Missing in Action

It is funny to see how much I am depending on musical toys. I am away from my music toys and I have so many bass lines in my head. I realize that creativity has little to do with the amount of time spent on the axe, but is relative to the moment.

We need to be able to capture all of these ideas in real time, without a bass handy or even a computer. I guess that device does not exist yet.

Let's do a song on this, I would call it the "Carpe Diem".

Andrew sent something today which I believe would fit in this song perfectly.

Return of the Mustang

Saw my brother this weekend, and he returned the long lost red Mustang lookalike.
Looks exactly like the 66 Mustang, even had the white cheapo machine heads with exposed gears, until (you remember, Andrew) we changed them for good metal ones with sealed gears. The head has a white Tesco inlay and is red. The neck is laminated.

Once again, the wiring was all screwed up, not sure how that came about, not original pots, and one slider switch is new, so I rewired it according to the diagrams I found on the Web. Now works ok.

The neck is very short, so tuning is critical. I think these guitars were made for kids...
only now they (the Fenders, not the Tesco) are collectors' items.

Re-learning the not-so-obvious

Spent hours re-recording some guitar tracks that I had done as rough takes previously. Had forgotten that I needed to put a pre-amp in between the guitar and the sound card to avoid distortion. Amazing how the distortion I was getting was so annoying that it completely hindered any chance of playing with feeling. Once I remembered (I had done this originally, a few weeks ago), all was well again. The takes that I had been re-recording for hours on end took half an hour to redo with feeling. Now the mix needs to be done to remove some of the cable noise (very little), and to add pan and reverb. There are some parts that need to be slightly edited, but with six guitar tracks, there should be enough to fill any need.

Also played with the midi to augment an embryonic song idea. Did the rhythm, the added a real electric guitar track, and then a melodic midi line. Hard to control some of the voices. The ones with long sustain seem to be best, otherwise lots of spurious flats and trebles and strange noises. Need to adjust the sensitivity. Best for playing live, I think.

Practicing / Practising

Our last practice was showing signs of cohesion. All four of us were there, and we did a few selected covers and originals. I thought the originals sounded very strong, and were fun to play. Some of the covers were also strong, others need lots of timing and coordination work. Did not yet start using the midi to full effect as an accompagnying tool.

Regarding the playing, we need to hold back a bit, to be sensitive to the dynamic range and the tempo. It is the art of listening while you play. We are getting there.

Still a few technical glitches, amps distorting, and not enough feeds. Hoping to go this week with Alain and set things up in a standard way, using the console. Will bring along two guitar amps, Alain's bass amp, and sundry smaller amps as monitors.

Also have decided to record guitars more or less wet. This means with effects that have to do with the guitar, fuzz, sustain, and such. Reverb and other ambience effects can be added later. Echo depends. Will have to find a balance, but I feel I need the effect control to record properly.