Setlist to come
Thursday, December 18, 2014
TD 12/17/2014 at HNS
I played great (was well rehearsed). Mental note to bring shorts next time, sweaty pants kept restricting my kick leg. Johnny Sucrose borrowed my kit and said he liked the way the kit was tuned.
Setlist to come.
Friday, November 28, 2014
The Cost of a Tour
I'm always curious about how much it costs to run a tour, so this post about Pomplamoose's 2014 tour was fascinating to me.
I have some editorial comments about whether or not it was all money well spent, but since my ass doesn't seem to be getting out of town any time soon I suppose I should shut my pie hole.
But this guy can leave his pie hole open and comment all he wants.
I have some editorial comments about whether or not it was all money well spent, but since my ass doesn't seem to be getting out of town any time soon I suppose I should shut my pie hole.
But this guy can leave his pie hole open and comment all he wants.
Breeders Tribute Progress
Gonna try to bang out the last 4 tunes from part 3 this weekend, bringing the total done to 47 songs. I think I've determined that there are 66 unique Breeders tunes in the catalog, 12 Amps, and 10 solo (88 total). 53% or better done (it feels further along than that though as the list of songs that I actually am willing to learn dwindles ever more).
Friday, November 7, 2014
Breeders Tribute Gear
I've been going along doing this Breeders tribute without much concern for gear. I've used what I had access to...which is mostly a small battery operated VOX digital modelling amp, a knock-off telecaster, and a knock-off stratecaster.
Finally looked up today what exactly they play:
Noting that today I saw reference that the gals use Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion ($75) ...but of course they are playing through Marshall half stacks too. Probably not needed with the tube screamer.
Finally looked up today what exactly they play:
To my complete shock, the strats are 1991 Strat Ultras, which have a HSS pickup configuration...which just happens to be what the strat knockoff that I'm using has.
I've been considering picking up a les paul someday but the choices are so many that I didn't know what to get. Based on what they play and what I've heard and my price range...I think the choice to make is a Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro in gold top. ($499) I've heard before that "studio" models are for shit, and what the gals play have the humbuckers (P90s in their case, though that won't probably be in my price range) that have both parts showing (instead of it being one single plate cover). Either that or go with a standard plain in gold top ($399). I'm not running out to buy anything cause I have access to plenty of guitars, but someday maybe.
I have a list of pedals on the wishlist for the future (probably far ahead future) too:
Ibanez tube screamer (prolly TS9 with 3 knobs and the big foot switch, $99)
Boss super chorus CH1 ($99)
Boss digital delay DD3 ($129) or DD7 ($149)
EH nano Holy Grail reverb ($120)
Boss RC-3 Loop Station ($199) sounds like fun, but doubt I'd ever learn to use it.
All of this ignores that I already have all the effects I need in the little battery amp (though they aren't easily switchable)...that I have no need to perform on guitar...and that I don't own a real guitar amp. That's why none of this is a near term need or even want. It's all dreams in the useless ether.
PS: The below (from LSXX tour) is ridic.
UPDATE: I totally forgot to list the black and white telecaster with "Echo" written on it. They don't use this very often but it has started to show up in some of the new tunes.
And, of course, Jo has played a Rickenbacker bass (Pod) and a Music Man Stingray (first Kim's red one and later a tan one that I presume to belong to Jo). Sometimes the red P bass from Pixies makes an appearance too and even the Thunderbird got played by Mando.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
FW Recording Project
I totally forgot to mention that two weekends ago one of my bands recorded an album at my house with me at the controls. It was a jerry-rigged kind of affair and I'm sure I did it all wrong...but here's what we did (making use of what was on hand and the little knowledge that I have):
Drums: I mic'ed the drum kit with 4 mics. Snare top, shared crash/hi hat, and shared ride/rack tom were all Shure SM48s. I had special drum mics available to me with tom mounts, but after testing that on some BreedArs recordings I decided that, since I didn't have enough inputs available to mic everything and I didn't want to use true condenser overheads (due to bleed) that the drum specific mics were just too focused. I needed to be able to share mics in a psuedo-overhead kind of way. The kick drum was mic'ed with a kick specific Sensenheiser dynamic mic. I ran all four mics into a little digital mixer that I have and then ran the stereo mix out of the mixer and into a second analog mixer that I have. Essentially this created a drum "bus" or "subgroup"
Bass: Ran through a DI box and into the analog mixer.
Guitar: Used a Sensenheiser guitar amp specific mic. Stashed the guitar amp in a nearby room with the door closed and volume relatively low (like 3 out of 10). Ran the mic directly into the analog mixer.
Vox: We had two vocals, one at the drum kit and one at the guitar station. Ran each as their own line into the analog mixer. There were no effects on the vocals. In an early planning stage I had planned to run the drums through the analog mixer and then everything else through the digital mixer (instead of vice-versa) and that would have allowed me to add effects to the vocals, but I ended up reversing it in an attempt to use the Aux sends (more on this below) on the analog mixer and then never switched it back. The natural sound of the room actually seemed fine and their voices sounded pretty good really. Not dry at all.
So all told, we had 8 inputs...which is all I had available to me. I had been worried about bleed between mics (especially into the vocal mic at the drum kit) but it didn't end up being a problem (maybe because I never needed to listen to each line as a separate track).
Note that I could have just mic'ed the room and called it a day, but I wanted the vocals to be clear and mic'ing things directly seemed like it would give me more control. And I think it did.
The output from the analog mixer went into my usb computer interface and then into Audacity. Originally I had hoped to run the vocals through aux sends to give each vocalist their own monitor mix and for me to monitor the mix from the recording interface...so they'd get what they needed and I'd get the final mix levels. But I couldn't get the aux sends to work with headphones. So I ran a headphone line out of the interface and split it 3 ways using a very ghetto assembly of extension lines and Y splitters. So we all had the final mix in our cans. This ended up working really well because then they could give me feedback on the final mix which probably saved disappointment after the fact.
It was hard to get the mix levels right. Even at low levels, the Audacity mix tended to clip easily...and even slight changes either made, say, the guitar too quiet or clipping. So we goofed with it and ended up getting an okay balance. The bass guitar seems really quiet in the mix, but when you listened to the playback, it was in there plenty. So I'm not sure why that's the case. I've noticed that with the BreedArs project too, the bass line comes in quiet and distorted, but then sound fine on playback. Probably just a cheap interface that doesn't like low frequencies.
And then we played the songs live. No editing. We did a dry run on Tuesday night (about 2 hours) to get the levels and to get used to playing with the headphones. I spent an hour before rehearsal on Tuesday setting up from zero (I hadn't realized we were going to rehearse until last minute). Saturday and Sunday (about 4 hours Sat, about 2 hours Sun) we did the real recordings. We did 2-3 takes per song and that was plenty.
Now we are selecting the best takes. I plan to goof a bit with compression and noise reduction on the final selections and see if it makes them sound better, but I may also just leave them alone. I think the source file is good, the level is strong but without clipping for the most part. I think we did pretty well considering.
I'm gonna export everything as WAV and mp3 and upload the WAV to a bandcamp site and the mp3 to a reverbnation site. Then I'm gonna burn the WAV files to cd. We are gonna DIY a jewel case cover and use printable cds. We're only gonna make about 20 copies for close friends and family. Everyone else will either get a "bootleg" cd or download it off web.
Still have final edits to do, but so far I've been pleased with the results and I learned a bunch.
Drums: I mic'ed the drum kit with 4 mics. Snare top, shared crash/hi hat, and shared ride/rack tom were all Shure SM48s. I had special drum mics available to me with tom mounts, but after testing that on some BreedArs recordings I decided that, since I didn't have enough inputs available to mic everything and I didn't want to use true condenser overheads (due to bleed) that the drum specific mics were just too focused. I needed to be able to share mics in a psuedo-overhead kind of way. The kick drum was mic'ed with a kick specific Sensenheiser dynamic mic. I ran all four mics into a little digital mixer that I have and then ran the stereo mix out of the mixer and into a second analog mixer that I have. Essentially this created a drum "bus" or "subgroup"
Bass: Ran through a DI box and into the analog mixer.
Guitar: Used a Sensenheiser guitar amp specific mic. Stashed the guitar amp in a nearby room with the door closed and volume relatively low (like 3 out of 10). Ran the mic directly into the analog mixer.
Vox: We had two vocals, one at the drum kit and one at the guitar station. Ran each as their own line into the analog mixer. There were no effects on the vocals. In an early planning stage I had planned to run the drums through the analog mixer and then everything else through the digital mixer (instead of vice-versa) and that would have allowed me to add effects to the vocals, but I ended up reversing it in an attempt to use the Aux sends (more on this below) on the analog mixer and then never switched it back. The natural sound of the room actually seemed fine and their voices sounded pretty good really. Not dry at all.
So all told, we had 8 inputs...which is all I had available to me. I had been worried about bleed between mics (especially into the vocal mic at the drum kit) but it didn't end up being a problem (maybe because I never needed to listen to each line as a separate track).
Note that I could have just mic'ed the room and called it a day, but I wanted the vocals to be clear and mic'ing things directly seemed like it would give me more control. And I think it did.
The output from the analog mixer went into my usb computer interface and then into Audacity. Originally I had hoped to run the vocals through aux sends to give each vocalist their own monitor mix and for me to monitor the mix from the recording interface...so they'd get what they needed and I'd get the final mix levels. But I couldn't get the aux sends to work with headphones. So I ran a headphone line out of the interface and split it 3 ways using a very ghetto assembly of extension lines and Y splitters. So we all had the final mix in our cans. This ended up working really well because then they could give me feedback on the final mix which probably saved disappointment after the fact.
It was hard to get the mix levels right. Even at low levels, the Audacity mix tended to clip easily...and even slight changes either made, say, the guitar too quiet or clipping. So we goofed with it and ended up getting an okay balance. The bass guitar seems really quiet in the mix, but when you listened to the playback, it was in there plenty. So I'm not sure why that's the case. I've noticed that with the BreedArs project too, the bass line comes in quiet and distorted, but then sound fine on playback. Probably just a cheap interface that doesn't like low frequencies.
And then we played the songs live. No editing. We did a dry run on Tuesday night (about 2 hours) to get the levels and to get used to playing with the headphones. I spent an hour before rehearsal on Tuesday setting up from zero (I hadn't realized we were going to rehearse until last minute). Saturday and Sunday (about 4 hours Sat, about 2 hours Sun) we did the real recordings. We did 2-3 takes per song and that was plenty.
Now we are selecting the best takes. I plan to goof a bit with compression and noise reduction on the final selections and see if it makes them sound better, but I may also just leave them alone. I think the source file is good, the level is strong but without clipping for the most part. I think we did pretty well considering.
I'm gonna export everything as WAV and mp3 and upload the WAV to a bandcamp site and the mp3 to a reverbnation site. Then I'm gonna burn the WAV files to cd. We are gonna DIY a jewel case cover and use printable cds. We're only gonna make about 20 copies for close friends and family. Everyone else will either get a "bootleg" cd or download it off web.
Still have final edits to do, but so far I've been pleased with the results and I learned a bunch.
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