As promised here is my review of 2018 from a music perspective. I say 2018, but there will be a bit of 2017 in there....
2017 ended pretty well, the first proper incarnation of the "Neil Eynon Band" had played live, and then in December I played a dep gig with the awesome "Down South". Playing to a hall full of drunk teachers was pretty fun, even if the weather could have rivaled the Arctic. I would love to have some pictures to post here of this gig but I didn't take any. I really need to get better at that!
As 2018 rolled round, I was looking to get the band on the road, but as you probably noticed that didn't happen. However, I had been investing in the studio gear, with an eye (ear??) to the next project. I invested in a BluGuitar Blubox. A hardware Impulse Response generator. This is to handle the cabinet emulation of my Bugera GT5. I originally got this amp and intended to use the emulated output for recording, but quite frankly that sucked. After watching a video from Spectre Sounds, Glenn Fricker, he made a comment regarding how he would use impulses if he couldn't mike up a cabinet. This got me thinking that there must be a hardware alternative to the pure software impulses. After looking around I decided on the BluGuitar BluBox.
The cabinets available have all been profiled by Thomas Blug himself and are his own cabinets. The device itself is kind of like my old VOx Tonelab's cab section but massively upgraded. The tones sound killer and when I AB's them against some recordings I had done with the Bugera miked through my Marshall cab, they were very accurate.
What is also great is that I have access to more cabinets than I could afford, and it actually breaths new life into the old Tonelab. The amp sims from that device into the BluBox sound really authentic. All the guitar tones on the upcoming release are a combination of these devices.
So, back to the main story. I spent most of the first part of the year playing with these new devices. However, I had an issue. The BluBox, without a proper regulated power supply was making an annoying hum that meant it couldn't be used for recording. When I finally got a correct power supply and could look to start recording, my studio PC died. I narrowed down the fault to either:
- Faulty power supply
- Catastrophic CPU/motherboard failure
If it was the second one it would mean a whole new PC!
In the meantime I managed to secure a headline slot on the Great Linford Summer Fun Day.
To Be Continued....
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