Category: Guitar

Neglecting My Responsibilities

I really do have work I want to do tonight. Really.

So what did I do?

i added rhythm guitars to two songs. That puts me up to 10, which is good. I also put lead guitars on two of the songs I put vocals on this morning. I still haven’t completed anything for 50/90, but I do have two songs ready to mix. Progress.

Light Dawns on Musical Head

Holy crap, did I just figure something out?

When I record guitars in my bedroom there is a ton of extraneous ground hum coming through my amps. I always put it down to using too many pedals and too many cables and all that, but back in March I recorded using just one amp and no pedals and still had a lot of noise. I didn’t think it was my amp, I just thought there was something else going on.

It literally just dawned on me what it is! It’s the overhead lights in the room!

When I record in my little guitar nook I have the laptop running on battery. I’m one plug short of being able to cover everything I need, so battery it is. I was just thinking to myself that maybe it’s time to get an adapter with two plugs so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. The plug closest to where I sit now has my USB audio interface in one socket and a lamp in the other. I thought, I could just unplug the lamp while I record and plug it back in when I’m done because I usually turn on the super bright overhead lights and that’s when it hit me.

The overhead lights are on a dimmer switch. Hot Damn, why didn’t I think of that? Dimmer switches are the noisiest bastards in the electrical world (I don’t know if that’s true or not, but lets just go with it) and they are the bane of many a professional recording studio’s existence! Also, there are three lamps in the room that all have smart bulbs. I bet those kids are noisy as hell too! I bet if I turn off all the lights I won’t have as much 60 cycle hum coming through my amplifiers! I bet!

I mean, I’m probably wrong, but who cares! I feel smart right now, just let me enjoy it for a while.

50/90 Day 12 Update

I suppose it’s time for a 50/90 update. Let’s do some math, shall we?

July 4th through October 1st. 90 days over three months.

90 songs in three months means 16.67 songs per month. Thanks for coming out even, stupid math. So at the minimum, two of the three months need 17 songs and one needs 16. Since July starts on the 4th instead of the 1st, July is the shortest month, therefore logically July should be the month that only needs 16 songs.

Math is hard.

As of bed time last night I have 16 songs in progress. All of them have the song form set, half of them have very badly performed guitar parts recorded, none of them have lyrics or melody yet, and all of them pretty much suck so far.

But….

I am on the minimum pace.

I want to record some guitars tonight, and I’m hoping that by the time the weekend is over there will be some vocals down too. We’ll see. That might be a tall order.

I also feel that I should warn you, faithful readers (he said like he was Stephen freakin’ King or something) that a few minutes ago I started on what could be the nerdiest project I have ever undertaken… and that’s saying something.

Jen and I have become a little weirdly obsessed with candles during our four month lock down. All through our work days we both have a candle or two (or three) burning near our desk. I don’t really know why, and I don’t think she does either, but we do.

This morning when I lit my desk candles I started taking a time lapse video of one of them. I pointed my iPad at a candle, started recording, and lit the bastard. I was planning to let it run for an hour or so out of fear that the battery wouldn’t last for much longer than that. As I was writing this though, I found a lightning cable long enough to plug my iPad in without moving it from it’s video-ing location.

It is possible that I could take a full 8-9 hour long time lapse video of this candle. Oh. My. Nerd. Hopefully I don’t accidentally knock over the iPad or something. Knowing me like I do, I’ll probably do something stupid to screw this up and spare you, faithful readers, from my epic nerdness.

We shall see.

A Pedal Junkie’s First

There are guitar pedals that I covet that are no longer in production that cost a small fortune that I would love to get my mitts on, but given the cost I would never actually consider.

That’s a common occurance (looking at you, vintage EHX Electric Mistress, and Triangle Big Muff, and Klon Centaur, and a bunch more).

Today I put a new twist on this for the first time. I looked around for a certain pedal that I know is out of production, but the used market is not out of control at all. It’s a Keeley 1962, or a 1962x. I’ve got a hankering for that Blues Breaker style pedal and I still have a year or more to suffer through the Analogman King of Tone waiting list, and I was hoping to get something cheaper than a Wampler Pantheon, and I refuse to do business with JHS (Google it). I’ve seen Keeley 1962 pedals for less than the Pantheon, so I went looking today.

Nothing.

I found one for sale on ebay from a seller in Japan.

For the first time in my internet shopping pedal junkie existence… I have been denied.

Damn!

Music Project Confusion

I know that embedded player isn’t going to work but I put it there anywhere because I think it’s nice to look at.

Eight songs for 50/90 underway but a long way from finished. My question is… do I put my focus into 50/90, into sticking with 10 songs per month and telling 50/90 to go get bent, or do I put my focus into Quarantine Tunes Volume 2?

I. Don’t. Know.

I spent some time before work looking at the songs I have marked for volume 2. Okay, back story. When I first started The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project back in (you guessed it) 2015, there were 10 songs on the list. Each year as I tried to restart the abandoned project I added a few songs. When I started this year I was at 21. None of them more recent than 2016 (I think). For some reason I wanted to go with eight songs per volume so I added in three more recent songs to bring the total up to 24. Most of those 24 haven’t been started yet. Of the eight I have planned for volume 2, three will be from scratch, the other five were started at some point along the line over the past five years.

Today, before work, the second guessing started. I was looking at the songs I have marked for volumes 3 and 4, there was one that I couldn’t remember. I dug it out of my alonetone account and liked it. It was from June 2014. I knew there was another June ’14 song on the list so I took a listen to a couple of others… and they were good. It made me question the universe.

I know that my 2013 RPM Challenge went better than most. My 2016 RPM Challenge also went better than most. The 2014 50/90 had some extra good stuff too. Apparently I should be including June 2014 in the list of good ones. So what, do I drop some songs and replace them with June 2014 songs? Do I start planning volume five? I. Don’t. Know.

I don’t want to abandon the album in a month per month thing I’ve been doing for five months now. I don’t really want to abandon 50/90 either. I don’t want to abandon the great re-recording either, but I don’t want it to dominate everything else and as it stands right now it is.

Crud.

You know what? Weekly Lizardfish practices would be better than any of this shit.

Screw you, Coronavirus.

Amateur

Look at me with pedals on the floor like some kind of freakin’ amateur.

Two songs were added to the 50/90 pipeline this morning. That makes eight, all with rhythm guitars recorded. I’m going lo-fi this time, sort of like I did back in March. No doubling. This time I have two amps though so I can pan one left and one right and still keep the bass in the middle. Fascinating.

I have also finished tracking volume 1 of the Great 2015 Re-Recording Project. I put the lead guitars onto the last of the eight songs. It only took five years! I’ll try to mix it tonight, but a crappy night’s sleep last night might get in the way of that.

Most important, my new Crybaby wah pedal is working. It wasn’t for the last couple of days. I thought I broke the switch. It worked fine when it was on, but when it was “off” the wah was still engaged, there was just maybe 1% of the signal coming through. I took it off the board on Thursday so I could get some work done. Today I put a battery in it (because when I tried to power it with my daisy chain it sounded awful) and messed with it.

The problem was still there. I remembered that there’s a switch inside to change from true bypass to buffered bypass. I figured since the bypass is the problem, maybe I could change that? Nope, didn’t fix it. I kept the buffer on. I know buffers are like bad words to most guitar gear nerds, but I prefer the way the wah sounds when there’s a buffer in the signal. What can you do.

So it’s not the bypass, maybe it is the switch? I flipped it a few times with my hand, maybe it’s stuck on something? Worst case scenario is I send it back to get it fixed and probably also buy something a little meatier than a Dunlop. Something boutique and expensive. I don’t know… that switch… One more try… I stomped on the pedal… really hard. Problem solved. Oh jeeze, Edith.

Hard Songs are Hard

I did two rhythm guitar parts for 50/90 today. One was the one I did a couple of days ago that was too fast for me. I slowed the tempo and re-recorded the part. The other song was the only song in the pipeline that I hadn’t gotten to yet. There are only six songs. That’s not enough on day seven.

I also did one of the two remaining re-recording project songs. I don’t think I purposely saved the two hard songs for last, but it looks like it ended up that way. The one that’s done isn’t very good. The other one was only just started but I scrapped the little bit I did and will go back to it after taking a break.

Hard songs are hard to play.