Category: Music

Anything technology and music-related

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Adrenalinn III Review: Part 1

This will cover the Adrenalinn III effects pedal, by Roger Linn designs. Since there’s so much to this thing, I’m going to break it up into sections. The first thing we’re going to look at is the built-in amp models.

Not only does this pedal have 40 different amp sounds (including bass amps), each one has (3) tone controls, plus drive and a drive “boost” control, so you can actually get a lot more than 40 sounds out of it. When you add in different pickup configurations, you can get almost unlimited tones out of it.

Here’s the list of amps (the RLD ones are from Roger Linn Design, not modeled off of a specific amp): Continue reading “Adrenalinn III Review: Part 1”

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Adrenalinn III Pedal Control Project

One of the toughest challenges in using the Roger Linn Adrenalinn III pedal (henceforth referred to as the “A3”) is figuring out how to use it! The pedal is nearly perfect, and yet there are ways I want to use it that don’t fit how it was intended  to be used.

For starters, the pedal is basically two machines in one: a full-blown digital guitar effect pedal, and a Drum Machine. You can connect the two, but I want to be able to use them completely separately, with two separate sets of controls. The pedal’s buttons can control certain things, but can only change presets up/down. You can use external MIDI commands to switch presets, but you can do either FX or drums, or both together, but you can’t use two different controllers to change presets separately.

My setup is a bit complicated, I’ll admit. I have a rack unit that I want in the MIDI chain, for clock-synced delays AND preset changes. But I want the presets to change with the A3’s FX presets, and NOT the drum patterns. I want the Molten Voltage Master Control (henceforth referred to as the “MC”) to provide clock and PC only for drums… and a second controller to provide PC and CC messages only for the rack unit and the A3’s FX side. I also want to leave the A3’s buttons alone to turn individual things on and off. So how do I make this all work?? Continue reading “Adrenalinn III Pedal Control Project”

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Of Men And Music

“No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.” -Seneca

There is so much more to being a mature man than being strong and wealthy. And I’m not just saying that because I’m relatively weak and poor; the truth is, I have been able to objectively look at my life through the lens of time and see where I was wrong. I spent a lot of time in my youth chasing dreams that were a wisp of smoke, and trying to get away with things I knew were wrong. I was full of myself, full of energy, but had nowhere to apply it. I had no Great War to serve in, had no Mission to accomplish. Nowhere to prove myself that I thought mattered.

Somewhere around 1993, when I was 19 and in the throes of self-discovery, I was approached by a man in his 20’s whom I respected a great deal. He was a musician, someone who always seemed to have his act together (which is rare for musicians). He asked me if I would be interested in starting a fraternity chapter for men of music. Like-minded men, who were young, but wanted to be involved in making the world a better place through music. Continue reading “Of Men And Music”

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New Pedal: AdrenaLinn III

Got a new (to me) Roger Linn AdrenaLinn III pedal. For a while, I’ve been looking at pedals that will let me do several different things: Midi-synced tremolo (like a Gig-FX Pro-Chop), Midi-synced beat slicing (like a Boss SL-20), Midi-synced delay (like a Strymon Timeline), a pedal-operated Midi drum machine (like the Beat Buddy), an amplifier sim (like the Tech21 Character pedals), and a Midi step sequencer (like the Electro-Harmonix 8-Step Program).

And behold, the AdrenaLinn III does all of these things, and then some. So far, I’m extremely impressed for a single box that has all of these features in it. It’s got more tricks in its bag than you can shake a stick at. Continue reading “New Pedal: AdrenaLinn III”

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TouchOSC as a Wireless MIDI Controller

Here’s a short demo of using a 7″ Android tablet to control MIDI effects on a laptop. TouchOSC is a cool little app that lets you make custom control surfaces, with sliders, buttons, knobs, and X-Y pads, and you can assign them to any parameters. With a hardware OSC to MIDI bridge, you can control any MIDI device with it, too. Very slick. In this video, I’m using PureData to convert OSC to MIDI messages on the laptop. I can then route them back out to control external devices, or control effects on the laptop. (Sorry for the noise, was just trying to demo the MIDI functionality)

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A42AIkLEJRI”]

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Blues Harp

I’m sooo rusty…. haven’t played in like a year. For the record, this is on a Hohner Blues Harp, but I like the Special 20 better. The BH’s leak too much air, and make it harder to bend. Special 20’s are nice and airtight, and get a nice “growly” sound. Using a Shure 520DX “Green Bullet” mic, through a little 8″ practice amp.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGMb3pNB5ck”]

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More Live Looping

More live looping fun! Major props to Arthur. Without his music, I may never have discovered live looping. Keep doing what you’re doing, man.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_eQ3g-xhgg”]

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Molten Voltage MIDI Pedal

My guitar pedalboard is finally finished! Got a Molten Voltage MIDI pedal to switch presets on my rack unit and also give me tap-tempo MIDI clock for my delay effects. Check it out.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50EkIid7LpQ”]