toiletbag

I had a DSL50, and I thought it was utter arse water for pretty much everything; screeching upper mids that can't be dialled out, thin, fizzy drive channel. I know several people on here own them and love them, but I had to sell mine as quickly as possible.

My case is a prime example of rushing into buying something before you've really shopped round; I think it's a wise move to wait it out for a while until a total bargain comes along, or you can afford to buy something you really want. If you want a MATAMP then save, you won't be disappointed no matter what you pay.

Sovtek Mig 50, great for sludge. Also, MATAMP.

Don't be scared of opting for a lower wattage too. I don't understand people's preoccupation with buying 100 watt heads given their impracticality in a live setting. I use a 30 watt Orange AD30 through a 1x12 dialled fairly clean and it is LOUD.

Hi folks,

Our debut EP is now free to download from our Bandcamp page. We recorded this ourselves last year and are currently writing new tunes for an album. We just finished recording a new single that we'll be pumpin' out very shortly.

Pensioner

Please enjoy responsibly, if at all.

Thanks.

Hey man, it was recorded out at Robin's new place by the man himself, and I handled the mix. I mixed half of it at home and half of it up there, but I didn't feel like I had to do too much to be honest to get things sitting well. The source sounds were great.

His new place is great though, I urge you boys to get on down there as soon as you can!

Thanks for the kind words man. We're fairly happy with how the new stuff is coming along, and we're going to head back up there and record an LP before the year is out.

I had a listen yesterday and enjoyed it.

Will be attending that Cellar 35 show in August.

Joe (Soda Jerk on ab-mus) gave you chaps a good review on c-zine:

Pensioner - 4 track Demo (self released) review on Collective Zine

Thanks a lot Ross Aww man, that's a super sweet review. We'll need to hunt the guy down and threaten him with loads of beer!

Hello,

We've uploaded 'Like, Epic!' to our Myspace profile; it's one half of an upcoming double A-side.

We'd really appreciate it if folks had a listen and then chucked a load of steamin' abuse at us.

PENSIONER (NEW TRACK UP) on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

Thanks

I'll be tanning one off you shortly Huw.

Despite Seagate's preoccupation with making drums sound like martial arts sound FX, these tunes are great! Their last gig in Dundee was an absolute fucking belter.

i enjoyed laughing at it with you

miss you

xxx

Indeed old bean!

I remember you sticking that on in your car, and both of us trying to make it through the first 30 seconds of each song.

Eeuuuurghhhhhhhh.

Idlewild CDs have a habit of going walkabouts. I've had to buy '100 Broken Windows' about five times. I think I've still got two copies..

That album is cursed by how good it is; it either gets scratched to hell with overuse or it just 'goes missing' (pilfered). Phenomenal album.

I thought Post-Electric Blues was laughable. That 'Readers and Writers' tune sounds like a drunk Runrig squeezing one out.

Roddy's folk stuff is excellent. I hope he collaborates with Kris Drever again in the future, an undoubted genius.

This evening!

Thunk.

Hullo!

We'd love it if folk came to this. It's the first time we've been up in Aberdeen for a while!

YouTube - Shutterspeed Promo Video promo vid (will be processed by youtube soon)

Dear lord!

Yep. Is it a Ripper or a Grabber... I forget. Lovely nonetheless. I believe our resident hoarder Scotty B has one too.

Nah don't have a HT5, got the HT dual pedal. Which is basically the HT5 in a pedal. Good bit of kit. My only gripe is the voicing of the channels are quite different. The first channel sounds so great but it sucks a lot of bass out, the second one has more bass, but it just doesn't have as nice a voicing.

It has what is effectively a guitar DI which is cool. Dying to hear if it sounds any good!

Ahhh, my bad, I thought you had that amp for some reason. I've heard the pedals are sexcellent! I'd be interested to hear the DI - most sound fairly lifeless and dull.

So much gear to buy. I'm buying a Royer R121 this summer which is going to pretty much make me financially decrepit, but I wants it so.

Yeah they do sound great - the guy who plays bass in Citizens uses one and his just sounds like perfect punchy/ballsy bass tone if you're going for Desalvo/YoungWidows type sounds. Sure it can do more though.

How much was it? Think I'll get one if I start playing bass in a heavier band.

Not bought it yet! But soon. It's around 140 including the shipping I believe.

While you're here actually Huw, you've got a Blackstar HT-5 eh? What are your thoughts? I need more recording amps y'see and I'm jonesing for some low wattage beauties.

Buying one of these very soon:

I don't play bass, but it'll be useful for recording people. Sounds great.

Man, I've just found out about Shutterspeed, and I live really far away; you guys are making waves.

When do the songs need to be completed by?

If the answer is "sometime in the future", that could be your problem.

Set clear goals for yourself.

If you set goals and you find you can't stick to them then motivation/self discipline is an added problem for you. Don't beat yourself up over it, us musicians aren't exactly known for our time-keeping skills - unless that time happens to have a drum beat to it.

A trick you might want to try is to motivate yourself by announcing that you'll be putting a new song on line in a week or a fortnight - even if you haven't written one yet. Or better yet, agree to play a gig in a couple of months time from now. Book it. Make a commitment.

Now imagine what it will be like if you turn up to the gig with no material. I guarantee you'll find no difficulty motivating yourself after that.

You're absolutely right, setting yourself goals is one way to write songs quickly. Whether they're any good or not, well... I'm not so sure. The stuff I'm writing isn't stuff that I intend to gig, given its multi-instrumental nature; I wouldn't just have to write songs, I'd need to find band members too, which is just a pain in the arse at the best of times.

I think you're right though, maybe I should set myself a realistic goal, like have an EP done by the summer or something.

I write a lot of stuff on guitar. With my old band, it used to be me that would come up with stuff, usually writing a song from start to finish and then presenting it to the other guys. With Pensioner it's a lot different, a lot of the stuff has come from jams, or one of us will come up with something and we'll work on it together. This has its benefits, in the sense that you find that your songs don't sound too alike; I like that a lot.

It takes the pressure off you too - I've never been comfortable with being the 'songwriter', I find it stressful and, at times, really depressing if you've been hacking at a guitar for hours and have come up with nothing that takes your ear.

I very rarely write anything in standard tuning; you might argue that a good guitar player can play anything in standard, but I think my creativity expired with standard tuning about 6 years ago. Everything I write in that tuning either sounds ridiculously discordant, or it sounds like it's been done so many times before.

Vocals are different; I normally come up with vocal ideas randomly, usually when I'm not in a position to actually sing them (work, Tesco, etc). I've never really understood where my vocal ideas come from.

I started writing some songs on my own recently, for my own little project. I find it really difficult and it's coming along at a glacial pace.

Hullo folks,

I've just ordered a Tremolo kit from Buildyourownclone.com. I previously built their Triboost kit and was very impressed with it, even more so given that I'm a bit hamfisted when it comes to electronics.

I'm going to stick up some photos of my progress in the days to come!

I would, but the neighbours get miffed when I get all creative at this time of night.

Better neighbours, better songs?

A problem for unsigned bands:

Unmitigated snide on forums.

Spending most of your time on forums fending off and injecting the aforementioned snide will mean that you're ultimately spending less time on improving your band. Shifting your priorities will probably help.

Less chat, more gigs, more songs.

Just a thought.

I bought a Bareknuckle for the bridge of my Jet King. Should be arriving in the post any day now.

Hey man, what one did you get? My bandmate's looking into getting new humbuckers, so I suggested he check out the Bareknuckle jobbies.

Buying an Orange 1x12 cab this weekend, and I'm going to build a trem.

I played an Epi SG for about five years, and it ended up in a really sorry state by the end of it. I hated that fucking guitar.