Category: Creativity

Writing, music, anything creative

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Tired Of The Grind

For the last few years, I’ve been comfortably working in a regular, ordinary, desk job. It has allowed me to focus on family time and not worry too much about paying bills and hustling.

But sadly, it doesn’t afford me the ability to do what I want or what I love. You know the old saying- “you work to make your employer rich.” You won’t find financial independence working for someone else. But I don’t really want to start a business, either.

So I have to make a decision: do I start a business again, or plug along with barely enough? Continue reading “Tired Of The Grind”

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How Do We Make Hard Decisions?

Since I’ve been looking at all-in-one guitar things, naturally, I’ve done research and considered all the options. There are units going from $200 all the way up to $3000, and everything in between. But truth be told, even the cheaper ones are still pretty good. So what am I looking for in an all-in-one guitar/bass effect unit? How do you make a choice when there’s so many good choices?

I’m basically going to walk you through the decision making process of how to buy a piece of music gear- or anything, really. This is a lesson on how to wade through choice overload. This is a critical skill for becoming a minimalist.

What do you need?

Let’s say I’m shopping for a pedalboard upgrade. The first question I need to ask is “What am I going to be using it for?” And the second question is related: “What will this allow me to do that I can’t do now?” Because if it doesn’t do more than my current one, it’s not an upgrade, is it? Continue reading “How Do We Make Hard Decisions?”

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Thoughts On Minimalist Music Gear (Again)

I was recently tuning in to a popular ambient guitarist’s livestream, and I noticed they had added a bunch of new stuff to their setup. I saw all of that, listened to the sounds coming out of it, and thought “Is that really all he’s doing with all that stuff? How much did all that cost, anyway?” And of course, I made the mistake of looking up the prices and figuring out how much money this guy had tied up into his board.

It was around six thousand dollars. For a pedalboard to make ambient music with. Six grand, just for the pedals… not including the board, wires, guitar, amps, or anything else.

This gave me pause. I haven’t even paid that much for a car in the last 10 years. And it begs the question: If I had $6K to drop on a guitar setup, how would *I* do it? Simple: I wouldn’t.

For that much money, I could get two Fractal Axe-FX 3’s. Or four Line 6 Helixes. And arguably, I could do ten times more with those than any collection of single pedals on a board.

Bottom line: is it worth the money? My opinion: No.
Continue reading “Thoughts On Minimalist Music Gear (Again)”

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Still In Love… With The World

You know what this world has to offer?

  • Self-help programs
  • Politics
  • Humanitarian aid
  • Advertising
  • “Your Best Life Now”
  • Toys (the big, expensive, adult kind)
  • Popularity
  • Sexual deviancy
  • Self-medication
  • Subjective reality
  • Victimhood

John the Disciple said:

“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” – 1 John 15-17

I don’t know about you, but I want to do the will of God. I don’t want to be in love with the Dark World, or anything it provides. I hate that my flesh likes some of those things. I don’t want to lust after popularity, or recognition, or fun toys, or whatever. But my flesh is always trying to draw me back into the world.

Why do I run a blog, or a YouTube channel? It’s because I want to be seen, to be heard, and understood. I want to share my thoughts and music with people. I want to be recognized for it! I want to be seen as someone who contributes to the benefit of those who ask hard questions, and don’t settle for easy, pat answers.

But is that really “doing the will of God?” Continue reading “Still In Love… With The World”

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Being Outmoded

No matter how much I try to keep up with the hectic pace of life, I always seem to end up feeling like I’m stuck in the past. And not in the “Things were better back in the day!” kind of way. More like the “I feel like I can’t move forward in time” kind of feeling. I want to be a creator, to make things- music, videos, machines, whatever- but I am constantly kneecapped by the fact that I’m not independently wealthy, I can’t afford nice cameras and lights and computers and toys, and more importantly… I feel frustrated that I actually want those things.

What if I made it “my thing” to be okay with getting by with old cheap stuff? I see videos by Vulfpeck done all grainy and old-school, and it makes me wonder: Could it be possible for me to make video content that’s not in 1080p, and it still be good content?

Continue reading “Being Outmoded”

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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”