Today's recording project - Last Forgiveness (2008) + mastering work in progress

The latest recording to surface from depths of the studio is Last Forgiveness, which (if memory serves me correctly) is the first song I brought to the table in Necessary Distraction. This is a slightly modified version... while it begins (laid back) and ends (gratuitous solo) similar to the original arrangement, the second verse has been re-worked with a new heavier guitar riff--in retrospect, I don't know how we managed to play the song for close to 2 years without that riff!

Enough reading... start listening: Last Forgiveness 2008

Here's the breakdown of the gear used on the recording:
- Left rhythm guitar - PRS McCarty Korina into Mesa Recto preamp + Randall RT2/50 power amp
- Right rhythm guitar - G&L ASAT Classic into Egnater JTM45 head

- Lead guitar - PRS Standard 24 into Fulltone Clyde Deluxe wah + Mesa Studio preamp + Randall RT2/50 power amp

- Slide guitar - Hamer Eclipse into Hughes & Kettner Edition Tube 20 combo

- All of the above - through V30-loaded Randall R212C cabinet mic'd with Cascade Fat Head ribbon and Blue "The Ball" dynamic into Presonus DigiMax FS

- Acoustic guitars - Guild F47M-CE and Takamine EF-385 12-string mic'd with Kel Audio HM-1 and Audio Technica AT2020 condensers into Presonus DigiMax FS

- Bass guitar - G&L Tribute L-2500 direct into Line 6 GearBox

- Keys - Fatar Studiologic SL990-XP into Korg Triton rackmount

- Vocals - Studio Projects C1 condenser into DigiMax FS
- Drums - Drums on Demand

Once we finished recording this one, I made a few edits & mix changes to the other tracks and started the mastering process. I loaded all the .WAV files into Cakewalk Pyro, fixed the fade-outs, adjusted the timing between tracks, and then discovered that Pyro didn't support the plug-in I wanted to use for mastering. Ugh! So I loaded the .WAV files back into Sonar, applied the plug-ins I needed (VintageChannel for light EQ and iZotope Ozone for loudness maximization & such), exported new .WAV files, and loaded those .WAV's into Pyro (once again) to fix the fade-outs and adjust timing between tracks. It took a few hours to finish (a couple more hours than I originally estimated). Now I've got a couple of CD's that I can listen to in the car, at work, etc. I'm giving one of the copies a test run on the home stereo now, and it sounds pretty good... just a touch louder and brighter than the original mixes. Of course I've already found a handful of things that need to be fixed, but for a first attempt, not too bad. I probably won't get around to tweaking things until after the holiday, but at least it sounds good enough as-is to make copies for folks as stocking stuffers.

--B

Today's recording project(s) - I'll Find You Hiding / Through the Years

Today was a good music day... I spent the morning jamming around with some friends, worked on a couple new song concepts in the afternoon, and spent most of the evening recording final tracks and mixing songs down.

Through the Years takes the cake for both "newest composition" and "least like anything else we've written or recorded": "Newest" in that all the music and lyrics have been composed during the past month (compared to many of the songs that we've been playing in one form or another for a couple of years); "least like anything else" in that the song is all acoustic, mostly down-tuned 12-string with a couple 6-string tracks added for additional texture.

The second song is I'll Find You Hiding, which is a tune we've been jamming around on with Necessary Distraction for just over a year now. This is probably one of the more "odd" songs we've got... rather dark & droning compared to everything else we've written & recorded recently. (I think I wrote the music after re-discovering Heart's Mistral Wind.) The wide-open nature lends itself to layering of different textures, so there are probably more audio tracks in this song (and more gratuitous use of effects like phaser & delay & reverb) than anything else we've done. Oddly enough, the guitar solo was a scratch track that I ended up liking more than any of the "official" takes that followed.

Through the Years:
- "Lead" acoustic guitar - Guild F47M-CE mic'd with Kel Audio HM-1 and Audio Technica AT2020 condensers into Presonus DigiMax FS

I'll Find You Hiding:
- Left rhythm guitar - G&L ASAT Classic into Egnater JTM45 head
- Right rhythm guitar - PRS McCarty Korina into Hughes & Kettner Edition Tube 20 combo
- Lead guitar - PRS McCarty Korina into Hughes & Kettner Edition Tube 20 combo
- Slide guitar - Hamer Eclipse into Mesa Recto preamp + Randall RT2/50 power amp
- other "texture" guitar - Ernie Ball JP7 into Mesa Recto preamp + Randall RT2/50 power amp
- All of the above - through V30-loaded Randall R212C cabinet mic'd with Cascade Fat Head ribbon and Blue "The Ball" dynamic into Presonus DigiMax FS

Common gear:
- Acoustic guitar - Takamine EF-385 12-string mic'd with Kel Audio HM-1 and Audio Technica AT2020 condensers into Presonus DigiMax FS
- Bass guitar - G&L Tribute L-2500 direct into Line 6 GearBox
- Vocals - Studio Projects C1 condenser into DigiMax FS
- Drums - Drums on Demand

As of now, we've got nine songs complete, one more song that's 90% complete, and a handful of concepts in the hopper... hopefully we'll get two or three of those concepts finished by the end of the year.

--B

New amp gear - Egnater Rebel 20

The latest amp to join the ranks in the studio is the Egnater Rebel 20. Obviously (if you take a quick look around the blog) I've long been a fan of Egnater gear, having owned a real Egnater (M4 preamp) and a small mountain of other amps designed by Bruce (hot-rodded JTM45 head, Randall RH50T/RM20B/RM50B/RM100C/RM4/RT2-50, Rocktron TOL100/Vendetta). So, once again, I took advantage of the Microsoft/e-bay 30% cashback offer to pick up a practically new Rebel head.

The Rebel, considering its small size and low weight for a tube amp, is packed with cool features... two of the coolest have got to be the "tube mix" and "watts" controls. Tube mix allows you to blend the two EL84's and two 6V6's in the power section in pretty much any combination--the 6V6's provide a smoother tone compared to the edgier nature of the EL84's. Watts is essentially an attenuator that allows the wattage to be dialed down from 20w to 1w--this is in addition to a standard master volume control, which has a different impact on the amp's tone and feel. Of course, it's finished in the standard Egnater "black & tan" tolex.

Admittedly, curiosity got the better of me on this amp... lots of folks on different forums were raving about the tone, but nobody could offer up a good comparison. Hot-rodded Marshall? Hot-rodded Vox? Hot-rodded Fender? All of the above? None of the above? (well, at least with Egnater, you know it's hot-rodded something) Needless to say, with the Egnater JTM45 head around, I was hoping it was more hot-rodded-anything-else than hot-rodded Marshall. Turns out the Rebel's still got a Marshall-esque vibe, but it's a bit thinner sounding (more like a real Marshall) than the JTM45 head. With the bright switch engaged and the EL84's full-on, it does a great sparkly clean/overdriven tone. Yet with the gain cranked up, tight switch enaged, and mids dialed down, it can pull off metal tones. A little fiddling around in the studio has proven that it'll sit nicely in the mix with the JTM45--distinctive enough to be distinctive, but not too distinctive.

Here's a pic of the Rebel on top of the JTM45 head from the first Egnater amp building seminar...



Since the Vox-like tone is unique compared to the other preamps I've got in the rack, I've been debating wiring the Rebel into the rack... basically taking the speaker out from the Rebel into a Weber MiniMass attenuator, then feeding the line out from the attenuator into the Lexicon FX section and Randall power amp. Overkill? Perhaps... but in the true spirit of G.A.S. and "rig complexity," I think I'm gonna have to give it a shot at some point. Though I think I'm gonna need more cables... rats!

--B

New amp gear - Bogner Alchemist 1x12 combo

A few weeks ago I had the chance to audition a Bogner Alchemist 2x12" combo at Guitar Center. Since I was rather impressed with what I heard and have been looking for a compact living room amp for a while, I jumped on the Microsoft/e-bay 30% cashback offer to pick up an Alchemist 1x12" combo. The Alchemist 1x12" is similar in specs... only considerable difference being that the two Celestions (G12H30 and Greenback) have been replaced by a single Vintage 30... otherwise it's got the same switchable 20/40 watt power section, two channels with independent EQ and voicing switches, footswitchable boost, and digital delay/reverb.

Here's a pic of the new Alchemist...



Overall, it's turning out to be a great living room amp, especially compared to some of the more powerful (read: obnoxiously loud) living room amps I've tried. Right now I've got it dialed in for a crisp clean tone and borderline-heavy-overdriven tone, but I know it'll work well for jazz gigs (fat/thick cleans & leads) with a bit of tweaking.

--B

You know you've got too much gear when...

...you clean out the closet in the studio, pull out 23 guitar cases, then realize there are still half a dozen guitar cases hiding in the other closet...



--B