Hectic Watermelon CD Tour/download

www.hecticwatermelon.com/musik.cfm

Here is a quick tour through our new album. In slightly over seven minutes, you are taken through The Great American Road Trip. The tour includes several tracks that have only been part of the live show and have never been on the web until now.

Jerry Goodman (Dixie Dregs, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and solo) is featured on electric violin on all but tracks 1 and 10. Our friends, Brian Kahaneck (fuzz guitar on track 1), Scott Lerner (first guitar solo track 3) and Kevin Freeby (Planet X and session player - bass on track 4) join us for one track each. The tracks on the tour appear in the same order they are arranged on the album:

1. Sacred Watershed
2. The Third Derivative of James Brown
3. Bionic Hillbilly
4. F Street Fulano
5. Dreams of Concrete Jungles
6. Subterranean Rapid Transit
7. Layover in Hamemet
8. Stray Dogs Messaging Project
9. Steve's Stunt Double
10. Twenty-first Century Visigoth
11. Bullets, Dice and 30 Megabytes
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Sounds very good!
I'm a great Zappa fan so this kind of stuff is always interesting to hear.
Very hifi sounding... great guitar sounds, amazing band.

Question. What is the high gain rhythm sound coming about 2:59..
Egnater MHG?? I just had to guess, I dig that tone

Are you using V30 cabs or something else?

Jrm4 said:

Sounds very good!
I'm a great Zappa fan so this kind of stuff is always interesting to hear.
Very hifi sounding... great guitar sounds, amazing band.

Question. What is the high gain rhythm sound coming about 2:59..
Egnater MHG?? I just had to guess, I dig that tone

Are you using V30 cabs or something else?

Click to expand...

Thanks man,

The rhythm guitar sound you are talking about is two things: the Erect chA and chB with slightly different gain and tone settings through a VHT 2-50-2 (class A, EL 34s) into an Earcandy 1x12" cab with an Emi Swamp Thang speaker. My mic set-up is shown on the band website in the Machines section.

Hi thanks for the answer,
Ok that tone is so great. And all others on that sampler of course.

That low end grawl is something to look for Not processed sounding at all like so many records today, but natural and powerful.. full,warm and with kicking power

I have also VHT 2/50/2 and dual channel erect too in slot 4 in my M4.
I'm running VHT in class AB usually and when running erect module and when recording I'll press the voicing button down usually. Must try class A also.

Those swamp thangs sure sound nice, I have celestion g12-75, sometimes a bit harsh sounding.
Maybe I need to test those swamp thangs now . Hmm.. They seem to go about 89 EUR here in Finland.. cheaper than celestions so I might give them a try after this

Wow, I'm so glad you dig it. I always feel nervous people aren't into a "natural" kind of metal tone anymore. I think it is important to let the bass guitar and kick drum deliver a good amount of the whomp in the mix. I have intentionally not boosted the bass EQ on the guitar tracks for this reason for this reason. That guitar tone is pretty **** flat with a little rise in the 3kHz area about 1.5 -2 dB with a Q of about 4 along with a gentle shelf at 4kHz adding again about 1.5 to 2 dB to let it cut through. It can't go much more than that or else the leads won't seperate enough. And since the leads have a violin (going through the M4 too) they can't get too bright. Really, the biggest reason for doing it this way is that the tune has a good blend of homophonic (all hitting at the same time) and polyphonic (hitting at different times and rhythms - like J.S. Bach) textures. Therefore, each of the three elements that combine to make that good old chugga-chugga need to sound good together -yet hold their own independently. This is not an easy task! The Egnater M4 really earns its place in the mix due to this.

I forget to mention the dedications in my initial message about the finished album, so here they are track-by-track.

1. Sacred Watershed (dedicated to David Torn/Eric Johnson)
2. The Third Derivative of James Brown (the late Frank Zappa)
3. Bionic Hillbilly (Scott Henderson/The Helecasters)
4. F Street Fulano (to people who try to do right when surrounded by wrong)
5. Dreams of Concrete Jungles (...Joseph Waters - my comp. teacher)
6. Subterranean Rapid Transit (Mahavishnu Orchestra)
7. Layover in Hamemet (to some friends of mine from my youth)
8. Stray Dogs Messaging Project (Pat Metheny)
9. Steve's Stunt Double (Steve Morse and the Dregs)
10. Twenty-first Century Visigoth (Mike Patton and Mr. Bungle)
11. Bullets, Dice and 30 Megabytes (our drummer and you!)

Thanks again for checking out our album and a special thanks for the pre-orders!