Mixdown Magazine #319

#319 – 2022

GHOST CONTRAST & CONFESS MØ, SLASH, 50 YEARS OF VALENCIA SCHOOL ESSENTIALS SPECIAL

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Available Now! POD Go and POD Go Wireless guitar processors get you on the road to ultimate tone via their ultra-portable and lightweight design, simple plug-and-play interface, and best-in-class tones. POD Go Shoulder Bag sold separately.

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The YC Series features a newly designed Virtual Circuitry Modelling (VCM) Organ engine with physical drawbars, extensive real-time control and authentic Acoustic/Electric Piano and FM synth sound.

With three models to choose from, there’s a YC stage keyboard for every stage and every player.

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CONTENTS

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Giveaways

PUBLISHER Furst Media A1 1-5 Weston St Brunswick VIC 3056 (03) 9428 3600

Product News Ghost MØ

PRINT EDITOR Paul French paul@furstmedia.com.au

Slash 50 Years of Valencia

22 Tone City Audio 24 Ableton Tutorial 26 School Essentials

Ghost

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Erica May

PG .14

Special

30 31 32 34 58

ONLINE EDITOR Eli Duxson eli@furstmedia.com.au

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Andy LLoyd-Russell

Drum Column

ADVERTISING MANAGER Paul French paul@furstmedia.com.au

Bass Column Guitar Column

PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Patrick Carr patrick@furstmedia.com.au

Reviews My Rig: BROODS

/MIXDOWNMAGAZINE @MIXDOWNMAGAZINE @MIXDOWNMAGAZINE MIXDOWNMAG.COM.AU

MØ

For breaking news, new content and more giveaways visit our website.

CONTRIBUTORS Al Belling, Andy Lloyd-Russell, Adrian Violi, Bridgette Baini, David James Young, Dylan Foti, Erika Fedele, Greg Long, Liam Mcshane, Lewis NokeEdwards, Nick Brown, Rowena Wise, Niam Hegarty, Peter Hodgson, Fergus Nash, James Callanan, Pablo Francios

Slash

PG. 16

FOUNDER Rob Furst

PG. 18

AY 2021 #315 – APR/M

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#313 – DEC/ JAN 2021

MADE BY MUSICIANS, FOR MUSICIANS STREET / ONLINE DATE: WEDNESDAY APRIL 06

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ARTWORK DEADLINE: THURSDAY MARCH 31

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Elite Acoustics StompMix 4 Our good mates at Elite Acoustics Engineering and Gsus4 have generously donated one of their StompMix 4 stompbox-sized mixers with four inputs and three outputs. Elite Acoustics aim to amplify sound and give players control over it, and no product can exemplify that mantra quite like the StompMix 4. Not every venue can offer the same sound, even night to night, but the StompMix will hold up to the rigours of gigging and touring, while continuing to offer as much or as little mixing and routing as you need from gig to gig. Get in before you miss out!

For your chance to win any of these prizes, head to our giveaways page at mixdownmag.com.au/giveaway and follow the instructions. *These giveaways are for Australian residents only and one entry per person. For full terms and conditions visit mixdownmag.com.au/terms-and-conditions

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WE’VE DONE IT AGAIN Scarlett is already allowing more than three million musicians, songwriters and producers to record, mix and play back audio in studio quality everywhere, all the time.

Now, featuring six configurations of ins and outs with the best performing Scarlett mic preamps the range has ever heard, updated with Air, high headroom instrument inputs, and high-performance converters, the 3rd Generation is the best in class USB interface range on the market today. focusrite.com/scarlett Scan to find out more

Made to Create Take control of any music setup with Launchkey [MK3], Novation’s inspirational range of MIDI controller keyboards. Create and play with Ableton Live, and connect external MIDI gear with the five pin MIDI out.

Expand your musical vocabulary with newly added features including Fixed, Scale, and User Chord Modes and a powerful creative Arp. Velocity-sensitive pads and keys provide expressive control over your software and your performance. novationmusic.com/keys/launchkey

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PRODUCT NEWS

Tone City Audio adds four new boutique pedals to their T-M Mini Series EGM DISTRIBUTION | EGM.NET.AU Tone City Audio have received plaudits around the world for their rugged build quality and clean, slick eye-catching designs since their 2014 inception and these additions to the T-M Mini Series range only solidifies that. Among the four new additions are the Nobleman - a TS style inspired overdrive pedal, the Matcha Cream – Fuzz, featuring a classic original Russian revised circuit, the Mickey – Distortion, a classic US style powerful high-gain distortion pedal, and the Bluesman – Overdrive, emulating the legendary British Guitar tones of the past.

Each pedal runs off DC 9V with true bypass.

Ernie Ball releases six new strap designs

Faith Guitars unveils their second PJE Legacy Series

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Ernie Ball’s world-renowned polypro guitar strap is now available in three new Jacquard weave patterns, while three Stretch strap designs have also been added to the brand’s catalogue. The polypro guitar straps boast machine-stitched leather ends with durable yet comfortable polypropylene webbing.

The Stretch straps are great for redistributing instrument weight and are particularly suited to those with existing ailments, aches, or chronic pain. The flexible and cushioned Stretch strap is made from an ultra-durable and lightweight, nylon polyester material that is two inches wide.

Both strap designs boast an adjustable extralong design measuring 41 to 72 inches.

Faith Guitars has launched a second PJE Legacy Series after experiencing huge success from the first, focusing solely on Patrick James Eggle’s historic acoustic body shapes and “setting a new bar for professional excellence”.

The second series features the Mars dropshoulder dreadnought (PJE Kanuga), the Neptune baby-jumbo (PJE Saluda), and the Earth orchestra-model (PJE Linville). The Legacy model line-up is genuinely unique as the fine Canadian sitka spruce or African khaya mahogany tops of the guitars have been kiln-aged through a process of torrefaction, while also featuring book-matched two-piece rosewood back and sides.

Free premium and pro cables to come with Warm Audio microphone purchases STUDIO CONNECTIONS | STUDIOCONNECTIONS.COM.AU Studio Connections are offering free premium and pro cables on applicable purchases of Warm Audio microphones. The criteria is simple. If you buy a Warm Audio microphone for under $1,000 RRP, you’ll receive a free pro cable. The eligible mics are the WA84 small diaphragm condenser mic, the WA87 R2 large diaphragm capacitor mic, the WA14 large diaphragm condenser mic, and the WA47 Jr FET condenser mic. For mics over $1,000 RRP, you’ll receive a free premium cable. These mics include the WA47, WA67, and WA251 tube condenser mics, and the recreation of the Sony C800G, the WA8000.

Fender announces the second iteration of the George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster FENDER AUSTRALIA | FENDER.COM Fender has reintroduced an iconic model in their Artist Signature series the George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster. Fender honoured Harrison in 2017 with the limited-edition first iteration of the Telecaster based on the prototype gifted to the Beatles legend in 1968 who used it for the rest of the decade including during the Let It Be sessions and the unforgettable final performance on the rooftop of Apple Corps headquarters. Bought back by popular demand and to be more accessible it features a chambered Rosewood body, a “C” shaped neck with a modern 9.5” radius, and Pure Vintage ‘64 Telecaster pickups.

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NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

PRODUCT NEWS

Line 6 revitalises their amp lineup with the Catalyst series YAMAHA MUSIC AUSTRALIA | AU.YAMAHA.COM Line 6 has revitalised their amp lineup with their new line of digital modelling combo amplifiers in the form of the Catalyst series. The amplifiers use Line 6’s revered HX digital modelling tech to offer Clean, Boutique, Chime, Crunch, Dynamic, and Hi Gain. Other controls can adjust pre-front-end boost, preamp gain, a threeband EQ, a presence control, a channel volume control, knobs for controlling one of the onboard effects, a reverb control and a master volume. The Catalyst can come in 60W, 100W or 200W, while the back panel has a power attenuation control, letting you set the output power at full, half, or half-watt for ultra-quiet playing.

Audio-Technica’s ATH-M20x headphones are now available in a Bluetooth model

Lewitt launches the LCT 1040 remote-controllable tube/FET condenser microphone

Focusrite launches its Australian distribution base

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Audio-Technica’s ATH-M20x headphones now have a wireless Bluetooth option as the ATHM20xBT offers the same sonic performance and durability as its cabled sibling. The 40mm drivers deliver natural, full-range audio and the closed-back housing helps retain lower frequencies, while the newly added buttons on the left earcup allow users to play, pause, and skip audio. The left earcup also houses the builtin microphone for phone calls. They offer an impressive 60 hours of runtime on one charge, multi-point pairing for connecting to more than one device simultaneously, a low-latency mode, and a USB-C connection.

Austrian microphone manufacturers Lewitt Audio have announced their flagship LCT 1040 microphone system designed to be the ultimate centrepiece with many years of R’n’D with an extensive list of world-renowned industry professionals. The LCT 1040 is a Tube/ FET condenser microphone with a detachable remote-control unit which connects through a studio standard three-pin XLR and its own external power supply. It features four distinct all-analogue tube characteristics: Clear, Warm, Dark, and Saturated, while externally, this is the kind of equipment you’d be comfortable carrying around with its rigidity.

Focusrite has announced the introduction of Focusrite Australia - a single focus for the distribution, marketing, and support of their brands locally. Focusrite and Novation have a long and consistent history of sales in Australia, starting with Innovative Music and Novation more than 20 years ago, and with the addition of Focusrite Pro and Sequential, Focusrite taking this step is a major move. “We are very excited to embark on this next phase of our investment into the Australian market,” says Focusrite Group CEO Tim Carroll. “We would also like to thank our former distributor, Innovative Music, for all their support over the past 29 years.”

FOCUSRITE AUSTRALIA | FOCUSRITE.COM

Steinberg announce major updates to Dorico 4 YAMAHA MUSIC AUSTRALIA | AU.YAMAHA.COM Steinberg has announced the availability of major updates to its Dorico family of musical notation and composition software. Some of the more notable and welcomed updates include a new MIDI import workflow that interprets incoming tracks, and stores the user’s choices for future imports, while also automatically separating the music played into separate voices, producing a much cleaner transcription. Other nifty features include Key Editor in Write mode to make notation shaping easier, on-screen keyboard, fretboard and drum pads, revamped Play mode and Mixer, and native Apple Silicon support.

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SET IT. EDIT. CAST. SIMPLE.

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Ghost 2022 is officially the of our unholy lord Papa Emeritus the IV, the newest incarnation of Ghost frontman Tobias Forge’s alter-ego.

Of course, a new Papa Emeritus means a new Ghost album, which is exactly what the world will receive next month with the release of Impera, the fifth LP from the Swedish metal masters who have gone from (oc)cult following status to arena-filling superstars in less than a decade.

Such is the fervour around Ghost that the band has been able to change their style, sound, and image to greater and greater critical acclaim, with an O2 Arena date in London the first of what is sure to be many milestones on this new album cycle.

“Of course, we’re aware that these songs are going to be played in front of a lot of people, we very much had to think of how much these songs will play out in a big boomy hall,” says Forge, who is chatting to us from Denver, Colorado where the band is currently engaged in some pre-album dates.

“We’ve had people afraid to come to the show, and then also people who refuse to get vaccinated who stand outside the venue because they’re not allowed to come in,” laughs Forge, who sounds stunned that, despite the album not being out, “a few thousand” people are still coming to each show.

The tour has been revelatory for Ghost fans, with Forge’s backing band – known as the ‘nameless ghouls’ – debuting a brand new-look, a cyberpunk aesthetic, while new singles ‘Call Me Little Miss Sunshine’ and ‘Hunter’s Moon’ have been getting their live debuts.

“The people seem to be really happy about it,” he says, but notes a catch, “every time we start a tour, an album cycle, there’s this tremendous amount of fucking push back. Always, always, always.”

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Forge is referring to the polarisation around their success, criticism has followed Ghost’s footsteps, ranging from black metal purists to magazine-buying mega-fans, turned off by the commercial appeal of the band’s poppy song-craft which channels the spirit of Blue Oyster Cult as opposed to Darkthrone.

“We get a tonne of shit because people miss what we used to do, and then in a few years they’ll miss what we’re doing now.”

“It ends up being the new black anyway, people have to deal with it,” says Forge of the band’s style.

“We get a tonne of shit because people miss what we used to do, and then in a few years they’ll miss what we’re doing now.”

Forge notes that he sees that polarisation around him on the road as well, regardless of what the issue is.

“We’ve had lots of confusion and mixed messages in the world at

the moment around dangers and safety, and on the one hand, you have people who are quite anxious for their safety.

“Then on the other side you have those folks who refuse to get vaccinated, they’re all standing outside the venue ‘cos they can’t come in. Given the circumstances though, the tour is going really well.”

It’s this polarisation that Forge notes sets this new album cycle apart, with Impera representing a time of contentment in his life as he watches the world around him capitulate.

“One major difference between this new record and Prequelle is that I was personally in a very wounded state when I wrote Prequelle – I was very wounded and felt attacked, but the world felt like a more stable place.

“Making Impera, the roles were almost completely switched. I felt really content and good with life, but everything around us has fallen out.

“I got the idea to write an album about the concept of empires rising back in 2014, but I also wanted to first write an album about the plague which was Prequelle, which was written from an ‘I, a mortal and single human being am being attacked by force.’ Impera is exploring the wellbeing of society.

“At the end of the day though, I just want to write songs that are cool and make you feel good, thematic ideas can just be a way to tie together a bunch of different songs that ultimately are for enjoyment.

“I just want to help people shake their asses, or foreheads, or both!”

The danceability of Ghost has been a major trump card for the band, with their satanic Vatican image juxtaposed by bluesy rock riffs and disco-infused pop-rock goodness.

As Forge points out, their success is representative of metal entering a point that rewards bands for going against the grain, noting that it’s something “very close to (his) heart”.

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“I always felt proud that when we came out, we had a brief invite into the occult rock thing that was happening at that time, and as soon as things started to move for us we were out of that quickly…we started playing with lots of other bands,” he recalls.

However, while Forge is quietly confident of the strength of the record, he remains cautious when it comes to attempting to replicate the crossover appeal of Prequelle.

“Once we started touring I felt very alienated because at that point, all these ‘core’ bands with a sentence for a name – they were the shit!

“You should be cognisant of those things but within the limits of writing a good record that expresses what you feel,” he says.

“I envied the massive amount of opportunities [other bands] had because they were all new, current, same age…I’ve always felt like the odd kid…”

commercial success at all, they know when you write something you can think to yourself ‘this could be a good song to pitch for radio.’

“I had that sense with a few songs here, thinking ‘this could benefit from not being seven minutes long – maybe we should trim it down. You shoot yourself in the foot if you don’t have that sort of radar operating.

“But for every song you have that’s successful, you have ones that you think will open heaps of doors but it might never happen. ‘He Is’ for example, America never went for it, but in Europe, it charted on normal radio!”

Despite Forge’s caution, the stage is set for a massive 2022 for the band, with concert markets reopening and a fanbase eager to install Ghost on the throne of contemporary metal.

And that, Forge concedes, is a reason to smile.

“We’re in the restaurant business – it’s great and it’s fun, but if you get a Michelin star, that’s fantastic…it doesn’t define who you are or what you’re doing, but it really helps.”

BY AL BELLING

“Back when we wrote ‘Dance Macabre’ for the last record it felt very immediate, same with ‘Square Hammer’.

“I envied the massive amount of opportunities they had because they were all new, current, same age…I’ve always felt like the odd kid…I felt we stuck out like a sore thumb.”

This point of difference has set the band apart from the ever-increasing glut of hyped metal acts, with their last record Prequelle taking the band to the precipice of ‘mainstream’ fame.

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“But all the time you’ll think ‘this could do this, this could open this potential door’, but you just have no idea.”

“If you write a record that really fulfils where you’re at, and someone walks in and says ‘I don’t hear a hit... well maybe that record doesn’t need a hit.

“Commercially, I dare to say that anyone that has experienced any

Impera will be released March 11 via Loma Vista

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MØ Consider MØ ahead of the curve – although, in this instance, perhaps a little too literally.

Not long after the singer-songwriter came home to Copenhagen to switch off after almost seven straight years of consistent touring, writing, recording, and performing, the world at large would have their hands forced to follow suit. Even through these uncharted waters, however, MØ was able to adjust and recalibrate in order to decide her next move.

“It was a very a big change going from 100 to a zero,” she says via Zoom from her Copenhagen home. “I was really just drained, mentally and physically. It was one of those things where my body had been screaming for me to take a break, but I thought it was just stress and that it’d pass. It wasn’t until I took this break that I really experienced sitting with my anxiety and my voice being effectively broken. It was hard, and it was scary. It took a couple of months before I felt like I was in a place where I could really open up about it.”

This process was documented in her subsequent writing, which ultimately led to her third studio album Motordrome. It began with MØ sitting at her piano and writing the stark ballad ‘Goosebumps’ which stands among her most vulnerable songs yet. With little production and texturing beyond her voice and the reverberating piano chords, the song would effectively serve as the linchpin for what MØ was going for this time around.

“It’s not like there’s any grand conclusions,” she says.

“It’s just me, reflecting on what was going on in my mind after going off of the hamster wheel and finding myself again. I started turning this feeling of defeat that I was feeling – this sadness, this gloom – into like a feeling of energy or power. It felt like I was taking control again, and you definitely hear that in the songs that followed like ‘Brad Pitt’ and ‘Live to Survive’.”

In tandem with these songs being written, MØ’s vision for the album widened. Much like writing the lyrics of each song, the singer found having her own honest conversations with herself meant she was able to break through. “It was just me having a moment of, ‘well, what do I actually love?’,” she said. “I know it sounds banal, but I just started thinking of these sounds that were cool to me: guitars, really dirty guitars; very dark, 80s-inspired synths; pop music.

All of a sudden, I started making an inspirational list of 16

songs and before I knew it I had the framework for the production side of things.”

Released in late January, Motordrome sees MØ reckoning with her innermost feelings to a hitherto unseen degree across a selection of songs that – while different in approach from her two previous albums – ultimately ring true to her sophisticated, intricate brand of electronic pop. A slew of collaborators were enlisted to bring MØ’s vision to life, including prolific producer SG Lewis (Dua Lipa) and fellow Scandinavian Caroline Ailin (Katy Perry), effectively creating a circle of trust around the album and its songs.

Knowing she would be dealing with such sensitive content, MØ deemed it imperative those working on Motordrome were people she had faith in seeing the project through.

“It’s about finding people where you feel like you can be yourself,” she says. “You have to both be in this place where you can really workshop your ideas together. In the past, I’ve tried working with people where it’s difficult to take control, or feel like they get your vision. If you find the right people to work with, then it’s just a way of enhancing, developing and lifting up the ideas that you have as an artist.”

She also points out that, despite a list of over a dozen co-writers and co-producers, this was a refreshingly intimate experience for her. “The album that I made before this one (2018’s Forever Neverland), there were even more people involved in it,” she says. The creation of Motordrome, however, wasn’t without its own set of stumbling blocks.

“I think that the thing that I struggled the most with was in the details. The foundations for all of it were always there and sounded good, but it was questioning, ‘do we take this in a more guitar-driven direction? More synth-y? More electronic? Fully organic?’ That was a constant discussion. Some of the producers that I work with – for instance, Yangze and Ronni Vindahl – they’re super different from one another. This is a good thing, because then you get something from both worlds. Having said that, it’s always kind of like this ongoing back-and-forth, y’know? It did take some work, but I really feel as though we got there.”

MØ’s trust in her collaborators also came in the arrangements. Primarily a singer, her wishes for the sonic direction of each song largely falls to those in the studio with her. “I love throwing up references or sounds, or even describing the sounds that I want,” she says.

“I’m all about just really getting into the universe of the song and the feeling of it all. That was especially handy on the song ‘Punches’, because I knew the exact melody I wanted. I asked the players, can you do it like this?” MØ then enunciates the distinctive downward scale that serves as a recurring motif. “They picked it out by ear, and were like, ‘did you mean to do it like this?’ And I did! It was amazing.”

With Motordrome now out in the world, MØ simply hopes that those that hear it can see parts of themselves in the parts of her that are scattered throughout. “I hope that people can relate their own life to it,” she says. “When I listen to other artists, I always look for something that I can grab onto, so that I won’t feel alone. I hope people will feel that way with this album, too.”

BY DAVID JAMES YOUNG

Motordrome is out now via Columbia Records/Sony

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Slash Rock music has seen many great bands and musicians come and go for a raft of complicated and simple reasons.

Simplicity is the key for certified guitar legend Slash who needs no introduction as his fourth studio album with Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators has arrived, aptly entitled 4.

Having produced their fourth offering in a decade, Slash says the Conspirators is just such a simple, easy band, and it’s been like that from its inception.

“It’s a band where everybody just wants to get together and play, and there’s really not a lot of other stuff that gets in the way,” he says. “We get the material together and we go for it, and once a run’s over, then we go and do other things.”

“But we always come back to it,” Slash continues.

“We love making these records and doing the tours and going out and having a really good time.”

Making up the Conspirators is Todd Kerns (bass), Brent Fitz (drums), and Frank Sidoris (rhythm guitar), and their latest offering provided their greatest challenge yet in the shape of the pandemic. Most of the songs were written pre-pandemic but Slash says it wasn’t necessarily just the recording process that was affected, it was everything.

“I locked myself in my studio and I was really forced to have to create demos to send to the guys which wasn’t really normal for me, I don’t usually do it like that,” he says.

Once restrictions eased and the group got into preproduction, things were almost as they usually were.

So, what was different?

“We actually did this record completely live with everybody in the room at the same time, with all the amps and everything like we were playing a gig and just recorded like that,” he says. “That was really exciting. I’ve never actually recorded with the guitars and the vocals live before, I’ve always wanted to but then you have to wear headphones and I hate headphones. At the end of the day though it had nothing to do with the pandemic.”

The recording took place at the iconic Chet Atkinsfounded RCA Studio A in Nashville which has housed the likes of The Beach Boys and B.B King over the years.

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Including every little imperfection as it was captured in the moment like covid-laden vocals from Kennedy was something Slash had wanted to do since the ‘80s, and pairing with producer Dave Cobb was a “great marriage”.

“Producers just don’t like to do it that way,” he laughs.

“You get a lot of bleed on the drum mics, and they don’t trust that a young rock and roll band can actually play well enough that they don’t have to fix everything, so I’ve had producers all these years tell me no.

“But when I hooked up with Dave Cobb he was like, ‘yeah man I just want to record you guys live,’ and I was like, ‘you’re fucking kidding me, this is great’.”

Transferring the record to the live stage will be as simple as adding a crowd in as Slash says whenever the Conspirators put together new material, it’s “intended to be live”.

“That’s really what we’re all about, but this record in particular because of the way we did it, when we go and play these songs in front of an audience, I think it’s going to be really, really cool,” he says.

Their first tour since pre-pandemic kicked off in Portland on February 8 and in the lead up, Slash had no secrets as to how he felt about it.

“I’m just looking forward to playing. Period,” he says.

As the tour goes on and more people can get their hands on the record, they’re going to sneak in more and more songs with a focus on the album’s lead track and fastest growing radio single he’s ever had, ‘The River Is Rising’.

When he graces the live stage with Kennedy and the Conspirators, the first thing fans will expect to see is a top hat. The second, and absolutely more importantly is no doubt, his trusty Les Paul axe.

He’s been a loyal custodian of the Gibson Les Paul and undoubtedly led the resurgence of them in the late ‘80s. Slash’s Les Paul Standard is very much an ode to the beloved ‘59 and ‘60 Les Paul models of old, but with a few very personal touches, the most notable perhaps being the 4.3kg weight of the guitar.

“It’s the old saying, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” he laughs. “When I do a signature model, the specs that I change are only very specific to my guitars. There are certain hardware modifications, the dimensions of the neck are very personal, and they have Slash model Seymour Duncan pickups, but the rest of the guitar is basically just a regular Les Paul.”

That standard Les Paul will be featuring on 4 though, in the form of a commemorative limited album edition guitar finished in Translucent Cherry delivered with a unique hardshell case emblazoned with the 4 album logo. The limited run of 250 was quick to sell out.

“That’s what happens when you do a record deal with a guitar company,” he laughs.

4 is the first record released on Gibson Records and Slash says he was humbled when they asked if he’d be interested.

“I’ve had a great relationship with Gibson for many, many years, so when they asked if I wanted to do this record on their new label I was honoured that they would do that,” he says.

The tour will conclude in Orlando on March 26 in which fans will no doubt be treated to some brilliant shows.

“There’s a lot of songs we’re going to play that we haven’t played in a really long time, but I’m just really excited about the whole thing, especially about playing the new songs.”

BY ELI DUXSON

4 is out now via Gibson Records.

mixdownmag.com.au

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PAGE HEADER

50 years of Valencia When this writer was a little sprite back in the olden times, there was something of a pattern observable at the start of every school year: a procession of kids who got guitars for Christmas, rocking up with their new instruments for their first lesson with the wonderful teacher who came to our school once a week (hi Peter Cominos).

As a young guitar nerd it was always fun to see who got what.

There were a lot of cheap and nasty nylon string guitars among that lot every year, but clearly Santa favoured many kids because they got Valencias. We envied the Valencia Kids. Their guitars seemed to sound fuller, look nicer and play easier and have a fancier sounding name than the Amenas and Kapoks that the rest of us had.

distributed in 85 countries by 54 of the world’s leading distributors.

The secret to their success? A dedication to the finer details of what makes a beginner guitar a pleasure to play and an innate understanding that accessibility and playability are the gateway to a lifetime of guitar playing. It all starts with the right instrument.

Valencia is an Australian brand established in Melbourne back in 1972 to provide quality student guitars that were easy to play.

That’s 50 years and 1.7 million guitars sold into the Australian market alone - a market that’s notoriously competitive. When you’re buying a guitar for a young player to begin learning on, it’s important to spec it so it will encourage them to keep playing and developing, so you want a guitar that doesn’t fight you back, doesn’t sound like a shoebox with rubber bands stretched across it, and can handle the rigours of youthful exuberance.

But Valencias aren’t kids’ guitars: they’re beginner guitars for anyone to get acquainted with the instrument. The whole charm of Valencia lies in the fact that when you pick one up, it doesn’t feel like a toy. It’s a living, breathing instrument designed for purpose.

“We are very proud to celebrate Valencia’s 50th milestone and the contribution Valencia instruments have made in providing happiness, pleasure, and a quality musical experience to millions of people worldwide,” said Kevin Hague of Australasian Music Supplies (AMS).

This year Valencia celebrates their 50th anniversary - a huge milestone for any company, let alone one occupying a seat at the table in the hyper competitive international guitar industry.

Those 50 years have seen Valencia grow, not only continuing their dominance on the domestic beginner guitar market, but having this success translate internationally, with the brand now

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“We sincerely thank all personnel involved, all the great distributors, retailers, teachers, and musicians alike, who with their support and belief over the years have helped Valencia become one of the longest surviving student and beginner nylon classical guitars in the world. With our commitment and passion to help create the musicians of the future we look forward to delivering the legacy of the Valencia experience for many generations to come.”

The story of Valencia guitars really starts with Lou Toppano and Geoff ‘Dutchy’ Turner, who began sourcing classical guitars from suppliers in Taiwan and South Korea to sell in Toppano’s Music in Melbourne back in the early ‘70s.

Word spread fast and within a few years there was enough demand from schools and colleges, which in turn led to an increase in distribution via Toppano Music’s wholesale operation.

By 1978, Hague had formed his own distribution company, AMS, while Toppano Music’s wholesale

assets were purchased by Metcalf Wholesale. The two companies worked together in conjunction to distribute Valencia guitars nationwide before AMS acquired full ownership and distribution in 1984 and began a program of really refining the instruments: what woods sound best at this price point? What finishing techniques? What specs?

This culture of continual improvement led to enormous growth as well as a few shifts to different manufacturing facilities such as Samick Musical Instruments in South Korea, although a fire at the Samick facility in 1987 necessitated the use of an additional Taiwanese factory where full production was finally moved to in 1989. Some manufacturing was moved to China in 1997 as that country’s facilities and quality control were gaining a good reputation, all while the distribution network continued to grow, particularly after a 1999 debut appearance at the Musikmesse trade show in Frankfurt.

Since 2015, Valencia guitars have been made in the company’s purpose-built manufacturing facility in Surabaya, Indonesia.

Valencia is in control of the whole design and build process, which means they can move with the times and develop guitars that meet the needs of players as our standards of what makes a great student guitar evolves (case in point, the VC204H reviewed in this issue).

The Surabaya facility was expanded in 2019 dedicated to the exclusive production of Valencia guitars and the

ubiquitous Mahalo ukuleles. The Valencia product range covers everything from the 100 Series, a full-featured guitar for beginners, through to the imminently available 700 Series, with all handcrafted models boasting innovative ToneFlow bracing, premium woods, and beautiful inlaid rosettes. Throughout the range you’ll find fun colours (the VC101PKS in Pink Sunburst is super adorable), sizes from 1/4 size to full, the option of standard noncutaway or cutaway models that provide better upper-fret access, and various electronics options, some of which include built-in tuners so you can plug your guitar in for performances or recording.

But it’s not just standard-style nylon classical guitars: check out the Valencia Series 430 Auditorium, a new take on the nylon string acoustic guitar concept which offers a curvedradius fingerboard for comfortable fretting, plus a larger body shape to deliver more volume and midrange.

Guitars can be purchased in a simple branded box or in a pack with various goodies such as gig bags and tuners. Valencia also maintains a really helpful website with tips and info for beginner players, from naming the basic parts of the guitar to teaching you how to tune and care for the instrument.

50 years into the Valencia story and it is safe to say that they are showing no signs of slowing down, constantly refining their product line while remaining committed to that very same ethos that has held them in good stead over the last five decades-providing guitarists with excellent quality and value for money guitars, with great sound and exceptional ease of play.

Here’s to the next 50 years!

BY PETER HODGSON

mixdownmag.com.au

Tone City Audio How does one just start a pedal company?

For Tone City Audio’s founder J. Wong, chief designer and a guitar and pedal geek since high school, it came out of musical necessity and economic frustration.

J. Wong bought his first electric guitar and distortion pedal in 2005 while in high school, and quickly found himself discouraged by the high cost of pedals: how are you supposed to build your dream rig when you’re in school and gear is too expensive? It was a problem that stuck with him through the rest of his time at high school. After heading off to university to study Business Automation Systems, he had one of those great ‘ah-ha!’ moments: why don’t I make pedals myself? He spent all his spare time reading books and resources in English about how to make pedals, and got so into it that it took six months longer than planned to finish his major. Whoops.

The first pedal he designed and built was an overdrive inspired by that green pedal we all know, and it quickly drew attention on guitar forums at the time. This led to diving head-first into the pedal design world after university, designing over 40 products for another company, which players loved the sound of but were unhappy with the build quality. He realised that if he wanted his pedal designs to be built to the standards he needed, he’d have to go out on his own. And that’s why Tone City was founded in 2014. Today, Tone City Audio is distributed by EGM Distribution in Melbourne, and you 22

can find them at many dealers as well as at Eastgate Music in Kew (where Marcello will be happy to drop his impressive knowledge of the range).

The company has grown steadily, initially with a modest 49 square metre facility and now occupying 700 square metres, scaling up as the company grows. Each product is based on J. Wong’s understanding of what players want and how to get it. Tone City Audio also confers with dealers and distributors to make sure the pedals give players what they need. The company believes music isn’t a luxury but a necessity, and this drives everything they do.

Inside, the pedals are hand-wired with NOS components, BBD chips, silicon transistor styled circuits, classic JFETs, OTA, and analogue/ digital hybrid technology.

The designs are inspired by modern boutique pedals and famous classics, with names like Dry Martini Overdrive, Wild Fire Distortion, Mad Stone, Golden Plexi (you can guess what that one does), Angel Wing Chorus, and the hilariously named Fuxx Fuzz among the current range of designs. No less a talent than Greg Koch is quoted as saying about a Tone City stomp box, “holy carumbas, that’s a good little pedal.

Dog gone it!” (We’re not sure which pedal he said that about, but this writer had a similar reaction plugging in the Blues Man pedal, which is inspired by a certain UK amp with ‘Blues’ in the model name. You can probably figure it out from the name but you’ll definitely recognise it in the tone).

There was a clear shift in the pedal market starting quietly about 15 years ago and growing to be a big

part of how we play today: the micro pedal. While stomp boxes had been marketed with words like ‘compact’ since the late ‘70s, the new super-slim form factor became ubiquitous. It wasn’t just the space-saving benefits, although you can get away with a much smaller pedal board with a handful of these little baby stompers. It was also the fact that with each pedal taking up less space, you could fit more of them on your pedalboard. The majority of Tone City’s pedals are microsized units. With vibrant colours, high-contrast graphics (which make it easier to see what’s what onstage), and status LEDs built into the control knobs. The pedals are designed to run on power supplies only (a battery would interfere with the design brief).

Most of Tone City’s micro pedals feature an array of two or three smaller potentiometers above the main status pot, or the odd microswitch, but the Tiny Spring reverb is beautiful in its one-control simplicity.

It’s not all teeny tiny micro pedals though: there are other stompers in the range which use a larger (but still compact) form factor to pack more versatility and control into the Tone City format. For example, the Flexo Drive is an overdrive and boost, with each effect selectable individually and with an effect-order switch to select which effect feeds into the other. And the Model B is inspired by US high-gain amps of the tread plate variety, complete with Vintage/Modern switch and a selectable boost. And the Model V is inspired by a classic UK Class A combo amp but with selectable High Gain and Crunch modes to significantly extend the gain of this

legendary amp to what ‘May’ be practically regal levels.

And there’s also a series of pedals in between those two sizes, a more traditional stomp box form factor employed for pedals such as the Funny Boy Auto Wah, the Blue Crystal Echo (which brings you the sound of a BBD pedal with 600ms and 1100ms Short and Long delay modes. And of course there’s the Green Tube Overdrive, which traces its lineage all the way back to that original pedal which J. Wong DIY’d back at the very beginning. The Silver Angel Chorus is another unit that traces its history back to J. Wong’s early designs; it’s an all-analog circuit based on a famous BBD chip chorus/vibrato pedal, and the prototype was made 14 years ago. Since then, many of the core components have ceased production but Tone City sourced enough NOS components to bring the design to life in this series.

Everything about Tone City Audio pedals feels like it was designed by a guitar player, and you can feel that passion and sense of fun and creativity when you step on the switch and let rip with the riffs.

BY PETER HODGSON

mixdownmag.com.au

TUTORIAL

ABLETON

Learning with Ableton Live I love Ableton Live.

There I said it.

Everyday, I use Ableton Live for production, songwriting, and education, and unless something drastically changes in the immediate future, I feel like I’m destined to be an Ableton guy for life.

My first DAW was Pro Tools, way back in Digidesign 001 days, circa 1999. An undeniable recording revolution for sure, but back in those days, the proprietary hardware (and the need for my computer to be constantly tethered to it) definitely left me feeling a little less than liberated, creatively speaking.

When my trusty 001 finally bit the dust, I was forced to upgrade and purchased an M-Box Pro to remain in the Pro Tools ecosystem.

In the package came a copy of some strange “pseudo” DAW called Ableton Live Intro. At the time, I had no idea what Ableton was or what it was all about.

‘Was it named after some quaint overseas town?’ ‘Was this for Live recording or something?’ – These are the kind of questions that immediately came to mind as I held the peculiar disk in my hand.

Simply put, Pro Tools was the 24

DAW at the time and I would not hear a word otherwise, so initial interest was low. Nonetheless I installed the software and had a playaround. While I found Ableton Live’s Arrange View timeline made sense, the unique Session View appeared pointless and baffling, so I shelved it for the time being. I was flying blind after all.

Some time later I was working on music for an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria showcasing the iconic work of Punk fashion designer, Vivienne Westwood. A creative block left me devoid of inspiration, drifting aimlessly in the ancient “preYouTube” era. In desperation, I did the unthinkable - “I read the $@&# manual!!!”. An hour or so later, I had a cool mashup of the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the UK and I Want Candy, by Bow Wow Wow. My interest piqued, I started to use Ableton Live as a practice tool. I created Live Sets with time stretched songs and pitch shifted tracks to avoid retuning my guitar.

I could loop difficult passages without the need to rewind CDs or vinyl and my guitar playing progressed no end. Winning!

With each subsequent version, more features were added. I found myself drawn deeper into

the clips and blips of Ableton, all the more notable considering I’m more a dyed in the wool instrumentalist (think punk rock, death metal meets jazzabilly guitar shredder. No doof-doof here, thank you very much!). Over time, I learned Ableton simply offered music making tools that were not available in other DAWS, and to a great extent, still does.

Fast forward to 2022, I’ve been a music educator for more than 20 years and Ableton Live has replaced my other DAWs for all but the most track heavy audio sessions. Why? The deceptively simple interface for starters. The ability to create shortcuts for any set that I’m working on with a single key stroke so all my bass track plugins open by typing the letter “b”. The same for drums “d”. What’s going on with the compressor and EQ on the master channel, or 2 bus? I just hit the number “2”. Guitar bus - “g”. You get the picture. Even better, I can control any parameter with … literally… anything, making it a creative playground without peer.

Need to recycle a drum loop into mapped samples? Right click and done. Need to convert a recorded kick drum performance to MIDI so you can layer a sample? Right

click and done. Want to turn a cymbal into an instrument you can play from a keyboard? Drag, drop, tweak, play. This is the kind of simple, streamlined workflow that Ableton Live encourages. It’s about fun, creativity and efficiency, after all this is music, not rocket science.

It’s no secret the design philosophy for the Ableton Live user interface leans sharply towards a minimalist, uncluttered look. This helps reduce overwhelm for newbies and allows the ninjas who walk among us, to stay focussed. As we know, however, the devil lies in the detail so if I was to level a criticism at the approach, it would be that many users are simply not aware of many of the advanced features Live offers concealed behind right clicks and insider knowledge. Perhaps to address this, and more besides, the team at Ableton has created and curated an impressive library of educational resources. Regardless of your DAW of choice, these resources represent an incredible learning opportunity for producers, students, teachers, and institutions.

Best of it’s all free! No pay walls!

No “signup for spam” grift. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. mixdownmag.com.au

TUTORIAL

Here are some personal highlights from Ableton’s impressive knowledge base: Learning Synths - I’ve done these lessons with students as young as eight and the level of understanding obtained is incredible!!! https://learningsynths.ableton.com/ Getting started – With chapters covering Beats, Chords, Arrangements and more, it takes you a long way from the beginning. https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ Classroom projects – This one is more Ableton specific but offers some incredible creative resources for teachers and students, alike. https://www.ableton.com/en/classroom/ support/ Even if you aren’t a Live user, the Ableton website is a fantastic destination on your web travels. The artist profiles are amazing and, in the time of restricted travel, provide a fascinating survey of international producers.

Hats off to the team for capturing such a broad range of artist and perspectives.

As an educator, I have taught countless classes using Ableton Live. In little more than a few hours, I successfully explained complex music theory concepts, such as triads, scale degrees, arpeggios and tonic relationships, to high school students. When creating in Live, the piano roll editor is so simple and streamlined.

Great for beats, chords or melodies, the workflow is fast even if all you have is a mouse.

As of version 11, the piano roll editor allows users to show only the notes in a given scale.

It is liberating for students to encounter only the notes in a key and, by removing the accidentals, it is easier to avoid… well… accidents! Select F Lydian mode from the drop down and start experimenting. With the “out of key” notes hidden, I have been humbled by the harmonic and melodic creativity a novice can bring to the table. Over time, students can explore progressions and melodies to gain an understanding of the sonorities and emotions each key/mode invokes. The keys can be explored in depth later, and as everyone’s attention is at an all-time low, I’m not going to ask, “tell me the sharps in a B# Locrian mode”, in the first year!!! Let’s jam, is a better call to arms!

Ableton’s hardware instrument controller, Push, has been around for some time now. A unique combination of instrument and controller that can be used to make, mix and produce with a greatly reduced reliance on the computer screen. When Push 2 was released in 2016, Ableton offered users a trade-in on the original Push. The trade-ins were shipped to Berlin, reconditioned, and then made available, without cost, to schools and not for profit organisations around the world. When teaching at a school for at risk youth and refugee kids, I applied for the Push trade-in program. A short while later, the school received 100 Pushes with Live Intro licenses for distribution throughout Australia. A truly life-changing outcome. While the original Push trade-in offer has concluded, Ableton’s support continues through the Ableton for the classroom initiative, mixdownmag.com.au

which offers a range of support and resources for music teaching. You can find out more information here. www.ableton.com/en/classroom/offers/ Sitting independently of Ableton the company, exists a passionate and generous user community. These “Ableton User Groups”, meet regularly around the world. For over a decade, the Melbourne Ableton User group has been running a monthly meet up.

Showcasing artists and producers from Australia, and around the world, the monthly sessions are a friendly forum that provide a rich source of information and inspiration for producers, teachers and students. An incredible resource for any music maker or producer.

Some User Group sessions can be accessed online too.

community and a truly democratic approach to music making and education, I fell in love.

Notwithstanding the incredible Live and Push offerings, the online educational resources are simply some of the best around. I haven’t even mentioned the Max4Live offering that provides a path into DSP programming along with some of the most insane plugins and instruments ever conceived. When you combine all of this with ongoing initiatives to provide hardware and software resources to those lacking access, without fanfare, Ableton has positioned itself as a company hellbent on bringing music and music education to the masses.

BY GREG LONG Greg Long is an audio educator at RMIT University and is one of Australia’s leading Ableton experts.

To download Ableton head to www.ableton.com.

A gushing fan boy? Guilty, but I reached this point reticently over many years. Courted by Ableton’s ever evolving software, hardware, user

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PAGE HEADER

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SCHOOL ESSENTIALS – + . =

NOVATION

Launchkey 25 Features: An intuitive and fully integrated MIDI keyboard, Novation’s Launchkey 25 is the perfect small footprint composition tool for the budding musician, songwriter or producer.

Featuring full integration with Logic and Reason, plus out-ofthe-box functionality with other DAWs including Studio One, Cubase and Pro Tools, via HUI, it’s the perfect tool for exploring the wonderful world of MIDI, effortlessly taking care of all your mapping and triggering needs.

Featuring such handy tools as the Scale Mode, as well as various Chord Modes and arpeggiator functions, the Launchkey 25 is a creative tool at its core, ideal for on the fly composition or laying down sudden flashes of inspiration. Its size also makes it an awesome

Features: The Launchpad X is Novation’s essential 64-pad MIDI grid controller for Ableton Live providing you with everything you need to make music at your fingertips in whatever setup you’re sporting. The Launchpad X enables you to launch, play and perform sounds, and build your tracks using the large, sensitive RGB pads, combined with dynamic note and scale modes to ensure you’re never out of key and play perfectly in whatever form. Novation has made essential performance controls like stop, solo, mute, record arm and set your levels, pans and sends, a single button-press away. A very soft button press at that with their most responsive velocity-sensitive pads with polyphonic aftertouch

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BEALE Distributed by: Focusrite Australia

portable option for students looking to enter the world of electronic music production.

Overall: A good MIDI keyboard will undoubtedly be one of the most liberating purchases of your early music journey and with it’s diminutive size, rock solid connectivity, and host of awesome mapping and triggering options, the Launchkey 25 is a tailormade introduction to in-the-box composing and midi concepts.

NOVATION

Launchpad X

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AK160 Digital Keyboard

Distributed by: Australis Music

Features: If you’re familiar with the history of piano playing in this country, you would no doubt be familiar with Beale. For the Sydney company who has been a fixture on the Australian musical landscape since 1883, they know too well the countless hours that go into learning the piano and the importance of finding the right beginner instrument.

The AK160 Digital Keyboard is the perfect small footprint option for those just starting to twinkle the digital ivories, with a full 64 notes of polyphony and 585 different sound voices to keep the hands busy, this is absolutely perfect for anyone looking to learn harmonic structure and theory. The built-in speakers are also a handy little touch for instant plug and play operation.

Overall: For anyone learning solo piano or keyboard, one of the steepest learning curves generally comes in learning how to integrate your solo playing to the context of an ensemble. With 202 accompaniment styles and 157 backing songs to choose from, you’ll have plenty of practice playing in full band arrangements.

KURZWEIL Distributed by: Focusrite Australia

Overall: Using Launchpad X is as simple as it gets, no drivers to install, just plug and perform, absolutely perfect in terms of a piece of mind purchase, allowing you to “step back from the screen, get hands-on and dive into your tracks”. Play your instruments and devices expressively with the 64 velocity-sensitive RGB pads, then never lose an idea with one-press Capture MIDI control.

M110A

Distributed by: Australis Music

Features: Digital Pianos come in all shapes and sizes, but there are few as instantly striking as the M110A, by industry stalwarts Kurzweil.

Featuring 88 fully weighted keys as well as a whole host of other awesome features such as 7-segment 2-digit LED Polyphony, 88 voice presets and 88 expressive sounds,it’s the perfect combination of sound and feel.

Featuring a Spinet-style cabinet and available in simulated rosewood or white finishes, the Kurzweil M11A is the perfect Digital Piano for those working with a Piano teacher.

Overall: With its 30 watt in-built speaker, 1-track recording, 20,000 note sequencing capacity as well as a host of MIDI operability and

plug and play USB functionality (all with no driver required), it’s both a classic looking centrepiece for any lounge room and a forward thinking music making tool all at once.

mixdownmag.com.au

SCHOOL ESSENTIALS

VALENCIA

VC304

FENDER Distributed by: Australasian Music Supplies

Features: This full size Valencia VC304 classical nylon string guitar is the ultimate beginner guitar. The 4/4 size will be for the bigger young person or adult, but the body of the guitar isn’t too big for the arms to have to work around, while the nylon strings won’t be as harsh on the fingers as steel string acoustics can be when in the early stages of playing.

The select sitka spruce top and bound nato back and sides deliver a warm tone while a mahogany neck coupled with a teak fingerboard and bridge completes the make. Adorning the guitar are GraphTech Nu-bone XB bridge saddles, USA strings, gold machine heads with black button tuners, a transparent, satin finish, and stylish

rosette decorations to ensure this guitar looks as good as it plays!

Overall: Valencia has a deep rooted history in providing quality beginner guitars that don’t break the bank and the full size VC304 classical nylon string guitar is just another iteration in that 50 year history.

VALENCIA

VA434CE

Distributed by: Australasian Music Supplies

a mahogany neck, and an amara ebony fingerboard.

Overall: Players will appreciate the distinctive tonal flavours of a nylon string guitar coupled with a sleek, ultra-playable neck and styling that steel string acoustic guitars are known for, while adding contemporary assets to take guitar-playing to the next level through performing or recording.

ASHTON

AG232GD Features: Australian-designed guitar company Ashton has the aim of making playing music more accessible, with that in mind, the Ashton AG232 in Metallic Gold is the ultimate guitar to get beginner guitarists shredding in no time.

Delivered with a gig bag, a strap, and a lead, this guitar provides a versatile five selectable pickup positions with three single coil pickups, all topping the traditional “S” style body shape to provide a blueprint of familiarity as players advance in their guitar-playing journey. A poplar body connects to a smartwood fingerboard so for this price point, you’re getting a quality guitar. mixdownmag.com.au

Features: Learning guitar can be hard enough, but getting started and set up with all the right equipment shouldn’t be. Fender has dropped all the essential bits of gear in the one place for you to remove that stress and effort with all you need to get playing. Included in the bundle is the Classic Vibe ‘50s Squier Stratocaster to get beginner guitarists sounding like their favourite muso without the hefty price tag.

A Mustang LT25 amp will help beginners produce quality sound with a super-simple user interface and a collection of 30 presets covering a wide range of music.

Players will also get a Supersoft strap, an instrument cable with

Distributed by: Fender

three different lengths and colours to choose from, eight picks, an electronic tuner, steel string replacements, and a guitar stand.

Overall: Fender has long been the most reputable and reliable guitar brand for even the most experienced and popular guitarists, so arming yourself or the beginner guitarist in your life with this bundle is a great way to crack into learning the instrument and learning it efficiently.

FENDER

Features: No doubt a step up from beginner guitar specialists Valencia is the VA434CE classical nylon string guitar with a pickup included as guitarists look to take the next step in the guitar playing.

The larger Auditorium shape on this full size guitar features a cutaway as players get more comfortable moving around the fretboard and look to access the higher of the 19 frets. The curved radius fingerboard provides a more relaxed feel on the fingers, while it also boasts a two-way truss rod to correct any bending, bowing, or twisting that occurs as guitars age and get bashed around between school runs or private lessons. It has a select sitka spruce top, nato back and sides,

Electric Beginner Plus Bundle

Mustang LT25 Distributed by: Fender Features: Delving into the world of electric guitar amps can be daunting for beginners, but the Mustang LT25 practice amp caters to them specifically to remove the stress of learning to sculpt tones and leave the critical thinking to the learning and playing itself, removing discouragement from the early playing stages.

The super-simple user interface and collection of 30 presets covering a wide range of music enables guitarists to produce highquality sound immediately, while the versatile signal chain with high-quality onboard amp and effects models produces amazing tones, making it an ideal practice amp. It’s housed in a durable wooden cabinet, and can plug

straight into a 240V GPO. A stereo headphone output can also allow silent-ish playing (talking to you, parents).

Overall: The Mustang LT25 practice amp incorporates Fender’s wide-range of proven expertise from the build and audio quality, to the easy-touse functionality. Remove the headache of amp shopping, tone sculpting, and loud practising with this bad boy.

NATAL Distributed by: Australis Music

Overall: Ashton has been committed to providing quality guitars for players of all skill levels for 25 years now and the Metallic Gold Ashton AG232 is yet another embodiment of that. With all the essential parts of an electric guitar wrapped into one very modestly priced guitar, this is an absolute win for anyone wanting to try their hand at electric guitars.

DNA Stealth Kit Features: As anyone who has ever lived with a beginner drummer, it is a very noisy instrument with a very steep learning curve. The new DNA Stealth Kit provides the perfect antidote to the calamity of learning to play thanks to the presence of factory-fitted mesh heads and the inclusion of a set of Natal-branded practice cymbals, all of which bring the volume factor down to tolerable levels.

The shells are made of 6-ply basswood while the tunable black mesh heads which means that kit sounds can still be honed and altered even in the context of low volume playing.

Distributed by: Electric Factory

Overall: In terms of sizes you’ve got a 18”x16” bass drum, 10”x7” rack tom, 14”x12” floor tom, and a 13”x5.5” snare, which in terms of a controlled volume setup is considerably more of a natural feel than any of the electronic kits out there. Without question one of the most organic and natural practice kits we’ve ever encountered.

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SCHOOL ESSENTIALS

FOCUSRITE

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Features: An ubiquitous presence in the small interface market, the Scarlett 2i2 is best suited to home studio artists looking for an easy way to get their songs recorded and to begin playing around with digital workstations. Featuring Focusrite’s awesome 3rd Gen mic preamps with Instrument and Air options for different sonic sources (and with the aforementioned Air setting emulating Focusrite’s iconic ISA preamps), the 2i2 is a rite-de-passage for anyone looking to get into the world of digital recording and song composition.

With a monitor control, headphone input, phantom power, it’s got everything you would expect/ require from a small scale interface

ZAOR Distributed by: Focusrite Australia

but with some awesome tricks up its sleeve, like bonus plugins, iPad compatibility, and not to mention Focusrite’s proprietary ‘Gain Halos’ providing an awesome visual reference for gain setting.

Features: With three tiers and a total of eight 1U rack spaces, the new Yesk 2 is an awesome investment for any recording environment where space is at a premium.The tubeless, all wooden construction minimises any potential resonances or monitoring nasties while the open-sided keyboard tray is ideal for tucking away when it’s time to track guitars or other instruments requiring some freedom of movement.

Overall: A simple, intuitive interface with plenty of handy features and clever workflows to streamline the recording process and get you usable results in the shortest time possible, the 2i2 is the perfect gateway into a life of recording.

Measuring at a demure 1.5m across, it’s just the right size to be tucked into the corner of a bedroom or study and the surprising amount of rackspace is ideal for keeping equipment and leads neatly tucked away which

ZAOR

Onda Angled Features: For the school or tertiary education provider or even for students lucky enough to have a dedicated studio space, the Onda Angled by Zaor is without doubt one of the best studio specific desks getting around at the moment. With an ergonomic, wraparound design and plenty of deskspace for daw controllers, MIDI keyboards and the like, it’s ideal for anybody seeking a bit of extra elbow room with which to work from. With 12 angled 1U rack spaces, it’s perfect for anyone wanting easy access to their outboard. Beautifully crafted from solid oak or ash, the Onda is perfect for those planning on spending a lot of time at their desk,

Features: The PodTrak P8 is a portable eight-input recorder and mixer designed to make mobile recording a breeze, specifically with podcasting in mind. There’s headphone jacks with dedicated level controls for every mic input, and eight faders for mixing your podcast in real time. The P8 additionally has ON AIR buttons which when deactivated mean that the audio is not recorded or outputted to your stream but still comes through in the headphone mixes. Unique to this device is USB and TRRS connections, allowing you to connect an external call via your phone or computer for remote participation in your podcast. It also features onboard editing capabilities via the touchscreen.

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Distributed by: Koala Audio

will no doubt add some feng shui points.

Overall: Every student needs a desk and perhaps there is no bigger name in studio furniture than Zaor. Their new Yesk 2 is the ideal compact solution, perfect for the budding bedroom recording enthusiast or for anyone requiring a small footprint, studio desk.

M-AUDIO Distributed by: Koala Audio

which is something both pros and students alike can no doubt relate to.

Overall: A premium, catch all solution to the studio furniture debacle, the Onda Angled is everything you need in a studio desk and more.

ZOOM

PodTrak P8

Yesk 2

AIR Interfaces Features: M-Audio‘s AIR interfaces are quality through and through.

Typifying this is the AIR 192 | 4 Vocal Studio Pro which combines the critically acclaimed AIR 192 | 4 interface, HDH40 headphones, a Nova Black condenser microphone, XLR cable, and the premium AIR Series Software Suite, this drops everything you need in one place to get the job done swiftly and efficiently.

The AIR Series is able to record at 192kHz/24-bit and features their Crystal Preamps which in combination provide a transparent, low noise recording process.

Overall: M-Audio is one of the most revered names in music computer interface and studio integration

Distributed by: Electric Factory

solutions, so the flexibility of the AIR Series is bound to include something for everyone. All M-Audio AIR interfaces come with Pro Tools | First M-Audio Edition and Ableton Live Lite to ensure you’re ready to get cracking in exercises as soon as possible.

The interfaces themselves are easy to operate and boast USB-C connections offering a low-latency experience and feature physical metering on the interface.

ZOOM Distributed by: Dynamic Music

Overall: All the features we’ve become accustomed to are here with this portable device, showcasing low noise, high gain inputs and multitrack recording as well as a host of other key features that are sure to pique the interest of anybody dipping in a toe into the rapidly growing medium of podcasting and content creation.

The P8 shines with its level of flexibility and onboard editing capabilities.

R20 Multi Track Recorder Features: The Zoom R20 is a complete, portable 16-track production station boasting eight mic preamps, four of which can deliver phantom power and one can act as a high-Z instrument to truly cover whatever you’ll be running through it. All eight of its physical inputs can be tracked at once which makes it possible to track drums. The R20 also comes loaded with an internal sound module, containing 18 different instrument sounds and a drum kit, while connecting a MIDI keyboard or controller to the R20’s USB-C port will let you play all of those sounds directly. Recordings can be stored on SDHC or SDXC cards which hold up to 1TB in capacity

Distributed by: Dynamic Music

Overall: The R20 is the ultimate portable multi track recorder which will enable studio heads green or experienced to hone their craft with its ability to track a basic drum setup. With the optional Zoom BTA-1 Bluetooth adaptor fitted, it’s also possible to control the R20 wirelessly from your iOS device, while the R20 can also import and play back standard MIDI files from the SD card slot. mixdownmag.com.au

Hit record and GO.

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COLUMNS

PERCUSSION

We all love drum fills I thought, given it’s the education issue, that I would show you some cool drum fills. Warning however – it might get a little nerdy. If you don’t mind a little bit of technique and even a little math, read along!

But who doesn’t love a good drum fill? Hopefully some of these are useful. I’ll also include some tips for extending these ideas later on if you want to nerd out a little more!

THE BACKGROUND The notation shows two groupings or stickings. The first (A) is a group of six notes and features a combination of single strokes, double strokes, and a bass drum.

It also features some accented notes. If you haven’t heard about accents on drums, the idea here is to play those particular notes with more emphasis (louder). You can also play the surrounding notes softer to bring out the accents.

The bass drum however, can be whatever volume you like. The second grouping or sticking (B) differs slightly. Here we have a group of five notes and it features the similar technique of using accents but also a set of doubles on the bass drum.

All of the fills today are based around having R L R at the beginning of each grouping. It’s these notes that are best to move around the drums. In general, the accents are the ideal choice to move to the toms, cymbals etc.

Experiment with this and see how the phrases change. For the purposes of this lesson, we’re going to execute the stickings over a 16th note (semiquaver) subdivision.

As semiquavers are based on even groupings of four notes, our two fills of six and five respectively, are going to ‘cross’ the bar and thus not fit perfectly in the bar.

However, this is exactly why these fills are interesting. They will also sound less predictable too.

GROUPING 1 Figure A shows our first grouping over the context of one bar. You can see in this example that we can fit two of the groupings here.

This leaves us with four notes remaining. I’ve left this as four single strokes, but you could make this whatever you want. Things get more interesting when we see the sticking over the context of two bars however (Figure B). Now, we can fit five groupings of six (told 30

you it was nerdy) and we’re only left with two notes at the end of the bar. The cool thing here is not the fact that the groupings almost fit in the two bars but more the way the accents or emphasised notes fall in the bar. These accents really do create a unique motif and make for an interesting phrase or idea. I’ve notated how I might orchestrate the fill over the drum kit (using toms) but you can really experiment here and see what you like.

GROUPING 2 Figure C, or our second fill, steps things up a little. Now we are looking at using a grouping of five notes over our steady 16th note subdivision. The first example over one bar shows that we can fit three groups of five in the bar and only leaves one note remaining.

Again, it almost fits perfectly but the accents and the bass drum separating the start of each grouping really do make it feel like an odd time fill. This is only exaggerated when we play the fill over two bars where you can fit six groups of five (Figure D). You

can make it feel even more odd by being less predictable with where you place the accents. My example actually splits the main RLR sticking at the beginning of the grouping across the floor tom and the snare drum.

WHAT ELSE CAN I DO? Many of us learn a cool lick or idea but then only ever use it in one way. If the music we’re playing doesn’t match or suit how we’ve conceived and practised the cool fill, we often can’t play it. Both fills can be used over different subdivisions or feels. Try playing these over a triplet subdivision, for example. It’s a great idea to experiment with this and will make both fills more accessible when playing different genres of tempos. Additionally, the notation might seem overwhelming or look complicated. The important thing to remember is that no matter what part of the drumkit I’m playing, I’m still using the same sticking. The actual fill itself (hands and feet) don’t change. So, think of the sticking, not the notation.

Some final ideas might include using a metronome to hear and feel the time while you’re in the middle of your sick fill. To take it to the next level, you could even try and mix and match the groupings!

See the last notation figure (E) for one example of this – it’s one idea but you get the idea and maybe you can think of other combinations. Perhaps you can add a third grouping? Three notes?

Four notes?

The educator in me cannot finish up without mentioning how important it is to pay attention to detail. When you’re playing these fills, listen to the sound coming back at you. Can you make the accents more pronounced? Can you lessen the volume of the nonaccents (ghost notes)? Are the 16th notes steady and even over the bar? Are you staying in time with the click? All these questions are part of the process too! Good luck taking these ideas and experimenting with them. Don’t nerd out too much!

BY ADRIAN VIOLI

mixdownmag.com.au

COLUMNS

BASS

Four important things for a bass player (and a musician in general) I know the following comments are probably all obvious and common sense for most, but I think they are still worth mentioning. Often players get hung up on the latest and greatest player, effect, brand, or technique which is totally cool – but, don’t forget some of the things that might help you develop as a muso and help you on your journey to improving, making contacts, and getting gigs.

Practice with a metronome Seriously, this is such a big one yet I seriously doubt many players actually put much time in with a metronome. There are technical and musical challenges at any tempo and it’s not hard to be creative when developing these for your practice routine. Work on slow tempos with simple parts to really feel the space between notes. Perhaps play a one or two bar line and then play a fill through the next bar/bars. Then mixdownmag.com.au

play a busier bass line and work on subdividing and filling the space.

You can try these ideas all the way up to faster tempos where it really pushes your technique to keep up even with crotchets or minims.

Again, try simpler stuff on the beat or then adding syncopation. 4/4 is great but don’t forget odd time signatures – this can really help with internalising feel and certain rhythms. There really is no excuse these days with thousands of free metronome apps available for almost any device. Get on it!

Keep an open mind There is goodness in all kinds of music! Certain things might not be your cup of tea but keep an open mind. Having an appreciation of different styles, techniques, approaches, and historical aspects can really help you develop as a musician (and a person). Check out a classical gig, listen to some latin music, learn a metal tune – it can only help. You might be

surprised to see how many things overlap – odd time signatures in metal and classical music, syncopated latin bass lines in pop music, and more!

Know how to use your gear This might be obvious but get to know your gear! What exactly do the controls on your bass do?

Can you get different sounds out of your amp? Playing your instrument is one thing but being able to control the sound and call on different sounds for gigs, recordings and the like is a necessity. Does your amp have a DI out? Is your bass passive or active? Ever had a battery go flat and not known what it was?

Be organised and don’t be a douchebag If you want to get (and keep getting) gigs, if you want to grow your social media presence, if you want to teach – then be organised

and don’t be a douchebag.

Venues, other musos and potential clients all will appreciate you answering emails or text messages in a timely manner and using appropriate language. Social media can be a very unpredictable landscape but being respectful and honest can help others realise that you’re genuine and genuinely value music, the arts, and creativity. Don’t be late to gigs and rehearsals – I’ve seen so many capable players get a foot in the door only to be not called again due to their tardiness.

Furthermore, I’ve seen many players not called back due to their attitude/bad first impression – these perceptions are often hard to change and musos often get recommendations from other colleagues, so make it a good one!

BY NICK BROWN

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COLUMNS

GUITAR

Pick the lick, or?

One of the (many) great aspects of playing the guitar is the ability to articulate the note with a range of techniques. Using a pick or fingers we can play with hammer ons and pull offs, alternate pick and also hybrid pick (a combination of pick and fingers). These give us the option to alter the tone as required but also tackle phrases with an approach that might be easier than another. These techniques can really make a difference to your sound, and indeed many of the guitar greats vary with their uses and applications. This highlights the fact that there isn’t one set way to get your musical ideas across.

Figure A is a triplet lick using A dorian which could work over an Am7 chord. A typical approach would be to alternate pick this phrase. Starting with a downstroke on the first note C, you would then play up on D, down on E, and then up on F# and so on. This is fine and 32

would feel reasonably comfortable for a lot of players, but you might be limited with speed. Any ideas why? Moving across strings whilst changing direction in picking is the issue here. The downstroke on the E (7th fret) followed by an upstroke on the F# (4th fret) can be a bit clunky. We’re talking micro movements here, but once you’ve finished the downstroke on the E you have to lift the pick up and over the 4th string to then pick an upstroke on the F#. This extra movement is what usually slows us down. What’s the solution?

Economy picking (see Figure B).

As before, play the first three notes of the phrase as down, up, down (in an alternate picking fashion) but when we move to play the F# on the next string - continue with another downstroke. Using this same picking direction on adjacent strings creates an economy of motion that can be smoother and

typically much quicker once you get a handle on the technique.

The likes of Frank Gambale have great economy picking chops (among the rest of their respective arsenals!).

The minor pentatonic is undoubtedly the most common scale of guitarists to learn and use.

The convenience of the typical box pattern is easy to learn and can fit into a lot of things quickly and easily (hence so many of us learning it early in our guitar journey). To play long and smooth lines however it can also be a bit clunky. You’ve probably noticed that there’s no uniform way that any of the greats play the minor pentatonic scale. Alternate picking with some hammer ons and pull offs here and there – it’s really a mix for everyone and seems to just be whatever you settle on as the most comfortable way to play fast!

Figure C is then a pentatonic pattern along the lines of Frank Gambale. Yes, there are some stretches involved and for those that are only used to the standard box patterns this will feel different.

But, give it a go with the economy picking and see if you can make it work. With some effort I think you’ll get some results.

Hopefully you can now see the benefits of economy picking and the beauty is that it can be employed both ascending and descending and gives you the ability to create long lines that seem to flow. Next issue we’ll expand on alternate and economy picking with sweeping and hybrid picking to give you even more options!

BY NICK BROWN

mixdownmag.com.au

CREATING MUSICIANS FOR OVER 50 YEARS Valencia is Australia’s No.1 selling guitar brand and the only entry level guitar brand in the world with its own 100% owned and controlled, purpose built factory, dedicated solely to the production of Valencia guitars.

Valencia represents the very best value for money on the market! For this reason alone, millions of guitarists and teachers around the world have started their musical journeys on a Valencia guitar.

VC204H - Series 200 Hybrid - Thin Neck

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PRODUCT PAGE HEADER REVIEW / MI

FENDER

Jackson X Series Concert Bass CBXNT DX IV FENDER AUSTRALIA | RRP: $1,749

Jackson is a company known for their forward-thinking and modern designs, having helped push rock and metal into more extreme, diverse, and refined directions since their inception around the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Born from a custom shop in California, Jackson developed modern body shapes for modern players, earning themselves a place in the history books for their Rhoads and Concord designs, the King V, and more extreme Warrior, Kelly, and Star shapes.

While Jackson are one to push boundaries forward, they’re also a company that honour the history of both their own brand and their peers, more recently in the super vintage-styled X Series Concert Bass CBXNT DX IV. Somewhat resembling a famous bass whose name begins with ‘R’ and ends with ‘ickenbacker’ (but I would never mention their name in a review for a different brand), the Concert Bass CBXNT DX IV is Jackson’s Concert Bass body shape, a fairly standard asymmetrical design with some augmentations. As denoted by the ‘IV’, this is a four-string bass, but the series is also available with a fifth string.

Vintage styling includes a chrome pickup cover over the bridge pickup and the Jackson Bass Bacher IV Hardtail bridge with individual chrome saddles before the strings are secured in the top-loaded style. Five knobs control the Precision-style pickup 34

in the middle position and the Jazz style in the bridge, while a nicely contrasted 1-ply parchment pickguard offsets the Poplar body, which is finished in either a nice green Absynthe Frost, Gloss Black, or Rocket Red. The Concert Bass CBXNT DX IV is about as diverse in sounds as it is in looks, offering a lot more under the hood than the predecessors that the vintage aesthetics pay homage to.

From the top, the Concert Bass CBXNT DX IV is a four-string bass with the classic four-in-line pointed Jackson headstock. At the other end there’s a poplar body that’s a classic Jackson shape and styling, finished in gloss in a few different colours. There’s a plastic nut before a Laurel fingerboard, an increasingly popular wood for its similarity to Rosewood and Pau Ferro. 24 jumbo frets separate the tones and semitones, and your playing is amplified by a Jackson P-Style pickup and a Jackson J-Style pickup in the middle and bridge positions respectively, making up the ‘PJ’ configuration.

It’s a hardtail bass, featuring the Jackson Bass Bacher IV bridge and five knobs to control the active electronics.

The electronics is where the CBXNT really takes off. PJ is one of the more superior pickup configurations, in some reviewers’ opinions, but the active controls really help them shine. The P and J style pickups really honour their predecessors, offering both rocky mid punch and smooth sub lows,

but the CBXNT features a master volume for the entire bass, a blend knob, and then a three band EQ, separated into low, middle, and high for further tone shaping. This was especially helpful for cutting frequencies rather than boosting, as you’re able to get a nice blend and sculpt it just a little.

While having a pretty vintage aesthetic, the Jackson Concert Bass CBXNT DX IV is a very modern bass in the hands. It features a 12”-16” compound radius fretboard and a super slim (and kind of flat, perfect for the thumb!) neck shape. For reference, more traditional Jazz and Precision fretboards usually range from 7.25”-9.5” radius, so the Concert bass is super flat and modern in comparison. It’ll have you rocking away and noodling with the best of them, without a baseball bat feel to the back of the neck. What’s more, the neck is a neck-through construction that offers more sustain and resonance than a bolt-on neck where the vibrations of your playing become lost in the screws and space between the neck and body.

It’s hard to wrap up on such an awesome bass. Aesthetically, Jackson has made a super vintage looking bass feel very Jackson, albeit maybe solely thanks to the four in-line pointy headstock shape that is pretty universal across all Jackson guitars and basses. The rest of the body looks super vintage, what with a brand new bridge-style designed by

Jackson, the parchment pickguard and the chrome bridge pickup cover, but under the hood it’s as modern and forward thinking as Jackson have ever been.

The PJ style pickup configuration is super versatile, and the addition of a three band EQ makes it even more customisable, with the master volume and pickup blend knob already available. The poplar body and neck-through maple neck construction make the instrument as a whole really resonate nicely, while the slim neck shape and modern, flat fretboard radius make for a fast neck designed for rock and metal playing. The white binding ties the whole look together, making for a super cohesive and pleasantly surprising bass for an even more reasonable price.

If the Jackson Concert Bass CBXNT DX IV is anything to go by, the future of Jackson (even when they’re honouring the past) is optimistic and about as bright as the metallic Absynthe Frost gloss finish itself.

LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS

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PRODUCT REVIEW / MI

VALENCIA

VC204H AUSTRALASIAN MUSIC SUPPLIES | EXPECT TO PAY: $125

Once upon a time, if you were a kid learning guitar, you got a nylon-string classical acoustic.

Student-priced electrics and amps were generally pretty clunky, basic affairs (inbuilt distortion was a luxury… a gritty, harsh, brittle sounding luxury) and besides, you really wanted to get your start on something that wouldn’t hurt your little hands anyway.

Nylon string classical guitars have traditionally been the de facto first choice for newcomers and for good reason - they provide an affordable, comfortable, and most importantly, a stylistically versatile entry point into guitar theory and the practicalities of navigating the fretboard in the cleanest possible way, and all without a brittle inbuilt distortion in sight.

The guitar market may have come a long way in recent years, but Valencia, a long-running player in the game, are still an omnipresence when it comes to this kind of guitar manufacturing, specialising in affordable guitars for beginners, and at a high enough quality to hang onto even when it’s time to progress to something more advanced.

But Valencia have evolved and moved with the times, and the new VC204H is a perfect example of how to make a player-friendly nylon string acoustic for players in 2022.

Today, even beginner guitarists are looking for more in terms of playability and neck shape, and with this guitar, Valencia more than rises to the challenge. mixdownmag.com.au

The VC204H is a full-sized nylon string acoustic guitar with a nato back and sides (the back is subtly arched, which is a nice playercomfort feature). The top is made of sitka spruce in a rich orange hue which nicely offsets the more walnut-like look of the nato. There’s a gold helix rosette decoration around the sound hole, because what is a nylon acoustic without a nice rosette, eh?

The neck is really interesting: it’s made of jabon with a pair of teak reinforcing strips, much like the double ‘skunk stripes’ you would find on much more upmarket guitars. The fretboard is ebonised mahogany (basically mahogany stained to look like ebony) and the 19 frets are made of nickel. If you’re used to seeing stainless steel or nickel silver frets on guitars, just remember this one is made for nylon strings which are a lot softer on frets. So it wouldn’t really make sense to put more costly materials on this particular neck. There are side dots starting from the fifth fret up to the twelfth.

The bridge is also made of ebonised mahogany, with a plastic saddle, while the machine heads are nickel-plated with cream buttons. Overall it’s an attractive, well-built version of this particular family of instruments.

I must admit to a little bit of nostalgia picking this guitar up.

It took me right back to my first nylon string acoustic. Heck, it even smells the same and I may or may not have taken a deep satisfying

huff of the sound hole. Please don’t judge.

The first thing an experienced guitarist will notice about this guitar is the neck shape. It’s not your standard ‘beginner’s classical’ neck, which are usually very wide and present some challenges for small hands. Instead it’s specifically designed to accommodate smaller paws, with a narrower 45mm width at the nut bringing the strings closer together and easier to reach down at the end where this instrument will see most of its playing action. And the actual neck shape is super-comfortable, more of a flatter D shape which gives players a sense of place on the fretboard, reinforcing proper thumb placement and therefore making it easier to keep one’s hands in an ergonomic position.

It’s easy to play barre chords further up on the neck, or to zip all over the neck in more complex classical pieces. But the easy playability of those first three frets, where a lot of beginners tend to spend their time, is especially notable. This smaller neck also made it far easier to capo than a traditional classical guitar, something that is sure to be handy for anyone looking for a good guitar to write from.

The string spacing is nicely ergonomic for fingerstyle and the weight and shape of the body rests comfortably on the leg when seated - precisely what you would want in a guitar of this type.

Tone-wise, it sounds great. It’s not necessarily brimming with sustain, but that’s typical of this type of guitar, and the tapering-off of the notes on the higher strings feels very uniform and musical. In terms of providing an awesome vehicle from which to learn correct finger technique and voice technique, it’s absolutely ideal.

Unlike so many other classical guitars that really punish all but the cleanest fingering, the VC204H is tolerant enough that it provides a user-friendly playing experience without reinforcing any bad habits.

As an entry point into the world of guitar playing, you’d be hard pressed to find something that sits nicer in the hand and with this kind of upside. When you take into account the price point (just a smidge over a hundred bucks) and with the level of quality on display here, it’s pretty hard to argue with, both as a first guitar or a nice entry level classical guitar for around the house. While it may not be the absolute pinnacle of concert hall sound projection and fullness across the frequency range, it far exceeds its goal of being a comfortable classical guitar for students to learn their craft on, and the build quality is something that will see it stand the test of time.

BY PETER HODGSON

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PRODUCT PAGE HEADER REVIEW / MI

FENDER

Jackson Pro Series Spectra Bass V FENDER AUSTRALIA | RRP: $2,449

Amassing an alumni of players including the likes of Kirk Hammett, Randy Rhoads, and Phil Collen, Jackson Guitars has been synonymous with instruments that are both well-constructed, and tailormade with the playing musician in mind since their inception. The Pro Spectra Bass V is no exception, offering both quality craftsmanship and tonal versatility in an extended range instrument for the modern bassist.

This workhorse of a bass is one that lives up to its ‘Pro’ status, boasting a fit and finish that is both precise and elegant in nature. With an offset style and an extended upper horn, the multi-laminate body consisting of Ash, Walnut, Maple, and Mahogany is shaped to maximise playing comfort. This unique body is neatly bisected by the maple and walnut laminate neck, which also features graphite reinforcement to optimise tuning stability, and to cope with the resultant increase in tension from the addition of the fifth string.

With regards to style, the Spectra is about as far as you can get from the traditional electric bass guitar – a characteristic that is matched by the incredible variety of features built into this beast. The bass is not without class though, the matching body and headstock gradient finishes and the dark pearl fingerboard inlays both indicate the care that Jackson have put into the design and construction.

The ergonomic neck shape, satin finish, and string spacing on the Pro Spectra make life easy for the fretting hand, with little

36

acclimatisation required, even for those who are previously unfamiliar with playing extended range basses. While the playing experience was comfortable overall, the occurrence of neck dive when playing while sitting down was inevitable due to the offset body shape. When played standing up, the bass had great balance, with the only qualm being the lack of a forearm contour - a bit of a non-issue thanks to the nicely rounded edges on the entire body. The compound radius Jatoba fingerboard produces clear notes throughout the entirety of the bass’ register - a generous 24 frets across five strings. Bearing an extended 35” scale length (compared to 34” for the fourstring version), the low B is kept taut, preventing any instances of fret buzz when venturing into the lower end of the frequency spectrum.

With a seamless through-neck construction, the Pro Series Spectra Bass V optimises sustain and resonance, both of which are apparent, even when played acoustically. When amplified, this bass comes to life, with the magic of the Nordstrand SB5 pickups immediately obvious.

In the absence of any external equalisation and compression, these pickups do a remarkable job of delivering consistent tone and volume across the entire range of the bass, without clearly favouring or omitting any particular frequencies. With all potentiometers wide open, the pickups appeared to be quite neutral in their tonal character,

outputting a clear signal that captures the natural sonic qualities of the bass’ sound, and enables versatility among genres and playing styles.

Continuing with the theme of versatile use, the circuitry and components offer an arsenal of tonal options to professional bassists, both for studio sessions, and the often-uncontrolled environment of live shows. The three-way toggle switch is wired for more precise control over the mid-frequencies, with all three positions providing a wide variety of usable sounds. After passing through the individual volume potentiometers for each respective pickup, the signal reaches the master three-band EQ, allowing for intricate customisation of the tonal properties compared to the typical bass with a tone potentiometer that acts as a treble cut.

While the sound and functionality of the Pro Spectra are optimised with a working 9V battery, there is an additional switch that enables the bass to be switched from active to passive, allowing the professional bassist to continue holding down the groove, even in the case that a battery should go out mid-song. The signal, after being coloured to the player’s desired equalisation, exits the bass via a neatly countersunk output jack; one which highlights the fact that no little detail was overlooked in the design of this bass.

enables a pleasant and satisfying listening experience on multiple amplifiers. When played through 4x10” and 1x15” speaker cabinets, it was found that the Pro Spectra V sounded both articulate and ballsy on both speaker configurations.

The Nordstrand SB5 pickups did a great job of taming the fifth string, ensuring that even down to the low B, the note was clearly audible without being too boomy and overpowering higher frequencies. When playing directly into an audio interface, the aforementioned neutrality of the sound made using VST amplifiers a breeze, with the bass managing to suit a variety of tonal situations.

The sustain available on offer was a warm welcome when playing more tasteful and sparse basslines, yet when playing more riff-based and polyphonic material, the sound refrained from ever getting too muddy.

Thanks to its superb playability and tone, it’s not hard to envisage the Jackson Pro Series Spectra Bass V excelling in genres all the way from pop to progressive metal, and beyond. Paired with the excellent build, and expansive feature set, this instrument is one that is able to withstand the demanding use of a professional bassist, while being just as enjoyable to play for the lesser-experienced bassists out there.

BY JAMES CALLANAN

While the option and variety present lends itself to be applicable to many musical contexts, the tonal versatility

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PRODUCT REVIEW / MI

EVH

EVH Iconic Series 5150 80W Head FENDER AUSTRALIA | EXPECT TO PAY: $1,439

Eddie Van Halen (EVH) is one of the most influential players in musical history. Morphing rock, blues, classical and heavy metal into a musical melting pot is no mean feat, and this iconic musician is honoured most recently in the aptly named 5150 Iconic Series.

EVH’s influence extends far beyond his playing, most famously in his Frankenstein Stratocasters, heavily modified and refinished guitars featuring all of his wildest routing and switching ideas rolled into one, and the 5150 series of amps.

Originally built by Peavey in the 90s, the famous (or infamous depending where you stand) ‘block letter’ 5150 (characterised by the bold, block-lettered “5150” adorning the front of the amp) is possibly the most widely used, imitated and revered amp in hard rock and metal. Characterised by crunchy mids and searing gain, the 5150 rose to fame because of its present mid frequencies and controlled, albeit steep roll off on the bottom end. The handy ‘Resonance’ and ‘Presence’ knobs to boost lows and highs respectively, made the amp very easy to dial in.

The 5150 II is just as famous, sometimes more so because of the revised circuitry and extra controls. The last few years have seen the introduction of the EVH 5150 III and metal guitarists across the world are using them live, in the studio, and for practice as

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they harness everything we’ve loved about the 5150 and then some, providing cleaner cleans and more gain when required for a particularly modern sound.

The Iconic 5150 Series, however, really pushes to pay tribute to the original 5150 for that classic sound, providing a very stable base to build on via different pedals, pickups, and cabinets.

For those who have played the recent EVH 5150 III heads and cabinets, the 5150 Iconic Series 80W Head is the perfect canvas to paint your masterpiece. It features only two channels, and both feature less gain than the 5150 III, but for good reason.

The original 5150 was designed as a base for Eddie to build his unique tones, lead sounds, and ‘brown sound’ upon. The clean channel is super dry, but warms up fantastically with a phaser or chorus as EVH himself would have done. In addition to the two channels, it features two boosts in the form of an ‘Overdrive’ for the Clean channel, and ‘Burn’ for the Gain channel, designed to mimic the push of the ‘Bright’ and ‘Crunch’ of the original Block letter 5150 and 5150 II. It’s important to note that James Brown, the designer of the original 5150 was involved in the design and build of the entire EVH Iconic Series, so if you’re not splashing out a lot of cash for an original 5150 (are the 90s ‘vintage’ yet?

Yikes!), the 5150 Iconic Series units

are about as close as you’ll get.

The 80W head ranges from super dry cleans right up to soaring, crunchy gain, and everything in between. You can harness a snappy, bluesy drive or a gain-y and articulate tone for shred, and the inbuilt single knob noise gate can handle any noise between your chugs.

The 5150 Iconic Series 80W Head is an 80W guitar amplifier head with a handy half/full power switch for more appropriate bedroom volumes, so you can still push those ECC83 preamp tubes and 6L6 power tubes into saturation.

What’s more, the back of the amp features a speaker simulated line out via an XLR and a power amp mute so you can silently record, practice, or chase tone! There’s an effects loop for your time-based effects, or for an extra noise gate to really stomp down on any hiss or buzz from the preamp, mostly inevitable with so much gain under the hood.

The 5150 Iconic Series 80W Head also includes a two button footswitch to toggle between channels or boost your signal (the ‘Overdrive’ and ‘Burn’ settings discussed earlier). The 5150 Iconic Series 80W Head can be paired with the matched 16-ohm 160-watt 5150 Iconic Series 4X12 Cabinet, but the switchable ohms from 4, 8 or 16 makes it a perfect match for any cabinet. The original 5150s offered a massive 120 watts of power, while the 80W Iconic

Series Head offers a little less power but makes it a better match for most cabinets!

All in all the entire 5150 Iconic Series pays homage to one of the most famous amplifier designs in history. The 5150 is loved by some and emulated by many.

Those that love it, revere it, and those who don’t - well it’s not the 5150’s fault that it’s become such a widely used amplifier for its wide variety of applications! The Iconic Series - whether you’re looking into the 80W head reviewed here or 40W combos, they are a home run. They toe the line between paying homage to one of the best players and amps of our time, but also make it fresh and new for the modern world.

If you want an original 5150, you can buy one. If you want a 5150 with some modern additions to make it more playable, recordable and practical - the 5150 Iconic Series 80W Head might very well be your next purchase.

BY LEWIS NOKE EDWARDS

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PRODUCT REVIEW / MI

FAITH GUITARS

FG2HCE-PJE Legacy Earth Cut/Electro CMC MUSIC | EXPECT TO PAY: $2795

A mate dropped round to have a play, just as I was unpacking the Faith guitar from its metallic blue case. The case is a little light weight, but has five clasps to indicate its seriousness. “Fancy,” he said, as the red plush interior revealed a spruce top and neat appointments.

Faith Guitars is homed in the UK and their key man is British luthier Patrick James Eggle. Eggle has his own line of high end guitars but stopped his acoustic production to concentrate on electrics. This new PJE Legacy series is a reissue and revamping of an earlier Faith line based on older Eggle designs. In the series are the Mars drop-shoulder dreadnought, the Neptune baby-jumbo and the guitar under review, the Earth orchestra-model based on Eggle’s Linville.

So what is going to separate a high-end-of-the-mid-priced guitar market, such as the Earth, from the seemingly hundreds of well-made cheaper guitars on the market or boutique-scale offerings like Eggle’s own? Four things: design, woods, build, and marketing.

Faith guitars are made in Indonesia. More companies with reputations for excellent guitars are building their budget lines in Indonesia, PRS for one, and Faith guitars are workshopped, rather than rolled off production lines.

Acoustic guitar players tend to be a little conservative and the classics remain popular, partly for sound, partly for looks. The Earth has some classic woods: spruce

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top and rosewood back and sides, and has OM specs.

The Canadian sitka spruce top has been subject to a torrefaction or kiln-ageing process which gives the wood the cellular structure of old, mature timbers like the vintage guitars we so admire.

Essentially, the topwood is air dried before being roasted in a kiln with precise controls over atmospheric and oxygen levels to reduce its moisture content.

This produces a rich, mellow tone with a mature voicing that would take perhaps 20 years of regular playing to achieve under normal circumstances.

Over the last decade or so, builders at Bourgeois, Martin, Taylor, Yamaha, Collings, and others have used this process successfully. While some woods like rosewood become too brittle, a choice top wood like spruce becomes ‘older,’ more stable and prettier, and gives more vintage tones. Supporting the spruce top this Earth guitar has attractive, book-matched solid rosewood back and sides - no laminates here.

It also features very decorative flamed maple bindings, figured macassar ebony for the fingerboard (over a mahogany neck), bridge, and pickguard with a bone nut, saddle, and bridge pins. An abalone rosette and some mother-of-pearl on the headstock logo and a pretty quarter-moon low on the fretboard make up the other decorations. Ebony knobs on nickel Grover tuners combine utility with attractiveness.

Construction is clean inside and nothing to be faulted outside. It looks immaculate with its highgloss body finish.

Eggle’s original Linville OM design had some modifications to the Martin OM/000 blueprint which have passed through to the Faith Earth. He added an interesting bolt-on neck and his own bracing ideas. While this guitar is a fraction larger than the classic Martin OM, it shares other key features, such as the wide neck and the longer scale (650mm) which should make it an excellent finger-style player.

Players more used to Gibsons might still gravitate to a shorter scale length, but there are plenty of finger-pickers who swear by the longer scale, even with a smaller body shape like a 00 rather than an OM/000.

And it sure proved its finger-style worth. The neck is an absolute beauty, just wide enough with good depth along its length to feel really comfortable and the low fret profile makes for easy movement, as does the satin finish and the cutaway’s high-fret access.

While it has a firm bass and nice trebles, the mid-range is this guitar’s main character. Strumming and single picked lines work well, but it feels like finger-picking is its real strength, with good note definition and sustain.

Amplification is via a Fishman Flex Blend system, using a piezo undersaddle pickup and a condenser mic. Three knobs control volume, EQ, pick-up and mic blend, phase control, and a tuner that mutes

when turned on. The lack of on-face fretboard markers might be a problem for guitar teachers wanting to demonstrate fret positions for students, though the austerity was a nice contrast to the more flamboyant decoration.

So, let’s add up the earlier propositions: Design? Eggle’s Linville OM had excellent reviews on release and provides an original, proven blueprint. Woods?

A classic Martin OM would feature European spruce and Indian rosewood. Towards the other end of the market you’ll rarely find the quality woods that make the Faith and even more rarely, solid woods throughout. What other woods from Indonesia might find their way into guitars in a sustainable fashion in the future? They have used trembesi in at least one model, while Maton and Cole Clark have produced wonderful guitars with Australian sustainable and reclaimed timbers. The Faith company has signed up to the Just One Tree initiative to plant a tree for every guitar sold, so it must be part of their thinking.

Construction clearly operates with high standards of quality control and as for marketing, the Legacy series is a great idea, putting the big reputation of Patrick James Eggle on the line on a range of classic-style guitars with lovely appointments. Faith have consistently won awards in the UK for their punching-above-theirweight value.

BY GEOFF KING

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PRODUCT PAGE HEADER REVIEW / MI

MAXON

Vintage Series AD999 Analog Delay EGM DISTRIBUTION | EXPECT TO PAY: $645

Delay pedals could almost be considered a separate niche to the guitar pedal collecting hobby, such is the fervent nature of those that collect them. The nitty gritty details of components, manufacturing quirks, and the ‘magic’ that resides within certain pieces of vintage gear will attract huge bids on the second hand market. That said, there’s also no shortage of experimentation, with brands both small and colossal releasing new ground-breaking effects every year. So, when Maxon came along with their reissue of a vintage classic analog delay pedal, what’s there to be excited about?

The answer is plenty, so let’s get into it.

Maxon, made famous in the effects realm for manufacturing Ibanez’ original 1970s guitar pedals, are now a powerhouse in their own right. The AD999 can trace its lineage back to the Ibanez/Maxon AD9, an early ‘80s analog delay pedal using the much-coveted MN3205 Bucket Brigade chip that could also be found in the Boss DM-2, and variations of it in plenty of other holy-grail delays. The AD9 had 500ms of warm, analog delay time and a simple three-knob layout, making it a fast favourite among players. An evolution of this came about in the Maxon AD900, which used two highvoltage Bucket Brigade chips to squeeze out 600ms of delay time.

As production of the most popular Bucket Brigade components began to become obsolete, Maxon

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struggled to find a steady supply and the AD900 was discontinued in 2003.

Part of the latest Vintage Series from Maxon, the AD999 is much more than just a reissue of the AD900. The most obvious difference is a staggering 900ms delay time, one of the longest you can find in a readily available pedal. It also runs at nine volts with a current draw of 46mA, making it much easier to run from a standard pedal power supply or even, heaven forbid, a daisy chain. It has true bypass switching instead of buffered bypass, and also features a stereo output if you want to split the wet/dry signals into separate amps or effects routing options.

In terms of similarities, it shares the same case architecture and the gorgeous pastel-musk sparkle paint. You shouldn’t buy pedals based on looks alone, but if you had to, then this would be a phenomenal choice.

The sound of the AD999 is pure analog gold. Some people believe that an analog delay is dark or warm because it tries to emulate the natural warmth of magnetic tape-based delays, but that’s not the entire truth. Bucket Brigade chips use a clock signal to regulate the delay time, which is a highpitched frequency that feeds into the audio path. In order to remove that frequency from your lovely delayed guitar signal, the high frequencies have to be rolled off steadily. The AD999 uses no fewer than eight Bucket Brigade

IC’s that were custom designed

by Maxon in order to achieve the colossal 900ms of delay time, and although that does mean the treble suffers slightly at longer intervals, the effect is less extreme when used at moderate delay times.

Bucket Brigade delays have such a cult following that it’s easy for the uninitiated to assume that all of a pedal’s magic tone comes from that chip, but different approaches can yield very different results.

To my ear, the real magic behind the Maxon AD999 are the two stages of compressor/expanders that work alongside the effect.

A compressor/expander, or just ‘compander’ for short, evens out your guitar’s signal by simultaneously reducing the peaks of the audio as well as turning down the noise that all analog signals intrinsically carry. The first one is placed before the delay chips to give them a strong audio foundation to work with, and the second one is after the delays to give them a smoother linear fade down to silence.

While these companders have very specific utility jobs that they perform well, they also give the repeats their character in two key ways. The first is how this pedal controls the dynamic range of the repeats, making the way you play your guitar an integral part of the response. If you dig in harder, the initial repeats will be louder and richer, while softer playing tends to fade a little more into the

background. The second way is the slight crunchiness that it gives the delay, as all audio compression creates some distortion and amplifies natural upper harmonics.

This has the effect of degrading the signal slightly more with each repeat, and sounds even sweeter when placed in front of an overdriven valve amplifier.

With an RRP of AU$645, the AD999 straddles the line between collector and consumer grade pricing, although most retailers seem to be discounting it to around the $575 mark. It’s not designed to sit in your amp’s effects loop and give you crystal clean rhythmic delays, but it will absolutely deliver if you’re after some simple, perfectly imperfect sound. The ability to go from a 40ms slapback to a cavernous 900ms repeat is a seriously impressive feature for a three-knob Bucket Brigade unit, and even though some customers may lament the lack of a tap tempo, I would argue that it goes against the ethos of the Maxon AD999, and there are plenty of other tap delays out there for you. It’s definitely not the first analog delay pedal someone would buy, but it could well be the last.

BY FERGUS NASH

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BLU DETIGER PLAYS THE ACTIVE PRECISION BASS® IN COSMIC JADE

©2021 Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

FENDER (standard and in stylized form), PRECISION BASS, and the distinctive headstock shapes commonly found on the FENDER instruments are trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and/or its affiliates, registered in the U.S. and other countries.

PRODUCT PAGE HEADER REVIEW / MI

NOVATION

Launchkey 49 MK3 FOCUSRITE AUSTRALIA | ENQUIRE FOR PRICING

Perfect for young buzzing minds who don’t like to play by the rules that sheet music expects you to follow.

In 1975, Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term ‘flow’ to refer to the feeling of total immersion when performing an activity. Unlike Mihaly’s surname, this ‘flow’ state is a pretty simple concept; you might already know it as ‘being in the zone’. And as anyone who has achieved this transcendent feeling will tell you, this is where the magic happens.

Switching attention between multiple stimuli, AKA multitasking, is the biggest killer of productivity in our day to day lives. Although we like to think our brains can focus on multiple things, the fastest way to ruin any state of flow we might have is through context switching, regardless of how minor it may be. Although Ableton Live and other modern DAWs are engineered for creativity, even the disconnect between DAW navigation and recording/ composing is enough to throw us out of our flow state. Novation has come up with a solution to this with their Launchkey MIDI keyboard/controller, offering elegant inline DAW controls and MIDI functionality for the seamless joining of creativity and command.

The small LCD screen is well visible and conveniently located, allowing you to keep track of certain parameters and functions from within the unit, but as with most MIDI controllers, but especially this one, so much of the action takes place while interfacing with our laptop or mac.

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Designed for use with Ableton Live, the Launchkey is available in 25, 37, 49, and 61 key sizes to suit all kinds of studio or live layouts. The Launchkey doesn’t cut any corners with its array of controls, featuring an additional 16 velocity-sensitive pads, pitch and modulation control wheels, eight rotary encoders, plus nine faders exclusive to the 49 and 61 key models. The Launchkey works with Ableton straight out of the box, offering an array of controls to navigate the DAW on the fly.

A strip of buttons to the right of the unit is home to play, stop, record and loop controls, each corresponding to those found in the Ableton GUI itself. The Undo, Quantize and Click buttons also function as expected - the Capture MIDI button is perhaps the most exciting of the lot, allowing you to capture retrospectively anything played recently on a record armed track. This is the golden ticket with regards to facilitating a creative state of flow, allowing you to capture any flashes of inspiration while playing along, with the peace of mind that your accidental excellence, and excellent accidents, won’t be forever lost to the ether. The more practised composer may find that they can get the perfect take without even having to stop and hit record, such is the power of the Capture MIDI button.

The Launchkey’s chord functionality is remarkably extensive, providing a host of built in chords triggered by the controller’s 16 pads corresponding to the key and scale set by the user. The Scale Lock function locks the keyboard into your chosen

scale, forcing all the keys on the keyboard into a note from that scale, meaning you never have to play a wrong note again.

The Fixed Chord button allows you to input a chord shape that you can play anywhere on the keyboard, a handy feature for those not blessed with fingers long enough to play octaves comfortably.

Users are also able to program their own chords onto each individual pad, with these custom chords written to the controller’s internal memory, meaning they’ll still be there the next time you plug in the controller. Trying to figure out a melody to match a set of chords? The Launchkey lets you play your chords on the pads with one hand while tickling the ivories with another (or you could try and trigger the pads with your nose while playing the keys with two hands - I’m not making the rules here).

The 16 touch sensitive pads map to drum racks, offering a level of dynamic control more akin to playing live drums than merely clicking samples. This allows for a simple, streamlined workflow especially when quickly jotting down placeholder drum parts during the demo process.

The Launchkey’s built-in arpeggiator is ultra-customisable, the rotary pots at the top of the unit controlling the Arp’s tempo, swing and note length, the Mutate and Deviate pots offer wildcard modulation to the arpeggiated notes and rhythm respectively. A Latch button keeps the last played note.

hardware synthesisers, or any MIDI compatible device, making it an obvious option for performers running hybrid Ableton Live + hardware setups. The intuitiveness and ease with which it interfaces with Ableton is a sight to behold, connecting with the host DAW directly out of the box. The various pots and faders map automatically, in turn providing one of the most user friendly tactile live experiences out there at the moment.

Perhaps one of the biggest takeaways of all with regards to the Launchkey 49 MK3 (or any Launchkey product for that matter) is the sheer quality of the build and choice of the components. The feel and apparent quality of the pads and dials is truly a cut above what you would normally expect from a controller at this price point. This hardiness is not at the expense of portability though, with the Launchkey 49 proving light enough to be ferried from gig to gig or session to session.

As production and composition workflows become more and more in-the-box, the need for adaptive, intuitive MIDI controllers has never been greater. Novation’s awesome Launchkey 49 might just be the perfect vehicle for this kind of workflow. Every function and parameter just feels so responsive and natural, allowing you to be transported into that aforementioned ‘flow state’ in the shortest time possible. After all, that is where all the good music lives.

BY LIAM MCSHANE

The Launchkey’s MIDI out functionality allows you to control

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PRODUCT PAGE HEADER REVIEW / MI

MAXON

Compact Series OD808X Overdrive Extreme EGM DISTRIBUTION | RRP: $279

Since their widespread introduction in the 1970s, overdrive pedals (and effects pedals in general) have evolved with developments in available technology – often incorporating multiple channels, gain stages, and multi-band EQs into increasingly smaller packages. With the ‘OD808X Overdrive Extreme’ however, Maxon, with a modified version of their trusty OD808 Overdrive, have stuck with a more simplistic and timeless approach, resulting in an overdrive that just plain works.

The OD808X comes elegantly housed in a lightweight yet sturdy aluminium chassis, which features a nifty door on the underside so the 9V battery can be replaced without unscrewing the entire backplate. The potentiometers and switch are both tactile in feel and precisely fitted, ensuring that the OD808X offers the reliability that you would come to expect from a Japanese-made product such as this one. Though the red LED is small, its brightness ensures that it can be properly seen, even in bright conditions.

Though minimalistic in its feature set, the success of the OD808X is a product of its quality components. It has a lowimpedance buffered electronic bypass, which aims to reduce the level of signal loss when the pedal is disengaged. It should be noted that this pedal does not feature true-bypass, however, no significant reduction in tone or signal level was noticed when the pedal was bypassed. Bearing many similarities to the legendary 44

OD808 released in 1979, the Extreme OD808X shares much of the same circuitry, albeit with some vital tweaks to the internal components, and as such, a concurrent increase in versatility.

While the OD808X shares the same three controls (Level, Tone, & Drive) as its predecessor, the range of each of these parameters has been increased, as the ‘Extreme’ label would suggest. The updated model offers an increased output of +5dB compared to the original, in addition to an extended tonal range, and a harder clipping pattern; all of which contribute to an effect that has more drive in the tank, more versatility, and more level to cut through the mix.

The flavour of the drive itself is one that is quite organic in nature – adding saturation and drive to the sound, yet allowing the natural characteristic of the amplifier to shine through. The pedal had a nice presence that made individual notes within chords clearly audible, yet the treble levels never rose to a harsh extent. In terms of the frequency response, this pedal was quite balanced across the spectrum, with controlled low end, slightly increased middle range (as is standard for a tubescreamer-like pedal), and highs that sang without being too bright. Overall, engagement of the effect did not drastically alter the frequency response to dry sound. It was found that the OD808X emphasised the natural harmonics produced by the guitar, without ever becoming too dark or muddy in tone. Even when playing open chords on the neck

pickup of a semi-hollow guitar, the Extreme Overdrive never got out of hand, maintaining an articulate overdriven sound, without accumulating lower frequencies to an unpleasant level.

One thing that stood out when using the OD808X, was that no matter the position of the Drive or Tone dials, it still sounded brilliant.

While it could be argued that the Tone control could have a larger range – particularly in the lower frequencies – it’s comforting as a player to know that it’s seemingly impossible to get a bad overdrive sound out of this pedal. This characteristic contributes to the many possible musical uses of the OD808X, which has a role at the multiple levels of drive that it offers – from mild crunch through to high-gain.

Acting as the source of drive to a clean amplifier channel, the Maxon Overdrive Extreme does a superb job of providing a highly musical sound – one which would have many a listener fooled for thinking they were listening to a classic valve amplifier. With the effect engaged and the drive turned up, the sweet harmonics add liveliness to the previously sterile sound, and the pedal does a remarkable job of responding to playing dynamics - cleaning up nicely when the guitar’s volume knob is turned down. As a result, the OD808X can absolutely be used in a ‘set and forget’ manner, with the amount of bite dictated by the guitarist’s hands.

to an already driven or crunchy amplifier. When engaged, this pedal increased the sustain and saturation of the guitar signal, yet was transparent enough to let the underlying characteristics of the amplifier be heard. When stacking the drive from the OD808X with the driven sound of a tube amplifier, the result was an interwoven smooth and creamy tone, with no observable jarring from the juxtaposed drive sounds.

Within the context of a band setting, the OD808X was clearly audible among the rhythm section, yet refrained from reaching ice-pick like levels of treble. Additionally, the overdrive was nicely complimented by various modulation and timebased effects; with the addition of a subtle flanger and long delay making for a fantastic lead sound.

While it isn’t packed to the brim with features, the OD808X is bloody good at what it does do – making it a perfect fit for a myriad of guitarists and their respective uses.

The OD808X is truly a plug-andplay package, which offers a great sound with minimal dialling in to achieve this feat. This pedal is a great choice for guitarists looking for their first high-quality overdrive, and seasoned veterans alike. With its superb, saturated sound, it’s not hard to imagine Maxon’s Overdrive Extreme becoming a mainstay on the pedalboards of an expanse of guitarists.

BY JAMES CALLANAN

Another use case which the OD808X excels at is as a boost

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PRODUCT REVIEW / MI

UDO

Super 6 Synthesiser INNOVATIVE MUSIC | RRP: $4,699

It’s not uncommon that a synthesiser feels rushed to market, a little half-baked with buggy features that were over-promised in marketing or UI with glaringly obvious flaws that needed another round of revision. It’s quite the opposite here. UDO’s Super 6 is painstakingly refined. Both the physical design and UI feel considered and nuanced, and most importantly the sounds it can produce are just as sophisticated.

Playing the Super 6 for the first time, you’re welcomed in by the familiar design and the closer you look, there’s more than immediately meets the eye.

Reminiscent of Roland’s golden era of synths, the Super 6 is the ideal combination of aesthetically inspiring and functional to use.

The build quality has the deluxe feel you’d expect of its price tag; the tact switches are satisfying to toggle and the sliders feel precise and smooth in motion, with just the right amount of resistance. It’s amazing how much functionality is packed into a menuless interface with various dual-purpose functions that all feel logical in use.

Binaural beats became buzz words a few years back with promises of brain entrainment to help everything from focus and concentration to deep relaxation. While the clinical tests of its benefits were lacklustre, the fact remains that having two separate signal paths for left and right channels coming out of a synthesiser opens up an ocean of potential movement and sonic experience. When operating in binaural mode the voices are halved, giving the user a wealth of mixdownmag.com.au

choice between highly complex binaural sounds or a traditional stereo image with a decadent 12-voice polyphony. Having precise control over the phase is an enticing offer and it’s just one of the benefits of the complex oscillator design.

The FPGA oscillators offer modern flexibility but with a robust character, there’s no glitchy aliasing or harsh digital edges.

This is due to their incredibly high 50MHz sample rate and allows for greater phase precision and ‘natural-sounding frequency modulation’. Even the cross mod between oscillators is more reminiscent of analog VCOs than the usual sharp digital sting wavetable oscillators are often associated with. Both oscillators one and two can be dynamically dispersed in the stereo field for thicker detuned tones. Supersaw fans are in for a treat, but this is much more than a one-trickpony for trance leads. Aside from all the classic oscillator shapes being able to be spread, the alternate single cycle waveforms (including custom user waves) can also be transformed into ‘super’ waveforms. Oscillator two isn’t quite as fully featured as oscillator one (it doesn’t include the single cycle waveform option) but it does feature a variable pulse-width wave and noise. All this technical sophistication results in a lush, rich-sounding core building block to construct a sound from.

Upon initial announcement, the Super 6 caught synth nerds’ attention everywhere as it boasted a modern re-creation of the SSM2044 filter; an iconic sound

featured in the Korg Trident and Polysix, the Emulator, and the PPGWave 2.3. UDO has delivered as the four-pole, 24dB filter with low pass, highpass, or bandpass modes really brings the analog character of the Super 6 to life.

They fizz through swirling pads and strings, they bubble along modulated leads and can growl on unison basslines with a switchable pre-filter drive to add extra punch when needed.

The Super 6 has two LFO’s and beyond their basic function as modulation sources (they have dedicated sliders for LFO1 to modulate both the oscillators, the VCFs and the VCAs), they have some additional functionality in the form of high frequency (audio-rate) speeds. In this mode LFO1 essentially becomes a third oscillator as it can track the keyboard. LFO1 has four basic shapes (triangle, square, random, or saw) but can also copy the single cycle waveform of DDS1.

It can be free running, reset on each note or cycle once (useful for percussive sounds). LFO1 also triggers independently for each of the six ‘Super’ voices, resulting in dynamic variance from voice to voice in binaural mode. LFO2 is a more rudimentary triangle shape but is useful for classic modulation options with corresponding tact switches to modulate the oscillators, VCF, or VCA, as well as being just one of the sources in the modulation matrix.

The mod matrix is cleverly integrated into the patch selection tact switches (selecting custom DDS1 waveforms is the third function of these switches). Select

a source, select a destination and use a dial to determine the amount. LED’s above the tacts correspond to the dial as a visual cue for the affected source.

Alternatively, you can enter mod assign mode, select and hold a source tact then move a parameter on the front panel you would like to modulate, then dial in the amount. Like so much of the Super 6 experience, it’s quick and simply a treat to use. I could click these springy tacts and tweak these deluxe sounds all day long!

Being their first instrument, UDO have done well to give the Super 6 an air of legacy. Combining the vintage aesthetic design with state-of-the-art technology, it feels like a synthesiser that will stand the test of time. The sound is so classy, the interface is oh so smooth.

The hi-fi effects section and polyphonic step sequencer/ arpeggiator provide the finishing touches to the crazy patches you can create. It does classic analogue sounds so well, and its binaural capabilities offer unique sound design possibilities that will surely be gracing sound art installations and sci-fi soundtracks everywhere soon enough. Hybrid synths have long represented a best of both worlds ideal that sometimes sadly falls short, but not here; the Super 6 is a tangible example of this dream realised. Here at Mixdown, we’re dreading the day we have to give our demo model back and certain staff members are already reconfiguring their finances to accommodate a purchase.

BY DAN NICHOLLS 45

PRODUCT REVIEW / AUDIO

PRESONUS

AudioBox GO LINK AUDIO | RRP: $139

Restlessness. Writer’s block.

Limited creative opportunities. If there’s anything that two years of pandemic-tainted productivity has taught music creators, it’s that getting out and about gives variety and edge to your work. A writing trip, podcasting on location, a local music collab - this stuff disperses creative stagnancy so you can stay progressive and connected when you hit the studio. Better even what if you could take a bit of the studio with you?

The latest addition to the PreSonus family is the AudioBox GO, their smallest, lightest, most portable USB audio interface. With a price tag of $139, it’s not only perfect for budding creators on a budget - it’s a quality, no-frills solution for artists and producers that write and record on the move. With a name that literally has the word ‘GO’ in it, it achieves what it sets out to do. This inexpensive, lightweight little workhorse can handle field trips and jaunty commutes, and despite its streamlined features it’s super adept. For the friendly price tag it boasts decent audio quality, and comes with a free licence for PreSonus’ own DAW software Studio One Prime and Studio Magic. Compatible with Mac, PC, and mobile devices, the AudioBox GO makes sense for both casual and professional use. However, the real kicker is how it represents that bit of flexibility and flavour in any stage of your creative ventures.

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When you first pick it up, the AudioBox GO is easy to find your way around. It’s a solid little 2x2 USB audio interface weighing around a mere 220g, with matte black hard plastic casing and rotary knobs. Its aesthetic is a bit simplistic, but perhaps that’s the point. The unit may spend its whole life on your desk if you have a laptop-based studio setup, or out about town in your backpack.

Either way though, it’s designed to be compact, user-friendly, and the knobs are pleasantly tight to twist.

PreSonus may have spent less money with lighter casing materials, but the hardware features solid design aspects. The front panel has a TRS 1/4” stereo headphone jack, a +48V phantom power switch, gain knobs for both channel inputs, and three separate knobs for controlling the volume of the mix, main monitors, and headphones. Those separate controls for the monitors and headphones are super nifty and give an understated value to such a moderately priced unit. On the back panel there’s two 1/4” TRS main outputs for hooking up to monitors, a mic/line XLR combo socket and a hi-z 1/4” TRS instrument input. There’s also a USB-C connector to plug straight into your laptop. The bonus is that it’s bus-powered via USB so no power pack is required.

One of the AudioBox GO’s distinguishing features from other entry-level USB audio interfaces is its audio quality. Sure, it doesn’t have a MIDI input/output or a sleek, metallic detailing in the look, but it can record at sampling rates of up to 24-bit, 96 kHz. It features an XMAX-L Class A solid state mic preamp, which is based on the steller preamps in PreSonus’ StudioLive mixers. These preamps sound nice and flat with a subtle colouration - a bit of clarity in the top end, a little scooped out of the mids. It sounds transparent enough to make it a solid, versatile choice when recording any range of instruments. The phantom power and 50dB of variable gain also makes it suitable for a wide range of microphones, and it has an incredibly low noise floor when the gain is turned up fully.

The Studio One Prime DAW and Studio Magic software has an impressive collection of samples, virtual instruments, tutorials, and plugins, including some juicy ones from Lexicon and SPL. If you’re keen to have a spontaneous writing session wherever you find yourself, these libraries of sounds and utilities will flesh out your ideas beautifully. Upon first use the DAW appearances initially come off as being slightly ‘cramped’, but it doesn’t take

long to find your way around and dive into a session, novice or not.

The workflow is intuitive, with a balance struck between practical functionality and comprehensive user parameters. This makes you feel like you can quickly go down the rabbit hole in your creative process without getting too distracted by the tools.

Little, lightweight yet reliable in quality, The PreSonus AudioBox GO may be the best bang for your buck when it comes to entry-level audio interfaces. Any producers, musos, and content creators will be more than satisfied with this for making some spontaneous mastery in the studio, bedroom or on-the-go. Having a portable creative domain can be overlooked if you’re a creature of habit dedicated to the one cave that is your studio space. Totally, it makes sense to hole up in one spot with minor distractions. Yep, it’s industry standard to have the big ticket pro audio gear on hand when making something from scratch. However, there’s a magic to behold in expanding your creative zone, going on walkabout with a portable mic and audio interface, and recording whatever bolt from the blue that comes to mind.

BY ROWENA WISE

mixdownmag.com.au

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BUILT FOR BIG THINGS Jacob Stibbie | Lead Guitar | Abstract Feedback

INTRODUCING THE NEW ZOOM G6 MULTI-EFFECTS PROCESSOR With state of the art amp modeling, powerful multi effects, and a touch screen interface, the G6 delivers what you need to take your sound with you, anywhere you go.

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PRODUCT REVIEW / AUDIO

GAINLAB AUDIO

Empress 2x3 Tube EQ FEDERAL AUDIO | ENQUIRE FOR PRICING

As its description alludes to, the Empress is indeed a stereo three-band equaliser, with each side of the 2U unit featuring a precisely measured stepped attenuator design, which can be meticulously matched for stereo applications or used separately on separate sound sources, making it fantastic for tracking or in the mix if/when required. Empress is also compatible with ‘Session Recall’ software, for the ability to save session settings, for precise recall when revisiting a session.

As for physical connectivity and spec, Empress features balanced XLR inputs and outputs, with a maximum input of +23dBu and input impedance of >10k ohms, while the max output measures >23dBu with an output impedance of <65 ohms. Frequency response ranges from 20Hz to 20kHz +/2dBu with THD+N (0dBu): <0.08% / (20dBu): <0.8%. In action, the Empress held up wonderfully, with incredibly quiet operation, meticulous build quality, and attention to detail. Under the hood only confirmed this, presenting a beautifully elegant design and layout, notably featuring two Nanocrystalline alloy transformers and four military grade tubes, delightful.

The Empress will be immediately relatable to those familiar with what could aptly be described as the “grandfather of passive tube EQs”, the Pultec EQP-1A. Taking design inspiration for this recording studio staple such as the ability to simultaneously boost and cut the same frequency point on

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the low and high frequency bands, the Empress builds upon these design principles adding some additional functionality of its own.

Firstly, the ‘shift’ switches found on both the low and high bands allow for immediate shape changing of the curve when boosting and cutting. This feature alone produces some very unique shapes to the transmission curve, making for far more precise frequency shaping, not typically found in designs of this lineage.

The ability to switch to either a shelf or bell on the high band adds further versatility to the circuit, and in practice I found this to be very musical, from quite subtle to more noticeable in other settings.

The mid frequency band brings another level of hierarchy to the Empress’ powerful feature set and brings this EQ into a league of its own. Its broadband boosting can breathe life into the midrange, or its sharper cutting shape can more precisely remove unwanted parts of this part of the spectrum. This band combined with the low and high bands respectively makes for an incredibly versatile tube equaliser capable of commanding a wide variety of EQ tasks, making itself viable for recording through to mixing, mastering, and sound design tasks applications, or even as a standalone saturation box, ala the tube boost switch.

It somewhat goes without saying (for those familiar with this type of circuit topology), that the ability to simultaneously boost and cut at the same frequency point on both

the lower and higher frequency bands makes for some incredibly interesting EQ curves, and the Empress absolutely nails this.

In practice, it allowed the more extreme boosted settings to sit nicely in the context of the mix, without becoming overbearing, unruly, or creating masking issues.

While the Empress is unquestionably inspired by the old school design and flavour of the Pultec, particular attention needs to be drawn to its mid-frequency band, and this is where I felt the Empress really started to shine and arch its flexibility as a tube EQ of its own esteem. While the mid-band only allows for either boost or cut (no simultaneous trickery here), the several crossover frequency points it shares with the high-frequency band makes it capable of some very inspiring shapes in the upper midrange and into the top end. This is where the Empress’ EQP-1A lineage sojourns and launches its timbral palette into a world of its own.

Much like when it was inserted over the drum buss, I found the shaping of the low end on the was particularly gratifying on the master buss. Moving the frequency point around here yielded pleasing results allround and was honestly hard to make things sound bad. For this particular track, 100Hz seemed to do all the right things I was looking for, with some median levels of boosting and a touch of cut to get the desired balance. The mid band sounded gorgeous when either

boosting or cutting in specific frequency areas, but here, I landed on boosting fairly generously at either 3kHz, 4kHz, or 5kHz to produce desirable results, bringing a sense of overall presence and urgency to the mix, but again those tubes never once made things harsh or overly aggressive, adding in a nice taste of harmonic colour. As for the high band, the top end was able to open up nicely, keeping things cohesive and glued together in relation to the other two bands. Either 8kHz or 12kHz complimented things nicely here, with both the shelving or bell shapes sounding superb!

Finally, the tube boost switch is yet another fruitful feature of the Empress, introducing lush tube saturation and harmonics into the audio path, showcasing the Empress’ ability to be more than just a tube-based 2x3 band equaliser. Because that just isn’t enough, right? The tube boost switch does indeed add in a healthy amount of gain to the output stage, particularly when engaged with the EQ in. Either an input or output attenuator would be super useful here, but keeping a watchful eye on your metering will keep things from running away.

Striking a fine balance of old school topology, modern malleability, and features, Empress is sure to be finding its way into many-a professional studio racks in the coming years. A piece and a company worth keeping an eye on.

BY ANDY LLOYD-RUSSELL

mixdownmag.com.au

PROFESSIONAL SOUND FROM EAR TO EAR

SRH840A

Professional Monitoring Headphones

SRH440A Professional Studio Headphones

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PRODUCT REVIEW / AUDIO

SHURE

SRH840A Professional Studio Headphones JANDS | ENQUIRE FOR PRICING

There’s no shortage of headphones marketed towards professional audio engineers in the world, and whether you’re a burgeoning or an established professional, the choices are bound to be dizzying. Even if you’re just a music listener who walks along the audiophile path, there are dozens of headphones clamouring for your attention.

So, with option paralysis setting in, how do the Shure SRH840A Professional Studio Headphones stack up against the rest?

The first point to broach is that these are a ‘nice’ sounding pair of headphones. What I mean by that probably requires some comparison to studio monitors for context, in that it’s common for recording studios to have multiple sets of speakers through which to test various mix decisions. One pair may be as flat as possible to give an authentic, unbiased reproduction of what was captured, while another may have a slightly boosted upper midrange to represent some lower-quality speakers that the average household might be using. The less-popular option is a set of speakers that tend to scoop a bit of the mids out, which almost always sounds fantastic to the end consumer, but it can be a dishonest representation in a studio environment that can lead to nasty surprises when you go and play your new song through a car stereo.

The SRH840A headphones are actually extremely flat in the midrange from around 200Hz to 2kHz, but do have pronounced humps at 80-100Hz and at 6kHz, and a subtle dip at 3.5kHz, this makes them an awesome monitoring headphone in the tracking sense and the subtle dip at 3.5kHz also makes them a great headphone for everyday listening.

The result is a pair of headphones which are both extremely useful in the professional sense as well as being a satisfying listen in the context of critical applications.

Frequency figures aside, the sound of the headphones can best be described as powerful. The bass response is remarkably punchy and spacious for a closed-back design, and the vibration through the pads on your head are really immersive. The mids are so 50

smooth it’s almost hard to describe them at all. The highs are nicely airy and present, precisely what one might hope for in a studio monitoring scenario. Given that the quoted frequency response ends at 25kHz, no doubt there’s plenty of crispness to be had, really allowing you to get in there on such notoriously tricky hi-end sculpting exercise as bringing out room excitement in an overhead or dialling in just the right amount of pop sizzle on a vocal. They are also a great headphone for cross checking sibilance, which is a very handy vantage point for anyone prone to hyped mixes.

As previously mentioned, these headphones situate themselves right at the middle ground between a pleasing sound and an accurate one, but that doesn’t necessarily remove them from a professional conversation.

The detail offered from the 40mm drivers is honestly pretty phenomenal. I’ve been using monitoring headphones for the last eight years or so, and listening to some of my favourite albums through these headphones revealed details I hadn’t previously noticed. That kind of anecdotal evidence has to be taken with a grain of salt given that I am actively listening for differences, but I was certainly impressed by their depth.

Another of the SRH840As strong suits comes in the form of their incredible isolation. The closedback, circumaural design rests comfortably over the ears and keeps background noise and spill to an absolute minimum. Even with the headphones cranked while close miking vocals, I still found the lack of spill to be rather remarkable, even with compression engaged.

Shure’s SRH840As are actually a newly revamped version of the SRH840 pair, taking into account some consumer feedback and also giving them a black and gold makeover. Visually they look awesome, a feature that will no doubt come in handy for the on camera content creation crowd.

While the original SRH840’s were for the most part well-reviewed, for many the only major criticism was in regards to the headband.

It’s good to see that Shure have addressed this with the new SRH840A update and the headband design appears much more robust and comfortable than previous incarnations, with thick moulded plastic and solid screws holding the swivels in place. Only time will tell if they will hold up to the regular abuse of a gigging musician, but for this kind of studio use they definitely look and feel the part.

Shipping with an additional detachable straight cable, as well as a carry bag and high quality threaded 1/4” (6.3 mm) goldplated adapter, it definitely lends itself to professional use, while the two-year warranty provides the exactly the kind of peace of mind you would want in a headphone at this price-point.

In the context of a professional headphone, reliability is really half the battle and no doubt Shure’s new SRH840A has this in spades. This reliability is evident both in the build quality and in the consistency of its sonic reproduction.

Overall, the SRH840A Professional Studio Headphones from Shure offer a really great sound, but not without some limitations.

The ideal person for these headphones would most likely be someone who’s entering into audio engineering and wants to get the most out of their money, which means a pair of headphones that can be good for mixing as well as casual listening rather than needing two pairs with two separate agendas.

BY FERGUS NASH

mixdownmag.com.au

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PRODUCT REVIEW / AUDIO

GAINLAB AUDIO

‘Dictator’ Variable-Mu Compressor FEDERAL AUDIO | ENQUIRE FOR PRICING

Gainlab are a relatively fresh face in the rack gear universe having only launched during the latter part of 2020 but in that very short time since, the tube gear specialists have quickly garnered a reputation for providing high quality, forward-thinking rack gear with the modern engineer in mind.

Taking its name from the Budapest Studio from which the Gainlab team were all inhouse audio engineers, the brand already have a few releases under their belt, namely the awesome Empress Tube EQ and now this, the equally impressive ‘Dictator’ Dual Pentode Vari-Mu compressor.

Like the Empress, the Dictator also serves as a nod to the brand’s obvious and apparent love for tube outboard gear and the sympathetic and character-rich tones such units tend to impart on their program material. Also like the Empress, the Dictator features a slightly more updated take on what is essentially one of the most iconic tube circuits in all of studio lore, the beloved Variable-Mu compressor.

Now, anyone with even a passing knowledge in the various species of compressor will probably already have a pretty good idea of what you are in for when it comes to the wonderful world of Vari-Mu compression, but just in case you needed a refresher, a VariableMu compressor is a compressor that primarily utilises a vacuum tube as its central element of gain reduction.

I know you are probably thinking ‘don’t opto compressors and other compressor types employ tubes in their topography as well?’ And

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the answer is yes they certainly do, but the primary difference being that in Variable-Mu circuits, the tube itself is the gain reduction component, as opposed to other types of compressors that use tubes in the amplifier and output sections of the circuit but rely on a different design for the actual compression itself. To put it simply, Variable-Mu’s are the most ‘tube’ of the tube compressors and thus have a character that is entirely their own.

The Dictator is a tastefully modern and very ‘now’ example of a dual-pentode tube Variable-Mu compressor and this is apparent from the minute you plug it in.

A Dual Pentode Vari-Mu compressor incorporating a highly desirable variable gain design and with an added sidechain that just screams modern dance music, it’s an awesome way to inject some vibe into in-the-box recordings as a hardware insert, while also being ideal for chucking on a master buss or vocal chain for a bit of tasteful tube compression.

Loosely based on classic Vari-Mu’s of yore, like the Fairchild 670 and Gates STA-Level, the Dictator employs a pair of military-grade 6k4p-EV pentode valves, sourced from countries such as Hungary, East Germany or Poland during the Warsaw pact. These are renowned for being some of the longest lasting and highest quality tubes around for this kind of processing.

Where the Dictator differs greatly from the aforementioned classic models is in its modern sidechaining capabilities and the presence of the ‘Mu f\Follower’ branch circuits, which allows

for awesome synchronisation between the two channels, providing ultimate accuracy for parallel processing. Side-chain filtering can be engaged at a number of pre-indexed switchable cutoff frequencies ranging between 22Hz and 200Hz, and you can optionally link two units for further stereo operation.

The accuracy and consistency of the ‘Mu Follower’ made it absolutely perfect for processing everything from lush synth pads, marrying basslines to kicks, layering 808’s, ducking vocals and various other compression tasks in the stereo field. While there is no doubt that this kind of routing and sidechaining is one of the Dictator’s strong suits, one of the biggest upsides of the Dictator is in the quality and variety of the compression sounds on offer here.

You’ll no doubt notice the ‘FastestFast-Slow’ options on the Attack and Release parameters - fairly vague and without a millisecond or hard measurement in sight. This makes a tonne of sense when you start to consider the ways in which a Vari-Mu circuit fundamentally differs from a FET or VCA circuit.

With its tube-based front end, the Dictator skillfully eschews the kind of rigidity so common in other compressor circuits, operating in a much more organic and reactive way, the result of which equates to an extremely pleasant and characterful sound quality that seems to undulate and change depending on a combination of program material and threshold position.

As somebody with a penchant for fast attack times, I found the

fastest attack setting to be more than quick enough for all but the most percussive transient material and it’s ability to fatten and flatten and saturate proved an awesome way to impart character on a sound while also performing its attenuation duties.

While on the topic of the threshold function, the centrally placed, oversized Threshold control is definitely a nice touch and allows for a surprising amount of variance which is important, in the context of a Vari-Mu comp.

At its lowest threshold, the Dictator is capable of some heavy-handed pumping and harmonic fire ideal for creative sound design. Being so program-dependent means that the Dictator can be driven quite hard, and the beautiful saturation that this brings with it is both harmonically rich and extremely musical. Gently tickling the threshold, the Dictator is an exquisite and classy sounding attenuator, transparently shaving a decibel here and there or working as a perfect thickening agent to a lead vocal or piano sound or even as an affordable gateway into the world of tube compression on the master bus.

In terms of metering, the Dictator offers classy backlit VU metering, that are switchable between Reduction and Output level and provide a nice visual reference point, but the truth of the matter is, you’ll find yourself relying less on these and more on your ear as you drive the the Dictator’s Dual Pentode Tubes further and further into saturation. That is after all, one of the beauties of Variable-Mu.

BY ERIKA FEDELE mixdownmag.com.au

PRODUCT REVIEW / AUDIO

AUDIO-TECHNICA

ATH-M20xBT Headphones TECHNICAL AUDIO GROUP | RRP: $169 This might be a massive call, but it wouldn’t be too much of a reach to say that the humble ATHM20x monitoring headphone is Audio-Technica’s most popular and visible product, at least in the studio space. Sure they may not have the universal acceptance of the mighty M50x, but rest assured no monitoring headphone has given more budding producers and in-the-box musicians their start than the modestly priced M20x.

This accessible price point, combined with the M20x’s surprising clarity and accuracy has made them a staple in classrooms and Audio Institutions the world over, with many colleges recommending the M20 (or other Audio-Technica M Series headphones) as the perfect vantage point from which to work through the curriculum.

Audio-Technica have recently set about introducing bluetooth versions of their iconic M Series into their product line, including (naturally) the Bluetooth variant of possibly the most beloved studio headphone in history, the M50x. So far, the results have been impressive to say the least, with the M50x successfully navigating that middle ground between enjoyable everyday headphone and functional studio tool. Given their ubiquity among the student and general listening crowds, you would imagine the new M20xBT to be possibly the most natural fit of all the M Series in terms of integrating Bluetooth into the studio realm.

While it may always have its issues with latency times and performance playback, the limitations of Bluetooth are far less noticeable in the context of inthe-box MIDI work and everyday, general listening or viewing of video lectures and the like, and this is precisely where the M20xBT really finds its stride.

As a headphone for these kinds of multi purpose applications, you’d be hard pressed to find anything more suitable. With over 60 hours of battery life (almost two full school weeks!), they are obviously well suited to the demands of student life, while also leaving your USB-C ports free for hard drives and other more important storage tasks.

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The familiar circular casing houses a powerful yet subtle 40mm neodymium driver that is as close to completely neutral as you’ll ever get without splashing out on complete, active noise cancellation. They are lively when you drive them hard but tidy enough that you can hear ugly sub and low mid frequencies that need taming even at higher volumes. With frequency response between 15Hz and 20kHz, there’s more than enough frequency reproduction to serve as a useful barometer for audio quality here.

Given their roots as a monitoring headphone for the studio, the M20xBT shares the impressively flat and transparent mid-range that made their wired counterparts such a popular choice for those making their first forays into EQ and dynamics processing. This particularly comes in handy in the context of double checking mix revisions and bounces or as a last minute mix check before submission.

One area that Audio-Technica has always been highly regarded in is with the quality of their CODEC algorithms and audio streams and the M20xBT is no different in this regard. The consistency and reliability of the connection is really something to behold and is especially important when talking about something like a Bluetooth headphone, a product that has undoubtedly been designed with useability and convenience

in mind. Needless to say that the Bluetooth 5.0 found on the M20xBT offers easy, intuitive connection with a surprising amount of leeway in regards to distance from the media source.

Newly added to the M20xBT, are easy-access buttons on the left earcup allowing control of play, pause and skip audio functions.

There is also a built-in microphone for hands free phone calls and video conferencing.

Comfort wise, the M20xBT’s are a home run, with a solid firm headband and nicely breathable ear cup leaving you confident in its rugged quality while also enabling you to seamlessly go about tasks as they adorn your scone.

Adjusting the size is a breeze for all heads big and small with a simple slide and set adjusting mechanism, reliable and sturdy enough to not slip at inopportune times, or ever.

The contoured, circumaural, oval ear cups sit comfortably over the ears providing good sound isolation, while also remaining snug enough to not move around and beg for readjustment from simple movements. They don’t apply too much pressure on the head so whether you’re watching a short video or some three-hour epic opus (with the low-latency mode option), they’ll still feel comfortable enough. They’re lightweight enough for necks ranging from pro boxers to the little ones who pinch them to watch YouTube on their iPads.

That leads me to my next point which is the nifty multipoint pairing feature which allows you to connect to more than one device simultaneously, instead of taking a few minutes to disconnect, reconnect, not be visible, and then finally connect back again.

This speeds up that process to be almost instantaneous, while also being handy for when you’re switching from working on your laptop to your phone to listen to music in this age of the home office. Another instance could be if you receive a call on your phone when you’re watching a video on your laptop, you can patch it through right away.

In the context of audio and music education, headphones are as essential as stationary. The ability to work in silence or in transit, watch endless tutorial videos and then make honest and translatable mix decisions from home is all part of the course - in fact we call that ‘homework’. By combining the convenience and freedom of movement of Bluetooth with the transparency and truthfulness of the brand’s acclaimed M Series headphones, the new M20xBT is the perfect middle ground between studio and civilian. The only thing lacking here is the price, which is an absolute bargain. Top marks.

BY PABLO FRANCOIS

mixdownmag.com.au

PRODUCT REVIEW / AUDIO

RIP-RAC

RiP-RAC Lead Racks RIP-RAC | RRP: $24.95

When you think about the time you have spent audio engineering, there’s one fundamental question to ask yourself. One question that threads itself through every creative endeavour. One great unanswerable puzzlement. One existential quandary, one constant undercurrent. The big question is this: how much of your time have you spent detangling audio cables?

Think about it - even the most organised of audio engineers have regularly had to deal with shoddy or confusing cable management.

Whether you’re working a festival, collaborating in an unfamiliar studio or just getting nutty and expansive in your own space, cables get tangled. XLR’s, TRS’s, MIDI, power leads, you name it. It’s a thing. Seeing as it’s all part of the job description, the bane of your existence may not necessarily be detangling the odd cable or two.

However, once you find the right cable management solution for you, you cannot go back.

Introducing RiP-RAC; an extremely simple and effective velcro cable storage solution.

They are lightweight, portable, and multi-purpose for any studio or live setting. They’re suitable and easy on the eye for the studio, and are designed for rugged handling for the audio engineer on the move.

Each ‘rack’ unit can fasten and support multiple coiled cables, with a composition of lightweight, durable plastic velcro. They’ve got a friendly price tag of $24.95 per unit and are 100% Australian made with a refreshing no-nonsense functionality and branding. The label text starts with ‘AMAZING’ in slanted all-capitals text, which may seem like a kind of gimmick.

However, they are not kidding around - RiP-RAC lead racks are kind of amazing.

There are a bunch of cable management solutions out there, but what makes RiP-RAC cut through the noise is their simple effectiveness, flexibility, portability, and brand ethos.

Less hype, less flash, yet more innovation. When you first get your hands on one, they don’t take up much real estate, physically or psychologically. They’re simple and unassuming, sitting coiled up in the palm of your hand with a weight of just under 30g. The mixdownmag.com.au

velcro is firm and flexible, and is suspiciously lightweight, but during use the reassuring ‘rrrriiiiip’ indicates how sturdy it is. In a tactile sense, this type of rigid, semi-industrial velcro might have a bit of a quirky rep. It may not be the first thing you’d think of to use repetitively in any domestic or pro audio environment. Although after a few uses you’ll find that it’s the humble mediator of chaos and order in your workspace.

There are three RiP-RAC lead rack types that hold a range of cable lengths - yellow holds up to 6x10m cables, green holds 5x20m cables, and red holds 3x30m cables.

Their lengths are respective to the types, ranging from around 55cm to 95cm long, so once again doesn’t take up much real estate.

On the top end of each lead rack there’s a little light weight metal loop for hanging up on the studio wall. Each pack comes with screw hooks for making a dedicated spot for them on the walls - so nifty if you aren’t a fan of going on annoying little errands to acquire add-ons.

The metal loop is also a key-chain design, which means you have the option of securely hooking them to each other to make your ultra-organised cable bunches bigger. All up, each lead rack type holds up to 10kg in weight, which is impressive considering how

basic they are in design. All three types are similar in weight and size, just with slightly different lengths, distances between tabs, and amount of tabs. This means that they’re all the same price. Nice.

The RiP-RAC lead racks are super straightforward and easy to use.

You just lay out your newlyacquired lead rack, coil up your cables and fasten them to each velcro tab on the rack from the bottom up. Once you’ve filled up the tabs you’ve got a neat, organised line of cables that you can bend and bunch up in whatever way you like without anything becoming loose. This makes them great for duffel bags that might get tossed around and rummaged through. The bonus is that each colour-coded lead rack type makes the hunt for the right cable length easier. If all of this doesn’t tickle the fancy of any selfprofessed OCD audiophile then nothing does.

The business is the brainchild of Paul Anderson, who has been involved in the music industry for many years as a DJ and a rock n’ roll roadie. His regular experiences with cable de-tangling before and after shows led to the creative innovation of a more compact, efficient, and durable cable storage system: velcro and large keychain hooks. What started out as a hobby shared with friends and

family 20 years ago has bloomed into an awesome product that may become a household name before too long.

What RiP-RAC has set out to do is provide simple, effective, and reliable storage solutions for your piles of messy cables. A useful little thing to have in your life, yes, but it feels so functional and intuitive that it’s a bit of a big deal. When you use these velcro lead racks you don’t even have to think about cable organisation anymore. Just coil up each cable when you’re done, fasten them onto the velcro tabs, then toss it all in your bag or hang it up on your walls. Then you get on with the real stuff without having wasted too much brain space on the fiddly and mundane. Most of the time cable organisation and accountability is annoying when you’d rather just dive into the creative workflow.

Time is precious, and it’s good to take whatever preventative measures you can take to save it. In this sense the RiP-RAC lead racks are small and nifty, yes, but they represent a healthier workflow and a massive incremental time saver. Potentially invaluable, these things are a worthy addition to any artillery of audio gear.

BY ROWENA WISE

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PRODUCT REVIEW / MI

SHURE

SRH440A Professional Studio Headphones JANDS | ENQUIRE FOR PRICING It’s for good reason that Shure is synonymous with the term “industry standard”. The brand has been responsible for pioneering some of the most widely used pieces of audio gear on the planet; with a focus on purposeful design, practicality and high build quality, as opposed to frills, superfluous accessories or facile packaging or marketing. It is the combination of these principles that the SM58 is still the go-to live handheld microphone the world over, and equally, the SM7B in the studio and broadcast domains.

Having owned a first generation pair of SRH440’s many moons ago, it’s fair to say I’m fairly familiar with the SRH440’s sonic print as well as their physical composition.

You may be asking yourself ‘whatever did happen to that pair of headphones?’ Well as a young man once said, “don’t leave a set of beloved headphones within the grasp of an overzealous young canine”. For once, the dog actually did do it. Those headphones were indeed no match for our fervent hound and realistically, what headphones would be! All this being said, I was eager to see what improvements the latest generation of SRH440A’s had to offer, dog proof or otherwise.

When assessing a set of studio headphones, one typically evaluates a few simple points to tick off the list. Build quality, sound quality, and comfort. The rigours of a studio environment are certainly substantial, whether it be a commercial space or a podcasting/voiceover booth, headphones need to be able to withstand this anticipated heavy wear and tear. Their sound reproduction is ideally neutral, with as little hype as possible, and also be suitable for multiple hours of continual wear without becoming physically fatiguing.

The slimline, ergonomic design of the SRH440A both look and feel professional, unobtrusive and classy. Simple aesthetic updates such as the removal of the blue and red coloured ovals on each side of the headphone are a smart aesthetic choice, instead opting for just the Shure logo on the outside of each cup. Particularly nice when shot under camera. They don’t draw unnecessary attention, but instead blend into their surroundings rather nicely.

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The pleather ear pads are comfortable and the oval shape and circumaural design of the cups makes for a cosy fit over the ears and provides good isolation and minimal leakage, ideal for tracking sessions. The headband provides just the right amount of comfort, making them worthy of longer use and I would say is an improvement on the previous gens. A detachable 3-metre cable is always a welcomed addition for a studio headphone, which is assured to cope with some foot trips and tugs in its life. This also comes with a gold plated 1/8” to 1/4” threaded adaptor, with both cable and adaptor being easily replaceable if required.

The flat folding design of the new SRH440A is a slight departure from the previous models, which allowed the cups to fold up under the headband and nestle into its dedicated carry pouch. This newer flatter design actually makes for a less bulky footprint, ideal for being placed in a backpack while travelling. I must admit, I was hoping there would be a carry pouch included with this new set, but it seems Shure have focused their energy into design and sound quality improvements with this fresh model over an abundance of accessories. The build quality of the SRH440A is of course top notch, as expected from Shure, with the chassis being made of hard moulded plastic. I wouldn’t hesitate throwing these into a backpack for a session or gig time

and time again, but for those who do prefer having a dedicated carry pouch, the dedicated Shure HPACP1 pouch can be purchased separately.

Plugging in the SRH440A’s and playing some familiar material, I was instantly reminded of why I enjoyed my first generation pair so much. Their rather neutral, unexcited sound is exactly what one typically looks for in a studio headphone.

A frequency response ranging from 10Hz – 22kHz, is an admirable figure and their depth in the low end is reflective of this measure. Their overall sonic balance is perhaps a little low-mid leaning and slightly underwhelming in the upper midrange and top end, and I consider this a positive given their intended use as a studio headphone. While other headphones might be considered more “exciting” to listen to, aka a whopping amount of low end and sparkling tops, they typically make for a more fatiguing listen, particularly on longer sessions. Not only this, but being more coloured in their sonic footprint, tend to make editing and mixing tasks tougher, as translatability onto the plethora of real-world playback systems can become problematic.

Thankfully, I didn’t find these issues with SRH440A’s.

The 40mm neodymium magnet drivers provide plenty of punch and clarity, making the hunt for

problematic frequencies in the mix a less arduous task than otherwise expected. As mentioned earlier, the circumaural closed back design provides great isolation but also a pleasing depth of field, particularly for a closed back design; making for the tweaking of reverb parameters for example quite gratifying. Their consistency in dynamics between listening back from whisper quiet to blaringly loud I found to be pleasing, making mix balancing tasks at quieter volumes a breeze.

And speaking of loud, another one of the improvements made to this new model is the impedance, which now sits at 40 ohms, thus being comfortably driven by pretty much any consumer electronic playback device.

The updated SRH440A’s do indeed set a benchmark for what a high quality studio headphone should be, particularly in this rather saturated area of the market. In classic Shure fashion the build quality is tough as nails and the sonic footprint is far more neutral than sparkly and colourful. The simple aesthetic updates make for an inconspicuous appearance on camera, ‘shure’ to get a tick of approval from the podcasting and content creator markets. Their no frills direction has made for an honest-sounding headphone worthy of being placed in any studio, even without a dog proof guarantee.

BY ANDY LLOYD-RUSSELL mixdownmag.com.au

©2021 Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. All Rights Reserved. FENDER (standard and in stylized form). FENDER, FENDER in script, SUPER REVERB, TONE MASTER are registered trademarks of FMIC.

©2021 Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. All Rights Reserved. FENDER (standard and in stylized form). FENDER, FENDER in script, SUPER REVERB, TONE MASTER are registered trademarks of FMIC.

MY RIG:

BROODS Sunny California is a long way from New Zealand’s city of Nelson, but it’s a move that the sibling duo Caleb and Georgia Nott of BROODS have made with confidence after enjoying an astronomical rise from their humble beginnings on the South Island.

Georgia takes lead vocals in the musical duo while older brother and multi-instrumentalist Caleb takes on the production role and backing vocals in their whirlwind of electro and indie-pop goodness.

Their fourth studio album Space Island is out now and was mostly worked on their own in their home studio in downtown Los Angeles, occasionally joining forces with friends and producers like Leroy Clampitt (Ashe, FLETCHER) and Stint (MØ, Gallant).

The album is described as “crystallised in a gorgeous constellation of sonic details otherworldly beats, swooning guitar tones, and effervescent synth lines”.

With over a billion streams and 10 New Zealand Music awards, we know there’s plenty of love for the ever-burgeoning sibling duo, so Mixdown decided to chat with Caleb to dissect their rig setup for the new album.

Prophet Rev2

Farfisa VIP 200

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KEYS Farfisa VIP 200 The album emerged from a period of unbridled experimentation that involved abundant use of Caleb’s newly purchased Farfisa organ.

“When I first saw the Farfisa it had just been dropped off at one of my favourite vintage music shops, Caveman Vintage in East LA. I fell in love with it instantly, they look like a 60s Italian sports car and sound just as nasty!

“My favourite feature is the ‘Slalom’ pedal that is basically a pitch bend but gives you the ability to have both hands on the keyboard too. Songs like ‘Distance and Drugs’ and ‘Like A Woman’ really showcase that bendy engine rev of the Farfisa.

“It really just sounds like a spaceship taking off and provided that slurring bite we needed in those songs.”

Prophet Rev2 “Our go-to synths on the record were what we had at the studio which was a Juno 60, Prophet Rev2, Moog Voyager and a few more smaller fun machines like the Roland Bassline.

“The Prophet Rev2 (16 voice)

by Dave smith has such great versatility and can basically do anything you need it too. And with 16 voices you can really develop that depth of tone.”

SOFTWARE Melodyne “We don’t usually have huge recording budgets or anything like that so a lot of the time we have to be creative in how we execute certain sounds. For string parts and things it can get really expensive and hard to get exactly what you’re hearing in your head.

“We will often go through a lot of orchestral samples and things and then re-harmonise them in Melodyne and chop different

Neve 1073 Preamp

pieces over the top of each other.

It gives the arrangement a slightly glitchy and warped feel almost like listening to a kaleidoscope.

“A lot of the horns in ‘Distance and Drugs’ are just stacks of myself doing my best trombone impression with my mouth haha.”

VOCALS Manley Reference + Neve 1073 Preamp + UAD 1176 Compressor “When we got to recording the final vocals for Space Island we were lucky enough to use Joel Little’s studio for a week.

“The chain we used for Georgia’s vocals on this record wasn’t too different to what we have used in the past, G always records on a Manley Reference, we’ve found that’s the best mic for her vocal timbre. Then we put that through a Neve 1073 (pre) into the classic UAD 1176 compressor.”

BY ELI DUXSON

Manly Reference

UAD 1176 Compressor

mixdownmag.com.au

The hype is real

and it’s called Tone City Audio. A company with a serious focus on designing and manufacturing guitar effects pedals of the highest quality.

The brand name perfectly reflects and describes the pedals performance - “Tone City”.

The rugged build quality and clean, slick eye-catching styling of the three main series, T-M Mini, T-C Classic Series and T-D Deluxary combined with the hand-wired magic, NOS components, BBD chips, silicon transistor

styled circuits, classic JFETs, OTA and analogue/digital fusion mix technology makes them the choice of the discerning musician.

Inspired by the best modern era boutique FX pedals and famous, old school iconic designs and circuitry, Tone City offers beyond bang-for-buck pricing and cool, exciting models. Dry Martini, Mad Stone, Golden Plexi, Angel Wing, Flexo Drive and King of Blues etc, all reflect the mystique and dynamic excitement of Tone City Audio.

Don’t take our word for it, try Tone City yourself we know you will be amazed.

SOME QUOTES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE! “Tone City gets very close to the sounds on many classic recordings from the 1970s and with negligible background noise. For performance, bargain price and two-year warranty…there’s a lot to like.” – Soundonsound

“These little pedals surprised me quite a bit. I really dig the range of hot tones and was not expecting the build quality to be this good.

Very solid with high quality parts…”

Addicted To Gear

“Able to pump out amp-like ‘edge-ofbreakup” tones and reacts beautifully to your playing nuances, in a compact, affordably priced design” – Guitar World, 2020

We push microphone technology forward.

I N T R O D U C I N G

FULL FLEXIBILITY WITH 8 POLAR PATTERNS

FOR ULTRA-DETAILED STUDIO RECORDINGS

LCT 441 FLEX

LCT 540 SUBZERO

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1” multi-pattern studio microphone Pure studio sound quality Studio allrounder High-end specifications Eight polar patterns incl. three reversed ones

Included: Shock mount, Magnetic pop filter, Windscreen, Transport bag

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1” true condenser studio microphone Self-noise below the threshold of human hearing Ideal for extreme processing Low-cut filters and attenuation Cardioid polar pattern

Included: Shock mount, Magnetic pop filter, Windscreen, Transport bag

www.lewitt-audio.com

Lewit Microphones are proudly distributed by Electric Factory Pty Ltd | 51 Northgate Drive Thomastown VIC 3074 lewitt@elfa.com.au Tel: 03 9474 1000