toiletbag

aww, capdown were ace. charlottefield also ace. they did a great gig in cellar 35 a few years ago.

Yeah, I know a lot of people who liked Capdown, but they just annoyed me!

I remember it wasn't long after I finally saw Charlottefield that they disbanded. I was really itching to see them play again. Very sad times.

The first ever gig you ever attended - Some pop-punk show at the Cairnie Bar in Arbroath in 1999 or so. I never went to any gigs until my mid to late teens because Arbroath isn't exactly the touring capital of the world, unless you're Capdown. I eventually came out of my shell a wee bit and started socialising with school chums who were in bands and there we are, I started going to gigs.

The best ever gig you ever attended - I actually played at this one, but it's got to be Charlottefield in the Balcony Bar in Dundee. Amazing band, amazing wee space for them. It wasn't very well attended as I recall, but the band didn't seem to care in the slightest. Probably the best live performance I've ever seen. Sadly missed.

The worst ever gig you ever attended - I've somehow managed to see Capdown about 8 or 9 times by accident. You'd go to a pub in Dundee or Arbroath and there they fucking were. Terrible band. So yeah, one of those times where my quiet drink was interrupted by Capdown.

The first ever gig you ever played - School Christmas variety show, circa 2000. We were called ARGH! and we were totally horse. We did a cover of the 'Smooth Criminal' cover by Alien Ant Farm, except our version was markedly out of time, entirely atonal and probably half the speed.

The best ever gig you ever played - My band Pensioner did a few wee album launch shows, and our gig at Bloc in Glasgow was probably the best out of the run. Really great turn out and people were totally digging it, which was nice. And we didn't mess up despite being totally hammered.

The worst ever gig you ever played - My old band Juliet Kilo played a Dundee vs Glasgow all dayer at Sleazys which was organised by the lovely This Is Our Battlefield folks. We got stuck in traffic en route to Glasgow for about 3 hours. We finally arrived, went straight on stage and chucked a shit fit; the drum kit fell over mid-song, we simultaneously forgot what we were all playing in another song and everyone in the crowd looked either mildly irritated or amused at our collective meltdown. The rest of the day was great though!

T-minus 10 days till this lovely lovely event. Seas, Starry shall also be joining Pensioner, United Fruit & Carson Wells to square off this offering of Sunday evening entertainment.

Attend Aberdeen, attend and thrive.

Seas, Starry can't do as it turns out. I'll sort something else out.

I think a couple of the previous gigs have suffered from poor promo, we'll do our bit and get some folk down. Not seen United fruit so pretty pumped for this

Awesome man, thanks a bunch!

United Fruit are a fine, fine live act. It'd be a shame for Aberdonians to miss it.

You need contact cleaner (Maplin etc. will sell it). Easy to fix yourself!

I don't understand bands that argue with live engineers, it's bad enough when these poor souls have to put up with members of the public chipping in every 10 minutes.

We're always polite to engineers and thank them for doing a good job (if it's good) and thank them anyway (if it wasn't so great). Being polite costs nothing, and the SISO adage is incredibly apt. Don't complain about how your guitar sounds pish out front when your Line 6 Spider has the gain turned up to 8 and the mids are scooped out; it's like your imagination's supposed to fill the gap there.

The only time I've really lost my rag at an engineer is when I was blasted with raging HF feedback during a soundcheck because the monitors hadn't been rung out properly. But these things are few and far between.

Thanks boys! Much appreciated.

Yeah, don't use 5000 for mixing. I just realised I chucked an extra zero on there. Somewhere between 500-1000 should do you fine, even higher if you can get away with it. I think around 4000 mark is the maximum. It's been a while since I had to manually adjust buffer settings so I'm a little rusty.

It was defs on the right ASIO driver because I also was using the interface for monitoring and tracking.

There doesn't seem to be any way of configuring any of the setting on the interface, but i think there is a way of changing the buffer settings for something. I wish I knew what i was talking about. Where's the best place to go to read stuff so I can understand things?

I tried it again last night and it was a lot better. The occassional pop which would spike the track I was recording on.

Your audio interface might come with some sort of software control panel to do it quickly and easily, otherwise it involves manually adjusting the buffer values in your DAW. I'm not at home at the moment so I dunno how to do it in Reaper. Have a look in the manual dude. Is imagine it's on the same screen as the ASIO stuff.

Try using a buffer value of 256 for tracking and something around the 5000 mark for mixing. avoid using VSTs while tracking it you can.

Hey man, make sure Reaper is using the right ASIO driver. Go to: options > preferences > then 'device' under the audio headline.

The ASIO driver selected should be the one for your audio interface, not ASIO DirectX Full Duplex or anything like that.

If it's the correct one, then you might need to adjust your audio interface's buffer/latency settings. Generally, you use lower values for tracking and higher ones for mixing. If you have a project loaded up with loads of VSTs, it'll stutter and drop out if the buffer settings are too low.

Hullo folks!

We've put a free download of Gadgie Weddin', which is another track from our upcoming album. If you're interested then you can grab it off our bandcamp profile at:

Pensioner

Looking forward to this gig immensely!

Thumpity thump.

This is a 3rd for Dennis. He brought my Orange AD30 back from the dead and I've never heard it sound better.

Ah haaaaa. Serves me right for being a spazzy.

I'm either having a total brain fart or what it won't let me edit the post!

Hi folks,

We're going to be releasing our debut album 'Yearlings' on May 2nd through Olive Grove Records. It was recorded by Robin Sutherland in Dundee and mastered by Jamal Ruhe at West West Side Music in New York.

We're also planning to do a wee mini-tour at the end of April, the poster for which is below. We'll be playing at the Tunnels on 22nd of April as part of this.

You can also listen to one of our new tracks ('Enter Shakira') over at our Soundcloud or Bandcamp profiles, as follows:

http://pensionerband.bandcamp.com

Pensioner's sounds on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

You can also 'like' us (if you like us) over at our Facebook profile:

Pensioner | Facebook

Ta.

There was something else I heard today I got excited about....fuck what was it?

Oh yeah, this

Trembling Hands by Explosions in the Sky on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

That's probably the most interesting EITS track I've heard in years. I rather like it.

Crappy '90s Yamaha keyboard. Had the best 'demo' song on it ever; sort of big band nonsense that seamlessly merged into hard rock before finishing off with some samba number. Spent most of my time attempting to play Beatles tunes on it before giving up and just hitting the 'dog' noise on the percussion pads until I pissed my parents off.

Good times.

Edit: Actually, on reflection, it seems somewhat sadistic of Yamaha to have a 'dog' option in the percussion section. Rolf Harris would've been right onto those cunts.

My current gigging rig is:

Fender CIJ '62 reissue telecaster

Orange AD30 (single channel)

Orange 1x12 cab

Boss TU-2

SPF Greenline overdrive

BYOC Triboost

T-Rex Tremster

TC Electronic Vintage Delay

Want:

Gibson SG Standard

Reverb pedal of some sort

Microkorg XL

Sorry, I couldn't be arsed with pictures.

What's the best way to mic up a guitar cab? Are there any free VSTs that are good (especially for guitar amp modelling)? I've had a shot of Guitar Rig in the past and it is okay - is there anything else that is more worthy of the investment?

There's not any best way to do it to be honest man. Everyone has their own methods. One to try is the dark/bright combination; get two mics on a cab, one fairly dark and one fairly bright. This is where ribbons are great, given that they are almost always fairly dull on the top end and fat in the low mids, but you can balance the two channels and you can usually get away with zero EQ if the mics are placed well. Generally the mics for this approach should be about 6-7 inches off the cone in my experience.

The other thing you could try is get two of the same mic and place one on-axis and the other off-axis (center of cone and off center); the closer to the middle of the speaker you are then the brighter it sounds.

You need to get phase right though if you're using more than one mic, so try and get the mics equidistant from the speaker as much as you possibly can. If you use two '57s or something then this is normally a piece of piss, or flip the phase on one mic and place both mics until it sounds its thinnest and shittiest, then flip the phase again on that mic and it should sound good.

Also try one mic up close on the grill (a 57 or something) and an ambient mic (a condenser or something) placed a few feet back. This might sound shit if the room is shit though.

So much to try, but the general rule is 'if it sounds good, then it is good'.

In my experience, guitar modellers are getting better, but it'll never replace mic'ing up a great sounding amp. I've found these things never seem to sit in a mix quite as well either.

Absolutely love them.

The new album by The Joy Formidable came out today, I wanted to hold off listening until I could pick up the record tomorrow, but couldn't resist a listen on Spotify:

The Big Roar - The Joy Formidable - Spotify

I'm about halfway through first listen, I really, really like this band live and was initially a little disappointed that there were only four songs I didn't already own on the record, but the new versions of the songs are decent, and it certainly is brightening up my Monday. Whirring remains one of the best songs I've heard in recent years. Looking forward to seeing the new tracks in all their glory with their live energy behind them.

They're an absolutely cracking live band. I'm enjoying the album, but I think the sequencing's all over the shop; doesn't flow as well as a Balloon Called Moaning. Bad choice of song for the closer as well I feel. I think most of the re-recordings are entirely unnecessary, but they certainly don't sound bad.

I was initially bamboozled when they announced that their 'debut album' was coming out; I was wondering what the hell the last release was?! Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing another 4 new tunes on the next album!

I'm in it for the terrible jokes shared between your pals on terrible long distance drives to terrible gigs.

Sigh.

Young Widows - In and Out of Youth and Lightness

this is all that matters for me

Fucking YAS! I didn't even know about this. Bring it.

If you like a project, check out the Classic API stuff (Classic Audio Product Illinois) or the Seventh Circle Audio stuff. A bit cheaper than the API's for sure.

I'm after a Golden Age Pre-73 and an FMR Really Nice Preamp

Yeah, they are cheaper for sure! There's a lot of 500 series stuff that's reputably excellent for. I'm gonna fill up the remaining slots with some cheaper modules like the Fivefish stuff.

I looked into the pre-73, for the money it sounds too good to be true. It'd be cool to do the transformer mod and get some Carnhills in there for some Neve-esque goodness. Let me know your thoughts when it comes in.

The RNP is great though, seriously great value for the money. Makes the humble 57 a total joy. Pair it with the RNC and you're laughing; the RNC is AWESOME. I can't believe it doesn't retail for more than it does.