BORDERLINE NOISE FESTIVAL 2019

1.-3. August

Atelier Wolimiersz, PL

Arma Agharta (LT) Æthereal Arthropod (ES) Wolfgang Spahn (DE) Casper Electronics (USA) Poprvé za penize (CZ) 3 Hryvni (UA) Sznur (PL) Trrrma (IT) Kacper Ziemianin (PL) Noijzu (CH) Grupa Etyka Kurpina (PL) Too Empty To Poo (PL) Dren (SK) Royal Hungarian Noisemakers (HU) Del F64.0 (DE) Fixateur Externe (HU) Zajwert (PL) LWSTNRDS (PL) Jealousy Party (DE) Ereh Saw (AQ) Robin Burke (DE) Vestas (NL) Ememe (DE) Monster Hurricane Wihajster (PL) AcidRatrators (PL) Emerge (DE) O Reche Modo (CZ) A_TROPIC (PL)

Strong & funky Underground Noise Festival

with lots of other styles (Experimental, Speedcore, Electro, Industrial, Dark Ambient, Breakcore, Extratone, etc.) - 3 Days in a beautyful landscape (but concerts are indoor)

Between the Polish & Czech Border.

Info:

https://www.facebook.com/events/515442755641289/

http://borderlinefestival.com/

Tickets presale:

it might not look like much, among the hundreds pictures of glorious vintage beauties. it’s a Yamaha SLG-200S meant to serve as acoustic slash travel guitar. but, beyond its appearance and the appointments of a well-made and neatly designed, affordable instrument, it’s been and it’s being quite a rewarding project.

the flat, black pickup at neck position isn’t part of the original experience. it’s been added on purpose, after a long and tedious search: there’s hardly more than 5 mm headroom available between “top” and strings at the end of the neck, which narrowed the choice down to really… well, one candidate, in the end, this one.

it’s a National Slimline pickup that i’ve attached with double-sticky foam, after having discarded all sorts and varieties of floating “jazz” pickups that simply didn’t fit in the space available. it’s been devised as a collaboration between National Guitars and Villex Electronics, which I remember as a daringly clever pickup researcher and manufacturer from my Chapman Stick days.

technically it’s a humbucker pickup, which is good because there’s hardly a chance to shield a non-solid-body design, if you want to reject and keep clear of interference (just count the DSP-based effects on my table, at only a few centimetres from any guitar’s pickups).

but, although a humbucker, it not only has body and strength, but it has shine, too, and sparkle, with plenty of life in its tone, and it’s quite microphonic at that, which is exactly what you need to amplify a resonator guitar; here, it makes for a clever combination with the built-in, factory-installed acoustic system.

the way it’s been patched and put together, National pickup goes its own way, same as acoustic output, which ideally would grace the notion of an acoustic guitar amp (for the acoustic guitar output) and an electric guitar amp (for the National pickup output). 

but as I’ve not been using amps of any sort for a long time, i saw a chance to play around with separate inputs onto a bass preamp that i had here, idling in a drawer: enter the EBS MicroBass II.

the Swedish-made preamp-in-a-stompbox has a dual audio path. it’s been conceived to process and blend the magnetic output of an electric bass, with the piezo output of whatever add-on you may have installed on it; both circuits run parallel, if you so wish, until you want to a/b them, which then makes it a “this, or that” proposition that seems to suit the gigging musician i’m not. or, alternatively, you can sum both paths with either one, or two different inputs, and route a sidechain (with blend control) through it, too.

it’s solid, built with no expense, and it’s dead silent, but flexible and then more flexible again… seems to have been born for exactly this project, and actually makes for the other half of the picture into a versatile, nice sounding (and almost unexpected) one.