OK - As you can tell, I’ve been using the Thanksgiving weekend to catch up on some of my reading.

Besides a number of interesting guitars, I ran across some very large advertisements for Bugera Amplifiers. I remember their first ads as being very “Thrash Metal” oriented so I sort of wrote them off. Their latest ads, besides the very complimentary soundbites from the mags, relate more to tone than style (though still with a metal edge).

It was compelling enough for me to take a look at their website. I’ll tell you, for the feature set, the price is pretty compelling.

www.bugera-amps.com

For my money and style, I liked the 333XL-212. It’ll set you back about $700 bones.

However, there are a number of righteous number of heads, cabs, and combos from which to choose.

I’d be interested in any personal experiences - so if you play one of these, feel free to drop a post.

Dan

I saw an advertisement for a new Finnish guitar company called Flaxwood who makes guitars out of a new “molded wood” material.

From their website:

Flaxwood is at heart a wood-based, innovative new tone material that has been created by breaking the grain structure of wood and injection-molding it into shape together with an acoustically sensitive binding agent. Exceptionally consistent in its acoustic properties, uniformly flawless in quality, and completely impervious to changes in humidity, flaxwood is a new ecological alternative to its peers that are slowly nearing extinction.

For those of you looking for environmentally friendly guitars…or just something you can brag about check it out! Unfortunately, just like Prius, Green products seem to run at a premium since the street on these bad boyz is $2,000 - $3,000. Think of it this way - all the money you were spending in gas can now be spent on guitars!

www.flaxwood.com

My personal favories are the Liekki, the Vasara, and the Laine.

Dan

I noticed in this month’s Guitar Player and Acoustic Guitar a couple of sweet new Jazz Boxes.

First, you have to love what PRS does. This new SCJ-Thinline looks amazing. Too bad they are only making 300 - I see the street look like about $5800 for this beauty.

The second one that caught my eye was the Framus AZ-10, inspired by Jazz great Atilla Zoller (hence the AZ). I don’t know much about the Framus brand, but this is a sweet looking box with a little different style appointments. Depending on which one you get, it’ll run you about $5000 if you can find one in the U.S.

Expensive, but nice to look at! (no wise cracks )

Dan

I’ve noticed a pretty cool trend out there on Portable PA systems lately. You are now starting to see pretty powerful setups coming in small, easy to manage, gig-worthy packages. I’ve selected three that I think represent the best range of options.

The first is the Mackie SRM 150: Click Here for Product Page

Street Price: $300

Features:
o Extremely portable active loudspeaker system
o Built-in Mackie mixer for superior sound quality with:
- 3-channel mixer with 3-band active EQ
- Two high-headroom Mackie Mic/line preamps with 48V phantom power
- Instrument-ready input (no DI required)
- Dedicated stereo channel for keyboards, CD, MP3, iPods, etc.
- Neutrik® Combo “line in” for linking or adding inputs
- XLR “thru” with mic/line switch for linking more SRM150s or direct send to main PA
o 150-watts of high output, Class-D power
o 5.25" premium-quality, full-range neodymium driver
o Frequency Response: 100Hz to 17.5kHz
o Complete system protection with built-in limiter
o 120 dB Maximum SPL@1meter
o Built-in top carry handle
o Integral aluminum heat sink
o Mic stand integration system for use with stand and boom
o Tough, impact-resistant, polypropylene enclosure

The second is the Fishman SoloAmp: Click Here for Product Page

Street Price: $1000

Features
o Compact line array
o 6×4″ cone midrange drivers (200W)
o 1″ neodymium soft dome tweeter (20W) with tweeter level control
o High-excursion custom drivers and servo power amp
o Two mic/instrument channels with 3-band EQ, phantom power
o Independent reverb level and effect loops on each channel
o Per-channel phase and notch filters
o Auxiliary stereo input with level control
o 4 digital reverb effects with master level
o Balanced XLR D.I. outputs for both channels and main mix
o Monitor I/O for better onstage ensemble monitoring
o Channel mute with remote footswitch input
o Tuner output
o Stand and padded carry bag with wheels included
o 41.5″ H x 5.6″ W x 6.6″ D
o 25 lbs. without stand

The last is the Roland Mobile Cube: Click Here for Product Page

Street Price: $160

Features

o Battery-powered amplifier for anyone, anywhere, anytime
o 5W (2.5W + 2.5W) stereo power with two high-performance 4″ speakers
o Inputs for microphone, stereo-instrument, and stereo AUX; headphone output
o Center Cancel function for karaoke
o Built-in stereo reverb/chorus, distortion and more
o Dedicated strap included for easy carry around
o Mic Channel: Input Jacks (1/4″ phone type)
o Keyboard/Instrument/Guitar Channel: Input Jack L/MONO, GUITAR (1/4″ phone type), Input Jack R (1/4″ phone type)
o Aux In Jacks (Stereo miniature phone type, RCA phono type)
o Phones Jack (Stereo miniature phone type)
o Accessories - Strap, Dry Battery (LR6 (AA) type) x 6
o Power Supply - DC 9 V, Dry Battery (LR6 (AA) type) x 6 or AC Adaptor (optional)
o Size and Weight
Width - 11-1/16″
Depth - 4-1/4″
Height - 7″
Weight - 5 lbs. 9 oz.

Hey folks,

I have been testing some new studio headphones lately. I received two models from Ultrasone the PRO 550 and the PRO 750. So far I’ve been really impressed on both studio applications and plain ‘ole iPod listening. I’m not ready to give it a full review yet, but these are definately worth a +1 blog mention. Check out the website and the video!

Ultrasone: http://www.ultrasone.com/

Dan

If something happened to your music equipment tomorrow, would you be prepared? What if you had a theft, or a house fire and you lost everything? If you had to give your insurance agent a list of what you had along with serial numbers, could you do it? Until today, I am not sure I could have. In fact as I think about it, I am positive that I could not.

Today, my Wife and I spent some time going through all of my music equipment and wrote down brand, model, and serial numbers of everything. I also took a single picture of each item to put with the list. Over the years I have collected quite a bit of equipment. Because I have added each piece and hooked it up as I got it, it became very clear that this is a project I should have started many years ago, and should have kept up on. Unfortunately, this task required taking everything apart and disconnecting cables to get to the serial numbers. This would have been a lot worse if we were not in the process of moving some of the gear to another room. I still needed to remove all items from racks since many serial numbers were on the side of the units or underneath where they could not be seen installed in the racks.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage everyone to take the time to go through their equipment and make a list on their computer that they can print out or burn to disk, and keep in a safe place. Depending on how much you have invested, you may even want to speak with your insurance agent about having a separate policy to cover you musical equipment. I realized today that If I needed to replace my musical gear after a house fire or flood, my current home owners policy would not even cover just the music equipment, let alone everything else in the house which would be the first priority.
Just something to think about. In the mean time, I think we are going to do the same thing for all the other items in our house. After a disaster, people are seldom in the mindset to remember exactly what they had.