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Behind the Scenes: Rock Concert Regenesis

Behind the Scenes: Rock Concert Regenesis

By Features No Comments

Let’s go back to November 19, 1990, to a mid-size concert venue on the edge of campus in a college town on the eastern seaboard…back to one rocking night at Toad’s Place, where both Alice in Chains and Extreme took the stage, performing to a crowd of twenty-somethings, buzzed, and abuzz with excitement. While Troy remembers this night clearly — the cheering crowd, the lights, the energy, the unique sound of Alice in Chains, the picking mastery of Nuno himself — I don’t remember it at all; I was still in Seattle (and in diapers) and wouldn’t set foot in New Haven for another couple decades. If you weren’t there either, it’s hard to imagine the atmosphere and excitement that permeated the space, hard to feel the experience of being at that particular concert. But it’s an important scene to the narrative of Cracking the Code, and in the process of creating Episode 7: Licks et Veritas, we had to come up with some way to depict this event in all its glory.

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Hail, the Cab: Building a Custom 2x12 Cabinet

By Features 6 Comments

Cracking the Code Impulse Response Pack

Record the speaker cabinet sounds of Cracking the Code with the Cracking the Code IR Pack!

Includes all the pine cabinet H30 impulses — plus the Marshall 1960A impulses we use for rhythm tracks, and a couple ultra-rare Cornford 2×12 impulses featuring the Vintage 30 speaker recorded via the Shure SM57.

UPDATE: We don’t currently have the impulse response pack for sale, but will try to get it added to our new store soon.

Amid the seemingly illimitable interest in amplifiers, with their mysterious tone crafting abilities, and their steam-punk innards so attractively aglow with filaments and glass, it’s easy to overlook the humble wooden box at the end of the chain. But if your 10-second Chevelle is only as fast as the slicks that hook it to the tarmac, then your supercharged big block of an amp only sounds as good as the device actually emitting those pressure waves into the room: the speaker cabinet.

Indeed, the speaker and cabinet assembly is a good part of any classic tone. That sparkle on the first Van Halen album? Reportedly the work of the glittery JBL D-120 speaker. But with a nearly endless variety of speaker cabinets available in all shapes, sizes, and power handling capabilities, why build your own? As is often the case in the world of extreme guitar sports, the answer is simple: because we can.
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Behind the Scenes: Centipede

By codenews, Features No Comments

Retro gaming meets rock in this sneak peak of an upcoming behind-the-scenes look at our audio production process. In this sequence, from Season 1’s Episode 3, “A Pick and Hard Place”, Atari’s trackball-powered classic Centipede provides the visual analogy for an investigation of the fretboard contortions of the infamous descending fours lick. You’ve played it. You’ve cursed it. Don’t worry, we all have.

Stay tuned for the full Centipede studio feature in weeks to come.

Amp Shopping

By Features 5 Comments

A guitar player with no amp? What’s next, a graphic designer with no Macintosh? A writer with no latte? Alas, it’s true. With the highly focused and forensic nature of the work on the Cracking the Code film project, there’s been no need for me to own anything that produces actual amplified sound. For the last several years, my musical activities have targeted the mechanical over the creative, and the visual over the aural. Sure, I’ve produced lessons, but those have generally been recorded direct-to-Powerbook, using one of my trusty Tech 21 NYC Tri-OD or GT2 pedals, or the amp emulation built into Apple’s excellent and underrated GarageBand. Otherwise, there has been no writing of song nor playing of gig. Walking past my house, there would be no evidence to suggest it was anything other than the abode of another sonically unobtrusive yuppie. Read More