We adopted Ms Patches in October 2010. Her name was Panache then. It took a little while for her to get used to the house. That’s okay. We had just moved in and it was taking us a little while to get used to it too.
Later, in April of 2014 we adopted a second cat. Sabrina.
It ended very badly. We tried hard to keep the two cats separate from each other until they could get used to having the other around. We failed. We hid Sabrina in Bellana’s room. Patches would guard the door so we couldn’t get in and out of the room without her trying to get in.
On one of the first days, Patches and Sabrina came face to face and immediately hissed at each other. It was bad. After that it got worse. We made the decision to take Sabrina back to the shelter when Patches started running full speed, head first into the bedroom door. I guess she was trying to break the door down. She would hiss the whole time. She wanted to hurt Sabrina and she was going to hurt herself in the attempt. We couldn’t have that. Patches is family. Sabrina went back. It was very sad.
The kids have a new kitten at their Dad’s house. One of my co-workers just adopted a kitten too. I’m jealous. I want a second cat. By no means do I want to get rid of Patches, I just want another one.
Last time we had two females, and Patches was maybe six years old or so. I don’t remember how old Sabrina was, but she wasn’t a kitten. She was probably two or three. Patches is 12-13 now. She’s much mellower than she was in her crazy youth. Maybe if we got a kitten… a male kitten. Maybe she wouldn’t see it as a threat. Maybe she’d see it as family.
When I finished playing on Thursday night, June Music had nine songs with all of the rhythm guitars. I had an idea for a 10th song, but it was just a single chord change. On Friday after work I found myself wishing that I had more to do. I’ll have to do leads eventually, but I like to save that for last, and I still have to write and record the vocal parts before I get there. What to do?
I wrote out music for two more songs, that’s what. I invented new stuff for me to do. Today I recorded the rhythm guitars for those two. Neither one is the 10th idea I had socked away, so now there are 11 songs with guitar/bass/drums and one that’s still only a snippet of nothing.
When I finished the second song today I saw that my MacBook’s battery percentage was still above 70. I didn’t want to stop. That’s when I remembered there was a song left over from April that had everything except lead guitar. I brought that up, finished it off, and now I have a song that’s ready to mix.
There was also a ton of battery left, and I still didn’t want to stop. What to do next?
I’ve mentioned about 100 times that in 2015 I started a project where I would re-record the least awful songs from all of my prior RPM Challenges and stuff. Every so often I try to get some work done but I never seem to finish anything. Screw it, thought me. I picked a song out of that batch, scrapped all of the guitar parts that were already done and did ’em again. When that was done I picked a second song. When that was done… my battery was below 10% and I had to help cook dinner.
In the grand scheme of things it’s all stupid and pointless and silly but damn if it didn’t feel good.
For the June and April songs I didn’t use my pedal board. I played the 335 into the RYRA The Klone and the Keeley Super Phat Mod. I had the gain dialed pretty far back on both, but with the Bassbreaker 15 that was enough for some good, chunky distortion. For the lead on the April song I just upped the gain on both pedals a smidge
For the 2015 Project songs I only did rhythm parts and I switched back to the pedal board. The most recent plan for this project was to use the same setup I use with Lizardfish. I followed that rule for the pedals but that’s it. Technically the 335 is still retired and not allowed to leave the house, so it’s not a Lizardfish thing. The Bassbreaker 15 has never been used with Lizardfish, though I still have the idea of pairing it with a Vox AC15 and using that with the band. Guitar Center’s website has a listing for a used AC15 for under $500. I am really tempted.
The signal path today was 335 to Klon KTR to Keeley D&M Drive (just the Dan side) to the Bassbreaker 15. The problems I was having when I first switched to that have been fixed. As expected, lowering the output level on the KTR by a ton really did the trick. No more mushy compression. Everything sounded clear and dynamic and great.
I noticed one other little detail. For one of the 2015 songs, a song that was written for the 2014 50/90 Challenge, I had previously added rhythm guitars to it. The song requires a clean sound and a distorted sound. When I recorded them before there was a little weirdness in the transitions that I hadn’t done on the 50/90 recording. I didn’t catch it until a couple of days after I finished the takes but it was reason enough to redo everything. Today when I finished each take I listened back to just the guitars, with everything else muted.
I don’t think I’ve done that for any of the recordings I’ve done since March, and I’ve only used the 335 on the most recent songs, so maybe it didn’t happen… When I had the distorted guitars solo’d and there were no other tracks playing, I realized that the microphone is actually picking up a little bit of the acoustic sound of the guitar. You can hear the pick hitting the strings. It’s really subtle, and you can’t hear it within the full mix, even when the guitar tracks are cranked. Either I was bashing the guitar really hard, or the amp isn’t as loud as I thought it was. I might go back to some of the old songs and see if it happened while playing a solid body guitar. Interesting.
I wrote up two new ideas for June Music this morning before work. Nothing special. I sketched out the song form after work and tonight I put rhythm guitars down. It was the ES-335 into the RYRA for cleanish sounds for all but part of one of the songs. The one heavy piece brought out the Wren and Cuff Super Russian for some sick fuzz.
I have a little idea for one little snippet that might become song #10. Once I figure out the rest of that, it’s on to melodies and lyrics.
I meant to post this yesterday but didn’t get a chance.
She came and worked with me for a little while. It was cute, but noisy. This cat can meow like you can’t imagine. She’s got some powerful little lungs in there.
Inside the Red Head's Head 