…and now you still see ‘em.Soon you won’t though.Spinal Tap’s favorite   ,ZILDJIAN PITCH BLACK (like black leather)cymbals are now discontinued. As soon as they came they went.I hope you didn’t blink.We still have a few left that we’re selling on the cheap.Remember they go with anything.    22″RIDE(94926)- $131.00, 14″HI-HATS(94933)-$135.,16″CRASH(94927) -$88.00,18″CRASH(94928)$100.00.I bet if you buy multiples of these cymbals you could twist your salespersons arm for even a little better deal.We’ll also take your normal old fashioned looking bronze cymbals(as well as anything else) in trade. See you soon.

Michael Tocker-drums

MXR has been on quite a roll over the last couple years. The first company to manufacture a comprehensive line of pedals in the 1970’s has been experiencing a renaissance of late. With the creation of new pedals including the GT-OD, Distortion III and last year’s runaway hit the Carbon Copy Analog Delay they are positioning to be as vital to the must have new sound scene as they were 30 years ago. At the same time MXR has been working to recreate spot-on versions of their first pedals that took the guitar world by storm over 3 decades ago. The custom shop version of the Script Phase 90 is a tremendous recreation with the modern features of a LED indicator and external power jack. And the limited handwired Phase 90 is so close to the original that the biggest difference from the original might be the box it comes packed in.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “they don’t make ‘em like they used to”. In the case of classic stomp-boxes that phrase often rings true. And it is not a situation of declining quality control or the mass-manufacture vs. hand-built that are the biggest tonal variance factors. It is simply that a great deal of the components that were used in pedals a few decades ago are simply not available today. Integrated Circuit manufacturers work at a volume far beyond what pedal makers could ever consume. When a company makes an IC that could be used in, for example, a million cell phones it makes sense for them to make them. But if demand is for a potential thousand guitar pedals they are never going to tool up for that small a component run.

MXR has acquired a number of CA3080 ‘metal can’ IC chips that have not been made in over 20 years. That has allowed them to make a limited run reissue of the 1976 Vintage Dyna Comp pedal. As iconic a pedal that the Phase 90 is, it pales in comparative importance to the Dyna Comp. While all compressors perform the task of increasing the volume of quiet notes and limiting the loud peaks to tighten up the sound and produce a signal that has more punch and sustain, not all of them sound the same. As always electric guitar is that instrument that lives outside of the environment where a higher fidelity of sound is better. It is often the coloration and musicality of the signal chain that wins out. And this is where the Dyna Comp reissue excels. It is quieter than recent models and has a bit more headroom and dynamic range. But it is the touch response of this pedal that is the reason most top players have coveted it over the past 33 years. The tails of notes curl up like slurping a straw. You can almost push the attack into reverse with this pedal. Or dial the sensitivity back a bit and just simply add clear punch, boost and sustain. Some players never turn the pedal off. Try one out and you will understand why. This is only available until the small batch of NOS IC’s are used up. Don’t let this window of opportunity pass you by.

MS
As always you can find me at msulivan@daddys.com

For those of you who may not know, Digidesign has released the Digi 003+ adding 4 more mic preamps to the interface. This ROCKS! Now you can take your Digi 003+ and record 8 mic’s at the same time into Pro Tools without the need for a mixer! If you need more than 8 mic’s recorded at the same time you can add a Presonus Digimax interface that will plug into the Digi 003+ and give you 8 more mic preamps that can be recorded to seperate tracks. Yup, that means 16 mic’s going into Pro Tools on seperate tracks at the same time folks!  This supercharged system will not break your bank and is achieveable for under 2K! Get the factory version with a boatload of great plugin’s for your projects. If you already have a nice computer it would be easy to fit this system in to your studio setup. Your salesperson at Daddy’s can get this ordered for you if you are thinking of making the move.

Doing some Mastering are we? So am I…

After you get that killer mix, bounce it down to disk at the highest resolution possible. I would recommend making a new folder in your session folder called “mixes” or something like that. Make sure to choose the “tweaked” option. Once you have all your mixes bounced to a stereo file, create a new session called “mastering” within your current session folder. Create stereo tracks according to however many mixes you have and create a master fader to run the songs through. Import all the songs at once into your audio region bin, drag each song into a track and name it accordingly. This screenshot shows my 12 song mastering session all ready to go! My mixes are very similar in sonic qualities so I am able to get away with only using 2 plug-in’s to master with. You can add however many you need though, save your plug in settings by song withing your session so you can easily recall it if needed. If you are looking for consistancy in sound, I reccomend keeping the same mastering plugin’s on the master fader and adding plugin’s as needed to the individual song tracks. Make sure you do the fades on the songs and trim the regions for smooth natural sounding transitions between the songs on your final mastered CD.

The second screen shot shows the mastering plugin’s and how you can hide all the other tracks except the song you are working on for doing precise fades and trims.

Please email me if you have any questions about Digidesign products or this article. You can get me at mcole@daddys.com

Yeah I’ve heard the kids talking about this blogging thing for awhile. I’m not a blog-a-phobe I swear. People that know me understand that I’m not real handy with technology. That being said I’m willing to learn in slow repeated steps. These same people that know also know that I am a drum nerd. As a kid while my friends were looking at nudie mags and dreamin’ I was looking at Slingerland and Ludwig catalogs and dreamin’.

Later on when they were  talking ’bout a shiny new set wheels they were gonna get someday, I was talking about..well, you guessed it. I still look and feel about drums the same way today. I know that there are others, though they may or may not want to admit it, like me out there as well. I own some cool kits including vintage Slingerland’s, early Pearl Masters Maple Custom, an old Yamaha Recording Standard(recovered in green sparkle..love  these drums!!), and Tama Starclassic B/B, but I have a short list of “desert island”  dream drums that I think about a lot. The list isn’t made up of vintage Round Badge Gretsch or Ludwig Ringo drums. Those are cool and I’ve certainly seen a lot of these type of things come through the Daddy’s used inventory over the almost 20 years I’ve worked here. (Two of the cooler kits were a Ludwig light up Tivoli kit, and a ’60’s Gretsch in Tangerine Sparkle w/an 18″ kick.)My first dream would be a USA Gretsch 16×22 kick, 9×12 rack tom (mounted on the kick) and a 16×16 floor tom in Caribbean Blue. Caribbean Blue is a stain that is the perfect mix between green and blue. It is like an ocean in the Caribbean.Back in the early ’90’s Mark River’s, great drummer for a great Boston band The Cavedogs (2 CDS on Capitol, both great, seek them out!) had a Gretsch kit in this color that I always loved. They discontinued it for awhile, but I noticed when I visited the Gretsch USA factory (awesome) 3 years ago that the color was  BACK. We have a snare drum from the late 80’s,early ’90’s in the Boston Store now in in this color.

Gretsch 5×14 snare early ’90’s Carribean Blue(GRE7063)

It  has Jasper shell and is in good shape.The hardware  is pitted(could it be the ocean salt?), but the inside shell looks fine. No rust on the metal and the Silver Sealer looks great. One of the Gretsch logo badges has some pitting as well. This drum sells new now for $600.(yikes, but true). This used one is less than half that. I’ve always loved the older Yamaha Recording Series Birch drums, so another one of my “desert island” dream kits is a Recording kit in bright red in the same 22″,12″,16″ (maybe a 14×14 as well)configuration. Back in the day these drums came in Solid White, Piano Black, Cherry Wood(the only finish that you could see the grain) and the Bright Red. Can you believe it, only 4 finishes (in the US) and 2 of them red. The most popular were the Cherry Wood and Black and those 2 colors are still manufactured.

I’m real happy with my recovered Recording Standard’s (same shells as the Custom’s only they had a covered finish instead of lacquered)but I always think maybe I’d like a the red kit (w/a 16×22  kick, mine has a 14×22 kick) someday. Anyhow those are 2 of my dream  kits. Does anybody else have   kit that they’re hoping for someday, or am I the only one who thinks about (see   obsesses over )this stuff?Is there anything else drum wise that you wanna talk about?
Let me know.

Michael Tocker-drums