Hey all-- I'm Nick from millionVALVE

[millionVALVE]

Hey all-


I am me, of course, and I am a basement jockey. Godwilling, that will change one day. I constitute the writing, recording and producing side of millionVALVE--other people sing, in other words.

I have played guitar for about 20, self-taught years. I got my first cassette 4-track when I was a freshman at (Art!) school in 1987 and I never looked back. Here's how it went: Fostex (P.O.S) in 1987, Tascam 424 in 1992, Roland VS880-EX in 1999, PC in 1999, Mac in 2002.

I suppose I do electronic music now, but that whole rubrik gives me a bad vibe. William Orbit does "electronic music" (fellow guitarist) but his stuff does a lot more for me on a meta-level of your choosing than, say, the newest indie sensation that has the whole roots/authenticity thing in a tube, ready for application. Much "electronic music" holds a lot of yummy for me on the soul side.

That being said, I dig all kinds of shite from Boards of Canada to Ralph Vaughn Williams to the Inkspots.

I mainly use Reason nowadays. I record audio into Cubase, and I frequently use ReCycle to get it into Reason. I do all kinds of crazy crap, though, to get anything anywhere. Re-Amping through boomboxes, dumping to the old 424 (noisy, but beats software pitching) and back, and banging on mailing tubes and pot lids.

My setup is basically Speck MicPre 5.0>Speck ASC EQ>RNC Really Nice>VS880-EX for A to D (strictly)> the Mac via an ECHO MIA or M-Audio AP2496.

I monitor using Yamaha NS-1000M's and NS-10M's through an Alesis RA-300.

My other main things are a Gretsch G-3161, a Blue Baby Bottle, and Reaktor.

My regular singer is Mattie Rogers, and occasionally I have other people in. Right now I'm also working with a guy who's an acoustic guitar singer/songwriter which is cool. He's a rocker, so we come from different places, which is good for our mix.

I just bought a used virus B, and it's like peeling an onion; it's really deep...and i love it! I went from having an old Moog Opus3 to getting Reason almost 3 years ago. The virus is my first VA hardware synth.


best-
.nick
millionVALVE
www.ampcast.com/millionvalve

[Hollowcell]

welcome to the forum!!

[millionVALVE]

Thanks Hollowcell! See you around...at whatever board, right?

best-
.nick

[udenjoe]

Nice mic. Those Blues dont come cheap.
Good introductions are hard to come by. Lord knows mine was cheap.

[millionVALVE]

udenjoe-

It's a great mic. I got it used with the spider and pop filter for a smidge over $400--cheap for a hand-built condenser mic that is also the coolest looking mic in it's league!

But beofre that and my Speck MicPre I was recording vocals through a Shure SM-57 inot a dbx286A preamp/multi. Believe it or not, the SM-57 wasn't a bad mic to sing into at all. Many pros keep 57's in their vocal mic cabinet for a good reason--they work, and they're inexpensive.

.nick

[udenjoe]

From what I recall that's a steal. I read about it in Sound on Sound a while ago...

Thanks for the mic tip. Mine sucks.