Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Protec's Secret Glue: Vomit























I had a rehearsal yesterday for the upcoming Yacht Rock Holiday Special (Friday, December 10).  We also went over the Beatles stuff for the Please Pleaserock Me show (tonight at Smith's).

I used my bari sax at rehearsal...I opened the case for the first time in probably six weeks, put the thing together, and got ready to wail.  As I drew my breath for the first note, I was nearly killed by the smell of...puke?  I don't know.  My horn smelled like somebody/something had thrown up in it, and then baked it.  I nearly died.

When I got home, I washed the mouthpiece, the neck, the mouthpiece cap, my hands.  Total sterilization.  I squirted some mouthpiece disinfectant into the neck and left it there.  But where was the smell coming from?  It turns out my new Pro Tec baritione saxophone case is glued together with barf.  I Febrezed it and dumped an entire box of baking soda in it, and it's currently outside sunning itself.  Here's hoping the odor is eliminated, or there may be trouble.  Funny that I did a google search, and I'm not the only person who has dealt with this particular problem.

I did a House Live gig last night at Ventanas.  The usual stuff...how many more pictures of that place do I need?  Nothing else of note happened, though I did notice my effects pedal was very uneven--some sounds were much louder than others.  This morning I checked it out--I used a TRS (stereo) to XLR (microphone) cable, and only some of the effects were only coming through on one side of the stereo, while others were both.  Oops.  Gotta use a TS (mono) cable to a DI to an XLR, even though the quarter inch output says stereo.  I guess you've gotta be stereo on the other end, too.  Live and learn.

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