Category: Guitar

Recording Studio

What do you think of my recording studio?

Gibson SG standard into Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini into Vox MV50 Clean into IK Multimedia iRig split into iPad Air running GarageBand and an old pair of Bose headphones.

The only downside is the crew working on the bay window in the living room unplugged our router so my iPhone is now my only source of internet. Oh well.

Last Day Before Windows

The window replacement team is coming tomorrow. Today is the last day to get the house ready for them. Can I get it all done?

You bet your sweet ass I can.

The kitchen, dining room, and living room are all set. The entire exterior of the house is all set too. Today I’ll handle the bathroom, the bedroom, and Jen’s office. Beyond that, all I need to do is go to the pet store and pick up a huge bag of cat food, and maybe go somewhere to replace Jen’s coffee maker. Before I do anything I’ll need to finish breakfast (one serving of Brown and Serve frozen sausages. Yummy. Also, I need to finish watching the final episode of Star Wars Rebels. 19 minutes to go. I am a little embarrassed by how quickly I burned through this four season rewatch. Like… it’s alarming how nerdy I am.

One small change to the music project plan that I hope to work on over the next couple of days. I was going to use my Keeley Super Phat Mod overdrive pedal (which is a clone of a modified Boss Blues Driver) but I was just looking at the little pile of gear next to my desk and I saw my Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini pedal sitting there and I decided to use that puppy instead. I think I am going to use the Gibson SG for all of this too. SG->Tube Screamer->Vox MV50. That’s a signal chain that’s made up of all things that aren’t usual go to’s. Next month will be Les Paul->King of Tone->Deluxe Reverb and that signal chain could be worthy of gigs. We’ll see.

Right. The Rebels finale has reached the Deus Ex Machina moment. I know I’ve watched this before but I have zero memory of it. Weird. It’s almost time to get to work. The bedroom and the office are going to suck, but I’ll get it done.

Windows tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to all of this being finished.

Possible April Music Plan

I haven’t done much for the record every month thing this month. I have a couple of less than good ideas in GarageBand on my iPad but they aren’t really worth pursuing. What should I do? I might have a plan for something to force some music out of me.

I am off work on Monday and Tuesday. We are having new windows installed on those days and I took them off so that I could be available to the crew doing the work if they need anything. Other than letting them into the house, I can’t imagine I will have much to do so I have been planning on hanging out in the cellar (or if the weather is nice, maybe on the patio in the backyard) watching Star Wars Rebels (I’m a smidge over half way through my rewatch) and The X-Files. Maybe I should plan to use those two days for music.

I also recently bought a new iRig so that I can run my guitar into my iPad again. Maybe to shake things up I could restrict myself to GarageBand on my iPad instead of mostly using it on my MacBook Pro. That could be fun. Maybe I could further restrict things by using the cab sim on my Vox MV50 and using that for an amp. That way I could use an amp and not be super loud and annoying while the window folks are working upstairs. That could be fun too. I’d probably also restrict myself to a single overdrive pedal. I tried doing that in February with the Keeley Super Phat Mod (the one pedal that I want to really love but somehow cannot bond with) before switching to the Chicago Stompworks Blooze Maker.

I wouldn’t be able to pull off an album in a day thing, but maybe I could try to do an album in two days? I’d have to record vocals in the car on Tuesday morning before the window people arrive. Maybe I could just plan to do as much music as possible over the two days and then finish off whatever I don’t get to afterwards. I don’t know.

I think a plan has been formed. Let’s see if I can actually follow it and pull anything off. Maybe I could spend two days working on my iPad, and then take any music that I manage to finish and redo it on the MacBook and end up with two different versions of each song. I did that once back in 2014 where I did an album in June with each song mixed on the iPad and the MacBook. Huh… maybe.

Let’s see what happens.

B-Side

The second of two songs for March is complete. I guess. The vocals are atrocious and the whole thing feels kinda blah. The song is okay, I just didn’t play it very well. It could use a little editing and a little… enthusiasm? Maybe? It’s fine for a B-Side. The other song is much better.