Gear: Korg Kaoss Pad KP3
Written by: David Harrison
Having got the Mini-KP pinched at Glastonbury was an excuse to head up to Kilburn and have a nose at around that DJ kit shop there. The Pioneer EFX 500 was my aim, priced at about £300. But Korg’s Kaos Pad KP3 has just been reduced to £230 - not only is it a bit more flexible, but it has some sampling tools too.
Out of the box, the Koas Pad KP3 is pretty easy, with sending and receiving a breeze through the mixing desk, and - Eureka! - 100-odd extra finger-controlled effects, available in glorious flashing red lights. The first change from the Mini KP is the power of the thing. The Mini KP always required a bunch of compensation on the channel you were mixing to equalise the levels. The KP3 is powered, over-powered if you want it to be, so if anything you’ll need to make sure that you aren’t going to blow away your last track in a spate of finger-powered enthusiasm.
The effects on the Mini KP and KP3 are pretty much the same: Sweeps, Flangers, are both fun sometimes. I find a little to much of the pad is ’swept’ quiet so these take a bit of getting used to. The EQ that appears on the KP3 is totally weird, and is very good at taking out the ranges - it’s too odd to be that useful. Delay is good for making some simple guitar sounds good. Matt Bellamy of Muse has one of these embedded in his guitar for that vert reason.
By far the effect that I most use are the Distortions. The perfect tool for my Lionel Richie/Slayer mix, everyone is reeling from, a one timed electric-storms is perfect for hiding what is lurking round the corner. In fact I love the Distortion so much, I used it to carry an entire set last weekend.
One small bugbear is that when selecting an effect, its default mode is off until the pad is pressed. Without the pad being pressed there is no sound. It needs an idiot-check, otherwise a simple distraction can become a disaster, as you miss your hundredth press down on the hold button.
By directing a track through it, you can sample about 30 seconds using the KP3’s Sampel tools. It’s then possible to take out slices of the section, and remix the track on the fly. This is very easy to use, and is all saved on the standard SD memory Stick.
However, I would of liked the KP3 on start up to remember the last loaded samples and tools, as loading up the KP3 can be a bit fiddly. I have found my workflow disturbed, and have to make a little book of notes to remind me what all my settings were. The actual sampling buttons are a little deep and are not as responsive as an MPC, so can be easy to mis-hit. I’ve been using it to layer up guitar riffs, and the extra millimetre of button seems to get in my way.
The machine has a microphone jack, so you can sing straight into and effect your voice a bit like Mike Patton, and of course it has the obligatory MIDI in and out.
In total, the sharpening of the sampling tools, and maybe some odder FX like pitch or robot, are welcome additions, as it does OD on sweeps and flanges. I wouldn’t mind it doing a couple of things less, but also a little better - either lose the sample function and have a few hundred more effects, or lose all the synth sounds and sharpen up the sampling.
The nearer to £200 you can get it, the closer it is to an utter bargain. And to be honest, the Mini KP isn’t that much of a difference and at half the price it is a total bargain.
[amtap amazon:asin=B000Q8SC88]
Gear: Review of the CDJ Mk 3’s and it is love
Written by: David Harrison
I have spent the last few years looking at traditional CD players, 4 ipods and a few computer crashes have left me feeling very shortchanged by MP3 or Itunes collections. With Music Towers establishing as a brand we get sent an awful lot of CD’s (sorry if we didn’t review you) and it is so much more convenient and sounds so much clearer with sliding someone in a CD. Arriving on stage at various festivals, I suddenly realised everyone was using these Pioneer CDJ’s they have all these buttons I don’t understand. Queue some free credit from turnkey just before it went bust.
First impressions out of the box, oh they are bit noisy. Not quite the tool for wooing as they can have a slightly computer server whir in the background if you have the PA on quiet. OK so that is the bad out of the way.
Now the Good, they have standard features for any CD player play, cue, single, time elapsed, fast forward track skip. They have features for any more modern CD player, Mp3 playing from CD. They have the same big control wheel that most other CD tools for Djs have.
The Control wheel has some nice tools with it, it responds to be pressed down. It has two modes Vinyl and CD which the Disc will respond to as though (yup you guessed it) more like vinyl or squibbly like a CD. There are two control to measure the speed at which the release and attack of the tune will happen.
Now past those tools is where the CDjs and in particular the Mark 3 come into their own. For a start the Mk3 will play any CD no matter if it is black, white covered in wine, scratched to buggery. It will play it (probably not wise to test the extremes of this). When it reads the CD it starts plotting the music straight away, takes a few seconds to pick up the Wav forms and BPM of the track. Suddenly you know how well produced this track was and most of important of all is going to match right in with the last one you played without before you even had time to put on the headphones.
Like the Mk2’s or the 500’s they have some In and Out loop buttons, but unlike the Mk2’s these are actually useful. The difference between the this function on the two versions is so wide it is almost to earn a new name. The Mk2’s have the ability to set a single loop, release and recall the last loop you did. The Mk2 also has three buttons where you can set que points to start the track from somewhere. However those ques are often a second out from where you actually set the que.
The Mk3’s have dispensed with any sense of guesswork. When you set a loop you can set that to a recall number (and in turn is stored on your memory card). With a few loop recalls you can mix endlessly, you can hit them on the beginning of a beat again and again to ensure perfect dumbed down mixing everytime. It is soo easy and so much fun, so much so it is quite managable using 4 of them, triggering noises, loops, tunes anything you want really. They allow you to throw the track about almost literally, you can see why they went on to base the DVD version on them.
The Pioneer Mark3’s are the best of the best of CD players, they are the SAS, The A-Team and Chuck Norris rolled into one, they are just fabulous and I love them.
Gear: The legendary Harmonic Percolator
Written by: David Harrison
Got back from New York ATP and walked into a London Town full of Economic doom and gloom, I hid away for two weeks looking at weird guitar pedals on EBAY. Just when I thought my pedal addiction was saturated some fella knew how to press my buttons. ‘Buy a clone of the legendary Harmonic Percolator sound like Steve Albini from Shellac’ I didn’t need to think twice jumped in for the full price.
Harmonic Percolator this is a licenced replica from the 1970’s. There were very very few hand made in Milwalkee and were quite delicately built so it has had a revered and rare pedal status for many years. The idea of it is that it cuts out all the ‘even’ harmonics and leaves in all the odd ones creating a very unusual disortion.
The official website claims this is an exact duplicate of the original 1970’s pedal employs the same obsolete type number Germanium transistor and same number Silicon transistor. Also used are the exact same type number obsolete Germanium diodes. Not common counterparts 1N34 or 1N60) Same type capacitors also are used. Mylar-Silver Mica, Tantalum, and Ceramic. The slider controls are the same as in the original. These New Old Stock parts have the original packing slip dated February 19, 1968 - so now you know?
I expected distortion but found it to have more then a fuzz to it. Also found it a bit unclear and unsatisfying. Steve Albini in Shellac uses a homemade Harmonic Percolator replica and not this branded one, and out of the box this does not make you sound like him. That metallic industrial clunk of guitar I can’t find.
Turning up the amp to performance loud, I start to find the oddity of this pedal. Feels slightly digital and less organic then the fuzz at lower volumes. I plug a few more pedals into the board, a Metalizer sitting before this really starts to bring out the Industrial clunk, played with a Double Muff the guitar is really wailing and getting some weird muted notes out of it, needs a noise gate though.
In short not a stand alone answers to your unique tone prayers. But if you are sick of indenti-pedals and prepared to experiment and have a room to turn it up in. Then let ripp.
Want to know more about the construction?
http://pages.prodigy.net/chuckcollins/percolator.html
Gear: AMT electronics, Metalizer pedal
Written by: David Harrison
The Metalizer box says ‘Made in Siberia’ as it proudly boasts using technology from the Russian Space program. Man alive I am sold.
It comes in an odd corregated plastic box feeling quite homemade. This feeling is all but dispensed with the solid little metal box that comes out of it. Has a weird word in the tagline - distortion combo emulator? Emulator, this implies it isn’t distortion it just emulates the sound of distortion, ie is a digital sound rather than a transistor driven one.
Their website says ‘AMT pedals are designed to sound equally as good through an amp or direct recorded due to built-in cabinet emulation circuitry.’ Doesn’t this put you off a bit? Implying it doesn’t really provide genuine distortion but a computer ‘emulation’ of real distortion. Why the hell should this matter, but it does. Maybe it is lost in the translation. The good thing is, I forgot about that emulate word once I plugged it in.
First things first this pedal is LOUD, default volume is about a fifth of the full. The second thing about this pedal is, if you want to sound like Metallica with one pedal this is it. I range through One, Welcome Home sanitorium, Tomorrow Never Knows… YEAAAH I am Hetfield… One thing is that maybe it is a little trebley - easily countered, and works in its favour as part of a bigger board.
So much fun to shred and power chord out, this pedal looks naff, the font is naff, the emulate word sounds naff. But where it counts in the sound this pedal rocks - The girlfriend looks at me warmly like I am a rock god knowing little that this little metal box is doing all the work.
With the Metalizer, you aren’t going to sound like anyone else but Metallica, but what the hell is wrong with that?
Gear: Firebird with Maple Wings, Gibson guitar of the Week Number 24.
Written by: David Harrison
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and in my opinion the Gibson Firebird IV with maple wings is sex on legs being only one of 400 made very desirable. The body being unfinished the neck through is obvious and the lighter wood of the maple wings added to the side harks back to the very first original Les Paul that was made out of a railway sleeper. For such a rock guitar it is sooo pretty.
Picking it up it plays fast, through the Musicman amp it is heavy in sound, although I would of expected the maple to play it light. It has since become the Nucleardeathmonger amongst the other people in the studio. Don’t know what is behind the double humbuckers but definately suits the hard rock and metal riff love I have been putting it through. It is a delight to play low and fast and mean. Looks like a butterfly stings like a sledgehammer.
Not sure if the maple wings are not helping here but it doesn’t seem stay up right, very headstock heavy needs a big leather strap to keep it up correct. Never played a Firebird before I am not sure if this common occurance, but to a strat boy it feels weird and cumbersome, it sure is long, as long as a bass.
Also being a Fender lad the Tune-O-Matic bridge is a new thing. Changing the weight of the strings suddenly became a bit of a problem it needed more then a few tweeks and a visit to the guitar doctor to get it back on track. Another downside is that no matter how nice the finish is it gets grotty quite quickly. The top side now has line of grime that needs to been cleaned occasionally.
Sounds like a terrible cliche (as if the sting like a butterfly comment wasn’t enough) but it is like a high maintenence lady. Curves in the right places, immaculately dressed, one in a million, but like a high maintenence lady really difficult to take on the bus, any problems she needs to see a specialist, and needs lots of care and attention to make sure she plays right. In short I love this Guitar and nobody else can have it.
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