Tag: news

News – January 8th, 2018 – Outfeed surface, Recording, and Cthulhu

Trent DavisOne Comment

Outfeed table

Almost a year ago I decided to try a new work surface for my outfeed/assembly table.  I wrote about this here.  After using and abusing it for almost a year, my official opinion is that I don’t really care for it much.  I found the texture to be problematic in that it retained glue and stain.  I also set my chop saw on it and it was bombarded with hot metal shavings which would melt into it and turn it into a big sheet of sandpaper.  Let me be clear; this isn’t a fault of the material.  All this shows is that it isn’t well suited for something that it wasn’t designed to handle.  Makes sense.

In the end, I decided to go back to my old standby: white hardboard.

 

 

Recording Woes

It is proving more problematic to get time to record lately.  In the meantime, I will be using that opportunity to perform and write-up the Shure SM57 right-angle-mod and also the MXL 603 capacitor mod which makes a $100 condenser mic sound like a $500 condenser mic (your mileage may vary).

My Amazing Wife

My wife doesn’t like to show off her work so I am doing it for her.  This is a felted Cthulhu that she made as a Christmas present for her brother.  I’d love for her to start a blog because she does some really amazing work.  If you’d like to see more, let me know and I’ll pass it along.

 

Other work…

There are a few other things in the works that I can’t speak of yet but I’ll post an update when they’re secured.

 

 

 

 

 

News – December 11th, 2017 – Teaching, last-minute performance, and woodturning

Trent Davis

Sorry for the delays in my posts.  The holidays are always pretty hectic so I’ve been busy.

Teaching

Two weeks ago I was given the opportunity to teach a class for The Guild of Oregon Woodworkers on The Care and Feeding of Your SawStop.  The class went really well, with over 20 saw owners attending.  I got to do a hot dog demo in order to demonstrate how to remove an activated brake and blade from the saw.  I will be creating an article for this blog consisting of the documentation that I created for the class in the coming weeks.

 

Last-Minute Gig with Cody Weathers and The Men Your Mama Warned You About

It’s short notice but I have a gig on December 16th at The 45th Street Pub & Grill in Portland starting at 9:00.   I’ve been friends with Cody for a few years now but I’ve never played with these guys so it’ll be interesting.  Swing on by if you’re in the area.

Wedding Pens

A friend of the family is getting married in a few weeks and they requested that I make them pens from their birth woods, Ash and Hazel.  I’ve never turned either of these woods and I didn’t know what to expect.  To make things even more interesting, the hazel was still wet and was already starting to warp and twist.  From what they say, they only need the pens for the actual wedding ceremony so I just need them to last a few weeks.  This is good because the hazel pen seems to be cracking in a few places already.

 

Studio Desk Part 5

I’m still working on the articles for the studio desk.  It’s done and I’ve been using it for over a month but there are several things I want to change about it and a few components I decided to add to it so there is a bit of a delay in updating the articles.  I hope to have part 5 posted this week.

 

 

 

News – November 2nd, 2017 – Wiring, teaching, and recording

Trent Davis

I’ve been lax in posting news updates.  I’m going to try to be better about this.

Wiring

I’ve got the studio desk pretty much done, but I’m doing some additional wiring, such as adding a few electrical outlets to the desk itself.

I’m also making all new audio cables.  This includes 32 XLR cables for inside the desk, 16 XLR cables for the drum mics, dozens of 14″ TRS cables, and a 16-channel XLR snake.  I keep pushing this off since I’m not looking forward to that much soldering.  Tedious work while hunched over a workbench gets old really quick.  I’m going to do these in batches.

 

Shure SM57 Right-Angle Mod

I have several Shure SM57 microphones that I am going to perform the right-angle mod to.  I plan on documenting this thoroughly so anyone can do this.  In the following picture you can see the microphone on the right, which has the right-angle mod applied, is much more out of the way than the one on the left, which does not have the mod applied.

Teaching

On November 29th, I will be teaching a class for The Guild of Oregon Woodworkers on the care and feeding of a SawStop (the class isn’t advertised on their site yet).  It’s been a while since I taught a class so I’m really looking forward to this.  I’ll try to convert all the info into articles on my blog so if you are unable to make it to the class – due to previous commitments or the fact that you are thousands of miles away from Portland Oregon – you can still make use of the information.

 

Recording for Bright & Shiny

Recording is still going on for the album by Bright & Shiny.  It’s hard for me to get time to record, lately.  I only have the drum tracks to a few songs left, then I can proceed with the auxiliary percussion.  After that, I will begin posting videos of each song.

 

The Map of Alice

Sadly, I had to call it quits with The Map of Alice.  There were some personality conflicts and the visions for the project were just not lining up.  It was mostly fun while it lasted.

News – August 29th, 2017 – Recording and various other projects

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Trent Davis

A lot has happened in the past few weeks that has kept me from updating my blog.  I’ll try to summarize the important bits.

 

Recording for Bright & Shiny

I spent some time working on a few more tracks for Bright & Shiny as well as reworking a few older tracks that I wasn’t happy with.  I ended up re-recording a song that I was really struggling with since the timing is all over the map and I am playing along with pre-recorded tracks.  After recording the song sixteen times (no exaggeration) I finally came to the conclusion that I simply can’t release something to go along with this song that I would be proud of.  I spoke with the engineer and he said that they’re going to re-record the other parts with a click and get that to me so I can put down some decent drum tracks for it.

 

 

Slow-Motion video of new ride cymbal

I made a slow-motion video of my Sabian Vault ride cymbal that I featured a few weeks back.  This was mainly just a test to see what quality I can get out of my phone when filming at 120 frames-per-second.  Here’s the video that I shot:

 

 

 

Recording for The Map of Alice

I will be producing the recording of three tracks for The Map of Alice, the local gigging band that I play with each week.  I’ll be posting the progress here on this blog.  I will also be making a music video for at least one of the songs, possibly all of them.

 

 

Web site creation for The Map of Alice

The time that I haven’t been spending in the studio, playing live, or watching Twin Peaks, I have been spending on the new web site for The Map of Alice.  I’ll announce when it has gone live.

 

 

Studio desk plans

I’ve once again changed the plans for my studio desk.  My problem is that I only want to do this once so I’m being rather picky about how I put this together.  I don’t have anything finalized yet but I’m getting close.

 

 

Shop issues

Work in the shop has been minimal, at best.  I can’t even walk out there right now.  My main problem is that I have too much building material.  I’ve got piles of scrap lumber, cracked cymbals, metal stock, electrical components, and aquariums.  Yeah, that’s right.  There’s a big 55-gallon aquarium taking up a big chunk of space in my shop.  The kicker is that it isn’t even mine.  Now that the busy August month is pretty much over and the weather is (hopefully) going to start cooling off pretty soon, I’ll be able to focus on getting my shop into a usable state again and start cranking out some more build projects.

 

 

My daughter turned 18!

This actually took up a good chunk of my time.  My daughter, Audrey, turned 18.  We had a few get-togethers but mostly we’ve been trying to help her make the transition into adulthood.

 

 

That’s it.  I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few things but the point is, I’ve been busy.

News – July 20th, 2017 – Studio Desk Plans

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Trent Davis

I think I may have settled on a final design for a recording studio desk.

This satisfies all of my requirements.

  1. It’s mobile.
  2. It doesn’t take up much space.
  3. It is self contained.
  4. It has amenities for both the studio engineer and the talent.

 

The plan is that it will be a desk that has all of the electrical and audio connections built in.  If you need to plug in an amp, the desk will have several electrical jacks.  Need to charge your phone while you record?  There are charging jacks for that as well.

There will be connections for power from the wall and ethernet into the desk, as well as a 5-port hub with ethernet jacks on both the front and back of the desk.

 

The construction of this might take some time since I haven’t decided if I want to make it out of cheaper plywood and cover it with laminate, or make it out of nicer wood and just stain it and add a few clear-coats.

What do you think?  Any suggestions?  What am I missing?

News – June 5th, 2017 – Recording Progress

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Trent Davis

Recording Progress – Bright & Shiny

This weekend I managed to get time to record two more songs for Bright & Shiny.  The two songs are titled This Waiting and The End Holding Your Hand.

I was particularly happy to get The End Holding Your Hand recorded because of how I go about recording.  While I am working on a song, I listen to it repeatedly while I drive to-and-from work each day.  I use that time to write out different parts and memorize the structure of the song.

Unfortunately, I don’t get many opportunities to actually record since I need to get the family out of the house.  This means that I may sometimes end up listening to a song quite a bit before I get to actually record it.  In the case of this song, I listened to it repeatedly for over three weeks.  As you can imagine, I was pretty damn sick of it by the time I got around to actually laying down the tracks.

When I record, I also film.  I am working on videos of each song to compile into a mini documentary on the recording of the drums and percussion for this album.

I only have two more songs to record then I’ll be focusing on the auxiliary percussion.

Here are rough-cuts of the drum performance videos.  The drum tracks need to be mixed properly and the track I’m playing along with is only a temporary scratch track.  I’ll update them when I get a final mix of the songs.

This Waiting

 

 

 

 

 

The End Holding Your Hand

 

 

 

 

 

These drum tracks are a little more sparse than I typically prefer but that is intentional since I needed to leave space for auxiliary percussion.

Here’s an example of a song with finished percussion, although it isn’t a final mix.

Soothsayer

Photo taken after recording the track "Crooked Tree" by Bright & Shiny

News – May 5th, 2017

Trent Davis

Current Projects

I’ve got several projects in the works and many more planned for the near future.  Below is a list and description of what I am currently working on.

 

Bright & Shiny

Photo taken after recording the track "Crooked Tree" by Bright & Shiny
Photo taken after recording the track “Crooked Tree” by Bright & Shiny

I’m about halfway through recording the drum tracks for the upcoming album by Bright & Shiny.  The style of music has been described as “dark cabaret”.  I have a video of the various percussion tracks I recorded for the song Soothsayer that I may post soon, pending permission from the song copyright holder.

 

Jongwon Kim

I will soon be recording and performing the drum tracks for the upcoming album by Jongwon Kim.  I will also be recording the bass guitar parts that will be performed by Kevin Cameron.  I actually already have several of the drum tracks recorded but I put that project on hold as it seemed that the song structure was going to be changing.

Here is one of the tracks that I performed.  I made a video of the recorded performance.

 

 

The Map of Alice

The drum setup for one of our gigs.
The drum setup for one of our gigs.

I have recently joined the project The Map of Alice.  This is a live band that performs improv gypsy jazz.  The band consists of two guys on acoustic guitar, myself on drums and my daughter Audrey on accordion.  We perform somewhat regularly in the Hillsboro area,  We are planning on doing some recording and video soon.  Their YouTube channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcJrxAe-Ol-VXn_HRz2DtYg

 

SM57 Right-Angle Mod

The SM57 on the right has had the right-angle mod applied. The one on the left with the cable plugged in) has not.
The SM57 on the right has had the right-angle mod applied. The one on the left with the cable plugged in) has not.

I have already performed a right-angle mod on one of my SM57 microphones.  I have several others that I will be doing this to.  I’ll be making a write-up on how to do that once I get a chance to actually do this.

 

Shop Cabinets

Ugh. Too shallow.
Ugh. Too shallow.

I badly need to make new shop cabinets.  I threw these together a few years back without much thought to them other than making them a uniform width and easily swappable due to the cleat system installed in my shop.  They’re too shallow.  I’m making new ones that are 16″ deep and will have doors.

 

Studio Desk

One of the many iterations of the studio desk I've been planning.
One of the many iterations of the studio desk I’ve been planning.

I’ve been long planning on making a new studio desk.  I’ve designed 9 different versions and I haven’t been 100% happy with any of them.  I have a few requirements that are making this challenging.

  1. It needs to be on wheels.
  2. It needs to have one side that is a computer desk for the recording engineer and the back should have a computer monitor that mirrors the engineers display for the musician.
  3. It needs to have rackspace.  Specifically, I need one 4u rack for the PC, and one 4u (or two 2u racks) for the musician’s side which will have patchbays and tuners and one 4u (or two 2u racks) for the engineer side with the power strip and the recording interface.
  4. It should be wide enough to house a single computer monitor and two studio speakers.
  5. It needs to be self contained.  I want to be able to plug one power cord and one ethernet cable into the back or side of the desk and have everything work.

I’m getting closer to a final design.  I’m toying with the idea of designing it like a road case so I can pack it up and throw it in the back of my car and take it out for some remote recording.

 

Road Case for Live Shows

Speaking of road cases, I’m going to design and build a more portable version for housing a mixer and any live gear.  I’ll keep you posted on any progress on this.

 

 

 

News – May 1st, 2017

Trent Davis

You may have noticed that my blog was unavailable for the past 12 hours or so.

The reason for this is because I wanted to change the layout and structure.  Some categories have changed and I’ve added a new one: News.  In fact, you’re reading a news post now.

 

For a while I’ve wanted to share minor updates, thoughts, and project snippets with you but I’ve felt that my old blog structure didn’t cater well to that.  Instead, it did a great job at showcasing larger posts.  I enjoy writing more detailed posts but sometimes they can take several weeks to put together and I often felt rushed and wasn’t able to put the time and effort into them that I felt was needed.

 

Going forward, I will have more frequent posts that will appear in the News section.  I look forward to interacting more frequently with you all.

The blog will continue to go through some minor changes as I tweak the settings to match the new layout and structure.  I apologize for the mess.

 

As always, please feel free to leave comments below.  I’m curious to hear what you think.