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.

How much were said recordings if you don't mind me asking?

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.

To be totally honest it seems to me every man and his dog seems to make expensive fuzz pedals these days and they all sound very similar to me, like almost an octave pedal at best and a tinny mess at worst, maybe thats just me!! haha!

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.

I suppose given hindsight I didn't really give Reaper much of a chance- I downloaded it in a fug of hubris, I read an interview in the wonderful tape-op* mag about Jason Lowenstien using it and just thought it would be great. I don't use many tracks really, all I need is a stereo mix and some drop in's and twiddles, but what's the phrase?- counter intuitive- that's how I found reaper at the time. Don't let it put you off though- loads of serious proper recordists use it.

SM57's are good, I prefer my AKG dynamic though. It's horses for courses. It's about the room, I found that out pretty quick- cap. Toms sounds bad pretty much all the time, my bedrooms sound bad all the time- but my living room sounds great. Big room- lots of echo, but in a good way.

Room is first, desk/preamps second, mic's third and DAW is way back there....

I just bought a ribbon mic and a cheap AKG condenser, so I'll see how that goes.

that's my tuppence.

Good luck though min.

*tape-op is free, good articles, and some quality gear porn.

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!

Ah just noticed from your profile you're from Dundee and possibly in Pensioner? If your the same guy who once bought one of Mr Lizards UAD cards, I'm the guy who gave you guys a shitload of pdf recording books a couple of years back on the now gone UGS forum. You might be a different dude?

Regarding the FatheadIIs. I doubt anyone would be disappointed for the money. However, I'm keen to find out what a royer would be like and my pair of fattys took me up over £700 after duty etc and I've never had to use both them together. Therefore, a few hundred more and one Royer 121 might have been a more sensible purchase. What I will say, is that the fattys require a fair bit of gain. You would have to get very up close and personal with them to do a soft vocal. Nice none-the-less.

I don't use them for vox and never really got round to doing so due to having a u87 and SM7b which always seem to be spot on for vox. Before I bought my U87ai (new) I nearly bought one of the three old U87s which 'Sound City Studios' in California were selling. However, they were wanting the same price for early '70s U87s as what the new u87ai price is. Due to this, and despite getting someone in LA who I know and trust to check their authenticity out, I swerved them in favour of a new one. The old Sound Studio u87s would have undoubtedly been used on lots of great albums by the likes of Nirvana, Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac to name a few. I've always slightly regretted not getting one of them and guess what?....Dave Grohl is currently making a documentary about Sound City Studios which would have pushed their relsale value up. Just my fecking luck !!

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!

Cool man, let us know how you get on and what mic you went for in the end. I've used both Royer R-121s and cheapy CAD ribbons and they both have their uses in certain applications.

I have a pair of Cascade Fathead II ribbons with the Lundahl transformer upgrade but I woudn't say they get me into the Tom Waits ball park.

How are your Fatheads? I've considered them at one point or another.

I'm a big Albini fan, and Tom Waits fan, and all the rest. I have a fair few mic's in my collection- currently gathering dust due to a maniac two year old. I'm interested in these mic's- anybody used them- and do they give you that sweaty claustrophobic sound for vox? My current mic's need a lot of fiddling to get a good grotty sound- usually with overdrive and amping, will ribbon mic's save me time and make me happy and warm inside...?

I'm a big fan of ribbons, I use them on overheads, guitar cabs, acoustic guitar, out front of kick and occasionally on vocals. They typically tend to be shyer on the top end (many start roll to off around 8-10k) and bigger on the bottom, but there is so much variance between different brands that it's hard to be more concise.

I don't know if a ribbon mic's really going to do what you want it to do, they're pretty cool for a vintage vibe on vocals. I don't know what you mean exactly by a sweaty claustrophobic sound, what examples? If you're talking Albini, he uses dynamics on vocals a hell of a lot.

All good points, but I'd also make sure you're not tracking with too much gain to start with. Always back it off a wee bit more than you think there should be.

Also, if you can, try experimenting with dark and light mic combinations. My 'go to' at the moment is a ribbon on the centre of the cone and a dynamic or small diaphragm condenser off-axis, but two dynamics in this scenario can also work well. Also, I don't really like shoving the mic right up on the grill, you get the impression of the speaker pushing air in the room if you pull it back a bit. 6-7 inches works quite well.

While those are some decent tunes they are without doubt the best song titles ever!

Thanks dude. We've got the next album written already, well, in terms of songtitles anyway.

Thanks for the free download!

Giving this a listen now - it's fucking bangin'.

I'll try and buy a physical copy once it's released as such (I'm assuming Olive Grove are pressing physical copies?).

Thanks for checking it out! We'll have physical copies for sale again in the new year, complete with a wraparound and origami instructions (that's not a joke by the way, it's just part of the pomp, unfortunately).

As a thank you, we've put up our debut album 'Yearlings' for free download from our Bandcamp until the 1st of January 2012. We'd really appreciate it if you took time to download it, have a listen, and pass it on to your friends if you think it's their bag.

http://pensioner.bandcamp.com/

Here's a bunch of crap that's been written about it:

"As unpredictable as it is brilliant, Pensioner already have a contender for album of the year" - Jim Gellatly (Scottish Sun)

“..full of angular rock classics.” – Ally McCrae (BBC Radio 1)

"These are flighty songs in experienced hands" - The Irish Times

"The titles might suggest a band that don't take things too seriously; yet Yearlings is a deceptively accomplished record." - 4/5 Review, The Skinny (#2 in top 5 album of July 2011)

"...it’s absolutely important not to write-off Pensioner as anything less than one of the most exciting emerging groups in Scotland at the moment, and “Yearlings” is a fitting opening to this career." – Songs Heard On Fast Trains (shoft.org.uk)

"...an accomplished album they should be rightly proud of." - Muso's Guide

"These are songs that defy expectations by coming across with dramatic and emotional sounds." - is this music?

"The band, a four piece from Dundee in case you’re wondering, have crafted a hugely enjoyable rock record that will be difficult to pigeonhole." – The Tidal Wave of Indifference

I was thinking the other day that is something I really need, basically Dropbox with more space for letting bands send me stuff and vice versa.

Thanks!

I remember going to see some dodgy nu-metal band called Defenestration at Lava, they were a bit guff.

Yas! They were totally reekin'!

Did Glasgow win then? I was actually thinking about this show not long ago, even though i wasn't there.

I don't know what the end tally was to be honest! We set the standard fairly low with our performance so everyone else was great by comparison.

what time is all this stuff happening and likely to finish? i quite like the cut of these bands jib but need to navigate the frankly awful public transport back to stoney.

We'll try and find out and chuck it back up here as soon as we know man!