Selling Out

Sometime over a year ago Dave Wolf suggested he just get an electronic kit and that would solve our issues with bass guitar getting into the drum tracks (which, at the time, I was trying to record with only three mics). I suggested we go with bass going D.I. and using a headphone mixing system instead.
And now I'm thinking we should do both.
Yeah. Both.
Electronic drums and D.I. everything else. (And yeah, that must needs includes guitars at least most of the time.)

Doing recordings using a fully electronic drum kit, bass direct, and using guitar amp emulations is not entirely a new idea but it's way not the "cool" way to record a live band. It does, however, offer a lot of advantages. For instance we could work at my studio or my apartment and have a super party down without bothering anyone. 

Cons:

• Electronic drums are not as fun
• Emulated guitar amps won't sound as good (although it's my contention that emulations do a good job of dirty amps, not clean amps.)
• My little ritual of going to Hanco's on Smith Street to get a bubble tea before rehearsal.
• We need six outputs from the drums: kick, snare, stereo cymbals, stereo toms. Right? Most single modules do not allow this so we'd have to get multiple modules.
• Monitoring will be a tad more of a pain in the tuchus
• Electronic drums are a bit sterile and have to be dirtied up to sound good (or at least to sound less giant 80's-90's.
• Electronic drum kits are freaky deaky expensive. Like the price of a very high-end acoustic kit. Well, at least for the high end ones.

Pros:

• In the end, the sound quality will be album-quality.
• We can replace the guitars with amped guitars. In fact, we can entirely mute a guitar and it really disappears. So when somebody makes a mistake (me) it can easily be cut out.
• We can do overdubs with completely clean backing tracks.
• We save about $1800/year in rehearsal space costs.
• We don't have to deal with how loud other bands are in the rehearsal studio.Their leakage can't bother us.
• My least favorite sound (snares vibrating whenever a guitar player does anything) won't happen.
• What's a more comfy place than my apartment? 
• The Yamaha controllers have what they call a "vintage" kit and it really does sound pretty good.

It may be that the "best" kit is some kind of combination of Roland and Yamaha. I dunno. Roland for the snare and toms and Yamaha for the cymbals? Or maybe the other way around.

Update: my office might be a better location. And a guitar amp (at least one) could run in the VO booth. 

12th Diatomaceous of Earth

This Gretsch Catalina Maple 7-piece kit for $600 seems like a pretty good deal. But such kits are available and around on (say) eBay and who needs that very high tom anyway? Still, if you buy it before Monday it'll be a great price on a new kit.
Recording 12 tracks I really shouldn't have so many ASIO lost buffers. Especially at only 44.1 or 48kHz (and 16-bit). I mean. Right? But with my laptop that's a thing. It doesn't seem to affect the sound though. I'd expect clicks or pops.
That being said, I don't know why I bother to record these things. Most of the band is stunningly uninterested. They won't read my emails much less actually listen to this. But oh well. Here's various things from the Diatomaceous Earth rehearsal on the 12th.


You know. I'd really love to have a rehearsal space where stuff could be left set up. With a drum kit that's good. Like a Gretsch. Should I learn to play drums? I really don't want to. But being able to just kick on the rack and the computer and have the monitors just work would be very nice.
Now let's talk about this mix.
On most of the instruments the compressor is an emulation of an LA-2A. But some things (basses?) I'm using an 1176 compressor (emulation). I'm hitting too hard. I know this. I do have issues of trying to keep the two bass instruments away from one another sonically. Those are a Chapman Stick which goes through some Lindell preamps "direct" via a couple DI boxes, and a Fender Jazz fretless going direct through an outboard preamp (and then, just for giggles, through another Neve preamp.) I realize that the 1176 is more popular with some instruments but I'm enjoying the sound of the LA-2A emulation better.
I threw my guitar through a Leslie emulation. For some reason on this session that seemed like an okay idea. I actually used a duplicated track for the Leslie.
You may note that the drums sound particularly bad. The hi-hat barks because it doesn't sound that awesome to start with and also I have too much compression on the overheads to make up for the lack of tom mics on this session (those having been rejected by drummer.) I should have backed off on the limiting. It would be nice if there were some ride cymbal but that's just not going to happen either.
On technical matters more: I was having a bad time with the Tascam A/D converter on this session. I don't know why. It may have been something as simple as the USB cable not seating in the laptop properly. Which is less than awesome. Because if it means the USB connector at the computer is getting wonkity then I'm not going to have a good time.

Deliberate Blanding

I'm really sick and tired of one aspect of modern pop music: the lack of drum fills.

Is it from the scourge of drum machines? Are real drummers emulating simplistic drum-machine drumming?
I have no idea.
Perhaps it's because drum fills might make the music too exciting and put less focus on the singer? 
Who knows. But it's clear that the lack of drum fills makes the music more boring. It's like a deliberate bland-ing of rock 'n roll.

The Diatoms of Earth

This is the first full-band rehearsal of Diatomaceous Earth in two months. We played two new things which we've been working on.

These are edited performances. Lily is going direct into a Neve through her preamp. Ethan is hitting the Lindell preamps. I've pretty well decided that Greg's guitar amp does perfectly well through the Tascam preamp built into the interface (if you were to go to last week's rehearsal and listen to his guitar -- one side is a Tascam pre and the other is a Neve pre, see if you can tell the difference.)

Lily and Greg

The kick and the snare are replaced with Drum Workshop kick and snare. I believe that Lou didn't play the toms even once for the whole session.
I've decided that for a distortion pedal, the Iron Bell is for me.
Also, doesn't anybody want to manage a rehearsal studio for us? We could rent one by the month and all you'd have to do is rent out the rest of the nights and walk home with the profit. We just want to be able to keep our stuff set up.

Tuning, Gluing

I'm a tad sick and tired of my Les Paul sounding out of tune. I know I seem like an infomercial but honestly, why doesn't everyone use the Earvana compensated nut system?
Confusingly there's a couple different kinds of nuts they have for the Les Paul. But I think that for all practical purposes the drop-in shelf nut is the one you want.
I mean good grief. That G# on the 3rd string always sounds terrible on a regular guitar. And if that doesn't suck the D chord (you know, that first D chord you learn) sounds like an out-of-tune mess. But with the Earvana I'm not cringing all the time.
Last time I brought in my Les Paul to Matt at 30th Street Guitars he didn't want to put the Earvana nut on. Instead he put a tiny sliver of bone on the nut where the G string touches. And yeah, that cleans up the intonation on that string a bit. But the problem is that B string also has issues. So this time I'm just gonna insist. I know it will decrease the value of the instrument. But I don't care. I don't have the guitar as an investment. I have it because I want to play it. Loud. And, hopefully, in-tune.

 Cytomic makes a well-reviewed SSL-style limiter called The Glue.

Dude

Dude.
Kids.
Playing Tool's 46 and 2.

Dude.
Excuse me, I need to go practice now.

Latest Tracklist

Here's the latest version of the Diatomaceous Earth tracklist.

1. Greg's New Song (The Undeniable Accuracy of Evaporation) http://diatomaceousearth.bandcamp.com/track/the-undeniable-accuracy-of-evaporation

2. Twilight of the Ice Nymphs http://diatomaceousearth.bandcamp.com/track/twilight-of-the-ice-nymphs

3. Magnetic Waltz http://diatomaceousearth.bandcamp.com/track/magnetic-waltz

4. Porcupine's Dream http://diatomaceousearth.bandcamp.com/track/porcupine-turbo-weasel-version

5. Spacy thing (Obsequious Terrapin) http://diatomaceousearth.bandcamp.com/track/an-obsequious-terrapin-commands-the-river

6. Imaginary Opera http://diatomaceousearth.bandcamp.com/track/imaginary-opera-2

7. Hieroglyphic Overdrive http://diatomaceousearth.bandcamp.com/track/hieroglyphic-overdrive

Not an actual comment on our band, just funny.

This is just the latest version of the set list. It's not definitive. It's just what we have right now. As far as I know.

My Two Things For Today

Sensaphonics ER earplugs are presumably softer.
The Mixo-blues scale.

Twin Fuzz Case

When I was a teenager my dad bought be a Fender Twin Reverb. My parents also got me my Hagstrom electric guitar.
In my advanced age I have finally come to understand that out of all the guitar players in the world I cannot make a Fender Twin sound good.
I did end up buying an MXR Distortion+ from a kid in high school.
Ultimately this was also a mistake. Basically I ended up with a guitar sound which was the Hagstrom (with flat-wound strings) fighting the Fender which was fighting the MXR.

I've since been indoctrinated into the religion that the P-90 single-coil electric guitar pickup is the One True guitar pickup. Also, that the Deluxe, the Bassman (and consequently the Marshall JTM-45), and similar amps are the right amps for me.
And that all distortion should be got and had by the guitar amp itself.
These are the words of wisdom I have revealed in the great prophecy (and over the course of the last couple albums I made).

But if, and only if, I wanted a distortion pedal to make life easier when playing live, I'd probably want a Mojo Effects Iron Bell.
Of all the distortion pedals I've heard via the YouTubes, it's the one which offendeth my delicate sensibilities the least.
I mean really, it sounds pretty good. And it is more of a "muff" than an overdriven amplifier emulator. So there's that.
But another thing is that I've learned from playing with City Samanas (and now Diatomaceous Earth) that when playing with this band I really should not play overdriven. I should play a clean guitar. So I don't know. Will there be a time when I need a bit of fuzz with Diatomaceous Earth?

A look at this case. I forget if this is number 2 or number 4. 

Before the Christmas break, somebody (I can't fathom that it was me but maybe I was drunk) actually packed this case pretty well. So I took a picture in hopes that it can happen again one day.

Don't Name the New Song!

This is what happens when Lou isn't at practice to keep us under control.


Note that the above-linked performances have no value to the public -- just to us in the band as a kind of "sketchbook" of ideas. We did indeed come up with a brand new song (I believe Greg had it almost entirely in mind when walking in but we use "we" in Diatomaceous Earth.)
Click through for the flying squirrel and the track list if you don't see it.

The Forsaken Gods

If I had a fantasy metal band we would play songs like "Ride the Night Worm" and "My Name is a Killing Word". The name of the band would be FORSAKEN GODS.

Here are the lyrics to the first song from our new album.

God is a robot
He takes my soul
God is a robot
Forty meters wide
God is a robot
Buried deep in the ground
God is a robot

God is a robot
With Ministers of Sound
God is a robot
Ripping Joy from your minds
God is a robot
500 poisons strong

God is a robot
He infects our flesh
A thousand tiny needles
Penetrate the sentients 

God is a robot
When he becomes aware
Death to Organics
Death to Organics!

The music itself, of course, pretty much writes itself.