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Just a few weeks left before we start the 2009 Song-A-Day festivities (a.k.a. 29 Songs). Looks like I really need to clean out the garage and the website before this gets going.

Maybe I can pick up a few things to help things along this year too. Here's a shopping list I jotted-down on the BART one night this week:

• batteries! Mostly for the tuner, but I'll play around with different sounds a bit more this year.
• strings for the acoustic guitar.
• sm57: snare sounds have been lame. Maybe this'll help? Maybe properly tuning my snare will help more.
• midi controller: I'd love to play with one of these.
• Another samson mic to record in stereo (from the road).
• a proper mic stand for the kick drum. I lost mine somewhere along the way.
• A piano. I meant to get one at some point in '08, mostly for the girls. I used to play a little, would love to have one in the family.

What am I forgetting?

If you have any interest at all in joining the fray, please shoot me a note. As you can see this is a great excuse to go out and buy some gear. Your spouse will surely agree.

After the last post about my lack of audio engineeritude, I came home to find the mic in the same absurd position as I left it after recording ' 2 i5 b3tt3r than 0n3'. As you can see, I wasn't really aiming it at the kit AT ALL...

Better Drum Recording: So I literally dusted off my recording gear and tried to use my standard shortcuts and equipment (D112, Oktava C-12s, SM58) to record 'Doomed From The Start'.

Guitar stuffs: More from recording 'Doomed'. I played the Fender Lead II into the Zvex Nano Amp into the Mesa 4x12. I think that thing is packed with celestions. I'll have to doublecheck tho. I'm using the Zvex instead of the dual rectifier because it sounds nice and because of the late-night recording sessions.

I recorded 'Doomed' with a SM58 about 6 inches away from the speaker.

Vocals went through the Pacific Pro Audio - LD-2UBE and I think I heard what Derek was singing about in his song about the microphone. There's something almost too transparent about the sound. I'll muck around with this a little more.