP OS support dies, how the heck are we going to keep XP running on our systems? What will we do if we have a HDD failure, or build a upgraded system and install a new C drive once MS will no longer support XP? How are we going to get an authorization? That won't happen immediately, but it is only a matter of time - MS isn't going to support XP forever...

My main DAW is a dual core with 2 GB of RAM and SLi PCI-e dual video card capabilities, and it can handle more RAM than that - and from what I've read, all of that will come in handy when I'm eventually forced to switch over to Vista. Forced? Yup... eventually, if I want to run the latest versions of the software I use daily, I'll need to go to Vista. But I'm personally not going to be in a major rush to do so. What I have works, and works well, and with the relsase of a new OS, all sorts of potential issues arise. Compatability with hardware - gonna have to make some upgrades there. Compatability of software I've used for ages... what if some of that isn't ported over, and the legacy stuff doesn't run under Vista? Gonna need new drivers too... how fast will they become available? Is the OS itself stable, or will I be dealing with incompatabilities and crashes? Nope, I'm probably going to let others ride the bleeding edge this time - I'm too busy and have too much work to get done, and don't have the time to get into massive testing and troubleshooting if I can avoid it. Eventually though, I'll be on Vista, as will most of the rest of the PC users of the world. And the 64 bit OS will have some advantages... think of how much RAM we'll be able to run - that should be great for lots of plug-ins and softsynths...

Originally posted by t-rave frontier design wavecenter pci - $80 shipped to US only PM sent!

Originally posted by zeronyne Do they have a client list? A mailing address? A website? Referencable clients? Written marketing and legal collateral? Yup. Start with the references and NAMES of clients they have broken. If they can't provide you with names and proof of their previous successes, and names of people you can directly contact for testimonials, then look elsewhere. $300 for six months of promotion is WAY underpriced in the world of "real" promotional firms. The link doesn't work, but my nose is already telling me "beware".

Uh, not on my forum...

One of my clients was recently written up in the LA Times. You can read the article here.