An abscessed tooth really puts me off the map, being able to see straight seems to be a crucial element to my process. I'm back now, will probably take me a short while to get back into the swing of things.


I played a show last weekend, in my less than fully functional state, which led to a few modifications to my approach. First: I never got around to digging into my TOA RX-212, so my Fender 4216 was rotated into the set up. Second: I forgot the PSU for the tube Tektronix 161 and 162 modules seen center rack, meaning an entire branch circuit of my set-up was inoperable, and I could have essentially left a rack at home.

The first bottleneck was the clincher, as four oscillators, distortion, pair of ring modulators and the H-3000 is more than enough to pave a huge set. A huge sound seems to reveal headroom issues with the Fender desk however, as all presence and clarity was brutally stripped from the wash leaving an undefined murk coming out of the speakers.


I think this is shortly before I removed the tape machine from the equation, since the Fender console does not support simultaneous 1/4" and XLR output feeds I had run XLR output to the Otari for recording and daisy chain its outputs to the PA. Troubleshooting my sound quality, demanded removal of the tape deck, which was no great tragedy since my set was less than satisfying up to that point.

As it turned out, the Otari was not the problem, and only through ripping out my low end and leaning on HF (with the aid of a mechanical alarm bell) was I able to move around a little bit in the audio realm.

More fuel to repair the TOA, and inspiration to crack the case on the Fender and see what I can learn.

(Thanks to Heather Chessman for second pic)