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It's a hell of a lot more juice than my Strat, that's for sure. At gigs I run direct to the PA through a Boss tuner pedal, an MXR EQ, and some other stuff, and I'm planning to add an Akai Headrush to the mix, and a Z. Vex Seek Wah. Am I playing with fire, or is this OK?

Is the Z. Vex Nano Head not exactly what we're lookin' for here--a stompbox--no, make that an entire amp--made with miniature tubes? And strenuously validated by TapeOp, no less.

OK, so where can I find out about the Schuman pedals? There's no info on the web that I can find, and Main Drag music doesn't have a working web site. What different pedals does he make, and what do they cost? Thanks, John.

(you can send me an email at inverseroom@hotmail.com)

All right! This is all good info, thanks y'all. I will begin slamming. I work with a DAW but have a tube preamp--maybe I'll experiment with tracking to a 4-track hot and cleaning it up to digital.

So I was listening to some old Stax stuff and noticed that on every other song, the vocals were distorting, in a very appealing and musical way. Of course I wondered how I might get some of that old black magic at home, and immediately realized that I did not have: 1) fantastic vintage preamps/limit...

I put this in a different post--I'd like a clean octave pedal that gives you an octave 12 steps UP, not down. And you could tweak the higher note to detune it a bit. I wrote to Z. Vex asking about this & he said it would be hard to do analog, but the Prescription Electronics COB comes close. Anybody...

I emailed Zvex asking if they might release a clean octave-up pedal, something I've always wanted--and the master himself wrote back recommending the Prescription Clean Octave Boost pedal (though he said that an analog clean octave that goes up 12 steps is really tricky to do). I haven't heard it bu...

A sort of obscure favorite of mine--probably my favorite LIVE recording, and I don't exclusively mean the music, which is indeed excellent, but the sound--is Gil Evans' "Farewell" album, which includes, as its opening track, the unbelievable "Cut the Juice Loose" (album credits say it's a Bill Evans...

...a giant packing crate! filled with... Fender Tweed Bassmans!

Just kiddin'--that is a fine sound, nice twiddlin'.

John.

The big one for me: noise reduction. All of us home recordists use inexpensive equipment--it makes good sounds but the noise adds up over multiple tracks. I can't go unfortunately but maybe somebody could email me the complete transcript? (joke)

So what with the coming of warm weather, the time had come this morning to get my favorite short-sleeved shirt out of the back of the closet. But when I put it on...it stuck to my chest! This is just a reminder to everyone that a shirt is still dangerous after you've unplugged it--in fact, a shirt c...

Just watch, the hot new trend will be direct recording of piezo-equipped Fender acoustics and drum machines without reverb into 16-bit handheld recorders, with copious digital clipping. I'm tellin' you man, it's gonna rock!

The Bassman would indeed be great. BUT I was in the music store the other day listening to a guy play surf riffs with a Strat through a Fender Vibro King, and it sounded marvelous, and a lot like the sound you're describing. Maybe rent one?

Everybody loves the Fender tube reverb boxes, if you happen to have three or four hundred bucks lying around. Premier made one too, which is often on eBay for around 200. Also Airline--that one is supposed to be noisy (I haven't heard it) though. If you're just looking for something to use with a gu...

Seriously, the SR80's are worthless for vocals--there is so much leakage that it will ruin the track. But I usually do my first pass of mixing with them--they are absolutely great for general listening too.