DRL Echobox

my extensive RCA cable collection has gone from a liability to an asset.

i spent the day getting burritos and a mixer, but not a new house. so pictured below is the day's catch - for $80 at Trade Up. it's nice how they'll mark things down if they love you.


the Ramsa WR-8210a


i've just gone through an tested every input and output, bus, and eq. everything works great, with a few minor exceptions, and one less minor exception. i'll start small:

channel 2: sticky pan pot - it doesn't like to pan to the right, but jiggling it will suddenly kick the panning in. should be easy to fix.

channels 3 - 5: the sub mix input - usually meant to be hooked up to the record head returns from the tape machine - doesn't seem to work in line mode, although they do work in remix mode - which uses the sub inputs in lieu of the line inputs - for mixing off of tape without repatching the machine. seems like it could be tricky to diagnose the problem here.

channel 6: sub mix doesn't work in line mode or remix mode.

the biggie: no phantom power, this could be anything from medium easy to very hard to fix. there's an extra wierd 5pin connector coming out of the back of the mixer, looks like a modification from sometime in this thing's history.

Ramsa mixers were made by panasonic in the early 80's mostly, but they have a respectable history, including carnagie hall. and several studios i've found on the internet use them, and charge for it, so i'm excited to put this thing to use. plus the EQ is just BALLS_OUT! (especially the 1.5kHz boost. just grainy enough.) hello outboard mixing.


oh yeah, the debate

after days of searching, trips to the bins and (Gasp) 82nd. i finally got a fuckin' bookshelf, which means i can clean up the studio room and get in the position to learn to paint. i won't even try to express the relief i feel. we went to more than 8 stores looking for bookshelves. and none, well, but two broken ones. so today, when there was a shelf for 32 bux, i jumped at it. and amy was correct in pointing out that we spent much more than $15 on thrift store junk we saw while bookshelf hunting. just going to the expensive store would have saved more money than looking and looking for a shelf in my $15 budget. (and buying waffle irons, toasters, keyboards, microphones, books, tupperware, etc.)

I used to live there.

crazy how pictures can make you miss an old cat.

just dropped Amy off at recording class, at good ol' Jackpot studios. i'm hoping when she comes home she has notes etc so we can review things, 'cause it would be neat to know what she's learning, and to see how it differs from what i learned from interning there.

i haven't been doing too well at keeping up with my austin friends. i'd like to say it's 'cause i've been busy, but really, i've just had my nose in a book, a PowerBook g4. i'm getting closer and closer to having this whole dynamic website set up and running, as a laboratory for making a band booking contact searchable web database. but i'm also learning valuable stuff, like mySQL and php, and the ins and outs of the terminal application. i've been working all week to get EML to install on my computer, it always seems just around the corner. but each problem i solve reveals the next.

i'm trying to figure out what to do for christmas. should i visit austin, or Amy's family on the east coast? or stay here? i've never stayed in pdx before. maybe that's the ticket.

i've been thinking more about recording jeff, although there's no telling when he'll get a band together, or otherwise an act, and i bet he's not down with the drum machine sound. jeff, if you're reading this, you should get your ass to the north west for a visit so you can hear what these kids are doing with machines.

so i've gots a jobbbbbby job! working for the new bar opening on hawthorne. i interviewed today which turned into a discussion of scheduling. and how to price the food, etc. my new coworkers, sally, hannah, critter, and manager suzi were a blast to talk to, and some seem like they'd be fun to hang out with.

been learning Apache, EML, and SQL, learning learning. working working. no sleep til byofl.

last night i volunteered at the No On 36 campaign. basically, there's these fuckfaces who want to pass an oregon constitutional amendment making sure that only men and women can be married. my job was to call around to help raise funds for the campaign to stop them. they've also got canvassing going on, and more calling around, so if you want to help, there's info on NoOn36.com. my plan, if this thing passes, is to do chromosomal testing on all the right wing losers who got behind the amendment, and anyone who doesn't conform to the XX or XY mold, have the state declare their marriage void. (you can't challenge a constitutional amendment in court - that's the point)

on another note, my addiction to spicy mayonaisse seems to be coming along quite nicely. what you do, is you get one of those little cans: "Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce", and you dump it into a mixing bowl. then you pick out most of the peppers, leaving behind the spicy adobo sauce - and I like to leave a couple of peppers in there, all mashed up with a fork. and then you get one of those medium-small jars of Real Mayo, and you mix it all together. there's gonna be too much there to put back in the jar, so i suggest you get some toast (big slices of sourdough) and some avocado, lettuce, and some tomato, and for crunch, that fake veggie bacon - it's like ten times better than real bacon, and more crunch too - i recommend morningstar farms. and smother the bread in your spicy mayo (you wanna get all fancy, call it aioli), and eat yourself a BLAT.

so just now me and amy and lindsay and greg got all goofy on the computer and composed an online personal for me. pretty soon now the responses should start rolling in. check it out. Chris is Taken

next up, brownies.

lst nght, sw y.t.c.h. wth my, wh knw mny ppl thr. stv, jn, rn, &c. th msc ws bg, bd, fn, & dlcs.

tnght, @ rbbt hl, d's bnd, scpgt.

so yesterday amy and i worked on this new version of one of the songs for her album. success - no, it was disjoint and senseless. and so came my dreams. the back porch of a country-club pro-shop became the school-yard of my high school. walls had large nooks. hamburgers did not rot. fear was everpresent.

i've decided to take a day off from mixing today. on the home front, i have a 4:30 appointment to call back to the restaurant for scheduling information. woo hoo!

the chunkathalon, 9/11, fire-crackers, handlebars.

today was the most portland day i ever had in a long time it was me & shauna and lindsay at 13th and clinton particpating in the spectatorship of a multi-event frankenstein's bike-monster wrestling, ghost-riding, crash derby mixup of welded, long-chained bike on bike mutant ninja drunk punks and punkers, cones and barrels, clowns, judges, and referees.

after the contest shauna and i walked uphill, homeward, to bars and such. more beer, sitting down, talking shop and otherwise. always good to walk with shauna. and we got veggie burgers, and almost corn.

the winner, by my count, was #99, who conquered the derby, and showed well in ghost ride. i didn't stick around to see how she fared in baby-killing joust, but that event made no sense at all to me. did not compute.

mixed realww again. better, best, done. good mojo for mixing in the air. mfnw, chunk, more fireworks. dropped it off at pix, during the rush. that place was hella busy. you heard it here first.

the big news is that i've redefined sleeping in late, with wake up times in the mid single digits. coupled with staying up only a little late, its been a hell of a week. the project has been a cover of the cure's "close to me", originally crafted all from voices, but now with the inflence of some guitar and some SAMPLER.

i never really messed with the sampler before, even after having such a fling with the maelstrom synth in reason. but wowsers, so like, you record a fork hitting a wine glass, like a toast, and then figure out that the ringing note is quite close to F. tell that to the sampler, and suddenly you have a very pretty instrument. you can also run your finger around the rim of the glass, and then you have an orchestra.

isaac was surprised to learn that i'd never done these things before. i guess i never saw the need to. it all started innocently enough - we wanted one of the cure's synth lines to be whistled, but no one could whistle the lowest note. enter the sampler. now it doesn't sound quite like whistling, but it is, and that's what counts.

those two are getting to portland tonight, should be fun, trying to think of what to do with them - maybe beer in public. maybe movies. anyway, it won't matter much 'cause whatever we do will be kickers with the isaac and tane team.

today i mostly spent reccuperating from the double-whammy yesterday: jogging with lindsay AND taco bell. hot damn. so i learned about SQL for the touring database for the portland bands website. this is gonna be this thing where kids can post the info for places they played on tour, and other kids can read that stuff. the site book your own fucking life may be helping to take some of the technical burden off my shoulders.

and amy and i blew up her excerballs, hopefully isaac won't convince me to put them in risky situations again. the excerballs are the best, you can lay on em and then they stretch your back all out, or you can sit on them for the sake of balance and posture. whew. i'm still pretty sore from running and taco bell.

My Old Pad.

wow. it seems like the new neighbors suck poo from a spoon.

things have been keeping me pretty busy this week. job hunting (i've got one in my sights); getting moved in, as in unpacking boxes and reorganizing the kitchen and the living room desk and more to come; getting moved in, as in setting up the studio upstairs complete with keyboards, microphones, monitor speakers (just some little yamahas for now while my ns-10s are out on broken tweeter leave); and entertaining myself and others - music and movie watching, (you guys seen the Gondry movie, Human Nature?).

and Amy and i are working through her album, remixing and mastering tracks - soon the effort will be available on Music for Dozens.

now, for me, back to menu studying, music making, and checkbook finding.