StoveTopStuff! Portland Recording Studio

09/09/2022

A very sad day. StoveTopStuff! is dead. Long live StoveTopStuff! 😢

04/07/2022

Here’s a trio of fuzz pedals I’ve been working on recently. I’ve been loving the raunchy sound of gated octave fuzz, so I’ve made clones of the Soda Meiser, the Bumble Buzz, and the Fuzz Factory. They each sound awesome in their own unique way.

I had to get a picture of the packages that the transistors I used for the Fuzz Factory clone came in. They are new old stock 2N404A’s I got from . The packages say they are from Nov 1963. So my pedal is rocking 60 year old transistors. Pretty cool! I imagined the transistors being asleep unused for 60 years only to be shoved into the most insane fuzz circuit imaginable. Talk about a rude awakening!

21/05/2022

My latest pedal creation, the Love Fuzz!!

Lately I’ve been obsessed with guitar fuzz. I love all the crazy, noisy, raunchy, and buzzy fuzz pedals of the 60s and early 70s. So I’ve been breadboarding a bunch of famous and obscure circuits and swapping out transistors and such in the search for the ultimate fuzz tone.

This pedal is the first to make it into an enclosure (with artwork even!). It is based on Roger Mayer’s “Axis Fuzz” that he made for Jimi Hendrix Thus, I named my version “Love Fuzz” as in “Axis, Bold as Love”.

The Love Fuzz sounds a lot like a silicon fuzz face but with even more gain and harmonics. It sounds amazing through my 59 Bassman. The darkness of the Bassman perfectly complements the searing top end of the Love Fuzz. And even though this pedal can deliver tons of gain and sustain, it cleans right up with the guitar’s volume and is very responsive to touch. With the fuzz control turned down, the Love Fuzz can sound like a transparent, yet harmonically rich overdrive. And best of all, it works with a wah pedal placed before it, unlike a fuzz face.

I’m prototyping even more fuzz circuits as we speak, so stay tuned!!

10/04/2022

Another successful session in the books! We got basic tracks for four cool new tunes today.

10/04/2022

I’ve got Chris Marshall & the El Camino in the the studio today.

10/04/2022

Cory shredding his new guitar through a vintage 80’s JCP 2204.

28/03/2022

Today’s project: fix a rather out-of-tune toy piano. Toy pianos are not exactly known for being particularly in tune instruments, but I have standards, damnit! This piano was so out of tune that it was really only useful for the rare creepy, dissonant sound effect, if that.

So I took the thing apart and painstakingly tuned it by adding a bit of solder to increase the mass of tines that were sharp, and, tines that were flat, whacking them with a hammer (like driving a nail). It wasn’t always easy even hearing if the notes were sharp or flat as the timbre was very complex, with many seemingly unrelated harmonics.

It took a lot of work but now I have a playable instrument. Next I may try to add a dampening system, as I liked the sound of the dampened tines.

26/03/2022

Doing some open guitar surgery today to fix the broken bridge pickup in my Gibson SG.

13/10/2021

I had Chris Marshall & the El Camino in the studio this weekend. We had a great time tracking two new tunes. I wish I could share them, as they rock pretty hard and sound amazing, if I do say so myself.

04/07/2021

Cutting bed tracks today with Happy Independence Day everyone!

03/07/2021

Brand new in the rack this week is the massive Opto Comp, their Teletronix LA-2A clone. This beast has the true vintage tone of NOS tubes, carbon composition resistors, custom transformers, and Audioscape’s own recreation of the T4 optical gain reduction cell, which is the heart of this compressor. The T4 cell is the critical, hard-to-replicate piece that determines the attack and complex, program-dependent release of the LA-2A, and they’ve nailed it. I’m not sure how Audioscape managed to pack all this sonic goodness into this box and sell it for less than a grand, but they did. Awesome job, guys!

03/07/2021

My latest creation is this MCA SP1 modified with a beautiful custom metallic-blue paint job, an RK-12 capsule, and a style solid state transformer-less circuit from .

25/04/2021

I finished modifying the first of my two SP-1’s last night after my last recording session. Build went super smooth thanks to excellent full-color, hard copy build guide. I replaced the stock small diaphragm capsule with the Mic Parts large diaphragm (34mm) RK-47, a clone of the Neumann K-47 capsule, used most famously in the U-47. The stock circuit I replaced with the Mic Parts T-84, which copies the JFET/transformer circuit used in the Neumann KM-84. It is clean with just a touch of transformer “color.”

I was going to do an A/B comparison of the old SP-1 vs the modified mic to see if I could hear the improvement, but there’s really no point; the difference is not subtle. I transformed an “okay” sounding $30 mic into something that sounds like it should cost at least $1000.

I highly recommend the Mic Parts kits to anyone who enjoys DIY and wants a high-quality microphone. (And no, I am not being paid to say this nor am I associated with Mic Parts in any way...although if those guys want to give me an endorsement deal, get in my inbox!)

25/04/2021

I went with the Glynn Johns drum mic technique for Cory’s drums. It sounded incredible! Of course it helps when you’ve got an incredible musician like Cory hittin’ the skins.

25/04/2021

laying down guitar overdubs with Chris Marshall and the El Camino.

25/04/2021

First part of my double-header studio day: Tracking drums and bass with Chris Marshall and the El Camino.

20/04/2021

New music from Chris Marshall and the El Camino out today. Recorded and mixed at StoveTopStuff! Get it at your favorite streaming service.

https://youtu.be/XVmdBSzPnF0

18/04/2021

Work in progress: About 10 years ago I bought a pair of MCA SP1 mics, which at the time sold for $30(!) each. My plan was to use the mics as a platform for modifications to help me learn about microphone design. Well, I never did that and the mics just collected dust on my shelf. But now I’m finally getting started on my project to rebuild these uber-cheap mics into something not just usable but really good. First step: paint the enclosures as I wait for parts from

14/02/2021

14/02/2021

The studio.

14/02/2021

The lounge.

13/02/2021

My new control room layout is more open and comfortable.