Puttin' On The Brake...

I was pondering the other day as I was viewing some pics of some amps & realized...Hmm a lot of axemen probably go out & buy the loudest loud thing they can. But they probably live in apartment, condo, or townhouse type of dwellings so how can they turn up their loud & not bother their neighbors? Or specifically how can I, John, crank up my Crate amp to get tone but play way quiet? Most probably don't care about noising out others. But there are kind caring rockers out there, well at least I would hope so anyway. So you want to get amp turned up to 11 or beyond to get the desired tone but you want speakers to sound like you've set the volume to 3.

I read something somewhere yesterday that 11 or beyond out of control players just go into small clubs with a decent sound system but their amps are too loud. And often the players aren't willing to cooperate with the sound person. One sound guy said he mentioned to a player that the amp was to loud so the player said "You need me to turn it down?" The sound person was shocked that the player offered to do that. I also read that some place their amps on a slanted rack to get it up off the floor & some turn them sideways or all the way around so the amp is louding out in the face of the player so the sound person has a audio chance at creating a better mix.

So in a nutshell the technology is referred to as a power brake or attenuator. More info than you would to know about it is:

Background info...
Loud cool sounding amp & need it to drive the tubes but sound quieter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_attenuator_(guitar)

This seems to be the popular model,$270+, to get for an amp with 8 ohm speakers...which I have on my Crate...
http://www.zzounds.com/item--THDHP

Do it yourself (DIY) stuff...
http://www.amptone.com/g243.htm
http://amps.zugster.net/articles/attenuation

Until later comes, turn it up to 11 but really 3.

Gadgets & Mods & Pickups & Effects...Oh my...

This morning whilst driving in & listening to parts of songs I had an epiphany. I have plenty of examples of intros, leads, rhythms, swirly, clean, crunch, & overdriven in my set of songs in .mp3's on my smartphone. I have in my head categories of types of sounds to create. And the epiphany is that I have to first sit down & slow down & describe in words what it is a particular sound is. If I can't do that then I can't sit down with the knobs & buttons of gadgets & just turn & push aimlessly hoping to recreate that sound and then shape it to be my 'purple' sound. For some this might be "Well gee, duh John, what did you expect?" As I listen to a lead or rhythm on Halen I or even something on a Satch album I find myself asking myself things like is that a Flanger sound or is a Phaser or is it both. Heck I realized that a sound I so desperately wanted to recreate long ago on one of Satch's songs was due mainly in part to a flanger setting that has no sweep making the guitar sound like it's in a tunnel. And as I listen I hear more & more how overprocessed Vai & Satch are for some of their stuff. Would you like some guitar to go with those effects? It's interesting to listen to early Halen & then move to their subsequent pre-1984 tracks to hear how EVH moved from that simple & classic VH1 sound to becomming more processed then 1984 was great & after that....uhm Eddie dude what happened? Sheez.

I listened to a bit of some intros & leads from Slash on G n R's Appetite & just hear rock & I hear slash & not effects. Friend Jeremy, mad dog, wanted me to learn a song called Peace Dog by The Cult. I listened some clips from their Ceremony album & it's just simple & good sound. So peace, dog.

This would be interesting...Take Brian Setzer(Stray Cats), Trevor Ravin(Yes), Alan Holdsworth, The Edge, John Sykes(Whitesnake), Vivian Campbell(Dio), Eric Johnson, Ace Frehley(Kiss), Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Gilmore, Slash, EVH, Vai, Satch, or whoever I'm missing that should be included here, & stick them each in their own studio by themselves with the same 4.5 minute drum track, with their fav guitars & amps but they are only allowed to use reverb & digital delay to record. No stereo effects, no phaser, no flange, no chorus, no overdubs, no harmonizer's & no mixdown effects processing except for necessary standard EQ settings to shape the sound after recording. What would each come up with for their sound.

There was a song that sang "Video killed the radio star." Effects have sure have had quite the influence on axemen throughout the world & throughout history. I know guys like Satch & Vai are constantly driven to reinvent their sound from song to song or album to album. Is this their desire or is it driven by the business of music & marketing suits who just want album sales & the only way to do that is to always sound new, fresh, or different. Just give me my four or five or ten go button settings in some box hidden somewhere. I don't care what the details are of the box. I don't care what the amp settings are. An example I thought of also this am was that I thought about Halen & boys prepping for a tour. Makes me wonder if Eddie just goes to techies, Ok here's my main amp(s), here's my rack of stuff, Here's my guitars, I'll be back in two days. Make it sound right. Or does he piece together everything himself thing by thing & cord by cord. It boggles me how a national or world tour for such types of bands get prepped for the 1st show.

So as part of the Epiphany & describing sounds, this is the first step. What do I want to find & then make 'purple'

Sound concepts I have in my head:
Classic surf clean
Classic surf crunch
Clean surf swirly sound
Classic Rockabilly such as Brian Setzer
Classic Hendrix clean such as Hey Joe or Wind Cries Mary
Classic rock like Chuck Berry Johnny B Goode
Rocking surf rhythm such as Pipeline in hard rock style
Overdriven surf lead like my Pipeline cover I do how Dale & Stevie Ray V did together.
Clean stereo kind of sound that doesn't sound overprocessed for both leads & rhythm
Clean swirly sound
Crunch rhythm stereo wall of sound like The Cult's intros or EVH in Beautiful Girls or Purple Haze
Crunch rhythm swirly sound
Heavy hard rock rhythm stereo wall of sound that's Halen's Panama-ish or Hot for Teacher-ish.
Heavy hard rock rhythm swirly sound that's Gilmore-ish
Overdriven screaming stereo, in your face harmonics, sound
And something that's classic "The Edgish" that is all over Joshua Tree album.

The stock default patches in my Quadraverb 2 will probably cover a lot of these already.

And as U2 sings "I still haven't found what I'm lookin' for" but I seem to be gettin' there. I'm acutally going to buy strings for my electrics today & boil 'em. And once I find what I'm looking for in the coming weeks & get some tunes down I'm going to make an attempt to find some fun & good wholesome & morally sound peoplez to form some kind of instrumental surf to hard rock band to have fun with first but perhaps play weddings & such. But first I must find my 'Purple' & get to the basics with a metronome. I guess I could get things together & go play at an open mic night thing. I'm not so paranoid about my tremolo system now that I know about boiling strings & such.

Until later comes, turn it up to purple & swirly.

The First 9 Seconds - In The Beginning...

Yep more sound/song stuff.

The 1st 9 seconds that influenced guitar & rock for millions...


=~=~=~=~=~=~==~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~

Found this guy's clips the other day. Whoa...
http://www.jasonjosephphotography.com/soundclips.html

*Marshall 1970 100watt Super Lead*
Hot for Teacher(Seymour Duncan 59)stock specs
Unchained(Seymour Duncan JB)mod
Seymour Duncan 59 plus DOD eq boost
Original 1(Ibanez Artist)mod ©2005
Original 2(Ibanez Artist)mod ©2005
Blues Jam(Seymour Duncan JB)mod

*Marshall 1959slp Plexi Reissue*
Feel your love tonight(w/album)(one tube)
Various VH song parts with one tube in the amp
One tube jam w/background music
Doodling around w/Dimarzio PAF (one tube)
Some AC/DC with my sound (one tube)
Unchained with my sound (beginning part) (one tube)
Fools (Ibanez Artist) (stock)
Mean Street (Ibanez Artist) (stock)
Mean Street (w/album in right speaker) Kramer Striker (stock)

*79 Marshall 50watt JMP*
Original 3 ©2005

*5150combo*
FYI Brother Glop - These amps are $500-$1000 used on ebay or Craigslist.
Mean Street riff with Dimarzio PAF (Marshall 4x12)
Unchained "new version"(Seymour Duncan 59) (No 4x12)
Wankage 1 (Marshall 4x12)
Wankage 2 (Marshall 4x12)
Outta love Again (w/album) Marshall 4x12 (my own vibe)
Blues on Steroids - (Marshall 4x12)
Everybody Wants Some (w/album) Marshall 4x12
Ice Cream Man (w/album) Marshall 4x12
Runnin with the devil (w/album) Marshall 4x12
Panama beginning (completely dry) Marshall 4x12
Panama(Seymour Duncan 59)
Combo with Marshall cab/Greenbacks
Jamies Cryin(combo w/Marshall cab/Greenbacks)
You really got me(Seymour Duncan 59)
Little Guitars 'fool around mix'(Ibanez Artist)
Demo solo(1980 Ibanez Artist)

This place has some rather expensive amps. There's a Soundclips link on the left side which will take you to a page that has links to .mp3 samples. The 1st Scorpion clip is a VH classic
http://www.mojaveampworks.com/

What I've Learned About Guitar Soundz

What I've Learned About Guitar Soundz

Prerequisities are to read these:

• http://www.vhlinks.com/pages/interviews/evh/gp122979.php
• http://www.vhlinks.com/pages/interviews/evh/gp0480.php
  

I feel like I've been on an exploration to create some kind of paper for some kind of rock guitar history class. It's a journey that I've never really taken. It's a good journey but man...That EVH article I mentioned in previous post should be required reading by Federal Law prior to a person buying a guitar, amp, or pedal unit.

I must confess that I was the innocent victim of the "gotta have the gadgets" syndrome. To have gadgets & dink with effects was far more important than to just simply sound simply good. I've wasted a lifetime just pushing buttons & turning knobs endlessly & aimlessly & without knowing why & not ever really finding my "purple" sound.

We wuz prayed upon by listening to the hammering guitar carnages of our youth who had thing after thing in their racks all of which contributed to sounding big & good. But what we so easily forgot is that the 'big sound' was owed in large part to the record labels financially backing the recording studio, the recording engineers, the live sound crews, & the live sound system. Of course joe schmoe guitar dude with a simple stock mass produced guitar through some whatever high tech mass produced multieffects unit into a small amp is not going to get ya big sound. And then we take our guitars & run 'em through myriads of effects thereby muddying up & clouding what could possibly be a decent sound. We was ruined by the marketing of crud. And just last week I was hit by that DigiTech RP80/50 from the store dude at Union Grove. Sheez.
These quips from that Eddie & '79 article pretty much sum it up:

"GP: What is your philosophy on using effects?
EVH: What I'm really into doing is squeezing anything out of the cheapest possible thing. Like whenever I get something made or built or designed I always say, make it as cheap as possible. I'll walk into this music store where I buy all my stuff, a place in Pasadena called Dr. Music, and they laugh at me. Because I ask them what they have, and they go, Oh, got this new this, got the new digital delay or something or other, and I go , Got anything cheaper? Because I can get weirder noises out of them than the expensive state of the art stuff. ...And like a lot of big name players laugh themselves silly when they see it, but after they hear me, then they go, Can I plug in? Some of these guys have got four out-of-phase switches, and a this and a that, and a biamp crossover, and blah, blah, blah. And I just go, Is it on? Is it working? What's it for? What's it do? I can't tell! At least when I use an effect, you know I'm using it. My main tricks are in my amps."

How did pop & Roth & the world take Eddie's classic sound & simple approach...This title of their song seems to sum it up "Everybody wants some." Everybody wantin' a piece of him & exploitation till there was nothing let to take. Too bad Eddie lost that philosophy to keep up with the pop & rock mainstream. But my own journey by looking into EVH's early sound has returned me to the concept of simple:

Brother Glop mentioned reverb. It's all over great surf tunes & Eddie's early sound with a delay here & there.So my journey towards simple consists of:

• Ordering an MXR M101 Phase 90 Pedal with 1 knob & turn it to slow sweep & keep it there forever unless I want to try to get Gilmooreish or Trowerish.
  I never learned this about distortion in amps & that 'tis good to drive them with something like the classic Boss SD-1 Overdrive pedal or better yet, get the modified & cleaned up version from http://www.robertkeeley.com/product.php?id=13
  
• Am being patient to wait on an EBay or Craigslist item for a Boss GE-7 EQ to stick in front of the amp. I found this info in a wikipedia article:As an example of pre-distortion EQ, Eddie places a 6-band MXR EQ pedal before the Marshall amplifier head (pre-distortion EQ). Slash places a Boss GE-7, a 7-band EQ pedal, before his Marshall amp. This technique is similar to placing a Wah pedal before the amp's preamp distortion and leaving the Wah pedal positioned part-way down, sometimes mentioned as "fixed wah," (pre-distortion EQ), along with adjusting the amp's tone controls (post-distortion EQ).
  
• And then use my rack compressor & either built in Amp verb/delay/chorus or find the simplez in my Quadraverb 2 which is not a cheap unit. Nice thing is it's technology is dedicated towards time based effects instead of trying to have a million features.
  
• I've also dreaded changing strings on my Ibanez because of the supposedly great locking tremolo system which will drive one to 5150 status quickly. I was often puzzled by how whammy monsters such as Vai, Satch, Eddie, etc. can go so long in a show without going out of tune. I asked myself that just this morning. And today I read this in that article that I didn't see before:
  "GP: Do you put new strings on every night? EVH: Yeah, Fender 150XLs. I stretch them to death. With that new Rose thing, I boil the strings so they stretch, because if you just put them on and clamp it down, the strings stretch out on the guitar. I just take a pack and let it boil for 20 minutes in the hot water. And then I dry them in the sun, because otherwise they rust. But I only use them one night anyway, so who cares if they rust?"

So can I have an A+ now teacher? Strange thing is that I've done all this looking about & such & I haven't even gotten an amp out or changed any strings yet on me electrics. I did change my acoustic strings last weekend though. Now I'll go buy, boil, & sun soak some electric strings & see how they, & I do. Laff.

Untils later comes, turn it up to simplicity.

Whoa & Wow Ma'an Tracks From Brother Glop

I inquired with brother Glop about a list of songs from the roots of rock & surf music that we're like 'Whoa' & 'Wow ma'an' excluding some obvious one's like Pipeline, Classical Gas, Johnny B Goode. These are what the glop of manly surfdom emailed to this simple this me.

• The Ventures - Slaughter on Tenth Avenue
• The Ventures - Perfidia
• The Ventures - Diamond Head
• Pink Floyd - Gilmore's solo in - On The Turning Away
• Jorgen Ingmann - Apache
• The Lively Ones - Surf Rider
• Jimi Hendrix - Villanova Junction (Live at Woodstock)

Diamond Head played:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TUmMoEcD9EU

Just My Pedalboard...Said Ed in that '79 article...

This here is rambles about guitar effects processing & finding one's "sound."
In that article I found with EVH in '79 he quipped humorously...
"Just my pedalboard, my cheap piece of plywood with my MXR garbage. You know, that's funny too. I've met just about everybody that I grew up on, and they all laugh - you know, like Montrose and Nugent and all these people. Last year when we'd open for them, they'd walk up to me and go "What is this stuff?" You know, I got my little plywood with an MXR phase shifter duct-taped onto it....I see Montrose with his $4000 studio rack...And then he laughs himself silly looking at my stuff. And then later on he's going 'Whoa, how do you get that sound?'

Stop! Hey what's that sound? Everyone look what's going 'round...

"In the late 70's Dave Gilmour and Eddie VanHalen were both using script MXR Phase 90's"
"Why so popular? Simple. Have a listen to 'Eruption' from EVH, now have a listen to the solo in 'Hotel California' and now have a listen to 'Breathe' by Pink Floyd. It's all the same phaser." It's all vintage modjo.
"If you really want one, and you should, you'll need to be prepared to trawl for hours on the net to find one & pay $250 0r more."

Forget mocha. Modjo please!

Then found that Dunlop makes or did make a reissue called:
Custom Shop Phase 90 Script Pedal
http://www.jimdunlop.com/index.php?page=products/pip&id=243&pmh=products/p_and_e_detail

Curiousity might lead me to get one to try.

Added 10-21 - Did a bit more poking & found MXR M-101 Phase 90 Pedal and then doing a simple 'R28 Mod' where you clip one end of a resistor to remove it from the circuit:
http://www.thejunosound.com/phase_90_r28_mod.htm

So as part of one's journey into guitardom there's the dreaded cat & mouse game of "Find your sound." It's been a vain journey so far for this me. There's something to be said for just plug in & play & forget trying to sound good for, as I hinted at in my rambling earlier this week it is far better to look good than it is to be & sound good. So I'm on this quest to return to the roots of the Halen I simplicity. That sure changed quickly:
http://www.customaudioelectronics.com/images/EVH1.jpg
Some guy claims this was the 90's setup that Ed used:
http://guitargeek.com/rigs/img/v/vanhalen_eddie_1997.gif

So I walked into a local music shop in town & just asked the dude "I look at the roots of Halen I sound & there's simplicity. What effects processor do you recommend to help return to similar simplicity?" They had only a few types of units but the guy pulled out a DigiTech RP50 & RP80. The 80 is the 50 but adds an expression pedal. I'm not fond of DigiTech as they try to market to the masses. Of course reviews are all over the charts but the consensus seems to be it's for dinking around but overall, as expected, not for the intermediates & above. But I could go try one for the heck of it to either prove the guy wrong or to confirm or deny the reviews.

So I did a Google for: best simple guitar processor & on page 4 of the myriads of results I found the text "Steve Vai Takes Guitar Effects to a New Level...
http://www.tcelectronic.com/Default.asp?Id=8873

I drooled through these clips:
http://www.tcelectronic.com/Default.asp?Id=6061

The GSystem is of course at least $1500.
The TC Electronics VPD1 seemed impressive as well.

In the very middle of drooling I just said to myself..."Welp, simplicity at it's best on VH1 was guitar on one side & verb on the other with some flange or delay." I'm to the point of saying, turn on my, not so cheap Crate amp, turn on a bit of chorus, & pick one of the preset verb or delay settings & go. But then I could also run the amp's effect loop out into my, not so cheap & not really meant as a guitar effects processor, Quadraverb 2, & just pick a something & go.

Welp, until later comes, turn it up to phaser + "MXR garbage."

It's Starting...Media Invasion...

In the continuing saga of things of music media & the wholesomeness, or lack thereof, I'm noticing that the battle has been taken to the next level in my children. I realize now that my own journey of recent days has been training me to, or shedding light upon, the need to meet the ensuing media onslaught head on & stand my ground.

Why are 3rd graders listening to the music of Dio, Scorpions, Bon Jovi, Z.Z. Top, and, ugh..., the dreaded Iron Maiden? And the answer is either the kid's parents listen to it or the parents don't screen what it is the child listens to. In my own journey into the realm of metaldom, my parents as great as they are, didn't involve themselves in the monitoring & restriction of music content. The metal roamed free....wheee. And if that's not bad enough the child listening to the aforementioned inappropriate lyrical content had one of their parents burn a copy of songs & gave to Noah & another student. And now I must create simple ways to teach Noah & boyz about not cloning media to give to others & why the particular media is not appropriate for them. I hope I have the needed stamina & wisdom to redirect little ears towards Dale, Ventures, the Vai's & Satriani's, etc.

Do not be afraid but be very afraid for peer influence has begun.

Ramblin Band Blue Ma'an

Revision 10/19/2006 10:45 am
Jim Wrote "I wonder what the difference is there?"
I'm sure it was the drive to rock hard following in the successes of the Cream's, Zepplin's, Nuggent's, Aerosmith's, Cactus, & Hendrix. To rock hard in main 'rockstream' you had to have lyrics & obviously someone singing them.



So I've been on this interesting journey since I started doin' this blogg thing. The journey was inspired by brother Steve, aka Glopman, who randomly & out of the blue sent me the link to the YouTube-good luck there Google with all the legalisms-of Eddie Van Halen jammin' Panama with Paul Shaffer & Letterman band dudes. This began the journey of returning to roots of things of music for me. Looking back I, along with every other young teen guitar wannabe, listened to things of Halen or whatever the most popular guitar riffing maniacs was & mainly it was to listen to the guitar carnage spewing forth in incomprehensible ways. For me none of it had to do with the lyrics nor the image or look of the bands. So as I have been returning to the roots of things of Halendom I realize now how stupid the lyrics are to most of their songs and how 1 tracked minded the lyrical content is. I never really even read what the lyrics were until I started doing so in this day & age. The second thing I realized is that for a band, seeking to invade the world, it is almost better for the band to look good & have their image than it is to sound good. You had to have the image first, then you have to have lyrics that conform to the standard of being about sex, drugs, rock & roll, & just maybe about cars or motorcycles. I recently watched part 3 of MTV's review of Heavy Metal days of the 80's & 90's. As big hair & stupid outfits got more bigger & more stupid, bands came along to crack that misery such as Metallica & Guns & Roses.

so if you take away image & take away the conformity in regards to lyrics & a band's success & popularity were based entirely upon musical content alone, yeah dream on John, what kind of music/songs would they put out instead? Would Van Halen have needed a singer ever in this scenario? One example is that Eddie & Alex were nominated for a Grammy for the instrumental track they did for the movie Twister. Even Vai & Satriani had to move into the realm of putting lyrics to their music to attract more to buy their music. And that’s mainly that non-musician types need lyrics to relate to a song because they can't relate to just an instrument playing.

so a band has a choice to be just a bar/party band & play what they want how they want or they start to write way cool & awesome backing music but they stick crud in front of it in the form of the conforming lyrics & they start to create their image & attitude. And when they sign a deal they get stuck in that realm of just being a sell out money making pawn for the business of music. Eddie tried to break away from some of the control of the business of music by building 5150 studios. But they still had to put out the sell out type of genre of music that the very nature of the business of music dictated.

Does the business of music interfere with the art of music? Of course it does. It is better to look & sound the way the business wants you to than it is to look at & sound the way you want your art to. It must be impossible to stand one's ground in that realm.

Until later comes, I'll be listenin' to more of the Blue headed peoples.

Babble about technology today vz. long ago...

Zo thiz babble I have about thingz of muzic & technology & servicez in thiz now iz about a way back when thing that I learned from friend Jeremy. But first....Way back long ago when I waz young we didn't have theze thingz called CDz or MP3 or DVD nor did we have a net of inter. If we wanted to lizten to our favourite album man we had to get up off our lazy buttz & actually zearch through a stack o' vinyl record albumz to find the then 'dizc' to play. We then had to go over to the ztereo device & puzh a myriad of buttonz to bring them to life. Then we had to carefully place the 'dizc' upon the turntable. Now if we wanted to lizten to a zpecific zong we had to ztudy the groovez on the dizc and accurately tranzport the needle device to the approximate location on the 'dizc.' And we did zo hoping that we would not cauze damage to the preciouz needle or the 'dizc.' We could then proceed to rock out or zit on lazy buttz & juzt lizten. Oh but what if you wanted to hear the whole album? Well half way through we had to get off our duffz & turn the 'dizc' over & go through the needle placement routine again.

In regardz to said 'dizcz' that if for whatever reazon the song or couple of songz you liked didn't come in the 45 format 'dizc' then you had to buy the whole darn ztinkin' album juzt to be able to play the zongz you wanted to.

Zo back to what I zet out to write about iz that Jeremy & I had thiz rule about buying albumz & that waz either we had to have enjoyed previouz releazez from the artiztz or we had to have heard & liked at leazt 3 zongz on an album to buy the album. That took out the guezzing of weather or not we'd like anything on the album. Now fazt forward to now & today...

One can go on the net of inter & lizten to a zhort clip of muzic being conzidered for purchaze. And that can be helpful but a short clip izn't going to give you much of a zample. And to date I've enjoyed the concept of Rhapzody which allowz you to firzt have a free 14 day trial & you can lizten to all the albumz & songz you want for free. You can skip songz on albumz you don't like. And you don't have to have the song filez on your playing system. Each time the player iz on a zong it juzt goez & fetchez it online. I think that'z kind of cool.

It'z juzt interezting to think upon how much how we get media into our beingz that we dezire haz changed zo much. There'z even the incredibly huge paradigm shift that Hollywood haz to set it'z marketing planz unto the realm of home viewing rather than firzt putting forth all energiez towardz promoting & releazing moviez in theatrez firzt & then on video/DVD long long long after the movie leavez the theatre building.

Welp back to enjoying zampling some Blue Man Group via Rhapzody.

Until later comez, go be blue ma'an.

Thingz of free trials & copyrighted material

So I'm sitting here pondering a strangism...And it's merely from an observation & not my actual doing such things. And the strange is about free trial services that allow one to enjoy fully copyrighted material for a limited time. And hence one can use various methods available to clone such copyrighted materials to keep & enjoy for however long one wants to. Examples are things like Netflix, Blockbuster online rentals, or Rhapsody where they usually offer you free trials for about two weeks & then you cancel & then they say "Well hey we want ya so we'll extend your trial for 2 more weeks." And then you cancel & then you sign up again for a free trial using a different shipping address such as your place of employment along with a different email address & then you can enjoy more free for another month. In the case of the online music service such as Rhapsody, you can listen to entire songs & albums during the trial period & not pay a dime. And there's myriads of free or almost free software programs that will happily capture the audio from you computer's sound card. Or you could simply run the line out of the computer into some of kind external audio recorder. In the case of protected audio that you purchase from Rhapsody or iTunes, you get this nice protected file that you can have burned onto a CD. And then you use a free or almost free tool that copies the audio content from the CD byte by byte to create a perfect audio file. Then you can use converters to convert the audio to .mp3. And then you can, if you wanted, just send that audio file all about the world. I laugh to think about how iTunes has been disabled for parts of the world due to people doing that. The only thing that prevents people from such sharing of things is a little license agreement that you click a nice button on the computer screen and then it's up to your morals & values to keep you from 'stealing.' I'm sure publishers just love that.

I just find it ironic to think about the paradigm of digital media rights & how the publishers of such media are trying to protect that which they publish. But the very thing they are trying to protect can be so easily obtained for free & converted into an unprotected format.

But then the same was probably true way back when one could record their music onto an audio tape & then pass the tapes around to people. I'm sure the music industry went nuts about that.

The publishing realm is strange. If you leave it up to consumers to abide by a legal speal that they either click on in the computer realm or read on the back of some media disc, tape, or album, then stuff is going to be cloned & passed about.

Until later comes, turn it up to free.

Dear Eddie Again...

Dear Edward Van Halen Again...

http://www.pplministries.org/DearEVHAgain.htm

If someone knows how to get this to Eddie's eyes, please do so. Until later comes, turn it up to 5150.

Thingz of Gibzon ES-335 - How could you Steve!?

Zo my favorite oldezt brother Steve wrote in hiz blog:
"...buying me a Gibson ES335 electric guitar. I don't have it now -- I sold it in college...I got it in December 1967, I think."

Zo I did a zearch for ES335 on the net & went poking around at various linkz I found. I learned that you can buy a reizzue made by the Gibzon Cuztom Zhop for about $4500. Found zome guy zelling one from 1971 on craigslist for about $4000. If I had the money I'd probably go fetch that one after having a guitar tech review it.

In my clicking about the net of inter I ztumbled upon an interezting video clip about Gibzon & Guitar Center partnering to create a clone of Clapton'z ES-335. It'z an interezting journey through watching the 'cloning' & building procezz. Interezting to note iz that I noticed that part of the manufacturing procezz includez dipping the pickupz in hot wax to help avoid unwanted feedback. Thiz waz a pratice that Eddie Van Halen did with surf wax melted in a can az he azzembled hiz guitarz himzelf. Yet another example of how Eddie haz influenced the world of guitarz & how they are made. The video clip link iz:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4764707652331081865

In an article from 1979 Eddie stated:
"See, I love 335's. I can haul ass on those things. When I pick up a 335, you probably wouldn't even recognize my playing. There's no vibrato, and I just play totally different. It's more jazzy, more fluid-fast. Kind of like Holdsworth."
- http://www.vhlinks.com/pages/interviews/evh/gp122979.php

At the end of the video the Gibzon dude told a tale about showing a prototype of the clone to Clapton & Clapton thought it waz hiz original.

Alzo in the clicking about I learned that the Clapton izzue from Gibzon goez for about $12,000. Found that zome perzon wrote thiz about buying an ES-335 reissue:
"Gibson 1963 ES-335 reissue - $3,899 - hey wait a minute - this is the same as the Crossroads 335, except for the Hare Krishna decal, Eric's autograph on the orange label and the distressed case"

Until later comez, rock on clazzic jammerz

Dear Edward Van Halen Wherever You Are...

Dear Edward Van Halen Wherever You Are...

Wrote the following today in pondering things of guitardom & my early & present guitar carnage journeys.

http://www.pplministries.org/DearEVH.htm

If someone knows how to get this to Eddie's eyes, please do so.

Until later comes, turn it up to 5150.

Cathedral Ramblez

Welp after dinking around with things of Cathedral I've got the intro chords & the note patterns down & can pick the notes with the MIDI file at the default speed that is in the .mid file at 114 beats per minute. I even tried to play along with Eddie from one of the live solo video clips. It's darn hard to start when he does because of the volume swells & the dig. delay note that comes about .4 seconds later. It's the game of find the note. But I did find I was able to keep up if I started at the right millisecond with Ed. In terms of notes & chords it's a darned simple song & the mystery & complexity of it is buried in the harmonies produced by the delayed note. Picking the notes is one thing. Now must actually get out an amp, blow the dust off of it, get out an electric & blow the dust off of it, & get it in tune, & then find a proper delay setting for way slow. First I'll practice picking then I'll practice the volume swells & hammering the notes rather than picking them. I like the song & it's fun to play. And then maybe I'll venture unto changing the strings so I can actually have a nicer sound. Where's my guitar tech? Sheez.

Until later comes I'll be in my corner cloning others & hopefully you can turn it up to 11 because where we live I wouldn't be able to without neighbors shoutin' shaddup already

Satch's Brother John & Guitar Carnage

So uhm yeah howdy hey. Just rambling on a Friday because I can. So my left hand is tired from trying to stretch me fingers upon all corners of me accoustic fretboard to play Satch's short but sweet Brother John thing that's on his first album. When I first started trying to finger it out with a .mid file & some guitar tab I thought, aw to heck with it. Especially after finding that Classical Gas stuff by Tommy Emmanuel. But I pressed through the fingering for Bro. John figuring that if I can get it ok on me accoustic it will be much more easier on me electric. I'm still causing havoc to me fingers with trying to get better at Satch's Tears In The Rain. I wonder if the guitar wonders have a hard time playing their own songs where they stand up there on stage in dread of having to somehow make it through the next song or riff or what have you. If they do you wouldn't see it in their faces or their hands.

So I'll continue practicing these things whilst venturing into the realm of first learning the notes of Eddie's Cathedral then learning how to do the volume swell. I stumbled upon this guy's site looking for info about how to play Cathedral & what delay settings to use. He goes on & on & on & says the same things over & over again but it was interesting to watch. He has other vids about Eddie's playing & such that I might watch.

http://www.jfrocks4.com/tech/vin_heuton/mos1.wmv

Welp, until later comes, turn it up to eleven.

Cathedral Midi File

Computers can be cool...

http://www.pplministries.org/Cathedral.mid

Tommy Emmanuel & Classical Gas - Whoa!

Forget Eddie, Vai, or Satch, Hendrix, brown or purple for a moment...Not for the Classical gas purist...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQJ1k2HMoRU

A fun 6 minutes...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgR3DMWLzsA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBEbYXa6Cik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M0tqCgTjbM


I stink...laff.

Until later comes, turn it up to 11.

Zhort & Zlow Fingerz

Zo I ventured in the very depthz of the dungeon known az our garage to look for a Zatraini tab book so I could once again, for about the hundreth time in my life, learn Zatch'z accouztic "Tearz In the Rain" inztrumental. Of courze whilzt venturing amidzt the myriad of boxez I could not find the dezired book. Zo I ventured out of the dungeon to the net of the inter & found a tab to try. And after a few hourz I can play through it zort of ok. Hopefully I won't forget it again. And once again I realized that my fingerz are shorter than Joe'z. Zigh. I've alwayz had to & once again have had to play the zong with the B ztring tuned down a half step. 'Tiz good to be dinking around with thingz for the fun of it. Perhapz I'll ztare at Ed & otherz playing Panama to try & learn it better than the cheezy way I uzed to play it in high school. I won't try the zolo though. Too many little black dotz for theze "zhort & zlow" fingerz. Onward to play Znowboarding on XBox with Caleb.

Until later, turn it up to 11.