Building things.
January 23, 2006, 03:58 pmSo did I mention that Nickie got me a Weller soldering iron for Christmas? I've used it a few times to make some cables, but I just bought two PAiA Tube Mic Pre kits that I'm going to build. I'm psyched!
I've also been reading about a number of mods that can be done that make it sound better: tube/op-amp/capacitor replacement, using filtered DC for filament heating, resistor matching for improved Common Mode Rejection Ratio (CMRR). So that'll be fun to do as well.
The only sucky thing is that I don't really need more pre-amps. I'd much rather have a nice compressor, but I don't think I'm ready to build something like the bloo LA-2a kit (which is what I'd rather have). Maybe after I build these pre-amps I'll try it.
I finally got everything working well on my laptop for recording and I started on a cover of Iron and Wine's Southern Anthem as I really like the harmonies and the slide parts. I recorded the acoustic track, background slide part, slide solos (with harmony part), and pedal steel solos (with harmony part), and doubletracks of the two vocal parts, but my falsetto part was pretty rough.
I got a little discouraged, and rerecorded the falsetto parts and listening back through the speakers on my laptop sounded terrible! I burned a CD and listened to it in my car and the vocals sound a million times better. I was starting to lose it!