llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Wed May 07, 2025 2:45 pm Good idea, I had it going through a Tronographic Boxidizer, but I think an EQ pedal would find the sweet spot a little better. Plus a vintage style comp to help shave off that 80s style attack. I never made the connection between the Rhodes Mk II and that one goddamn DX7 sound, but I can see its kind of a logical progression now.

The Reface electric piano has been in and out of action since I got it - lately I’ve left it in my daughter’s play area, since I use a big midi controller with it that stays elsewhere I’m not super concerned about her breaking it.

I’m sure part of it’s probably a quirk having to do with monitoring, but running these things dry w/ no onboard drive or effects, adding your own pedals, and plugging them into a tube amp really makes these things sound their best. I started out doing that, loved it, then just started DI-ing every time I recorded with it of laziness and it kind of started to get boring and got demoted downstairs.

I had a Roger Mayer Univibe plugged in on the Wurlitzer setting and was getting sounds right off of Paris 1919.

I tried micing the amp with a 421, ribbon, condenser, etc - it all works depending on the song, but I think the position was most important as micing it right in the center of the speaker cone doesn’t really do it any favors if you are going after a vintage thing, even with a ribbon. I was using a big bright EV 15L speaker and should probably try a stout 12 next time.

I noticed HP/LP filters as needed were better than EQ boosting certain areas can throw the balance of the keyboard off depending on the range you are using for that song. Compression of course, tape sim just to take the edge off the very hardest hits, but most of the sound should already be there. None of the pedals/outboard/amp, including the univibe, are doing very much at all, but all together it just gets a classic sound with a weight I couldn’t get out of the DI.

A DI works of course, but that isn’t how I was able to get that thing sounding its best. I was also doing all this stuff before it got to the recorder.

Very, very happy with this thing right now. I found with monitoring through the amp I also calmed down my playing a lot, so things turned out better all around.

I should probably even try a mic on the shitty little internal speaker and see what that sounds like - I have it turned off by default, but it could be cool, especially if you wanted to monitor w/o headphones live in a room but keep the volume down.

yes! Synths be instruments that should exist in rooms

Working like 20 hours of OT next week but a lot of that time is going to be sitting in a production booth waiting to do nothing so I bought a Sonicware ELZ1 MK2 to take to work with me. It is super fun and doe a lot with very easy workflow. It's like the width of a computer keyboard and is well built. Feels pretty good to use and I'm used to the little chicklet keys since I have other Sonicware groove boxes. You can hook up a midi keyboard and use it as a brain if you want to play for real but this thing runs on batteries and fits in my backpack. It's kinda a blast.

https://sonicware.jp/pages/elz_1-play

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Mon Jan 05, 2026 11:44 am Reface electric piano

I noticed HP/LP filters as needed were better than EQ boosting certain areas can throw the balance of the keyboard off depending on the range you are using for that song. Compression of course, tape sim just to take the edge off the very hardest hits, but most of the sound should already be there. None of the pedals/outboard/amp, including the univibe, are doing very much at all, but all together it just gets a classic sound with a weight I couldn’t get out of the DI.

Amending this slightly. Finally found a use for a limiter besides drums I was trying to process sorta-heavy handed (for me).

I just picked up a old DBX 118 compressor/Expander on Ebay for like a hundo on a whim. It actually sounds extremely cool and vibey. Great in parallel on a drum buss to make bombastic. The Expander is way cooler than I expected. If you needed to pull a kick and snare up out of a drum mix with too much cymbal wash this would do a nice job of it in parallel. I like it! Might be good on bass too.

I just got the new Soyuz M1 dynamic mic. It's been getting a lot of hype online, I'm short on handy all-around guitar mics so I decided to give it a whirl.

I posted a (too) long review over on the Tapeop Board. In short, the thing rules. Tested on guitar amp and snare against other favorite mics and it holds its own. It's billed as being bright for a dynamic, but I concluded it's not harsh, just really articulate. The big grill vent design they have makes it fairly immune to proximity effect which made it handle some overdriven drop-D riffage with plenty of oomph, but less murk than my SM7b, or m201. The top end is very articulate and could keep the chimier side of an overdriven 6-string chord present.

On snare it had less of the almost boomy fundamental the m201 can get when placed really close to the drum. Little more high mids, less low mid but in a balanced way., the Soyuz had more overtones in its "crack" and handled the open hi hat hash commendably.

At $300 it's a dang good deal.

Cool, have been interested in the Soyuz things.

Samson S-patch - arrived but the last two jack pairs were loose and had the washers falling off. I fixed it but was suspicious and ran every single patch through a cable tester and its all working. It seems solid otherwise, but that kind of sucks. Don’t think I’ll return it now that it’s tested.

I almost RUINED that import Guild Starfire XII just by playing it. I switch pickups and stuff a lot when I’m playing and the damn pickup switch went to pieces in the middle of a take and fell inside the guitar. I generally stay away from Squier and stuff and this is why - never had that problem before, even with the 50 year old basket cases I usually play.

I’m sure I’ll be more gentle with the patchbay tho!

Ampeg SVT-210AV.

https://imgur.com/a/YeaTCP2

Traded in some stuff I wasn’t using to my local Music Go Round for this. Light as a feather and takes my Quilter Pro Block pretty well on both guitar and bass. (Aside: the Pro Block on bass with its limited EQ sounded pretty flexible for both clean and dirty bass sounds. My partner said it sounded pretty loud in the apartment and I wasn’t going above the 2 watt mark on the MV.)

Not sure how it’ll handle rock band duty; if I’m ever seriously playing bass in a band again I’ll probably get another 210AV or like a 115 to pair up.

defendyachtrock wrote: Sat Jan 24, 2026 8:58 pm Ampeg SVT-210AV.

https://imgur.com/a/YeaTCP2

Traded in some stuff I wasn’t using to my local Music Go Round for this. Light as a feather and takes my Quilter Pro Block pretty well on both guitar and bass. (Aside: the Pro Block on bass with its limited EQ sounded pretty flexible for both clean and dirty bass sounds. My partner said it sounded pretty loud in the apartment and I wasn’t going above the 2 watt mark on the MV.)

Not sure how it’ll handle rock band duty; if I’m ever seriously playing bass in a band again I’ll probably get another 210AV or like a 115 to pair up.

Share practice space with a bassist that uses this cab. It's a bit underpowered to keep up with 2 guitarists. He's been using my 1*15 instead.

Love how fucking light it is though.

I've got the 2x12 version of that cab as my main gigging cab and it hits the sweet spot between a 2x10 and something like a 4x10+1x15 stack. Enough low end that I don't miss hauling around a 15, but "punchy" enough that I don't miss the 10s.