Well, I’m pleased to announce that my resurrected interest in guitars and music production seems to be here to stay, so I’ve been tinkering about in my sad little music nook for an hour or so each day trying to find inspiration or perfect the inspiration that’s already there. I barely have any external ambition when it comes to my playing, so it’s best to be thought of as a hobby, rather than a career opportunity. I’m not trying to impress anyone or make money from it, I’m just trying to keep myself occupied and entertained.
So, what have I been tinkering with in the bunker, you ask? Let us see…
NEO INSTRUMENTS VENTILATOR II
IT WORKS! THE DAMNED THING ACTUALLY WORKS! After an entire afternoon referring to the manual and pressing this and turning that and throwing those, I resorted to just giving up. I wasn’t getting anything but a weak signal out of this rotary simulator pedal. Then, like a glimmer of light in a collapsed mine, I decided to browse YouTube to see if there was an instructional video about. I mean, there must be, right?! The guy in the first one I found, this video, seemed to have things going on startup. That was enough for me. I was all like: “How come his Neo Instruments Ventilator II is doing stuff my Neo Instruments Ventilator II isn’t?!”. I didn’t watch for longer than the first strike of a chord. And I’ll shorted the pedal’s name from now on, I promise. Basically, I decided I must’ve been doing something fundamentally wrong. The leads! The stereo leads! I must have connected them all wrong! Not a way-out-there theory, considering my utter cluelessness with this sort of thing. So I committed to playing everything through the Jazz Chorus in mono. Fuck stereo. Fuck it in its smug-fucking-ass. So I fired up some close-up JPEGs of the amp, the Ventilator II, and my Boss Space Echo, which was the final link in the stereo pedal chain. And, yes, I had gotten things completely screwed up. I don’t know whether it’ll still work in stereo, but I’m getting a beautiful rotary warble with everything switched/plugged into mono. Beautiful mono! Rock & roll began in mono, and so it will remain in Jim’s Analogue Noise Bunker! I’m so happy, as it really bums me out not getting things to work. It just proves all the worst things I think about myself. The EHX Attack Decay is a perfect example. Boy, does that thing haunt me! Right, so I’ve gotten the Ventilator II working. Now all the buttons and switches and dials are starting to make sense. Onwards with the experiments! Neo Instruments really needs to explain how to switch between primary and secondary functions earlier in their manual though, as not knowing really does affect things at the start. Even if you do have your leads connected correctly. Good grief.
FENDER FLORAL JAPANESE TELECASTER
I bought this truly beautiful guitar during my recent 2-year playing “dry spell”. I plugged it in once, just to make sure it actually worked, then gently packed it away for what felt like the longest of times. Well, since I’m back on the musical wagon, or off it, I’ve been playing this Telecaster more thoroughly. While a solidly-dependable Fender product, as most of them are, I thought I’d find out the actual model name and year of production. You know, for a little flavour in this here post. Many guitar companies these days have a serial number database on their websites, which you are free to use. Well, after taking a few pictures of the usual places (headstock front-and-back, neck joint plate, jack socket, “ashtray” bridge plate) to find the number, I came up empty. Knowing full well that my eyesight is in rapid decline, I sent the images to a couple of long-suffering friends, with useable vision, to see what they could, erm, see. Nothing. I then did something I really should have tried before badgering other human beings, which was to scan the Telecaster with my phone using the Seeing AI app (I’m not being paid to mention it, just to be clear). It would surely find and read to me any numbers present on the body. Again, nothing. So, yes, this gorgeous instrument, which reminds me of the “Blue Flower” Telecasters that inspired my purchase, remains anonymous. If any of my fabulous but shy readers should coincidentally have any special contacts within the, oh I don’t know, guitar manufacturing industry, then I’d appreciate their help or advice or both. I’m now very curious to unlock its secrets. I don’t know why I care so much, as I have no special knowledge of 99% of my gear, but I guess this little mystery gives me something to do. You know, during this irritating period called “life” between eternal silence. I wouldn’t care if it’s an unofficial/illegitimate/fraudulent copy, as I believe it’s worth the money I paid for it. Price is relative, I suppose, and, besides covering parts and labour costs, the value of any product usually just boils down to what a person is willing to pay for it. And I was willing to pay for my love affair with this mysterious beauty. It does have “PAT PENDING” stamped on the ashtray, so maybe it’s a rare prototype worth a bucket. Stranger things have happened. Not to me, but they have happened.
EBOW
Quite simply, an electric violin bow, intended for use on electric guitars to create sustained notes. I bought this just before my dry spell and had a fair amount of fun before it, and all my other equipment, began sadly collecting dust. I would compare using it to trying to get the right temperature out of a shower. Very patient work. This model, I can’t remember which brand, seems to have separate bass and treble settings, much like an octave pedal (which are even more fun). If you’re not careful, the feedback which the ebow creates can go out of control, scaring you shitless. I’m quite a sensitive soul, so I’ve been using it very conservatively. I’m intending to try and recreate the sound of a film score orchestra using just guitars and a keyboard, although I suspect the task of juggling a guitar, recording gear, and the ebow itself, will be a rage-inducing task. I fear I will eventually give up and exclaim: “Fuck it! I’ll just buy an Ed O’Brien EOB guitar with a sustain system built in!”. Sounds like something I’d do. Apparently those EOB Stratocasters are pretty nice actually. The ebow, however, is very temperamental for something so apparently simple. I just tried using it on my adorable Epiphone bass guitar, but sadly I think the bass strings are too thick for the ebow to have much of an effect. There were hints of sustain here and there, but I was sat fiddling with it for so long that it just wasn’t worth it. So, yes, if anyone wants a free ebow, I’m sure mine will go flying out my living room window roughly five minutes into me trying to record with it. You just need to be down there on street level to catch it.
RECORDING DIARY
While I’ve technically not started recording as yet, I have spent the last week psyching myself up for it. To be fair, sound engineering is a very physically and emotionally challenging process, so coming at it slowly with logic and patience is much more rewarding than running into it head first like a toddler. My goal is to record interesting and melodic instrumental tracks, hopefully moving away from stress-inducing click track perfection and relying on my own natural rhythm. Stop laughing. The music I’m most proud of producing I made in my ex-girlfriend’s spare bedroom in 2009 and didn’t use any formal studio processes. I just strummed rough guide tracks about five minutes long, then took the best two minutes out of them to work with. To this day, I still can’t tell there was no click track, which is bizarre. Whether or not I’ll be able to recreate this freewheeling recording style to any degree of success is yet to be seen/heard. I believe I have an album’s worth of musical ideas, with titles linked to my recent casual studying of Near East history. The work is tentatively titled: The Coming of the Sea Peoples, but that may change. It’s just easier, for me at least, to have some sort of structure when I’m about to record music without a literal lyrical theme. I won’t embarrass myself by trying to recreate era and geographically appropriate tones, so it’ll just be the sound of a dumb white guy strumming guitars and pressing buttons in his crappy council flat. Dignity, always dignity. Every time I go to bed at the moment I say to myself: “Tomorrow is the day! We’ll get up in the morning and start setting up my recording equipment and get cracking!”. Then I have a bad night’s sleep and proceed to zombie my way through the day crying about nothing. With any luck, you’ll soon find a post on here announcing my great musical success, but please don’t go holding your breath.
Well, I think I’ve written enough nonsense to keep you all busy. I posted a new [story corner] entry earlier on today, which I really should start cataloguing in a pinned post for ease of use. Not that anybody’s said anything. Still, it felt nice to post something creative, rather than just talking about posting something creative.
Think positive thoughts for me in the meantime. Hopefully I will have a better night’s sleep than last night’s miserable 5 am start. Sigh. It’s a shame doctors won’t give me sleeping pills due to my depression. I guess they do have a point. One of my earliest memories is of me already suffering from insomnia at 5-years-old, with mum coming into my bedroom at around 2 am only to find me stood at the window staring out into the darkness. That must’ve been creepy for her. There wasn’t even anything out there to look at. Just a desolate Netherlands park.
Erm, this is where we share this stuff, right?!
Do stay in touch, darlings.
Toodles!
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