Author: Doktor Ross Sewage

Pedal Check-Ups: DOD FX90 and MXR Phase 90

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I’ve been posting pretty sporadically this year. I’ve been working hard on projects for the band and such, but the muse to write and an actual electronic work station have been missing since the wife and I found ourselves together in a single bedroom apartment. Oh yeah, and I work a lot, funneling most of my paycheck to pay off debt. Funny how life gets in the way of, you know, this self-aggrandizing bullshit.

Well, last night I found myself on the floor of our rehearsal space, trying not to lose screws in the carpet and diagnosing bandmates’ broken gear. Sean managed to fry out the zener projection diode in his just-acquired DigiTech Black-13 pedal by plugging in the wrong voltage. Ben’s B-52 Stealth Series ST-100A had some bad power tubes. It’s all stuff that’s very important to fix, but not very interesting to write a post on. So, I thought maybe it’s a good time to stop exulting myself. Instead, I’ll let others do that by showing off their work that some of my posts helped along. Altruistic to the end.

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Graveyard in Nilbog

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I was asked to do a poster for the Graveyard’s April tour series. I’m like… fuck yeah! Graveyard! Then they’re like, you’re doing Salt Lake City. And I’m like… I fucking hate Salt Lake City. Ugh. Whatever good came outta that shit burg area? I came up with precisely two things: the films Carnival of Souls and Troll 2. So, the word “good” is entirely subjective as used here. I decided to base my poster on one of those things. After doing a poll on Facebook, a Troll 2 poster won out.

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What can I say? I think the Goblin Queen, Creedence Leonore Gielgud, is fucking hot. The glasses, the wisps of gray hair, the corn… what a bad-ass babe to put on a gig poster, amiright? Okay, maybe I’m not. But I can’t do anything seriously.

If you haven’t seen Troll 2 or the documentary Best Worst Movie, check them out. You’ll understand better why this poster had to be made. And in the documentary, look carefully during the scene where they screen the movie with all the actors in L.A.; I’m in that crowd somewhere! And if you want to buy one of these fine posters (and I know you do) here’s the link:
https://www.doktorsewage.com/product/graveyard-2014-04-22/

I’m Getting Too Old for this Shit

Doktor Ross Sewage4 Comments

Or maybe the world is getting too young. As I approach middle-age, I see the dream of finally having a million dollar idea or even a couple thousand dollar idea fading. I read about company acquisitions and people making billions off ideas I think are terrible but the rest of the populace is on board for. I try to establish some kind of artistic relevancy, but I never had any and it seems unlikely I’ll get any now. This very blog now feels like a fucking anchor… tying me up, in the depths, rusting, and completely unnoticed by human kind.

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Screening for Vengeance: Ghoul Tour Poster

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I think Digestor from the band Ghoul is a fabulous artist. That’s why I decided to print, outside of my time working for Monolith Press, their upcoming tour poster. In no way did Digestor and the crew from Ghoul hold an axe to my throat and threaten to eat my family if I didn’t agree to do it. Nope, it was all because I believe in Digestor’s art. And that’s how they got this:

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Digestor supplied me with the drawing and I was violently forced to happily did all the coloring and separations. Now, just because this was a poster for a maniacal lunatic guy whose art I really like didn’t mean I couldn’t make things a little easier on myself for the actual printing. Being a printer by day meant I had a few tricks up my sleeve to ease this poster along with minimal headache.

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Mondo Morley Medicale: RWV Rotating Wah

Doktor Ross Sewage21 Comments

So you think you’re analog, eh? You always use physical faders for your volume swells, you only record to tape, and you have that nifty vibrato guitar pedal with a BBD IC chip. I call bullshit. That’s not analog enough! An IC chip? Well, domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, but no arigato. If you want that pedal to be even more analog, you need to send your guitar signal through an aluminum disc covered in oil to rubber pickups. WTF? Here’s one of the biggest stomp boxes you’re likely to ever see, the Tel-Ray Morley RWV Rotating Wah.

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Raymond Lubow invented the oil can echo in the 1960s for his company, Tel-Ray Electronics, to be a more reliable device than the tape-based echoes of the time. Smaller than a tape echo, it was also able to be added by amplifier manufacturers to their products. It uses an aluminum disc rotating in an electrostatic oil which brushes against conductive rubber pickups to carry the sound. Raymond used the same technology to create the Morley rotating speaker simulator and shove it into a pedal. The name was a pun on the Leslie (less-lee) rotating cabinet speaker. Thus a company was born and we all got ever-so confused. Now imagine you have a broken one. Fuck.

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Mic Hunt: Shure SM7B

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I have an Amazon Wish List a mile long. They’re dreamy items because I dream of having disposable income to spend on them. Maybe some dreamy billionaire who reads my blog will think I deserve a present. On Christmas Day, my brother surprised me with what he dubbed a “baller gift” from said list. He’s had a good financial year, so he gifted accordingly with a Shure SM7B. Fuck to the yeah.

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I’m even more excited to play with the box.

I don’t own much in the way of equipment that’s not been used. Like, almost nothing. It’s a big deal for me to get something like this without a hunt on craigslist. I’ve wanted a really good vocal mic for some time and the Shure SM7B fit the bill. If it’s good enough for Michael Jackson, then it’s good enough for me. That same logic is how I also got addicted to prescription drugs and why I’m always trying to hang out with Macaulay Culkin.

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Operating Theater: Gallien-Krueger 400RG

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Mauz from Kicker had this interesting paperweight laying around the shop for awhile over at Monolith Press, where I work my day job. Turns out, it used to make noise. This was a remnant of the eighties, a Gallien-Krueger GK 400RG in all its solid-state and rack-mountable glory. It had its own crusty history as the amp for Geoff Evans from Skaven followed by Mauz when he recorded guitar for Dystopia’s “The Aftermath.” It also had a history of blowing up and some questionable, tweaky repairs with non-spec parts.

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So crusty, it has a P.E.T.A. sticker certifying that it’s vegan and better than you.

Mauz asked if I would take a looksy, so it went from a paperweight at the shop to a paperweight in my room. I wasn’t jumping at the chance to work on it. Fixing solid-state amps is a bitch. There’s so many little things that could be wrong or blown and you can’t always see it. You actually have to be smart… or you can blindly test everything a gazillion times until you get it right. So, yeah, testing everything it is.

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