Things I've Learned This Week

1. The Law of St. Nick: the strand of christmas tree lights that are the hardest to reach are the ones most likely to go out prematurely

2. if you ever try to re-create KFC's 11 herbs and spices original recipe fried chicken, it's gonna take a LOT of experimentation before you get anything that doesn't taste horrible. i learned this the hard way.

3. lately i've been realizing how in the grand scheme of recording, vocals account for about 85% of whether or not it's considered a good recording. for any singer, some days are just not good days to sing. when that happens, instead of getting frustrated and having them do a million takes (which makes their voice even worse), it's better to just work another day.

4. if your tires work out great and last 30,000 miles longer than they were supposed to, you can be sure the company that makes those tires will discontinue them so as not to make that mistake again.

5. frying a turkey is definitely the way to go. ok, technically that's not recently. i learned that a few weeks ago at thanksgiving, but seriously, do yourself a favor and skip the oven. no more dried out white meat.

6. Edy's grape and lime fruit juice popsicles dominate all other frozen treats. if you disagree, Edy herself will punch you in the face.

7. Preparation pays off. Here's a story for you: about 5 years ago it snowed in nashville around christmas. but nobody here sells sleds. so you know what i did? i asked for a sled for christmas from my family in illinois. they were confused, but nevertheless they obliged me and bought me a plastic sled. that sled has stayed in my basement since then. BUT THEN it snowed 4 or 5 inches on sunday. my day of reckoning had arrived. my new place has a big hill in the back. @davidmolnar came over with his snowboard and we were 12 years old again. THE END.

8. the biggest enemy of my productivity is angry birds

9. I am the Lord of Catan

10. watched the new narnia movie. SPOILER ALERT - the lion is jesus

11. Last Christmas is the best Christmas song ever written. there. i said it. thank you george michael.

12. the new my chemical romance record is awesome.

13. @davidmolnar is the best backup swayer i've ever known.

that's all for now!

nick

Bass

the english language is very weird. take the word "bass". because you are reading this, you have no idea if i'm talking about the fish, or the instrument. while i do enjoy bass fishing, let's talk about the instrument - and more specifically, this guy:

this is my buddy Nathan Thomas. he loves his cat, he loves Prince and he absolutely loves jimmy eat world. the last part is a big reason me and nathan are friends. in addition to being an original member of Cartel, he's played for Avril Lavigne, Shedaisy, Jeremy Camp, Krystal Meyers, Britt Nicole, and Day of Fire to name a few.

we share the same dark sense of humor. he told me a great story the other day where he was hired to play a one-off show for a fairly well known christian rock singer. the music director came to meet up with him to go over the songs the day before the show. when they started to play the first song, nathan proceeded to play the song in its entirety in all slap bass - with a straight face the whole time. he watched the guy's face sink and could practically read his mind as he probably thought "crap, how the heck am i going to find another bass player so quickly." the music director artfully downplayed the atrocity he had just witnessed and proceeded with a very nice "well, maybe we should try something different..." before nathan's face exploded in laughter and let him in on the joke.

anyway, nathan is awesome, and that's why i hired him to play bass on Tricia's solo worship record. he's a great player - he's the type of guy who usually gets what i'm trying to do without even having to tell him. with most songs i usually record a couple of takes without one word of direction and we end up keeping a lot elements of those takes. i'm a fan of melodic, moving bass lines in the style of paul mccartney. some think the bass should be simple and foundational - which there is truth to, but some tasteful movement in the right spots really excites the song.

anyway, he's the lowdown on the gear we used.

here are the main 3 basses we used. from left to right you'll see an Epiphone Jack Casady 2006 strung with flat wounds, a Fender P Bass 2002 with S-1 switching and a Fender Jazz bass 2005. jazz basses are my favorite so i think we ended up using that one the most. but the other two really found their places.

we also used an upright bass for one song.

here's what we had for pedals.

as you can see, he has a lot of aguilar pedals. i'm a fan of the agro pedal. it's got a certain low mid punch that sounds nasty when you hear just the bass but it makes it sit perfectly in the mix. that red pedal up on the top right is a custom fuzz/gate pedal that nathan and his buddy made. the best way i can explain is that it's similar to a fuzz factory pedal except for bass. here's the list of pedals:

Boss TU-2

Aguilar TLC compressor

Aguilar Agro

Aguilar Tone Hammer

Aguilar Octamizer

Home-made "top secret" fuzz/synth

Electro Harmonix Holy Stain

Tech 21 Sans Amp

we ran a clean direct line straight out of the tone hammer and then a "dirty" line at the end of the effect chain. no amp. that scares me a little. i usually like to have a mic'd up amp but this turned out really well.

one of the lines was run into a Vintech x81 and then a tiny bit of compression from a Distressor and the other line went through an Avalon 737 with a touch of compression and no EQ.

if you'd like to follow nathan thomas on twitter, his twitter name is @nathantbass

if you'd like to follow Tricia on twitter, her twitter name is @superchicktrish

work with what you've got

when it rains, it pours. i am definitely blessed with work to do. i'd rather be too busy than have nothing to do.

first off, i got back yesterday from a two week run with Stellar Kart and got back the first mix from Tricia's worship record. it's a song called "Lean" that was loosely inspired by the old hymn "Leaning On The Everlasting Arms." "wow" you might say. "why is one song done so early?" well i'll tell you. that song is going to appear in an upcoming Now Hear This compilation. we're very excited. we had it mixed by Ainslie Grosser (@ainslieg). i'll have plenty more to show and tell very soon about the rest of the record.

secondly, let's talk about something else exciting. as i said earlier, i just got off the road with stellar kart for a two week run. while i was out, i brough some gear with me and we recorded an EP - the contents which are very very secret. "how secret" you ask? well let's just say that if said secrets were to leak on the internets, many clandestine agents around the world would be outed, nuclear war would ensue and would probably bring about the end of the human race.

i've never done a record while on tour. this was definitely a lesson in less-is-more. what's surprising is how well things can turn out when you don't have your best tools. it just reinforces the fact that what makes a good recording are the ideas, not the gear.

here's a shot of the rig.

a single shock mounted road case, digi 002 rack, motu 8 channel mic pre and avalon 737. that drawer contains a bunch of mics, cables, dongles, headphones and random stuff. everything was run off of a macbook.

the day we recorded drums, we were incredibly fortunate to be playing a show at a church that had halfway decent acoustics. it wasn't as good as a professionally designed studio, but it was good enough. here's a shot:

notice the panels on the wall. they're absorption panels to deaden the room. also notice the angled walls. without getting into a long drawn out discussion on acoustics, just accept this fact when i tell you that you don't want any parallel surfaces in a room where you're recording.

here's jordan's setup

we didn't have the best mics available. here's the quick rundown - audix d6 and shure beta 52 on kick. audix i5 and 57 on snare(s) two unidentified mics on toms that came from manic drive. akg c1000's on overheads, audio technica 4050's for room mics and 57's for hat and ride. what's interesting about using a dynamic mic on hat and ride is that the pattern wasn't as wide as a condenser which is what i typically use. which means better isolation. i don't know why i haven't tried this before.

also, i tried something new with the room mics. i brought a long headphone extender cable with me. i grabbed one of the room mics and record enabled it and put the headphones on. i had jordan start playing and i just walked around the room listening to the mic. the trouble with room mics is usually with the cymbals. it's hard to find a good spot that's not so harsh on the high end. we ended up finding a sweet spot with some good low end about 15 feet in front and to the left of the kit. not exactly where i guessed it would be. if i'm ever trying to record drums in a room that i'm not familiar with, i think i've found a new trick.

here's another interesting thing i tried:

ok, things are about to get nerdy. be warned. if you don't like technical talk, you might want to skip the next few paragraphs.

noticed how one mic is about two feet behind the other mic. 22 inches to be exact. the night before i was thinking about an article i read where chris lord alge was talking about making sure if he was mixing two channels of bass how important it is that they're in phase with each other. forgive me if those of you reading already know this, but when you encounter phase problems, certain frequencies will cancel out depending on the phase. anyway, i was thinking that there could be a way to use phase cancellation to create a desired effect. i didn't have all my normal equipment to record drums like i usually do at darkhorse. with a kick drum i find myself almost always scooping out 300 Hz (or somewhere around there.) different frequencies have different wavelengths - actual physical wavelengths. i figured if i could find the exact wavelength of 300 Hz and place the second mic so that frequency would be exactly 180 degrees out of phase, then that frequency (and that frequency alone) would cancel out. the formula to use is:

c/f = w

where c = the constant (in this case being the speed of sound in meters per second [343 m/per sec])

f = frequency

w = wavelength

so when i plug my numbers in i get this:

343 / 300 = f

f = 1.14 meters

that's science!! well...math, really. mrs. labbe, if you're reading this (and she might actually be), you are probably so proud right now.

yes kids. i just did some algebra. i hate to break it to you, but you actually do need to use some of that stuff they teach you in school.

anyway, 1.14 meters is roughly 44 inches. if i want the mic to be 180 degrees out of phase, i need to place it at half that distance which is 22 inches.

did it work?? BEAUTIFULLY. i couldn't believe it. i didn't use any EQ and the kick sounded great. granted, i did have to move the fader up and down a bit to find the sweet spot where it was canceling out just right, but nevertheless, it worked. also, i should give some credit to @jordanmesser for having a good sounding kick and knowing how to tune it and play it well.

so lesson be learned. to everybody complaining about not having great gear:

a shoddy craftsman blames his tools.

my mom, a.k.a. life hacker

one of the benefits of playing in a christian rock band is that every now and then i can get tickets to other shows for my family. my mom called me yesterday excited because tobymac and skillet were coming through my hometown of springfield, IL. so of course, i called a friend who got her on the list. i texted her back the good news that she was on the list. later that night she texted me that she had a great time at the show and said thanks.

now this would be a boring story if it ended there. but thankfully, it doesn't.

i got a message from my friend today saying "hey nick! i'm so terribly sorry i was thinking ur mom needed comps for the Springfield, MO show the first week of december and just now realized it was last night's show. did she end up going? pls pass along my apologies if she did try :("

that is the exact text. if you don't believe me, notice the emoticon and shortened spelling of "your" into "ur."

now here's where it gets good. this is one of the reasons my mom is awesome. she managed to get in. long time readers of my blog may remember me occasionally talking about how sometimes just acting like you know what you're doing and acting like you're supposed to be there will get you far. my mom understands this concept COMPLETELY. there is no security guard alive who can keep my mom from getting backstage. anyway, apparently when the people at the ticket desk couldn't find the tickets that were never left, my mom just told them that her son is in stellar kart and he called his buddies and her tickets should be there. i'm not sure exactly what she said, but they ended up giving her tickets.

my mom beats the system like it's her job.

day off

so here we are. oklahoma city. the stellar kart 3D tour has been going great so far. but today we are just chilling in the bus. if you check google you would think that the shopping mall that we are parked at would keep us occupied. but closer inspection reveals that this is a dying mall. there's nothing more depressing than a dying mall. the empty parking lot. the removed store signs. movie theater shut down. the only signs of life are more depressing than the decay of the deserted and barred up spaces. i mean, who goes to a decrepit mall for a hair weave anyway?

i was in the mood for some adventure so i just started walking. lo and behold i found a pawn shop. I LOVE PAWN SHOPS. seriously. some people love malls, some people love thrift stores. i love pawn shops. i'm always on the hunt for music gear or electronics for super cheap. one of the best things about pawn shops are the DVDs. they have tons of classic movies and the DVDs usually run about $2 or $3 a piece. but nothing would prepare me for what i saw today in the pawn shop.

CHECK. THIS. OUT.

do you know what that is?? some of you probably do. if you don't, i'll tell you.

that is a FREAKING BARRETT .50 CALIBRE SNIPER and ANTI-MATERIAL RIFLE

i don't know if you can tell from the picture, but right in front of the gun is .50 calibre shell. that shell is about 5 inches long. these puppies aren't just meant to take out a bad guy from over a mile away. a well placed shot from this guy into the engine block of a car will stop a hummer or jeep dead in its tracks. remember the movie Shooter? remember at the beginning when mark wahlberg shot a helicopter down with a well placed shot to the rotors? well he was using this puppy, and that is a totally feasible shot. ya know how when you watch Walker Texas Ranger and there's always crazy inaccurate situations like when he shoots one bullet from his handgun and the car blows up? well, this gun is the closest thing we have to Walker Texas Ranger.

God help us all if chuck norris were to get his hands on one of these babies.

anyway, i didn't have $6,000 to buy this guy even though that's a great deal. they usually go for $10,000...oh ya, and the bullets cost $5 a piece. seriously. not a cheap hobby. but i've gotta do something or else the terrorists win.

but i did end up buying all three lord of the rings movies for a grand total of $6. so you know what? our crappy day at a dying mall is turning out to be an awesome movie day. so take that Osama. 'Muricah!! Freedom isn't free! These colors don't run!

and that brings us to the moral of the story. happy veterans day.

by the way, if you wanna hear more about the gun that i just casually found on sale in a pawn shop in oklahoma city, check out this video:

happy halloween!

here's a little independent film me and the SK guys have been working on. probably gonna enter it into some film festivals...you know, see what happens. no big deal

studio update - worship album

it's always hard holding out for long term goals. whether it's getting through a 4 year college degree or simply waiting a day for the paint to dry on a model rocket, waiting for the payoff sucks. but it's so fun when you get that diploma.....and even more fun when you shoot off your rocket.

tricia and i started the wheels moving on a worship record last march. (NO, she is not quitting Superchic[k]).

a wise man once told me that nothing worth doing is ever easy, and he was right. after various label meetings, record contract negotiations and about 5 months of songwriting, we finally started tracking drums for tricia's first solo record which will be a worship record.

well of course i booked out the Cabin at Darkhorse studios. i love this room. it's absolutely my favorite place to tracks drums in nashville. when recording drums, one of the biggest factors in getting a good drum sound (after good player, good drums and good song) is having a good sounding room. it doesn't matter how high quality your mics are or if you have the best gear. if you have a bad sounding room that just means those mics will pristinely capture how bad it sounds. i'm no rocket scientist. i don't know a ton about the science of acoustics, but good rooms usually have a few things in common:

- high ceilings

-no parallel surfaces

-wood floors/walls (NO DRYWALL!!)

Anyway, here's a few shots and highlights.

trident series 80 console. i usually use outboard mic pre's, but if needed to, every channel has a high quality pre in it. it's not in-line like an SSL or the newer Neve's, but that doesn't make much difference if i'm using mostly outboard pre's.

here you can see the amek 9098 mic pre/EQ that we use on a pair of room mics. below it are two brent averill 1073 clones that we used on the outside kick mic and the snare bottom. i've decided that i'm not a huge fan of 1073s. i mean, sure they sound fine, but the EQ is so limiting. and speaking of the outside kick mic, check this out. i always experiment with at least one thing when i record drums. this time i tried a royer 122 ribbon mic on the kick. the attack from a kick drum usually comes mostly from the inside mic whereas the outside mic better captures the very low sub frequencies. ribbon mics are known for being darker, and since it's outside of the drum, i usually find myself rolling off the top end to get rid of the extra cymbal noise. but with the ribbon, i didn't really have to do that. finding a natural solution is usually better than having to carve out the sound with EQ. most ribbon mics are very sensitive to very loud noises, but the royers are specially made to handle a lot of sound. check them out here http://www.royerlabs.com.

of course we have vintech x81's which are neve 1081 clones. great sounding mic pre and a very capable 4 band EQ. side note - i finally got to buy one for myself. more on that in another blog.

the white piece of gear is an Amek 9098 stereo compressor which i absolutely love. rupert neve consulted for Amek after he sold Neve and this is essentially a clone of his own design. in a previous blog from Quad studios, i noted how i used the Neve 33609. what's weird is that i like the newer 9098 better than the 33609. anyway, i also used API 3124 pre's on overheads, hat mic, ride cymbal mic. and of course i'm taking advantage of those two distressors down there. although i don't have them pumping that hard....that sounds like a thats-what-she-said joke.

neumann m147's. i usually ask for these mics when i track drums are darkhorse and they always seem to be taken up by another client. i used very little EQ and these guys sounded great.

and of course the best part of the day.....

yes, that's right. i bring my dogs to the studio. DEAL WITH IT. and yes, my wife and i put clothes on them because they look cute. SO SUE ME. i would love to have someone look me in the eye and tell me that those aren't the two cutest dogs in the world. and if someone actually did, i would probably punch them in the face.

oh, and i think i went the extra mile on this blog because i actually got some video. here's the dogs playing, trish looking hot and joey sanchez playing drums in the background. his Mlasko kit and ludwig black beauty always sound amazing. it's one thing to record a good drummer, it's a whole different thing to have a drummer who really knows how to tune his drums. a better sounding drum means less EQ and a cleaner signal path. so anyway, here's the video. side note: the vocals you hear in the background are just a one take scratch vocal.

doctor visit

ok, i got a weird one for ya. a week and a half ago my ear started acting funny. like, really funny. i actually started hearing everything in a lower pitch in my left ear. seriously. if i whistled, i heard two distinctly different notes. i started to get freaked out that i was losing my hearing.

we were stuck in LA on some days off so somehow i found my way to a clinic in West LA. i'll make a long story short - the doctor saw me and said it was just an ear infection. i was relieved. anyway, he prescribed some ear drops and told me i could buy them for only $75 from him and that at a pharmacy they are normally $150. well, naturally, i was skeptical. when's the last time your doctor tried to sell you something? so i made some excuse and didn't buy it. the last week and a half i either didn't have a chance to get to a pharmacy or flat out forgot to get the prescription. i was just happy that it was just an ear infection and i wasn't losing my hearing.

today i finally had some free time to go get it filled. walgreens didn't have the drug. apparently it's not really used a lot. they suggested a more common drug that's very similar and universally used for ear infections. so they called the doctor, got the ok and switched it. as they were ringing it up, i braced myself for the total. i was expecting something brutal - easily over $100. but when she told me the amount, it was only $30. and no, that wasn't after an insurance co-pay.

so my question is this: was that first doctor just screwy? is it normal for a doctor to prescribe the more expensive and less-commonly used drug specifically so he can sell it to you right then and there in his office for a highly inflated price?

note to self: don't go to clinics in West LA.

Robot Voice

sometimes i hear people say certain things in social situations that are flat out wrong. but the statement is so trivial that for me to jump in and correct it would just make me look like some arrogant snob so i just end up letting it go. when someone insists that some urban legend is absolutely true, all of the sudden i'm captain buzzkill if i say the truth. and that's the story of how 90% of all blogs got started. so here's something that people continually get wrong that i am 100% sure of the answer. and it all has to do with the ROBOT VOICE. when i was in college, i went through a couple month period where i was obsessed with finding out how to do the robot voice. and for the enjoyment of the techies out there, here's how to do it.

There are actually 3 distinct ways to create a "Robot Voice"

1. Vocoder

2. The Talkbox

3. Auto Tune

1. Vocoder

The Vocoder is commonly mispronounced "Vocorder". yes, i know, vocoder is hard to say, but that doesn't excuse your linguistic ignorance. the vocoder works on the principle of combining the pure tone of a synthesizer with the modulation of a real voice. and the end product is a keyboard that sounds like it's talking. Your voice actually works on this principle too. Your vocal chords vibrate and produce a pure tone. but the way you move your move changes how that tone sounds, creating different sounds. So really, your vocal chords provide the pure tone, and your mouth modulates the signal. in a vocoder, the synth is the pure tone and you speak into a microphone which translates that modulation into various filters to make it sound like the synth is speaking.

one of the most popular examples of a vocoder in action is the famous "Mr. Roboto" by Styx

or for those of you born after 1985, at the end of "California Girls" by Katy Perry, the robot voice you hear singing the words "California girls" is also a vocoder.

2. Talkbox

The talkbox has been around since the 60's but was first made famous by Peter Frampton in Frampton Comes Alive where he makes his guitar talk. but when explaining the talkbox, i don't think frampton really counts as a pioneer. the "talking" isn't very clear. richie sambora of Bon Jovi used one at the famous beginning of "Living on a Prayer" but his talkbox playing just sounds like a glorified wah pedal, not a clear and concise talking. the hands-down master of the talkbox is Mr. Roger Troutman from the late 70s, early 80s group Zapp and Roger. You may not know the name, but if you've ever heard "California Love" by Dr. Dre, then you've heard Roger Troutman. He's the guy singing with the talkbox robot voice.

the talkbox works on the same principle of the vocoder, but it accomplishes this in a completely different way. the keyboard provides the pure tone, but instead of speaking into a mic and having the modulating sounds translated into a filter, the effect is accomplished in a much more natural way. the talkbox is essentially just a speaker with a long tube attached. that's it. you plug the keyboard or guitar into it. the sound travels from the speaker up through the tube and into your mouth. the way you move your mouth modulates the sound. it's actually kinda hard to do. it requires practice and skill which is why some people are better than others at it.

a few of you may remember a couple years ago when i was with TFK i used to play a talkbox at the end of one of the songs.

3. Auto Tune

Auto tune is probably the most recognized of the robot voice mainly because of T-Pain. Auto Tune has been around since the late 90s. In 1998 Cher released "Believe" where the robot effect was first showcased. It was actually an accident. back in college, i couldn't figure out how to get this affect. what's funny is that i had auto tune on my computer at the time, but didn't realize what the effect was. then one day for a recording school assignment i walked into a studio on music row in nashville and asked if i could sit in on a session. the studio manager walked me into a mix session with a guy named Reid Shippen who happens to be a big mix engineer in christian music. he was mixing a song by Jump 5 (remember christian boy bands??) and in the song they were using the robot voice i had sought after for so long. i asked reid what it was and he showed me and i felt like an idiot that it had been at my fingertips for so long.

auto tune works on a completely different principle than the vocoder or talkbox. the way the program "tunes" a voice is by analyzing the sound and determining what pitch it is. it then looks at the key you are in and adjusts the pitch to the closest note in the designated scale. one of the controls is for "Retune Speed" which controls how quickly the program adjusts the pitch. the human voice doesn't go straight from one pitch to another. it slides between notes. but the engineers for Cher's "Believe" stumbled upon the fact that if you turned the retune speed allllll the way up, it truncates that sliding and goes straight from one note to the other. and that's what makes it sound like a robot.

the best thing to come out of this technology would have to be the guys who do auto tune the news and gave us the famous bed intruder song.

so there you have it. three ways to do the robot voice. and i have also successfully ended another blog with the bed intruder song. SCORE!

stopit

This has always annoyed me.

some of you see this picture and don't need to read any further. you know exactly what i'm talking about. but for those of you who don't, i'll explain.

no, it's not the oversized floppy hats. it's not the goofy smile on the girl with dark hair and yellow dress. it's the awkward half-stooping pose that girls universally feel the need to do every time they're in a group picture.

did the photographer catch them right in the middle of sitting down? are they standing on top of a vent and are merely preventing their skirts from blowing upwards? do they need to use the bathroom?

so let me get this straight....you're hunched over, hands in your crotch, knees together and butt sticking out. for those of you familiar with the rocky horror picture show, it sounds strangely familiar to the time warp dance - but with one exception. the time warp was designed to be clumsy and awkward for the purpose of a movie. but the girl-group-photo-pose is somehow the status quo. every girl does it at one time or another. do they give lessons on how to look terrible in group photos during girls P.E. or something?

i know, i know. you're just trying to fit into the picture frame. well try this. when you take a group photo, stand there like normal and just make the person taking the picture take a step back. you can thank me 20 years from now when you're searching through old pictures and you don't look ridiculous. your welcome.

we are all weiners

sometimes destiny has your name on it. sometimes the skies open up and God looks down on you favorably for a moment in time. and sometimes you show up early to a KC Royals game to watch batting practice and you get asked to be in the hot dog race at the end of the 5th inning.

that is exactly what happened to me, @adamagee and @jordanmesser yesterday. i'll back up. here's a handy bullet point list of what happened:

* day off in Kansas City

* Burro manages to get us free tickets to the KC game

* we show up early to watch batting practice

* nameless, faceless Royals employee sees us and thinks to himself, "wow, these guys would look great in weiner suits"

* he approaches, makes his request. we accept. history is set in motion.

It was an epic race. while suiting up we were all making outrageous claims of who would lose and how. Adam was mustard, i was ketchup and jordan was relish. when the time came we got our two seconds on camera on the jumbo tron. i was talking trash. adam smiled politely. jordan mouthed "RELISH BE JEALOUS."

and then we were off. adam is good at everything he does so of course he won. me, being slightly overweight and out of shape came in last. but it doesn't matter. all that matters was that i made a fool of myself in a weiner suit on the largest HD jumbotron in the world.

how did you spend your friday night?

(video posted below)

choices

we all face decisions every day of our life. some are more weighty than others. as a teenager growing up i found myself constantly getting in trouble. and of course, many times i would find myself in the office of Pastor Mark. his mantra to me was something like, "Nick, life is full of choices, and what you choose every day affects the outcome of your life". everytime he would see me screwing up, he would just sigh and say "choices, nick....choices." this happened so many times that it almost became a joke if it weren't true.

sometimes we are faced with choices that pit the principle of what we believe against the realistic consequences of those decisions in the short term. for instance, when you have a screaming kid who wants too much candy, do you hold to your principles and suffer the crying, or do you give him candy and risk setting a precedent that the kid can get whatever he wants if he throws a big enough fit? many frustrated and exhausted parents have chosen the latter even though they know better. they let their emotions push them towards a pragmatic decision as opposed to an idealistic one - a decision based on principle.

i'm going somewhere with this. i promise. and ya know where i'm going? politics. yup. don't worry. i'm not going to try to indoctrinate you. i'm not trying to push you to be a republican or democrat. i just think there's a practical lesson to learn from the last two years about choosing between the pragmatic (the realistic, short term) decision and the idealistic (long term, principled) decision.

I supported and voted for Ron Paul in the last presidential election. i liked his small government philosophy and extreme respect for the constitution. i knew he was an outlying candidate that didn't have a huge chance at winning the election, but i really believed in what he said even when he didn't win the primary. some said i was throwing my vote away. and maybe i was, but i was facing a decision to either go with principle or go the pragmatic way and vote for McCain because it was more realistic that he would have a chance at the presidency.

here we are a few years later. of course Ron Paul didn't win. but i realized this - before that election, republicans were still big spending "compassionate conservatives." but now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of smaller government and stronger individual rights. Tea Party candidates are putting old school republicans out of races. and speaking of the Tea Party, do you realize that the first Tea Party (other than the one in the revolution) was organized by Ron Paul's campaign back in the fall of 2007?

listen, i'm not trying to convince you how awesome he is. that's not my point. i'm trying to demonstrate that sometimes you have to just follow your gut and make a principled and idealist decision even if you don't see the benefit in the short term. Ron Paul's run for the white house was not successful. but it was hugely successful in changing the tone and the direction of the republican party. do what you know is right - even if you don't see how anything good can come of it.

15 Things I've Learned Recently

Hey everybody. it's been a while since i've shouted at you. i've grown, learned many life lessons and quite frankly, am a different human being than i was before. and by quite different, i mean i'm the same cynical, sarcastic and self effacing douche bag you all know and love. here's a few life lessons i've learned in the past few weeks:

1. don't try to film any video blogs while in the red light district in amsterdam. no matter how family friendly your message is, you're bound to get something a little PG-13 in the background of your shot

2. my sister @AlieghShields's music has turned out awesome. that's not so much a lesson as it is a fulfillment of prophecy. we'll have it posted soon.

3. don't mess with @jordanmesser. he will have a smile on his face and then all of the sudden SNAP on you and stab you with a water bottle. i learned that the hard way

4. i am the greatest fisherman ever - and by EVER i mean the best this tour bus has ever seen.

5. Losing weight is awesome....the part that sucks is the not eating as much as you want. 

6. i miss my wife. i will not see her for a whole month. to those of you enjoying superchick and stellar kart shows this month, this is the price i pay for your enjoyment. your welcome.

7. i miss my dogs. see #6 for witty, yet scathing comment.

8. if you have an iPhone with a cracked screen, people will constantly ask what happened. just tell them you have the cracked screen app.

9. a good show sometimes has absolutely nothing to do with how well you played or how good it sounds. it's about how fun and entertaining you make it for the audience. no matter how well we play SK songs live or how much we rock it out, kids still tell us their favorite part of the show was "A Whole New World."

10. i don't know if this qualifies as a lesson i've learned, but i have definitey learned that i want this guitar:

one of the guys in Philmont had this exact guitar at a show we played the other day. I COVET!

11. it's all about the song. we've been writing and writing and writing for Tricia's solo worship album that i'm producing. i'm definitely going to do my best to make the record sound good, but the most important part of any record is getting great SONGS. you can have the best production, the best gear, the best performances, but if the song sucks, no one cares. however, if you've got great songs, then at least you have a fighting chance of getting noticed. we've written about 15 songs in the last two months and have had about 45 songs pitched to us for the record. we're still writing and will have to narrow it down to 10 songs eventually. sometimes it's just a numbers game. the more songs you write, the more chances you have at writing a hit song. someone told me a while back that for Tim McGraw's latest album, they sifted through over 1,500 songs. and guess who wrote the lead single? Chad Kroeger from Nickelback. now i'm not a fan of douche bag rock, but the dude definitely knows how to write a hit song. he also knows how to be ugly.

Holland and More

well, i definitely joined up with Stellar Kart at the right time - just in time to go play Flevo Festival in Holland. i played it last year with TFK so some of the people were a little confused.

let me just say that Amsterdam is amazing. you should definitely go sometime in your life. i know i know...everybody thinks of amsterdam as one giant city of debauchery, prostitutes and illicit drug use. ya, that stuff is there. everybody's read about the red light district. but honestly it's really a beautiful city with canals running through the city, old architecture, museums and great shops.

the shows were great. we closed out mainstage on friday night. the production at the festival is always top notch and they treat us very well. here's cool video someone uploaded on youtube:






the next day we also played a show at the beach stage which was honestly probably the most fun i've had playing a show in a very long time. the stage is actually in the water facing the beach. the kids at the first 10 feet of the stage were actually standing in water. when things got crazy, water was splashing all over the place. we were having so much fun we didn't care that it was getting all over our gear. thank god nothing got fried. here's a crowd shot:



also, i had three different people come up to me and ask for a high five because they read my blog. that is so awesome and unreal to think people halfway around the world are interested in my ramblings.

Also, i have some big news. my wife Tricia, who is the singer for Superchick is working on a solo worship record. the first question from everyone's mouth is if she's quitting superchick and the answer is NO. tricia's got a great voice and has always wanted to do a worship project and this seemed like the right time.

another piece of good news is that i'll be producing the project. we're excited to work together. we've been working on a lot of co writing sessions and are pretty pumped about the songs. i'll also be possibly taking on an intern during the recording process. the internship would include helping me beef up the acoustics in my studio, basic pro tools editing and generally helping out. the intern will receive album credit as an assistant engineer and a small weekly stipend to cover gas expenses. recording school is not required, but a good attitude is. pro tools experience is a plus. you must live in the nashville area from october through early december. anyone interested should send a resumé to NickBaumhardtIntern@hotmail.com

i'll definitely be posting more blogs during the recording process. next up will be a mic shootout to find the best vocal chain for tricia's voice. i would say "stay tuned" but that's kinda stupid. so i'll leave you with the funniest thing to hit the internet in the last month.

Stellar Changes

all right everybody, here's the deal. i've got good news and bad news. what do you want to hear first?

save your breath. this is a blog. i can't hear you. or maybe i'll pull a little stage trick and act like i can hear someone in the crowd shouting what i secretly want to be first.....what's that? one more time, please?? you want the bad news first? well, all righty then...

I've decided to not play for Stephanie Smith anymore. :(

Stephanie is incredibly talented and was a lot of fun to play for. She treats her band very well, she's down to earth and she has great message. I've only played for her since January, but me, Steph, @nathantbass and @stephenkadaradar have had some fun times. She's working on her next record now and i think it's going to be great. Be sure to follow her on twitter at @stephanaynay. I'm definitely going to missing playing with them.

And now for the good news!

The reason I'm leaving Steph is because God has opened a door to start playing guitar for Stellar Kart. Yup....these guys:



except, see the third guy from the left with the black vest? right now i want you to open up photoshop in your head and past my head over his. except make sure my head is way out of proportion with the body. that way it's kinda funny looking. and maybe give me some muscles. anyway, he is @jonY2K and i've known him for a few years now back when he used to be in a band called Dizmas.

Anyway, this last weekend i played my first show with @AdamAgee, @JordanMesser and @BrianCalcara and i seriously had probably the most fun i've had in a long time on stage. It was a fun road trip. I kinda already knew the guys from seeing each other at festivals, but now that i'm starting to get to know them for real i'm pretty excited. we all like a lot of the same bands, we all enjoy late night fast food and we all like to have fun - and if sometimes having fun means listening to boys II men on the bus, then so be it.

Anyway, we play in Maryland next week and in two weeks we'll be at Flevo Festival near Amsterdam. Come out to the shows and come say hi. if you come to the signing line and tell me you read my blog, i'll give you a free.....wellll....hmmm...i'd like to give some sort of prize but i don't have any prizes to give out so how about mad respect and a high five??

Ok, so that's the big news. i guess i could have just summed it up and said i'm leaving stephanie smith to play for stellar kart, but then it wouldn't have as much fun, right?

late night shopping

my wonderful wife left for some shows a couple days ago. and of course, whenever she leaves, i work like crazy. when i work like crazy, i also neglect the basics like grocery shopping. so when i finish doing some work at some late hour and i'm starving and there's no food in the kitchen, i kind of enjoy going to the grocery store for late night snacking. and that is the story of how i am getting fat. most people would agree that my late night snack raids are breaking two rules - 1. don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry and 2. don't eat after 9pm. well, you're absolutely right. but to give some semblance that i'm trying to do the right thing, here's a list of late night snack food items i love but are like stepping on a minefield except when you step on a landmine, you blow up, but when you eat these, it's only your stomach that blows up.....well, sometimes the next morning...well, you get the idea...


1. Pickles

ya, that's right pickles. kosher dill spears. only the ones that are white. urban legends say that the green ones come from rotten cucumbers. if the internet says it, then it must be true. and plus, it's a vegetable, right?

2. EZ Cheese - a.k.a. cheese in a can

i honestly haven't had this in years, but i used to LOOOOOOOVE IT SO MUCH. i would eat EZ Cheese everyday if it weren't for the promise of a heart attack at age 34 and the shameful looks from friends and family.

3. Fruit Rollup and Sparkling Grape Juice

but nick, that's two things! you're dang right that's two things, but they go together. a buddy of mine that i grew up with introduced me to this one-two sucker punch of a late night snack. i don't know what sort of chemical reaction happens when these two concoctions come together but it's magic in my mouth. and i'm willing to bet ten american dollars that last sentence made @nathantbass giggle.

4. Popsicles

oh man, these are like kryptonite for me. if the fate of the world rested on me not eating anything for one hour and you handed me a fruit juice popsicle or a bomb pop, the world would end in less that 2 minutes. and yes, they're bad for you. i mean, i rationalize by eating fruit juice popsicles because, hey, it's fruit, right? ya...the fruit to sugar ratio is like creamer to coffee. that analogy only works if you like your coffee strong and black...just like your.... i'm not going to finish that joke because it would be inappropriate. whoever said i don't have an inner censor, TAKE THAT!

5. Steak

yes, i have done this before. sometimes it's 1am and i feel like a steak. so sue me. well, it's not sue i'm worried about. it's the heart attack. but then again someone told me once how not eating meat adds a couple years to your life or something. well, i'd rather enjoy juicy steaks and die a little early. sounds like a good trade to me.

i'm gonna stop at 5 because this is just getting embarrassing. what's funny is that most of the food that i love to get at the grocery tend to be lunch snacks and i think i've figured out why. my mother, like any good mother, didn't load me up with junk food in my sack lunches as a kid. but of course, every now and then she'd throw in some snack like a fruit rollup and i savored every bit of that processed piece of dehydrated faux fruit. i wished i could have more. well, i'm grown up now and have a job so i do what i want and eat what i want. don't even get me started on capri suns. if popsicles are my kryptonite, then capri suns are like my crack cocaine. i would do horrible, horrible things for just one more capri sun. one time i had a piece of gear up for auction on ebay and some guy bid 4 capri suns and i stopped the auction right there and sold it to him. well, not really. i just made that up. but you get the picture.

but seriously, i'm trying to lose weight. i'm cutting out dairy and most breads and all soda. take that, fat american stereotype! that's all i have for you all, unless you speak german. if you do, read on...

Ich lerne Deutsch sprechen. Ich würde gerne mit jedem sprechen, der Deutsch spricht, um mein Deutsch verbessern. Ich habe viele Leute auf meinen Reisen traf nach Deutschland. wenn einer von diesen Menschen lesen, lassen Sie mich einen Kommentar und ich würde gerne reden!

studio update 8.2.2010

so it's time for another studio update. i know it's a couple weeks late, but in mid july i went into the studio with a band from Illinois named The Ashland Project to start tracking drums. I usually go to Darkhorse, but they were booked out for the weekend. I actually ended up getting a rare treat by being able to track at the Quad Studios (www.quadstudiosnashville.com) A room. the room is outfitted with an 80 input SSL 9000 J console and what's even more impressive, an incredible tracking room. it's been a couple years since i've been at this place, but i've always remembered how great the drum room sounded. i've changed the way i do things since then so i was excited to come back and try some new things out.

Here's the console....mission control.



what's ironic is that this console has 80 channel strips. that's 80 channels. and theoretically, you can bring in another track on the small fader so really, 160 channels. even with all my drum mics and scratch tracks i was only using about 15 of those. overkill? yes. but it still feels good. haha

They had a bunch of neve 1073 mic pre's so of course i had to use them.



although i used these for mic pre's, on some of the channels i ended up using the console EQ just because it's a lot more precise and better for carving out the sound. those neve's only have one sweepable band and two shelving EQ's as opposed to the SSL's fully parametric EQ.

The rest of the pre's i used were console pre's and this vintage API unit.



i don't know much about the history of API, but apparently this was one of the first incarnations of the famous mic pre's according to the studio.

and of course, some distressors. this will be my next purchase.



but like i said earlier, the most important element to a good drum sound (other than the drums and the drummer) is a good sounding room. this studio actually has a vaulted ceiling with adjustable acoustic paneling to control how live the room gets.



as you can see, the whole room is covered in wood paneling which has acoustic properties much more palatable to your ear than typical drywall. that curtain on the left isn't there so much to keep light out as it's there to deaden that wall when closed. the room mics in the foreground are Neumann u67s in an XY pattern as i've been using them lately. what you can see are the Coles ribbon mics behind the camera. i've only use those mics one other time and i really love their smooth sound.

and speaking of those mics, i've been messing around with compressing room mics lately. i've had some success with the Amek 9098 stereo compressor at darkhorse. Quad had a Neve stereo compressor. Rupert Neve also designed all the Amek gear so i figured it would be similar...



maybe i was using it incorrectly, but i couldn't get the same sound. i mean, it sounded fine. it compressed, but not the same crunchiness from the 9098.

monitors at the studio are always tricky. i never really know how the drums turned out until i get back to my place. and they actually turn out pretty good. that's all for now! talk to you all later.

sleep

hi everybody...it's been too long. i apologize profusely for my absence and utter neglect of this blog over the last week or two. anyway, right now me and @nathantbass and @stevenkadaradar are sittig in a hotel room after having played two shows this weekend at the Mistissini reservation in northern Quebec. and when i say northern, i mean way the heck up there northern.



the shows were great and the people were so welcoming. they even gave me a handmade guitar strap that was made from the hide of a moose. ya, you heard me. a friggin MOOSE.

anyway, the first night the three guys were all sleeping in the same hotel room. apparently (As Kadar tells the story), Kadar got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and i was talking in my sleep. i said something to the effect of "are you there peter?"

now my wife would agree that this is nothing out of the ordinary. i talk in my sleep all the time. but what's funny is that apparently nathan, fast asleep, responded to me and said "ya, i'm right here."

of course i've been thinking about dreaming lately after seeing Inception. and that movie is definitely the best movie i've seen all year....well, i mean, right after twilight: new moon. for those of you who do not know me, yes, that was indeed sarcasm in it's purest form.



i would like to set up a camera to start cataloging what i say in my sleep, except that reminds me too much of another movie - Paranormal Activity. i LOVED that movie but it freaked me out. if there's a ghost in my house i don't want to know about it.

my sister @AlieghShields is known, not so much for talking in her sleep, but for waking up without really waking up. once while a bunch of us were watching a movie, she fell asleep on the floor next to her boyfriend at the time. during the movie, she half woke up and started berating him saying "why do you always light me on fire!!!" another one of my sisters will sometimes sleep walk with her eyes open, but you can tell she's asleep because of this look she has on her face. when you tell her to go back to bed because she's sleeping, she gets very mad at you which is kinda funny, and then doesn't remember a thing the next morning.

and the last thing that i've been thinking about is the idea of lucid dreaming. the concept goes something like this: when you're dreaming, you don't know you're dreaming. if you can train your brain to recognize when you're dreaming, then you can start to control the dream and do whatever you want. my friend was telling me about it and said one trick it to look at clocks because apparently in dreams, clocks never move. so if you think you're dreaming, just look at a clock. if it's not moving, then you know you're dreaming and then you can start doing whatever you want. ya, and when i say whatever, i mean go crazy. i plan on dreaming about a world where the ground is made entirely of trampoline so that i can bounce around wherever i go. either that or something involving me playing a show at an indian reservation in northern canada....wait a minute...

the psychology of pedalboards

my wife loves accessories. if you look at any of her promo shots, you're sure to find her wearing lots of bangles and knick knacks and thingamabobs to carefully accent her outfit. she's good at that stuff. girls in general like accessories. sunglasses. earrings, jewelry, etc... well, guitar players like accessories too. but in order to hide how girly we really are, we dress up our accessories with an elaborate mess in an effort to make them as manly as possible. our accessories are pedals. guitar effects pedals. for those of you who still don't know what i'm talking about, they are little electric boxes that we plug our guitars through on the way to the amp to give us different sounds. and as you'll find out below, they also make us feel awesome.

i've often said that the size of a guitar player's ego is in direct proportion to the size of his pedalboard. to ilustrate this point, i've scoured the internets for a few examples of pedalboards and the types of ego boost they represent.

1. More Is More

come on, admit it. we've all been there. this pedalboard represents the most common of complexes where the player flat-out does whatever he can to scrounge any and every pedal he can buy, steal, and borrow to cobble together the largest, most douchiest frankenstein you can imagine. you know, because bigger is better, right? kinda reminds me of why certain guys buy big flashy cars...

2. Less Is More

Less Is More is really just the pupa stage of More Is More. as you see here, anything more than one pedal dictates that you need a pedalboard. and as the picture shows, a flight case is probably necessary too. you see, the floor just won't do. i mean, what the heck?? if you don't have a flashy pedal board case so the audience can clearly see you tapping little do-hickeys then why the heck did you join the praise band in the first place??? oh ya, to impress the youth group girls. haha...when i was 14 i thought i was so cool cause i could play nirvana songs...but i digress... pedalboard

3. The No Pedalboard

this is the setup for someone who desperately needs a pedalboard but refuses to buy one because he/she secretly likes taking their sweet time setting up every cable and every pedal at exact right angles from each other. Howie Mandel obsesses about washing his hands. other guys do this.

4. The Theoretical Pedalboard

this is the pedalboard for the guy who doesn't have and will never have the exact setup they want. for them, planning, sketching and deciding on theoretical purchases give them such a cocaine rush that even those who do happen to come into some money and get the gear they want continue to buy and sell because it's never quite right. cause you see, if they sound bad, it wasn't their fault. they just didn't have the right gear setup. which reminds me of what my old boss used to say - A shoddy carpenter blames his tools.

5. The Geek Pedalboard

seriously? really? a laptop? you might as well wear a tshirt that says "trying too hard."

6. The Messy Pedalboard

we all know at least one guy who is a good player, has a decent setup, yet refuses to put an afternoon of work into making himself a decent pedalboard. he shows up, opens the case and 8 pedals fall out behind a tangled mass of cables. he would probably sound pretty good if he weren't spending half the set adjusting pedals and fixing cable shorts.

7. The One Brand Pedalboard

there's something to be said for brand loyalty, but anybody who truly believes that one single company has the absolute best pedals (whether distortion, delays, trems, etc...) is just plain stupid. there are hundreds of big name and boutique manufacturers making pretty much any sounding pedal you can think of. some are better than others, some worse. usually this mindset is the result of living in a town where there's one music store that sells only one brand of pedal and also happens to have a very savvy salesman. if this sounds familiar, maybe take a road trip to the nearest guitar center or something. also, file this under Multi-Effects Processors.

8. The Ergonomic Pedalboard

i can see how someone would think this is convenient....that is, if you're playing guitar while sitting on a swivel seat.

9. The AWESOME PEDALBOARD

this pedalboard is the AWESOME PEDALBOARD because it happens to be the setup i'm drooling over right now. a simplified switching system tied to racks of pedals and multiple amps with the ability to use whatever gear you want and recall any setting with a single button push. I NEED THIS.....actually, i've been confusing the words "want" and "need" lately. also, the AWESOME PEDALBOARD is a title that can be switched to whatever setup i want at any given time.

10. The Modded Pedalboard

first step, get a More Is More pedalboard - i.e. lots and lots of pedals. then complain about how hard it is to control them all. then get a custom true bypass strip made which conveniently "simplifies" the routing, and also happens to be one more big thing to put on your pedalboard with lots of buttons. more buttons means more choices. more choices means more power. maybe we could call it a form of a classic napolean complex.

you see, here's the thing. any device that you send your guitar signal through degrades your signal by a tiny bit. the most pristine signal goes straight from the guitar to the amp with the shortest cable possible. i can't find what the exact statistic is, but you lose something like 3dB for every 10 feet of wiring and cable. every pedal that you put in your rig harms your signal and adds noise, but we make that sacrifice in order to have a cool effect - a good distortion or delay or something.

ok, now last but not least, i'll give you all a picture of my current pedalboard setup for when i play with stephanie smith (@stephanaynay) and feel free to comment on my narcissistic tendencies. maybe say something like "this pedalboard is made by a minimalist who takes prides in his minimalism - and probably writes blogs about it." peanut, i'm looking your way on this one. don't let me down.