Atom's Rite

[atomsrite]

A statement about the band

Hey everyone! We’re really excited to announce that Daniel Johnson will be joining the band. He’ll primarily be playing keyboards, but might play a little guitar on some things and maybe add vocals if we ever decide to do that. Daniel lives in Grand Forks so it is possible that he is not going to be able to join us every time we play live, but we are going to do our best to schedule shows so he can. This doesn’t mean that Andy isn’t a part of the band anymore. We think of Atom’s Rite as kind of a loose collective of musicians, with some core members and any time that Andy wants to come back and play guitar in the band we will be more than happy to have him. This is an exciting time for Atom’s Rite and we’re really glad to have the support of everyone who has kept up with the band since 2007, which is really a long time. Thanks for your support. 

[landland-usa-deactivated2019030]

Last one of these, I swear. Repost from @thebirdmachine reposting from @zumheimathafen

Signing 880 posters for Pitchfork Music Festival with @fakedanblack, with @munnjason numbering the numbers. Two strong Germans bagged. Good team work. (at Landland)

[atomsrite]

landland-usa is doing our artwork and packaging. They are also going to release our 7″ in the webstore of the label they run, which we couldn’t be happier about. Go buy a bunch of their stuff.

[noraandthejanitor-deactivated20]

Wild Hands! (at Otis & James)

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Max’s really excellent other band. They will be headed into the studio. We helped make their debut record “Oh River” which people are always really surprised was made in my basement. http://wildhands.bandcamp.com -- check them out.

[noraandthejanitor-deactivated20]

Gals! (at Pangea House)

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Met this band at WhyNot and they are really great. Our next release is a split with them (After the 7″). We’ve already got one song mostly recorded for it.

[baritones]

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midwestmodulationis building us one of these to go with my vintage univox guitar that I am getting some really sweet new pickups for. Probably not going on my main board, but we’ll record with it.

[atomsrite]

Recording with Dani

Atom's Rite

If you are interested in how the sausage is made, this might be interesting to you. The stream is apparently only good for 24 hours.

[atomsrite]

07/12/2015 Notes

WhyNot is upon us and we are taking a little bit of time to make the band a live concern. Playing as a three-piece is a different dynamic, but we kind of snapped into it after a little bit of fiddling around. It is an interesting place to be as a band because, as Jake pointed out, we can do whatever we want going forward and there is very, very little of our older material that we can play live. 

There are now 4 songs in the set. We are playing Metro/Coast from our debut full-length, and have written 3 new songs that currently don’t have titles. We set up the mics and recorded the set for our own amusement. Nick from Wild Hands, Crooked Gospel, running Souris River Brewing, and generally being awesome, came over and put new heads on Amanda’s drums. They sound really, really good.

Another fun thing about the new set is that both Jake and I (Jason) have delved fully into the depths of our midwestmodulation pedals and the new songs are much noisier and crazier than the older ones.

We are playing these 4 songs Thursday, August 6th at Souris River Brewing. Vanity Plate, Dani Raccoon, and the Extended Benders are also playing. Gates at 8pm, music starts at 9:00, not sure where we are in the lineup. The last outdoor show we played there was so much fun, we’re really looking forward to it. Then Saturday, August 8th we will be playing at Otis and James at 8pm. Lots of great stuff to see all weekend. 

[atomsrite]

Electrical???

So, we've been talking as a band, and we may not be making the trek to Electrical. We're really happy with the sounds we are getting in my basement and the idea of total control is a very appealing one. It isn't completely out, we may finish the record and want to kick the recording up one more notch, but I assure you nothing is going to be put out that sounds anything less than excellent.

[atomsrite]

Rough Mix

A rough mix of the new song is online somewhere. I am not going to say where. I am going to ask that if you find it, you don't share where you found it.

 Feel free to comment here if you found it, we are interested in what you think, but not interested enough that it would change what we plan to do with the rest of the song. There is a lot more to come on that track, if you find this mix it is basically the barest skeleton of what it is going to become.

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SUNDAY!

midwestmodulation came over and helped me (Jason) track some guitars through a midwestmodulation amp. It was very meta. We also have a cellist lined up. This seven inch is going to sound great.

[atomsrite]

Here's a snippet of Max playing I took with my phone. Should get you a general idea of the tenor of the drums on the song. I also committed the grievous error of taking a video in portrait mode. I was mostly trying not to disturb Max. 

[atomsrite]

Day 1 Recording Superpost

So we just finished tracking the song that is going to go on the 7" we are putting out with the Crooked Gospel of Western Civilization. It was the first time we've been together as a 3 piece and after about an hour of false starts this one came about very organically. Max hasn't played drums for a long time but he was back in playing shape in about 20 minutes, which was awesome. My original intention was to post a rough mix of the song, but it still has a lot of work to be done on it. We're having it mastered on the 13th of January, so I figure if everyone has waited this long, they can wait a little longer. It will be worth it. 

Some pictures!

Max and Jake discussing some supplemental drum overdubs.

The obligatory "White Board Shot" -- no white board markers, but I did just get a printer so there are a million pieces of paper floating around.

Travis Morrison, of the Dismemberment Plan, called the SM7 the great unsung guitar amp mic while he was recording Travistan. I couldn't agree more. This song has some very clean guitar, and some very, very distorted guitar and it balanced them incredibly well. Pitchfork went on to give that record a 0.0, which is ridiculous. I still like Travistan though it hasn't aged terribly well.

  Here's some great midwestmodulation stuff that is making its way onto the track.

The Great Drum Recording Breakdown

Okay -- This has the potential to be a little nerdy but I (Jason) am very, very, excited about the drum sounds we're getting so I thought I would share what is going on. Before I get too heavily into the mics, I should talk about the kit. Amanda Francis was kind enough to loan us her vintage Gretsch kit, I have been in love with this drumkit forever so it is very exciting to get to record it. We bought all new heads for it, but kind of dug how the existing ones sounded a little worn in, so we just went with it. 

Electret Condenser Lavalier Mic pointed at the bass drum batter. This is a Steve Albini trick I was dying to try and it sounds super cool. I am not sure of the model of this particular mic, I think it is an Audio Technica. I ordered one from Sweetwater and they called me and talked me into spending an additional $50 to have one that goes straight to XLR. I had a mini-XLR to standard XLR cable for the one I had picked out but it was on backorder. 20db pad on this.

Kick front, trusty AKG D112. Always been really happy with this mic. Still am.

Snare top is a Beyerdynamic M201 that I just bought, I have never, ever been happy with a 57 on the snare top, the last album was an MD421 and I am not happy with that either. I decided to go to the Electrical Audio page (http://www.electricalaudio.com -- this is a really great recording resource) and see what they point at their snares, this one got high marks for being able to handle high SPL levels, which is good because I know more than one drummer who can lay into a snare drum. RIde tom is an Sennheiser MD421. Everyone uses them on toms, and for good reason. 

Has to be a Shure SM57 somewhere on the record, right? There is kind of a funny story about the undersnare mic on this track, but if I fix it and you can't tell I will never tell a soul about it.

Floor tom, another MD421.

Overheads. These are Michael Joly Engineering (http://www.oktavamod.com)  MXL something or others. I have been buying mics from MJE since back when they were Oktavamod (I think they were still  Oktavamod [though the website clearly has't changed] when I bought these). The bodies of these mics are cheap-o MXLs, but all of the electronics and the capsules have been changed out and the headbasket of the mic has been machined to be open (you can't see it particularly well in this photo). The whole mod process is spelled out here: http://www.oktavamodshop.com/product_info.php?cPath=1_48&products_id=238 . I got a good deal on a matched pair and they sound great on pretty much everything.

So that is everything from yesterday. Today we are doing guitars, keys, and maybe some more drums. I will take pictures and post.

[atomsrite]

Preparations

December 19th is fast approaching. The studio where the seven inch material and the album demos are to be recorded is in really good shape. Just picked up a couple of new microphones. The drum sounds on these recordings should be miles away from the last LP

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It Begins

The first dates are set. December 19, 20, 21. Expect a lot of pictures.

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Jake's Gear!

First photo is Jake playing his bass. It is a Fender Highway One P-Bass. On the first album it is this bass, an Ampeg SVT head and a Tube Screamer that I know nothing about.

Since the album was recorded Jake has picked up a really wonderful midwestmodulation pedal. The following is stolen directly from their site:

"The ... photo is of a Green Russian Big Muff Pi clone I built for Jake from Atom’s Rite. It features an array of added doo-dads (most interestingly a set of three available feedback loops that make all kinds of crazy noise) and added features. Jake plays it through an Ampeg SVT and it sounds absolutely wonderful live."

more on that from Chris "Jake's pedal is a Electro-Harmonix Green Russian Big Muff clone with a clean blend, modified tone stack, switchable clipping diodes, and three selectable feedback loops. "

Jake uses the same Boss TU3 tuner that Jason has. 

Chris is also building Jake a modified Tronographic Rustybox which is based on the preamp section of a Traynor TS-50B with a balanced out that will probably dominate the new demos if Jason has his way. 

[atomsrite]

A whole post about Jason's gear, all of which will be appearing on the album. Starting with the pedalboard.

My pedals, unless noted otherwise, are built by midwestmodulation if you want you guitar/amp/whatever to sound way cooler than it does already hit my brother up. His prices are unbeatable and his stuff is AMAZING.

L-R top to bottom on the pedal board.

Passive A/B Switch - a MM build, just selects between the normal and top boost channels on my amp.

MXR Carbon Copy - a rare non midwestmodulation build just because it was cheaper to get analog delay this way. I also own an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man but it just took up too much room on the board. This thing is lovely and it will self-oscillate, which is always a good thing.

Midwest Modulation Digital Reverb+ - This pedal does a million things and I have just started the scratch the surface, mostly what I use it for is a huge plate reverb that I run 100% wet and it makes some great ambient noise. This chipset does so much, I haven't even had time to play with it but I am sure that will change.

Midwest Modulation Z-Vex Fuzz Factory Clone - Great fuzz, great noisemaker, self-oscillates. Love this very much

MM/BYOC Mouse - The first pedal Chris ever built, does a ton of different distortions, I mostly use the ProCo Rat setting.

Boss TU3 Tuner - Because being in tune is important. This thing is very precise and very easy to use. 

MM Harmonic Percolator Clone- This is apparently built to the Albini spec, or something very close, a very unique circuit and I love it more every time I play it. Expect it to be all over the album.

Next Picture are my amps 

Vox AC30CC2 - I got a good deal on this because it was used and someone had taken the really expensive Alnico Blue speakers out and put in Celestion Vintage 30s. I think it sounds great. I might replace the vintage 30s someday with the speakers that were supposed to go in it. That is down the road though. Love the way this amp sounds.

Next picture is just a top shot of the amp, and the settings it generally uses, nothing too crazy, the master volume is a little low because I was just recording demos.

Epiphone Valve Junior head and cab - with some midwestmodulation mods. You can notice the second knob which is tone. This is the first amp Chris ever worked on. The amp you can hear on our first LP, which is 100% this amp, the MM/BYOC Mouse and the Memory Man.

Next picture is just the two switches which are part of the mod, they control (I think, neither Chris, nor I, can remember anymore) gain, and a diode for the tone control.

Guitars:

Fender Jazzmaster 65 Reissue - I am not sure of the year on this, but it is pretty recent. This is my very favorite. Swapped out the stock bridge for a Mastery bridge and had the pickups replaced with Matt Bullock's which are overwound 50's I believe. They sound fantastic. I can't recommend this guy's pickups enough. 

Danelectro 12 String - There were a couple of spots on the first LP where I wished I had a 12 string, so I bought one. It is all stock and sounds great. I expect LP2 will have this all over it.

MM Korean Strat rebuild - This is a rebuild of my very first electric guitar that my brother gave me for Christmas a few years back. There are new tuners and pickups in its future. You can't see the switch but there is a little germanium fuzz built into the pickguard. I have gone too far in this post without mentioning that Zach Schultz at Jacobsen Music is the only person I will allow to set up my guitars. He helped  Chris rebuild this, nothing on it is original except for the body and bridge. 

Fender Thinline 72 Classic Reissue - This is the first guitar I ever spent real money on, everything on it is stock, it is the guitar I played exclusively on the first album

Univox Hi-Flier - There used to be a great site that would identify which specific Univox you had. I think this is a 69. The neck, body, and bridge are original, I put new tuners on it and Chris and Zach rebuilt it as yet another Christmas present for me. The neck pickup is a clone of a Rickenbacker pickup and is way too dark for me to use, the bridge is a P90, though the specific model I am no longer aware of. Eventually another P90 will be going in the neck position.

NOT PICTURED: Hand built Telecaster given to me by my uncle, which is purpleburst and I love to death. Probably has a Matt Bullock neck pickup in its future. This one is in being setup. Laser etched "Big Sal" at the 12th fret in honor of my departed grandmother.

So that's the gear, I will break down Jake's setup when we get it into my basement. Shoot me any questions you have here

[atomsrite]

It all starts somewhere right. I have just recently been recording some very simple demos to get out to the band. You obviously can't hear these right now. We are going to document the whole process here. From first demo to our time at the hallowed Electrical Audio. There will be a kickstarter at some point, but we are putting most of the money in ourselves. Right now it looks like we are going to press 250 copies with our wonderful friends at landland-usa are going to be handling the artwork and packagaing and it is going to come out on their tiny label. We are going to document all of this on this tumblr.