I wanted to give my friends and family an idea of what I've been doing with National Headcase. I decided to load up one of their songs into Reaper and record a few takes. These solos are improvised, or arranged within minutes of recording. I did not write the original solo nor any of the song itself. you'll hear the parts - there's four total, one at the beginning, one neat the 3:30 mark, one shortly after, and one at the very end, after the original lead player's solo. I hope you all enjoy!

Oracle Solos

My ongoing effort to perfect this style I jokingly deem "sweepy bluesy"...I've added a solo around 3:30. tell me what you think!

Runsolo

testing my new Hughes and Kettner Tubemeister 18. clean vs dirty channels. just a quick little jam, one take solo, a couple quick harmonies. delay added after the fact but all else direct signal from the amp. what do you think?

Acoustic Jam

My beautiful boy. It hurts to see him struggle. This song is a release of my emotions on a particularly bad day. I love you my Staley.

Sad Day

Tone test using my new Tung Sol 12AX7's. These came highly recommended, and I can hear why! Tested using a rhythm idea for one of my tracks in Blue Sky Below.

Tung Sol Tone Test Blue Sky Below

Here's a tone test of the Mint Drive Overdrive by Red House Electronics. Played through the clean channel of my Hughes and Kettner Tubemeister 18 directly into a computer interface. No Eq'ing or processing, just the raw tone. My Digitech Polara is adding some density as well. Played with a Jackson dinky, NYXL strings, all american electronics, and Seymour Duncan Pegasus and Sentient (Sentient the whole time on this one)

Mint Drive Test 1

Here's a heavy riff I resurrected from the Through an Ocean of Plagues demos. I may have to add this one to the collab! No before or after, rather the Mint Drive is on the whole track, with my gain on the amp set to half. The Mint Drive thickens and saturates nicely!

Mint Drive Metal

An experiment in variations on a core melody.

Variations On A Theme

Vocals: Michael Koopman
Vocal Tracking: Tyler Bunch / 4405 Productions
Instruments and Composition: Chris Aldridge

Fictional Legacy

Write vocals to this! Record them! I dare you!

Chris Aldridge 6