andrew dodson

Just wanted to check in and say hello. Haven’t been blogging much lately, I know. So, we’ll go with some rambling, random thoughts.

Did anyone catch Josh Hamilton in the Home Run Derby? Wow! What a story. I haven’t had a “favorite player” in baseball since Eric Davis & Nolan Ryan, but this guy would come close. If you haven’t caught up on this guy, please, please, please Google him and read up. I don’t know if his Home Run Derby highlights have made it onto YouTube yet, but you could check there too.

John Piper is doing a sermon series right now on the importance of church membership – specifically how it relates to baptism. It’s an interesting subject. It’s hard to disagree with Piper on much because we all know he’s searched the Scriptures on pretty much every topic far more than any of us. But, I will say, even after reading his first sermon, I haven’t landed on how I feel about the matter.

I’m spending this week recording the band Altered Worship at Georgetown College. They are the worship band for the Centri-Kid camp hosted by Georgetown this summer. It’s all very similar to my experience recording the Crossings bands last summer. The band is great, and I’m praising God for yet another opportunity to record something like this. So far, so good.

BADmedia has been busy in the past couple of weeks. I’m praying that work will continue to come in and the business will grow. I’ve had a good time getting it off the ground over the past few weeks. It’s the first time I’ve really pushed the business and advertised for it, and I’ve been encouraged by the response.

Here’s to hoping there are more frequent posts coming soon!

Well, well, well. So far, it seems my platform is working! I can tell you that I’ve practiced each of the last six days with no complaints. I’ve tried to play in the early afternoons or evenings, so I’m not pushing my luck by playing at all hours of the night. But, I’m also not playing timid – practicing along to the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins doesn’t lend itself to playing timid. Even by laying into the pads pretty good, no one has knocked on my door, called the police, left nasty notes on my door or called my landlord. So far so good!

It’s given me a renewed appreciation for having my electronic drums. The tones still annoy me, but they’re a great practice tool.

Today, Amos Lee releases his third studio album, Last Days At the Lodge. I’ve been anxiously awaiting this album. He’s become one of my favorite artists over the last year. I’ve described him before as the male version of Norah Jones – a little jazz, folk & blues all mixed together. I highly recommend checking him out, if you haven’t already.

So… my Yamaha electronic drumset has been collecting dust at The Point.  I switched to using a real kit there, so I haven’t needed the Yamaha kit.  All the while, I’ve been unable to practice drums very much lately.  That gets under my skin, so I decided to do something about it.

I brought my electronic drums home, determined to make them work in my apartment.  My walls are pretty thick, so I wasn’t worried about my neighbors on the sides of me (one wall is a stairwell on the other side, any way).  I was more worried about shaking the floor and making my neighbors below me not-so-happy.

I did some research on the web to see what other drummers do for this issue.  Most seem to like the idea of making a platform out of tennis balls and plywood.  I decided to go a different route.  I kept thinking about the mats you see in gyms in the free weight area.  They’re big, thick rubber, meant to absorb the impact of weights being dropped on them.

I went to Wal-Mart and found some “extreme impact” flooring. I bought two sets of the stuff – enough to give me three layers in a 4′ x 4′ area.  A pretty good deal at $40.  I also bought a mat that’s meant to be put under a treadmill for another $20.  I got it home last night and gave it a try.  It worked!  But, it wasn’t very sturdy.  Basically, three layers of hard rubber.  I decided I needed some wood in the mix.  My boss is in the middle of building a house, so he offered a piece of his flooring – thanks Dwayne!

Here’s the first idea:

This worked pretty well, but with the drums sitting on a hard surface, it made my kick pedal louder (at least it seemed to me).  Here’s what the layers looked like on this idea:

I decided to try a layer of the impact flooring on top.  It looked like this:

This made the layers look like this:

I practiced tonight for about thirty minutes.  So far, no complaints!  The platform has cut down on floor vibrations considerably.  Now, the sound of me hitting the pads would be the only issue, with the kick pedal being the loudest.  But, I think by putting something between the kick pedal and the floor, I should be okay.

(by the way… the space where I wanted to put the drums was the exact right size, as you can see by the pictures.  I didn’t have to move the bookshelf or anything.  Perhaps it was meant to be.)

Evidence there is some good remaining in humanity. A violinist leaves his $4 million dollar violin in a taxi. It is safely returned very quickly.

> Go read the story

Howdy y’all (That’s Kentucky for “hello”).  It’s Derby Week here in the Bluegrass, and to be honest, I don’t care that much.  I always hate to say “I’m busy” because everyone is busy this day and time, but that would be more true right now than any other.  Seems like spring time is always my busiest time of the year.

I’m working on several recordings right now.  I recorded a southern gospel concert a couple of weeks ago, so I’m moving on to the mixing stage of that project.  I recorded last week’s Georgetown College Symphonic Band concert.  That recording should be wrapped up this weekend, since it was just a few mics.  Mixing will go quickly on that.  But, I turn around on Sunday to record the Central Kentucky Concert Band’s spring concert.  On top of all this, I’m beginning the process of picking songs for The Point’s first worship album.  It’s really more of a glorified “bootleg” concept.  I plan on recording all the services from now on, and every few months, making a low-budget CD of 10-12 songs.  I’ll manufacture all of them myself in small runs of about 100.  It’ll mostly be a good outreach tool, I think.  We’ll see.

I’ve been digging in to some new graphic design techniques as of late.  I’m a self-trained artist, so I still have a lot to learn.  Mostly, I’ve been digging into Photoshop a bit more to create stuff for web and print.  The majority of my time is usually spent in Illustrator designing shirts.  But, I’m doing more graphic work for The Point these days, and I’m looking to expand BADmedia some more.  So, I think learning more in Photoshop will help.  Mostly, I’ve been playing around with new brushes and the like to create the ever-so-popular grunge and distressed looks that are “all the rage” right now.  I feel like I’m jumping on the bandwagon, but I’m learning new stuff, so that’s always good.

I’m not doing a whole lot of web stuff for the time being, but I think that will change as I move into the summer months.  I have a few sites in desperate need of redesigns, and as mentioned, I’m working on getting some more clients.  I’ve struck up a small partnership with another local business that might lead to some new web clients.  More on that to come.

Tonight was PCG night, and our group went through the study fairly quickly.  It was a good study and I think we were all surprised that we hammered through it in under an hour.  So, I find myself with some free time that I don’t normally have.  Hence, this novel of a blog post.  I’m off to enjoy the rest of the evening…

Tomorrow night should be a pretty cool night.  The Georgetown College symphonic band is performing their annual spring concert.  A couple of things will make the night unique.

The band will premier a piece written specifically for them.  David Holsinger has composed “Legacy Music” for the band, which will feature parts of the Georgetown College Alma Mater.  I’ve never had the opportunity to hear a premier, let alone record it.  It’ll be a special experience.

As part of the concert, Dr. LaRue has invited all of the “gem alumni” back to campus – nineteen in all.  The gem alumni are former members of the band that played significant enough roles to be designated a “gem” by Dr. Pete.  I’m fortunate to be a part of this group, one way or another.  It’s exciting that all nineteen – literally coming from all over the globe – will be in attendance.  I’m looking forward to seeing some old friends.

If you want to hear some good music tomorrow evening, drop by the John L. Hill Chapel on the campus of Georgetown College at 8 p.m. for a special evening.

I’m happy to recommend a new blog by a somewhat new friend – John Martin (not to be confused with Josh, and no relation).  John and I go back to February of 2006 when I was considering buying an electronic drum set.  My boss recommended I speak with a guy who used to rent a house from him.  So, I called and met up with John at Memorial Baptist Church and he sold me on the Yamaha DTXpress III Special.  Since then, I’ve had occasional contact with him through CLS and church activities.  Recently, he joined us (some guys from The Point and me) on a trip to Seattle, so I’ve gotten to know him better in the last few months.  I learned about his blog earlier this week, but I’m just getting around to linking to it.

John is a great guy in this order – He loves the Lord, he loves his family, is a great husband and father, he faithfully serves his church as a pastor, and he is a great drummer & musician.  Go read his blog.

I normally like to get the bad news first, but in this case, I’ll give you the good news.  Here’s a wrap up of the latest from the Josh Martin Band.

Good News

Josh and Christy Martin are going to have a baby!  Josh had told me a few months ago that they were trying, and it has finally happened.  So, congrats to them.  Keep them in your prayers that Christy’s pregnancy will go well, and that they’ll be blessed with a healthy, happy baby.  She is due in December, which is also the month of Josh’s birthday.  And my mom.  And Jesus.  So, some pretty cool people were born in December.

The JMB is also working on new material.  Still no plans to record anytime soon, as we’re still working on making the songs sound like songs.  So far, we’ve just sort of hammered through chord progressions on a few new songs.  The next step is coming up with interesting parts to make them sound unique.  It’s a cool process, because it’s the first time we’ve actually written the music to the songs as a band.  They definitely have a different feel than our previous songs.

Bad News

We have, like, zero gigs lined up for this year.  If anyone out there would like us to come and play, let us know!

The really bad news is that we’re losing a member.  Bert Lace has decided to leave the band.  We’re going to miss him!  His family has decided to adopt from a foreign country, and that is one of the reasons for him leaving the band.  He also stays very busy with Cedarmore and Crossings.  Considering his reasons for leaving the band are to glorify God through his family and occupation, I can only be happy for him and wish him the best

Not really a music specific post today, but more of a gear post.

Over the last few years, I’ve used several audio interfaces with my computer.  When at home, I mainly need a good, solid interface that will let me mix anywhere from two to thirty-two channels without any hassle.  To be specific, an interface that worked well with my Mac mini and Tracktion.  I don’t do a lot of recording at home, so having multiple inputs (XLR, MIDI, etc.) isn’t an issue.

I’ve settled on a Behringer FCA202 FireWire interface.  Yes, a Behringer product.  A lot of people bash them, but when it comes to bang-for-your-buck, there’s no better.  I’ve owned several of their products and never had any real complaints.  The FCA202 is a very simple firewire device – two 1/4″ inputs, two 1/4″ outputs, a headphone jack and two firewire ports.  That’s it.  A negative of this interface is no XLR or MIDI inputs.  But, if you want to upgrade your computer’s sound card (using a factory sound card for pro audio applications is not recommended) for a cheap price ($80), I highly recommend this card.  It’s also extremely compact, making it a great, portable unit.  I often throw this in my laptop bag to work on audio projects on the go.

The main issue I ran into using other units dealt with audio dropouts, pops, clicks, and more noises.  For some reason, a couple of units would only briefly work with my setup before the audio would drop out.  But, I would expect more from $200-600 units, so this was disappointing.  The FCA202 performs much better with my setup.  The units that didn’t perform as well included an Edirol FA-101, Alesis MultiMix 8 FireWire, and a PreSonus Inspire.  They all resulted in glitches while I tried mixing a project.

I can’t verify if this product would work well with a PC, or another Mac setup that differs from mine.  It does work great with my iBook G4, though.  If you have a 6-pin FireWire port on your computer, the device can be bus-powered (no power adapter needed).  Looking through reviews on Musician’s Friend shows there are issues if you try to use it with Vista (but, what else is new?  The surprise would be if it WORKED with Vista!).

If you’re in the market for a great little (affordable) audio interface, and if you don’t need XLR or MIDI inputs, I highly recommend this unit.  Combine this with GarageBand on a Mac and you’ve spent $80 to start recording your ideas and more.