Mic cable rip-off

Am partway through one final task before bed:  finally repairing some microphone cables and instrument cables that I've been meaning to do (one mic and one instrument cable from church, about 6-9 months ago; two mic and two instrument cables of my own, that have needed repairing for maybe 2-3 years).

One mic cable (mine) I'd marked "BAD - THIS END".  Upon disassembly I realized that only two of the three pins were connected: the shield (ground), and one of the "live" pins. (All three pins are supposed to be connected -- one pin to the braided "shield" that goes around the interior of the cable, and each of of the other two pins to each of the wires that runs down the centre.  So I looked at the other end:  same thing.  So maybe I was using a device that relied on one of the non-standard pins -- and that's why it didn't work for me?  (Dunno -- it's been too long.)

Regardless:  that's a rip-off (IMO) to sell a "microphone" cable that doesn't connect all the pins -- because it doesn't have the "noise-suppressing" capability that two interior wires (connected properly) would provide.  Clearly the manufacturer couldn't spring for a slightly better cable that had two wires in the core.

 

It's analagous to selling a car that has some of the bolts that hold the car together:  yeah, it'll work -- but it's not as robust, and you're not getting what you think you're paying for.

I've salvaged the two ends of the mic cable (perfectly decent), and have labelled the cord as a future instrument cable.  I have some extra 1/4" jacks -- but, no hurry, as one of my recent projects was to build a mega cable rack (will remedially post pics at some point), and consolidate all of my cables (mic; instrument; RCA) -- years of accumulation; some in use, but most in various boxes.  Turns out that (including the short cables that go between f/x pedals) I have more cables of each type than I actually need:  I'm glad that when I sold my last two electric guitars (both to beginners) I gave each buyer a few (inexpensive) instrument cables, just to get them started; and, will post a message at work that I have extra cables.   

 

So -- no hurry to build yet another instrument cable:  I have enough.

Still disappointing, though, that someone would sell a "microphone" cable that doesn't meet the minimum standard. 

--GG

 

 

P.S.  I've written this blog entry (and also e-mailed the above to a few musician-y friends) -- so I might just wrap it up rather than getting out my soldering gear:  another night.  :)

Good vs great guitar effects pedals

Someone -- I think it was The Edge, in a YouTube interview where he shows off his guitar rig -- said that with most guitar effects pedals you can get at least one useful sound out of them -- and I think that's true.

I was messing around with some effects pedals this afternoon, and with some of them, yeah, I could get a useful sound. 

But with two of them, I could get many different useful sounds.  And -- probably not coincidentally -- the sounds I got made me want to keep playing and playing and playing. 


I guess you could say that the difference between a "good" and a "great" guitar pedal is that a great pedal makes you chortle, and want to keep playing.  And probably inspires recurring riffage.



--GG

Day 3 of vacation -- Monday

We're down to one car (the other is in the shop), so we all left the house at the same time.  Dropped the kids off at school, then drove The Lady to work.


Stopped by a used bookstore on the way back from The Lady's work, browsed, and picked up an autobiography of the main accompanist of some famous Australian singer (Dame Nellie Melba; never heard of her, but my [Australian] wife had).  I've only read part of it, but the blurb in the jacket indicates that he was active from the 1920s through 1960s.  The book is copyright 1983, and a note from the publishers indicates that, sadly, the author passed away prior to the publication of the book.  Hello, Mister Melody Man, by Lindley Evans.  Engagingly written (IMO), and discusses music things (which is of interest to me).


I'd originally planned to do various outdoor things today (yardwork and/or woodworking) -- but since I had access to a car today, I did various errands instead.  Was planning to catch the 10:45am showing of Alita:  Battle Angel (no one else in my household was interested but me), so stopped by the house to pick up a flannel shirt (I sometimes get cold in air conditioning), then got to the theatre by 10:35.

Bought the ticket and was in my seat just a few minutes before the start time -- but then had to sit through (literally) 10 minutes of ads.  Then came four or five trailers -- but unfortunately, they were trailers I had already seen on YouTube.

The movie was good, though:  will review shortly.


After the movie I went to the mall's food court and bought a Hungry Jack's (the AU branding of Burger King) vegan burger and ate it while reading the book on U2 (the band).  Then got a frozen cola on the way out.


Stopped by the local Cash Converters (a chain of pawn shops).  Browsed the DVDs and picked up Fear and Loathing in Vegas (with Johnny Depp), which I'd been meaning to see sometime.  For a dollar.  Australian (so, about 80c in the U.S.).

Then walked a few shops down to the sewing, crafts, and art supplies place, to buy the right color thread for repairing a pair of The Lady's slacks:  a seam is coming undone.  Will probably repair sometime this week.


Went home for about a half hour, and did some YouTube research to compare two guitar delay pedals that I would be choosing between that evening:  a guy on Gumtree was selling a cheap one and a medium-priced one, and they had slightly different "flavors" -- so I needed to decide (thought it would be to extravagant to buy both).


Left to pick up the kids from school, then picked up The Lady from work.  She ended up being on a phone call, so we had to wait for a bit.

Then we drove down to the Gumtree seller's place:  should've only taken 15 minutes, but the GPS app somehow sent us in the wrong direction (bad address entering?), so we then had to backtrack by 15 minutes.  Made a reasonably quick decision (bought the less-cheap pedal).  Drove home. 


Dinner.  A little Netflix, while eating.



Remedially post blog entries for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (tonight).  Is now 10:40pm, 



Noodle around on the guitar while trying out my new (used) pedal:  probably use single-coil pickups.  Maybe some Netflix or a DVD after that.  To bed around midnight?


Staying home tomorrow.  Probably finish cutting up the palm tree and removing it from the neighbor's property, then finish shooting the property line.  Possibly do some woodworking -- maybe some lathe work.


Yet another good day.  Vacation.  :)


--GG

Basically have all the tools I need

I took the day off work today, partly "just because", but also because I had to burn off some excess hours.  Dropped the kids off at school, watched the (oddly long) awards ceremony (one of my sons received a "high achievement" award for the semester), and then left around 10 or 10:30am (I don't remember).

Among my wanderings, I stopped off at Carba-Tec for the first time in about a year.  They sell machine and hand-tool woodworking tools -- for woodworking hobbyists, not the "hardware store" types of tools:  so, medium- to upper-end.  For some reason -- maybe because they sell Japanese-style saws, chisels and handplanes -- they also sell Japanese cooking knives.

I confirmed something interesting: there really aren't any additional woodworking tools I need -- or even particularly want:  I've reached saturation.  Any tools that I need to accomplish the sort of woodworking that I like to do, I already own.  So, really, I just need to log more shop time -- not accumulate more tools.

(Exception:  a old-style, 1-2 person crosscut handsaw -- for sawing more efficiently through larger logs.  But there's no urgency.)

Similarly:  even though I appreciate a good-quality cooking knife, I really only use four knives: a chef's knife, a Japanese cleaver-like vegetable knife, a paring knife, and a modified paring knife for coring apples.  And I already own all of those.  So even though they had a number of nice-looking -- and reasonably-priced -- Japanese knives... I don't need 'em.


Upon further reflection, I don't really need any more musical instruments or recording gear.  In a lot of ways, it's more interesting to operate within the limitations of my equipment.  And I have a simple recording interface; a few inexpensive mics; an acoustic and an electric guitar; an electric bass; an inexpensive synth; and various pieces of percussion.  That's really all I need to record any of the songs I've written. 

 
So -- even though it's fun to browse online ads, trawling for musical bargains -- I'd be better served by applying that time to actually recording -- or at least, playing an instrument.




--GG

This is my reasoning

As I mentioned, I'm slowly, methodically going through my belonging, and divesting of things that I don't use, and which don't bring me enjoyment.


One of the items is a guitar effects pedal, which I bought three(?) years ago, and have used perhaps 5-8 times since then.  It's... fine.  But it doesn't captivate me.  It's a Korg AX1G (pictured), which is a multi-effects pedal:  all of the effects are "stacked" (i.e. for each setting, one sound feeds into another) -- whereas I've discovered that I prefer the sound of only distortion, or only chorus, or only a phaser.  So.


I mentioned the pedal to a co-worker, who expressed interest.  So I brought it in to work, and we took it downstairs to the sub-basement parking garage and he played through it.  I keep an electric guitar and a small amplifier under my desk at work -- because, doesn't everybody?

He decided that he liked it, and would buy it off me.  I told him I'd sell it for fifty bucks -- which is what I got it for (it was originally stickered at $65, I think, but I'd haggled down the price to fifty); I didn't want to make a profit off a co-worker.

I held it for him at my desk for a few days -- but then yesterday (Wednesday) he texted me from home (he works from home on Wednesdays) to say that he'd had a few unexpected bills, so he couldn't pay me for a while.  He said that if I wanted to back out of the deal and sell it to someone else, he would understand.


I pondered -- and the next day I handed the pedal to him and told him to take it home and use it, and to just pay me whenever he could.  Here's my reasoning:

-I could bring it back home; hold it at my desk; or give it to him to hold at his desk or take home.  I'd prefer to not have it at my desk or at home.

-I could continue to advertise it on Gumtree (the AU analog to Craigslist); or I could just sell it to him (on credit, I guess it is).  I trust him to pay me eventually -- and it's more about "getting it out of my house" and "finding a good home, where it will be appreciated and used" than "immediately getting fifty bucks".


And that's what it is.


 --GG

Walco effects pedals or effects units

Sorry -- I haven't posted a blog entry for a while.  I actually have a few remedial ones that I've been planning on posting:  I just haven't had the time.  Well, first my PC died, and it took me a few weeks to get a new (used!) one and install Mint Linux on it.

Anyways...


I've been going through some of my music gear that I bought while living in Seattle -- placed in boxes prior to moving to Australia -- and literally have not been used in over a decade.  I've been putting a few things on Gumtree (the Australian analog to CraigsList) as a result.

One of the oddities that I turned up is a complete set of the eight little guitar effects units put out by Walco.  So I put them on Gumtree as a bulk set.

But then I thought that as part of my ad, I should link to some online sound samples -- maybe a YouTube video?  Oddly, I couldn't find any on YouTube.


So:  as a service to the online guitar community, I played through each of the eight effects units, and am now in the process of posting the results to YouTube.  Just search for "Walco - Effects" and they should come up.


Some thoughts on the series: 


I bought these in the late '90s as "New Old Stock", while living in Seattle. Some I took out of the packaging and had a play; others (two of them) were(!!!) still unopened in their original packaging -- until about a week ago.

That is:  until a week ago, I hadn't used them since I bought them. I've gone away from musical devices that **don't** allow A/C power and only run off of batteries -- so I'm unlikely to make use of these. So I'm putting them back in the ocean (i.e. selling them).

I'll try to make the following descriptions more or less align with their ordering in the photo (note the piano keyboard, as a scale reference [no pun intended]). I'll group my descriptions by form factor.


BOX W/ SHORT CABLE, AND CLIP TO HANG FROM GUITAR STRAP:

-BASS-TREBLE EXPANDER (blue pedal) -- A bass booster or treble booster. Has an "On/Off" slider switch, a slider switch that allows for a bass boost, or a treble boost, and a knob for the amount of boost. I accidentally found a YouTube clip here -- https://youtu.be/Zs3QcHCqVoM .  The treble booster is piercing; the bass boost is more like an octave pedal.  As you can see from the photos (below), you choose either treble or bass boost -- not both at once.

-SOUND-GO-ROUND (bright green) - Tremelo. The On/Off slider switch was broken, so I removed it and bypassed it -- so now it's always on (you could bypass it with a loop pedal). You could probably replace it with another switch -- or mod it with a footswtich-style pedal. Has a knob to control the speed.

-FUZZ TONE GENERATOR (pink) - Fuzz. An On/Off slider switch, and a knob for the amount of fuzz.


BOX WITH A INPUT JACK AND AN OUTPUT PLUG:

-AUTOMATIC LEVEL CONTROL (dark green) -- A limiter?  Had to tell, exactly. On/Off slider switch,and a knob to set the output level.

-SIGNAL BOOSTER (orange) (New In Box) -- Boost pedal, presumably --- except my version doesn't (it just chokes the sound, really). On/Off slider switch, a slider switch for the polarity of the unit (i.e. does the tip go into your instrument, or into your amp?), and a knob for the degree of boost.

-ACOUSTIC FEEDBACK ELIMINATOR (Yellow) -- It's some sort of gate -- like a noise gate... -ish.  The text on the back of the packing implies an expander noise gate -- but they don't use those words. A slider knob for On/Off, and a "Attack control" knob.  It also overdrove the input to my amp, due to all the make-up gain.  Or maybe it was internally overloading, due to low headroom or a design error in the gain-staging.  Overall, mildly peculiar.


BOX WITH SIMPLY AN OUTPUT PLUG:

-ACCU-TUNER (red) - Electronic tuning fork. Slider switch between generating an A-440Hz output tone, or an E-349.23Hz tone. No input, just the output plug.  Gives a steady tone.  If the slider switch was replaced with a better switch (a toggle switch?), you could possibly do something interesting with this -- like use it as a drone for a song in the key of E or A.


F/X PEDAL:

-"CHORD AND NOTE SUSTAINER" (brown pedal) -- From memory, like an over-exuberant compressor (see the YouTube video).  Useful for creating feedback but with the maximum volume still being mild.  No actual controls except the "On/Off" foot button.


None of them run off A/C adaptors: you have to use 9V batteries.


My web search indicates that they largely fall into the "So bad they're good" (or "So bad they're only bad?") category. Maybe for a hard core guitar effects pedal collector? Or for someone who wants trashy, low-fi sounds.



As I mentioned, I tried all of them -- including (somewhat reluctantly; but "for the good of science") taking out the two "New In Box" units.

Surprisingly, a few were actually good -- and most were... "interesting".

I wouldn't take them gigging or for live performance, because they're too unreliable (esp. the switches).  But they might have some studio/recording uses.  If you used them regularly, I'd suggest removing the slider switches and replacing them with more robust toggle switches.  And possibly getting an A/C adaptor -- although some people think that running small effects boxes off of wall current can introduce noise into the signal chain.


Here are two forums that make a brief mention of Walco effects units (I'm sure there are others):

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/walco-effects.1722379/

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/guitar/acapella-29/1877286-


I agree with the assessment in the first link, in that the Chord and Note Sustainer is interesting and potentially usable.  The guy also like dthe Signal Booster (if he recalls correctly) -- but mine was not terribly useful (as noted in the YouTube video):  the "boost" was only up to the input level, and it added a lot of dropouts -- but not in an interesting "glitchy" way.  (Hard to explain; just see the YouTube video, once I post it.)

A second poster in the first link also says that the Sound-Go-Round sucks; I disagree.  The second poster also says the she/he got the boost, which didn't work even though it was new out of the box:  that's more similar to my own experience.

And etcetera.  Just take a look at both of those threads.   ;)


Finally:  I'm going to post some pics of all of the pedals.  Since this is somewhat for archival/public service purposes, I'm going to leave them at full (cheap cell-phone!) resolution:  so about 400kB, not 50-ish kB.

Anyhow:  by the time you read this, these probably will be sold to the four winds.


--GG

Using headphones as microphones

One of the things I did during my week's vacation is I took three sets of earbuds and two inexpensive headphones and attempted to re-purpose them as microphones.  I had collected them over the last few months, for this purpose.

Two of the sets of earbuds didn't work (due to a puppy's gnawing); one set of earbuds was uncomfortable for the kids; and the two headphones simply didn't work.

Most headphones and speakers work on the same principle as dynamic (moving-coil) microphones -- but in an opposite direction: headphones turn electricity into vibrating air; whereas microphones turn vibrating air into electricity. So, in a pinch you can use headphones and speakers as (somewhat inefficient) microphones.


The top photo shows the headphones that I tested, and two of the three sets of earbuds.  I later found a third set of earbuds on my desk, which I had tossed there a few weeks earlier with the same intent of possibly re-purposing them as a microphone.

This next photo is of the two blue earbuds -- including the one that I found after I'd done my test -- that didn't work.  Both of the earbuds that did not work as microphones were on the right-hand side.  The left-hand side for both of these had been torn off by our puppy.

That is:  if the puppy had torn off the right-side earbuds, and retained the left side -- then they probably would've worked as microphones.

I believe that the left-side earbuds (and headphone speakers) work as microphones is because of how the "one-eighths-inch to one-quarter-inch adaptor plug" will "ground" the plug -- i.e. combines the "ring" signal with the other portion of the plug.


And, this photo shows the finalists in this process:  the two "real" headphones, plus the black "they work, but they're uncomfortable to wear" earbuds.  All of them actually worked as microphones.  So, three out of five isn't too bad. 


I've posted a YouTube video below, that demonstrates the sound quality from these three "microphones".  I used two signal sources: my voice, and a harmonica.

If I'd thought further, I would've also compared these to a "real" microphone, like a Shure SM57. Ah well.

The blue headphones seemed to be open-backed -- so on the voice test I also spoke into the back. Also notice that I often tried the mics from two positions: about six inches, and about a foot. Because I recorded these during my kids' piano lessons (occurring in the adjacent room), there's noticeably more "spill" with the more distant micing -- as one would expect.




I edited the audio clips together in Audacity (freeware multitrack audio software), and added some simple compression and normalization, just to make the various sound clips comparable and of similar volume. No equalization or other effects have been added.


So:  pretty decent for "free" microphones. 


--GG

My lists

I have some whisperings of OCD.  For I don't know how long (since college, I think), any book that I purchase I write my name, the date, the location of purchase, and the price, somewhere inside, near the front.

I've done the same thing with CDs, inside the CD booklet (but curiously, not for DVDs -- or for LPs or cassettes, for that matter).

I have four "running" documents on my computer, where I fairly compulsively log the date, location, price, and misc. notes regarding the item in question:  one list for "Music gear" (including guitar magazines); one for computer things; one for woodworking (and gardening) things; and one for sports/exercise/martial arts things.


I keep these lists partly because I'm curious about how much my various hobbies cost me -- and I need to collect the data as it occurs -- because once data is lost, it's gone for good.  I also record this information because I'm sentimental, but have a mediocre memory -- so (for example), I want to be able to remember which similar looking backsaw I got from my wife for my birthday; which was from that garage sale down the street; and which was from my grandfather's estate.

And, I'm curious as to how much prices shift over time.  So I sometimes browse back through my lists to (for example) see how much a bottle of boiled linseed oil cost me, four years ago.



The upside of my list-making is that I have **very** good records of (some of) my belongings:  when we got burglarized shortly after moving to Australia, I was able to give **very** specific details to the cops, and the insurance company, about the guitars that were swiped.

The downside to the list-making is that I often have a backlog of tools (and etc.) piled next to my computer that I'm not "allowed" to use -- because I haven't yet logged them.


I'm OK with that.

Choices, choices, choices.


--GG

I want this someday

I read about Tweed brand mixing consoles (from the '70s?) in a magazine article.

My web search led me to this page, including a catalog of Tweed mixers (see the link on that page).

I particularly like the one that I've linked to (see photo to the left).  Someday...  [sigh...]


There was also an article on that website about the "original" 4-track cassette recorders.  This one is very similar to the model that I had.

Or, rather -- I still do have it.  It's in a box somewhere.


--GG

Free speakers

As I've mentioned before, I love scavenging for treasures.  And therefore, I love the "kerbside rubbish" weeks -- where people place larger items out on the kerb, for the rubbish collectors to (sometime that week) pick up.

About five days ago I was driving to where I park my car to commute by train.  Amongst the other items piled in front of one house, I saw an item which I perceived as a large shopping bag with two large blue circles on the front (photo above) .

But the next morning, I drove more slowly, and realized:  a speaker box!!!

So that evening, on my way home after work, I grabbed it.


Here are some more shots:
 

Just a simple plywood box, with a bass port, and rope handles.  I checked the terminals on the back, and we indeed have continuity:  about eight Ohms worth.  So at some point I'll add a quarter-inch jack (the front is held on by screws -- so, easy to disassemble), sand it just a bit, and paint it blue or green (or, blue-green).


And then -- just yesterday -- I came across this pair of speakers:

Just a fake wood-grain vinyl covering, and some sort of chipboard constuction.  As you can see from the reference ruler, they're about one foot by one foot by one foot (or:  30cm x 30cm x 30cm).

As with the earlier speaker box, both of these speakers have continuity -- so they probably work -- although I haven't tried them with an actual signal.  For these, the resistance is just above four Ohms.

At some point -- but not until the new year at the earliest -- I'm going to connect them together with some scrap wood, wire the two speakers in series (so the total will be around nine or ten Ohms -- and that's OK [better to have too much impedance than not enough!]), and mount a quarter-inch jack on a spacer between the two speaker boxes.

And, again:  paint them some variation of blue or green:  I have a fair amount of "mis-tint" paint in blue and in green, which I pick up cheap.


FWIW, here's the plate on the back of one of them.  It's an actual brand name -- although I don't know anything about the fanciness of that brand.

Anyhow -- two "free" (plus labor) speaker cabinets, within the space of a week:  not bad.

Although:  I wish people would throw away from amplifiers, or guitars...  ;)


--GG

Adorable pedal

There was an ad in the local, online, classifieds for this effects pedal (used -- at a very good price).  I picked it up today.

I think it's adorable:  it's about half the width of a typical guitar effects pedal, and maybe 80% of the usual length. It's so small that a nine-volt battery won't fit inside:  you have to use an external power supply.

It's a Mooer "Pure Octave", from their "Micro Series Compact Pedal".  The large white pedal chooses the harmony notes: e.g. "+2 -1" produces one octave below, and two octaves above. The small black knobs are "SUB" (the lower octaves), "DRY" (presumably, the wet/dry mix), and "UPPER" (the upper octaves).

I haven't had a chance to play it yet -- but I bought it on the strength of some of the YouTube demos.


--GG

Ikea equipment rack

If the below makes you wet yourself just a little...

...then you need a good place to put them.


Apparently, the spacing between the legs of an Ikea "Lack" table are the same as for electronic "rack" gear.

That's pretty clever.


More here:  https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack


Addendum:  no way!  There's one on wheels!  US$50.  That's a **very** good price for a wheeled rack unit...

--GG

Firefly light pick

Old Roommate knows me far too well!  :)  For no apparent reason, except "I think that GG would appreciate this", he sent me a USB-powered guitar pick -- which flashes green when you strum.

But of course.  :)



So:  a substantial "thank you!" to Old Roommate.  :)


--GG

Taiko-style drumsticks

Regular-sized drumsticks feel insubstantial to me.

I usually use a pair that my late (paternal) grandfather made for me, which are a little larger diameter.  But I was looking for something even heftier:  something like is used in Taiko drumming (you don't have to watch the whole thing; you get the idea in the first 15 seconds):




I stopped by the local drumming supplies shop, but they didn't have anything relevant in stock.  The guy said he could order something in for me -- but it would be about forty bucks.  Nah.

So, I went to the local mega-hardware store and picked up a hardwood dowel (25mm by 0.9m long; so, about one inch by three feet).  Cost me three bucks.

Cut it in half,  then rounded off the ends with a rasp, then a file.  Wanted to minimize the denting of drumheads by making the contact surface less of a crescent shape, and more of a sphere.


Here's a comparison of the old end, and the modified end:

Here's my hand in the shot, to give a sense of scale:

And, here's a comparison of the three different sizes:

And, here's me making a comparison: 




As the little annotations say, I'm not sure if I can tell the difference in sound (with the built-in camera mic).  But they **feel** heftier -- so that's worth something.


--GG

Hold it

I love a bargain -- and I enjoy re-purposing items.

There's a store downtown called The Reject Shop, where they stock various discontinued items and food that's near its expiration date.

They had a iPhone holder that mounts with a suction cup.  It's supposed to be for your car.

(That's a calculator:  I don't own an iPhone.)


But, I saw it, and realized that it would actually work well as a microphone holder.

The bananas are a counterweight.  I hadn't taken off the protective coating, so the mondo suction cup didn't work as it should -- sticking it to the laptop case.

For five bucks -- totally worth it.


--GG

How did I not notice

As you should know by now, I like green.

So, tonight I was idly browsing gumtree.com.au, which is the Australian version of Craigslist (but with a nicer interface), and I came across this photo:

...and I thought (of course), "Hey!  A green and black bass amp!  Neat-o!"

My second thought was, "Is this the standard Trace Elliot color scheme?"  A further search within Gumtree shows that it apparently is:

I **like** the above amp. Not only is it green and black, but it looks solid and muscle-y.  Someday I'll buy one -- but for now, I have nowhere to put it.

A nifty discovery, though.

--GG

Oddball pedal

While intonating the Hanna Montana guitar that I keep at work (doesn't everyone???), the bolt that adjusts one of the saddles got stuck:  cheap hardware.  So, I'm going to replace it with a Les Paul-style bridge.

Since I'll be modding it anyhow, I decided to do some funky things with the electronics (which I'll describe when I actually **do** it).  So I had to dig though my pile of boxes to find the box (about the size of a shoebox) of electronics parts that I haven't used in three years.

Managed to find it!  And, in doing so, came across this oddball effects pedal.

I don't actually remember buying it -- but, clearly I did.  Likely off of eBay, around 2002 or 2003, in Seattle.  Presumably I tested it, to make sure it worked...


Guitarists will, at first glance, think it's a wah-wah pedal.  The rest of you can do a YouTube search for wah pedals; I'm sure there's a few videos there.

BUT -- note that it has an XLR output (microphone output) on the side.  The other side has a mic input.

As indicated by the instructions on the back (click photo to enlarge), you set a minimum and maximum volume level with the two knobs on the side.  Then you use the foot pedal to sweep between those two settings.

Kind of like a guitarists volume pedal -- except that it's for micing the amp for recording or PA work.


My immediate thought is that this pedal is clever -- but wrong-headed. Seems like you could just use a distortion, boost or overdrive pedal (with the level of distortion set to minimum) to get a louder or quieter volume ''on the fly''.  Or, just use a volume pedal (although, it wouldn't have the pre-set volume levels).

But my second thought was that if you leave the mic at the same level and reduce the guitar signal, then the room noise (and amp hum) will still exist, and may overshadow the ''good'' (guitar) signal that you want.  So having a way of keeping the guitar output volume at the same relative level to the room noise and the amp hum actually makes a lot of sense.


Still, I don't think I'll actually use it:  when recording, I don't tend to turn my effects on and off.  So everything for that pass is supposed to be at a fairly consistent volume.

So, oddball -- and I'll probably never use it.  But perhaps it's collectable.


Certainly, it's interesting.  :)

--GG


P.S.  For the Google search robots:  it's a Jim Dunlop ''Lead Master'' pedal, model SL-50.

Small houses

This series (available on YouTube) looks interesting.

This one is about a houseboat with enough room for band practice (!!!).




And this tiny row-house is pretty nifty, as well.




--GG

Guitar Cousin

Had an excellent time with Guitar Cousin.

Spent three evenings blasting through the entire Firefly series on DVD: had heard of Firefly for years, esp. thru the online comic strip XKCD; my brother showed me the pilot double-episode the week before; and Guitar Cousin showed me the rest. OK -- I'm sold! :)

Guitar Cousin dug out his electronic drums, and we jammed one evening -- him on guitar and me on drums, and then we swapped. Good stuff: pretty sure I hadn't played music with anyone since 2003.

Although I don't practice the drums as often as I'd like, I was pleased that I'm hovering around the lower reaches of ''adequate''. Certainly, far above the realm of ''suckage''.


Also, one of my ''upgrades to do'', once I'd saved up the money, was to upgrade my recording capabilities from two channels at once to four or six channels: at the moment I can do stereo micing, or a near-mic and a distant-mic (to enhance the fullness of the sound) -- but I'd have a hard time recording a band all at once, or recording myself playing the drums.

But, Guitar Cousin sold me one of his ''old technology'' six-input computer interfaces for fifty bucks. Beneficial to both of us: I upgraded for much less than a comparable unit would cost ''new'', and he got fifty bucks for something that was just sitting in his closet (although, he could've just eBayed it if he wanted).


And, while I was there, it snowed.



Worried me a little, as I have to be at the airport in a week, and it would stink to be snowed in. But it was still a novelty for me -- being from the sub-tropical portion of Australia.

Good stuff. :)


--GG

Geek fun

I've had this cable tester for about a year, but a few days ago (the 10th) was the first time I've actually used it.

**Very** handy! Tested a few microphone cables, plus a guitar cable that has been giving me some trouble. The photo shows a red guitar cable being tested.


Runs off a 9V battery. Very easy to use: just plug in a cable to the left side, and the right side of the box. Then turn the knob to test the various connections. If it works correctly, the correct LEDs light up.

Flexible, too: the two ends of the cables don't have to be in the same format. This means that you can test ''adaptor'' cables if you like. And it takes many different formats: the black lines indicate all of the input jacks available, each in a different format.


--GG