JML - Jasco's Music Lab

08/16/2025

Did anyone see the story on CBS news this morning about AI songwriting/recording?

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/ai-generated-music-sparks-industry-concern/

Interesting timing because my project in the studio this week is producing 2 songs that a girl from Colorado has created with AI. She wants to record herself singing them in Nashville with a real band.

If I get her permission, I'll post before/after versions of the songs. (AI vs real humans singing and playing)

04/09/2025

Studio tools: Harmony H90 - electric guitar. This law-suit era Les Paul copy has good tone. It also has short frets, typical of Les Pauls of this era. And it's on the heavy side, even for a Les Paul-style guitar.

04/08/2025

03/28/2025

Studio tools: Fender Super Reverb - guitar amplifier. This 2 channel tube amp from the mid 60's is one of the best sounding blues amps ever. We have two at JML - one with alnico speakers and one with ceramic.

03/27/2025

Studio tools: Shure SM7b - large diapragm dynamic microphone. Good for everything from vocals, guitar amps, bass cabs, to close mic for drums. The windscreen on this one is getting a little ratty, but it doesn't affect the sound.

03/26/2025

Studio tools: Cheapo pedals - I paid under $40 for each of these.
1. Joyo Zip Amp - overdrive pedal. This is an inexpensive clone of a Xotic BB preamp. Does a pretty good job of copying the tone.
2. Joyo Vision - dual modulation pedal. Digital versions of all the common modulation effects. Tones are good, but not great. You can run both sides of the pedal in series or parallel, which is cool. The bad thing is that they've delayed one of the stereo output (in a cheap attempt to make the stereo field wider), but the delay is so much you can feel the latency. So you can really only use this in mono.
3. NUX Steel Singer - overdrive pedal. This is marketed as giving you “The Dumble sound”. It doesn't do that. But it's a decent medium gain drive pedal. Especially for how cheap it was.

03/25/2025

Studio tools: Fender Custom Shop Bonnie Raitt stratocaster - c.1996 Limited run of 200. Plays and sounds as good as it looks.

03/24/2025

Studio tools:
1. Fulltone Deja Vibe - Great sounding copy of a univibe.
2. Electro Harmonix Super Pulsar - This tremolo pedal has a lot of sonic options. It's almost like a whole other instrument. I'm still learning to use it.
3. Fulltone Catalyst - This low to medium gain overdrive pedal works well goosing other pedals or amps with gain set relatively low and output volume set relatively high.
4. Fulltone OCD - Medium gain distortion pedal that sounds good with a variety of guitars and amps. This pedal was really popular c.2008-2020. We have 2 of them at JML.

03/23/2025

Studio tools: Royer 121 - ribbon microphone. This ribbon mic can handle the high sound pressure levels of guitar amps and sounds great on them. The back side (non-logo) of the mic is slightly brighter than the front. You may have to flip the phase when if you use that side when using the 121 along with other mics.

03/22/2025

Studio tools: Gibson ES 125C - archtop electric guitar. c. 1965 With one P-90 pickup in the neck, this guitar is great for bluesy jazz or jazzy blues.

03/21/2025

Studio tools: Proco Rat distortion pedals. A staple of 80's hard rock tone. Late 80's flat box and early 90's large box versions here.

03/20/2025

Studio tools: Marshall 'Bluesbreaker' 50 watt tube amp with tremolo. The louder it gets, the better it sounds.