Sunday, September 7, 2008

Alive With Doubt

Labels and comparisons become pointless with bands like Niigata City's Deride. The energy on their F.T.L.E 7" (Mangrove Label, 1999) is explosive enough to blast away all hardcore barriers. I can imagine X-ed out youth crew kids, bestudded crusties, and all those between and around going ape-shit over this. Deride is hardcore, plain and simple, in all its glorious raw power. Years after the release of this 7", the band issued forth a mighty LP that continues the legacy. I'm not sure what else they've recorded, but I'd sure like to find out.

The F.T.L.E. 7"

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, been looking for this! They have another 7" (Fuck Taste{?}ep)on Kangaroo Records. They also appear on various comps. I got to see them over the summer on my trip to Japan.

Batguano said...

Luckyyyy! The Japan trip must've been the shit! Thanks for info about the other EP; I can't believe I overlooked that one.

Zmaj said...

Thanks! Bands like that make me happy.

Curious Guy said...

There's also a split 7" with Singapore band Minus. Quite rare these days. If you need it...

Strange Ranger said...

hey man. I really love the tunes you share. I was wondering if you could share with me how you get your vinyl rips to sound so good. I haven't had much luck in ripping my records. I have an ion usb turntable but every rip I make sounds flat, kinda like with out any depth or highs. I'm not sure if there is some kind of equalization I should do to the rips. Anyway, some advice from someone like you, who clearly knows what they are doing, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the music!

Batguano said...

Curious Guy- That split sounds like a keeper. Thanks for lettin' me know about it. And, if you're offering to upload it... extra huge thanks for helping out! (That is, if it's not too much trouble...)

Hey Stranger, thanks... it's good to know I'm doing something right! As far as advice goes, I'm far from what you'd call an audio expert, but I'd be glad to share what I do know.

The first item, hardware, may be obvious. I think the needle/cartridge and your soundcard are the two most important components. If you've got good ones, then that's that.

I don't use a USB turntable, so if anyone out there has advice about this, feel free to chime in any time. I run an RCA line from my stereo amp to my sound card. I record using Audacity, then I "clean up" the files with WaveRepair. This software also has an equilization tool, but I've only used it once (I think it was on the Asebia LP). It's not free, but you can try it out for a month before purchase (and it's fairly cheap). I also make sure that my volume levels are fairly high on the computer's audio setup. I haven't tried any other equilizing software, so check back here and maybe someone else will offer some suggestions regarding that?!?

Good luck!

chrisapproach said...

deride is such a good band.i also only knew about the ep on kangaroo.thanks for this one!

chrisapproach said...

btw:

i've got the deride ep on kangaroo on my blog if you don't have it already batguano.

Strange Ranger said...

thanks for the help about the vinyl ripping. I'm assuming you use the noise reduction tool on the Waverepair program. what number setting do you find works well for you without compromising sound quality? After getting a "fingerprint" I've been setting it at 2.0 and it seems to sound okay.

Batguano said...

The noise reduction is my favorite aspect of WR (it's way better than Audacity for that). I'm a little more "conservative" with my usage, keeping it around 1.3. Any more than that and I notice that undistorted guitar picking loses its sharpness and voice samples start to become surreal. With busy, distorted parts, there's less of a concern, but there's also less of a need for noise reduction.

Any luck with raising the levels on your rips? When you just play the records on the turntable, do they sound dull too, or is it only when you rip them? I wonder if there's a cheap pre-amp available for USB tables...

Strange Ranger said...

I got rid of the USB turntable and just hooked my regular turntable up to the computer through this gadget I found called ART USB phono plus. It was cheap and it does the trick. Now my rips sound good. I've just been tinkering with Wave Repair to get rid of noise. It's time consuming trying to get it right and I don't have much time to devote to it right now. I really appreciate your help. Your blog is really great. If I ever get the nerve to start my own blog, yours will definitely be an inspiration.

Batguano said...

That's great that your rips comin' out good!

Time is definitely the enemy. If you do start a blog, make sure got some of that set aside! Anyway, thanks again for the encouraging words and have fun ripping...