Category: Guitar

Ancient Pedal

I added some pedals to the little “board” in my bedroom recording nook. Pardon the dust in the photos:

The little blue Blooze Maker has been in and out of this signal chain. I like using it to push the Ryra, but not when the Ryra is pushing anyone else. The little gold guy is a very cheap Chinese copy of an MXR Phase 90 that I bought years ago when I wanted to have the cheapest possible stay at home setup. That only lasted as long as it took me to start upgrading stuff on the band board. Then I had higher end stuff staying at home and this little guy went into a box in the cellar. I could have pulled the actual Phase 90 off the band board, which is in the cellar waiting for the band to start playing again, but I decided I didn’t want to mess with that setup right now so I put the cheap copy into the chain.

What’s that little black pedal there though… that’s one we probably haven’t ever seen.

That, my friends is the first delay pedal I ever purchased. I can’t for the life of me remember when I purchased it, but I’m pretty sure it was in the early 90’s. It was very late in 1990 when everything I had was stolen so it had to have been after that. I think it might have been almost immediately after that. I’m just not sure. I don’t know if it works or not. When I plugged it in and switched it on the little red light lit up, so it’s gotten that far. I haven’t played through it yet. We’ll have to see what happens.

Now I just need to actually play. Not sure if that is going to happen tonight. If not, then hopefully tomorrow. We’ll see.

New Music Project?

I’ve been thinking about a new music project, but the idea is pretty lame and I am waffling back and forth on whether to do it or not.

It is unofficially called Quarantine Tunes Volume 50/90. The idea is to make some mostly minor changes to some of the better songs from the summer and work them into what passes for an album for me. In other words, slightly better sounding demoes that don’t involve any cutting and pasting.

I picked ten songs. Four of them are pretty decent, the others are okay I guess. Last night I listened through them all and took notes on what little changes I want to try. Today I started messing with the first of the ten. I used the same GarageBand file I used back in July but I replaced the drummer and the bass tracks with brand new takes. The bass part is free of all cut and paste. I will eventually redo every guitar and vocal track as well and then do a whole new mix.

The question that remains is this: How long is this idea going to hold my interest. I suspect not for long.

One Day Down

The Facebook bookfayce exile has lasted more than 24 hours. One day down, six(?) to go. I reached for the phone to check for notifications two or three times and just put it straight down. Nope. No bookfayce there.

I say six days to go, but do I mean it? As in… is it six days or one eternity? I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. I am classifying this as a temporary experiment, but if I feel okay at the end of a week I will just continue to stay away.

Forever though… can I do it forever? Probably not. When the band starts up again we are going to be communicating through Facebook messenger. At least we always have in the past and I don’t think I can Spartacus all four of us into a revolution. I think I am at least going to be using Messenger. After that, what about gigs? I am going to have to play the promotional game. Not that promoting the band on Facebook ever had any real results in the past. You just do it because it’s there, right?

All of this talk is making me want to get the band together. Nope. Not until (at the very least) my house has it’s booster shot. Even that is probably not enough to lighten the Covid-19 lockdown rules. We’ll have to see. We are taking it seriously here. Still. Very serious. Still.

Speaking of guitar… when the new Klon KTR circuits hit the stores, I am getting one. I just want to state that publicly. My Ryra The Klone pedal is awesome, but when the new KTR comes out I am going to replace it with the new redesigned KTR. You heard it here first, babie.

Done… more

I posted yesterday that the 50/90 shit was done. That was sort of true. I hit the 50 song goal and, as mentioned earlier, deleted my account. I’m done with that site. I wasn’t really done with the project though. I still had two songs to mix. I mixed them tonight. Now I’m finished, finished. If you catch my drift.

I made at least an attempt at 50/90 every year since 2013. I finished in 2014 with 50 songs. I didn’t finish again until Covid let me finish it in 2020 when I had 51 songs. Now this year I have finished for a third time with 52 songs. Setting the bar incrementally higher, or some nonsense.

Now it’s back to the Record Every Month thing from the RPM Challenge site. I haven’t been submitting songs over the last few months, but I have still been participating. I have at least one song written and recorded in it’s entirety for every month since March. I need to put together a playlist on Alonetone that acts as an official list, and then use a second playlist for all the extra stuff I did each month. Yeah, that’s a plan.

So we’re back at it on October 1st. See you then!

Booster

I am not yet quite qualified to get a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot. I have to wait a couple of weeks, I think.

I really want it. I really want it.

I want my band to get back together. The whole writing/recording demoes thing is starting to get old. I need to play loud with three friends who are playing along at a similarly loud volume.

I need a shave. I need to play live music. I need a booster shot. I need to delete Facebook. I just decided a few minutes ago that I am going to experiment with a full week away from the bookfayce. I am going to delete it from my iPhone and my iPad and close the tabs on my computers that I keep open. Hold on, give me a second… Okay, it’s off my phone and my iPad and it’s no longer open on this computer. Let’s give it seven days and see how disconnected and awful I feel. Conversely, I could say to give it seven days and see how less depressing life seems. Seven days without nazis. Well… I’m not deleting Twitter yet, so there are still nazis to piss me off.

When did this booster shot post turn into an anti-facebook post? I don’t know, but I still want the booster so… there’s that.

Okay, back to work.

48 Songs Down

I’ve mixed two songs today. Here’s the second one (the first one really sucks… I mean, this one sucks too, but the first one… woah, it sucked).

I have one more song ready to mix and three that need one more guitar track before they are ready to mix. I don’t know if I will finish this shit show tonight or tomorrow or what, but I am nearly willing to place small wagers on being done some time tomorrow.

I am going to take a break from it for now and go do the laundry and clean the cat’s litter box and take out the trash. After that… I don’t know. I’m pretty sick of this whole project now. At least there aren’t any signs of anyone Fucking With My Stuff Without Permission today. I’ll take that as a win.

46 Songs Down

46 songs down, that’s 92% of the way to a complete 50/90. Yippee.

Here’s one of them. If this sounds punky to me, does that imply that this is what punky sounds like to people who don’t understand what punky sounds like?

I have three more songs that are ready to mix. That brings me to 49. After that there are three songs that need lead guitar tracks and then a mix. That will bring me to 52 and most likely to the end of this year’s 50/90 story. After that I will probably just delete my account because one guy Fucked With My Stuff Without Permission and now I just don’t give a shit about the entire site.

Don’t Touch My Stuff

The folks who will be installing our new water heater are here. Work is underway. Please, oh gods of plumbing and water heating, allow this to be Lake Asshole’s (more recently known as Bucket Asshole) final day. Oh please, oh please. Thank you.

I mixed another song while I was waiting for them to get here this morning. Song number 44 of an expected 52.

50/90 is officially not fun anymore. At least the 50/90 website portion of the project. Last night while I slumbered someone commented on the song I posted before I went to bed suggesting that he could remaster it for me and asking if that would be okay. Then without ever getting a response he remastered it and posted a link to it.

Ummmm… No.

I know we’re all amateurs and trying to get better at what we do and all of those good things, but Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Fuck With My Stuff Without Permission. It’s really that simple. I made all of my song links private so no one can get to them but me. 99.999% of the people I’ve dealt with have been wonderful and supportive and the few comments I get are always great, but one guy had to Fuck With My Stuff Without Permission and just utterly ruined the whole experience for me.

I plan to keep posting songs there as private so that I get the little trophy next to my name, but that’s it. If I play the game again next year I will probably do it alone, without using the website at all.