Golden Smoghead

I'd say a lot of it depends on what kind of pickup / acoustic guitar you have too, but I kinda agree that dollar-for-dollar I'm inclined towards low-end PAs for acoustic guitar line-outs. I have a 65W fender (solid state obviously) and my acoustic sounds like crap through it compared to my 100w Alesis PA. Agree that PAs can be pretty lug-a-riffic tho.

Very cool, dude! BTW I like the mix on this song, good tymez. My favorite part of your design is the way the knobs / switch are parallel to the strings and sitting on the same piece of metal.

Actually Rufer, I live right near you have lotsa songs. HINT HINT Seriously though dude, do you play around town? I may know you and not know it, that'd be pretty funny.

I am waiting for a latenight drunk to watch that show. The MHD channel is 90% garbage, but occasionally has some great stuff. My faves off there so far: the "Soundstage" episode with Emmylou and the guy from Dire Straits; the "Music in High Places" Ryan Adams ep in Jamaica (he's high as a kite, I'm guessing it was filmed post-Gold pre-Cardinals); and the Roseanne Cash / Steve Earle "Crossroads" episode. I also dug the Kanye West "Life and Rhymes" but they quit playing it since his mom died (she has a very sweet appearance in that show, she gets up and shows us her dancin' feet).

I actually 100% agree with that statement.

How can anybody claim the baby boomers are smarter than those of us in our teens / twenties? This astounds me, frankly. Did WE start the war in Iraq? Did WE ignore the environment for half a century? Did WE run through most of the world's natural resources? Did WE engage in the self-indulgent, antisocial, drug-addled bullshit behavior of the 60s and 70s? Did WE run social security and medicare into the ground? Did WE allow money to come to dominate American politics? Did WE ignore the inequities of the primary education system and allow "two Americas" to emerge? Did WE go straight fr

Drew, this is way cool. Very professional. My favorite part of all this is how you really just made the music YOU wanted to make. Took your time, polished up the parts until they shined like you wanted them to. I find this pretty Shins-y in places, probably mostly the double-tracked vocals. Also the spacy (maybe "reverb"?) aesthetic on some tunes. Personally I preferred the more straight-ahead tracks (like "March" and "Old Friends"), but I know that's just taste in production values. Great work dude. Again: the best thing is that you are doing what YOU want to do, as far as I ca

I can totally understand why you feel like this, and by and large I agree. However in some forums (like SST, where I post most often) it is kind of a natural extension of the conversation to have people post a particular song they are working on or an example of a gear setup or mixing technique, etc. So basically, sometimes/often nobody is really "pimping" or promoting any product or website, but actually is looking to their fellow VCers for whatever. (Maybe feedback, maybe tips, maybe encouragement, who knows) I think OP's idea is good / interesting, but even if we could get a little c

I wonder how happy people who refuse to take polls are. Guess we'll never know.

David Ford doesn't really spark much for me, I am sorry to say. HOWEVER I wish you much luck on the continuation of the blog! Hooray for good people and good times.

Dude, my bad. I saw your first post but flashed right past your second. That IS a darn good deal.

Yeah agreed, I definitely have to change my strings a ton or else they sound too "muddy" to me. Currently using d'addario bluegrass-gauge phosphor bronzes. Probably playing only an hour a day lately, I still have to change them at least once a week or else I think they sound like crap. What's weird is that I'm almost opposite with my main electric, which is a hollow body gretsch with flats I've had on there for like six months. To each his own, mate. And btw I definitely would like to find a lower-cost option too on strings, surely if we keep posting in this thread someone will swoo

Wow you guys have a lot of nice shit. I am bookmarking this thread for the next time my wife whines about my two acoustics, two electrics, and banjo.

D'oh! OK should work now up there.

OK. Overall I'm pretty happy with the color I'm getting out of the PreSonus TubePre. Basically I'm having to use the pad to keep the signal down though, it is HOT coming out of this sucker if I do not do so. With the pad, I'm rolling with 11'oclock "drive" / 9 o'clock "gain" and getting this kinda sound (also on the myspace previously posted): random song I recorded last night So basically it took me awhile to dial it in, and I had to change out the tube to get less of the Russian vibe, but I'm pretty happy with the slight color I can get out of this thing. Keep in mind that I'm not

I agree with a lot of this, but I still want to know wtf a muzzle of bees is. If it's just a random, surreal visual image then OK, cool, definitely entitled to that. But it seems like there is more to it. Muzzles keep you from quiet, CHECK. Bees... Uh, yeah, that's where I think I lose it. To me, bees sting, they die after they sting, they making a buzzing drone, they are a thousand little things all working together, they're all uniform so maybe they represent just mindless masses... Overall I just don't get a clear idea of the unifying concept, which is the muzzle of bees. Help me

For charitable folks who haven't heard the song, it's on youtube video. Cute baby, random youtube people!

I heard "Falling Down" and was very unimpressed. I think the title track is better, but I agree with whoever said the production values stink. All that reverb and mix burying the vocals is bad times, makes it sound like they think she did a bad job and were trying to cover up. Also, I guess this could be her choice, but these seem to be very low in her vocal range. Move them up a couple keys and I bet she wouldn't have to seem like she's reaching down for some of these notes.

I can see that -- I will note it was definitely a "grower" for me and I like it much more now than on first listen. Also even if some of the pro-tools-y stuff isn't really perfect, I do appreciate that he's trying to do some different things and hope he keeps experimenting on the musical side. Only lingering disappointment is that there aren't any new songs that are really "tough" lyrically (along the lines of "Rich Man's War," "Oxycontin Blues," "f the cc," "Jerusalem"). I guess everybody is entitled to an album of sweet, upbeat songs every now and then, though, even Steve Earle. I DO hop

He didn't say "too many," he said "lots and lots." I couldn't tell if he thought this was a good thing, or a bad thing.

I was at this show too! I was nicely surprised by some of the songs he played, I didn't expect to hear "The Mountain" "Transcendental Blues" "Heroin's the only thing" and a few others. VERY good setlist that night for the most part. I HIGHLY recommend you go, if only for the solo-acoustic hour, for me that's worth the $$ The DJ stuff is a little more mixed imo. The songs with that stuff are ok -- like I like the Hammer song, and the song about "life goes on / down here below" but overall I would've preferred to have him just stick with the acoustic guitar. Only song that I think would

And even the good lyricists aren't necessarily the best poets, they're different skills. *cough* adult head *cough* Seriously though, chompsky I bet you have just not been exposed to much good poetry if you think the medium itself is lacking. Kinda the inverse of how people who think there is no good rap have just not been exposed to enough of it to be able to appreciate the magic there.

I really love the Jay-Z rhymes on the Kanye song "Diamonds": How could you falter? When you're the Roc of Gibraltar I had to get off the boat so I could walk on water This ain't no tall order, this is nothing to me Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week I do this in my sleep, I sold kilo's of coke (So) I'm guessing I can sell CD's I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man! Let me handle my business, damn

If you like that one, I am almost positive you will like the Natalie Goldberg books on writing, I'd start with Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life... Would also recommend that series to anybody in a rut, too. I really, really, really buy into Natalie's idea that writing / creating is a craft you work at diligently, and a path to something bigger than just having a novel or a poem or a song, or accumulating a set of skills... She puts everything in Zen terms, but for me it's like saving your own soul through working hard at your art. Wikipedia sums up her position toward being an artist t