DSLR for Dummies

By: Sierra Norman, RocknRoll Rentals
Special thanks to Este Vato!

GODIN TO THE CORE, BRO.

    The new Godin Core has landed at Rock n Roll rentals! And it's been a head turner among employees and patrons alike. I got a chance to take it out to a couple of gigs over the weekend as a back up, and after popping a string straight away, it didn't stay benched.
    Godin has made this model available in a few different variations; ours is the classic, vibey, sunburst finish option. It also features a pair of Seymour Duncan P90s nestled in a chambered mahogany body, solid maple top,  set mahogany neck, rosewood fret board, Graphtech wrap around bridge, and black tuners...for sex appeal. It has a light but solid construction and is very nicely balanced when strapped. A volume and tone pot for either pick up is also featured, which is nice. The first night, I played it through a newer Ampeg tube guitar amp along side indie rock sledge hammer, Jared Boulanger.  The Core sounds warm and fat in the neck position and when the volume was rolled back, it revealed wonderful bluesy, jazzy kind of tones. When opened up in the bridge position, the P90s shine with that archaic, classic rock n roll bite. In your face, but sweetly so.

    
    My Grandma (pictured above) got to play it the second night. Lucky ol' gal. Just kidding, that's not my Grandma, that's Oscar from repair and a fellow vato. He played it through a Fender Deluxe and a hundred or so effects pedals. It sounded great, and on the clean channel, took the edge off the otherwise harsh inherent tone of the Deluxe. It needed to be tuned more often the second night, but the humid, hot, outside air may have been the culprit.
    The Core is a pretty straight forward, work horse of a guitar. In addition to sounding great and looking good, they are 100% crafted and assembled in Quebec, Canada though you might not guess it with the  doable street price. It's a solid build and a very comfortable play. P90 lovers will not be let down. 


   Come into the shop and snag this one...from my cold dead hands. :)

reviewed by: Rene C.

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

Rupert Neve's Time Machine Tape-o-Magnetron-alizer

Just kidding. On review here is the Portico 5042 Tape FX unit from Rupert Neve Designs, a tape simulator meant to capture the fatness and saturation of recording to tape, without the expense and Lord-of-The-Rings-caliber journey it takes to acquire magnetic tape. The general idea is simple - use all the analog components of a tape machine (fat transformers, tape heads, etc.) - and in place of the tape, have a saturation control.

It's fairly common to record sources with lots of transient content (particularly things inclined to be harsh...i.e. cymbals) like drums, acoustic guitar, and vocals to tape for a number of reasons. Tape acts as a limiter - when things peak above the area that can be written to tape, that portion of the waveform is simply shaved off, without losing the "punch"...even the best of limiters have a hard time doing this. The components in a tape machine generate a lot of "harmonics", particularly 3rd order harmonics, which for a wide variety of reasons, cancel and phase frequencies down the spectrum. In normal, practical, "actually matters" parlance, it mellows harsh things out and makes them sound "rich".

As for the unit itself, it does this far better than any plugins I've used. The transformer selection is typical for the rest of the Portico line, and imparts a very fat "Portico sound", heavy in the 300-500hz range, which can overwhelm certain things quickly, but is great for fattening up thin parts.
The saturation is great - can be driven incredibly hard and still retain punch, and because of the two channels, you can run a single source to both channels (depending on the setup of your patchbay) and treat the same signal in parallel...leaving one nearly untouched and the other smashed to heck (a technique commonly used on vocals, bass, or drum buss). The tape "speed controls" simulate what happens at different tape speeds - namely a more responsive high-end at the faster setting. This can sometimes add "harshness", depending on the source, but is particularly helpful if the Portico 500hz "fatness" is overwhelming.

My biggest gripe with this unit, one that rendered it EXTREMELY tedious, is the lack of a stereo link. For all intents and purposes, this is a dual mono unit. The pots aren't precise enough that similar settings yield similar saturation, so sending stereo sources through it like a mix or drum overheads (two MAJOR USES for analog tape) is incredibly time consuming and tedious. It took ages to get the stereo image balanced, and even then, I wasn't certain if I was achieving identical effects on the L and R channels of my overhead track...resulting in a shifty snare and kick that seemed to dance around my overhead "center". This was even more noticeable on a full mix.

If you need to run this on several mono sources, or run a single source through two different saturation units, this unit is killer. Sometimes this unit is all it took to get something to sit in the mix. If you're looking for something to reliably handle stereo channels though, you should be prepared to spend some time dialing it in. Either way, great to track through-right after the pre, before the interface - to fat sounds, nice limiting (often essential in today's demand for loud mixes/masters), and well worth the money! $43 a weekend, $95 a month, at Rock N Roll Rentals!

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

The New U (...67 copy, that is)

On review today is the Peluso P67, modeled after the famous vintage (discontinued, and thus wildly expensive) Neumann U-67. It's not uncommon for well-maintained 67's to sell for upwards of $10,000. Until John Peluso spent over 2 years on the p67 to get it just right, attaining its signature sound (think the Beatles' Revolver, Bob Dylan, Chris Cornell's Soundgarden tenure, Kurt Cobain on "Nevermind", among many, many, many others) - meant shelling out big bucks in an expensive studio or, if you were lucky enough to live in L.A., New York, or Nashville, renting one for nearly the price of a month's mortgage payment.

Fortunately for us, Peluso Microphone Labs put in the time with several great u-67 specimens and tweaked the p67design til it closely matched the original, creating a mic that holds its own in shootouts with the best of engineer-ears.

The original u67 finds its use primarily on vocals, acoustic guitar, and less often (though no less spectacularly) on electric guitar cabs. I can't really describe with words what it does to the sound, but as this is a blog, I'll try...and you can listen to clips below.

It seemed to be that vocally (clips 1 and 2), it captured about what I'd expected - a nice low end, detailed midrange, and a crispy but not overhyped high end. In terms of high end, I'd put it somewhere between a u47 and a c12 (or for existing Peluso fans, a 2247 and p12). The midrange is where I really sensed something unique. Interesting handling of the critical 400-600 range, and a very unique sounding upper midrange. While the response is spec'd as mostly "flat", we all know the human voice is anything but, and putting several vocalists in front yielded a consistently unique, interesting EQ curve.

The mic was dense in the midrange, with a particular emphasis in the 500 region (a region typically reserved for things that occupy the "front" of a mix), and around the forward sounding 2k region, which would ordinarily yield a very "forward" sounding vocal track, if not for the interesting phasing/compression characteristics. More on this later. There was a high frequency air present as well which began its rolloff somewhere around 8k. In many ways, this is a "midrangey" mic, not boasting the warm, resonating low end and bright, airy high end of the p12. The clips of the acoustic are a great indicator of the low and high end differences (clips 3 and 4).

Most fascinating was the mic's tendency to sound somewhat compressed already, even filtered in a way. Some reading and novice examination of the u67 schematic shows several negative feedback loops, which without getting overly technical, loops the signal back in to earlier parts of the circuit, resulting in phase cancellation at certain frequencies and gives things a very unique color and a somewhat "squished" sound. (The forward, fast, "spanky" sound of a Vox AC-30 is primarily due to its LACK of negative feedback loops. The bloom and compression heard in many Two-Rock amps, particularly the John Mayer signature head, are the result of carefully tuned negative feedback.) The tube only accentuates this tendency toward compression, resulting in a sound similar to fast attack, medium release settings on a compressor...a sound known to push things "back" in a mix. This all comes together to bring us a mic that sounds detailed and forward EQ-wise without being difficult to place into the mix. Given the desire for compressed vocal sounds, it's no wonder 67 microphones are all over modern rock records.

I was most pleasantly surprised when I decided, given its interesting midrange, to try it on electric guitar cabs. No matter what sound came out of the amp, the resulting signal (again through the neutral FMR RNP) had an unmistakable vintage, retro vibe to it, a certain throatiness (due to its handling of the 500hz range) that perfectly accentuated the sounds of a Gretsch ( see clips 5 and 6) or Telecaster.

Needless to say, next time I need to record an edgy or aggressive vocal track or am in need of a vintage "vibe" to my guitar tracks, I will be reaching for Peluso's p67. You can do so as well at Rock n Roll Rentals, for $45 (weekend rate, Tuesday to Monday) or $100 bucks for the month.  

Latest tracks by Rock n Roll Rentals

by Colin Laflin