AKG P4 may be my new favorite snare mic. It's small and easy to place and it sounds great for for something like $60.

croc skin selmer is a grail amp for me - I believe it's the swervedriver studio amp of choice?

So I’ve been on a sdc kick lately since my last post about stereo pairs. I was able to find single examples of AT4051, KSM137, and a C451 all for about $150-$250 each so I could just try them my own damn self, or I would have bought FM Nate’s Oktavas as soon as he listed them.

It turns out that I loved the sound of a C451 on my Taylor acoustic guitar. It totally killed the At4051 and KSM by just sounding like a good acoustic guitar on a good record. I think mine is a C452EB, which is the same thing but made for phantom power. I don’t know if mine has the fancy CK1 capsule.
It did pick up a lot of bleed from voice, though. Maybe more than the others? The phase was pretty ok since I was singing into a dynamic but it messed me up a little when I tried to add a little fake Plate to the acoustic sound, which caused a weird-not-good room resonance on the voice.

Between the AT4051 and the KSM137 I preferred the KSM solo’d, but then preferred the 4051 as tracks were added. The sound of the Audio Technica just seemed to speak more w/ stuff piled around it.

I like the 4051 on percussion and kind of halfheartedly tried the KSM137 as well and it sounded totally fine.

Anyways, they all sound fine but I am pleased to have a clear preference.

That is awesome, I'm going to see if we have a C451 around

On the coldest day in Chicago history, FM steve welcomed me on an off day to bring some acoustic guitars to record them - I recorded about 4-6 hours of tape and footage of Steve going in depth as to mic'ing acoustic guitars (Taylors specifically) and then my work's marketing dept. completely bungled it all getting edited as a video series and never released. Steve was, as you can imagine, too cool to about it. Now with his passing I have some arm wrangling to do to release it as, why not get as much steve content in the world as possible - and acoustic mic technique is fantastic

TylerDeadPine wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 5:34 pm I recorded about 4-6 hours of tape and footage of Steve going in depth as to mic'ing acoustic guitars (Taylors specifically)

?!?! Of course that would be great to see, but it’s cool that you were even able to make that happen. Couldn’t imagine

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 7:43 pm

TylerDeadPine wrote: Wed May 15, 2024 5:34 pm I recorded about 4-6 hours of tape and footage of Steve going in depth as to mic'ing acoustic guitars (Taylors specifically)

?!?! Of course that would be great to see, but it’s cool that you were even able to make that happen. Couldn’t imagine

it was all steve really. I just brought stuff, my friend/veteran filmographer-ier and spouse as "Tedious Task Person" (oh the pre-cancer days). To add spice to the story, the people that played the guitars were Andy Cohen, Rob Bochnik and Eric Ziegenhagen, who were all amazing. (As expected)

Hayman 4040 arrived today. Baseball-bat neck with no taper, Kind of like a Ric, but thicker than the one on my 4003. Sounds like a cross between a Ric and a P. Currently strung with flatwounds, I bet it would growl with roundwounds.

Turns out it's the same one featured on this page: https://blackguitars.com/burns-1969-hayman-4040.html
I had seen those photos before, and when it arrived and I saw the indian head nickel in the headstock, I immediately recognized it.

benadrian wrote: Fri Apr 26, 2024 12:16 am I just picked up one of those 15 watt Monoprice amps that’s based on the Laney Cub amp. It was “broken” and dirt cheap. I swapped some tubes and got it working. It sounded okay. The reverb is total dog shit. Then I plugged it into one of my 1-12 cabs and holy crap! It was not life changing, but for a super budget amp it sounded quite good. It seems like the two biggest weak spots are the speaker and the cabinet materials.

This amp is kind of un-mod-able due to a lot of surface mount stuff. Still, I did a relatively easy mod yesterday.

The effects loop and reverb are on the same, separate PCB. There are socketed wires on the inside connecting the boards. The reverb is dog shit, and I'm never going to use the effects loop. So I pulled the Loop/reverb board, and that removed all the solid state circuitry. Using one of the leftover, two-connector wires, I was able to jump right from the preamp out to the power amp in.

The amp came to life a bit more, and got a little bit of extra volume. The loop and reverb mixing circuit was padding the level into the power amp. I think this was to make the master volume more smooth, and to keep people from always slamming the power amp. The sound now is like a cool, modded JCM 800. This might turn into my "practice loud rock at home" amp until something fries. Then, sadly, it might just become e-waste.

benadrian wrote: I just picked up one of those 15 watt Monoprice amps that’s based on the Laney Cub amp. It was “broken” and dirt cheap. I swapped some tubes and got it working. It sounded okay. The reverb is total dog shit. Then I plugged it into one of my 1-12 cabs and holy crap! It was not life changing, but for a super budget amp it sounded quite good. It seems like the two biggest weak spots are the speaker and the cabinet materials

This was exactly the same experience I had w/ that little Vox T4V that was out like 15-20 years ago. Amazing in a 4x12 & a little different sound than I was used to hearing. Was hoping to keep it as a contrasting flavor for recording distorted guitars but....yeah, absolutely e-waste. It died extremely quickly and while it was much more moddable/repairable than what you're describing for the monoprice amp, it just wasn't worth it for the $50 or whatever I paid for it.

Yamaha YC30 combo organ... I owned one for around a decade back in the late 90s early aughts and sold it to Kerble (it's how we met!) and have missed it ever since. Got a deal and it's fantastic. Feels and sounds so familiar and I'll never let it go again. I love you yc30