Last week, after being delayed for 2 months my new toy arrived - A VHT Ultra Guitar amp. It has all been a bit frustrating, the cab arrived 2 months ago and was entirely useless without the amp head, which has finally shown up. Now this is my first real guitar amp, I had a little practice amp many moons ago, but have been quite happy with my Behringer Vamp 2 for the last few years. However, I cannot overstate the difference of playing through a real amp - wow! Its not particularly loud (well that is I'm not playing at a high volume - it can go very loud :-) but it behaves so differently (and is really showing up all the problems with my technique). I won't review the amp - I'm not experienced enough to do so but it really is putting a smile on my face.
Anyway the point of this article was (supposed to be) that after the arrival of the amp I was complete, no requirements left, I was ready to record and get on with making music. And then this morning an email arrived telling me that the Alesis ipad dock is available, I was weak, I had an Amazon voucher from my birthday, and a new ipad as a shock birthday present from my wife... So now another new toy will arrive in a few days, and I can put off actually making some music once again while I work out how best to integrate it into my studio. You can expect a review soon :-)
Monday 25 July 2011
Tuesday 19 July 2011
Life gets in the way
The biggest challenge at the moment seems to be finding the time to do music, and I am sure I'm not alone in this - life just keeps getting in the way. For once I have a surfeit of new material all ready to record and perform, but no time to work on it.
Curiously there's plenty of spare time in the office - but you can't record there... ( I have managed to become a bit more active in the forum world - so thats step 1 of the plan underway)
Given that time is limited the temptation is to make a list of all the thing I want to do, this is fine as long as you don't actually expect to get them done! What to do instead? Well I guess what's required is to ensure that any "spare" time can be used to the full - and I have as plan for this!
1. Practice - make sure there is space available to play. And get my teach yourself this, that and the other books out so that instead of random riffing or knob twiddling I do a few pages of one of them
2. Rehearsal - I want to play songs at open mics in the area so set up amp, mic and guitar and sing the songs I want to perform "as live". And decide which songs they are going to be. And learn them properly so that I don't need the music :-)
3. Recording - Get the basic right. I have a tendency to record lots and lots of tracks of "almost" parts, the majority or which get muted/deleted from the final version. So I am going to concentrate on 4,5or 6 tracks for each song and get them right (well played/recorded). If the song desperately needs a final additional kbd part that can happen later.
So with my new highly focused methodology I should be able to build my new album and gig circuit.. step.. by painful...step.
Curiously there's plenty of spare time in the office - but you can't record there... ( I have managed to become a bit more active in the forum world - so thats step 1 of the plan underway)
Given that time is limited the temptation is to make a list of all the thing I want to do, this is fine as long as you don't actually expect to get them done! What to do instead? Well I guess what's required is to ensure that any "spare" time can be used to the full - and I have as plan for this!
1. Practice - make sure there is space available to play. And get my teach yourself this, that and the other books out so that instead of random riffing or knob twiddling I do a few pages of one of them
2. Rehearsal - I want to play songs at open mics in the area so set up amp, mic and guitar and sing the songs I want to perform "as live". And decide which songs they are going to be. And learn them properly so that I don't need the music :-)
3. Recording - Get the basic right. I have a tendency to record lots and lots of tracks of "almost" parts, the majority or which get muted/deleted from the final version. So I am going to concentrate on 4,5or 6 tracks for each song and get them right (well played/recorded). If the song desperately needs a final additional kbd part that can happen later.
So with my new highly focused methodology I should be able to build my new album and gig circuit.. step.. by painful...step.
Tuesday 12 July 2011
Community Service
So todays plan is to join a forum or two in order to share all that wisdom I've gained doing this for 20 odd years. I'm a great fan of Sound on Sound and their forums but to be honest there are far wiser and more knowledgable guys than me on there so I'm going to start with the songwriters forum where I can add something meaningful about the technical side, while hopefully learning more about songwriting - and maybe even getting my music reviewed...
Talking of music reviewing, I've found broadjam to be a great site for sharing music and getting feedback (mostly constructive). You can find my broadjam page here.
Talking of music reviewing, I've found broadjam to be a great site for sharing music and getting feedback (mostly constructive). You can find my broadjam page here.
Monday 11 July 2011
2,3,4.... Twang
A bit of compartmentalisation and an attempt to find enough space to carve out an identity as a musician on the www. I'm starting small, a local singer/songwriter for local people (Hertford pop 28,000) and will be quite happy to stay that way but I want to share my attempts to become a "name" on the local music scene. I know I am not alone, middle aged, slight paunch, forehead getting bigger, but working away in those precious spare minutes at another pretty good song.
So it's time to get a plan, get out there and at the very least try.
So it's time to get a plan, get out there and at the very least try.
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