Christmas in July

Today we did some recording outside with my little Sony digital recorder Thus, I give you the Potts family recording of Jonathan Coulton's song Chiron Beta Prime. Isaac is unfortunately not in the picture (he was taking it) but maybe we can Photoshop him in later. The Asian girl is not actually one of ours, she is a neighbor who came out to join us. If you listen closely you can hear the sound of glass crashing in the dumpster behind the Trader Joe's store a few yards away from our apartment building.

These tracks are made available under the same license terms as the original: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 3.0. I don't quite know what the "unported" means except I gather they are constantly updating their licenses.

For what it's worth, the license I normally use for my blogging is Attribution, NonCommercial, ShareAlike. ShareAlike means that the derivative work can only be distributed under the same license. Since I don't think it is correct to impose further restrictions on Mr. Coulton's work than the ones he originally offers it under, I'll use his license instead, although it appears he does not technically require this. This is complicated! But I think it means you can use our version of this song to create another derivative work and make that work available for non-commercial use without using the same license. Will artwork in the future often come with a chain of attribution and derivation kind of like the way that digital signatures are validated cryptographically by a chain of trusted signers? Maybe I spent too much time out in the sun today.

Anyway, I hope you like the song, we had fun recording it, and thanks again to Mr. Coulton for making his work available. If you like his song please support him.

A Little Fretless Bass and the Cher Effect

Here is a new version of "The Future Soon" which has a fretless bass line -- my first attempt at recording a bass line. The bass is a fretless Steinberger Synapse 5-string (one of the new ones). These basses are interesting because they are composite: part wood, part carbon fiber, with a shell on the neck and body kind of like the Parker Fly, and they have a piezo pickup at the bridge with a hunk of ebony in it. This gives it a tone that sounds a lot like an acoustic upright bass! It also has a magnetic pickup, but for this track I used only the piezo pickup.

The guitar track is the same dry track dirtied slightly by putting it through a tube amp simulator in Logic, giving it just a little bit of crunch, which I think sounds interesting on an acoustic guitar. The bass is also through an amp simulator and a little flange.

I heavily tortured the vocal line by applying the "Cher Effect" (unnatural pitch correction, like the effect used in the song "Believe," plus a little chorus). It seems oddly appropriate for a song whose narrator aspires to become a cyborg! I want to try to record some more vocal takes and get a better track at some point when it is quiet around here (that was a little joke).

This really tortured my little Mac Mini (Logic kept throwing up somewhat random misbehavior), as well as my sanity. It's hard to try to record a bass line through headphones while in the same room there is a Sesame Street DVD playing, my son playing his guitar, and two babies yelling. At least it was better than yesterday, when I was recording the guitar part and they kept running around and crashing into me. That made it extra-challenging! At one point I was thinking to myself "I bet Jonathan Coulton doesn't have to put up with this" but then I realized -- he has a toddler at home, and does his own recording in his apartment, so he probably does!

More Info on The Future Soon Guitar Parts and Rough Cover

OK, for those interested, here's a lot more info about the Jonathan Coulton song.

"The Future Soon" is played kind of freely, unlike some of his other tunes such as "Chiron Beta Prime," which has a very steady rock beat, so I did not record it using a click track reference (although maybe I should have). I recorded the guitar line. It took a few takes to get a reasonably good one, and a couple of very minor edits (yes, I must confess, I was not able to jump to the Aaug chord on the 5th fret at the end of the the line "when Laura calls me home" smoothly, so I had to do a little edit there. JoCo wrote a while back in a forum post that he finds that chord difficult to jump to and so skips it when playing the song live, so I don't feel too bad. I'm sure after playing it a few dozen more times, I'll get it.)

Anyway, this guitar track has some string buzz and some timing flaws, but I thought it was good enough to let other people hear (I have to stomp on my perfectionist tendencies, or I never finish anything). I'd welcome any feedback.

Technical details for recording geeks: I played this on my Ovation acoustic/electric, an Elite 1778T-PTF (with an outrageous purple flame design painted on a spruce top), directly into my Apogee Ensemble, and recorded and edited it in Logic. I'm not entirely satisfied with the sound of the Ovation going direct like that; the preamps are very clean, but the dry result seems a little toneless. Maybe I just need to play with the EQ a bit, or maybe it needs an amp simulator. I'm also considering adding a tube DI box to my recording rig at some point, like the Summit Audio TD-100.

Taste in guitars is very personal; JoCo seems to play Martin acoustics, which sound a little more hollow and woody, while the Ovation has a plastic body and thus sounds a little more artificial. This model Ovation also has an ebony fretboard, which makes it sound even brassier. I'm biased towards more "modern" instrument materials and designs, I guess, although at my age you might expect that I'd prefer more traditional guitars. I really like the sound of the Parker Fly (steel frets and carbon fiber and piezo pickup), Chapman Stick (steel fret-like bars), Steinberger basses, and graphite-top guitars. But for electric guitars tones I also like single-coil pickups on instruments with hollow, more natural, woody tones like my Peavey Limited ST. No, I can't explain it either, but I know what sounds good to me.

Anyway, my son is also learning guitar and bass. He's pretty new to both instruments yet, and although he's making a lot of progress, this song involves some very quick chord changes, so he can't quite play it at speed yet. But he can sing! He used to be in the Boy Choir of Ann Arbor. His voice is half-changed now and he's not quite gotten full control over it yet, but it is still a lot better than my scratch vocal for the song (it is right off the high end of my range, so you really don't want to hear me sing it). I'm very proud of him for doing this!

If you would like to learn this guitar part yourself, and I highly recommend it to aspiring guitarists because it is a really nice set of chords, I refer you to suuuupaadave's YouTube channel here. You can also find the videos on his blog. The lesson for "The Future Soon" is in his very first post. I don't claim to play it exactly like either suuuupaadave (or JoCo) does, but I think my play-through is pretty close.

The Future Soon Guitar Parts and Rough Cover

The first somewhat odd fruits of my little collaboration with Mr. Coulton (of which he remains blissfully unaware so far, lucky him!) are ready.

These tracks are made available under the same license terms as the original: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 3.0.

Here's the dry guitar track (no reverb, no effects, flat EQ).

And here's a "wet" version with a little compression and chorus.

Here's a version with my 13-year-old son Isaac singing the vocal. I'm calling this a rough cover version because it isn't reallly EQ'ed and mixed properly, and the vocal track was really just one take without much practice and without any editing.

Now, one more version. I recorded a fretless bass line. I'm not a very good bass player, so this was quite painful because I had to assemble it from numerous takes; it's still rather imperfect. There's a light flange on the bass line but nothing else done to it. The guitar is run through an amp simulator that dirties it up just a bit and a spatial effect. For this version I also applied the "Cher Effect" to the vocal -- unnatural-sounding pitch correction and chorus. It seems somehow appropriate on a song where the narrator imagines himself becoming a cyborg.

I'm uploading MP3 files, but here's an offer: if you would like to use my guitar track in a some kind of cover under the same license terms, I would be very happy to collaborate with you. I could send you an uncompressed original file, or re-record it at whatever BPM you specify (well, within reason). I am not great at recording to a click track at an arbitrary beats-per-minute rate -- my attempt to turn "Chiron Beta Prime" into a ballad by slowing it down to 90 beats per minute was not entirely successful, but I'll do my best. Or, if you want to record a vocal track along with the track as it is and send it to me, I'd be happy to take a shot at mixing it, although I don't claim to be a true pro at this kind of thing yet.

Cuckoo for JoCo

I've been inspired recently by Jonathan Coulton's songs and his story about quitting his day job to pursue his dream of being a professional musician. We went to see him perform in Pontiac on the 10th of July (my concert recording can be downloaded here. I'm not quite ready to quit my day job, but I've been inspired to work harder on my music and podcast projects.

Besides just being excellent songs, the sleeper feature of Jonathan Coulton's songwriting is that he has released just about everything under a Creative Commons license (attribution non-commercial 3.0). This has various consequences, but the two most important for me have been:

1. I was able to record his recent concert in Pontiac, edit the files and post MP3s for other fans to download for free without breaking any laws. That's fantastic! Kind of like trading Grateful Dead recordings.

2. I am allowed to use his songs in my own creations, such as recording a cover or remix, as long as I follow the license (basically, I have to give him credit, and it is done for non-commercial use).

This also means that guitar player geeks like me are getting seriously into his work because they can share tabs and analyze his chords and share their findings without copyright restrictions.

Anyway, in my next post I'll share the first fruits of this kind of collaboration with Jonathan Coulton!

New Neck and Pickguard for the Jag-Stang

I have some new guitars, but I'll hold off talking about those. Right now I'm excited about a new Warmoth-made neck I ordered for the Jag-Stang. It's a thing of beauty, finished with a vintage tint, and a nut and stainless steel frets pre-installed. I've been sold on stainless steel for at least some instruments after playing a Parker Fly.

I also have some auto-locking vintage-style Gotoh tuners to install, and a new Warmoth bridge with adjustable string saddles to help conform to the new neck radius. The Jag-Stang also got a new pickguard a few days ago, purchased from a guy on eBay. It's a nicely made pickguard, but it is difficult to judge how the colors will look when buying online. It's black abalone (with greenish/blue). This looks kind of strange against the red body, but it was hard to judge before installing it. It would probably look much better on a black or blue body. I'll withhold final judgement until the whole thing is back together, but I think it will unfortunately look somewhere between "unique" and just plain ugly.

The pickguard needs to be cut down very slightly around the neck pocket, preferably without removing it. The headstock needs holes drilled for the tuners (not the big holes, but small holes for the screws). The bridge will need the usual Jag-Stang tape or tubing to keep it from shifting (I don't really use the trem, and it should add to the tuning stability). The guitar synth pickup needs to be reinstalled. I think this time I'm going to take it to a local luthier. The part I really don't fully trust myself to do is drilling holes in the headstock. I don't want to screw up a nearly $300 guitar neck!

Ultimately, I would still like to build an all-new Jag-Stang. That would involve replacing the body with a Warmoth body. The original Jag-Stang pickguard shape won't quite fit the Warmoth replacement body so I'd need a Warmoth pickguard. I'd have the body routed for a Gotoh Tune-o-Matic bridge with stop tailpiece (I'd consider string-through-body ferrules but I'm not sure that will work with a Tune-o-Matic bridge). If I did that, I think the only parts that were original would be perhaps the jack plate and the switches! That's OK, the original Jag-Stang was just not a well-built guitar!

The Cavalcade of Guitars, Part 1

I've acquired quite a few guitars lately, and gotten rid of a few as well. Here's an update that isn't really up-to-date, since I started writing it several months ago.

My Peavey Limited's frets are now in gorgeous, like-new condition, thanks to the expert luthiers at Elderly Instruments in Lansing. It's a player's guitar, not (yet) considered vintage or rare or terribly valuable, but I love playing it.

I sold the black/orange sunburst finish Epiphone Les Paul Special II that I was using as my "I don't care if the babies get their hands on it" guitar in the living room. I really like the handsome design, but those instruments are made in Indonesia out of plywood and cheap parts and will just never sound and feel very good. I could have put some money into getting the frets leveled, but the neck just wouldn't get into proper alignment. I wouldn't even particularly recommend one to a beginner student on a budget, since a student could find something far better used, for just a bit more money. Someday maybe I'll find a Gibson Les Paul Special that I like, although I have a whole separate set of gripes about heavy, fragile Gibson designs.

I traded in my old Ovation Ultra acoustic for a newer used Ovation Elite with purple flame graphics. Well, it wasn't exactly a trade in, but I got a little back out of the old one. The flame graphics were not my first choice, but there are certain compensations -- it has an ebony fingerboard and bridge, and a fantastic matte finish maple neck with a very nice soft "V" profile. It has an interesting bridge modification: the bass strings are slightly higher, which means that the overall action can be lower while preventing buzz on the wound strings. This feels slightly odd at first but sounds great. The acoustic (unplugged) tone is altogether better than my old Ovation, and indeed better than any of the dozen Ovations I tried out with the exception of a couple of high-end graphite-top Adamas models. Some day I'd like to own an Adamas, and perhaps a Martin too, but not today.

There's a slight issue with getting the battery compartment open; it's difficult; in the store, it was jammed completely, and I had to get one of the Elderly repair techs to help me with it. But on the up side, apparently one rarely needs to change the batteries in these things. (But when one does, one wants to do it in a hurry).

The only other thing I'd really consider changing are the tuners, since the ones on the instrument are OK but don't feel quite as good as the Schaller tuners on my old Ovation. I think I could drop new black Schaller tuners right into the existing holes in the headstock for an inexpensive upgrade that wouldn't negatively affect the resale value. But I'll probably just leave them alone for now, since the existing ones are not terrible. And the top makes it a conversation piece -- you might call it cool or you might call it hideous, but at least it is a conversation starter!

I also purchased a Music Man 4-string fretted ash and maple bass. It was a wholly excellent instrument, and I got it for a pretty good price. But after finding a lightly used Steinberger Synapse 5-string fretless bass for sale at Elderly, I decided that I just am not that interested in playing a traditional bass at the moment, especially one I purchased new, so I returned it.

The Gibson Steinberger instruments have a poor reputation in comparison to the originals, but I think this reputation is only partially justified. The "Spirit by Steinberger" line doesn't have much to offer in the way of design, but the bass is a member of the newer Synapse family, and it really is an intriguing package, with a fully "designed" feel and tone that tells me Ned Steinberger was heavily involved in the instrument's development. Some of the details, though, just aren't as clean and polished as I'd like. With the piezo pickup engaged, it sounds remarkably like an acoustic upright bass. It's definitely the thing for someone like me interested in some more unusual sounds.

Besides, having actually played a few original Steinbergers recently, I can say that although I like them quite a bit, when I find one that I can afford, it is in poor condition. And when I find one that is in good condition, I can't afford it. By "poor condition" I don't just mean that there are some scratches or dings, I mean there are serious playability issues that affect the sound.

Original Steinbergers are considered "vintage" and I have made a semi-solemn vow that I will never pay the "vintage" instrument appreciation tax. I guess it stems from my basic disagreement with the "law" of supply and demand that says that if something is in demand, a seller can and should price it almost entirely out of the market, keeping it on a high shelf or in a locked case until that one even greedier buyer comes along, believing that he or she can make even more money off the future appreciation of the instrument, sell it to that buyer for as big a profit as possible. It has never seemed appropriate to enshrine greed as some kind of fundamental economic principle, any more than it seems appropriate to consider all the human factors and environmental factors that go into manufacturing and selling a product as "externalities." But I guess I'm some kind of tree-hugger and I'd probably do really badly if I tried to run a guitar store.

Besides, I don't believe most instruments really "appreciate" in value in any meaningful sense. While a chunk of wood will get drier and develop more tonal character over time, just about everything else on the guitar will deteriorate and need restoration. Some aspects of guitar-building were done better in the old days -- the "fit and finish" on the neck of my 1972 Fender Competition Mustang was amazing -- and some weren't -- the bridge and pickups were never really very good, and most vintage wiring and shielding is actually worse than its modern equivalents. It's heartbreaking to see the way so many older instruments warp and become unplayable even without severe mistreatment. And original Steinberger parts are becoming scarce, and they are harder and more expensive to repair than wood.

I played several original Steinbergers at Ed Roman's guitar shop in Las Vegas, and I was somewhat disgusted that he had priced these instruments at four or five thousand dollars, but had not even bothered to have his shop clean them up. It set off my alarm bells to hear a store salesperson explaining that if I bought it, then they would fix the broken switches, crackling pots, wiring problems, etc. That didn't really help convince me to shell out the money. What is the motivation for the shop to get it cleaned up after I've swiped my credit card?

Not to mention that Steinberger never released a fretless bass.

But buying a Synapse meant compromising another one of my semi-solemn vows, to only buy American-made instruments. The "Made in USA" labeling is conspicuously absent from the Synapse line. But I like it anyway.

I also picked up a Parker Fly Classic -- a used one in excellent shape. I've wanted for at least ten or fifteen years to have a Parker Fly. There is only one minor issue with this instrument: the battery compartment door latch is cracked, and should be replaced. What is it with battery compartiments? But these things are amazing.

I'm also fixing up the old Jag-Stang. It now has a new Warmoth neck with stainless-steel frets. I've put a new pickguard on it. The fit of the neck in the neck pocket is not quite as precise as I'd like. The next time I go up to Lansing, I'm going to take it with me and ask them to mount the locking tuners (so I don't screw it up) and see if they can turn it into a playable instrument again.

Finally, a Godin nylon-string solid-body, with piezo pickups and 13-pin synth out. The triggering with my guitar synth is fantastic!