Saturday, September 29, 2007

Some pics.....


The problems are fixed....It's gotta have something to do with the magic monitor!




Psychedelic, no?




Pete's beard is real.....




I tracked through this fucker the other night. Quite an amazing amp.

Home Sweet Home Studio

So things have been a bit rocky as of late so far as the recording process and fucking stupid recording computers go, but as bad as it may seem from my bitching on this here blog some work has been accomplished. The 5 “b-side” tunes I’ve been working on at my home studio are 98% fini. Hard to call’em b-sides anymore as they really do sound awesome and even though I have many more tunes written for the new album I just can’t count some of these guys out just yet. Trust me man. Good, good shit is happening.

Not to get into any personal life stuff here, but tonight was my second wedding anniversary to my beautiful wife Colette. A very happy day that was only made better due to the fact that our main studio computer if fucking fixed and working better than…..well let’s just say the fucker is working and the game is back on. Before the thing decided to break down we did get a chance to track drums for three actual album tunes. The basic bass and Gtr’s will be laid down on these tunes starting tomorrow.


And now a quick embarrassing/funny story relating to tonight’s anniversary celebration. I spent the day in the studio with Pete and Dave tracking some Gtr’s and vocals. All went very well. A pretty sober affair for the most part. Had a few beers and a wee little joint in the last hours of tracking but I had to head home around 8 to meet the wife for some celebratory drinks at a local bar (the Cantina). We had some high-end margaritas and I did a few shots of tequila along with a few beers. Good times all around, but I decided to head into my little home studio to do some tracking after said drinks. That went well enough, but after all was said and done I decided to break out the digital camera to make a little video of the studio to post on this here blog. In the process of turning all the gear back on to make the video the beers and shots took over and tweaked my equilibrium and my drunk ass fell into two of the keyboards knocking them straight to the ground as I tried my best to keep myself from landing on top of them and rendering them into shards of plastic and wires that could only produce a sound worth recording if I tossed’em down my stairs and mic’d them up with a delay pedal and Robert Plant crooned over the noise they produced as they made their finial decent towards the curb that would ultimately be their final moments of glory before being crushed next to food waste in the next South Philly trash truck to come along. Being drunk I had a good laugh, checked my self for any injuries besides the blow to my “I can handle my liquor” ego and then set the shit back up and checked it to make sure it all still worked. It did work and everything was fine. Here’s a little video of my little home studio and luckily still working keyboards.



Much progress has been happening. Much more to talk to you about real soon. Thanks for checking in!



-j

Friday, September 21, 2007

It's Been Awhile

So yeah, it’s been a while since the last update. No, the band did not break up and no, the main studio computer is still not totally fixed. We have been able to track some drums and a few bass tracks for the album tunes, but once again, every time I plug into an electric gtr the dreaded “crackle” seems to rear its ugly head. Luckily we did have the second computer (the one that has ended up in my home studio) up and running and were able to get live gtrs and bass tracked for the original 4 b-side tunes we started at the beginning of this recording session. This second computer is now in my home studio, the place where all the keys, samples and programming will take place. Even though we’ve been eating from the shit sandwich that is the computer problem now know as king of crap mountain I have had some solace in the fact that I’m able to grab a beer or three and head up to my little home studio and work on the b-side tunes. And I must say it’s been a very rewarding project. I brought these songs into the studio as something we could record just to warm up to the recording process and make sure everything was working before we got to work on the actual album. These were tunes I wrote up to 3 years ago. I spent a few days listening through to some old demo CDRs and picked a couple that we could use a guinea pigs if you will, but now that I have all the live tracks here at home I’ve been spending the time waiting for the main computer to be fixed nestled into my little studio putting the final touches on the b-side stuff and I have to say I’ve really fallen love with the results. This is a good sign man. If this first session at the new studio has resulted in some amazing soundings tunes I can only hope that the actual album tracks will reach above and beyond my greatest expectations. The studio computer is being totally rebuilt tonight.

My fingers are crossed and plenty of beers have been cracked in the name of progress. If you’re a drinker crack one for us. If you’re not a drinker cross your fingers. If you’re into yoga, twist yourself into the shape of a working studio computer and hold that position until I say everything is working as planned. It could be a race towards ZEN! I hope we win, but at the worst you’ll be a little closer right?

Keep an eye out and an ear open as I’ll be posting here more often as things are going to get better. I promise…………fingers crossed!

-j

Here's a few recent pics from the studio. I'll have some pics and a video up of my home studio tomorrow.


Me doing Vox....through the control window....Trippy....or just a bad pic. You decide.


Jeff tracking some acoustic GTS on the B-Side called "Gold"


This is the new "power conditioner" rack. Should help with the "crackle".









Tuesday, September 4, 2007

ok computer...

well we're still waiting on the big computer fix. it really sucks, it's sorta like finding your christmas gifts in the attic but not being able to open the for two months. every thing is just sitting there looking really sweet and we cant even use any of it. we did manage to get some stuff done but the same problem arose on the other computer. it's utterly depressing.

well if this recording doesn't work out at least jay has a back up plan... yeah this is what it's come to, watch...

maybe next post will be about how awesome the records going. so check back in 2010 and we may have some stuff down...