Today I had the honor and priveledge to be personally invited down to Wireworld Studios by Michael Wagener (Accept, Dokken, Ozzy, Metallica, Skid Row, JAnet Jackson, Alice Copper, Megadeth, Kings X, Testament... do I really need to go on?)
Michael and I sat around the whole day trying out a ton of different mics on a guitar cab and recording each one of them and comparing our results and what we liked. After some listening with the supplied D.I. track, we picked the Mr Scary module to sample all our sounds with. A shootout basically. We talked a lot and I got to pick his brain about a ton of stuff, and just watch the way he works. The guy is a studio/recording/mixing genius, and I mean that sincerely, its one of those "WOW" things to be sitting next to him and be treated like an equal, and it was an incredible experience for me. I brought a lot home with me to add to my own bag of tricks and I can honestly say I consider this guy a new friend.
Anyway... the bulk of our day was mics, guitar tones, and how he gets 'em. I was like a sponge the whole time.
At his place he has 2 different Engl amps, a Mesa Dual Rec, TWO (!) Randall RM4 module racks packed with different modules, a Randall RM100 packed with modules, a Randall RM20 with a Topboost module in it (catching a pattern here? he likes those Randalls) a Rivera, several others. Nice selection to say the least. The guy also played guitar for Accept in the early days, and has about 30 guitars there, and has recorded some of the best rock tones of all time back in the 80's and 90's, and is still doing it. What I'm leading up to, is that the dude knows guitars and amps. Well, we were sitting around talking, and he asked me if I had ever heard of or ever used the Redeemer.
"Nope"
He gets a little excited and digs out this little box with what appeared to be a guitar jack wired to a little box with a 9 volt battery plug hooked to it. (Check it out at www.creationaudiolabs.com) You basically cut your guitar jack out, and put this on in its place, and hook the two stray wires to where your jack originally was hooked into the guitar, and it completely unloads your guitar pickup. He went and pulled a guitar off the wall that had one in it with a push/pull bypass knob, and we went into the room and plugged it into the RM20b and fired it up. He had me play for a minute with the jack pulled out (bypassed) and then he pushed it in. The difference in clarity and realism was enough to take your head off. We had to back off the treble and presence because the sound went from average to this open, crystal clear sound like nothing you'd never really imagine. He said it loads the pickup at like 3,000,000 ohms (yes 3 million) or something to that effect, and shows the amp something like 31 ohms. Big difference in tone. And with the pushpull, it gives you tonal options that you could use sometimes, other times dont. Check it out they are like $100 and some change.
Another thing, while we were sitting there, I was playing though an $80 Monster guitar cable. He said "bypass it again, and check this out"
Walks out and comes back in with a red George L guitar cable ( www.georgelsstore.com ) I've heard a lot about these cables so I was interested. Most of the time, it takes either a really bad cable, or a really incredible cable (Zoella) to really notice the difference on most sources.
Anyway, he says "play for a minute." I did. We then switch from the Monster Cable (remember, these are $80 and supposedly top of the line cables) to the George L cable. The difference was immediate and very much noticable. The high end was clearer, the tone was more defined, it was very noticable. The difference in cost? The George L cable is about $30... a $50 difference... and smokes the Monster cable. It certainly doesnt seem like a very significant product. Its thin cable and almost seems fragile (its not though) and you actually make them yourself. You buy a small kit with a spool of wire and cable ends, you pull out how much wire you want, cut it, push it into the cable end, and then screw down a little screw into into the wire and the connections are made, and its done. Then you can just whip together any length cable you need whenever the need arises, in like 4 minutes. Perfect for patch cables. I'm sold and will be redoing all of my more important connections with this cable and making a couple of guitar cables as well.
If any of you guitar or studio geeks are interested in other stuff we did, just ask. It was an awesome day for me. Loved it.
Peace
Paul
Michael and I sat around the whole day trying out a ton of different mics on a guitar cab and recording each one of them and comparing our results and what we liked. After some listening with the supplied D.I. track, we picked the Mr Scary module to sample all our sounds with. A shootout basically. We talked a lot and I got to pick his brain about a ton of stuff, and just watch the way he works. The guy is a studio/recording/mixing genius, and I mean that sincerely, its one of those "WOW" things to be sitting next to him and be treated like an equal, and it was an incredible experience for me. I brought a lot home with me to add to my own bag of tricks and I can honestly say I consider this guy a new friend.
Anyway... the bulk of our day was mics, guitar tones, and how he gets 'em. I was like a sponge the whole time.
At his place he has 2 different Engl amps, a Mesa Dual Rec, TWO (!) Randall RM4 module racks packed with different modules, a Randall RM100 packed with modules, a Randall RM20 with a Topboost module in it (catching a pattern here? he likes those Randalls) a Rivera, several others. Nice selection to say the least. The guy also played guitar for Accept in the early days, and has about 30 guitars there, and has recorded some of the best rock tones of all time back in the 80's and 90's, and is still doing it. What I'm leading up to, is that the dude knows guitars and amps. Well, we were sitting around talking, and he asked me if I had ever heard of or ever used the Redeemer.
"Nope"
He gets a little excited and digs out this little box with what appeared to be a guitar jack wired to a little box with a 9 volt battery plug hooked to it. (Check it out at www.creationaudiolabs.com) You basically cut your guitar jack out, and put this on in its place, and hook the two stray wires to where your jack originally was hooked into the guitar, and it completely unloads your guitar pickup. He went and pulled a guitar off the wall that had one in it with a push/pull bypass knob, and we went into the room and plugged it into the RM20b and fired it up. He had me play for a minute with the jack pulled out (bypassed) and then he pushed it in. The difference in clarity and realism was enough to take your head off. We had to back off the treble and presence because the sound went from average to this open, crystal clear sound like nothing you'd never really imagine. He said it loads the pickup at like 3,000,000 ohms (yes 3 million) or something to that effect, and shows the amp something like 31 ohms. Big difference in tone. And with the pushpull, it gives you tonal options that you could use sometimes, other times dont. Check it out they are like $100 and some change.
Another thing, while we were sitting there, I was playing though an $80 Monster guitar cable. He said "bypass it again, and check this out"
Walks out and comes back in with a red George L guitar cable ( www.georgelsstore.com ) I've heard a lot about these cables so I was interested. Most of the time, it takes either a really bad cable, or a really incredible cable (Zoella) to really notice the difference on most sources.
Anyway, he says "play for a minute." I did. We then switch from the Monster Cable (remember, these are $80 and supposedly top of the line cables) to the George L cable. The difference was immediate and very much noticable. The high end was clearer, the tone was more defined, it was very noticable. The difference in cost? The George L cable is about $30... a $50 difference... and smokes the Monster cable. It certainly doesnt seem like a very significant product. Its thin cable and almost seems fragile (its not though) and you actually make them yourself. You buy a small kit with a spool of wire and cable ends, you pull out how much wire you want, cut it, push it into the cable end, and then screw down a little screw into into the wire and the connections are made, and its done. Then you can just whip together any length cable you need whenever the need arises, in like 4 minutes. Perfect for patch cables. I'm sold and will be redoing all of my more important connections with this cable and making a couple of guitar cables as well.
If any of you guitar or studio geeks are interested in other stuff we did, just ask. It was an awesome day for me. Loved it.
Peace
Paul
