Category: Guitar

Quarantine Tunes Again

I was going to save up all of the re-recordings I’ve been working on and share them all at once rather than piecemeal as I finish them, but screw it here’s the first new mix. It’s a tad faster than the original from July, and it’s got a key change at the end now.

How I Spent My Day Off

Here’s what I did on my day off:

  • Car music
  • Sat at my computer watching Futurama on Hulu.
  • Ended today’s fast 90 minutes early
  • Played some guitar
  • Sat at my computer watching Futurama on Hulu.
  • Mixed a song.
  • Cooked dinner.

This list is accurate but it fails to emphasize just how much Futurama was watched.

I mean… I watched a shit-load of Futurama today.

Nutube: Totally Not a Gimmick

I had a little window of time in between Jen’s scheduled meetings so I snuck in some guitar tracking for the November tunes. I put rhythm on song number five and leads on songs one and two.

I am still sticking to the plan to use my little Vox MV50 Clean amp for all of November, even though it’s sitting on top of a Fender Bassbreaker 15 which at it’s worst sounds about 10000000000 times better than the little Vox dude. Still, Nutubes… The MV50’s preamp section runs on a Nutube and Nutubes totally are not a gimmick. Right? Right? I mean there are only two (maybe three, but I’m pretty sure it’s down to two) factories on Earth that still make actual vacuum tubes and if the guitar community wants to continue having that glorious tube amp sound we have to prepare ourselves for the day that we can’t get the real thing anymore… and Nutubes are as close as we can get at the moment, assuming they are not a total gimmick that is just a façade in front of a regular plain old solid state amp. So many questions… so very many questions.

Anyway, the little MV50’s are at least cute to look at, and the Nutubes give off a warm glowing blue warming glow…

Also, playing anything gives me an excuse for lame, faux artsy guitar pics. Today we made use of the iPhone’s portrait mode. Like a telephone photography boss.

Plans for Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Veterans Day and I have the day off. How should I spend the day?

Car music in the morning is a must. I have three November songs ready and three re-recordings ready too. There is zero chance I’ll get to them all, but I should be able to make a dent at least.

There are guitar parts to record too. Jen is working so I’ll try to work around her meetings schedule, but I’ll get some stuff down, definitely.

What else? Should I spontaneously drive to Vermont and take the kids to lunch again? No, but I wish!

I’ll think of some more stuff too, but this makes a decent start.

Rock on.

Two Days in a Row

The guitar was played today. That’s two days in a row. Glorious.

Yesterday I worked on four songs for the November Music thing. Today I worked on two songs for the re-recording thing. I wasn’t very good, but I didn’t suck too much. That was nice.

Okay, time to go cook dinner for the love of my life and then maybe do something else. She’s working today and I did a little cleaning to go along with the guitar playing and there is some stuff in the works for the cellar and shhhh I can’t tell anyone yet but shhhhh stop talking about it you moron.

Walking Dead spin offs tonight. Hate watch Fear then actually watch World Beyond? Yeah, I might do that. Or I might not. I don’t know. I’m sure when the hate watch starts I’ll post a bitch-fest post or two. Ya’ll have that to look forward too.

Rock and roll, zombified boys and girls.

Rats

As mentioned yesterday, I put the Rat clone back on the board… because I am ridiculously easy to influence via YouTube videos… ummmm… Let’s just hope I don’t start watching flat Earth or anti-vax videos or anything.*

Note the drive is set pretty low! Inspiration!

Sorry, Aaron Rogers types. I’m dumb, but I ain’t that dumb.

Pedal Board Change is Coming

This week’s episode of That Pedal Show is once again forcing* me to change things in the bedroom recording nook. They keep doing this to me!

The topic is using overdrive pedals in a band setting and it didn’t really teach me anything I didn’t already know. The what not to do examples were things that I used to do all the time, and the what you should do examples were things that I have decided were good ideas over the last 6-7 years or so. I guess I’m like Fredo Corleone. I’m smart.

Nope, what got into my head was just one of the pedals they used for the demonstration. They were using a Rat. Last year I bought a decent Rat clone. It’s on the table next to my desk but tomorrow it’s totally going on the board and getting used on some November Music stuff.

Inspiration, babie!

*Ain’t nobody forcing me to do jack. It’s just inspiration. Oodles of inspiration.

Attenuating

I think it was yesterday that I posted something about messing with the attenuator settings on my Vox MV50 Clean, the amp I’m using for this month’s demos.

It has three settings; 50 watts, 5 watts, and 0.5 watts. I usually use 0.5 but today I turned the volume knob way down and tried five watts.

I want to say it sounded better, but I only played for a short time and I kept things mostly clean and quiet.

I’ll try it again with some dirt and some serious signal boost into the front of the amp and see how the little Nutube (which totally is not a gimmick) responds.

I’ll let you all know how it goes.