On AI and music

How do most professional musicians make their money? Teaching or similar activities. Few can make a living solely off being paid to perform. Fewer still can make a living from composition. This has always been the case.

The people who argue most vehemently in favor of copyright aren’t musicians but those who exploit musicians.

The better AI gets at creating music and the more such people turn to exploiting AI instead of musicians…that’s all upside in my book.

Musicians will continue to find ways to fund following their muse as they always have.

New locking strap review

I don’t care for strap locks that require replacing the strap pins on a guitar. And I’ve never actually seen any Grolsch bottle washers. What I have been happy with are the Planet Waves Planet Lock straps.

I recently got an Ernie Ball Polylock strap. Unlike the Planet Lock, it has no moving parts. But it does feel very secure. And it doesn’t feel quite as clunky as the Planet Locks.

Most importantly, though, I have one instrument—an Ibanez Mikro bass—that the Planet Locks won’t fit on. The Polylock does!

Does it affect tone?

Stop me if I’ve said this already...

If you find yourself asking whether something affects the tone of an electric guitar...

(...which means we aren’t talking about something that obviously affects tone...)

...the answer is: Yes, but not a lot.

You may or may not be able to hear it. It’s likely that listeners (especially once you consider any media between you and your listeners) won’t.

Winter NAMM 2016

The only thing that really stood out to me this year was the Digitech Trio+, which looks awesome.

I was happy to see the Roland Blues Cube Hot, and that it had a black option. But it seems to be lacking the “dual tone” mode of the Stage and Artist models.

At first I was interested in the new Vox Starstream, until I learned that its synth sounds were only monophonic. There was a time when that was acceptable; that time is past.

I don’t know if this one was at NAMM, but I’m happy to see the Positive Grid Bias Head. I’ve really wanted to see one of the highly-tweakable computer amp simulations available in an actual amp. Instead of taking a laptop (or even an iPad) on stage, why not have an amp with the same software in appliance form?

(Granted, we’ve had software amp simulations in amps and pedals for a long time. But having the same sims on your computer and an amp/pedal is what seemed to missing to me.)

I’m not sure if its right for me, but it is a good direction.

Making an Apple Music playlist

The task: I have a list of songs that I want to make into an Apple Music playlist using iTunes on my iMac.

Step 1: Search My Music. If I already have the song in my library, that is likely the version I want in the playlist.

If it weren’t for step 2 below, this wouldn’t need to be a full, separate step. I’d search My Music and—if the song wasn’t there—one click would switch me to searching all of Apple Music.

The good news: If I find the song in My Music, it is easy to add it to my playlist. On to the next song. Otherwise...

Step 2: Search Wikipedia for the song to find which album (or other information) will distinguish the version I want.

Apple Music almost never has just a single version of a song, but it gives me precious little context to help me distinguish them from one another. I’ve learned from experience that things go a lot smoother when I check Wikipedia before searching Apple Music or the iTunes Store.

I’m not suggesting that a service should choose a definitive version for me, but it would be nice if it gave me some useful context. This sort of context seems in-line with Apple and Beats’ “people over algorithms” stance. In fact, I’d argue that this fits it moreso than mere curation.

Step 3: Add the song to My Music. Apple Music doesn’t allow you to add a song to a playlist unless you add it to your My Music first.

Well, I did find ways to do it, but it didn’t really work. The song wasn’t added to the playlist. Or if it was, it remained invisible.

Step 4: Search for the song (again) in My Music, and add the song to the playlist. Finally go to the next song on the list.

Compared to Spotify: Doing the same task in Spotify suffered, of course, from the issue of step 2 as well. Although it benefited from not having steps 1 or 3. Once I’d found a song, I could add it directly to my playlist. My biggest complaint about Spotify when creating a playlist was not being able to see the search results and the playlist side-by-side—which is also a problem in iTunes.

So... Even leaving out step 2, creating an Apple Music playlist with iTunes is shockingly clunky. It is hard to believe creating a playlist wasn’t an important enough use case to get better treatment. And a music service that wants to truly differentiate itself from the competition should perhaps look farther than just algorithms and farther than just curation.

A side note: Apple Music’s curation (over competitors’ algorithms) is touted as a distinguishing feature. I’d argue that Spotify’s shared user playlists are more useful curation that all of Apple/Beats “experts”. The ideal service would have both and ensure they both worked well.

Modes and guitar

I find the use of modes in guitar instruction generally unhelpful.

The first problem is when modes are used simply to name positions. A mode is what notes get emphasized, not where on the fretboard you are playing them. You can play Mixolydian in the position that’s called Ionian. Using the mode names for positions simply confuses things for no reason.

The second problem is that modal playing is one style. And not a style for beginners. Modes should be introduced much later than they often are and only if the student is interested in that sort of style. Just as in music theory courses. Introducing modes early simply creates confusion for no good reason.

On genre

Surf and power pop are not what they say they are.

Surf music is only called that because—at the time it was named—it was popular among surfers. You can claim that the dimed reverb is meant to sound like the waves and such, but I remain unconvinced. In any case, most surfers today probably aren’t surf music fans, and most surf music fans probably aren’t surfers.

Power pop has never been popular. Of course the “pop” refers to the elements of pop music—at the time that power pop was named—which power pop uses. “Pop” here isn’t saying that power pop is popular; it is simply referencing other music that was popular.

Some people are very strict about genre.

It isn’t surf if it isn’t played on white Fender Jazzmasters with 11-gauge strings through a dimed Fender spring reverb tank and a vintage Fender amp. And if a voice appears at all, it is not surf.

(Note: While the Beach Boys and similar vocal acts are similar to surf music, the genre applies to instrumental music. I think most reasonable people, however, would call Wipe out surf despite the words.)

It isn’t power pop unless it has crunchy guitars, melodic vocals and vocal harmonies, minimal guitar solos, and no influence from the blues.

Such strictness is understandable, if overzealous. It is really hard to draw the lines between everything that is in the genre and everything that is outside of it. (And that’s just with songs. It’s even harder to classify bands into genres.) In reality, there will always be gray areas. But saying “I know it when I hear it” doesn’t really help anyone know what you’re talking about.

But, the point is: These labels helped me discover music I might not have otherwise. So, I’m not willing to dismiss genre as useless.

Guitar pedals: learning and problem solving

Previously posted to Google+

I’ve always been more of a multi-effects guy than a pedal guy. But lately my pedal collection has been expanding. Then came the point at which I wanted to use my pedals with headphones. (And—in particular—solving this would also let me use them with the Jamhub.)

I could plug them into one of my multi-effects units and use its headphone jack. But none of my multi-effects units have stereo inputs, and I do have stereo pedals.

I could run them into a couple of amps and then plug the headphone outs from the amps into two channels of the Jamhub†. That seems like overkill.

It turns out, though, that the last pedal in my chain—a Digitech Jamman—has a headphone out! This works, but it didn’t sound very good.

It also turns out the Digitech Trio will add speaker emulation if you just use its mixer out. It’s only mono, but putting it after the last mono pedal seems to work. (It seems like most stereo effects don’t need speaker emulation the way some mono effects do.)

In the long run, it’d probably be good to put a Sansamp in the Trio’s place, but I was happy to be able to find a short-term solution with what I already have.

†Or some other way of combining the two mono signals into a stereo signal. The Jamhub is probably the easiest way to do it that I have on-hand.

Why I didn’t back LightLead

I considered but didn’t back the LightLead Kickstarter.

Price is not an issue. I’ve had so many instrument cables fail that I’d pay $55 for a 15″ cable if I know it is reliable. And a LightLead has advantages over a traditional cable. While I may not have experience with LightLead to know that it would be reliable, it would be something I’d be willing to take a chance on.

The biggest issue for me is batteries. I’m an amateur musician. (Well...except for that one paying gig.) As much as I might try, I don’t get a chance to play every day. When I do get a chance, I don’t want to deal with figuring out what batteries might have failed. I avoid active pick-ups. I avoid effects that can only run off batteries. I don’t want batteries in my cable. If there were some sort of “phantom power” option, then I might have considered LightLead.

(What I’m imagining as a better way to power it is a small box between the amp and the LightLead that has a power input. While this would mean running some copper alongside the fiber in the LightLead, I assume copper for power has less issues than copper for an instrument-level audio signal. The box could still isolate the circuit that powers the instrument end of the LightLead.)

Dear Fender...about the amp section of your site

I couldn’t find a way to submit website feedback on the Fender site, so I’m posting it here.

On 29 May 2015, I got a marketing e-mail from Fender entitled: The Ideal Amp For Your Sound. Here’s a brief outline of the contents:

• The ultimate amp for creativity
  Mustang™ I (V.2)
  ...easy to record, edit, store and share your music.
• Affordable onstage versatility
  Champion™ 40
  ...an ideal choice as your first stage amp.
• Beautiful acoustic amplification
  Acoustasonic™ 90
  ...perfect for the acoustic guitarist...
• The standard for gigging guitarists
  Blues Junior™ III
  ...ideal for the go-anywhere guitarist who needs to hit the stage or studio at a moment’s notice.
• Clear, deep and powerful
  ’68 Custom Twin Reverb®

This is great! (And the full e-mail was even better without being too wordy.) It’s a real shame that—as a marketing e-mail—so few of your potential customers will receive this. And even for most of them, it will likely end up in their spam folder.

This is exactly what I should—but never have—found when I go to your web site and click on amplifiers. The site is great for someone who already knows your products. It does nothing, however, to help the customer who is trying to figure out what Fender amp is right for them.

I usually spend a while digging around trying to figure out why I might want one of your amps over another...but I end up frustrated and none the wiser for my time investment.

Make this e-mail the starting point for the guitar amp section of your site.† I’m sure you could make it even better. (If nothing else, the Twin Reverb® section doesn’t say what sort of guitarist it is good for like the other sections do.) Then back up each of those selections with another page that explains what other Fender amps that kind of guitarist might also consider and why.

(†Don’t lose the navigation that allows those who know what they want to go directly to it, of course. That’s a strength that you want to keep.)

Winter NAMM 2015

Products that looked interesting to me while watching the Winter NAMM 2015 coverage...

Digitech Trio: The Trio puts the old Band in a Box software into a pedal along with chord detection. So, instead of programming the chords and rhythm by hand, you just play the chords and rhythm, then the BiaB bassist and drummer join in.

Note that the BiaB software is fairly sophisticated. It will play fills. It will play busier parts at slower tempos and sparer parts at faster tempos. It could also do keyboard parts, so maybe we’ll get a Quartet pedal in the future if the Trio sells well.

So far, I only saw one demo where they talked about what the optional external footswitches do, and the choices seemed questionable. I hope that will be configurable.

It seems like there would be some potential for a pedal like this that was also a looper. Or maybe they could make it support the same sync feature as the Digitech loopers.

The Eric Johnson Tone Capsule: I’d already been impressed by what I’d been hearing about the new Blues Cube amp. It turns out that they have a socket on it that you can plug a “tone capsule” into. This one is designed to tweak the amp to make it deliver something closer to EJ’s tones.

The fact that it glows and looks like a tube is awesome.

So far, it doesn’t look like there’s anyway to get the BC’s original tones without unplugging the tone capsule. It would be nice if you could have the original tones and the tweaked tones all on tap.

IK Multimedia iRig PowerBridge: This is a great idea. A single solution to charging an iOS device while having an audio or MIDI interface connected.

The downside is that the Mini-DIN connector they’re using probably means it is only compatible with IK’s on interfaces. You’d really like it to have a Lightning connector like Apple’s HDMI adapter. I’m guessing Apple makes that option impractical for them. The next best choice would be USB. But that might still make it more expensive and more complicated.

You can argue that it is in IK’s interest to make it only work with their own interfaces. I disagree, but...shrug

Z.Vex Pedal Thief: Allows you to swap an effects loop between a mic and a guitar. I’m thinking this will be handy to use with loopers that don’t have multiple inputs.

Big Ear N.Y.C. More More More: Three boosts in one box.

Mooer Wahter: What’s cool about the Wahter is that it is a compact wah pedal with fold-out sections to make it more compact while travelling. I hadn’t seen that before.

Boss ES-8: I have to wonder why Boss didn’t already have a switching system for pedals like this in their line. I also wonder if it really is a “game changer” compared to similar systems that were already available. But it does look very nice.

It is a bit disappointing that it doesn’t appear to have a lot of support for stereo pedals. Loop 7 has a mono send and a stereo return, and loop 8 has stereo sends and stereo returns.

I think these are all the (single size) Boss pedals that have stereo in: DD-7, RV-5, TE-2, RC-1, and the RC-3. Although you probably don’t want both an RC-1 and an RC-3 in the same rig, you might want all of them and all the others. The TE-2 strikes me as a very special purpose pedal, so I think you’d want a DD-7 along with it. Lots of people like to have at least two DDs set to different delay times. With the ES-8, you’d have to put all of these in loop 8 or put them after the ES-8 outputs. Either option means you aren’t getting the biggest benefit of the ES-8.

Looking at pedals with mono in and stereo out: DM-2W, DD-3, BF-3, CE-5, CH-1, MO-2, PS-6, OC-3. You have much fewer options using these with the ES-8. Only one of these can go into loop 7 in stereo mode.

Still, for most guitarists that probably isn’t as big an issue as I’m making out of it. Mono is plenty for most guitarists.

Fender Limited Edition Sandblasted Telecaster: Looks pretty nice. I’m a sucker for Teles and anything blue. But what looks even nicer is...

Fender Special Edition David Lozeau Art Stratocaster, Dragon Art: Blue and a dragon.

Reverend Descent Baritones: Reverend has some cool guitars, and baritones always catch my eye.

Antares ATG-1 Floor Processor: This was originally announced and “coming soon” in...what...2012? I still plan to buy one as soon as they’re available. I stopped holding my breath years ago.

Rude

Thoughts occasioned upon hearing the song “Rude”...

...or “You keep using that word; I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

There is nothing rude about giving an honest opinion when asked for one. It is rude, however, to dismiss someone’s opinion after asking for it just because it wasn’t the opinion you thought they should have.

If you were going to “marry her anyway”, then you shouldn’t have asked.

I’m not going to say that you have to have her father’s blessing to marry her, but since you asked for it, I have to assume that it is important to you. So perhaps you should consider striving to understand his objections and commit yourself to winning his approval. Rather than simply ensuring that he will never respect you.

The simple argument against DRM

I don’t know that I’ve ever put it this way before, but it seemed so simple when I did.

Except perhaps in some very specific circumstances, I have not been convinced that anti-piracy measures ever increase sales, much less pay for themselves.

Piracy doesn’t matter; sales do. Any anti-piracy measure has to prove that it is going to generate additional sales to more than make up for its costs.

Rocksmith 2014

Rocksmith (2014...I never tried the original). Using a real guitar (or bass) means that it becomes less about playing a game and more about actually playing guitar (or bass). Of all the computerized guitar teachers or “Guitar Hero with a real guitar” things I’ve tried, this one seems to work the best. It is work to learn the songs, but it doesn’t feel like you’re fighting against the software to do so. And like a good teacher, instead of asking you what difficulty you want, as soon as you’re starting to feel comfortable, it pushes you just a little more.

I haven’t taken lessons in some twenty-odd years, but this software makes me feel like I am. In the best way.

BlueBoard

A couple of things you might want to know if you are considering the IK Multimedia BlueBoard. This information comes from IK’s video about the BlueBoard, answers they provided in the comments to that video, and playing with the app.

The BlueBoard is primarily in either program change or control change mode. So, you can not use the foot-switches to switch presets while also using an expression pedal to control volume, wah, etc.

There is a mode that can do program changes via the bank switching feature while otherwise being in control change mode. Bank switching, by the way, is done by holding down the A or B foot-switches.

Also, you can not use two BlueBoards with one iOS device. So dedicating one to program change and one to control change is not an option.

Overall, this is pretty disappointing. Since my Griffin StudioConnect has MIDI, I’m going to be looking into conventional MIDI foot-controllers. Still, the BlueBoard would be useful even with its limitations.

The full rig

Here is nigh all the guitar gear I’ve collected assembled into a single rig.

It is sort of a wet-dry-wet setup. The Princeton amp in the middle gets the guitar signal without any effects. (Though that amp does have compression, overdrive, and reverb built-in.) The stereo outputs of the RP350 and VG-8 are mixed together (by the VG8), goes into the JamMan, and then into the left and right amps. A Morley ABY controls whether the Princeton, the RP350, or both get a signal. (A switch on the Roland-ready Strat controls whether the Princeton/RP350 path, the VG8, or both are active.)

Here’s how it’s wired up.

Layering three different sounds seem to work surprisingly well. If the trio ever gets some gigs, this could let me fill up a lot of sonic-landscape when we want to. But it may have to suffice with just pleasing me.

The biggest challenge is that the VG-8 is hard to program and doesn’t have any dedicated “user” banks that you can use without overwriting factory settings. It is also the piece that would be the most expensive to upgrade.

iRig Pro

I ranted about the iRig HD, but I think the iRig Pro looks like a winner.

Analog versus digital

From the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange: Why does digital equipment have more latency than analogue?

As an electric guitarist who likes digital gear and who is watching things move seemingly inexorably in the digital direction, the inherent latency of digital signal processing is something that’s been on my mind. So, I was pretty interested in this response.

The thing that I hate about analog is the careful balancing of signal levels throughout the signal chain. That always drive me nuts because my OCD kicks in when it comes to these things. I hate that I can’t know that all the trim pots are set exactly the same way all the time. I hate even more that setting them exactly the same isn’t what you want. They need to be set for the environment they’re in. And even if it is the same place at a different time, that’s a different environment.

Once you’ve digitized the signal, though, you can call up the exact stored settings and highly reproducible results in any environment. You only have to deal with the analog issues at the ADC and DAC ends.

For me, the upshot of this is that I’m good with analog for simple signal chains, but complex signal chains benefit from going digital.

Digital single-effect pedals—like BOSS’s new MDP line—are perhaps the worst case scenario. You go through ADC/DAC for each pedal. It’d be cool if the pedals could detect that they were connected to another MDP pedal and use a digital signal between them.

Notion for iPad

Thanks to the 128GB iPad, I can now install and use Notion for iPad. I originally bought it in December 2011, but it’s a big app. When I was fighting against the 64GB limit, it was near the top of the storage usage list and—since I hadn’t had a chance to use it yet—I had to uninstall it.

I have to say that now that I’ve used it, I am pretty impressed. It seems to be a fairly complete music engraving package for the iPad. It looks like it will do complete scores as well as supporting guitar tablature and guitar specific articulations.

As far as I can tell, the answer to the unanswered question is that Notion for iPad appears to be able to do everything Progression for iPad can. Although the only thing I have to base that on is the feature list for Progression.

My only real complaint so far is this: It lacks the “Convenient file sharing” they claim. It can...

• Export Notion format to e-mail or an “Apps/Notion Mobile” folder within your Dropbox
• Export PDF to e-mail
• Export MIDI to e-mail
• Export MusicXML to e-mail
• Export WAV to iTunes file sharing, Dropbox, or Soundcloud
• Export AAC to e-mail iTunes file sharing, Dropbox, or Soundcloud

Exporting to e-mail is the least convenient method. At least for me. I never want to share files via e-mail. Much less use e-mail as the workaround to get files into other apps or into things like Dropbox.

And iTunes file sharing is only marginally more convenient than e-mail.

I use Dropbox to share files with my bandmates, but the only thing I can export to Dropbox are the Notion format files or WAV/AAC files, which isn’t very convenient. What would be convenient for me:

1. Export GuitarPro, MIDI, and PDF to an arbitrary Dropbox folder
2. Export GuitarPro, MIDI, and PDF to another app

If I had #1, I could workaround the lack of #2 with the Dropbox app.

On the import side, I could use importing GuitarPro 6 and MIDI files from an arbitrary Dropbox folder, neither of which Notion can do. It appears that it can import GuitarPro 3–5 files and MIDI files through iTunes file sharing, but iTunes file sharing is inconvenient so I haven’t put it to the test.

Swingy vibrato arm fixed!

The vibrato arm on my Roland-ready Fender Stratocaster used to just swing around and hang straight down, which makes it hard to use. I like it closer so I can grab it more easily when I need it.

Some research online uncovered several possible solutions, but here’s the one that worked.

This little spring goes down into the hole before you screw the vibrato arm into it. I was skeptical that this would really do the job. Plus, I was worried that it might not work with my guitar since it is MIM (made in Mexico) instead of an American model, which seemed to be the case for some people. It seems to work just fine, though.

The annoying part is that it is likely to get lost whenever the vibrato arm is removed. Thankfully, it came with eleven spares, but it’d be nice if it was held in place somehow. There are some suggestions online about how to do that as well, but I haven’t tried any of them yet.

Well, now ten spares. I dropped one into my Westone Spectrum ST, and it just fell straight through.