Blastronaut

Ezdrummer is a much cheaper alternative but missing a lot more basic and stripped back. SD is a bit overwhelming with so many options. I'll usually program the main parts in EZD and if it's something I'm really chuffed with will swap over to SD and polish it up a bit more. Then my drummer mate will tell me it's all wrong, try to fix and somehow make it worse. Really handy for knocking out backing tracks if your trying to learn a cover song too. Just nick the midi drum part from a Guitar Pro Tab and feed it into one of those plugins.

Ah well that sucks. Helps explain why good, extended highlights are so rare though. I'd enjoy MOTD far more if there was less Hansen and Jenas and more real-time, uninterrupted footage of the actual game.

Early bit of that video looks a lot like sequenced/midi drums. I love messing with plugins like Superior Drummer, but I swear the time I've poured into that as probably taken years off my life. Musically it remind me a lot of Devin Townsend's astonishingly brilliant Ziltoid albums, which I think at least one was recorded with the superior drummer plugin. I'll shit the fuck up now since I've only watched one minute of the video. Cool stuff though.

I'm alone here in thinking maybe Linekar and Shearer have done us a solid? Less bullshit waffle and longer highlights of each game sounds magic.

Good at their job, hard worker and really good person (but a bit of a dipshit thats probably around even-money to do something mental and completely fuck up their lives) probably describes a good 1/3, maybe even as much as half of all the friends, family and work colleagues I've ever known tbh.

I'm back on a Titus Gein kick. There was time I'd travel the length of the country to see this lot, despite them being local. Funny enough one of the few gigs I missed was them playing out the back of my nearest record shop. No cunt thought to tell me, everyone just fucking assumed I knew given could practically see the place from my living room window at the time and barely missed a gig. This is the one where the guitarist/synth guy plays the drums and the drummer plays the synth on what I think is a Sega Megadrive control pad.

I mean if he really wants the sound and functionality of a UL730 without having to fork out for the amp, this is probably as close at he'll get. Should have plenty headroom too. I was staring at the tone section on the Dr. Robert for ages thinking it looked really interesting and really weird to see in a Vox circuit, but turns out it's almost exactly the same configuration as the UL730 after all. I'll probably build one at some point and have a play around. Does look interesting, especially the boost and mids controls. Strikes me as something that might be better suited to running straight into the return of an effects loop rather than before another preamp though, and my amp sadly doesn't have an effect loop.

Is this a reference to those Fuzz Factory transistors man? Hope I didn't ruin anyone's Christmas like, can't really find fault with those pedals, it's just all the marketing wank I've got no time for. I try to ignore it all and let stuff slide, just now and again I lose perspective and go off on one. £300 is probably a bit steep for this Dr. Robert for what it is, but in all fairness its probably two or three times as expensive to build as one of my RM or Sunface clones, and it does look legitimately like an well crafted, original design that took a fair bit more R&D time than anything I'm doing. Kinda having to grudgingly tip my hat to however is behind Aclam pedals* for this, cool idea that looks to be really well executed tbh. Steep price tag, but none of the shithousery that usually pisses me off with these things. Fills a niche I wasn't even aware existed. Fair fucking play to them.

Bad news for you @Tom, I did some digging into the Dr. Robert and I hate to say it but now I want one. Schematics I found all seem legit, and looks really faithful to the pre-amp section of the UL730 amp circuit it claims to emulate. Good news is clones do pop up from time to time and they all seem to be based on the schematic from Robert over at PedalPCB, who I dont doubt. He usually buys original pedals and traced them by hand, no guesswork or modifications. Raygun Clone RGPCo Clone

First I've heard of it man. Seems to have been traced and cloned 6 ways from Sunday already though, which surprised me almost as much and the photo of the internals on the bax link you put up. A glance at those internal photos on the bax listing, first thought was the combination of carbon film resistors and WIMA looking Capacitors are a bit of a red-flag for a £300 pedal.* I've found two revisions of the schematic from a quick Google search, but the missus is out and I've got weans still bouncing off the walls so haven't managed to dig into finding the source to guage how accurate they are or really analyse it. Piqued my interest though! I'll have a closer look when I get the chance. Looking at the internals though £300 is a bit of a pisstake. At a glance theres nothing in there that's rare or hard to source. Good chance you'll get accurate and more consistent clones for a fraction of the price. * I can elaborate on that but didn't want to get out a calculator and descend into a full-on numbers and percentages rant about tolerance.

"Rock Climbing Routes" my arse. It's a cardboard prop they wheel out to avoid heavy defeats in promotion campaigns. Swear I've been to games there before and never fucking noticed the rock. 'mon the Bino's.

Surely a reference to Dumbarton rock, an unexplainably large stone (thats fairly out of place compared to the rest of the landscape out there) that overlooks the stadium. The massive shadow it casts is probably why the pitch is always fucking frozen.

Second time these shitebags have postponed this fixture at short notice. Was initially a bit gutted but after a pint I'm actually fine with it. Four points off them, this still to play, two games in hand. Looking forward to seeing how the table looks when this game actually gets played.

On a lighter note we were buying one of the weans a new mattress today and out of nowhere I remembered the time Kris Boyd did an advert for mattresses and it turned out he couldn't actually say "mattresses". Mattressesesh.

Honestly was meant as the opposite of an advert here man. Just reassuring you'se there's fuck all between them. I've been absolutey slammed with Rangemaster orders and requests the last couple of months and was scratching my head as to why, until I seen an article about the JHS thing and it all made sense. Managed to source some OC71's thinking "fuck it, if I'm riding this gravy train might aswell milk it". It's all "mojo parts" wank but if that's what is selling I'd be daft not to offer it if I can. In other news I nearly pulled the plug on that Harley Benton V30 loaded cab earlier today, but an early 90's Marshall 1912 popped up locally for the same price and I'm in two minds which to go for. My heart wants the V30 but my head is screaming "only an imbecile would buy the Harley Benton over an already well broken Marshall 1912". Dunno which to plump for now.

Quick heads up for the handful of Rangemaster owners on here. Off the back of the recent limited JHS release of Rangemaster clones with the original OC71 transistor that sold out incredibly quickly for fucking silly money, I've just sourced a bunch of OC71's and about half of them are ideal so I have a small batch I'll be flogging imminently. Don't fall for the hype though. They sound exactly the same as the ones with the Soviet transistors. That and they'll probably be more prone to drift/failure with the trannies being a good 30 years older.

All the best @Craig. Hope you're alright and have people to talk this through with and something resembling a support network. I'll tread carefully here, being a keen drinker (bordering on functional alcoholism) that has probably made light of alcohol abuse here on a good few occasions. Even I'll admit I would likely be a far better dad, partner and person in general if I just didn't drink. I've had some big issues with severe depression in the past that I've mostly put behind me but the black dog still rears its head now and again, and alcohol fucking always exacerbates it when I'm in that mindset and can drag me down the suicidal ideology path. Be well man. I don't know you and won't pretend to know what you're going through. The only decent advice I can think to pass on that helped me is find people you trust and fucking vent man. And know you're not alone.

Update to this, said to my missus this morning that the old-firm would be the litmus test for that boozer. Full scale rammy kicked off about an hour ago. Three polis vans and two cars attended, pub shut early and it simmered down, we're currently watching four pissheads determined to break in through the side-door while sporadically resorting to knocking lumps out each other. Missus is horrified but clearly enjoyed watching the drama unfold. I'm just sitting here half-cut really trying to stop myself saying "fucking told you so". 😄

Our last neighbours moved in as a newly married couple in their late 40's/early 50's and both had matching wee Toyota Yaris smart cars with several stickers on each declaring their love for each other. They actually turned out fairly normal and quite sound though, within about a year or so had traded their motors in and ditched the bumper stickers.

Aye, tbh I'd be highly suspicious of anyone that ever even tried to convince someone to move out there permanently. That old cattle pass is basically a shortcut from the south-east and gets closed in the winter as it's too dangerous. First sign of ice, if you want to get out and closer to something civilization your only quick option is further North. Quickest road back south would probably be the fucking A9 via Inverness. I feel similar about large parts of rural Ireland. It's fine for a few days in the summer, but fuck being stuck there long term or with folk you didn't like.

Ha. Small world. Aye that's basically not even "similar neck of the woods", that's basically Applecross. Owe it to yourself to drive Bealach Na Ba if you haven't already. It's both incredibly beautiful and wonderfully terrifying.

If you want "off the beaten track" I'd highly recommend taking the the road to Applecross (Bealach Na Ba, it's an old cattle pass that takes you up and over a Monroe and brings you out in really remote part of the west-coast on the mainland right across from Skye). There's a campsite there, a wee harbour, a post office and a great pub. So it's worth a night's stop over before taking the road north to Shieldaig, then east through Torridon towards Inverness. Kids definitely won't be bored shitless on Bealach Na Ba. It's pretty frightening at parts but worth it. Great views on the way up and a wee car park at the summit, some 2000ft up the hill. Wee read on it here if it's any interest Without doubt my favourite part of the country here in the summer. Only caveats are you really don't want to get stuck there in shit weather and theres fuck all in the way of shops or things to do besides appreciate the scenery. If you want go stupidly far off the beaten track and like a bit of hillwalking, check out Reiff. But if you make it that far NW it's probably sensible to stay in Ullapool and make Reiff a day trip before quickly retreating back to civilization.

I'll give you that man since Peter Jackson filmed it there. My neck of the woods here in Scotland is probably 50% Hobbiton, 50% Royston Vasey.

The band were pretty hard-core vegans back then iirc, which might have influenced the audience they attracted. I dunno, though. The grindcore scene was strange enough, I imagine the vegan grindcore scene even moreso. Bill is one of my favourite guitarists of all time but I'm a lazy bastard and never got off my arse to go see Carcass live before. Was always a "ah I'll catch them next time" and then the fuckers took a 20 year hiatus. This time though! It's all pretty intimate venues too, I'm tempted also to get tickets for the Dundee gig aswell incase something comes up and I can't make the Glasgow gig, or do both to make up for the gigs I've missed.

Far too many authors from that era had some pretty seriously questionable views that seeped through into their work. Not condoning it or playing the "oh he's old, he doesn't know any better, it's a generational thing" card but Lewis, Tolkien and Dahl's bigotry is far more tame and concealed than the likes of H.P Lovecraft (whose works are still absolutely fascinating, in spite of him being a profoundly vocal bonafide straight up racist headcase). Thankfully I don't think Lovecraft's main target audience was children.