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Posts Tagged ‘thoughts’

Will We Be Printing Our Amps the Future?

Posted in Guitars, tagged , on December 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I just read a great article on the first 3D-printed loudspeaker. Give it a read and come back.

This stuff is straight out of Neal Stephenson’s “Diamond Age,” probably one of the greatest science fiction novels I’ve ever read. Not only does it immerse you into a world of possible future technology, it also makes a commentary on social issues such as race and ethnicity, class, and education. It’s a heavy and deep read, and written at a much higher reading level than most books. But it’s a great read, and something I highly recommend.

But back to the 3D-printing; this, to me is an example of the direction fabrication is going. The thing that immediately occurred to me after reading the article and watching the accompanying video was what if in the future, instead of going down to a store to buy an amp, we purchased the printing design online, then sent it to our 3D printer? But let’s take it a step further. Let’s say you don’t like the amp. What if there was a way then to recycle the materials? You could try out tons of different amps, and not have to worry about them taking up a lot of space.

Yeah, far-fetched for sure; and maybe we won’t see this coming to fruition in our lifetime. But with the advancements in technology that occurring right before our eyes, stuff like this is coming.

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Challenging Myself…

Posted in Guitars, tagged on December 1, 2013| 2 Comments »

…to use less gear.

Yup, gear slut that I have been, I’ve been focused on using a lot less gear when I gig. Tonight at Mass it was just my acoustic plugged into one of the church’s Genz-Benz amps – though I hate the modulation effects on that amp so I run a chorus, delay and reverb in the effects loop. And even when I bring my electric, in the recent past, I’ve only brought my amp, cab and guitar – well, plus my attenuator. But no effects.

A primary reason for this choice was because I felt that I was relying a bit too much on effects; especially reverb and delay to get some sustain. I felt that I wasn’t using my fingers enough to eek out as much tone as possible from what I was playing.

This had two results: 1) I slowed my leads way down and concentrated on making my guitar sing with bends and vibrato, working individual notes as much as possible; 2) playing with no effects meant that I couldn’t hide my mistakes, so in addition to slowing down, I focused on being precise – not boring, mind you, but hitting notes and chords much more precisely.

Oh I struggled for awhile with the barebones approach, but once I became comfortable with playing that way, just like anything else in life, the repetition just made me better. In fact, in my latest songs, the modulation effects you hear on my guitars were applied in the mix post-fader. I didn’t want to rely on effects applied at the front of my signal; again, challenging myself to only rely on my fingers to get my sound.

So why have all this gear, and why not get rid of all those pedals?

I don’t think I’d ever get rid of them – maybe some that I’m not using. Pedals are great to help sweeten my sound. I like a slap-back delay at times, and as the great Doug Doppler once said, “I always use a little reverb to add a little grease to my tone.” But having challenged myself to not rely on them, I’ve actually turned down the levels of my modulation effects so more of “me” comes through in what I play.

I’m no virtuoso by any stretch of the imagination, but for what I do know, I want to sound good, and that starts in my fingers.

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Influences

Posted in Guitars, tagged , on November 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

There’s an old saying, “No man is an island,” well, no one person is an island, no matter how much they might try to isolate themselves from people or the trappings of society. No matter what, our lives are touched and shaped by the interactions we have with other people and the environments in which we live. Even those who’ve chosen to live solitary lives have done so as a result of their experiences – albeit negative.

And in music, this adage holds especially true. Every musician is influenced by the people and things around them, past and present. For those who claim they have no outside influences, they’re lying to themselves, plain and simple.

What compelled me to write this article was I spent an afternoon  back in July (I actually wrote this article that day) sitting on the front porch of my sister’s house in Lone Tree, CO with my Aunt Kathy, who’s an incredible professional artist and an owner of the Allegri Wine Shop in Gresham, OR with her husband, my Uncle Bill (that’s one of her incredible watercolors to the left). In any case, we were mutually inspiring each other. She was painting these incredible “sketches,” while I played and sang.

Occasionally we’d stop and chat, and at one point I said, “You know, we really are a family of artists.” She enthusiastically agreed. Art was something that has always been a part of our family lifestyle for as long as I can remember. Everyone sang, and most played some sort of musical instrument. My dad was trained as a concert pianist, most of my aunts and uncles played something.

So it was not surprise that music came naturally to me. As I said to my Auntie in one of our conversations, “People ask me a lot how much training I’ve had. My answer to them is I’ve had very little training in my lifetime, but I grew up in a very musical and artistic family, so music has always been part of my life, and part of the makeup of who I am.

Sure, I have musical influences galore. But the root of my musicianship comes from sitting in a busy room at a family get-together, breaking out the instruments, and playing tunes. I had an uncle who was an incredible slack-key guitarist, but he could play jazz like a MoFo! I got a lot of my melodic phrasing from watching and playing with him. Another uncle taught me how to read guitar chord charts when I was eight years old. Once I learned how to do that, I took out all my dad’s pop music books (this was 1970), and proceeded to learn Beatles, Burt Bacharach, Lovin’ Spoonful tunes, and whole mess of others.

It was family that stirred and continues to stir the musical fire that burns inside me. When I sing a love song, I think about singing to my lovely wife. When I’m singing fun tunes, I think about playing with my kids. When I’m singing sad songs, I think about long-lost loved ones.

I know it’s not the same for everyone, but we all have our influences. I believe if we recognize the people and things that influence us as musicians, it allows us to tap into the emotions associated with those influences and make us much more expressive in what we play.

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Yikes! Some Gear Combinations Just Don’t Work!

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , on November 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I was in a rush yesterday to get to my weekly church gig, so I grabbed Katie May, my VHT Special 6 combo, and my small gig pedal board that had my Timmy on it, loaded up my car, and jetted off to pre-service rehearsal. The set that I picked out for yesterday had a couple of rocking pieces and I figured that when I needed dirt, I could get it from my Timmy.

Rehearsal was going great until we got to one of the songs where I needed some dirt. When I switched on the Timmy, it was about the ugliest overdrive sound that I’ve ever heard! I tried to mess around with the EQ on the amp and the pedal and Katie May, but to no avail. Then I remembered that the Special 6 doesn’t do well with overdrive pedals. It works best with a booster and making its own overdrive; and it didn’t help that Katie May already has a naturally bright and thin voicing, and the Timmy doesn’t do anything to tame that. Unfortunately, to get the Special 6 to break up, the volume would’ve been too high for church because the Special 6 has so much clean headroom, and I didn’t have my attenuator.

So I ended up just playing clean and adapted my playing to the clean tone, which actually didn’t sound too bad. But man o man, did I learn a couple of lessons:

  1. Be prepared; that is, make sure you know that the gear combination you’ve chosen is going to work BEFORE you go to the gig. Shit! I know this and normally do it, but got too pressed for time. In the future, since I now know that that combination doesn’t work, I won’t use it.
  2. As much as you might like to play a certain guitar, don’t try to force the issue by just wanting to play that one. I’m pretty attached to Katie May, but what I should’ve done was grab Amber or Ox (my Les Pauls). I know that either of them work great with that combination, and the Timmy seems to like them a lot.

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Question: Why Do You Have So Much Gear?

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on August 26, 2013| 2 Comments »

Possible Answers:

  1. 5 Years Ago – 10 Years Ago: I’m obsessed and have no self-control.
    It wasn’t a pretty sight during that time. I was spending pretty much everything on gear in my lust for finding the right tone. This coincided with my move from solid-state to tube amps.
  2. 3 Years Ago: I’ve purchased all this gear, and I’m a pack-rat and don’t want to get rid of it.
    Yeah, I sold off a couple of things, but for the most part kept pretty much everything I purchased.
  3. 1 Year Ago: Same as 3 years ago, but I’ve refined my use of different gear to different venues/situations. Instead of buying more gear to satisfy a sound that I’m hearing in my head, I look at the gear I have and see if I can get it. More often than not, I’ve found that I have gear that will meet my particular needs.

Answer 3 is how I now answer the wife… 🙂

But seriously, after buying all that gear, what I found is that some gear just works better with some rigs or venues than others – even set lists. For instance, I’m glad I have duplicates of several of my modulation pedals because some work better in a live situation, while others work better in the studio. Furthermore, some work much better with my acoustic rig, while others work better with my electric rig. As a result, I have three pedal boards. One is dedicated to acoustic and two I use for my electric rig.

On my acoustic board, I use an MXR Carbon Copy Delay, Homebrew THC Chorus and a TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb for modulation pedals. I also have a simple BOSS LoopStation RC-2 looper along with a TC Helicon VoiceLive Play GTX vocal processor.

For my electric rig, what board I use is really dependent upon how I’m feeling that day, and the amp that I’m playing. I have 10- and a 4-pedal boards. I normally only use my 4 pedal board which will include a tuner, an overdrive, a chorus, and a reverb for pretty much any amp. Occasionally, I’ll swap the reverb or chorus out for a delay pedal, or switch the overdrive out for a distortion pedal.

But occasionally I need a lot of versatility, so I’ll break out the “big” board and load it up as follows:

Lower Level – These go straight into the amp

  • BOSS TU-2 Tuner (I’ve had this forever and it still serves me well)
  • Timmy Overdrive for transparent OD
  • Another overdrive that will work the guitar/amp I’m playing that day (Could be a Tube Screamer-like, or whatever I might be in the mood for color-wise)
  • EWS Little Brute Drive (I might even have yet one more overdrive here that will be used for stacking with the Timmy)
  • VOX Big Bad Wah

Upper Level – These go into my effects loop (and all these work with any amp or guitar I have)

  • TC Electronic Corona Chorus
  • Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay
  • Hardwire Reverb
  • Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 Booster

Some might be wondering why I put a booster in the last position. I actually learned this from Mean Gene Baker. It doesn’t necessarily add much volume, but it does ensure that my power tubes get saturated.

As for guitars, I have a bunch, but really only play five of them regularly at this point. I have my trusty Yamaha APX900 acoustic, then for electrics, I use my ’58 Re-issue, ’59 Replica Les Pauls, my custom Slash L Guitars “Katie May,” and an American Deluxe Strat. I’ll occasionally take out my others, but they’re kind of in a dormant state right now…

The cool thing about having so much gear is that I have options. I’ve acquired enough that as I mentioned above, I can almost always find what I need with what I have. The net result is that even though I still dig new gear, I’m now less compelled to go out and even try it because I’ve got all I need right now. Of course, that will probably change as I explore other genres of music. But for now, I’m going to be digging into my “grab bag.”

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WTF?

Posted in Guitars, tagged , on August 26, 2013| 3 Comments »

I know, when I discuss what I’m going to discuss here, I’m probably going to sound like a broken record, but so be it. If it needs to be said, it needs to be said:

High-price doesn’t guarantee “better.” But sometimes…

Yeah, what-the-f$%k. For the most part, we gear freaks look in the more inexpensive direction, for we know that in lots of cases with gear, you can get similar or even better performance from something that costs far less than its competitors’ offerings. For instance, for Tube Screamer-like overdrives, the DigiTech Bad Monkey will give you similar performance. But where the TS will cost you in the neighborhood of $160+, the Bad Monkey will cost you all of $50 new (I got mine for $29 used in pristine condition). For that price, you can get a couple and use one as a backup just in case the first one goes south. I actually gave mine away to a kid in my band, but he still has it and uses it regularly, and that pedal’s now a few years old, so inexpensive doesn’t really mean cheaply made either…

But circling back to the “sometimes…” To get that sound that you’ve got in your head, you have to pay for it. And even if you find a “deal,” it’s still going to cost you a significant amount of money. It was that way with my Les Paul ’58 Re-issue. I got a deal in the low $2k’s, but that was still quite a bit of money. The Les Paul sound was/is unique to me. I’ve had and still have other guitars that sound “like” a Les Paul, and most people would probably never be able to tell the difference between the guitars when I play, but there’s really nothing quite as distinctive to my ears. It’s subtle for sure, but I can hear it. Most importantly, it’s a sound that inspires me, and I’m willing to pay the relatively higher price for that to get that sound.

It’s the same thing for people who buy and play a PRS. I’ve personally never gotten into the smooth tones of a PRS, but I have plenty of friends who have one as their main guitar. Their reasoning is exactly the same as mine: The sound inspires them and they’re willing to pay the price to get it.

So how does that apply to the super-expensive gear like a Dumble amp?

I suppose that if you have the means to get one and the sound appeals to you, then by all means get one. But bear in mind that if you’re getting a used one that that amp was custom-tailored for a specific player. From reading various forum posts over the years about people’s experience either playing or owning one, they’ve experienced a bit of a let-down as they didn’t get the response nor feel the magic. I got lucky in my own experience with it, as the amp I played was absolutely incredible. The dynamics were out of this world, there was a subtle high-end shimmer that I had never heard from an amp before. But despite that, ultimately, the Dumble sound wasn’t for me. I’m more of a Marshall-esque type of guy, and I found that with my Aracom amps. And having Jeff Aragaki so close by, he has tweaked my amps to my own personal preferences so that they’re custom-tailored to how I play.

But even still, discussion of a Dumble amp almost invariably evokes a “WTF” from people. Most of us just couldn’t fathom nor justify paying the price of a car for an amplifier. A Dumble amp is to guitars as Screaming Eagle is to wine. They’re both expensive, but enjoyed and praised by those who have the means to obtain them. The rest of us will just scratch our heads and say, “WTF.”

A final word though… There’s a LOT of gear on the market today; literally thousands of pedals, hundreds of types of guitars and amps. If you can’t get inspiration from the pool of gear that’s out there within your immediate reach, I don’t know what to tell you. That too is a “WTF” situation – how CAN’T you find gear? 🙂

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On American Idol and Why I Can’t Stand It

Posted in Guitars, tagged on August 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »

So I get this press release this morning that was saying how the LiveTunes iOS app is one of the top-ten music apps in Japan. LiveTunes is an interesting concept in that it adds crowd and reverb effects to simulate a song being played in a variety of venues such as a club or even a stadium. Whatever floats yer boat…

Interestingly enough, the press release tickled the cynic in me, and I started thinking about American Idol, and what it has done to/for music. Before I get into that, my cynicism was sparked by the thought that now even mediocre musicians and singers can create music, then at the touch of a button create a crowd to give themselves yet another way to keep themselves in denial that they still need work to do to EARN those crowds.

Circling back to American Idol, while the ‘Idol folks paint a picture that they’re providing a place for people to realize their dreams, and that ANYONE with a modicum of talent could become a star in just a matter of weeks (as long as they get the votes, but it’s well known that it’s fixed), I think that what it really has done is create and perpetuate a culture where people think they can somehow shortcut the path to success, similar to the get-rich-quick schemes you see on TV at 2am.

It has also emboldened thousands of people into thinking they actually have the talent to make it as a performer in the business. I’ve seen lots of evidence of this at the restaurant at which I’ve been working, now going on thirteen years. Especially when I’m playing inside at the piano, I get people who come to the piano and want to sing. Luckily, we have a policy that only employees are allowed to sing, but sometimes there are situations where they somehow are able to get on the mic. That happened last week when a server allowed the daughter of a customer to sing. I let her sing after doing a quick audition, but let the server know he had totally crossed the line.

The reason he let her sing was because she quite boldly stated that she could out-sing him after he completed one of his tunes. So, taking up the challenge, he brought her to the piano. I was a bit cornered as her entire family was looking on, so I gave her a quick audition and then let her sing. Now, she wasn’t bad, but she certainly wasn’t anything special. Thank goodness she could reasonably hold a tune. As for her being able to out-sing the server, while he’s still young and developing, the answer to that is an emphatic, “NOT!”

After she finished, I thought to myself that this is what American Idol has brought us: A bunch of people with little to mediocre talent who somehow think they have what it takes to make it. Before Idol existed, I never had people come up and ask to sing. But once it got established, it has been a fairly regular occurrence.

Now don’t get me wrong, for the winners, it’s a dream come true for sure, and I would never take that away from them. But let’s be realistic. Except for Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson who do you remember? You could argue that Clay Aiken became a success because of Idol, but really now, how many do you actually remember? Here’s one: Whatever happened to Reuben – the guy who beat Clay Aiken? Talk about a single-dimensional singer who couldn’t break out of his Teddy Pendergrass persona. Where is he?

I hope you’re beginning to see my point about all this: In the music business, as in life, for the most part, there’s no such thing as a shortcut. Some lucky ones squeak through, but most who take the shortcut are quickly forgotten, or worse, aren’t really doing much with respect to their “dream,” which is a real tragedy. And that’s my problem with American Idol. It’s a facade that gives people this false sense that they can shortcut the path to success. But real success comes from earning it. Real success comes from working at what you’re doing day in and day out perfecting your craft; giving up a lot of things that would otherwise distract you from your goals.

I look at my own little corner of the world. I’ve been performing in the area for 30 years; most regularly for the past 15. I’ve worked up enough of a following and notoriety where if I wanted, I could be gigging every night of the week. I only gig up to four nights a week, but the point to this is that I’ve earned it. My only goal musically has been to be able to have the freedom to gig as much as I can. If it’s at a local level that’s fine. If it breaks into something bigger, that would be awesome. But I have a family to support, so I’ve made certain choices about how far I actually want to take it. But for what I can put into it, I’m enjoying a very certain and very real amount of success, and to underscore what I’ve been talking about in this article, it has literally taken me years to get to where I’m at now.

Other working musicians who read this will know what I mean. They know that something truly earned is far more valuable than something won.

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Do You REALLY Have to Know HOW Something Works?

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on August 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I was looking at my web stats today, and invariably, my busiest page is my discussion on overdrive vs. distortion. I clicked on one of the referral links to my site, and saw that it pointed to a forum where folks were debating this very topic. Over the course of the threads, the subject wandered (as they often do – especially with this topic) and someone made a reference to a guitar player being likened an airplane pilot, in that the pilot needs to know how every bit of his craft works in minute detail. Another replied in disagreement that the pilot didn’t have to know HOW every piece worked; the most important thing was that they had to know HOW to use those things but really only know how they worked at a much more abstract level.

It got me thinking about my view of gear. As an engineer, I’m definitely interested in the details of how gear, like pedals, operate to produce their sound. But as a player, I frankly don’t care. I just want to know how it sounds and if I can make it fit with my rigs. For instance with an overdrive pedal, I really don’t care about the voltage levels when I turn the gain knob up or down, or whether or not the pedal uses a JRC4558D transistor and how that reacts to the voltage levels. My main concern is simply this: Does it sound good when I twiddle the knobs? I got a chuckle out of my good buddy Jeff Aragaki when we first met and he started going into technical detail about his amps. He saw my eyes glaze over. I just looked at him and said, “Dude, TMI… Your amps sound f-in’ awesome! Just keep on doin’ what you’re doin’, I’m sold!”

Yes, I do know about the internal workings of a lot of the gear I evaluate. That’s just my natural proclivity to tech stuff, plus it gives my reviews on gear more credibility. But on the other hand, there are some pieces of gear that are completely magic to me, like my hand-wired Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay. I honestly don’t know anything about the internal workings of that pedal. But I do know that it sounds so f-in’ good that I won’t use another analog delay and I don’t care about what makes it do what it does. It just does it and it makes me happy.

If I didn’t write this blog, I’d probably be blissfully ignorant of the gear that I’d buy. I’d just plug it in, and go to town and play. But alas, I write a gear blog, and it serves me and my readers well to be at least moderately technically informed.

Finally, one thing I will say is that after hanging out on gear forums for so many years, I’ve come to realize that while there are some very well-informed folks out there, I do feel that there comes a point where I almost always ask, “Do you really need to know all this stuff to play it?” I feel there’s so much focus on minutiae sometimes that it takes away from the actual purpose of the device; that is, to make music. So think about that when you engage in one of these discussions.

RAWK ON!

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Nothing Like a Road Trip

Posted in Guitars, tagged on June 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

So right now, I’m sitting in the front passenger seat of my 12-person van. The entire family – eight kids and my wife and I – are traveling down Interstate 80 East about an hour outside of Salt Lake City on our way to Denver from the Sillycon Valley, CA. We’ve been driving since 8:30 last night. I took the first shift, which lasted a little more than eight hours. I dig driving down the highway, listening to tunes, or just making up songs in my head.

About a week ago, I was dreading going on this trip because I had a really tight deadline, and was stressed out about leaving town. And even though this was going to be a half-working, half-fun vacation, I didn’t want to leave town and leave my team hanging. But I finished the major pieces of the project from my end, and all that’s left are some niggling details that are dependent upon other team members, so I can get online Monday and stitch everything together.

Getting my stuff done yesterday took a HUGE weight off my shoulders, and when I got home to pack up the van, I was jazzed to go drivin’!

Taking a road trip has always been a boon for making music. I only take my acoustic with me, and spend my free time wherever we might stay, just sitting back and playing. It’s that aimless, musical meandering that has given me some of my best ideas. But I don’t woodshed on these trips. The point is to break the routine and simply enjoy. If an idea comes to me, great. If not, I’ll just play from my wide repertoire of cover songs. But the point is to play.

Of course, since I’m on a “working” vacation, I don’t really have as much time to play as I’d like, but with the time I have, it’ll be spent sipping a cold one with my wife and/or eldest son, and enjoying life; playing guitar just for the joy of it. Doing just that helps to remind me of why I play guitar and perform in the first place. With as many gigs I do each year, it’s easy to lose sight of why I do it. Yeah, the money’s great, and I get paid pretty well for being somewhat of an “unknown.” But more importantly, I play simply because I love to play, and trips such as the one I’m on right now help me remember that.

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How the Heck Did I End Up Here?

Posted in Guitars, tagged on June 24, 2013| 5 Comments »

If you’re in music or aspiring to be in the music biz and you’re not reading the “Lefsetz Letter,” you should. It’s free. Sign up at lefsetz.com to receive Bob’s posts in your inbox. After so many years writing about the music industry, Bob’s hooked up, and so many of observations are so spot-on, it’s a little scary.

For me, I don’t really have many aspirations on “making it” in the industry. I’m totally satisfied doing my 150-200 gigs a year (though it’ll be a lot less this year because of my hip replacement). As for the music that I write, it’s a work in progress. Some of it’s pretty good, most of it is mediocre, and I don’t really have a genre. I write what I write and that’s what I write. 🙂

But one thing Bob said in his most recent post really struck me. Here it is:

PERSEVERANCE IS KEY

Never quit.

And isn’t it interesting that the people who say they won’t quit do, and those who continue keepin’ on just do so silently. Perseverance is a skill, too often untaught in today’s instant gratification world. Greatness comes from frustration. If you haven’t lost sight of the destination, you’re on the wrong road.

Those last two lines sum it all up for me and my own life. As a musician, I’ve experienced some great success – albeit local. But where I’ve really experienced success is in my career as a software engineer. Somewhere along the line, while I didn’t lose my passion for making music, I developed a passion for creating great software.

Look, I think about music 24/7. I’ve always got tune ideas going through my head. But in a way, I’ve lost my way in my musical journey. I know that I could perhaps get lucky with one of my or maybe even some of my songs, but realistically, I don’t put enough time into getting my music out there so it can be discovered. I post it where I post it, and if people discover it, great. And I’m okay with that. On the other hand, I’ve built a solid career in software engineering, and to me, as far as that’s concerned, the sky’s the limit.

No, I haven’t settled with respect to my music. I just got sidetracked a bit. Moreover, doing music has never been about getting a record contract for me. It has always been about performing and playing. You see, I haven’t given up on music at all. I’ve just adjusted my delivery.

Admittedly, several years ago, I was frustrated that I couldn’t spend enough time honing my music writing skills. But I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I’ve surrendered to the fact that the path I’ve chosen with my life has led me to where I’m at now. I’m happy to be able to gig as much as I do. I’m happy creating songs, even if I don’t “make it” in the industry. As I tell the young musicians and singers with whom I work in my church band, “You wanna be good at this? Play as much as you can, and keep on playing. That’s the only way you develop. You can’t get it from any books or any class. Music is all about application.”

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