Site Updates, Recording, Reading & BA003
Busy weekend for me. I’ve updated my blog studio and gear page to reflect my current setup and prefernces. It’s a little more direct but also real. I also got a book this week that I’ve had a pretty good read through this weekend.
Tube Amp Book ISBN 978-0-87930-767-7
It’s called the Tube Amp Book, for someone with an interest in amplifiers, their workings and their history it’s a great read. It’s the size of an A4 folder and contains pretty much every amp builder from Fender through Mesa, to Budda. It even has a great section on the legend that is Dumble.
The book shows Dumble
For the more advanced in the electronic and amplifier world there is also a lot of detailed schematics for pretty much every amp I can think of, a few escape, Two Rock, Dumble, etc the more top secret builds. It’s not the easiest book in the world to get hold of, but it’s worth it. I’ll be using it as a reference on going and with a little luck as a basis to make some changes to amps.
Recording
I’m meeting up with a bass player and drummer this week for our first get together practice for a new band. We’ll jam out some covers to get to known each others playing a little better, but also work on some new songs. This inspired me to get on with some song writing and finishing off some works in progress.
Recording with Protools
In days gone by you’d have to play bits to other people and try to describe what you wanted, however using my home setup I can record some rough tracks to get the idea across, even better I can give it to them before we turn up to pllay so they can not only get an idea of the song, learn it and work out their parts and contributions better. I finished off two songs tonight and started a porition of one. They are all rough recording and not very polished however it’s enough to the idea across. Once I have the right people and the parts arranged I’ll record them properly (I’m terrible with digital drums so a good live drummer is key.) I’ll hopefully have a positive post on this next week saying “all’s well, we’re recording next week”.
BA003
BA003 Work In Progress
Work on BA003 is progressing nicley, I’ve got the bare componets ready for the next stage. I’ve got a dark alder body routed for 2 TV jones pickups (I made a little nic by the bridge pickup) and a hard tail strat bridge. The neck is birdseye maple with a Brazilian rosewood board. I’ve made a mistake in drilling the tuner holes too small, but that’s easy corrected. I’ve put together a wiring diagram based on the Fender custom shop’s S1 switching concept. I’ll try to start on finishing the bodywork this week and get a solid paint job on it. The TV Jones’s are stil a few weeks away so it should all tie in nice. I also need to hunt for the parts for the electronics. I also want to try to get some different saddles made for the bridge, but I’ve not found anyone who can do this yet and it’s way outside my skillset.
More updates to come
Guitar Effects Pedal Whore
Now that I’m playing a clean amp, I’m coming to depend on effects pedals for tonal changes. I’m really starting to discover the difference between pedals and boutique pedals. Yes I know this sounds snobby and others will disagree but the difference between £25 and a £400 drive pedal is amazing. The tonal quality, the buffers, the bypasses everything is just a light year better (I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule) I first noticed this when I had a Boss BD2 pedal, its a nice pedal no question, I took a gamble and bought a Keeley modified Boss BD2. The difference is amazing, such a fuller sound, more range and better overall. If you’re playing a crappy or well driven amps I don’t think you notice it, but if your playing a good quality clean amp, it really matters.
I’ve really noticed the difference between a vintage Boss CE2 chorus – which at the time was mass produced and todays CE2 and CE3 pedals. Then we up the game to the more boutique market. I’m finding I’m turning into a real brand snob, depending on the likes of Robert Keeley, Analogman, Klon, Bob Sweet, Rogery Mayer and Mad Professor. That’s not to say others are not good, but I’m just really starting to appreciate the quality put into the higher priced kit.
I’m trying to find a smokey tubeless overdrive pedal at the moment and I’m on the waiting list for an Analogman king of tone version 4.
If you think I’m a gear snob, that’s fine, there is an element of truth in that, however if you read what I’m saying I think it’s worth trying a few of the higherend pedals and see if it makes a difference to your sound and the way you play. It certainly has done for me.
Pedals & Effect Layout
If you’ve read any of my posts since this blog started you’ll find I’ve gone through major setup change for my guitar sound. One of the biggest differences is how I use pedals. My main pedal requirements are different drive and gain pedals, I’m playing with a lot of variations on drive/fuzz/gain/boost pedals which give me both different sounds and variations while allowing my under lying tone to remain the same, due to not coming close to saturation any more.
As a result my pedal board has really stripped back to a few drive pedals and a boost pedal which is great for plugin and go type approach. I get the variations I want, however the sound is still the same root sound. This works well for me, but I’m also looking to vary things up sometimes. I’d like to have a more full sound option at my disposal, sometimes adding a little delay, univibe, chorus, tremolo, octavia style effects, would really work well. When recording this is fine as you can setup the pedals in the chain you want and record. When playing live this is a problem as you’ll either end up with a huge pedal board, with a controller like the gigrig device or doing a crazy tap dance with looper pedals. It’s also limiting as once you’ve used a pedal once, you can’t use it again on your board. I’m looking into building a midi-switched pedal based effects setup. This involves back lining all my pedals into a case by the amp, passing each pedal through a relay based switcher, programming the switcher with “patches” which can be a one pedal patch, or a combination of multiple pedals. The control of the signal chain through the switcher is done by a midi based foot controller.
Not my pedal board, thank God. This is how it can get though
Daniel and Sarah at The Gig Rig have been exceptionally helpful in providing information of how the Gig Rig pro 14 can be used as a midi controller. This is now allowing me to look for programmable relay based switching units. It has to be a programmable unit as the gig rig is a dumb controller, and it has to be relay based as this will keep the signal path clean. This is my first toe in the water for midi based pedal switching, the last midi unit I used was a rack based effects unit and it was poor, it put me off midi units for a long time. I’m also looking at a Custom Audio Electronics RS10 midi foot controller. This is pretty much the top end industry foot controller, with a little more brains under the hood, however it does come with a price tag to match another gig rig pro 14 controller, so if possible I’d like to not spend that money again. I’ll keep this blog updated with my midi back line pedal setup as it progresses. Input and comments welcome on this.
Nothing to report
I’ve been back from holiday for a while and playing with lyrics and melody without much success. Some of the concepts I’ve been working on I’ve dropped as just cheesy or cliche’, some are working out well but I can’t get them to fit into the music so find myself either trying to change a lyric/melody that works, or change the music which isn’t sitting well with me as if I like both it seems stupid to compromise either/both. This has left me with either a vocal line that needs a new song writing for it, or a song with out a vocal line. While my number of musical concepts and work in progress are increasing and gaining some good output I’m struggling to keep track and actually bring some of them to a conclusion or finished product. I’m starting to wonder if a putting a few bits of work in progress snippets to friends would help to get some feedback, or maybe even work with a writing partner for some songs ? not sure at this time.
On a personal note I’ve decided to set myself some fitness goals that I may even document on this website
I’m a little disappointed that a drummer who seems a really nice guy and interesting musically and who had a bass player with him appears to have vanished leaving me again in the unenviable position of looking for people to play with. It’s more frustrating to watch people I’ve played with in the past rocket ahead falling into bed with good musicians that are carrying them.
Back From Holiday Break
I’ve just returned from a holiday in Skiathos in Greece. I had a fantasticly easy time enjoying some great weather, nice food and relaxing surroundings. I can certainly see why Joe Bonamassa decided to record his latest album “Black Rock” in Greece. While on this break I read through various books and zoned out a bit from the day to day grind. Without having a guitar or piano around I found it hard to get inspired to write music, however I pretty much listened to my whole ipod, which indirectly gave me some ideas, I also used my ipod to make lyrical notes and subject matter notes, I’m not sure how these will translate into real songs (my first attempt to pickup a guitar yesterday wasn’t really very sucessful) but it is new subject matter. I did come up with one subject matter and some lyrical content which I quite liked and it seemed to work as an honest bit of writing, however as a John Mayer fan some of it’s a little close in concept to one of his songs, however it really didn’t come from that (although I do love his song in question). I’ll see how it goes before worrying too much though.
I’m doing a charity running event this weekend at a reasonable distance away from home so I’m not sure when I’ll get both the time and the mind set and motivation to sit down and progress these ideas.
As a side note the UK has just had a large government change from the long standing Labour gonvernment to a Conservitive + Lib Dem. I can see and hear thousands of musical people writing about this now, but I have no interest in it from a musical context as I don’t see it as real subject matter.
Music in the ether
This week I’ve sent off some rough tracks to a few other musicians, some for critique and feedback on not only the music but the techniaues used to record it, others to see if they are interested in meeting up / talking about playing together. I’ve also been contacted by a covers band about playing with them as their regular guitarist left. I thought about it, for a short while as something that may be fun, but after realising they wanted to do a long audtion process, they played songs I didn’t want to play (lots of them, Blondie etc) and the fact that they wanted a bigger chunk of commitment than I would be prepared to offer I decided against it.
On a site note, I’ve updated the gear page and some of my links.
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Twittering
- Cracking first practice with new band mates 3 hrs ago
- phew, almost had to call of our first practice together, found practice space at the last minute. Thanks POM studios </plug> 10 hrs ago
- @ElgeeLovers please confirm both you and @bradders made it out alive. in reply to ElgeeLovers 12 hrs ago
- @VodafoneUK it's not odd, I've made many posts on your forum about my poor experiences this last year, with no resolution responses. in reply to VodafoneUK 16 hrs ago
- I've been worken up twice now to have my ticket checked. Stations have ticket barriers, so whats the point of conducters checking my ticket? 18 hrs ago
- More updates...
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