jamesnotjim.com a music site of solo recordings by james “wheatbread” martin

No-name project + BassIAB + JNJ

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

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

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

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.

New year, new tunes?

Not yet, anyway.  But that's the plan.  The fall got very busy and I didn't have time to work on much.  My upgrade from Ableton Live 5 to version 6 has a problem I need to work out at the moment.  And I've got some grounding buzz in the studio that's killing me.  But I am eager to get down to some productive work in the next week or two.  So don't count me out yet.  :)

New mp3 Player

You can now listen to James, Not Jim tracks via a Flash-based mp3 player embedded in each music page.

New Site Notes

I decided to try out some new software to maintain this site. I'm still teaking the styles a bit, but it's getting there. One big advantage for you will be the new RSS feeds.

Goodbye, Acid

I have a brave new DAW. I switched from SonicFoundry Sony Acid Pro 5 to Ableton Live 5.2. I've been thinking about this change for a while, but I finally took the plunge. So now I have new software to learn, but I think it's only going to help this project, as Acid had been causing a lot of frustration for me.

I'm also going to roll out some sort of CMS for this site. It's all hand-coded right now. But that's getting old. It'll probably be a Drupal-powered site very soon.

Still in progress + performance notes

Still not finished with "Prodigal Son," though I'm getting close. Finally upgraded to Acid Pro 5.0, which should help with the stability issues. I put together some composition/recording notes for "Ocean," in case anyone is interested in how that track came together.