Signal To Noise

Episode 23: The Germ Demos

  I have to say I was really excited to put this episode together. It gave me a chance to try out a lot of things at once. First and foremost I got to sit down with the Germ from Caleb Cook at Hazel Effects and put it through the paces. I really like the sound our this pedal and how it changes from guitar to guitar. It enhances qualities already inherent to the guitar driving it. Next, I experimented with the wattage control on my Vox AD30 VT. One of the big selling points for me on that amp was the variable wattage (from 30 watts down to 1 watt) because I wanted to be able to record the sound I wanted at lower volume levels. So far, I am REALLY loving that feature. The last variable was using the iRig mic to record the amp straight into the Bossjock app for easier play back when recording the actual show.   It was the last variable that made me aphrensive and delayed me from the actual task. When I started recording digitally and recording live guitars, I could never get a sound I was happy with. I read every article and tried every trick the pros used, but still just lifeless sound. I finally made myself sit down and try to record and I used a technique I picked up from the Project Studio Network podcast. The technique is from a book called "Mixing with your mind" and it's a different way of looking at recording. The technique fir mic'ing the amp revolves around where to place the mic. What the Author says to do is place your hand between the mic and the amp and move your hand around while some one is playing the guitar. When the hairs on the back of your hand stand up, that is where you should place the mic. Sounds simple right? The first three samples were mixed with that technique and the others were not, so you can judge for yourself how it sounds. I am much happier with the first three samples. For the first three audio samples my signal chain consisted of my Fender Pawnshop '51 into the Germ and then into the Vox AD30 VT. On the Vox I used the boutique clean amp setting to take all the drive out. I wanted just the Germ pushing fuzz. The '51 has coil splitting built in, so I demo it with the bridge humbucker and the split out single coil. For the second set of audio samples I use the same chain, except I swap out the guitar to my Epiphone Korina G-400. The more I play that guitar the more I like it and want to re-wire it. I am jut not entirely happy with the pick ups. For the other sound samples, I have no Idea what all was used because I forgot to write it down (insert smiley face here, ha ha ha). I know my TS9 and my Demeter Tremulator made it into the mix, but I am not really sure which guitars we used. Last thing is if you have bee following my social media, you probably know that I am a fan of the Movie Sound City. If you have not seen it yet, check it out. That movie really inspired me to push things with my recording and I recorded a real guitar Amp in stead of using a plug-in. I might never go back. I am finally getting the sounds I have always wanted. Until next time... make some noise!    

Episode 22: Joe Cardamone of The Icarus Line

I have mentioned on several episodes and posts that I am metal head. I love Metal, and especially bands like Dillinger Escape plan and Periphery. Before I was a metal head, though my parents and grandparents made sure I had a very wide exposure to music. Growing up I listened to classic rock, big band jazz, 50's and 60's pop and rock. I enjoy the arrangements that went into some of the early pop music. Some songs were very sparse and some were quite elaborate. Some required some amazingly creative thinking on the part of the recording engineers to achieve a certain sound. But then I discovered Metal, in particular Metallica. Metallica had a symphonic quality about them and their longer song structure was like listening to a mini-symphony. But then the "Black Album" happened, and a lot of my metal heroes stopped being metal for a while. So I discovered the Post punk and hardcore scene of the late 70's and early 80's and what ended up being called alternative rock in the 90's. There was a raw quality to the music, and the arrangement was there once again. Of course that scene also dried up and distilled itself into watered down pop leaving me with a craving for something new or perhaps old. It seems while the music that I had enjoyed in my youth was thought to be dead, it was really just a Phoenix getting ready to rise from the ashes. And it turns out so was the post punk hardcore that I enjoyed. And today there is a thriving scene that allows us to not draw lines in the sand and just focus on making great music. And that is What Joe Carmadone does, he makes great music. Listening to the latest Album by the Icarus line is like listening to the audio equivalent of watching someone paint by throwing gobs of it from their brushes. At first it seems like chaos, then a melody emerges. That melody is nurtured and built into a song, and then it all starts again. Talking with Joe, I learned that he a modern guy with old-school sensibility. He knows when something calls for a high tech solution, or when a time tested 50 year recording technique will suffice. How does he know this? Because he is an artist. And artist knows what his tools, respects his tools, and more importantly, knows which tool is best for the job. Joe might have a huge mountain of gear and effects at his disposal, but he uses what is best for the song, for the creation. And that.... is what we discuss in Episode 22. Gear, creating music, and capturing a performance.  

Episode 21: The Firefly Pick

  Years ago I worked for a small music store. I taught lessons, worked the sales floor, did minor repair, helped with piano moving and deliveries, and eventually built up the small guitar department. It was a fun job and I really enjoyed being a part of so many aspects of the music industry, may favorite part of the job was going to NAMM. We were a samll store so going to NAMM every year did not make sense for us, but we still went a few times, including a trip to the Anaheim show. What I loved about NAMM was seeing new gear before the general public. You always had the old standard guys, like Boss and Fender or Gibson debuting something new, but what I really looked for were the small start start-ups. The companies who did not have all the years of brand recognition behind them. Now don't get me wrong, the Fender booth was my first stop every year, but there is something exciting about discovering a product that could be the next big thing. Over the years I accumulated new sets of guitar strings, picks, Aluminum drum sticks(those things are BEASTS), and a cool light sensitive volume control that plugs directly into your guitar. Some of these products went on to make their mark,while others were not so fortunate. It was fun to see the inventive, entrepreneurial spirit alive and well at the NAMM show. My last NAMM Show was 12 years ago, but have no fear I have found a new place where the creative and inventive entrepreneurial spirit are turned lose everyday, and that place is Kickstarter. I have spoken and written about Kickstarter many times before, but it was not until I sat down to interview Peter Holm, one of the co-creators of the Firefly pick, that I realized what it was that drew me to Kickstarter over and over. It was being able to see a new product before it was released to the general public. The Firefly pick is one of those products that I would have seen at NAMM, tried out, and then immediately ordered for the store while seeing if they had any available for purchase at the show so I could take one home. I have played a lot of picks, and have enjoyed them for different reasons, but never have I seen any that marry design, technology, functionality, and showmanship in one product, until now. The technology used to design and produce this pick is a miracle of modern electronics, the circuit and components are so tiny I cant even imagine trying to solder them together as Peter described in the interview. Take away the virtual impossibility of this design, and what do you have? A pick that set's you apart from the other players out there. A pick that could allow you and your band to take your light show to a whole new level! The light up aspect of this pick is super cool, but that's only one aspect. Since it is motion activated, I am imagining some young band getting several of these an writing a song or two based on specific light and color. It brings a whole new visual aspect to guitar playing. So if you are looking for something new, and you want to be on the cutting edge, I encourage you to check out the Firefly pick on Kickstarter. And while you are there, see what else catches your eye. You might just find yourself backing the next big thing in guitar.    

Episode 20: Ben Weinman of Dillinger Escape Plan

  Since I discovered "Heavy Metal" in my early teen I have always been drawn to it's extremes. Whether it was the extreme speed of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" album, or the even more extreme speed and unintelligible vocals of Indestroy (early Death Metal), I have always been on the look out for what was next. I wanted heavier, faster, louder, crazier concepts. For me that is what Metal has always been about. Look at where we started with Black Sabbath. At that time no one sounded like that. Look at what Anthrax did with "I'm The Man". In 1987 very few metals would listen to any rap, let alone think of mixing it with metal. But Metal progresses, whether Metalheads like it or not. In the last few years I discovered a band called "The Dillinger Escape Plan" and they are classified by some as "Math Metal" or "Mathcore". When I first heard that term, I had no idea what that term meant. All I knew was, that Dillinger had something new, something extreme. When I listen to them I hear elements of Jazz. This is especially evident on the new record, "One Of Us Is The Killer". There are moments on the record where I hear what sounds like a mash up of the Miles Davis classic "kind of blue" with Black Flag's "Damaged".  Listening to this record is a sonic and emotional journey. In episode 20 we caught up with Ben Weinman, guitarist of Dillinger, and talked with him about his new signature guitar and what it has been like driving Dillinger all these years. We also discuss, pedals, The Mayhem Festival, and new music.

Episode 19: MORE Nashville!

Nashville is a town just bubbling over with music, musicians, and musical instrument companies. In Episode 18, I talked about Rock Block guitars and other guitar related endeavors. Well, what I didn't know is that Pearl Drums were also located in Nashville and that a friend of mine who lives in the area happened to just purchase a custom Pearl Drum set based on Pearl's Reference series. As you can imagine, I jumped at a chance to see it, play it and talk about it, so in Episode 19 I sat down with Chris of the band Saturn Rising to discuss his new kit. The kit itself is just stunning to look at. The shells are a beautifully customized Blue fading to natural wood grain color and each shell is quite heavy (for Hi-Res pictures click Here). When my friend Chris handed me the snare drum, I was quite surprised at the weight. I don't think that I had even picked up a marching snare that was as heavy as this drum. Then he turned it over to reveal the twenty ply (yes, twenty!) shell. It looked as if some on had taken a tree that was a decent diameter and hollowed out the center. Being the guitar enthusiast that I am, I appreciate the tonal differences that fine wood choices and workman ship can make, and I was pleased to hear (with my own two ears) that wood and craftsmanship make a huge difference, a even on an instrument that built to be hit. I really enjoy the tone of a well tuned drum kit, and this kit is very musical. As I listened to Chris demoing the kit, I was reminded of the huge drum sounds of some of my favorite drummers like John Bonham and Keith Moon thundering around their kits and using dynamics to make subtle statements in the songs they drove. This episode was once again produced with Bossjock Studio and the iRig mic. I know I have been talking about it a lot, but I really like the freedom that both products have allotted me. To record the episode, Chris and I sat on a couch in his drum room with the mic positioned between us. We did a couple checks to select the right volume setting on the iRig mic and then we just hit record and started going. Monitoring the levels during recording I am sure I had some clipping (which I will discover when I listen back to the show) and in hindsight, I should have probably back the mic off of us by another six inches or so, but hey....it was spontaneous and creative, and that is the joy of podcasting in general. I also captured the sound bites of the kit in this similar fashion. For a better representation on how this kit sounds, see the YouTube video below. As I keep using these new tools, I plan to refine my techniques. For theses early episodes however, I wanted to keep the "Pirate Radio" spirit very much in the forefront and just focus on doing a show live. I almost did not bring my iRig mic with me to Nashville. When I fly anywhere, I really try to keep my carryon light and only carry things that I would need immediately if I got stuck in the airport. After this trip I can confidently say that the iRig mic was a good choice to bring with me and could possibly be considered in the "need" category. Again, I know I have talked a lot about about Bossjock and the iRig mic since Episode 14 and I can promise you that I am not receiving any kind of compensation for talking about them. I truly like these products. Anytime I get new a tool that speeds up or improves how I work, I get excited and quite vocal about said product. That said, I am going to do my best to keep quiet about it ( at least for a few episodes), but maybe in the future I will do a segment on every show about how that particular show was put together.  

Episode 18: Mobile in Nashville

As I have made well aware on my blog and podcast, I really like the iOS App Bossjock. I have spoken on several occasions how I feel that Bossjock really liberates podcasters and allows media creators to bring their audio productions to life much easier than before and from anywhere. Since I had some travel coming up, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and give it a shot. This episode chronicles the guitar shops I visited while in Nashville, the new Tremelo pedal I picked while I was there, and it was all done in my hotel room. As far as travel goes, this set up was very practical. The iRig Mic is fairly compact and comes with a handy storage bag that protected the mic during travel. I packed it in my carry on to minimize shock, and it faired the trip just fine. I set up in my hotel room, plugged in a set of earbuds and went to work. The one feature that I would really like to see in Bossjock is basic editing. In this episode I had to pause the recording a couple times to cough, and I know that I said the same thing coming back from the pause, so there are probably a few places where I repeat myself. That said, this app really is nice and easy to use and I was able to go from recording to upload all in the app. While in Nashville, I picked up the Pedal pictured above at Rock Block Guitars. Rock Block is a very cool store, check out if you find yourself in the area.  

Episode 17: Dave of Bossjock Studio

Back in Episode 14 of the Podcast I talked about an App for iOS called "Bossjock Studio". I really like the app a lot as I discussed so I tracked Down one of the co-creators, Dave Mansueto. He was kind enough to grant me an interview, so that is the topic of this show. Dave and I are both technology enthusiasts and cover everything from the old cassette 4-Tracks to the beginning of Podcasting, to where the iOS can take us. Looking back, I asked mostly questions about using the app and I forgot ask questions about developing the app....so that gives us plenty to talk about the next time Dave joins us on the show. Heck we open the show by talking about using Skype on an iPad over the cellular network with an Apogee Mic..... C'mon.... this is gonna be a fun one!

Episode 16: Ezra Furman

Sometimes it's easy to get lost in the gear. I am a gear head. So much so that I have walked right past scantily clad women at trade shows to see the cool new guitar or pedal not even noticing the women I walked past. I love what a new piece of gear can do to your sound and how it can inspire the creative process. But when it comes right down to it, nothing beats good old fashioned talent. Ezra Furman is that talent. Just one listen to his record "The Year on No Returning" and you will be hooked. He paints a picture with sound like artist with a brush. In Episode 16 I sat down to talk with Ezra about his creative process, his new albums, and his upcoming tour.

Episode 15: Hazel Effects – “The Germ”

It's no secret that I am a fan of Kickstarter. I find the Kickstarter platform to be a great spring board for new ideas and young businesses. About once a week I head to their site, type "guitar" in the search bar, and then just explore. I am fascinated by the amount of new twists and turns out their from guitars, to guitar picks, to guitar pedals. A couple months back I discovered a project called "The Germ". This project caught my attention because it was a germanium fuzz pedal hybrid that is hand wired, once I heard the demo I was sold. The project was successfully funded, and at the time of this writing I am still waiting for my Germ. After all, it's being built completely by hand one at a time. So while I waited, I figured I would contact the builder, Caleb Cook, for an interview. Once my pedal gets here I will post an episode with some audio demos, in the mean time you can check out Caleb's Kickstarter page and the Hazel Effects website for more details.

Episode 14: iRig Mic and Bossjock Studio

In Episode 14 I try something completely new to me, podcasting without a computer. A year ago I would never thought this possible, but everyday someone somewhere seems to come up with a way to push the envelope of what an iPad (or any iOS device for that matter) can do. So let's back up to April 2011. In Early 2011 The iPad 2 had been announced, and with it Garage band for iOS. At the time of that announcement I was saving to get a Macbook to replace my 2005 iBook (which was still running quite well and still is today!). Once I heard Garage band was coming to the iPad, I did a serious needs analysis and did something that at the time was considered quite radical....I replaced my Laptop with an iPad. I realized that what I really needed from a laptop device was something I could write from (blogging, articles, emails, etc...) and something I could basic web surfing and research with, plus something to work as a notepad for musical ideas since my iMac was my main recording machine. A little research showed my that there were plenty of good blogging apps and Apple had released the iWork suite for iOS, so I was ready. When i first got the iPad, I admit I could not do everything on it that I could have done on my laptop, but I did anticipate that going in from the needs analysis I had done. While I know that we have a marketplace that thrives on planned obsolescence, when I invest a lot of money in something I like to be sure it will serve my needs for many years. So I had worked into my plan a transition period of about a year to completely move from laptop to iPad. The really good news is that I was able to make that transition to completely retiring the laptop in about 8-9 months. The once thing I discovered about the iPad when I got it is that it was very much like the Wild West. Everyone was moving there to stake out a cliam and try to make some money. This completion meant app prices going up and down, but most importantly, it meant that App developers were trying to "out feature" one another. For Example, when I bought my iPad I had purchased an app called Blogsy to do all my blogging from. It is still the best blogging app out there in my opinion. When I bought the app, it was limited but worked better than other apps. I found my self starting a post with Blogsy and then finishing it at my iMac. In about 6-8 months, that stopped. Blogsy was furiously making updates (and they still are) to make their App the best. That drive has allowed me to write entire posts with embedded media from anywhere I have an iPad and a data connection. Now that I have had an iPad for two years, the only things I do on the iMac are the "Heavy Lifting" things like mixing and recording songs in logic and of course my podcast. A couple months agao a coworker who learned about my enjoyment of podcasting told me about an app called Bossjock Studio. Apparently one of the co-founders of Libsyn (One of the best Podcast hosting companies out there) developed an app that was designed to let you do a "Live" podcast. I bought the app, but had no time to really try it out until now. I did open it from time to time and look around and read their blog to get tips for when I did use it. One of those tips was that their app worked really well with the iRig mic. As luck would have it, I was on Hello Music one day and saw a great deal on the iRig Mic (which as of right now is still going on, but do not expect it to last long). I had seen the iRig Mic in magazines, and really did not see the value of it, but for the price I took a chance. I was impressed. What I was expecting was a cheap, plastic, low quality microphone with a fancy logo. What I got was a really nice, well built metal chassy microphone that I would put on par with the look and feel of a Sure SM58. I downloaded the free Vocal Live App by IK Multimedia and gave it a test. Again, very surprised and quite happy. The mic sounded very clear and had three level settings on it depending on t...