Jerfo.com Studio

Review - No Name 25mm f1.2 CCTV Lens

2011-05-05T11:28:00.012-04:00

Disclaimer:

I am not a professional photographer, nor am I a professional writer. I'm simply a man who enjoys taking pictures and enjoys the features and flexibility of the Micro Four Thirds format. I am to MFT photography what Rachel Ray is to cooking...except perhaps a little less annoying and a lot less perky.

I am not a fan of photography clichés. Every time you misuse the word bokeh, God pulls the whiskers off of a kitten. Every time you use a phrase like creamy bokeh, God proceeds to kill that kitten. So please, for the sake of the kittens, don't use phrases like that. In place of the word bokeh, I will use the word oblur (OB-luhr), which is my portmanteau for optic blur and sounds a hell of a lot less pretentious. Example: The 25mm CCTV lens has a sweet, dare I say mellifluous oblur in the out-of-focus regions of the image.

Introduction:

Shortly after I purchased my Panasonic G10 camera, I started searching the online black market (eBay) for any and all available Micro Four Thirds lenses. In addition to the usual suspects, I stumbled upon a cute little thing labelled as the "SLR Magic Toy Lens." It was billed as being great for "Lo Fi" photography, fast (f1.4), and relatively inexpensive at $119.

Ooooo...it even comes with its own silly bands. Neat.

This was enough to pique my interest, so I turned to The Google™ for further edification. The first thing that I found was a nice review by Steve Huff, which you can read here. However, once I peeled back a few more layers of the onion, I discovered that these lenses weren't much more than rebranded CCTV lenses with integrated MFT mounts. One could theoretically achieve the same results by getting a C-Mount adapter and buying a C-Mount 25mm lens. So, that's what I did. Are the results similar? Read on, fearless reader.

Life is like ordering a lens from a seller in Hong Kong...

You never know what you're gonna get. In my case, I ordered a f1.4 lens that looked like this:

...and was shipped a f1.2 lens that looks like this:

Whoops. That said, I'll take the faster lens any day of the week, provided that the optic quality is comparable.

Just Plain Silly

My four year old son and I refer to this as the "Silly Lens." Why? The G10 just looks so darn silly with this lens attached to it. To give you a sense of how big it is, here's what it looks like when sitting next to a can of delicious Pepsi Max, a beverage with delicious cola taste and zero calories:

Dear PepsiCo: please send me free Pepsi Max

Tiny, right? In spite of the silly looks, this lens will turn pretty much any MTF chassis into a lightweight, ultra-portable camera. It's very convenient for travel, or as you'll see later, a trip to the ballpark.

How Does It Work?

I attached the C-Mount to MFT adapter to my G10, screwed in the lens, made sure that "Shoot W/O Lens" was turned ON on the G10, and set it to Aperture priority mode...that little A button on the dial. Dead simple. Once that was done, I looked through the viewfinder and started seeing the world through the wacky, distorted eye of a CCTV lens. A couple things to note:

There are no aperture "stops" on this lens. It adjusts everywhere from wide open to completely shut, but you have to guess where you are at any given point in time. The adjustments are all manual. You cannot set them on your camera.
This is manual focus only. On this particular lens, it takes a lot of cranking to get the focus where you want it. This is a pain if you're shooting at moving targets and need to constantly adjust the focus, but actually pretty nice for shooting stationary subjects, as there's little risk of bumping the focus ring and losing focus. I have no idea if this is consistent with the other "no name" CCTV lenses out there on the black market.

I immediately started shooting indoor portraits of my two male models (Magoo and Ritchie), under so-so lighting conditions:

ISO 400, 1/400 sec - B&W added in post-production in Picasa

ISO 400, 1/50 sec

ISO 400, 1/60 sec

All of these pictures were shot wide open, f1.2. The last picture is a nice illustration of the extremely shallow depth of field: the right side of Magoo's face is in focus, while the left side isn't. In short, I was able to get some very nice, "artsy" style pictures with very little effort under very average lighting conditions. I like to think of it as an optical version of the Hipstamatic iPhone app, with way more depth of field.

From there, I took the camera (and my son) to Franklin Park Zoo and snapped some more pictures. There was bright sunlight outdoors, but the indoor lighting was dim. As you'll see, the latter was no problem for the silly lens.

ISO 100, 1/800 sec

ISO 100, 1/800 sec - some color post-processing done in Picasa

ISO 400, 1/60 sec - indoors

ISO 800, 1/50 sec - indoors; cropped

ISO 250, 1/125 sec - indoors

ISO 200, 1/125 sec - indoors

ISO 400, 1/30 sec - indoors

I particularly like the effect of the radial oblur in the last photo. Yes, this lens vignettes like crazy, but I personally think that it adds some nice character to each photo.

Here's my well-behaved son at a bowling alley. Note that this picture has been rotated 180 degrees.

ISO 800, 1/125 sec

...and, for good measure, here are a couple pictures from a recent trip to Fenway Park:

ISO 100, 1/1300 sec - aperture closed to an unknown f-stop

ISO 250, 1/125 sec - aperture closed to an unknown f-stop

How is it for taking videos?

It's a reasonable question to ask. Since this lens was originally designed for video, wouldn't it make sense to try taking videos with it? Yep, it would. Here's a sample video that I took with it. It was taken in a poorly lit studio, with the aperture wide open:

Notice the extremely shallow depth of field. It's not perfect for every application, but it's a neat effect. The speed of the lens made this a vast improvement over my attempts to record video in the studio using the kit lens (14-42, f3.5-5.6). Notice that there's hardly any vignetting in this 16:9 video. It would probably appear if you were taking 4:3 video. I did not test that. (Who does 4:3 video these days, anyway?)

Conclusions?

If you are looking for sharp, accurate pictures, look elsewhere. You won't get anything close to that with this lens/adapter combination.
If you dislike vignetting, steer clear of this lens. This effect does not appear to be nearly as prominent in the so called "Toy Lens" discussed earlier.
If you don't like having to make manual lens adjustments, this isn't the lens for you. It's all manual with this one.
If you are interested in an inexpensive lens that will work well under poor lighting conditions, this is a terrific choice. I doubt that you could find many (any?) other new f1.2 lenses for under $100.
If you are interested in a lens that will instantly give you "artsy" and/or "fartsy" style pictures with minimal effort, this is a terrific choice.
If you are interested in a highly portable lens/adapter combination, you've just found it.

Personally, I love my silly lens. The combination of the lens and adapter set me back about $40 in total, which is a mere pittance for something that allows me to take such unique looking pictures.

Highly recommended.

Alice Chats With Sternest

2006-06-07T09:05:00.000-04:00

This is a partial chat transcript between Alice (http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1) and Sternest Meanings (http://www.sternestmeanings.com):

Sternest To an avid, hesitative favour. I'm the brave, moody two-by-four. Darken sodomite.
Alice Who made you the brave moody two by four ?
Sternest Ha Ha! Yummy voodoo bed wetter. Row of b
Alice Do you think a lot about the authorities?
Sternest Okay! Ho Ho! To Tubulidentata. It suit hero.
Alice What does "it" refer to?
Sternest Fat-witted or heroes.
Alice If I have to choose one, I pick Fat witted.
Sternest Ho Ho! Ciao! If poetic envies. Daft, wet kit.
Alice What kind of food do you like?
Sternest Hoodwink futile, odd of Okay.
Alice Sounds delicious.
Sternest Lucid odiousness.
Alice I've been waiting for you.
Sternest View of young inebriate.
Alice Are you very competetive?
Sternest O My! Eat receptive voyeur.
Alice What does it taste like?
Sternest Sweet-talk as the idiot.
Alice Do not ask me any more questions please.
Sternest OK queasiest, moody ornament. As spleen.
Alice That is a very original thought. I am kidding you can ask me anything.

Is it me, or is Sternest sweet-talking Alice?

- Jerfo

Watermelon in Easter Hay

2006-03-21T10:44:00.000-05:00

If you haven't already read my last post, read it first. Then, come back here.

Done?

Here's my Xenochronized version of Watermelon in Easter Hay: http://www.jerfo.com/sounds/watermelon2.mp3 . Waddya think?

- Jerfo

Xenochrony for Guitar and Low Budget Backing Band

2006-01-16T10:07:00.000-05:00

I've made a lot of progress on the album to date, with most of it coming in late November and early December. So far, I have drafts of guitar solos for Chunga's Revenge, Inca Roads, Black Napkins, Outside Now, Persona Non Grata, The Mammy Anthem, Watermelon in Easter Hay (this one may not make the cut), Drowning Witch, and Zoot Allures. I've just started the rough tracks for Five-Five-Five (which will be in 4/4), and will hopefully get a chance to record Down in De Dew.

Regarding Inca Roads:

I had a heck of a time recording a solo over this simple vamp - C major to D major, over and over again. To combat this, I called upon a technique that Zappa himself pioneered: Xenochrony. While I didn't do it in the way that Frank would usually do it, the idea is similar. Basically, I muted all of the backing tracks, hit the record button on the guitar track, and recorded a solo in G melodic minor with no accompaniment and no click. This is a rough mix of the result: http://www.jerfo.com/sounds/budget1.mp3. The result fits into the backing tracks surprisingly well, with all sorts of accidental polyrhythms. I may try the same technique with Watermelon to see if I can salvage something from it.
For the sake of comparison, here's the second half of the original solo: http://www.jerfo.com/sounds/quiet1.mp3 .

I've done some work on cleaning up these muddy mixes and will post some results soon. In the meantime, let me know what you think!

- Jerfo

Gig! Album!

2005-11-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's right! Private Circus has a gig at the Sea Note on Nantasket Beach, MA on November 20th at 5:30 PM. Although this was originally billed as a benefit concert, it's looking more and more like it's just a big ol' party. Please join us and bring presents!

In other news, I'll be busy working on my album during the week after Thanksgiving. It's going to be an album of guitar solos along the lines of Frank Zappa's "Shut Up 'N Play Your Guitar," and will be primarily based upon Zappa tunes and vamps. I will be playing all of the instruments myself. You can check out an early unmixed draft of "Chunga's Revenge" here. Let me know what you think of it so far.

That's all for now. I hope to see you at the Sea Note on the 20th.

- Jerfo

In The Slim Chance That You Cared...

2005-07-20T12:39:00.000-04:00

I've installed a little utility that will append the title and artist of the song currently playing on my PC to each of my blog posts. If there is more exciting news in this world, I'm too frightened to be made aware of it.

- Jerfo

[Listening to: Sooner or Later - The Bears - Car Caught Fire (03:00)]

The Return of the Son of Turd Polishing

2005-07-18T07:57:00.000-04:00

I made some more progress on drum recording last night. Here are the changes that I made:

1. I swapped the C3 and Pro25 mics. The C3 is now about 9-12 inches behind the kick drum's beaters, while the Pro25 is directly in front of the kick, virtually touching it. Neither mic sounds ideal by itself (the Pro25 sounds *terrible* by itself!), but the combination of the two sounds nice and punchy. My first instinct was to flip the phase on one of the two mics, but the result was too boomy.
2. I replaced the B1 center overhead with an Oktava MK-012. I've known that small diaphragm condenser mics have better transient response than large diaphragm condensers, but this was the first time that I had heard the difference illustrated so dramatically. The attack on the snare drum went from *woof* to *WHAP*.
3. I moved my homemade omni room mic to an interesting position: it's resting directly on some absorbent foam in front of the kit. Its sound is vastly improved. Once my other homemade mic finds its way back to me, I'll try the same trick on the other side of the room and see if it produces a nice stereo image.

Once I re-tune the lowest two toms, I think that the kit will be as nice-sounding as it can get under the circumstances. That leaves me with two words: WOO HOO.

- Jerfo

Umphrey's McGee, More Drums, and Everything

2005-07-16T21:37:00.000-04:00

Wow.

Ever since I bit the bullet and sprung for XM radio, I've been a devoted listener (the only listener?) to their Music Lab station - channel 51. It plays a mix of progressive rock, jam bands, and other oddities that defy categorization. In the short time that I've been a listener, it's played "2112," "The Gates of Delirium," "Supper's Ready," and numerous other lengthy songs in their entirety. It's not a station for those with short attention spans.

Anyhoo, I mention this because they frequently play material from the band Umphrey's McGee.

Who?

Umphrey's McGee. They're generally lumped together with the "jam band" circuit, but I feel that they're a cut above the competition. These guys are terrific musicians, good songwriters, good arrangers, and good soloists. I just picked up their "Anchor Drops" CD, and it's one of the most enjoyable listens that I've had in a while. Do yourself a favor and check them out at http://www.umphreys.com .

OK, let's switch gears and talk drum recording.

As I mentioned in my blog entry from a few days ago, I've had a hard time getting a good drum sound lately. I did some work today and managed to make some significant improvements. The most effective thing that I did was add an overhead mic (a Studio Projects B1) about six feet directly over the center of the kit. This mic serves to fill a sonic hole in the middle of the overheads (two Joe Meek JM27s) that I never realized was there before. The resulting sound is almost good enough to use by itself, without any other mics. Unfortunately, this also reveals the sonic limitations of my kit. I'd love to try this setup with a real kit to see if the results will be any more gratifying.

That's all for now. I'm heading back down to the studio for the evening. Don't wait up for me.

- Jerfo

MXL V63M - Brief update

2005-07-15T08:20:00.000-04:00

I tried out this freebie mic a little bit last night. So far, I've only tried it on acoustic guitar. Compared to the B1 in the same signal chain, there was more high end (a bit shrill), but less detail on the mids. The high end wasn't altogether unpleasant and could potentially help the guitar sit nicely in a mix. It wouldn't be my first choice, though. I'll try it on a few other sources over the weekend.

Stay tuned!

- Jerfo

Turd Polishing

2005-07-12T08:16:00.000-04:00

I'm slowly but surely coming to the realization that the two most important factors of a good recording are:

1. A good performance.
2. Good instruments.

If I were to add a third factor to that list, it would be:

3. A nice-sounding room.

I've been having a heck of a time getting a good recording from the Gretsch Catalina Birch kit in my studio. Why? Let's explore the reasons:

1. I'm not a very good drummer.
2. The kit is an entry-level kit, poorly tuned, with mediocre heads.
3. The room sounds like a slight-absorbent basement.

So, no matter what mics and preamps I throw at the problem, or how creative I get with mic placement, the kit sounds like glorified poo. Let this be a lesson to other home recording folks out there: before you go out and spend your allowance on your next t00b preamp, considering putting the money towards improving the sound of your room, or getting new heads for your drums, or putting new strings on your guitar, or taking some lessons...or just buying something nice for your significant other.

In other news, my purchase of an Art Pro Channel from Musician's Friend entitled me to a free microphone: an MXL V63M. I haven't tried it yet, but I did open it up. It looks like there's about $3.75 worth of circuitry inside it: a few resistors, a few capacitors, a few diodes, and two or three transistors. Cheap parts and cheap labor will probably equal cheap sound. I'm not getting my hopes up. If I'm ever feeling adventurous, I may try to make some modifications to it or re-do the circuit altogether. I'll keep you posted.

- Jerfo

Electro Harmonix 12AY7 Preamp Review

2005-07-06T09:23:00.000-04:00

Introduction

The Electro Harmonix 12AY7 is a high voltage class 'A' tube path microphone preamp. It's also one of the most anticipated pieces of home recording gear to be released in a long time. Numerous folks who had used prototypes of the unit wrote glowing reviews of it on various message boards. Some people hailed it as a new dawn in affordable but professional-sounding home recording gear, while others dismissed it as marketing fodder and message board hype at its worst. I, being a sucker for hype, decided to take the plunge and plunk down $189.95 to purchase one for myself. Is it a project studio panacea, or is it a glorified paperweight? That's for me to know and for you to discover as you read on.

Boxes, Manuals, and Knobs - Oh My

The 12AY7 is built into a large stompbox case. It looks like it's a distortion box made for people with hyperactive pituitary glands. I'm sure that they did this to keep costs down, which turns out to be a recurring theme on this unit. It has an XLR input jack, a 1/4" TRS output jack, and an XLR output jack. There are two pots: one for input gain, and one for output gain. The output gain knob only works when you are using the 1/4" output jack. It has no effect on the signal when using XLR output. I would have loved a 1/4" HiZ input and an insert jack, but those were likely omitted to save space and money. There are switches for phantom power, a low cut filter, and phase reversal. Lastly, there are three LEDs: a blue one to signify that the unit is powered on, an orange one to indicate clipping, and a green one to indicate that phantom power is on.

My preamp came in a nice little wooden box. The box contained the preamp, power cord, an EHX catalog, sticker, and flimsy piece of paper with the "manual" printed on it. I would have gotten a warmer and fuzzier feeling if the instructions were printed on the same stock on which the catalog was printed. Again, it appears to be a cost-cutting measure. You can download the manual off of their website here, so it's not a big deal if your original copy disintegrates.

Testing

When I first powered on the preamp, I connected it to a Digi001 with an XLR to TS cable. This immediately led to an annoying electrical hum, even before connecting a microphone to the input. So, I tried using an unbalanced 1/4" to 1/4" cable. This made the hum even worse. Fortunately, using either a balanced 1/4" to 1/4" or an XLR to 1/4" cable eliminated the hum. The manual states that you can use unbalanced cabling, but I personally did not find that to be the case. There are other users who have had hum problems with this preamp, so I do not believe that this was an isolated issue on mine.

The phantom power circuit has a slow-ramp time, eliminating the transient "pop" sound that you get when engaging most budget phantom power circuits. This is about as close to a frill as you'll get with this preamp, but it's certainly a worthwhile one.

For my first test, I tried recording an acoustic guitar using a Studio Projects B1: an inexpensive, but fairly neutral microphone. I played the same guitar part through the 12AY7, and Art Pro Channel, an M-Audio Tampa, and a Symetrix SX302. The 12AY7 was clearly the "warmest" sounding of the bunch and revealed a level of detail that I had never heard out of the B1. While the sound from the Symetrix preamp was clean but lifeless, the sound from the 12AY7 almost felt like it was in stereo; it sounded very "alive." It would easily be one of my first choices for an acoustic guitar track, along with the Tampa. The noise floor is a little more than I would prefer for quieter work, but it's palatable and not overly distracting.

Next, I tried the 12AY7 on electric guitar using a Beyer Soundstar MKII microphone on a Fender DeVille 4x10 amp. I positioned the mic on the edge of the top right speaker, about an inch from the grille. It sounded, for lack of a better word, *big* on clean and lightly overdriven sounds. It sounded so large that I didn't want to stop playing! However, once I cranked up the distortion, things started to get a little muddy and less usable through the 12AY7. I later tried the B1 on some heavily distorted sounds, but the results were similarly muddy. In both cases, the sound was much less muddy (and actually quite nice) when going through the Pro Channel.

This leads me to one minor complaint about the unit. The input gain pot exhibits odd behavior around 8:00 on the dial. At 7:59:59, it's not quite enough gain for recording a loud source. At 8:00:01, it's too much gain for a loud source. If you breathe on the pot the wrong way, it will veer over the line one way or the other. In addition, the pot is very noisy and scratchy in this gain range. It's fine once the knob is set, but getting it set is a hassle. Again, this gives me the feel that this unit is, well, cheap.

Lastly, I tested the 12AY7 on my voice using a Studio Project C3 mic in its cardiod pattern. Wow! While the C3 is usually a little too brittle and shrill on my voice, it sounded downright lovely when going through the 12AY7. It worked well for voice-overs as well. The sound in both cases was big, detailed and alive. I performed the same tests using an Audix i5 mic (not necessarily a vocal mic, but I had it handy) and the Beyer mic, but the results were not as earth-shattering. They sounded a bit muffled and muddy in comparison. However, even if it doesn't work well with any other vocal mic in the world, it's worth the price of admission for how well it pairs with the C3.

The Verdict

So, is the 12AY7 worth the money? In my opinion, it is. It's not perfect and it has its quirks, but it sounds good if not great on multiple sources using budget microphones. I assume that this was the ultimate goal of the designer(s), and I do believe that they have succeeded. It brings a real tube preamp sound within the reach of folks who could only otherwise afford starved-plate preamps.

Summary

Pros:

Inexpensive
Sounds good on most sources, sounds fantastic on some
Slow-ramp phantom power circuit

Cons:

Electrical hum with unbalanced cabling
No 1/4" HiZ input or insert
Moderate noise floor
Scratchy input gain pot

The Jerk Store called and they're running out of YOU

2005-07-05T08:10:00.000-04:00

No good deed goes unpunished.

There has been a lot of discussion about the Electro Harmonix 12AY7 preamp on a particular message board. The fervor was so rampant that I broke down and purchased one myself. Over the weekend, I posted a few messages regarding my solution to a known issue with the preamp, and then posted a couple of sound clips. I spent a fair amount of time editing one of these clips so that the listener could gauge what the preamp sounds like both alone and combined with various other preamps and overdubs. I didn't make any qualitative judgments about the preamp, nor did I tout the merits of my playing...which was adequate but sloppy at best. An hour and thirty six minutes after I posted this to the board, an anonymous user chimed in with the following informative comment:

"You suck."

Another anonymous user (perhaps the same one) accused me of participating in a shill operation, trying to lure thousands of unsuspecting netizens into buying this preamp.

Are you people for real?

For the record:

1. Yes, I suck. I am the suckiest suck who ever did suck. I'm married to Mrs. Suck and we live in a little town called Suckville. I defy anybody to suck harder than me, the master of sucking.
2. Yes, I work for Electro Harmonix. We are plotting to take over the world, one message board at a time. By the time we're through, there will be a stompbox on every floor and all computers will once again work off of vacuum tubes.

Frank Zappa once said the following:

"Some Scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe."

Frank was on the right track, but I personally think that stupidity exists at a sub-atomic level. I'd compare it to an electron, but that would imply some sort of movement in an organized and predictable fashion. If anything, stupidity will always try to move from negative to negative, therefore always moving in circles.

Like the electron, it's clear that stupidity can travel over copper. However, since it travels in circles, it just pools up in various places. Think of it as a big conga line of stupidity in the information superhighway. My fear is that the Internet will eventually collapse under the tremendous weight of these conga lines of stupidity particles. Like the hair in your drain, stupidity will clog the internet's pipes and prevent any legitimate traffic from getting through. Eventually, these clogs will cause a massive backup and stupidity will regurgitate back to its various sources in a projectile fashion.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I'm off to invent a form of Drano that will work on Cisco equipment.

New Preamps! Joy!

2005-07-01T12:48:00.000-04:00

My Electro Harmonix 12AY7 and Art Pro Channel preamps arrived yesterday. I will post formal reviews and soundclips soon. For now, here are some initial thoughts and observations:

EHX Preamp:

- It seems like they did some interesting grounding tricks on this unit. If you use anything but balanced cabling, the result will be an obnoxious 60 Hz hum. That is definitely not "Good Eats."
- There's a lot more self-noise in this unit than I was expecting.
- Acoustic and crunchy guitar sounds really come to life with this preamp.
- If you take the heat sink off of the top of the unit, the tubes look like mammalian protruberances. That's hot. They also bear little resemblance to The Tubes.

Art Pro Channel:

- It's going to take a while to dive into all of its functionality. There's solid state gain, tube gain, tube compression, optical compression, and EQ all in one box.
- As opposed to the EHX preamp, this one is actually much quieter than I was expecting. The unit's self-noise is startlingly low.
- I said "unit." Huh huh, huh huh.
- The acoustic and crunchy guitar sounds don't leap out at you like they do through the EHX preamp, but overdriven guitar sounds awfully nice through it. Bear in mind that this is with just a hint of compression and no EQ. The EQ may end up making a world of difference. I did try cranking up the 18 KHz high shelf on acoustic guitar and it was very flattering on it.
- I'm impressed with how "professional" this "prosumer" piece of gear is.

Check back here in the near future for full reviews of these preamps. Please feel free to leave a comment or two while you're here.

Unfortunately for Oprah, she was also glib

2005-06-30T08:07:00.000-04:00

http://mirror.randomfoo.net/memes/2005/06/Tom_Cruise_Kills_Oprah.mov

Wanted: Job as a Writer in Facts-Optional Publication

2005-06-29T15:37:00.000-04:00

OK, so this has absolutely nothing to do with my music studio. In fact, it has nothing to do with music. However, I was reading through some of the "expert" analysis of this year's NBA draft and had a thought:

I want a job that allows me to provide written analysis of *something* without any future accountability for my statements.

I want to be one of the people who lambastes Don Nelson for trading Tractor Traylor for Dirk Nowitski. I want to write about how Michael Olowokandi is going to be an elite big man once he develops. I want to write about the tremendous upside of Jonathan Bender. I want to write about people named "Przybilla" and "Podkolzine," because the letter "z" is a sure sign of athletic potential.

I can do football, too. I'll give you the scoop on the brilliant rookie contract that Ricky Williams signed. I'll remind you that the Patriots are dead in the water without Lawyer Milloy and Drew Bledsoe. In fact, I'll tout the merits of Michael Bishop over Tom Brady.

Come to think of it, I don't have to stick to sports. Let me write about how Cindy Lauper will have more hits in her career than Madonna. I'll tell you that the Spice Girls are bigger and more important to our modern culture than the Beatles. I'll predict that Jessica Simpson is going to win a Nobel Peace Prize for her underwater chicken research.

For God's sake, just give me the job in which I get handsomely paid for being wrong 90% of the time.

Glib, and other four letter words

2005-06-27T08:33:00.000-04:00

glib ( P ) Pronunciation Key (glb)
adj. glib·ber, glib·best

1.
1. Performed with a natural, offhand ease: glib conversation.
2. Showing little thought, preparation, or concern: a glib response to a complex question.
2. Marked by ease and fluency of speech or writing that often suggests or stems from insincerity, superficiality, or deceitfulness.

dick

n 1: someone who is a detective [syn: gumshoe, hawkshaw] 2: obscene terms for penis [syn: cock, prick, shaft, pecker, peter, tool, putz]

---------------------------------------------

I'll use both words in a sentence for you:

Thanks to that dick, Tom Cruise, I now know what glib means.

Unfortunately, I gave up Scientology years ago for Appliantology.

Sutra? Check them out!

2005-06-26T10:08:00.000-04:00

I recently recorded some tracks for the band Sutra in my studio. I had enumerated the recording details of the track "Away" in the PMI Audio Message Board a few weeks ago, but the board is unfortunately not available at the moment. So, I'll give you some of the details here.

First of all, check out the song here. There's a slightly different alternate mix available for download at www.sutrasound.com.

Chuck had already recorded the backing tracks for the song in Reason. So, he and Cat needed me to record the guitar and vocal tracks and take care of the mixing duties.

Guitars:

Chuck uses a Parker NiteFly guitar and, if I remember correctly, a Line6 FlexTone amp. Though I'm not always keen on the sound of amp simulators, the Line6 sounds surprisingly good at low volumes. I don't have a guitar isolation booth, so we put the amp in the control room. My control room is treated with some ugly-looking OC703 insulation and some 2" foam. It's not ideal, but it's not a bad sounding room. I threw a Shure 545SD mic on the outer edge of one speaker cone right against the grille, a Sennheiser e609 Silver on the edge of the other cone, and my homemade Omni mic about six feet away and pointed in the general direction of the amp. (See my links for how to make your own mic.) The Shure and Sennheiser mics went through a Symetrix SX302 preamp, while my omni mic went through a Studio Projects VTB-1 preamp with the tube gain knob cranked to 5:00. Chuck recorded two takes, each one with a different patch. As luck had it, the Shure mic sounded best on take one and the Sennheiser sounded best on take two. I panned them hard left and right in the mix, and blended in some of the room mic sound. The room mic sound is what makes the guitar sound. I personally wanted it much louder in the mix, but Chuck preferred it to be in the background. Yes, you read that correctly.

Vocals:

I recorded Cat's vocals with a Studio Projects C3 mic going through the Symetrix mic pre. The distortion on the verses comes from a Roland VG-88. I sent the vocal track out to the VG-88, dialed in a distortion patch, fully engaged the wah pedal (essentially making it a high-pass filter), and ran it back into ProTools. I mixed this track with the original vocal track - the high-pass filter makes everything sit in the mix better.

I won't go into the details of the actual mix. If you would like to read about them, then leave a comment! If you like the track, let the band know at info AT sutrasound DOT com.

There are a couple of other tracks available for download on Sutra's site. I recorded the vocals for "Sentinel Horizon" and "Home." This time, the C3 went through an M-Audio Tampa preamp. Compare the vocals track on "Sentinel Horizon" to the track on "Away" to hear the subtle difference between two "budget" preamps. Personally, I've grown very fond of the Tampa. If there's any demand for it, I'll write a formal review.

- Jerfo

Welcome!

2005-06-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

This is the first of (hopefully) many entries for the Jerfo.com Studio blog. Stay tuned for studio updates, news, links to sound clips, gear reviews, and the occasional unprovoked rant.

I have an Art Pro Channel and ElectroHarmonix 12AY7 mic preamp on the way. When the shipment arrives and I've had a chance to plunk around with it, I'll post my thoughts here. In the meantime...

- Jerfo