doommeow wrote:
5. Come to terms with the broken dichotomies of my interests, instinctive playing styles, and sonic yearnings. Make shit come together or learn to be happy maximizing what happens naturally. Improve and improv from there.
Tell me more. I think I'm in a similar place as you. I found that I don't like my "default" playing style, it's not representative at all of the music I'd like to be making. This passage in the 33 1/3 book on Bitches Brew really struck me:
...the enduring fallacy of assuming that how music sounds to us is a direct and transparent reflection of the musician's personal qualities, rather than a complicated blend of practice, habit, aesthetic choices, and expressive artifice and subterfuge.
I'm trying to find the line between being conscientious enough in my playing that I'm truly making the sounds I want to hear, and not overthinking it so much that I overemphasize "intention" against "instinct." Or, finding the difference between instinct and simple habit.
For me it was a big eye opener when I realized that practice makes stuff come naturally after you have put a certain effort in it.
I made up a scale (well, it probably is some scale) made up of intervals that I thought sounded interesting and played that. After a while I realized I could use the tones to make some of my favorite chords. Since then I can go into "my scale mode" and have fun. What comes out is most of the times shit I actually like. When I stay in default mode I sometimes play the most boring and awful stuff.
It can work pretty well too though.
If I can not absolutely decide, then at least keep more stable my view of me as more of a drumming or more of a guitaring person.
I'm leaning towards the former, but i freaking love tinkering with guitarpedals. But that is another switch I wanna make: less "Oh all these options of that pedal - where will they take me?"
more "What do I want to achieve/hear? What do I need to do/buy to get there?"
And then there's the computerbased stuff I've been neglecting for ages...
To those I'm going to be adding a Bigsby B5 and Vibramate here in the next month or so as well, and it will be set up for open tunings and slide, though it will wander into Eb/D std sometimes I'm sure.
Add another vintage Fane Medusa 30 so I can load my 2nd 4x12 them and my 2 alnico EV SRO 12"s.
Start building some simple GE boosts and fuzzes.
Most importantly though, I need a Gibson acoustic. Hopefully by the end of the year.
Less clutter on the board. Less pedals, more control and a greater ability to get weirder. Moved off my TAFM, RM-1N and Timefactor (only actually selling the TF though) with the aim of adding some routing options (some parallel stuff and optimise for a synth as well as guitar), exp control , and, if it is everything I believe it to be, an 856 for Zellersasn to cover the granular style looping I was approximating with my Timefactor. Also added an RV-3 today to cover verb in a smaller box than the RM-1N and it's a truly great pedal.
So yeah, add two pedals, exp and routing stuff to make the most of a more compact and flexible fewer pedal setup for more than guitar
vidret wrote:everything will be better once i get that new dirt pedal.
i'll sound much better.
i'll play much better.
the weather is going to be better.
people are going to love me more.
my computer will give me less problems.
my friends will want to hang out with me more.
my parents won't nag me as much.
it'll sound great both before and after delay.
i can finally start a band with the sound i want to have.
a drummer will probably show up once i sound like this.
a girl will probably show up once i sound like this.
someone who loves me for who i am.
and it looks good too.
but it's here now
it's got sidejacks
it hasn't got a mid-boost like that other, new, slightly varied one
even though i barely used that on my old ones
i'd rather talk about it here
the weather is still shit
it still sounds just about the same.
i guess this wasn't it.
there's a new one coming out next week, it looks fucking superb.
i bet it'll fix all my problems.
neonblack wrote:
My goals for 2016 are:
Finish my baritone and secure my new cab (THANKS AGAIN Y'ALL) and my rig will finally be solid as fuck. Baritone -> yba-3 -> Dominion 2x12
Acquire a real spring reverb, preferably in pedal form. Uverbia or Endless Summer mk2. Maybe a spring king.
Talk Brian into making me a Superbuzzz.
Well, everything but the last one is done. Now to start bugging Brian.
Now of course there's just one or two more things I need...
Set up a small board for band related activities. Having a giant bass board in a band that has two guitarists who love effects is an exercise in futility and the surest way to sound like shit live. Now I'm on a PT Nano rocking a tuner, Heavy Machine, Reflector and an El Cap (soon to be Avalanche Run) and have everything I need and nothing I don't.
Splitting them up also allowed me to put weirder pedals on the big board I'm using at home too.
Most of all I'm happy to have a home setup that is always ready for recording DI and from a small cab on my desk, just plug the mixer in to my computer and I'm all set. Recorded some impromptu ambient stuff yesterday and hope to put out a lot more solo stuff this year.
Got a short scale bass that I could play more comfortably and put on a new bridge and tuners and basically set it up from scratch. Sounds and plays excellent now.
Just need to get my P Bass setup for these new strings. They are so massive I need to modify the nut (.160 gauge for the win).
