Category: Music

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 27

The mailman came today.  He brought a letter that was obviously junk.  It had the most ridiculously official sounding yet utterly meaningless name on the return address.  I was going to write something that made fun of it.  I figured I’d cover my ass and Google it first and… it is an actual Federal agency.  It is something that is some how related to the Coast Guard, if the two links I read were accurate.  The letter was totally bullshit and fake as fake can be, but knowing there is a real agency took all the fun out of it for me.

I just logged into my 12:00 Zoom meeting only to realize it is a 2:00 meeting, not 12:00.  Did you know that 12:00 and 2:00 are different things?  Crazy!

Now that the April Bonus Edition RPM Challenge is over, the powers that be are putting on an online listening party.  Everyone who finished the project submitted a song.  You can listen to it all right now at this link.  It’s all live and stuff.  Well, the broadcast is live, but the music is recorded.

I sure hope they don’t play my song because my song is Lame with a capital Lame.

 

Decibel Levels

I just did an experiment with the two amps I have in my bedroom right now.

I plugged into the Bassbreaker 15 with the same setup I used for lead guitars on the April music projects.  I had the free decibel meter app on my phone running.  I hit the mid 90’s a couple of times.  The average was in the high 80’s.

I then switched to the Bassbreaker 18/30 with no pedals.  I started on the 18 watt channel, which I used for the February music.  I lowered the volume all the way and then slowly raised it until I actually got a steady, consistent sound out of it.  The decibel meter was showing high 90’s and low 100’s.  It peaked at 103.

Well, there goes that idea.  I did the same thing on the 30 watt channel and it was averaging higher but the peak was only 104.  Regardless, With all the headroom that amp has, when I plugged in my pedal board the volume level was absolutely going to go up.  I could try to set everything at unity gain, but why bother.  I shut the 18/30 off and went back to the 15.  This time with all the pedals.  There is a distinct possibility that I might do this whole month with just the Klon KTR for gain.  I’ll have the Fulltone OCD and the Wren and Cuff Tri Pi 70 there if I need it, but that KTR is just perfect all by it’s lonesome.

One thing I might do different though is I might put the small amp on top of the big amp.  with it sitting on the floor I can’t quite get the mic stand low enough to get the mic in front of a good place on the speaker.  If I put the 15 on top of the 18/30 I won’t have that problem.

We’ll see.

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May Gear

I finished my April music project last night so obviously I’m sitting here thinking about what gear to use for May.

In February I used all three of my Gibson guitars, both Bassbreaker amps, and my full Lizardfish gigging pedal board.  Basically I used everything I had in the house.  In March I restricted myself to just the SG and the 15 watt amp.  No pedals.  It was awful (not really, just being an overly dramatic pedal nerd).  For April it was the 15 watt amp for everything with the SG and the low gain side of the D&M Drive for rhythm parts and the Les Paul and the high gain side of the D&M for leads.

I think I might be tired of overly restricting myself.  For May I want to use the gigging pedal board again.  I miss my wah pedal.  For the amp… I don’t think I can get the 18/30 watt Bassbreaker to play quiet enough to not annoy the crap out of everyone in the house.  I might try it though.  I think I might plan to use the 30 watt channel until someone complains, then switch to the 18 watt channel until someone complains, then switch back to the 15 watt amp.  Either that or I’ll just use the 15 watt amp.  I’m starting to really miss my Deluxe Reverb.  It’s at Mike’s house and it would sure be fun to play with right now.

I’m going to have to change my strings on both guitars at some point too.  Yikes.

April Tracking is Done

Tracking for the April Bonus RPM Challenge is done.  Sort of.  I have seven songs mixed and complete and three more ready to mix.  I say sort of because there is an 11th song.  It has a melody and lyrics but I didn’t record the vocals and frankly I’m not gonna.  If time allows I am going to record the melody with a guitar (or two… or three) and call it an instrumental.

For now though, I have everything I need to finish the COVID-19 RPM Bonus Challenge thingie.

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From Bad to Worse

I’m not a good singer.  We all know that.  I know it more than anyone because… well… it’s me, you know?

This morning I took my MacBook and a microphone and an audio interface and drove over to the mall and found a parking spot and started singing…

It wasn’t my usual bad…

It was so much worse.

So. Much. Worse.

I had six songs ready to go but I only got to five of them.  The last song was a bonus.  I only needed five more to get to the required 10.  When I finished the fifth song my battery was low, my throat hurt from yelling, my bladder was full (TMI, and not actually related to singing), and my brain was fried, so I went home.  Song #11 will probably be dropped.  Maybe.

At some point tonight I’ll start lead guitars and then I’ll start mixing and then April will be finished and it will be time to start thinking about May.

April Music Lives Again

I went three whole days without doing any work on the April Bonus RPM Challenge.  I had four songs needing lyrics and those plus two others needing vocals and leads.  I was stuck on the lyrics.  On Monday I was able to come up with a melody for song number eight but I was coming up dry for words.  Each night on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I set aside time in my schedule to try again and ended up doing something else.

That changed last night.  I finished #8 and picked off #9.  Today I did the same for #’s 10 and 11.  All the lyrics are done and I have a melody for everything.  That means tomorrow…

Singing in the car, babie!

The music is alive once more!