Recording

Last weekend Rosetta started recording for the next full length. In two days we finished all the drum tracks and bass tracks for two songs. This coming weekend is going to be all guitar tracks (bass will resume later). BJ put up a video of some first weekend antics here.

It's a really different experience working with an actual producer, instead of just an engineer. I can see a lot of tradeoffs --- the performances are better because there's someone to provoke the best in you, but there's also less of the sense of "building" a record that you have when you do everything yourself. I think I've come to love having intimacy with the whole signal path in recording --- from fingers to pickup to pedals to amp to cab to mics to preamp to board to interface.... you get the idea. Now I'm only in control of the things that I control in a live situation. The benefit is more concentration on the performance, but it feels like we may be getting a bit more myopic about the process as a whole. It's hard to describe. There's certainly a sense that we aren't "vetting the authenticity" of the final product like we have in the past.

It's not that the producer has separate goals from the band. His job is to make sure that we're being true to our own goals. The question in my mind is to what degree it changes the authorial nature of the recording. That's not a question of real consequence, just something I wonder about. I'm having fun and learning, that's what matters.

If you're sick of the recent navel-gazing, I've got some more nerd-ball tech posts in the pipeline, since recording means that I'm fiddling with gear more than usual. There will be a TSL mods part 2, and a post on the new Electro Harmonix Memory Toy analog delay. There will also be Valve Juniors on this new record, with the Frankencaster and a gnarly vintage Russian Big Muff Pi. I will of course post all the nit-picky details.

Fall docket

Rosetta is less than a month away from beginning the sessions for our next full length, which is as yet untitled. It may end up staying untitled, along with all the songs. We'll see what happens. Our working titles for the songs are:

1. The Hardcore Song (yes, really!)
2. Barack Obama: Change We Can Believe In
3. Untitled
4. Blue Day for Croatoa
5. Sexultura
6. Crazy Eights (the 8-string song)
7. Why Sempei?

There's also another song we're working on for a split with Restorations for next year.

We used to refer to all of our songs by numbers ("Wake" = 10, "Lift" = 8, "Monument" = 11, etc.), but that was getting unmanageable. Everyone got tired of asking things like "Is this 14 or 15?" at practice. These songs are in general quite a bit shorter than our previous work. It's strange, though; they don't feel underdeveloped. I think they have the same number of notes we normally put into songs, they're just much faster.

Andrew Schneider is engineering this recording for us, and he and I are mixing it together. He has worked with Unsane, Pelican, The Ocean, and a bunch of other bands that are much bigger than we are. Given that it's the first time that we've made a whole recording start-to-finish with someone outside the band, it necessarily creates some anxiety. I'm used to being able to goof off in the studio and do 85 takes if I feel like it, without costing anyone a dime. There's more pressure in this situation to meet deadlines and bottom lines. The upside is that this record will actually come out on time (mixing is in December, with definite time constraints).

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People who follow me on Twitter have probably noticed my months-long stream of disgusting all-caps song titles, usually made up of a medical procedure + a farm tool, and tagged with "#brutalgoregrind". I've finally created an official outlet for this crass and immature material: Pitchfork Colonoscopy. It is an intentionally lowest-common-denominator goregrind project. It's really more about coming up with funny song titles and making lots of money than it is about music (expression of the shadow self?). I had been thinking about this for a while, but hearing the newest Throatplunger recording (thanks Mahesh!) really tipped the scales for me, as far as motivation for making it a practical reality. I'm doing the "vo-kills" and all instruments except drums. BJ is contributing blast beats... since he actually plays drums (triggered or otherwise) and I don't feel like clicking the mouse 10000000 times to make digital MIDI blast tracks. Everything will be recorded through my PODxt into my computer, and I plan to cheat in every way possible.

PFC will be the Diet Coke of grindcore: "the drinking of nothing in the semblance of something" (Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute).

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I'm selling my test-pressing of Rosetta/Balboa's Project Mercury 2xLP on Ebay. I can't ever justify spending joint "family" money on musical pursuits, so I have to come up with personal cash for Rosetta through other means --- often by selling things on Ebay. This is the first time I've let something with sentimental value go... yet I find that it doesn't actually have any sentimental value. I don't listen to my own recordings. I have the Project Mercury vinyl in triplicate on both gold and silver vinyl anyway. Who needs a test pressing? Someone else out there will value it more than I can.

I've also got a Fender '72 reissue Wide Range pickup on the block.

---

It's cold and rainy in Philly, prematurely. My house has no heat (we knew the boiler didn't work when we moved in, but I'm only getting around to getting it checked out now). So it's about 48 degrees in here right now (that's 9 degrees Celsius for you non-USA types). Yeah, I know, "waahhh".

Dog days

Our friend Andrew has posted some of his pictures from the European tour. He ended up in the hospital in Belgium with a collapsed lung and it's a relief that he's safe and at home now. I have yet to go through my own pictures from the trip.

I continue to reflect on the tour and what it meant, personally and collectively. It's part of a larger nexus of upheavals this summer that have included buying a house, switching jobs, and my dad having surgery to remove cancer. I haven't tweeted or posted in a while because I'm living in the new house, and currently not working, but haven't been able to have an Internet connection installed. Mostly my days have been spent solitary; installing fixtures, moving furniture, setting up a new home. I did bike out to Wernersville, PA (~63 miles each way) with my dad to spend a couple days at a Jesuit monastery. Sustained silence is unnerving for people raised in the technological/Internet milieu, but it's a valuable exercise. I spend a lot of time craving quiet, living in the city. But when I finally achieve that quiet, I don't know what to do with it, and the noise in my head becomes louder than the usual noise outside.

I have also found that during times of stress and change, it is helpful to paint a room orange:

Euro tour recap

The Murphy's Law European Tour 2009, 6/15-7/1

"A disaster a day keeps the hubris away"


Seems like everyone else beat me to pictures and videos. I'll post some of my own pictures later, but for now you can find videos here, here, here, here, and here. Other people's pictures of the shows we're putting in a Myspace album.

First, what went wrong:
-My amp was overweight for the airline, had to pay $150 to get it to Poland
-None of the requested equipment rented, had to play first show with reduced backline
-Spent a whole day looking for power converters, which don’t seem to exist in Poland
-Buses switched to vans, have to wait four hours to figure out rental trailer at last second because gear won’t fit
-Not enough seats left for my sister to join up with tour in Brno despite assurances to contrary, even though she bought her plane ticket specifically for the tour back in February.
-Athens show rental amp has blown tube and nonworking footswitch
-Athens show doesn’t break even, John gets hassled for money
-Two people have to sleep in the van in Brno to allow my sister and her friend a place to stay, since it turned out they weren’t even budgeted for at all
-All tour cash gets “lost” after Brno show (no one seems to care…?)
-My wife loses her wedding band in Budapest
-Rainy and freezing cold for 48 hours, clothes won’t dry
-Roof of Vienna venue leaks during bands’ sets, equipment gets wet
-3 people get sick (respiratory virus)
-After two straight 9 hour drives, van starts leaking fuel in Belgium, sprays the trailer
-Poor organization/curfew in Berchem means Rosetta only plays one song, lots of angry people demand their money back for the show
-Had to sleep in venue in Berchem, air mattresses deflate during the night & mosquitoes bite everyone; my wife's face swells so badly her right eye shuts
-Fest in Knokke is in a warehouse with no bathrooms and no electricity, amps buzz wildly because of the gas generator used for power
-Had to cancel Hamburg show because the routing is impossible --- not enough time to actually drive nine hours from Belgium to Germany and then turn around and make it back to Belgium for next show
-“Secret show” was actually not a show at all, it was just never booked to begin with
-On morning of canceled show day in Belgium, Andrew’s lung collapses and he has to have surgery to repair it, leaves tour, stays in the hospital for a week
-Berlin show falls through
-Last minute replacement for “secret show” draws precisely zero people, no money and only one shirt sold
-GPS goes crazy multiple times, takes us around in circles
-Driving from Holland to Poland, second van has a wreck, possibly totaled
-At final show in Gdynia, no hospitality, no sound check, and Sepultura’s drum set takes up so much of the stage that Rosetta can’t fit on it, and we almost didn’t play.
-GPS goes crazy on the way to the airport causing us to almost miss our flight home

Regular old dislikes:
-Too much drinking and not enough exploring
-Group is too big to go anywhere expediently
-Final tour routing didn’t make sense, unreasonable drives
-Would prefer reliable equipment and tight logistics to cushy accommodations and hot food
-Cocaine?? Really?!

Positives:
-Encores almost every night, including some double encores
-Sold a ton of merch
-People drove to see us from all over:

Latvia/Ukraine/Sweden/Russia >> Poland
Bulgaria/Macedonia >> Athens
Moscow >> Prague
Croatia/Romania >> Budapest
and probably lots of other places I'm not aware of.

-Went on a 24-hour “date” with the wife to Amsterdam
-Cathedrals are awesome
-Post-soviet Europe is full of super nice people
-Glad to count Mojo, Jon, Milan, Davy, and the Blindead guys as new friends.
-Got to meet some internet friends in person for the first time
-Beautiful countryside
-Incredible food and hospitality from basically everyone
-Goregrind and black metal jokes
-Insane crowds who know the words and go crazy
-Learning about cultural differences between white people. White people are not all the same!
-Coming to appreciate some ways that America really is unique in a positive way
-Got to play after Sepultura (can't believe they agreed to this) in Gdynia to a sweet audience who stayed way too late to see us play, now I can say that "Sepultura opened for Rosetta"

I'm sure I'll be able to reflect more on this with time. It's not the kind of experience that I can say was good or bad by some scalar measure. It's not even primarily an experience (which implies a kind of consumption). Touring is work --- which is to say, production --- with particular hardships and particular perks.

Tech: Pedals (update)

An update on pedals, since the last time I posted my layout was in December 2006. The Ibanez WD-7 wah pedal from my previous setup is now for sale ($45, contact me if you're interested).

Over time this has started to look more and more like a Boss product display. That's mainly because of a subconscious feeling that Boss pedals "sound better" --- which is in fact because they play well together. Tone suckage is minimized when all the pedals have the same output impedance and line level characteristics --- which generally only happens when they're all from the same manufacturer. "True bypass" minimizes this problem and lets you mix and match. None of these are "true bypass," but there are no impedance mismatches, so it doesn't matter. All the non-Boss stuff is on loop A of the Line Selector. I had tried an MXR 10-band EQ to get more control than the GE-7, but it didn't play well with the Boss gear. It is now on my other board.

EDIT 11/16/09:
A few things have changed since the European tour. I got tired of patching the MidiVerb into the loop for the fade-in delay, so I am using an EH Memory Toy (9.6v, wall wart #1) in that spot now. Lots more character, a lot less flexibility --- more in this in another post. The patchbay is still hooked up so I can throw other things in that loop. The MidiVerb is hooked up between my master and slave heads, running a short delay and a little reverb, so that the live sound is now true stereo. The tremolo unit went to my other board for use with Valve Juniors (I haven't used it in Rosetta since TGS), and the MXR EQ (18v, wall wart #2) is now on board for use with the 8-string --- as a low-cut and boost.

This is also technically a new board, since I had to warranty the previous one after Europe (the handle broke off). Furman was really cool about replacing it. Notice the upgraded industrial velcro for the mat... big plus.

In praise of metal: gender

Metal, as I experience it, seems to contain part silly histrionics and part genuine heroism. The proportion of those parts depends on the context. I'm beginning to frame this experience in terms of gender --- as I've tried to understand why metal as a genre and subculture is so male-dominated, I've concluded that it's not because of a "club" mentality or intentional exclusion of women. (There are plenty of examples, such as Arch Enemy's Angela Gossow, of women who equal and outdo their male counterparts in both skill and presence. These women are accorded enormous respect in the community --- probably more than men, from an acknowledgment that their climb is steeper.) I'm beginning to think that the overwhelming male composition has to do with the activity/identity function that metal provides: the opportunity for a non-destructive expression of traditionally "masculine" activities and values.

In other words, the demands of the music --- technical virtuosity, group coordination, extreme stamina, harsh environment, and risk --- form a fairly complete surrogate for soldiery. Participants are afforded the opportunity to "train" both individually and in groups, then engage in a public "test" (performance) that involves some degree of courage and/or risk, where they must prove themselves to a critical audience which judges skill, innovation, and authenticity simultaneously. If they can do this well and repeatedly, they get to be "heroes" --- achievers in the most concrete sense, physically doing things which seem at least marginally super-human.

This is probably why almost all metal fans have at one time or another been in a metal band. You can't really say this about fans of other genres. This culture of participation and production-imperative is actually quite at odds with the prevailing norms of spectatorship and entertainment consumption. It's one more dimension of the outsider nature of metal and its devotees (that's a separate discussion, though).

Neo-luddites would probably call this kind of subculture a "surrogate activity" which is a result of our daily work's total abstraction from the struggle for biological survival. I don't wholly buy that explanation, but the concept works here in a gender sense. Whatever your opinion of the nature or value of gender, the opportunity for heroism that metal provides is irresistable to many males whose gendered valuation of strength, stoicism, manual skill, and stamina has been declared obsolete or pathological by a post-modern, post-feminist society.

I absolutely do not blame feminism itself for this. I blame the industrialization of killing and the broader mistakes of the 20th century for creating a backlash. In that backlash we have erroneously conflated the masculine ideal with aggression. Even the most grossly patriarchal societies have codes of honor designed to elevate masculinity and contain aggression. What I am saying is that "masculine" ideals which formerly found their expression in conflict and battle must now have other outlets, both because of the inevitable and appropriate obsolescence of honor-governed warfare and because of new ways of living. The problem is that we threw the baby out with the bathwater and disenfranchised a large segment of society -- men who usually have no problem at all with women as their full equals and superiors, but whose very personalities have been inadvertently declared toxic waste by the cultural establishment, because they happen to value traditionally masculine traits and roles in themselves.

This environment will necessarily create the context for outsider subcultures. In our society, the males who feel disenfranchised by gender erasure and least able to adapt to it are also usually the ones least able to mount an intellectual critique against it. This is not because they're stupid, it's because the academy usually finds this type of person unsuitable for intellectual training. These males turn to other outlets, which fall at various places on a continuum from destructive (violence) to valueless (frat-boy antics) to potentially constructive (endurance/survival sports, exploration, etc.). The fact that apathy and destruction are often associated with this venting is probably only a confirmation that there is an underlying feeling of wholesale rejection, or at least a sense that society will never ascribe true importance to these people or their characteristics.

All of this is to say that I think metal often gets placed in the "destructive" or "valueless" categories, because it is seen as either morally detrimental and anarchic or simply immature and crass. While that can be true, I would argue that it is equally often a highly constructive pursuit, particularly for disenfranchised men.

Its constructive nature lies in the heroism I mentioned above. Of course there are myriad examples of the merely-entertaining and the outright lowbrow in metal, just as there are in society at large. These include the silly histrionics mentioned above --- guitar solos for the sake of showing off, shocking stage shows just for stimulus' sake --- that make the genre seem artistically irrelevant. But when a confluence of artistic, intellectual, and especially technical skills and energies are poured holistically into it, metal --- arguably more than other forms of musical expression --- becomes a vehicle for the explosive and the sublime, a collective experience of enormous power. It requires a "heroic" effort and skill to make such an experience possible.

That experience goes beyond entertainment into identification and ritual, which may be the real reason that "mainstreamers" often find metal threatening, though they can't articulate a specific offense. The relationship between performer and listener is reciprocal and vital, which might also explain the imperative of authenticity, and aversion to "poseurs" and hangers-on. If the experience is exclusive, it is only exclusive of those whose personal motives are suspect --- in other words, simply those who do not have the "community's" best interests in mind, because their involvement doesn't have to do with music participation, but rather with image or money. It is almost never exclusive on the basis of identity.

Returning to the point: this experience is not for males only, nor is it about masculinity. I think the form simply attracts a disproportionate number of males because it provides a uniquely suitable outlet for otherwise unvalued "masculine" traits.

These thoughts were forcefully brought home to me while I watched Buried Inside play on Saturday and Sunday night. Their music is technically, lyrically, and emotionally complex, and their performance instantiated and affirmed those qualities. Nick's and Andrew's shouted choruses over the pounding drums and guitars had a tragic melancholy that still contained defiance. It was masculine, but not macho --- a measured sadness about important things expressed with subtlety, yet at earshattering volume. To be so vulnerable, yet so imposing and so skilled, weaving a heart-and-mind narrative in rumble, pounding, and screaming, is truly heroic. It took a very long time for this level of seriousness and complexity to emerge in the form, but here it is. Metal might simply have been growing up all this time, with all the attendant growing pains.

There may come a day when it is no longer so male-dominated, but that would require a mainstreaming of the values and priorities of a "new masculinity" --- probably still very far off, if it is possible at all. Then, either the functions and uses of the form would shift to other areas or it would simply disappear. It's hard to say.

(And to end with a conceited, discriminatory, and completely unfounded assertion: the extraverts gave birth to metal in its histrionic infancy, but the introverts have inherited it in its more heroic maturity. Thus the shedding of the sex-drugs-rocknroll archetype for the crusty, brooding dirge-writer. Natural progression from cocky Achilles to strong-silent George Washington? Ha!)

Tech: "The red guitar"

This has been my main stage instrument since Spring of 2007, and I used it to record all tracks on Wake/Lift except Temet Nosce. It's a 2005 Gibson Les Paul Studio, finished in wine red. It had gold/black hardware when I got it, which I swapped for cream almost immediately. Originally it had EMGs in it --- taken from the destroyed cream Les Paul that I used to record Galilean Satellites --- but after having been off the active-pickup kool aid for almost a year in Spring '07, I got tired of the sound quickly.

I went hunting for something that would sound closer to the Velvet Brick pickup in my Sonex-180 (used to record Au Pays Natal and Absent... more on this guitar in another post), but higher output. Since the Sonex is made of "resinwood", the Velvet Brick sounds much less thrilling (more compressed and middy) when moved to a mahogany Les Paul. The closest thing I could find to what I was looking for was the Gibson Dirty Fingers bridge pickup, which I combined with an uncovered 490R in the neck position. I recorded Wake/Lift with this configuration, and the guitar served this way until this past Winter.

I'm now using a Bare Knuckle Pickups Painkiller set. On strong recommendations, I got in touch with Tim Mills from BKP and picked his brain about what I was looking for, and he recommended this. It's the closest I've ever heard to the open tonal character of the Velvet Brick, but with even less compression, more volume, and vastly more clarity in the low end. It's extremely flattering to downtuned mahogany guitars, especially with really heavy strings. My bridge pickup is F-spaced, since this is one of the few guitars where Gibson used a 53mm string spacing at the bridge instead of 50mm. The saddle cuts look strange this way, since the replacement Tune-o-matic bridge I installed is a standard 50mm spacing, but the stock pickup on the guitar was 53mm and the saddles were cut accordingly off-center on the original bridge. In practice it makes no difference, but it's nice to have the polepieces lined up properly.

The guitar is tuned Bb F Bb Eb G C, or four semitones detuned with a dropped low string. The gauges used are .013/.017/.026/.036/.046/.062. The overall tension here is actually higher than in standard tuning with a set of .010-.046 strings. Even with the large jump from the F to Bb strings, the lowest string is still lower tension than the others. I also had to flip the bridge backwards to get extra intonation adjustment to compensate for the low tuning, regardless of the different core/wrap ratios I tried. The nut is now a Graphtec Trem-nut, which helps make tuning slicker with big strings.

All controls except the neck pickup volume pot are disconnected. I have no need for tone controls, and rather than waste time trying to find a 1-megohm long-shaft pot for a Les Paul, I opted to hardwire the bridge pickup directly to the switch. I love running pickups wide-open (see the post on the Frankencaster). I can still roll back the neck pickup volume for more mellow tones.

After playing an 8-string for a while, this guitar feels like a miniature. But it's still the instrument I use the most often, and it has the most reliably-good tone in the widest variety of situations. It's also the easiest to play, which is why I generally don't use it to practice with at home. I haven't toured with anything else since early 2007.

Tech: Amp guts - complete Marshall TSL mods

How to make the TSL-100 good at almost everything
(but especially sludge/doom)

This post is Google bait, so that someone else won't have to do all the searching I did in researching these mods. All of them require some experience soldering components on PCBs. They are presented in the order I did them.

Schematics here, with links throughout. Before doing these mods, please be sure you know about the voltage hazard inside the amp from the supply caps. The TSL (at least my 2005-made model) has bleeder resistors, so you can leave the amp unplugged for an hour and the caps will discharge themselves --- but ALWAYS CHECK WITH A VOLTMETER before diving in. A quick web search should yield whatever info you need here.


1. Get rid of the fizz
Cost: ~$1
Perceived sonic change: large and immediately obvious

These amps have a reputation for being "fizzy" or "buzzy" in the lead channel. You can easily and cheaply get rid of this without making the amp sound dull. This will NOT affect the sound of the crunch or clean channels. This is from a thread on MEF.

Use two silver mica capacitors to create a 12dB/octave low pass filter at around 7.5kHz, in the preamp. This not only kills fizz in the preamp, it saves some headroom in the power amp and the power tubes break up more smoothly when they saturate. The treble you do keep is more pleasing.

Put a 390pf cap across R1 on the main circuit board (the one the tube sockets are on), and a 47pf cap across the lead channel volume pot -- VR2 on the lead channel panel PCB. Note that the pots used have 4 terminals; one of these is part of the pot case, for grouding/shielding. Counting from the side toward the gain pot, use terminals 1 and 3. There should be only one pin (pin 2) between the two pins connected to the cap, and one pin on the side toward the treble pot. You will have to remove the chassis, tubes, aluminum top plate, and panel PCBs to do this mod --- that includes all the knobs and pot washers. You will want to put pieces of tape on each of the wires you disconnect, labeling what they connect to.

If you want to do the same thing to the crunch channel, just add another 47pf cap to the outer terminals of the volume pot (VR2) on that channel's panel PCB. I tried this and didn't like it, so I removed it -- the crunch channel's voicing seems ok to me.

EDIT 3/30/09: I have since changed the VR2 cap to a 68pf, to remove even more fizz and increase smoothness. I left the 390pf cap alone, since I know now that it affects all channels ever so slightly. So now the filter on the OD channel starts at a lower frequency, and maintains a 6dB/octave slope up until 7.5 kHz, where it steepens to 12dB/octave.

EDIT 4/4/09: Upped the VR2 cap to 100pf, which brings the corner frequency down to about 3.5 kHz. I don't recommend this unless you are a) using the MMOT (see #7 below) and b) you love midrange crunch. I used to keep the treble at 1 even with the 47pf cap, now it's at 4 or 5. It sounds very British -- more like a JCM800 running close to meltdown.


2. Change the tubes
Cost: $100ish for complete re-tube
Perceived sonic change: medium

This is inevitably a taste issue. If you want more raunch and a warmer sound, JJ tubes do nicely. This is what I use --- ECC83s preamp tubes, and E34L power tubes. Eurotubes offers a full re-tube kit for the TSL with a variety of options. I used the high-gain preamp tubes (I love gain). I have tried JJ's KT77 power tubes and found them to be muddy/farty and fizzy compared to JJ's E34L tubes when playing downtuned or sludgier material. There are applications where they are appropriate for adding roundness to the sound, but the bass is too loose for full-on gutteral roar. JJ's straight EL34 is a good option for a more traditional Marshall sound, more like the stock Svetlanas but better. The E34L type seems to improve both low-end extension (without mud) and headroom -- great for more rumble without fartiness.

EDIT 1/12/09: For E34Ls to sound best, they need to be biased on the high side, at about 90mV per side, or higher if you don't mind decreased life. 90mV per side is Marshall's spec for the amp, but most agree that this is high, and anything in the 80-90mV range is ok. I found that below 90, the E34Ls sounded a little fizzy and cold at lower volumes. There is good info on how to bias the TSL/DSL here.

EDIT 4/4/09: The high-biasing advice above really only applies if you replace the OT (see #7 below!). If you don't, most settings between 80-90mV per side will sound similar.

EDIT 6/15/09: On the other hand, since the MMOT handles more power cleanly, you can bias lower and get actual usable headroom --- with the same nice warmth at a higher volume level. Biasing low, to 70-80mV per side or so, gets you noticeably more volume before things start to break up --- by "noticeably" I mean that it feels like the speaker cabinet is going to fall apart. For Rosetta's European tour, I converted the voltage and ran the amp at ~80mV per side, and turned it a notch louder to compensate for a less efficient speaker cab.


3. Clean up the rectifier
Cost: ~$40, or ~$1
Perceived sonic change: marginal/unpredictable

D3 through D10 (8 adjacent 1N4007 diodes) form the rectifier portion of the power supply. These are crappy, cheap diodes. Recently, using ultra-fast (low recovery time) diodes in guitar amp supplies has gotten really popular, with people saying they sound "less harsh" and "more tube-like." These claims may be spurious -- since ultra-fast diodes have nothing remotely like the occasionally desirable voltage sag in tube rectifiers -- but you can clean up hash and switching noise, and improve reliability, by replacing the diodes with faster ones.

There are two options: FREDs (Fast Recovery Epitaxial Diodes) or UF4007s. FREDs are the parts that are getting all the attention. They are huge, look like two-legged transistors, and have the lowest possible recovery time (40ns) at extremely high voltages and currents. They also cost $5-7 a piece, and you need 8 of them. The other option is just the ultra-fast version of the stock diodes -- UF4007s instead of 1N4007s. They cost about 25 cents a piece, with 75ns recovery time.

I went all-out with the FREDs, to see what it would do. They eliminated the supply switching noise, and as far as I could tell, they did change the tone slightly -- but not in the way I expected. Instead of being "smoother", I found the tone had more crunch and sounded more aggressive. Perceived headroom improved slightly. It was not objectionable, so I have kept this mod. The 1200V/16A FREDs I put in will probably be more reliable than the original diodes anyway.

To change the rectifier, replace D3 through D10 (8 diodes) on the main circuit board, but be absolutely sure to observe polarity -- connecting a diode backwards will pretty much blow up your amp. If using FREDs, cover any exposed metal with electrical tape so they don't accidentally short.


4. Add a choke
Cost: $35
Perceived sonic change: medium

A choke is an inductor that helps to filter ripple out of the power supply. Inductors in series act as a lowpass filter -- like in a crossover network -- so one that is large enough to filter out everything down to DC can smooth out the 60Hz ripple after the rectifier (it doesn't matter if you didn't understand that). They were often used in older amps back when large-value supply capacitors weren't as readily available. Now, large caps are easy to come by and cheaper than filter chokes, so they are used by themselves. However, with high inductance, chokes also seem to be able to store a certain amount of current, making that available to the power tubes in high-demand situations. I installed a Mercury Magnetics MC10H choke, and found that the amp became more responsive in high gain situations with a lot of low end in the sound --- palm-muting, octave pedal stoner riffs, etc. It had more attack in the bass and seemingly some more volume.

To install a choke, desolder R71 on the main circuit board. Mount the choke to the chassis next to the power transformer and run the wires through a small hole in the aluminum top plate. Solder them where R71 used to be.

EDIT 10/23/09: I notice that Mercury now has a 25H choke from the Axiom line. I'd be interested to hear people's experiences with that... might be even better for this application than the 10H.


5. Misc. cap value changes
Cost: less than $1
Perceived sonic change: medium

Comparing the TSL with its earlier cousin, the DSL, some find the DSL to have a slightly darker, bassier sound, though the amps are nearly identical. One reason for this may be the coupling cap C16 on the main circuit board. In the TSL, it's a 2.2nF ceramic, in the DSL, it's 4.7nF. I replaced C16 with a 4.7nF Orange Drop cap (nicer than ceramic anyway). The 4.7nF value rolls off frequencies below about 35Hz, which should be pretty insignificant unless you're playing an 8-string or hybrid guitar/bass. The TSL's normal 2.2nF rolls off frequencies below about 72Hz, which shouldn't be terribly noticeable with a 6-string tuned standard. But when you get below that, it certainly does make a difference. The preceding triode (V1B) is not run full-range anyway, so the coupling cap is adding to an existing lowcut.

I eventually found that the 4.7nF cap wasn't great with downtuning -- it didn't add anything I like, and made the amp muddier at high gain. 2.2nF sounds tighter to my ears, so I switched back.

EDIT 4/4/09: I recently noticed another (much more important) component value difference between the DSL and TSL -- C18 on the main circuit board is designed to bleed treble frequencies to ground coming off the V1AA triode. Since this triode is not used by the clean channel, this area is crucial to distortion voicing. In the DSL, the cap is a 470pf cap, but in the TSL, it's only 100pf. This means that more treble passes through to the next stage in the TSL than in the DSL. I have replaced the 100pf ceramic cap C18 with a silver mica 470pf cap, and this is a bigger and better change than the coupling cap swap. The tonality change between stages makes breakup in the later preamp triodes smoother and more mid-centric, but without altering the clean channel. I think this is probably a key source of the perceived difference between DSL and TSL.

Another cap to change is C9 (a 470pf ceramic cap) on the Lead channel circuit board -- this cap bleeds treble past the gain pot on the lead channel. It has no effect when the gain is maxed out (so I didn't notice it while playing with Rosetta), but makes the tone brighter when you turn down the gain. I happen to think it makes the channel sound "quacky". You can reduce the value to 100pf to move the corner frequency higher, or just clip it entirely. I clipped it and find the sound to be much more predictable at different gain points.


6. Fix undersized cap
Cost: less than $1
Perceived sonic change: none

C46, a 22pf/500V ceramic cap on the main circuit board, has been known to fail in the TSL. If it shorts, it can destroy all the power tubes and the output transformer. There is absolutely no reason a 16-cent part should be allowed to cause $300 worth of damage. I replaced this cap with another of the same value, but rated for 3150V.


7. Replace output transformer
Cost: $250
Perceived sonic change: substantial, but not necessarily better

The stock output transformer on the TSL is a Dagnall general purpose model, part #C3070, TXOP 00001. Mercury Magnetics makes a drop-in replacement -- the MAR100-OM -- that is bigger, more reliable, and is supposed to sound better. It's pricey. This mod requires no soldering and no drilling, just reconnecting the 7 wires to the right spade terminals on the new transformer. Mercury includes a diagram.

The new OT has wider bandwidth (read: deeper and higher), so it perceptibly improves clarity and attack. The lead channel seems fizzier at low volumes, but maybe a touch smoother at really high volumes. The "improvement" becomes more audible as you turn up the amp, which is to say, the breakup of the power section comes in more slowly, and there's more consistency from low to high volume. You may or may not consider this a good thing. There is quite a bit more bass available in the tone network, no doubt due to the extended low-end response of the MM. However, this can make the tone sound "tubby" at higher volumes with very low tunings.

I now realize that while this transformer is undoubtedly more reliable and cleaner than the stock model, it may be a little too polished (i.e. linear), lacking some of the "gravel" in the old one. The added bass also makes it initially sound less "tight" with high gain detuning. It's hard to say whether I became attached to the "imperfections" in the old OT, or had gotten so used to compensating for them that it's hard to make the MM work for me. The MM model may be suited to a more traditional style of playing, where the Dagnall seems to be (accidentally?) tighter and smoother for more extreme gain and tuning. I would say the Dagnall has a more (gasp!) "vintage" sound, and the MM is more modern. It may all be a matter of taste, and $250 is a lot to spend on something that subjective.

EDIT 4/2/09: I switched back and forth between the Dagnall and MMOT a couple of times, and found that even though the "tone" of the Dagnall was more pleasing, it was no substitute for the greater volume and bass response of the MMOT. The MM transformer opens up a lot of possibilities.

The real issue is that it was one of the later mods I did, so the earlier component and settings choices had been made unconsciously to accommodate or to flatter the Dagnall's limitations -- after I tweaked some of my existing mods (pulled even more treble out of the lead channel, most importantly) and started over from scratch with all the controls at 5, I found I could get what I was looking for. I can now hear a much bigger difference between different bias settings, and the tone network's behavior actually makes sense. I now have to pull the bass back a lot --- but doing so gets back a good deal of the "tightness" I missed from the old setup, and reveals some lower frequencies (below the center frequency of the bass control) that were never there at all before.

However, make no mistake: the MMOT will not get rid of the "fizz" in the amp, contrary to some other opinions I've seen, and will probably make it even more noticeable. There are advantages to it, but less fizz isn't one of them. To put it succinctly: if you think the amp is fizzy, and you hate that you have to turn it up too loud to get a good sound, don't get the MMOT. If you are modding out the fizz (or you like it as-is) and you wish the amp was louder and had more "oomph," then by all means go for it.

EDIT 4/6/09: On further reflection, I think that the undersizing of the Dagnall is mostly responsible for the "tonal qualities" I was hearing --- it is highly likely that its core was saturating when I pushed the amp hard. I say this because with the Dagnall in the amp, I would hit a wall at about 6 on the lead channel's volume knob, beyond which the amp would not get louder --- but would start to sound dramatically different, losing bass response and tightness. With the MMOT, that wall was removed. I had assumed before that I was hitting power tube distortion, but if that were the case, the limit onset would have changed with different bias settings (it didn't) and would not have changed with a new OT (it did).

Furthermore, the Dagnall OT would get very warm while playing loud, while the MMOT remains the same temperature as the surrounding chassis, even at extreme volume. I can only assume the extra heat from the Dagnall was output power that was lost due to inefficiency, core saturation, or both. This would also explain why there are so many stories of the Dagnall OT blowing up when people try to run the TSL on the clean channel with all the knobs at 10 (Plexi-style). The amp is in fact capable of much more volume and bass response than its stock transformer allows, at least from a perceptual (standing in front of the amp) standpoint.

This added power could be good or bad depending on your needs -- if the amp only sounds good at enormously high power levels which you could never use, then it's not an upgrade. For my purposes though, it's a great thing, although I never expected I would think an amp was "too loud" (yikes!). Eventually I may be able to eliminate my Marshall 3210 slave head and drive both of my 280W 4x12s into speaker breakup with only this amp. I couldn't do that before.

Digression: I have heard that Mesa apparently uses deliberately undersized OTs in their Rectifier heads (but NOT in their other models) to get an effect similar to what I describe above. Maybe that's more integral to the "Mesa tone" of "pleasing compression" than their much-vaunted tube rectifiers...? But then again, "cheap, small output transformers" doesn't make for good marketing copy, so who knows?

---

At this point, I wouldn't trade this amp for one 5 times as expensive. You can hear it on every track on Wake/Lift except (Temet Nosce), using all three channels. At the time of that recording, the amp had mods #1-4 above, with the 390pf/47pf version of #1. The other mods hadn't been done yet. I used some EQ on the Wake/Lift guitar tracks, mostly to compensate for the microphone's non-linearities, but also to get a sound closer to what I imagined in my head. The amp is closer to that sound now, by itself. It is a very good-sounding amp now, one of the best I've ever played through, as far as the qualities I prize most: smoothness, bass transient power that maintains tightness, bell-like cleans, enormous gain, and of course sheer volume. I doubt that --- short of a custom design --- I could find anything else that would be as satisfying, in stock form.

As far as comparisons, I suppose it has a Bogner-ish and/or hot-rodded JCM800 kind of character, but deeper and with a more Fender-y clean channel. It is very much a Marshall, though, maybe more than in its original form. The gain on the lead channel is outrageous but stays focused at high volumes (I have the gain at ten, volume at the edge of power tube & speaker breakup). Crunch is nicely versatile. The VPR circuit actually sounds decent now, too, and whether it's on or not, the amp sounds steadily better as you turn it up. I would characterize the sound as the "next logical step" if Marshall had continued producing amps with the philosophy and quality of the JCM800s, but with modern levels of gain.


Some thoughts:

+ The most effective mods are not necessarily the most expensive. I've tried to be as objective as possible here, balancing what I've heard (NOT properly/scientifically ABX tested, obviously) with what I know about electrical engineering and amp design.

+ No mod will improve an amp for everyone. Different tastes have different requirements. I don't see these changes as "fixing" the amp; instead it's more about keeping the things I liked and refining the things I didn't. Since so much of the tweaking of this amp involves controlling the treble: before you get out the soldering iron, put an EQ in the effects loop and see what you like and don't like in the voicing. Try an EQ in front of the amp, too.

+ Mercury Magnetics has quite a hype machine, but for the most part their products live up to it, and they are helpful to talk to. I would buy from them again.

+ As a taste issue, I also swapped the reverb tank on the amp. The stock one is very good, just not as dense as I'd like. EDIT 8/28/09: I had Accutronics make me a custom Type-9 reverb tank and it's even better than the one I had swapped in before. Nice and rich --- the part number is 9BB3C1D.

EDIT 8/17/09:
"Tightness" vs. "looseness" -- while a lot of this has to do with what kind of cab you're using, I've found that the modded TSL is WAY tighter sounding than any Mesa. Even A/B'ed against a VHT (Sig:X) or Engl (Fireball), it holds its own. You can boost the input, roll back the gain, and get amazingly percussive tones without fizz. It's crunchy but VERY controlled. It's the closest thing I've ever gotten to a Meshuggah tone without a POD. My 8-string sounds incredible (even on the low E-flat string!), with the tone controls all at 12 o'clock and the lead channel gain at 4, and a 6-8 dB boost in front of the amp (a little "frown curve" EQ helps too).

This is all quite opposite of what I originally intended the mods to do --- give me a thicker, smoother saturation for enormously high-gain sludge riffing. It really speaks to the true versatility of the basic design (as opposed to its initially compromised realization) as well as the retention of a lot of buried "Marshall tone" that only came out after modification.

Australia 3

All finished; going home in 18 hours. It's nearly impossible to reflect on such relentless sensory stimulation (even in the quiet at the end) without some distance from the events. I don't think I'll understand what happened here for a while.

In a tangible plane, this has been a very successful tour. Every show has had higher attendance and sales than we normally expect in the U.S., and four of them had higher sales than any show we've ever played in our own country. That being said, it's going to take a lot longer to evaluate the emotional and spiritual impact of the trip. In reaching so many people in such a short time, I can't tell who's giving and who's receiving, or to what degree it's an exchange. I'm stretched thin and exhausted, but vaguely satisfied, for the moment.

Australia 2

I'm in Adelaide now. I don't know what to say.

Australia

Byron Bay, Australia, at sunrise on 6/20 (on a long drive from Brisbane to Newcastle). I should add that I'm having a wonderful time, both internally and externally.

Southern Hemisphere

I'm in Australia!

Ugly men in vans

Engineer / Giant / Rosetta, 5/23-6/1

Since a lot of you have been asking, I'll be in Australia from 6/15 to 7/1. I have no idea what to expect. If it's half as fun as the Engineer/Giant tour, I'll be happy.

I'm getting old

I never used to complain about weird hours, no sleep, or long drives. I don't know if it's because I got married or because my inner crusty old guy is starting to become my normal outer self.

I also find myself becoming tired of travel in general, mostly because the more I think about it the more selfish it seems. This is less true of touring (where you're supposedly "giving" people something wherever you go, creating value, etc.) than normal post-college travel, but still applies. As I begin to accept my limitations and realize that I will not go everywhere in the world before I die, I also begin to see more clearly the consumptive nature of travel. Of what value is all this "experience capital" anyway, especially to anyone other than myself? Am I really going to bring home some wonderful knowledge from far away that will improve my local community? That's a pretty Platonic idea and one which is all but obsolete in contemporary globalism.

It's more likely that by traveling I'm only spreading the gospel of consumptive late capitalism. It forces a weighing of the potential benefits (to me) of worldly experience, versus the potential benefits (to my community) of staying and investing in a real home. Some might claim that their enlightened transience allows them to be "citizens of the world" and have a community that spans the globe, but I contend that most of those people simply have no real community at all, and are stretched too thin to be much more than cultural leeches to the localities they come in contact with. Their "doctrine of placelessness" is also often accompanied by virulent delusions of their own importance.

I suspect many of these people are trying to escape what they perceive to be a kind of determinism in placefulness --- whereby your homeplace becomes inextricable from your identity, and therefore limits how much of your self you can intentionally construct. Having a local connection is a block to the long-held elite-white-people value of culturelessness (unless the "local" connection is New York or London, which are just nodes in the Space of Flows). I think that's actually a good thing. If that makes me "provincial" or a "yokel," I don't really care.

+ Weirdometer

This is funny (probably only to me). Huge pictures, no real content. The whole idea of music journalism is starting to annoy me: what's the point? So someone else can tell you what you should like? Big record labels aren't the only thing that file-sharing has made obsolete. Now that we hear about new material via the Internet, there's no role left for "journalistic" music publications except to set themselves up as arbiters of taste. In this field, it's really only a continuum between the snarky elitism of Pitchfork and the poor grammar, design, and paper stock of Kerrang.

And for the record, I'm really sorry that OiNK was shut down.

The tower

This is the tallest man-made structure in the world. It is in Blanchard, North Dakota. I visited it while staying in Fargo on tour with Battlefields. I waited a long time to do this -- a site which is the pinnacle of a personal mythology, a dream-object, like my own personal Mount Olympus. It is no skyscraper, it is the anti-monument.

Tour one

This is from Detroit, at the 4th of July party that we played at. I forgot to bring anything to shave with, so it looks like this will be the Summer of the Beard. This picture does not in any way capture the true level of filth and facial hair that is happening right now. I haven't showered or shaved in a week, as of tomorrow morning.

The 4th was fun, even being away from home. We played an epic game of ultimate frisbee with Giant and rocked a tiny basement, ate vegan food, set off fireworks, and generally were a nuisance.

It didn't last though, since we had to drive 550 miles through the night to a 2pm show today in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Of course, the show actually started at 4pm and it's 11pm now and we still haven't played.

grumble grumble

Revised itinerary

Jul 2 M Dayton, Ohio
Jul 3 T Parma Heights, Ohio
Jul 4 W Detroit, Michigan
Jul 5 R Steven’s Point, Wisconsin
Jul 6 F Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jul 7 S Des Moines, Iowa

Jul 8 S Fargo, North Dakota
Jul 9 M Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Jul 10 T Lawrence, Kansas
Jul 11 W Denver, Colorado
Jul 12 R (day off)
Jul 13 F Salt Lake City, Utah
Jul 14 S Hollywood, California

Jul 15 S (day off)
Jul 16 M Tempe, Arizona
Jul 17 T Tucson, Arizona
Jul 18 W Albuquerque, New Mexico
Jul 19 R Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Jul 20 F Columbia, Missouri
Jul 21 S Lafayette, Indiana

Jul 22 S Cookeville, Tennessee
Jul 23 M Athens, Georgia
Jul 24 T Lawrenceville, Georgia
Jul 25 W (day off to drive back to Phila)
Jul 26 R (day off at home)
Jul 27 F Woburn, Massachusetts
Jul 28 S Virginia Beach, Virginia

Jul 29 S Levittown, New York
Jul 30 M Manhattan, New York
Jul 31 T Levittown, New York (home to Phila after show)
Aug 1 W Doylestown, Pennsylvania (at home)
Aug 2 R Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (at home)
Aug 3 F tba (not at home)
Aug 4 S tba (not at home)

Aug 5 S Manchester, New Hampshire
Aug 6 M Manhattan, New York
Aug 7 T Brooklyn, New York
Aug 8 W Buffalo, New York
Aug 9 R Columbus, Ohio
Aug 10 F Johnson City, Tennessee (home through night after show)

Aug 12 S Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (end of tour show)

Tour

Remember this?

TIME TO DO IT AGAIN

With the Minor Times:
Jun 22 Water Street Lounge, Brooklyn, New York
Jun 23 242 Main, Burlington, Vermont
Jun 24 The Bike Barn, Falmouth, Maine
Jun 25 The Lit Lounge, Manhattan, New York

With Battlefields:
Jul 2 The night owl , Dayton, Ohio
Jul 3 The Davenport, Parma Heights, Ohio
Jul 4 (Chicago? Can you give us a place to stay?)
Jul 5 Skipps Ballroom, Stevens point, Wisconsin
Jul 6 Triple Rock Social Club, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jul 7 The first Cup Cafe, Des Moines, Iowa
Jul 8 The Aquarium , Fargo, North Dakota
Jul 9 Nutty's, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Jul 10 Jackpot lounge, Lawrence, Kansas
Jul 11 Monkey Mania, Denver, Colorado
Jul 13 The Broken Record, Salt Lake City, Utah
Jul 14 Relax Bar, Hollywood, California
Jul 15 (LA?)
Jul 16 The Space, Tempe, Arizona
Jul 17 Skrappy's, Tucson, Arizona
Jul 18 Space Maybe, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Jul 19 The Conservatory, Oklahoma city, Oklahoma
Jul 20 The No Coast, Columbia, Missouri
Jul 21 Downtown Records, Lafayette, Indiana
Jul 22 Campus of Tenn Tech Univ, Cookeville, Tennessee
Jul 23 Repent, Athens, Georgia
Jul 24 The Treehouse, Lawrenceville, Georgia

(weekend with The Minor Times)

With Irepress:
Jul 30 Lit Lounge, Manhattan, New York
Jul 31 The Vintage Lounge, Levittown, New York
Aug 1 Siren Records, Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Aug 2 Mill Creek Tavern, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

(weekend with The Minor Times)

With Zoroaster:
Aug 6 The Knitting Factory, New York, New York
Aug 7 Europa Night Club, Brooklyn, New York
Aug 9 The Ravari Room, Columbus, Ohio
Aug 10 The Hideaway, Johnson City, Tennessee

Aug 12 First Unitarian Church (Home from tour show), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


This is obviously not a complete list, some dates are yet to be filled in. If you can provide some shelter for us on this trip, please call me or email. I'll give you my number if you don't have it.

My only complaint: entirely too much time spent in New York (ugh). Five times!

Rosetta junk

Here's the new Rosetta shirt design for this summer's tour. We're getting a lot of them so there won't be any more of the "sorry we don't have that size" crap going on.

I've kind of disappeared lately, which is due to the fact that I've been sleeping very little and spending most of my time mixing the new Rosetta full-length. It's on tight deadlines and will be mastered by Colin Marston of Dysrhythmia next week. I'm not posting sound samples because at this point we're paranoid about leaks, especially leaks of unmastered material (like what happened with Galilean Satellites). No one has heard this material outside the band except for Drew at Translation Loss, and he likes it. Supposedly there is a blurb in the new Decibel magazine that comes out this weekend about the record, and an apocryphal quote from me saying something about Pink Floyd, Mogwai, and Coalesce on a space station.

Here is the track listing for the new record, which is titled "Wake/Lift":

1. Red in Tooth and Claw
2. Lift (part 1)
3. Lift (part 2)
4. Lift (part 3)
5. Wake
6. (Temet Nosce)
7. Monument

It is only one disc this time. As to whether there will be "easter eggs" like last time, I won't say anything. The only thing I'm authorized to talk about is the supposed existence of an alleged "Interpol cover song" which is definitely not on the album.

The artwork is being done by Paul Romano, who is a brilliant painter and has done all of the Mastodon covers. We're really excited that he is doing this for us.

Tech: Long-awaited amp post

Gear nerds, at long last: AMPS.


This is the live setup I've been using since about early 2005. The only change in all that time is that I now use a Marshall TSL-100 for a master head, instead of an AVT150H. The AVT150 + 1960B was what I used recording TGS and Project Mercury. The TSL wasn't a huge improvement right out of the box, but afforded MUCH more opportunity for tinkering, so it is currently being used with the same old 1960B to record the new Rosetta full-length, "Wake/Lift" (which will be out 9/28/07 on Translation Loss).

The pedal setup was posted before. I use no distortion pedals, everything on the board front-ends the amp, and all the drive comes from the master amp. Each guitar head drives a single 4x12, and the bass head drives a 4x10. The bass head is useful because our tuning (Bb F Bb Eb G C) is low enough that a guitar cabinet can't reproduce the fundamental frequency of the lowest string. Having the low end reinforcement means the 4x12s don't have to be driven as hard.

Nearly every component listed has been modified in some way (though the old AVT head was completely stock, no modifications). All of my guitars are also electrically modified, so the "Rosetta sound" or whatever you want to call it is not really created by any one piece of equipment. It's more the result of a laborious process of matching different components to each other, and when it doesn't fly, breaking out the soldering iron and making it work better.

TSL-100:
- JJ EL-34L + ECC83s hi-gain tubes from Eurotubes (noticeable improvement, + more headroom)
- 1 390pF cap in V3 and 2 47pF caps on volume pots for treble roll-off on Lead/Crunch channels, per this thread (huge improvement)
- FRED rectifiers to replace stock 1N4007 diodes [some info here] (jury's still out)
- 10H Choke from Mercury Magnetics (noticeable improvement)

3210 MOSFET:
- Stock Hitachi MOSFETs burned out, replaced with Magnatec BUZ900/905, +25W power gain

Hartke HA3500:
- JJ ECC83s tube swap

1960B:
Replaced two stock G12Ts with Vintage 30s. Now has 2 G12s and 2 V30s. We mic the V30s for recording.

Homebrew cab:
Was once a Crate 80W 4x12 (?). Now 300W with 4 G12Ts like a stock Marshall, but with its larger size, sound resembles a Sunn0))) 4x12. Rewired with switching jacks for selectable 4/16 ohm impedance (like a Marshall).

--- ---

Eventually I'm going to put up a permanent page on here for amp/guitar mod stuff that I do, with as many of the associated hard-to-find links as I can dig up. I have also been working extensively on two Valve Junior heads lately which have been doing stereo duty with my Frankenstein-like Telecaster and a delay pedal in Temet Nosce. This setup will also make a brief appearance on the new Rosetta.

News

My online persona is for all intents and purposes dying... there's just no time to spare for the Interweb.

The above was taken last weekend while Rosetta was recording drum tracks for our next full length. All the other parts we're recording later in-house at Janedoll, but drums were engineered by Colin Marston from Dysrhythmia and Behold... The Arctopus, at his new-ish studio in Queens. This was our first ever recording to analog tape.

Project Mercury got a 9 out of 10 in Decibel Magazine! Ha. Splits are still cool. This is from the new issue with Neurosis on the cover.

I have been MIA because I just finished shooting/editing/web-porting a large documentary media project for one of the departments I work for at Penn. If you care, you can look at it here. It's not exactly high art, but my people skills have certainly improved.

Tech: Pedals

It occurred to me that a few of you who read this might be interested in some more mundane tech stuff. People ask about pedals more than they ask about amps and guitars. This is the effects setup I use touring with Rosetta. I just rebuilt it to accommodate some new components.



This is completely nerdy but I like talking about gear. Usually when we tour with other bands, one of the early friendly connections is gear talk. It's like shop talk, or book talk, or hey-you-like-Twin-Peaks-too talk.

Another weekend tour

This time, with Tides, Giant, and Balboa. I am currently having a fabulous time. These pictures are all from Norfolk, VA on 12/15, and taken by Dave Pacifico, whom I have missed very much these last few months.

I feel like lately Rosetta has started sounding "trashier" (not in a bad way) and less refined. I'm not sure if that's because the fall has been more stress and less practice than usual. In Norfolk we had to play without Armine and it was pretty weird (but again, not all bad; it was challenging).

More from CMJ weekend

Green = Portland, Maine 11.05.06
Red = CMJ 11.03.06
Thanks to Linshuang for shooting.

CMJ weekend / initial reactions

+ Feeling it again
+ Maine kids
+ All ages
+ Having everything I love all together
+ New van
+ Being on the road again, though briefly
+ Zack Bates
+ The Nonesvch collective
+ Audience participation
+ Remembering roots
+ The ocean
+ Sunsets
+ Impromptu dates

- New York
- Greedy/condescending club owners
- "Door polling"
- Hipster makeovers (even sludge metal is now a fashion show)
- Intoxication

Lots more pictures later...

Van

Rosetta got a new van. This was completely unexpected, and largely the result of others' misfortunes and a lot of help from BJ's mom. I'm so used to a cramped, hot mess that this new thing seems far too luxurious and a little excessive, almost "bourgeois." But it does solve a lot of potential problems on several fronts: having too much gear, not being able to take people with us, engine overheating, not being able to pull a trailer, not being able to sleep in the van, etc.

Still, I'm ambivalent. I find myself missing the old white junker, and feeling bad that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. It was a home away from home (albeit an uncomfortable one) for many years, the only van I've ever toured in, a tiny space in which countless memories were made. This past summer we drove it 13,181.4 miles (half the circumference of the earth) in 46 days without a single problem. And it got great gas mileage too. Most people get rid of their car and don't think much about it, but then again, most people don't go long periods where they spend more time in their car than they do in houses. I miss that thing, because it wasn't really a van, it was a tiny little house that traveled. I could be in the middle of nowhere, sleeping on the roof under the stars, and still feel like I was in a familiar place, just because I was on top of the van, and it held everything I had.

A stupid sentiment perhaps, nostalgia wasted on a 1994 Ram 150. But I've probably spent more time in that van than most of my friends have spent in their college apartments.

Post-tour listmaking

(7/31 in SLC, thanks to Conor)

Gratitude:
landscape
kindness of strangers (& being put to shame by it)
'spacious place' (cf. Ps. 18)
manna
variety in creation
common grace
developing empathy & compassion
the scattered community
recognizing faces from the internet in real life
coming out of the shell
Ecclesiastes
learning to live together in hardship
mountains / oceans / deserts / forests
finding out how little I actually need

Curses:
meaninglessness / 'vanity'
people as commodities (especially women)
'dishonest gain'
alcohol
postmodern conception of travel
social anesthetics
experiences as currency
greed

Tour 10

"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure."
-Ecclesiastes, Chapter 7, verse 4

What grieves the wise?

"The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?"
-Chapter 6, verse 11

The tour is being cut short. I will be coming home on August 7th, and would like to sit with you, my Philadelphia friend, and tell some stories. Some are good and some are bad. The summation of this journey is that there is much more destruction and brokenness in this nation than I could ever have imagined, but that God is more faithful, just, and good than I can possibly express or understand. This is the first time in my life that I have ever prayed with a truly excited gratitude and surprise over a meal served to me --- understanding that it literally came from heaven. There is no entitlement anymore, only abandon.

Receiving such daily bread, I grow continually more disgusted with privilege and its requisite opiate hedonism [the house of pleasure]:
"Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them? The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep."

-Chapter 5, verses 8-12

Tour 9

We drove through the night out of Albuquerque and detoured on our way to Phoenix so we could go see the Grand Canyon. By all accounts it was really worth it. The weird thing is that because it's so high up, we were really cold on the way there (I was wearing a sweatshirt for the first time on this whole tour). Both the coldest and hottest temperatures we've hit were in Arizona. I have really enjoyed the diversity of the landscape down here, and the dry clean air.

The bizarre thing about the Grand Canyon is that it has been so extensively photographed and documented that it really cannot be experienced in a primal, non-simulated way. To compound the issue, when you actually get there and look at it, it literally looks fake. The distances are so huge that the eye loses all sense of depth, and the landscape seems like a Hollywood matte painting. It's iconic, and can't be experienced apart from its place in the popular consciousness. Any picture taken at that site has been taken before, and the continuous proliferation of these copies reinforces the simulation. We remember the look of the place and are familiar with it even before we ever go there, so our experience of it is always mediated by the model (photograph) preceding its instantiation (the experience of being there). So the two might be indistinguishable, if it weren't for the $25 entry fee.

I'm in California right now, for the first time ever. We're staying in Irvine, south of L.A., with one of Brett's friends. Our Tijuana show was cancelled because the venue was shut down, so we have today off and a show in South Gate tomorrow.

I was curious to see what L.A. was really like in person --- and to be honest, it is already stressing me out. It's a sprawling beast: a filthy, gridlocked, tangled web of strip malls and air-conditioned boxes for the middle class. A consuming amoeba which is engineered for excess --- impossible to walk anywhere, millions of people seeking shelter from the smog in sealed cars on clogged freeways. It's like New Jersey on speed, and with unlimited money and no clouds.

Tour 8

Change of pace --- there aren't really words to describe this place, so I won't try. We drove 14 hours from Corpus Christi, TX to Las Cruces, NM (starting at 2am central time), and it was one of the most sublime experiences of my life. It was cool and dry and beautiful and I saw the sunrise in the desert. I chose not to photograph it.

Tour 7

1: Brothers and Sisters opening the show at Cave9 in Birmingham, Alabama. A brand new band with a ton of potential. Also a great venue.

2: Fleur de Live, the venue in Monroe, Louisiana. It is extremely hot and humid here. We slept in this venue and I'm now stealing wireless from a neighboring building in order to post this.

The heat is making everyone lethargic and somewhat irritable. I feel like my brain is melting and I've somehow become 93802347 times stupider in the last three days --- I can't think or summon any motivation to do anything. We are headed to Dallas today, where it is supposed to be 104 degrees by 3pm.

Tour 6

It is really hot down here. I took a shower in this "outdoor fixture" this morning after sleeping in a barn in some sort of anarchist/hippie commune (Gainesville, FL). There was a dog shut in the loft with us, and it turned out she had fleas. Bummer. This shower consists of a pipe pumping groundwater, but it was better than stewing in body juices from the preceding night, and required to check for fleas.

I'm in Tampa right now. I've noticed an increasing lethargy as we've moved south, it seems like I can't get anything done and I just want to sit around all day. It's probably the heat. I've lost 6 pounds since our two days off in Philly last week, but most likely my body is just adapting and becoming more efficient.

The skate shots (you can see me reflected in the glass on the first picture) were taken in Myrtle Beach, SC on 7/11, one of the most brutally hot days so far. We got to the venue at 10:30am, so it made sense to just go soak in the ocean for a couple hours... but even that wasn't really beating the heat, so we went to a local mall and saw Superman Returns at a matinee before the show.

Tour 5

This was another glimpse of the sublime, an experience completely at odds with what one would expect from a tour of America's seediest venues. Since we had the day off, staying outside Washington DC, our friend took us to a swimming hole nearby. We had to walk over a mile through mud and scrub brush to get there, but what a beautiful place... swimming in clean river water, no cell phone service, no traffic noise, perfect weather.

Today the all-encompassing surreality didn't matter. It was like that dream that you don't want to wake up from when your alarm goes off in the bone-chilling cold of January and you want to skip work. It was a small taste of paradise --- not in the hyper-real TV culture sense, where it's all about tropical beaches, booze, and self-pampering --- this was a small taste of perfect unity, perfect comfort which is not insular, a particle of time where everything is balanced and right and at peace. It inspired a playful and childlike wonder.

This made me realize that I truly am living a fantasy right now, doing something that literally almost no one gets to do. While part of me is still feeling the ache of homesickness, another part of me is filled with gratitude and reveling in the joyful absurdity of this entire summer. How can I possibly complain? I have enough to eat, a roof over my head more often than not, travel companions who have plenty of color if not much grace, and I am presented daily with the splendor and majesty of creation. Wherever I go, I am watched over and attended to, not just a meager portion given, but piled on and overflowing --- a real mess of delight.

This is not to "shortcircuit the vicissitudes" of essentially being homeless for two months, there are plenty of trials. But however acute that pain may be --- physical, emotional, or otherwise --- right now the most real and tangible quantity is wonder.

Little things: the DC show went really well, which was a needed confidence booster. We played TMA-1 and it sounded the best it has yet. All the bands were good, which almost never happens. I am also rediscovering Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports, which I'm listening to as I type this. It's genius (I had forgotten). Tomorrow we're driving to Murfreesboro, NC, which will take us right through Zuni, VA, the town I lived in until I was 8. Only about 50 people live there, most of whom are different from the people I remember. I'll still stop and take pictures, but I suspect that the surreality factor will only increase. Memory is volatile in these kinds of situations, and prone to excess.

waterfalls / cirrocumulus clouds / sunlight / air-drying / Music for Airports / quietness / waking dreams

Tour 4

One of the best things about tour is the amazing bathrooms. This particular shining example is in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. We played there last night, to an audience of one promoter, two bands, and a barmaid. It was a rough time. The hanging cloud of personal issues over some in our group doesn't really help. On the plus side, we stayed with a friend, whose roommate made us pancakes this morning.

We spent the afternoon record shopping and hanging out in Towson, Maryland. I bought a Boards of Canada EP, simply because it had a remix of Dayvan Cowboy on it, and it turns out the whole thing is really superb. Best use of 8 bucks in a long time... highly recommended.

Right now I'm in Washington DC, stealing wireless from a neighboring building. If we can snag a place to stay, it would be nice to spend our day off tomorrow perusing the Smithsonian museums or the National Gallery of Art (since everything in DC is free... which is ideal when you're destitute and homeless). Sometimes, "highbrow" pleasures can be somewhat comforting or relieving when you're constantly exposed to the dregs of society.

Tour 3

This is from Providence, RI on Saturday night. To see more of this nonsense (and lots of flying hair), go here.

Unprocessed:
It was nice to be back in Philadelphia for a serendipitous Sabbath. Our 7/2 show in Brooklyn fell through so we drove home through the night after the Providence show. Being at home is completely surreal, especially since I know I'll be leaving again in a couple of days. Spending the afternoon with petite-amie, grasping a fleeting presence, reminded me that I can't ever seem to be sure whether I'm coming or going. The quintessentially Philadelphia summer weather -- oppressive humidity, followed by a raging thunderstorm -- was sublime for once, because it felt like home is supposed to feel. But do I have a home? I have a Home, but for right now, I feel like a displaced person.

The problem is that nothing is real anymore. I live in a perpetual waking dream, so surrounded by constant changes that there is nothing to rest on, nothing tangible to abide in. It's not that I'm a creature of routine, craving some sort of predictability to create stability, rather it's just that constant overstimulation and scenery changes cause a sense of helplessness, resignation, and fatalism. I'm not in control of anything. This is ultimately for the best (the situation that is, not my current attitude towards it), but for a person who is overly concerned with memory and the passing of time, it is disconcerting to feel like I am always being rushed on by tides in which I have no say.

I am, however, miraculously provided for. In the state of pure dependence and loss of control, there is something beautiful and sweet in receiving from the hand of God. I was sitting in a coffee shop in Portland Maine last week, just so I could get on the Internet (too poor to afford food or drink), and a waitress came over to me with a plate of pita bread and garlic hummus and said, "This is courtesy of Katie Smith [Armine's girlfriend]." Kate, who we had stayed with the preceding night, had called her friend who worked there and told her to "find the kid with glasses and a ponytail and feed him." In that moment I became conscious of a more-than-passing similiarity to the Israelites, hungry and wandering in the desert, fed with manna from heaven.


Psalm 18 / Be Little With Me / redeeming the basement couch / gifts / Micah 6:8 / the ocean / holy rain / daily bread / presence / tactility / tangled bodies / tears

Tour 2

Thanks to Hernease for the above (6/23 Philly kickoff).

Portland was pretty amazing. Both in terms of the show/response and in terms of the general atmosphere of the place. I'm in Boston right now, at some strange person's apartment, stealing internet access from her downstairs neighbor. I can't sleep. Tomorrow is a day off, which is irritating, but we played less than the best tonight, so maybe we could use it. I get to spend a few nights in Philly July 2nd-5th, since the shows around that time are nearby, and there are two days off.

Tour 1

Allegany, NY, 6/24
Indoor skatepark/venue

This is proving to be much harder than I expected. It's only three days in right now, but the overwhelming amount of time to kill has made me restless and homesick. I still enjoy playing, but that's about it. It's overwhelming to think that there are almost seven weeks of this ahead. I'd rather just go home right now.

TMA-1 / General bummed-ness

"Intention alone is sufficient to give noise the value of signal."
-Umberto Eco, The Poetics of Open Work

Here is a really terrible-sounding rough mix of the more experimental new Rosetta track, which will appear in a much better sounding state on the upcoming split with Balboa.

I leave for tour in three days, which is completely surreal. The unifying theme of the last two months has been piling total environmental changes one on top of the other, until the continuous transitioning becomes its own sort of stasis. I'm a little sick of it really. The road may actually provide a semblance of settled routine, which would be a novelty. I will post here as regularly as I can while we're out.

Plan B

Taken by Karl Kuchs, Friday night 5/19 at the Plan B House in Philly. Jim and Steve are pretty swell dudes.

This past weekend's tour was interesting. The bass now does not suck anymore, and we (read: I) blew the circuit breaker twice at the Brooklyn show, and then after one song we had to kill the volume because the neighbors complained. Now that's metal.

MACRoCk

I'm about to leave to go play the Godwin Metal Showcase @ MACRoCk with Municipal Waste.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Pictures Sunday...

If you happen to be at MACRoCk (i.e. right now), come see us and we will hook you up with one of our new DVDs, which I am burning right this second. They have a 5.1-channel surround mix of both CDs of The Galilean Satellites together (disc 1 on the front speakers, disc 2 on the rear), and three live videos too. We will be hand-painting discs and cases for these things and selling them on tour this summer, but you can get one this weekend for free (without the packaging) if you happen to be in the right place.

Japan/US relations just improved significantly

This was probably the best weekend of my senior year. Despite the hassles of traveling with a 13-man entourage, doing the whole multi-national metal circus thing was truly a sublime experience. Nitromegaprayer is incredible live, and is also made up of amazingly kind and generous people.

According to my new Japanese friends, I am apparently "very dangerous."

Sunday in Syracuse with Engineer was also a great time, though a little sad, since Balboa and Nitromegaprayer had to go to Rhode Island.

Getting home was not so much fun, since the Great Lakes decided to dump two inches of snow on Syracuse WHILE we were playing (pictures soon). Who pays the price for this? My mid-review, along with Dave's final exam this morning. We made it home in one piece, though.

Outrageous

Nitromegaprayer was awesome tonight. They came all the way from Japan just to do a week of touring. Just in case you didn't know, Japanese is just a synonym for cool. We're playing with them again tomorrow in Connecticut (+ Balboa & Sea of Bones). If you missed all the outrageous cross-cultural love, I'm terribly sorry.

Also-
THESIS SHOW DATES:
April 14th-17th, 5pm-9pm daily
@ Penn Cinema (formerly Cinemagic)
3925 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Opening is Friday, April 14th @ 5pm sharp
I will be on-site during all open hours for all four days, so please come and look
This show is as yet untitled

Video documentation will run in the FRES gallery in the Left Bank from April 29th - May 15th.

Poster

New tour poster (incomplete):



School is nuts. I'm nuts.

Shirt designs

New Rosetta shirt design, silver ink on black fabric:


This will probably be modified into a zip-up sweatshirt shortly, with only images on the front and a larger body of text on the back.

I'm also starting a new series of five t-shirt designs, with one for each different star system from disc 2 of The Galilean Satellites: Deneb, Capella, Beta Aquilae, Ross 128, and Sol (the Sun). Each design will be limited to 36 shirts.

Playing:
Sunn0))) - Black 1
Balboa / Nitromegaprayer split
Ion Dissonance - Solace
Byla - s/t
Stars of the Lid - Per Aspera Ad Astra

Americana

Found while passing through the great state of Connecticut:



File under "serendipities of the road."

Ocean was truly excellent this weekend in Maine. Many thanks go to Stella from Sinferno who not only gave us a place to stay, but fed us bagels and hot cider for breakfast at Arabica. Portland is a great town, and everyone is nice to the point of it even being a little weird. There are too many white people, though, so we played a little game of I-Spy-the-Minority.

To add to the surreality of the weekend, our friend (and old-school Relapse veteran) Robert Williams of Nightstick was at the show, since CWAF (a semi-related Weymouth band) opened the evening. I haven't seen him in person since we played in Boston with Dysrhythmia back in March, though he wrote me a letter over the summer. He's one of the most gratifyingly strange people I have ever met -- a genius of sorts, obviously highly educated and very articulate. Still, his cocaine use (which he most likely would not define as a "problem") makes it difficult to engage with him in an authentic way. I appreciate his comments greatly, because I think he gets what I'm trying to accomplish musically, but the space between us is huge. In some ways he makes me sad -- he seems like he reached such a point of existential self-awareness that the pain of nothingness overwhelmed him, and he just surrendered to drugs as an escape. When a mind like that misses redemption, it feels like a waste.

At least I left our conversation with two Nightstick CDs and a Siege tape.

Playing:
Ocean - Here Where Nothing Grows

Temple "Record Release" show

(Thanks Staci)

The Good: Slacks!, waffles, the kind people of 1633 Diamond, familiar faces, getting rid of Abacinate CDs.

The Bad: Getting cut short and not playing the finale, the room sound being unbalanced, lack of energy.

The Ugly: Worst PA system in the history of mankind.

Perfectionism can turn into a specter in situations like these. I have begun to question the relationship (if there is one) between the fun of playing and audience enjoyment. We can certainly perceive when the audience isn't interested, and that can sap energy dramatically, but even when they are interested, it doesn't necessarily make for a satisfying performance. They may feed off of us, but we can't feed off of them. So much for playing the crowd (could this be why many people find us alienating? Do they even matter to us?). If we could figure out what it is that we do take our energy from, perhaps we could harness it more consistently.

Tour

Keansburg, NJ: 3/5
Syracuse, NY: 4/5 (instrumental low-volume set)
Wallingford, CT: 4.8/5

East of the Wall is a really superb band, and I think when Rosetta got to play after them we were more inspired. Saturday night in Syracuse was "outrageous" as expected, once again due more to the Jersey contingent than the four of us. Every time we're out on the road and Brett is around, things get retarded. It never happens when we're by ourselves.


(The hills were aflame on Saturday)

While trying to go to sleep in the middle of Saturday's wild booze-fest, I overheard a girl arguing religion with Mike from EOTW. Earlier she had told me she was "hammered" and that it was a problem because she had to get up for church the next day. Apparently she considers herself a devout Christian, because her argument with Mike was a typically modernist Evangelical rant about the difference between faith and reason, and how God could not be contained by the latter, such that he required the former --- and certainly could never be "understood." Mike, a hardline agnostic, was nonplussed. Her argument wouldn't have been particularly noticeable (especially since arguments between drunk people rarely go anywhere), except that when Mike failed to convert and the conversation ended, she went outside and found a casual sex partner, presumably to make herself feel better.

What hurts about this situation is that this girl probably has been taught to believe that the resistance she encounters is "persecution," and is a sign that she is doing God's will. But why would people want to surrender their lives to something that produces such hypocrisy? Indeed, it would seem from this encounter that Christianity requires no such surrender at all, only the surrender of reason to an empty dogma, a pattern of speech, a mechanical mantra (is this what "faith" is?). Have we no shame?

Interview

Here's a bizarre interview with Rosetta on Indieworkshop.com, done by our friend C. Elmore, who lives in Florida. It's strange because it's pretty much an unedited chat room conversation.

Playing:
Stars of the Lid - Avec Laudenum, Maneuvering the Nocturnal Hum
LFO - Sheath
Oceansize - Everyone Into Position
Mono / Pelican Split LP
Dysrhythmia - No Interference reissue