Hot, Hot, Heat

hey everyone, kevin here. things are heating up around ol' Endless Summer Institute of Sound HQ, hence my not posting here for a couple of weeks. the best news is that we have a new member of the ESIS "family" and that is aaron rogers, the new assistant at the studio. he's only been here for a week or so and already has made himself damned near indispensable. it's really great news though, in so much as we're working like 4 or 5 days a week down in the studio and that means more music made, etc. i'm very happy to be so busy.

so, anyway,the first thing coming out of ESIS, it turns out, will be the rmx me and the torrey canyon collective did for axe riverboy ( who, you will recall is xavier from tahiti 80 in solo mode ). it's coming out on JVC in japan, which is a big major label. kinda surprising they would put out rmx album but maybe japanese major labels are just cooler! check out the track listing here.

alos continuing work on the bertrand burgalat rmx feat. vocals by robert wyatt. it's coming laong quite well so far. also doing a song i wrote for french singer jean-emmanual de-luxe that features vocals by bertrand burgalat!

also got a nice message from sean o'hagan the other day on myspace. very cool guy and as i mentioned before, i'm working on a song sean wrote for jean-emmanual de-luxe. hopefully, sean and i can doing something together in the future? keep your fingers crossed.

anyway, we'll be fixing up the torrey canyon collective website in the next month or so and put up a myspace page as well, now that something is actually coming out by us. we also should be finishing up the orange cake mix record soon too. in fact, by the new year, we should have quite a bit done. we've also been working on our own songs and they're coming along quite well so far. we will probably post a demo or two on the myspace page in a few weeks. watch this space for further details!

let your freak flag fly...oh yeah. one more thing! kevin from the chamber strings e-mailed me the other day saying our old friend, liam hayes aka plush has a new video out for a new song from new forthcoming album. kevin thinks it's the best thing he's ever done and while i'd still say that "found a little baby" is better, check out this great song and video.

Music with the seasons?

Now that cold weather has begun its rapid descent upon us here in Northeast Ohio, I've been thinking about how my music choices are affected by the weather, specifically the hunkering down for the dark, cold days of winter.

Some people probably load up on cheery music, the kind of bright, summery sounds that remind you of warm times and being outdoors. Everybody's got their own favorites, but classics like the Beach Boys and even newer pop stuff like Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, or Archer Prewitt just screams summertime to me.

For whatever reason though, I go the opposite route. I go with the winter, embracing the darker, mysterious, dense sounds. I put away the Nonesuch music from Africa, Johnathan Rice, and anything bright and cheery. I dig out dense, dissonant stuff like Godspeed You Black Emperor, Low, or albums that are just melancholy like The Wind by Warren Zevon, the last thing he put out before his death. Why does darker music fit the days? I don't know, but it works for me.

What does everybody else listen to this time of year?

Links Fer Breakfast

mornin', everybody. well, it's finally getting "fall-like" here. temp's dropping, leaves dropping, etc. my favorite time o' the year...

anyway, got a couple of blog links for ya. first off, my friend bella, from elephant stone records, blogs on her site about attending a gig up in michigan of which adam franklin, the lead singer from swervedriver, was the headliner. it is both very funny and very sad, as it illustrates in a microcosm what's wrong with so much of the music scene today. i swear to god, gigs in library's and churches from here on out, ok?

the second link is a great new blog called "the optigan project." as many of you know, i have an optigan. and i love it. if you don't know what an optigan is go here. anyway, this "optigan project" blog is chronicling the efforts of the author to make new opitgan discs or to at least make copies of the existing discs. this is funny to me, as we have been talking about trying the same thing in the studio the last few months. evidentially, mark linkous of sparklehorse, has successfully made copies of optigan discs, or so he claimed in an interview a while back. pea hicks, the guy behind the band optiganally yours, claims in a e-mail to the "optigan project" blog that he has tried and found it nearly impossible to copy optigan discs or make new ones. anyway, head to the blog and read more, if you are so inclined...

ty was all set to come by to help me finish up the orange cake mix record yesterday but then his car wouldn't start. the gods, as always, are against us...but we shall prevail...

and no, i do not want to talk about the indians historic collapse, thank you very much!

more later...

Flippin' Yr Lid!

ok, to sorta continue the kroft riff from the previous post, here's the intro to what i consider to be sid & marty kroft's finest creation: LIDSVILLE!! yes, it was a freaky as the intro makes it seem. both frightening and calming to my young senses back then. and how about the androgynous billie hayes playing a guy genie in "lidsville" after being a female witch in "h.r. pufnstuf??"

is there any doubt the 70's were a strange time to be a kid?

enjoy, true believers!

Sunday Morning Cup 'O Blog

mornin', everybody. just a few things this morning to let ya know about...

great post by eric yesterday about our little "tube shootout" we had the other day. as eric stated, the valve jr. is a perfect amp for a test like that cuz it's got one preamp tube and one power tube, which makes it really easy to tell tonal differences between the different pre-amp tubes. now, we gotta find some vintage EL84's to swap out the power tube and see what kinda changes, if any, might happen. one slight correction from eric's post and that is that the telefunken tube was one i had lying around and not part of the magnatone's stunning array of vintage tubes. the damn thing has like 15 tubes!! and is a complete rat's nest of point-to-point wiring, as well! but whatta amp...

ty and i have been working the last week on drums quite a bit. the rmx for bertrand burgalat's "this summer night" was on the docket early in the week and so far the rmx has taken a very interesting turn. so far, it's sounding like a dub mix by trevor horn, if one can imagine such a thing...

we also did some drums to a song written for french artist and general renaissance man, jean-emmanuel de-luxe by the highly esteemed sean o'hagen of high llamas fame. it's a really interesting track that JED asked me to add some extra stuff to. it had some cool drum machine stuff, so i decided to add some live drums to it and it made a nice addition, for sure...look for an E.P. from JED in the next few months featuring songs written by me, the aforementioned mr. o'hagen and some guest vocals by the aforementioned mr. burgalat. watch this space, as they say...

oh, i finally have heard from my west-coast friend, mr. jarond gibbs, the man behind the band frequent flyer. jarond's "day job" these days is being one of the music writer's for the cool nick kids show, "yo gabba gabba." check it out, it's kind of a throw back to the sid and marty kroft shows of the 70's like "h.r. pufnstuf." anyway, jarond, who's a fantastic songwriter and i have collaborated on a couple of songs and they might be coming out on a 7" some day in the not-to-distant future.


speaking of sid & marty croft, here's the late, great "mr. show" doing a parody of h.r. pufnstuf. hi-larious! " i declare this pizza to be...awesome!"

Preamp tubes in the Epiphone Valve Jr. head - Is There Tone in Holland?

The Epiphone Valve Jr. Head , or simply "Valve Jr" as we like to refer to him, is a wonderfully scrappy little guitar amp. Originally $99, but now $129, the Valve Jr. head is a 5 watt, Class A, all tube guitar amplifier. It has one knob - Volume (Steve Jobs would be proud), and two tubes, a 12ax7 as the preamp tube and a single EL84 for power. There are 3 speaker outputs, 4 ohms, 8 ohms, and 16 ohms; which is an amazingly nice feature to have. This simple little beast is great fun, and Kevin and I decided to do some tube swapping the other night. We've always been skeptical of the real differences in tube sound, and we wanted to test it out ourselves. Although obviously built to a price point, the Valve Jr is a surprisingly noise free and quality guitar amp, and its simple circuits and design really highlight changes in tubes.

For our tests, we used the Valve Jr plugged into the speakers from Kevin's Silverface Super Reverb - 4 10 inchers. We used the same guitar, a nice Stratocaster built from AllParts parts. The pickups are Fender 57/62, and the neck is maple, strings are .11 gauge.

First up was the stock tube, a shiny new Sovtek 12Ax7. It has only had probably 10 hours of use, so it's almost new for all intents and purposes. The Sovtek has a wooly sound, with a pronounced lower midrange. It gives the amp a decidedly "British" tone, being forward with the mids, and laying off some highs and lows. It was medium-hi gain. Overall it was ok, but not exceptional. It certainly has a "tubey" sound, almost as if Epiphone put it in to ensure the Valve Jr sounded nothing like the solid state and digital amps it competes with price wise.

Next up was an Electro Harmonix 12ax7. This had been used some, but exact age and mileage are unknown. Surprisingly, this played and sounded almost identical to the Sovtek. Same pronounced midrange, wooly low-mid, and medium high gain. I know some tubes are manufactured in the same place and simply rebranded, and I wouldn't be surprised if these two were brothers, or maybe cousins.

Following was a G.E. 12ax7. This was snagged from an old Magnatone amp, so it had plenty of use, but displayed no microphonics. The first thing we could tell with this tube was that it cleaned up and shined the Valve Jr's wooly midrange. Gone was the midrange forwardness, and replaced with lots of high end. With the single coil, vintage strat pickups we were using, it really brought out the highs and gave us a shimmery sound. It wasn't hard or shrill, just very clear and open. Given the Class A operation, we weren't surprised to notice this tube gave the Valve Jr a bit of the Vox vibe. Vintage, but clear. Gain was lower than the first two; medium gain.

Next up was a Telefunken 12ax7, also stolen from the Magnatone (that bastard has like 15 tubes or something). The midrange stood out as very clear and buttery. It was not as brilliant or shimmery as the high end of the GE, but still clearly better than the E.H. or Sovtek. It was medium gain, and displayed a nice round tone, but it simply didn't have the harmonic overtones or detail of the G.E.

Following the Telefunken was a Mullard 12ax7 from, you guessed it, the Magnatone. Kevin and I didn't really expect much, assuming all the hype around Mullard tubes was just that; hype. Wow. First thing we noticed was high gain - it was significantly louder than any of the other tubes. But, it seemed to breakup later than the Sovtek or E.H., which was interesting. The sound was phenomenal; it didn't have the crystalline highs of the G.E., but bettered every other tube in nearly every way. Single notes rang out with harmonics and overtones, sustain was great, high notes were buttery and clear. Chords were fat, but retained definition. It was simply exciting to play, subtle dynamics and playing just brought out more and more. Excellent tone for "hot" sounds, like blues or rock. Seriously impressive.

Lastly, we found a Real Life 12dw7 in the Magnatone. Now, this isn't a 12ax7 like the others, but we gave it a go anyway. First impression was that this made the Valve Jr. an almost bona-fide jazz amp. It was much lower gain than the other tubes, and had a very hifi sound -- clear strong highs and lows, and less midrange push than the more guitar oriented tubes. Very smooth and rounded on single notes, and a fat thunk to chords. Almost no break up, even cranked up. Very interesting, and a great tube for coaxing cleaner tones out of the Valve Jr.

So, what we discovered was that we were plain wrong about tubes being inconsequential in the overall amp tone. Different tubes made a huge difference. As far as a favorite, the Mullard probably wins overall for plain excitement and tone. The G.E. had a beautiful high end that gave a gorgeous vintage tone, and was a close second, and a little more restrained than the Mullard. The Real Life 12dw7 was a clean tone monster, giving a surprisingly jazzy and clear tone to the Valve Jr. The Sovtek and EH were simply outclassed, and sounded cheap and forced in comparison. The Telefunken was somewhere in between the "top 3" and the "bottom 2", but wasn't as impressive as we were expecting. 

Notably absent from this test were a couple tubes. For one, we used high end old tubes, and cheap new tubes. A newer, higher end tube like a JJ is a must-test. We also want to test the new reissue Mullards, just to see if they capture any of the magic. We'd also love to try Bugle Boys, as they're fabled as much as Mullards and Telefunkens for tone. 

The Valve Jr. is simply great fun, and a great way to try different tubes and options with your gear setup. At $129, or less used, it's worth it to pick one up. You'll have fun.