sonofgearfight #7: The Conversation

[mo]

Submit an original song using the following prompts:
Title: "The Conversation"
Challenge: don't suck
Non-mandatory Inspiration Prompt: Gene Hackman (take this any way you want: emotional metaphors, quotations, samples, just general inspirational vibes, whatever)
Due Date: 11:59 pm PT, March 9, 2025
Donor: mo
Prizes:

One (1) AionFX Ares pedal, handbuilt by some guy somewhere. Handpainted as well, although in this case that is not necessarily a great thing haha. It is a very, very good clone of the ClinchFX EP-Pre, which is a pedal version of the preamp circuit of the Maestro Echoplex EP-3. It has three settings on a switch for the brighter original tone, a darker tone, and a raw boost which is much louder. The EP-3 preamp is legendary for being the "secret sauce" in many guitarists' rigs, but it also works for anything else, bass, keys, whatever, because what some very clever people have figured out is that besides the extremely slight boost it can add (about 3 dB at max) and a very subtle EQ shift (tighter bass, slight upper mid peak, slight presence roll-off), it just makes things sound bigger because the preamp induces a slight phase shift in certain frequency bands. It is a really hard effect to describe outside of just saying it makes things bigger without being louder. I bought a few different versions of EP-3 preamp pedals when I went down this rabbit hole, and I've kept one that just sits at the end of my board as a tone conditioner. It's kind of insane but it does actually make things sound "better".

Submissions should be sent to sonofgearfight@gmail.com
mp3s, please, regular Songfight conventions for submission.

Please name your file as such: bandname_tc.mp3

Reviews and winner announcement will happen about a week from the due date, possibly sooner if not there are not many entries.

Reminder that the Inspiration Prompt is here to promote creativity and different approaches, and is not mandatory or a criteria for eligibility or ranking.

Contestants worldwide are eligible, if there are problems, issues with fulfillment will be handled to the best of everyone’s ability offline. Subsequent fights may have changes depending on prizing and donor.

The Fightmasters have graciously agreed to host this fight, so it will appear on its own page in the Songfight ecosystem.

Further announcements, corrections, and whatnot for this fight will be made in this thread

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[mo]

If anyone is actually curious about the whole EP-3 preamp circuit voodoo and whether or not it's a real thing, I'm bringing over some stuff I found about the EP-3 preamp circuit that I had posted in the Slack, from the guy who designed this version of the circuit. He, like most other people, thought how could a preamp circuit really do all that much to the sound? But then he built one and it did actually do a thing that was different than just boosting a gain level and some light EQ filtering (which honestly describes many other pedals that market based on claiming to replicate the EP-3 magic--I personally have tried several of them and confirm they don't do the thing). He explains:

Screenshot 2025-02-28 at 3.03.02 PM.png (469.84 KiB) Viewed 868 times

and more detailed thoughts here: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... t-26574993

and here: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... t-38615095

[ujnhunter]

I don't know what any of that means, but I do actually have that Pico-Pre (and a Xotic EP Pre as well) and they do sound nice.

[mo]

Yeah I know the technical magician talk isn't for everyone, I just think it's interesting from a sound perspective how these multiple micro-shifts in phase can really have an actual audible impact. There's always some phase displacement like this going on in preamps and outboard EQs and such, and most of the time it's engineered to be corrected so that everything is in phase, but maybe that's not actually always optimal? Anyway, something to muse about, over a brandy in a snifter

[mo]

hey all I forgot to come back here, there was only one entry for this fight as well, which was from Balance Lost, with a very good song, I'll try to remember to get that out to Sam haha

and so Balance Lost is the winner of The Conversation!