dsound999

Wow. What a different planet it is for those who have a job compared to those looking for one and struggling to find or make any income. Got a full time job, with full time benefits, and start this next monday.
Cant even relate. After two years of waking up and wondering what I need to do to find a job or make some money, and working on that every damn day all damn day long, all of a sudden, I dont have to anymore.
All I have to do is get ready to start work on Monday.
Of course we've gotta get outta this house that the scum from Bank of America are taking from us, good riddance to the underwater mortgage.
Gotta find a place in San Antonio, convenient to UTSA and move asap.
Gotta get son enrolled in summer day care, cause both parents are working!
Gotta get son enrolled in 6th grade somewhere in San Antonio, cause thats where were moving.
Gotta do a bunch of new stuff.
BUT DONT gotta get up and worry about income and what I'm gonna do about it, for the first time in years.
The difference is amazing, overwhelming, tense, relaxed, and basically wonderful.

A lot of shows to pick from this Fri - Sat in the Hill Country. I'm gonna take the family out to check out the Tin Roof Steakhouse in Boerne on Fri. Pretty damn pricey, but a really active live music stage. May or may not be able to see headliner as will have kid in tow, but will be able to at least check out the room and the opener. 
Not sure about Sat. yet. Jeff Keith Band is at Inn Of The Hills here in Kerrville. So, I'll wanna drop by there at some point and here how their live sound is going. Will see what else I can go listen to in town, usually pretty limited.

What I've Learned About Preamps
Tube pre`s create a different kind of distortion than SS pre`s do, when overdriven. They also have different sounds when not overdriven. SS tends to pass more of the precise input signal than tubes but can generate bad noise when clipped. Tubes have a frequency/SPL response due to their nature that does not happen in the Solid States. There are SS pre`s that are modeled after, or will emulate tube sounds.

The rule of thumb on impedance is a preamp input Z about 10 times the mic output Z.

Multiple pre`s in the studio provides flexibility, more colors to paint with.

Sweetwater/Research talks about bypassing noisy loud amps by using DI into a pre. In our studio Mark Sinko often does both mic and DI. DI into a pre can model distortion and other amp sounds, or the DI into pre can be recorded clean and modified later at mix in the box.

Out in search of income on New Years Eve. Had previously met Jeff Keith Band at Salmon Peak Studio, and they were playing at Auslander's in Fredericksburg. Jeff's put together a good group of guys and they've got a popular repertoire. So I went over there early enough to catch them setting up and starting. They plugged their little powered head straight into the two hanging cabinets at the stage and used three on stage wedges for monitors. 
The house's hanging cabinets dont sound very good, putting it nicely. Midrange was badly distorted, clipping, overdriving, and generally sucked. I kept pulling down the mids and eventually got most of the distortion out. Their PA head had an effects send, and they needed a little, but it was too flaky for me to find a simple slapback reverby thing when I had to go on-stage to change things. Mike Pas, bass player, uses a small cabinet with a pretty good dose of monitors. Once he settled into a level I got him mixed in good. 
All in all they sounded pretty good. Hope it didnt piss'em off, but I split and went to checkout whoever was at Pampells in K'ville. A good size Austin band, never got their name, but they needed a lot of mix help. Gave them some quicky advice on the vocals. Met the leader, handed him a card and got their next Pampells date, Jan 14. Will try to catch them early enough . . . . ......