October 2009

Rode Blimp for $1 - best deal around!

The gurus at Rode have done it again!

How's this for a cracking good combo. For the months of November and December 2009 (unless promotional stock depleted), you can purchase a Rode Blimp (now with 10 year warranty) for JUST $1, when you purchase one of their fabulous NTG-3 shotgun microphones (also with a 10 year warranty).

So, get the NTG-3 from Factory Sound, and claim your $1 Blimp from Rode. It's simple.

The T's & C's are here.

See you soon for a new NTG-3.

Gaffer tape or Gaffa tape? Nashua 357 questions answered!

The question is should we be calling it Gaffer Tape or Gaffa Tape? It seems that Australians (keen to drop a letter at any opportunity) go for gaffa, and much of the rest of the world chooses gaffer.

Of course, we all grew up on bedtime stories of the roadies who used to eat a bowl of screwed up gaffa with beer poured over it for breakfast.

However at an early age we realised that was just a story. Roadies actually have coffee and a cigarette for breakfast.

As it turns out, our old friend 357 way actually pinched from the lighting for film industry. You'll notice in the credits at the end of films that there's always a Gaffer - not to be confused with the Theater Cat from The Muppet Show, who manages to score a page on Muppet Wiki (if you needed another distraction) - who is in charge of lighting the scenes. We can only imagine what the Best Boy gets up to with a truck full of Gaffer Tape...

So to work out if we should be calling this stuff Gaffer Tape or Gaffa Tape, we decided to construct a tower in store. Check out the clip below, and see if you can find the answer.

And for the best price in town on genuine Nashua 2" Gaffer's Tape (or Gaffa357, as we call it).

Never trust cheap or inferior brands. The genuine black gaffa from Nashua is the only one that will stick like dog poo to a picnic blanket.

StudioLive and StudioOne with Presonus' Jim Odom

We're lucky at Factory Sound. Not only do we get to play with the best gear around, but we also get to meet the makers of much of this equipment. Sept 24th was another one of those golden moments for us.

Jim Odom was in town, and he dropped in for a beer and a chat. Lucky for us the camera was rolling, and we managed to get 3 episodes for Factory Sound TV. Jim's got a very laid-back manner, but he's 'right on it' which becomes evident the more he talks. Not only is Jim the founder and president of Presonus, but he also still rolls the sleeves up and designs much of this great gear.

For these episodes, we mainly focus on some of the 'new stuff' - and when we say new, we mean Released-on-Factory-Sound-TV-New. If you've got a couple of spare minutes, check out the videos below. We've popped a couple of comments above each of them, so you can skip straight to the bits that are of most interest to you.

Part 1: Getting to know Jim. He takes us through the birth of Presonus in Louisiana, including his first studio above the horses, when he was just seventeen...

Part 2: StudioOne - NEW Software! Presonus StudioOne looks to be a great software package. StudioOne Artist will be bundled with all Presonus soundcards from now on, and as a Stand-alone DAW alternative, StudioOne Pro has got all the goodies you need to make a record.

Part 3: This one is all about his awesome StudioLive digital console. We learn how to join multiple units together, and find out how powerful this puppy really is. As both designer and keen user, Jim is the perfect tourguide.