I'd thought I was going to do something more abstract this week, though my bass- and guitar-playing sessions ended up making it kind of funky. So it's a groove.

Drums: Ableton Fairfax kit, which sounds interestingly synthetic, but also has some impact. I added a touch of Max Humanizer and gave it some room-sized convolution reverb, and automated delay send on the 2 and 4.

Bass: 80s Epiphone Embassy II, on p-pickup. Low-end rolloff with EQ-8, and then another track also of bass, but in the higher register, with high-pass Auto-Filter with a bit of drive.

Guitar: PureSalem Mendiola on the bridge mini-humbucker, through Balls Effects KWB. One got room-sized convolution reverb send, and the other got a much larger hall send.

Title comes from the function of the old 80-type vacuum tube.

Mostly in-the-box, plus bass. Drum rack of 909, hand clap samples, Tension/Clav and Electric/Rhodes, Epiphone bass. Lots of roll-off on bass below 87Hz to get out of the way of the kick. Three sends--two convolution reverbs and one filter delay.

Title comes from the 50 Gates of Wisdom/Impurity of the Kabbalah.

Week 40 of the year, here's a return to real bass and multi-track arrangement. Drum rack of Ableton Analog instruments for synth drums, tabla single-hits, another hand drum single-hit Impulse instrument, one for hand claps, two different instances of the Ableton Electric instrument, Ableton's Operator on the Plastic Vibraphone preset, and real bass. Sends are two convolution reverbs and a delay; there's some inline auto-filter here and there, along with EQ8 and Cabinet on the bass. Varying degrees of sends, some of which are automated. Full-chain master on the two-bus.

Title comes from the heat-resistant properties of zirconium (atomic number 40).