Drak Posted December 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 Jeebus, is this another friggin' pedal where you have to find the 'right' version <groan>? I bet even when I get this new rig hooked up and working it'll take me the better part of 1/2 year to really tweak everything the way I want it. I'm sort of looking forward to getting the Pirahna and seeing what the last guy has programmed in there, hehehe. Maybe he did most of my work for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spirit Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 Darnit, now I want a rack setup! *sigh* Yet another thing to add to the bleedin' list... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 streamline, the origional whammy chip was made by another company for digitech. that company then went bust and copyright laws mean that digitech cant use the same design or summat. in truth the reissue of the WH-1 is meant to be almost as good and it has the whole midi control thing. whether its worth the extra £150 is up to the player really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drak Posted December 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 It's MIDI compatable? I didn't even know that. Man, you're talking my language now! So, is there or is there not a particular version to be on the lookout for? Thanks, this is getting interesting now. But $400.00? OUCH! There goes a set of Barden Tele pickups to e-Bay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 (edited) drak, the new version of the whammy the reissue is midi compatable yes. and it doesnt cost $400. at musicians friend theyre $200 Digitech Whammy Reissue midiwise they it works like this the settings are all midi selectable by sending certain vlaues to whatever port. i think its 24 different modes you can have it on. the actualy pitch bending can be controlled via midi instead of using the pedal. feed it a midi value from 1 to 255 and it coresponds to moving the pedal up however much. matt bellamy of muse fame has a midi strip on 2 of his guitars and then has a digitech in his rack. uses the midistrip to control the pitch bending etc the origionals arent midi compatable, do cost about twice the price and havethe whole vintage mojo coolness factor going (which there is actually something to but tbh its not that big) EDIT: just to say quicklly. dont get the XP whammy Wah or any of the other whammy series except the origional or the reissue. the tracking on them is pretty shocking. tracking on the origional is barelly noticable and the reissue is almost as good Edited December 18, 2004 by JohnnyG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StreamLine Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 (edited) are you sure about matt belamy using a digitech? i was sure he just had a thermostat (or whatever its called..) built into his guitars, i even read it on the website of the guitar who built his guitars... he uses midi pickups, but to my knowledge there is no 'midi' strip, just the thing that detects hand 'heat' and creates the corresponding pitch without the whammy, to my knowledge at least... Edited December 18, 2004 by StreamLine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 I've always shied away from getting a Whammy, because I've heard numerous reports that it slaughters your tone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 streamline. onthe black manson matt has a midi strip built into the upper horn that controls a whammy reissue on his rack and also he has a copper pad which is the theremin control built into the lower horn of the same guitar. he has the midi sontroller on another guitar as well. have a look on google, theres a site with full rig info etc alexander. ask steve vai how much it kills his tone . hell, my tone is already dirty, broken and distorted. a bit more non true bypass stuff doesnt hurt lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 Ha ha! Well I guess so... not for me, tho. I just replaced a whole string of Boss pedals with two Line6 boxes (DL4 and MM4) and the improvement in my guitar tone was unbelievable! I ain't never going back... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StreamLine Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 streamline. onthe black manson matt has a midi strip built into the upper horn that controls a whammy reissue on his rack and also he has a copper pad which is the theremin control built into the lower horn of the same guitar. he has the midi sontroller on another guitar as well. have a look on google, theres a site with full rig info etc alexander. ask steve vai how much it kills his tone . hell, my tone is already dirty, broken and distorted. a bit more non true bypass stuff doesnt hurt lol right ok, thanks man! i've gone a little rusty with all my guitar knowledge lately... too much time spent playing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Rosenberger Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 After you figure out how to plug all that stuff in together, Getcha a Behringer FCB 1010 from the 'bay to do all the switchin'. You can find em for around $75 $85. It has 2 expression/volume pedals built in to the board and can control the Wah and Flanger on the Pod. It also has a switchable effects loop so you can program in your stompboxes right into a midi patch change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 This all sounds very complicated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 Has anyone here had much luck finding/using a floor controller (MIDI) that reacts to changes made instead of just commanding them? What I mean is, if you have a bunch of pedals built in to the floor controller and say one of them is a "chorus" pedal (I know you can program them to be other effects but stick with me here). When you use the controller's up/down to select your multi-effects preset #9 which does not use chorus, I'd like the chorus LED above the foot pedal to go off. In other words, I always want my floor controller's LEDs to reflect what is currently on/off even if the unit didn't directly command them individually. I have an ART X-15 (I think that's the model?) that is supposed to do this but I'm having trouble with it. Don't mean to hijack - just curious if Drak is looking for something like this also or doesn't care as long as the sound/selection is right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drak Posted December 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 No hijackin' here, let it fly, whatever you got! So... you have a MIDI controlled rig and you ain't lendin' ole Drak no advice? The SHAME of it all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 Hey, Drak, you've got everything you need except a power amp and a MIDI controller (and any wild digital F/X you want to add)! Add a good tube power amp (Mezza 2:90, 50/50, etc) or a MOSFET power amp (MOSvalve or HH, both unfortunately out of production) and Scott's recommended FCB1010, and it's all over but the learning curve! If you parallel both preamps, and switch between them, you've got options for days! Add the POD, and learn how to program the whole thing, and you should be able to get pretty much anything you want! Just be prepared to spend hours tweaking your settings. And for Streamline's benefit, there's nothing digital in the signal path of a Triaxis - except for the switching system, which is MIDI controlled, the circuits are 100% analog! Ditto for most tube MIDI preamps, unless they have onboard DSP F/X. And I use more than 3 presets playing bass in a Classic Rock cover band - surely a guitar player's going to need more than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drak Posted December 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 I see about $1500.00, give or take, for the above items that I don't have minus the computer, does that sound about right? Lovekraft, I was WAITING (and hoping) for you to appear . I had a feeling you would be able to cut right to the chase and zero in on the particulars in short order, and you didn't let me down, so ~thank you~. Wes, how much did you drop on your computer, total package, start to finish? (PM me if you want to keep it private) If you don't want to keep it private, maybe let us know what extra programs you incorporated that are working out great for you. Hehehe, this could wind up being quite the long thread this winter. I plan on sharing all the info I find out along the way (as I find it) about everything I run into, maybe it'll help out someone else down the road. Thanks EVERYONE so far! This is going to be F-U-N! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StreamLine Posted December 18, 2004 Report Share Posted December 18, 2004 (edited) Hey, Drak, you've got everything you need except a power amp and a MIDI controller (and any wild digital F/X you want to add)! Add a good tube power amp (Mezza 2:90, 50/50, etc) or a MOSFET power amp (MOSvalve or HH, both unfortunately out of production) and Scott's recommended FCB1010, and it's all over but the learning curve! If you parallel both preamps, and switch between them, you've got options for days! Add the POD, and learn how to program the whole thing, and you should be able to get pretty much anything you want! Just be prepared to spend hours tweaking your settings. And for Streamline's benefit, there's nothing digital in the signal path of a Triaxis - except for the switching system, which is MIDI controlled, the circuits are 100% analog! Ditto for most tube MIDI preamps, unless they have onboard DSP F/X. And I use more than 3 presets playing bass in a Classic Rock cover band - surely a guitar player's going to need more than that. i guess my understanding of the term 'digital pre-amp' is slightly different / wrong. i know ENGL pre-amps have midi switching, but are analogue as they have actual different EQ sections with pots, for like 4 channels. stuff like ADA MP-1, triaxis and JMP-1 i consider to be digital as many aspects, from EQ to memory are digitized, and you do get like 100 PATCHES as opposed to a limited number of channels. and whenever i played on such amps, i couldnt get tones as good as say from my pre-amp or an 4 channel ENGL pre-amp my friend has; but then again it may be the case of ear heearing what the brain tells it to, if that makes sense. 3 channels? well i cant think of someone like petrucci using more than 4 actual AMP channels during a whole gig, because he'd have one lead, one rhythm, one clean and one perhaps low gain lead channels, or something... then you of course add effects, and voila, you get heavy rhythm + phaser etc etc... thats what i tried to say. anyway, this is off point, i just wanted to clarify myself and not look like an idiot... just wondering Drak, what do you mean by 1/2 rack? do you mean like a half sized in relation to a big 22U or whatever rack cabinet thing? how many U's of space will you be looking to have? for a good power amp second hand, its about $450.... peavey power amps are going real cheap and are pretty cool if you want a 'neutral' power amp that doesnt 'color' the tone in the same that say a Mesa/boogie will... also the other option is this.... http://www.voodoolab.com/gcsystem.html using both the footswitch and the 1U switcher you could control both pre-amps through a single board, being able to switch patches across amps, which is theoretically simpler to use than running two pre-amps in parallel... though i'm pretty sure this is way more expensive. the advantage of this particular switcher is that it control ANYTHING analogue or midi.... Edited December 18, 2004 by StreamLine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 Hey, Drak, you've got everything you need except a power amp and a MIDI controller (and any wild digital F/X you want to add)! Add a good tube power amp (Mezza 2:90, 50/50, etc) or a MOSFET power amp (MOSvalve or HH, both unfortunately out of production) and Scott's recommended FCB1010, and it's all over but the learning curve! If you parallel both preamps, and switch between them, you've got options for days! Add the POD, and learn how to program the whole thing, and you should be able to get pretty much anything you want! Just be prepared to spend hours tweaking your settings. Darn, this is almost the same advise I gave on my previous post, since Ol' drak was interested in a rig with what he already have, but I guess he didn't read it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 Sorry, Maiden, I saw that Tele crack at the beginning, and disregarded the rest of the post. My bad! Streamline, I wasn't trying to make you look bad, just trying to correct a couple of common misconceptions - sorry if it sounded like an attack. I don't consider digital switching with analog circuitry any different than the Engl switching system, especially since the Triaxis uses the same Vactrol type switches that Engl uses. Even my Tech 21 PSA-1 has a completely analog signal path (all solid state, but still not digital), and simply uses MIDI to simplify and expand the switching options. The beauty of a rackmount system is not having to live with 3 or 4 channels - with the right components, you can have a Fender clean, a Vox-ish semi-clean, JTM-45 growl, JCM-800 grind, Soldano screaming, Mesa mud, and everything in between, all at the touch of a switch, and all without using any digital modelling or stompboxes. There's nothing wrong with your setup, I'm sure it sounds great, but if you're going to go to the trouble to build and learn to use a rack system, I just think you should be able to exploit all its capabilties. If not, it's a lot easier to buy a Screamer half-stack (or similar - Mode 4, etc) and a box of pedals. That's all I was trying to get across - digital control of analog preamp switching offers a lot more options than a 4 channel amp, and I want 'em all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drak Posted December 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 Maiden, I reread your post, and if you were offering the same advice, my serious bad, but Lovekraft just put it into terms I guess I understand better, my apologies. Please don't be taken aback, I appreciate what you posted! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 Wes, how much did you drop on your computer, total package, start to finish? (PM me if you want to keep it private) i think about $1200(the computer alone was about $800) it's a dell dimension 2400 with the intel pentium 4 processor... delta m-audio thingamajigger,a behringer mixer(eurorack ub1202),and a shure sm57 mic,plus whatever recording software you want. you can mic any cab you have with this setup ...but i don't know jack about it...there is a huge learning curve on this and i haven't had time to finger it out yet....i have trouble focusing on such things...i think i have a concentration problem or something. some amps have a line out which you can plug directly into the mixer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLS Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 A line out dosent sound half as good as a mic'd cabinet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 A line out dosent sound half as good as a mic'd cabinet. well now i guess that depends on alot...now doesn't it?for some tones i get a much easier and "better" tone by running straight through a line out... some albums are recorded through nothing but a line 6 product of one sort or another. i simply cannot mic my mode 4 through the cab because it comes out much too bassy....to get close to my "live" sound i have to completely change all my amp settings,and then it sounds like total crap to my ears when i am playing. each individual setup is different,and i think alot of bands keep their recording methods private to avoid the snobbery they would hear if they told everyone about all their recording methods. i can think of one right off the top of my head who has that "great tone" according to many,many people,and they use nothing more than a......well i can't tell you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 wes and drak (and anybody else interested in home recording) im planning to drop the bucks for a nicey nice computer fairlly soon and its going to be set up for home recording on a proper level (which really means that im just gonna spend £100 on the GFX card and £300 on the sound card lol) seems that if we're all wanting to learn then we can all learn together to some extent. atm im in the position where i know alot about computers but sweet F.A. about actually recording lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erikbojerik Posted December 19, 2004 Report Share Posted December 19, 2004 Drak, here's my home recording $0.02 as it pertains to your rig. Don't modify your metal rig based on the home recording situation. What you'll do in the end is work very hard on the rig to get your sound, then it will sound different on the recording anyway. For recording, you'll put a mic (SM57) on all your cabs and run a stereo direct-out signal to the (software) mixing board. That's at least 4 channels right there for a single recording, and you could easily tap various parts of the signal chain or have a "room mic" for more. Record the whole works, then spend hours playing with the mix and software EQ-F/X to get the sound you want. Then you'll be able to save the settings to a library and get 'em back whenever you need to. There are lots of computer+software options out there, but I think the most important part of the whole home recording setup is the digital audio interface for taking your sound and turning it into 0s and 1s. You want several channels with decent mic preamps, and you probably want to go Firewire rather than USB (more bandwidth). For me this meant a MOTU 896 ($1200) with 8 ins (1/4" or XLR, mic preamps and phantom power if you ever use a condenser) and 8 outs plus 2 main outs. The mic preamps sound really nice. I built my home system around that (Mac G4 laptop, Emagic Logic Pro 6;eminently portable); also I don't think you'll need a separate hardware mixer, a good software package will do that for you (the main drawback is that it's more difficult to tweak in real time in a live situation). Long story short, don't worry about trying to fit your rig for home recording...make the recording situation adapt to the rig. And set aside another winter when the recording thing comes online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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