Category: News

I finished guitars for Fight Songs last week, I think Friday night. The last few tracks were Motown-inspired guitar DIs using the setup below.

Signal path, from the right:

Pigtronix Philosopher’s Tone Germanium Gold Micro – Quite a mouthful for this little optical compressor. Picked it up used on a lark based on how much I’ve enjoyed the DOD 280 reissue, and the added blend and grit controls are nice additions.

Fulltone GT-500 – Haven’t used this in quite a while. As I was recording I decided I wanted a kind of cocked wah sound, but an actual wah was too much. The inductor-based mids control on the distortion side of the 500 was perfect cranked all the way up. Only used this for the EQ, it’s not doing any distortion.

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I impulse-bought an Ampeg V-4 and matching speaker cabinet this week.

Price was bordering too good to be true, but it’s in pretty great shape considering it was built somewhere between 1972 and ’75.

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I haven’t done any meaningful soldering since making last summer’s Thereatari, but I’m getting ready to. The other day I modified my Caroline Guitar Company Meteore reverb.

I always liked (and haven’t changed!) the sound of this pedal, but I had a couple problems using it: the sweep of the reverb volume knob made it hard to dial in the amount of reverb I want, and the “Havoc” switch went to instant oscillating madness when the size, regeneration, and gain controls were above about halfway.

To address the first issue, I switched out the stock anti-logarithmic “C” taper potentiometer for a linear “B” taper. No change in sound, but more fine control over low and medium reverb volumes.

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Our own Cory Kibler and Mike Papagni are Van Ripper & Galactifader, a seriously funny and oddly poignant rap duo. You can check them out on Spotify below.

There’s no way to explain this music that makes it sound cool or real, but it is both. Mike is an incredible drummer, and Cory worked his way into bars that reflect his point of view without pretending to be anything he’s not or assuming any kind of weird affectation, and a delivery that manages to put a touch of edge into his dad jokes (“Extra Virgin” being Exhibit A).

I’ve been working steadily on guitars for Fight Songs, switching over from electric to acoustic a few weeks ago. I think I have six left, something like that.

Most (all?) songs are getting two guitar tracks to start with. Then I’ll add some shakers and tambourines and other percussion and get the mixes roughed together before doing vocals. At that point the question will be “What details will help this song?” and the answers will be different for everything, “None!” being a viable option.

Mic is an Audio Technica PRO-37, which I am absolutely loving. It happens to be a very affordable mic, but it sounds like a million bucks to me. To my ear is has a full-frequency, flat-ish response for a small diaphragm condenser, and most importantly the off-axis phase cancellation that’s an inherent aspect of condenser mic design is minimized. Really great.

I finished the Monotribe-based Minirig – quite a while ago – and have had some fantastic jams on it, though I haven’t recorded anything with it yet.

Long story short, there’s drums, two synth voices, two drones (Thereatari, DS-1), and effects. It sits in a sweet spot of possibility and limitation; there’s certainly enough to keep busy and make a full, if minimalist, track, but whatever I make with it retains a kind of smallness befitting the rig itself.

One of the design goals was to build something that could be used for solo performance, and I hope to give that a live test soon.

All the geek stuff below.

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I challenged myself to come up with a way to visually communicate the sequence of Night Mode recordings and releases, and the result is below.

OTHER was first recorded, and first released. Dirac Spike was second. So far, so good.

Then Damon and I made a collaborative album that’s finished, but hasn’t been released. In this chart that means it has an entry in the left side “Recorded sequence” column, but no line (because it doesn’t have a “Release sequence”).

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There’s no record I’ve listened to more in the past five years than Bonzo Madrid’s Worry. (Vhol’s self-titled may be tied, though!) We had CJ on the show to talk about it, unearthing a ton about its origins and meaning, plus – breaking news – a follow-up is coming!

Get The Long Play Listening Party wherever you get your podcasts.

As I work on guitars for Fight Songs, every electric-based tune gets its own sound. (About a third of the songs are electric, the rest are primarily acoustic split between the regular acoustic and the classical.)

Today I did the bridge overdub part on the titular “Fight Song.”

Snark SN-1 tuner

DOD 280 compressor

Mr. Furious Audio Falcon Heavy drive

Mr. Black Shepard’s End flanger

Dawner Prince Boonar delay

The 280 and Falcon Heavy will probably be on everything, or almost everything. Other dirt, modulation, and space pedals get switched out depending on what sounds good for each song.

Next up is “Lost,” a solo acoustic version of which appeared yearrrrrrrrs ago on the Furious Instance comp. I’m planning to try some phaser on the verses. Not sure what else it might need.

…Which has been up since at least January 2020, if not December 2019.

Signal path is:

Tuner > big gold bypass looper (duplicates the signal) > output 1 recorded in Reaper

Looper output 2 > Falcon Heavy Drive prototype > Wheeler Leveling Amplifier > ART Dual RDB passive transformer-based DI > recorded in Reaper

(The production Falcon with four white knobs wasn’t used)

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Last weekend a couple of new modules for my modular case arrived – a 2hp Tune and an EricaSynths Pico VCO – and in the course of learning to use them I made a quick Night Mode record, as one does, five pieces with the modular, MS-20, and 1776 Effects Multiplex delay pedal.

I’m using it as a reason to update the Night Mode timeline, below.

EDIT 2021 MARCH 25: Drew reminded me of the “Murder Mountain” session. After digging around, my best guess is that we recorded this material – maybe an album’s worth, or more – on two dates in May and June 2019

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