toiletbag

Hullo, I just stuck up a track from my forthcoming EP. http://littleanchors.bandcamp.com/track/my-grandfather-was-a-projectionist You can pay what you like, including fuck all. Cool eh? Bye. x

I have a '62 reissue Tele. I love it. The stock pickups weren't exactly to my taste (Texas Specials I believe), but the guitar sounded so beautiful acoustically. I swapped them out for some standard USA Tele pickups and it sounds great now. I ordered mine through Rainbow Music in Dundee. I'm not sure if they still have a Fender Japan supplier, but it's worth giving the shop a call if you're up for a drive down here.

New songs for my band Pensioner. We've got half a new album written so far. When I'm not doing that, I'm writing a bunch of miserable, downtrodden fingerpicked stuff in a similar vein to Sun Kil Moon et al. I'm hopefully going to coerce a certain local guitarist into giving me a hand doing it all live.

I had a Diego pedalboard ages ago. They're pretty solid, but somewhat superfluously priced for what is essentially plywood wrapped in canvas. I 'built' my own a while back; an old cupboard door wrapped in black gaffa tape (stops it sliding about) and then velcro chucked on the top of it. It's not the safest sort of thing, it's got no lid or anything, but suits me just fine. I still power everything with one of those old school power banks you used to get off eBay. It's served me fine.

Hey! Send me an e-mail at booking@engineeredaudio.co.uk and I'll give you a rundown of my rates and things.

Thanks to everyone who said kind things about the production. I was really happy to get to record this album. Credit is also due to Carl Saff, the mastering engineer, who did a wonderful job.

I've got an Orange 1x12 cab. The bass response in comparison to a 2x12 cab is less pronounced, but in terms of portability it's completely ideal. I'd probably rarely use it for recording, but live I think it's such a negligible difference that's outweighed by the convenience of it.

Hmm, needs more amps.

I think that's the problem with the boutique pedal industry full stop. For example, every company has their own Tubescreamer clone. With the exception of a couple of them, I can't imagine why anyone would pay inflated prices for a circuit that is essentially the same.

My view has always been that you should use an amp's headroom to your advantage. In that sense, set the gain so that it responds to your playing - it's clean when you play lightly, but starts to break up when you dig into the strings, then use an overdrive/boost pedal to make your amp sing. If you're going for over the top fuzz sounds, add it to an existing amp's gain stage. Personally, I've never liked Big Muffs - I think they sound artificial and dumb. Your common or garden Fuzz Face knocks fuck outta 'em.

The BYOC stuff is incredibly simple to put together, no working knowledge of electronics required because the guide is literally a step-by-step process (solder this here first, then this, then this). Some of the transistors were a bit difficult to tell apart for me (colour blindness, yay), but I don't think that'd be much a problem for anyone else. As far as I can tell, the quality of the components is great, and the circuits themselves are based on some top quality gear. You could do it for a lot cheaper if you were to source all the parts yourself, but if it's your first pedal build then it's all there in front you. Those North Effects builds look pretty fucking cool as well.

I built a BYOC Triboost, been using it for about 4 years without a hitch, and that was my first attempt at soldering. Make sure you get a fairly low power soldering iron (the cheapy pen style ones are ideal for this kind of circuit) and a solder sucker, and just take your time. The triboost circuit took me about 3 evenings from start to finish. I've been meaning to build another BYOC pedal actually.

Good thoughts, but I think the preamp and mics should be the other way around. Often changing the mic will have more of a significant effect than changing the pre in any given situation.

Yep, Reaper's the only way to go on a budget. It actually has really good routing functionality for software so cheap!

Man, those recording pdfs were a total godsend, I don't think I properly thanked you! So, thank you! I just wish I still had them. They were all on my old computer which died a fiery death, and UGS is obviously no more... Mr Lizard himself is moving to Finland in a few months to open a mastering facility, it's funny how things change! I distinctly remember your isolation technique using the tennis balls too. I'd be intrigued to hear the Fatheads. I reckon they'd probably sound pretty swell. The main disparity I've found between my CAD ribbon and the Royers is that the Royers have a much more pleasant off-axis response, so they sound better for applications like drum overheads. The CAD can make cymbals sound pretty trashy in that department, as is often (but not always) the case with inexpensive microphones. The Royers still need a hefty amount of gain, whereas the CAD requires less so (I guess that could be down to the dual element). The CAD sounds great on guitar cabs though! I've never actually heard a U87, but they are typically the bee's baws aren't they? That's a bummer about the Sound City mics, but they probably smell pretty bad after 20 years of cumulative breath hitting the grill Swings and roundabouts... I spend so much time chucking up dynamics on vocals because I record a lot of shouty stuff, and the SM7 or RE20 typically work well in the way. The SM7 even works well for quieter stuff, it's a proper workhorse!