Hey, I'm gonna suck your skill out of you as soon as I can.
That cool if I can figure it out?

Well, when I say they played sixteenths, I don't mean that each foot is making sixteenth notes. So when you say your left foot could do 70 bpm, that's like my saying you were doing 140. Do you see what I'm saying...?

Mine? Sure, the process won't take very long though. I have quick-ish hands, and not enough else.



Hmm. Mayyyyyyyybe?

So lets say, i record a solid 60 seconds of kick drums. Lets say that there are 600 individual kick drum hits there. What would you call the bpm?

Counting drums/using metronomes has been the thing that i have been most stubbornly lazy about. Worse than anything else. For the metronome part especially, really dumb of me.

Well, it's basically in our context a matter of the standard way of measuring kick drum speed amongst metal drum nerds being the rate at which both feet can play sixteenth notes. That was a cumbersome sentence. It's because in metal, that's typically what the feet are doing when it gets to heavy foot exertion.

So like:



This guy is a bastard and I want to eat his legs and gain his protein. Dem are sixteenths happening on the kick drum. If we were to hear just one of his feet it'd be eighths.

I go to the studio for mixing and random overdubs in three or four weeks. I just visited tonight with my band, toured the facilities, and spoke at length with one of the staff engineers, who, Cam should note, is personal friends with some of the guys in Every Time I Die and has recorded them. (Also, he has a poor abused-looking Bad Cat on long-term loan from one of their guitarists. It is the most beat-to-all-fuck boutique piece I've ever seen.) He is also my bassist's nephew so we get Tyme-On-The-Cheep. Big SSL desk and oceans of outboard for me to mix on.

BUT...do they tape?

It's PTHD feeding the SSL. No one big around here does tape anymore, I'm afraid. Dave Fridmann still has tape, but not a 2" machine last I checked. Their old facility still had it, but I didn't even see it in the storeroom where they're at now. They do, however, have a lovely EMT plate reverb in a closet under the stairwell.

Mmm...reverb. It's your duty to unearth that unit.

You can patch it in from the main control room, too. It is in working order and gets used. It's simply in the closet because it's a giant box with a 9-foot long metal plate in it and there was nowhere else for it to go.

Ah, yes, of course. How silly of me.

I suppose I could try moving if it you'd like but I suspect it's very heavy.

And I asked myself if it were functional, seeing as it's, well, in a closet under the stairs and all. I assumed the answer was "no". I was quite pleased to hear "yes".

That sounds like one hell of a reverb unit.

My Twin Reverb ain't got shit on that, yo.

hmmm, you may need a larger pedal bored for that reverb unit.

IIRC, that oughta be a Bad Cat Hot 50 you saw, and I'm pretty sure it's Andy's..
Also, that shit is megabadass.

I like where this is going.

You may need more indentured servants. See the Dutch

I love the spigot looking bit on the top of those things. It's what makes the reverb more wet.




Big-money interview tomorrow and I am admittedly quite nervous. Small-money interview yesterday for a part-time printing position to make a few extra bucks went very well as I'm extremely overqualified. This one's for a prepress position at somewhere a significantly bigger deal than anywhere I've worked in the past. I kinda swung for the fences here with the assumption they wouldn't call back. Experienced personnel is experienced personnel, I suppose, and they did. My plan to restore some of my shaky confidence here is to go in with the assumption that I'm underqualified and won't get it anyhow and talk shop, as technical interviews tend to go. It worked last time. Alas that's not paying off for me so well financially at the moment.

I am the goddamn man and they'd have no reason to call me in otherwise dammit.

Also, for what it's worth, I'm actually wearing one of my frock coats, the plain black one. It just looks like a stylish black overcoat, and wanting for a plain black wool overcoat- it's fucking cold out and a nice suit is not the most appropriate thing for this weather on its own- it was the best option.

sharp dressed man...

Interview tomorrow, I've had a fuckload of prep for this one so I'm hoping I'll get it this time. 7th time lucky I finally have a properly fitting suit so I shall be wearing that with a nice smart-casual shirt