That's MISTER Beanpole To You!

Beanpole is the bastard child of Derek Greenberg. I grew up with Derek in the San Francisco East Bay and played in countless bands with him, and we have had a long beautiful history together (we started a religion in High School, at one time were roommates and I even dragged him along on the Spent Poets misadventures/recordings and tours).

Besides being one of the most talented guitarists I've ever known, Derek has been(forever)obsessed with a three things, The Beatles, Disneyland and musically combining the two via a persona called "Beanpole". Beanpole sounds nothing like The Beatles or Disneyland but the observant listener will hear traces of Greenberg's obsessions sprinkled throughout these tracks. Here's the real scary thing, this is the most honest music ever made. None of this stuff was intended to be "weird".

These recordings feature a cavalcade of musical miscreants featuring yours truly and Les and Ler from Primus, to name but a few, but it really is Derek who is playing most (if not all) of the instruments on these tracks. A few of these songs were recorded at Ler's studio when he lived in Berkeley and I believe "Chicken Boy" was recorded at Les' studio (he played drums). Some of these songs go back to 1981, and some date to a few years ago. Les still maintains that it was Beanpole that single handily collapsed his "Prawn Song" label, as his distributor got so freaked out after hearing these tracks that they pretty much ran for the hills.

I remember when we went to master these tracks for the sadly unreleased "Beanpole Improves" album and we showed up to the session with a pile of dusty cassettes in a shoe box. That poor engineer.

So enjoy these tales of a Farmer who falls in love with an onion (and his flirting with a Bartlett Pair!), of an abducted Grandma and a "family tree that's perfectly straight" of a Chicken Boy and an Embryo who is mercilessly bullied until he gets his hands (fins?) on the school PA system. (LEAVE ME ALONE!!)

Also if you play bass I'd recommend learning the bass line to "His Name Is Beanpole". I did!

I love these songs so much.

Chicken Boy

Cousins

Embryo

Farmer Loves An Onion

Grandma

His Name Is Beanpole

Judge Wapner

Pumpkin Pickin' Time

Sponge Boy

Supper Time!

Hey...!

Beatles MONO

Ok, anyone who knows anything knows that the MONO versions of the Beatles albums are the ones to listen to and covet. Particularly amazing are the versions of "Magical Mystery Tour", "Pepper" and "White Album". These mixes are VERY different from their American stereo counterparts (I'm listening to "Mr Kite" right now and am so happy). These recordings were created by the Beatle at Abbey Road while the stereo mixes were done without the Beatles involvement. And the mono mixes sound sooo much better than the lame ass US Capital releases, especially if you can find the Japanese or German vinyl versions. The Capital mono versions don't sound so hot..but they still are cool.

Japanese White Album

Nick Cave

Buy n Large EULA

Via Boing Boing

Link

...

The Sleepdrone

Link

The Party

Found photos from times past...

The Party

Recording Diary v9

Tonight we started working on the final touches of "Generator".

The first step was to add a few cymbal hits on a few places in the song, so we set up a SM57 and recorded a cymbal hit. This hit was then placed in the bridge and chorus'.

Craig then worked on the snare drum placements, dropping the snare marching pattern into the second chorus and out chorus.

Next we tried a string section part for the chorus, this was sounding to "perfect" so we set up the ADK mic on the electronic pump organ and I mangled out a part. Got it on the 3rd take or so.

The HOG arrived and we sat and listened to the entire song, trying to ascertain what it still needed in terms of instrumentation. The bridge was still to thin so we added the Abbey Road Mono Tubular Bells on the main bridge hits, then we doubled the low end with the Abbey Road Challen Piano.

The next step was placing a Reason Orchester Oboe part on the tail end of the bridge. After finding the correct part that worked with the vocal melody we then doubled it with the Glock.

We then set up the ADK mic over the Marimba and The HOG added a percussive part to the B sections.

And that's it! All the tracking for this song is done.

Next stop "I'm Your Ringtone"

The Gay Messiah

What a beautiful song.

Good Girls Don't. But I Do.

Dude, The Knack RULED my life for a few months when I was a wee champ. I adore their first album and damn if they were not a fine live band.

...

How can so many people not know of the Residents.

Go get "The Commercial Album", "Duck Stab/Buster and Glenn" and "Eskimo" to complete your audio collections.

The War Machine

You know you need your sampler loaded with bomb and machine gun sounds. You know you do. I do. At 100 bucks it's a sweet, sweet, sweet deal. Fucking bombs and guns!

Link

That's My Life.

I Am A Zen God. Worship Me. Love Me.

Hmm..I've been getting more than my share of emails (NOT you Shakki) asking me to recommend Zen Centers, questions about Zazen techniques, etc etc.

Let me clear this up people.

I have absolutely no fucking idea what I'm doing.

Read that again please. Thank you.

But here's a guy who may have an idea. At the very least he's a good read.

Brad Warner

Recording Diary v8

More work on the song "The Random Phrase Generator". We started by adding a Waits Clarinet via reason to the second verse while Craig doubled the part on the upright with a bow. Bowing is very tough, but we finally nailed it and Craig spent the next 20 mins comping a good stand up bass version of the line.

While Craig did this I wrote another part on the Uke for the verse. I pitty the fools that have to mix this song...wait. That's us.

Mirv arrived and we set up his acoustic. We used the ADK and the tiny condenser mic. Here's a pic of our mic placement. It seemed to work pretty good.BTW Mirv, being one of the best guitarists on earth, nailed the arpeggiated part for the verse and chorus after 3 or 4 takes

We then set up Mirv's 5 watt pink Vox amp and ran his new ripping Fender Strat re-issue for a solo in the out section. Mirv vamped for a few takes which gave us some good solo performances that we will look at later. I'm still not sure the end of the song needs anything like guitar, but at least we got something to play with.

Being that our drummer Jeff was available we next we set up drum mics for a new song "I'm Your Ringtone." We played this song at our last show, but it's brand spankin' new.

We used the same drum set up as the out section of "Generator", which for the sake of clarity, I will call the "Pepper" mic placement. It seems to work great for us as we have been getting good drum sounds pretty damn quick.

After a conversation about the arrangement Jeff played the whole song in one take, perfectly. Killer performance/feel as well. Nice!!

Next Jeff played some Tambourine and Shaker for the verses of the song.

We then pulled up "Generator" again and Jeff placed some syncopated marching snare for the chorus.

Another Saturday bites the dust! Homeward!

Spent Poet History

I often get emails requesting that I post the second unreleased "Spent Poets" album "Steve". If you don't know, the Spent Poets was a band that I fronted back in the 90's. We did a few albums for Geffen and then were dropped, we disbanded soon after. The album was made at Coast Recorders (when Dan Alexander owned he joint) and was engineered/produced by David Bianco. A few of the tracks were also recorded in Matt Winegar's bedroom (Matt did all the recording and played many of the instruments on all of the poets stuff) on a charmed Tascam 388. For this album the band consisted of myself, Matt and Derek Greenberg. We had fun making this music.

Matt went on to record an album with his band "Slider" and is now producing other acts, and Derek has been keeping himself busy working on his own project "Beanpole" and chasing the elusive Ringo snare sound. I'm gonna ask Derek if it's OK that I post a few Beanpole songs here. They are very powerful.

Here's a few songs from "Steve"...

Moebius
Sleep
Pink Elephant
Jack Is The Beast

Happy, Happy..

Happy Thanksgiving. I do think that this holiday has the most value, especially for people who are sitting on top of the totem pole. Shit, if you have your health, any family that you don't loathe, one friend you trust and a few things laying around that bring you some sort of happiness then you are doing better than a large portion of our world. If you have only one of the things above your doing OK.

Looking at my own life is something I do lots of these days, it's called Zazen and it's a practice of Zen Buddhism. In many ways Thanksgiving is really a Zen holiday, but I guess when I'm sitting with my legs all twisted up, in a cold room full of strangers, that I'm really not thanking anybody specificly,I am just learning to pay attention all-the-fucking-time! Thanksgiving on steroids. It's really hard. Try it and see.

But this holiday is nice because it's a cultural event where many people, who live in the daydreams of the past and future (yep, you and me), take a little time to notice their lives and see where they are right now.

There is a reason that this holiday comes only once a year, as this introspection is harder than it looks, believe me. It brings up lots of shit.

So thanks to my dear family, band mates and friends.

And thanks to all the nice people who come here and pay attention to our little band. We really do appreciate you.

Adam

Buy Nothing Day

Via our friend House...

"That's right, Friday is traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year. It also happens to be National Buy Nothing day! All you have to do is... not shop. It's a good time to relax at home, eat some peanuts or a fig or something and think about all the crap that you don't need and no one is forcing you to buy.

But the fun doesn't stop there. This weekend the new film "What Would Jesus Buy?" by Morgan Spurlock (Supersize This!) premiers in several cities. Reverend Billy and his Stop Shopping Choir culture jam their message of responsible consumerism into the Mall of America and Disneyland. (Needless to say, security guards are a little dumbstruck when dealing with a full choir.) You can check the trailers and find theaters here:

http://www.wwjbmovie.com/trailer.html

Be sure to check the Saving Christmas page too, which provides alternatives for shopping for Christmas gifts. And if you live in the Bay Area, Fair Trade craft distributor World of Good will be having a warehouse sale in their new location in Emeryville on 12/1 and 12/2

World of Good
6315 Doyle Street
Emeryville, CA

12/1 and 12/2
8-11am discount sale, main event 10am - 5pm

Also, Saturday is the Really Really Free Market in Dolores Park. The concept is simple, bring stuff you don't want and give it away:"

Recording Diary v7

Back to Generator.

Craig and I spent a little time sculpting the arrangement, figuring out what goes where and when. This song is a bit of a bear being their are so many instruments playing on different parts. After a bit of chopping we have the song in a presentable form to track over it.

The Tech Hog arrived and we started on reworking my "tiny hands of concrete" scratch piano part. We used the Mrs Mills Piano from the Abbey Road Refills. The Hog took a little time to find the right approach in his playing style and what parts to play, resulting in many conversations like this:

Hog: So how do you want it?
Adam: Play like your a Russian pianist virtuoso. I want bravado and bombast.
Hog: How about a Russian Piano virtuoso who actually sucks but doesn't know it?
Adam: Exactly!

Hog: How do you want it
Adam: It needs to be emotive, tender. A tiny fandango.
Hog: I should play like my mom!
Adam: Perfect!

Welcome to our world.

After we tracked all the piano parts we added a Waits Clarinet counter point melody and Accordion chords to the B section. I will add a Melodica over the accordion as well.

A solid nights work, home by 12. Fucking tired. We work hard.

Animal vs Rich

WOW Issues

Recording Diary v6

We came in the studio at 10 am, did a little cleaning and Craig did a little Warcraft ass kicking. My friend Larry is playing with a big rock band in England right now and he keeps IM'ing saying weird shit. I think he's playing in front of 25,000.00 people today. Kick ass.

More work on "Generator"

Set up the ADK Area 51 and did 3 falsetto backing tracks on the chorus and re-did the lead chorus vocal. Then we re-did a few lines in the chorus to add variance throughout the song.

Next we did the backing (na na na na na na na) b-vox tracks for the out section. Multi-tracking about 8 vocals (lead and harmonies).

Vocals seem good. Everything is a keeper thus far.

Next our drummer the Mighty Gomes came in and changed the heads on his drums and tuned them. Tuning is everything. If you want a good drum sound start with the tuning, and make sure the drums sound like you want em in the room before setting up any mics..."Fixing in the mix" is a retarded waste of time.

Tuning takes time.

While the drums were being fussed with we placed Reason Glockenspiel parts on the verses, B sections and the chorus followed by a percussive Marimba for the chorus.

We set up the mic on the Marimba with old trusty (ADK Area 51) and I banged out the part.

Next we added a Trumpet/Melodica harmony part on the chorus with Craig on Trumpet and myself on Melodica.

Then we set up the drums. We set up the mics using the Beatles "Pepper" pattern that we nabbed from the "Recording The Beatles" book, which is the best book ever written. If you like that Beatle sound you should buy it, not because you'll ever come close to sounding like the Beatles, but because it's fun to try and fail.

Recording The Beatles

We used SM57's rather than the AKG D19's because, well, we don't have em and the mics are kinda similar anyway. But we do have the same kick drum mic that the Beatles used, the AKG D20

The drum mic placement worked like this:

The AKG D20 about 5 inches from the kick drum. The low end gets larger the more the mic is moved back from the drum..and we wanted a fairly tight kick sound.

A Shure SM57 under the Snare Drum, pretty close to the snares.

A Shure SM57 to the right of the Hi-Hat

A Shure SM57 next to the Floor Tom

The ADK Area 51 on a boom stand over the drums. This will pick up other tones from the snare and get the rack tom.

We then recorded the drums, moved the mics a bit, recorded the drums, moved the mics a bit..you get the idea.

Jeff played the part three times and we deemed take 3 the keeper.

Next we hit the bass guitar part for the out section. Craig and I sculpted out a walking bass line for the last 4 bars of the song. We used the double neck bass (that Craig managed to tune). Gee that bass sounds cool. Graig pounded for about 40 mins until we found a keeper.

Then we added a Reason Accordion part to double the horns on the chorus. It sounds cool.

Next we added some counter point vocals for the outro. Three tracks of doubled vox.

We are now fucking tired. it's 8 PM. No breaks...

Bye

Manikin Memotron

This looks cool. Manikin-Elektronic Memotron, (white). The Memotron is a Hardware unit that recreates the original sound of classical Mellotrons. It uses a large sample library with sounds that are sampled from original Mellotrons.

Link

Kilby Snow

MBO: Filmore NYE.

Calling Freaks, Mutants and Miscreants

MBO is playing the famed NYE show at the Filmore with our pally ol'friend Les. These shows are always fun and the Filmore is a wonderful place to set up crud and make noise. This is one of the last rock events where 1 out of 3 people are high on mushrooms. Or at least 1 out of 3 are pretending to be high, which is good enough. Just like the good old days!

Sure it's a spendy ticket, but it beats sitting at home masturbating and then falling asleep in your own "leavings".

Wait..no it doesn't.

Album Diary v5

We started a new tune tonight "The Random Phrase Generator" which is an older song that I wrote back in 98 or so. My pal Geoff wrote the outro melody.

This song is about town lunatics. Real town lunatics, not "eccentrics" but people who are generally unbalanced and do weird shit consistently. The Random Phrase Generator was a guy my friend Geoff saw every day when going to work. The Generator would sit outside of the Embarcadero Bart station and repeat, well..a random phrase. Morning til evening. Everyday the phrase was different and unique, representing a tangible product of a unhinged mind. The songs really not about The Generator but what his mother might say or think if she could fast forward right after his birth and see the person he became.

How do people become random phrase generators?

We set up the piano. I'm using one from the Reason Pianos Refills that's a little more mellow than our usual Mrs Mills Abbey Road pianos. Being this song is very orchestrated (kinda based on Rufus Wainwright-like arrangements) the main initial task is to get a good vocal that we can build the arrangements around. It imperative to have the vocals/tempos sussed out first when approaching a song that will employ "classical" arranging.

We set up the Mic. ADK Area 51. And let the tape rip. Or let the computer rip?

Recorded the basic guide piano parts

We then worked on tempos, speeding up the chorus and out sections. This will make these sections a tad more "peppy".

Next we hit the vocals. We completed the basic lead vocal track in about two hours and while it's still spotty in places it will will work as a guide when we start placing the string arrangements.

Next up we do the background vocals for the chorus and outro section..but that will have to wait. I need to crawl into my warm bed.

Oh yes. For those of you that are curious what "West Grand" sounds like, here's a little chunk. It's not mixed etc, but we put it up in the spirit of showing our process etc.

Also, above is a pic of the Joystick Synth. It's cool.

West Grand Demo

We Love The Ric

One Laptop Per Child

The Hog just got one of these for his lil champ. What a cool idea. You get a neat computer (very sweet design) and a kid in a developing country gets one as well.

"The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish our goal, we need people who believe in what we’re doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege. Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. During this time, you can donate the revolutionary XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. "

Link

Radiohead-Webcams Mounted On Bike Helmets

Sandy

I'm always forgetting junk. Birthdays, Doc appointments, all kinds of shit. Here's a neat online app that will help you remember everything, as it sends you email reminders when you tell it to. I'm gonna try it out. Cool!

Link

Album Diary: v4

Back to West Grand.We did a quick rough mix and added a little EQ to various instruments, then we reduced the song to it's rhythmic elements and added each instrument back in until we nailed basic arrangements for each section. So far one of the good things about this song is it's mixing itself. This is a good sign as when a song doesn't mix itself as it usually means you've fucked it up.

We then added a Glockenspiel part to the verses via Reason.

Next we plugged in the Mini-Moog and added some "noise" elements followed with more noise made by the Joystick synth. The joystick is a primitive synth who's oscillators are controlled via the joystick, it's capable of very wild sounds, some of which we put on tape.

The song is done! We now will let it rest and not mess with it until the whole album is tracked, this way we come in fresh for the mix. Chances are we will still add a few instruments when we do the final mix..

Nord Wave

The HOG and I were just drooling over this new board from the Nord line. It's only 3 grand! Fuck it looks sweet.

Link

I Come In The Name Of Jesus.Bitch.

Burrrrrrr

I'm A Victim Of Circumstance

...

Second Album Diary: v3

Time for vocals. BTW the song has a title now..it's called "West Grand"( This is the street where the ugly thing happened.)

After conversations about conspiracy theories and horror books we set up the ADK Area 51TT for the lead vocal.

Next I tried different vocal approaches as I'm not exactly sure which way the chorus melody should go. So we try different things and see what sticks. The song is less aggressive than its original version so I'm trying to figure out the best way to hit it.

Turns out the best way was the original melody in my head, so we forged ahead and banged out all the parts. Pretty simple 3 point harmonies..Easy peasy-japaneasy.

Then I changed my mind...again. We killed the harmonies to keep the feel intimate. This approach makes more sense as this song is far from rock bombast. I'm not sure how much rock bombast we will have on this album actually...then again.

An hour later...All vocals are deemed keepers..Onward

Next we worked on the arrangement, placing the key elements of the song and giving it a form in Pro Tools. Otherwise known as cutting and pasting. Message to sonic purists that don't like modern recording techniques: go fuck yourself. I loathe those arguments..Its basically like two carpenters arguing about what hammer is best. Shut up and pound the nail already?

Next we busted out the Melodica and the Trumpet. These two instruments love each other...out of tune lovers. This combo is made even more odd by the fact that we have a pretty messed up trumpet..but Craig picks out the notes well enough to make it all work. I love the fucked up sound anyway.

We then added two counterpoint melodies with the Trumpet/Melodica on the B section before the chorus. We will figure out later where these fit into the arrangement. They do sound cool though..very old drunken sailor vibe.

Time to go home, meditate and then play Halo 3 in my underwear.

Never Get Busted Until You Get Busted

Via disinfo:

"A group of men were watching a video [Barry Cooper's Never Get Busted Again: Volume 1 - Traffic Stops] in a vehicle on how to grow pot and transport it without getting caught when they were caught by authorities themselves.

It happened in Marysville, California when four men in a stolen truck were pulled over because the pickup didn’t have mud flaps. The four men were watching the instructional video on a DVD player mounted on the dashboard at the time.

Officers then discovered about 90 pounds of marijuana in garbage bags in the back of the truck.

Moral of the story: Buy Barry Cooper's Never Get Busted Again: Volume 1 - Traffic Stops and watch it at home before transporting the pot!"

Fudge Factory

Hey you! Check out the amazing work over at Fudge Factory. Travis has a wonderful new book n everything! No one can render Bush getting kicked in the nuts like Travis.

Link

Gear Rip Off Listings

Man it sucks when some fucker takes your stuff. Being that musicians attract dirt bags (or are dirt bags) shit always seems to disappear more often than not. Here's a site where you can list junk that's been taken. It's an interesting (if sad) read as everyone from Radiohead to Dinosaur Jr have has precious gear ripped off. Maybe you can help get it back!

Link

Relax. Enjoy.

Fuck Ups

The MBO site has been wonky for a few days as the Blogger engine is fucking up. I'm damn close to switching to Word Press. Fucking Google.

Also, I'd like to apologize to anyone who's sent us a email via the "mbo@madameblavatskyoverdrive.com" link and has received no response. The email account was fucked up and hammered with spam and lots of very nice emails got lost in the shuffle.

So THANK YOU to all those kind folk that have sent in money for our album and please do send in your questions/comments etc. The account is fixed now and I check it daily and will respond.

Love

Dog The Bounty Hunter

MBO. Album 2 Recording Diary: v2

We continue with "Hell"...

We quickly worked on the hand claps (editing various performances) to give them more variance. Claps deemed complete.

I finished lyrics so now it's vocal time. I really don't believe in scratch vocals as it kinda sucks to redo stuff, especially vocals. This is what I hated about the recording contract scenerio, the band I was in (The Spent Poets) would record all these cool songs (at least to our ears) and then Geffen would inevitably have us redo them to make them more "professional", thus ruining the vibe we originaly obtained. I say keep what you do originally, no matter the fidelity, the idea of "demos" is crap. So says I.

Craig set up the ADK 8-51 TC mic. Headphones ready. Let's sing.

Did the initial background vocals and harmonies (4 tracks for the root and then 2 more for the harmony) for the intro then Thomas (THE HOG) arrived so we switched to Marimba.

We mic'd the Marimba using the ADK 8-51. We are also experimenting with a new mic, the Karma condenser, which according to Craig is the smallest condenser mic made, which means it's better than the bigger ones because it's smaller. This will give a closer proximity to the source to drown out external noise (band in next room, they made hog feel real upset.)

Thomas recorded the 3 marimba parts for the chorus, verses and b sections.

Marimba performances were deemed keepers

Next we added the Mrs Mills piano from the Abbey Road session Refill. The Mrs Mills is the piano that the Beatles used to track many fine songs. Actually all of the Reason sounds we are using are form the amazingly good Abbey Road Refill Collection. My GOD these are good and I am sooo happy that these even exist because frankly they are are pretty weird, out of tune etc. They contain my dream selection of sounds. I cant tell you how many times we looked for a good Tubular Bells only to come up empty handed.

Link

Next The Hog played the piano part (bravado Rufus chords and then 8th note rhythmic)

Next up was the Abbey Road Harmonium on the verses and the B sections.

Next we then sculpted a part that will work with the vocal melody using the Abby Road Celeste on the verses and pre chorus

Then we mic'd up the Jaymar toy piano for a "sleigh bell" sound on the chorus. I adore my Jaymar and am still kicking myself for not buying the rare full scale one that I saw at the Alameda Antique Flea Market a few years ago. I am still searching ebay for one.

The Electro Mechanical Elka Wurli was then added on the chorus. We are expecting to rhythmically mangle it using a beat destroyer plug-in in Ableton Live. Hopefully this will add a randomized weird element.

Time to go home. It's late.

SF Swearing Festival

Further proof that San Francisco is one of the best cities in the world: we have a Annual Swearing Contest. This is hosted at the famed EDINBURGH CASTLE PUB where the beer is grand, the Haggis is scary and I've been drunk many, many times.

And don't miss the pre-contest lecture:

HOW THE SHITS AND FUCKS CHANGE THE WORLD
Linguist Dr. Jonathan Hunt
Author and Litquake founder Jack Boulware
Whore magazine editor Ginger Murray

This Saturday

Link

Old Devils n' Monsters Art

Cool old images of Demons to use in art n junk...

Link

Armonica

Make your very own Eno Ambient album.

Link

2nd Album Studio Diary. v1

So we have decided to painstakingly document the recording of the new album. This is to prove to any aspiring musician how tedious and boring the studio can be, and it's an example of our working process. We are also doing this to keep a diary for ourselves so we can remember how we got sounds etc. I expect most of you who visit our site will find this real boring, but you can always go download porn or something if this is not your cup of tea.

So the first track of the new album is tentatively titled "This Is Hell". I expect the title will change. This song is about the time a guy was shot and killed outside out studio here in West Oakland, not a fun aftermath to witness I assure you. Seeing something like that (sadly we could not be any help to the investigation as we were inside banging away when it happened) did effect us, certainly it fucked with my head for awhile. Makes one think that you could get up, put on your shoes, think its a normal day, and then die a unpleasant death. Life is like that yes?

We started with a synthetic beat created in Reason using the Commodore 64 sounds to a BPM of 80. I love Reason, mainly for its flexibility, stableness and wide variety of sounds available. If you don't know what I'm on about here's Reason:

Reason Link

We then made an 8 bar loop of the beat, ported it into pro tools HD as a rhythmic base.

Next we recorded hand claps over the drum machine.

We used a ADK Tube mic for percussion etc. These are real,real good mics made by a guy named Larry in Washington. These mics don't cost tons of cash and are just all around ripping work horses: Buy One!

ADK Mics Link

We then tried a metal clanging percussion, but it's sound was too loose, as the rhythm has to be very tight on this one, thus the synthetic rhythm base. Out it goes.

The current bed is deemed "good". Onward..

Next up bass.

We labor over bass. Spend hours on bass. bass is the most important instrument ever. It hard to record right and generally takes lots of attention. We love bass with mid range definition. One of the secrets of Bass is the junk you put around it. The Beatles prove this point. Arrangement is everything!

For this tune the I'm looking for a fuzzed out bass. Synthetic sounding but not a synth. At least not until we exhaust the organic options. This is called experimentation. Feel our pain.

First up the Pedula Bass running through various boxes. We tried the Akai "Deep Impact" and the Zebx Wooly Mammoth stomp boxes. Nothing worked

A few months ago we acquired an old mutated double neck bass/guitar that is a replica of a SG and a EBO. It needed a little input fixin but it turns out to be an amazing sounding bass, with the nice McCartney mid range pluck. This bass was made by who knows and was purchased from a guy named Fat Dog. Goes to show you "good, expensive gear" is kinda meaningless. Whatever works, works. It seem always have more luck with weird gear.

Wow. We found out the song is to fast. This shit happens, note to self: SING the chorus before committing to a tempo. So we dropped it to 70 BPM's and the chorus and syncopated parts now "breathe" properly. Now we have to re-record the claps and the bass we just tracked. Killer! Nothing like wasting time. Sigh. I'm an idiot.

Re-did bass, hand claps.

Then we added a tambourine and shaker for different parts of the song.

Next we found a odd "squelch" synth bass in Reason to double the bass guitar in the verses. We will mix out the low end in this synth with a high pass filter later. This is a great trick to keep your tracks from turning into mush. We use this filter on almost everything.

Next step was arranging the song in Pro Tools. While I'm not a huge fan of "perfect time" this song was based on a mechanic meter that we fucked up with percussion that we played over it to make it more unique. It's a fun thing to do with drum machines, yet this approach does take more time to fine tune and means more "fun" in Pro Tools edit mode. Thankfully this is something Craig is quite good at.

After an hour or so the song is now arranged. Next off we re-did the bass on the chorus as it was a little to "rock" and I wanted something a bit tighter.

The songs foundation is now pretty solid. Next up vocals. We are tired though, so it's time to go home. Plus I have to write lyrics...

Another days work in MBO land.

Dianne Feinstein Sell Out

This should come as no surprise that Diane Fienstien has once again sold out the Democrats with her latest announcement that she's supporting Michael Mukasey. Mukasey has a difficult time calling "Water Boarding" (simulated drowning) "torture". Gee I wonder why?

Link

Who Digs What. Where.

This cool app made by Gracenote shows the popularity of artists and albums by region and country. Of course this is all based on Gracenotes data, but I'm very proud to say The Beatles are #1 in California.

Link

....

...

SID Chip VST Plugin

This is cool if your running a Windows DAW using VST Plug-Ins. Its an emulation of the old SID Chip from the Commodore 64. I adore these sounds, although I have a set made for Reason this does look cool.

Link

Zoom Quilt

I do "Quilt Drawing" all the time with work buddies. Quilt Drawing is where you pass a paper around and everyone draws on it. Here's a Flash site based on the same idea.

Link

Limbo

Here's a cool video game that seems to be in development. The design is ripping.

Link