Update

It's been awhile since I've posted anything but I've been moving around a lot and it's been difficult to keep track of my gear. My favourite Strat is missing and I know who stole it. As far as new gear, I bought a decent set of Pearl drums. The drums aren't in bad condition but they need new heads and cymbals. I also got a set of KRK monitors. Got my desktop built and got my recording software installed. I'm trying to get a group of session players to write and record some tunes. I'm willing to play anything but would prefer bass or guitar. I'm getting my SG setup this month and I'm looking at a few bass amps.

String quartet and French horn.

I did things a little differently on this recording. First off I recorded everything onto stem files, then I set them up in live as a set. I triggered the samples I had recorded like a live set, so basically its a recording of me doing a live set in Ableton. It made the creative process a little easier since I didn't have to worry about song structure when I was recording. Ableton has changed the way I feel about and approach the music making process. Every time I use Ableton I learn more and it changes me more.

So I used Miroslav Philharmonic in this piece to get all the orchestra parts. It wasn't very ambitious but it was my first time with this software so gimme a chance. My next piece will probably feature a mellotron and an orchestra(a la strawberry fields). I need to work on my percussion a little more, its not very exciting to listen too. But then I'm no drummer. Well here is the song I'm talking about.

Kurt Cobain singing "you gave love a bad name"?

Kurt Cobain unlockable avatar in guitar hero can be played as Flava flav, Bon Jovi and Megadeath. It's both creepy and disrespectful and should be removed ASAP. Courtney Love has denied giving permission to use Kurt's image. However, the makers of the game, Activison say that they have written consent from Courtney Love. The estate of Kurt Cobain has been involved in a massive money laundering operation which involved buying and selling real estate. It appears that through mismanagement that the money in the estate is now almost all gone. I'm sure what will probably happen is that Love will take Activison to court and lose. Eventually she will sell of all the rights to Kurt's estate including his image and the publication rights to his songs. And when Kurt's son graduates from high school he will probably have to pay his own way through college. Although I'm sure that one of the guys from Nirvana will step in to help him.

I'm not sure who I dislike more these day, it's a toss up between Yoko Ono and Courtney Love. Ono caused the Beatles to break up, but Love is just one disaster after another. As a shareholder in the Beatles with one fourth of the band, Ono has done a great job in protecting the legacy of John Lennon and her kids too. So I 'd have to say that I dislike Love more.

"If it itches then scratch it" WTF

OK I dunno how I came up with a name like that for a song. I guess it was the first thing that came into my mind. So how did this song come about? Well it took me longer than usual. I was playing with the Korg NanoPads the other day, I had loaded the 808 emulator(whatever you call it) in Ableton. But for some reason I thought that the 808 would sound good with a simple guitar riff. I ended up with a blues riff in G. Why G? Well I think that its a little brighter(warm and happy) in G. I usually like to play blues in the natural key of A.

So I had a drum beat which sounded fun then like I said I laid down a rough guitar track. By this time I had a few ideas in my head. The first idea was that I really like the sound that MGMT has right now. To me it sounds like a really full sound with the distorted guitar and the very significant keyboards. I decided to use a clean sounding guitar for most of this song, although I used a little distortion and a lot of flange on one guitar track. I used two synth tracks. One was an Absynth sequence preset I really liked that I tweaked a bit and the other was an Ableton synth that was a distorted bass sound.

I wanna talk about the bass guitar part for a bit. I have been playing regular six string guitar forever, but I have really taken to the bass since I bought my American Jazz Deluxe last year. I think I was not born to play guitar but I might have been destined for the bass. I can't believe what I've been missing all these years. I used to think that the bass player was just an ornament on stage(and it seems as if some bass players are). I never realized how important it was, and how much fun it is. So anyway after I got the drum track and a rough guitar track down, I put it on a loop and played with the bass till I got a really cool riff.

Once I had the drums, guitar and bass, I spent some time playing with different synths till I got the sounds I needed. Then I took a break for about a week. Not because I wanted to, but because I was kinda stuck. Then this afternoon I went back at it. I started by re-recording the guitar parts. Just to make them sound more crisp, I used a different pick up this time. I guess I was inspired by the death of DJ AM(more about that later) to get on the turntables. I found a few basic vocal samples and scratched them up a bit. I know I could have done better(a lot better) but I wanted to get it done so I can listen to it for a week or two and figure it out. Anyway here it is. Enjoy. The more I listen to it the less I like it. I'm gonna redo it and spend more time on the scratching, as I know I can do a lot better. I tried to do it in one take like a pro. Next time I've got a plan, you might call it cheating but I'm gonna use a sampler to make some of the scratches the same notes as the song.I also need to improve on my rhythm on the turntables.

Guitar Hero for actual guitar?

The picture has nothing to do with this, I saw the video below a few months ago and had totally forgot about it until I saw it on stumble upon today. Basically it's "Guitar Hero" on a real guitar. It promises to teach kids guitar and turn couch potatoes into guitar gods. So will it really catch on? Well that depends on a few factors: What system/OS will it be on? Will it work? Will people want to play it? And last but not least, can people afford it?

So in the video the guy plays it on a PC. Granted its not a Mac only(5% market share) so they have a few potential customers out there. But will it be available on Wii, Xbox and most importantly the future proof PS3. Think about it for a second, most kids and certainly most parents do not want the hassle of installing it on a computer and the playing it on one. Most kids and parents want the convenience of a plug and play game console.

Will it work? Well there have been many attempts in the past to try and digitize the guitar. To not only take a guitar note and turn it into digital audio, but to interpret that note for what it is. Usually when we play guitar we play more than one note. The program would have to sort out these notes. Just like a midi signal it would need to know how hard we played the note and for how long we played it. There has only ever been one company that has been successful at making guitar equipment to get even close to any of these goals and that is Roland. Problem is that after you have gone out and got that nice $1000 guitar, then you need to spend another $1300 on the Roland system. So I'm not sure how Disney is going to come out with this state of the art system at a price that will have the soccer moms lined up around the block.

Will people want it? Well that depends on the first two questions. If it will work on a game console, if it actually interprets the note correctly and if the price is right then of course people will want it. And even at a few hundred dollars it would be a better investment than guitar hero or rock band. Question is, how can they do all the above for a few hundred dollars? Maybe technology has made it possible but you still need a guitar and audio interface along with the game. A guitar or an audio interface can fetch a few hundred dollars by themselves. So I still not convinced that any company can make a decent attempt at this for under $1000. And at that price I don't see the soccer moms lining up.

Mobile Recording

I would like to one day have a home studio and a mobile studio. Right now I'm trying to compress everything down to size in order to be able to take it with me and make music anywere I want. I pretty much have everything in place. In these pics you can see everythin except the monitors. I have a set of Samson monitors right now that are really heavy. Ideally I'd like these Genelec's, they only weigh 3.1lbs and 48 watts total. That is totally amazing and the dimensions aren't bad either. Only thing holding me back is the price.

Anyway in these pics you can see all the stuff I managed to fit into my backpack. The backpack is nothing special, just a regular North Face book bag. I laid everything out on my bed when I was done to show how much stuff it was. I took the pics with my phone so I hope they aren't too blury.

Some crappy pics that I took.

Here are a few pics that I took.