jamesnotjim.com

Back from the outage

wheat — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:49:06 +0000

The servers that host all of my sites went down this past Sunday and I was only able to restore from backups last night! Full details are in this post over at wheatdesign.com.

The iMac lands

wheat — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:05:36 +0000

I posted over at wheatblog about my switch back to Macintosh. Here, I’ll only note that one of the biggest reasons I wanted new hardware was so I’d have enough horsepower to record without worrying about dropouts, and enough screen real estate so that editing would be a pleasure rather than a chore. I’ve only done one test recording so far, just to make sure my ins and outs all work. But I think the new gear will inspire new music.

“Good Day”

wheat — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:25:53 +0000

More fun with GearBox’s “Analog Delay w/ Modulation” effect simulation. I recorded this Monday night, and Monday was a very good day, hence the title:

[See post to listen to audio]

If you’re a TonePort user, here are the settings:

Time: 1005 ms
FX Tempo: 240.0
Feedback: 100%
Mod Speed: 76%
Mod Depth: 88%
Mix: 50%

I used my trusty ‘85 Fender Jazz Bass Special, sporting a brand new set of Hartke HSB 440 strings (new strings always make me want to play my bass).

[Update (07/02/08): Here's a direct link to the mp3, if you'd like to download a copy.]

“A Sketch”

wheat — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:53:50 +0000

I was playing around with delays in GearBox and came up with this variation on a theme from “Ocean.” It’s all done in one pass (just bass + delay).

[See post to listen to audio]

Here’s a direct link to the mp3, if you’d like to download a copy.

ReverbNation

wheat — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:09:11 +0000

Bassist and FaceBook friend of mine Andy Long uses ReverbNation to share his music. So I set up an account for James, Not Jim, just to try it out. If you’re on that service, please become a fan. They also have an player widget:

Update: If you’re on Facebook, you can become a fan of the project via this link.

End of year project review

wheat — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 02:22:47 +0000

It has been ages since I finished a track for the James, Not Jim project. But, now that the semester is finally over, there may be hope. I decided that I’m too much of a perfectionist when it comes to audio and that I should take the open source mantra of “release early, release often” to heart. So dug through my James, Not Jim project folder and did quick and dirty mp3 mixes of everything that looked remotely promising. Here they are, warts and all. Tell me which ones you like, which ones you don’t. Constructive criticism and outright snarking is welcome:

Araby
[See post to listen to audio]

Brahms Lulaby
[See post to listen to audio]

Chang, Chang
[See post to listen to audio]

Circus
[See post to listen to audio]

First Run with Gearbox
[See post to listen to audio]

Funky Wav
[See post to listen to audio]

Loopy Llama Test
[See post to listen to audio]

One Four Five
[See post to listen to audio]

Portrait
[See post to listen to audio]

Postage
[See post to listen to audio]

Second Run with Gearbox
[See post to listen to audio]

Smoove
[See post to listen to audio]

If you’d rather download the mp3’s, just hit the audio folder:
jamesnotjim.com/audio/

No-name project + BassIAB + JNJ

wheat — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:25:43 +0000

Page–amazing guitarist for Vore and a long-time friend of mine–are collaborating on some tracks. We intend them to be instrumental rock/post-rock in feel. These may or may not wind up a part of the James, Not Jim catalog. But I’m enjoying working on them and will create a page for them somewhere when they’re done. I sent him a new mix this morning. I’m eager to see what he’ll do with it.

Bassplaying.com is in the middle of our third Bass-in-a-Box project (BassIAB 2007.3). I’ve made some progress on a track for that. And I’ve made some progress on a couple of James, Not Jim compositions, one of which is very nearly ready to record.

I got up early this morning and worked on all of these projects before jumping in the shower and getting ready for work. So, already, the TonePort is paying off. It’s allowing me to record at times when I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to. And it’s really great to start off the day playing bass. It’s like a morning workout of a different sort.

James, Not Jim on Last.fm + TonePort

wheat — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:02:43 +0000

I set up a label page for James, Not Jim on Last.fm. You can use it to stream and/or download tracks. Think of it as a classier version of MySpace (where we also have a page, of course).

I’ve bought a new piece of recording gear this week: a Line6 TonePort UX2. It’s an audio interface (to replace my old MidiMan AudioBuddy) which also comes with some great software called GearBox which allows me to record silently, via USB, rather than micing a cab. Gearbox includes lots of amp and cab models from Line6’s POD line. I’ve spent the past two evenings dialing in sounds for my bass and guitar and testing how well it records with Ableton Live. So far, I’m super-happy. I bought this thing mainly so I could record in the middle of the night without bothering anyone, and I think it’s going to be perfect for that.

So, hey, maybe I’ll actually record some new music for you. What do you think?

New interview at Bassplaying.com

wheat — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:22:34 +0000

I just published a new interview at Bassplaying.com. This one is with one of my childhood idols, Billy Sheehan, who is an amazing bassist.

Finally worked out my DAW issues

wheat — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:39:20 +0000

I really haven’t done much recording since I upgraded from Ableton Live 5.2 to Ableton 6. This is partly because I’ve been busy with other things, but it’s also because I got bit by a bug in the upgrade process that makes Live loose track of samples. This messed up the few tracks I had recorded in Live 5.2 since switching to it as my DAW of choice.

I had taken the precaution of backing up my Live 5.2 library before I upgraded, but I didn’t feel like trying to fix a computer problem. Part of the reason I switched to Live from Acid is, for the most part, Live “just works” and lets me focus on recording music rather than fixing technical problems with my platform. And I’ve been using that as an excuse to not record ever since.

But I decided I needed to get working on some new projects. Over at bassplaying.com, we’re doing a little experiment called the BP Recording Project. The original idea came up in this thread. We worked out the details in another thread and people are posting their results to this one. The basic idea is simple. One member of the site posted a file of a computer generated song and we’re all taking it, adding a bass line, posting the results, and discussing it. It’s not really so much about the song itself as it is an experiment in how different bass players approach a song. And since I wanted to contribute, I had to fix my DAW.

And fixing it, it turns out, was dead simple thanks to the fine folks at Ableton, who posted a Live Pack to fix the problem (the Live 5 Compatibility Pack). I just downloaded and installed it and now all the tracks I did in 5.2 work perfectly in 6.0.3 (I went ahead an upgraded while I was at it). And now I’m inspired to do some work.