How-To Guides 5
Savory Softube Plug-ins
We all have our own obsessions. Some musicians drool over the newest boutique guitar pedals. Another musician that works at zZounds may dream about a tweed couch that matches all of his vintage Fender tweed amps. I, on the other hand, obsess over my new favorite plug-ins. I recently purchased a bundle of Softube plug-ins, […]
Cymbal Anatomy Part 3: Thickness
So far, we’ve discussed attributes that affect your cymbals’ overall tone, namely its hammering and lathing. Here we’ll discuss one of the most important features that affects a cymbal’s aural envelope: thickness. The thickness of your cymbal shapes everything from strike feel to its attack, decay, sustain, and release (terms familiar to synthesists that might […]
Beat Techniques: Binaural Production
Welcome to Beat Connection, a series dedicated to promoting modern and vintage dance styles the only way we know how…by providing you a musical starting point to help you create that beat. In the majority of our recent posts, we’ve been taking you on a journey to what I’d dub “foundational beats.” These foundational beats […]
Guitar Workbench Collection: Setting Up Your Guitar
Whether you’ve just unboxed a brand-new axe or you’re looking to dust off an old favorite, chances are going through a few simple setup procedures will bring out the best in your playing and make it easier to form a bond with your instrument. In this collection, we’ve put together some of our helpful Guitar […]
How to Use a SubKick on Studio Drums
The SubKick has been around for a long time, or at least the idea of it has. Using a reverse-polarity speaker as a dynamic microphone has been around since at least the ’60s as a recording technique, but didn’t popularize until the early 2000s when Yamaha released the SKRM-100. The SubKick uses the physical movement […]
How to Build a DIY SubKick
Yamaha made a splash in the drum miking game when their SKRM-100 SubKick collaboration with session drummer Russ Miller was released in 2004. The practice of wiring a speaker in reverse to act as a transducer has been around for a long time in production, but was made widely accessible with the SKRM-100 release. Ever […]
Vintage Vibrato Systems
What do a Fender Stratocaster, a Fender Jazzmaster, and a Gretsch 5420T have in common? If you said “each one has a vibrato system,” you’re correct. And, if you added an asterisk to your answer because each of their vibrato systems are different, then go ahead and give yourself a gold star. These different vibrato systems […]
The Spongy Sounds of the IK Multimedia UNO Synth
Why do you need an analog mono synth? Surely any sound that you can make with an affordable, tabletop analog model like the IK Multimedia UNO can be recreated digitally, right? Wrong. Serious synth players know that analog has its own inimitable vibe and sound. As interest in analog synthesizers remains high, it can be hard […]
Electro-Harmonix Triangle Big Muff Demo
Electro-Harmonix has surprised us once again with the resurrection of a classic iteration of their most beloved pedal. Based on the original from 1969, the Triangle Big Muff Pi is a one-way ticket to high-gain heaven, with tons of extra volume on tap and a powerful tone control. From rippling velcro-esque sounds, to super-compressed, over-the-top […]
