Tag: Guitar

Lunch Break

My lunch break is coming to an end. I was late to work today and had to take some personal time. I took my lunch break a little later than usual and who cares about any of this, right?

There is nothing going on today. There was this morning, but nothing is happening now. It’s turning into a quiet afternoon. I have to go to a store after work and then Jen (my beloved bride) and I are going to get some Japanese take out for dinner. Other than that? Nuttin’, honey.

I was thinking about tomorrow morning. I am working from home tomorrow so I have some time to do stuff before work (assuming I don’t oversleep). Should I take my new/old camera out and finally shoot a test roll or should I track some guitar parts for a song demo or two? I checked the weather. The forecast is calling for temps in the teens around sunrise tomorrow morning. I guess guitar tracking it is!

I have two songs ready for rhythm guitar parts. I just have to remember how to play them. Then I have to learn how to play them in a different key, because I changed my tuning for this round of recordings. I just tuned down a half step but that means I can’t just listen to the original demos and learn the parts. I have to tune back up or I have to change the key on the fly. We’ll see. I don’t think either song is particularly hard. I should be able to re-learn the parts easily enough.

Isn’t home recording fascinating? I can see by the bored, glazed over look in all of your eyes that you’re all just riveted. You’re welcome, really. Any time.

Finally

Finally… I played guitar today. Just for a little while (and pretty poorly), but I played. I used the new pedal board with the amp sim pedal (TC Combo Deluxe ’65) and for the first time… ever(?) I used a compressor pedal (MXR Dyna Comp mini).

I feel pretty good about the state of the world right now.

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Something I’m Thinking About

The RPM Challenge is about three weeks away. I’m thinking about what to do as far as guitar gear and I think I have an idea…

132/365

I would add a Crybaby wah pedal to this. It would be off the board to the right, but in the signal chain it would come after the Fuzzface and before the Dyna Comp. Pedal chain law requires a Fuzzface to come first. It’s an impedance thing. I’m not an electrical engineer so I don’t really get it, but it’s true. wah->Fuzzface sounds terrible. Fuzzface->wah sounds… okay.

I’ve wired this for power but I haven’t put velcro on the three new pedals. Outside of that and adding the Crybaby, I am all set to try this out… someday. Saturday? Sunday? Someday.

Guitar playing… I haven’t forgotten about you, my friend and favorite hobby and possibly unhealthy obsession. Just need to make some time.

Play

I didn’t have a chance to play any guitar last night. I didn’t blow off an opportunity, the opportunity just never arose.

This weekend? We’ll see. I need to start preparing my fingers for February’s album-in-a-month challenge. Also, hopefully the band will start practicing again. I have no calluses on my finger tips right now. It’s been almost two months since I’ve played a single note. It’s going to hurt when I start. That’s okay. I will survive. I will persist.

131/365

I’m thinking of downsizing the pedal board setup for February. Just to shake things up. We’ll have to see.

It’s time to start playing for real, Robert. Get to it.

Motivation

There may be time for me to play my guitar tonight. Not only that, I may have an opportunity to play through an amp at ear bleeding volume. Nice, huh?

How much do you want to bet that I’ll sit on the new couch watching television instead? I have zero motivation for anything right now. No motivation at all.

This cat 100% looks like I feel. She is absolutely my spirit animal right now.

He’ll be Proud

My step son, Harry, will be proud of me. I just finished watching Better Call Saul. He really wanted me to watch it. He was raving about it all the time. Now I’ve watched the whole series and he can finally talk to me about it without worrying about spoilers.

FYI, it’s as good as everyone says it is. Go watch it.

Subject change. I mentioned that I bought a few new guitar pedals over the last week. I haven’t had a chance to try them out yet. I’m debating whether I want to integrate them into the board I use at home, or should I make a brand new pedal board instead. I’m leaning toward a new board. Just for a while at least. Just for schnitzengiggles.

Subject change. We have a couch delivery scheduled for this morning. The delivery window they gave me is pretty long. It extends into my work day and it overlaps two scheduled meetings. Here’s hoping we get lucky and the truck gets here early enough to not mess anything up.

Subject change. Our mouse hunting cats had a target last night. We woke up in the middle of the night to see them chasing a gross little teeny tiny rodent around. At the time, the little bastard got away. We don’t see any signs of the prick this morning, but the cats are clearly still on high alert. We live in the woods. One of the biggest rivers in New England runs smack through our town. Mice are a part of life. Still… go get the little home invading asshole, cats. Do your job. Protect your house.

Okay. Time to go start the day. That delivery truck is going to be here… eventually.

A Whole New World

Amp sims. Pedals that digitally simulate classic amplifiers. Prepare to enter a whole new world of guitar rabbit holes, Robert. I don’t see this as a replacement for my tube amps, I see it as a quieter alternative for home recording. Finger crossed it’s acceptable.

Nothing to Say

I’m down to the final minutes of my lunch break on this fine Friday afternoon. I am pretty exhausted from a lack of sleep over the past… month(s) but I’m hanging in there. I had some Purdue Popcorn chicken and some peanuts and some sugar free Hershey bites for lunch. I really want a drink of water but I still have to wait the better part of an hour before I am clear to drink anything. That’s a gastric bypass patient thing. If you know, you know.

Fed Ex delivered a package today. I am not home to get it, but it contains a new guitar pedal. If I read the amazon shipping notes correctly, it’s a compressor pedal. The first I’ve ever purchased. I have this weird idea of using cleaner guitar sounds for this year’s RPM Challenge in February and a compressor will be a part of that. I bought an MXR Dyna Comp because it’s super simple and it will let me squash my clean signal down to a delightfully mushy… mush. There are two more pedals coming over the weekend. One is a Flanger, the other is an Amp Sim. I don’t have room on my pedal board for any of these kiddos and I don’t have open slots on my power brick… so I am going to need to get creative, I think. It should be fun. I don’t think I bought a single guitar pedal during all of 2024. I know I bought a couple of microphones for band practices that haven’t actually happened yet, but no pedals.

There are a lot of tentative plans for the weekend. We may be messing with our living room and we may be going to some stores for research purposes. I hope to spend some time wandering around town taking pictures with my new/possibly antique (though probably not) camera. I got a gift card for the sugar free bakery in Salem, NH for xmas. I haven’t bought anything from them in about a month, but now I am definitely going back and getting some cookies. Good stuff.

What else… I thought there was something else… One of our cars is going to get a break job. That wasn’t the thing that I am forgetting though… am I going to go shopping for a new iPhone? That’s definitely on the to-do list before we go to Florida at the end of the month, but is it this weekend? I don’t know.

I have to start practicing the guitar. The band is hoping to reconvene (hopefully for real this time) at some point after this weekend. I need to get ready for that. Which guitar should I bring to the first practice? Probably the Les Paul Standard that my wife got me for my 50th birthday in 2021. I really dig that guitar.

I know I had something else I wanted to write about but it has slipped my brain entirely. Don’t get old, kids. This is what happens to you when you get old. Stay young for as long as you can. Unless you’re already old like me in which case… sorry, folks. We had a good run, I’m sure.

Flashback

I watched a video on youtube tonight of a band playing in a bar in DC back in the late 90’s. I saw the band play in a bar in Cambridge at around the same time… maybe about a year earlier. Whatever. That’s not the point of the post.

The point of the post was that I had what seemed like almost a full sensory flashback. I could smell the cigarette smoke, I could feel my ears ringing from the volume, I could feel the heat of the room and the crush of the people packed into the tiny space… it was weird and also kinda wonderful. The video was 26 years old and I almost felt like I was there.

How weird was that?

Seriously, underground bands playing live in the 90’s was the absolute best musical thing ever. EVER.

In an unrelated note, I have three guitar pedals in my amazon cart right now. If I pull the trigger on it, I hope I’ll have a band to use them with. We’re looking at trying to start up again next month, and next month is the day after tomorrow. Cross those fingers, kids.