Orchestral Maneuvers in the Darkthrone

Lately, it seems I am the Cover Tune/Tribute Album King.  My last project was my tribute to the late, great Frank Zappa, and now I am in the midst of posting my newest project, which is my re-arrangement and orchestration of Darkthrone's classic 1994 album, "Transylvanian Hunger".

Yep, I've gone insane.

This is not a Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth style orchestration, rather a much more traditional, orchestral work.  More of a small, symphonic ensemble or Chamber Orchestra performing the music. No heavy guitars, cavernous bass guitar, or screeching, demonic vocals.  Just a few instruments (strings, horns, percussion) performing the basic melodic themes as interpreted by yours truly.

Probably a bit more similar to Jaz Coleman's "The Symphonic Pink Floyd", or "The Symphonic Led Zeppelin".  With me waving the little stick around.

All rights to to this music belong to Ted Skjellum (Nocturno Culto) and Gylve Fenris Nagell (Fenriz). Go buy the original albums for a taste of Norwegian Black Metal History (though I don't recommend the album to anyone who is not a fan of extreme metal).

The album will be available at the Internet Archive at the following link.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO DOWNLOAD PAGE

Or download the whole album, covers, etc., in a zip file HERE!

Give it a try.  You might like it.

BTW, you realize there's no "real" chamber ensemble here, right?  It's just me on Keyboards, MIDI instruments, etc.  Didn't want to give the wrong impression to anyone that I'm trying to pull a fast one here.

More Zappa, now on Youtube!

This is my first real attempt at posting one of my songs (actually a cover/tribute song) on YouTube.  No real video, just some pics of my guitars, amps, etc.

The song is "Chunga's Revenge", the title track from Frank Zappa's 1970 album.  The solo is "okay".  Listening back to it, I definitely messed up some notes, but I wanted it very spontaneous and live.  It's a first take run-thru solo, flubs and all.



Overall, it sounds pretty good.  Yeah, I've been in a bit of a Zappa mood again.  It's officially just over twenty years ago that we lost him. So go out and buy some of his albums.  I recommend "Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar", "Joe's Garage", "Bongo Fury", "Make A Jazz Noise Here", "Guitar", "Apostrophe", Overnight Sensation".  There's so many, and now you can hear samples of most of them on YouTube, so dive in and pick what you like.

Howzabout my guitar tone?  That's my Xaviere XV-870 "Darkside Edition", with "Lil Killers" pickups (the bridge and middle setting), thru my POD XTLive set on the Aggro X amp (is that right?), with a bit of simulated Tube Screamer as a booster.

The guitar is not easy to play.  Medium size frets, and the action is all over the place, but I really like the "sound" of it.  And it's very lightweight.

So there you go.  Still trying to figure out what my new music will be, but I think I will include this one, perhaps a bit remixed.

Blues Jam with the Joyo Pedals

I ran the Joyo Pedals thru some more tests yesterday, and came up with a simple blues jam using the pedals.

The guitar is all recorded with my old Yamaha SJ-550 with Dimarzio Pickups (Super Distortion in the Bridge, Humbucker From Hell in the Neck) through my POD XTLive set on a "clean" Hiwatt 100 amp simulation.  Rhythm guitars are the Joyo Vintage Overdrive, first guitar solo is the Ultimate Drive with Vinatge Overdrive boosting it, second guitar solo is the US Dream with Vintage Overdrive.

Overall, these pedals work very well with single-note solos, and the rhythm guitar chords here that are just slightly broken up retain a great, tubey sound.

But … I find that these pedals do NOT sound good for a nice tight metal crunch rhythm guitar, like you would use for precise 16th riffs in Slayer or Metallica-style songs.  It just "feels" like there's a slight "tube sag" when I play this style of rhythm.  Thick, slow riffs like you would hear in heavy blues-rock or sludgy stoner rock and metal would sound great with these pedals.  They're very full and thick sounding.  The Ultimate Drive would especially match up well with old Black Sabbath, Sleep, Sunn O))), High On Fire, and the like.

The US Dream is a more "modern" sounding distortion, but I still can't quite get that tighter crunch with it.  When I run the Vintage Drive into it (the Andy Sneap trick), it sounds better, but there's a lot of hiss and noise when I stop playing, so sudden stops don't sound so great unless I'm also running a good noise gate after the pedals.

So I'm still working on my new sounds with these pedals.  When I record, I run thru the POD XTLive, which does have a very effective Noise Gate, but running live into an amp still produces a bunch of hiss, which I would guess you wouldn't really even notice playing loud with a full band in a club.

So anyway, here's the track I recorded, which also includes some rather sloppy Hammond Organ playing.

Mental Toss Flycoon

Finally uploaded my tribute To Frank Zappa (and a few more). This is a collection of Zappa cover tunes I've done over the years.  It was time to get them all in one place.  I hope I do the Maestro Zappa justice.

I also include a tribute the the Buffy/Angel TV Theme songs, Focus, and Beethoven.

My two personal favorites are Ink Ero Des and Orange County Lumbertruck Runs Over a Weasel. Ink Ero Des (Zappa's Inca Roads) is almost sad sounding, and OC Lumber truck has such a great, downright "uplifting" melody. Yeah, that's pretty weird for me, but there, I said it.


Here's to you, Frank. You are missed.

To go to the Download page, click HERE.

Please note that NO MONEY is to be exchanged at all for my versions of these songs.  Please buy the original Frank Zappa albums, and support the Zappa Family Trust to keep the music alive.

Momento Celeste - New Dimaension X song

Finally recorded a new Dimaension X song, using the new Joyo pedals and my 5-string Schecter guitar.

Here it is - "Momento Celeste"



Guitar is through the Joyo pedals and into the Line 6 POD XTLive.  Bass was through the Joyo Vintage Overdrive. The song is a bit mellow, but I wanted to do something a bit mellower the really test the pedals doing something more than just heavy metal. Believe me, I've still got plenty of metal up my sleeve.

More to come.

OH ... a few more things ... I finally uploaded the two Moroghor albums to the Internet Archive, so they are available from a nice, secure, and spam-free website.  The links are:

https://archive.org/details/andspaceaschaos

and

https://archive.org/details/moroghor_darkness

And unfortunately, just heard some band news.  Lou Reed died today, at the age of 71.

Here's the first Joyo audio samples

Well, here is the first sample recorded with my Joyo Pedals (Ultimate Drive, US Dream)
and my 5-string Schecter, tuned to D A D A D.

I went from the pedals directly to my POD XTLive, using the simulation of the Hiwatt 100 (set clean), and very little reverb.

The first part ("Kasmir") is all done with the Joyo Ultimate Drive pedal. (settings were Drive at about 9:30, Tone at about 2:00, Volume about 11:00). The next part (the song is "Losing Control" by my former band, Deadside Manor) is two guitar tracks of the Joyo US Dream (drive/Gain at about 1:00, Tone at 2:00, Volume at 12:00), and two guitar tracks of the Ultimate Drive (Gain at 11:30, Tone 3:00, Volume 11:00).

Bass also went through the Ultimate Drive, at the "Kashmir" settings, but maybe just a bit less Gain).

Drums are Big Mono Drums (Analogue Drum Samples).

All recorded in Reaper.

There is a bit of Phasing on the guitars in Kashmir (that's my Behringer VP1 Vintage Phaser, a clone of the Electro-Harmonix Small Stone. I have it before the drive pedals, not after).  That's about it.

D A D A E Tuning - a bit more variety?

Been fiddling with D A D A D, and I like it, but I do find that playing major and minor chords is difficult to do. Therefore, I might consider tuning the highest D up to E, revising this All-5ths tuning into a suspended 2nd tuning (similar to my D A D A D E).  It is now easy to make major and minor chords, by adding the note on the highest string, either up 1 or two frets from the "fully-barred" notes, but then you lose the full big power chord on all 5 strings (since the 5th string is now a different note).

Hmmmm, … gotta actually try playing with this to see what it sounds like.  

I also just ordered a few new pedals - a Joyo Ultimate Drive, a Joyo US Dream, and a Joyo Vintage Overdrive.  I'm just not quite as happy with the Behringer TM300 as I thought I would be.  It is most definitely a very accurate clone of the Sansamp GT2, but as with the GT2 and the original Classic Sansamp pedals, they just lack that nice crisp high-end "sparkle".  Their sound really seems to focus on the Mid-Range, and seems to tone down the crisp, trebly highs. Just not quite what I was looking for, but for $25 bucks, the TM300 is a perfectly adequate pedal if you don't want to fork over $150 for an actual Sansamp pedal.

The Joyo pedals are Chinese knock-offs of more famous and more expensive pedals.  The Vintage Drive is basically an Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer, the US Dream is a copy of the Suhr Riot high gain pedal, and the Ultimate Drive is a clone of the Fulltone OCD overdrive pedal. I've read generally good reviews of these pedal, especially considering the prices (each was just over $30, compared the the price of the "name-brand" pedals which are no less that $150 each, at least!)

In fact, Gearmanndude (look him up!) has compared the US Dream directly to the Suhr Riot pedal in his video reviews on YouTube, and the two pedals sound nearly identical to me. 

I'm really looking forward to getting these new toys.  Three new pedals still cost less than ONE of the name-brands.  Plus, I just need something new to hopefully inspire me to creat some new music.  Soon, folks. Hopefully, very soon.