Weekend Update

June 21, 2010, 16:37 -05 by chris
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Another track in the can. 1 or 2 more and we’re considering posting a free EP while we finish up the rest of the album. http://j.mp/9DC39t

Should probably take the night off to try and wrap up work on the upcoming Sepiachord Passport compilation CD before getting back to our own material, though.

Also, new (to me) CIJ Fender Jaguar HH guitar and a laser-engraved neckplate for it arrived in the mail. Yeah, sure, every snotnosed kid within two hours of a Guitar Center has probably got one of the new imported-to-Fender-USA-dealers versions by now, but whatever. It’s pretty, and it sounds and plays great, and it’s one of the older 1994-95 versions from before they were sold Stateside. Earvana compensated nut upgrade and copper shielding tape and 12″ by 12″ copper-tape sheet are in the mail (as other online reviewers have noted, the humbuckers do a fine job of living up to their namesake, but the inadequately shielded internal wiring does not, which is not so cool when you’re sitting in a small room surrounded in every direction by computers and audio gear with big transformers). New strings, polish the frets, a little oil on the fretboard, a little tweak to the truss rod (understandable after a FedEx trek from Texas to the currently lame “Juneuary” Seattle weather), redo the intonation, and we’ll be golden. Or rather, black and chrome. Because “gold hardware” on any music equipment that’s not a Steinway or Bösendorfer is almost as stuffy and lame as sunburst finishes and “tortoise shell” pickguards.

I guess I just like gear to look vaguely machine-like and mysterious – like a piece of electrical equipment, and not so much like a piece of mobile-home furniture meant to hold recipe-card meatloaf and tater tot casseroles. “Airline” and “Danelectro” and “Vox Phantom” style guitars excepted, of course.

Maybe that’s just me.

Now if only Earvana and GraphTech would get together some sort of cross-licensing arrangement and offer the Earvana design nuts, but made out of the GraphTech Teflon-impregnated compound stuff, I’d be a seriously happy camper.

(White noise in a white room…)

June 7, 2010, 14:31 -05 by chris
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Mix revision number don’twannatalkaboutit in the can. Overdubs on the next song, need to pick up the pace on the rest of the tracks so we don’t end up spilling into 2011 and almost certain spontaneous studio seppuku. Live sound for someone else’s band over the weekend. Subwoofers, compact line arrays, and amp racks are heavy – even when they have wheels – when you have to push them a block and a half uphill both ways. Calves still a bit sore from that. More work on the next song tonight, mastering session for the next Sepiachord comp tomorrow, back to work on next song the rest of the week. Trying to avoid coveting a black-n-chrome Jaguar HH, Korg Monotron, Moog Voyager, and rumored upcoming Oberheim Two-Voice reissue. (I hear some talk of guns and butter…) 90% sure we’re gonna give an outside party a go at the whole mastering thing this time around for the upcoming Doll Factory tracks; as mastering other people gets easier and easier, mastering ourselves gets more difficult. Or at least less fun. We’ve done the fun part, now how about you make it loud. Onwards. (Hearing talk of joy in labour…)