Billy Zoom graciously opened his studio and top secret sonic laboratories to the GDP last Sunday night, and I have pics and audio samples of his new amps.
He had invited me to come by and see the gear, and since he'd also invited TV Jones – and Tom had wheels at the show and I was a hitchhiker – I begged a ride with the Joneses. So after the show closed last Sunday, and while Joe struggled with the logistical burden of packing up the Gretsch display, I helped carry out the last pieces of the TV Jones booth and we headed off into the balmy LA suburban night for some Mexican food. "We" included Tom, his wife Liz and her best friend Becky, TV's right- (and left-) hand girls Lindsey and Tauna, Jan from the Gretsch Foundation, Adam from Bigsby, and me.
Don't ask me where we were – I was riding, and LA is all a blur of light to me – but after supper, we drove a few blocks to Billy's studio.
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He opened up to the secret knock, and he and his manager Mike Rouse welcomed us into the control room. I thought it might be just possible you'd want to see what that looked like, so I used my bowtie camera to capture some spy shots.
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The mixer faces a wall to the right, with the window to the studio proper at the engineer's left shoulder. This arrangement (and the packing blankets hung overhead) minimize any trouble with standing waves reflecting off studio glass in a small room to confuse audio decisions.
Note the vintage iron in the racks, the range of compressors, and only one tool for making fiddly candy effects noises. A plate reverb is housed outside the control room.
But we weren't there to play with the studio...we were there to listen to amps. And that's coming right up.
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