Gear


	Purple Peach Generation "String Studio" is an combination of a few things, first of all it is the name of my home recording studio where I do all the recordings and projects I have been working on over the years. In late September 2009 I started to do so "Product review video" recordings for a music store, and for this I also did the voice over recordings at the home studio. In that same year, I also started to make short films and special effects under the name "String Video" together with my cousin. 90% of all the sound and effects where also recorded in that Purple Peach Studio, this is how I came up with the name, Purple Peach Generation studio - String Studio. Both the Purple peach generation and string video have there own FaceBook page, and string video has it's own youtube channel. Please visit both and subscribe and like them....it will really help us.


	In the studio I use different gear, software and setups, and I collected some great gear to work with. So let me give you a little tour on what gear I am using.

The guitar effects from Zoom has always been one of my favorite guitar effects, and for me it goes band to the year where I used the Zoom 9002 multi effects box.
Time and technique changes over the years, and I tried all sorts of different brands and effects.
None of them really give me the sound I was looking for, the sound of a Zoom.
Because I was really missing that unique sound, I started to look around in Aug. 2013 for the typical ’80 sound of the Zoom effects.
Still my favorite was the Zoom 9002 or the 9002 Pro box, and with a little luck I found this website and they where selling all kind of great vintage zoom effects, plus they also had the Zoom 9050.
After writing some mail, this company shipped me there Zoom 9050 and it is in my collection now.
A truly amazing sounding ’80 guitar effect which fit perfectly in my playing and style of music.
A big thanks to Stanley, who help me getting this.
I am planning a little video demonstration no this guitar effect, so you have an idea what I am talking about.
And if you are looking for a similar effect, check there website.


	Tweets by @ghostonastring

In October 2013 I started with a new acoustic recording project, and I wanted to have a different approach to it.
So when I was doing some research on recording Vocals, I saw the Ken Tamplin Video where he explained some of the voicing techniques he used to record and double his vocal tracks.
From there I saw a demo on the TC-Helicon Voicetone pedals.
These pedals where developed for live vocal performances so you would get the studio sound and feel while you are doing you live shows.
But both Live and for studio recordings those TC-Helicon Voicetone pedals gave you more control on the whole recording presses.
At this moment I own three pedals;

The Voicetone R1 is a reverb, with great settings like the hall and room and really opens up your voice, the Voicetone D1 is a Doubling & Detune, which open new doors and saves time for recording the doubling voice tracks.
The Voicetone T1 is an adaptive tone & Dynamics controller, like a compressive/limiter to keep your voice leveled and balanced while you do your performance or recording.

Maybe in the future the Voicetone H1 for vocal harmonies will be added, but for the time being this will be my vocal recording set to finish my projects.
All three TC-Helicon pedals are used in the Acoustic Universe project on all my vocal parts.
Once the record is done, you can listen to parts of it at the media section page, so you will have an idea on how I used them.
At a later time I will also record some short gear review video on all three TC-Helicon pedals, so you will have an up-close look on how and what they can do, so you would have an idea why you'll need these pedals in your gear setup for recordings and live performances.
They promise a stable, high quality, professional result, guaranteed vocal performances.


				This is my AKG perception-200 studio vocal microphone, which is a balanced and stable microphone. The AKG Perception 200 is a large diaphragm true condenser microphone offering outstanding build quality and excellent value. It delivers a classic warm, transparent sound and conforms to the stringent standards recording products. The two switches at the front can offer you different variations on recordings. Switch 1: is the bass cut filter and will reduces low-end distortion cause by footfall or wind noises. 2: can increase the headroom by 10 dB of the distortion free close-in recordings.


				I used it for all the projects I have worked on over the years. And especially on my latest project "Acoustic History". With the Shock-proof ring, you will have the stability you need for the perfect recordings. Also needed for this microphone is the poof-filter in front of the microphone, to naturalize all the hard tones in the S and P's from the words.


		To clear all the room's acoustics, I have the T.Bone Micscreen set up as my studio vocal booth filter, which absorbs and diffused all the bouncing noises in my studio. A professional Vocal filter, needed in any home recording studio.




	When I was recording some Demo videos, I had the Shure sm57 set up in front of the amplifier, and I was amazed by the recording sound for this microphone. The downside was…..the microphone wasn’t mine, and I had to give it back to the rightful owner. When I started to record some acoustic tracks, I need a microphone for recording both my Washburn D10 and the Washburn WD10s 12 string guitar. So when I came across this Shure Beta 57A microphone, I know I had to have this one. And this is a true sounding microphone, since he keeps all the tones in there natural sound for a perfect pitched and balanced recording, a must have when you record your live instrument.

Guess who is back in the purple peach generation studio, the amazing Boss GX700 19” inch multi effects system.
The love of this machine started for me in half 1993, and I used it up until 2004, but I always regret selling it since it contained 80% of my sound and settings which I was never really able to get from other brands.
Still I have to re-prrogram and set most of my favorite settings but this is a keeper.
Since I really love that early ’80 rock sound, this is the one to get, easy to use because of the user-friendly interface and panel.

Plus all the traditional and classic floor stomp boxes will be found in this rack system.
The best delay’s, distortions, en reverbs are available by a one click of a button.
I will try to make a little video from this somewhat later, so you can have a better idea why I like this boss effect so much.
The only thing that needed to be added to this is some midi floor controller like the Zoom 8050 or the Roland Fc200.
But since it is mounted in my studio for recordings, I don't really need this for the moment.

To connect and control my instrument to my pc recording, I use the Edirol M16DX v2 soundcard/break box.
There are a few cool techniques to this Edirol breakbox, one of the nice features is the room analyzer.
This will analyze the rooms acoustic environment, so you will have the perfect setup on space and sound bounces.
By pressing the analyze button, it will give out some signals and this will be analyzed by the system by overlaying the perfect EQ.
Meaning; you will always have the perfect settings for your recordings and mixing.

The Edirol m16DX is designed to work with any recording tool for the pc, but when you use the Sonar Cakewalk series, you'll get some nice extra features from this Edirol.
One of the features is the learn mode, where you can teach the Sonar to understand and record everything you do on the Edirol in your live recordings or later in the mix.
Meaning, that when it is set in the learn mode and I change something on the Edirol module mixing board, sonar will learn from it...and record this in the song.
When you do a play back, you will see it will also playback you setting change in the recording,....and this is really helpful.
The module offered 16 instrument channels, so this will also work great for quick back recordings.

I found out about this system when I was at a clinic for the East West Quantum Leap and Cakewalk sonar 7 Demonstration clinic at Feedback Rotterdam.
After the clinic we talked a little, and I found out that this would be the best solution for my home recordings.
And since that day, it never let me down.
You can listen to my resent project "Acoustic history", there I fully use this Edirol consol...and you will understand what I mean.

This is my Samson resolve 120a active Subwoofer, which is a 10” inch heavy-duty speaker of 40-180 Hz.
This will take care of the low end sounds in bass.
I have connected this directly to my mixer, and from there the sound will be transported to the main monitor speakers.
There are two knobs at the back, one is volume and the other is the attack for setting a bigger “boom” in the low end sounds.

I am using this woofer since May 2008, and it has brought me much change into my music.

My sound has a bigger range on the low, and gives an opener feel to my music.
While using the East West Quantum Leap Orchestra or EzDrummer, the bass is more “in our face” now and it doesn’t sound that layered anymore.
I wasn’t sure if I would use it at first, but since it’s hocked up to my gear………it’s great.
And now my Samson Resolve 80a speakers get more attention for the mid and high on my sounds.

These are the Samson Active Resolve 80a 8” inch monitor speakers that I use now days.
I use this set since 12-21-2007.
Up until this day, I was always playing over some Audio Speakers, which work fine while I was recording the old way.
Now that I am recording on my pc, I get a much better tone with those speakers.
This is a 75 watts on the low and 25 watts on the High set speakers, which I hocked directly to Samson Resolve 120a woofer.
The great sound from this set, is giving my music a new dimension.

The song that were already recorded the old

old way, sounded so much better on this set.
I could hear instruments I didn’t know that where there.
I have tried some classical music and some heavy sounding files, and they all where great and so much different then they were played on my old set.

Some of the other instruments that I play is the Moth harmonica.
I can’t really remember when or why I started to play, but I remember that I loved the sound from the records my dad used to listen to.
My main inspiration on playing the harp became when I saw the film Cross roads, with Ralph Macchio, Joe Seneca and Steve Vai.
And I started to get more serious playing the harp when I was 23 or something, and I had my first Hohner Pro Harp in the key of G.
I did some recordings with this, including the solo part on one of the songs on the Acoustic history record.

At the moment I own three other Hohner Harps, all three are the Hohner Marine Band in the Key of C, D, and A.
The collection will be somewhat bigger at a later moment, and then I will also add the Bb, F and E to make it a complete blues set.
The Hohner harmonica’s are the leading brand on the market, and I believe the offer you the best authentic blues harmonica sound.
Try them out for your self, I am sure you will love them.






	To record the harmonicas that I use in my music, I use the Hohner blues blaster harp microphone. In a way you can use any good instrument microphone like a Shure microphone, the different with this microphone is it’s housing and hardware, which gives you more of a vintage Chicago blues harmonica sound. The blues blaster has it’s own volume control knob and works with a low-to-high impedance transformer, and is a hand-hold lightweight microphone which is easy to handle while you are playing the harmonica. The Blues Blaster comes with a XLR to Jack cable, so you can also hock it up to any amplifier for live purposes. Also this is easy to attach to any microphone stand, but I believe this works the best when you hold the microphone to the housing of the harmonica, to get a more direct sound for both live and your recordings.

This is my new digital M-Audio 88se keystation, which is a 88-note velocity-sensitive, semi-weighted action keyboard without a sound module in it.
I use this to control al my midi based sounds in Fruity loops.
On this M-Audio keystation, there is a wider ranch of keys to play in, which is very useful when you are using programs like the Ivory – Grand Pianos.
This Keystation is Midi and USB, while using the USB there is no delay on the input which works really great when you are playing your recordings.
For this I use a SP-2 sustain pedal,
This pedal has a heavy chrome with a spring release, which work really great and it gives you the feel of a real piano sustain pedal.





	The Little Alligator is the Steve Vai signature Volume pedal made by Morley. I own this pedal from the days that I was working with the Boss GX700 19” inch rack effects, and I needed something to kill my sound every now and then. Over the years my set up changed, but I am still using this pedal as my main volume pedal. This is the first in line of the effects pedals that received my guitar signal, and not only I can kill the sound when ever it is needed, but I can also use it to make some swell in effects. The knob enables you to adjust the attack on the signal, more direct or slower. This works great in a both live or home recording setup.





	The bad Horse is the also a Steve Vai Signature Pedal made by Morley, and this model is one of the first editions Morley made. What I like most about this pedal, is it’s switching in the on or off mode, since there is an infra red eye on the inside, that knows when I am pressing or releasing the pedal so it can be on (effected) or off (un-effected). This is a little delay in the off switching, and this is adjustable if you want for a quicker attack or release mode. The pedal work really well for those signature Steve Vai guitar talking effects, but it works also pretty well as any other traditional wah-wah pedal.


	My own signature plectrums are designed by myself, in a "wild west" western style. The picks are 0.92 mm think and they are the regular plectrum size. At first I had to get comfortable with the new plectrums, since I have been playing with the signature Ibanez Paul Gilbert plectrums for over 16 years now, And they are a lot smaller compared with what I am using now.

But they play really well, complete with the four cards of Aces, Bullet holes, Bulls skull and Guns, my signature and web address, this turned out to be a really cool looking plectrum.

Still I use my Paul Gilbert Signature Ibanez picks for electric guitar, and I have no idea what I would do if I didn't had them anymore.
They really shred and that is what I really like.
But not the Wild-West is added to my pick collection, and they are mind blowing.

In my early days of multi track recording, I was using a Tascam Porto 8 4 track recording system.
This machine was great, but had his limits since it was recording on a standard cassette tape.
So soon I had my first digital 4 track recorder the Yamaha MD4 and later the MD8 midi-disk recorder.
For near 14 years I have used the Yamaha MD8 recorder for most of my early days recordings.
When I read in the dutch magazine "Guitarist" about the Toontrack EZdrummer plug-in, I wanted to see if this would be something I would need in my recording process.
When I saw the demo about it's use, I was flabbergasted by its sound,


	and this was something I wanted to have in my studio. Slowly I sold most of my hardware 19" inch effects and gear, and started to collect some computer based recordings tools and software. And since then the recordings turned for the better.

I have been using the Sonar Cakewalk Producer since I have the Edirol M 16DX V2 mixer, simply because this is the best combination in recording possibilities.
The Edirol is build to work along with Sonar, which save a lot of time when I am recording.
Especially on the mixing end, there is a great interface that allows you to get the best you can get from a recording program like this.
I used Sonar for numbers of projects, including the Product video voiceovers, Film Scoring, and for the recording of all my own music, since it is so easy to set up an audio track recording, with a connected BUS for the effects, and from there to the master mixer, without loosing any CPU use which could cost any stutter on the output signal.

The Producer version offers the unlimited number of audio and midi tracks, where the essentials gives a maximum of 64 audio tracks.
The Sonar Cakewalk X2 Producer edition is an easy to use recording program, that gives you a Home recording studio of the quality like the pro’s.

EzMix is a recording mixing plug-in, with pre-made settings to make your sound bigger, and your mixing easier.
The difference between the EzMix and any other brand mix plug-in is that EzMix asks less hardware performances from your system.
I used the EzMix over 19 recording channels, 1 plug-in on 15 channels each, and on the 4 vocal channels I used 2 times the plug-in, and still I had resources left over on my machine.

This is almost impossible with other 3rd party software.
I don’t have the extension packs for this yet, but I guess...…that is just a matter of time.

Ez drummer is the most powerful virtual drumming VSTi on the market.
The nice thing about this VSTi is the real-time interface of the drum kit, which is really helpful with your drum programming, because you’ll get a visual of what is happening on your kit.
Which gives you a direct notes when there is something wrong in the programming.
I use the EzDrummer collection for all my recordings now, it’s easy to work with and it offers you some great template you build your songs from, cause you can drag and drop option from the EzDrummer interface to its host.
For a starter just the ezDrummer rock kit works just fine, but the cool thing about the program is that it is extendable with extra kits and midi
packs.

All kits have different dynamics, look & feel, and sound.
One of the newest add-on from ToonTrack for EzDrummer for the real metalheads out there.
For what it looks like, it’s based on “drum kit from hell” but then on steroid.
With the new mixed drum samples that give a wider rage in sound, double kick on a high end level.
The thing that I like the most about this version is, that the kicks are now 2 separated instruments which Enables you to set them each to another feel and dynamic.
There are two kits included in this installation along with 12 pre-programmed midi-files by Tomas Haake, member of the extreme metal band Meshugga.
Still this kit will fit any style of playing, but it offers you more with you want to go to the extreme.

This is my favorite kit at the moment, and don’t let the name fool you.
Yes is a pure metal kit, but the sensitivity of this kit is so wonderfully programmed that is fits for any kind of music making.
The dynamics is different and never seen in any other VTSi plug-in before, for that reason I used it on most of the backing for my acoustic history project, the ranch is a bright variety of sounds and progression drummer velocity.
Also included is the new mixer which enables you to set the sound for each kick, tom or cymbals.
And mind blowing plug-in.

I have been using the East West Quantum Leap series for some number of years now.
I found out about those VSTi at the same Roland Edirol - Sonar Cakewalk Clinic day, and I was blown away by the sound quality that those plug inns can give you.
I started with both the " Voices of passion" and " Gypsy" and used both in different numbers of projects.
Later I added the Stromdrums 2 and the pro update, when I was doing some of the StringVideo movie scores, and with those bombastic sounds our short films became bigger and bigger in sound.
Silk is one of my latest Play plug inns that I have added to the collection.

All instruments are Asian based, with some true velocity sound samples and instruments.
All of the East West Quantum Leap Vst instruments and easy to use and has a very understandable interface.
And each of them, will bring you the orchestration you need for you projects.
Low CPU use, but they eat some of your Memory, so make sure you have some in your machine.

There are several different sorts of Virtual Instruments collections from East West QL.
From a full Orchestra to Rare instruments, Ethnic percussion and instruments and great film scoring tools like Goliath, Choir, and the Hollywood strings.
And when you like the early 60's take a look at the Fab Four, for that flower Power sound.

I can't really remember how I found out about the Ivory Piano series, I think it was somewhere on Jordan Rudess website.
The Ivory grand Piano includes a great sound of the Steinway D, Bosendorf 290 and Yamaha C7 piano's and over 19 GB of library samples.
Along with a selection of great effects, so you could get an opener feel into your sound.
The nice thing about this software is the room effects and the great velocity layers.
With this, you will get a real piano in your own living room.

I have been using this plug-in for number of years now, and I am still


	amazed by it's sound, option and possibilities. I can use both my Key Station and Kurzweil to play (program) this Ivory Grand piano. I haven't find any other Piano VST yet that can give me the same sound quality as the Ivory series. So for any recording pianist this product is a must have installed VSTi for your projects.
































			I extended my library with some add-on midi packs, so I had more templates to work with in my song writing. From extreme metal to simple beats, but these work the best for everybody’s songwriting. Those can be really used for song building, jamming or creating ideas. All midi files can be edit into your own idea's or styles so you can start from them as a template. The following packs are added to my library: Library of the Extreme – Blasts & Fills Library of the Extreme – Death & Thrash Monster Midi Pack Monster Midi Pack 2 – odd meters Monster Midi Pack 3 – Fills Monster Midi Pack 4 – Fills odd meters Drum Riffs Rock Solid Songwriters Drumpack Songwriters Drumpack 2





			Currently I am using the 11th edition of Fruityloops, this is an 64bit Producers edition. The great thing about it is that I can use some great system memory to make my music, since the programs that I use, do need some great system requirements. Mainly I use Fruityloops as the host of all my VSTi programs. (Virtual Studio Technology Instruments) The program can offer you a lot more than just being a host, like there is a great library of sounds, loops and effects.


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