Taking a freshly built PedalPCB Cheesemonger (Lovetone Big Cheese) fuzz pedal out for a spin in a mix to see how it works. The song is Wolfmother's 'Woman'.

Settings in-song are as you see them in the photo.
Signal chain: Guitar (Kiesel Leia w/ Lollar alnico pole p90s) > Bogner Harlow V1  > Tayda EP Booster clone > PedalPCB Cheeseball > Kemper

Guitars amateurishly double-tracked w/ Tone Junkie 'Super Dark Magic' and 'Spanky' profiles. Created with Reason 12

Cheesemonger In-mix test

From Debussy's Children's Corner, L. 113.
Took some ideas from Bela Fleck's rendition <3
All parts recorded on a Black Corporation Deckard's Dream Mk2.

Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum

Dream Fuzz w/ some mods from PedalPCB
- switchable led/diode clipping
- switchable tone cap mod for some fluffier mids

Signal path is Kiesel Leia > Bogner Harlow compressor > Fuzz > Kemper w/ Tone Junkie 'Spanky' profile. Distorted guitars are double tracked, but no other changes made to signal path.

Op Amp Fuzz Test

Golden Gardens

Cover of New Young Pony Club's excellent track, Ice Cream.

I wanted to give a new vocoder a spin, so what better way to abuse it?

Ice Cream (Cover of New Young Pony Club)

Play at the Gate

Patch Notes: This track was an attempt at getting what I want out of the Endorphines BLCK_NOIR. I'm modulating the snot out of the thrust and filter controls with an ADDAC Stochastic Function Generator and Random Bezier Waves. Separately a Kickall is playing an additional kick in just a regular constant rhythm and a Tyso Daiko is adding some sprinkles on top. It's also highly modulated from the previously mentioned ADDAC modules. A Starlab and Rainmaker are doing reverb and delay duties while an ADDAC Looper & Granular Processor comes in later in the track to add growlies and snarlies. The whole mix runs through a Shakmat HiPass, then a pair of CTX Transformer Colour modules in a Black Market Colour Palette, and an Endorphines Golden Master. It comes through pretty compressed and distorted, but kinda neat. Some additional processing is done in the DAW as well. I ended up sending the individual tracks out for each instrument as well as the effects to separate channels in case I wanted to mix it myself instead of relying on the Golden Master, but I only ended up using the tracks for parallel mixing alongside the Golden Master. It's actually a process I might try again in the future, since it ended up being an interesting way to mix. I'm not entirely pleased with this track but I'd rather call it finished and make more with what I've learned vs trying to massage this one!

BLCK

Patch notes: This track is a result of testing out a simple way to add chords to an otherwise monophonic voice by altering the playback speed of Lubadh's two decks while continuously recording (in 'classic' mode). 

A slow clock triggers a Z8000 sequencer playing a continuous 16 step loop. Other outputs from the sequencer modulate various spots on the patch. The voice is a Plaits on speech synthesis mode. An ADDAC-507 Random Bezier Waves modulates the harmonics timbre and morph, the speed of which is modulated by outputs from a Shuttle Control with automation lanes in the DAW. The Plaits outputs feed into each side of the Lúbadh, which is recording continuously in classic mode with the playback speed set to create a constant chord. Record length and start position are varied from automation lanes sent from the DAW to Lúbadh via the Shuttle Control. Lúbadh's outputs are sent to a QPAS. QPAS's cutoff frequency is controlled from a channel of Shuttle control, again automated by the DAW. The second cutoff frequency input, both radiate inputs, and the Q are all modulated from various outputs on the Z8000, some of which stop by a New Systems Instruments Inertia to introduce a little wobble along the way. The left and right lowpass outputs are sent to a stereo pair in Hexmix and recorded. A Rainmaker and ADDAC-112 VC Looper & Grainular Processor are each on sends from the Lúbadh and are recorded separately into the DAW. Rainmaker is set to the Modal Ring preset, and the ADDAC is just running another loop an octave below.

The entire piece is recorded twice and each stereo pair are panned a bit left and right to create more substance. This was a technique I thought I'd try inspired by multi-tracking guitar. 

Within the DAW (Reason 13) gentle eq (Pro-Q 3), compression (Pro-C2), tape emulation (CHOW Tape Model), and filtering (Volcano 3) bring things together and a Pro-R 2 and Valhalla Supermassive provide reverb on separate sends. A single Complex-1's noise output is used for the little riser towards the end. Mastering is a simple chain with another eq, compressor, chow tape model, Gulfoss Master (juuuuust kissing it for a bit of clarity), and Pro-L2 in that order.

I'm picturing weird electric monks singing about synthesizers in gregorianish chant, hence the name.

Ambitus

Three voices, all created with Newfangled Audio's Generate synth are processed by various filters, delays, granular doohickeys, and reverbs. A recording made at Diablo Lake makes an appearance towards the end.

Lessons from John / Thunder Arm

Tod Kessler - Old Fashioned (mixed from Produce like a Pro multitracks)

Psychic Backwash

2024.10.17 The Fist Wizard

This is an adaptation of Sidney Lanier's Song of the Chattahoochee poem. The recording comes from the Library of Congress' awesome audio files that document American dialects. I found this recording particularly interesting. Here's the original: https://www.loc.gov/item/afccal000008/

I also wanted to play a bit with Reason's new Random Tool and Note Tool player devices, so I combined the recording, chopped up, put through some fun vocoding, and paired with some keys (Radical Keys and my all-time favorite softsynth, Generate), along with some Chattahoochee river sounds from various sources. A very sparse rhythm track is built out with Superior Drummer using the CaveDrops set.

Various effects are applied with Newfangled's Recirculate and Reason's Ripley showing up on a few of the tracks to give it some vibe. Valhalla Supermassive and Synapse DR-1 Deep Reverb are run in parallel as send effects. 

The master chain is a simple series of eqs, compressors, and tape emulations - nothing fancy.

The Song Of The Chattahoochee

Testing the Diezel VHX's pitch shifter effect. The guitar is a Fender Meteora tuned to drop A#. Signal chain is Meteora > Cali76 stacked ed comp > JHS Bonsai set to JHS mode > Diezel VHX > interface. Cab emulation is via the VHX using the K100 speaker and I forget the mic model. Double tracked (messily) and panned hard left/right. Drums are some random grooves from Superior Drummer just to put it into context a bit. The mix has some compression and eq, nothing major. 

2025.03.10 VHX Pitch Shift Example

This track is a recording test to try out the excellent Hilbish Preamp on two guitars and one bass track. The song structure is lifted straight from Windhand's 'Orchard', just to give me something to work with. It's missing vocals (a very important piece of that arrangement) so it's a bit sparse. Drums are added via Superior Drummer. As a recording test I think it's a fun example of what can be done with this preamp in a doom or doom-adjacent context. 

Recording chain is as follows:

Rhythm Guitars - Fender Meteora w/ a DiMarzio Evo bridge pickup tuned to drop A# > My own Rat-like pedal (a standard rat circuit with added bass control, clipping via red/blue LEDs, and an active parametric mid eq) > Boss RE-202 > Hilbish Design betaPREAMP into both channels set to medium gain > DAW using IRs from the Bogren Digital 'Rainbows & Chainsaws' pack

Lead Guitar - same as above, but using the Meteora's stock neck pickup > Wah > octave fuzz (a DIY combo of a green ringer plus a modified Big Muff) > RE-202 > Preamp

Bass - Ibanez SRAS7 > Origin Effects Cali 76 compressor > Hilbish betaPREAMP mostly clean with a touch of grit added > DAW using Neural DSP's Parallax to do most additional tone sculpting

2025.05.24 Hilbish betaPREAMP recording test

Sketching out a new track in a synthwavish sort of territory. Thinking of adding non-synthwave stuff like maybe a guitar or something organic to carry a melody over this background.

monkeyplusplus

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