Best friend from elementary school and I stopped really being friends early into high school because we grew apart... I liked music and he liked video games.

Kept each other on facebook anyway...

Now he's posting demos of him playing awesome bass. Shit, guess we didn't end up so different after all.

Future Of The Left is fucking awesome live. Nice guys/girl, too. There with a friend of mine I haven't seen in forever; this is now her favorite live show she's seen this year, and she goes out a lot, like every week a lot at least.

Guitar nerd in me wants to know what they're tuned to for the first part of their set. Tele and LP strung with four strings. Low whatever, empty space, two wound strings, empty space, high string.

Few effects. Fuzzes, octaves. Orange OD-whatever and Marshall DSL. Teles, LPs, SGs. P-Bass, the whole time; distortion, octave, for effects. It's all in their arrangements. They swapped instruments. Made good use of the obviously different tones of the guitars. Roland Juno for the synths. Singer and bassist traded off occasionally on bass/keys (singer mostly plays guitar.) Second guitarist just sings backups on some things. Very smart arrangements. Not really a lot going on in those songs, as violent as they are live- and they are downtuned-heavy, in case yer not paying attention. Serious Guitars are Serious.

They are allowed to talk to the audience. Most bands are so horrible at it; Garda actively avoids it. Their frontman is fucking funny. The only two other frontmen I've seen pull this off are Andrew Eldritch and Mikael Akerfeldt- the fact they front two of my fave-o-rite bands on the planet* is irrelephant and quite accidental here. It takes a quick wit and a good delivery and an avoidance of rock clichés. They stopped and re-started three songs (one of which was an equipment malfunction- he was getting shocked by the mic)- and no one questioned a thing or gave a shit and like I said, my friend who sees everything thought very, very highly of them- bought the fucking vinyl and she's never heard them 'til last night when I said I was going to the show. Never seen that in my life. Did it with total panache. It was like seeing your friend's band and he's the life of the party. And said band throws down with the ultraviolence. The headbangers are banging and the girls are dancing and... Fuckin' hell of a show. The venue's a gross-ass dive, at least twice I can remember standing places where it smelled like someone shat; I'm happy I wore my Docs. The last song, by the end, they've dismantled the drum kit and it's all over the stage, people from the crowd are up there, the guitarist from the opening band is turning pedals on and off, the singer is dropping drumsticks on his guitar, etc.

After the show, looked at their pedalboards and asked them about flight cases.

And that was just the show. We had a hell of a time. We went to her friends' bar, wound up hanging out in the back drinking classy bourbon for free, they have a fucking Steinway piano** back there (my friend is a pianist too... And we weren't the only ones throwing down, either.), chain-smoking in the bar, etc. etc. and... Let's just say it was a fucking party.

*-Wait, TSOM and Opeth? You've got me there. But they have a rep for that. Being able to talk to the audience and be humorous, albeit in very different ways. It has nothing to do with my liking them and everything to do with their never being that asswhole who says "how are you motherfuckers doing tonight, yeah?!". etc.

**- I halfassedly told the bartender I would buy it. The bartender said the owner would sell it. This would never happen for anything I could afford. But it is old- the woodwork gives it away, and it is nice.

Did the Otley Run pub crawl in Leeds this weekend and I'm still aching from it, probably more today than I did yesterday. Being chased through Leeds by a group of people in monkey onesies/baby grows

Dat EP is finished in terms of writing. Thing is kinda really fucked up. Like, Bungle-esque schizophrenic changes of styles (It is equal-ish parts punk, grind/metal, and British Invasion type rock/pop), shit sounds normal to me.. But to other people..? So I've decided to name it Everybody Hates It Already.

Shit's like, 10% recorded as they were the non-live guitar+drum bits. Should be knocking out the other parts tomorrow, hopefully we can knock it out in a day so I can get started on all the overdubs.

Excellent, Mr. Cam. So, who-all is playing on this?

Landon's got all the live drumming, as he's solid as fuck. I play some drums, but it is only on the drunk Beach Boys section for this EP. I will be handling the bulk of all stringed instruments, bass and guitar for the two normal length songs (there are also two brief grind/powerviolence/dissonantweirdmetal songs), one of the normal length songs is made up of a few pieces, it is calling for other more odd instrumentation. It's got some shit that would be dope with piano and accordion embellishments on certains sections of a particular theme, and it ends with a skapunk barre chord freakout. Thing is saucy as fuck, I am going to try to get somebody(s) to provide either/both a trumpet, trombone or whatthefuckever horn instrument. Also, the metal songs are really tortured sort of odd meter angry deals, so I am going to try to stack them up with lots of ugly chord voicings: flat fifths and seconds, shit like that. Flat fifth with a major seventh on top is a fucking cool sound too. Maybe other weird, purely noise tracks. I have little intention of recreating these sounds live at the moment, and love the sound of overindulged arrangements, so all restraints are out the fucking window, I just have to hope my ability to gauge what works is sharp enough. This is why I say people will hate it, it's going to sound nightmarish to normal music listening people, I am hoping.

Would you, by chance be interested in playing bass on the fuckedupmetal songs? They are perfect for 5-string range, I'm tuned to standard and mostly play off off E major/minor voicings with the fucked up shit thrown in. I could probably write parts myself, I just think it would be dope to have someone who's good at metal bass to do it up. Plus I have a decent amount of other things to figure out.

EDITED TO FUCK: Had to make these words actually make some sort of sense.

I can play some uglybass for you. How ugly do you want it?

Shit would be pretty ugly. Once you hear the riffs you'll understand what's going on, both in terms of tone and theory. My guitar tone is going to be just me cracking the AC15 all the way, with some overdubs of I don't know what yet, but it will probably be just barely high gain AC15 tone at the core, so you could bring some gross lowend.

I guess the best way to describe what I am talking about is, imagine if this band was a person:



And it met this person (who also happens to be a song):



And then they fucked and had a baby.

I get what you're on about here. I'm sure there's a way to squeeze some violence in there on the ol' bassophone.

On an unrelated note: I have really taken to drinking black coffee with a small amount of honey in it.

Interesting. I am trying to mentally taste that, and I'm not sure I can. I suppose it works; sugar works if you like to sweeten your coffee like a knave, so...

So, also... My drummer and I discuss'd putting a band together behind me solo stuff (and see what it turns into). Seriously discussed it. The bottom like being Garda doesn't rehearse very often, doesn't gig very much- for every show we play, we turn down probably half a dozen more offers, at least. Not even exaggerating for dramatic effect, and we want to play. The other guys' schedules just don't allow it. Sparked by a comment that that room- The Snaxodrome- is going to waste. I'm not even down there that often anymore as I live in another part of the city and don't have a car. We've shared the room before when Chris and I were doing the metal thing. We are going to make some discrete inquiries to people we know first*, and pitch the idea.

*- That may not get us anywhere. Though it might; I do know people who might be down for this the same way we are. I know dedicated people who have nothing meaningful otherwise going on, who like us in some cases, don't want anything else, I know people who tour, etc. I might have to get younger folks, though. We don't even gig every month, and you'd cry if I told you how little we rehearse. The level of activity limits us to side-project status, if not in fact than in deed. It's a damn fine one, but that might be what it's gotta be. And it is, really, their band, in terms of how it functions.

Now if I only knew a ladybassist who can sing proper backups and is a funk monster... The other guitar slot I can fill with an e-mail; that wouldn't be an issue. (You don't think I am going to fob all my weirdguitars off on someone else and then try and sing all that shit whilst playing those basslines? I fear it a bit beyond my chops.)

Interesting developments afoot. Stay tuned.

That being said, we were discussing some Garda logistical stuff today. Chris is planning on getting an AxeFX II, Ken's planning on getting a Sansamp RBI. I've been testing out Guitar Rig 5 at home and am actually quite happy with it. We may dispense with amps entirely. As it stands, we're already feeding a good chunk of pre-mixed stuff to the house, with the samplers, synths and laptop. All I'd have outfront is a tuner and a wah.

So fuckit, do it all. We have a complete duplicate rig for the laptop and MOTU inyourfaces, too. Roll in with a rack. Feed stereo line to FOH. Nothing left but acoustic drums and vocals at that point; very little stage volume. Really liking this idear.

Amps are just so redundant nowadays.

In that they all do basically the same thing or that they tend to have like four channels that can all be tweaked to sound more or less alike? Or both.

Kind of both. Also that the "digital" versions are becoming much more powerful and capable of things like in Snaxie's post. Most non-musicians will not notice the difference, except the lack of big boxes on stage.

Granted I will always love the sound, feel and look of a good ol' tube amp; they are getting a bit silly. Like you said, I have messed with four channel tweaker amps that feel unnecessary. Oh so I have a clean, and then a high gain, and then a higher gain, and then a also higher but slightly different gain channel. Oh and a decent stompbox through the clean channel will sound a lot (if not damn near exactly) like the other three channels. Well ... fuck.

Then you take some like the AxeFX II and how much potential those things have, from tonal variety to their functional flexibility (both recording and live), and classic amps start to seem silly. Once again, especially when the majority of your audience will not be able to tell the difference between a classic Marshall and the AFX's classic Marshall model.

Like J. Mascis's rig: http://www.premierguitar.com/Video/2012 ... ascis.aspx

Don't get me wrong, I would love that four-amp setup to death. But the necessity of such a rig, especially when you take into account his collection of pedals, is ever-dwindling.

Or how about The Edge (man do I hate that stupid name): http://www.uberproaudio.com/who-plays-w ... -equipment




At some point, having all of that equipment is redundant, but I still wouldn't turn it down :red:

Zack Lee. For the needs of this band, it provides an elegant solution. This doesn't stop us from loving our awesome gear- it's still very much its own thing. Their rigs are physically large, and mine, while a bit smaller, is not the pinnacle of reliability. The tones we could get are appropriate and suitable to our needs. And they want to bring other things- like lights, etc.- that we just don't have the room to transport. We also have a fairly decent amount of gear for a four-piece band, and no crew; our setup time is not so quick. This simplifies things, a lot.

Which is mainly my point. I think the fact we are on this forum shows that we all love our gear. But, from a practical standpoint what is going to entertain the crowd more, a full stack or a light show? If it sounds good enough (and I think we can all agree the AFX exceeds "good enough") and it is much more practical then why not go with that solution. You also bring up a good point with reliability. I'd be willing to bet that as the technology improves, things like the AFX and on-stage computers are going to become more reliable and cheaper to maintain then a classic tube amp. Especially something like a AC30.

Plus with an on-stage computer you can synchronize your samples and light show which is always nice. Then once again as you pointed out there is the man-power required. With the software available today, all of your samples and lighting can be handled autonomously by a machine so no engineer needed to run those. And, with the AFX running into the board that is less speakers to haul around. With the right equipment, two guitarists and a bassist can all run into one rack setup (for the sake of this argument lets say two AFX and a bass equivalent/another AFX) that runs into the board. Instead of three amps (potentially between three combos and three head/cab setups) you just bring one rack setup. That's a lot less space and weight.

Of course there are plenty of factors that could make this difficult from the PA setup to a variety of electrical issues, but the allure of moving to something like that which will sound good and leave more space for other things like lights is definitely ... alluring.

Of course it all depends on your end goal for entertaining the crowd. In a metal band, the big amps play a role in entertaining that crowd. But for more dance and electronic music, the crowd is focused on ass-shaking and making-out, not what equipment you have behind you.

The classic amp setup still definitely has its place in entertaining certain crowds, but as time goes on I can see that setup becoming more and more redundant. Especially if you pull empty-speaker-cabinet shenanigans to create the illusion of big amps. Of course that doesn't cut down on space but empty cabs are pretty light :red:

We've discussed beat-up old checkerboard cabs with the Garda G or G + gear logo in distressed metal for the look of the things. The idea at the time being they would actually be loaded and fed by our classy tubemaps. (Chris even has the appropriate cab, a beat-to-crap Marshall 1982A, that's become our main recording cab, loaded with Weber Blues and Silvers.) Fakecabs like that wouldn't save much space unless we could find a way to transport gear in them.

As it is, we get all sorts of gearhead questions before and after shows from musicians in the audience who see what we're playing through. This will raise different ones.

But yeah, the plan is pretty much as you'd described. One large rolling rack with the , Sansamp for the bass, I can't afford a at the moment, so the plan is to run GR5 off the currently extant onstage laptop, of which we have an exact duplicate (Chris working in IT has its benefits!) We also have two MOTU rack interfaces that currently handle the synth/sampler/backing track routing and feed the drummer his click. I program all the sets beforehand. We have the DMX controller for the lights and have used it to good effect. (It's hiding offstage, but all those purple lights in the Knives video, for example?) We have enough inputs on the interfaces as it is we can have the guitars and bass, complete with patch changes, all dialed in beforehand, all going straight to front-of-house on the same lines as the electronics. We could split them out if necessary, but we'd actually rather not.

If we were a blues band, this would be silly. If we were a metal band... It's been done (Meshuggah, etc.), but it seems a bit odd. For what we do? Acceptable. We're on the more organic side of this kinda noise here, but still, doesn't seem out of place. A friend of mine fronts a straight-up industrial band that almost never has an amp of any sort onstage (live drummer with e-drums, too). Occasionally they'll have something for monitoring in certain venues. For that style? Par for the course. The other guitarist in my old gothmetal band now fronts an industrial thing as well, and I've seen them- two Pod XT Pros, rackmount computer with a wireless synth controller, Roland V-Drums.

I have a short clip of GR5 in the Recording forum; just the usual sort of Sabbath worship riffs I use for gear tests since time immemorial. It holds up along realamp tones I've pulled in the past.

Juss bought a Macbook Pro today, the 13" with the beefier specs. Downloading the latest drivers for my Tascam US-1800, hopefully it should dispel all the gnarness of my previous problems.

Dudes, I just assumed this would work without asking but if I ran the output from my tube preamp channels into one of the 1/4" inputs on my interface (it has 8 XLR inputs and 6 1/4" inputs) shit would be perfectly fine, right?