Tag Archives: inside baseball

music, rural citizens band

To remaster or not to remaster, that is the question

Lately I’ve been playing around with the idea of remixing some of my old RCB material. Not in the traditional sense of adding different drum loops or whatever (I have XR1300 to do that!), but mostly to increase sound fidelity and dynamic range.

Most of the tracks I’ve released, even before I knew to care about such a thing, sound pretty good. But some of them are downright crusty and embarrassing.

I fixed some of these problems for the Best of RCB and Rest of RCB compilations.  I had no problem remixing them for a new album, since I could release them as new versions of old songs. But I have a problem with revisiting the past and changing it.

All the albums I have released were snapshots of where I was at the moment I created them. Going back and changing them would be like changing part of the past, in a vain attempt to improve them, when in their own imperfect way they’re already perfect. It would be like a painter going back and “fixing” old paintings because he learned a new technique in the meantime.

On the other hand, I can also see an upside. The albums themselves would flow better and sound better. The sound would be more normalized. The quieter sound levels would be more appropriate for ambient music. La Teodicea di Odio especially had some problems with these regards. Three of its tracks rank 1 and 2 out of 20 on the DR chart, and are mix loud enough to fit on an Akibare album. I’m still not sure what I was thinking about when I recorded and mixed those songs…

Earlier this year I remixed the first two XR1300 albums, Love Won’t Get Us Where We’re Going and Surrender Is Not the Answer. Both of them were in dire need of a remaster, much more-so than the entire of the RCB discography. I had no real problem doing that, since I have both versions of the albums available. But at the same time, I don’t really think the sound of most songs are bad enough to remix in total.

In the end, I’ll probably split the difference and release another “Rest of” compilation, made up entirely of songs that needed remixed and remastered. That way the old albums are as they were when created, and the new versions can be on a separate release, released as the Definitive Versions.

inspiration, music, site stuff

Getting back in the swing of things

It’s been too long since I posted something. Though I have released a new album and have another one on the way.

I’m still planning on doing a guitar ambient project soon. Something totally separate from Rural Citizens Band. This video I found tonight has kind of reignited the desire to do something like that:

I’m really impressed with that Jazzmaster copy. I’ve wanted a Jazzmaster since the early 90s when I noticed the guys in Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Curve, Dinosaur Jr, Television, Placebo and Swervedriver used them. I’m not usually one to buy a guitar because Gitah Player X used them. And in some ways I avoided using one because they’re so ubiquitous in the indie rock scene (especially among the louder bands), but damn it, I really want one. And those copies can be had for around $250 (whereas a Mexican JM will run you about $800). I just wish that company also made Jaguar (in both single coil and HH configs) because I could buy all 3 for less than the cost of one Fender Mexican JM.

Anyway, I plan on blogging more here. I can’t excuse my laziness. Not that anybody is reading this anyway.

music

Tone chasing

I’m always interested in finding new sounds, new pedals, whatnot. Experimenting with stacking pedals and effects and the different sounds you can get from them. One day I plan to get a Tascam and start recording some of these experiments. Right now they sound like shit, to be honest, but someday I might get something worth recording.

One problem with YouTube videos dealing with echo, delay and reverb pedals is the style of music featured. You rarely, if ever, see ambient, space rock or drone music featured. It’s always some guy with a douchey sense of humor, playing the same boring blues and rockabilly riffs to the same slapback reverb setting. It almost seems like there is a factory producing SRV clones with the same playing style.

Don’t get me wrong, there a couple of channels dedicated to ambient music (a lot of electronic, which is cool, too), but they get lost in the avalanche of bad blues impersonators.

Of course, the same problem applies to your average guitar teacher, or music store personnel.  If you’re gonna go pedal shopping, they’ll always tell you the pedals and settings that Page or Clapton or Hendrix used on whatever song. Again, I don’t really fault them, as the great majority of buyers are going for that sound. I’m an oddball, and that’s fine with me.

There used to be an online community, but I never joined because of busy life stuff, but it’s now defunct. Which is just me always be late to the party.

But at the same time I plan to do more experiments and get my own sound. For one thing, most ambient guitar guys use insanely expensive pedals. Stuff that costs $500 a pedal. The four pedals I will use cost about that much combined. Yes, I use stuff by MXR, TC Electronics and Line 6. That’s just what I can afford. Or justify paying. Maybe if I made thousands of dollars a month at Bandcamp I would put the money towards a Strymon, or a Death by Audio pedal. Some of those Death by Audio pedals are tempting. And they’re made by Oliver Ackermann of A Place To Bury Strangers (one of my favorite bands), but I still can’t really justify or afford the cost at the moment.

Also, when people use the same boutique pedals, often times their sound is too similar. I won’t fool myself into thinking I’m getting a revolutionary sound out of my four, moderately priced pedals. But I like to try. And I like to go for something different.

I’ll be honest for a second and say that if I had a pedal that gave me an instant Windy & Carl sound, I’d be happy. At least for a few minutes, until I realized I was simply poorly replicating music that came about 15 years ago.

For now, I’ll simply experiment and go from there. Most of the fun of ambient music is finding new sounds, and ways of making sounds in different ways. And sometimes that kind of thing is best done alone.

music, xr1300

Oh so close…

I’ve been working on an XR1300 album lately. It’s strange in that it’s less dancey than the last two, but also more ambient. Yet it’s too dancey to be a Rural Citizens Band album. I’m using a lot of fuzz bass on this one, and as I play around different effect pedals (mostly delay, reverb, echo, etc) I’d love to make a sort of space rock album and release it under the XR1300 name later in the year.

But first I need to complete this one. And that is proving to be kind of a chore. I have 11 of 13 songs done and finished. Baring any unforeseen difficulties, I will leave them as is. Another song is damn near done, I just need to add a few touches here and there. I’d say it’s 80% done. The last one isn’t even started yet. I’ve tried three different songs, but none of them are past the planning stages. One I used my trusted Fender Precision bass (named Marceline) and had a pretty good bass line. Sadly, I thought the song was in C, when it’s really in B. So the bass line clashed in a really bad way with the rest of the song, changing the pitch in Audacity made it sound like shit. But I’m not too bugged, because the rest of the song was shit, TBH.

This always happens, then at the last minute I pull out a winner. Something completely different. It just comes to me. I have a couple of muses, as it were, for this album, so I will continue until the battle is done. The nice thing is that I have no real set release date. I also know that I’m most likely the only person who will ever hear any of this, so I really do end up in the shitter, it won’t matter that much. Except it’s my album and I want this track to be perfect. There has to be 13 songs on it, otherwise it won’t be right.

site stuff

A new blog, fresh and exciting

It’s been nearly two years since I updated the Lazarus blog. This is what I’m putting in its stead.

I’ll still keep up the Harem of Gamines tumblr, but I enjoy having a blog that isn’t dependent on another service. And tumblr is pretty bad at the moment. I don’t really like an associating them too closely. There are many lovely people there, but the fascistic groupthink is really scary.

This blog will focus a lot on music, the creation of music, images (scenic, beauty, musical, whatever) and anything that pops into my mind. Perhaps it will be updated often, but given my history of such things, I doubt it.

Welcome aboard. I hope you can enjoy.

Also, the title of this blog is taken from an ambient/post-rock blog I followed circa 2009. It’s tacky to steal a title wholesale, but the blog was deleted for numerous DMCA violations about five years ago. Sad to say it’s not coming back, no matter how much I wish it would. Five years is an eternity in internet time, so I’m using it now.