Backward

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My new Klone pedal has been added to the May music project.  I put rhythm guitars on three songs and used my birthday-present-to-myself on all of them.  It sounds so good it’s silly.  I needed to goose the treble knob up a little higher than I do on the KTR to get a nice sweet spot, but I haven’t been able to use it on a high watt amp at volume.  It will all change when I use it for real.

I did something else with one of the songs that’s also silly… and fun… and awesome.

The rhythm part is just hit a chord and let it ring for two bars, more or less over and over.  After I finished the actual recording (double tracked, one panned left and one panned right) I added the first of two extra tracks.  First I recorded an additional take of the last eight bars of the song.  I then reversed the track.  That was a guide.  Next I muted the bass and actual guitar tracks so that all I could hear was drums and the backward guitar.  After that I used the second extra track to record myself trying to play along with the backward track.  It wasn’t easy and it came out pretty wrong, but at least I had the same chords playing on the two tracks.  One was forward and the other was backward but they more or less rang out correctly.

The last step was to delete the first of the two tracks, reverse the second track, and pan it right in the middle and unmute all the muted tracks.  Now when I play it back I have the normal parts and an additional backward part kinda playing along with each other.

It didn’t work out as I had planned it but…….

Coolest thing I’ve ever done.

Gift

Amazon delivered this yesterday:
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Today is the day. When I woke up this morning I looked like this:
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Eight weeks into quarantineland and I couldn’t take it anymore. Apparently neither could Jen because she volunteered to take care of it.

Success:
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I feel like a new man. At last I can see what is in front of my face again.

Thank you, Jen. I love you so much!

Glasses – Progressive Lenses – Bifocals – History

My eyes are getting worse by the day.  I’m okay, but the day is coming when it’s going to be a struggle.  I tried to use this blog to figure out when I got my current glasses and it failed me.  It failed because I was searching for either two broad a keyword, or the wrong keyword.

“New glasses” got me a ton of hits, mostly posts concerning the kids getting their first pairs of glasses.  Bifocals got a hit from sometime in 2016 with me speculating that I needed them.  I needed to search for “Progressive Lenses”.  That would have brought me to the right post, but I didn’t think of that.

Instead I went to Flickr.  I started in Spring of 2018, thinking it’s probably been two years or so.  I scrolled back in time until I found a picture of myself without glasses on, and then scrolled forward and there it was.

September 11, 2017.  Not only an anniversary of tragedy, but also the day I got my first pair of non-reading glasses.  My first pair of always on’s.

Once the COVID-CRAZY ends, I have to get myself to an eye doctor and get my prescription updated.  Maybe I can get some frames that are less likely to slide down my nose… unlikely given the size of that nose.  Yikes.

Here’s a pic of my glasses, taken on 9/12/17. A little more than 2.5 years ago. I think it’s safe to say I’m due for a check up, at least.
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The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 34

A couple of weeks I grabbed a soda out of the fridge.  It was part of a six pack of bottles of Diet Pepsi.  I tried to open it and could not.  Despite my seemingly super human strength (really I just put my weight behind it… and there is so much weight… it seems super human to the outside observer) I could not get the bastard open.  There was something wrong with the cap.  It was off the screw top track somehow and it wouldn’t budge.

I got pissed off and threw it away.  Tempers can sometimes run short during a pandemic, as I’m sure the whole human race is aware.

This morning as I was starting my work day I went to the fridge and grabbed a soda… and the same thing happened.

Not this time, you prick.  Not.  This.  Time.

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