Current Pedalboard Rig
My pedalboard for the recent Summer Music Project gig was a a bit of a compromise. I couldn’t fit the JamMan Delay on the pedal board so it was hanging off to one side, and I had no space for my fuzz and chorus.
I’ve been planning to build a new larger PedalTrain-inspired pedalboard, and make some new correct-length cables.
Meanwhile, some of this pedal order is dependent on the short cables I had on hand. I would prefer to wire the tuner before the volume pedal, and the compressor before the wah, but that will have to wait for the redo. More
Guitar Girl’d
Rhymes with Guitar World!
Our singer, Laura Whitmore, has been writing a blog at Guitar World for about a year now. Lately she’s been writing about her transition from playing acoustic guitar to playing electric in our band, The Summer Music Project.
Yesterday, Laura wrote an article for Guitar World about her experience playing and singing at our recent gig.
Funny that, for this brief moment, our little band is on the front page of Guitar World!
She included a video of us playing her song “Don’t Take it Easy”. The audio is really bad, as we were using the built-in camera mic, from the back of the hall about 50 feet away. Unfortunately, my Tascam DR-40 digital recorder was sitting in standby for the whole show- gotta press record TWICE damnit! I of course wish I could hear my guitar better, but the important thing in this video is that we can hear Laura reasonably well.
Here’s that video:
April and the Summer Music Project Gig
Well, April just came and went, didn’t it?
It’s been a super busy month at work, and what free time I had was filled with preparing for a gig with my band, The Summer Music Project.
The set list ranged from some classic rock, right up to the present:
- Shine On – Peter Frampton
- Get Back – Beatles
- Penny On The Train Track – Ben Kweller
- Taste of Danger – Jonatha Brooke
- Stop – Joe Henry
- Wonderwall – Oasis
- Animal – Neon Trees
- Cough Syrup – Young the Giant
- Perfect Situation – Weezer
- I’m Sorry – Charles Besocke (original)
- Don’t Take It Easy – Laura Whitmore (original)
- The Only Exception – Paramore
- Help Me (She’s Out of Her Mind) – Stereophonics
- Level – Raconteurs
- Revelry – Kings of Leon
- Chocolate – Snow Patrol
- Loving Cup – Rolling Stones
- Had Me A Real Good Time – The Faces
I’m playing lead guitar on all of these, and some definitely push the limits of my abilities- so it’s been a great challenge. Also, and rather more nerve-wrackingly, I sing on most of the songs- mostly harmony with our lead singer Laura Whitmore, but I also had to sing lead parts on a couple songs. I’ve never been thrilled with the timbre and range of my voice, so I spent a lot of time working on the songs. As with anything, it’s definitely true that the more you practice, the better you get, but I have a looooong way to go. I’ll be writing more about voice training in another post.
One Millionth Anniversary!
It seems not that long ago, I was celebrating 100,000 views. Now, I don’t regularly check and obsess over my YouTube channel view-count. But this week, while trying to catch up on my replies to an ever-increasing backlog on my YouTube inbox, I noticed that my view count was in the high nines. Well, this morning, this is what I saw:
This is truly a mind-bender.
I recorded a quick video to say thanks to everyone, and to solicit some feedback for my future projects. I also talk a bit at the end about Jerry Seinfeld’s motivational technique for tricking yourself into getting things done. Don’t Break The Chain!
Play on!
Treble and Bass
In my tone capacitor video, I demonstrated the typical use of the capacitor as a low-pass filter in a guitar tone control. On a home stereo, this would be called a treble control, as it is used to roll off the high-end treble frequencies.
But what if you also want a bass control- a high-pass filter to roll off the low bass frequencies?
In the circuit diagram shown here, from the G&L S-500 guitar, you’ll find both a treble and bass control. They call it their PTB system (which presumably stands for passive treble bass, but I’m just guessing here).