I've talked abut this a little in prior posts, but while I'm taking a day off to let my finger heal a little (there's evidently a rough fret edge somewhere on my bass, so my pointer finger looks like it's been sandpapered - I've taken a file to the treble side of the fret ends …
Category: Blog
Quick Check-in at the midpoint on bass tracking
Real quick update from the studio - I'm trying to get in an hour or two after work and bedtime most nights when I don't otherwise have plans, so while I'm now one week into recording, the reality is more like four or five hours. Still, I'm chipping away. I won't win any accolades for …
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Studio Update: Bass Tracking
Saying I'm two days of tracking in is a misnomer; I squeezed in an hour after work on Friday, was away for the weekend, and got in an hour after a late dinner on Sunday after I got home. But, I have two songs (of 8 full-band songs, unless something changes along the way) with …
Let’s get this thing going again…
I told myself, after I finished Zero Mantra, that I wasn't going to let myself take another ten years to finish an album. And yet, here we are, in 2025. The good news is, ten years later, after spending the last few months digging through my folder of song ideas and seeing what I could …
Tracking Volume: Why you don’t need to record all that hot (a case study)
I can't tell you the number of times I've heard someone tell me you need to record as close to 0db as you can to "use up all the bits." Much has been written about proper recording levels in the digital domain, and from a purely theoretical/best practices standpoint there really isn't much more I …
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New Strat, Part One: Fender’s got a good thing going…
So, first thing's first - my old Inca Silver Strat will always be near and dear to my heart. But, after almost 20 years, she was about due for a refret, and during the Fender period of the extensive pickup swapping I've done in her over the years I found myself thinking it would be …
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Volume Knob Treble Bleed Comparison
I recently rewired my Strat (which has had a humbucker in the bridge for the last five years or so, a Dimarzio AT-1 Andy Timmons model, which for the record sounds spectacular) with three singlecoils. While doing so, I tried a couple different "treble bleed" approaches for the guitar's volume knob. A bit of background …
Home Recording: Some Thoughts if You’re Thinking About Starting
...Even budget gear is good enough today that if you can't get at least a "good" guitar tone out of a budget USB interface, a Shure SM57, and a good sounding guitar rig, then the problem probably isn't your gear. I got the home recording bug back in late '99, in my freshman year in …
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Video: Playthrough with a Fender Blues Jr NOS
A little quick and dirty, but some clean-toned blues playing through a Fender Blues Jr. I had in my studio recently: I've always thought Fender really got it right on this amp. It has a glorious clean tone, and just enough preamp gain to get a bit of dirt into the sound with singlecoil pickups. …
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And, I’m up on iTunes! (plus a new song)
I wasn't expecting to see it there so quickly (it got sent over to them this morning), but I checked their store this afternoon and sure enough, "Zero Mantra" is now for sale on the iTunes store. It's been up on CD Baby for a couple days now, as well, though they only have an …
Drew Peterson 
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