Studio
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
Studio vamp and a failure in time and history
Working away from home is taking it’s toll on my musical aspirations, I’m not far enough away to warrent taking a guitar up, but I’m not close enough to home to sit down beyond having a fiddle. I’m trying to make a forced effort to sit down and play beyond pleasure, but stuggling. A big part is my playing and recording environment, it’s been a mess for god knows how long and I’ve never quite been %100 happy with the layout and setup. The past few weekends, bar a few nights out I’ve taken to updating some of the gear and re-arranging my space. It’s %80 there, the gears bought, updated and in place, and it’s getting a much better and tider/spacious layout where a mic cable can be laid out without the fear of pulling every item of every shelf down, and it can stay there for longer than a few days. If this doesn’t make it easier for me to sit, play, write and record I don’t know what will.
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.
Guitars, Pedals, Amps, Voodoo, Magic
A big part of last year was spent trying new pedals and amps out to gain new sounds, I learnt a lot. Different pedals can work differently with different amps, they can sound mega with one amp and dirt with another. I’ve also discovered the Pete Cornish signal chain bible which not only enforced some aspects I did know, but taught me a new thing or two. I know I’ve mentioned this a few times in my blogs about the experiences of trying new things but for me it’s worth mentioning and journaling again simply because how wide a difference it can bring.
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.
First re-write of the year – First non re-write of the year
Towards the middle/end of last year I finished a song, which was quite driven by a guitar riff, the style was rock with a twang of country, a bit too much country on reflection. I listened back to it and decided the country element was way too much for over all tone of the song. So I’ve kept the concept and the lyrics, the main riff and left the chorus well alone, but I’ve started re-writing the song, rolling off the country vibe. I’m still recording the demo versions with a Telecaster so it still has the country twang to it, and the main riff is hanging around so it’s more the verse section. That said changing the verse so far has impacted the way the drums work and thus changed the song in quite a large way. So far I think it’s for the better.
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.
ProTools Pain
I’ve been having a few nights of playing with mixing of some of my demos and some of the demo’s I’ve recorded for other people, trying to get back into the flow of pro-tools so I can do some more recording. For some unknown reason pro-tools has now forgotten where all the audio files are for the recordings, yet the location and disk have not changed at all ?? This is the second time protools has done this and I’ve had to manually go back and tell each track, hey the files are over -> here.
This time there is an added twist, on some of the tracks I did for other people that where almost finished any tracks that have had a reasonable level of elastic audio used on them are being disabled and greyed out saying they are “read only” what the duce ??? I have no idea why this is happening and I’m still trying to figure out it.
I run pro-tools on a Mac, with official digideisgn gear, fully patched applications and %101 compatability yet this is the second time it’s happened.
For the industry standard tool (and lets be real, it is good !) it sure struggles to remember where it’s audio data is.
Back to trying to fix it.
Gear Slut’s ahoy – pedals
I’ve recently picked up some new bits of kit.
The first interesting purchase are 3 new guitar effects pedals.
Boss CE2 1982
My first is the Boss CE2. This is a chorus effects pedal, mass production – nothing special at al. The fact is this is a good pedal even now, however this one is special. This is one of the orignial made pedals from Japan. The Japanese pedals have much high quality components than the current production models, this makes it a little more expensive than the current production models but well worth it. Yes it’s a little battered but the look of it doesn’t really matter, it’s a great bit of kit. I’ve not been a chorus fan for a long time, but as I’ve been playing with sounds for a while now I’ve manged to find a few bits of music I’m writing. I don’t think I’ll ever be a real chorus fan but I am enjoying playing with a few more modern sounds than the classic clean sounds I’ve been using (I’m also enjoying a few of the driven sounds).
Metatone Howie
I’ve also taken ownership of a Metatone “Howie” pedal. This pedal is fantastic, it is a Dumble amp simulator. I’f you don’t know what a Dumble amp is, it’s a very hard to get hold of guitar amplifier made by a famous amp builder called Dr Alexander “Howard” Dumble (hence the name of the pedal is “Howie”. Alexander Dumble puts very strict rules in place about people owning his amps and there are supposed to be only 300 amplifiers made. For mortals like me, this is a great alternative. It simulates the clean sound and light break up of a Dumble amp while also providing a second foot switch which activates the second channel of the virtual Dumble amp making the overdrive channel active. This pedal provides a great approxmiation of the Dumble sound and really blends in well with my amps natural sound. Very pleased with it. I’ve also noticed this pedal is also quite hard to find, so I think I’ll be keeping hold of it. It’s not made it onto my pedal board yet for live use.
- T-Rex Dr Swamp, version 2
My last pedal purchase is the T-Rex Dr Swamp pedal. I’ve loved T-Rex pedals for ages, they are a boutique brand from Denmark and make some fantastic pedals. I’ve always like the Dr Swamp model too. T-Rex have recently released a version 2 of the Dr Swamp pedal, so with news of this I’ve opened my wallet and purchased. The Dr Swamp pedal is yet another over drive pedal, it’s got two totally seperate channels though almost like an amp with 2 drive channels, you can have two very distinctive driven sounds, one mild crunch and one heavey distortion for example and switch between the two with one foot switch. Press the right foot switch and the left disengages while the right engages and the reverse it true also. This is a big plus unless you’re using a looper or midi effects controller as normally you have to turn off the other pedal as the new one comes on, this is seemless and smooth. Other pedals do this and it’s not a massive unique selling point (look at the Howie above) however the drive tones out of the Dr Swamp are great, and the big plus is the two channels have seperate tone and driver and volume controls. This allows you to not only set different drive levels per channel, but colour the sound with tone control or even give yourself a volume boost. This pedal is great, I’ve not stopped playing with it all day. It works really well with my Fender amps too. Very happy with this.
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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
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