Retards

This:

Blogger Michael B. Vanderboegh of Pinson, Alabama, said Monday that in a Friday blog, he called for people to break windows at Democratic headquarters at the city and county level. He said he didn't call for the damages to congressional offices because, "I didn't want to be responsible for anybody breaking a federal law."

However, "I can understand how someone can be frustrated enough to throw a brick through a congresswoman's window," Vanderboegh said. He said he feels the health care bill is "unconstitutional and tyrannical."

"My answer is violence, by getting their attention," he said, adding, "If we can get across to the other side that they are within inches of provoking a civil war in this country, then that's a good thing."

from here.

So idiot teabagger (OK, it's redundant) bloggers are pissed off enough that they want to start another Civil War, huh? Well Mikeeee, since you're off in Alabama, why don't you and your Johnny Reb ilk go ahead and start. This time we'll be happy to let you retards secede.

However, I doubt these little pussies have the balls to actually do anything like that. If they did, Alabama, being one of the biggest recipient of Federal funds vs. taxes paid, would have to pay their own way, and God forbid that these Southern retards would ever want to get their sorry-assed states off my ever more sore blue state taxpaying teats.

On the other hand, if they did secede, they could always try to bring back slavery. It would make me so happy to contribute to a fund that's raising money to send AK-47s to rebellious slaves. Just the thing to get rid of idiot teabagging bloggers.

I can't believe it's been almost two months...

... since I last posted. Oddly enough, there's been quite a bit of activity on both the Portland and Midwest front, as well as on the day job side of things.

On the day job, my old product has gone into extended hiatus. However, I am now software development manager for the company's second largest revenue producing product (second only to the consumer offering of this same product). This product is running on literally tens of millions of machines in the US and around the world. As such, it's a big deal, higher visibility, and slightly longer hours. Luckily, I can do most of that work hour extension in the morning, so I can still (if I have the energy) work on music at night.

On the Portland front, we worked with a couple of guitar players from Vancouver last month. In the end, one of them quit and Dave and I thought better of hiring the other guy, so we were again looking for a guitarist. I brought in a guy from my day job (who actually writes pretty good instrumental material) and Dave's talking to this ex-pro from the eighties. Actually, we're in pretty good shape for a May or June re-launch, though we need a new name. I like "Cannibal Cow", but I think I'll get overruled.

I've gotten my travelling gear back together for the Shiver gig in Kalamazoo, MI in April. Everything is neatly situated in a nice rack-mount case waiting for the other three pedals and a tuner to go in. I'll also toss in the percussion tray that I use to hold my tuner along with my microphones and their holders. With that all packed away and ready to go, I'll just need to pack my amp head (I'm picking up a speaker cab in Troy, MI the day after I fly into Detroit) and my guitars and I'll be ready. Most of the equipment will be staying with Jay, waiting for the June gig in Abingdon, IL.

That's really about it. I'm writing some new songs (especially to the new guitarist's tunes), needing to finish my own when I have a moment. Busy, busy, busy...

New version of song on the website...

I should be effusive, but I'm so tired, I don't feel like updating the rest of the page. It's close, but not yet a cigar (the echoes are too gaudy and a few phrases need some gain magic). But, it's still pretty good for a rough listen.

Not enough time to blog lately...

... as usual. Beyond the day job, last Friday I played bass on Dave from AMA's next solo effort. I practiced for about two weeks before hand, so we were able to get through eight songs in three and a half hours (with about three hours of actual recording). No, I'm not a pro - I couldn't hack them out in a hour. But for a semi-pro, I think I did a fairly good job on the tracks, and I think the studio time was not excessive. So that's over and Dave has posted an ad on Craigslist for a new guitarist. I've been answering ads looking for bassists. We'll see which band is up sooner.

Also, I've decided to use the J-Station for the Shiver gigs in April and June rather than the Pod - it just sounds better (and it's a shame that Johnson Amplification was bought out for their market share). It's a bit bigger to ship, but I'm shipping so much crap, it doesn't matter all that much. I will have the Midwest guys store and transport my equipment between the April and June gigs (and do whatever else I have to do through practice amps back home) to minimize shipping costs. I'll probably buy a 4x12 cab and have it shipped to Jay's office in Kalamazoo and keep it in the Midwest until after the June gig.

Anyhow, back to the J-Station... I'm downloading/adjusting/creating settings and setting up banks of them for the Midwest gigs. It's time consuming, but not that entertaining. I'll use an old Fujitsu Lifebook P20 with a blazing 600MHz Transmeta (remember them?) Crusoe CPU that I have sitting around to control it. The nice thing is that each bank on the J-Station holds enough settings that I won't need to switch banks other than in between each set. That will be good. I'm hoping that the M-Audio USB Midi interface I have has drivers for Win2K (the OS on the laptop). Otherwise, I'll have to buy a new laptop (Yes, something I would dread).

The Randall head is great! I won a Top Boost Module on eBay for a reasonable price. I now need to get an XTC and a Blackface module and , together with the Plexi module I have) I should have most of my tonal needs met. I'm also looking at Lexicon reverbs to give me a delay for the head.

I'm taking voice lessons. They're going well. There's a lot that I didn't know about singing. But, I'm getting better. My range has improved (more on the low end than the high, but I'll take what I can get) and I'm beginning to understand how to use my voice better. I figure about a year of this and I'll get to a point where I can feel comfortable about singing.

Also, I'm writing songs again. I've got about a half-dozen ready to record. I hope to get up to around a dozen and then start recording the best four to six of them. This time, I want to go into the studio to get drums as well as vocals. However, I've decided to take the audio takes and bring them home to mix and master myself. I figured that with the last CD, I didn't like the compromises I had to make because of the time limitations. At least, at home, I don't have that issue.


Finally, I've also started learning a few more tools on the DAW. I obtained the Waves Mercury package, as well as Izotope Ozone, so I'm playing around with them (I really like the matching EQ in Ozone). I'm thinking of getting SIR to see if I can get some better reverb sounds. I also need to do more with Renoise. But the big question is whether or not I upgrade my version of Sonar or switch to something else. It's a tough decision. I know I have to upgrade my computer. I know that, if I stick with the PC, the system is likely to come with Win7. My current audio interface doesn't have drivers for Win7. This means I can either dual boot the system and do the file transfer dance (one OS and file system for tracking and one for mixing/mastering). Or, I could buy a new audio interface and switch to Mac. Or, I could buy a new audio interface and switch to some other program. Or... In any case, I need to make a decision before I really get started on recording the new EP CD, because switching in the middle would be a real PITA.

New mix of new song on website...

... here. Per some audience feedback, the instrumental has come up a bit with respect to the vocals.

Damn, I've been busy...

The last post was almost a month ago when I had gotten back from Virginia on my Thankgiving break. First of all, the trip was good and my son (the accountant) is doing well. He made it through the snowstorm this week (the way NPR described it, it sounded like people were resorting to cannibalism. And God knows what's happened to that network - they're Twittering, too) and doing well at his first job. He's a good kid and the rest of the family back here in PDX is doing fine.

So musically...

Right before we left for Virginia, I bought a Godin Freeway Five Active bass from someone on Craigslist. It's a killer bass with a nice tone. However, the action was set up a bit higher than I normally liked. I did not have time to reset the action before...

The last performance of AMA took place on 4 December at Macadam's Bar and Grill (and thanks to all of you who showed up). We had a two-hour first set and came back after a twenty-minute break for another fort-five minutes. We played most of the songs we knew, including eight from the AMA repertoire and two of my songs. I'm actually amazed that I could get through a two-hour set without a break! All was not, though, as they say, "all beer and skittles". First of all, the PA system was completely torn down and it took us (as usual) about forty-five minutes to figure out the cabling to actually get sound out of the main speakers, let alone the monitors. The stage was small enough that my amp had to go behind the drummer and keyboard player and there was no room to get back to it easily after they had set up. Since after we got our equipment set up and the PA working, my bass rig wasn't working, I had to crawl back behind them to figure out what was wrong. I finally figured out what it was (not in the main amp at all, but an accidentally displaced plug on my pedal setup) about two minutes before the scheduled start.

That would be bad enough, but remember that 4 December was a Friday. That means I went directly from my day job to the gig. And that means I didn't have time to (as I normally do) set up the parts of the rig I'll be using that night at home, make sure the settings were right, tear it down, and repack it to make sure I have everything and that everything is working right. So, I just took the parts Friday morning, loaded them into my car, and went to the gig. While I was playing, I noticed that my low-end was ultra-loud, but my high-end, even with the pedals' and bass' tone setting maxed out was weak and wimpy. About halfway through the second set, I figured it out. At home, I was using the head I carted away as the low-frequency half of a bi-amped setup and, as such, because I did not take the time to set up the amp for testing before the gig, the tone controls were set for high low-frequency response and low high-frequency response. And, although I'd twiddled the volume knobs on the amp while crawling behind the drummer and keyboard player to figure out what was wrong with not having sound, I did not take time to look at the tone control setup. And, given that, in the middle of a set, crawling behind them to get to the amp was not an option, I just played it the way it was, boomy bass and all.

In addition, the late setup had me in no mood to play, so it took about twenty minutes of the first set for me to get warmed up. This was enough time to make several errors in the first few songs. Finally, I was still getting used to the five-string and, since the action was higher than I normally like, I mispicked quite a few notes and one song I actually started on the wrong string (Note that I recovered once the guitar came in and I noticed the mistake - I have good relative pitch, not perfect pitch. Also note that the day after the gig, I took the bass in to have it set up properly - I have it back now and it plays like a dream).

In any case, modulo those issues, the band did fairly well. A few of the new songs (yes, I learned five new - to me at least - songs for the performance) were actually quite brilliant. And the crowd had a good time. It was a good send off for AMA.

What is left of AMA will be auditioning guitarists - we'll be trying one out on 30 December. I'd like to find one before mid-January so we can start lining up gigs again by March. We'll probably be changing the band name, since the medical tie in is so attenuated and so few of the founding members are left. We'll see.

So, in the meantime, it's back to the studio - Dave (AMA's drummer) is tracking a solo album with his songs 13-15 January and he's asked me to play bass. I've agreed to do that.

In my home studio, I've also started tracking my next CD. This one is going to be an EP with only four or five songs. The working title is of the CD "The Next Opus Brevius" and the song is called "Four Kinds". I cut and rough mixed the instrumental tracks for the first song this past weekend. I'm hoping to have working vocals for in the next couple of days. The family is going to the beach this weekend, so I won't be able to do a final mix before we get back. However, with any luck, I'll have a rough mix of the song up on the Adrian web site before New Years Eve, so you can all play it at your parties!

I've bought a new live microphone. It's a Blue Encore-200. What I like about it is that it doesn't have as great of a distance drop-off as the Shure SM-58 I was using. On the SM-58, you had to eat the mike to get any sound and, as often as not, once I did that, I was distorting (because I have a relatively loud voice). As such, I had to be very aware of where, with respect to the microphone, my mouth was. The Blue is much more forgiving in that regard. You get approximately the same level within six-inch increments of distance and the drop-off is much less pronounced. As such, I can move about a lot more easily and mouth placement is a lot less fiddly. Also, the Blue seems to have more "sparkle" than the Shure has. I'm really happy with it.

Also, as those of you who read this blog are aware, I also play guitar. I've been playing through practice amps at home and because Shiver (the midwest band) is playing a gig in April, I need an actual performance head (I figure I'll use the cabinet with the four eight-inch speaker, but if I can pick up a half stack with twelve's cheap enough, I may buy that, too). I wanted three switchable channels with individual tone and level settings for each. I had a price limit of $1500, so I narrowed down the suspects to:

Egnator Tour Master 4100
Randall V2H
Peavey 3120
Bugera 333XL
Marshall TSL100
Carvin V3
Ampeg VL-503/-1003
Traynor YCS100H2

Also on the list (but above my price range) was the Randall RM100. However, I stumbled across one of these on eBay and won an auction at a price that was well below my limit. The head should be arriving this week. It's a system with modular preamps, so I'll have to pick up a couple of those to flesh it out to it's full three-channel configuration. However, even if I buy those new, I'm still waybelow my price limit.

So, that's about it for now. The voice lessons continue. I'm looking forward to the beach trip and to playing with Shiver in April. More next week.

Back from Virginia

I had a good time visiting my son. Back, jet-lagged and exhausted, to go through a grueling week of work, two AMA rehearsals, a voice lesson, and an AMA performance. I'll probably post some more tomorrow.