Circular Peter

Been suffering from yet another cold and took a couple of days rest from work etc.  But,  rather than take to my bed,  I couldn't resist playing around with another song resurrection from the  previously mentioned "Bringing It All Back Up" album produced in 1970 on reel to reel tape.  Listening to the original of "Circular Peter" the words were clearly a bit of doggerel that had not really been completed properly and it only lasted a minute and a half?  However,  I thought the tune was interesting and some of the words were relevant to the new work "The Garon's Daughter",  so I thought I would add the extra verses and make a full song of it.

The ambition remained to produce to demo standard in Cakewalk Sonar - I wouldn't be spending too much time tracking the backing. 

I started with an acoustic guitar track - once again on the Takamine.  I recorded this to a click track so the timing was available for added midi tracks. 

Then I added bass using Dan's 1970's Jazz bass.  I played this live and it is a bit on the loose side despite several takes at it.

The hardest bit was doing the strange drumming.  I tried various techniques playing live but they all suffered from lack of consistency and my limited drumming ability.  In the end I settled for laying down the key percussion phrases in midi using Yamaha DD65 drum machine pads and quantizing for tight feel - too tight really but it adds character against the loose bass line!

I then added various guitar parts using my PRS and Rickenbacker 12 strings.  I am trying to limit guitar parts in the resurrection project to 12 string only to build a characteristic style to the project.

Then, using a guitar driving my EHX Mel 9, I was able to add Mellotron type string parts played on guitar.  This worked better than I expected giving the slow attack and quick release character of a Mellotron.  Playing it live into the track no keyboard skills and midi needed on this occasion.

I did several sessions to track the vocals and post process them for a weird choral sound in the choruses.  I took a decision early on to build the song from a basic band with one voice start to a full sounding finale.  The only problem with this is the first 3 minutes are relatively simple - telling a story of unrequited love of sorts and most of the sound production is in the last minute.  I did toy with the idea of starting it with just guitar and vocal to give even more dynamic contrast between beginning and end but couldn't find a way of convincingly bringing in bass and drums without re-recording the start of those instruments.  Might well do that on a properly produced version however. 

So its well worth listening to the end even if you don't care for the beginning blogateers!  Final mix of the demo was mono and set at a conservative level.  If you are up for it,  follow the link below and have a listen  -  wishing a merry Xmas to all you Blogettes and Blogateers out there (not with this song though!)

Circular Peter Mono Demo

Los Tres Amigos at The Oxford Totterdown Bristol

Jacqui and I had planned to take a week off to progress through market towns and small cities in the west of England when my brother in law suggested we also call into Bristol and make an appearance at an open mic night along with his son in law Simon.  Bring a guitar he said!  Our trio (later to be known as Los Tres Amigos) would be me on guitar,  Roy on harmonica and Simon on vocals;  and would do a few blues numbers. Ok I said and I packed my old stage Godin XTSA and the small Vox Valvetronix I had used at a previous gig in Bristol.  Then the news came though that we would probably play through the house PA and an amp wouldn't be needed - I thought I'd leave it in the car anyway!  So now I would need a guitar FX unit.  I opted to pack my 'spare' Boss GP 10 in a haversack.  I had used this on my last Checkmates appearance where carrying stuff on public transport was a prime consideration.   

Jacqui and I had an enjoyable few days taking in Worcester and Tewksbury before driving the 50 miles to Bristol, partly through the scenic Malvern hills.  We arrived at Roy and Ann's house and enjoyed a jolly good feed and aperitif before setting off in the luxury of a taxi the 5 miles or so to Totterdown.  Here we met up with Simon and our nieces Jo and Sian and enjoyed a beer or two watching a variety of other 'turns'. Mostly singer/acoustic guitarists,  but one was a mobile phone percussion player!   Our spot came up at 10:15pm and I plugged into the house pa,  did a quick tune up,  set the sound on the GP10 and gave the OK to Simon.  At the last minute Simon had elected to start with "Brown Eyed Girl" and Roy thought that wouldn't need harp,  so it was just the two of us.  I started the opening riff but Simon missed the cue and asked me to go round again which I did with mixed fingers (not having played it for a while).  This time he came in OK and we romped though the first couple of verses in good order,  when it suddenly dawned on me I was expected to join in on the 'sha la la 's in the chorus.  Not having sung for a while I plunged in with a falsetto over Simon's line which seemed to work - good job 'cos it was the best I could do on the night.  Then the next problem loomed -  the bass solo!!  At the last second I elected to play the chords rhythmically  rather than pick out the bass notes.  It worked well and I was able to finely cue Simon into the last verse.  We finished to good applause and Roy came up with his harp.  I switched the guitar sound to a bit of crunch and we did "Hoochie Coochie Man and Folsom Brison Blues"  Took a bit of getting used to without drums and bass but both were well received.  A rough phone vid of a little of each of these was taken and are presented here for Blogateer and Blogette consumption:

Hoochie Coochie

Folsom


After we finished I was delighted to find out performers had a free beer so it was approaching midnight as we left to get the bus home -  but a taxi came by and we were able to hail that.  Another beer back at base ended a jolly fine night.

Comparing Sonar Backing Tracks with Merish

Hello Blogateers.  Sorry for the long absence I have been busy with a new music project (more on that later)

I have about finished the project to set up backing tracks for cover band duties and thought I'd like to compare the results of the two players  Cakewalk Sonar and the Merish 3 player.  We have two short videos here which illustrate the outcome:

Beautiful Woman Sonar


Beautiful Woman Merish


They are very similar but I think Sonar just edges it.  I'd be happy to gig with either but the Merish is easier to handle in a live situation.  It's also more flexible in that if you have a bassist or a drummer available you can switch that track out to let the live person play that part! 

I'll use either to keep my hand in doing home practice so now its time to move onto the next challenge!

Many decades ago I set about producing my own popera,  with a story,  music and film in mind as the end game.  Very ambitious and unlikely to be ever realised! But I thought I'd have a go at the music while my fingers still work.  I have rescued from an old reel to reel recording a very poor digital rendition of songs that were originally recorded in the early 1970s by me,  Dan Woodman and another flatmate or two who's names escape me for now.  With a very poor signal to noise ratio and a very contracted bandwidth the original recordings are not at all listenable but I can hear the songs just enough to work out the words and arrangements.   So my initial aim is simply to produce some demos capturing the original flavour of the songs.  I can then maybe then go on to review,  rearrange and produce the songs to the best of my ability in a more contemporary style.

Although I have been very busy with family duties this Summer I found enough time on a couple of wet days to pilot the project with a new recording of one of the songs called "Cracking Fingers".  I laid down a Takamine 12 string guitar track as the basis,  then added a bass line using Dan's Fender Jazz.  I did try using drum patterns but ended up laying down a live and loose drum track on my Roland TDK kit.  A couple of vocal lines,  some bells and special cracking effects later,  I had a loose but listenable demo that does indeed capture the flavour of the original.  

I have set up a SoundCloud account under the name Mr Mog to drop the finished products into and, risking some credibility, I offer a link to the SoundCloud recording here - enjoy?

Soundcloud: Cracking Fingers

EHX Mel 9 Mellotron Pedal Test

I was looking around for a Mellotron sound for a recording project and this little Electro Harmonix Mel 9 FX pedal popped up as an advert in the browser.  The brilliant thing is you just plug the guitar in,  no midi pick up needed,  so could this be an easy win to replace my midi pick up driven strings in my live set up?  Not too expensive so I thought I'd give it a go.

I tried setting it up by sending an aux signal from my FX unit to the Mel 9,  but it didn't drive the Mel 9 too well.  But I got a really good result by plugging guitar straight into the Mel 9 and taking its dry output into my FX pedal. A credit to the quality of the EFX signal splitter which adds no detectable colouration on the guitar sound.

The first test had to be a bit of King Crimson!  Apologies for the under rehearsal - but I was impatient to hear the device.  Follow this link to hear:

Crimson


Very powerful sound but harder to control than my existing midi set up which has a volume control on the guitar.  The Mel 9 would sit better in a live band I'm sure or I could simly set up a volume pedal for it - but I am trying to keep my guitar FX foot print to a reasonable size!

Playing covers would only need a string pad so next I tried it in a ballad:

Hollies

Not quite as smooth as the existing set up but I think the sound could be quite usable in a band if I set the volume pedal up.  I've got one somewhere in my music room so that will be another test session when I find it!

In conclusion - yes I think it can be tamed with a volume pedal for live use.  Unlikely I will use it on a recording because there are so many quality string plug ins - including some great Mellotron samples from G-Force.
  

First Test of Merish Midi Player

Got the Merish 3 midi player in June 16 and spent the rest of my music time in the Summer editing midi files.  Towards the end of August I got things going reasonably well.  So I did a little test playing along to an old Kinks number.  This is all mono through a single Bose system,  but I now have the ability to separately route Bass and Drums which may be worth demonstrating in the future.

Tired of Waiting Test

Although I'm happy enough with the sound in the room,  the video suggest drums will need to come up if I was using it for real.

My next test will attempt to demonstrate a comparison between the Merish and the same file played through Cakewalk Sonar using their quality plug ins.

Rickenbacker Wiring Modification

I finally plucked up courage to do the mod I had proposed a few months ago. The idea was to re-engineer the two pick up tone controls into a Master Volume and Master Tone. Easter weekend was ideal because the weather was poor and I had plenty of time to do it without interruption.  I carefully prepped the kitchen table for the work.

Then I gently removed the pickguard screws hoping for plain wiring and not a circuit board.  Opening it up I was delighted to see a wiring layout I could work with.

I reviewed and checked the diagram against the actual wiring:

I plugged the guitar into an amp so I could check the outcomes before I closed it up.  Now the moment of truth - I unsoldered a couple of wires added a link wire and then soldered it all lightly up for check. First time the new Master Volume worked the wrong way round.  That was simply rewired to the opposite end of the potentiometer to give a clockwise "volume up" ergonomic.  Finally I made sure the soldered connections were sound and insulated the one hanging wire left.

 

Here is the final wiring - hard to tell any difference though!  The large black thing is an insulated hanging wire I would need to reconnect if I ever put it back to spec.

Then it was time to close up.

And jangle the rest of the day away - it all worked beautifully!