Summerfest? MOBFest?

Well we put in our submission to Summerfest via sonicbids. I woudld like to see Sonicbids utilized by booking agents more. Summerfest still took snail mail submissions, your standard presskit. Though we opted to use Sonicbids. They stated that 40 bands would be booked via sonicbids EPK's.

I suspect it will go well for summerfest and they will book more using Sonicbids in the future.

Also submitted to MOBFest in chicago. Time will tell....

Red Fang

I stuck a Eminance Red Fang 12" speaker in my guitar cabinet last night. great speaker sound really nice. And a ton cheaper than a Celestion Blue....

We took a stab at recording a different version of Turn Out The Morning last night but had some computer and other issues that kept us from getting a good take.

Oh well...it happens.

Selections Made for Disk

Division Protoype III is done and on it are thirteen songs timed at around 50 minutes.

The tunes coming on the final release are as follows: (Not final order)

Spinning Things
Capital People
Seeing Jimmy
She Slit Her Wrists Again
Throwing Rocks At Cars
Shove
She Walks Up Ahead
Spiritual Mouthwash
Flowing On
Johhny's Wife
Memory of a Friend
Turn Out The Morning
Division

We're figuring out the final look and packaging but we'll be selling pre-release version at gigs until release sometime in June(?).

G4 Dual 1.24 GHz

Just ordered a new (used) computer for the Cat Box studio. My G4 400 Mhz power book wasn't cutting the mustard when it came to running AudioDesk 2.03 on Jaguar. I was having issues with the app crashing and hanging up during recording. I don't know if some of the problems are related to the weaker machine or if it was OS X overhead related. OS 9 pefromace always rocked on this machine and we never had issues with recording 8 simultaneous 24/48 tracks. The processer would max out trying to mix 10 tracks with effects plugins.

I really like the new effects in AudioDesk 2.03 and it was pretty much a no brainer to move on to a more powerful system for mixing and mastering our upcoming disk. Which by the way we are almost done recording. We have a few sessions yet to do but we are still on track for getting the disk in the can by May 1st.

Main Stage March 12

Heres a shot from a fan from the Main Stage gig on
Saturday. The gig went well we made some good bucks
and played to a warm crowd of about 60-80 folks. Most
were chatting and drinking....but hey it is a bar
after all.

We played two sets. Pretty much all our material but
the difficult Beautiful Painting tune. Starting with
most of the older stuff in the first set and all our
newset songs in the second. We probably played at
least 8 songs that had not been played out live yet.

It was a good gig. The Main Stage has great sound on
stage, free bud lite and bud for the band and a pretty
laid back atmosphere. Can't beat it. One of the better
venues in SE Wisconsin.

WCCX 104.5 Carroll College

Well Soul Amp lost it's radio virginity on March 10, 2005. I drove over to Carroll student center where the 10 watt radio station resides and dropped the Division - Protoype III off to promote the show on saturday at the Main Stage.

WCCX reaches about 20,000 people in a three to four mile radius of Carroll College. No sooner did I reach the the car and turn the key then there was Spinning Things playing. Even though I told them to play Division or Capital People they non the less played the opening track...

Thanks to WCCX.

Note to DJs: "Flowing On" has the word "Shit" in it.

M2 and Steve...

M2 and Steve prepping for a recent recording session.
Note the mic layout and foam baffles. Helps to reduce
the bleed from the guitar, bass and key amps. We try
to get as much live as we can.

Motion Sound KBR-3d

Cat Box SHots
Originally uploaded by bodland.

Here is M1's new motion sound rotary keyboard amp. USed in the recent recordings in the cat box. Dig the low tech recording technique. AudioTechnica AT2035 capturing the swoop of the the rotary horn. The Korg tosses out a ton of bass and the high SPLs blew the MXL990 and MXL2001 out of the water. The AT can handle a very high SPL. A great mic to have in your kit.

M1 runs the Wurli and the KORG-Cx3 into the channel with the rotary. The Kurtz PCX2 goes into the stereo input.

This as a very versatile amp. We'll be rigging it possibly with a half moon switch for controlling the rotor at the Korg rather than a footswitch as it is now. M1 likes to stand.

Cat Box SHots

Cat Box Shots during tracking of Division prototype III

Cat Box SHots

Cat Box Shots during tracking of Division prototype III

Division - Protoype III

For the March 12th shwo at Main Stage we'll have
another iteration in the quest for a final album.
Division. 10 songs. $10 bucks.

March 12th

Saturday march 12th Main Stage, Waukesha WI.
$5 cover three bands. Soul Amp is one of them.

Update from the Cat Box

Last Wednesday, and Saturday we started tracking again for the CD. We've been working on new songs and will possibly playing some of them at our upcoming Main Stage gig.

After about 6 months now of tracking, a tweaking our recording techniques and songs has paid off big time. From the scrappy basement we are getting this huge sound as we track 8 tracks live.

5 tracks on the kit -

two MXL 991 overheads, SM57 on the snare, Audio Technica D550 on the kick and a MXL 990 on floor tom.

SM57 mic on guitar cabinet with new Traynor YCV20 loaded with JJ EL84's and Groove Tube 12ax7-C, the Tex Mex strat is played straight in.

M1 got a new motion sound amp and we are micing it with a sturdy AT2035 on that the SPL on the motion sound blows every other mic into clipping. We DI the bass off the back of a Eden Metro.

We are really pleased with the sound we are getting and with the technical aspects of recording now faily locked in we are free to really starting thinking about how the songs sound themselves, we are tweaking dynamics and tones from the various instruments and some of the older tunes are finally showing thier true color.

We'd like to share some of these with you but we also want to wait for the CD to be complete...but if you keep checking in here at our blog you might get an opportunity to nab a version of a tune or two.