Bright Headlight for Winter - Recommendations?

[soundwave]

next door not happy

 

[portals]

Yes I also heard that during my Googlings, and have since seen parameters being tweaked to reduce muffliness - I imagine if those noises were shoved through a medium sized cab into a SM-57 to an audio interface, it could sound damned good. I don't think I'm one of those lucky people with perfect pitch (I can tune guitars by ear), but the distorion of Orange guitar amps sound the most in tune to my ears. I like heavy metal and grunge (also classical, jazz, almost any music. I absolutely hate musicals. Complete brain shut down aversion to musicals), especially when distortion sounds in tune, free from bum notes. Or perhaps I am just obsessed with orange coloured objects. The world of guitar gear is something which the local bands I know go on about endlessly. Some of the guitarists I know are awesome, so is the gear, athough these days they all mostly amp model. One of my mates in particular, started playing aged 7 - can play anything and sound like anyone. Useful dude to know, if I need a guitar part engineered or played.

I just bought one for £40 incl tax, approx half the price you can buy it in UK for.

No SM57 required, in fact that's the goal to remove the amp and so mic and use the IRs on the pedal. Once you've installed the ASIOforALL driver on Win10 it's recognised as a digital audio interface (latency is 10ms) so you can record straight in to the software of choice. Which is actually a quandry as point is also to make this a quick'n'easy to record and don't want to have to get the music studio (Cubase 13 etc) laptop out but just use the WIn10 gaming machine under my desk. Am trying Audacity and Hydrogen / Hammer for quick basic drum pattern multi-track guitar idea recording.

Also bought a Lekato (same company as Cuvave an W Vave) Looper pedal have for years and years avoided buying a looper so we'll see...

In fact I bought quite a few things that of course I don't really need.... ;-)

Interesting how on AliE you get great deals on certain products and amazon prices for others...

This is what I ordered, lets see if I get it all...I think it's all legit (possible the mouse isn't), and no knock-offs.

 

[guerney]

No SM57 required, in fact that's the goal to remove the amp and so mic and use the IRs on the pedal.

Weird little strands of digital sounding waves can be hidden by playing bad amp modelling (like my Boss Micro BR produces, and the first version of Guitar Rig) through a cab, and SM-57 natural compression can make shortcomings even harder to spot... while still leaving scope to make a cheap guitar setup sound unique and slightly more expensive, by tweaking the effects and/or amp modelling earlier in the chain. On the other hand, I could be completely wrong. Fortunately all manner of wrong can be labelled art.

It's handy to keep XLR and other leads and nicnacs in my shopping cart, in case a small item I do actually need, is required to qualify for free delivery or some discount - the only good feature of AliExpress, is the ability to deselect everything in the shopping cart at once, then deselect the same way, and individually select what you actually want to checkout with. I've got about £800 worth of cheap interesting tat in my main AliExpress shopping cart at any one time, prices of which are automatically updated, and every so often during sales, I select/deselect/compare (ebay, Amazon)/replace etc. and checkout a few items I want to buy. Then there's the free delivery for three ualifying items shopping cart, which has a upper limit of 20 items. Plus another shopping cart I discovered the other day, the terms of which I haven't determined.

Remember to select "Guerney" when selecting a reason for returning those 12 LED headlights lol. Actually, they're great for the money. Just not anywhere near as good as the same number of brighter headlights soldered to your ebike battery would be.

 

[portals]

I had that headlight in my basket until the end and was one of the last things I removed, it was a toss up as I had an easy way to get it working, just wire the headlight up to a kettle plug and I can swap it at will with my USB port kettle plug in controller bag.

Real estate was probably a deciding factor too.

 

[portals]

Kettle plugs can be confusing when you're looking online.

What you assume sometimes is wrong way around, the female looking connector is actually the male and vice-versa.

It's defined by having pins (male) or no-pins (female). Doh.

 

[guerney]

That headlight usually qualifies for free delivery. And it's actually cheaper on ebay, because no VAT is added when you checkout, unlike AliExpress. Might be posted from China, might not:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166574416148





I never planned to have so many lights. Added what I needed, as it became apparent the road required more illumination. It's got decent coverage now, but good can always be better, and better can always be mine.

 

[guerney]

Real estate was probably a deciding factor too.

If my bike didn't need to fold, I could attach that headlight sideways on the handbar stem. Alternatively, the Minoura Spacebar I linked earlier can be vertically oriented, swivels - I had two mounted like that at one point, impeded bike folding. Perhaps some other mount could be attached to some other part of your bike somehow? That headlight is held on to the handlebar clamp using two short bolts. You might need to make an adapter plate for this mount, to attach to the handlebar stem (if the handlebar stem on your bike has room).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175806787641

 

[portals]

It's handy to keep XLR and other leads and nicnacs in my shopping cart, in case a small item I do actually need, is required to qualify for free delivery or some discount

The Tank FX has an XLR output ;-) !!

The CubeBaby is noisy as **** not helped by playing it near lots of electrical gear but anyway the Tank has a built in noise gate too that apparently now works properly with the latest firmware upgrade. So three noise gates should sort it out.

Some reviewers say it's still noisy.

 

[guerney]

The Tank FX has an XLR output ;-) !!

The CubeBaby is noisy as **** not helped by playing it near lots of electrical gear but anyway the Tank has a built in noise gate too that apparently now works properly with the latest firmware upgrade. So three noise gates should sort it out.

Some reviewers say it's still noisy.

I've seen unwanted noise and tiny noise aterfacts being removed at a granular level using Izotope on Youtube, haven't used it myself. Developed by a boffin dude who analysed seismic noise. Some artists of minimal electronic music remove so much, there's hardly anything left, leaving more space for extreme loudness, or simply more empty space.

Am trying Audacity and Hydrogen / Hammer for quick basic drum pattern multi-track guitar idea recording.

Hadn't heard of the Hydrogen drum machine, thanks for the heads up. Looks useful for dragging through my fako Korg MS-20 (VST, I can't afford to buy and maintain a real one, or cope with the hiss).

 

[guerney]

I had that headlight in my basket until the end and was one of the last things I removed, it was a toss up as I had an easy way to get it working, just wire the headlight up to a kettle plug and I can swap it at will with my USB port kettle plug in controller bag.

I don't trust any connector to be waterproof on my rained on and sometimes partially submerged bike, prefer solder and waterproofing using self-adhesive marine heat shrink and self-amalgamating rubber tape. I don't even like that my DPC-18 display has a USB connector. I bought these "Waterproof" connectors for my garden shed sound system ebike battery powered hookup. They're not challenged by water much in that situation. I may in future tow amps and speakers in my bike trailer, host impromptu ebike powered roadside gigs, with cheapo LED projectors and frickin' laser beams (not joking).

LD16 IP68 Waterproof Connector Socket Plug Back Nut Docking Flange 2 pin 3 pin 4 pin Screw Crimping Without Welding Connector - AliExpress 13

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

vi.aliexpress.com

 

[guerney]

Sorry this took so long - it's been cold and rainy, and I've just now managed to get around to comparing these lights with fixed camera exposure. Dry conditions would have flattered light brightness less. Here a quick and dirty video shot at ISO 1600, 1/60s shutter. I'm only using one in the video, you'd need at least two of the cheap 12 LED powerbank lights minimum, for twice as bright. If that light looks too dim, it's not too late to cancel if they haven't dispatched, AliExpress dudes take days to do that sometimes. Or go the free return route.

(I left the GoPro recording 720P by mistake, because I was recording audio for something completely different previously, forgot to change back to 1080P doh.)

Stills from the video above.

12 LED powerbank headlight:




6000LM headlights, rear 1800LM red flasher:




There's glare visible to the camera from the small headlight facing back from the handlebar at my hi-viz jacket, and the GoPro is tilted too far downwards, but otherwise my view of the road surface looks a lot like this.