I use Groove Tubes in some of my gear. My beloved Presonus TubePre mic preamps sound so much better now that I have GT tubes installed, and I know many guitarists who wouldn’t use anything else. But did you know that Groove Tubes also made mics? Now you do!

I’ve had a Groove Tubes MD1 since the mid ’90s, and I love it. It was very expensive back in the day (almost $1,000 as I recall), but it’s a great mic that has a lovely warm “valve-y” (as the Brits put it) sound to it. My voice has a tendency to have some hard overtones, but the MD1 does a great job smoothing it out. The only problem with the Groove Tubes mics was that they were hard to come by the last few years.

Today, I got my usual advertising email from Sweetwater, one of my favorite vendors. And lo and behold they are selling Groove Tubes mics again! Huzzah!! You can see a complete list here:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/search.php?s=s%3Agt_special_buy

Of special note is the MD1b Tube and the MD1b FET. The Tube model is pretty much a reproduction of the MD1 that I love but at a much, much lower price tag ($349 at Sweetwater). The FET model is the same capsule and body but with an FET replacing the valve section. I prefer the tube sound myself, but FET mics are fine and dandy as well.

I have no idea how long Sweetwater will carry these mics, but they are worth looking at, especially at this price. If you’ve always a ribbon mic, Sweetwater is also carrying the Groove Tubes VELO 8 mics at ludicrously low prices.

Check ‘em out!

From Create Digital Music…

Just how rugged is your microphone? Mats Stålbröst, editor of the Stockholm-based Studio, took testing to a new extreme last year. He did violence to the legendary Shure SM58 – the sub-$100, vocal dynamic mic. It was used to hammer nails. It was dropped several meters. It was frozen. It was dunked in water. It was driven over by a car. It had beer poured on it. It was placed in a microwave atop a pizza. And the thing kept on working.

Then they buried it in the ground, left it for a year, and dug it up to test again. Read the full story on CDM.

I use the SM58 all the time live, and I’ve always treated my personal SM58s like (probably better than) my children. I guess I don’t have to be so cautious now.

I took a vacation day yesterday to get a break from some work-related stuff. As is often the case on my days off, I decided to head down to the local Sam Ash and Guitar Center to just have a look around. Typically I like to play the new keyboards, talk to the sales guys about what’s new, and generally just build up my wish list.

Yesterday, I was in Guitar Center and found that they had all three Korg nanoSERIES controllers in stock (Key, Pad, and Kontrol). I have been eyeing these since they were first announced and had originally just intended to buy a Kontrol when they became available. However, after playing with them a bit, I decided to bite the bullet and buy all three. With some haggling plus a $10 gift card and a 10% coupon, I ended up walking out with all three for less than $150.

In a few days, I’ll talk about each controller specifically and try to post some pictures (and perhaps video) to give you some up close information. There are some videos already up on YouTube about these units, but hopefully I’ll have some additional information to provide you.

My quick impression is that the units are fairly well made, but they do have some quirks. I had been prepared to take the nanoKEY unit back, but I have really grown to like it in only a day or so of playing with it. It won’t replace a more powerful control (my current favorite is the M-Audio Axiom series), but it’s quite portable and is pretty decent for the size.

I’m going to be out of pocket for the next few days, so I’m not sure how many updates I’ll get posted here. But we’re getting close to January 1st, and I’m very excited about the upcoming changes.

Blessings to all of you.

It’s been a little over two years since the last significant release of Max/MSP, the visual programming environment from Cycling ’74. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Max/MSP for the last decade or so, loving it for its capabilities, hating that I never seem to take the time to really exploit everything its capable of doing. With the introduction of Max 5, I’m vowing to spend more time working with the product.

If you’ve never worked with Max/MSP before, you owe it to yourself to have a look at the introductory video to see what it’s all about. If you’ve used it but let your interest wane over the years, you really need to have another look because of some of the new features. Given the (relatively) cheap upgrade pricing and the very cheap price tags if you’re a student, it’s well worth the investment if you do anything with MIDI and/or audio and control of those things, this is a must-have package.

Download the demo, and take it for a test run. I promise you’ll like it!