Gear Wednesday | Jenavive.com

Gibson Factory Tour Memphis

17 Jul 2013 | Categories: Fun, Gear Wednesday, On The Road | Posted by: Jenavive

On Saturday, July 13 we decided to do a tour of the Gibson factory in Memphis Tennessee and let me tell you it was really amazing! Unfortunately and understandably we were unable to take any photos of the actual tour itself but I’m here to share as much as I can in text. You are guided into a massive open room (the factory takes a whole street block!) where the employees, rather artists, are present working on hundreds of guitars. This factory is specifically designed to make the Hollow and Semi-Hollow guitars such the ES-355 pictured below. Hard bodies, such as the classic Les Pauls and SGs are made in their Nashville factory and their Acoustic guitars in Montana.

ES-355 with the sunburst colour pattern.

The tour showed us how each layer of wood is pressed to form the shape and then sanded by hand to clean up all the edges. Machines these days allow the process to only take a few hours where it could take days by hand. It’s quite amazing seeing how every little thing goes together and each step it takes to make a guitar. One of these Gibsons takes about 6-8 weeks to make though the factory completes about 50 per day.

One part of the tour I had no idea about is the paint trimming. Each body is painted with an airbrush but one things that everyone should recognize about a Gibson’s style is the trim around the edges. See there is no way they can paint only the body without causing some sort of damage to prevent the trim from getting painted. Instead they just spray the entire body and once it is done they get some of the workers with steady hands to use razors and cut off the paint along the edges. This takes around 20 minutes each guitar! Pretty neat!

The guide told us that they average 97% pass rate on their finished guitars. The ones that don’t pass get their electronics ripped out and the wood is chopped up. Tearful site.

If you are a big guitar geek and are in the Memphis area definitely go check out the factory tour! It’s totally worth it!

~ Reggie

Jan 09 2013

Gear Wednesday – Brett’s Bass Rig

Gear Wednesday - Brett's Bass Rig

Categories: Gear Wednesday | Posted by: Jenavive

Brett’s Bass Guitar Rig

Dec 26 2012

Gear Wednesday – Filming HD Video on a budget

Categories: Gear Wednesday | Posted by: Jenavive

So you love DIY and you are thinking about putting together your first music video, but you don’t really know where to start. One of the first places you should start looking at investing your money is a video camera.

It is hard to find a good balance between quality, value, and ease of use when it comes to video cameras in the <$500 price range. The Flip Ultra HD might seem tempting, but realistically you will get better video, with more ease of use from your smartphone. Similarly, if you are looking to capture better audio quality in the same price range, you could check out the Zoom Q3HD. It features a pair of microphones in an XY arrangement for capturing stereo sound. I’ve also heard good things about GoPro, but I have not tested them myself.

If you are serious about capturing premium HD video on a budget, it is hard to beat DSLR cameras for video. The sensor quality is much higher than what you will get from any handheld video camera of equivalent price.

DSLRs also feature the ability to use interchangeable lenses. If you have watched any indie-filmmaker style videos on youtube or vimeo, you might have noticed the trend to have the subject in focus, while the background has a nice Gaussian blur. This is achieved by shooting with a wide aperture allowing for a narrow depth of field.

Notice how the subject is in focus, and the background is blurred.

The videos shot for Jenavive’s youtube channel were all filmed with a Canon T2I (550D) with a 50mm 1.8 lens. There is a steep learning curve to filming with a DSLR camera, but the payoff is worth it. You will get clean, crisp video, vibrant colors, all for slightly more of a cost than a Flip or Zoom Q3HD.

If you are interested in learning more about filming with a DSLR, there are a couple great blogs that can be used as learning tools.

I highly recommend checking out http://www.learningdslrvideo.com/. Dave has a great website, lots of tutorials, and a fantastic youtube channel. I give him full credit for training me on how to use my DSLR proficiently.

If you aren’t sold on a DSLR yet, as the initial price may be a bit off-putting, keep an eye out for sales. Canon releases new models every few years, and you can often by the last years model for a few hundred dollars less than it’s original sale price.

Until next Wednesday,

Brett

Dec 19 2012

Gear Wednesday – Nexus2 VST – Software Synth

Nexus2 VST - Software Synth

Categories: Gear Wednesday | Posted by: Jenavive

You will love this synth.

If you are into electronic music production, you will love the Nexus2 software synth. This synth is a key tool in the library of some of electronic musics biggest artists. Armin Van Buuren, David Guetta, and Swedish House Mafia have all used this synth on their work.

When it comes to VSTs and software synths, I’m a junkie for presets. I don’t have a ton of practice turning nobs and tweaking oscillators creating sounds from scratch on analog synths. I love the ability to plug-in and immediately hear great sounding patches and sounds. The Nexus2 has a 6GB library of arpeggios, leads, pads, and more that will light up your production. The interface is also easy to read, allowing you to spend more time crafting songs and producing music, and less time scratching your head.

We use this synth for the main melodic rhythm on the single ‘Human Nature’ from our upcoming EP. Listen to the Nexus VST demo track, and hear how powerful this synth is for yourself.

Find out more about the Nexus2 software synth from ReFX.com

Until next wednesday,

Brett

Dec 12 2012

Gear Wednesday – The Evolution of Headphones

Categories: Gear Wednesday | Posted by: Jenavive

Here is a great infographic on the evolution of headphones.

Click the image for the full article on hypebot.

Dec 05 2012

Gear Wednesday – Mackie Onyx 1620i

Categories: Gear Wednesday | Posted by: Jenavive

Firewire Mixers for Recording

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I started recording was capturing multiple tracks at the same time. Sure, it’s easy to mic everything, run it into a mixer, adjust the levels and record directly into your PC using the line-out of the mixing board… but will it sound any good? That’s debatable.

After shopping around, and reading forums such as gearslutz.org, I was able to track down a solution to this problem. By using a firewire mixer, every channel strip / input on the mixer gets it’s own WAV file. This means that you can mic everything, hit record, and then EQ and Mix each individual instrument after the recording.

There are many different mixers that have a firewire option, but I ended up choosing the Mackie Onyx 1620i. The mixer has been one of my best purchases over the past year. It is great for both recording, and we use it in our rehearsal space. It has 8 channels with XLR inputs, 4 stereo channels, and 4 auxiliary channels that can be used for monitors, or effects units.

One of the drawbacks of the Mackie Onyx 1620i is that it does not have any built in effects processing. That said, the auxillary sends are routable to the computer, meaning you can use reverb, compression and delays that are built into your computer in a live or studio setting.

I highly recommend this mixer for any band or musician that is getting into DIY recording, or is looking for an upgrade from their existing 2-channel rehearsal mixer. If you are looking for something in a slightly different size, Mackie also makes the 820i, 1220i, and 1640i. You can pick up the Mackie Onyx from Axe Music, or Long and McQuade for about $899.99 before tax.

For more information about this mixer, you can check out it’s product page at http://www.mackie.com/products/onyx1620i/.

Until next wednesday,

Brett

Nov 28 2012

Gear Wednesdays – How to remove the windscreen from a SM7B microphone.

Categories: Gear Wednesday | Posted by: Jenavive

How to remove the windscreen from a SM7B

The SM7B studio microphone is a large diaphragm, cardoid dynamic mic, and a must have for the project studio. The SM7B is a legendary microphone. It was used by Recording Engineer Bruce Swedien on Michael Jackson’s Thriller Album, as well as the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on every album they’ve done.

I acquired one this spring for tracking vocals, and I love it. It has a smooth tone, and pairs really well with loud, sibilant singers. You can see this microphone in action in our video “Greedy – Acoustic” on youtube. A problem that I have had with using large diaphragm condenser mics in the past, is that they are a bit brighter in the high frequencies, thereby making the ‘Esss’ sounds stand out too much. The SM7B is much smoother in this frequency range.

The SM7B also features two frequency response switches which are important for tracking vocals; a bass roll-off, and a mid-range emphasis (presence boost). The bass roll off helps counter the proximity effect. This is where the closer your are to the microphone, the more bass your voice has. Have you ever listened to radio where the announcer has a rich, bassy voice? This is probably because is their mouth is right up on the microphone. The presence boost raises the high-mids (2k-4k Hz) adding clarity to the speech recognition sounds like ‘m’, ‘b’ and ‘v’.

One small downside of using this microphone, is that it requires A LOT of gain. This means that many lower level home studio preamps will not have enough power to boost the level of this microphone adequately. If you are looking at renting or buying this microphone, make sure to get a pre-amp, so that you can get the most out of this mic.

A pro-tip for using this microphone, as provided by Brad Smith of One More Mile Productions, is to remove both of the windscreens before using this microphone. When you pair this with a gooseneck style pop-filter, you can keep the added clarity while removing plosives.

To remove the windscreen, first trace your fingers down the length of microphone until you reach a metal ring connecting the foam filter to the metal base. Although it looks like one solid piece, you can actually pry apart the metal ring from the base using your fingernails or a screwdriver. Be careful not to scratch the microphone, or to pull to hard on the foam, as it might damage the windscreen.

The windscreen does have it’s benefits! It will come in handy if you are recording outside, or you don’t have a pop-filter handy.

Until next Wednesday!

-Brett

Nov 21 2012

Gear Wednesday

Categories: Gear Wednesday | Posted by: Jenavive

Our semi-weekly blog about gear.

We have been trying out a variety of vocal effects pedals lately, and I think we have found a winner!

The TC Helicon VoiceLive Play is a powerful vocal effects pedal. It has great built in presets, including harmonies, hard tuning, vocal doubling and a variety of reverbs and delays. One of it’s best features is that you don’t have to bend over to change the presets (a huge plus if you wear a dress on stage).

You can check out the VoiceLive Play from TC helicon here:

Until next Wednesday,

Brett