Mojo Pie -- Xmas Christmas gifts for the recording musician

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Mojo Pie presents the Xmas '03 gift guide

What is Xmas? It's that state of mind that is the materialism side of Christmas. It's the one time of year when the addicted can con their family and friends into buying gear. What do you want for Xmas?

Give 'em something cheap but useful

Find that beat with the Behringer Beat Counter

The cheapest and coolest gift item is the Behringer Beat Counter. Mojo Pie cannot measure the coolness of giving a gift that only costs $3.99 yet serves the useful purpose of letting the user tap in a tempo to get back beats per minute. And, yes, it's a Mojo Pie recommended item. It's not only useful for the studio. You can play all sorts of strangely fun games with it. Who can tap out the fastest beat? Who can come closest to 60 beats per minute? Who can hold the same bmp for the longest time?

Keep it in tune with a Korg tuner

The Korg CA-30 Chromatic Tuner does a decent job at tuning any instrument. It'll help tune a guitar, a bass, a trumpet and a violin as well as any other tunable musical instrument. And, it'll do it for $19. Recommended.

A little more money but still inexpensive

Isolate your ears with the Extreme Isolation Headphones

Direct Sound's Extreme Isolation Headphones help isolate the user's ears from the source. For the engineer, this can mean better mic placement on live instruments and amplifiers. For the drummer, this can mean protection from the potentially damaging loudness of drums. For the vocalist, this can mean hearing what the mic hears. Due to the isolation, levels in the cans tend to be lower. So, there tends to be less ear fatigue when tracking. You can buy a pair as low as $79. Very highly recommended.

Get that yucky nylon fabric pop filter out of the way

The Stedman Proscreen 101 may be the best popscreen on the planet. It's metal so it can be washed. It does a remarkable job of getting rid of nasty plosives and rushes of air that go with recording the human voice. And, it does its job without adversely tainting the sound of the source. The Stedman PS101 pop filters do not attenuate high frequencies like the traditional nylon pop screens do. The metal mesh is much more durable than nylon fabric. You could destroy a Stedman PS101 if you really tried but in normal as well as heavy usage these hold up. Most users find the Stedman pop filter to be superior to the traditional nylon mesh filters.The Stedman goes for about $42 street. Very highly recommended.

It's simple: Better mic cable means better sound

Better cable does improve recordings. Blue makes a highly quality cable called the Blue Kiwi Microphone Cable. Mojo Pie hears a sonic improvement when using these cables. At $29 for a 20 foot cable, the Blue Kiwi Microphone Cable gives a solid value for money. Highly recommended.

It's all fundamentally explained in the 'Pro Audio Reference'

"Pro Audio Reference" is a 320-page compilation of articles concerning audio fundamentals, wiring, EQ, crossovers, dynamics and more. The quality is decent and the book is simple to navigate. The first 116 pages are the pro audio reference section, which works like a dictionary of audio terminology. You can look up "binary" and "0 db", or "mastering" or "SMPTE" and get a good, quick explanation. You can learn to speak the language of pro audio with this book, and more importantly get a clue as to what's being said around you. Highly recommended. It's $34.

Cool microphones

It looks cool and sounds cool: The Blue Dragonfly

Mojo Pie likes the Blue Dragonfly. It looks great. And, it sounds great. If you like a vocal mic with a hyped high end, then the Dragonfly excels at providing a complex but airy top end that you can't emulate by bumping the EQ. It sounds particularly good on male vocalists who sing in "normal" male registers. Despite being a mic with a carefully tailored soundscape, the Dragonfly comes across well on other sources besides male vocals. As one of Mojo Pie's friends from Nashville says, "It's nice on acoustic guitar." It runs $799 street. Highly recommended.

Give a classic: The Electro Voice EV RE20 dynamic mic

The Electro Voice RE20 is the opposite of the Blue Dragonfly. It's a dynamic mic where the Dragonfly is a condenser. The RE20 doesn't contain a hyped high end. It tends to shine on female vocalists and those strident male vocalists who think they should sing lead in Boston or Rush. Still, the RE20 puts across a normal male vocal range in a tasteful and useful way. You won't get that airy pop vocal sound but you'll get classic sound that musically goes with a lot of different voices. The RE20 also shines on bass guitar amps and kick drum. Oh yeah, it's one of the best dialog mics on the planet. Street price is $399. Highly recommended. Be mindful that the RE20 likes a mic pre with lots of gain.

Add some color and put some more $$ on the table

Edward the Compressor: The funky red box from England

Supposedly, Americans love equipment that imparts color whereas the rest of the world supposedly likes neutral equipment. Well, Mojo Pie doesn't know why but the most interesting gear for imparting color that came out in 2003 hails from England and Australia.

One reviewer called the Edward the Compressor "modern optical compression by the master." Eddie is the latest compressor from the design desk of compressor guru Ted Fletcher. While the unit is advertised as having the attack and release characteristics of three classic compressors, Edward the Compressor should be more thought of as a unique, funky red box from England that gives the user three flavors of compression plus a fourth choice that is more neutral. One compressor flavor allows manipulation of stereo width as well as allowing adjustment of transient release. Stereo width? Transient release? Go wild and create drum mixes that will make the Flaming Lips take note.

Mojo Pie recommends the Edward the Compressor to anyone seeking a colored stereo compressor for the rack. The Edward the Compressor is available in the USA from Soundsrite Audio (toll free 1 800 595-5054) for $1,359.

Sebatron's mic pre provides soulful tube color

While Ted Fletcher designs funky gear in England, a new designer came on the scene from Australia named Sebatron. His company makes the vmp-2000e, which is a two-channel tube mic preamp with switchable EQ. Yes, that's right. It's got switches with predefined EQ adjustments. Some of the EQ settings are pure genius. But, what separates this mic pre apart is color. It's got so much tube color that it makes the source sound soulful. Great minds might differ on whether a heavily colored pre should be a first, second or third pre to go in a rack. However, Mojo Pie recommends the vmp-2000e no matter what your personal philosophy of preamp priority might be. It's available in the USA from Watts Up Pro Audio for $925.