I bring you clips

Ladies and gentleman, I bring you...Guitar Tone! Two clips recorded with my new Mesa Quad/Fifty-Fifty rackmount setup. The only difference between the two is the channel on the Quad that I'm using. The good old Fractal Audio Axe-FX has been sent to the effects loop of my recorder and provides chorus and delay. I'm quite happy with the results so far, though I have more knob-twisting to do on the Quad before I get *that* sound.

Legato Funk v.4:

Legato Funk v.3:

I've got tone!

I've now gone from a tiny little guitar recording setup to a monster rack! I got a Mesa/Boogie Quad preamp to go along with the 50/50 power amp, and now I've expanded my rackmount setup to include an ART Digital MPA II mic/line preamp. I had to go get a bigger rack to hold it all, including my Axe-FX and Monster power conditioner. And I still have a little further to go with the rack, since I'd like to get an ISP Decimator noise gate. I'll talk more about how my setup works when I'm finished building and configuring it.

I haven't posted any clips of the Quad setup yet, since I'm still working on getting sounds. Working quite hard on it, actually. It's a tricky little bugger to work with, since the controls are all interactive and very sensitive. Minor changes have a big effect on the sound. It's getting there, however.

As for my trip to Portland last week, nothing particularly musical happened. I looked at a whole bunch of guitar gear and CDs and didn't buy a thing. Our little apartment is already too full to handle any more stuff, basically, and I've pretty much got all the guitars I need, though that can change... ;)

Still workin'

Greetings, Internet. No, I haven't forgotten about you.

It's just, well, I've been busy. I got a Grendel Dead Room isolation cabinet a couple weeks ago and have been madly working on my guitar sounds ever since. For the first time ever, I actually have a decent recordable guitar tone.

Here's the problem. Now I've got all kinds of gear lust for various amplifier setups that I could never use before. Including lots of expensive old Mesa/Boogie gear. I've already got a Mesa 50/50 power amp to go along with my Axe-FX and Peavey Rockmaster preamps. The Rockmaster isn't cutting it, sorry to say, and the Axe-FX is sounding kind of digital--even though it sounds way better through a real power amp and speaker than it did direct into the mixing board.

I'm looking at getting an old Mesa preamp, either a Quad or a Studio, to go along with the 50/50. I'd like to get the Quad, since that has four channels of ungodly tone compared to the Studio's two. However, some folks say that the Studio has a little juicier tone. Tough to say. They are both '80s vintage preamps, essentially just the preamp sections of the legendary Mark IIC and Mark III amps from that decade. Those amps were used by everyone from Larry Carlton and Carlos Santana to Metallica and John Sykes of Whitesnake fame. So you know you can get some great tone.

The challenge is partially finding one in good condition with everything intact, including the unique, non-interchangeable footswitches. They're built like tanks, but gear wears out over time. I've got my eye on one, however.

Check out my SoundClick page, if you haven't done so recently, and you can hear a whole bunch of clips I've made with the Dead Room. I'm really quite happy with it, so far.

In other news, I had a hell of a musical weekend. On Saturday, I went to the Progressive Nation festival, featuring Dream Theater, Zappa Plays Zappa and Queensryche. Lots of proggy metal goodness, in addition to a healthy dose of Zappa music. However, Sunday was the kicker, when I went to see two sets by the great young fusion jazz keyboardist Hiromi Uehara. She is sort of what might happen if Chick Corea's musical spirit were to be transferred to a young Japanese woman. She's a dynamic performer and ridiculously talented. Her band is great, too. On guitar she has Dave Fiuczynski, who's a fusion guru who has been around a while--a master of fretless guitar and all kinds of unusual and difficult phrasing even on normal guitar. Tony Grey played bass, and I was very impressed with his combination of chops, pocket presence and melodicism. That was a great evening of music.

I'm still mulling over what sort of new musical ventures I want to do. Now that I have more solid guitar tones to work with, it's more enticing to do music that is heavier and a little more composed. Maybe a balance of composition of chaos? Whatever the case, I won't get started immediately, since I still have to sort the gear situation out, and I'll be visiting the folks in Portland, Oregon next week. I'll probably file another report from there, since something musical usually happens.

Quickie update

Just a quick note to show that I haven't died or given up the guitar etc.

I went to Bonnaroo a few weeks ago and managed to catch the BonnaFlu that usually goes along with it, so I've been sick and unmotivated for the last couple of weeks.

The highlight of Bonnaroo for me was seeing The Mars Volta live for the first time. I was already a fan of the albums, but holy crap, they are one of the most amazing live bands I've ever seen. I'll try to post more links 'n stuff later.

Since I got back, I managed to acquire a Peavey Rockmaster preamp and Mesa Boogie 50/50 power amp in preparation for getting an isolation speaker cab from Grendel Sound. Grendel doesn't seem to be the fastest-moving small business in the world, so I'm still waiting for it, but hopefully I'll have the cab within the next week or so. I want to get moving on some new musical ideas, and just make a whole bunch of crazy noise!

What's next?

So, now that I've let out my inner experimental Coltrane with "Saturation", where do I go from here? I'm going to pursue four threads:

--Big improvisation. Long-scale improvisations with massive amounts of overdubbage. At the moment, I've conceived of two ideas. The first is an atmospheric improvisation that has many layers but largely lays off the percussion. The second is a zillion layers of percussion with a focused guitar and bass in the top line. I'm not sure yet where this will go.

--Trio improvisation. Sort of like "Saturation", but my Modulus bass guitar gets to join the party. I could knock this out pretty quickly once I get my guitar sounds sorted out (see below).

--'70s blues/jazz/funk rock. Hendrix and Jimmy Page meet John Coltrane. This one will take awhile to happen, but I'm committed.

--'80s rock w/jazz influences. Big '80s hard rock bursting with melody and crunchy guitars, but not mid-scooped double-kick metal. I've been avoiding it for years, but the fact is that, musically speaking, I came of age in the '80s and can no longer deny it. Think Journey or Foreigner with jazz chords and minus the sappy vocals.

Have I committed myself to four albums? Not necessarily. These four threads could merge into a couple larger projects or fall apart entirely. I just wanted to let the readers know where I stand at the moment.

A note on my guitar sound. "Saturation" involves an extreme guitar sound that comes from my Axe FX preamp direct into the mixing board. I've tried the Axe Trak isolation speaker cabinet, and it sounded like ass. However, a company called Grendel Sound makes an isolation cabinet that seems like it might do what I need. I'm going to spend the $$$ to make it happen. If I could get the sound of a real guitar amp into a microphone, I'd be very happy. As an apartment dweller, this is difficult. Perhaps the Grendel Dead Room will do what I need. You'll find out soon. ;)

I'll be off to Bonnaroo next weekend. Don't know if I will post before then, but I'm sure that my experience at Bonnaroo will lead to many new musical insights that I'll be eager to share.

Peace out!

Saturation Time! And the blues, too.

Well, it's here. My newest album is finished and online for your listening amusement. You can check it out at my new BandCamp site. It's far from an easy listen, but I think anyone who likes Frank Zappa's guitar playing might be able to get into this.

BandCamp is just a great site for us musicianly types. I was able to upload all three of my albums in full and proper sound quality, and present them in a cohesive and artistically pleasing fashion. This doesn't render my SoundClick site entirely useless, however. I'm reserving BandCamp for completed album projects, while SoundClick will allow me to present oddball stuff and preview tracks before an album is completed. You can download music from my BandCamp site free of charge in both mp3 and FLAC format, which is full 100% original sound quality!

My last week has been quite busy musically. In addition to finishing up "Saturation," I acquired another Heritage Les Paul to go with my existing Heritage Black Beauty. The new one is a mellower sounding instrument, allowing me to get some Gary Moore-style warmth to go with the Black Beauty's metal craziness. Here's a pic of a portion of my guitar family, with my three Heritages up front, the new one on the left, and the Black Beauty in the middle:



I'll get around to posting detailed pics and stories about all my guitars, eventually.

With my new bronze beauty and the Black Beauty, I recorded a new blues track to show off the sonic differences between the two guitars that otherwise look similar. Unfortunately, the sounds I used don't do a very good job of that. But I'm happy with the track anyway. It's called "Kalamazoo Blues," after the hometown of Heritage Guitars, which are made by former longtime employees of Gibson Guitars who stayed behind in the old factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan after Gibson moved its operations to Nashville. The Bronze Beauty is in the left channel, while the Black Beauty is screaming away in the right channel. Enjoy!

Saturation Mix

Well, this time I came through on my promise. I finished four more guitar/drums duets this weekend--enough to round out an album of these. I did the mixdowns this evening and will master and upload them tomorrow.

But, you ask, haven't I abandoned the idea of the album? Isn't that what this very blog is supposed to facilitate? Well, sort of. However, I can't get over the album as a cohesive presentation of music. It's still a very convenient way to frame an hour's worth of music. And the hour of music I just completed is one I'm calling "Saturation", after the ridiculously saturated distortion that drenches the guitar sound on every single track. Way over the top. You've already heard six of the tracks on this site and can tell what I mean, hopefully. It's also "saturation" in the sense of trying to push things to the extreme of free playing. Just press play on the record and go for as long as feel like it. I imposed time limits in a few cases, but on others I just went where my mind would go.

This material will the first on my upcoming bandcamp.com site, which is a music site that allows artists to upload music in high quality, lossless form, with much longer permissible song lengths than SoundClick allows. It's pretty much made for what I do.

I'll have more to say about all this tomorrow.