f  x   -   taping // tuning // tweaking

• My 4-track
  A Tascam Porta-3. Cost $190 used in fall 1995, but now new ones cost lots less than that. I spent way too much time playing with it the first 6 months I had it, but unfortunately not much at all since then.
  SN 440553; made in Taiwan.
  
  
• Boss ROD-10 Over Drive/Distortion and RRV-10 Digital Reverb
  Part of Boss' "Micro Series" (produced from 1985-89) of 1/2 width rackmountable effects. The ROD-10 gives one more eq options than the corresponding Boss od/ds stomp boxes of the era, although its Fuzz setting is particularly obnoxious. (Supposedly the guy from Skinny Puppy use one of these to distort vocals.) On the other hand, the RRV-10 really expands on the then-current RV-2 compact pedal, offering more spacious reverb options and more control over the reverb (for a spooky efect, try turning down the direct volume to hear just the reverb'd signal). These effects were probably intended for rack-minded guitarists, but are probably much more effective as studio tools.
  No SN; both made in Japan.
  
  
• Boss GE-21 Graphic EQ and PQ-50 Parametric EQ
  Part of the Boss Pro line of 1/2 width rackmounted effects (introduced in the early 1990s), and as the name implies would probably be more at home in a studio or some other pro audio setting. The GE-21 is a 21-band graphic eq. The PQ-50 gives you total control (level, frequency, and Q (bandwidth)) of low (20-500 Hz), low-mid (125-2k), hi-mid (500-8k), and high (2k-20k) frequencies, and as such is much more tweakable than even a PQ-3B (adjustable range 25-16k Hz) plus a PQ-4 (sub-100 Hz, then 100-8k Hz). The only downside to both the GE-21 and the PQ-50 is their listed current draw (~500 mA each!?!) and the fact that the I/O jacks don't appear to be mounted to anything very sturdy.
  SN ZD56235 (GE-21), ZE13055 (PQ-50); both made in Japan.
  
  
• Everything else
  The best $30 I ever spent was on my Seiko ST-600 quartz guitar tuner, in 1992. I don't have perfect pitch, but my ears became much better once I knew my guitar was in tune. I've clumsily dropped that tuner countless times, but it's never failed me. Some 9 years later I bought a Boss TU-8 (SN XO50840) for hands-free guitar and bass tuning, but it's much more delicate. In 2003 I bought a Peterson VS-1 virtual strobe tuner (SN 000009683) for setup work, and quickly learned that a more accurate tuner requires much more patience (too much of a good thing?).
  
  My two microphones must have cost $80 combined. The V-Tech VT-1030 was bought used in fall 1995 (Stopper and FMD stickers not included), and is my favored guitar amp mic. My Kustom KM-2 was bought new the next year, and is my favored vocal mic. One day I'll get real Shure SM-57 and SM-58 mics, among others, but those two served me well for 4-trackin'. Finally, in March 2004 I bought a BBE DI-1000 direct box (SN A-M00229), which comes with BBE's Sonic Maximizer and a Jensen speaker emulator. So far I've used it exclusively for live DI of bass guitar into a PA system, but it would be most useful in a recording situation as well.