The Null Device Blog

You may wonder why the blog’s been silent for so long.

Has Eric given up on music? Or been injured by falling furniture?

No, no nothing like that.

I’ve been busy. Building a studio.

I’ve already had a few blog posts about the process, but it’s actually well and truly done, except for some furnishing and hanging of pictures and organizing.

My “bedroom hobby” has slowly been expanding. In the early days, it was a desk in the corner of the spare bedroom. Then, in those days when I didn’t have a spare bedroom, it was most of my primary bedroom.

Then, after the purchase of a house, it became a chunk of the basement. As that started getting too cramped, it became the entire second bedroom.

Well, that second bedroom got too cluttered, and since two of us and a pair of cats live there, we needed the space. So we called a few contractors and got bids on finishing up a chunk of the unfinished bit of the basement. This of course reduced the amount of raw storage space in the basement, and makes the live room for band practice smaller, but in exchange I have a nice 10×20ish room specifically for making music.

That was only the beginning, too. I’ve been hanging heavy curtains to hide storage racks and semi-partition a vocal “booth.” I’ve been building bass traps out of Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass, MDF board, and heavy duck cloth. I’ve bought Auralex corner traps. I’ve been jamming eggcrate foam into nooks and crannies to reduce slapback. It’s been a big and rather costly project, but it is great. Sure, it’s not The Strongroom or RealWorld, but it’s certainly better than anything I’ve ever had and it’s got a large amount of room for expansion (and maybe a couch!).

On the musical front, we’ve finished up a few more tracks, started a few new ones, pantsed a few more influences and dragged them around the track…keeping busy, keeping busy.

Pictures of the studio construction project are on my flickr account.

Whew.

Those of you who read my periodic updates must think I haven’t touched anything new in a while. This of course, is patently untrue.

First, construction has started on a new and more exciting studio, as once again the current one is starting to outgrow its quarters. The new one should be sufficiently large to hold my ever-expanding collection of ethnic instruments that I don’t know how to play. And subsequently, Wendy can have a room in our house to herself without having to worry about tripping over cables.

Recording continues apace. A few new songs have been finished, a bunch have been started, and we’re on the road to a full album. We’ve scrapped one song already as a “nice, but doesn’t really fit” which seems kind of like a setback, but on the grand scale of things I’d rather write a uniformly strong album than have a few tracks that I’m not 100% comfortable on.

With luck and a little scheduling, hopefully soon we’ll start recording some collaborative tracks with a few indian musicians. This is very exciting. I’ll publish more news about this once we actually have something to show for it other than a few scratch tracks.

Mastering is almost complete on the new Caustic album, “Booze Up and Riot.” Now, I’m, not a huge fan of powernoise, as most people know, but…I actually kinda dig this album. It lacks a lot of the overt self-seriousness that mars a lot of genre music. And, thankfully, no songs about replicants. It’s good fun, and stompy to boot.

Haven’t done any new remix work recently, although Provision’s “Ideal Warfare” single is out, featuring “POCW (Null Device’s Misadventures In Dub)”, which recasts the song in a number of different ways. Breye seems to like it, which is good because for a minute there I was afraid I might’ve gone too far afield. Also, hopefully someday our remix of The Azoic’s “Illuminate” will surface.

Also, the New Improved nulldevice.com is ALMOST done. I’m still wrangling some extra content.

The basement has been partially emptied and cleaned.

Large, heavy wooden shelves have been unscrewed from the studs, sawn through, and dragged to the trash.

Tons of stuff has been thrown out.

Auralex LENRD Corner Bass Traps have been ordered. Quantites of fabric for covering Owens Corning 703 Rigid Fiberglass Acoustic Insulation have been purchased.

Large amounts of paint have been colorized and mixed.

THA CONTRACTAH/THE DRYWALLAH comes on tuesday.

OH MY GOD THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING I AM ACTUALLY BUILDING A STUDIO IN MY BASEMENT.

Still yet to accomplish – floor covering (I’m thinking industrial carpeting for now until I can afford something nicer), furniture (shelves, shelves, shelves), and additional bass-trappage (I want to color-coordinate the ones on the walls – gotta first figure out what will match).

And then once I’m moved out of the upstairs, painting of what will become The Office will commence.

I’m excited. So excited I can hardly think about anything else.