Hello everybody,
Home recording has been one of the recurring topics on the site lately and also in the weekly video chats. While talking about various gear, we noticed that several of us own a Joyo American True Tone Pedal, which itself is a copy of the Tech21 Blonde, an analogue Fender style preamp / amp simulator pedal, that is very cheap but sounds pretty decent. (In Europe the pedals are distributed by Thomann under their Harley Benton brand.) However, there has been almost no talk about these pedals here on SG101 so far, which led me to the question: Could these pedals be a real alternative for recording at home?

So I set out an a little experiment today: Recording surf music with the Joyo and only free software. I ended up using Audacity as an audio editor and Hydrogen as a drum machine. Both are freeware, open source and work on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

I compiled the various stages of this experiment into an audio file as a sort of walk-through, which I will add to the download section here on SG101 in the demo category.
EDIT: Here it is:
https://surfguitar101.com/downloads/details/864/

Besides the Joyo and the software I only used my cheap but sturdy Digitech Digiverb; here are the settings:

I used the middle pickup of my Fender Mexican Strat into the pedals and then directly into the soundcard input, and then tweaked the sound with the plug-ins in Audacity.

One of the helpful things I learned on the way, was how to add a grid in Audacity, so that the drum samples can be sequenced more easily. Here is a tutorial on Youtube.

For someone like me, who does not enjoy tinkering with submenues and comparing the benefits and shortcomings of different VSTs, which are supposed to model the same amp, this turned out to be a quite satisfying way of recording a few measures. I hope this is interesting or helpful for anyone; feel free to make suggestions!

Los Apollos - cinematic surf music trio (Berlin)
"Postcards from the Scrapyard" Vol. 1, 2 & 3 NOW available on various platforms!
"Chaos at the Lobster Lounge" available as LP and download on Surf Cookie Records!

Last edited: Jun 01, 2020 05:07:35

Sorry, I forgot, that it can take some time before the upload is cleared, otherwise I would have waited with the thread.

For the time being, I also uploaded the demo to Dropbox, where you can listen to it or download it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b59uphjzz8ct5qy/Joyo-Surf-Experiment.mp3?dl=0

I also uploaded the Audacity-multi-track-file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kcio8tjpw5si9rg/Joyo-Demo.zip?dl=0

So if people want to try out different plug-ins in Audacity or remix the tracks, feel free to experiment. (But please: no techno remix.) The coolest thing would of course be, if someone records a bass (has to be done with a Joyo though ) or finds a better way to process the audio in Audacity, than I have.

Los Apollos - cinematic surf music trio (Berlin)
"Postcards from the Scrapyard" Vol. 1, 2 & 3 NOW available on various platforms!
"Chaos at the Lobster Lounge" available as LP and download on Surf Cookie Records!

Wow! Thanks, I didn't expect that someone reacts with an audio contribution so soon! (And I realize only now, that the Audacity-file was a bit messy with some parts still too long and others too short. Sorry for that!)

I made a new mix, now with your bass track. It was interesting to see, how just adding the bass changed the whole mix and made some adjustments necessary.

First, I had to EQ the bass more precisely than the guitars to get a sound that fits into a rather traditional surf mix. For this I used the graphic EQ with the following settings:

After that I adjusted the mix to these levels:

Drums -7.5 dB
Rhythm Guitar +3.5 dB
Lead Guitar +3.5 dB
Bass -9 dB

After the mix-down I added reverb and limiter again as described in the original demo. The result can be found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0zi41p0d6snbfr6/Joyo-Demo-Bass-Master.mp3?dl=0

For me, it would be interesting to hear, how other people mix these tracks. One thing I now notice just half a day after the initial recording, is that the bass drum is still a bit too loud. But I'm too lazy to open up Hydrogen again and change the levels there, then reimport the new drum track etc.

Los Apollos - cinematic surf music trio (Berlin)
"Postcards from the Scrapyard" Vol. 1, 2 & 3 NOW available on various platforms!
"Chaos at the Lobster Lounge" available as LP and download on Surf Cookie Records!

This is really an interesting observation, especially since I don't really hear the moments you pointed out as distortion. Here is what I hear: The lead guitar player, either for dramatic effect or because of a lack of attention to his picking dynamic, played the two chords "too loud", resulting in more treble and a little more "character" from the amp. I actually thought of re-recording the lead, because the reason really was a lack of attention on my side, but then I decided to keep the take, since it is something that can happen in recording. And afterwards, especially in combination with the limiter, which kind of "crushes" the chords, I actually thought that this is something that happens a lot in some of the more lo-fi surf recordings.

Some of us talked some more about Hydrogen drum machine in the video chat in Sunday, and I offered to make the drum pattern available, so that people can experiment with the software. I decided to extend the pattern a bit to better showcase the possbilities of the software and made a four bar phrase with a drum roll at the end, which makes use of smaller subdivisions and the possibility to assign different intensities to individual drum hits. You can download the file here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/puz1dllwd8vtje3/surfbeat-demo.h2song?dl=0

After opening the file in Hydrogen for the first time you may have to assign the pre-installed drum kit to the pattern or there won't be any sounds played. Choose the GMkit from the sound library in lower right of the screen, left click and "load", as shown here:

(Sorry, my menues are in German and I don't know how to change hem to English.)

If you don't want to tinker and just have the loop with the fill, here is the exported WAV:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4g4dqpwbw2z17l/surfbeat160-demo.wav?dl=0

Los Apollos - cinematic surf music trio (Berlin)
"Postcards from the Scrapyard" Vol. 1, 2 & 3 NOW available on various platforms!
"Chaos at the Lobster Lounge" available as LP and download on Surf Cookie Records!

Thank you for starting this. I think this could grow into a very informative thread.

Or maybe you could copy a track before adding effects in Audacity and keep it muted. Then if you don't like the effects you've added, you don't have to scrap everything each time. I guess there's a history option, can't remember how it works. Audacity is a lot of fun

Very nice demo, simoncoil.
The playing is great, but all the elements sound a little thin to me, I think emphasizing a bit of low-mids individually via selective frequency compression (not E.Q. necessarily) could liven it up. The drums surely could benefit from slight tempo and emphasis variation.

As for REAPER -

It's a steeper learning curve than Audacity because it has a LOT more functions, but once you're settled with the interface, command shortcuts and your own workflow, it gets pretty smooth and intuitive. Of course, use what you're most comfortable with anyway.

simoncoil wrote:

Also, even though Reaper is free and works cross plattform, it is much harder to get it to work in Linux. And none of the VST-plug-ins work in Linux without extra software ...

It is not FREE, it's just NICE. After the demo period, REAPER politely asks you to buy a license for 5 seconds, which most software of this caliber won't even allow and just shut down.
And though the native plug-ins' graphic interface is not much to behold visually, the perform as good as the best of commercial VSTs, IMHO.
Hardware is easier, but you can't exactly recall unless taking a lot of notes...

Last edited: Jun 08, 2020 13:39:43