Post your latest purchase!
- Thread starter kidkage
- Start date
YanKleber
Retired
The time when you could buy a Gibson with closed eyes has gone, for say... 50 years now? I have tried a few ones that I wouldn't keep even if I got for free. You did the right thing. I think that the best guitar test should be always a "blind playing" having a piece of black tape stick onto the brand in the headstock if possible!
Congratulations to you, bought a better guitar for a fraction of the cost you was intended to!
MrUserNameIV
SenselessActsOfCreation
I like my coffee so strong and frothy that it slowly erodes my cup over time. My latest purchase.
nullnaught
New member
i bought some food today so i can eat.
BroKen_H
Re-member
Coffee is not coffee unless it's drunk from a cup with several years of coffee "patina"...
MrUserNameIV
SenselessActsOfCreation
Exactly. If it doesn't curl your toes and dissolve your taste buds, you might as well be drinking herbal tea.
BroKen_H
Re-member
Anyway, got the Vox AC15C1 in this morning and have been fiddling with it. There are no bad tones (well, until you turn the "Normal Volume" up past normal levels. 
It doesn't get harder, it just gets uglier.
I will post up some tones with all the guitars and the new Vox after I figure out how to isolate it a bit. It's loud enough to rattle the metal cabinet it's on, so Ill look for some foam to isolate. Tried putting a towel under the 57 (it's on a desk stand in front of the speaker on top of the metal cabinet) and that got rid of one weird buzz, but there's another picking up. I think the fan in my room is rattling...that's what it sounds like in the headphones anyway. I also get a fizzy tone that isn't coming from the amp, so maybe I'm not getting my signal chain right. No clipping on the Tascam, so I'll have a look see around Reason...
Sounds really great, but I need to get it miked into "reality".
Strangely, the Hamer superstrat gives it the best knock. It goes from Sultans of Swing to UFO with just a few turns of the knobs and dials it in easy. The new LP makes it all dark and savage (which will be useful) to sweet lead, but nothing really usable so far in rhythm strumming. The Mockingbird sings like a bird, but has a hard time breaking it up. If I'm going to make this thing do other varieties and genres, I may need some overdrive...or I may stick with the Fender MetalHead amp and Orange sims I bought in Amplitube for that stuff. Dunno yet.
Still happy to have an LP that doesn't wear me out (and strangely, I could play the Hamer for hours this morning without problem as well...maybe my hands are getting stronger) and an amp that gives me clear distortion.
It doesn't get harder, it just gets uglier. I will post up some tones with all the guitars and the new Vox after I figure out how to isolate it a bit. It's loud enough to rattle the metal cabinet it's on, so Ill look for some foam to isolate. Tried putting a towel under the 57 (it's on a desk stand in front of the speaker on top of the metal cabinet) and that got rid of one weird buzz, but there's another picking up. I think the fan in my room is rattling...that's what it sounds like in the headphones anyway. I also get a fizzy tone that isn't coming from the amp, so maybe I'm not getting my signal chain right. No clipping on the Tascam, so I'll have a look see around Reason...
Sounds really great, but I need to get it miked into "reality".
Strangely, the Hamer superstrat gives it the best knock. It goes from Sultans of Swing to UFO with just a few turns of the knobs and dials it in easy. The new LP makes it all dark and savage (which will be useful) to sweet lead, but nothing really usable so far in rhythm strumming. The Mockingbird sings like a bird, but has a hard time breaking it up. If I'm going to make this thing do other varieties and genres, I may need some overdrive...or I may stick with the Fender MetalHead amp and Orange sims I bought in Amplitube for that stuff. Dunno yet.
Still happy to have an LP that doesn't wear me out (and strangely, I could play the Hamer for hours this morning without problem as well...maybe my hands are getting stronger) and an amp that gives me clear distortion.
Armistice
Son of Yoda
Coffee is not coffee unless it's espresso, IMO. Never could stand drip filter, plunger, instant etc. Just tastes like dirty water of various strengths.
Actually, even when it is espresso, most countries (on an average basis) still fuck it up. French coffee is appalling because they're all socialists and there's no competition for the cafes which have been there for a hundred years and they use shitty robusta beans. English coffee is very average, on average.
Starbucks came into Australia with a big bang a decade or so ago and virtually disappeared a few years later because everyone knew a dozen coffee shops within walking distance of any Starbucks which made better coffee. Awful stuff.
Sky Blue Lou
Well-known member
Where does Oz get coffee beans? Is there a domestic supply?
ibleedburgundy
The Anti-Lambo
I just bought 7 bass traps and a bunch of auralex for $99 off ebay. It was cheap because it was local pickup only. I was the only person to bid. Some guy used to do techno and he did some bass trap building method from gearslutz. They are decent enough - 2 layers of 2 inch OC703 wrapped in burlap - same as the ones I built. This was a pretty good deal. I was getting ready to make 12 of my own and figured it would have cost $500+ altogether just for the supplies plus I'd have to spend a bunch of time assembling them.
rayc
retroreprobate
Coffee isn't coffee unless it's a) a short black or b) black Nescafe instant two teaspoons coffee, 2 teaspoons sugar and a smallish mug.
But then again, I'm a tea drinker mainly. Coffee in Northern Vietnam is pretty good.
A Gloria jeans moved into Thirroul (10 mins south of here and the nearest place with options) a couple of years ago. Big hullabaloo & fanfare but it was gone within 16 months. Their corporate idea of coffee didn't match the standard Oz palate which is a bit like Macca's except they relented and added lettuce, beetroot etc to make a hamburger that at least resembled a real burger. Mind you I haven't eaten Macca's food since 1977 so what do I know.
But then again, I'm a tea drinker mainly. Coffee in Northern Vietnam is pretty good.
A Gloria jeans moved into Thirroul (10 mins south of here and the nearest place with options) a couple of years ago. Big hullabaloo & fanfare but it was gone within 16 months. Their corporate idea of coffee didn't match the standard Oz palate which is a bit like Macca's except they relented and added lettuce, beetroot etc to make a hamburger that at least resembled a real burger. Mind you I haven't eaten Macca's food since 1977 so what do I know.
Armistice
Son of Yoda
Not that I'm aware of Lou - not in any quantity anyway, if we do - my limited understanding is that the main bean types are arabica and robusta. I only learnt this after three different trips to France, and every single cup of coffee tasted absolutely the same and they were all shit. When I went digging on teh interwebz I found a huge number of articles as to exactly why France has crap coffee - the robusta beans and the embedded comfy life of the typical French cafe, borne of their very socialist system. The locals are used to it and who's not going to visit France because you can't get a decent cup of coffee? No competition - you can't just open up a new cafe in all the million little villages - no incentive to change. So they don't.
Australia had a huge immigration of Italians many decades ago and they bought their coffee culture with them, and it's carried on. Quality arabica beans, quality espresso machines and baristas who know how to drive them, is all.
Steenamaroo
...
New gear for Steenamaroo today.
Pickup a pair of old Siemens preamp/limiters on eBay for not a lot and racked them up.
They're the light coloured modules near the bottom.
Had a spare 8x XLR rack panel that I managed to salvage. Was quite please with that until I found a brand new proper 1u rack box for a tenner.
Ah well, it'll do no harm to have the back enclosed properly.
Stock they simply had an on/off switch for the limiter and a gain control.
I've added a pot for compression amount and a 3way switch for variations in timing.
I also added phantom power although it's 20V. We'll see if that's a problem with other mics but my sm81s were more than happy with it.
So far I like them. They're a lot cleaner than I expected and than the internet led me to believe.
Also, quite pleasingly, they're happy running off an old 20V laptop power supply that I had in a cupboard without any hum or buzz. Good money saved there!
Testing speech with a 7b the auditronics (top pair) have a real nice warm broadcast sound, the ward backs (middle pair) do too but they're less warm - probably more natural sounding.
The Siemes are different but hard to describe. A little warmer/fuller but not in a sub bass way.
As compressors/limiters it looks like they're going to be quite useful. I tracked some acoustic guitar through them earlier and it sat in a dense mix pretty well straight away.
They claim 74db gain and are noisier than any of my other preamps, but not noisy enough to be noticeable unless you're whispering into a dynamic mic or something.
Incidentally, the symmetric compressor up top is pretty new to me.
That's my first piece of hardware compression and I'm loving it on backing vocals!
I do a lot of backing vocals, often 8-16 simultaneous tracks, so it's making a huge contribution there.
Pickup a pair of old Siemens preamp/limiters on eBay for not a lot and racked them up.
They're the light coloured modules near the bottom.
Had a spare 8x XLR rack panel that I managed to salvage. Was quite please with that until I found a brand new proper 1u rack box for a tenner.
Ah well, it'll do no harm to have the back enclosed properly.
Stock they simply had an on/off switch for the limiter and a gain control.
I've added a pot for compression amount and a 3way switch for variations in timing.
I also added phantom power although it's 20V. We'll see if that's a problem with other mics but my sm81s were more than happy with it.
So far I like them. They're a lot cleaner than I expected and than the internet led me to believe.
Also, quite pleasingly, they're happy running off an old 20V laptop power supply that I had in a cupboard without any hum or buzz. Good money saved there!
Testing speech with a 7b the auditronics (top pair) have a real nice warm broadcast sound, the ward backs (middle pair) do too but they're less warm - probably more natural sounding.
The Siemes are different but hard to describe. A little warmer/fuller but not in a sub bass way.
As compressors/limiters it looks like they're going to be quite useful. I tracked some acoustic guitar through them earlier and it sat in a dense mix pretty well straight away.
They claim 74db gain and are noisier than any of my other preamps, but not noisy enough to be noticeable unless you're whispering into a dynamic mic or something.
Incidentally, the symmetric compressor up top is pretty new to me.
That's my first piece of hardware compression and I'm loving it on backing vocals!
I do a lot of backing vocals, often 8-16 simultaneous tracks, so it's making a huge contribution there.
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