Less Wet More Dry
Another go through Jer’s wet/dry rig setup. Always a lot of fun
Compunction Dysfunction
Bar One
Hulchy
Dogpile Of Chaos
NWS Intermezzo
Rain Wrap
Topic - Recording
2022
Free Time
Picked up an old Mesa Boogie Mark IIb (1981) that needed quite a bit of work. Managed to get it back into good-enough shape for a Wenj. New reverb tank and probably more caps and resistors to replace. Still sounds pretty cool for an amp that appeared to be stored in a barn for last 20 years.
3N
Sword Cop
Wafer Thin Mint
Bad Jack
81 Stun
Wet and Dry
Jeremy set up his ensemble of amps in a wet/dry configuration. Effects only going through the kitchen sink leaving the Z-Wreck all dry. Was a lot of fun to try out and I think it sounds fantastic.
Abochon
Illative
Nager
Astrut
Wakerife
Isogeny
Krimmer
Post Date
Finally posting from last month. First foray with the little mesa I believe.
Deliquesce
Sumgumption
Dongle Dinger
Bastardo
Random Conversations
Two weeks in a row! What a streak. Played the Mill City guitar through the Z Wreck Jr. again. Quite a match in my opinion. Growly. Brought over pedalboard Rev 219. Recent additions include a BOSS OC-5 octave pedal that I found used at Lavonne music. Impossible to find since the chip shortage started. Also picked up the Fairfield Circuitry ~900 fuzz (about 900) from El Diablo my all time favorite music store.
A Brief Excursion
Didn’t have a ton of time which might have been a good thing. Get right down to business. Just showed up with a guitar and played through Jer’s Z Wreck Jr. Great amp. Jer laid down some killer grooves. Good time now matter how brief.
Remeant
Interdendritic
It did get loud
Back in action! It might get loud? No, it definitely got loud. First night for the Mill City guitar to see the Sanctum Sonorum. Red amp, red guitar. Unplanned, but welcome.
And a happy Wenj to all!
Ruly
Alectryomachy
Kilderkin
Unruly
Levo
One even challenge to get something written. Not the greatest. Not the worst. Drums still challenging for me with this setup. Soldier on.
Levo
Finalize
This was an old uncompleted doodle I found in the recording directory of a USB drive. Just cleaning up. Had a good start on something. Think I did this last spring break (2021).
Finalize
2021
Moments of Brilliance
Another great gathering. With moments of brilliance. LOL. At least much fun was had. Dave in town again for an all-to-brief jam session. Again, so much fun to have actual bass in the room. It always goes way too fast though. Not much planning, just a lot of playing.
Pinch Pants
Goatlike
Just One More Nip
Xanadont
Scuffed
Foggy To
WheelHouse
Replaced the old EV-12L tank of a speaker in the Mark III with a new Eminence Wheelhouse. The neutron star of an amp lost about 16 pounds and will no longer rip your arm off while trying to pick it up. It remains heavy, but manageable. Think it sounds absolutely fantastic. Maybe a little less in the high end, but not in a bad way.
Also learned what Avunculus means thanks to Jeremy. Not the most inspired playing, but always fun. Lose about 10 points in blood pressure every time.
Cantanqueurin
Trying to get back into doing some home recordings again. Spend a lot of time messing with programming the drums. Just not that speedy at it yet. Still a lot of fun.
Mesa the 3rd
First night with the old Mesa Boogie Mark III from 1985. Black dot special. It sure can get loud, but can also be quite reasonable. Jeremy on point with the naming once again.
Frangible
HighwayMirage
LaBreaTreaclePit
Marzipan
NogginIt
Rootless
Blue Angel
First night with the Mesa Boogie Blue Angel. It’s way louder than I thought it would be. Has some nice punch. Add some RAT type distotion and it can get down right nasty, but still holds together. Sounds pretty incredible. I love all the amps!
Did some experimenting with different sounds and levels. Reverb is pretty drippey when cranked up. Has a nice natural growl when turning the mids way up. Overal a great little (heavy) amp.
Wrecked
Jer got a new amp! Very exciting. Got to try it out. Just a King Tone miniFuzz used once in a while. Otherwise it was guitar into amp. Fantastic.
FourToes
TheWahl
Tatterdemalion
Dromedary
WaxyWalrus
Careful
The time goes by so quickly when the jamz are on. A few hilarious ones in here. Always a good time.
Mordelae
Hhhhah
Hans
Vlad
Ingestion Relief
Break Time Over
Life gets in the way, but we return triumphant! Sometimes it takes a while to get warmed up and going, but eventually the good stuff comes out. Not in chronological order. I need to document these sooner after they happen and not three months later.
Photoautotrophic
ThePointyEnd
LeadOut
SuperDuperNovae
D4E
Death Wears Tweed
Jer comes up with the best titles. Very under appreciated. This must have been the Princeton tweed in use with some heavy distortion. Classic amp. Scary noises.
Interspersed
Death Wears Tweed
Locus
Baekwards
Subduction
Is this August?
Knocked a whiskey glass off the Mod84 we were so loud. Highly impressive.
Broad In Beam
Octans
Tumbler Toppler
Impending Autumn
Phat Albert
Meeting of the Minds
First time in a long time! We all got together for a weekend jam. Dave zoomed into town with BASS. Much fun was had. Hours of music was played some of which is posted below. Prolific! Unfortunately I lost the actual order in which this all occurred. No matter.
Hall of Mirrors
Gossamer Threads
Dos Digits
Sweaty indeed
It was hot in there. I think this was the first night with the new/old Swart from 2007. Very cool. That was the only thing that was cool. Everything else was hot. Did I mention it was hot?
Number 36
Got Bent
Regale Ya
Swarty
Low School, The Musical
This one was a lot of fun. I brought over my Swart Mod 84 this time and just let’er rip. Hit it heavy with some fx tonight as well. The ambient stuff seems to turn out better. At least in this context. Some may disagree. Lay it on thick and see what happens!
Jer’s drumming was on point. My playing wasn’t half bad. I think this may be one of my favorite jams in quite some time.
Crunch your Sole
Back to somewhat regular jams again. Brought the old BC Audio No. 8 amp for more gain. Sounded great, and would be better if my timing was a little more on. Did spend 2 hours in the dentist chair earlier that day, so I’ll use that as an excuse. Not that I’m just rusty actually playing in real life with another human. Still some gems to be had in there I think. Even if you have to dig a little.
Extrude, Wenj the return
Extrude at jeremyulstad.com
The first Wednesday night jam in over a year. Used Jeremy’s new 3rd power spanky amplifier for guitar gloriousness. So good to get together again.
Prelude
Occlude
Illude
Almude
Quaalude
Ides of April
Had a ton of fun with this one. There might actually be some good nuggets in there.
About Ninjam
Ninjam allows people to jam over the internet by introducing whole measure of delay. We are hearing each other basically a whole measure behind. If you turn off the metronome, like we did, then it’s an arbitrary amount of time behind. Amazing that it works at all.
Firm Avocado
Fresh Jabs
Hurled
Trying to get things set up again for easier recording in the office. This was the little test. A bunch of keyboards parts in play. A little octave down on one guitar part. Some clean guitar with a bunch of delay courtesy of the meet maude.
Hurled
February, 2021 MFB JaMz
No snappy names this time, just the jamz man.
About Ninjam
Ninjam allows people to jam over the internet by introducing whole measure of delay. We are hearing each other basically a whole measure behind. If you turn off the metronome, like we did, then it’s an arbitrary amount of time behind. Amazing that it works at all.
T1
T2
T3
JustF
Here we have an experiment with some Fuzz. Was having maybe too much self-indulgent fun.
New21Jamz
First jam of the new year. I think there was a marathon one in there.
About Ninjam
Ninjam allows people to jam over the internet by introducing whole measure of delay. We are hearing each other basically a whole measure behind. If you turn off the metronome, like we did, then it’s an arbitrary amount of time behind. Amazing that it works at all.
The Clump
Spectral
UpandOut
Got a new Swart amplifier with some really liquid tremolo going on. Had to record a little loop type thing I had going.
2020
- A little cleaner audio all around
- Some improved playing
- A few neat grooves
DaveZDay
Dave birthday jam night! I think we did okay. Can’t remember because I’m posting this weeks and weeks laters. Totally forgot to document anything about this. It shall remain a mystery…
Oh, and I don’t think any of us were being overly forthcoming on the names.
About Ninjam
Ninjam allows people to jam over the internet by introducing whole measure of delay. We are hearing each other basically a whole measure behind. If you turn off the metronome, like we did, then it’s an arbitrary amount of time behind. Amazing that it works at all.
Holidaze
Pre holiday wenj with the boys. Virtually of course. Possibly one the best yet? Maybe some of the longest.
It will be great to play in person some day soon.
About Ninjam
Ninjam allows people to jam over the internet by introducing whole measure of delay. We are hearing each other basically a whole measure behind. If you turn off the metronome, like we did, then it’s an arbitrary amount of time behind. Amazing that it works at all.
EntMoot
On this episode…
Commence Decanting
Grunk
Marathong
Boo
Went with some dissonance and some fuzz for a Halloween inspired track this time. Recording ended up being a little noisy. I’ll say it adds to the grit just so I don’t have to figure out what happened.
Used a mix of amps and guitars. All recorded DI though. No microphones were harmed. Did pick up some impulse responses from Own Hammer which I really liked. Figured out that reaper has an IR loader built right in. Just use the ReaVerb pluging and load your own file. Then set the dry to 0 and use the wet as a volume of sorts. Works great. No werid plugins needed.
Glide
Ran out of motivation and time working on this one. Had the best intentions to make a longer piece. Schedules were not going to allow for such a thing this week, so this is all there is.
Seem to be getting more comfortable with the recording part of things. Doesn’t take up as much brain bandwidth. Final mix feels a little off still, but getting there.
Played on the awesome BC Audio No 8 through the two notes topedo captor in to reaper. Getgood drums for the drum track.
Cobra Chai
In honor of completing the first season of Cobra Kai I have composed a completely cheesy piece mostly devoid of any musical intelligence. Recorded direct from Mesa into the Two Notes Torpedo with some Getgood drums
Recording direct is fun, but has it’s drawbacks. There is a tiny bit of latency which threw me off a little while using a delay and trying to stay in time. Interesting to remember, but not something to be overly concerned about. Show some adaptability.
Lord of the Flings
Welcome to the next installment.
About Ninjam
Ninjam allows people to jam over the internet by introducing whole measure of delay. We are hearing each other basically a whole measure behind. If you turn off the metronome, like we did, then it’s an arbitrary amount of time behind. Amazing that it works at all.
Serpentine
Who Dat?
ZZY
Pholder
Hit record and let her roll. 42 minutes and several interruptions later managed to get about 2 minutes worth of something not completely terrible.
Recorded with EJ strat into the rectoverb with a little fatbee for flavor on the solo guitar portion.
MFB United
Jeremy took the helm again and split up the long meandering jam into edible chunks. This was a last minute jam that started with some technical difficulties. Mostly just my issues. Much fun was had in the end. It’s a bit of a time-warp.
Ninjam allows people to jam over the internet by introducing whole measure of delay. We are hearing each other basically a whole measure behind. If you turn off the metronome, like we did, then it’s an arbitrary amount of time behind. Amazing that it works at all.
MFB Recordings
Ninjam The Second
Many thanks to Jeremy to editing down the master, naming, and posting these. I’m just copying here for redundancy.
Dave on bass, Jer on drums, and my scratchy guitar.
Ninjam allows people to jam over the internet by introducing whole measure of delay. We are hearing each other basically a whole measure behind. If you turn off the metronome, like we did, then it’s an arbitrary amount of time behind. Amazing that it works at all.
The Reek
Spent a couple mornings getting used to recording Neural DSP amp sim guitars in Reaper. Also used GetGood Drums for the first time. This was a lot of fun.
Ninjam Trials
Had been meaning to post about this for quite a while. Jeremy and I had been getting together weekly for really laid back jam sessions at his super cool sound-proof home studio. Then the Covid hit and with it quarantine. The jams have sadly been absent for quite some time now. According to his site March 4th, 2020 was the last. Until now.
Enter Ninjam. Brought to us by the same people that created Reaper, the most excellent recording software.
oLoP The Loop, Mark I
First result of trying to record more frequently. Often times at night I get little grooving loops going that are cool, but completely miss recording them. Disk space is cheap, so I’ll try hitting record and just let it go. If there’s something cool. Cool. If not. Cool.
Friedman into BC Audio with a little delay from an echo rec.
Sloothing
Fun sunday morning with Neural DSP plugins and silently recording to Reaper. Really amateur job on the mix, still a lot of fun.
Quiet Looping
Quick loop made with the Swart amplifier. Used both ribbon and dynamic microphones I believe. Can’t remember what guitar or what else was going on as I’m documenting it 3 weeks after the fact.
Uncontrolled Fury
First recording using reaper since the very very early days. Decided to switch from Cubase. Spent the majority of the time figuring out how to do things again, so the playing itself is a bit lacking. Evenutally I ran out of patience and called it done for the day. Maybe worth going back for a revisit at some point.
MFB III (collab)
Another COVID-19 related collaboration. With all of us stuck at home it’s a really fun challenge. Jeremy hit us with a more traditional drum groove. Dave cranked in some awesome bass. Guitar again on me.
Thrusty Thursday (collab)
Due to the current circumstances it seemed like a really good idea to do some remote collaboration. Dave on bass, Jeremy on Drums, and myself on the guitar. Jer hit us with a cool shuffle groove on the drums with an odd time signature as a challenge. Accepted!
This was our first all around attempt at this I believe. Dave and I had tried one earlier. More to come hopefully! Very fun.
DSP
Experimenting with VST plugin guitar amps. Might have gone a little over the top to start with. It is unfamiliar so the sounds were a little harder to dial in. Did most of the recording before 8am on a Sunday though. The flexibility of recording silently is a big advantage.
Exported out to Ogg and mp3 just for fun. Can’t tell any difference through crappy speakers at least. Might need some good cans to get a read on it.
PB Jamz the Second
Another fun little jam, same night as PB Jamz I. This guitar sound was brought to you buy the letter Friedman guitar into the Beetronics Fatbee pedal.
PB Jamz the First
Goofing around with a little jam idea on Easter Sunday. Started using the beats sequencer again and wrote the bass line first. Guitar last. Could it be better? Sure. Was it still fun? Yes.
Guitar recorded with Friedman into Mesa Mark V with a load of Slo reverb. Bass was same Friedman guitar using the EHX Bass9 pedal.
Opus 2, Number 14
Fun little jam using the volca beats for drums. Tried making some drum switches on the fly, but ended up not sounding dramatically different. Hardly different at all. Still, fun experiments.
Opus 2, Number 13
Rambling jam with the new Korg Volca Beats and Bass that I picked up on the cheap. Sequencers and synthesizers have always been a point of interest. A whole lot of fun to mess around with. First attempt and weaving some guitar into the space. It’s a little awkward.
Opus 2, Number 11
This is a little idea that had been rolling around in my head for the last week or so. Still feels like something that is familiar. Funny such a happy sound can come out in dark times.
Opus 2, Number 10
Clean little etude type piece with hybrid picking. Clean channel of the Mesa with Friedman guitar. Had meant to switch guitars for something with a little warmer tone, but forgot. Demedash delay prominently featured on this one.
Opus 2, Number 9
Jeremy has been pointing me to lots of resources on recording techniques. Trying some of them out here. Mostly eq’s and mic preamp plugins and the like. Moar Toans.
MemoryShack
First track of the year! Starting off right.
Picked up a little Kork Volca Beats sequencer. First attempt at using it and of course had to try an odd time signature. A little messy, but still fun. If listening through headphones you’ll be sure to be sickened by the copious amounts of panning.
2019
Opus 2, Number 5
Another in the looping series. Intention was to change setup to make two tracks and ended up only playing. Not a bad thing overall. Leaves the experimentation for later and anticipation.
Opus 2, Number 4
Quick looping experiment. Built the loop first then hit record and doodled over top. Sounds okay, but the levels are off. In real life it sounded fine. On the recording the loop is very quiet. Might try recording the loop to a second track some how. Maybe different amp or DI?
On this day in history my messy pedal board looked like this
Da Feelers
Day off! Quick morning fun with a kinda strange beat. Strat through amp1. No other fx besides some delay in post. Switch to the PRS Vela some time through for no particular reason. Need more time to really nail something cool, but this is still a tonne of funne.
Tin Six
My entry into the Hans Zimmer school of pop instrumentals. Messing about with learning Halion SE in Cubase and wondering if I could get guitar to mix with a synth.
Since it was a nice quiet Sunday morning I used the Torpedo to record the Bad Cat silently. Combo of pedals used: Yellow Cake Furry Burrito, JAM Rattler, Keeley Red Dirt.
Crevice
Post dating this as it was recorded some time ago. This was straight into the No. 8 with some delay from a Boss DM-2w for the second part. Captured with the e609 played on the PRS Vela.
Forbidden Toppings
Resuming recording. Sam’s baseball season complete which means I should have nights free again. Hand mostly healed up from whatever injury I caused it. Almost 60% capacity which is about 40% better than it was, but still 110% less than the old days.
Recorded using the Charvel and the BC Audio No. 8 into a 10" Eminence RF10C. Some delay from a BOSS DM-2w I believe. Captured with Sennheiser e609 into Scarlet Focusrite 2i2. DAW is Cubase Elements 10. Drums were some standard Groove Agent thing. Does it really matter?
Sun on Toes
Trying to get back into the swing of things. The point of this one was to try and solve a major point of frustration I have with modern DAW setups. There is no really good way to alternate time signatures, or do anything crazy like have a bunch of different time signatures, or do anything creative at all. It quickly becomes a nightmare to manage in the software. A quick internet search yields the typical “Why would you want to do that?” answers. It’s no different in the computer science forums. Growing up listening to lots of prog metal/rock has caused me to have some really weird timing issues. I generally have a difficult time sticking to 4/4, so this is has been a sore spot since I started this journey.
Ram Shackle
This started out as an experiment with microphone placement, but after a few sweeps through I liked what was there and turned it into my weekly recording. Used both the Sennheiser e609 and my new Golden Age Project R1 (MkIII) Ribbon mic.
Also new is the amp used for recording. Traded a bunch of pedals for a Marshall DSL20HR. One of the best values in amps I have to admit. If there were a sound per dollar measurement it would be hard to beat this one. Recorded with Frankenstrat directly into the Marshall. Added some fx after the fact to the high guitar part. Other than that, nothing was done. Not even an EQ. Could have probably used a little to brighten things up a tad, but it’s Friday and I’ve got kids to run around!
Spring Time
Spring Time! back at it.
Been super busy with, waddya call it? OUTSIDE Amazing, I know.
This was just a little jam with myself. Trying to get back in the habit of recording something more frequently. Strat through bad cat for guitar with a little help from the Brother’s pedal for a faux tube screamer type sound. Same ol’ bass plugin for bass. Drums courtesy of Cubase in 6/8 time.
First Collaboration
First collaboration effort! Dave played the bass, I played guitar and GarageBand played the drums. What could be better? Not bad for being a few hundred miles apart. Thanks to modern technology like DropBox it wasn’t too hard. Not sure what will happen in the future should we try to get tricky with things. Overall I give us an A for effort on the first one.
On my side this was recorded on the new PRS Vela with a Chase Bliss Brother’s pedal into the Bad Cat plugged into the Two Notes Torpedo Captor. Whew. I’ll get the deets from Dave and hopefully update.
Drop This
Quick little experiment with Drop C tuning. Still need some work on the monitoring situation. This was recorded with the Charvel on the Bad Cat with some pedals for dirt.
Evil Feline
Sound sample of the new Bad Cat which is the same as the old Bad Cat, except it’s different. Follow me?
I’d still like to get better at recording the cleaner guitar sounds. To my ear it’s much better in person. Maybe that’s just the nature of things, but I’d like to try and get closer to that. This was all recorded with the Sennheiser e609. No fx used at all.
Smudge in the Eye
Back from spring break and behind on the weekly goal of recording something. Little jazzier type ditty. Some moments that might be worth expanding upon. Recorded half with captor and half with e609. All on the Frankenstrat through the Bad Cat.
F Toll
Quick practice playing in time. Nothing fancy. Double tracked guitars with the Charvel. Added some bass. Tried a little to tweak the EQ a little. Everything played directly into the Two Notes Torpedo. Used the Bad Cat as the guitar amp, bass was DI using an Ampeg model in software.
Natural Savior
Don’t let Dana record while sick. Fighting a cold and it seemed like a good idea to keep the fun train rolling. Maybe a bit too long.
Recorded entirely with Frankenstrat again on a combination of amps, but all going through the Torpedo Captor for silent recording since it was getting late. Mix always ends up bass heavy. Not mixing with headphones would probably help.
Seemingly There
Converted the cab Jeremy built into a closed back cab. Then had to go about testing it out. Performed on the Frakenstrat and 50% Frankencab. Other 50% was direct into the Two Notes Torpedo.
Recordings
A few of my associates (Jeremy and Dave) and I have agreed to a weekly challenge of capturing a performlance by means of recording to the computer or other media. Here are the results of the experiments.
Will try to make any notes of what was used to record or the rationale behind said recording. Might be a lost cause as some of these happened long ago…
Unless otherwise noted all audio tracks here were written and recorded by me.
Recordings
A few of my associates (Jeremy and Dave) and I have agreed to a weekly challenge of capturing a performlance by means of recording to the computer or other media. Here are the results of the experiments. Also, now include, new and exciting… Jam sessions when we actually manage to get together in person. Always better.
Will try to make any notes of what was used to record or the rationale behind said recording. Might be a lost cause as some of these happened long ago…
Opus 2, Number 8
Pretty little piece. Still need to get my fingers working a little better on this one. Hard for a no-wrist guy. First recording after getting my favorite amp (BC Audio No. 8) back.
Darn Torpedo
Final mix is loud for some reason. The drums at about 1 minute it still crack me up. This was the first recording using a Two Notes Torpedo Captor. Could account for the odd mix level.
Accidental Jury
Not a fully formed idea. Possibly for later use.
Table Spider
Fun spatial track. Never a bad time when making noise. Used the Karma Suture Silicon fuzz pedal fairly cranked up to generate the feedback. Used a regular old strat for the guitar on this one even though it sounds thicker to my ears.
Distortion Testing
Testing out mic placement and some different distortion pedals. Again nothing noted, so no idea what was used to make any of these sounds a month later typing this. Thanks former me.
Cracklin'
Buried a beautiful arpeggiated backing line with a heavy helping of loud lead guitar.
What a mess
We’ll just call it loose instead of sloppy?
Space Hat
Fun with double tracking guitars again.
One Shot
Ran out of time. One shot to record everything. A big blob of single take.
2018
New Tubes
Apparently I put new tubes in something. Probably an amp. Was just messing about trying to hear a difference from??
Primus Like
Little bass only rip off of a Primus lick. Not even sure if I’m in the right key.
Ram Road
I think this had something to do with speaker testing. There was an Eminence copperhead in my 2x10. I took it out and put in an Eminence RF10C which is a ceramic Red Fang in a 10" version. This was supposed to be some test in the different sounds, but I didn’t do anything to designate what was what, so who knows?
Crowded
A ton of stuff going on at the same time. Most of it not that impressive. Kind of a mess of a recording. Very crowded
Reorg
Having fun with some different sounds in Cubase. Synth and filters on the recorded guitar and bass parts. This might mark the initial appearance of the bass guitar.
CleanDitty
Simple finger style type etude.
Five
First recording using reaper if I remember correctly. The strat was pretty new to me at the time.
DrummerBoi
Some double tracking with guitars it sounds like. Lots of work with drums. Not sure what I was on about?
Tone Test
Initial tone test for some new pickups I had just installed. First real time trying to record anything. Used the ditto looper for “backing” noise.