No dog, but I want what you (or your dog) is smokin'!

Michael,

LOL! Spelling still gotcha down? don't worry, the people that complain about spelling are the same ones that are covering their own inadequaices. :}

I have a cocker spaniel and he loves to listen to me while i record guitar tracks, at certain notes he just goes nuts, barking and singing along.

I have chihuahua terrier mix and he loves the studio. Sits and sleeps on the couch in back of the mix position for hours. I'm not sure but it appears he prefers analog....Fats :D
p.s. I run spell check on all my posts and still something gets through once in a while!

....When Miss Maddie starts twisting her head, I know the 40KhZ is coming through crystal clear!!

Hey Bill, ya Old Sourdough! :w: Fats, Mrs. Fats & Peioui.

Has anyone ever ran an entire mix through a wah wah peddle and let the producer wah the mix for 3 hours? Just wondering, I thought it could be a sign of my carrer ending, kind of like one of the signs of the apocalypse. Yes my spelling still sucks, How come there isn't a spell checker on this site? maybe I need to read the manual, or a dictionary.

Flashback of LSD for that producer..the wierdness of it all....but Art, it is...I reckon..

Hey Bill, I'm thinking of building one of those foreplay units, should I buy all the mods they offer or should I wait and get the CDrom mod book thingy that comes with it and decide which mods I want? I have a tubetech stereo pre amp, and i'm wondering if this is basically the same thing as the foreplay, maybe just mod the tubetech and forget about the foreplay?

:w: Michael,
Check your private messages......Fats

Thanks Fats,
I'll probably do that for about a week then just resort to mispelling again.

Mike

The beauty of the Foreplay is it needs to be used some in it's basic form. I would immediately replace the pots with the Sweet whisper mod (set them to -20/-50) as the unit has so much gain..(can put out close to 20Volts unclipped). Therefore -20 is all the way up and -50 is all the way down, then off. Using the 0/-30dB settings are "hair trigger" and the lowest setting will be pumping about 3 watts RMS from your amplifier!

Reasons to use the foreplay first unmodded.

1. Let the parts break-in and troubleshoot it for noise, solder joints that may not be perfect, etc..

Mine was Hum Free, you will be amazed that 70% of foreplay builders (novices) have a hum problem due to experience in soldering. I time the joint, time the heat up of the pencil (non joint) and time the next one. I never touch a bare wire with my fingertips (oil etc)..I use latex gloves. I keep a very organized area for building and mods. Makes a huge difference. Quest has a web site and you can see in jpeg, (high rez jpeg) each step. It is a no brainer.
5 hr build time average. I have had many people approach me to build them a f-play. I said, that is no fun, you can do it...now start building!!!!

What I did was to price myself out of the market..no takers!!!!!

As per sound from the unmodded version...
Get use to it and see where you think the weaknesses are.

2. Appreciation of each mod. Give about 2 weeks between mods to let the unit evolve. You will further understand what each mod stage does electronically, audibly, and interactionnally with your equipment.

Mod 1, Sweet whisper control (or better)
1A Better power cable, computer cable, cut the female off
Mod 2, Snubber circuit. AC side (2 bux in parts at Rat Shack....Duhhhh)
Mod 3, Star grounding. (time consuming, no cost)
Next is the anticipation circuits or ccccs. By going ahead and using the anticipation as soon as it is built, you will miss out on what the mod stages do to it. This thing is much more fun and soulful if you do the mods OVER TIME..

Anticipation "tightens it up" considerablly. I actually loved the sound BEFORE the anticipation circuits and it had a character, that tube bloom and liquid midrange that the anticpation pulled up everything else to that level. At this point, not many 2K preamps can touch it. I would do the anticipation around 6 to 10 weeks of use.

Next, upgraded power cord, (well I started with a better than stock one, because the stock cord cost 25 cents. I started with a nice cord, then went to braided hand twisted "super" cord.

Now for tube rolling, (trying different qualities of valves) filament snubber, dual transformer power supplies...etc.

Perhaps a nice rack mount 3 space plate to mount it on?

Improved jacks, etc.

What this does is allow you to apply these mod steps and changes to your knowledge collection in the rest of your chain. If this stuff makes these differences in this line amp...Hummmm wonder what else I can fiddle with inexpensively and upgrade my entire studio???

It is not a catch 22. You can undo any mod any time. As many amps, preamps, board repairs, speaker building, wire making, maintainance situations, the building , asking questions, interacting with the "crew", and the pure joy of this little gem really has expanded my brain in interaction of components and therory.

As a "BAS" (bone ass stock) unit, it is a shocker. Fully modded without these steps do not let you appreciate what is "going on" and how. Heck, you may find that their is one mod that took it over the top..and back up a notch and that is exactly what you are looking for. I did find a stopping point myself. As a matter of fact, I used it Sunday coming out of a Nakamichi cassette deck to drive the analog inputs of the ADAT machine to give a "vibe" to the cassette I was archiving. It certainly pleased the customer...you would never think this was a cassette master running at 1" 7/8.

Of course the knowledge of building the thing made impedance matching a cake walk.

Look over the forum and decide if you want to do this. I will gurantee it will be an experience that you will never forget and you will enjoy the experience.

They also have a gurantee on them. If you screw up and build it wrong, if you have the time, they will make it right, barring any parts that were ruined by stupidity.

F plays take 4 to 6 weeks to get, so be patient.
[url=link removed for Bottlehead products (formally electronic tonalities)[/url]

PS... Hiya Fats and Family!!!!!!! :)

LOL! Michael, now thats funny! We were recording a guitar part last night, and for fun we recorded 5 different takes of the same part and mixed them all together, the one that stuck out the most and added flavor was the wah part... and no it is not 3 hours long, but hey......

Chris
hey fats!

Has anyone ever ran an entire mix through a wah wah pedal and let the producer wah the mix for 3 hours? Just wondering, I thought it could be a sign of my career ending, kind of like one of the signs of the apocalypse.
--------------------
Michael Fossenkemper

Michael,
Great thread! Just a few questions;
When you were wah-ing the mix, was that in stereo or mono?
If it was stereo, did you use a stereo wah wah or 2 mono wah wahs?
Was the left wah wah going down while the right wah wah was going up?
What is your opinion of the difference between stereo wah and mono wahs?
What does it mean to "put a wah wah across the 2-bus"?
Should you leave some room for the Mastering guy to wah wah?
Please explain if there is a way I can take 2 wah wahs and using patch cords, route them for 8 tracks at once?
I want really good wah wahs but I don't want to pay a lot for them. I have been thinking about making some of my own wah wahs. I'm looking for same germanium transistors that go wahh. Any ideas?
What wold be cool is a digital mic pre wah wah combo! That way we could wah wah once on the way in and avoid repeated steps of wah wahing.
Any help would be appreciated in advance......
Time to Eat,………………………. Cedar Farts Flat
ahhh that feels better! Thanxx :D
Hi Chris :w:

I have a headache just thinking about responding to all of this. I want to go back to mono 3 track recording so I don't have to think too much. I am going to try stereo wah's with each side going up and down, maybe even panning back and forth. This should give the producer a whole days worth of fun.

Originally posted by Michael Fossenkemper:
Has anyone ever ran an entire mix through a wah wah peddle and let the producer wah the mix for 3 hours?

I think it was more like five hours but it happened to me shortly after the first wah wah peddle came out.

Originally posted by Michael Fossenkemper:
Has anyone ever ran an entire mix through a wah wah peddle and let the producer wah the mix for 3 hours?

reply posted by Bob Ohlsson

I think it was more like five hours but it happened to me shortly after the first wah wah peddle came out.

Bob,
Oh, Do tell,..do tell........ Fats
:D Harrumph!

Maybe the reason all the ceedeez being released are so over compressed is because we all listen to music in our cars more than anywhere else...and we tend to listen more to ceedeez than radio. So to make up for the lack of compression the radio use to add the producers are adding it at mix and mastering. This is to overcome road noise. Ever try to listen to a real dynamic recording in a car? It's pretty hard to do without turning it up and down while you listen.. Cars are the worst environments to critically listen to music in but it seems that's where we do most of it. Next would be teevee. On tiny speakers....the dumbing down of audio. No wonder people are willing to accept MP3. I just won't listen to it. I refuse to eat a sh*t sandwich no matter how good it looks.....Fats

Originally posted by Cedar Flat Fats:
Maybe the reason all the ceedeez being released are so over compressed is because we all listen to music in our cars more than anywhere else...

I only wish it were that mindful of the fans!

Decisions are made to support or not support a given title at many different points in the distribution, promotion and publicity paths based on listening to a group of contenders and choosing the best. Nobody has enough time and resources available to support everything. Simply put, a given cut has a serious marketing disadvantage if its average volume is significantly lower than the competition's.

The reason cds are so compressed is that MIDI productions have very little peak content which makes them loud as all getout after you turn them up so the maximum peak is at digital zero. Microphone-sourced recordings are are being compressed and limited to death in order to make them competitive with MIDI productions.

The saving grace in all of this is that uncompressed material sounds way louder and larger on the air so if we can get enough education out there, we CAN probably do something about this problem.

having fun with front tunned ports on your speakers.

Here are some things you can have fun with while your waiting for the rest of your clients to show up, or just to kill some time.

If you have a client that smokes, have him blow a mouth full of smoke into the port and play a kick drum. make sure the air conditioner is not blowing to hard because it will ruin the smoke rings.

ping pong balls are great fun too. place a ping pong ball in one of the ports and see how far you can shoot it. 10 bonus points if you nail someone in the head.

Another fun thing, but your client has to be a good sport, tape a whistle inside of your port and seal it off so all the air has to go through the whistle. the whistle blows everytime the kick hits. then ask him what's up with that wierd kickdrum sound.