Kassiopeia Weekly — 07/13/2025

This week we finished up vocals from last week on “You’ve Always Been Wonderful,” the closing track on our debut album. Zane already edited everything together, though we might come back for a few final touchups before we wrap it all up.

I went into most of the background on this song in my previous post, so check that out if you haven’t already!

🎨 Content & Visuals

In terms of promo content, this week was a bit slower on my end—been busy with work and some personal projects. But Zane finished the album cover art, and I added it to the homepage. It's already helping the website feel more cohesive and reflective of the album's aesthetic, instead of the random patchwork vibe we started with.

🎛️ Reamping & Tone Refinement

This weekend I did another reamping session for guitar tones—and I’m thrilled with the outcome.

My previous attempt had started to sound a little thinner and less defined the more I lived with it. So I sat down with my notes, dialed in the amp and Empress Heavy pedal, and came away with a much better-balanced, more articulate tone. I updated a few tracks and bounced them out to listen on the go and outside of the studio.

🧪 Experiment: HM-300 vs. Empress

I also tested out a new idea using the Behringer HM-300, aiming to blend in a high-gain parallel track at key points for more bite.

  • Re-recorded “Dead Season Again”
  • A/B’ed the Empress vs. HM-300
  • Surprisingly, the HM-300 sounded clearer despite higher gain!
  • It brought back some of the crunchy character from my single-coil pickups that was missing in the Empress version

So… I went ahead and ordered a used 1986 Boss HM-2 🧡. I’d been thinking about it for a while, but wasn’t sure until now. The HM-300 was a test, and it won.

This will probably become the main distortion in my live rig.

🌊 Clean Tone Tests

I also had success chasing the clean tone I’d been using in Guitar Rig 6.

  • Used my Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini with tone/output maxed and drive around 50%
  • Ran that into the Keeley Caverns with a wide spacious reverb
  • May skip its delay and use the MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe instead for the slightly detuned modulation GR6 gave me

Really happy with how these tones are turning out—and even happier that they translate well to real-world hardware, which is gonna make live performance way easier and more authentic.

Looking ahead, we’re planning to record final vocals for “An Improper Sendoff” next (unless we change our minds—always possible).

Until then:
Keep rocking in the free world.
Doot doota loot doo 🎶

- R