 Hey everybody, I'm Steve at Blackstar. Welcome to May's webcast on home recording. Thank you for joining us this evening Just to let you know what gear we are going to be using tonight We've got one of our rather new lovely artist 30 combos here Which is a recent valve addition to our range of products and for recording wise We're going to be using the iPad and garage band, which is a one of the earliest platforms for home recording We've got a little focus right Interface here, which we'll be using and also we've got our beam base electric acoustic Music all in one box and also we've got our brand new ID core high-powered 150 combo here to use as well and I'm hoping to utilize some of the features of each throughout this small presentation But just to give you a bit of a background on the artist series There's two in the range. There's a 15 watt 1 by 12 and a 2 by 12 30 watt combo available at the moment two channels, but Typically you'd normally get a clean and a dirty channel on an amplifier But this time what black star I've done is really focused on building a product for the pedal Guitar player that likes using stomp boxes and so on so with this you've got two choices of clean Which is really really nice The first channel is very simple It's just a volume and a tone control and this more this is more of a kind of Class A kind of British style barking clean sound if you like Channel 2 it's a little bit more going on. You've got bass middle treble as well as gain and volume For that specific channel and black stars infinite shape feature the patent ISF at the end of the chain there Which is more of a class AB if you like more of an American style sound With a little bit more grit if you push the volume level And the gain and then we've got master reverb and master volume as well. So the nice thing about these products is that they Sound great for vintage guys blues and rock guys But if you just keep it clean and drive anything with high gain in the front it works really really well um For me at the moment we're just going directly in because i'm feeling the sands of the amplifier itself just direct It's sometimes nice just to plug your guitar direct into an amp and play around but because we've got a master volume on this You could easily use this at home for recording. So we're not particularly loud in here today but um This will absolutely blow the roof off most venues if you're if you're on stage with it But also for recording you can turn the master down and drive each channel Accordingly to the sound you're after Um, let me show you some sound bites. So this is the first channel, which is quite clean from the outset Even if we push the volume on that specific channel all the way up it's still really clean Really nice just a perfect platform for any pedal really Onto the second channel. I've got the gain roughly about one o'clock. So there's a little bit more grip there Um, but by no means is it high gain Just shoot back and forth so you can hear that difference again between the two channels If I drive the second channel you do get a bit more bite as we said But by no means is it's super high gain If I switch my guitar to humbuckers you do get a bit more grit, of course Let's go to the bridge. So we're really pushing it there full gain on second channel bridge humbucker A nice classic blues or rock tone there But you can imagine hopefully putting a boost pedal through the front end or a drive to give it a bit more amazing sound So, yeah, let's maybe um try and record something I've already got a preloaded drum track, which is a just a simple groove And the first thing i'm going to do really is a a nice rhythmic track Using the artist amp So let's see what we can come up with. I kind of like that lick I was doing previously We just some just some basic chords if you like So let's uh, let's see what we can come up with that sounds pretty good. So should we take a quick listen? Let's see how it sounds That sounds pretty good to me so far. Um, I think I mentioned this before but we're using a couple of monitors here just to Monitor what I'm doing is if you were at home with your own small studio monitors as well. So I'm happy with that. Let's maybe try and look at a bass line Okay, so you can see I've got a bass guitar with me now and I'm going through the black star beam Which is a a desktop amplifier for the home user really Um, and it's a really lovely bit of kit It's made from a really nice wooden cabinet each speaker inside is encased in its own wooden cabinet as well Which is ported each speaker, which is stereo, of course Um is tuned to the cab The whole ton of r&d went into this product to make it absolutely the best it can possibly be and It's a beam is an acronym if you're not already aware of that bass electric acoustic music It's a bluetooth speaker. It's a guitar amplifier with many many different Stars of sounds from clean to scream. There's a couple of acoustic simulators in there. There's two Two preamps for an acoustic electro acoustic guitar and two for a bass as well Um and you can use it for usb recording You can use it in conjunction with our insider software as well for Deeper editing and using the phrase trainer and all that stuff and sharing patches with people around the world um and most importantly it has black star super wide stereo which really Uh immerses you in like almost like playing in a stadium. The sound is bouncing around the room Almost like a three-dimensional sound for your effects like reverb and delay and so on Um, but I want to really show you just how good the bass side of things can be which is something we don't often focus on um So we have two bass voices one classic and one modern sound So at the moment, this is the first voicing which is more of a classic bass sound if you like The second voicing is more of a modern sound with more of a kind of click to it Um Quite a different sound there, but we're going to stick with the first one That's what i'm feeling for this specific track a bit more of a vintage blues style sound if you like Um, but there are some effects as well. Um, if you're used to the effects on the id section You'll know that the the first four segments are for reverb, but obviously Bass and reverb isn't Really a useful thing for it for most. Um, so we've put four styles of distortion in there Um, but the interesting thing is the segment becomes a blend control between a wet and a dry mix For your clean tone and your distorted tone, which sits underneath so you can get some really interesting sounds for example The the primary sound that you're here now is a very clean tone Very much a clean tone if I just add a distortion in which is just a small mix of it You can no doubt hear that undercurrent of overdrive which is Really useful for recording if the track suited it, you know, so you can almost get your Mini desktop black star b-man to sound like it's going through a huge eight by ten stack And rumbling and pushing and compressing Um, also we've got an envelope filtering there, which is a new effect for the modulations If you're into bootsie collins and funk music that's awesome to use But for now, we're just going to keep it dry and we're just going to play along with the chords I've put down and We'll see how it sounds Okay, so let's have a listen back to that and see if the levels are all good Sounds pretty good to me sounds good so far. Um, just to let you know while I was using the beam Um, we basically bypassed the focus right interface Um, and we're just going direct from the usb output of the beam Into a camera extension kit which is supplied by apple Um, and you can get these from apple store or online Um, and it allows me to have a usb to lightning connection for my ipad Simple, but we're we're demonstrating the possibilities of using the beam via usb to any any door So you can use it with anything like that you've got on your laptop and any any programs and so on so That sounds pretty good. Um To finish things off with some lead work or some melodies melodies over the top We're going to look a little closer at the brand new black star id core 150 combo here Okay, so now we're on to the brand new id core 150. Um, these amps are Brand new to black stars range. They were launched recently at the music messa show in frankfurt, germany and um so far so good everyone that's heard them has been absolutely raving about them Um, just to let you know a little bit of spec about the products There's two in the range both of which are using two by ten speakers and they're very very ultra light weight So these are ideal for the gigging musician in mind because id core the initial range of that Entry level combo style was basically a 10 watt 20 and a 40 watt So now we've done the high powered stuff because people were asking Oh, can I gig the 40 and to be honest with you that small range of combos was really built for home It's got full range speakers in there ideal for recording home practice listening back to audio Um, but these have got proper guitar speakers in there proper loud speakers So, um, we've kept that lightweight thing in mind So this is going to be really easy to carry back and forth to the gigs and practice rooms We've still got super wide stereo usb for recording and connectivity We've got an effects loop on there stereo effects loop Um, emulated stereo line out fully cue this time And all the great features that are typically part of id core In addition to that we've got a built-in looper with 30 second looping time So you can literally record something clean and then change a channel or a preset with your foot switch And you can get a nice lead sound over the top and when you record an overdub It doesn't take away that 30 seconds. It's still Infinite amount of overdubs with that 30 second period And lastly we've got a built-in octaver in there, which is a new thing for black star Again, that gives you a little bit more than just one sound There's a low or a high octave to choose from and you can mix between the two And have a little blend of two as well And also there's a wet and a dry mix between your original guitar signal and the octave So for example, you could have a little smidgen of the high octave With a minimal mix to make your clean guitar sound like a 12 string rickenbacker for that 60s kind of flower power vibe Or you can turn the octave really low And have a lot of mix so you can basically make your guitar sound like you're part of royal blood Or muse or something like that or jack white just some interesting Guys that use octave in an interesting way. So Lots of opportunities with this, but for now, I'm just going to put a couple more kind of tracks on this song The first one we're going to go for is more of a picking Clean sound which is something like this Just adding a bit more glue to the track before we play something which is Lead related lead guitar related. So, uh, let's see what we can do Let's have a listen back to that to see how it sounds and feels It's working for me. So, um Let's try another track and just to let you know as well. We're using the usb at Directly into the ipad as well similar to what we did with the beam Okay, so to finish things off. Um, I'm just going to do a lead guitar Track now to add to the song. Um, but I've set myself up a couple of presets Which I'm using with the floor controller to change So I've got I can go from my clean sound which we've just put down To a slightly semi-driven rhythmic tone For lead as well if it was a subtle blues style sound and then I've got a high gain at the end of it as well But also I can add with my control pedal I can add a delay in there as well, which will work midway through soloing maybe Which has got the super wide stereo on which sounds really really lovely. Um, so let's see what happens So let's see how that feels So as you can see that sounds pretty decent really and we've not tried to mix it or eq it really in any any detail Um, but by utilizing, you know Such powerful products like the artist series at lower volume at home um, the beam which is really a The central hub for the home guitar player and the brand new id core high powered 150 which again is really built for gigging but again, you can keep it really low for Recording at home and utilizing the usb and all the other features As always black star is trying to help you the guitar player at home Find the best tools you can so I hope this this has been a little bit educational for you. Um Any of you that are writers home recording? Hopefully it's been hopefully it's been helpful. So we'll see you very soon. Thanks for watching and I've been steve at black star. Cheers