Today was a happy day in the studio, and y’know what, I didn’t even get around to taking my pants off. We cut our first plates today on our record mastering lathe. We were just doing test cuts, in order to optimize the gain structure and get a feel for the proper width and depth of the grooves. Mastering for vinyl records is a black art indeed.

I was pleased with the frequency response on the music we cut. We also managed to cut some nice clean tracks; the secret now is making it loud enough (without distorting) to please the DJs.

I took the first dub plate off the cutter and hung it on the wall, up there with the first Eric’s Trip 7″ and Terry’s Sloan gold record. Champion Dub Plates in the house!

Spent the evening working on some music. Meauxx from Chilltronic phoned me up this afternoon and said, “I’m looking for some singing gigs, know any electronic acts who are looking for a vocalist?” and I said, “What are you doing Thursday night?”

I’m going to Saint John to perform at the national campus radio conference. Meauxx and I have never performed together before, but we both like to improvise, I bet we can pull something together.

So Meauxx walked into the studio this evening, and I plugged in my JX-3P and my TR-606 drum machine, and I handed Meauxx a Beta 58 and said, “Let’s make some noise.” We improvised a jam straight to tape. I mixed it down, and one hour later, here it is:

~ meauxx.mp3 [4.7MB mp3]

I like this, it’s kind of sexy. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens at the show.