New Single and Album Announcement

Hello earth. Today was a good day to put out a single. Some BirdsReturn. It’s a collaboration with author Courtney Jensen to accompany his next book in his fantasy series. His first book, The Crown and the Caged God is out now available on Amazon or Bonstanbooks.com. This song takes place in a medieval type world, sung in a tavern after mourning the loss of a desolated city. I promise it sounds much more cheerful than that description. We tried to emulate what happens with oral traditions overs generations, where words often get changed or misinterpreted. So we passed the song around a few times between each other without truly seeing the written original lyrics. Courtney is a great writer and I promises the book is not your average fantasy novel. So please check out all he is up to at CourtneyJensen.com and his youtube channel.

I also wanted to announce my next album, Extraterrestrial Wet Dream which should be out before the year’s end. It’s a funk/soul/disco/jazz album. I know... a total left turn from the previous album. But this it the point of these albums. To try new things. The inspiration started from late night jams with my punk band’s (Born Shit Stirrers) founding member Paul Blair on bass

Special guest will all be announced soon, but so far we have, Trevor Brown on drums of People of the Abyss. Our first album together with him on drums in16 years, since our time together in the hip hop band Lost History. Also long time collaborator Jan Bart Leeuw adding keys and samples and Melisa Delgado on viola.

I hope you enjoy these releases. We all put a lot of work into them.

Love, Lum

 

 

The Crown and the Caged God

 

An almost lifelong friend of mine has been writing a fantasy book for nearly a decade, and now part one of book one has been unleashed upon the world.  The Crown and the Caged God.  Years ago I was asked to help paint the world maps that correspond with these books.  That art will be in coming books.  However the writer, Courtney Jensen is a fantastic artist as well.  He spent a lot of time on not just all aspects of the art by hand, but the page layout and every small detail in the world he's tried to create.  While my copy of the book is still on it's way to me, I can promise the writing I have read from it is great. There will be future installments of the story, so you can get started with book one part one here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991314514

 Seems art and humanity are values being questioned these days because of new technology.  This was 100% human made.  This is a subject the author talks about from time to time on his youtube channel. Which usually has various weekly short journal subjects.  Ranging from topics around writing, art, society and even old video games which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@courtneyjensen

End of broadcast for the day!

Enjoy

 

New Slicks Vinyl Ep I Recorded and Mixed

 

So I've recently been more comfortable calling myself a recording engineer and mixer.  I recently got some work via England to record a local band, the Slicks, all the way here in Fukuoka (although the members are spread out across Japan now).  Funny enough, when I told other musicians around town that I was recording the Slicks, everyone said, "I used to listen to them in high school!" So unbeknownst  to dumb me, I was in a cool opportunity to record an influential band.  The Vinyl Ep is out now on Private Scandal and put out by Connor Dobson here:https://privatescandal.bigcartel.com/product/slicks The band sounds great even if they hadn't played in many years together.  They didn't miss a beat.  Very 70's punk sounding.

Telecaster Mods to Make Them More Playable

The Telecaster. What some would call simple perfection or a blue collar working man’s guitar is a 74 year old design. While there have been many other iterations of it, the original standard modal has had very few changes to the design by the original company who launched it, Fender. As great as the guitar is, there are 3 major design flaws that really effect it’s playing ability and should have been modified on standards off the factory line many years ago. As much as I would like to blame “boomers” or the stubborn allergenic-to-change guitar community, truth is, most of us just want to emulate our heroes who owned the same old guitars with their flawed designs. So Fender keeps making them the same way. The good news is we can mod these changes fairly cheaply and easily. Here are three mods that should be standard on Teles to make them more playable. 

 

1. Replacing the Jack Plug Dish Thingy

Worst ever.

Seriously. What the hell is this thing? It doesn’t appear on any other guitar in the world for good reason. They should stop being made. You can’t fit right angled jacks into it securely. It comes loose quickly, and it’s a pain to tighten it back up. The whole thing is holding on to a janky piece of metal wedged into the body. Just toss this thing and buy a screw mounted cup type plug mount. You’ll never worry about it again.

 

 

 

2. Intonating the Three Saddle Bridge.

While some newer models have the 6 saddle, fully intonatable bridges, the old style bridges are made for 3 saddles. Each sharing two strings and usually at a flat angle. This makes the higher positions on the guitar neck become out of tune. I know some people say this is part of the charm of a Tele, but I’d rather play in tune. No one listens to a record and hears an out of tune guitar and says, “gee, what a great Tele.” You can buy compensated angled saddles out of a variety of materials. They’re usually spot on with a little adjusting.

 

 

3. Angling the Selector Switch like a Stratocaster

This won’t bug everyone, but if you switch pickups in the middle of a song then the Tele will have you fumbling around trying. There is a reason the Stratocaster has an angled pickup selector switch. You can use it on the fly much quicker and easily. There are replacement control plates which do this plus moving the volume knob back a bit to allow for quick switching.

24 years of corrosion under the old plate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Runner ups.

The neck pickup. I tried for years to like them. Tried many types of traditional styles. I don’t like them. Personally I think replacing them with anything is an improvement.

Top load strings on the bridge. You can bend the strings better and it seems to be less bright then the through body string option.

In Series wiring for the middle position.  Despite playing a lot of funk, I hardy ever used the stock parallel wiring.

Until next time space cadets 

New Release From Born Shit Stirrers!

I can't believe I've let almost a year pass by since posting on here again.  While I have been busy, I honestly forgot to and often put it off.  Lots of music recording and production has been coming in for me and not just my own projects.  So I've been caught up in it.  Speaking of which, here is my latest release from our little punk band the Born Shit Stirrers from the good people at Serial Bowl Records https://serialbowlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/scratch-n-sniff

We've come a long way.  From shitty closet recordings to the first vinyl I fully mixed.  I think it's our most eclectic album yet.  My old college roommate even pitched in with a tune he used to play at drunken parties.  Hopefully everyone enjoys it, or isn't too offend at the very least.  First 100 orders get a limited poster.  Available on 12 inch vinyl, CD, or digital download.

In other news, in the off chance your in Japan and near me, I'll be playing my first solo gig after at least a decade.  OK, back to work.  I'll be back with more to say on various subjects again soon I hope...

Love, Lum

Are all MXR Phase 90s the same?

After fixing this phase 90, yet again.  I realized that all the chips are the same in all of them.  Just a different box on the outside.  Check out the script switch and the Eddie Van Halen print on the board.

 

Lum's Gone Country!?!?

 

https://lumband.bandcamp.com/album/titanium-country-hits

 

Well, here it is. 12 tracks of a genre I never thought I’d record. Well kind of one genre. Really Americana I guess. But there is some genre bending with some heavy stuff, funk and even hip hop.  Took me years to appreciate country music and basically a lot of digging around in the past dusting some stuff off. I think I came up with my own take on it, although far from traditional. I really wanted an excuse to call up old band mates as well as current and new ones, to make a kind of time capsule of a bunch of people who I’ve enjoyed playing with over the years. There are even some family contributions as well. If you weren’t on this one I hope I can catch you again in the future. This really was challenging and fun to make (even if I was getting obsessive about it). I think I needed this. Big thanks to all of the players on here. Couldn’t have done it without you! Really!  Sorry this blog has been quite this year.  I do have tons of pedal stuff backed up to get to.  I've just been in the studio a lot, which is a good thing.  I'll try to get back to it soon. 

Peace and Love

~Lum

New Godzilla Snacks Album Out Now!

 

After a 3 to 4 year delay, we finally released our new album last week.  Life events and world events somehow got the best of us and we had to keep shelving this.  Big thanks to Jan Bart in the Netherlands and Hercules in Cyprus, and my usual other band mates Jon, Roque and Brain for the extra help. Hopefully the next album won't take us as long.

https://godzillasnacks.bandcamp.com/album/there-be-monsters

Boss CH-1 (Digital Version) Mods

Ah the downtrodden Boss CH-1.  It was a exciting pre-show purchase for me a 20 something circa winter 2003.  Having grown up on a healthy dose of lush chorus from Nirvana to The Police, I was looking to recreate those tones.  I'm sure my heart was set on a Electro Harmonix Small Clone or Poly Chorus, but the lowly Guitar Center at the time only had the Boss.  It did the job, but as time went on (17 years now), as I read the bashing of it on various guitar forums, and as I played friends' Poly Choruses, I realized the damn thing didn't do all I wanted it to.  I wanted the wacky quick modulation.  

First mod attempt

I found some great mods online for altering the delay time from flanger to more extreme chorus by changing 47pf cap on the C10 cap to a lower or higher value, up to 100pf.  Unfortunately, upon opening my chorus (bought in 2003) I realized it was made of all surface mount components, which are a bitch to try to mod (not recommended).  Not only that, but upon close inspection, I realized the whole circuit is different with a very different chip powering the delay.  They really should have just named my pedal a CH-2 or something.  After a lot of searching and research, it turns out Boss' schematic refers to it as a CH-1T(Taiwan?).  It really helps when trying to search for it.  I guess Boss decided to go with the new layout sometime after 2001.  That said, I'm not sure I really hear much differences in the old to new models.  But the old analog mods will not work on this newer model.  So after more searching I came across a great blog that had a newer digital mod. Here:  https://proto-schlock.blogspot.com/2013/04/boss-ch-1-mod-digital-version.html?m=1

Here's the new schematic in case you can't find it.

This guy changed the value or the R63 resistor to around 1.8K.  He also had some other interesting mods which I will get into later.  I didn't want to be too invasive to my pedal, so I opted to add a 8.2K resistor in parallel to the original 15K to cut the total resistance value to around 5.3K. Worked great!  Wacky quick modulation galore!  However, I got greedy and tried poking around at the circuit to find what controlled the delay time on the chip.  I had some luck with the R43 resistor, but dropped the pedal in doing so.  The modded, very small resistor pictured above snapped off.  Upon many failed attempts, I finally settled on bridging the connection for 0 resistance.  I got even quicker modulation up to 99% of the rate control knob.  However it folds in on itself at the very last 1% maxed position to cancel out the movement.

So, here's the disclaimer* DON'T TRY TO MOD THESE SUPER SMALL COMPONENTS UNLESS YOU'RE WILLING TO DESTROY YOUR PEDAL OR UNLESS YOU HAVE THE PROPER TOOLS AND SKILLS.  Seriously this was a pain to mod.  I think bridging the resistor ended up being easier in the end.  Maybe next time just a small dab of solder over the resistor.

Now another mod I see a lot of people attempt is adding vibrato to a chorus pedal.  They are in fact the same circuits but with chorus, it adds the dry guitar signal.  Where as vibrato is just the modulated signal only.  So, if you have a stereo chorus (two outputs) like my CH-1, usually you can just add a jack plug connected to nothing into the output B or second output (usually) This will make the pedal send the second output dry signal to nothing.  Muting it, turning your main output to the amp into vibrato.  Hope this helps some people!  If anyone figures out a safe why to mod the delay time to flanging and deeper chorus, let me know.  Here's a quick video sample. (of the earlier mod plus vibrato)

Replacing a Digitech Whammy Knob and Rotary Selector

DOH!!!  Why a plastic shaft!?!?!

        So..... you knocked the knob off your Digitech Whammy?  When I did, I thought it would be a cheap fix with a some sort of simple potentiometer.  While the fix itself was easy, it was not super cheap.  All and all it set me back at least $20 just for a little knob I probably kicked off during a show.  You'll most likely need two things special ordered along with all your average soldering and pedal tools.

These are what you'll need and what will set you back the most. (Almost like Digitech wants you to spend more on repairs.)   

• Rotary encoder with 24 pulses with a 15mm shaft. (ebay seems to be the only place to find these.  Type those exact words into ebay.  Probably $15 for a set of two.  Might as well pick up an extra considering the shaft is plastic and it'll break again.  
  

• 

  #4

  7/64" Allen wrench (Not a common size in most sets.  As hard as I tried to buy locally, Amazon was the only place that had one)

You'll also need your basic soldering iron, solder, solder braid (to remove the old solder), a screwdriver, wrench and possibly wire cutters or pliers.

#2

#1

Take the casing apart by removing the top allen screws then remove the two screws with the screwdriver next to the "midi in".  With a little gentle sliding up and away from the "midi in" jack the top should come off with the board.   By now you should see picture #2.  Next we'll unscrew the washer holding the broken pot.  The top board will come loose.  Picture #3 at the bottom shows the 5 solder points we want to de-solder.  Honestly this is the hardest part.  Don't heat the points too long.  Use solder braid to lift the old solder.  You might need wire cutters or pliers if the old rotary encoder is stubborn to come out.  After the old broken rotary encoder is out, pop in the new one and solder it in.  (If the new rotary encoder has small metal tabs on the top sides like mine did in up top in picture#4, you may have to snip those off to fit it flush to the enclosure.) Then put everything back together.  Hopefully you didn't loose the original knob like I did and yours looks totally original.  My orange knob was all I had on hand at the time.  I'll have to get something better in the future.  Hopefully this helps you bypass Digitech customer support and shipping.  Good luck out there.  

   

#3

What a looker...