Work / Music Balance

While I'm not one of those rabid bloggers who thinks every last aspect of their lives is worthy of scrutiny, there is one thing I've been considering lately which definitely falls into the "mid-life (most would say tediously self-indulgent) metaphysical reassessment" cateogory.

I've recently purchased a GR-55 to go with the GK-3B on the bass, I'd been using the GR-20 on and off for years, with varying success - the tracking on the low B was always pretty suspect, but with a bit of judicious shifting you could play an octave up and get some great bass synth sounds out of it.

The GR-55 is a revelation by comparison - I've only gigged it once, but the fun I had creating sounds on it for that gig was great. The rig emerged as the bass POD and GR-55 as two sides, switched through a boss 2-way channel switcher. I used some synth sounds with modelled bass mixed in, which sounded great, but on some other tracks I wanted the regular sound of the bass - the GR-55 has a live direct feed of the unfettered bass pickup sound.

That last paragraph relates back to the title of this post. I lost myself for nearly 2 hours just... well, *playing* with settings and sounds! It was musical playtime at its' finest: directed, to try to find sounds for the songs we were playing (we did "moves like jagger" and I really wanted something like that inverted "waaaaaahp" on the original recording), but playful, with constant changes, like sculpting or painting, until I was happy enough with the solution.

Pure quality-led concentration: the best kind.

Trouble is, I'm getting that at work as well: this means I have 2 sides to my life, both of which are fulfilling and engaging - I literally have to tear myself away from work at the moment, it's great stuff.

I'm not trying to give myself the big up btw, or encourage trolls, etc. I'm going to have to schedule more playful music work - jams with Tony at PhatTone studios in Reading are a good start, had one week before last, we had a blast - some really cool funky lines, he laid some down on logic pro.

So I guess the moral is: love what you do, love your music: I appreciate I won't make anything like the money I make at work doing music stuff - these days, making money from music is frankly a pipedream unless you're a clinician, teaching, etc - so it becomes a job: enjoy being able to be playful while you can. Maybe work has its uses after all.

Thunderbird == genius

No shit, sherlock… if this was algorithmic, the programmer is drunk!

Why shouldn't lunchtime be musical?

Going to work on some solo pieces for half an hour. Zen out!

Fully filled weekends

It’s been a while since I had a weekend that full. We covered nearly 26 miles on bike on the Thames path, although we did forget to cross the bridge at Sonning so the route to Henley from Reading was… interesting. The route back was great. We have a habit of doing that, we’ll set out thinking signs will tell us what we need to know, then get sort of lost.

Current slang for this between us is “is this the road to Loutro?” which I’m sure some will recognise.

I can recommend the cycling from Reading to Henley: there’s a long stretch in the countryside, it passes by some very pretty locks on the Thames (one of which has it’s own Tea Shop) and the sunbathing potential is HUGE on days like today. I can safely say that the F1 race didn’t even cross my mind.

So Saturday, I spend the morning getting ready for the evening wedding gig (the drummer from Breeze, Steve), including some great tone-hunting on both the bass POD xt and the GR-55 synth pedal I’ve just got – that thing has some serious capabilities, including on-board USB stick music file playing, your own backing tracks? Not a problem. I got back from the gig and was asleep just after 2am after winding down.

Sunday, we get up late (maybe 9am), I sort out the bikes (mechanical checks, brakes, tyres, oil chains etc) we get them on the back of the car, drive to where I work, which happens to be a short ride from the Kennet and Avon canal, which has excellent cycle paths. We then ride to Henley and back! Now utterly exhausted, body humming after the exertion. Loved it.

Roland’s GR-55: It can Save Your Gig

I had a great gig last night, but it could have been so very different. I’ve had a GK-3B pickup on my 6-string bass for a while now, and I’ve used a GR-20 synth a few times for tracks, mainly for small backing sounds and laying down backing while writing tunes. I dipped into the technology again for the first time in years and found out about the GR-55 from some posts on Twitter, mainly about a spectacular fretless bass player in the US who uses a slightly modded one as his main solo gig-machine.

Intrigued with the apparent capabilities, I was lucky enough to be able to buy one – I haven’t bought any new gear for several years now, last thing was the NEO cabs for the stack, and that was probably 7 years ago. So, suppressing GAS, I decided to try one out, properly, with the bass, and see if it was all it was cracked up to be. I was impressed enough to buy it.

My plan was to use the GR-55 on “forget you” (Cee Lo Green) to get the high-pitched glockenspiel-type stuff during the choruses, as it tracks the bass. I got something which just about worked on the GR-20, but it tracked really badly on the low B (the guys in the band pitch the track down a semitone). The GR-55 coped very well, and additionally it let me put a piano underneath as well. The UI is intuitive enough that I worked out how to get the expression pedal to act as a volume control just for the synth bits, leaving the real bass signal untouched.

Then I started to explore the signal modelling capabilities – they take the signal from the GK3B and turn it into other instruments, not MIDI triggering, so no lag. We were doing some tracks which sound great with an old P-bass, so I dialled up and EQd a really nice sounding vintage Precision. Sounded great!

So the gig comes around, and I’ve got this great rig going – I’ve got the GR-55 feeding 2 signals into a 2-way Y switch, with the single feed back to my amp. On one side is the “full” output, which contains all 4 channels (synth 1, synth 2, modelled and real bass pickup) and the other is the bass output, which is just the bass. This is going through the Bass POD XT, which I’ve got patches on for some of the other songs (auto wah, etc).

All went well in the gig, until… the battery in the bass went dead! Cue silence in one of the tracks, my sheets of patch to song are out of the window… and after some confusion about what the hell is going on, I realised I could use the P-bass patch on the GR-55 because it doesn’t use the bass pickups at all!

Bingo – I play the rest of the first set on a vintage P-bass – although without any synth effects on some tracks. The audience do not care, it’s a wedding and they’re having a great time. The guitarist (the excellent Ryan Robinson) doesn’t even notice, but the drummer does because the bass failed at the start of “living on a prayer” – ummm, I think the bass is mandatory on the start of that track…

Moral of the story – complex tech can be complex, but it can give you a great safety net!

The second set went beautifully: Nigel Parsler is an excellent drummer and Ryan Robinson nails more styles than any guitarist I’ve come across, his funk chops are great.

Weather: crap. Diagnosis: studio time.

I've done a lot of cycling recently, thanks to the better weather. Since it's turned wet and crap again, it's time to work on the... Smaller muscles. In my fingers. In the studio. Yay me!

I've always thought having a woodshed in your house was odd. Especially when the axes are all blunt.

Enough punnery!

Bass boogies

I remember years ago reading an interview with Joe Satriani who said he used to just sit and noodle, and end up coming up with what he called Satch Boogies. It's where the song of the same name came from, I think.

I was sitting with the acoustic bass yesterday, which I've enjoyed a lot more since I strung it with electric strings (elite blue labels, very light) than the phosphor bronzes I had on there - the bronze strings always felt sticky, uncomfortable and I didn't like the smell (which I'm guessing is copper). I fiddled around with some shapes as usual, climbing around, but ended up doing some kind of open E boogie thing with high neck register figures in between, which turned out to be loads of fun on a sunny day.

Anyone else do this when they're not trying to overtly write or learn something? Those moments when you're just indulging in the pure playfulness of music? I need to make more time for those moments.

Upcoming wedding gig, for one of the Breeze boys! Setlist reactions…

The drummer for the band I filled in a season with in Andorra in 2007 is getting married. Apart from having a stag do in Vegas (not too shabby), he’s putting the icing on the cake by employing my fingers to put the low end into his wedding band.

I’ll be working with a couple of great guys to form part of the core band – Ryan Robinson on guitar and Nigel Parsler on drums.

Ryan stunned me with his Talkbox on “living on a prayer” when we gigged in Brackley with Steve on drums – suddenly what could be seen as something of a cheesy rock song actually took on a huge amount of energy. He’s a great player, Ryan, we share some music tastes as well.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever gigged with Nigel though, according to his bio he’s done the ACM as well so we’re guaranteed a great night.

I thought it might be interesting to list the setlist I have so far – there’s a lot of personnel changes as you can imagine, Steve has the breeze guys up and down in both sets for a sort of supergroup – and give me reactions to the tracks. A lot of them are Breeze staples. The keys are in the list, as is the persons involved, to a degree…

1st set

crazy little thing called love (jay)(D) – realised I played this first time in about 1989 with Fat Freddy’s Cat in St Andrews. I’m taking the time to go through it again and re-learn the feel, it’s a bouncy bassline and I didn’t appreciate that before. Finding fun!

shine (jay) (Eb) – Never played this, it’s the Take That tune. Thankfully the progressions are simple and the tune spent so much time advertising Morrisons that it’s earwormed enough into my long-term memory and just seems to come out of the fingers on demand. Cool, might even be able to try some vocals on it.

sweet home (jay) (D) – The original feelgood track with the original feelgood frontman, Jay

3 tracks with kelly singing – don’t know what these are yet, I’ll have to wing it on the day!

forget you (neill) (Bb) – learned this a while back for a Brackley red lion gig but we never did play it, have been learning that little funky bass breakdown to get it just so. Definitely a 6 string job, I’ve been considering the synth to give the bass a little more pop (literally)

dont stop me now neill (F) – great track, this one will be one to enjoy

billy jean neill (B) – always enjoy this one, that metronomic beat is infectious to play, always find myself bouncing from foot to foot while I play it.

 

2nd set

mustang sally (steve charlie) (C) – Steve will sing this of course. I reckon his voice is better than the bloke from the commitments

valerie  (michelle) (Eb) – I don’t have the Winehouse version lying about, I’ll just have to work on the original

sex on fire (jay) (E)  - wonder if we’ll do the start properly… I’d better polish it just in case!

moves like jagger (jay neill kelly rich) (A) – Now this one I think I will get synth bass on, I think there’s a patch on the GR somewhere which will do the job.

funky music (rich and caj) (E) – another track I’ve been playing for 20 years, but these guys get the modulations at the end right, it’s a great track when you do it right to the end!

shake your tail feather (neill) (Eb) – I’ll be channelling the Duck himself on this one. Look down on me and wink with a puff of yer pipe Mr Dunn

dont stop believing (neill) (E) – Neil sings this really well, the man’s a star – how to keyboard players do that?

bo rap (breeze) – at last, bohemian rhapsody. Another track I learned ages ago!

let it be hey jude (breeze) – or, as I coined it after seeing McCartney miming at the olympics – “I, look like , your, Nana na-na, Nana na-na, Hey Jude”

eBay tales

I've had an original line6 Bass POD for years - its seen me well for live shows for at least - what - 7 years or something? The floorboard controller for it does a great job, tuner, wah, volume, all in one.
When the PODxt came out I was interested, especially as it didn't have the annoying gap while changing patches, but the cost of a replacement system - bass PODxt plus the FBV short board - always seemed to put me off enough not to bother.
Well, fast forward to now, and there are good deals to be had on eBay! Fortunately, the gear is well built and often spends its life in studios: total cost on eBay (I was amazed to win both first time with a reasonably high max bid) was a very reasonable £170 including P&P.
I even had the chance to fix the FBV a bit - switch replacement. I can recommend Doctor Tweek on the web - fast, great communication and he's got the right parts for the job: after desoldering the old switches, easy job, completely fixed. Satisfying - an irony is that this means I now know how to fix it later, and also how solid it is.

Great new project, built new equipment for it!

New project: I've got hooked up with a truly talented, enthusiastic vocalist - She's had stuff released before.
Great energy in her songs, and a new genre for me: reggae, but with a lot of other styles thrown in. She loves her crossover - she's into loads of styles, and regularly likes to flip between them.
With that in mind, this time around I finally knuckled under and made up the monster live studio PC in a flightcase I've always wondered about... Net result, a machine which runs ableton live, with a behringer MIDI floor controller to kick off the scenes and modify tempo.
We've tested it, and it seems like it'll do the job - the drummer's got great tempo, and the gear is reliable.
All I need now is a better audio interface than the old 2x2 I'm using... Anyone got a MOTU 828 I can have?

Unsolicited Ambulance chaser claim SMS text FAIL

Look what I received:

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Sent by unregistered version of SMSCaster: FREE MSG: We have now had the £3150 compensation released by the insurer for your accident. To claim this now reply '

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Now THAT's tragic. Pathetic on sooOooooooOOOOO many levels.

When you're not funkifising

Zen-chill out growing 10ft tall tomatoes.

When you grow your own food, you feed your soul as well.


Just lashed them all up properly. Needed doing.

In other news... Fantastic new musical project starting, big bass and BIG tech.

Chicken Soup Mix 1

Chicken Soup Mix 1

Just wanted to re-share chicken soup. It's in need of some remixing at the end, I think... but I'm pretty happy with it.

Solo bass pieces and meditation.

I've had the itchiest fingers last couple of days... Went to a wedding over the weekend, which was fun, but I didn't take a bass (just a grip exerciser). Managed to tear a calf muscle dancing, which is a minor limp now (healing fast, I think).

The itchiness, though, developed into a sort of dark, sleepless yearning. I've got to play, play new things, write new things. Weird, out of character things. New sounds from research, radio 1, Maybe buy a Novation controller at some point, abandon old band concepts, shrink the personnel, programme a lot: expensive synth strings, horns, drums...

So to calm the beast, tonight was declared "dig out old tap pieces and start learning a new meditative solo piece" night. Other people's work, all, but something to still me before bed.

Satriani's "midnight" and "day at the beach" work surprisingly well on a 4 string, although the warwick's too heavily strung. The rhythm for Midnight took time to come, but the familiar alpha waves hit me and that sense of continuity, stillness, chronological nowness - it came to me, fleetingly, leaving that same beautiful feeling of being "at one" with something, anything, instead of the terrible otherness of day jobs.

New piece to learn is "Jacob's Ladder" from 100 degrees and rising, by Incognito. It's a beautiful piece, with a mainly Latin feel behind some wonderfully articulate gentle slap and fingerstyle, all light, feather-touch and playful. Things I'd rather be!

Overall, a good start, I've got the main A-E part right, along with the higher register piece which breaks it before it heads to F-B flat. It's so fast I think I need the Aria Integra, with the light 30s on it, to get the feel right. Beautiful piece, the strings towards the end are really nicely done. The whole album's got some great moments on it, they rein in the worst excesses of the strained female vocals on nearly all the tracks they appear on.

Keep playing, world. It's important.

Anxiety dreams of a Bassist

Wow, Freud would run screaming from this morning's little oddball moment. I suspect I'd stopped breathing again (last night was pretty rough) and from what I remember the dream had points in it where my left hand had been replaced with a transplant, which kept going numb and powerless until I took time to flex and work on it.

At one point, very lucidly, I was thinking this would stop me playing permanently, and I started remembering how to play Donna Lee in my head. After this, the fingers (previously looking pale and lifeless, and unable to clasp at their tips as if broken halfway down) came back to life and appeared to be fine again.

I woke up gasping, as usual - not a function of the dream, more me not breathing. Yipe.

Creative acts with paint

Horrible, horrible helmet:



Plus Altern-8 style painter:



Equals primed helmet,



Then ORANGE.



And finally, shiny shiny.



Much better.

The benefits of daily metronome practice... strength.

It's weird how quickly you start to get strength and definition into your playing when you're regimented in your practice, even if you can only get 45 minutes of bass aerobics and a quick play along to some Madeon (his stuff's so good i tend to slap all the way through it, trying to embellish the excellent bass that's there already).

My right thumb has that self-guiding feel you get when something is starting to really "work", you know?

Also - found a bunch of guys on Diaspora who are running a collaborative music project, a lot of them are using soundcloud for it, so what the hell, I'll stick some low end noise on there!

Stashing parts for fixing stuff later - planning for the apocalypse

Well, maybe not the apocalypse. I've been stashing some parts for the car, mainly suspension bushes and other "consumables", while they're plentiful and cheap, as I want to keep the car for 8-10 years if possible (it should last that long, I reckon). I've now decided to do the same for my iPhone 3GS: I've got about £70 of spares and tools from http://www.AppleiPodParts.com/ including a complete OEM re-case (including the silver front bezel and internal attached parts) and a new OEM battery. These will now get stashed for use in approx. 2 years to recondition the phone completely when things start to wear out. I'll probably pick up a new digitiser / front button panel at some point as well - about another £30 or so. That should hopefully ensure a long and useful life for the iPhone. I daresay iOS for it will be deadended somewhere in 5.X long before I stop using it ;-) Fix your own stuff: it's the only way!

And at last, BlogPress came back up... google apps account using a virgin email address?

Non-music post - on the iPhone / iPad I've used a tool called BlogPress in the past - pretty good multi-platform blogging tool. Not the cheapest, but it's got reasonable integration of pictures and, more crucially and interestingly, video. It's been unstable under iOS5 and the last straw was when it simply wouldn't log in any more. I stopped using it and have been waiting for an update which Apple were apparently slow to approve. Installed the update yesterday (I'm sneezing and coughing my way through the first - and I hope only - cold of 2012) and couldn't get it to work - logging in seemed impossible... Turns out my google apps account wasn't keen to let me log in with my email address: this may well be an argument with my virgin net account, as they're the same, and Virgin have moved to using google mail. If I log in using an application specific password (google thing to allow one-step auth when your account has 2-step enabled) against the **username** I've associated with the account instead of the email address, everything works! I suspect there are other "clashes" like this out there... anyway, it's all good. I'm back into blog territory. I think I've even got twitter to log in...

New year, old music...

Here's some FunkyBass recorded live in Oxford's Bridge club, circa 2005/2006: from the Janeiro / Tempa Tempa era. Great track, this - Jake Carter wrote it, it's a classic. Jake can now be found online at http://www.jake-carter.com/. Do Your Thing - TempaTempa by Andy Basexperience Watt