Alesis Fusion: Ultimate Heavy Metal Guitar FX

Upon plugging my guitar into the Alesis Fusion, I always wondered how to use it as a guitar fx processor. The fusion includes 8 inputs, and a variety of FX. Unfortunately it only lets you use bus effects on the audio inputs, which gets rid of all of the amp modeling, and overdrives by themselves. To get a great heavy metal sound from your guitar and alesis fusion, you will have to stretch the use of the bus effects without clipping and overloading it (which is easy to do). Here is a great patch that lets you use the Alesis fusion as heavy metal guitar FX processor.

Step 1. Create an audio track
Step 2. The fx bus settings:

Bus Send 1 = Wah Distortion + Delay @ 99%
Dry Level 0%
Bus Return 10%
Time: 0.1ms
Feedback, Attack, Release, Sensotivity, all @ 0%
Drive: 100%

Bus Send 2 = Plate Reverb @ 71% (Optional)
Dry Level 0%
Bus Return 9%
Decay, Diffusion 100%
Density 35%
Damping 30%

Be careful when setting this up as you will likely clip the internal circuit or your speakers if all the settings aren’t in yet. Pay attention to bus return levels.

Step 4. Plug your guitar into the Alesis Fusion’s audio in OR through an external amp FIRST (recommended).

Here are the settings on my practice amp which leads into the Alesis Fusion via Headphone-Out:
Input Gain 100%
Treble 100%
Mids: variable (50%)
Bass: 100%
Overdrive: ON
Adjust the output volume accordingly

After all this setup you will get a live guitar FX processor out of the Alesis fusion, and a patch that sounds AWESOME.
Its like Overdrived Metal-Wah from hell. Great for solos and some chords.

Ebay Auction Bargains - Ending Soon!

Edirol UA-101 Audio interface in perfect condition! USB 2.0 interface with 10in/10output! Has mic Preamps, built-in limiter, and hooks directly to stereo monitors.
only bidding at $51 bucks right now!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260177785395&ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123

Korg ER-1 Drum Machine, one of easiest drum machines to own & play. Now bidding at $102.50

http://cgi.ebay.com/Korg-ER-1-Drum-Machine-Synth_W0QQitemZ260177792804QQihZ016QQcategoryZ38069QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Mega Flute Medley - 100% Alesis Fusion

Mega Flute Medley - By Allan Drake
This track was made on the Alesis Fusion using all stock sounds, and one official drum sample pack, from the Alesis Website. Lightly mastered using Logic 8. Just shows what you can do with a single piece of hardware.

Download it and check it out! —> Mega Flute Medley, 4MB Mp3

Be sure to Add Stealthgear as your friend on myspace

312 Key Synth

In case you missed it from Digg, here is a 312 key synthesizer! Its worse than a typewriter and comes with yamaha style speakers built in. I’m speechless.

The Chromatone CT-312 keyboard

Read some more at technobab…some weird tech site anyway!

VIDEO: See the super mario brothers demo of it on YouTube

Holy crap!

The neat thing about the keyboard is that chord shapes are the same in every key.

Another article From Engadget all the way back in 2005 which looks like it was via MusicThing Old but awesome. I’d love to get one if they are available for purchase…can’t find any links.

Portable Music Player Concept.

MP3/CD Player. - DOPE!

Pulled from the feed:


It looks more like a lights out puzzle than a music making device Could be cool if they keep it wireless!
Tenori-On from Noizone.com

Computer fronts rock band with “Where is my Mind by the pixies”

*video deleted for boringness and being posers*

they are ruining the fun.
This was alot cooler back in the OS9 days with Vocal Writer !

BUT they have a new product called MAGIC VOCALS coming out in 2007?
The guy who wrote vocal writer is the original singing mac voice, and Vocal Writer is still awesome in my opinion. It makes me want to refit my B&W G3 with an intel processor, and load up Vocal Writer for no reason. But I guess we will have to leave it to these “rock” bands who are way late to use the game of the singing mac voice. I will let those posers do it. Before vocal writer you had to sequencer every syllable from simple text Which I know some chumps still did even though vocal writer was out…
Long live VocalWriter.

Metal News:

After Forever Tour Dates.

Floor Jansen is the complete opposite of the singing mac voice.

Coming to USA in October!!

Seekpod Mp3s of After Forever….but just buy their new album.

Rewind to 2005 - Beseech Abba Cover Song! Gimme Gimme.

———————————————————————————————

Browsing the web I found this blog:

CHIP CHICK
http://chipchick.com/

XOMG

Please e-mail her and tell her to “Marry the chip collection blog”. Also say that its really important. Thankz! I will post any responses here if you send them in.

Buying an Electric guitar: How To

Yes, they have a certain cool factor. Its undeniable!

If the theremin can be an electronic instrument, then maybe an electric guitar is too. Well, at least quasi-electronic. The pickup converts the waves of the strings, into an electronic signal. They also sound very cool and might be worth putting into your production setup. Guitars actually sound great when played side by side with synthesizers.
With a guitar you will never have to worry about Polyphony, Midi (unless you bought those new USB ones), and using digital interfaces.

Let’s find out more about them before we choose.

Pickups:
There are two main types of pickup: single coil and double coil (known as humbuckers), each of which can be passive or active. Single Coil have a brighter sound, whereas, double coil is known for its noise cancelling abilities.

Body Style:
Electric guitars can come in solid body or hollow body designs. Solid body has NO inner holes which would allow the strings to resonate further (like acoustic). Hollow bodies do have these inner holes.

Tremolo Arms:
Also called the Whammy bar. This device moves the bridge to alter the pitch during play.

Most electric guitars are completely passive. They require external amplification and effects! But you can jack them into an audio interface that supports phantom power and use plugin effects and guitar amp emulators! This is a great way to not clog up your studio and get any kind of guitar sound that you want for cheap. The effects you use on your guitar also can determine style of music you want to produce. Examples would be distortion, overdrive, chorus, etc.

Electric guitars come in many body styles for you to choose from. They also having varying degrees of quality. You must be considerate of price too, as you are just buying a piece of wood with strings attached to an electric pickup. A very expensive guitar might be close to that of a cheaper more affordable one. Other than actually going somewhere and just picking up and playing a guitar, you’ll want to check out some guitar reviews:

Stick to what feels good, something in your price range, and what sounds good.

Guitar Reviews:
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar

I hope that helps you get started!! I think I will be buying my guitar soon.

Extra: Use your Guitar to trigger synth tones to differentiate your sound with this module Roland GR20

Below are some models of guitars I would check out!

Price Ranges

Under $200
Behringer V-Tone II & Amp $109 Cheap, and nicely rated.
Epiphone Les Paul Special II Electric Guitar Classic looking.

Over $200
Fender Standard Stratocaster Electric Guitar Nice!! I would get this or something similar.

There are alot of guitars out there and it will come down to personal choice! Find something you like!

Korg TR: Third Opinions

I wanted to post some more on the Korg TR. You will always have a first impression of a keyboard which will be how it sounds and feels. Your second opinion will be based on how easily you can use the piece of gear. The Third opinion tells you if it will function for you or not. So I’d like to talk more about its sequencing as integrated with its sound creation, and also the big mistake I made mentioning that it only uses one insert effect.

The Korg TR’s sound creation and knob settings have similar problems related to the Alesis Fusion! (they don’t stay). It has a work around, but Its not 100% To keep voice parameters set you have to switch into Program mode, call up the program, and set its knob voice functions, then switch into song mode to see the changes take place. Or you can record voice parameters using the knobs with sequence mode using over dub. Thats not a good way to just “grab n go” when playing a sequence and creating your sound. If you don’t save it that way, all the knobs get reset every time you start / stop the song. Note: YOU CANNOT save the entire B bank of knob settings in program mode. There is just no explanation for this! The A and C banks due however. So basically you will have your sound adjusted and it will reset back, at least on all the B settings with absolutely no way to save them in program mode or sequence mode (unless your recording the voice w/overdub). So the B-bank, and all your programming for it is worthless in program mode, and mostly in sequence mode. Thats kind of insane. So you just have to ignore the B bank of knob settings entirely on this board….like the Alesis fusion.

More on the Korg TR Effects:

The effects setup is complicated. But it suprised pleasantly when I found out I had more routing effect capabilities than I thought possible: You can use the mastering effects like instert effects. Korg has their terminology wrong, or at least not the way I would describe it. SO it has 3 distinct insert(y) type effects channels that you can put on any track, and you can have the bonus of routing one of the effects through the masters if you want. So if you want your drums to have alot of reverb, your synth to be chorused, and your piano to have a little bit of reverb and maybe full stereo compression…you can. You don’t have to rely on a single effect for every track. You can have combinations and adjust the amount on each track, as long as you don’t think of the mastering effects as actually mastering the final output of your mix (it sort of doesnt anyway). The Korg TR has tons more effects potential than you’d need!!! Its just hard to understand the way its set up in the menus, and not very fun to use when your sequencing something. You can’t turn a knob and change your sound. Its alot of menu based hunting.

The effects menus and setup is probably the worst thing about this board. The second being that it will not save any B bank knob settings unless you sequence them. Another note: There is no way to stop it from sending program changes to your gear in sequence mode. You must save your sound settings on the piece of gear itself, because it will always reset to the specified program (and thank god you can specify it).

One last Gripe: I couldnt get it to save my global settings for the Velocity curve. It shouldnt be complicated but I gave up trying.

Overall, there are workarounds for this keyboard. The effects are more powerful than you’ve heard (think 3 effects on any channel), but its hard to use. The knob settings can be saved (only A and C banks), but with some work.

Its still a solid board, but there will be some frustration when setting up the rom’s overall sound, when mixing a track created solely on the board itself….which sucks. I feel kind of tricked, because it seemed easy to adjust everything when I first got my hands on it. I am looking for a single piece of equipment that I can make complete mixes on. This isnt quite there.

If you sequence alot of gear, or just like to play very inspirational Combis its still worth checking out. Its solid and won’t crash on you.

Korg TR Quick Review

After having the mixed feelings and ultimate sell off an Alesis Fusion HD6, I acquired the Korg TR to see how it stacks up in controlling my studio.
Its alot nicer than it looks in the pictures. People may complain of plastic construction, but thats only the end caps!!!! The front face is black metal & high quality knobs and buttons.

The Korg TR is very solid, but it’s sounds won’t inspire you by itself. You will probably want to connect it to a PC with a larger sound library, or some external gear. This board will serve as the basis for music creation & composition, however. Out of the box the knobs are set to control basic external gear parameters very well, like RES, CUTOFF. These control knobs even worked with Reason without any setup. Any time saved not setting up obscure midi parameters is a good thing. Once you get your channels, and programs set, you can save it as a song template and use it every time you start a new song.

The sounds of the Korg TR leave something to be desired. If your sound is completely electronic or sort like Jean Michael Jarre, then you will like it ALOT. It has amazing organs, and electronic strings, but you will be hard pressed to find any gritty guitars or other sounds onboard. Even through tweaking the rom it can be difficult to make it sound mean, unless you are going to be doing it with a synth program. The category button is set up nicely to find a particular sound you are looking for, although scrolling to select programs inside the sequencer mode is a mixed bag. It doesnt matter however, because you can use the category button inside Sequencer mode. This is unlike the Alesis Fusion’s inability to do so, and its a good thing. The drums are pretty decent for hip hop and some electronic music. As far as rock, they come off as a little cheap. I am not sure Korg has ever been good at drums, so you will be better off loading up something in Reason again. Some of the kicks are very very nice and bassy though. Nothing faboulous, even though the sound quality is very high. The high point of the rom is its synth sounds. They sound better than older yamaha stuff, which always had a catlike meow sound to them. Overall the Korg has more of an “ahhhhh” type of quality to every sound. It is more soothing. I think this has to do with whoever was in charge of creating the rom, however long ago it was.

Sequencing is solid & very easy. You will be able to start making songs in no time. Loop features are very nice to set up. Menus are easy to navigate once you get the hang of it. It is a good compromise between touch screen, and an even smaller menu based screen. Combis are also flawlessly easy to put into sequencer mode!! You could probably create a keyboard split of all your gear, save it as a combi, then import it into sequencer mode and have easy control. With the TR88, this would be ideal!!

EFX: They sound amazing, but you only get a single effect to apply to ALL of the tracks. Not even per-track, so choose wisely. Let me specify this: You can only have one effect, and then have the ability to turn that effect off or on for each track. You also get mastering effects, but thats applied to your entire mix. SO if you want to add amp distortion to one sound, then add reverb to another…you cant. It is hard to change the quality of the onboard sounds too much, but most of them sound acceptable, and can be tweaked with the RES, HPF, and cutoff functions to make them blend in you mix. I think judging this board based on what effects it has is not a good idea since it does have assignable outs, and you can just set up something in your computer during monitor/mixing to apply effects.

The build of the board is way higher than it looks in any picture. Its actually very nice, and the buttons are nicer than I expected. The keys are a little nicer than an Alesis fusion, but are nothing special.

Overall this is an amazing piece of equipment to use in your studio for composing and controlling all your gear!! The USB to PC also makes it a good midi controller. I would recommend this board if you found it used and the price was right. Make sure you get an SD card (it has no internal memory for songs). You can use this to trigger samples on your computer, so if you don’t gig, then the lack of sampling features is no big deal….even then the sampling upgrade option could be applied later if you feel you really need it.

Conclusion: Average sounds except for Synths & Organs, easy integration into your studio, and its fun to play. Great as a controller & techno machine. Worth the money.

Sound Quality: 9
Musical Expression & Voices: 6.5
Build: 8
Key Action: 6
Sequencer / Menus: 8

Deal: Alesis HD6 Still for sale $564 + Shipping to anywhere U.S.

I am still looking for a buyer on the Alesis HD6 w/ Softcase. I had originally sold it to someone in Russia on ebay, but the size is cost prohibitive, and I might end up refunding them.
Anyone in the U.S. that is still interested can e-mail me about it, and it will be shipped out right away. It comes with the full Emu Mo-Phatt & 4000 libary samples onboard + an 80 gig upgraded hard drive.

supercool@chartermi.net

Full Korg TR61 review coming up next week…

Used Gear Clear Out

Used Gear In the store:
http://www.chipcollection.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=23

Edirol UA-101 10/10 Audio interface with 192khz recording 10/10 input & out $399 Good price!
M-audio Keystation 49e Midi Controller. $79

Time to clear some stuff out of the studio!

Building your own “Neko” PC keyboard with touchscreen

I’ve decided to come up with some designs, and at least a partial parts list for building your own keyboard with integrated computer and touchscreen. It seems like a good time to do it. LCD prices aren’t too bad, and we now have high powered computers that can fit almost anywhere, like the mac mini and those PC mini-itx cases. I don’t think you should have to pay over 2 thousand dollars for something similiar, and this would just be cool to make. The whole idea would to make something that is portable with all the controls in the same place.

Parts List

LCD Planar Touchscreen $300 - This one is kind of ugly due to the white frame, but the price is right for a 15 inch. Getting a good touchscreen / LCD with enough screen space for the right price would be pretty important. This Planar one goes for $440 and could be a hell of a lot better.

A small Midi keyboard + Keypad for only $44. I’m not going to bank on the construction quality of this one, but it looks really Neko-ish. If you added a small, in-car-style 8-10 inch size touch screen, which are even cheaper than the ones I mentioned it might be really cute. Other than that you’d be best to go with a USB midi keyboard for whatever you can get on ebay. Even better if it was one of those keyboards that had the audio interface built in.

This might be the grandaddy solution for picking out your computer…

intel imac with touchscreen or ibook touchscreen. On the intel mac, you could have your choice of running both windows and Mac OS X with the latest chip architecture. If you went with an iBook, you could carefully dissassemble it and mount it inside your case with the keyboard midi controller you picked out. Having the computer, Keypad / touchscreen all at the same time would be effecient, as then you wouldn’t have to worry about power supplies for each. I don’t know how much that costs to add on.

And then your audio interface, if you didn’t have it built in to your keyboard, probably get an Edirol self powered USB unit. That one is a little expensive at $240. You would probably want the built in audio interface type of midi controller, with knobs.

As you can see, I didn’t address the problems of having multiple power supplies…but if your like me, you’d just have the bundled cords wrapped up out the back and buy a power-squid. Maybe with enough space, you could shove the power-squid up inside the keyboard box, to trick people, like you actually know how to run all of that stuff off the same voltage.

Chip Collection Version 1.

Version 1:
Cost Estimate: $1,150 ish
(LCD Touchscreen, Cheap Prodikeys Midi Controller, Intel mac mini, Edirol USB/MIDI Audio interface, + random case parts)

Version 2:
Cost Estimate: 1,900 ish? ($1,500 Apple iBook bought on ebay with modified touchscreen by Troll Systems, $300 Midi keyboard with audio interface built in, +$100 worth of random parts)
This could version be flat and rectangular looking more like an Elektron machine. The flatscreen would be attached at the far left end, with various components inside the box underneath, then having the keyboard tacked on its side. You could also have the flatscreen attached like version one above if you didn’t like looking down.

Doing a keyboard like this would be an awesome project, and I bet you could do it for under 2000 dollars and have a pretty nice result. If you were able to use clear plexiglass as a box, you could even do etching across it and light it up from inside. Extra modifications would be knobs & such for midi control. Even sillier would be to add speakers. If you played on stage, it might be cool to have a mini lcds attached to your keyboard, facing the crowd, so you could put some kind of weird video on it. Also, no, this keyboard isn’t the solution I was talking about for my previous article.

• Articles (rss) (80)
• Audio Interfaces (rss) (4)
• Keyboard (rss) (17)
• Korg (rss) (13)
• Midi Controller (rss) (17)
• Mobile Recording (rss) (4)
• Music Industry News (rss) (71)
• New Gear (rss) (23)
• Reviews (rss) (13)
• Roland (rss) (4)
• Sample Pack Releases (rss) (11)
• Sampling (rss) (19)
• Software / VST Au (rss) (34)
• Tutorials (rss) (21)
• Videos (rss) (28)
• Yamaha (rss) (2)