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Menatone’s been on my radar for quite some time, since my neighborhood guitar store, Willie’s American Guitars, stock the whole line.  At once time I had the amazing Kar Krash, whose fast touch and feel still form quite an impression in my mind.  Let’s see how Foxy Brown is.

What It Is

It’s a low- to mid-gain overdrive pedal styled after Marshall 18-watter amps.  The 18 watts are very different tonally from other sounds you’d think of when you think of “Marshall” — like the upper-mid kerrang of JCM 800s, for example.  It’s a tone that has much more in common with tweed-era Fenders.

Foxy Brown has gain and volume knobs.  There’s a lot of volume on tap, so if you goose up the gain you’d have to turn down the volume.  The tone knob is interesting — at noon it’s unity, then when you turn it counter-clockwise it adds bass, when you turn it up it adds treble.  So it doesn’t get darker when you turn it down, it just gets fatter.  Very nice.

The sag knob is interesting.  The more you turn it up, the more the note attack gets “squashed” or develops a tube-amp-like “sag.”  This is a pretty subtle effect and at first I couldn’t really detect it.  It’s more obvious the more gain you have, and if you use Foxy Brown to drive another ovedrive/distortion or an amp’s overdrive, then it is more apparent.  It’s there even when Foxy Brown is the only pedal supplying dirt, but its gain is not enough to really make a pronounced effect on its own.

How It Sounds

Right off the bat, what’s impressive about it is that it perfectly preserves the guitar’s dynamics.  Or should I say — the touch and feel of the guitar is completely unaffected.  You can turn it on, and the feel doesn’t change a single bit, even when the gain is cranked.  It gets loud when you hit it hard, and gets soft when you hit the strings lightly.  Just like plugging into a clean amp, but this doesn’t happen often with guitar pedals.  Very nice.

The overdrive character is expectedly jangly.  It’s not super tight, you can’t really do hard rock with this.  It’s better suited for strumming, but with attitude.  Because the tone knob really doesn’t really roll off the highs, the tone doen’t really mellow out — it gets fatter when the tone knob’s rolled off but it stays raspy in top range.  When you crank the gain it gets fairly distorted, but the character of the overdrive stays the same, but at the highest settings (3 o’clock and up) single notes develop this rubbery/synthy feel that sounds unnatural for an electric guitar.  Couple that with the fact that it has zero compression, and you get a pedal that’s really unsuited for high-gain single-note leads.

My Verdict

If you’re looking for a real amp-like low-gainer with attitude or mid-gain rhythm guitar pedal, this is a great pedal to consider.  Its touch-sensitivity/volume-knob clean-up is as good as a real tube amp, and its built-in sag makes it feel like one, too.  If you want to play single-note leads on it you may want to compress or stack with another, more sustaining pedal, however.  I think it’s another one of those pedals with unique feel/feature, where if that’s not what you’re looking for you may not “get” it, but if it does meet your need, it’ll be an indispensable tool in your arsenal.

I don’t know why that is, but it’s hard to find artistic people who are very disciplined about building creative routines.

I am guilty as charged as well.

I have no idea if I’m typical or not, but I am very feeling-oriented and my productivity goes way up and way down…. if I’m feeling inspired, I get lots done, I feel like being productive.  Other times, I go through periods without getting anything done.

Like posting frequencies on this blog, for example.  I built myself a good habit of Tweeting, and from there built up a good routine of writing blog entries…. and puff!  I hit a wall.  My inspiration runs dry, I have nothing to say.

Now, on one hand, I firmly believe it’s fine to say nothing if you have nothing to say.

On the other hand, I also know that being creative is a habit.  Many successful artists — Diane Warren comes to mind — carve their craft out of regular, highly-routined attempts at being creative.  Inspirations be damned — just like people who jog everyday, you just have a go at it, whether you feel like it or not, and out of the machinegun approach emerge some real jewels.  You get better at doing things by doing them, anyway.  If your batting average is low starting out, just swing many times.   If your average is 10% of what a competent professional should hit, you start out by swinging 10x more to keep up.  In time your craft, your effectiveness will improve, and you won’t have to swing quite so maniacally.  (That’s how true masters make it look easy.  But don’t think for a second that they didn’t pay their dues.)

Building a habit of being creative is actually no different from either creating any new habit or quitting any bad ones.  It’s like building grooves on the ground where your wheels will travel frequently.  It takes some effort to get it going, but once the grooves start taking shape, it gets easier and easier.

Personal Development guru Steve Pavlina has a great article on this that has become a standard among personal development bloggers: 30 Days to Success.  I, for example, had undertaken 30-day challenge to work on songwriting everyday.  And I must say, I was indeed productive!

I also wrote an article on my old personal growth blog that has some relevant points:  The 7 Keys to Breaking Bad Habits

Now, when you’re choosing a new habit to build (or a bad habit to break) it’s a good idea to just focus on one at a time — don’t try to change your life radically, because that’s harder to pull off and failure undermines your self confidence.  If you want to build a habit of being creative, I think a reasonable place to start is to just build a routine/build in a time to have a go at it on a regular basis.  Whether you produce anything worthwhile is beside the point.  The point is to get in the habit of giving it a shot on a regular basis.  After a while, you may surprise yourself at how efficiently you can get creative.  I, as a guitar-based songwriter, have gotten good enough to a point where on most days, I can just mentally turn the switch “on” and write new riffs or guitar parts.

I myself have lots of good habits I hope to build…I will share some of my own 30-day challenges to undertake in the near future.

Anyway, it is very possible for you to change yourself so that you get creative often instead of being stuck in a stop/go routine.  The only thing that’s holding you and me back are ourselves.

So let’s make it a point to build a routine of being creative, shall we?

When I think of criminally overlooked rock acts, Dada and King’s X come to my mind.  I’ll get to King’s X in another post, but today I’d like to consider what happened to Dada, or rather, what Dada can do if they were to mount another serious attempt at establishing itself today.

Dada originally came out on the I.R.S. label in early 90s.  I.R.S. was the home to early REM catalog, so the label/artist compatibility seems right, or at least it makes sense.  Their debut, Puzzle had a novelty minor hit “Dizz Knee Land.”  They released two successors on I.R.S. that didn’t really go anywhere, before I.R.S. folded.  They had one last shot at major label glory when they signed on to MCA and released a slickly-produced self-titled album, which again, didn’t do much.

I have most of their major label catalog and the band’s strengths are abound and aplenty.  Catchy hooks, clever songwriting, tight vocal harmonies with distinct timbre. Michael Gurley is a guitar powerhouse with Stevie Ray Vaughan-influences, which is a bit of a surprise for this type of pop/rock, but still, guitar virtuosity can easily be made into an asset rather than distraction.

So what was missing in their quest?

I really think this was the case of not being able to figure out the band’s positioning, both by the label and the band themselves.  They were so talented and so good in every way, that it seems like they just didn’t know what to do with themselves.

Here’s what I’d do if I were to take the band and try to have it a go today.

1. Nail down their identity: both musically and lyrically these guys were all over the place, somber and dark one moment and silly and playful the next.  Their individual songs are brilliant but their albums can be very disjointed listening experience because of this.  The novelty factor of “Dizz Knee Land” really wasn’t their core, though — so don’t push that to the fore.  It seems like the band reverted to Gurley-penned tongue-in-cheek sarcastic, smart-ass persona most often, with lyrics about being a high school geek who secretly wanted to be a jock.  That persona is digestible and matches well with their quarky side — so have them focus on being a quirky, cheeky and experimental pop band, at least until they are well-established.
2. Once “Quirky and Experimental” is identified as the core, we can work on building a web site and online community based around that idea.  I can easily see them getting along with likes of They Might Be Giants, Guster, and even Frank Zappa, in the whole “stoned and goofy geeks” camp.  Print up a bunch of corny T-shirts and sell them at their shows.  Run a contest on goofy geek stories and write songs based on them (“Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” comes to mind)

Really, when I think of what’s most remarkable about Dada, and if they agree with me that it lies in them being Quirky and Experimental pop/rock band with ample chops at their disposal, I can think of many things that can be done to build their own fan community and establish a nice cottage industry on which the three of them could live off.  Dada is an exceptionally talented act — all they need is just a bit of focus and perseverance, and even that they probably don’t need much, because their material just slays.

Sigh.  Coulda, shoulda, might-have-beens.  But still, I think the idea here is that the most important thing an act needs to have is position.  Or identity.  Once you figure out who you are (and you better really figure it out, because you’re gonna be that persona for years and years), then, from there you can build a community based on that identity.

I really wish Dada would do it,  they are so good.

I’ve written many songs over the years.  Some have aged well, others haven’t — and I feel like I’ve gotten into a pretty good approach that has the highest probability of producing lyrics that I feel happy about.

It goes like this:

1. 95% of my songs start with the music, usually the guitar, then the melody.
2. I listen and live with the music for a long time, trying to discern what kind of feeling it represents for me.
3. I try to nail down the emotional core of the song.  A single feeling that the song conveys.  Sometimes this is obvious, but a lot of times, I just have to pick based on the music and what’s going on in my heart at the time.
4. Then I start throwing out some lines that convey that feeling for me.  I usually start with either the first verse or the chorus.
5. After I discover a couple of lines that I like, I pick out the final words of the phrases and hit a rhyming dictionary.  I look up words that rhyme and see if any of them fit. Sometimes it’s a stretch to make them work but that’s part of the fun/discovery.
6. My lyrics start to take shape.  I do pay attention to the cohesion with music and structure — make sure that accented syllables fall on strong beats and saving the punch lines for choruses and bridges.  I like it when bridges, or the section before the last chorus, contains the most revealing line.  It’s like the whole song is a mystery up to the point, and then the answer is revealed, and then the final chorus feels like a resolution.
7. I tweak and tweak and tweak.  I swap pronouns liberally (I vs. you vs. s/he/they) and see how they sound.  This is a pretty intuitive process — I just work it until it feels done.  Sometimes it’s just the matter of living with the words for a while.  Other times, some unfit words/passages become more and more apparent, the longer I live with them.

To me, the funnest part of this writing approach is that there’s ample room for discovery for me, the writer, myself.

I always try to make sure my lyrics don’t tell too literal of a story and that it shouldn’t make too much sense, as funny as it may sound.  Because the more it makes sense, the less room it leaves for interpretation.  What is fun about appreciating a song’s depth is to tackle the mystery in the words, trying to figure out what it means to me.

Of course, I’m not saying a song can’t tell a story — on the contrary, I prefer a song with an “arc” to it.  There are some songs that just list stuff, for example — and from the beginning to the end, you don’t sense any change in protagonist’s point of view.  To me, that’s a missed opportunity.  Why take up a whole song to make a point when it can be done in one verse?

So it’s always a tricky balance.  To have an arc but the story can’t really make sense.  To have a clear emotional core, but still be poetic and evocative enough not to be too plain/obvious.

I don’t hit the high notes all the time.

Anyway, below I’d like to share lyrics from my songs, to serve as examples:

I see you in the dark room
Painting your own mirrors
I see me in the dim light
In the world of no errors
Sometimes, you feel the need
Come talk to me, come talk to me

I see you in the water
Wondering why you can’t walk on it
All alone in the dark room
You can’t see when you see it
All my nights, all my love, all my drowning seeds
Come talk to me, come talk to me

I see you with the flowers
You touch, but no feel
I see me in the dark room
On the way to the seal
Then you run, you run from me
Can you talk to me?  Can you talk to me?

– “The Dark Room”

That one’s one of my old favorites, a wispy, gentle folk tune.  It doesn’t contain any strong emotions musically — it’s one of my less dramatic songs — and over the years I just kept discovering different ways this song can be interpreted.  I’ve always thought that the important part in this piece is how the “you” person starts out in the dark room, but in the end the “I” person ends up there, and “you” person runs away. I actually didn’t realize that “a dark room” is where films (now sadly going the way of vinyl) are developed — I originally meant just a room that’s dark.  This adds a whole new twist/layer to the story.

Hey, let’s go down to hell
When the north wind rings the bell
Bring your sister’s shell
Out here it’s so hard to sell

Kill her secrets, one by one
Sacrifice to the sun

Hey, this will surely be fun
We’ll never tell the nun

Maybe…baby…mayday.

– “Shark” from Aries9: Darkness Reveals Beauty of the Truth

The opening track from my debut album is obviously a very special song to me.  There is some heavy word play going on here, so it’s harder to make head or tail on this one, but I see it as a conversation — with the verse being one character and the chorus being the response.  It’s an invitation, but to something rather twisted and sinister.

I give permission for you to die
I hope you go like a fly
With insides all exposed
You came on just like a knight
All dressed up to fight
Only outsides composed

Smell the stench inside your armor
Never take it off for paramour
XXXXXXX (this line still needs to be written)

When you go march like a metal wave
(save your anger)
Going on, chanting, “we must save”
(save our hunger)
Elephants will never know
The ants they run over in fit of rage

– (untitled song, still very much in progress)

Now, here’s a very angry and bitter one, that much is clear.  I like the opening line very much — it just comes out strongly.  But in my mind, the only person I’d allow myself to be this intensely angry at, is myself — so I’m still exploring where this is all going to go.  I want to see to it that the venom in here will not get watered down somehow, but I also don’t want it to be some kind of tantrum song either — we’ll see what will happen.

Ultimately, I think lyrics that leave room for interpretation are more powerful, lasting and satisfying.  It may be a bit frustrating at the onset but the investment it takes to come up with your own interpretation makes the songs mean more to each listener.  And the fun part for me is that with my approach, I am my own listener as well — I am discovering what the songs mean to me after it’s written, and the meanings change and evolve as I go through more life experience and gain new insights.

It’s really an immersive art form, this business of writing words to songs.  I am so grateful I discovered it.

I think this is a common mistake that many artists make: trying to chase two bunnies at once.

I’ve been guilty of that, for sure.

Among the web circles, we talk about how a web page, or ideally, a web site as a whole, should have a single purpose/function it serves.  If you try to build a page that is both the killer article and an elaborate contact form, it ends up being convoluted and unfocused, being great at neither.

Similarly, building a fan base and making profit are two quite dissimilar functions.  It’s best if you do it one at a time.

And I’m sure it’s obvious which should come first.

You see, if you realize that first  you need to build your fan base, even at the cost of profit, then that realization leads to further decisions.  Like giving a few songs away free in exchange of their e-mail address.  Making e-mail list sign up form higher on a page than buy CD button.

Focus on one thing at a time.  It’s hard enough doing that one thing very well.  If you build an audience base large enough, then I’m sure your fans will tell you how they can help sustain your artistry.

Then, you can switch gear.  Only then.

DIY, as in Do It Yourself.

Hell no.  I can’t DIY — no way.  Being an indie music artist is to run a business.  In addition to making music (production of merchandise) you have to do marketing, customer relations, bookkeeping, web designing, and all the other crap that all small businesses have to do.  I’m freaked out already just b/c I have to find someone to prepare my first tax as an LLC (and so far no ones seems to want my business!).

Recently, I realized that I made a mistake.  I thought DIY was about Doing It by Yourself.  And many successful indie artists make it seem like that’s the definition — they do everything.  And that’s what I’ve been trying.  And I’m burned out.

At the end of the day, I’m just a guitarist.  And a songwriter.  There, two shoes to wear — I have no more feet to put more on.

Everything else, I’m going to do it with the firm intention of handing them over to someone else as soon as a person who’s 1) better at it than me, and 2) is more interested in doing that than me, shows up.

I’m not Doing It by Myself.  What I want is a team, so I can fire me from every fxcking job I now hold except those two.

There.  That’s my new dream.

And I’m gonna make it come true.

What I was trying to find in an Oceanefx Pearl Drive was a warm and fat mid-gain drive with Dumble-voiced character.  Will it deliver?  Let’s find out.

Features

Along with the expected drive and level controls, this pedal has an unusual tone control configuration.  Treble and Mids knobs, and a bass boost switch.  It turns out, these controls are the defining features of this pedal — they are very, very effective sculpting tools.

First, the treble controls the range close to the 3.2k slider on a Boss 7-band EQ — the brightness or the “bite.”  It has a fairly broad range, and on my Strat, going past 12 o’clock is too painfully bright.  But on a humbucker-equipped guitar with dark-voiced amps, there’s plenty in there to increase the note definition.

The Mids knob actually controls the upper-mid range.  It controls somewhat broad range around 1-2k and boy I tell you, this range really affects the tone.  Crank it up, and you get the Marshall-like kerrang with in-your-face aggression and attitude.  Dial it back, and it purrs like a sleepy kitten.  Nice!  Again, there’s a broad range here and can accommodate some extreme-sounding guitars and amps, but for most situations somewhere between 9-2 o’clock should suffice.  Since it controls the upper mids, even dialing it back won’t make the tone sound thin or hollowed out.

Finally, the bass boost kicks in about 5dB gain at about 200.  It’s placed perfectly — the boost is noticeable but not over the top, the range fattens single coils up without too much muddying.

Sounds

The gain knob is useful throughout its range, and combine this with the mids knob in particular and you can go from a fairly transparent boost to snarling rock’n'roll machine.  Great for classic rock, though it’s not a spot-on emulation of Marshall or any other recognizable sound.  It sits somewhere neutral enough to let the guitar’s voice come through, and colorization is subtle.

With the Treble and Mids knobs set to noon, bass boost off and drive low, it can do a pretty transparent boost, albeit with a slight tightening of bass.  In the other words, with the bass boost off the lower frequency isn’t untouched — it shaves off just a hair.

I noticed that when I dial back the Mids and Treble knobs somewhat, it’s also adding a slight “warming” or “rounding” effect on the pick attack.  I can get somewhat similar EQ shape using an EQ pedal, but this warming effect I couldn’t reproduce.  Again, it’s subtle, but very pleasing and musical.

Even at highest gain setting, the volume-knob clean-up is excellent.  I even slammed the front-end with a 10dB boost from a flatly-set EQ pedal, and it still cleaned up — and still sounded great even when my Strat’s volume is set around 1!

On the other hand, it has a subtle compression going on as well — it will not give that much of “pick lightly to clean up, dig in for dirt” type response.  This is a good or bad thing depending on what you’re looking for.  If the gain’s set high and if you have higher-output pickups or slam it with a boost, it results in a very natural, singing sustain.  Great for single-note leads.  It still doesn’t feel like it’s super-compressed no matter how you pick — it feels to me like what a guitar amp would do when it’s loud enough to start compressing.  If you’re the type of player who has subtle compression on constantly from a compressor pedal, you may find that you don’t need it with this pedal.  It’s very easy to play because it’s not super-duper touch sensitive, without sounding like you’re playing through “a pedal.”

My Verdict

I was very impressed with Pearl Drive.  It’s very versatile and all the controls are so very useful.  I think the key here is the Mids knob and the amount of compression.  The Mids helps this pedal be useful from warm and bluesy to aggressive, and you can dial in just the right amount for your needs.  And it’s a joy to play, precisely because it’s neither clinically touch-sensitive nor hyper-compressed in that typical way pedals do — severely limiting your range or coloring your guitar/amp’s voice.  I think it hits the sweet spot for many applications, and its voice is still very amp-like.

It’s a bit more transparent than I expected — its character is subtle and somewhat neutral, so while I am sure you can approximate the stereotypical Dumble (Ford/Carlton) tone with a humbucker guitar and mids dialed back a tad, I don’t think that’s this pedal’s calling card.  If you’re looking for an easy-to-play and dial-in overdrive pedal that is perfectly at home from anywhere between blues, country and classic rock, then it’s definitely worth checking out.

Heart vs. Ego

I’m reading a book called The Deeper Secret by Annemarie Postma.  I’m not even half way yet, but it has made me think of some good things.

The issue on my mind right now is the idea of Ego Intention vs. Heart Intention.  Both are powerful and you can rely on it to drive your actions.

But she argues that in the end, they both reproduce itself.  Create out of ego and you get more ego.  The same goes for the heart.

The most illuminating part, to me, is the chart below:

Whoa! I don’t know about you but I can plainly see that my pursuit of music so far has been very heavily Ego-driven and it’s probably safe to say that most of music/artistic/business pursuits are driven by Ego.

(I should clarify that I am using her use of the word Ego here — I know Ego can mean something more healthy, like having a secure and well-developed sense of self.  So don’t get hung up on semantics)

And that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t been able to get 100% behind my own musical pursuit.  It’s selfish! I just couldn’t figure out how my being just another rock guitarist/artist would make the world a better place.  Of course, I have nobler philanthropic ambitions that are lined up after I were to achieve fame and fortune…;-)  but really, no.  I can’t go around saying “well, you guys ought to listen/buy my music, ‘coz it’s good and I’m a good guy….”

I’m not saying that being driven by Ego is doomed to failure.  But I am saying that I couldn’t get behind my own Ego, and I also can’t see that had I even gotten behind it, I wouldn’t have felt fulfilled by what I achieved.

What Do I Have to Offer?

Self, then, what is it that I can really get behind?

Well, a nobler cause.  I like ones that are so universal that it’s undisputable.  Like Doctors without Borders.  They respond to crisis by providing for medical needs, and won a Noble Peace Prize.  Must be a good, believable cause, right?

Then I thought of other things I feel energized about.  I get excited about people pursuing genuine artistic ambitions. Like musicians who sing because they can’t live without doing it, or filmmakers who make films because they just have the burning desire to tell their story.  When people are doing things because they cannot NOT do it.

But even that seems a bit too safe, like I’m really lying to myself.  It’s like I’m saying I don’t have anything good to offer so I’m just latching onto others who have better offerings.

No.

I do have something to offer.  Quite a few, actually.  I am a great problem-solver and consultant.  I am intuitive and I can cut through muck and identify the essence.  I am very creative and can think outside of box.  I am loyal and reliable, resourceful and quick-study.  I am happy to be in demand as a web developer — because even though there are many of us out there, apparently when people work with me they want to work with me again and again.  And it’s a line of work where much of what I list above are being used.  I like being useful.

But I am developing web sites because other people want me to and it makes me money.  It really doesn’t fulfill me in a more fundamental way.  I can think to volunteer as a web developer to some charitable causes that I can believe in, and I may do that, but even that feels like a cop-out.

I want to feel fulfilled in my life.  When I die, I want to look back to my life and feel proud — and as much as my web sites help other people and make money, they don’t make me proud in a deep way.

Then I thought about why I wanted to make music to begin with.

It’s because music was the friend that helped me get through my dark times.

It is the most moving, touching thing in the world to me, when I listen to music that express the feelings I am carrying inside.

Music is the best gift I’ve been given.  And that’s why, I dreamed of giving it.

Separating the Heart from the Rest

When I think of being given opportunities to create meaningful music, I feel overwhelmed, in a good way.  I’d feel incredibly grateful and honored.  If someone were to tell me my music helped them get through hard times, I’d be so overcome with joy that I’d probably kiss and hug the person and say something corny like “oh, THANK you for thanking me!”

I think I have something here.  I feel like I can trust this feeling.

So I was right to begin with — but I got distracted by all the ego-energy that fills the air.  It’s been very awkward for me to try to be in the music industry.  I haven’t made many friends, never fit the lifestyle/social circles and I have been unsuccessful in applying some of the successful techniques to my own pursuit.

But to worry about stuff like The Industry, now I see, is missing the point of my intention.  I’m not saying I will not make money from music, but that’s really not the point.

I want to offer the most meaningful thing that’s been given to me.  I want to give back.

But to give back, first I need to develop the ability to create the same caliber of gifts that I received.  Not because I need fame, not because I want to turn profit — but because I want to make an impact.  It has to be a genuine piece of art, or otherwise it can’t meet my true objective.

So that’s my starting point.

Then, I just have to think of a way, an approach, that’ll keep Ego out of the picture as much as possible.  Again, I’m not saying that Ego-driven pursuit is a mortal sin or recipe for failure — it’s just that when it enters the picture, I can’t get behind it.  It stops being fulfilling — and thus, it misses the very reason why I want to create it.

Making an Impact => My Fulfillment

That’s my focus, and I need to affix my eyes on it.

I have a lot more thinking to do, but I feel like I’m onto something.  At last.

Today is a day to celebrate.  We finally launched the film web site I’ve been working on for the last 6 month.

Ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please…. LostInSunshine.com!

It’s a brainchild of the writer/director Jentri Chancey and producer Lorie Marsh.  And kudos also go to the web designer Shad Chancey, who did the graphic design for the site.

I am very grateful to be involved in this project for many reasons.  I think what the filmmakers are trying to do with this web site is very forward-thinking — I mean, grassroots DIY thing has been done among bloggers, authors and musicians.  Filmmakers have done it, too — but most of the cases so far have been unintentional successes.  They didn’t set out to market and sell their films that way.  But with LIS, they are totally going at it on their own, with the intention to create an online community around the film by using net-based tools.

I learned a ton from this project myself — I would never been motivated enough to really sit down and master Drupal (content management system) if I didn’t have to, but now that I’m neck deep into it, I’m amazed by Drupal’s sheer power and flexibility.

Launching a web site is always a proud moment, but I’m particularly proud of this one.

All that being said — I was thinking tonight about how proud I feel of my latest web creation, but I also imagined how I’d feel if I was releasing a new CD, and if it was selling…..

I’d be way up on cloud nine then.

You see, I love making web sites, and I love the fact that I am in demand, my peers respect me and I get paid handsomely for it.  It’s hard not to like something you’re good at.

But it’s even better, if you become good at something you love.

That’s the ideal, that’s what we should all aspire to do.  You make yourself learn and grow, because you love it.

And that’s what I want to do.  I’m not yet as developed as a musician as I am a web developer.  But I still am more musician than web developer.

And that’s OK.  I’m making what I love grow, too.  It’s just taking a bit longer, because it’s bigger.

A new mic preamp just arrived — an old Event EMP-1 that I bought on eBay for $71.

The reason I got this is kinda long-winded story.  My Firewire audio interface, Alesis IO14, bit the dust (which may not be its own fault — more on this later) so I bought Echo AudioFire4 to replace it.  But to my disappointment the brand new unit that arrived, couldn’t turn on the phantom power.  And to my further disappointment, I tested the same unit with a different computer and the phantom power did come on — so the problem, it appears, is my MacBook’s Firewire connection.  I thought it odd that my Alesis just up and died, when it just sat in my studio (it may or may not be broken — so far my tests are inconclusive).

So, I faced the dilemma: AudioFire seemed to be working flawlessly except that it couldn’t provide phantom power to my condenser mic.  Do I return it and pick a different unit after I went through all the research and picked out one that seem to meet my needs and have a solid reputation, or do I replace my computer, or… do I simply find a phantom power source?  I chose the last option (I had just replaced the hard drive on my MacBook, so I wasn’t quite ready to go through another trauma of migrating all my data to another computer), but as I looked for a phantom power device, I thought, why not just get a used preamp, instead of just a phantom power source?

I was looking at M-Audio DMP-3, which has a very good reputation among home recordists for being clean and good bang for buck.  I also looked at Symetrix 202 and Aphex 107 as well.  Then this EMP-1 caught my eye.  Apparently it’s an old unit that’s long been discontinued and I only found one review on it.  But the review was good and also Event’s reputation as a manufacturer of fine studio monitors (I use the also long-discontinued Tria System as my main monitors) felt good to me, so I decided to bid what I thought was a justifiable amount for taking the risk of buying an old, little-known preamp.

So far all I did was plug it in and confirmed that everything was working, so more on what it can do later.