FREE EXCLUSIVE ACOUSTIC DRUM SAMPLES MADE BY US!

Hello Everyone!
Today I'm making to you a little gift: a small archive with some oneshot sample of  a drumset I've recorded and mixed for the pop-rock band Fuoriskema some month ago; the drumset is a Yamaha Stage Custom Advantage Nouveau with Ufip Cymbals and it was played by Giacomo Ricci.
The samples are recorded 24 bit/44khz with an Rme Fireface preamp, a set of 10 microphones (sm57 for snares, md421 for toms and so on) and are already processed;
although they are only oneshot (one for each drum part) I think that someone could find them useful, for example they can be blended them with your own sound in order to give some extra punch.

These samples can be loaded with any drum sampler or drum replacer and can distributed freely, as long as the archive with the included informations stays unaltered.

The sample pack can be downloaded Here: Guitar Nerding Blog Rock Samples.

I hope this was useful, let me know what do you think!

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Review: Engl Fireball 60 / E625

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're going to talk about my favourite head: Engl Fireball 60!

Through my career as live performer and mix engineer I had the chance to try many heads, combos, rack systems, and to discover the differences between a tube amp and a transistor or a digital one.
Although I appreciate very much the digital amp modeling world, for the live environment I still love to rely on a tube amp, because their harmonics can cut through every situation (and a transistor amp needs to have 3 times the power in watts to hold up against it), and because a Tube power amp is one of the single parts on the chain of a guitar sound that can really make the difference in terms of tone.
If the Tube Power amp is good, the whole sound will gain an additional roar and a harmonic richness that still cannot be recreated properly in other ways.

The downside of having a tube amp is the fact that to get the harmonic richness you have to drive it at a decent volume, and if you're living in a flat this can be sometimes tricky (and if you try to play a 100w tube head with the volume at 1 it will often sound like crap); that's why many companies have decided to create tube amps of lower wattage, to give the player a full tube sound without disturbing excessively the neighbourhood.
In my opinon the minimum tube wattage to be able to play on a rock or metal band without being covered by the drum sound is 30w, but in the other hand the bigger the wattage is, and the bigger and cleaner the sound will be, not only it will be louder.

I think that I have found the right compromise for my needs with this Engl Fireball E 625: 60watts are more than enough to play live or rehearsing with the band, and at the same time the sound is good enough to play at "bedroom volume", plus this model has so much gain that allows me to play even death metal with a screaming, mid rangey tone, without the need of boosting.

I have bought this head about five years ago, after having used a Peavey 5150 and a Randall rh50t among the others, and after all these years I am still convinced that this is my favourite sounding head.

Specs taken from the Engl Website:

Preamp: 2 channels, Clean, Lead, 3 band EQ, Bright switch, Depth switch, Presence control, 3x ECC83 preamp tubes.

Master Section: Master A/B, 60 watts (1 x ECC83, 2 x 6L6GC power amp tubes).

Outputs: Speaker Outs (2 x 8, 2 x 16 Ohms), fx loop, (parallel to serial adjustable), dual footswitch jacks (Z-3 or Z-4).

Dimensions & Weight: 71 x 27 x 27 cm, 19 kg

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HOW TO USE SUPERIOR DRUMMER, ADDICTIVE DRUMS AND SLATE DRUMS SAMPLES IN THE SAME MIDI DRUM TRACK!

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're going to see how to use samples from 2 or more drum samplers with our Midi drum track!
This article is an addition of the one that explains how to use VSTi drum samples to replace our acoustic drum sound.
Did you ever want to use for example the kick from Superior Drummer, the snare from Slate Drums and the cymbals from Addictive Drums?
It is actually is possible, and there are two ways to achieve it:

1) With separated Midi tracks: we must create a midi track for each VSTi we want to use, then we can disable all the drum parts we are not using (for example we can disable all the Superior Drummer drumset parts except for the kick, then disable all Slate drum parts except for the snare, and so on), in order to save RAM memory.
Now we must write in the piano roll of each track the drum part that we need (all the snares in the snare track, all the kicks in the kick track and so on), or write all the drum Midi in the same track and then cut/paste the snare and the kick in the proper VSTi tracks.
This way we will have a complete drumset, divided in two or more tracks, that together creates our hybrid kit.
We can also use the sound of a drum part from two or more samplers to obtain a fuller, layered tone (this works well especially with the snare, but don't use it with cymbals!).

2) With one single Midi track: we must create a single Midi track with one drum VSTi, then we create a separate channel for each drum part and we can use Drumagog or some other drum replacer to replace that single drum part with another sample or with another VSTi drum sampler's drum part, as explained in This Article.

Now that we have a Midi drum track with different samples from different VST instruments, we need to create some coherence, to give the feeling that everything is played the same room: we must choose the ambience tracks of just one VSTi and stick with that, or we can disable all the ambience tracks, and route all the "dry sounds" on a buss where we can give to the whole kit a touch or Reverb, to create a homogeneous feel. Another good idea to create some coherence among the different samples is to add some harmonic excitement, or saturation, and some Drum Buss Compression.

Experiment and let me know!

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REVIEW: LTD MH-417

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are reviewing an 7 string guitar: the Ltd Mh-417.
This is a mid-priced guitar of the Mh serie that comes with a nice black satin finish; the construction is neck-through-body and the fingerboard is 24 frets, made of rosewood with binding.

On the hardware side, the guitar features a Tune o'Matic bridge, Grover tuners and 2 Emg active pickups (81-7 and 707); this setup is amost a standard nowadays, especially for the high end, fixed bridges metal guitars.

The weight is not excessive but not even light, the body is in mahogany and the neck has a contour that is not as thin as an Ibanez, but neither as thick as a Jackson or a Gibson.

All in all I consider today Ltd guitars to be one of the best bang for the buck, since Ibanez, which also has always had a good quality to price ratio, tends to create very cheap guitars with a decent quality on one side and very high end, expensive guitars on the other, but lately lacks of very good instruments in the 700-to-1000$ range.

Schecter and Ltd guitars are aiming mostly on that price range, and if that is your budget, I would aim for one of these 2 manufacturers.

Tech Specs taken from the ESP website:

Construction             Neck-thru-body

Scale                         25.5"

Body                         Mahogany
Neck                         Maple

Fingerboard              Rosewood
Neck Contour           Thin U

Frets/Type                24 XJ
Tuners                       Grover

Bridge                        TOM Bridge
Neck PU                    EMG 707

Bridge PU                  EMG 81-7
Electronics Layout   Vol/Tone/Toggle Switch

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HOW TO USE SUPERIOR DRUMMER OR SLATE DRUMS SAMPLES IN OUR ACOUSTIC DRUM TRACK!

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we're going to talk about Drumagog, the drum replacing software we've already analyzed some month ago, and we're going to explain how to combine it with Superior Drummer, Slate Drums or any other Vst Instrument, to make it replace the original sound (midi or audio) with the samples of the chosen Vst Instrument.

For this tutorial I'm going to use the standard Cubase/Nuendo interface, Drumagog and Superior Drummer, but the method should be the same for any drum replacer, daw and Vst Instrument.

First off let's assume that we have a project with 8 tracks, one for each drum part of an acoustic drumset we have recorded (it could be also Midi drums, but let's assume for this example we have an acoustic one), and we are not satisfied with the sound we have obtained with the microphones, so we decide to blend the acoustic kick and the snare tracks with some sample.
Let's also assume that the samples we have are not satisfying and we want to use the samples of Toontrack Superior Drummer.

We must load Drumagog in the insert slot of our drum track we want to replace (e.g. the snare track), and from the "Plugin" menu of Drumagog we choose "Superior Drummer", or any other Drum Vsti we have.
This will open an instance of Superior Drummer, and I really suggest you, after you have chosen the kit to use, to disable all the drum parts that will not be used and leave only the snare on, since we will need to run an instance of this virtual instrument for each drum part that we want to replace, therefore we'll need to save all the Ram we can.
In the Superior Drummer main window we can see (and if needed, modify), the Midi Note (or Midi Key) assigned to each drum part, and by default in S.D. the snare is assigned to the note D1 and the kick to the C1.
We need then to match this note with the one in the "Plugin" menu of Drumagog: if we want to replace the snare, and the snare in S.D. is in the D1 note, we will need to choose D1 in the "Midi Note" menu of the "Plugins" section in Drumagog.
Once we have matched the note, if we play the song, whenever the snare track plays, Drumagog should trigger the snare of S.D., and we can choose with the "Mix" fader in the "Plugins" section of Drumagog the amount of sample to blend with the original sound. If the Mix control is at 100%, the sound will be completely replaced.


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REVIEW: JACKSON SLATFXQMG 3-8

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to talk about a guitar I had the chance to play in the last few weeks, the Jackson Soloist SLAT FX QMG 3-8.

The guitar is an 8 string one and this sets it on a quite narrow niche, since the eight string (a low F#) is used today only in certain genres of metal (especially Djent metal), and by some avantgarde jazz and classical guitarist.

The 24 fret neck is obviously wider than a seven string guitar one, but it is quite easy to play once you've accustomed to it; 

the rosewood fingerboard is very smooth and pleasant to touch, and there is a binding around it. 

The inlays are Piranha tooth (small shark fin), and the scale is obviously baritone (26,5") with a radius of 16", therefore very flat.

The body is a rather light mahogany with arched quilted top, in a beautiful green transparent finish; the bridge is a Jackson one "hipshot style", and the pickups are two Emg 808, which are very similar to an Emg 85. 

The sound is very fat, full of lows (due also to the thick string gauge required), and there is the need to brighten the sound with boosters and equalizers, but once you find the right compromise to make the sound more clear the guitar becomes very playable, and after a while you don't even notice the particularity of having 8 strings.

Tech Specs taken from the Jackson website:

Body: Mahogany with Arched Quilt Maple Top
Neck Shape: 3rd Fret: 0.790", 12th Fret: 0.850"
Number of Frets: 24
Fret Size: Jumbo
Position Inlays: Piranha Tooth (Small Shark Fin)
Fretboard Radius: 16" (406.4 mm)
Fretboard: Rosewood
Neck Material: 3-Piece Maple Neck-Through-Body with Graphite Reinforcement
Nut Width: 2.12" (53.85 mm)
Scale Length: 26.5" (673 mm)

Pickup Configuration: HH
Bridge Pickup: EMG® 808 Humbucking
Neck Pickup: EMG® 808 Humbucking
Controls: Master Volume, Master Tone
Bridge: Jackson® HT8 8-String Hardtail with Strings-Through-Body


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January Update, new sample and downloadable patch!

Hello and Happy new Year!
Today I have updated our "Battle of the Pods" article with the latest model, and I also made a new sample video for the Pod Hd (the previous one was just awful) and made the patch freely downloadable!

To check it out CLICK HERE!

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