Muso Thread

[Fritz]

Well its back!!! Woo... Good fun place to talk about gear, players, playing, your work ect.

Any chris cheney questions can pretty much be summed up in a flash by me from working with chris himself. A hell of alot of other people here know most things too about all chris related gear and playing stuff..

So yeah.... let the posting begin :D

[Kevin]

so how is that list of chris' gear coming along? :p

one thing I noticed the other day, is my crt monitor interferes with my electric guitar. only noticable during distortion, but kinda sucks if i'm trying to play something off the screen.
i'll invest in an lcd soon.

[Sammas]

so how is that list of chris' gear coming along? :p

one thing I noticed the other day, is my crt monitor interferes with my electric guitar. only noticable during distortion, but kinda sucks if i'm trying to play something off the screen.
i'll invest in an lcd soon.

Yeah I use to have the same problem... It is pretty stock standard though. Fluro lights do the same along with a variety of other things including exposed mains wiring like you find in older fibro houses.

[Kevin]

Yeah I use to have the same problem... It is pretty stock standard though. Fluro lights do the same along with a variety of other things including exposed mains wiring like you find in older fibro houses.

yeah, I figured the millions of electrons zooming out of my monitor would affect the magnets on the pickups. I don't really use my electric too much these days, so it's not a big problem, and playing unplugged isn't an inconvenience.

[WHITE FALCON]

ahhh home sweet home aka muso's corner!

hey fritz aka mick, hows that list goin?

i remember on the old board you said something about starting a whole page dedicated to chris's gear, sounds great!

well ah i played a angus young SG the other day and also a gretsch 6120, and guess what, the gretsch shat all over the SG. I was expecting alot from the SG but and i really had no idea about the 6120 but the SG let me down big time. it was really stiff to play and the sound was alright but not as awesome as the gretsch.

i am pretty much saving for a hollow body now but i dont know what i should get. Probably not wanting to spend more then $3000. i was thinking the same style as like a anniversary. I have played the ibanez artcore and they sound fairly good and the 6120 but i can seem to find a Anni so yeah any suggestions?

thanks =D

[Strider]

haha, that's funny cos I sorta sometimes get radio frequency through my acoustic amp. And you can slightly hear people in a muffled voice. It's bizarre!

[*M!]

haha, that's funny cos I sorta sometimes get radio frequency through my acoustic amp. And you can slightly hear people in a muffled voice. It's bizarre!

Oh wow - that would be really interesting to record...
i love recording when there's weird/incidental sounds floating about!

:D

*M!

[thelivingendrock]

Well finally we have proper place to hang around again!

[WHITE FALCON]

hey jason have you done anymore tabs?

[Kevin]

afaik, jason = livingendrock
james = thelivingendrock

3 different forums later too.. :p

[WHITE FALCON]

fuckkk lol my bad :D

well has jason become a member yet?

[hillaas]

No one will be able to answer this - but does anyone have and/or know anything about electric violins?

[Kevin]

a friend of mine has an electric violin, haven't spoken to her in a few years though

[cdejonge]

My friend's band has a violinist in it. I'm pretty sure it would be electric.

They're called Winston:
http://www.myspace.com/listentowinston

[WhitefalconTLE44]

does anyone here have a wizard amp? they sound really good when chris plays one, so i was wondering how other people liked them. There extremely expensive though:(

[Liz]

No one will be able to answer this - but does anyone have and/or know anything about electric violins?

In my music catalogue I have sitting right here.
At Flinders Music Shop they have em.
But you probably can't come to Pirie just for that. :p


Anywho, my work....
A couple of weeks ago I learnt It's Too Late by Evermore on piano.
Then my friend Maddi learnt it on guitar.
It sounds really good. :)

[Neo]

No one will be able to answer this - but does anyone have and/or know anything about electric violins?

A guy I used to go to school with played one all the time. It looked rather strange at first but now I see the resemblance. It didn't really sound like a violin though as it was an electric violin, not a violin with a pickup inside, and he played it through a keyboard amp.

[WHITE FALCON]

does anyone here have a wizard amp? they sound really good when chris plays one, so i was wondering how other people liked them. There extremely expensive though:(

lol i doubt anyone has one and if anyone would it would be mick aka Fritz.

but no they are $7000+ delivered to your door.

[Fritz]

they're just a personally handwired marshall plexi clone with an extra channel (that noone seems to use anyway). good amp but when i compare the 100 watter modern classic with my marshalls there isnt really too much difference.

Put it this way, malcolm young uses them live and that guy has the most 'marshall' sound there is !

[WhitefalconTLE44]

ok, thanks mick

[WHITE FALCON]

how many people use them. not many i would imagine.

if nobody uses the extra channel (which im guess is like an overdrive channel) do most people just overdrive the clean by crankin the volume?

malcom pretty much overdrives it so much its like a light distortion isnt it?

[Fritz]

you'd be surprised. the demand for them in enormous

yeah chris, like malcolm run the amp clean and push it hard to dirty it up abit.

one of the guys from metallica uses a wizard or used to... actually alot of metal guys use them but use the lead (lead gain) channel.

[thelivingvines]

how can you do that and keep the volume down? other than using the volume pot on your guitar?

[Fritz]

by using a power soak. hook it up to your amp and turn down the dB level on the power soak. (the little blue thing sitting on top of fender, which is hooked up to the wizard ). http://www.riotonbroadway.com/data/images-original/1000/115950381919818.jpg

[thelivingvines]

ahhhh- that's what that thing is for! jesh; I had an inkling that was what was going on. Thank's Fritz. 'spensive?

[Fritz]

i think the THD hotplate (the power soak chris has) retails at around the $500-$600 mark. not cheap

[Fritz]

http://www.thdelectronics.com/products/hotplate.htm

[damo0945]

couldnt you just get like an EQ pedal and turn the level down on it, or would post amp power be too much for it?

[Fritz]

you could i guess but it would be more interference with the signal. an eq pedal is designed mainly as an eq pedal. not a volume pedal. Might aswell use something that is designed to get the sound of your amp cranked at a lower volume rather than something else. I'm sure sammas could explain it really really really well.
I get it... but cant really explain it really well sorry. basically you'd sound better using a power soak rather than putting in an extra pedal to the chain which drains your tone.

the power soak drains the amps volume before the signal hits the pedals. rather than having a hot amp signal then getting drained by a $200 pedal.

chris is after the best sound he can get, and uses devises that are designed to give him exactly what he wants

[tanguyen]

So do you hook your guitar to the powersoak THEN into the amp, or is it guitar - amp - powersoak. I'm just used to the old plug 'n' play so this is all new to me.

[Johnny_Wah]

I found this on the website:

To use one: connect the speaker output of the amp into the input of the Hot Plate®, then connect the speaker cabinet to one of the two speaker outputs of the Hot Plate® (doesn't matter which one). The amp thinks the Hot Plate® is a speaker, so the sound stays true even when you turn the volume down.

So it's still plug 'n' play with the guitar.

[Fritz]

the power soak goes in between your amp and speaker cabinet.

[damo0945]

you could i guess but it would be more interference with the signal. an eq pedal is designed mainly as an eq pedal. not a volume pedal. Might aswell use something that is designed to get the sound of your amp cranked at a lower volume rather than something else. I'm sure sammas could explain it really really really well.
I get it... but cant really explain it really well sorry. basically you'd sound better using a power soak rather than putting in an extra pedal to the chain which drains your tone.

the power soak drains the amps volume before the signal hits the pedals. rather than having a hot amp signal then getting drained by a $200 pedal.

chris is after the best sound he can get, and uses devises that are designed to give him exactly what he wants

I'm reasonably new to the whole thing as well. It is very confusing

Yeah a battery powered one would sound especially bad i guess, and i suppose a power soak would give you the exact power you want to get through it and have a flat signal response. A passive volume pedal might do it now ive thought it through better.

Aren't pedals usually before the amp?

And while I'm here I may as well ask where an effects loop usually is in an amp? i always thought it was after the pre-amp and before the power amp.

[Sammas]

Most guitar amplifiers follow a similar chain:

Guitar -> Preamp -> Power amp -> Speaker

An effects loop is simply a preamp output and a power amp input. If I put a reverb pedal in the effects loop it would make the chain look like this (provided that the effects loop is in series and not parallel):

Guitar -> Preamp -> Reverb -> Power amp -> Speaker

The preamp section of a guitar amplifier is just a sophisticated overdrive pedal. If you put a reverb pedal in front of a distortion/overdrive pedal, your reverb effect is going to get smashed by distortion as well. By putting the reverb pedal after the distortion/overdrive pedal (or preamp in this case) you keep your reverb effect nice and clean and sounding good.

Putting an eq or a volume pedal in the effects loop won't achieve the same thing as an attenuator (what a power soak is technically called). In fact, putting a volume pedal or eq in the effects loop with the intention of reducing the volume is pretty redundant because the majority of amplifiers with master volumes have them placed between the preamp and power amp too. Both the volume pedal and master volume on the amplifier limit the amount of guitar signal that is fed into the power amp.

The best overdrive sounds in valve amplifiers are created in the power amp, not the preamp. In order to create these nice overdrive tones you have to turn the amplifier up loud enough to overdrive the power amp (loud!). Thats why most valve amplifiers sound terrible at low volumes. An attenuator is like a volume control that goes between the power amp and the speaker. This allows you to crank the power amp to overdrive the power tubes, and still be able to turn down the overall volume (by limiting the amount of signal going to the speaker).

A word of caution though, this is the business end of the amplifier. Attenuators are specially designed to handle the high wattage that an amplifier outputs and to meet the impedance of both the speaker and amplifier. Don't try and put an effects pedal between your amplifier output and speaker... you will kill the pedal and your amp. Amplifiers can output over 100watts, a guitar pedal cannot even handle just a single watt.

Impedance is tricky to explain, but it must be matched - If your amplifier requires an 8ohm load, the speaker or cab connected to it must be 8ohms. Think of it as a see-saw... if someone too big or too small is sitting on either end, it won't work... and it will usually be your amplifier that dies, not the speaker.

Some attenuators like the THD hotplate have a line output on them (the same signal strength as an effects loop) which means you can connect effects to it, then feed it into a seperate power amplifier. Eddie Van Halen did this quite a lot.

Attenuators are pointless for amplifiers with solid state power sections. They are designed only for amplifiers with valve power amps (using kt88, 6v6, 6l6, el34, el84, 6880, 5880, etc power tubes, not amplifiers that only use 12ax7/Ecc83's, etc). Even with an attenuator, a valve amplifier won't sound exactly the same just quieter. This is because a decent portion of a cranked guitar tone comes from the speaker working hard and pushing a lot of air... It definately helps though.

[Fritz]

thanks sammas ! :)

haha putting a pedal between your amp and speaker cabinet hahahaha. i wonder if anyone has actually done that. i laughed quite loud when i read that bit

[thelivingvines]

can i use one in a combo?

[damo0945]

i kinda figured post amp power would blow a pedal to kingdom come, just thought i'd check. You would think amp builders (maybe they do, I don't know) would put in an attenuator after the power amp for this kind of thing. Be expensive though I guess.

can i use one in a combo?

If it is anything like my amp (i think mine's a keyboard amp i use mostly for bass) and the speaker is connected via a jack plug i guess you could just put the power soak through it that way. If the wiring is all internal I guess it would be harder (don't hold me to that, it just seems logical).

[Sammas]

Some amp builders include attenuators in their amplifiers, like Aiken amps for example. They aren't expensive at all, maybe $60-$80 in parts for a 100watt attenuator. Most "boutique"manufacturers avoid them and go for more sophisticated volume reduce techniques like power scaling and its assorted variations.

Sure, you can use an attenuator with a valve combo. Just make sure you meet the impedance requirements of the amp (don't just look at the ohms rating of the speakers). Like Damo sez, if your combo doesn't have a speaker jack you will have to wire a TS jack onto the end of the speaker cable.

[thelivingvines]

ok cool. It's a hot rod deluxe- I know I can unplug the amp in the back so that's cool. Looked the impedance up on the fender website and I think its 8 ohms. does that sound right?

[Sammas]

Yeah that sounds about right, the most common impedances are 4, 8 and 16ohms. Might be best to double checked on the back of the amp. If its 8ohms you will need an 8ohm THD hotplate or you could get a Weber mass or load dump which has an impedance selector switch... they aren't as well made as THD gear though. If you choose the weber, go for the 100watt model.

[thelivingvines]

haha, he said load dump- that's funny.

I was reading some reviews on harmony central earlier on actually- as I always do before I purchase ANYTHING guitar related. One of the more negative reviews was saying that it doesn't do the job you think it will. I know that doesnt help much but if someone could tell me what to actually expect then I can mull it over a little more. From what i think it seems to be that it will allow me to have my amp turned up on full so I get the best tones while using the hotplate to lower the actual output volume so i don't hurt my little ears and wake people up. is that right? if its more complicated than that I and I'm going to waste my money then tell me. I think I need something like this cos some of the tones I'm recording sound like they need boosting a lot and I reckon this would help out.

[Sammas]

Yeah don't expect any miracles. Attenuators are handy, but far from a perfect solution. The more you attenuator the output of an amplifier the more it sounds less like a cranked amplifier, it will get muddy, dull and lifeless pretty quickly. You won't get great cranked guitar tones at bedroom volumes from a hot rod deluxe when using an attenuator. You can however knock 10dB the top of a cranked amp to keep it within reasonable (yet still very loud) volumes.

If you want something that doesn't annoy the neighbours or something that has reasonably low volumes I'd look into a vintage fender champ. Its 5watts and you can still use it with an attenuator. Don't underestimate 5watts though, its half the volume of a 50watt amplifier and is still capable of rattling the windows.

Another way to reduce the volume is by using a speaker with a lower sensitivity rating. Sensitivity is the measured sound pressure level (at 1metres distance) created by the speaker when it is powered by 1 watt. Celestions and EV's have high sensitivity ratings in the high 90's and low 100 decibel range. Some jensens on the other hand have ratings down near 90 so there is potentially a 10dB difference in volume between different speakers... the trick it finding one that works well with your amp ;)

Recording electric guitar is tricky. One of the biggest requirements for achieving a nice cranked recorded guitar tone is to make the speakers push a lot of air. The only way the speakers can push a lot of air is if the amp is turned up loud. If you use an attenuator, the speakers don't work as hard thus you don't get as nice a guitar tone.

you might be better off just using an overdrive pedal or an isocab.

[thelivingvines]

isocab? I have a nice overdrive pedal... but you know its never going to have that really amazing crisp sound to it. I have such a brillant set up with really nice gear and I somehow feel like i am not making the most of it- like all i need is one piece of equpiment to really bring out the tones- I just don't know what that is yet. I am actually really disappointed with my SM57- I can get some really nice sounds out of my amp and not matter what I seem to do I can't replicate it in the recordings. I don't know whether its the mic or the mic positioning. I feel like I could do better, both with a mic for recording and with my knowledge of mic positioning, you know?
standard procedure for me is to mark out the centre of the speaker. point the mic straight at it about an inch away from the mesh, then turn it at about a 45 degree angle. I have had a mixed bag of sounds out of that, kinda depends on the song. I like a mic that pics up all the definition in what i play and all the subtleties.... kinda feels like im not quite getting that. any ideas?

[WHITE FALCON]

when i mic up i put it like toward the edge or the speaker.

what you should do is get the mic in your hand have your guitar in the other and press the record button then just move the mic in a pattern you will remember and record the different sounds and then pick the sound you like the most. hopefully you the pattern you chose wasnt to hard so you remember where the mic was when you hear the sound you want. if you have a fender deville oor what ever it was it shoulnt be as hard as a 4x12 coz there is only 1/2 speakers.

[Sammas]

isocab? I have a nice overdrive pedal... but you know its never going to have that really amazing crisp sound to it. I have such a brillant set up with really nice gear and I somehow feel like i am not making the most of it- like all i need is one piece of equpiment to really bring out the tones- I just don't know what that is yet. I am actually really disappointed with my SM57- I can get some really nice sounds out of my amp and not matter what I seem to do I can't replicate it in the recordings. I don't know whether its the mic or the mic positioning. I feel like I could do better, both with a mic for recording and with my knowledge of mic positioning, you know?
standard procedure for me is to mark out the centre of the speaker. point the mic straight at it about an inch away from the mesh, then turn it at about a 45 degree angle. I have had a mixed bag of sounds out of that, kinda depends on the song. I like a mic that pics up all the definition in what i play and all the subtleties.... kinda feels like im not quite getting that. any ideas?


An Isocab is a speaker in an acoustically isolated cabinet. It means you can mic your cranked up guitar amp, yet barely hear it in the room. A few companies make them, randall and demeter of the top of my head as well as a few more esoteric brands.

this is the demeter one:

http://www.demeteramps.com/products/cabinets/ssc1.jpg



You have to consider every when recording, its not just the guitar, amp and microphone. You also need to take into account the microphone preamp, the AD/DA conversion (if you are recording digitally, every signal goes through a stage of analog to digital conversion when recorded, then digital to analog conversion when played back) and the room you record in.

The room you record in plays a huge part in the recorded sound of anything. Professional recordings are done in acoustically treated environments with hardwood floors and broadband diffusers and absorption. They aren't acoustically "dead" (lacking reverb), they are acoustically balanced so that there is an even distribution of frequencies (not to much low end, or to much high end) and no flutter echos. If the room you record in sounds dull and lifeless, your recordings are going to sound dull and lifeless. No gear will compensate for an acoustically poor room.

An SM57 sound do the job absolutely perfectly, many great recordings were done with SM57's on guitar cabs. A large diaphram condenser will provide a more natural sound if a greater high frequency response, but they also pick up more of the room sound.

I don't spose you have any guitar recordings uploaded on the net somewhere that I can hear?

[thelivingvines]

I do, but only the ones I somehow managed to get to sound vaguely decent.... I'm sure they could be improved upon though so I'll put one up here in a sec, hold on...

[thelivingvines]

here's a couple:
http://www.mediafire.com/?2n5chne2eh1
http://www.mediafire.com/?2hsctbxcx74

if it helps at all- I'm having real trouble getting definition in what I am playing- say if there are a couple of subtle changes in a chord... i cant bring that out enough- maybe I should mess around with the EQ or something but I think its worth the work to get a better recording in the first place than to tweak it later.

[Sammas]

I've downloaded them, but i'll have to wait til tomorrow to give them a listen.

[Fritz]

haha in my case i'd need an isocab that can fit in one or two 4x12 cabs haha

[lachlandavis]

When recording, If your Just recording whats coming out the Amp (no effects pedals) its probably best not to Mic it up, and go out into a DI or Line out.
And when recording unless you have some really quality gear its usualy best to layer effects from a computer.

But if you must use your pedals then yes you do need to mic it up, because your never going to get the sound quality you get out of the amp with the pedals out of a DI.

[thelivingvines]

I don't think my amp has a DI. Not that I have found anyway.
I use a roland vs2480 and where the effects are really arse so not a chance of layering anything in if I want to keep 'my sound' (which I think I have at last found) therefore I must use pedals. Therefore I must use a mic- back to square one.

[Armistice]

That amp chinga looks cool

I just have to push the Gain button on my amp, hehe

[lachlandavis]

Amps dont come with a DI, its a little box you can buy for about 20bucks, used mostly in live shows to hook up to the Mic board that connects to a PA, see everything needs to go trhough the Mic sort of leads into a PA... but guitars dont have that sort of lead, that goes out of the amp, so using a patch lead... ok yeh just google it if you want

But if your recording into a Mixer you could try the same thing and with the pedals and it shouldnt sound too bad, youde have to see if it was your thing

[WHITE FALCON]

shit 20 bucks is a cheap DI!

hahah what we do with DI's is plug a bass into them and output it into a stero with big ass speakers and thats our bass amp. then you just -20db and it sound aweosme!

[lachlandavis]

you can spend a lot on DIs if you want, but i find they break anyway, Its probably more the 30 dollar mark, But depends wether you want acitive or passive, active is probably more expensive, i use passives, less buzz

[Sammas]

I'd personally avoid recording through a DI. It works well in some situations but it will never sound as good as a mic'ed up amp, particularly for recording.

I still haven't had a chance to listen closely to those clips yet, thelivingvines. My console's PSU went down so it will probably have to wait til the weekend. From a brief listen it sounds ok, a little dull though which it probably a combination of the room and the mic position. You could try recording on a solid floor like tiles, concrete or floorboards - avoid small tiled rooms though like bathrooms. Try a garage or an open kitchen if you can. There are a few ways to compensate for the proximity effect when close micing amps, you can angle the mic like you are doing, or keep it straight but move it an inch or two towards the edge of the speaker. (remember, speaker center equals most bass, speaker edge equals least bass when mic'ing). You can also back the mic away from the speaker a few inches to reduce the proximity effect.

Honestly, the guitars don't sound that bad. A few things I've noticed though about the mix though, but I don't know if you want me to comment on them.

[thelivingvines]

yeah, go right ahead, I did every last bit of it myself and I have very very little clue about producing tracks well so any pointers would be most appreciated.

[Sammas]

yeah, go right ahead, I did every last bit of it myself and I have very very little clue about producing tracks well so any pointers would be most appreciated.

ok then. A few things I noticed, lots of reverb... wet, wet, wet! and the guitars and vocals drown out the bass and drums.

Think of what you are trying to achieve as a three dimensional space, a soundstage

- Left and right is created through panning
- Bottom to top is created by frequency or pitch
- Depth is created by volume and reverb

The kit sounds like its in mono, any reason why you chose to do it like this? Some styles keep the kit mixed in mono, like Jazz for example but I assume you are aiming for a TLE style mix? Try panning it like you hear the kit when you sit down and play it. Keep the kick and snare in the middle, then (since im right handed, I) pan the left crash to the left, right crash to the right, hihats to the left of centre and skew the toms from high to low to the right. You can go the other way if you like, its entirely up to you. You can also vary the extremes in which things are panned, you can spread the kit very wide to hard panned left and right or keep it narrower - does that make sense?

The backing vocals work hard panned, perhaps because the kit is coming straight down the middle. It may be necessary to bring them in a little if the kit gets panned out. But again, there isn't really any right or wrong it all depends on the situation.

Reverb and volume is used to create depth - The instruments you want to sound up the back like the drumkit should use more reverb than the instruments you want to sound at the front of the soundstage. The guitars have a lot of reverb on them, while the drums have very little. You could try using just a room reverb preset on an auxiliary, then mixing both the drums and the guitars into that aux room reverb while remembering that instruments you want at the back should have more room sound than instruments at the front. Aim to create a natural depth through a natural sounding reverb. It will particularly help the electronic drums too.

Keep in mind that stereo reverb can spread mono instruments out through the left to right aspect of soundstage. Sometimes a short delay or mono reverb can work better than stereo reverb.

bottom to top uses pitch, you have the kick drum and bass on the bottom all the way up to the cymbals on the top. imagine them like stacking blocks. The parts that become problematic is where there is overlap that emphasizes frequencies. The kick and bass guitar are very low, while the midrange guitars are very loud. Try bringing up the bass and kit (or pushing down the guitars and vocals) to make them more prominent in the mix. The bass and kit need to be driving the rhythms of the piece. When you do this, problems can occur add the overlap with the bass and the guitars - the low end/low midrange (150hz or so through to 400hz or so) can become woofy, if thats the case you can hi-pass the guitar (High pass filter aka HPF, allows only the frequencies above the place that the filter is set to pass. If its set at 100hz, only frequencys above 100hz are heard, etc). This can help define where the bass guitar stops and the electric guitar starts, you will have to use your ears though to determine the best place for the filter or if you even need a filter.

The lead vocals should be like a cork floating on the ocean - the ocean being the music beneath the vocals. As the music beneath bobs up and down in volume the vocals should float comfortable on top. This is achieved through automation. A similar idea for lead instruments. The vocals sound pretty good as far as effects, pretty nuked with compression though but that is the way usually.

The backing vocals are usually treated like an ensemble, as part of the ocean. In some parts you have down it very well with the "ooohh" parts.

Don't take any of this as a dig though. Particularly when you write, record than try and mix your own stuff it becomes very difficult to hear everything from a musical and engineering standpoint at the same time. Feel free to experiment too... If it sounds good it is good.

Import a reference track, like a TLE track and use it to compare parts of your mix. Listen to the relationship of the guitar, bass and drums in the soundspace then try and replicate it in your mix.

[thelivingvines]

thank you so so much, that is really reall helpful... though I should point out that my drums are a drum machine- at the moment anyways, long story that one. Will be really helpful when we come to do the tracks for proper in the future. Everything you say makes complete sense to me and is what I have tried to acheive... but its difficult when I can't mix the drums as I would like. as for the guitar and vocal parts... possibly a little subconcious influence there as vocals and guitar are my parts. I try to take advantage of all the feature the recording gear I have allows for- a lot of which I haven't figured out yet and don't know how to use. Considering I don't know what I am doing a lot of the time I think I have done alright then! thanks for the help though, I'll be recording more this weekend and this will be really handy. Helps me know what things SHOULD be rather than what I think they should be. Thank you!

[WHITE FALCON]

hey thelivingvines, oi nice harmonies and shit. how did you record this? and using what software? it sounds really smooth. i dunno if thats a term you'd use when decsribing a recording but i remember with my WGSU cover you could tell it wasnt like properly done.

oh and sammas im gonna get around to giving you those files so you can mix it properly and i can see how shit a job i did :p

[thelivingvines]

hey, thank you! the name is Giles by the way- save you some typing. I have a nice little recording set up at home- roland equipment; sort of all in one. The VS2480 if you happen to know their stuff. Also have a couple of nice mics- se electronics 2200a for vocals and an sm57 for guitars. Don't hook it up to any software or anything. Did it all myself anyway. Glad you liked the harmonies... like to think they're a little different to most stuff. should have a few more in a few days if you want them.

[WHITE FALCON]

that would be rad!

just so i can aspire to be better :D

how old are you?

shit i wish i had more money!

[thelivingvines]

hmm... about that, recording didn't quite get finished as planned as I got stuck in an airport for a day on the way home. Soon though, its almost there. soon. But I promise you these tunes are good'uns. I'm proud of them anyway.
I always aspire to be better but sometimes it doesn't go anywhere. I try though. Sort of hit a plateau right now and don't know what to do.
I'm 21... almost 22, so young enough I guess.