1. Lisa Loeb, Album: “Tails”, Track: ‘”It’s Over” This is a great album anyway, but listening to this song, the moment where the song moves from a melodic acoustic number to the full rock/pop tune with a simple pause and crash on the drums is great. A big part of it is how it just fits with the song, while augmented by a good drum/snare sound. Which brings me to #2
2. Lisa Loeb, Album: “Tails”, Track: all of them. The recorded drum sound on this album is great, as a sound it’s a good drum sound, especially the snare, a real snappy snare, but the drum sound suits the music perfectly. This will keep in my head to make sure in future the drum sound fits the individual song and the whole recording in general.
3. John Msyer, Album: “Continuum” , Track: “Gravity” Once of my favourite songs of all time, but the thing that gets me on this is the guitar solo, it’s got such a perfect sound, played on the bridge end pickups of a strat, harsh and tinny, in total contrast to the main guitars sound. The solo is short, and ever so simple, yet if you listen you can hear how skilful it is, each note isn’t struck but an arrangement of slides, hammers and pull offs. A fantastic bit of playing. I’ll try to keep in mind that less can often be more, especially in solos.
4. Perl Jam, Album: “Backspacer”, Track: “The Fixer” Two things hit me in this track, first of all how an almost non-existant guitar riff can lead a track, listen to the main guitar sound, it’s a wimpy fuzz sound that’s not even a stand out riff, more an improvisation in the background, yet it’s the thing that stands out most in the song and appears to be leading it. Genius. The second is the stereo guitar parts, great recording split left and right, two totally complimentary guitar parts, that work so well together you don’t really notice there are two parts rather than just one sound. The fuzz guitar panned hard to one sound with a funk style riff complimenting the bass, and the more classic rock sound blasting out controlled bursts on a wah pedal panned hard to the other side, writing, playing and recording quality.
5. Philip Sayce, Album: “Innerevolution”, Track: “Gimme Some More” it’s hard not to be influenced by Philip’s playing, but on this listen the playing and recording on “Gimme Some More” really captured  that modern take on Hendrix. The recording suggests a casual carefree jam, with ad-lib comments and guitar licks thrown in, it’s only when you actually focus and listen you realise how tight the band and song are and how good the recording is, it’s a testament to the players and recording engineers how natural and casually live this track sounds. This track has made me keep in mind how good natural music sounds, it doesn’t have to be over produced or multi-tracked, a natural live feel can really be a good thing.
6. John Mayer, Album: “Battle Studies”, Track: “Heartbreak Warfare”. Still impressed by this, the main guitar sound on this track, clean, but cleverly delayed simple guitar riff that’s bounced of the guitars trem in time with the delay. Way to pull a new sound out of nowhere and make it a key part of a song. I’ll try to work more on guitar sounds and the use of simple phrases rather than busy riffs.
7. Lisa Loeb, Album: “The Purple Tape” Track: all of them. In point #1 I reference the Lisa Loeb album “Tails” which is a professionally produced band album, the album “The Purple Tape” is the first recording of a lot of the songs that ended up on “Tails” (and Firecracker and Cake and Pie) in their original format of an acoustic guitar and singer. For me it’s really interesting listening to how some tracks translate to a full band track sound so different, yet retain the sound overall feel, while others just don’t translate at all and end up as acoustic songs. It really shows that working on a song and getting the structure and lyrics right allow you to then arrange that song into something much more than when it first started. (This is also true of point #6 with “Heartbreak Warfare”). If you can, Lisa Loeb put out a 2CD version of the purple tape ( here ) that has an interview that talks about the writing and recording of the songs. It’s worth while, and the whole process of viewing the two albums side by side is a good food for thought for song writers and producers.

These are all things that have hit me out of the music I’ve listened to this week. There has been much more that I’ve listened to and enjoyed, but these things stood out to me this week. I’ve love to hear what’s inspired other people this week and feedback on my comments.

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

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.

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.

(note just realised I called them “tapes” – I’ll not change that, but just keep it for ammusment of how things have changed.  That was a genuine typo though. )

I’ve got to sit down and type responses to them now to see who’s really interested, but its exciting to get a positive response (thanks to any who replied as I know some of you read this site) I hope to meet a few of you ASAP and see if there is anything we can do together.

Good positive post for once.

I’ve had contact this week from a Bass player and a female singer, as well as follow ups from a guy doing his own recordings. Not much to say on them as it’s very early doors, but hopefully a meet up with them next week will be productive.

I had a Les Paul moment this year and actually swapped my double neck and Sambora strats for a Gibson VOS series Les Paul Jnr in TV yellow. If I was going to dip a toe back into the Gibson water it wasn’t going to be for another Les Paul standard, despite how good they are. I always liked the Les Paul Jnr’s and loved the TV yellow colour but never managed to get them to work for me due to the type of music I was playing at the time. So this time it’s time to try something new.

Gibson Les Paul Jnr

I’m loving it, it’s got a fat neck and really works well with melody driven lines, the P90 brings out that classic 60′s/70′s sound. So far I’ve not written anything on it, but that’s down to a lack of sitting down with it, rather than not being able to use it.

I’ve also dipped back into pedals, I picked up a reasonably hard to find Frantone Cream Puff pedal. This gives a really really rich fuzz / light driven sound, a sound that in my teenage years I would have laughed at however now I like. I don’t think it’s a sound that you could write an album for, but for a riff, solo or song it works well. If I use this with my Fender Blues Deville amp and a Strat I get the exact sound John Mayer uses on the Crossroads track on Battle Studies. As I say, a core sound it’s too much, but I’ve used it for a solo on a song idea and love it.

I'm man enough to play a pink pedal

I also picked up an Ibanez 70′s Flanger, it’s battered to high hell and it sounds fantastic but in the off position it’s a complete tone sucker so has to be used with a looper, it’s battery connection is knackered due to it’s age so it’s quite badly behaved and I can’t find an adaptor to fit with with my Diago Power chain. That said it’s ace, I do love vintage pedals. Not really used it yet though in song writing or live (due to it being so hammered).

Work in progress is the Bogner Alchemist head This is essentially a clean fender with a vintage marshall dirty amp in a modern day packaging. It’s got a good reverb and delay effect in built. I’m trying to get a dealer to get one of these in stock so I can actually sit down and play it.

Affordable Two Rock ?

Then there is the holy grail…..the Two Rock custom reverb amp, this is the beast, the best clean sound I’ve ever heard, bar none. It’s price tag is something that’s quite restrictive to mortals. This year could be the year I find enough non-allocated cash.

Good news on the pedal front, the Way Huge Aqua Puss analog delay pedal, the one that stopped production many many years ago and can change hands for as much as £500+ due to their quality and rarity, are being re-released for what appears to be a pretty reasonable price tag of approx £140. They are expected to be re-released in early Feb 2010, in which case in February, if you check this very site you’ should hopefully see a post saying “I’ve got my Aqua Puss pedal”

The search for tone and sounds continues…..not bad for a guy who only every used a driven sound and no pedals.

As I sat down tonight re-listening to songs that where written last year and working on songs for this year I listened to one, a more slow blues based track and the positive side of this is upon listening back, I’m not going to change this at all, I’m happy with it and I think it’s the first track that’s made it to the proper demo recording process.

So far I’ve only made firm decisions on two songs, one partial re-write, and one firm tick in the box, time to go back to listening.