Category: Music

Anything technology and music-related

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The Wax Museum Podcast

Welcome! If you’re visiting my blog for the first time, I have to warn you- it’s all over the place.

But considering the way my mind works (and if you know anything about Bridge Livwat), you’ll know that the creative process can be very messy and disorganized. Coming to grips with that is part of what we, as creatives, do.

John (also known as Bridge Livwat) and I have been friends for a while. If I recall, we met through another (now defunct) podcast called The Gospel Friends, and through that, ended up making our own podcast called ADD Masterminds. John’s love of podcasting led him to start a few more, including one called The Wax Museum

We’ve had many discussions about creativity, music, and inspiration, so it’s only natural that we’d discuss it. And wanting to be serious about it, John decided that The Wax Museum was the best place to discuss it.

If you haven’t listened to it, you can listen to the podcast here at The Wax Museum.

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Pedalboard Musings

How Minimal is Minimal?

I’ve been seriously debating on whether I want to dump money into an actual professional guitar pedalboard. I mean… I could make one and hack together a case for it. It would take me a couple of hours and $20 worth of plywood. But you know, I’m kind of wanting something a little more polished, something sturdier, something that I won’t have to compromise on. Something big enough that I can run both my electric and acoustic guitars through.

If I go with a professional board, I could mount the compressor, PSU, and a few other things underneath. I wouldn’t use velcro, I can use zip ties. It would require making more patch cables, and so on… probably (with an added couple of pedals) around $600. That’s a LOT of money. More than halfway to Helix/GT1000/Headrush teritory.

Granted, I think it would be extremely convenient, and would able to do pretty much anything I want. Flexibility and portability are always my main two concerns. Assuming I can stuff a couple of pedals underneath, I should be able to make that do what I want.

But again, I have to decide whether I should drop another couple hundred dollars into a setup to do more than it already does. Technically, a board doesn’t *do* anything other than make the pedals and stuff easy to carry and use. Is that sort of functionality worth hundreds of dollars to me, as a pseudo-minimalist?

Or would I be better served with just getting a single multi-fx unit, like a Line 6 Helix LT, or a Boss GT-1000, or a Headrush Pedalboard? They’re $800! But… they’re all in one piece. Built-in direct boxes, flexible routing, and no board or patch cables required.

Theoretically, if I sold all my pedals, I could mostly offset the gargantuan cost of one of these units. But I would only do that if it could do everything that my current board does, and also what I want it to do!

So which is more minimal: Having one piece of expensive gear that does everything you need, or adding complication and cost to what you already have to do what you want? Continue reading “Pedalboard Musings”

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My Constant Inner Companion

I have a constant inner companion, inside my head. I’m not talking about the Holy Spirit (although He is a fantastic companion!), I’m talking about my not-so-friendly friend, Mr. Tinnitus.

Tinnitus is defined as non-auditory internally perceived sound. In other words, you can hear things (whooshing, ringing, chirping) that aren’t actually there. It is closely associated with hearing loss, and almost always accompanies hearing damage.

I recently watched a great video by Chords Of Orion (a.k.a. Bill Vencil) about how his hearing loss and tinnitus had progressed over the last few years. And of course, his experience mirrors my own. I have a constant 24/7 high-frequency buzzing/ringing in my ears that never goes away. It’s very faint most of the time, as I’ve trained myself to partially tune it out. But it permanently affects my ability to hear sounds in a certain frequency range. I’m constantly asking my wife to repeat herself if there’s any kind of noise around. I can only hear her clearly if it’s quiet. (Doesn’t help that she’s soft spoken.)

How has this affected me musically? Well, I’d like to say it hasn’t, but I’m pretty sure it has somehow. The problem is, I can’t really tell. But I know something’s up because I can hear some things clearly through noise, and others I can’t.

Is there anything I can do to treat it? Not really, unfortunately. Hearing is a finite resource, and once you lose some of it, it doesn’t come back. But there are a few things you can do to cope with the constant ringing: Continue reading “My Constant Inner Companion”

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Pocket-Sized Synths

As I’ve previously written about going all analog, one of the
things I looked into was analog music gear. Specifically, I wanted to find some analog synths and things that I could use to make music without breaking the bank. Most notably, the Korg Volca series popped up.

If you haven’t heard of the Korg Volca format, it’s a small form-factor that Korg uses to make synths, sequencers, samplers, and a few other eletronic music devices. They’re very affordably priced and have a lot of cool features, and they sound great.

But I got to thinking: if I bought four of them at $150 a pop, I’d still need to buy some cables and make a stand for them, and also some sort of mixer. And the more modules you get, the more space they take up.

As part of my philosophy of minimalism, I started thinking “How could I get the same functionality in less space, with less money?”

And then I remembered Caustic. Continue reading “Pocket-Sized Synths”

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Minimalism In Music Gear

For the last week or so, I’ve been going through Five Watt World’s Youtube channel. And I have to say, Keith Williams is definitely on to something. Everything he’s said resonated with me.

In one video, he explains that “Minimalism” could just as easily be called “Just-Enoughism”. And that tends to reflect the attitude of true minimalists: don’t just get rid of everything (including things you need). But be intentional about it, carefully choose the things you want to keep and use, and let go of the rest.

For instance: I have two saxophones. Each one has two mouthpieces. But that gives me a lot of sounds I can work with: soft, full blast, and everything in between. Plus if I’m a performing musician, it pays to have a backup instrument.

Guitars are the same way. I have three: an acoustic, and 2 electrics. One electric guitar I kept because 1. it’s my first guitar, and 2. I had it rebuilt, and it actually plays really well now. My second guitar was a steal of a buy, and I bought it because (at the time) my main guitar needed a refret, plus it has a tremolo and single-coil pickups.

I only have one guitar amp, that I’ve had for 20+ years. It just works. It’s not the smallest, but it sounds great, is versatile, and hey… I already own it. It’s solid-state, so I can play it at whisper levels, or make your ears bleed, and it sounds just the same.

My guitar pedalboard setup is still evolving (This isn’t even my final form!!) but after watching some of Keith’s videos, it reminded me to stick to what I actually need. I don’t need gobs of wacky synth pedals, or tons of overdrives. Don’t even need an actual delay pedal, but I might pick one up if I find a deal on it.

In another video Keith Williams mentions artificial limitations on gear to stimulate creativity. So I’ve decided to constrain myself to only using what will fit on my homemade 17×12″ board. It fits inside of a hard case, and should hold everything I need. Continue reading “Minimalism In Music Gear”

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Finding Your Worship Voice

I’m talking about finding your musical voice, as an artist. And for me as a church musician, finding my voice to worship with the group I play with.

A lot of churches are emulating the most popular church groups right now, and it’s becoming more and more a case of not just playing their music, but sounding just like them as well.

To be honest, this is lazy of us. Of course we can just purchase a backing track and play along with it. But what about the musicians? We’re stuck learning someone else’s parts, and mimicing someone else’s sound.

The Church has embraced Worship Karaoke: even with the words on the screen.

Continue reading “Finding Your Worship Voice”
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Have Computers Ruined Music?

After watching Rick Beato’s video “How Computers Ruined Rock Music” I had to sit down and think about music, and how it impacts me. Beato obviously knows what he’s talking about, and is good at producing tracks. But does the idea that “rock music was ruined by computers” ring true?

Well, sort of.

If you expand the idea of “computers” to technology in general, then no, it hasn’t ruined rock music. Without some of the technology we have now, things like the Digitech Whammy wouldn’t exist (and neither would Rage Against The Machine’s iconic sound). There wouldn’t be John Mayer’s “Bigger Than My Body.” We wouldn’t have affordable synthesizers and amplifiers and effects. Technology has come up with some amazing tools for making music, which have greatly impacted rock-n-roll for the better.

But on the production side, I think Beato is very much correct: Perfection is the enemy of Good. He goes into great detail explaining why editing songs so that every part is perfectly on beat and in tune ruins the “feel” of the song. He’s absolutely right.

Music performance, as an art form, is being over-produced into oblivion by the Photoshop generation.

Continue reading “Have Computers Ruined Music?”
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Digitech Jamman Replacing Ableton Live

Music/guitar nerd alert.

I rebuilt my guitar pedalboard a while back, and one of the things I added was a DigiTech Jamman Solo XT pedal, with a homemade 3-button remote switch.

The DigiTech Jamman Solo is a solid little looping pedal- it records input and plays it back, like a looping tape recorder. There are plenty of looping pedals out there, but I picked the Jamman for a specific reason: it has a 32 GB micro-SD card you can store about 10 hours of .wav files on.

I saw someone was using one to play ambient backing pads for a church service, and it got me thinking. I’ve been spending a lot of time researching software (like Ableton Live) that can seamlessly play backing tracks on command, including the ability to move back and forth between sections in a song, and transitions.

I immediately thought “why couldn’t I do that with the Jamman?”

So I did a little experiment. Continue reading “Digitech Jamman Replacing Ableton Live”

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Adrenalinn III Review: Part 3

This is the third (of 3) installment on the Adrenalinn III effects pedal, by Roger Linn Designs. This will cover the drum machine and MIDI implementation on the pedal, and wrap it up with a summary. I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far!

The drum machine in this little box is, for all intents and purposes, pretty decent. It’s not as good as a full-blown drum sequencer, but the plus side is that it’s pretty easy to use, and can be controlled right there with your feet. If you want to run a small musical group without a drummer, this is a definite possibility.

It basically only plays 4 sounds (or variations of sounds) at a time. Bass, snare, hi-hat, and percussion (which can be a ride cymbal, shaker, triangle, cowbell, etc). This is enough to give you pretty basic beats. It also allows you to pass the drum sounds through the effects section of the pedal, so you can use reverb, delay, treble filter, and distortion on the drums. This is nice if you want to “tweak” the sound for that gritty “in the stairwell” drum feel, like on Led Zeppelin albums. The distortion also works pretty well with the TS808 sampler beats, as it gives it a lo-fi sound.

The sequencer lets you do 2 measures of 8th or 16th notes. It can also do 3/4 measures, and swing patterns. You program the beats on the main control panel of the pedal. It’s a bit klunky, but it does work.

When programming the beat, each sound has a volume set for each time it’s triggered (9 volume increments), which gives you some flexibility.

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The downside to having a drum machine in your pedal is that you really can’t run stereo out into stereo effects afterwards. The AdrenaLinn does have stereo outs, yes. You can split the guitar and drum sounds into the Left or Right channels, but that eliminates using any stereo effects *within* the pedal. 

Continue reading “Adrenalinn III Review: Part 3”

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New Directions

I feel like God is drawing me into wanting to do music ministry full time. I don’t know what that will look like yet.

I don’t know if that’s something I need to go back to school for, and I’m not really thrilled about that. It would be exciting, but at the same time… I don’t feel like I could do it with my current job.

I really like my current job, but I know it is not my life’s calling. I would much rather teach music and lead worship for a living. But how can I do that? I can’t just quit my job. Not yet, at least.

What would that (going back into music ministry) look like? How could I (understanding it’s not me) make that happen? Why is God showing me this? Why is God giving me a desire to make worship my career, after so many years of me saying “I will never do professional music ministry again”? Can I do that without sacrificing my heart? I want to be pure in motivation. I never want to make money worshipping. But I would love to be able to do that all the time.

Continue reading “New Directions”