Pleasant surprise during rehearsal yesterday, the Marshall DSL-40C at the rehearsal studio which I always use (since I've recently gotten too lazy to bring my own distortion pedal) was replaced by a Bugera 6262 combo, sweeeeeet. The Marshall is pretty solid but gets a little grainy. With the Bugera all my chugging leaped out and my leads were screaming like bitches being beaten with an adamantium scourge in the face. It's a little harsh if you crank the mids but I usually don't anyway.

Always nice to jam on some new gear.

Yeah I only didn't like the indicator lights being so goddamn bright and blinding. I saw stars everytime I turned to adjust my settings, which thankfully wasn't often.

After having it out for a few weeks and getting some space from it, I've realized the mix on my last demo is a bit shit. Everything sounds far too muffled and flat. I went far too nuts with the EQs cutting out frequencies and kinda ruined it. So now I'm playing around with remixing the whole thing. After less than a half hour's work on one song it sounds waaaay better.

I've been writing and recording this choral piece: https://soundcloud.com/choral_commander
I'd love some feedback! This is my first attempt at home recording.

Your voice sounds good, the harmonies are enjoyable. Production wise, though, there is a lot of unpleasant mic noise you'd have to get rid of. But no big deal, it's really promising.

I appreciate it man! I'm using a Rock Band mic just to get the ideas recorded. I'll be re-recording and finishing it in an actual sound booth with professional stuff in a week or so.

Don't mean to be off-topic, but I didn't know you were a contestant on Ink Master

Yeah, I'd say the same Gelseth_Andrano. The melody and harmonies are quite nice but the recording could be much better. If you're doing it in a studio next week I'm sure it will sound awesome, though I bet with a quality mic and a bit of practice using it you could record some really good stuff like this by yourself.

Thanks Apteronotus, and yeah there a quite a few grants floating around for musicians and artists in Canada. Not sure how it is in the US but we've applied for grants from the government, art foundations, musician's associations- anything we could possibly qualify for really. I'm surprised that after dozens of applications over the last few years the one we got was for a fair bit of money, and it's coming from a privately owned media company with no strings attached. Woo!

You sonofabitch.


Recorded a Mountain of Beard song today.

A lot of good things have been happening bandwise as Ebonmere may have a new singer that we're working with and Spirit Division is back to practicing regularly and managed to write a completely new song yesterday afternoon. We also finally got our demo finished and online so I would love to hear what you guys think of it. Can't really tell if it's rock or metal, though.

http://spiritdivision.bandcamp.com/

Oh my, oh my... It has been stickied!

I guess it's time for a little update then, though I don't know if this is the right forum for me to post in anymore. I've been playing lead guitar in a non-metal cover band that gets to play shows at restaurants, bars, parties et cetera. It has been a really good practise since I have to improvise every solo I play and I've got some gigging experience now. I've also written like 10 psych folk rock that I've refined endlessly that I'll put on an album someday.

For metal... Well the last metal record I listened to was the latest Gorguts. It's just that early Mercury Rev and Spiritualized are so damn based.

Haven't been doing much besides weekly rehearsals and practicing at home. I usually spend quite a bit of time watching Yngwie and Gus G videos nowadays and this makes me want to practice less riffing and more shredding hehe.

My band's sharing the cost of a Tony Iommi TI15-112 amp. Doubles as a head but I'm mostly looking to recording with that thing, sweet sweet sound. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlDS1h_IrUg

Currently playing in a project with members from other local bands doing covers of 80s Hardcore/Crossover and continuing my yet to be released solo project of old skool thrash.

Been playing Bass for too long though, I'm originally a Guitarist/Drummer and wouldn't mind getting involved in a new project on guitar or behind the kit. However my only gigging band right now is the home to my Warwick

There's a Blacksoul Seraphim song in the works that's even more blasty and black metal than Exalted Genocide, and not in the Alcest-y, "pretty melodies" way that Exalted is for the most part. It has parts that would sound right at home in a mid-90s synth black metal band. And it's the longest of the new songs so far at nearly 7:30.

Through careful deduction and thought, I believe I've figured out the writing process for the more extreme new Blacksoul tunes. Josh writes a part that blasting would fit perfectly on, he thinks blasting won't fit, I write blasting anyway, and he loves it. Now repeat that for 4 or 5 songs.

Very cool, I'm eager to hear it. The last song you posted was the first I'd heard of Blacksoul and I'm liking what I heard for sure.

You'll dig the hell out of it if you liked Exalted. The release schedule I wrote up has it penciled in for August. This one and a couple others I'm absolutely dying to release, but not before all the various elements are put in and whatnot.

On my release chart I've got each song labeled as "doom metal", "black metal", "gothic", or "hybrid". The post-metal vibe runs through almost all the songs, but some of them will fall further on one side or the other, and they're labeled as such. So far we've released one hybrid (The Squire), one doom song (The Catalyst), and one black metal song (Exalted Genocide). Counting those three, there are three hybrid songs, three doom songs, three black metal songs, one not fully written instrumental so I can't put a label on it yet (although based on what's written I'm leaning towards doom metal for that one), and one gothic song.

The gothic song is the most interesting of all of them to me, but it's also gonna be the most difficult to put together. The tune is an organ piece with seven different singers on it (Josh and six guests). In the album's context, Josh is portraying the fallen angel that the story follows and the six guest singers are fellow angels that I'm gonna presume weren't cast out of Heaven after Satan waged war against God. The vocal makeup I think we're gonna go with just for the sake of convenience is three males and four females, but even then the difficult part will be coordinating all these different singers and having them learn and record their parts in a timely fashion.

Well, with four songs fully written (after a bunch of tweaking, we're our own biggest critics. If I don't think a vocal pattern is 100% my singer is gonna know about it) Oshiego will probably release an EP before the next full-length just to ply the waters before diving into a whole 'nother album. My vocalist/songwriter has a ton of songs in the making that we haven't rehearsed or tweaked since he hasn't even shown them to me properly yet. Damn the dude can write shit, given his injury.

Feeling good about these four songs though, we might do a split with another band too if the opportunity arises.

EDIT: I was also unable to play more than 4 songs during rehearsal today because I fucking sliced my hand on a sharp piece of wood and although I put a plaster over it and tried to play guitar, the first 2 songs of Great Architect (previous album) are such riffing workouts that it hurt too bad for me to continue.

Been working on a song, that I had put away as I just couldnt get it the way I wanted it. It just sounded bad However I left it for a couple of months, and it sounds okay time is a good thing to let things fall into place as it were. I have also been improvising some outros for said track, which is adding something to create a certain atmosphere that I am looking for.

So tomorrow on St. Paddy's day is going to be the last show until we open for The FU's in June. Going to write an entirely new setlist. We may open for Midnight in May if the show happens and then the day after the FU's we are opening for a cool band but I can't say.

Hope to get some new gear soon too... Fingers crossed.

Edit: Craigslist is the worst thing in the world. ugh,

hahah I could've told you that... though the one time I did try and use craigslist I was able to score an older Sunn Concert Lead for 200 bucks locally.

I've had nothing but good luck with Craigslist over the last few months. Sold a bunch of unneeded gear, got a bunch of new stuff at good prices, plus everyone I've sold/bought from ended up being cool and in a few cases we've stayed in contact to work on music/social stuff. Though I'm well aware I've been pretty lucky given the potential for CL shittiness.

Went and recorded a Mountain of Beard song. went and worked on my other project.

After months of sifting through Line 6 gear and overpriced stuff on my local listings I stumbled across a 1969 Fender Bassman on Kijiji for $450. I messaged the guy, he said he'd throw in the cab for an extra $150. I'm gonna take a look at it on Thursday and most likely take it home, I'm so stoked!

Fucking fuck that's beast. Esp for that price. hopefully it's all good.

Apparently it has new caps and tubes, so I'm hoping it's good.

Edit: SLK, don't you have a '59 Bassman or something?

Had a great practice with the deathgrind band I've been doing vocals for. A lot of things finally clicked - lyrics, pacing, my own delivery and energy...Awesome shit, followed by a 10-minute jam session at the end that we all slayed. Looking forward to playing shows with these guys if they decide to bring me fully on board.

Not the head but the 412 cab. The way it's set up eternally is a pyramid cone with a 12in on each side. it makes the cab bassier than the speakers are but in a good way if you know how to set your amp up to utilize it best. Oh and it's a '56.

This video here has me using it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjPhciBsrNU

Even though you can't tell there it pushes an insane amount of air. meaning it shakes walls and is louder than fuck. I would pay 600 for the cab alone.

Went and recorded another Mountain of Beard song today. I'm hoping to do another 3 maybe 4 and be done with that.

and that was my 11,000 post^

Well, my vocalist sprained his back yesterday so no rehearsals this week either. Bleh. On the flipside, the TI-15 amp arrived today. Can't wait to record with that motherfucker.

post pics

Well today was pretty decently productive. could've been more so.

wrote and recorded 2 Mountain of Beard songs and 2 Dragunov songs.

Worked on my other project and now I'm at a waiting point till more supplies come in.

The deathgrind band I've been jamming with said they're really impressed with my vocals and want to get to a studio downtown to do some recording. Really excited about this as I've never recorded in a legitimate studio before...Context is that they had their second album all recorded there and ready to release, but the last vocalist had to leave suddenly. They like my vocals more than what he got down and he was cool with us not using his, so I'll be rerecording all the vocal tracks from the album.

Very cool deal.

Vocals for this month's Blacksoul song are tracked. The song should be out in the next week.

Thanks! I'll throw some links up when we're finished.

Also just joined a collaborative effort my friend started - Basically an Ayreon-esque "metal opera" based off a story he wrote, with me on synths and vocals. Looking forward to finally using my synths and clean vox in a metal project, since those haven't been in the style of any of the other bands I've played with. Plus I've always had a penchant for ridiculously over-the-top concept album power metal, even after I moved toward more extreme metal, and have wanted to record an album in that style for some time....We're planning on inviting at least a few other musicians in to really get that Ayreon vibe with different singers and styles.

And finally I'm aiming to get my first solo synth release out by mid-April, an ambient techno album in the vein of Aphex Twin and Autechre.

Currently working on a swampy psychedelic rock sort of thing. Getting close to being done, I'll post it when I am. My clean vocals are kind of crap, but oh well.

Haha, Smoking Gnu, you should do a Metal Archives metal opera!

Dystopia, aren't you working on a raw sludge project as well?

Well I'm not sure it's going to be that raw, although certainly don't want to it to be lightweight. It's going to be a mix of sludge/crust/extreme doom with occasional psychedelic/atmospheric elements. Everyone said Malignant Dawn was too generic, thinking maybe Appalachian Fog for the name if that's not too lame.