The last several weeks have been more about getting equipment, computers, software and storage sorted out, than having a lot of time to actually play much music. That is slowly changing, early this morning, I spent almost two hours playing and recording some beautiful sampled sounds in Kontakt, and it’s rare that I sit and play the keyboard for an hour and fifty minutes at one sitting! I did capture a few interesting things, so I am hopeful that this long period of extended studio set-up, improvements, and testing, will also result in some new music along the way.
I’ve had more than my share of frustration with equipment; particularly, software and storage, but things are slowly sorting themselves out. Hardware issues, software issues, strange computer behaviours – I’ve got it all. But it is slowly getting better – all the time. I solve one issue at a time, eventually, they will all get done. Over the past two days, with a lot of assistance from my pal Ken Mistove, I have sorted out a number of long-standing issues in SONAR X3, and we have also made a number of improvements to how things work in the world of the music computer, external hard drives, and recording practices – big improvements, and things are running so much smoother, and better, already – which really pleases me, as I really just want to sit down and play music, not, troubleshoot for two hours, and then play for 10 minutes!
My attempts to film the Kaoss Guitar (the remarkable Ibanez RGPK6 electric guitar), well, on Sunday, November 30th, I finally got some takes that were better than my original session from the previous week, November 23rd; so we shall see, I’ve been going through the audio and video from the first session from the 23rd of November, and then I have to go through the miles of footage shot on 30th November as well.
I am hopeful that out of probably 25 takes between the two sessions, that there will be a handful of pieces that are worth making videos of. It’s difficult to say, but I feel that some of the takes from the second session will yield video, I am less sure about the first session – besides being a bit under-rehearsed, I was still having a fair number of technical issues too, so I was not able to concentrate fully on the music. So I may be forced to shelve the entire first session, although I believe that at least one of the final three takes from the 23rd may be good. Time will tell.
Update: there are definitely some good takes from the 20141130 session, beginning with one almost-ambient-but-not-quite quiet track, entitled “just gone”, which is mixed and ready for video build now.
Then tonight, I mixed the next candidate, a remarkable distorted reverse guitar solo entitled “slicer” – so that’s two audio mixes ready for video. There are probably three or four more kaoss guitar trax to come from the second session, audio mixing continues this week, with video builds to begin soon as well. End update 🙂
The Kaoss guitar itself – is an absolute joy to play, I had really hoped to get some videos made and uploaded so you can hear and see it, but I’ve decided that it’s more important to take some time, and get some really interesting examples of what you can do with this innovative instrument.
The recording set up for the Kaoss guitar is very, very simple indeed, I am using my Line 6 DL-4 delay (either bypassed, or, to provide reverse guitar on demand) to provide a stereo out, so it’s the guitar into the DL-4, and then directly into the sound card, thus bypassing all of the outboard effects in the mixer – and for the first time, I am relying solely on Guitar Rig for guitar tone and for reverb / delay effects – since it’s a live performance anyway, I didn’t feel that I needed to use the outboard stuff, so I am keeping it really, really simple.
As part of Komplete, and just in general, I’ve been relying more heavily on Guitar Rig 5 for a lot of my guitar-oriented projects, which allows me to create complex rack mount simulations of many, many excellent effects, which I can play through when I record, but then, if I am not totally happy with the patch I have chosen for the live take, I can then “remove” that patch, and replace it with a different one (re-amping, in essence) until I feel happier – so I’ve also started saving my patches, taking stock patches and changing them radically, and then saving the results, so I can re-use them on other takes later. I’ve never done a lot of re-amping because I considered it to be a bit too burdensome in the past, but with Guitar Rig – it’s a pleasure. It’s quick and easy, and there is such a huge range of truly exceptional effects, that you can very quickly build up some really complex and wonderful sounds – the kind of guitar sounds that 30 years ago, I could only ever dream of, or, hear on a Jimi Hendrix album (such as, “Electric Ladyland” – my favourite).
In that first Nov. 23rd session, I had played through one Guitar Rig patch that was a bit too echo-y, too over the top, so later on, I re-mastered it; removed the original Guitar Rig sound I used for the live take, and replaced it with a different Guitar Rig sound (a customised sound created by and saved by myself), a much better sound (if I do say so myself!), and really, that saved the day – it made the performances sound so much better.
So I am currently working on both audio mixes, and video creation and mixes, from the two Kaoss guitar performances; as well as, I captured a large number of new improvs using Komplete and Kontakt last night, which I need to go through next! after the kaoss projects, and see what is there – some of them are surely going to be good – the system is performing so beautifully now, it’s an absolute joy to use – and that is reflected in the music that comes out, too.
I think audio mixing is my favourite of those activities, or in the case of the Kaoss Guitar takes, well for any and all live takes that are simply live to stereo – I should say, “audio mastering”, as you can’t really “mix” a live performance, unless it involves multiple instruments, which these do not. So you just have to get the best stereo sound, make sure the track is normalised to the right level, be happy with your EQ and effects (re-amped or otherwise) and then – that is that!
I was so pleased with the results of the somewhat tentative and somewhat technically challenging first session, I had very little experience with the new Kaoss guitar, it’s quite a struggle to work out the very best way to play it, without sounding awkward, and slowly, I am gaining experience with it, to the point where on Sunday, November 30th – I could almost make it do what I wanted 🙂 – almost, most of the time. Sometimes – it’s still outwith my control.
I’ve also been shopping, what with all the sales on line – but not for the ordinary kinds of things that most people shop for at Christmas time – I’ve been buying samples. During the past two months, I have added so much to my sample library, it’s just out of control, and this past week, I bought three amazing packages from my favourite software instrument maker, Soniccouture (http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/) – I have a lot of these now, including the amazing Geosonics – sounds of the earth – field recordings adapted into music – astonishing stuff – at a huge savings, 50 percent off in total. That was a short lived sale, but I am glad I acted – it was great to acquire all of those sounds for such a good price, I could not be more pleased:
1) “the conservatoire collection” – a collection of renaissance and baroque samples – very pricey, but you get things like baroque guitar, psaltery, flemish harpsichords, hurdy-gurdy and so on – fantastic one of a kind classical sounds. I had an absolute blast using these instruments for the first time earlier today, and I can foresee a lot of interesting pieces forthcoming using this beautiful collection of antique sounds.
2) “glass works” – the sounds of various glass instruments, including a famous “cloud chamber bowls” instrument made by eccentric composer and instrument maker Harry Partch, I visited Partch’s studio when I was a teenager, on a school trip actually, and I actually played his original glass bowls instrument, so I am very excited to OWN those sounds! some of the pieces I recorded early this morning were made with the “cloud chamber bowls” instrument, and it sounded JUST as I remembered it – but perhaps even more stunning, is Soniccouture’s emulation of another of Partch’s unique glass instruments – the amazing “armonica”. This instrument sounds like nothing on earth, like a weird combination of bowed glass, church organ and ethereal spaces – that’s as close as the English language will allow me at a very poor attempt to describe an incredibly beautiful sound! Lovely beyond compare.
3) “ep 73 deconstructed” – this is the most intense, most detailed set of samples available for a 1973 fender rhodes electric piano – the kind my best pal Ted (RIP) used to use in our jam sessions back when I was about 18 years old – a great, classic sound, playing this vintage rhodes is a fantastic experience, it was literally, better than the real thing – and I could have easily sat and played it for hours on end – and, of course, it’s Soniccouture, so you get a lot of “extra” sounds, bowed, plucked, sound effects, and so on – variants on an already perfect set of electric piano samples – incredible attention to detail is Soniccouture’s watchword – the samples they create – are simply, the best.
However, best of all is this next item…
The final item in my “black Friday to Monday shopping spree” – based on Ken’s emailed link that simply said “HURRY!” – normally $200.00 I got it for $79.00 – one day only – it’s ADT from Waves Audio – a software “hardware emulation” where they take a classic piece of hardware equipment, and painstakingly re-create it in software.
In this case, “ADT” is, of course, “automatic double tracking” which was developed by one of the Beatles’ engineers, and it was used on classic Beatles albums from the late 1960s such as “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “The White Album” – this device used tape machines, that were slowed up and down to create a second, “doubled” track, it was basically built for John Lennon, who complained about having to double track his voice – he wanted a machine to do it for him. So this guy, Ken Townshend, figured out a way to do this, using the existing technology of 1967 – which in itself is remarkable.
Even more remarkable is the fact that from ADT, a massive industry sprang, of doublers that are choruses or flangers; “Ken’s flanger” is what Lennon called the device, and the name has stuck – millions of “Flangers” have been sold since then, emulating this same “ancient” technique. While I have owned and do own a number of flangers and choruses, both hardware and software, this is the ORIGINAL, the one that started it all – and, I couldn’t own the original hardware, it only exists at Abbey Road Studios where it was designed, it’s not for sale, so having it as software, gives me the classic Beatles chorus and flanger sounds, WITHOUT tape machines and an impossible-to-buy-hardware item. If that isn’t technological magic, I am not sure what is 🙂
So 2015 is going to be a very interesting year indeed, I have a plug in version of the “original” chorus/flanger plug in now, so I can apply “Beatles” flanging or chorus sounds to my guitar parts (think of the lead guitar break in “Fixing A Hole” from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” – or Clapton’s solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” – what a sound!) I will also be able to choose from a huge, huge range of samples, something I’ve never really had available in my first 40 years of music-making 🙂
I wish I had a time machine back when I was 16, if I could have travelled 40 years into the future, and been shown what my tiny, modest studio would look like, in that far distant future of the year 2015, from the vantage point of 1975 – I would a) not have believed you, that such a thing could be possible, and b) it would have seemed like witchcraft, magic – the samples, a kaoss pad guitar (or, a kaoss pad itself, for that matter!!), synthesizers that can reproduce real sounds, sampled sounds, (or, a synthesizer itself), ipads, app technology, all of it is strictly magical stuff if you go back forty years. 40 years ago, I was 16, and I was working with my good friend and fellow musician Ted Holding, who had some recording and mixing gear, but neither of us had any access to the kinds of tools and software instruments available now to me, and to all musicians, in the year 2015 – we would have been dumbstruck with amazement, we really would have!
At 15 or 16, my “technology” was a knock off or off brand electric guitar, played thru a hand me down Fuzz Face, a Cry Baby Wah pedal, and later on, a borrowed echoplex – the kind with tape loops in them, not the new echoplex pro – played thru a Carvin bass head and a home made speaker cabinet. The guitar and the wah pedal were mine, the rest, mostly stuff left lying around Ted’s studio (aka garage) or built or repaired by Ted. I played through that bass amp for like, three years, until I could afford to buy an amp of my own!! Of course, when we hit 18, 19 and 20 we did achieve some manner of technology, but it was still a far cry from what is available now.
Ted expanded his selection of instruments, adding Fender Rhodes, Hammond Organ, and an ARP Omni string machine. I had better guitars, and I brought over a reel to reel tape deck to use as the worlds cheapest tape delay unit, which I would reach over and switch on during a guitar solo, and it was the best and most authentic tape delay I’d ever used…because it was real, real tape, on a reel, running past tape heads with a delay introduced…it sounded amazing to us then.
40 years on, a modestly priced delay pedal such as a Line 6 DL-4, can emulate tape echo very similar to what I was doing back then, plus a myriad of amazing delay effects, all in a small green box…no need to lug around a massive Sony reel to reel tape recorder, but I didn’t own any kind of delay or reverb unit, and couldn’t afford the expensive delays of the day…so using the tape deck as a delay pedal, was a no brainier. We were all delighted, it really made my guitar sound good!
Sometimes even now, even though I’ve now been doing “digital music” for quite some time – since 2005 at least – I’m still just stunned when I walk into my studio and I open up the computer, and I see the tools arrayed there, at my fingertips, for music production. It’s difficult to imagine how my young self would have reacted to the idea of having real instrument samples playable on demand, on a MIDI keyboard – disbelief, shock, astonishment – at the very least. But – I am glad I’ve stuck with music, because now, the toolsets are very nearly unlimited, and this gives you choice – choice to create sound worlds that previously, you could only dream of…
I plan on doing a lot of musical dreaming in 2015, and right now, I am making a start – I can’t wait to master the pieces from this morning, and start sharing some of the magic of glass works or the ep 73 deconstructed electric piano or to my very first attempts at playing the hurdy-gurdy – remarkable.
A good “problem” to have, I suppose – spoiled for choice, where to begin? At the beginning, of course!!!
D.
pureambient / dave stafford 