Caught Up In The Fable

For Richard Wright

2009-11-28T00:35:00.005-06:00

I'm no keyboardist...far from it. I quit taking piano lesson from Mrs. Knudsen when Little League baseball rolled around. Much to my later regret. My Dad plays well, my brother and two sisters also play piano, but I ended up on guitar.

But that doesn't mean I don't have a keyboard or two laying around the studio. I was going through the many presets and sounds of the Virtual String Machine virtual instrument when I found that by layering two patches together, I could get a pretty reasonable Pink Floyd string sound. I added a bit of M-Tron, a virtual Mellotron program, and the DB-33 organ sound from the Pro Tools 8 stock plugins. I put a little David Gilmour-inpired guitar using a Les Paul into the AmpliTube Fender simulation.

I always found the sounds of '70's rock keyboardists to be fascinating, from Rick Wakeman to Gary Wright to Gary Numan to Richard Wright (Pink Floyd).

Richard Wright died from cancer in September of 2008 and this is my humble elegy in his memory:

For Richard Wright.

This download is available for 14 days or 200 downloads. I expect the calendar will win that battle!

Black In Back

2009-11-17T10:44:00.001-06:00

Sometimes those guys and gals in black that move around the back of the stage in the dark get a chance to be out front.

Thanks to Keith Urban and his band for letting us roadies have some fun in Buffalo...

Inspiration's what you are to me. Inspiration...look...see.

2009-11-12T16:58:00.005-06:00

Sometimes events have a way of spinning you 180 degrees. As an independent, no-label, too-old for the masses, niche market musician, one might take the recent awards show as a possible sign of the apocalypse....um ....yeah, the sign over the newly-christened Apocalypse City Hall of Apocalypse City, on Apocalypse Street. That sign, they one they unveiled last night may be a harbinger, alright.

But one might expect to have their expectations unexpectedly excepted.

Enter Facebook, deflecting my initial dismay in regards to the - let's face it - whoring of all that I call Holy, the de-legitimization of my entire career path, the raping of my tender Muses by Vandals at the Pools of Inspiration, the televised Charade Semi-Finals at the School of the Blind... into a net positive. After a few posts and much venting, I'm all better today.

Just support your local musicians, in whatever town you live in, in whatever genre they exist.

Just do that....be a Patron of the Arts.

Download an independent artist's album tonight, as penance for watching that TV.

Throw a $5 into the tip jar instead of a $1.

Go see a live show and tell the band they were good, if indeed they were.

What else can you do?

Quandry List

2009-10-27T22:29:00.004-05:00

Hmmmm. I've spent dozens if not hundreds of hours reading about and studying about and playing around with Pro Tools. Made some excellent recordings, did a few rough mixes using minimal plug-ins for evaluation purposes. All sounded great. I had my friend and fine engineer Steve Ledet over today to work on getting some drum sounds. The basic PT supplied plugs I had used for the rough mixes gave way to the more characterful and vibey UAD plugins and some of the more latency-heavy plugins from Digi. Once you put the UAD Fairchild or Pultec on something, it's real hard to take it off.

That all sounds great, and it was going along fine...but we could not get a stable mix due to the fact that PT 8 does not automatically account for the latency induced by a plugin, so things quickly get out of line...literally. We tried using the Mellowmuse ATA (Automatic Time Adjuster), but it only worked occasionally. put a few plugs on, it seems OK...add one more and everything freaks out and you can't get back to normal with the undo button.

So, the solution is to take all of the Pro Tools files and import them into Cubase sessions and mix in Cubase 4. Cubase 4 has automatic time adjustment (delay compensation) built-in. There area few plugins I really like that are PT only, including the Massey De-Esser I just bought last week ...but I will have to live without them. I now have to render all of my virtual instruments as well. This takes time.

Oddly enough, Digidesign is having a 50% off sale on PT HD1 systems, which also have ADC. So for a measly $6,000 I can get the pro version of the rig I have now. Hoo boy.

I really like the way Pro Tools records audio and edits audio....but if I can't mix on it, what's the point? Guess I'm gonna have to get a few things together to sell....stay tuned.

UPDATE: Found a used HD1 system with Power Mac G5 for $3500. Hmmmmm.

See Rock City Ad Fallsium

2009-10-26T16:56:00.013-05:00

I finally did See Rock City, thanks to my lovely wife who suggested it as a belated anniversary trip. We rented a nice car and drove down to Chattanooga. About that car...we usually get a mid-sized SUV, but they had none. Instead, we opted for a pearl white Cadillac CTS 4. I think they use Beatles music in their ad. One nice thing about getting older is you can rent a Caddy, knowing that in a few more years, you'll be driving one. Unless you find a mint Crown Vic.

Anyways, I did not actually drive the car because I have yet to replace my stolen driver's license, so I could not drive the car without breaking the Avis contract. Which was good, and bad...I guess the car was a blast to drive, and I got a lot of sleep on the way home.

So...Rock City, Ruby Falls, Tennessee Aquarium. We put on our tourist pants and hit all three. "Rock City" was first and it was pretty cool.

Great view from the top of the mountain.

Supposedly you can see seven states from here, but I'll have to say I'll take their word for it. I do know that to get to Chattanooga you have to drive through Georgia for a couple hundred yards, then you're back in Tennessee. So right there, that's two already. One of the other states you're supposed to be able to see is Alabama. I thought I might've caught a glimpse of Jeff Cook's hair a few miles to the West, so maybe you can.

There was a nice little waterfall underneath the lookout point.

Is, Not Was

2009-10-16T20:21:00.005-05:00

Don Was, Krish Sharma, Elizabeth Cook

My good friend Elizabeth Cook finished up tracking her new album this evening with producer Don Was at the helm and ace engineer Krish Sharma twiddling the knobs. I caught a few overdubs while I was here, including the legendary Rodney Crowell laying some Everly-style harmony on a track and heard a few rough mixes going down.

This is going to be a great record. I've been listening to EC for years, as well as her husband and guitarist Tim Carroll. All of their records have been good, but this is the first one to feature her live band and it definitely shows. Was' hands off approach and penchant for keeping first or early takes adds an organic urgency and vitality to the tracks. With drummer Marco Giovino and bassist Bones Hillman laying down solid and funky grooves, fiddler Matt Combs, steel guitarist Tony Paoletta, and keyboardist Tim Atwood joined Carroll (on electric guitar) in filling out the songs and sounding like a band instead of a collection of session players. All of the above worked on the demos I helped Tim and Elizabeth with during pre-production, and most of them have played live gigs with her as well. Familiarity breeds content, so to speak.

Was has a great "console-side manner" as EC puts it. He seems to go through your musical closet and find the clothes most becoming of you, occasionally bringing in an outside piece for consideration, but mostly relying on the basics - good songs, good groove, good performances. It was a pleasure to meet him and Krish and to hear their work... even in the early stages it sounds fantastic.

Look for it on 31 Tigers records in late March.

North American Pie

2009-10-12T00:23:00.002-05:00

So the North American tour has ended, in Buffalo, with a performance by the crew band, "The Trainwrecks". We did a fairly rousing rendition of "Whole Lotta Rosie". It went over pretty well. You can find some cell phone video on YouTube, but I'm holding out for the professionally shot version from the video crew.

I'm the guy playing the first solo, on a red Fender Strat, into a Category 5 amp with a Route 66 overdrive kicked in, courtesy Chris Rodriguez.

Thanks to Keith Urban, all my co-workers, the fans and new friends we met this year for a fun tour.

In Too Heap

2009-10-02T02:06:00.003-05:00

Imogne Heap has a newish album called "Ellipse". You should buy it.

She has an earlier album called "Speak For Yourself". You should already have that, but buy it if you don't. You need to hear the track "Hide and Seek". Immediately.

An artist. Period.

Light and Shade

2009-09-29T00:01:00.002-05:00

Just got back from seeing "It Might Get Loud", a documentary about the electric guitar as seen through the eyes of three artists from three different generations - Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White.

Jimmy Page, of course, is the founder and leader of Led Zeppelin. If you don't know who they are and want to find out, I envy you. Every track on every record was a revelation to me in my formative yerars and they continue to inspire me to this day. The Edge was born Dave Evans, and is a member of U2, who everybody probably does know about. Jack White is the leader of the guitar/drums duo "The White Stripes" and has several side projects including the excellent band "The Raconteurs".

The film explores the different paths that each man took with the guitar in his hand, and how the relatively purist view sits White's style, the modern effect-laden tack that Edge prefers defines the sound of U2 and that Jimmy Page is simply the finest guitarist/musician of his era and can walk comfortably in both camps.

Lots of cool conversations, flashback history lessons and verbal and musical jamming ensue. Page at one point states that great music comes from musicians who are passionate, honest and competent. So true.

I was a little surprised to find that I liked all three guys more after the movie, especially since Page is already my very favorite guitar player of all time. His quiet manner, humble interaction and the joyous look on his face as he played the vinyl 45 record of Link Wray's "Rumble" - when 50 years fell off his face and you saw the young Page grooving to the beat of that classic instrumental - was fantastic. The Edge admits that what he does is technically simple once the machines are turned off, but he has those machines tuned like a fine sports car and in his hands they become, as he claims "my voice". Brilliant. White has used his tough early years to embrace deep, gut-bucket Blues which he "disguises" as White Stripes, when "all we're trying to do is play like Son House".

Go see this movie.

Hail to the Thief

2009-09-24T14:01:00.005-05:00

Just in case you're in Edmonton, Canada anytime soon, if you see somebody wearing a green Columbia fleece jacket, ask them if they still have my wallet, credit cards, driver's license, social security card and $200 cash American and $85 Canadian. Also my cell phone and reading glasses.

Ask them if they stole it out of the backstage crew room.

Then tell them they suck.

UPDATE: Got the phone and reading glasses back. How thoughtful.

UPDATE II: Bank of America, after promising to expedite a new debit card to me, failed to do so and I will be closing my accounts with them upon my return. Pathetic.

All Kinds Of Pain

2009-09-21T03:13:00.004-05:00

Tim Carroll's latest effort, "All Kinds of Pain" is now available on Gulcher Records. Tim recorded this record on a Roland VS-1680, and transferred those files to my Cubase rig and we produced, edited and mixed the album jointly.

I really like this record. It's a testament to the talent of Tim and to the inspiration that a convenient recording method can give to an already prolific song writer. Some of these tunes had completely different lyrics, titles and messages....and on "Drive All Night" two different versions are combined and presented at the same time. Try listening to either/or lead vocal...the songs work with either half the lyrics...Tim picks one or the other at live gigs.

Check it out. It's my third mixing/production effort after Gina Butler's "Simple Little Kiss" and Donna Beasley's "Good Samaritan".

When The Tracking Gets Weird, The Weird Turn to Pro Tools

2009-09-15T22:10:00.004-05:00

Spent the day working on the album. The fine folks at M-Audio were able to ship me a Transit USB interface for Pro Tools and I can finally get cracking on my editing. The Transit is a small, credit card sized device that gives you an optical in and an analog out. Not really for recording, but great for editing on a laptop: small, light weight and bus-powered.

For those of you new to Pro Tools, I highly recommend the Thomson Course Technology books: Editing Audio in Pro Tools Skill Pack, Mixing in Pro Tools Skill Pack and Working With Beats in Pro Tools Skill Pack. All come with session files to teach you how to edit, mix and work with loops and Beat Detective. I have read through the mix and edit books, and now use them as reference guides for specific techniques. The Beats book is new to me, but looks like a great guide to rhythm/drum specific editing and mixing. I brought the first two on this run and bought the third a few days ago...very handy and well thought out.

Vancouver Sunset

2009-09-15T21:54:00.005-05:00

Looking out my bedroom window as I wait for room service to bring dinner.

Something in the Air

2009-09-13T15:53:00.002-05:00

The Tacoma Dome. Big, round, echo-y. And now with extra channels!

Wireless microphones and wireless guitar packs have been around for a while now. Not only do they remove cable clutter from the stage, they allow you to get closer to the audience and put on a more energetic show. That's the upside.

The downside is that in some venues in some cities, the wireless rigs fight for airspace with TV, radio and other radio-based communication systems. We scan for open frequencies and can adjust our particular units to use less-traveled paths through the air, and it usually works out.

Last night we ran into an issue that puzzled all of us. Simple plugging into the rack where the wireless units live put a loud, clear radio station through our guitar amps. Even if the rack was removed from power...unplugged...it still acted as a big antennae. The more gain - and less filtering - that an amp had, the worse the problem. The boss has a power conditioned and isolated rig, so he was fine. The bass rig was pretty clean but all three guitarists had issues. We tried every thing we could think of and ended up going with cables for our electrics instead of wireless. The acoustic instruments - being low gain - did not seem to be affected.

"Going to a cable" is the default first solution when the guitar rig fails...it's so often the culprit that making it the first fix makes sense. So, we always have cables ready at hand in case of emergencies. Last night we started out with them and the consensus was it sounded bigger and better and was more responsive. Which makes sense, since amps are designed to see a certain impedance at the input and wireless units don't necessarily match up. They also compress the signal a bit, removing some of the subtleties of the player's touch. It's a trade-off, for sure, and the entertainment factor benefits outweigh the sonic loss. But it is fun to get a reality check time and again.

North by Northwest

2009-09-10T10:57:00.002-05:00

Like Lewis and Clark...or Martin and Lewis, at times... we roll this thing out to the upper left hand corner section of the map. Last night was Salt Lake City where the crowd was grinning from start to finish. Little Big Town opened and they were excellent as usual...a throwback to a day when you had to sing in tune and play in time before you were put into arenas. Definitely Old School.

We're on a 12-hour bus ride through beautiful Oregon at the moment...just stopped for fuel at a truck stop 200 miles out of Portland. I haven't been up this early (7:30) on the road in a long time. I used to be the first guy up, made the coffee and waited for the rest of the crew to rouse. Now I stay up late and sleep in 'til 10:00. Getting older, I guess. Ibuprofen tablets are a daily supplement to me.

I forgot to pack any of my several Pro Tools interfaces, so I had to order another one to be drop-shipped to the gig in Spokane on Monday. Which means I'll have some free time to explore Portland today, once we get there in another hour or so.

What You Don't See

2009-08-25T12:08:00.007-05:00

Joe Keiser, the monitor engineer for Keith Urban on this tour, did a time-lapse video of a typical load-in and set up for an Urban show.

Says Joe:

" I shot that from 8am until 6:30 pm (doors) took a shot every 30 seconds and then dropped it in Final Cut and set a picture at each frame (30 Frames a second)"

This is what we do before y'all get there...

Rough sequence of the video:

1) Points are hung by riggers
2) Lighting trusses and stage are rolled in
3) Stage is built in foreground
4) Trusses, P.A. and video wall are flown
5) Stage is set with backline (hey, that's me!)
6) Stage is pushed into position
7) Stage is wired for power and audio
8) Line check and sound check
9) Chairs are put on floor by venue crew
10) Lights are focused

Vaya Con Dios, Les Paul

2009-08-13T17:11:00.006-05:00

Lester William Polsfuss, of Waukesha, Wisconsin passed away today. If he had only inspired and championed the solid-body electric guitar, that would have been worthy of a tribute post. If he'd only pioneered the use of echo delay and reverb and double-speed recording, that would be enough. If he had only designed the first multi-track recorder on a bar napkin, got out the phone book, called an engineer and added a second playback head to his reel-to-reel tape recorder, that would be enough. But Les Paul, as he was known professionally, did all of those things.

Les tinkering in his garage studio

Not to mention his virtuoso guitar playing, amazing recording and production skills. Les Paul was thinking about making a guitar out of a solid piece of wood back in the 1930's, but was generally laughed at by the major manufacturers of the time. After Fender hit the market first, with their Broadcaster, Gibson remembered that guy with a "broomstick guitar" and together they created an American Classic in the Les Paul model guitar.

I bought my first Les Paul record, a duet album with Chet Atkins called "Chester and Lester" at Burnstad's Shop Rite in Mauston, WI. My Dad had some 78s of Les Paul and Mary Ford, namely "How High The Moon" and "Mockingbird Hill". I lusted after a Les Paul for years, especially when Peter Frampton came on the scene playing a triple-pickup Custom. Not to mention Jimmy Page, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Scott Gorham, Mick Ralphs, Mick Jones and nearly every Rock guitarist that interested me in the '70's.

Les at the Gibson plant in Kalamazoo, MI.

I went through a few cheap copies, made by companies such as Aspen and Hondo II, but once I got to college, I bought a real Les Paul, a 1974 Tobacco Sunburst model from Dave's Guitar Shop in LaCrosse. I went through a few over the years and now have a Reissue 1960 VOS version, an amazing guitar.

A complete obituary would take many pages, and I'm sure you can find them online. Suffice it to say that the music business as you know it, and definitely as I know it, would be vastly different without Les Paul, the "Thomas Edison of Wisconsin".

Thanks, Les. For everything.

Live Music

2009-08-11T23:01:00.003-05:00

Just got home from a Counting Crows show, with Michael Franti w/Spearhead and Augustana. Nobody opened - or rather - everybody opened. All 18 musicians on stage for the first song, then people came on and off in various numbers and they played for 90 minutes.

Everybody sounded great, but it was at the Ryman, so odds were good of that happening. Very entertaining and exciting show. Had not heard Franti or Augustana before...liked them both.

Hanging With The Beatles

2009-08-11T15:02:00.004-05:00

With the pending release of the re-mastered catalog on 09.09.09, interest in The Beatles will undoubtedly spike again, as it last did when the "Love" CD and Vegas show were unveiled. In my house, it's always a good time for all things Beatles.

As it turns out, Planet Waves has the licensing rights to put Beatles logos on straps and picks. I just received my samples and here they are:

Gear!

Return to Fender

2009-08-10T16:16:00.002-05:00

I am a fan of Fender guitar amps. Me and millions of others, of course. From the '59 Bassman to the Deluxe Reverb to the Blues Junior to the Champion 600, they just sound great. I own a vintage '67 Deluxe Reverb (a black-panel version) that I keep in top condition and it is my very favorite amp. I wish I could travel with it, since I'd love to record my Deluxe while laying down some guitar tracks on a tour bus or in a hotel room, but that's not really possible. Too fragile, too big, too heavy for airplanes and busses. So how can you get the Fender sound without a real Fender amp?

IK Multimedia's AmpliTube Fender software models 12 great Fender guitar and bass amps. I'm a big fan of the Line 6 models, as regular readers know, and I was curious to hear how the new IK version would hold up.

Well, it simply sounds great. I first used it to warm up a direct-recorded bass guitar track. A fat, warm bass amp model added just the right sound the more pristine D.I. tone and blending the two gave me just what I wanted. I had recorded a track direct on guitar to get the musical idea down before I forgot it, with every intention of recording it for real later on. Just for fun I put a Deluxe Reverb on that track. It sounded like my amp... a lot like my amp.

I think the Fender bundle from IK Multimedia is a great addition to the recoding guitarist's toolkit and will certainly get used in my current and future projects.

Good Time Hour

2009-07-20T03:29:00.008-05:00

Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada.

A Legend.

"...During his 50 years in show business, Campbell has released more than 70 albums. He has sold 45 million records and racked up 12 RIAA Gold albums, 4 Platinum albums and 1 Double-Platinum album. Of his 75 trips up the charts, 27 landed in the Top 10."

Trace Foster, Glen Campbell, Tom Spaulding

Back in the day...

FresnoVegasLosAngeles Quick Notes

2009-07-19T04:38:00.006-05:00

California and Nevada. Hotter than Hell in Fresno (aka HellsNo), surprisingly a great gig. Met a fellow Cheesehead (from Oconomowoc!) on the flight in who works for a company that deals with unexploded ordnance. We swapped hard drives and both got some new music to listen to.

Hotter than Fresno in Las Vegas. No amount of cajoling could make the buses stay cool without blowing fuses until the sun went down. Thanks to Dave Carney for his efforts in getting our bus livable. Glen Campbell opened for us tonight...a legend who still brings it. Excellent.

Los Angeles tomorrow. Staples Center, always an important gig, regardless of who I am working for.

Max Macks Macs

2009-07-12T22:41:00.003-05:00

So, you have Garageband installed on your Mac but since you're a Pro Tools guy, you can't be bothered with a starter program like Garageband. But what about all those groovy Apple Loops that GB ships with...or the free ones you can find all over the internet? Wouldn't it be great to be able to use them in Pro Tools?

Max is a program that does just that and much more. Here's how: AIR Users Blog

And The Beat Goes On...

2009-07-02T10:35:00.002-05:00

Project update: Donna Beasley's next record, 'Under The Rushes" is coming along nicely. Yesterday we went to Anthony Aquilato's home studio and recorded a keeper vocal on a tune using the AT 4050 microphone. I had just purchased a 4050 for my own studio (and used it with great success) last week, so we tried it again and it fit the tune perfectly.

The day before, the amazing Kenny Vaughan (of Marty Stuart's Fabulous Superlatives) stopped by to pick up his D'Addario string order. I asked if he was free to throw a guitar part down on a song, he agreed and 45 minutes later we had a vibey guitar track that took the tune to a new place...very cool. In a room full of nice guitars - Les Pauls, Teles, ES-125s, Strats - Kenny opted for my Teisco Del Rey. Plugged into the 3 Monkeys Orangutan, he dialed up a killer guitar tone and had the part within a few passes.

On my most recent road trip, I was able to have "Pro Tools Guy" Mark Dobson rough out a mix on one of the more complicated tunes on the record. He showed me several tricks on getting a naturally ambient drum sound to be a bit drier, using gates and EQ and compression. With that session saved as a template, I can apply those settings as a strating point for any other song on the record tha needs "less room and more drum". All of the drums were cut on the same kit on the same day with the same mics.

I'm also getting a Pro Tools laptop rig together for a friend and will be out buying more RAM for it today. Stay tuned, I'll post a few snippets of what we are up to soon.

The Groove Is Dead And Gone

2009-06-25T17:59:00.003-05:00

The King of Pop died today. I wasn't a huge fan...didn't own any actual records, downloaded a few singles of my favorite tunes of his and the Jackson 5. But he was undeniably a masterful musician and performer, and since I'm at least tangentially in the same business as he was, I must pay my respects.

I grew up with Michael Jackson. He was 3 years older than me, so I was about seven when he hit the charts with the J5. "ABC" was my favorite at the time and remains so. Back then I liked the shout-out chorus, I guess. Nowadays I love the bass line and the exuberant groove.

I really started listening - as a musician - when "Off The Wall" came out in 1979. I was a junior at Mauston Area High School, and was way into The Cars, UFO, Van Halen and hard rock. But the radio played "Rock With You" and 'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "She's Out of My Life" a lot and there was no denying the brilliant songs, performance and production. I really liked the vocal phrasing on "Rock With You", especially the way he says "girrrll" as an aside on the outchorus. It was cool.

Three years and a ton of awards later, we got "Thriller", the most succesfull album ever made, with estimates of world-wide sales to be between 47 and 100 million copies and 28 million in the U.S. alone. Seven Top Ten singles. "Billie Jean". "Thriller"."Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'". "The Girl Is Mine". "Beat It". "Human Nature". "P.Y.T."

He mastered the music video art form, ushered in the extended video re-mix with the title track, and became the King of Pop with that record. He never needed to do anything else.

But he did.

After that came "We Are The World", the re-united Jackson's massive "Victory" tour, and the Paul McCartney collaborations. The follow up album "Bad" (imagine the pressure!) had five number one singles on it. After that I lost interest and only heard bits and pieces of his output.

RIP, Michael. I hope you find the peace you sang about.