This blog has served me well since June of 2005--both as The Attack of the Killer Blog and The Ghost of Me. I started this blog as a place to tell all about my trip to Antalya, Turkey in 2005 and have continued using it ever since.
However, the time has come to say goodbye. I have officially created a new blog--The Austin Chronicles. Specifically, this blog is about me moving to Austin and all that goes along with that move. Of course, it will also serve as my place for typical musings, rants, music opinions, and what not.
Nonetheless, I invite you to my new blog The Austin Chronicles.
02 August 2007
01 August 2007
My Wisdom Is Lost...
Thanks to this man to the right, I am wisdom free. To clarify, that's wisdom teeth free. Thanks to Doc Rock (Dr. Jeff Rockacy) on the right, I no longer have to worry about going to the dentist to hear him tell me how I need to have my wisdom teeth removed before they ruin the thousands of dollars of work that braces did in my mouth.Doc Rock had me a little nervous last week as he explain that there was a slim possibility that my lips would tingle for the rest of my life if they hit a nerve. Nonetheless, there's is zero tingling in my lips. Thank goodness.
It's a little weird to thank that I had only been around this man about fifteen minutes before I let him put me under and stick sharp objects in my mouth. Last Monday, he explain the surgery to me in about 10 minutes. This Monday, I saw him for about five minutes before the anaesthesia kicked in. Over the next forty-five minutes, Doc Rock did what he does best (remove teeth). When I awoke, we spoke for five to ten minutes before I left. Wow. This man was given pretty big privileges to have only spent around 25 minutes with me.
29 July 2007
Going Under the Knife...
Okay, so, I'm not even sure if they use a knife for this. Anyway, I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow at 1:00. I plan on being in a lot of pain tomorrow and the next day. So, if you're in Rogers over the next two days, feel free to stop by my parent's house with a milkshake. They make great hand-spun milkshakes at the Chick-Fil-A right by my parent's house.
27 July 2007
Thieved...Again.
As you may recall from an earlier post, at one point Famous In May was robbed of the PA amp that Adam had worked hard to buy. Well, some evil bandits have struck again. This time, it was at my house. Early this morning Todd and Sandy awoke to find the back window (right by my back door, 10 feet from my room) was open. Upon inspection, they noticed that Hartness' PS3 was taken.
I first heard the news when Andrew called me later that morning. He told me I should go check that room to see if my stuff was missing--the PS3 shared a room with my guitar gear. My heart sank, and I was certain that my new telecaster was gone. When I entered the room, nothing of mine was gone. Ubben's LCD TV was still there as well. The living room still had the DVR and the Wii. Nothing was missing except the PS3.
Now, admittedly, this is worse for others than it is for me. Obviously, Hartness paid to buy that PS3 (even though he got it 50% off as a return at Wal-Mart). Todd's copy of NCAA '08 was gone with it. The $50 controller that Tad and Todd split was gone. Yet, I still feel weird about it. Obviously, I feel bad for Andrew. The guy works hard for what money he's got. He can't afford to replace that PS3, and he wouldn't want to buy one at full price anyway. Yet, that's not what has me thrown off the most.
What bothers me most as that it had to be someone we know. That window was in the living room with a big screen, a DVR, and a Wii. Most people would figure that this is the only room with crap like that in it. They went to the front room, which is supposed to be a dining room. They passed up an HDTV and 1,000's of dollars worth of guitar gear. I had 3 guitars in that room worth about 4 PS3's together. Somebody had to have known there was a PS3 sitting in that room, and they knew it would be easiest to take. If you were really just going in to get something quick, you would've grabbed the Wii or the DVR from the first room you saw. You wouldn't keep searching (in the middle of the night, while the residents are asleep).
Someone that I know and trusted well enough to let in my house felt that they needed a PS3 bad enough as to steal it from us. That hurts.
I first heard the news when Andrew called me later that morning. He told me I should go check that room to see if my stuff was missing--the PS3 shared a room with my guitar gear. My heart sank, and I was certain that my new telecaster was gone. When I entered the room, nothing of mine was gone. Ubben's LCD TV was still there as well. The living room still had the DVR and the Wii. Nothing was missing except the PS3.
Now, admittedly, this is worse for others than it is for me. Obviously, Hartness paid to buy that PS3 (even though he got it 50% off as a return at Wal-Mart). Todd's copy of NCAA '08 was gone with it. The $50 controller that Tad and Todd split was gone. Yet, I still feel weird about it. Obviously, I feel bad for Andrew. The guy works hard for what money he's got. He can't afford to replace that PS3, and he wouldn't want to buy one at full price anyway. Yet, that's not what has me thrown off the most.
What bothers me most as that it had to be someone we know. That window was in the living room with a big screen, a DVR, and a Wii. Most people would figure that this is the only room with crap like that in it. They went to the front room, which is supposed to be a dining room. They passed up an HDTV and 1,000's of dollars worth of guitar gear. I had 3 guitars in that room worth about 4 PS3's together. Somebody had to have known there was a PS3 sitting in that room, and they knew it would be easiest to take. If you were really just going in to get something quick, you would've grabbed the Wii or the DVR from the first room you saw. You wouldn't keep searching (in the middle of the night, while the residents are asleep).
Someone that I know and trusted well enough to let in my house felt that they needed a PS3 bad enough as to steal it from us. That hurts.
25 July 2007
Creating Great Tone in a World Gone Mad...
THE STUART DISCLAIMER: "If you're not an electric guitar player that has a lot of experience tinkering with highly specific components you will waste your life and be confused by reading this post..."
So, I have been doing a lot to mess with my guitar tone and my guitar setup as of late. As you'll probably recall from an earlier post, I purchased a Fender '72 Telecaster Deluxe Reissue at the new Guitar Center in Fayetteville. This, as I had suspected at the time of purchase, was possibly one of the best decisions/best purchases I have ever made in my life.
Recently, I acquired a new pedal board. I got it from the same place I acquired my old pedal board (Ryan Ceola got rid of it). The plus to this board is that it has a storage compartment that houses all my power supply stuff, extra picks, and what not. So, it's less messy. To make things even less messier, I wired all of my pedals with George L cables (the red cable with gold plugs in the pictures below). So, every cable is the exact length it needs to be. That saves a lot of mess. One draw back was that I don't have room for my Line 6 MM4 on my new board, but I don't really like that pedal much. Adam had a good suggestion for that pedal anyway--we're going to use it for effects on the "speaker mic" (of which either I or Adam will post pics when it's finished).
I also lucked up into another great addition. The other day, I picked up my acoustic guitar from Blue Moon Music. New Heights Church had given me a gift certificate to Blue Moon in order to get my guitar setup to fully install the LR Baggs M1 pickup I got in December (and have had only half installed for 7 months). I thought this would cost about 50 bucks, but it only cost 10. Well, they had bought me a 75 dollar gift certificate. I used the extra 65 bones to buy a ProCo Vintage Rat distortion pedal. The Rat has replaced my old Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (Russian Version), which will now be a part of Adam's guitar setup.
Finally, the last (and probably biggest) change in my setup is in the electronics of my amp. I'm rocking a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, which is a decent amp. The problem is that Fender uses really crappy tubes and biases said tubes really cold. With the help of Andrew Bailey, I replaced my pre-amp tubes (Groove Tube 12AX7's) with a matched pair of Tung-Sol 12AX7's. I replaced the Groove Tube 12AX7 in my phase inverter first with a China 12AX7, but that had a little too much bite for my taste. I took out the China 12AX7 and replaced it with an Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 that sounds phenomenal. Changing these three tubes helped my sound a lot, but today I took the next step. I had ordered a new set of power tubes, and I got them in today. I replaced the GT 6L6B's with a matched pair of SED Svetlana "winged" 6L6C's. To correct the problem of the amp running too cold, I (by which I mean Bailey) re-biased the amp from the 58 mA a which it is factory-biased to 70 mA. This heats up the tubes a lot more, which gives a much better tone. One negative to this change is that my tubes won't last as long, however that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
There is one last addition that needs to be made to my setup. While I was still rocking all my old severance pay money from Sam's Club, I purchased a pair of 12" Celestion Greenback guitar speakers. Last March, I purchased two sheets of Baltic Birch wood and all the necessary parts (metal corners, handles, cable, connectors, etc. ) needed to build a cabinet. Basically, I just need to cut the wood and assemble the cabinet. That way I can provide a home for those speakers. I'll use the newly modified Fender Hot Rod Deluxe to power this cabinet. It should sound pretty "ballsy" (for lack of a better term).
Anyway, here's some pics:
Here's the new pedal board setup. It goes Boss TU-2 tuner to vintage Dunlop Crybaby to Keeley-modded Boss BD-2 Blues Driver to an Aramat-modded Ibanez Tube Screamer DX to a ProCo Vintage Rat to a Keeley-modded Boss TR-2 tremolo to a Line 6 DL4 delay modeler. The pedal at the top center is my Fender footswitch.
Here's the new distortion pedal, The Rat. Also, you can get a much better view of the George L cables. I made them all just long enough to get to the next pedal. That way, there's not a lot of excess cable floating around.
Here's the new tubes. They're powered down, so you don't get that pretty orange glow in the pic.
So, I have been doing a lot to mess with my guitar tone and my guitar setup as of late. As you'll probably recall from an earlier post, I purchased a Fender '72 Telecaster Deluxe Reissue at the new Guitar Center in Fayetteville. This, as I had suspected at the time of purchase, was possibly one of the best decisions/best purchases I have ever made in my life.
Recently, I acquired a new pedal board. I got it from the same place I acquired my old pedal board (Ryan Ceola got rid of it). The plus to this board is that it has a storage compartment that houses all my power supply stuff, extra picks, and what not. So, it's less messy. To make things even less messier, I wired all of my pedals with George L cables (the red cable with gold plugs in the pictures below). So, every cable is the exact length it needs to be. That saves a lot of mess. One draw back was that I don't have room for my Line 6 MM4 on my new board, but I don't really like that pedal much. Adam had a good suggestion for that pedal anyway--we're going to use it for effects on the "speaker mic" (of which either I or Adam will post pics when it's finished).
I also lucked up into another great addition. The other day, I picked up my acoustic guitar from Blue Moon Music. New Heights Church had given me a gift certificate to Blue Moon in order to get my guitar setup to fully install the LR Baggs M1 pickup I got in December (and have had only half installed for 7 months). I thought this would cost about 50 bucks, but it only cost 10. Well, they had bought me a 75 dollar gift certificate. I used the extra 65 bones to buy a ProCo Vintage Rat distortion pedal. The Rat has replaced my old Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (Russian Version), which will now be a part of Adam's guitar setup.
Finally, the last (and probably biggest) change in my setup is in the electronics of my amp. I'm rocking a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, which is a decent amp. The problem is that Fender uses really crappy tubes and biases said tubes really cold. With the help of Andrew Bailey, I replaced my pre-amp tubes (Groove Tube 12AX7's) with a matched pair of Tung-Sol 12AX7's. I replaced the Groove Tube 12AX7 in my phase inverter first with a China 12AX7, but that had a little too much bite for my taste. I took out the China 12AX7 and replaced it with an Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 that sounds phenomenal. Changing these three tubes helped my sound a lot, but today I took the next step. I had ordered a new set of power tubes, and I got them in today. I replaced the GT 6L6B's with a matched pair of SED Svetlana "winged" 6L6C's. To correct the problem of the amp running too cold, I (by which I mean Bailey) re-biased the amp from the 58 mA a which it is factory-biased to 70 mA. This heats up the tubes a lot more, which gives a much better tone. One negative to this change is that my tubes won't last as long, however that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
There is one last addition that needs to be made to my setup. While I was still rocking all my old severance pay money from Sam's Club, I purchased a pair of 12" Celestion Greenback guitar speakers. Last March, I purchased two sheets of Baltic Birch wood and all the necessary parts (metal corners, handles, cable, connectors, etc. ) needed to build a cabinet. Basically, I just need to cut the wood and assemble the cabinet. That way I can provide a home for those speakers. I'll use the newly modified Fender Hot Rod Deluxe to power this cabinet. It should sound pretty "ballsy" (for lack of a better term).
Anyway, here's some pics:
Here's the new pedal board setup. It goes Boss TU-2 tuner to vintage Dunlop Crybaby to Keeley-modded Boss BD-2 Blues Driver to an Aramat-modded Ibanez Tube Screamer DX to a ProCo Vintage Rat to a Keeley-modded Boss TR-2 tremolo to a Line 6 DL4 delay modeler. The pedal at the top center is my Fender footswitch.
Here's the new distortion pedal, The Rat. Also, you can get a much better view of the George L cables. I made them all just long enough to get to the next pedal. That way, there's not a lot of excess cable floating around.
Here's the new tubes. They're powered down, so you don't get that pretty orange glow in the pic.
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