I’m still pretty upset over the whole laggy GarageBand shit from earlier so here are a couple of leftover Les Paul pics from this morning.
May your home recording setup fare better than mine, said the sad faced red head.
Still Sad
Tag: Gibson
Music… Finally
It’s been almost two months since the last time I played guitar. I’ve been so wrapped up in rediscovering my camera obsession that I’ve nearly forgotten about my guitar obsession.
Now that the weather is starting to get cold and I’m running out of places I want to try to take pictures, it’s time to dive back into the music. With five days left in September, I am clearly not going to pull off an album this month. I might pull off a single though. I wrote two really simple song ideas today. Music will happen, if it kills me.
Given the situation though, it might be safe to expect the bombardment of post-playing guitar pictures will be from the DSLR so the image quality (though not the megapixel count) could be improved. Here’s hoping, at least.
Greeny
I learned today that Gibson is finally going to sell a replica of Peter Green’s 1959 Les Paul. I read they are only going to make 50 of them and I have to assume the price will be somewhere in the six figures. Maybe if I sell all of my blood or something I might be able to afford one.
1959 Les Pauls are generally considered the best Les Pauls, and many believe that Green’s ’59 is the best ’59.
When Green left Fleetwood Mac in 1970 he sold Greeny to Gary Moore for whatever money Moore happed to have in his pocket. Moore used it throughout his whole career (pretty sure the god-like, epic solo on “Still Got the Blues” was played on Greenie). If I follow the story correctly, and I could be wrong, when Moore’s health started to fail he sold Greenie to a collector. I’m not 100% sure of that, but that’s what I heard. Eventually someone offered it to Metalica’s Kirk Hammett for a sum of money that I once heard him refer to as not as much as you’d expect, but I gotta imagine it was pretty vast.
There is a flaw in Greenie that gives it its unique sound. The polarity of the magnet in the neck pickup is reversed so when you use both pickups together they are out of phase. I once heard Gary Moore tell a story of a guitar tech who “fixed it” for him without realizing that it was the source of the magic. Obviously Mr Moore flipped out and made the tech put it back the way it was. Fortunately the Magic was still there.
I think I am going to go listen to “Still Got the Blues” while daydreaming about owning one of the copies.
Guitars on Film
When worlds collide.
Oh yeah, there’s that film Instagram too, in case I haven’t mentioned it in the last four minutes…….
More Guitar
I played guitar this morning before work, and I played guitar tonight after work. My finger tips are burning agony. My kingdom for some calluses!
I am so happy my Deluxe Reverb is home. I am so happy!
Together at Last
I haven’t had my breakfast yet, but I did play guitar for an hour. I put rhythm parts onto two faux 50/90 songs.
For the first time ever, my new favorite guitar played through my favorite amp and it was glorious.
Well… the second song was glorious. The playing was sloppy as hell but the tone was epic. The first song… I might want to try that one again. It’s sounds good, but I think I can get it to sound better.
My Amp is Home
No, I didn’t play it, but I did set it up so I can play it later. I don’t know when I will get the chance, but soon.
New Les Paul, meet the Deluxe Reverb that has been away for 2.5 years. You guys are going to have some fun together. The pedal board that you can almost see in this photo will also change. I brought home what I used to call the stay-at-home pedal board that I also left at the band’s rehearsal space back in January 2020 (irony). I want to take two pedals and the power supply off of that board and add them to my current home recording board. Once that’s done I will be ready to get back to work on the fifty songs thing.
Oh happy day.
Planning and Postscript
Two things. First, weather.com says it is going to be sunny in the morning. I am going to try to get up around sunrise and go find a place in the city to take some film photo tests. Maybe just downtown before everything opens. Maybe the cemetery near the railroad station. Maybe the castle ruins. Maybe something else. I don’t know, but I want to do it and I only want to bring dad’s film camera. We’ll see what (if anything) happens.
Second, In regards to the previous post, Jen read an article tonight saying that people recovering from Gastric Bypass surgery probably should not try to eat broccoli until after three months or so. Something about the fiber causing food to get stuck. Well then I’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but I do feel perfectly fine at the moment. No worries.
Bonus third topic. I am in the middle of a third straight photo a day project thingie on Flickr. Every day for two years and nine months I have taken a picture with my iPhone. As of now, 9:14pm, I have not taken a picture with my iPhone. The streak lives, however, because I have taken a picture with my D90 and it’s on Flickr. The streak continues, babie!
Ain’t she sweet?
A Little Better
I went back and tried to redo the picture of the guitar from the previous post. I did this in manual mode on my DSLR. Inside the camera, I had the aperture set to f/5.3 and the shutter set to 10. The ISO was set to 400 because that was the speed of the film I had in Dad’s camera.
The EXIF data in Flickr mostly matches, but where I would expect to see a shutter speed it gives an Exposure of 1/10. The too dark pic on the previous post was in Aperture priority mode, I think. This pic was in manual mode. The too dark pic was f5.0 and Exposure 1/30. Does that mean the shutter was 30? I don’t know. I think it might be time for me to finally start paying attention to these values. I’ll also note that I don’t think Dad’s camera can match these settings exactly, but I am hoping my camera can match what Dad’s camera does. I guess.
Anyway, this one looks pretty good to me. Not great, but pretty good.
Straight In
I played a little today. Nothing serious. I just plugged straight into an amp and noodled. I did do a small experiment. I am thinking of taking my Vox AC15 to the next Lizardfish practice (whenever that might be) but I have never really pushed the volume. Is it loud enough to compete with the rest of the band? More importantly, if I get it up to band practice volume, is the tone still clean?
I dimed the master volume and then brought the channel volume up a little at a time. I got up to 92 decibels (according to my AppleWatch) and it was still clean as a bell. The band does get louder than that, but my channel volume (I was using the amp’s Normal channel, not the Top Boost) was only on about four, so there is still some room available. I don’t know when that channel starts breaking up, but I wasn’t even close. I think my band practice plans are good to go.
The question then is, do I use the Normal channel or the Top Boost channel? That’s still undecided.
Inside the Red Head's Head 