Keep fighting the good fight, Chris.


I have been practicing singing while drumming a lot the past two days, and it is helping me with both. My goddamn abdomen hurts from trying (and quite amusingly succeeding) to make myself audible over the drum kit without amplification. Also, forcing myself to sing long phrases without stopping over the top of drumming seems to be really helping me with vocal stamina, which is cool.


Doubly also, I didn't smoke weed or drink today. It wasn't super easy, but I think I'm gonna keep it up.

Ya know, I am actually starting to get pretty proficient at playing guitar.. I am by no means an incredibly consistent player or a human metronome, but I am very much nearing "passable", if not possessing some amount of vibe and/or swing. My tapping however, is pretty clean and I am beginning to pick up some gimmicky Diet Mathrock fingerpicking stuff that sounds pretty cool.


Like with everything else, it is really weirding me the fuck out.


And I did end up both smoking and drinking a little. However, I don't really feel guilty because I feel like I learned a lot of things tonight in a weird sort of way.

Go for it chris, I got your back if need be. I am ready fuck some planet up meself. If I had time I would build a fucking DethStar and obliterate this fuck.

BTW Deth looks so much better without the "a". The "a" just kinda makes if safe. And nice. Nothing nice in DETH.

Put it to a vote.

what say ye maplitonians, DETH or death?

In order to preserve awesomecheesy metal history for as long as possible, I vote for deth.

'Sperimenting with mic positions and input impendance settings today. Also, drinking lots of coffee.

DETH is presumably the superlative of death. All-caps DETH must be far more uber, surely? I vote for DETH, as its own thing. It's like plain ol' death, but better.

How's the variable impedance thing treating you, Mr. Hell?

Quite well! From what I have gathered, atleast in the case of the PR40 it seems like the higher the impendance setting, the darker or maybe more accurately, more "beefy" the tone. With it rolled all the way off it's got a lot of midrange and upper mid anger. At the moment I am micro adjusting around a Beta 57, PR40 and my MXL ribbon (which is pretty dark) and try to get a really big rock sound. It is definitely going well, I am just tinkering around and trying to learn stuff. I mean really, what I have right now sounds good if not great. But I am looking for awesome.

Just mic'ing the internal Greenie at the moment, by the way. I am sure my experiments will include messing with the 2x10 as well. I am definitely getting curious about that other pickup that I ordered and am thinking about dropping it in. These stock pickups do a really cool, gross midrange thing but I am wondering if it is maybe a little too much.. It is maybe a bit boxy or something like that. I think it is maybe preventing me from getting as chunky as I would like, but that is maybe the Greenie's character. Sounds pretty chunky in the room and it is translating over to the recording but maybe not as well as I would like..? We shall see. For all I know moving over to the 2x10 might all of a sudden open up that chunkiness as odd as that might sound.

Anyways, I am having fun. And thanks again for the preamp, bruddah. Shit is madsiqq, yo.

Yr wllcm. Which channel are you using with the PR40? Re: going for awesome, that's the way to roll, IMO. Especially with such a tweakable mic pre- the more you can do to get it as awesome as possible going in, the less you have to do on the back end. I have no fear of committing to a sound on the way in- if you know what you want, just go for it.

Re: the Greenie, the comparative lack of chunk may be due to the open-back 1x12 cab. A closed-back 4x12 full of the things does roughly what you'd expect. If you know anyone who happens to have a Les Paul (an Explorer will do as well- we are going for sheer mass of mahogany here) kicking about, that can settle the question quickly re: whether it's the amp or the guitar.

If it's happening in the room, you should be able to get it "to tape"; it's largely just a matter of microphone choice and placement. There's probably not a standardized way of doing this given the inherently somewhat unrealistic nature of most rawk guitar recording (ie. jam a 57 right up against the grille). I'd start with a darker mic like the ribbon or the PR40 dialed in for a bigger, darker thing. A condenser will get you the bottom, but probably a lot of top you don't want/need. Well, you might if it's a distant mic and you want more room in there. Lotsa ways to skin this particular feline. But like everything else, it really comes down to "fiddle with shit 'til it sounds like it's supposed to".

I was using CH. 2 with the PR40 and 1 with the Beta in hopes of it accentuating what I was trying to get out of each mic. I made some progress and learned a good amount of things. Messed with a lot of different combinations and at the end I had a PR40 and the Beta on the Greenie, and an i5 on the 2x10. I am not entirely sure what I thought of the whole progression, as I think I might have preferred what I was getting with the PR40+Beta and the MXL ribbon as a room mic. I ended up messing with settings a bunch and got maybe a little lost looking for what I wanted. I will definitely give it a shot again here in the next couple days, and I will be sure to change my strings (I shouldn't probably have even bothered with these ones being as dead as they are) because I feel like a lot of what I was doing was trying to compensate for a missing chunk of high frequencies (thus the bringing in the i5) and I was trying to dial it in with the EQ on the amp and eventually with plugins when I realized it wasn't getting in the microphones. That ended up getting sort of weird and thin, and was def fucking with the good things I had accomplished with the low end and midrange. However, that said I think today was productive and gave me me a lot of ideas and dare I even say taught me some lessons. I got some good tones, but I don't think I reached awesome by any means.

Also interestingly, the i5 sure does have a surprising amount of low end. At the least, in comparison to a 57.

Good/weird day. Yeah.

Classic, when the mailman, in handing over an awkward too big/heavy box, asks "what the hell are you building here?"

I should have told him it was a dethstar.

He probably would not have believed me though, with the half-of-a-car that i just walked over from, right there in plain view.

I feel like i should hide my projects better, so that i can more easily fuck with people like that.

Yep. I haven't spent too much time with one on a cab, but I've noticed this on snare. I do believe Geoff poasted samples to that effect once as well. The i5 seems like a nice utility mic/57 replacement. At least, in theory; sometimes you want the midrangey 57 thing.

To Chris:

Okay, so I have OS 9 running on my machine, to use Digidesign Turbosynth and play Heroes Of Might And Magic III. This is slightly hilarious, as I have my Hackmount Rackintosh that thinks it's a Mac Pro convinced it it's an old PPC Mac to use software from the '90s.

Its been a good week all told. 2 good dates with a nice blonde, got incredibly high with my mates most nights, today is my last shift in my current job and I've just cranked out a decent new riff.

man, did i ever have no luck with the pr40 on guitar amps. i thought it might be magic, but there's a lot of top end, and not the midbass luv. with a bass amp? totally the opposite.. it sounds AMAZING on bass. i hated it on vocals too from any distance more than involving a lot of saliva on it.

thing seems to shine on bass and kick.. but i had a tough time getting guitar to sound great.

Oh my god, my pedal board guys, my pedal board.

Pics coming soon.

I despise typical human nature so fucking deeply that I feel silly posting the sentiment here, because it seems demeaning to the significance of the thought to express it as some sort of passing thought. I would truly be content if the majority of the population was wiped from the face of this earth, with the very slight exceptions of the people that populate this forum and the obvious few (probably more slim than you would expect) that would make the cut.

I am getting old so fucking fast.

I am thinking now myself about trying something else besides the PR40, actually. I am comparing the recordings I have done to things that I really, really like and I feel like there is something missing in the thumpier parts of the guitar tone and I think it might be the midbass thing you are talking about. Not sure though, maybe it is just me playing tricks on myself. But I will def mess with something else. Have you had any luck with other dynamics in this respect like the 421 or SM7? Pretty sure I recall you have one or both.

Anyway, I will def be messing with the M179 and one of the two KSM27s for the purpose of mixing with the Beta, as I like what it does fo sho. I remember having some gripes with the mic/myself while tracking guitars for that Singled Out demo and feeling like I could have done better on the lowend mic and being fairly pleased what the 57 was doing. I guess I was just being lazy about trying something else? Won't be like that this next time around though. I will be recording the drums with a scratch singularly mic'd scratch guitar track. That way, I won't be limited on my choices of mics for all the guitar and bass tracks. Nor will I be rushed to get a final guitar sound on the spot with one of the guitar tracks. That way, I will not have to worry about anything other than getting an awesome drum and room sound.

It is kind of dope, I am going to be recording a split between Singled Out and another band that is quite well liked and known in the area called Safe and Sound. They are signed and are beginning to catch a good amount of traction in the area. Dudes are sick, similarly styled quick youthcrewish with mosh riffs hardcore. Their drummer is a fucking badass, he also plays in a postrock sort of deal who are really awesome.

back from 3 days on the road. Left my Alesis mini keyboard in the dressing room at a gig. Lesson here: Don't get drunk, dance with sluts until you are sure all your gear is in the van. My gear is officially closer to Eric than myself. Club owner is shipping it back to me thankfully. Lucky I didn't need it for the third show this weekend, which was at the Borgata in Atlantic City. We were quite happy, got rave reviews there and our agency was there watching us. They are quite pleased. Nice to be home though.

My new favorite thing:



I may need to start buying it by the case.

I may start drinking it.

I just used a whole can of it in a little less than a half hour, and it solved 93% of my problems that are not mental or financial.

Magical.