New CDs and Gear

An order from All That Is Heavy for some new releases and freebie came in earlier this month. The Kings Of Frog Island, My Sleeping Karma and Hyatari have all followed up their debut albums with new full lengths. Morkobot have put out their third album (I had no idea of the existence of an earlier album than their last release until recently). For I freebie I chose an album from The Mushroom River Band.

In need of more cabinets for my three bass amp heads, I've been looking at Carvin and Avatar for good "bang for the buck" cabs. Both companies have different products but with Carvin being local I would be able to try before I buy. Carvin doesn't have any 12" driver loaded cabs and Avatar doesn't have any 15" or 18" driver loaded cabs and I wasn't set on why type of speaker configuration I wanted. I tried out all of the Carvin cabinet configurations and thought their BRX10.4 Neo cab sounded the best. It handled the low B of my five string very well and can handle the full output of my BX1200 amp. I still might add a 1x15" or 1x18" to it though and I'd like to get a nice lightweight cab for my Markbass Little Mark II for a more portable rig.

Acoustic Guitar And Some New CDs

Ever since I got my electric guitar I've wanted to get an acoustic guitar for the times when I don't feel like plugging in and when I'd like to be more mobile. That and I love the sound of acoustic steel guitars.

Being left-handed, I have a limited selection to choose from and music stores tend to carry the really cheap lefty guitars. Thankfully Carvin has a lefty acoustic that I'm able to try out and the price was right for me. I doubt I could find a cheaper lefty guitar that sounds as awesome as the Carvin C250LH.

After a long delay, I finally received my order from Important Records. Short and sweet, Grails have a new album that could be their best one yet. I really wish they could have recorded a track or two more while they had the momentum. Also arriving is another album from Acid Mothers Temple under the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. banner. Usually the heavier material from Kawabata and company is under the Cosmic Inferno name but this release is definitely the heaviest set from the Melting Paraiso which has two 36+ minute tracks on it.

Beginnings....

As mentioned in my last post of 2007, I've started to do some recordings with an MBox2 Mini using ProTools with the plugins it came with. Going directly into the box, usually through my Double Muff and/or custom "furr" pedal worked well. But what I really want to do is mic my cabinets, so I bought Carvin's CTM100 condenser tube microphone (along with a telescoping boom mic stand).

A trio of demo songs I did in before the start of 2008 are now part of a music project I've named R³. You can go to the obligatory myspace music page, located here, to sample the music I've done.

I have a couple more pieces of equipment coming and I'll have a nice recording setup.

The New Rig

Getting a nice bass guitar and having to play it on a cheap combo amp was just not going to work. So the search began for a new amp. My uncle had two cabinets from DeCuir loaded with 15" JBL K140 drivers that he's not using so I only needed to find a new head. At the Carvin showroom I played my bass on their BX1200 dual mono amplifier that was getting good reviews in the bass magazines.

So upon further testing on the BX1200 and their other bass amp (the BX1500), I felt the BX1200 was the right choice based the price and features on the amp. So I have my work cut out to find a tone that I like.

Next on the want list is a quality tuner (in pedal form) along with a fuzz/distortion/overdrive pedal.