Home Recording Reno

My little music room is only 8ft x 9ft. With space at a premium I had to be careful because over the years I had collected a ridiculous amount of  music paraphernalia. The idea of this little project was to store my music collection but also give me room underneath so that I could store and access my amps and speakers etc. The bench was supposed to provide an area where I could work on my guitars but in reality it is always covered in crud and I do that work on the dining room table. I have some large music books that have never fit into standard bookshelves and so the lowest shelf is built to accommodate those. Then there are 6 shelves for my CD’s which are also slightly higher than standard to accommodate special editions and so forth. I left the centre shelving out to provide for my little Jimi shrine (the walrus was Paul) and the top shelf is for music DVD’s. The roof of the shelving is wider than the rest and I use it for box sets and smaller books. All up that is a bucket load of weight supported by two metal frames I welded up underneath and some 3 1/2″ x 2″  stud work. I really enjoyed this project and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I incorporated two minor details that improved the design. The rounded corner on the bench I reciprocated on the upper and lower shelves which gave a slight art deco feel to the piece. Secondly I airbrushed the edges of the bench slightly darker to reflect my sunburst guitars which hang next to it – it doesn’t look much in the photo but in real life it turned out very effective.

 

Free Soul

My favourite find on Soundcloud at the moment is Superfly Party. Based in Barcelona they have free downloads of their Thursday night jams and if you like soul then they’re serving it hot.

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Baghead Writes A Love Song

Here’s a little song that I wrote for my wife. Excuse the quality; it’s strictly low-fi – I recorded this with two push button cassette players to bounce down tracks.

[https://soundcloud.com/baghead-kelly/song-for-cassandra-demo]

Verse 1

More than a thousand miles away,
I send my love to my baby today.
I guess I’m just a sentimental fool,
A lovelorn poet in a world so cruel.

Verse 2

I want to run my fingers gently through your hair,
But every time Cass baby your not there.
I’m waiting for the day when you walk through my door,
And two becomes one just like it was before.

Verse 3

Eloquence escapes me at about verse three,
Rhyming couplets and poetry.
One baby two baby three wait and see,
All your babies sitting on this daddies knee.

Verse 4

I guess I’m tired of waiting this waiting game,
Whats a candle without its girlie flame.
Wait for me Cass because I’m true blue,
I’m coming back baby just to marry you.

Outro

I love you,
I need you, need you, need you,
And it won’t be long before we’re back together.

Stand Alone Performance

A stand alone performance to me is the ultimate test of talent. A musician accompanying themselves, is really a special benchmark because they hold their own hand. I’m not talking about hacks like myself, I’m talking about the demi gods of music. I actively seek out these recordings; I pour over box sets and anthologies and when I occasionally stumble upon these gems, I wet my pants a little bit. Partly I like these performances because they reveal musical secrets but mostly because I am in awe of their genius. These recordings don’t have to be perfect recordings, in fact I like the rough diamonds just as much.

When you think about ***Robert Johnson’s catalogue of tunes; it was just him and his guitar. 29 tunes recorded 76 years ago. Today I can go into my local record shop and ‘The Complete Recordings’ will be there somewhere on the shelves and I’m a long, long way from Texas Toto. Somehow he put something very special down on tape. That kind of magic is rare but not unachievable.

Jimi Hendrix sitting on a stool with a borrowed 12 string playing “Hear My Train A Comin’” is just as magical and fortunately that was caught on film as well. In that little three minute window Jimi gifts us the key to where he had come from, musically and spiritually. Dissect it and you can see Voodoo Child (Slight Return) hidden inside those notes and plenty more besides. A similar pearl (hehe) is Janis Joplin pairing up with Jorma Kaukonen to render “Trouble In Mind” on the “Typewriter Tape”. It wasn’t stand alone but the talent and the soul is breath taking.

In the eighties there was “The Secret Policeman’s Ball” series which unearthed terrific acoustic versions of Pete Townshend’s “Pinball Wizard” and Sting’s “Roxanne”. In aid of Amnesty International, the benefits ushered in the era of “Unplugged” recordings which in itself brought with it a swag of brilliant stand alone recordings. The “Eric Clapton Unplugged” was wildly popular and probably helped fund his “Crossroad” festivals.

Then there was “The Beatles Anthology” which not only offered intimate insights into some of their extensive catalogue but also triggered the release of other box sets and anthologies.

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rendering of Doyle Bramhall’s “Life By The Drop” is another favourite and when you hear Bramhall’s version you can hear where Stevie drew his singing and phrasing style.

At this point you probably think I’m a ‘white boy lost in the blues’ and you would be right but I most certainly try to be a contemporary man, at least on occasions. The advent of Youtube has unearthed a wealth of stand alone talent. Too numerous to mention really but it is the way of the future and I am still trying to work my way up to the present.

If you know of any of these solo flashes of genius, I would love to hear them or check them out.

***(incidentally my post on ‘Love In Vain’ featured a fake picture of Robert Johnson. There are only two known photo’s of the man and that wasn’t one of them…hehehe).

Songwriting – Weekday Blues

Here’s a song I wrote a long time ago but since I’ve been mucking around with Cubase I thought I’d revive it while I learn the processes. It’s nuthin’ fancy to quote Lynyrd Skynyrd but it might be amusing to those with an offbeat sense of humour. I patterned it after The Easybeat’s “Friday On My Mind”, one of my favourite bands.

[https://soundcloud.com/baghead-kelly/weekday-blues-original]

 

Boss RC20 Review

http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/RC-20/

 

I’m not big on effects pedals really, I’ve got a few floating around but generally the little amps that I use have a gain and reverb control and that’s enough for what I need. However I do have one that I love (apart from my Jimi Hendrix wah). The Boss RC20 loop station. This model is the middle one of the series, there is a smaller stomp box (RC2) and a larger version (RC50).

 

It was quite expensive and I am very grateful that my wife’s parents bought me one (does that mean I’m sponsored) otherwise, I personally wouldn’t have purchased it because of the price. This particular model has 16 minutes of total record time. For me that’s plenty. The RC2 also has 16 min. and the RC50 has 49 min. There are 11 slots to place your loops and you can overdub on top of your tracks. If your like me and you aspire to play “Tomorrow Never Knows”,  “Are You Experienced” or “Castles Made Of Sand” there is also a reverse mode to play backward phrases.

 

A negative for me is the fact that you have to kneel down to operate the thing (a lot). The foot pedals are only your on/off/overdub switches. So for example if you blow that perfect take your going to have to kneel down and reset it. The RC50 model rectifies this issue but at a cost. Another weird thing that I don’t like is that if I record something in a particular tone or effect then the overdub also has that effect. So essentially there is less colour between the takes. I might be doing something wrong but it definitely is a negative if I’m not.

 

The reason that I love this pedal though is that it gives my music making that third dimension. This adds more interest for me and makes my music more bearable for my long suffering family. It is invaluable for song writing because I can record a basic rhythm and then doodle around over the top of it until something gels for the next part. I can record that and then repeat the process to find the next part etc. The other thing I do with it is I record professional backing tracks onto it directly for practice. I’ve usually got one or two on there at any one time which leaves me with nine other tracks to play around with. The only limitation is the 16 minutes record time. I should also point out that it’s a sturdy little unit and if I was going to score it I would give it 4 ½ out of 5 rubber chickens.

 

You can Youtube plenty of examples of people who are expert at these things but a couple that I like are French performer Anäis and JP from the band Outlier.

The Grandfather of Rock & Roll ?

Music has been around since the dawn of time and is an integral part of every culture. Like language, it has an aural and written form. The written form however is not as old as the dawn of time, in fact it is relative new. It was refined in the 11th century by a Benedictine monk called Brother Guido d’Arezzo. He also invented the original mnemonic that parented do–re–mi-fa-so-la-ti (so we can also thank him for Julie Anthony and “The Sound Of Music”). God bless Brother Guido because he was responsible for defining the worlds first truly international language. A language enjoyed today by millions of people around the world.

Cubase 5 Review

I have had Cubase since August of 2009 (they keep records) and Cubase 5 since the following year.  Essentially it has taken until recent times for me to get my head around the product and I am a long way from mastering it. That’s a long wait for a silver lining. If your thinking of buying Cubase 6, the current version maybe you might want to read about my experience first.

 

Now I may not be the brightest spark but I’ve self taught myself many things over the years without too many issues. Learning and dealing with Cubase on the other hand has been an absolute nightmare.

 

Cubase is the brain child of Charlie Steinberg but his company Steinberg was bought out by Yamaha in about 2005. Don’t quote me on that. Here lies a possible reason for my bitter experience with Cubase. Picture this; An Australian music enthusiast buys a German made product who’s parent company is in Japan. There has to be a few communication issues there.

 

The first hurdle for me any ways was a communication issue. These people spoke a different language. A language of initialisms; D.A.W., ASIO, VST, PFL, GUI the list goes on. For technicians this might seem perfectly normal but for poor old baghead I had to learn a whole new lexicon. The manual is extensive all 672 pages of it plus a 200 page start up manual. On top of that there are a series of appendix manuals on various subjects. I hate that thing. I have poured over it, I have highlight markered it, I have cried on its pages.

 

There are forums to help the frustrated customer who might be thinking of demanding a refund. Steinberg have an in house website which includes a forum and what they call a knowledge base. They are full of desperate users with the same problems that I personally have experienced.  If the technicians can’t resolve the issue and there are too many people with the same issue the forum is archived. I could be wrong but my impression is that there is a head in the sand kind of approach down there at Steinberg. Go and read the archived forums and make up your own mind.

 

My other issue is with the overly complicated licensing system. If I’m going to spend big bucks on what for me is essentially a hobby I don’t want to be screwed around. Yamaha/Steinberg have every right to protect their intellectual rights but that eLiscense system sucks. Both in the application and the very fact that the dongle takes up a precious usb port. I would suggest that the customer is the good guy and it’s the bad guys that need to be fucked around.

 

Part of the problems apart from communication is compatibility. From what I’ve read Cubase is more compatible with a Mac than what I have a PC. Personal computers these days are all pimped a little different and that creates unforseen issues. You just have to work through each problem as it arises. The best support that I have gotten has been through Youtube videos not through Yamaha /Steinberg. There are some amazing people out there who are willing to give of themselves from a totally altruistic perspective.

 

Now do I think that Cubase is the way of the future? Absolutely. The issues that I have had with Cubase may well be resolved in the new version I don’t know. There is no doubt that the product can do some amazing things and although I don’t have any experience  with Pro Logic I will stick with Cubase because I have invested so much time and money in it.

 

From a personal point of view I would like to see better after-market customer support. I would also love a cross-referencing system in the manual. That’s one thing that Microsoft do well. If your trying to learn one concept and it references other concepts that you have no idea about you could type it in to the search box.

 

My journey with Cubase 5 has been a rocky one. Now that I’m starting to understand its little ways I am getting great enjoyment from it. Its always been about the music and any diversion from the main game is not good. As for my beloved old Yamaha 4 track, well the time might have come to embrace the future and the future most certainly is digital.

Free VST Plugins

I’m always on the lookout for freebies but feel free to donate to

Daniel aka The Interruptor at The Dub Scrolls website here;

http://www.interruptor.ch/vst_overview.shtml

My Life In Show Business

In some peoples lives music is inconsequential. Take my father for instance, he’s tone deaf and so to him music is mostly about the words and the story. As a child I was always amused at him singing in church in his flat baritone. Even my wife, although she likes music she would much rather engross herself in the latest episode of ‘House’ or some such medical drama. For her, music is something you listen to at parties or in the car. I am the opposite of that. Music to me is what I think about the most. It is kind of my default thought pattern. I have lots of other interests but the passion level is not even in the same ball park or is it conservatorium.

If I were a single man I would think that I would be somewhat hermit like, living in some isolated shack. There wouldn’t be a phone and there wouldn’t be a television. There would just be music all of the time….and beer. I would go out into my garage and teach myself to build guitars out of exotic woods and inlay them with mother of pearl that I scavenged off of faraway beaches. I would paint oil portraits of my favorite musicians all the while listening to more music. These paintings would be so brilliant that I could sell them at exorbitant prices to fund my newly imagined lifestyle. Mmmmmm…I digress.

The music industry would seem to be a perfect match for someone with my passion but not so, or at least not in anyway that I’ve been able to ascertain. Apparently the music industry was worth 24 billion dollars in 2008 so you’d think there would be room for someone like me. Or not, you see at my age I’ve come to the realization that one important pre-requisite for such a career is unfortunately a modicum or talent. Something that I’m a little light on. Now I can bang out a tune or two on the old geetar but like my father I’m somewhat tone deaf. Not as bad mind you but tone deaf none the less.

My attempts to crack into show biz over the years have included several forays into the world of busking. One time with my son, in toe and a belly full of bravery I asked a busker if I could jam with him – he wisely and politely declined. In disgust, I set up camp on the other side of the road in direct competition – me singing on the guitar and young Ben doing the ‘robot’.  As we went through the repertoire Benny would keep a running commentary on when the opposition had pulled a quid. My lad fondly remembers we blitzed him on that night and we made enough money to buy his next video game. Unfortunately as it turns out you need a license to busk and it’s illegal to exploit your children but that’s another story.

When your tone deaf it’s a handicap to sing but there are two methods that I use to keep myself on song. The first is the instrument you accompany yourself with – I know that it’s accurate so I try to follow as closely as I can. The other tell-tale sign that you’re off key is the funny looks that your audience gives to each other. I know that look well and when I see it I refer back to method one. Some nights I sing OK and on others I bomb. It doesn’t really matter much to me because I like music and I like to sing. There is something therapeutic about singing, like your releasing all your frustrations with each breath and each note. It’s good for the soul.

Now I’m never going to be rich from my musical endeavors but I’m told that artistic types have to suffer for their art; they have to pay their dues. I must be on track then and I’ll be content with that.