I wrote up two new ideas for June Music this morning before work. Nothing special. I sketched out the song form after work and tonight I put rhythm guitars down. It was the ES-335 into the RYRA for cleanish sounds for all but part of one of the songs. The one heavy piece brought out the Wren and Cuff Super Russian for some sick fuzz.
I have a little idea for one little snippet that might become song #10. Once I figure out the rest of that, it’s on to melodies and lyrics.
I took my laptop into my room to record some guitars. I had every intention of working out the kinks in the KTR/D&M Drive combo and then without really planning it I unplugged the board and plugged in the new RYRA The Klone pedal. Then I did something that would not have happened without Coronavirus.
I was planning on selling a guitar (my Strat) and some pedals so that I could buy another amp. With the lock downs and all there was no selling anything so all of that stuff is still here. When I took the D&M Drive out of storage I also pulled a few other pedals, thinking I might experiment. One of them was the Keeley Super Phat Mod. I bought that pedal a couple of years ago and I tried but I never really connected with it.
Tonight I put it into the chain after the RYRA and… it sounded really good.
It worked pretty much perfect with the first two songs I worked on. On the third I should have lowered the gain on the Keeley by a lot so the tone is way heavier than it should be. The fourth and final song of the night was just the RYRA because it’s freakin’ awesome.
i still only have seven songs in progress, but now they all have rhythm guitar. As for the guitar itself, I used the ES-335 and it went really well. No issues at all. The intonation is good, a lot of the buzz is gone (not all, but a lot) and it just felt and sounded good.
Robert is pleased.
I figured I’d give a quick update on the June Music project even though no one else on Earth gives a shit. I give a shit, so here we go.
There are seven songs in the works. All have the MIDI tracks, drums and bass, complete. One has a piano as a placeholder for the melody. Three, as of this afternoon, have rhythm guitars.
Two songs used the KTR and the D&M Drive pedals. It was my first crack at substituting the D&M for the OCD. It didn’t work well. I had the output on the KTR maxed and the drive off. The D&M didn’t seem capable of handling that signal and it got really mushy. I used the ES 335 on the first song I did and wasn’t happy with the sound. The string buzz may have been making it worse so I switched to the Les Paul. It was a little better, but not much. So two songs have less than good guitar sound. It’s good enough to roll with for now. I don’t think I’ll change it. The third song used the Les Paul but just the KTR. I wanted a cleanish sound, so I shut off the D&M. That sounded pretty good.
After I was done I set to some major tweaking and found something that was much better. I lowered the output on the KTR, lowered the output and the gain on the D&M, an added a little treble on the KTR. That was better. I will try recording with that setup. I was hoping to just use the RYRA The Klone pedal this month but the whole racist pedal builder shit made me want to experiment with the gig setup more. I also pulled a couple of other overdrive and fuzz pedals out of storage. I might try pairing different things with the RYRA. We can sort of consider June as Lab time. Let the tinkering continue.
One thing I do know… it’d been over a week since I had played at all. With all of this quarantine, social distance shit going on… playing is good for my mindset. If I don’t play for a longish period of time I start getting under people’s skin. The more I play the easier I am to be around. It’s definitely a good way to work out my quarantinie frustration. I knew it would be, but I think I have some evidence to support that original theory now.
Playing helps me not be an asshole… therefore I should play more.
QED.
The guitar was played today and recordings were made.
The Keeley D&M Drive doesn’t play with the Klon KTR as nicely as the OCD did and there’s some mushy, flubby tone on two of the songs to prove it. I’ve got it figured out though. The tone will improve. The new wah was also recorded for the first time. There were many, many takes. I screwed up many, many times.
The Fulltone OCD has been replaced by the Keeley D&M Drive and the Fulltone Clyde Deluxe has been replaced by the Dunlop Cry Baby.
My pedal board is Fulltone Free* and while using those two pedals that I had already owned for years prior to Fuller’s bullshit** made no difference at all to the universe as a whole, dumping them soothes my conscience and maybe it’s even the karmically correct things to do. Most important, no one is ever going to come to a bar where I’m playing and see any of that guy’s work in my gear.
I’m not doing business with some racist who thinks that storefront windows are more important than the public execution without trial of a man whose crime was allegedly passing a bad $20 bill while black, and while in his eyes my support for life and equality over business might mean I am both underserving of using his products and unable to piss standing up, I stand by my belief that his words mark him as a piece of shit and I don’t want to have anything to do with him or his company or his products ever again.
I feel better.
*My little/backup/stay at home pedal board is over Mike the Bass Players house and has been since January. I understand the irony of the stay at home board not being at home, but that’s irrelevant. That board currently includes a Fulltone OCDge (complete with Fuller’s signature on it). That board still needs to be cleansed, but I promise it will be before I actually use it again. For now, it’s staying where it is until the coronavirus crisis has passed.
**I’ve written about this over and over again, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about here is a story from Guitar World, and here is another from Guitar.com.
In an attempt to not go completely insane as I watch my country disintegrate around me, I have decided to try and push through on another month of music. I am not optimistic that I will finish this one. Not optimistic at all.
Whatever.
I’ve got three things in the running. #1 is just a couple of riffs with no song form. #2 has a full song form and a guitar part written out but not recorded. #3 is the interesting one.
I had a bass riff come to me fully formed last night. I am kinda afraid that my brain stole it off of something I heard while watching TV with the fam. It’s that sort of >poof< here I am, all complete that makes me think I actually heard it somewhere else. See Paul McCartney’s explanation of “Yesterday.” He woke up with it complete in his head and assumed it was something he’d stolen. In his case it wasn’t, because he’s a genius. In my case it probably was. I mean it pretty much definitely was.
Anyway, the phrase I heard in my head was four bars long. When I played it into GarageBand though I realized I was wrong. It’s actually three bars of 4/4 time and one bar of 3/4 time. Basically, it’s one beat shy of four bars. Crud. GarageBand doesn’t actually handle changing time signatures (at least it didn’t the last time I Googled it). So I needed a work around. Instead of four bars, the phrase is now one bar… of 15/4 time. Yup, I’m that guy.
Yippee.
This pretty much sums up my head right now.
The United States is literally crumbling around us. Americans are being murdered in the streets by law enforcement officials who have sworn to protect them, and the so called president is pledging to sic the military on those who speak out against it.
And yet there are glimpses of hope buried in the chaos. Americans have flown into space on American vehicles for the first time in a decade.
And earlier today the WordPress widget on my iPhone did this:
Attention all planets of the solar federation…
We have assumed control…
We have assumed control…
We have assumed control.
Okay, so yesterday when I posted the playlist from hearthis.at that had all of my May music project songs on it, it embedded into the post okay, but it only played the first song. Jerk.
So here are links to the 2020 music projects so far. I don’t do this because I expect anyone to click on them, I just do it so I can look at it and say, “awwww.”
I’ve already made a trello board for June. Starting in July the tracking gets weird because July through September fall under the 50/90 FAWM challenge. I still want to try to have at least 10 songs started and finished during each calendar month while slaving my way toward a total of 50. Like ya do.
I still have one song from April that is unfinished. It just needs a guitar solo and a mix. I might complete that today and tomorrow and then be ready for June. I don’t want to declare any gear restrictions but I am thinking it’s just going to be my ES-335 and my RYRA Klone pedal. I’m a little worried about the buzzing on the first string of the 335 though. I might try to raise the action a smidge but that will probably screw up the intonation… though the intonation might already be screwy. The guitar did sit in the cellar for almost two years.
Who knows. Well see.
The year of music projects will continue, starting on Monday.
Well, February, March, April, and May all have 10 song RPM Challenge style recording projects (February and April actually are officially RPM Challenges) that were all finished on the 29th day of the month.
May has 11 songs. I just finished mixing the last two.
Is it good?
Nope.
Do I care?
Nope.
Inside the Red Head's Head 