The State of Affairs » Gear Reviews

Best Online Musical Instrument Store

Jeremy Winter — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:24:43 +0000

If you’re like me and you love perusing online music instrument stores you may have already found your favorite place to shop for musical equipment online. What if you don’t know where to shop online for musical instruments though? Maybe you’re a parent of a musician and have never played a Gibson or played out of a Mesa Boogie amp.

Well I am a active musician and can say I have probably seen 99% of the music stores online. Many of the sites online are nearly identical, but some do stand out in regards to pricing and brand selection.

Option #1 Musician’s Friend

Musician’s Friend is probably the most popular site online to buy musical equipment. I personally have never bought from them, but most reviews of the site are very happy with their customer service and online store.

Pro’s

Largest selection of products and choice of brands
Decent used gear and clearance section
Free shipping on most orders over $99

Con’s

Standard prices that can be found on many other sites online
Largest selection does not necessarily mean most diverse selection

Visit Musician’s Friend

Option #2 American Musical Supply

My favorite place to shop for music equipment online has been American Musical Supply. I have bought nearly every piece of equipment I own from them and have found every purchase to be enjoyable.

Pro’s

Diverse selection, many products and brands that can’t be found elsewhere online
Optional 3 or 5 easy payment plan on orders over $249.99
Free shipping on most orders over $49.95 and only $4.95 for most under $49.95

Con’s

Less brand choices then the larger sites online

Visit American Musical Supply

Option #3 Craigslist

One option many do not consider when buying online is to buy like-new or used equipment from a seller on Craigslist. If you’re buying a gift this may not be the best option, but if your are buying for yourself, this could absolutely be your best option.

Pro’s

Possibility of finding rare gems at really low prices
Product selection is updated daily :)
Buy like-new equipment for used prices

Con’s

Not a true strictly online option, you will probably have to drive to pick up equipment
If you’re unfamiliar with brands and average prices for items, it may require addition research to see if you are truly getting a deal
No money back gurantee

Visit Craigslist

Where do you shop online for your music gear?

Disclaimer: The State of Affairs received no compensation for writing this articles and is in no way directly affiliated with Musician’s Friend, American Musical Supply, or Craigslist.

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Best PA Systems Under $500

Jeremy Winter — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:57:23 +0000

As a musician and composer I have came to realize over the years, how much vocals can add to a music track. I have composed over 40 songs in the last year or so and have found that most of my audiences have enjoyed the songs with vocals over comparable instrumentals.

This being the case then adding a PA system can take your band and tracks too a whole new level. We have selected 3 PA systems that cost less then $500 and are active(self-powered) so you will not need a external amp to power them.

Mackie SRM150 5 Inch Compact Active PA System

Mackie is a great company when it comes to PA systems and their new SRM150 compact PA is no exception. This little bugger packs quite a punch with its built in powerful 150watt class-D amp. You can even plug your mic and guitar straight in and you will have all you need for a small bar or Coffey house performance.

Features

Built-in 3-channel Mackie mixer with 3-band active EQ
Two Mic/line preamps with 48V phantom power
Instrument-ready input (no DI required)
150-watts of high output, Class-D power
5.25â€ premium-quality, full-range neodymium driver
Built-in limiter
Mic stand integration system for use with stand and boom

Street Price: $300
Read More

Peavey Messenger Portable PA Sound System

Peavey may not be know for their speaker systems, but as a company, they build rock solid products. The Peavey Messenger PA System is a step down in wattage from the Mackie system but is a step up too duel speakers and a external mixer. Also the Peavey steps up too a 5-band EQ and Three MicLine preamps.

Features

Built-in 5-channel mixer with 5-band EQ
Three Mic/line preamps
Instrument-ready input (no DI required)
100-watts of power
Two full range speakers
FLSÂ® (Feedback Locating System)
Includes PVÂ®i 100 microphone

Street Price: $400
Read More

Fender PD150 Deluxe Passport PA System

Fender has a great line of active PA systems that collapse into a nice carrying case. The Fender PD150 Deluxe Passport PA System comes in with a strong 150watts and even has built in digital reverb (Great Feature). Another nice feature is the custom speakers that have a driver and two tweeters in each.

Features

Overall System EQ (For Room Conditions) and Individual Channel EQ
Three Mic/line preamps
Instrument-ready input (no DI required)
150watts power amp
Two full range speakers with three custom speaker drivers per cabinet
V.I.P. (Vocal Input Priority), Background Music Level is Automatically Lowered When Someone Speaks Into the Microphone
Includes one P-51 microphone(with cable)

Street Price: $499
Read More

Disclaimer:The State of Affairs received no direct compensation for writing this article and is in no way directly affiliated with Mackie, Peavey or Fender

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Best Cheap Bass Guitars Under $500

Jeremy Winter — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:37:38 +0000

We have selected 4 basses that we feel satisfy these 3 conditions: great prices, excellent craftsmanship, and unique style. Some are modern while some are vintage, but all of them will rock for your bank account. Hopefully my hours of research and discovery will help you find the bass of your dreams.

Basses are from lowest price to highest price

Yamaha RBX4 A2
Epiphone EB3
ESP LTD Standard F104
ESP LTD D5 5 String

Yamaha RBX4 A2 Electric Bass Guitar

What makes the Yamaha RBX4 A2 so unique is it’s body material which helps the bass weigh in at just 7.3 pounds. Most purest would say the body material of your bass must have consistency and weight, but it is clear that the RBX4 challenges both of those convictions. There is a great video review that showcase’s the sounds you can get from one of these.

Pros:

-Great price
-Lightweight Design
-Nice Sound
-Awesome Style

Specs:

Construction: Bolt-on Neck
Body: A.I.R. (Alternative Internal Resonance) Construction
Neck: Maple
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Frets: 24
Scale Length: 34 inches (864 mm)
Radius: 10 5/8 inches (250 mm)
Bridge: Die-cast w String Through body design
Pickups: 2 Custom Shop Designed Y.A.S.H. Single Coil Pickups
Controls: L.E.D. Lit Pickup Indicator and Selector

Street Price: $250
More Info: Website

Epiphone EB3 Electric Bass Guitar

Gibson Epiphone has been making guitars and basses for over 50 years and in my opinion, their low end products are far superior to their FenderSquire cousins in overall craftsmanship and quality. The EB3 is a solid and inexpensive bass that can last for years to come and the reviews on Harmony central certainly agree.

Pros:

-Great Price
-Mahogany Body and Neck
-Epiphone Quality
-Classic Style

Specs:

Construction: Bolt-on Neck
Body: Mahogany
Neck: Mahogany
FingerboardInlay: Rosewood/Trapezoid
Frets: 24
Scale Length: 34 inches (864 mm)
Bridge: Chrome
Pickups: Sidewinder/Mini-Humbucker

Street Price: $300
More Info: Website

ESP LTD Standard F104 Electric Bass Guitar

I must say the ESP F series line of basses has one of the coolest body designs to date. The ESP F104 features 2 large humbucking pickups that are controlled with active electronics. The step up to active electronics should increase the tone range substantially.

Pros:

-Active Electronics
-ESP Pickups
-Awesome Body Design
-Modern Style

Specs:

Construction: Bolt-on Neck
Body: Basswood
Neck: Maple
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Frets: 24 Extra Jumbo
Scale Length: 35 inches
Bridge: Chrome
Pickups: Bridge: ESP DB-4 & Neck: ESP SB-4
EQ: ESP ABQ-2 (2-Band Active EQ)

Street Price: $340
More Info: Website

ESP LTD D5 5 String Electric Bass Guitar

A active, 5 string bass with a neck through body design for only $450 dollars? I must say I was quite amazed to find a bass, under $500, with all of these great features. ESP also offers a 4 string version of this bass for about $40 less, but if your spending over $400 it’s probably worth the extra money for the 5 string version.

Pros:

-5 String
-Active Pickups and EQ
-Neck Through Body Design
-Merbau Wood

Specs:

Construction: Neck Through Body Design
Body: Merbau
Neck: Five-piece mahogany and maple
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Frets: 24 XJ Frets
Scale Length: 34 inches
Bridge: Black Nickel Hardware
Pickups: ESP SB-5 (B&N)
EQ: ESP ABQ-3 3-Band Active EQc

Street Price: $450
More Info: Website

Disclaimer:The State of Affairs received no direct compensation for writing this article and is in no way directly affiliated with Yamaha, Gibson Epiphone, or ESP

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Best Cheap Home Studio Monitors

Jeremy Winter — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:58:23 +0000

If you’re looking for your first set or a new set of home studio monitors, I recommend going with either the Mackie MR5 Active Studio Monitors or the KRK Rokit Powered 6 Generation 2 Studio Monitors. Both are around 100watts per monitor, both are active, and both will rock for all of your new recordings.

Mackie MR5 Active Studio Monitors

Mackie is known for their excellent studio monitors and MR5′s are no exception. One great feature of the MR5′s is the ability to adjust the hi and low frequencies to compensate for different room variations.

Street Price: $360.00 (pair)
Power: 85 Watts (per monitor)
Woofer: 5″
State: Active
MORE INFO

KRK Rokit Powered 6 Generation 2 Studio Monitor

The KRK RPG2 studio monitors feature a front firing port. By distributing the airflow of the speakers forward you don’t have to worry about the walls behind the monitors causing inaccurate bass response.

Street Price: $300.00 (pair)
Power: 100 Watts (per monitor)
Woofer: 6″
State: Active
MORE INFO

Disclaimer:The State of Affairs received no direct compensation for writing this article and is in no way directly affiliated with Mackie or KRK.

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Bass Guitar Pickups Review

Jeremy Winter — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:57:11 +0000

Ever wonder why your Bass sounds flat and toneless? It could be the body material of your bass, but is more likely the pickups in your bass. The solution? Seymour Duncan’s basslines pickups.

All of their basslines pickups are hand made in Santa Barbara, California. This I would believe, based on the quality of their SPB-3 P-Bass pickups that I recently bought.

Installation

Installing these pickups was a breeze and took less then 20 mins. All I had to do was unscrew the old pickups, unsolder them, solder in the Basslines pickups, and then screw them in. The soldering can be a bit tricky, but is by no means a daunting task.

Sound

My first impression was wow! I play out of a Ashdown Mag 300 2×10″ Bass Combo, so I already had a killer amp to play out of and figured pickups could make a decent difference, but that was a gross under calculation.

The first thing I noticed was that the tone nob actually did something now. Before there was almost no difference from full on, to full off, but now we are talking from sharp tone bite to smooth full round sound. Here is a couple sound recording I did to showcase it’s range and a picture of the waveform so you can see the actual difference in shape.

PLAY – Bass Pickups full off

PLAY – Bass Pickups full on

PLAY – Bass Pickups personal

As you can see the waveform is drastically different between the 3 examples. The 3rd example was my personal favorite setting which is a little less than %50 on the tone nob.

Conclusion

These pickups only cost around $65.00 and will take your bass to a whole new level. I recommend them for any musician that is interested in experiment with some new sounds and bringing out that low-end tone.

The example recordings sound good, but to really show off these pickups I’ll share this track that I recently produced to give you a idea of how these pickups sound with a band.

PLAY – CR Given

Disclaimer:The State of Affairs received no direct compensation for writing this article and is in no way directly affiliated with Seymour Duncan

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The Best Headphones for Under $100

Jeremy Winter — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:17:12 +0000

We all know Bose makes great headphones and everybody swears by Sennheiser’s lineup, but how many of us can actually swear by Grado Lab’s headphone series? Grado sounds more like the cave at the playboy mansion than a finely tuned pair of speakers that attaches to our head! Before I go into why the Grado line excels past all the others in this category I want to give you a example.

Lets say I am running a large corporation that produces, designs and sells over 100 different products, related to audio technology in someway. My goals in making those products is to sell a lot of them and make them as cheap as possible. That is just standard large business practice.

Now you have a smaller, but also successful business and make only two different product lines related to audio technology. One being headphones and the other being cartridges for record players. Now which one of us has more time to put care and efficiency into our product? I think the answer is pretty clear.

It’s All About Clarity

The real benefit to Grado’s line of headphones is their high fidelity level. When listening to songs through typical headphones, you lose a large amount of sound just based on their low frequency range. With a pair of Grado SR-80 headphones, you get a frequency response of 20-20. What that means is you hear all of your music not just the highs and some of the low. I am still discovering new things in some of my music that I never knew was there before!

How Much For These Cans?

Grado not only makes the SR-80′s for right around $95; they also make the SR-60′s for $70. The two models are nearly identically in design. The one main difference is that the SR-80′s have a larger sound field resulting in increased bass response. Bass is such a key ingredient to most music nowadays I couldn’t justify recommending the SR-60′s in replace of the SR-80′s.

Conclusion

So for the best headphones that are true studio quality under $100 you have to go with the Grado SR-80′s. Yes I own a pair, and yes I would replace them if they were ever stolen. Small shops always seem to do it right.

I recommend buying them online as they are a hard to find item in most areas of the country. You can read more about the SR-80′s and the rest of Grado’s great line at GradoLabs.com

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