@008…….. <<

2008. Only one person can sum that up…

G.

Something Beyond….

G.

cAMP aIr, WAR. Here at camp air war, CAMP AIR WAR compound

Hello.

G.

Skullet…..

Here;s a Snippet with ye wooden recorder i widdled IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

G.

Sweet Humidity

Byron and I are in Louisiana for the holidays…the humidity is amazing! I think Byron’s not liking it, but my lungs are all over it, and my skin is fresh, and my hair is curly as shit. Gulf humidity is a persistent character in my Portland dreams, so it’s kind of like a dream come true. Sort of. Saw The Figs last night for the first time, at The Blue Moon–they’re pretty fantastic (and, perhaps we should add, fantastically pretty) and I’m especially proud to note that Paige plays my old drum set. It sounds pretty great–I guess it’s been tuned up. I wish the bass drum sounded like that when I had it. It’s probably because she put a resonant head on the front of it. Anyway, if you live in Lafayette you likely know them, but if you don’t, check these ladies out if you enjoy folk/country/old-tyme stuff.
Greg, we miss you buddy! Blog back. I’m at CC’s drinking iced coffee and holy shit is it not that good. Also, Southside Lafayette is an orgy of traffic and new buildings with archways and superfluous pillars. It’s kind of awful to my eyes; I guess it looks “rich” though. All the bad faux-Mediterranean architecture puts into profound relief how amazingly authentic the peeps are. A tremendous and lovely amount of Keeping It Real.

c.

old man winter!

We’re totally screwed guys. According to KATU.com, this icicle was found on a local roof.

OLD MAN WINTER IS UNLEASHING HIS WRATH, YA’LL! He’s even cocky enough to look us in the eye while he does it. What a jerk. The result? This is the scene outside of the Air War compound.

Since none of us could get to work today. We spent the day with Tashi doing a bit of this:

Tip of the day: A Fender twin running through a 4×10 bass cab makes a pretty rad bass amp, especially if you get the tubes really cooking.

(b*t)

Smells like Falcons

Recording Update, Life Upgrade

Things are progressing slowly but steadily: guitar tracking is finished and bass has been begun. We started out A-Bing to a DI input and Byron’s Peavey guitar practice amp (mic’ed with his beautiful new AT CAD) but are now experimenting with my normal live setup (Peavey head, 4×10 cab, vintage Ibanez Tubescreamer) using Greg’s secret micing technique and a DI input for some extra low end. I think the ideal sound might be somewhere in the middle; the little amp sounds a little too punched in, but cuts through nicely; the big amp set-up *feels* more like the bass and drums are in the same room, and has a classy/classic Prog bass sound that I like quite a bit.

I have yet to actually record a decent full take of any song. I am horrible at maintaining composure when that little red light is on. Anyone who was around during my home-recording National Blank/Junior Cables days can probably recall the absurd number of consecutive takes and rivers of obscenities I spewed: it’s not that bad anymore. But it’s still bad. I think part of the issue is adjusting to a new bass (with an extra string, which at least initially has been extra confusing). And this house is an icebox: my fingers feel like clubs.

Anyway, things are still moving along, despite recent demands from real life etc.

We here at Air War are most definitely cognizent of the current storm and stress of day-to-day life for many of y’all–we wish you good breaks and better circumstances, as we also toil to make some for ourselves. Hope we all get what we need. Meanwhile, thanks for keeping us in mind; we hope to rock you frequently in a not-too-dystopian future.

// cord //

where were we?

Oh yeah, recording. So, we finally finished the guitar tracks (I think). Several lessons were learned along the way. The first was, ‘never underestimate the need for a good condenser mic’. I returned that Boss noise gate that wasn’t working out so well, and purchased an Audio Technica 4040 that looks a little like this:

It’s pretty amazing. It is crisp, clear, flat across the whole spectrum, and can handle a ridiculously high SPL. I ended up pointing it at the edge of one of my Bogner speakers about 16.5 inches away. That plus the SM 57 midway to the edge of the cone at a 30 degree angle on the Freda did the trick. Another thing I learned is that tube covers make noise. It’s best to remove them when recording (or even take the head off of your cabs). See below:

So with that business out of the way. We have moved on to recording bass guitar. Cord has a beautiful new bass that sounds awesome. I’ll let him fill in those details. I will reveal a trick we discovered through our experiments for getting a totally rocking bass sound. We split the signal in two, one half is going DI into our recording interface. That gives a really compressed and ballsy sound (almost too much bass). The other half goes into my small 5 watt, 10 inch speaker, solid state, Peavy practice amp. This was the first amp I ever owned (pwned?). We dialed in a nice growly tone on the gain channel, put the AT 4040 on the edge of the cone, and voila. When you blend the two signals, you get a meaty, gritty, woody, open sounding bass tone. It reminds me of the bass tone on Cleansing by Prong. I’m glad I hung onto that amp for 18 years and 3000 miles.

(b*t)