9. xXthe absymal abyss of my soul (yes it's a joke)Xx

the noise inspiration of the ghost has taken a backseat as i refine my chops as an acoustic guitar player. inspiration coming in the form of damien rice and revisiting many acoustic musicians from my cd library.

not many people may know of my fear for the post apocalypse, and hence it has been my little fantasy to start an all acoustic orchestra/choir. where the only rule is to not use electricity. guitars will be amplified by simply having more guitars, or playing in a nice battered dome for good acoustics or just have one guitar playing and everybody keeping quiet, whatever that may be in the future. voices, body percussion, battered strings, noise and melody all as one without the tricks of the electronic trade. music never to be recorded, so that perhaps.. we shall only visit good music when the muse decides to descend upon her musicians and followers.

haven't fixed the problem with the signal yet, nothing recorded yet.. but playing whilst inspired is a wonderful thing -)

8. the heavens open to consume us one and all

things have been rather quiet in terms of pursuing the ghost. i've tried recording twice, but have not saved anything because i just find the results sub-par. for starters, i think i have to start looking at a better soundcard, or perhaps its just my microphone cable, but basically the SM-57 doesn't seem to be picking up much of what i'm playing. will troubleshoot it with my bass DI sometime soon, to make sure its the cable or input jack before thinking of an external soundcard, or even a small mixer.

however, i've written a new riff with words, well.. at least the chorus and i'm quite interested as of now to make this a song with vocals on it. as a narcissistic preview, it might be called the science of things

it's the science of things that we know
it's the silence that's in between
it's the science of things that we hold
so close
so closed

exploring, you guessed it.. just how far we think the things we know really bring us.

7. all is well on the western front

what we see here is:

bass -> A/B switcher (1) -> Ibanez LU10 Tuner
(2) -> Blue Ark Dual Bypass Looper: which then leads to ->

Channel 1 : MXR M-80 Bass Distortion DI

Channel 2: Arion SCH-Z Chorus -> BOSS PH-2 Super Phaser -> Line 6 Echo Park

everything gets bypassed into the

Yamaha NE-1 Preamp -> MXR Dynacomp.

here's a closer look at the dual bypass looper:


the feedback loop doesn't tend to catch the signal from the bass, much easier with a guitar. but i've run all my effects through it before, namely the PH-2 helps catch the right frequency and with the delay, chorus and distortion going on i've had much fun just creating all sorts of weird noises. doesn't take much technical virturosity to have a good time with them, sooo it's mainly a fun muck-around into the sonicsphere.

channel 1 houses all my dirty effects, for the moment its just an mxr m-80, possible expansion with an overdrive pedal. MXR M-80 has great colour for a distortion pedal, i love it. chose it over an overdrive because i wanted that colur instead of driving my amp. more distinct tone i reckon. the 3 band EQ works swell on the clean setting too, usually i leave it on, along with my NE-1 and dynacomp.

channel 2 houses the clean effects:
ARION SCH-Z Chorus has a slight volume boost, somewhat irritating, but it was cheap. rather unique drenchy chorus tone, i would roll the tone all the way down since it tends to add a touch of unnecessary bass. therés a sweet spot though, which i use for some driving songs, akin to Victor Low's bass tone on CS's Three album.

BOSS PH-2 Phaser. fairly useful pedal, doesn't sound good on its own, but with the chorus it adds a very spacey and dreamy effect with revolving peaks here and there. useful when using the feedback loop on a bass, but irritatingly piercing when used with a guitar.

LINE 6 Echo Park. awesome delay pedal with nice drenchy delays or short reverbs. coupled in the feedback loop and you're in noise heaven. used in conjunction with the other two for more spacey rock goodness. doesn't have its place in a guitar heavy band, but it's just there to muck around and experiment with.

the dual bypass allows me to select a group of effects whenever i want, and bypass all of them for a clean signal.

on a good day, i'll just bypass everything from the bypass looper and just go through the NE-1 and dynacomp for whatever bass i play.

YAMAHA NE-1 is a great easy to use pedal that helps you find a certain sweet spot. on some settings it helps add attack, on some it flattens everything out, slightly dubby for slower songs, but usually it just helps me add a certain presence to my tone.

MXR M-102 Dynacomp just does what it's suppose to do. great for even slap tone, and also just helps even everything out. my first time playing with compression and i like it alot.

the A/B switcher at the start just allows me to access my tuner onstage with the touch of a button. everything has been grouped to be true bypassed just in case should all else fail. -)

*phew*
that was a mouthful.

(as posted on www.soft.com.sg)