The blog of Ryan Billingsley
- Ghost
I picked up the new NIN instrumental epic today. 36 tracks of a twisted soundtrack by one of the great musical composers of our time.
After going through the whole album, it is hard to isolate any part. It really feels like you are being lead through this eerie story that only Trent could weave. I need to listen to it a hundred more times to really get a full understanding of everything that is going on, but I highly recommend you pick it up. 36 tracks in three flavors of DRM-free Mp3, FLAC Lossless, or a Apple formated Lossless ready for iTunes and your iPod all for 5 dollars, doesn’t make sense not to get it.
If you still aren’t sold, go pick up the free nine tracks from ghosts.nin.com.
- Iron Man
If you missed the new trailer for Iron Man during lost last week you need to go see it. Finally, a Marvel comic has been put in the hands of a capable director, Jon Favreau, and looks to finally deliver an entertaining experience.
I am a diehard Marvel fan. My dad first introduced me to the likes of the Fantastic Four and Spiderman when I was a kid and I have been a fan ever since. He was even cool enough, or maybe you wouldn’t think so, but I did, to take me to a weekend comic book and trading card expo at some Marriott in Fort Wayne, so we could try and track down the missing issue of the Maximum Carnage series I was collecting.
During the past couple years, my comic book reading had become sporadic right until the announcement of Civil War. Before it started I decided to catch up a little and read House of M and all of the Road to Civil War. House of M was great and I really enjoyed the story. Road to Civil War, especially the Spiderman issues, were crap. It seems they were letting the lesser known, lesser talented writers and artist some time to get something published before the experts took over for the course of the Civil War.
I have read everything single issue of the Civil War storyline. This includes all of the spinoffs that came from it. Not all of it is good, but for the most part it is thoroughly entertaining. If you were to just read Civil War 1-6, you would be in for a treat. For me, it combined my favorite things, superheros and politics. Lets just say, I followed the West Wing religiously. The external conflict is met with a heavy dose of internal conflict as long time friends turn on each other in the interest of the greater good. The series asks a lot of moral questions that you might not think about when you are reading a comic. For instance, who does pay for the three city blocks that just got taken out by a battle between the X-Men and some Sentinels. So go give it a read.
As well as brining Iron Man to life, the Hulk is getting a second change, this time with Edward Norton as the Bruce Banner. I am glad that they are trying to bring the big green machine back to the silver screen, because the Hulk really is an interesting character and the possible stories are endless. Recently, World War Hulk just concluded, which had the Hulk return from exile after a secret group of Heroes, who are referred to as the Illuminati, tricked him into a space shuttle and launched him out into space. That would have been fine, had the warp core not exploded and killed his recently acquired bride who was pregnant with their child. Needless to say, the Hulk was not happy. If you haven’t checked out the series, give it a read, it isn’t half bad.
- The Constant
First, a challenge has been issued to me and I have accepted, though rather reluctantly. I am going to write in my blog, every day, for a month. The month of March is blog month for me. This means a couple of things. I am going to go against my previous entry regarding consistency and make this thing a total free-for-all. Mostly, I will be writing about entertainment: music, movies, and tv, as well as some Apple related stuff and whatever else comes to my head. So as Tobias would say, “Let the great experiment begin!”
The Constant. Wow. Many have said it, but I certainly agree, the best Lost episode ever. I really started to lose hope last year when the producers said that we actually wanted to see the nauseating love triangle that was Jack/Kate/Sawyer. If I wanted to watch that crap I would watch the stories. No this was something special. Finally, they got back to blowing our brains all over the living room wall. Time space continuum, how could you go wrong. It really started for me when Daniel Faraday, played by Jeremy Davies, conducted a test by having a missile shot off from the freighter and timing how long it took to reach the island. When it finally struck down, he was perplexed at the amount of time it took. This certainly sparked my interest. It did what discovering the hatch or first seeing the others did, made me ask a million questions. This is what makes Lost a great show. The Dharma Intiative, the others, polar bears, the stuff that makes no sense but then all makes sense somehow. It is one of the last examples of good television that still remains.
I must say I really enjoy Jeffery Davies as Dan, the eccentric professor from Oxford. He pulls the character off flawlessly. Oddly enough, the very things that make me enjoy his character so much, are some of the things that drove me crazy about his character in Saving Private Ryan. At some point in that movie, I was hoping some German would just do us all a favor and shoot him. However, the coy, odd head twitches, really sell his character. Sure he is weird, but he is brilliant. I can’t wait to see what they do with his character, because it is a gem.
If you have wandered away from the show, or never watched it in the first place, you owe it to yourself to get caught up and have a solid reason to turn on the TV before April (when new episodes return to such classics as The Office). Besides, the early seasons are just as good and mind blowing.
- Forums + theory = headache
I am a forum junkie. I use them to learn a lot of things and for the most part they are helpful. However, when I tried to apply this to learning my scales and chords on bass, they have been nothing but a nightmare. They need some sort of rating system to tell you that this thread is for advanced users versus another one that is for beginners. People love to show how much theory they now by spouting off some irrelevant chord or inverted harmonic minor scale, when really that just confuses the people who are just trying to get their major scales down and really learn the fretboard.
- Out with the old and in with the new
For at least 8 years I have been playing through a full stack with a Carvin R1000 powering a RL410 and RL115 cabinet. It was a ridiculous amount of power for the money. I found the R1000 while I was working at Mars Music. Someone had traded it in and so I got a great deal on it using my employee discount. The cabinets were a gift from my parents. At the time my guitarist had just gotten a Marshall half stack which was destroying my 112 Peavey practice amp. I was running the thing to its limits trying to get any sound in the small basement room where we practiced at our drummer’s house. The first practice with this tower wall of sound behind me was a moment to remember. I couldn’t believe how much sound I had at my disposal. I was shaking everything in every room of the house. It was truly amazing. The band also seemed to improve because suddenly the drummer could hear me and, something resembling a groove started to emerge. We still sucked, no amount of sound would change that, but at least it felt better.
Flash forward several years and I am no longer playing with a band, which is depressing and something I hope to fix soon. I also was living in an apartment and so I came to the realization that my rig was not practical. It was too big, too loud, and didn’t really meet my needs as a bass player. I wasn’t getting any tone from it. The R1000 has two stages of EQ, both which tend to frustrate you more than help, because you can mess with it so much. I tried for a long time to get a sound I was really happy with but just ended up settling on something that worked. I know that amp can produce a good sound, I just never had the time to get there. I decided to try and sell the whole thing and look for something that would have a smaller footprint but still have some guts.
I initially posted it up on a local music website, but received no interest whatsoever. However, after mentioning to my brother-in-law that I was looking to get rid of it, and him having played it a few times, he said he would take it if I could wait for him to make some money. I agreed and a little while later I was amp-less and a little richer.
I knew I wanted a 2X10 for a couple of reasons. First, I could never fit my rig into my car. I also had to rely on someone with a van or truck to help me get it to wherever I was going. It made it to two shows during my years at Ball State University, but after that it mainly sat in my room collecting dust. When I moved back to Indianapolis, a friend from high school started asking me to come play at a church he was working at. Welcoming any opportunity to get out and play, I gladly accepted the invitation anytime he needed me. I was never able to use my rig because I simply could not get it there. So my next setup would need to have a degree of portability.
Second, I wanted punch. It seems a lot of venues, whether they are churches or bars, are moving toward running the bass straight to the board and letting their PA subs handle the low end. That is fine, it is there job to make it sound good out there but I still like having something on stage, even if I am using in-ears, which we do at the church I play at. A 2X10 has enough punch to cut through the drums and really allow me to hear and feel my playing. I am always surprised how much sound can come from such a compact unit. So I was decided on what type of cabinet to get, now it was time to look at what was out there.
Enter TalkBass.com. I use forums all the time for all kinds of different subjects, but for some reason I had yet to seek out a quality bass forum. TalkBass is an amazing resource for bass players. There are people from all different backgrounds both musically and personally, with a wealth of knowledge on any subject you could think of. They were able to guide me toward some different options as well as answer some nagging questions I had about my bass. After getting a decent idea of what was out there and finding something in the classifieds, I finally found my cabinet.
Avatar 210 Neo CabI picked this up from a fellow TB’er who happened to live south of my in Kentucky and was letting it go for a good price. I had wanted an orange one so when I saw he had that exact one; I knew I had to get it. I didn’t have an amp yet, but I wanted to hear this thing, so I borrowed the amp I had just sold to my brother-in-law and hooked it up and was blown away. The cabinet had so much punch and sound, I was shocked. I was very satisfied with my purchase.
I didn’t have a ton of money left over for my head so I had to abandon my plans to pick up a Eden head. Someday… I started looking at some Gallien-Krueger heads and decided that a 700RB should be just what I need. It had the right amount of power I would need but also had a more distinct sound than the R1000. Gallien-Krueger is known for their growl, especially in the 700RB so that was a plus.
And today is the day. The amp is on the truck so I will be able to finally see if this combo is going to work out. I will have a full review of both the cabinet and the amp after I have some time to live with them both for a while. I will definitely be looking at what kind of power the 700RB will put down compared to the R1000. Obviously it won’t be as much but I am hoping it is enough. I am also going to explore the tone of the 700RB and see what kind of voice it has. I am getting the older version of the amp, so there could be some substantial changes between it and the new one, but I haven’t had a chance to play their latest line so I have no comparison to base it on.
Stay tuned…
- A shift in focus…
I am not a very good blogger because I write incredibly sporadically and have no focus whatsoever. I looked at my tag cloud and Outdoors is the biggest item, which makes no sense. So it is time for me to pick a subject and just keep to it. I will throw some random things in there but I think for the most part I will focus on music and technology, specifically bass guitar, my progress as a musician, and new emerging technologies that either are music related or could effect music (read: an excuse to talk about my iPod Touch). So hopefully this will help me keep this thing cohesive and people might actually enjoy reading it.
Another post to follow.
- ryanbillingsley.com is somewhat live
I finished a very early version of my site. It will play my demo reel, which needs a lot of work, and then other videos I have done. I still need to edit the script to make it repeat the videos or give the option to repeat and I also plan to add my print work that I have done, even though it isn’t anything that I would like to do for a career.
The site is my first attempt at ActionScript 3, which is very interesting. They now use a complete Object Oriented Programming model that is based off the same markup language as JavaScript. I have always had a desire to learn to program but usually get burnt out when I can no longer find the answers to make the program work. However, I was really motivated this time and took this to completion.
The site uses an XML file to load the videos through a net connection. It gives me the flexibility to easily add and remove videos from the playlist, which I think is very nice. It also scales to fit the screen, so large or small anyone can have full screen. This will really be cool when the new Flash Player with H264 support comes out next year, because the quality will be even better at full screen.
Please let me know what you think. I appreciate any criticism, it will help me improve the site.
- Alchemy Index
Thrice released their new album today and I have to say I like it. Firebreather is obviously to appease all the fans who cried and cried about Vheissu not being hard enough, completely overlooking the fact that the band has moved onto some much more intricate musicianship, which I think is a move for the better.This album seems to have more electronic elements in it than the previous release, which works sometimes, and sometimes I think it adds very little. I got a chuckle the first time I listened to ‘Night Diving.’ The electric piano sound that exists throughout the song is one of Apple’s loops they ship with Garage Band. Seems a little lazy to me.
The album is two parts of the four part Alchemy Index, with each segment being represented by an element. Listening to the first half of the album, the fire side, you will hear a very different emotion than the later, more subdued, half represented by water. You could also just look at the track titles, its pretty obvious.
I can only guess that the Earth section will feature some sort of acoustic theme, as Dustin, the lead singer, has been doing a lot of solo acoustic recently. Should be interesting to hear a side of Thrice that previously was just acoustic sets of music they had already recorded.
They should be starting their tour as I write this so look for them somewhere close. I saw them a couple years ago in Chicago and they were the show stealer for me.
- Rainbows and Videos
I think every blogger, no matter what they write about, has said something about In Rainbows, Radiohead’s latest release. All I am going to say is ‘get it.’ It is amazing and the more you listen to it the more you will realize just how good it is.
On a completely different note, ryanbillingsley.com just went up in the past week. Right now there is just three full screen videos for you to watch and enjoy.
Anna and I are off camping this weekend and enjoying this amazing fall weather.
