Thursday, June 5, 2008

None more black

Have the Music Technologists at The Laboratory discovered the answer to Spinal Tap's age old question: How much blacker could this be?

Perhaps.

Take, for example, the Blackheart Little Giant amp which recently appeared on our showroom floor. This is a small black box, equipped with Class A, all-tube circuitry for allowing maximum frequency response and coolness. It is an elegant thing of simple design and straightforward focus. The result is a lush, warm tone, with plenty of punch and clarity. No circuit beyond the essential requirements of rich tube amplification is present to trip up your guitar mojo as it erupts from the Blackheart's 12" Eminence Blackheart speaker.

And what better tool for driving the Blackheart Little Giant than the Schecter Blackjack ATX C1? With its black chrome hardware, ebony fingerboard, and black binding, this is a striking guitar. Tonally it is just enormous, with the included active Seymour Duncan Black Out pickups. Black black black. And the body? Gloss aged white. You gotta have a little contrast, you know.

If you just read all of that and said "what the heck are you talking about??" then this may be a sign you are a drummer. Good news! Perched upon our floor in the drum room (yes we have a room now!) is a five piece monstrosity in the form of a Yamaha Absolute Birch Nouveau kit. Birch produces a dark, rich tone, and packs plenty of volume and presence. Yamaha's Absolute Birch shells are resonant and dynamic, projecting body and presence at any volume threshold. Innovative nouveau lugs facilitate fast head changes, and present minimal contact to the shell, so the percussive energy can get the shells moving as much as possible. The exquisite lacquer finish is Black sparkle.

The blackness of it all is somewhat unsettling to the faint of heart, some of whom have demanded that we reconsider packing a music shop with so much dark energy. No doubt the universe is in no danger of collapsing in on itself as a result. But if so, then that is the price we pay for our art. Either way, playing music is a fine pastime until the cosmological constant has been established in light of all this.

Rock on, in blackness and rich tonality.

www.laboratorymusic.com