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Archive for the ‘Geek-Out’ Category

TC Electronic Polytune Polyphonic Tuner Pedal

In the world of guitar gear, there are thousands of sleek, gritty, cool or knob-overloaded boxes out there.  With all the flashy pedals out there with “X-treme!!!” names, it’s easy to overlook some of their less-than-exciting counterparts – namely tuners.

Sure, they’re brilliant devices that provide important and necessary features, but let’s be real about it.  Every time I see someone walking out of a guitar shop with a $100 tuning pedal in his hand, he seems less than excited.  No new sounds or tones? No badass names?  In most cases, there aren’t even any novel tech features.  But no more!

<trumpet fanfare>

Finally something new!

<enthusiastic fingers-on-desk drumroll>

Polyphonic tuning!

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Batt-O-Meter

Here’s a great idea for the Sound Guy or Guitarist in your life.  The Batt-O-Meter by Keith McMillen Instruments will tell you how much life you’ve got left on a battery without having to take it out of your guitar or effects pedal.  Basically you can check a 9 volt or 1.5 volt battery by plugging this guy into a quarter-inch jack of a guitar pedal or guitar.  It can tell you how many volts the battery is putting out, and how long it will last.  Pretty neat trick.

This would be great for Sound Guy toolboxes or Guitarist gig kits.  It’ll also save you some money being more efficient with your batteries.

Star Trek Sound Effects Editor Mark Mangini goes into the details of designing sounds for Star Trek Movies.  Pretty fascinating – there’s actually quite a bit of great information on Designing Sound, which is where I came across this video.

Oh and part two:

Definitely enjoyed his description of a giant biker beating the crap out of a dumpster to create “time waves” hitting a ship.

synthPond 2.0 Tutorial from zach gage on Vimeo.

Loving it!  It’s an interesting conceptual instrument – you place nodes on a surfaces that generate notes when hit by waves (ripples in the “pond”). Some nodes just produce notes, some emanate their own waves.  Anyway, its pretty awesome, check it out.

Really awesome guitar FX chain – not the most original chain, but it’s definitely explained nicely and has some decent sound samples.  Check it out.

Found on CrunchGear.