Mojo’s Pick of the Week – String Butler

Posted on June 19, 2019 by Mojo

String Butler is a small but mighty device whose sole purpose is to correct the angles of your guitar strings as they pass through the nut. This isn’t an issue on certain models of guitars – most Fenders, for instance, where the string passes straight through to the machine head. But on Gibson Les Paul type headstocks, the center strings are at a steep angle to the nut, causing binding which in turn causes tuning issues. Ever wonder why you can’t get that G string to stay in tune on your LP? It’s the fact that it’s unwound and the angle is steep heading to the tuner. String Butler corrects this issue in a very clever way. No more G string binding (ouch)!

It’s one of those products that you can’t necessarily tell right away how much impact it’s having. But now that I’ve had it for a few months, I can say It’s definitely one of those products I wish I’d known about sooner!

I was initially surprised at the size of the device for the $, but I can attest that it’s very well made, light enough to be unobtrusive, and well designed enough that you’ll want one on every LP type headstock in your arsenal. Especially if you do a lot of high string bends.

String butler is designed and assembled in Germany, and I got mine on Amazon for about $47. It comes in several color options to make it easy to match your guitar. If you have an LP type guitar and have either center string binding or tuning issues, check this little guy out. Very clever solution to a very common problem.

String Butler
Mfr Dietrich Parts
Approx $47 US at Amazon

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Mojo’s Pick of the Week – Dragonfly Black DAC

Posted on March 30, 2019 by Mojo

The Dragonfly by Audioquest is a pro quality Digital Audio Converter and headphone amplifier for converting your digital music to analog for a much richer, truer listening experience. It plugs into your USB port (adapter available), and comes in two flavors, Black and Red, at price points of $99 and $199 US respectively. There are some differences outlined here, but essentially the Red is the higher end version (and a bit out of my price range). The Black is still well worth it.

Essentially, this plug & play DAC takes over for the built-in audio output of your computer, which is not necessarily optimized for sound. I’ve been mixing in the box for many years, and I was just listening to a long interview with Andrew Scheps talking about how much he loves mixing in the box for all the reasons I do. At the very end, he said “but don’t use your built-in audio out, it’s built as an afterthought and not optimized for high end audio”. Which believe it or not, has never occurred to me. I did notice sound was richer when listening through my Presonus AudioBox out instead of my Mac but because I don’t always have the AudoBox with me, that just wasn’t a practical option.

Enter the Dragonfly.

Note: when I first plugged it in, it was LOUD. I mean, throw your headphones off loud. So set the Dragonfly’s output volume before listening through it. Once I set the volume (easily done in the menu bar or the sound Preference Pane), I opened the Audio-Midi Setup App* and tried it at all sample rates before setting it at a conservative 24/48K.

Very cool feature: the Dragonfly LED changes color to indicate what sample rate it is processing. This is true even if it’s set to one setting and your DAW is set to another, it will switch to reflect the current output. Easy way to tell at a glance what your session is set to.

One thing I did notice: it’s better for mixing than tracking; I had noticeable latency when tracking through the Presonus and listening through the Dragonfly. Too many converters, I’m thinking.

To be honest, I’m still getting used to hearing music through it, the range and depth is expanded in every dimension. But it’s definitely a game changer for me. I feel like I can feel the air from kick drums now!

*Something I discovered in the process of setting it up that was very cool and somehow NO ONE HAD TOLD ME before is that you can set your built-in audio out from the default 24-bit/44.1K to up to 32-point/96K. I don’t mean the Dragonfly, I mean your actual MacBookPro audio out. I can definitely hear a difference between 44.1K and 96K even streaming an MP3, so if you do nothing else, do that. This is set for your default audio out using the Audio-Midi Setup application under Utilities.

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New Album – The Answer is None!

Posted on March 16, 2019 by Mojo

This is the big one! Four years in the making with my partners in crime Troy Jay Adams and Jay Hale, with the help of drummers Michael Andrew and Kendall Bishop. A true labor of love and we’re so happy to share it with the world. It’s been called “killer”, a “masterpiece”, and likened to Ozzy, Megadeth, and Queensryche. We hope you love it as much as we do!