Staff Reviews to be hosted on RocknRollRentals.com

We will be posting all of our informative & entertaining staff reviews and blogs on our website. Read them now.  Read them later. Check back often.

http://rocknrollrentals.com/blog/

New in stock from Fender

As we begin 2014, we are ecstatic start our first year full year as an official Fender dealer!  Opening up the boxes to uncover these beauties was a pleasure.   We want to share them with you.  Come in today to pick up a classic - for rental or for sale!!

This is a Fender "Pawn Shop" Stratocaster. An awesome 70's throwback, with a few modifications. This guitar has a classic look with the maple neck, and has a very versatile range with a telecaster "lipstick" single coil as the neck pick-up, and a wide-range humbucker for the bridge. 

 Back by popular demand....the Fender "Starcaster"!! This guitar was reissued from a 1970's classic, which was only in production for a few years. Many great guitar players have given this guitar a legendary status, including Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead (who played this guitar on most of the recordings of the albums OK Computer/Amnesiac). If you're looking for a new semi-hollow love interest, look no further.

 Introducing the Fender "Modern Player" Mustang - a retro classic suited up with two MP-90's in place of the classic Mustang single-coiled pick-ups, with a modern sunburst. This guitar has the classic feel of a short-scaled Mustang neck, with two of the most revered pick-ups ever added on! Custom style!

The Fender "Nashville" Tele...a country classic Telecaster with an additional "Stratocaster" single coil, and the mellow sound of an all maple neck. Fender did not fix what wasn't broken with this all-time southern classic.

Take off to the race-track with the Fender "Pawn-Shop" Mustang Bass! One fat (or phat, if you will) bass style humbucker pick-up with stripes to match it's radical tone! Short-scaled for a wide-appeal of playability. This is a fantastic bass for guitar players making the switch or with a growing interest in bass.

We'll have more new inventory to show you soon! Check back for great new Fender products that we carry for rental or sale.

Making your next music video using Rock N Roll Rentals

This last weekend I took advantage of my job at Rock N Roll Rentals for making a music video. Few people know about the wide selection of A/V products that we carry, and I’m going to use this post to promote how easily you can make a music video or other video project using our awesome inventory.

For my project I rented two Canon MKII 7D’s, two shoulder-mounts, a Manfrotto tripod, and a Tokina wide-angle lens. Canon DSLR’s have quickly become an “industry standard” for capturing a high-quality image (1280x720p at 60 fps) through a camera where your lens selection is very wide, without having to spend $40k+ to use a RED camera or video-cameras that can collect high quality information. Though DSLRs are built for still-images the 7D is made with point and shoot ease of use in video, and can capture movie quality picture.

Using the shoulder-mounts my small crew was able to take moving shots with tripod stability, with the beautiful depth of focus that the 7D allows at 60fps. This high-quality information made it easy to create slow-motion shots, or cropping for image stabilization. For other shots we would put the two 7D’s at different angles in a room with one wide-angle shot that we could zoom (with the Tokina lens), and one still camera to pick up cross shots that we’re more focused on our subjects.

My band doesn’t have a big budget (less than $200), and we are currently editing something that looks like high-budget music video. These days making a music video is definitely a priority for bands (Youtube, Vimeo promotion), and very few bands have the money to make something that they could imagine could look like a “legit” music video. Using Rock N Roll Rentals, you can achieve a “label” quality music video or short-film with a budget less than $200!

We rent Tokina wide-angle lenses, as well as Canon’s stellar 50mm lenses for that artsy and thin depth-of-field look. You can use any of our DSLRs to do the same thing I did be that our T3I models for $36/reservation rate or our 5DmkIIs for $125/reservation. Rock N Roll Rentals is the cheapest camera/ A/V rental solution in the country, and should not be overlooked. 

I highly recommend you check out our video selections for your next project here: http://www.rocknrollrentals.com/filmvideo.html

-William Glosup

Radial's Workhorse Cube: Both Workhorse-like and Cube-shaped.

Over the weekend, I took home a Radial Workhorse Cube to get familiar with three of their new 500-series modules: the Powerpre, the Q3 Induction Coil EQ, and the Komit compressor. The Radial products I'm most familiar with are transparent tools like DI boxes and Reampers, which they do a great job at, but I was curious what they would bring to a channel-strip-style setup like this.

I had a session over the weekend with a female singer songwriter, and had opportunities to try the Workhorse on a few things. Before you even plug it in, Radial's excellent build quality shows with their solid steel construction and baked enamel finishes, and every knob and switch feels substantial, which makes the units fun to work with. Of course, I eventually calmed down and plugged the thing in. Even this was easy thanks to the Powerpre's front XLR input, and a 'feed' switch between each channel, which sends a unit's output into the next unit, eliminating the need for patch cables. Other fun on the Workhorse's rear includes a Link switch for stereo linkage, and an Omniport input, a 1/4" jack for each unit that provides extra functionality.

My first test was kick drum. The Powerpre is wonderfully quiet for the +55dB of gain it boasts, but on kick the Q3 was what really stood out. A few mild adjustments on the 12-position Grayhill switches brought out what I was looking for on both lows and highs, while the Mid Cut knob took away some of the pesky "basketball-sounding" frequencies. The Q3's Omniport is assigned as an effects loop. My only gripe about the Q3 is a minor one, and that is that the Shift switch for each band is hard to get at, but that's a "set-and-forget" type thing anyway, so maybe I'll just stop complaining already.

Next up, I wanted to see how my guest channel strip would squash a room mic for me, so I put a Peluso 2247LE (psst, also available at Rock N Roll Rentals!) through the Workhorse. The Peluso is a great mic all by itself, and didn't need the Q3 to help it out, but the Komit squeezed my room mic nicely, gluing disparate sounds like bells and accordion together without sucking the life out of them. As with the other two modules, there are fewer than five controls (including the "On" feature), so the Komit works a lot of magic on it's own, thanks in part to it's full-size discrete electronics and Hammond broadcast transformers. With the Komit, the Omniport is a key input for side-chaining or de-essing.

Radial Engineering's Workhorse Cube and 500-series modules offered me a lot of great sounds, thanks to great craftsmanship and well-thought-out features, and it's portable enough to take anywhere. I highly recommend taking one home for yourself, especially at Rock N Roll Rentals' awesome Reservation Rate of $47 for Tues/Wed/Thurs- Monday or only $108 for a month!


Also available pre-filled! That is to say, filled with preamps. 

reviewed by:
-John Pearson

X-Mas wasn't too chilly with the Mojave Audio MA-300...

Over the holiday weekend I took a test-drive with the MA-300 large-diaphragm condenser microphone from Mojave Audio. Initially, I was skeptical about it. I had never heard of ‘Mojave Audio’ as a brand until recently, and I had assumed that it was a semi-affordable condenser to compete with AKG or Audio-Technica. I quickly found out that there was a lot more to the company and the mic than I could have anticipated.

Mojave Audio is a relatively new company, created by ‘ribbon microphone’ legend David Royer. If you aren’t familiar, Royer reintroduced ribbon microphones to the world in the late 1990’s, and became an instant legend for doing so. Royer’s work has often been compared to the quality of leading German products, and his mics are regarded as a studio essential for achieving rich and warm tones.

The MA-300 is loaded with JAN military-grade vacuum tubes, a 15- DB pad, as well as a high-pass filter, and multiple patterns (which is the only difference between cardioid sibling MA-200). It’s multiple patterns are controllable from a converter box, which allow it to use cardioid, figure-8, and Omni patterns. This converter box sends it’s own phantom power, and it can handle phantom power added additionally, which is handy if you want to use it in large mic set-ups.

To start, I set it up to record some chimey acoustic guitar. It instantly sounded so gratifying. It focused on high-mids, and cancelled out any problem frequencies that often occur on recording acoustic guitars. Instantly upon play-back, the guitar sat out in the mix, with a warm tone and the exact frequency range I wanted to it to sit in. I was so impressed!  Perhaps it’s the JAN tubes in them, but this mic instantly sounds golden. Recently I tested the P-67, which I was also immensely impressed by (see Colin Laflin’s awesome P-67 review), but the MA-300 achieved the sound I was peronsally wanting to hear from Peluso’s replica.

Next I moved onto testing it on vocals, and yet again, it performed flawlessly. The vocals sat in the mix pre-EQ or compression almost exactly where they needed to be. It handled lows smoothly, and in the high mid-range (1kHz+) is where the mic added compression like warmth and voice. Something I didn’t get to try that most demos and reviews of the MA-300 praise is its ability as a drum room/overhead microphone. 

I highly recommend checking out this awesome product from Mojave Audio, and the best way to take the test drive I did on your own recording is to rent it from Rock N’ Roll Rentals!!! You can get it for a “Reservation Rate” (Tues/Wed/Thurs-Monday) for $29 or on a monthly rental for $64, which is a real steal for getting to know this and other recording microphones!

-William Glosup

Hail, "Heil!"

If you haven't noticed, which I'm sure you have - Rock N Roll Rentals is now carrying Heil microphones. The creator, Bob Heil, is really giving the big brands a run for their money with the release of his extraordinary line of dynamic microphones. I was able to experiment with the PR-40 while tracking local punk-alternative band, "Cannibal Barbie" at Werd Recording Suite.
At first feel, the mic's build and weight gave claim of an undeniably great product. The solid capsule coupled with a dense grille could even make certain GmbH microphone manufacturers jealous of it's resilience. Now, where to put it?

First came the drums. The large diaphragm, and the likeness to the Electro-Voice RE-20 begged for me to put it on the kick drum, but I did not.  I was already very content with my Audix D6/Shure SM7b combination - and, let's be honest, we all know where we like that huge pickup; the snare. But why? I always enjoy capturing a full sound of the snare drum, moving away from things like SM57s, MD421s, or similar products. This is not to discount the awesomeness engrained in the workhorse dynamic mics, but we as engineers seem to always feel the craving to have our own "sound" for future generations to use the "[your name here] miking technique." In a bluegrass, jazz, or soft rock situation, I would be tempted to even use a large diaphragm condenser such as the Neumann TLM 103, but with a piccolo snare being whipped like a racehorse, no amount of padding on my signal chain would bear the intensity of the cracks - not to mention the intense bleed of the accompanying noisemakers. The resulting recording of the snare was actually not surprising at all. This is NOT a bad thing - it sounded like a dynamic mic should on a drum. The big plus was the addition of some low end - thickening the snappy sound of the snare. The lateral rejection capability of this mic was a little weak, but not disappointing. I was pleasantly satisfied with the track - but not done yet.

The following day, we tracked vocals. Again, I had to steer away from the large diaphragm condenser because of their susceptibility to harshness on loud or screaming vocals. Furthermore, we have all seen Thom Yorke's shrill mouth literally eating the end-cap of the RE-20, so I felt the need to try the dynamics on these vocals. Just in case, I put alongside the Shure SM7b as a safety precaution. I realized while setting up, the PR-40 would be much more diverse in its capabilities had it high-pass and/or 'presense' options on it (as the SM7b has). After review of the 'game tape,' I actually ended up sticking with the SM7 for these vocals. My reasoning was - the vocalist's nasally lyrics did not play well with the frequency response of the PR-40. It was a VERY close call. I even considered using both and blending the two, but in the end, the PR-40 did not make the cut for these tracks.

In the end, had I not another mic to compare to, I would have easily kept and been highly satisfied with the sound of the PR-40. At a $21/month rental rate though - really - you MUST use this mic.


Written by Audio Engineer/Producer Ali Ramzanali

Tour without bringing your own gear!... sort of

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to perform at the CMJ Music Marathon in NYC...  The only problem was that I didn't find out my band The Sour Notes were officially selected until the previous week, meaning the band would have to jump on a plane last minute and travel across the country for a 'one off' show without our gear.  The venue we were playing did have a minimal backline, though not accommodating (speaker cabinets without 'heads')... so, since we couldn't make a tour out of it and drive our gear up there in the van, we had to come up with an alternative to 'checking in' our precious tube amps at the airport.  Luckily, Electro Harmonix has a nifty line of portable guitar amplification that fits in your carry-on bag called the 22-Caliber & the 44-Magnum, which my band-mate Chris and I both used instead of our amps.  We plugged them straight into 4-10 cabs at the venue and were amazed at how great they sounded.  The 22-Caliber & 44-Magnum power amps are easy to use, having just a volume knob and a bright/normal switch that gives you two tone options.  In my opinion, these little boxes of magic sound just as real as a guitar amplifier and can even 'break up' a little when dialed right.  So, if you're already a minimalist pack-er and want to travel even light-er, look into renting the EHX 22-Caliber & 44-Magnum power amp magic boxes from us at Rock N Roll Rentals!!!  They, like us...  are show-savers!!!

by Jared Paul Boulanger

We got blogged! Rental Pros!

Last week, Jason Bliley from DirectProAudio.com stopped in to exchange ideas and see how we do rentals in Austin Texas. He wrote a blog entry on his visit, read it here.

Direct Pro Audio is a nation-wide leader in internet music retail, and after meeting Jason, I can see why. They approach their business in an open-minded and fresh way. If you don't live in Texas, I would recommend buying on line from these guys.

He offered to give us any advice on installs as they are well established in that field as well. We wish their rental division, Omaha Audio Rentals, the best of luck in expanding their rental program.

Rock n Roll Rentals started our rental program modeled after the great Jack Long's rental program used at the Long & McQuade music stores in Canada. The basic idea is to make it so affordable that it makes sense to rent it, especially on monthly rentals. We use Yorkville equipment (Jack Long's company) as the backbone of our rental inventory. Their 2 year "even if you break it" warranty is the best in the business. They also manufacture great instrument amps (keyboard, guitar and bass) under the name Traynor amps (named after Pete Traynor who designed amps for Jack.) In Rock n Roll Rentals' formative years, Yorkville provided great support to Jim Norman as he expanded Rock n Roll Rentals in the recession of the early '80's. There are not many other businesses in the USA that rents music or AV equipment as affordable. One notable exception is the Doo Wop Shop in Kentucky, so if you are ever in Kentucky, look them up.

Api 500 series

I brought one of these home a few weeks back. Hearing for years about how great the eq and pre's were, I was exited to hear what everyone was talking about. Part of me wanted to think it was over priced hype. Within minutes, I was trying to imagine how I could buy one. You know, like what could I sell and do I really need a car or a kidney..etc.
Even at full gain the mic pre's were super quiet and sounded great. I'm kind of a compression junkie and I got a great fix. Its the most transparent sounding compressor I've heard. Not at all "effecty" - even at full squish.
Api eq is legendary. Its easy to see why. I found myself reamping older tracks like kick drums and vocals just to get some of that sugar. Really amazing stuff, so musical.
In the end, its so inexpensive to rent that its really ideal for any recording project. Its so portable too. I'm sold. Anybody need a third kidney?
Gary

available for rental @ Rock n Roll Rentals (only in Austin, TX!)

Hughes & Kettner Edition Tube

This amp personifies big sound little package.
You must hear to believe!
Available for rental or sale at Rock n Roll Rentals.

Rent Drum kits & Electric Guitars This Summer

Now is the time to start rocking! We have new Drum kits in for rent - with cymbals! as cheap as $35/ month with a $50 deposit. We will be selling some used 5 piece kits with maple shells , hardware and cymbals for $350. We also have used Congas with stand for $99.00

We have Electric Guitars, Amps and Effects pedals ready to be played. Its affordable and fun!

Try it on your own or with the help of quality instructors like those on our links page.

New Focusrite shipment!

We have just received the new Focusrite Liquid Saffire. It features 2 Liquid Preamps with classic pre emulation and 6 quality award winning Focusrite Pres. 24 bit / 192 sampling via firewire. 2 headphone busses. 28 channels of IO!

Come see it here.

Welcome to our Blog!

Welcome to Rock n Roll Rentals new Weblog.


We hope to use this forum to discuss musical and audio visual equipment.

Also, we will post news and interesting points.



So, tell your mama. Tell your friends, and check back here soon.