Quick and Easy – Bass Effect Holiday Shopping Guide 2009

As if I needed something like this to encourage me more on this pedal jonez. Seriously, though, I'll have to check out the Fender Sub Lime Bass Fuzz, as well as the Wounded Paw Battering Ram, and especially the Catalinbread SFT:

They Could be Talking About My Band

One of the funniest exchanges that I've read recently:

Q: Hi guys! does anyone know how to get the crazy ambient effects that Geezer did with Black Sabbath in tracks like "The Dark", "E5150" or "Stonehenge"?

A: Sounds like he was using a volume swell with flanger and maybe some delays on "The Dark" and "Stonehenge". Sounds real spacious.

A: I think smoking pot and channeling Satan helps too.

These poor souls don't know what a flanger can do (no one really digs the flanger). I think that it's a Tycobrahe flanger. Chicago Iron is making copies of it that sell for $550. It's wicked, though. Hear it here.

A Sausage Fest (could be "Gothic Power Violence" v. JZ)

Recording was a hoot, and there was a lot of sausage eaten (seriously, no double entendre here). Dameon, Andrew, Greg and I did parts for two songs: "God Damn Sinner" and "Rebel". Both were a piece of cake. Shortly after we did our parts, some of Uncle Chuck's friends arrived (BLC is too punctual, usually). The female voices really filled the parts out nicely--you get punch from the male voices and clarity from the female voices. It could have been done in a handful of takes, but Chuck wanted some really thick sounds (probably to compete with those bad-ass guitars). This is going to be a great record. Of course, Eve got in on the action, and she doesn't stick out in the unmixed group (totally amazed me; she's a neat kid, even if she's taken to calling me ZEEHEE).

Margret brought more [Polish] sausage and [Polish] cheese and [Polish] beer. After bratwurst, I was waiting for someone to have an infarction. There otta be a law...

Greg introduced me to someone as "our amazing bassist and, now, organist." That was actually pretty cool, because I'm not amazing, but I've learned to take a compliment. Ray Manzarek I'm not, but I guess that once that comp drops (late September is what that email sez), I'll be the bassist/organist. It doesn't count if you don't do it live, though. I won't allow that to happen. I never really dug playing keys live, although it gives you a good place to hide when the sequencer goes berserk (MIDI is evil; don't get me started).

I heard some stuff from the RR show, too. It was Andrew's recorder that was stationed at the FOH desk. The mix was a lot better there than in the monitors, for sure. Besides the lush lush lush natural reverb (too much, really), it sounds pretty good. We're going to see if we can dry it up a bit with the SPL Transient Designer. It seems that there's no limit to signal processing these days. The Norse Audio God was explaining this "magic box" to me, and I'm stunned that one can manipulate transients' attack and decay so easily. I'd have to fiddle a lot with compressors and gating to remove excessive reverb, but this thing apparently makes it easy easy.

Spooky Sounds

Tonight, I'm headed over to do group backing vocals for the SS record. I'm pretty stoked. I should have a tale to tell afterward.

I'm not a Cheap Trick fan at all, but I heard this one while driving around Weld county today. Harpsichords can get really creepy (when they're not doing some jaunty Baroque piece). I really really dig that bass tone (12-string) a lot--it's a lot like what I've been shooting for. The coda reminds me of the first A Silver Mt. Zion record, if I'm recalling correctly. Maybe, or not (hokey fan powerpoint):



I do remember hearing this a while back, and it's totally got the creepy harpsichord thing going on. Apparently, it's an early version of "In The Light". I've always loved the greasy guitar line in the verse. Supposedly, it's an ode to Lucifer (the light?), but I don't know/care (low quality):



I'm not crazy. The coda here also has that screeching quality. I love the huge reverb. I'm assuming that those moans are electric guitars, but I could totally be off on that:

Exhausted.

A couple of days of burning the candle at both ends, and I'm done. I totally require some performance-enhancing drugs, or something (sleep would be best).

The recording didn't happen for me; I played control room terrorist, instead. Seriously, though the songs wouldn't be served best if I were to do my thing. Once a drummer is secured, then I think that bass will be required. Baritone singer-songwriter stylings are going to be buried by bass guitar. The songs are fucking great, though. Short, but really great. My favorite one was the "Sirens' Song," which is a translation done from The Odyssey done up as a blues holler deal. It's really really really amazing.

Dude needs to release a solo ep ahora, if only to get a couple o' dollars. I think that an electronic (cheap) release could be best, and pay for a 'real' record.

Bass Solo, Take One...

No one should ever allow the solo button to be depressed for bass guitar. Most everyone has dreadful tone or technique. CB was a wizard, especially as far as composition, but this fret-slapping attack crap is just plain ugly. I've actually finally broken myself of that habit by using bigger strings and a lighter touch on the right hand. I still wind up with a really bright tone that isn't noticeable in the mix.

I think that they're pulling this off of a video game...anyhow, it sounds like farting in the bathtub or something:

Neat Sounds.

Instead of breaking down and plugging in the video game machine after the required nap, I decided that I'd fool around with the electric piano and the Electric Mistress (Greg had been carrying it around for years). I'm of the opinion that the Rhodes sounds best when it's not dry. The EM pulls off a nice vibrato, although it's one flanger that really can make some nasty sounds. I need to get a real audio interface just so I can put up sample sounds of some of these instruments.

I did some fooling around with the need project (got charts last night--helpful, although it's as I suspected), but I think that the guitars fill it out enough that electric piano is just too much. Pianos seem best soloed.

Recession Rock, Part II

Thank you to The Norse Audio God for being a third set of ears, and Greg for putting up with my crummy playing.

Tonight, I did my parts. The setup was easy: The Electric Grandmother on a Gamma, with an MK-219 about 10' off the front, and the Beta 52A up close on the center of the cone. The JDI fed some 'mystery' preamp as well as Mesa Número Dos. I tracked in the control room, which is much more comfortable (even with the dog watching). I used The Orange One, although The Green One was at the ready just in case the Fender let me down. Twelve tracks of bass in a single night ain't too shabby, and it sounds nice.

I think that I did some pretty subtle expressive things with timbre and note duration that really fixed a lot of the slop in my parts--we certainly haven't beat these songs into the ground yet, so there was some learning. I'm glad that I've learned to tighten up a part or loosen it as appropriate. I did some intentional re-writes, so it's a little more interesting, but, as usual, I pulled an O'Dea, and didn't play the same part twice and instead did some improvisation in a couple of sections. I'm pleased with my bits.

Some of the sounds so far are amazing, especially the envelope on the kick drum--it's beautiful, in a Body Lovers sort of way (that's the Beta 52, again--a great microphone, really--there's a really subtle hall effect from the room on the low frequencies which is nice in the overheads). The four overheads sound great, and really pulled off some wicked stereo effects without automation. Some of the lyrics are disturbing enough to distract me from playing, but I got through it.

Pretty much, the record will sound something like this (Joe Osborn's playing just plain rules. Not quite, but y'all get the idea (it ain't sunshine pop, but rather sunshine pop-influenced--I love that stuff).

BTW...those headphones are totally awesome. I need to get a pair of those. This got too epic, and I require sleep.

Sweet Sounds.

With assistance from the Norse Audio God, we started doing up the microphones last night. The drum kit sounds awesome--almost like an old jazz kit, but with some great definition from the close mics. Most of the sound is coming from the room mics, though--and careful measurements mean no phasey stuff. Greg sez that he has a hard time recording bass, but I brainstormed a bunch of ideas for him. We might wind up reamping, but I'm confident that we can coax something out of my rig that'll work.

I really ought to get a smaller cabinet like a 1x10" or something because even a 4x10" is overkill--I don't like the fatigue from headphones and the bass cab. The Norse Audio God turned me onto some cool headphones that he uses for location work that don't fire the sound directly down the ear canal--I need to look into those and picking up a nice DI box.

Why I Despise FM

And MTV, for that matter.

The impetus for this was this video:



I get really annoyed by pitch and tempo-shifted songs. I realize that they're doing it to fit the commercials in, but I'd really rather listen to music at the appropriate speed.

Anyhow, I was trying to a friend that it totally changes everything about the feel of the music, and she wasn't quite on the same page with me. Maybe I'm totally neurotic, and 5% isn't a big difference, but it drives me up the wall. I built several mp3s in an attempt to illustrate time-stretch and pitch-shift. You see, the original song runs 00:05:34, and that video version runs 00:03:45; this freaks me out.

Here is the original version(ripped from lp), 00:05:34;
Here is the pitch-shifted version, 00:05:34 (5% higher pitch);
Here is the time-stretched version, 00:05:17 (5% faster tempo);
Here is the re-sampled version, 00:05:18 (5% faster tempo, 5% higher pitch--this is how the radio does it)

Hell, I still had to cut out a minute and a half to get to the length of the video. They'd cut out half of the intro, and, as it turns out, the second verse. The intro edit was easy easy, but chopping that obscene verse out proved to be more difficult (it's probably easier to do the edits before speeding it up). I got down to three and three-quarters by "cheating" and going another 2% faster. I think that it sounds really forced, but I'm totally pleased with the clean edits. Whatever, I was just playing:


Jeremy's Radio Edit