Today I quit Gravitational Distortion... the slam band I play guitar in.

It wasn't going anywhere. I've been in a guitar playing rut and going 'jun jun jun' incessantly wasn't helping. Our drummer's life has been messed up and now that it's over he isn't doing anything to get back into action... We were finally able to get him to attend a rehearsal but I had to do everything short of sucking his wang to make it happen, and in the end I just felt tired of it.

But I do feel a surge of inspiration to do thingies with my guitars again. I'm taking a page out of Chris, Cam and Eric's books by planning to just make music that pleases myself. Stuff along the lines of the drumjams Todge set up, in fact I'm going to flesh them out into full songs and make new ones.

Hey Snaxie. Much lightning over there? Looking south it's just constantly flashing electricity in one cloud.

No idea- I slept through the night. I have an early morning class for the Summer II session and it buggered up my usual night-owl-ness.

Funny, at least one thing on my record grew out of an old Todgejam. Those were a high point of the HCAF/Maps I era. I should probably finish that thing while I have the time-ish...

Yep. His drum tracks seem to be a great catalyst for creativity. I really surprised myself with what I came up with.

So you're teaching?

Aye, it was always funny how T's drumjams always seemed to bring out some different sorts of takes. A lot of/all other folks' jams just tended to yield twenty tracks that might as well have been done by the same killswitch engage fan, just varying levels of production savvy mostly. Todge's always had wildly differing submissions, stylistically. I was always impressed by that.

Negatory, just taking more classes over the summer. I've spent too much time unemployed + broke to enjoy time off anymore.



QFT. Italics for emphasis.

It helps, too, that one wasn't married to one thing stylistically with his jams. You could go all chugz-and-breakdowns with them if you wanted, I suppose. But there were viable options listening to the drums. Not just "here's the 16th note double kick section at 160 BPM, now here's the half-time breakdown where we ride on the china".

I was on vacation out in Montauk which is all it is cracked up to be. Mostly just beach and relaxing. I didn't do shit other than drink, swim and play acoustic at night with friends.

Rev, sorry to hear about your grandfather, I lost mine a few years back and he was a huge influence to me. Devastated me. My condolences.


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perhaps another drum jam needs to be done then I've wanted some fresh inspiration for making music as I haven't really been playing guitar much recently and it's making me a bit sad. I've done a few full tracks that were born from drum jams as well. I just want to get back on it but my free time always ends up getting taken up with hanging out with my mates, cycling or doing house work. I think I just need to be antisocial for a few nights to get some stuff recorded haha

also, y'all muddafuckas need to visit England, I rode here the other day and it's beautiful in the summer. A bit bleak when it's rainy though







Sorry to hear this Dev. I have the same kinda relationship with my Grandad as well, can understand how much that must suck.

As something of an Anglophile and a student of European history I'm not only planning on it, it's entirely possible, even likely I could have an academic institution pay for it. Y'know, for research purposes.

Nice T; that is some fancy pants environment/terrain shit you have there.

It has been properly summery here finally, even a bit on the almost-too-warm edge of it here a bit, but i find these days that i don't mind balls-hot anymore. Sure as shit beats shoveling snow. I am, certainly, becoming more of an elderly curmudgeon all the time.

When it's over 80º, you should really be on your porch in a winter coat and golf pants, drinking oldmanbeer from a can. Extra points if there's complaining involved.

So I just put together a quick drum jam track, poasted over on the co-lab forum if anyone wants to have a shot at it.

Retracted offer on house. The hunt continues :/
To get over this I am building a Shiva/Hot Cat 30 type thing.

I recently found out that by putting my amp as a project on my resume, it greatly helped me get my current internship.

Vesication has been hard at work since May making a pro-ish music video. If you've ever seen A Headbanger's Journey or World Metal and the rest of those Sam Dunn documentaries it's by one of the guys on the crew who did those films. It's going to be so fucking legit...

But in the meantime Chris from Human Compost has just been cranking out music videos for songs from our first EP, with clips from horror movies.

You should probably not have anyone else near the computer screen if you watch.



There's another but it needs some work... and it will make you feel dirty just for seeing it.

Thinkin' I might invest in some new preamps when I get back from Alaska. I am gonna be getting rid of my 5150 and my AC15 which should cover that entirely. Not sure exactly where to look though. Looking at the Focusrite stuff which I know is well respected. Probably just looking for a 4 channel dealer with some really nice pres.

I don't hate the US-1800 preamps, I just think maybe I could be getting more fat sounds? I would still use the Tascam, I just would like to have 4 more real nice preamps to put the priority sounds through.

Options are basically dependent on your price range and whether you're willing to go 500-series or not. I assume with the mention of Focusrite and 4-channel, you're speaking of the ISA 428? That's definitely an option. The Focusrites do sometimes show up cheap-er-ish on the 'bay than the new cost would indicate. Definitely respectable. They make single, 2-, and 8-channel units as well. Don't quote me on this, but I think I've seen the 4-bangers go in the $750-800 range on occasion, which is a damn fine price per channel.

Mr. newholland just acquired a Warm Audio WA12, which is an API-flavored 1/2 rackspace deal in an obscenely orange chassis that is by all accounts quite nice. Can be found for >400 a channel if you ask the right people. Uses quality US-made transformers. They make a 500-series version for a bit less, and a feature-laden 1ru unit for a fair amount more. We may have a report from a trusted d00d in the near future on these- they've been a rather hot commodity since they were released.

If you can find a 500-series chassis somewhere, all manner of things become available, but there's a cost upfront as it's a powered rack.

Mixing-and-matching (pairs, perhaps?) is also an option. If you wanted to, you could go 2x pristine fidelity for acoustic instruments, which you seem to record a lot of, and 2x makes no claims to accuracy fat for rock hardware/vox, for example.

There seems to be a lot of gear-horsetrading in the mic pre world, so keeping an eye out for used stuff is a worthy idea.

The idea of splitting it between two individual two-channels is sounding like a good idea to me.. It would also allow me to spread out the expenditure. This ISA Two has caught my eye for that purpose. Seems to be a real clean, transparent sort of deal. Would probably kick ass for acoustics and whatnot.

I also just only got around to opening up my TL Audio P-2 to check what tubes were in there as I have always thought it was sort of bright and tinny sounding (which has served a purpose for me, actually) and saw that there are a pair of Sovtek 12AX7WXT+ in there. A little research showed them to be considered a very bright and not-well-liked tube. So I swapped into those JJs you sent me with the ART. I am sure those will sound much better. I would often avoid using the TL for quite a few things, and I am thinking it might actually work quite well for tracking guitars and whatnot now.

Which makes me think I might actually be happy with just sticking to getting two new channels for the time being. In a live tracking situation I could maybe run OHs through the ISA and bass/guitar through the MPA and PA-2.

If you are buying new let me know. I'll hook you up and ship it.