Gear Acquisition Syndrome tawag nila… but I am just setting up my home studio for better and easier workflow. Here are my latest aqcuisitions:
Bought this 2nd hand but its good as new. Complete with box and all its peripherals. It is a Behringer UMX41 midi controller. At least now I can program midi tracks with ease. Plus I have more controls on other parameters using its knobs and stuffs like that. Also got benders which I dont have on the other Yamaha PSR I was using. This device is very helpful specially in programming drums. It can actually read the velocity of your playing. Makes drum tracking easier coz you wont be editing velocity of each snare. Making the drumming more realistic.
This comes with A Behringer UCA 200 which is a simple usb audio interface with stereo in and out. All you need is a good mixer and you can start tracking any instrument or mic without worrying about latency issues. Just plug in the input from you stereo out of you mixer then plug in the output to a dedicated channel that does not go to the main mix (for monitoring lang of playback from PC). You can simultaneously record 2 tracks from here or one stereo track. Comes very handy sometimes. I could actually simultaneously use this with my 1820m without any issues. Problem lang it can only handle 16bit.I swapped mt BTB 5string with this 4string bass from Japan. Its a TUNE Bassmaniac. What attracted me to this bass is that it has EMG pick ups and very neat electronics. Parang radyo ung cavity unlike most bass that looks crammed up electronics. This one has that original bridge from the older versions of the bassmaniac. Mas matibay and much string stability than the newer version of bassmaniac. Plus it has a metal nut. Which probably contributes to the brightness of the tone.
I got this from joshua (lowbee of philmusic). Ebaj Asurin has always reminded me to get a tune bass. According to him, the neck is narrow and the string spacing is similar to ibanez sdgrs which I am acustomed to. Lahat daw ng Tune basses are made in japan. And they all have exotic wood. Indeed the EMG kicks off its loud sound. But I find the tone a bit high. Maybe because I am acustomed to using the varimids of sdgrs. What I did was to use my old DOD Bass Compressor to kick in the boom in the punch and the sustain. I maybe get a Hartke VXL or a behringer BDI to have more control on tone with this bass. I am still using my 5string SDGR on gigs. This will be off to a good repainting soon as it looks all worn out already. In the mean time I will be using this Bassmaniac. Im using it on pictorials of our new band. My wife puts justice on the rock appeal of the bass on this pic.
I also got a new softcase for my acoustic bass. And got a new phospurous coated strings for it courtesy of alfie. We are doing several recording projects and most of the song needs acoustic bass to get the tone similar to the cure songs.
I have lately been experimenting on how to maximize the power of the PC for multimedia productions. I am currently trying on Ubunto Studio and its multitrack recording software called Ardour2. I have read good reviews about the capability of this set up as it is known to have no drops in recording even when simultaneously running several tracks. I am looking for one that will parallel the stability of a mac on protools while thinking of a budget. If I could perfect this set up, it would be a big help in saving the cost of software when I go commercial. No remarkable breakthrough yet tho.
