120V and 220V Power - How I FRIED my Preamp

It is with great sorrow that I declare my brand new ART Tube MP, DEAD.

I was supposed to write a short review on this preamp, but I've committed a small error that came with dire consequences...

So how did this happen? What kind of stupid mistake kills a brand new preamp?

Well, if you've read my article about LBC Shipping Cart, I ordered a microphone and this preamp from the United States and shipped it here in the Philippines. When it finally arrived, out of excitement I immediately used the preamp's stock power adaptor to power the device.

NOT GOOD.

The device worked fine for a few seconds, then I heard a small "poof!" sound as it just.. died on me. Then I realised what I've done, but it was too late. I forgot to consider one very important thing when it comes to dealing with imported electronics. Voltage.

120V vs 220V Outlets

Power outlets in the United States are typically 120V, and so all their electronics come with 120V power supplies/adaptors. However, in some other countries including the Philippines, power outlets are 220V.

Voltages need to match, and so do a number of other things. I'm no expert, so I'll just refer to this guide if you want to know how to check the labels on your power adaptors.

It's very important that you have at least basic knowledge of this. 

Not just for using recording gear, but for all electronics you use.

Lesson Learned

I've learned the hard way you can't just plug anything in just because the pieces fit together. I once tried to use a phone charger to power my Casio keyboard and, poof!, I busted one of its speakers. I could smell something burning when I hurriedly unplugged. At least the whole thing didn't die, just the one speaker.

I made that same mistake again and paid for it dearly.

50% OFF EVERYTHING - XLN Audio Spring Sale

XLN Audio is having a Spring Sale and they're offering EVERYTHING for only HALF PRICE!
Just use promo code "SPRING17" on checkout.

They're known for their high quality virtual instruments such as Addictive Keys and Addictive Drums. If you're not familiar with any of these products, I suggest you try out their demos and browse their website for samples. In my opinion, they sound great!

The sale ends on April 4, so we have the whole weekend to try out their stuff and decide. Personally, I'm already happy with the demo version of Addictive Keys and I've explained why in this article.

So right now I've got my eyes on Addictive Drums, which is known to be an excellent virtual drum instrument. Looks like I'll be perusing their wide selection of starter packages and fiddling with the demo version this weekend! Might as well write a review on it too.

See the sale for yourself on the XLN Audio website.

FREE Piano VST - Addictive Keys Studio Grand

Addictive Keys is a virtual piano instrument by XLN Audio. It features a high quality sound engine that both sounds amazing AND loads really fast. When I found out it was FREE, I just had to share it here!

Ok. ok. Yes, this is just the DEMO version and you still have to pay for the full version. But why am I so happy with just the DEMO? Here's why.

The demo version has NO TIME LIMIT!

Unlike most software demos that time out and then ask you to pay up, you can use Addictive Keys as long as you want! 100% FREE! This is perfect especially for those who don't need all the extra settings and piano sounds offered by the full version.

Great Piano Sounds.

The Iconic Studio Grand

Though the demo version only includes one piano (the "Studio Grand"), you can actually tweak the piano sound to your taste. There are a few great presets included too, if you don't feel like tinkering with the settings. From natural and warm acoustic sounds to funky chaotic techno sounds, you can accomplish a lot already. And again, it's FREE.

Reasonable 49-key limit

Playable Range of the Demo Version

This might be the deal-breaker for many of the piano players out there. The demo only includes 4 octaves and that can feel really restrictive to those who are used to the full 88-key setup (offered by the full version). It starts with the low C on the first octave of my M-Audio Keystation 61 and ends at the high C of the 4th octave after that. So I can't play any higher than that. Which is actually fine for me! I mostly use piano on the low-mid range on my mix so it's OK. Now it were missing some bass keys instead, I'd have a problem.

Microphone Perspectives

Shape your sound with mic settings and more!

Apart from being able to add effects and adjust the tone of the piano, you can even choose microphones and how they are placed to "record" your piano sound. That's powerful. That kind of power usually comes from paid software. And here I am again saying it's FREE! But of course you don't get as much options as the full version. The demo version only offers 3 mic perspectives while the full version offers 6 choices. But if you're just starting out with Addictive Keys, chances are you won't even want to touch these settings yet. Besides, it already sounds great right out of the box.

Conclusion

The Addictive Keys demo is so feature packed that I can safely say that I'm going to be using this for long time before I start getting the itch to upgrade. It sounds very close to the actual thing and offers enough sonic options to keep it interesting and versatile. That is, if you stay within the 49-key limit.

You can download it for FREE here: https://www.xlnaudio.com/demos

You need to install a third party downloader and use that to register your demo for Addictive Keys, which is a bit of a hassle. But for this little gem, I would say it's worth the effort.

My First Full Mix - Recording a band.. without an actual band!

Our high school choir master was (and still is!) a great songwriter and produced his music using his old Casio keyboard, a classical guitar and a cheap PC microphone from a local computer store. He had no "industry grade" condensers, no "high quality" audio converters, just two instruments and a plastic mic attached to his trusty Pentium desktop at home. 

He produced 2 original graduation songs for our school which stayed in the hearts of the graduates to this day, myself included. I did half of the vocals for both songs (they were duets), which is why I know exactly how they were produced. What he was able to achieve with the resources at hand ultimately inspired me to produce my own music as well. And so I set out to the next chapter of my "audio adventures".

So I got myself a copy of Adobe Audition 3.0 and my own plastic microphone and started recording covers at first (which I discuss in another article). I would find an instrumental of a song I liked and tracked vocals on top of it. Then after a few projects I figured I'd try producing an original song, but I wasn't sure how. I knew I didn't have the resources to track live instruments, especially a full drum set! So I thought, maybe there's another way to go?

Drums...in loops

After some googling I found a neat sample library from Adobe called "Loopology" that contained a lot of one shot drum samples. Lucky for me, Adobe Audition had this cool "tempo snap" feature for looping samples. Simply put, I could arrange the drum samples to create a beat, adjust the tempo and then just drag the clip to loop as long as wanted. Drum set problem solved! Sure it didn't sound like live drums but hey, at least I had drum sounds in my mix! :D

Acoustic Guitar

Now I that I had the beat, I was ready to track my acoustic guitar (I like to start with percussion so the rest of my instruments stay in tempo). I decided to close mic it right in the sound hole area. Why did I do this? Coz it's how the sound guy places the mic on my guitar when I perform at school. I didn't really know how to properly mic a guitar so I just winged it. Anyways it sounded like crap. But it still sounded like a strummed guitar so I moved on, thinking I'll fix it with "pretty effects" later. Of course I was wrong, but what the hell.

Bass Guitar...keyboard

Now I needed to add some bass guitar to the mix. Without the bass, the song sounded thin and awkward so I knew I couldn't skip that instrument. I figured I could use the bass guitar sound available in my own Casio keyboard (Casio was the common "budget" brand at that time) and record it direct to the PC microphone jack. Just like how I did with my electric guitar as I explained in this post.

Lead Synth...keyboard

Then I added a lead synth instrument. Just to make it more interesting, and so I'd get a fuller mix. I experimented with some melodies that would go well with the song and kept what I liked. The synth sound still came from my keyboard. I tried to add piano tracks to the mix but it just ended up cluttering up the song so I removed it.

Awkward Vocals

And finally, it was time to record vocals. I hated tracking vocals at home because I found it very uncomfortable knowing that everyone in the house can hear me recording my own voice. It still bothers me to this day, but I'm trying to stop it from affecting my sound too much coz my voice sounds SO WEIRD in this recording. I was holding back my volume too much and was so shaky just because I didn't want anyone in the house to hear me. So what did I get? Real funky sounding vocals.

Final Output

Anyways, I was still VERY HAPPY with the final output. The only thing I did in the mixing stage was adjust the track volumes and panning. The guitar's crappy sound was masked by the rest of the instruments (I think) so I didn't bother trying to fix that. I didn't know how to EQ and did not even know something like "Compression" existed so that was it. 90% recording and 10% mixing, which is actually a good practice! Though I admit I did NOT record it a good way heheh..

Here's the song. It's called "Music Inside of You", which I wrote for my band but we never got around to recording it together. So I guess you can say this is the demo version.

People tell me it sounds like a cheesy mall jingle. What do you think? Have you ever recorded songs this way? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

LBC Shipping Cart Review - Buying Gear from the US

First off

Let me just clarify that this is just a post about my experience and opinions about the Shipping Cart service. This is the first time I used it and I'd like to share my experience to those who are looking to try it themselves. I am NOT affiliated with LBC in any way. :)

What is Shipping Cart?

LBC Shipping Cart is a forwarding service you can use to send stuff you bought from US stores to the Philippines. Once you sign up on their website, they provide you with a US address which you will use when purchasing items from US based stores such as Amazon. The items will be delivered to their warehouse and after you pay the calculated shipping cost, your package will be sent directly to your PH address.

In the dashboard you'll find your US address, Items in your cart, incoming shipments, and account information.

Why LBC?

Good question, why LBC? They're notorious for delivery errors WITHIN the Philippines (I live here btw), so why would I trust them with an international transaction? Well... While some people would recommend a different forwarding service like Johnny Air, I finally decided to take my chances with LBC for one major reason..

The Price

Yes, I'm a cheapskate. I admit it. That's why I read home recording blogs and forums that encourage music production on a budget. When I shop for gear, I always look for the ones that are affordable but still of good quality. I also chose to order online from US stores like Amazon and Musicians Friend because I found much better prices there. With that in mind, I needed to minimize the shipping cost because spending too much for that would defeat the purpose of shopping in US prices.

LBC Shipping Cart charges $2.99/pound for sea cargo and $6.99/pound for air cargo. If you don't live in/near Manila you will also be charged around $10 for the delivery fee. Now you might think that's not so cheap, but the real value here lies in the option for you to consolidate your items into a single box. This means you can purchase multiple items and only pay for only one shipping box. You'll save a lot more money this way, compared to shipping each item separately.

Buying and Shipping the Gear

I live in Cebu and I find it hard to look for affordable gear here. Most of the recording equipment sold here are the ones intended for "big budget" studios. I guess it's because audio recording isn't a very common hobby here.

ART Tube MP - Microphone Preamplifier

Anyways, the first thing I bought was an ART Tube MP. A budget microphone preamp usually priced at around $40 (~₱2,000). I wanted to get something really cheap as a "test purchase" just to see if it arrives in the Shipping Cart warehouse which is apparently located in Hayward, California.

And it did! A few days after I placed my order in Amazon, I got an email from Shipping Cart confirming the arrival of my package. Two days after that, I got another email saying that I can now view my item in my "cart". Of course, I didn't ship it yet. I wanted to make the most out of the shipping fee, so I waited for a good deal another piece of gear.

You can keep items in your "cart" for free up to 30 days. Succeeding days will be charged based on the item's weight in pounds. Items left in storage for more than 90 days will be disposed of, so don't forget to ship your items!

Lucky for me, the MXL 990 was on sale for around $60 (~₱3,000) on Musicians Friend. Perfect. I made my purchase and it arrived in my Shipping Cart address right on time. Now I was ready to ship my items.

I selected both of my items from my cart and chose "Air Cargo" because I needed these for a project soon. I was charged around ₱2,200 for shipping (approx. 5 lbs total) to Cebu City and I paid using Paypal. (You can use Master Card, Visa, Paypal, or Cash Payment to any LBC Branch). 

Once payment was confirmed, I received an email that my package was on its way. Yaay! :D

I also got a tracking number so I could check the status of the shipment. Air Cargo takes 2 weeks to ship, while Sea Cargo takes around 2 months. For this shipment, my package was shipped on February 28 and I received it by March 6, four days ahead of schedule. Not bad!

My items were placed in a standard LBC box protected by several air cushions. There was only minimal damage on the ART Tube MP's box and some scratches on the MXL 990's box.
Felt just like Christmas again haha!

It's heeeere!

Well protected by air cushions. Nice.

Hurray!

Total Cost

Here's a breakdown of my expenses. (Approximate values)

ART Tube MP - ₱ 2,000
MXL 990 - ₱ 3,000
Shipping Fee (Air) - ₱ 2,200

Total - ₱ 7,200

Conclusion

₱ 7,200: That's about the price of a single Shure SM58/57 in the local shops. And if I wasn't in a hurry and chose "Sea Cargo" instead, I could've spent only about ₱650 for shipping, bringing the total cost down to ₱5,650. In my book, that's a steal for two pieces of good gear.

Now, it's important to note that even though I had a positive experience with LBC Shipping Cart, I can't guarantee you'll have the same results. Some people have complained about delayed shipments, mixed up packages and difficulty using the "Cash" payment method. So still, try it at your own risk. Also, it's not peak season this time of year, so there's that to consider as well. I do advise AGAINST ordering during peak season (like Christmas) because that's when these issues usually turn up.

So to wrap up, the PROS and CONS of using Shipping cart listed below are based on THIS TRANSACTION ONLY. 

PROS

• More choices and better prices for audio gear (US Stores)
• Affordable Shipping Rates.
• Able to consolidate multiple items into one shipment.
• NO extra/hidden fees, customs duties already included in shipping fee
• Easy Payment (using Paypal)
• Smooth transaction and fast shipping (off peak season)
• FREE shipping insurance up to $500 worth

CONS

• Higher Risk in Shipping. (Kinda scary knowing the distance your package travels)
• It will be hard to return a defective product.
• Heavier items will cost more in shipping. Especially Air Cargo.
• Not a very good deal if you're only buying one item. Especially if it's heavy!

I'll also be writing about these two products soon. So look out for that ;)

So..have you ever tried using Shipping Cart? Share your experience in the comments below.

- Peter Clark