It's a proggy life

I figured by now I should let you know what kind of music I like and, more importantly, what kind of music I'm going to record. This is the part where I alienate the few readers I have because I don't have mainstream tastes. Then again, recording techniques are recording techniques, so whatever I use to make my recordings can be used to make any music, including bad music.

I'm a prog kinda guy. Progressive rock, in case you didn't know the abbreviation. What is progressive rock? Well, this link explains it a little, and although it's meant to be funny it's also mostly true. Prog is rock music that pushes the boundaries of traditional rock music with high levels of musicianship, extended song lengths, multi-movement pieces, different instruments (anything with a keyboard is a good fit here), odd time signatures, and more conceptual lyrics. In fact, any time you hear the term "concept album" you're almost always talking about a progressive rock act.

Giddy with anticipation

Yes, I'm giddy.

Most guys aren't man enough to admit that.

Then again, I'm not most guys.

My first guitar lesson in 20 years happens tomorrow. 1 p.m. Mountain Time. I feel like someone about to go on a first date, although instead of "what do I wear," the question is, "what guitar do I bring?"

Do I bring my Strat? Or do I try to impress with my Gibson, which is worth more than all my other guitars combined? I could also bring my Hondo and show off how I refurbished it from a piece of crap to a pretty good guitar. Or, I could bring my Tele and show how I'm a down-to-earth guitarist.

Walk before I run

I have big plans for this blog. I'm going to do my best to post every day if I can with a minimum of five posts a week. I'm going to do my best to make my posts interesting, funny, and helpful. And I want to make some money with it to help fund the Half-Assed Studio.

The problem is, I have no patience.

Taking guitar lessons again

After months of consideration, I finally took the plunge and called about guitar lessons. These will be the first lessons I've taken since high school. I really don't know what to expect. I talked to the guy on the phone for a little while and he sounded very knowledgeable and personable.

I want to take lessons because I want more structure to my playing and practicing. Over the years, my practice sessions consisted of me banging around on my guitar for an hour or so. Maybe I'd play a song or two, maybe I'd go through some finger exercises, but it was never organized. Lately, I've been trying to force myself to have some discipline. I try to do finger exercises every day and I go over my CAGED patterns for a while, but it's still not as structured as I'd like. I'm hoping that taking lessons will force me to concentrate on specific aspects of my playing so I can become the guitarist I want to be.

Is it considered stealing if it sounds different?

While learning how to record music on my Ubuntu Studio laptop, I've been using a chord progression that a friend of mine, let's call him "D," used in a song he recently wrote. It's a progression in D, mostly using I-IV-V but with variations. His song is very folky, and the progression uses a fairly standard acoustic rhythm at a moderate tempo - if I were to guess, it's about 120 beats per minute or thereabouts. I've done this so I could free my mind of what I'm playing so I can concentrate on the recording process itself and learn how to do it. It's worked pretty well lately.

It wasn't the amp

In this post I speculated on the potential suckage of my Line 6 amp. As much as I liked it as a practice amp, I was disappointed at its performance as a recording amp. When I plugged it into the Crappy Lappy it spewed forth copious amounts of static that was captured on recordings, making it useless for my recording project.

Or so I thought.

Getting cagey

I'm taking a break from recording to work on my playing. Despite making some good recording progress, I really need to keep up on my practice. Plus, I miss my Line 6 (I need my Insane setting!) and I need to write more things to record.

I've been playing guitar on and off since I was 11 - that's 25 years of my life. Unfortunately, the off years outnumber the on years at least 2 to 1, so that number is a little misleading. I'm also predominately self-taught, having only about four years of lessons to my name. My playing consists mostly of getting tablature for songs and learning them note for note or figuring them out half-assedly by ear. This has worked somewhat - my high school band had about four hours' worth of material to play - but has more disadvantages than advantages. First off, I don't really know what I'm playing. I know basic chords - open position and barre chords - but for some of the weirder ones I just memorize fingering. I also run into problems when I lose my place. Since I don't know what I'm playing, if I miss a note or lose my place I don't have the fundamental knowledge to get me back to where I need to be. This has happened many times with my band and is usually accompanied by a sense of extreme panic before I get back on track.

There's been a celebrity sighting...

...on my little blog! At least I think so.

More importantly, I hope so.

I wrote this post the other day about my dislike for tremolos. In it, I mentioned a few guitarists who seem to not only have no problem with tremolos, but actually thrive with them. The first guitarist I mentioned was Alan Morse from Spock's Beard. The Beard are one of my favorite bands - in fact, discovering their music was one of the influences in my decision to start writing and recording music. I love Alan's playing on their records and I still can't believe does what he does on a guitar without using a pick. I've tried playing fingerstyle like he does and I'm terrible at it.

Anyway, I got a comment on that post (my first one!) and it appeared to be from Mr. Morse himself. Now, the Internet is an anonymous place where anyone can pretend to be anybody, but I think it's legit, considering one important fact: no one reads my blog! At least not enough to encourage that kind of imitation. I'm guessing he found the post by Googling his name and he was nice enough to leave a comment.

When I saw that comment, man was I pumped! It really did make my day, if not my whole weekend. To think that one of my favorite guitarists and someone I admire and draw inspiration from actually visited my little corner of the 'Net! I've just recently carved out this corner for myself and I'm still trying to build some readership. I hope Alan stops by more often and enjoys my stumbling through the recording and writing process, and even gives some advice now and then. I'd be honored if he did.

I also apologize for milking this. I can't help it if I'm excited!

Shameless plug: I also can't wait until the new Beard album comes out this year. I plan on reviewing it here as soon as I get it. Everyone should check it out! If you can't wait, pick up their last album, the excellent self-titled Spock's Beard.

I love Rosegarden

I really do. Not a real rose garden - my allergies would never let me near one - but the multi-track recording and mixing software for Linux. I installed it last week after being overwhelmed with Ardour, another Linux-based multi-track recorder/mixer that comes standard with Ubuntu Studio. Ardour is a fine program, but it's definitely aimed at those who have some recording experience. Not me, in other words.

Rosegarden, though, is clearly designed to be more intuitive for the recording n00b, of which I am one. The interface is simpler and it already creates tracks for you (you have to add them yourself in Ardour). I had some recording success with it early this week and I wanted to expand on that success by actually making a multi-track recording that sounded decent. I'm happy to say that last night I did just that.

One of the biggest boosts to my recording escapade was figuring out how to properly use my Vox headphone amp to get sound into my computer. Once that was achieved it was all about Rosegarden. Getting sound into it was easy - like I said, it already creates tracks for you. You just have to find the right one (any one marked Audio will capture sound from standard input) or change one of the others (which is as easy as changing a drop-down menu). I had to go into Patchage - an excellent graphic configuration tool for JACK connections - and tie the recording monitor output to the system output so I could hear what I was recording. I know there's a setting in Rosegarden somewhere that does it for you, but I really like Patchage, so I took care of it that way.

I'm using a chord progression that a friend of mine used in a song he wrote. I figure this way I really don't have to think about what I'm playing, I can just learn how to record it. I started out with a track where I strummed the chords using about half-gain on the Vox for a nice overdriven sound. The nice thing about Rosegarden, too, is that you can change the input levels and the waveform will adjust, so if you're peaking too much (you can tell you are if the waveform is a solid block) you can turn down the input level until you start seeing the peaks and valleys indicative of a normal waveform. The track was too loud at first, but a simple adjustment of a slider control (two actually, left and right) and it was perfect.

I then wanted to record a pseudo-bass line, so I turned up the gain on the Vox and turned down the tone to roll off some treble and played muffled root notes. It sounded pretty good for what it was. The only thing I noticed was that my timing was off at one point on track one, but since this is only a learning experience, I didn't really care. On that point, Rosegarden includes a metronome that you can set up to use any sound you want, including those from a built-in synth plugin. I used a DX7 emulator on an electric piano setting and I was able to hear it with no problems while I was recording. I never got the metronome on Ardour to work, so this was a major victory for me.

So now I have a real multi-track recording using Ubuntu Studio on my piece of crap laptop. I can only imagine how it would do with better hardware. I'm still up in the air on whether or not I'll get a Mac or a Linux computer for my studio, but with every victory with Ubuntu Studio the decision gets harder to make.

I hate tremolos

Yes, I hate tremolos. It sounds pretty broad - I mean, there are a LOT of tremolos out there - but it's true. Don't like them. Could really do without them. Wish Fender made a hardtail Strat. Some people love them, I'm not one of them.

I wasn't always this way. When I was younger - back in the 80s, when hair metal ruled - I really wanted a guitar with a good tremolo. I finally got my wish when I bought a used Charvel Model 2 - a Van Halen-style Superstrat with one humbucker, one volume (no tone), and a licensed Floyd Rose tremolo. At the time, I didn't care that it was a one trick pony with virtually no tonal variety. I just cared that I could make all kind of wobbly squealy noises without the guitar going out of tune. And for that, it was really good. But as I got older, I had more of a need for tonal variety and less for strange noises, so I ended up trading it in on a Fender Standard Stratocaster.

I had every intention of utilizing the 6-screw vintage tremolo on my new Strat. I read dozens of articles online on how to keep a vintage tremolo in tune. I even found a video where the great Carl Verheyen explains how he keeps his in tune (I still have it). I worked hard on the setup and at one point thought I finally got it to stay in tune.

Then it started slipping. So I tried another method.

Then another.

Then another.

Finally I got so fed up that I locked it down. I put on an extra spring and tightened the claw so that the bridge was flat against the body and no amount of string bending would affect it.

You know what? The guitar came alive.

I no longer had to worry about tuning. I could bend as hard as I could and not worry. I could do double-stops without the stationary string detuning. I loved my Strat all over again and vowed, at that point, that I would never use the tremolo again.

Some people use tremolos very well and incorporate them into their style flawlessly. Alan Morse of Spock's Beard, one of my favorite guitarists, wields his Floyd-equipped Strat like a master. Alex Lifeson of Rush abuses both Floyds and Wilkinsons to great effect. On a more traditional front, Jeff Beck is known for his mastery of the vintage Strat tremolo. For me, though, I'm happier without. Not having a tremolo makes me think more about what I'm playing instead of cheating with a dive-bomb or other tremolo effect. As I develop my own style, I'm sure that I won't miss having a tremolo.

Then again, maybe I'm just giving up too soon. So many guitarists use tremolos of all kinds with little or no difficulty that I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. There are some, however, who share my beliefs. Rob "Chappers" Chapman, who I follow on YouTube (look him up - he's a great guitarist and makes damn funny videos) publicly denounces tremolos and blocks off any guitars he has that are so equipped.

I have one guitar in my collection that has a Wilkinson tremolo, which is much better than a stock Fender unit. It still has tuning issues (which is why I don't play it very much) but at least I have one in case I'm feeling adventurous. Maybe someday I'll dabble into the world of Floyd Rose tremolos again, but on a guitar that has more than one sound. For now, though, I'm happy to live trem-free.

Maybe Line 6 amps DO suck...

...or maybe not.

I have a Line 6 amp. More specifically, I have the much maligned Spider III 15. I traded in a Fender Stage 112SE for it last year. I can hear the gasps of shock and disbelief now. Yes, I know the Fender was a better amp. I also couldn't put the volume past 2 without blowing my eardrums, shaking the house apart, or both. If I were a giggin' man, I never would've gotten rid of the Fender. Since I'm a bedroom guitarist and aspiring home recorder, it was too much amp for me.

I want to say one thing to all you Spider III haters out there (you know who you are). When I was researching this amp before I bought it, I saw many a forum post or blog comment putting down the amp, saying the presets didn't sound right, weren't the same volume, had weird effects on them, etc. You know what? You're missing the point! The whole point of an amp like this (or any amp, for that matter) is to make your own sounds and overwrite the factory presets. That's what I did. I have my own settings for all four channels and each one sounds great. Plus they're MY sounds, not the sounds of some committee at Line 6.

So yes, my Line 6 sounds great. It sounds great through headphones and through the speaker. Unfortunately, as I found out last night, it sounds like a pile of steaming dog crap when I plug it into my computer. If you remember/read this post you know I tried to record on my Linux laptop through my Vox headphone amp and it sounded bad. Then, in this post, I tried the same thing with my Line 6 and was "impressed." That feeling evaporated last night. When I was recording with my Line 6 I noticed a lot of static through my headphones, but I thought it was just the headphones and the guitar still sounded good. Last night I wanted to listen to my recording without any amp plugged in to hear what it sounded like. You know all that static? Well, it got recorded, too. Sounded like poo. So I set up my Vox headphone amp again and, lo and behold, no static. Or at least very little. I didn't get a chance to record with it because just as I was ready to start recording my wife announced that it was dinner time, so it'll have to wait a day.

So why all the static? It doesn't show up when I have headphones plugged into the same jack. It's not there when I play through the speaker. I have two theories: either the cable that I'm using to connect amp to computer is low quality and is picking up interference, or the amp is too powerful and is overwhelming the sound card. I use the same cable for the Vox, too, but I have a 1/4"-to-1/8" adapter on the Line 6, so maybe that's it. I still haven't plugged the Line 6 into the Mac yet. If the static persists I know it's not the limitations of the sound card. That'll be a shame, because I can get much better sounds out of the Line 6.

And what about all the problems I had when I first tried the Vox? I chalk that up to a mixture of inexperience (I know a lot more about Linux recording now) and the fact that I was trying to run it through guitar effects software that was most likely overwhelming the hardware. I'm going to try more recording tonight straight from the Vox and hopefully things work out better.

On a side note, I'm really enjoying Rosegarden as a recording program. Also, I figured out how to get JACK Control GUI to start properly (I'll post instructions and screen shots soon).

Have I told you how much I'm enjoying this recording thing?

My first (virtual) dollar

I'm new to this blogging thing. I'm enjoying the crap out of it, though. I always enjoyed writing, especially when it's about something I enjoy. That's probably why I failed as a newspaper reporter - I just didn't give two shits about municipal meetings or community events.

But this I like. I like music. I like guitar stuff. I like recording, even though I'm no good at it yet. So to me, writing these posts is fun. If I can make money while having fun, even better.

I signed up for Google AdSense, much like anyone else with a Blogger blog, seeing as how Google owns it and stuff. Since then, I've been checking the "Monetize" tab on my blog administration, waiting until the earnings change from $0.00.

They did.

As of today, I can say I've made my first Internet dollar. $1.19, actually.

I thank everyone who visits my site, especially the two people who clicked one of the ads. Because of you I'm $1.19 richer, and $1.19 closer to building my Half-Assed Home Studio.

I promise to try my best to keep this blog up-to-date and interesting. It's fun for me, so it shouldn't be too hard.

I hope it's fun for you, too.

No wonder I wasn't getting any comments

Apparently, the folks at Google's Blogger division decided to make a change to the code and, in doing so, screwed up comments for anyone using below-post positioning and image verification. The new format for below-post comments now shows a comment preview along with the image, where before there was no preview. This adds to the length of the post, but the container for the post doesn't change to match the new length, so the box to enter the verification word doesn't show up.

I'm a programmer by day, so I know what it's like to try to implement new features. I also know that new features should be TESTED before being released. I expect more from Google than to release broken code. Hopefully they fix this soon.

For now, I've changed my settings to have new comments appear in a new window (I may experiment with the pop-up window setting if it doesn't get blocked by pop-up blockers). I apologize to anyone who tried to comment in the past and were unable to do so because of the glitch. We now return to your regularly scheduled program.

UPDATE: Pop-up comments seem to bypass Chrome's pop-up blocker, so I've changed to that format. If anyone is having issues with the pop-ups let me know and I'll change it back to full page.

A lot harder than it looks

Bolstered by this weekend's successes with Ubuntu Studio, I decided to try to do some real recording. Sure, the sound quality was terrible, but it's as close to recording as I've ever been, so I wanted to run with it.

I still have the same issues - crappy hardware, JACK not starting with Jack Control GUI, etc. My goal was to make some kind of multi-track recording, or at least be able to play along with a recorded chord progression. I was able to do both, but not without some issues.

First and foremost, I have no idea what I'm doing. And it's not as easy as it seems. I mean, how hard can it be, right? Hit the record button, play, hit stop. Done. Right? Heh, heh, heh. Not even close.

For one thing, Ardour, the multi-track recorder/mixer that comes with Ubuntu Studio, is as about as intuitive as the control layout on my old Subaru XT coupe. Look it up, you'll see what I mean. The first time I tried to get two tracks recorded, they were about 5 minutes apart. You'd hear the first track (all 2 minutes of it), wait five minutes, and hear the second track. Not good. So I tried again with a new project and this time Read the Freakin' Manual (RTFM). I had much better success, and even though they weren't perfect, I was able to get a decent chord progression down and a half-decent lead on top of it, all on two separate tracks.

Still, I wasn't feeling Ardour. I'm sure it's a great tool for someone who has some experience, but I need something more suited for neophytes like myself. Garage Band-esque, if you would. So I installed a program called Rosegarden, and so far I like it. I think it used to be included in previous versions of Ubuntu Studio, but don't quote me on it.

So I'll keep plugging away. As Robert Pirsig would say, I'm at the front of the train, where Quality is, and I'm figuring it out as I go.

Linux pulls even

I had some surprising success yesterday. I was able to record music on my crappy lappy running Ubuntu Studio.

I'm as surprised as anyone.

I had an idea to try plugging my Line 6 into the Mac instead of the Vox headphone amp to see if it sounded any better. Since my wife was using the MacBook for school work, I had no choice but to try the Compaq again.

I still had the same problem with JACK, so I had to start it from the command line again instead of using the GUI. I opened up Patchage - which I really like, by the way - and mapped the line-in to the output.

Then something strange happened.

I heard my guitar!

And it didn't even sound that bad. There was some latency, but it was hardly noticeable.

But I wasn't out of the woods yet. I had to find a way to record. Ubuntu Studio comes with oodles of great tools, but they're all fairly advanced. I tried Ardour (a mixer-recorder similar to ProTools) and after fiddling around for a while, finally figured out how to capture audio.

It worked.

Hot damn and pass the ketchup!

There's a lot of interference in the headphones, so I don't know if that was captured or not, but I now have another crappy riff recorded on a computer, this time using Linux.

At the end of the first, it's Mac 1, Linux 1.

What's in a name?

I've got a number for you:

One.

That's how many bands I've been in.

Impressive, huh? I'm not only here to give advice, I'm also here to make you feel better about your own lousy music career.

But I don't even tell anyone about it. It's not that I'm not proud to have been in the band, or that I don't like my former bandmates (on the contrary - I still think of them as some of my best friends). It's the name. It's embarrassing. And the worst part is, it was my idea.

The name?

Amethyst.

Good name for a Whitesnake cover band, isn't it?

The thing is, I didn't even want to use that name. I literally pulled it out of my ass. I thought there would be more debate about it, but there wasn't. It went something like this:

The band: We need a name.

My ass: How about Amethyst?

The band: Sounds great, let's jam.

OK, so it didn't quite go that way, but you get the idea. No forethought was involved in that suggestion, and the rest of the band members ate it up. Lucky me.

Because of this, I tend to think of band names. A lot. I've had many a boring job where I would spend hours just thinking of good band names. That's where I got the idea for the name of this blog, which is also going to be the band name I put on my recordings.

I was proud of this name. It comes from a Monty Python sketch, if you don't know. Plus, at least when I thought of it, there were no other Pantomime Horses in the music biz. I Googled the name and got a song title, but no bands. I thought I'd hit the jackpot.

Then I found out Amethyst's former drummer was in a band named Pantomime Horse. Then I re-Googled the name and found a person just like me - a one-man band - had taken the name, too.

Damn.

No matter. I like the name and I'm sticking with it. At least until the lawsuit comes.

At least I can still think band names.

Advertising is a bitch

I really want to try to make some money from this site. In this economy, you have to try to leverage any possible skill you may have in order to make a buck or two. I'm going to use any proceeds I get from this blog for my Recording Studio Equipment Fund, so it's kinda important.

Setting it up is a little more difficult than it looks. Sure, Google's AdSense is well integrated (duh), but the Amazon Associates part is giving me fits. The built-in widgets frustrate the hell out of me because it adds in a very ugly scrollbar to the ads, and it's not even needed. And when I try to add an ad manually, it f's up the template.

So if anyone knows anything about how to get this crap to work well, please let me know.

EDIT: OK, so I overreacted. I guess I just needed to RTFM.

Mac 1, Linux 0

As I gear up to create my home studio (to be named the Half-Assed Home Studio) I'm trying to decide which platform I'm going to use. I thought it was going to be a no-brainer - Mac with Garage Band - until I discovered Ubuntu Studio.

I installed it on my test computer at work and was impressed, especially since the computer was just a run-of-the-mill Dell with a Pentium 4 processor. Everything just worked, even though it took a little more tinkering (welcome to the world of Linux). With a real-time kernel, the JACK MIDI interface and Patchage configuration tool set up, I was able to play around with a software synth (the horribly named ZynAddSubFX) and even create a passable half-time shuffle beat on Hydrogen, an excellent drum sequencer. Bolstered by this, I decided to install it on my crappy old Compaq Evo laptop and start recording at home. Let's just say it didn't go quite so smoothly.

The tale of the pawn shop guitar

The other day, a friend and I were walking downtown when I saw a guitar displayed in a pawn shop window. Since I have a weakness for unwanted guitars as if they were dogs in an animal shelter, I was instantly drawn to it, despite it not even being close to the kind of guitar I would normally like. Then again, I always thought that for some purchases - cars and guitars come to mind - the right one will find you, not the reverse. Besides, sometimes it's good to look at guitars that might not be your taste. You might find something you never thought you'd like.

In this case, what I wouldn't normally like was a black, hollow-body jazz-style guitar, complete with f-holes. It looked classy through the window, its gold-plated hardware shining in the mid-day sun. The headstock had the Kona Guitars logo on it, and I immediately recognized it as a decent low-end brand.

"Why don't you go in and look at it," my friend said, obviously sensing how I was drawn to it like a magnet to a slab of iron. And that's how I found myself in a pawn shop for the first time in my life.

Once inside the dusty, sparsely decorated shop, I told the lady behind the counter of my interest in the guitar in the window. She led my friend and me over to the display area and brought out the guitar. Right away I noticed that it still had tags on it, which made sense after she told me it was a brand new guitar. I then noticed the $499 price tag, which was less encouraging.

She handed me the guitar and I saw that it was covered with the same layer of dust that covered the rest of the shop. It was also missing the high E string. No big deal - stock strings usually suck anyway. I took it over to the guitar area (if you could really call it that) and sat down with it. It was horribly out of tune, and I tried to tune it by ear but failed miserably. My heart wasn't in it, since I knew that for $499, I'd have no chance of buying it anyway. I checked out the rest of the guitar, though, and it was decent. The frets were nicely done with no jagged edges and nice binding. It had a roller bridge, which surprised me. It also had a Made in China sticker, which didn't. I didn't plug it into anything so I couldn't check if the electronics worked. I also noticed a healthy ding on the side facing up. I gave it back to the lady, saying "I'll have to think about it."

Even if I were looking for a new guitar now, there would be little thought involved. There is no way this guitar is worth $499, even if it did come with a hardshell case. My suspicions were confirmed when I looked the guitar up online - it turns out that it's a Kona KEL5BK - and found it for sale online for as little as $299. With the missing string and the ding, I'd only pay $250 for the pawn shop guitar, and I doubt they'd take it. Just like that, any thoughts of potentially rescuing it from its "shelter" and giving it a home quickly vanished.

However, I noticed that they had a used black Squier P-Bass for sale for a reasonable $139. That one will be harder to get out of my head.