publishing give ‘em hell, harry / strung out (inri051)

i'm jumping ahead just a wee bit, so i can get a better handle on the shape of things to come. this was an idea i was working out in the fall of 2001. inri032...

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i don't have an exact date for these files, so i'm picking november 11th. as others were, i was concerned about the president abolishing the magna carta after 9/11 and congress doing little more than helping him do it. however, this was meant to be a more encompassing project that combined harsh noise with political sampling that was pushing an anarchist agenda. the name of the project (ftaa) was chosen as a pun - it could either be the free trade agreement of the americas or about fueling true anarchy in the americas. i ended up dropping the sampling aspect and just focusing on the noise for the project's completion (which is the ftaa release in mid 2004: jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa ), so i'm going to upload these two pilot tracks (with the sampling in tact) as an introductory single and place them in this more topical chronological space.

in hindsight, i think there's something profound about juxtaposing the fair trade movement with the 9/11 attacks as, looking back, it really sucked the life out of the movement.

created in the fall of 2001. resequenced and rereleased on sept 7, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:

j - noise generators, cool edit, sequencers, guitars (electric, nylon, acoustic), mandolin, effects & processing, digital wave editing, sampling, production

released november 11, 2001

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/give-em-hell-harry-strung-out



1) this one was built up out of the sequencer/sampler in cool edit, which allows a user to create a melodic passage out of harsh noise. if the sample is particularly harsh (as this is) the sequencing can get a little messy, which is a bonus.....

the spoken word part at the end is some free trade protester on cbc. created in the fall of 2001



2) so, the pun here is that it's a lot of guitars going off out of tune, representing how the government is stringing us to dry by taking away our rights in the (not so) chaotic aftermath of 9/11. one of the samples is william de la hunt; i did not record who the other person is. created in the fall of 2001

re-uploading most of thru (inri070)

1) written late 2000 & early 2001. initial instrumentation and render completed mar 7, 2014. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. final render completed on april 27, 2014.



2) written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. final render completed on july 4, 2014.



3) written early 2001. this render is actually from may 13, 2001.



4) written june, 1998. reimagined june, 2001; the render is from june 18, 2001.



5) written late 2001. this render is actually from sept 22, 2001; it was very mildly edited for continuity on october 1, 2014. note that it was put through some reverb at that time.

so, i'm going to run through the rabit stuff this morning fairly quickly. inri029 is still in progress, but there are some reasons why i want to jump ahead a little, to get a better handle on how things are going to end up presenting themselves. i think this is likely going to be a relatively quick push through to about early 2003, with a few loose ends for me to get through over the next few months. so, it's going to flood a little...

1

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/me-myself-and-the-time-i-thought-this-was-a-good-idea-2

the cynicide is running longer but it won't be more than another week - i just need to add bass parts that are already written, mix (that's the length) and write a fade out. i'm not going to add much further commentary (which is the reason i'm sending these links out, as an opportunity to allow you to request changes) to what's already here, so i'll be taking jon out for the remaining rabit updates.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/to-spin-inside-dull-aberrations-2

j

publishing me, myself and the time i thought this was a good idea (inri049)

i've been hard at work on a very vertically complex piece for over a month now and am taking a bit of a break this morning to jump ahead just a little. this is next in the list. it's the first track to come out of a project i shared with a singer through the end of 2001 and the first part of 2002.

none of the versions here are final, it's just a lot of demos, but i find all of them worthwhile in their own ways.

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rabit is wolf arose accidentally from the cynicide project (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/to-spin-inside-dull-aberrations) but produced far more material in the end. what happened was sean and i showed up to a few jam sessions and the guitarist (jon - it was his band) didn't, so we started writing some material without him...

initially, the intent was to include rather than exclude jon but he quickly developed a disinterest due to a variety of obvious if never fully articulated reasons. i was playing guitar parts on the demos, which he couldn't deal with. we were doing joy division songs, which were outside of his sphere of interest. we were writing without him, which made him feel unimportant. we were talking about songs without drums, which he wasn't interested in at all. etc. however, he did record a guitar part (that i wrote) that was never replaced.

this is a collection of demos from the first month of rabit is wolf, which includes multiple versions of the title track and a joy division cover. in the end, none of this would be released in the form it's in here (which is only available for download), but it creates a cohesive (if short) introduction to what follows that is self-contained in a historical context. stated differently, this is the first (post-punk) incarnation of rabit is wolf.

written and recorded in the fall of 2001. compiled on sept 6, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - bass, guitars, synths, writing
sean - vocals, writing

jon - guitar performance (6)

released october 15, 2001

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/me-myself-and-the-time-i-thought-this-was-a-good-idea



1) sean suggested the bass line ought to sound like this, from which the track was built. sept 1, 2001.



2) this is the first bass & vocal demo, recorded the day the track was written. sept 1, 2001.



3) i built this up on my own the friday night following the sunday it was written, in preparation for the next sunday jam session. sept 7, 2001.



4) as our guitarist was a no show two weeks in a row, we decided to do a joy division cover rather than write new material. i've left the track without drums to better fit the feel of the recording, as none of the renditions on this single contain drums by a very conscious choice to not include them. sept 9, 2001.


5) the song is thematically about somebody launching themselves off a bridge, so i thought it would be an interesting idea to produce a walk passage. this idea was never well received, as there were concerns that the synthesizer sounds too synthetic. but, i mean, it's a synthesizer, what the fuck do you expect it to sound like? sept 22, 2001.



6) the initial demo was a temporary mix to get some ideas across; it was realized from the start that the guitarist would want to do the guitars and the synths would need to be less rough. i didn't expect him to play the part i wrote, though, which was just a weird thing. in the end, this reconstruction did not end up being a final mix (i took most of the end out, which was only ever there on the insistence of the guitarist in the first place, and added an extra guitar part). oct 13, 2001.

the vacuum didn't work either. it's really stuck in there. i've got it on deep bass therapy, and am going to let it boom overnight. if that's not successful, i'll have to mix the bass down with the cheaper phones.

i'm going to lose most of the day tomorrow as well, as i have much running around to do.

sennheiser talk pt 3

jessica
hi sennheiser. me again..

i've got this stubborn hair stuck in there, giving me a buzz on the lower frequencies, as stubborn hairs stuck in headphones tend to do.

now, it's been happening for years, and it's never been much of a problem - quick tweezer run over over a quick vacuum gets the dirt out. it's just something that happens to headphones and that headphones people have to deal with.

but this one is deep in the drivers and all attempts to get it out have failed. i'd probably need to use a tool that is something like a surgeon uses to get in there to pull it out, and it's too stuck for the vacuum (or loud bass music) to get it out.

now, i know you can usually take newer phones apart to do this but the way these ones are made suggests to me that the only way this would be possible is by twisting the top and, again, i don't really want to do that until i'm sure they can actually be disassembled. so, can i get in there without breaking them or do i need to call a surgeon?

those are the out of production 440-IIs, to jog your memory.

sennheiser
Hello Jessica,

It is possible to take the 440 apart.

I used to do it all the time. Use caution, however, since there are no more spares for this model, and if an accident happens, you're SOL! Twisting is not necessary. The baffle is held by a series of claws. Slip a fingernail between and pry gently. Easy does it.

To get the capsule driver out, gently pry up on the black tabs, and be careful not to disturb the connecting wires. They are exceedingly fragile and will not respond well to attempts to reconnect. Use both hands.

If you're talking hair, you might need tweezers, but for dust or other particles, a squirrel hair paintbrush will usually do. DO NOT brush hard!

Any wrinkles put on the diaphragm will be permanent.

Note orientation of the capsule driver to the baffle. It goes in one way only!

You mentioned using a vacuum...be careful with that! It's possible to suck the voice coil right out of the gap with force like that.

jessica
thanks again.

i got my $1 guitar fix and put it all together and got nothing but hum out of it.

strangely, there's no ground on the input. so, the circuit isn't completing. but, it completed in the store.

i made an error: i took a walk down the street, and then didn't plug it back in when i came back. who knows what they did. i think they may have ripped the ground out. it would have taken two seconds.

see, the thing is that it shouldn't have worked in the store without the ground - the ground was there when i plugged it in, and it wasn't when i took it home.

it's not expensive to fix, i need a soldering iron anyways, but why do that? it's just upsetting that some people can be that disrespectful.

like, it's not that the ground is loose.

the ground is gone. no guitar can work without a ground. but, it did work.

somebody ripped it out....

either way, that's that for the day, let me take a look at those headphones.

it sounds crazy to think somebody would do that.

but the only other explanation is that somebody was sitting around the corner mimicking my open strings, tricking me into thinking it worked. that's even crazier.

it's just impossible that it could have worked without the ground. but it did. and it was entirely gone when i went back.

ripping a cord off a board like that could create other problems, as well.

but i have a circuit diagram, and it will be very east to fix if there's further damage.

so, you'll have to add $1 worth of solder and $1 worth of wires to the fix price. a soldering iron is going to be around $20, but it's not fair to work it into the price because it's something i need to get anyways.

deathtokoalas
the rx40 is the absolute bottom of the line ibanez strat copy; i picked one up in a pawn shop today for $40 (including a case and a strap). i got a deal because the pawn shop owners didn't realize how simple putting a nut on a loose input jack is, and felt the need to mark it down due to it being "broken". however, they're generally going to sell for under $150 nowadays.

looking into it, it strikes me as a sort of ponzi scheme set up by ibanez. $100 is probably what they're worth - so you can get the 40s at a bit more than cost. ibanez then increases the price dramatically by slapping on different models while changing the guitar rather minimally. the upper end rxs sold for around $800. i can't find any real difference between them and the 40s that isn't merely cosmetic. and how much is that strat actually worth when you strip out the bullshit? a whole lot less than you paid for it...

the guitar is solidly constructed. smooth neck. that's more than can be said for a lot of newer strats; vintage strats are incomparable, but the difference in build quality between a modern strat and an ibanez copy is pretty much negligible. in some cases, they may have been made in the same factory.

the electronics are built to sound like a strat, and they do. that's my next point. for now, note that if you want a good strat body to put your own pickups in, you want to be thinking about the ibanez copies.

what this video really demonstrates, though, is how meaningless the guitar input is in the face of modern processing. that's a beginner guitar for people with a budget, but do you think a $3000 strat is going to sound better through the same amp simulator and the same dozens of  effects? it's not.

when you break it down to the physics nowadays, you're combining sounds out of a type of pickup. the pickups will have defined properties. that's all you're really looking for: body shape and pickup type.

José González

basswood body?

deathtokoalas

you're not going to hear a difference on a double blind a/b between maple, alder and basswood through an amp simulator, and you're going to destroy the guitar's characteristics at the equalization stage of the mixdown, anyways. you'll hear a difference in pickup combinations.

José González

set dimarzio andy timmons on the rx40 and a tube amp?

deathtokoalas

that's not the tone i'm looking for, i'm an experimental guitarist that's looking for a way to get some single coils through a long effects chain on the way into a firewire computing interface, mostly to get a "skinnier" flanged and chorused sound. i use humbuckers through preamps for lead parts.

but i would argue that this model is a good base to start from if you want to put your own pickups in.

yeah. the pickups on the rosewood are a touch hotter. you can tell because it's not just the guitar tone, but the fuzz tone.

well, i lost the day, but i gained a guitar and a vacuum. there's still a touch of rust on the pickups, but i'm going to leave it there. i'll get the spring, nut and strings on tomorrow - for around $10 total. but i'm going to lose most of the day tomorrow, too. for the moment, i'm hungry and sleepy....

haven't vacuumed the phones yet, will wait until tomorrow.

caulking gun

jessica
hi,

i'm just wondering if i could borrow a caulking gun. there's no urgency to this, and i'm going to want to wait until we get a dry day with low humidity so i can caulk with the windows open.

it's september now, so the weather is going to be cooling down a little. i didn't have to turn the heat on last year until very late in the fall, so i'm not planning on turning it on any time soon. but, last year you sort of explicitly told me to just turn the heat up to whatever i wanted - and i did. i'm going to be a little more aware of the electricity costs this year, for obvious reasons.

there was really a substantial draft heading under the window in the kitchen last year, and all the hammering upstairs has crumbled the plaster a little so i'd expect it to be even worse this year. i really think it's an easy thing to do that will make a big difference.

i still have some of your caulk under the sink but i don't have a gun, so i'm wondering if you'll let me borrow yours. the bedroom and bathroom aren't drafty, but i really think the two windows in the kitchen should be sealed around the cracks to try. it'll both keep costs down and make the air a little less dry, due to the heaters not needing to work as hard.

the landlord
I have a caulking gun there, I will be around and I will check in with you

yeah, so the loose pickup was a triviality.

you see that spring? it was gone.

well, one of them was gone. the other was under the pick guard.

i'm going to put 9s on this (which is very skinny for me, but it's a strat), so i'll head down to long & mcquade's tomorrow.

current estimated projected cost to fix the "broken" guitar:

one washer - $0.50

one spring - $0.50

total: $1.

how does that even happen? well, clearly somebody tried to swap out some humbuckers. either they couldn't figure it out and fucked it up or they swapped something more expensive out before they sold it and didn't bother to connect it properly.

the pickups appear to be unmarked.

i had a washer around. it's keeping the jack in place, but it could benefit from a nut to lock it in.

there's nothing else wrong with this guitar...

actually, i should just go with 10s. i have 12s on my jazz guitar and 11s on my punk guitar. this is going to be my alt/gaze guitar - no need to go that far down. if i ever get a three sss strat or a jazzmaster or a tele, i can go to nine there. i can't see myself wanting less chunk, though.

the jazzmaster is a beast of it's own, and i'll probably never be able to afford one.

access to single coils is really closing a hole in my arsenal that i've, up to this point, used all kinds of effects processing and equalization tricks to try and get around. believe it or not, i've never had a single coil guitar - since i started playing in about 1990. and this is actually my first new (electric) guitar in almost fifteen years.

actually, that's not true - some of the garage sale pickups i've been through over the years have been single coil, and i guess that means i have bought new guitars over the last fifteen years, but they were all under $10 and never used for anything besides ridiculous tunings and noise generations. which i guess produces some continuity. but i plan to hang on to this one, it's a more serious addition.

actually, it seems like the unit doesn't have a special carpet head. it's a eureka "pet lover" with a dual use head. i kind of thought it was probably something like that.

$150 before it was discontinued. gotta love pawn shops...

so, i went searching through the streets of windsor for an affordable vacuum, and came back with a beat to shit strat.

i couldn't resist. i've been meaning to pick up something with single coils (this is an h-s-s "fat strat") for a long time, but haven't run into the opportunity. it's a lower end ibanez copy, but it's solidly constructed. i focus almost entirely on necks and body shapes when i'm evaluating guitars. the rest can be modified. but, the truth is i never do, because the main sound source for what i do is the computer. i'm going to plug a $3000 strat through the same effects loop, and it's not going to be all that easy to tell the difference in sound. it's honestly not worth the cash. if i was more interested in gigging and i wanted a better connection to the amp, maybe....but i don't....

what's important is playability. ibanez are known for their "fast necks", which work well with the strat design.

but it's the single coils i wanted, and that i will put to good use in open chord passages.

it needs some work. it's full of rust. while i was able to verify that all of the pickups work, one of them is very loose and the jack needs a washer. but i honestly think it's a ten minute job.

for the price ($40, including a case), i can't complain much - even if i end up ripping the pickups out altogether. the neck is good enough to build up with.

i did get a vacuum, as well. the first shop i went to had a nice little unit for $25, but it was missing the carpet head. after taking a look around, it's the best choice immediately available. i can probably pick up a head one day on ebay or something.

gah.....

buzz is in the phones. in the back of my mind i knew it all along. i've been fighting with dirt in there for months, and i know there's a hair deep in the drivers because i can see it and can't reach it. i've been putting it off because the rattle was so much weaker on the other tracks and i was just mentally compensating...i couldn't imagine it was really the dirt....

but my cheaper phones aren't rattling. here's the thing: i'm not 100% certain it's rattling due to the dirt, it could be rattling because the studio phones are reproducing it properly and the non-studio phones are squishing the fuck out of it.

at least i know now that the track actually sounds good through consumer grade equipment.

the thing is i need the deep compression, and it's rattling it to the point that i can't mix it because i can't tell if the compression is actually distorting or the speaker is rattling.

so, i need to find a vacuum as a top priority this morning. i tossed the one i brought down here - it was older than my mother is, and just wasn't working.i can't mix with the other phones, it sounds like i'm wearing earplugs...but if i can't get the hair out, i may have to mix the bass separately through them...

see, the phone is sealed. it's probably why the phones have lasted 30 years. but it means i can't get the hair out with tweezers because i can't reach it...

you just can't overstate the value of high end phones like this. it would cost upwards of $500 to replace them with something comparable, and i don't have that. and i WILL tell, because i've been using them so long that my ears just won't accept anything less.

so, these basically have to last forever, sort of thing. the vacuum worked last time.

digitech bass squeeze

this pedal is actually great for recording through the mixer out - i use it as a di box, with a lmb-3 in front for extra limiting, and then run it through tape simulation and reverb effects when it gets in. the caveat is you have to want a smooth, sustained tone (i play a lot of bass parts with half or full notes and i want them to last) with basically zero dynamics, meaning it works better for orchestral styles or electronic music than for rock or funk, excluding punk - it also works well for fast punk picking...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzb_Lrj3-O4

ok, these parts sound considerably better. i think the compression pedal is buffering the signal a little, which is helping the limiter even when it's off. i also plugged it into a regulated power supply, which may have minimized any background. and i turned the low eq pot down a bit on the way in. it's still buzzing mildly, but the clippiness is gone.

i'm sleepy. but i have every reason to think this'll be done tomorrow.

two things to take note of.

first, boogeyman just became #2 to hit 1000 hits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gTfycvt1VU

second, evil just became #2 to hit 300 (which remains youtube's designation of "popular") without being featured on the front page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haUlXmRA-A0

gah. no.

just a little out of tune, bloody microtone, so i need to redo the bass parts. but i have a better understanding of how to lay them out, now, and what i want them to sound like when they get in, so that's going to guide the input signal.

i'm going to want to route the pick parts one way, with heavy limiting, and the finger parts another, with heavy compression. that should minimize noise on the way in, and give me what i need to process.

gonna eat first...