Recording - January 2010 - 50

ThinkGeek Electronic Guitar Shirt Just in time for the holidays (and our guitar issue), the nice folks at ThinkGeek, an online catalog full of fun technotoys for the geek in everyone, sent us their latest creation: the Electronic Guitar Shirt. It’s a T-shirt with an electric guitar emblazoned on the front—one that actually plays. The guitar neck is a plastic sensor sheet attached to the fabric of the shirt with hookand-loop fasteners. The neck is divided into sections by 7 fret marks and a vertical line down the center, for a total of 14 buttons you can push to select sampled guitar power chords. Two magnets in the shape of a guitar pick are included; you wave one over the “pickups” in a strumming motion to trigger the note you’re pressing on the neck. You get an E chord without touching the neck, F on the first fret, then up by halfsteps to B on the lower side of the neck. The upper side goes up by halfsteps from A# to E, i.e. a perfect fourth above the notes on the lower side. Think of it as the bottom two strings on a guitar, except you can’t play an open A. The neck sends data via a ribbon cable into the shirt (inside a soft cloth tube so the cables don’t scratch your skin), down to an inner pocket that holds a tiny amp with a power switch, 1/8" output, Tone and Volume knobs, and a speaker. The amp uses four AAA cells, and the amp and neck can be removed so the shirt can be washed. The samples played by the guitar are loud, sustaining, and very grungy; the Tone knob makes things a bit tinnier but sounds best near the bottom of its travel. Ditto the Volume knob, which may go to 11 but really sounds good at about 3 or 4—by that point it’s already obnoxiously loud, and anything louder just makes the speaker crackle. I got the shirt working in about 90 seconds, then offered it to our in-house testing staff. Test Staffer Number One, age 14 and a largely tech-averse fashionista, rolled her eyes and said: “Here’s a quote for you, Dad: that magnet will help you pick up anything except girls.” On the other hand, Test Staffer Number Two, age 9 and definitely the geek of the family, went bananas over it, running around the house flailing power chords and screaming, “This is the coolest thing ever!” She wore it to school the next day and received the emphatic agreement of all her classmates and an assignment from her music teacher to learn to play a song on it over the upcoming holiday break. Gear-Geekdom meets Metal-Godhood. Sheer genius or the end of civilization as we know it? You decide.—MM Price: $29.99 More from: ThinkGeek, www.thinkgeek.com Peavey MSDI Microphone Simulated Direct Interface The simulated miked guitar cabinet device from the Mississippi-based manufacturer is another useful tool that goes between your guitar amp and the speakers. It has an Input From Amplifier jack, a Speaker/Load jack, a 3-way Tone switch with Hi Cut, Reference (flat), and Hi Boost settings, an Output Level rotary knob (ranging from –∞ to –0 dB, with the halfway point marked as –15 dB), a Ground Lift button, and the Microphone Simulated XLR Output. Besides its feature-rich flexibility, MSDI stands out in the way it achieves its main purpose, to eliminate the need for miking an amp. With it, you can feed the amp’s signal straight into a console or audio interface and it will provide an emulated miked guitar cabinet sound. It has a passive mic emulation circuit built-in, so no external power supply is required. Some Peavey amps include this device, which is suitably mounted on the back. Getting a sound that you’re happy with might require some tweaking, but fortunately it includes a useful tone switch. It’s convenient, affordable and it gets the job done. The build quality is Peavey strong, which means very sturdy.—FC Price: $149.99 More from: Peavey, www.peavey.com Dark Side Of The Tune Queen’s English We reviewed Tritone, the first release from Dark Side Of The Tune, in August 2009. DSOTT’s newest offering is Queen’s English, and it’s uh it’s Okay. This is not so much a review as a warning. Depending on who you are, this library could be precisely what your next production needs, or it could leave you crying and spraying disinfectant into your ears or both. See that Parental Advisory logo? Believe it. DSOTT hired Miss T, a London-born lady described as a “dominatrix and intellectual muse”, to recite 176 words and phrases in perfectly enunciated and elegant English on subjects ranging from domination to blasphemy to cooking. Grouped into six categories— Bible, Fetish, Food, Mistress, Street, and Vulgarity—the sultry yet educated words of Miss T cover a range of subjects from the Seven Deadly Sins to advice on preparing meat for maximum tenderness. There’s something in here to offend just about everyone. PerhapsRECORDING JANUARY 2010

http://www.thinkgeek.com http://www.peavey.com

Recording - January 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2010