"Pārsliņa" (Flake)

"Pārsliņa" means "flake" (when referring to snow), and it is a name for my Ibanez guitar with the green pickguard. This is a meditation on a guitar, music, holiday and winter solstice theme. Happy New Year, and let there be harmony upon us !

Poulin LeCab 2

All hail LePou again ! We have the new version of guitar and bass impulse loader LeCab which features now 6 slots, input channel, low cut, high cut, phase inversion, panning, and - what makes a real difference - convenient browsing thru the impulses with "back" and "forward" buttons as well as drop-down menu with directory contents, and proud to mention design by Requietus. Get the LeCab 2 here, on LePou's site (~2 MB).

LeGion from LePou

Another great VST amp sim from LePou. This time it is completely original design, not based on any hardware gear. This high gain amp does not require any booster before it in the sound chain. GUI by Requietus. Download it here.

Floyd trem mods

A couple of neat mods to floyd rose equipped guitars - Ibanez Edge Pro arm torque and Schaller SureClaw replacement for conventional spring claw.

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You might also like the article about tremolo stabilization tools.

Ibanez Edge Pro arm torqueThis is a neat mod to Ibanez Edge Pro tremolo unit I find very useful. As we know the tremolo arm uses two bushings for arm torque which wear out very fast. And the time isn’t weeks or months, but hours or minutes, and the included extra bushings aren’t of great help here. So this is what we do to tighten the arm torque.
For me, I use D’Addario strings for many years and the cellophane (?) packaging helps here.
Tear off a small bit of the cellophane and
twist it clock-wise around the tip of the tremolo arm. More towards the bottom end. Hold it very tight.
Then insert the trem arm into the baseplate also turning the arm clockwise. You need to keep the cellophane very tight around the tip as you sink it into the hole.
And then you’re done. You’ll get the technique as you do that again and again. For me, this wrap works for months. Keeps the arm very tight, perfect for flutter, for example. The main reason for me is that I like having the arm fixed at the point that I want it to be (for easier grab), not just hang and roughly gravitate.

And by the way. These pictures are Ibanez RG350 which originally had Edge III trem which had this arm torque control with the hex screw (very handy) like Gotoh units have but it is very cheap materials, wears out very quickly and you’ll need to change it to, say, Edge Pro, which is an excellent trem. BUT, be sure to change the Edge III trem posts to Edge Pro trem posts as well, because that is at least 80% impact on stability. It will require body routing, so bring the axe to a trusted luthier but I really stress that changing Edge III to Edge Pro without changing trem posts might ruin your impression of the latter trem. I’ve read a lot of forums that guy here and guy there is exchanging the trems but not a word about the trem posts. Just pay attention in this case.

Schaller Sure Claw

I am in no way connected with Schaller Electronic GmbH but this is a very handy little thing to maintain your floyd rose equipped guitar.
It installs in the spring cavity to replace the traditional spring claw which. SureClaw mounts with two screws vertically into the body. (Please note that this is Ibanez RG350 and SureClaw might not work for many guitars, please do the measurements yourself. The reason is that on the other side might be pickup. For example, Jackson Dinky bodies do not allow this to be mounted)
The convenience it gives is that you can tighten or loosen the springs with a hex screw.
You just put your deadening porolone and
put the trem cavity plate on. Drill a circular hole in it and you’ve got access to your SureClaw without having the need to remove the plate to make any adjustments. Turn the screw clockwise to stretch the springs or counter-clockwise to loosen.
This is how SureClaw looks far clockwise turned.
And far counter-clockwise turned.

Hope you find this useful. SureClaw retails at 25EUR.

LeXTAC from LePou

Inspired by a great Californian boutique amplifier, LePou has made another vst amp sim masterpiece. Check out the new LeXTAC at his website. GUI by Requietus.

"Zaķīšu pirtiņa" (Hares' bathhouse)

This is a very famous latvian animation movie of 70ties (correct me if I'm wrong) originally performed by group "Menuets". This video I present is more like my rock version for it, with some lyrics and sounds from the original movie audible in the background.

Those of you who haven't seen the original one, I would even suggest to do that first.

Enjoy !

LE456 from LePou

I am proud to announce that there is a new amp sim from mister LePou called LE456, for which I was doing the skin. The first guess would be probably correct about what gear it emulates.

AcmeBarGig Preampus Metal - cont'd

Two more plugins released by AcmeBarGig - Series 60 and C-15. Both are high gain at its most. Download Series 60 here and C-15 here. GUI by Requietus.

AcmeBarGig Preampus Metal - Razor

I am lucky to have designed some plugins for a VST plugin company AcmeBarGig. The first in the series is Razor. Download it here (2,3 MB). Check back soon because the "Preampus Metal" line will feature more amps.

Updates for stereo

I have received many requests to update some of plugins here with stereo capabilities. The background is of course the extended routing possibilities, for example, it's convinient to feed a stereo bus with two separate channels and to have a single plugin on insert, for double-tracking. Thus, we very much appreciate stereo plugins nowadays. But, please be warned, these are more CPU-intensive since there are two instances loaded with each.

update: Simulanalog Guitar Suite Stereo

update: TSS GUI Wrapper Stereo