In teh Stoods: Methods and talk.

I was bored today. I took a nap.

After that nap, I decided it would be fun to record with the fostex I blogged about fixing long ago. I never really used it for multitracking before, only as a 4 channel mixer with sends. So this would be the christening of the multitrack as it were. It made me realize, I really know shit all about this mixer. let me discuss.

First please reference this audio recording. It is a pre mix with only 3 elements recorded. Scroogemcspork

in teh stood 1

Several nights before I had done a live broadcast of a drum machine jam; I used an ER-1, the zoom 506II bass pedal, custom DIY transistor distortion and the fostex (as a mixer only). This jam was recorded to the computron 9000 into cool edit pro 2.0. I’ve wanted for a while now to achieve the Tape Sound® for an album, I guess now is the time. So i dumped the track to channel 4 of the fostex. That went well. Next I plopped my poly 61 down on the table to record some melodic bits, a nice distorted buzz bass and a string-ish pad sort of thing; very typical of me. First to record was the bass track, I started recording this and was getting into it although this was quite a long track at 8 and a half minutes. Upon playback of the track I realize that the drums recorded into the bass track as well. i was confused. It turns out, with the fostex, you need to mute any tracks that are previously recorded or have signals coming into them or else you will be bouncing those down to the track you are recording to. to be able to hear the tracks back, you need to turn up the monitor level and make sure you have monmix engaged in the monitor section. Probably should have read the manual (which can be found at http://www.fostexusa.com/support/pdf/fostex/260/260_owners_manual.pdf). So Bass was done, moved onto the pad part. That recording went well I believe as well. Not done the recording yet. I’m probably going to have to bounce a couple of things down and make sure i’ve got the mixes all dandy, but im excited to be working with the fostex, so far it sounds pretty good, nice and uhh.. ‘warm’.

in teh stood 2 fostex up cloz

So thats how I went about recording the tracks, but i wanted to reveal a bit of the methods i used for the various overdubs.
I wanted an interesting and layered sound from the drum track, wanted it to sound full from just the er-1. I did this by using quite a bit of processing with the zoom, compressor, fuzz distortion, i believe a subtle octave effect and reverb. this is my typical patch for the zoom when i use it on drums, but i wanted moar. I love the sound of reverb into distortion, there was already a lot of distortion provided from the zoom, but the zoom has the distortion preset to before the reverb and you can’t change it. So i dropped in my new dist pedal on a send, that added the perfect crunchy bed underneath the drums that i was craving. I love distortion, I really do. On everything, I love it. Can’t get enough. Ran that bass through a nice phatass fuzz. The DIY dist was getting a workout. If you haven’t run a reverb into a distortion on send, DO IT NOW. That shit makes drums fucking cry for mercy. the pad i recorded was pretty clean; slight bit of drive from the gain control on the fostex. While recording the pad I was tweaking the tape speed knob a bit occasional to achieve a sort of wobble effect remeniscient of a dying old tape machine. Although I like lots of distortion, I still like having a ‘clean’ mix. where all the elements have the definition i require. When recording with a lot of distortion, you need to be careful. most of the time you’ll be generating a lot of mid tones, so scooping them on instruments that don’t really need them is pretty important. also the highs may become a bit grating, rolling them off a bit may be necessary. I love tracking things with distortion, quite easy to create rich textures and layers with it. Although dynamics within a given overdub can be lost, in an overall mix there can be still quite a lot of dynamics. Using distortion in my  mixes is something i want continue to get better at. i somewhat imagine a whole world covered in fogs and mists of distortion, all different densities.

that is all.

In Teh STOOD FINAL PIC YO

Zoom 506II control mod/hack/bend thnigy

(UPDATE: I noticed that i didnt put a current limiting resistor on the led! please do so, so that you dont burn the damn thing out! put the resistor between the tip connection on the jack and the led. I used 220 ohm resistor, working okay now. also didnt mention but im usign a bright blue led. it what i had.)

but first:

LOL HAI! I haven’t posted in a while. I do that. not post. you know. sorry bout that.  i get really busy or distracted sometimes… or. yep. anyways.

so check it out.

I’ve owned a Zoom 506II bass multi effect pedal for a really long time. I use it a lot on drum machines and whatever. Sucks though because it lacks some realtime control, unless you buy the somewhat rare somewhat overpriced Zoom expression pedal.

Enter my mod. This mod adds a knob control for effects as well as a very simple CV input. This is not limited to just the 506II however, any zoom pedals with an expression input can use this mod. best part: you don’t even need to open up your zoom to perform this mod! when its been constructed just plug it into the control jack!!!………!!!!!!

What you will need:

• Stereo 1/4″ male plug, otherwise known as TRS (tip ring sleeve)
• some length of cable10k pot, preferably one with a switch on it, so when you turn it all the way down it clicks off.
• an LDR and LED or a premade ‘vactrol’
• CV input jack of your choice (1/4″, 1/8″,  banana [make sure you ground it though!])
• maybe some kind of case to put it in

Teh Schems, dawg.

So theres the schem. i whipped this up in a night with a case and everything. shouldnt take too long and the results are pretty satisfying. i’ve always liked the sound of the zoom, it is pretty crappy, but now tht i can tweak the sounds better in real time, its become such a more useful unit.  if im forgetting anything please leave a comment.. have fun!

ps. heres a pic of my mod.

The hand of doom.

Another blog about goings on.

I’ve been feeling rather down lately, so I’ve not been doing much. That is until about a week or two ago, I got some motivation to do some physical products for Ahlsowend, mainly, Ruin.

First, I have started to do a small run of cassette tapes. Each tracklist is differn’t focusing on the differn’t micro-genres of Ruin. Some are harshoise, some are ambient, some are industrial, some are even dancey. Somewhat runs the length of my body of work. They are all hand dubbed, so it takes a while to complete a tape for me, because I’ve got more things going on, but if any of you em411′ers who check the feed see this and want one, or anyone else who wants one reading this, leave a comment or email me at paladin_2 AT [NOSPAM ;] hotmail.com.

I’ve also been putting together some rather nifty cd cases using polysleeves. They look nice and sleek, and have some spray painted stencils on them. So far I’ve done some cases for two cd’s, “The Wastes/Loss” which is a nice rhythmic industrial ride and “Another Time” which is available at http://archive.org/details/ahlsowend, which is… well, CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF (nice rhythmic ambient stuff…)

I am also working on a design which might either be a  Ruin t-shirt, or an Ahlsowend t-shirt, depends what I decide. I am not too sure if I should go for a militant image with Ahlsowend… because, although I enjoy the aesthetic, others might not and it may pigeon hole Ahlsowend as some kind of militant industrial label, which it totaly is not.

So thats whats happening in my world. HOORAY.

A little Update

I don’t Blog as much as I should. I sometimes forget about this blog, which isn’t so awesome. but… let me get on with it.

I have started a record label called Ahlsowend, right now we’ve only released some Ruin stuff and a local band called The Faids. There is free music downloads at http://www.archive.org/details/ahlsowend and so far that is Ahlsowends only online web presence. We have also made some physical releases, the Faids’ release “Have you seen it?”, and several Ruin releases: Ahlsowend + (where Ahlsowend got its name), Signal To Noise Ratio, Special victims Unit (which can be downloaded for free at the archive.org page) and Cassette Coda.

I have also started an electronics collaboration with Das Wesen from http://www.em411.com. It is called, appropriately, RuinWesen. Wesen specializes in digital electronics with microcontrollers and the sort, where as I’m into the analog side of electronics. Together we will be creating interesting and unique instruments to create and mangle sounds. We are working on a webpage, so we can’t show you that yet. but…soon my friend, soon.

I have an account on the online community http://www.stickam.com/ the profile is http://www.stickam.com/fetaljuggler, theres a few live performance videos on there, if you need some ruin to watch . If you have a stickam account, add me!

I suppose that is all for now.

Whats up?!

Oh, I dunno, nothing.

 I don’t blog much do I? No, I don’t.

Right now I’m working on a Ruin boxset. 4 cd’s (Signal to Noise Ratio, Special Victims Unit, Cassette Coda and Ahlsowend +) in a nice wooden box with some stickers, newsletter and a ‘Ruin on Ruin’ pamphlet (something like a catalogue, or outline of the current Ruin releases.)

There is a split release with Ryan Jamieson AKA Black; it will be released on cd soon. Soon will probably be in several months… judging by my motivation. My half of the split is called “Buried in Rust” a 20 minute long offspring of Ahlsowend, taking the modular gene pool even further with massive and gritty textures abound.

 I don’t remember if I have mentioned this before, but Danny Alexander is making a documentary about Ruin, it’s been worked on now for several months, but will need more time.  The documentary is centered on Buried in Rust and Solid State Destroyer and will be released on DVD with Solid State Destroyer. Expect some insight into Ruin, expect to not care.

Solid State Destroyed, if I haven’t already talked about it here, will be Ruin’s Official LP Debut. A work in progress since Prevert which began life in 2006. If I were to tell you some genres I would say Post-Industrial (as in Post-Industrial Records, the label founded by Throbbing Gristle) and Ambient/Ambient Noise. A very differn’t sound from the other Ruin releases, barring Prevert. This is Prevert’s successor. A finely honed katana of texture and sound, polished with the blood and sweat oflowing from electronic circuitry.
Solid State Destroyer’s tracks have been done for some time. I have been contemplating them, and perhaps getting them ready for mastering. Cover has not yet been completed; but there is a concept. A brutal and raw concept.

As always there are many ideas in my head for new albums and recordings. I will now breifly share some with you *.

Cassette Coda II: following on the heels of the success of Cassette Coda comes Cassette Coda II. More of the original recorded jam tapes that were the source of CC I.

Unnamed Ambient/Rhythmic/Minimal/Noise album: I know I want to record it onto a 8-track cassette recorder I got recently… (8 track as in that outdated cassette format, not a multitrack recorder.) Heres the awesome part… ITS QUAD! oh yeah, QUAD! so imma gonna make an album and put it on DVD with perhaps some visuals to go along with it. I want it to be like my old recordings. Grungey, dingey, dark, textured, using hifi gear like radios and record players to add layers of static and texture along side the modular synth and some drum machines.

HazMat: This one is already finished, just needs some artwork to go with it. It is a 2 peice LP the first being a noisey guitar peice, made to mock rock guitaring and a ‘anti-music’ peice, meant to breakdown my perceptions of music, as if through a magickal spell. Both peices are more like Rituals than songs. Also this will be the first release of mine to be touted as ‘Audio Terrorism’, meant to push peoples buttons a bit. Seeing if by labelling at the source something is just believed to be true or taken as fact… Seeing what sort of persona I can create in peoples minds. This idea of media manipulation was inspired by Throbbing Gristle and the early Norwegian Black Metal bands. We are yet to see how far I will take it.

mm.. that is all for now. thanks.

*Ideas subject to change/non-existance.

Delays, new music, maybe more.

So, It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged… CelibacyClub pointed that out to me…i dunno, i’ve been pretty busy with work, and various small electronics projects.

 Some new music being released:

Signal to Noise Ratio

An EP made up of reel to reel recordings. Minimal drone with rhythms.

Special Victims Unit

Another EP, but this time of harsh minimal noise!

 both these can be obtained by emailing me: paladin_2@hotmail.com for instructions. i use paypal.

heres a sample from signal to noise ratio:
http://ruinsite.com/storage/Ruin%20-3-%20Lust%20for%20Death.mp3

 here is a sample from special victims unit:
http://ruinsite.com/storage/Ruin%20-1-%20You%20Fucks.mp3
I’m also getting two more Cd’s ready to release, one is a rerelease actualy, with added material; that one is Ahlsowend +, the other is Cassette Coda, my first full length … EVER. those will be coming in the future..

Also, I made a modular synth for Scott Bruzenak of Astroid Power-Up!… pics and samples here!:

http://ruinsite.com/storage/mod4.jpg
http://ruinsite.com/storage/mod3.jpg
http://ruinsite.com/storage/mod2.jpg
http://ruinsite.com/storage/mod1.jpg
http://ruinsite.com/storage/modtest.mp3
http://ruinsite.com/storage/audiofuck.mp3

 It contains an osc, osc/lfo, drum synth, Pll, buffer/inverter, comparator, VCLPF, VCDistortion and a mixer.

… i think thats all, small update. more news soon…possibly, if i dont forget.

REX-50 Demo

So a little while back, a bud pal guy from em411 wanted to know about the Rex-50 by Yamaha. A nice little digital effect unit forgotten by the ages. So I quickly made a demo to show him some of my favorite features of this unit.

 I really recommend looking into this thing, its small, cheap and AWESOME. usualy you can find at least one on ebay. its a forgotten gem… here is the demo: (its about 9megs)

http://ruinsite.com/storage/rexdemo.mp3

Fostex 260 fix

Well hello there,Today I will be telling you the story of the Broken Fostex 260 Multitrack recorder that arrived at my house broken. The fostex was working, EI it lit up and the faders and everything did something (i was testing it with noise at the time) but the tape did not transport… SO i was kinda angry… in the listing on ebay it said it was in good working condition… maybe this was so but shipping must have messed it up than.So, i leave it for the night and come back the next afternoon, plop it down on my work bench, unscrew the bottom… than realized i couldnt get to the tape mechanism from the bottom… so i had to unscrew the screws holding the top in place. removed all of the knobs and fader caps that were fastened to the faceplate (which arnt many, most are recessed underneath the faceplate) and took off the top… everything look fine on the inside, no dust or anything, so i took a look at the belt, looked okay until i tugged at it a bit with a pair of pliers (just a bit, because i know belts are usualy very brittle and not strong at all) and the thing came apart. So… im again a little pissed… take some time off because i cant think of what to do… THAN IT HITS ME. use a belt from an old tape machine. GREAT. So i track down an old machine in my basement, it was an old portable Sony recorder, the one you would use for recording lectures or what have you. took the belt out (its a bit differnt than the one in the fostex… thin and not wide…). match it up to the fostex belt mechanism and it seems to be the right size! i put it back on.. and VOILA! it works!

While i had the machine open i decide i would look for any other problems… nothing much else, the jacks weren’t alwys making contact, so i resoldered those and it works like new. awesome (now i need to test if it records).

DIY Bass/Guitar Shmeetar thing.

I recently finished making a guitar… this wasn’t a ‘new’ project. ive been working on it off and on for about a year now; maybe even more. at first i wanted to make a fretless bass/guitar type thing which would be used sort of as a cello… my interest waned on this initial idea.. a year later, i begin work again on the guitar after being very bored one day. I sanded down the guitar… and got lots of laquer and paint fumes in my lungs, so… tip #1 always wear a dust mask of some kind, i dont know how many of you wouldn’t but ALWAYS do it. I even doing when soldering for extended periods of time now.

In the orriginal phase of working on the guitar…(when i wanted it to be a cello, i sanded the neck down poorly and as a result it was not a smooth surface, there was lots of ridges… i sanded too much aroudn the frest. also i hacked apart the body of the guiar (it was a gibson copy)… bad idea. this would come to haunt me later.

again, jump ahead a year to where i was sanding without a mask… i get it all stripped of paint and stain it. relaquer it. im not impressed by the way it looks, looks hacked up, which it was. in a nice stroke of luck a friend brings by a guitar that he doesnt use, its missign some hardware but it will do well in this project. it’s missing the tuning heads and apparently the pickups don’t work…

after being put off from the shitty outcome, i realize the guitar the guy dropped off is perfect to use, the body, neck, pickups, etc. so i have a big burst of energy in this project and sand it down (with a mask of course this time), paint it matte black, install the new tuning heads and somewhat repair the pickups. it was laughable inside… the reason why it didnt work was, one the jack wasn’t properly grounded. not everything was connected to ground. the volume pot wasnt hooked up, and the pickup selector switches also were tied to ground so when you tried to turn on the pickup it would actualy short to ground too! what idiocy!

What the design turned to of the guitar was a more baritone guitar i guess. i wanted to use it to make low and heavy riffs basicaly. metal stuff. i opted to go with a A string on bass, low B on guitar, and an E and A. so it would have a very heavy sound. also, yes 4 strings.

The orriginal bridge on this guitar was… CRAP. i dont remember what kind he called it, something with a “B” “bogsworth” maybe? it was a bridge with a whammy on it. anyways. it was missing the whammy bar and the spring it needed to bring it back to the orriginal state. so if it got pressed down, the guitar would go out of tune by a semitone. this wasn’t good because it tended to stick in that position and not return back.

got the guitar somewhat set up… sounded pretty good but constantly went out of tune after playing it for about 30 seconds!

so… went to my local guitar shop today and talked with the people there for a while. apparently there has to be a ’scale’ for the guitar… and it should be the overall length from the nut to the bridge. this is news to me, since im not a guitarist. it also apparently needs to be the same distance from the nut to the 12th fret as the 12th fret to the bridge. and this gutiar did not have that. one reason why it wouldnt stay in tune. and two, the bridge was horrific. they said to make the overall scale 24 3/4″…

they suggest i buy a new bridge, and show me a bass bridge. it was relativley cheap, so i baught it. also got a new strap peg, gotta have one if im gonna play metal.

get home, take the strings off, installed the new bridge with the measurements in mind. restrung the guitar… and! it works! excellent, doesnt go out of tune horribly now! now on to further fixing the pickups and internal electronics…. oh! i forgot to mention, whoever wired this guitar up before also made the tone pot wrong, used a way too big of a cap and also grounded one the free lug on the potentiometer so it would act as tone AND volume…sheesssshhh.

I changed what the switches did… (i think they were using it to sort of phase with the two pickups using the + and – of the pickups, but of course it didnt end up that way for them… so i changed it so the switches turn on and off the pickups and the two pots are pickup volumes. now, get that all finished…. go into my studio, plug it in and! WHAMMMM sounds awesome! soo fucking heavy. tuning is nice and stable now. i can’t wait to record with it.

ill get pics up when i take some, its very ‘metal’ looking, all matte black, and chrome accessories.

so, all in all, it took about…50$ to build. about 18$ for the strings (a string cost the most at 9$), and 24$ for the hardware: new nut, bridge, strap peg. and we’ll say the remainder was misc supplies, spray paint, sand paper, etc.

the majority of time spent working with the new guitar body (which by the way ISNT the gibson copy…) which i consider is the time it took, really was about 3 days. not bad! its a nice guitar for gigs, because i dont care too much about smashing it up.

My New Paia Modules!

So, i got a 8700 computer, a QUASH and another powersupply off ebay recently. im very happy.but heres the problem… whoever soldereed this, for one, is very sloppy and for two, hacked it up in a weird way. specificaly on the powersupply. the schematics weren’t followed, and no notes were left. so i need to fix everythign on there before i power it up to make sure its going to work properly.

the 8700 i got is the lowest you can get basicaly. no cassette interface.. no muse1 eprom just the monitor. so its NEAR useless, haha. ill have to try and find a way to get the cassette interface eprom… maybe someone out there at some paia mailing list has one and can also copy them, high hopes. but im going to try.

i’ve already tried with paia, and although they are EXTREMELY helpful, they didn’t have the eproms or any programs, the 8700 has been out of production since the early-mid 80s.

the guy i baught it off said he used the modules to sequence his moog… and i cant figure out how he did that, since theres no connections to the 8700 computer at all except power!… ho hum….

so i have alot of work ahead of me. i also need to decide if im going to make a new case for the computer or put it into my suitcase modular… not too sure yet.