tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74674666385694992572024-02-19T02:28:26.846+00:00Studio SpoonRandom ramblings about music I make and enjoy. I play some guitar and sing a bit. I record using Linux. I may sometimes blog about other stuff that interests me, but that's more likely to be direct to G+Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-77844060016611615052016-05-01T13:14:00.003+01:002021-07-23T18:00:26.578+01:00TsuperstarsThe <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc">Tsu</a> social network was designed for those who create original content to be able to profit from their work. It's tough to be a musician these days with falling sales of music and miserable royalties from streaming services. They can make something from Youtube if they have a big enough following. Everyone on Tsu makes something if they are getting views and that can be on their videos, so they can earn twice on those.<br />
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Here's some of the big hitters on Tsu. Some of these will not be generally known, but they have built big followings. This may partly be down to some help from the Tsu team, but also by encouraging fans on other sites to join up. Each of those recruits will be earning the star a little more through the Tsu algorithm that passes a share of earnings up the 'family tree'. I expect some of these people are making thousands of dollars per year from Tsu.<br />
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I'm no star, but I'm making over a dollar per day. I have nearly 4700 followers and a network of recruits. Not many of my network are active, but they still make me something. Tsu is approaching 5 million users, so there is still massive growth potential. I've had one payment of $100 so far and am half way to another.<br />
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Even the fans can make something if they recruit their friends and do their own posts. Even if it's just a few cents they can make charity donations and I expect a market to grow that trades in Tsu funds.<br />
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You can find me at <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc">http://www.tsu.co/steevc</a>. If you join up there then you become part of my network and can start building your own. There's currently a competition for musicians with prizes of $1000 and up. It's well worth an entry if you have an original song to submit.<div><br /></div><div>Update (2021): Tsu is dead and so are some other platforms I used. I am now using <a href="https://peakd.com/@steevc">Hive</a> which has an active community and pays me. Let me know if you want to join up.</div>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-30566600452087514392016-04-26T13:40:00.001+01:002016-04-26T13:40:31.425+01:00Be a video starI've been on the <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc">Tsu</a> social network since it started in late 2014. Their main feature was that you get paid based on the views you get for your content. Their concept was that those creating original content (artists, photographers. writers, musicians) should get rewarded for their work. That content could be shared from other sites (e.g. Youtube) so that you would earn on Tsu as well as any income you got elsewhere.<br />
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People have asked if Tsu could host video themselves. I expect there are some issues with that in cost of hosting, as well as ensuring it does not breach copyright, but some new video functionality is coming in May. To promote this they have launched a contest for original music. Musicians can submit a track (linking to it on Youtube, Soundcloud etc) and if selected to progress should create a short video (up to three and half minutes). Songs will be judged in 6 categories with winners getting $1000 and then play off for a grand prize of an additional $8000.<br />
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I assume that videos will use the new features. They are obviously hoping to recruit more musicians to use Tsu to promote their music. I know that some on the site have done very well from it by bringing in their fans. There's an incentive to recruit musicians as those who invited the winners of the categories will also receive $1000.<br />
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It's tough to be a musicians, so any extra income should be welcome. Help to bring musicians to Tsu and they could benefit and you will too through their network scheme that passes a share of income to the 'parent'. Once you have joined you can use the <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/117033775">Invite button</a>.<br />
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I've only written a few original songs, but I'm tempted to submit one.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-4542001104553108192016-04-14T13:20:00.000+01:002016-04-14T13:20:28.188+01:00Benford, podcast and picksIt's been a while since I updated this blog. There just never seems to be enough time. I'm trying to play as much guitar as I can. That includes a weekly acoustic session and a monthly open mic at the local pub. That gets me playing, but I need to find time to work on songs in between.<br />
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The big news is that I finally had a <a href="http://benfordguitars.com/stevect.html">custom guitar</a> built by <a href="http://benfordguitars.com/">Steve Benford</a>. It's a modified Telecaster with a few special features. I'm really enjoying it and it was a pleasure working with Steve even though it was all via email.<br />
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I cover some of the details of this guitar in my <a href="http://notaboutthegear.podomatic.com/">latest podcast</a>. It's taken me about a year to get around to episode 3, but I wanted to keep it going and will try to do more this year. This episode includes the latest song I wrote. I'm hoping some friends will contribute so it's not just me rambling on.<br />
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I intend to continue with writing songs. I have a few ideas I need to work on.<br />
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A while back I noticed that I had a lot of guitar plectrums around the place. I only use a few of them, but they do look nice, so I have stuck them along my shelf above the desk. There's about 30 of them now. This latest piece was contributed by someone at the acoustic session. The Foo Fighters ones came as a set bought at the Milton Keynes gig last year.<br />
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I've started a <a href="http://www.tsu.co/post/121253183">group on Tsu</a> for people to swap picks. It's yet to really take off. I have offered to send people money from my Tsu bank to cover their costs and will also donate to charity. I have built up a fair bit there and want to make use of it.<br />
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I've also been doing a little bit of guitar repair on behalf of a friend who runs a charity shop. Some of the guitars that get donated need a bit of work. It's fairly basic stuff like stringing them up, replacing bridges and tuner buttons. All useful experience.<br />
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I'll try to update this blog more often. A few comments may encourage me ;)Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0Arlesey, Central Bedfordshire, UK52.015347 -0.2632599999999456551.937151 -0.42462149999994564 52.093543 -0.10189849999994566tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-76832497330367711732015-10-04T15:16:00.000+01:002015-10-04T15:16:59.078+01:00Ten Song SeptemberSocial media is full of people doing challenges. Sometimes these are for charity or to promote some cause, but some are just a form of motivation to achieve a personal goal. Some of my friends on <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc">Tsu</a> were doing some for September and I decided to do a musical one to get me playing more guitar. I've done a few music videos before, but I have been wanting to do them more often.<br />
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My target was to do at least ten of these during the month. I wasn't going to worry too much about production quality as I'm concentrating more on just playing these days.<br />
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<a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/78195649">About a Girl</a> is a song I've played a lot at pub sessions, so it was an easy one to kick things off. Recorded in the bedroom on my phone as my kids take over the study these days.<br />
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Another personal goal has been to write my own songs. I've had a few ideas, but never seem to get around to developing them. I wrote a post on Tsu a while back that ended with the line "I came for the money, but stayed for the people". That seemed to resonate with people and I was inspired to try writing a song around it. It quickly evolved into <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/78572588">The Tsu Song</a>. I used a fairly standard set of chords to keep it simple and got it recorded. That took longer than planned as I kept messing up. Even this take went wrong, hence the cussing at the end.<br />
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<a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/78929671">Skullcrusher Mountain</a> is a song by the great Jonathan Coulton that I enjoy playing. This was a spur of the moment recording as I wanted to get another one done that day after having issues doing another. Another bedroom phone recording.<br />
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There are lots of on-line guitar tutorials around these days. They are a great way to get you playing something new. I like <a href="http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/22418-electric-etudes-foo-fighters">this series</a> on Premier Guitar. They have a neat web player than show the music as it plays the backing track. I'd just been to see Foo Fighters, so <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/79070780">this</a> seemed appropriate. I had tried it before.<br />
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Sometimes I'll be listening to music and think 'I could play that!' <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/79560938">Holiday</a> by Green Day was one such song. It is fairly easy, but I looked up some tab anyway to speed things up. My daughter plays bass and had played this, so we decided to do it together.</div>
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I was sharing my posts about this challenge with some fellow Tsuvians. I put out a call for requests and someone asked for some Billy Joel. <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/79714170">Still Rock and Roll to me</a> is an old favourite of mine. It didn't take long to learn.<br />
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A lot of my early guitar experience was having classical lessons. I don't play it much these days, but I still try it now and again. I find it a completely different challenge to playing rock. This is a piece called <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/80111045">Alman</a> from my old Grade 5 book.<br />
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On a trip into London I decided to treat myself to some new effects pedal. I don't have very many and want to learn how to use them properly. I got an overdrive and a wah. I decided to jam a <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/80595541">little demo</a> to show them off.<br />
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Many years ago, before we had a web full of cool free guitar lessons I used to buy guitar magazines. Some of these came with a CD of backing tracks. One of those was for the Paul Weller song <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/81559731">Sunflower</a>. I'd tried it a few times, but never recorded it before. I used my new overdrive on this.<br />
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The final song of the month was Porcupine Tree's <a href="http://www.tsu.co/steevc/81795384">Lazarus</a>. This was done the day I saw the band's Steven Wilson play an amazing show at the Royal Albert Hall. He did this song, but much better of course. He also played another, Open Car, that I've also covered.<br />
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I consider this challenge to be a success. I had hoped to do more new songs, but limited time prevented that. However, I did write my first song! I'm thinking I should do another challenge that will involve writing more songs.<br />
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For October I'm challenging myself to just learn some more classic riffs to expand my musical vocabulary. There are certain tunes that every guitarist ought to be able to play, but that I just have never learned. I don't know if I will record these. We shall see.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-10256435655684400432015-01-09T21:18:00.000+00:002015-01-09T21:18:40.986+00:00Tsu are you?<br />
This is not a post about my music, but I wanted to write about this topic and it's my blog :)<br />
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I've played around with various social sites over the years. Some, such as identi.ca and Multiply, don't exist any more. Eventually I got onto Facebook and Twitter, although I'm not a big user of either. My favoured site for some time has been <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SteveClark66/">Google+</a>. This is due to a combination of the features and the people on there. There are lots of cool tech and music folk there. It also integrates with other Google services I use.<br />
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Social is obviously big money. Facebook are making billions and spending them on any new companies that might compete. Google don't seem to be directly making money from Google+ as it doesn't have any ads (yet), but they have other income.<br />
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There have been various sites that promise to share what they earn with their users. One of the latest is <a href="https://www.tsu.co/steevc">tsū</a>. They say they will take 10% of the profit and share the rest amongst users. Somehow they work out who deserves what (perhaps based on views, likes etc). There's a pyramid aspect as the person who recruited a user gets a portion of that user's income too, over multiple generations in diminishing amounts. Basically each level gets a third of the previous level. This <a href="http://www.scottbuehler.com/social-media/tsu-guide/">guide</a> explains it all far better than I can.<br />
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So, there is an incentive to build a big network of new users. Some people have thousands, but mine is more modest. I've managed to recruit 155 people who have another 92 children of their own.<br />
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That seems fairly good, but it's not enough to earn me much money. I get a few cents per day from some combination of what I post and what my network makes for me. Other people are earning several dollars per day. You need to build up $100 before you can get paid, and that will take me years. The best I can really hope is that I make enough to donate to one of the charities on the site. You can send some of your money to any user who enables that feature.<br />
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I'm really just playing around with the site to see how it works. There are not many famous people on there. There are a few bands, sports-persons and celebrities, but not many really big names and few of them are of interest to me. I have still found a number of interesting people to follow, including some cool musicians. You can see them in my following list there. Unfortunately it's one of those sites you can't really explore until you sign up. That's always annoying, but seems to be common.<br />
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I think that the site is missing a few things. If you follow hundreds of people then it's difficult to handle the feed as there's no way to group people. The only privacy levels are friends only or public. And of course it's overrun by people who are desperately just trying to make money by spamming every post in sight. I get loads of friend requests that I just decline as I have no interest in those people or in just boosting my numbers. I'm mostly posting links that I would also post on Google+ with some of my photos that I'm happy to be public. There is not really enough compelling content to keep me coming back unless something changes soon and I have nothing better to do.<br />
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How did I build my network? Of course I posted my link on those sites I generally use and got a few people that way, but I don't like to spam my friends. I found <a href="http://www.tsumatic.com/">tsumatic</a> which is a place to post your link, but I don't think that has done much for me. I also found <a href="http://tsuforum.com/">tsuforum</a> as a place to discuss the site. There's a sort of competition running there where the people with the most posts each day get new sign-ups. I have no idea how they do it, but most of mine seem to come from places like Morocco.<br />
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In conclusion, it's an interesting site with some potential. Don't go there expecting to make loads of money unless you have the potential to recruit loads of people and can use it all day. It's fun, but not essential.<br />
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If you want to play then please use <a href="https://www.tsu.co/steevc">my link</a> as that will give me a small boost in earnings that may keep me visiting. I don't expect to retire on that.</div>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-49749864489072775682014-11-17T13:57:00.001+00:002014-11-17T13:57:22.597+00:00It's not about the gearGuitarists love gear. Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) is a common condition. Lots of people are on the quest for Ultimate Tone (whatever that may be). They talk about it on podcasts and have endless debates on forums. I personally have fairly limited experience of different gear. I've owned 2 electric guitars and sold one of them years ago. I've had a few cheap amplifiers, but am now fairly happy with my Roland Cube 80x and Belcat 20r valve amp. I've not had many effects pedals, but my Zoom G3X is doing the job for me now and giving me some experience of what I actually need.<br />
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Would I like more gear? Of course I would, but do I need it? I feel I have to justify any purchases, so most of what I have bought in the last few years has been to allow me to play in a band situation. Previously I played almost entirely at home and wasn't even recording. I'm hoping the current band will play some gigs next year. Come that day I could probably justify having another guitar as a back up and to give some more tonal options. I'll go into detail on that nearer the time.<br />
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So, why do people obsess so much over gear? We would all like to be better players, but it's easy to blame playing issues on the gear. The way I think of it is that most of our guitar heroes who grew up in the 50s and 60s had to learn with guitars and other equipment that we would consider pretty bad. In many cases they had to build it themselves or modify what they could find. Even when they could afford something better the options were limited and quality was probably a lot more variable than now. They just had to get on with it and made lots of amazing music.<br />
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Now you have the choice of hundreds of different guitars with huge ranges from each major manufacturer, thousands of effects pedals etc and at prices from pocket money to eye-watering. It's probably fairly hard to find anything being sold that is really bad as competition and mass production methods mean that quality is consistent. We are spoiled for choice and I think the excess of options leads to confusion and stress over making the wrong choice. Those are general problems in modern society. 1st world problems.<br />
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I could buy lots of cheap gear, but I'd rather save up for something special and I feel that I need to be a better player to justify having the good stuff. I believe that what I have is probably good enough for the performing and recording I want to do and I plan to invest time and money in playing. Having a family means there are other priorities when it comes to the budget.<br />
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I was actually thinking of starting a podcast that talks more about playing than gear. The much missed <a href="http://www.sixstringbliss.com/">Six String Bliss</a> had a good mix in that respect. I may look around for someone who would be up for co-hosting a show, but I'd like to have interviews with players of all levels. I've no experience of this sort of recording, but I have a few friends I could ask for advice.<br />
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All opinions are very welcome.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-78203143615555030142014-09-23T19:00:00.000+01:002014-09-23T19:00:00.016+01:00Life vs guitarBy now most people have heard of the 10,000 hour theory that you need that much practice at anything to achieve success (or something like that). Malcolm Gladwell cites <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/111520018934389590684" target="_blank">+The Beatles</a> as an example as they put in a lot of time in Hamburg before they made it big. I'm sure there are plenty of people who have done the hours and still not made it as they didn't get lucky or perhaps they didn't practice the right things.<br />
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I've been playing guitar on and off for nearly 40 years and I'm not sure I've played for 10,000 hours yet. That equates to about 40 minutes per day, but I've had long periods where I didn't play much or just didn't progress much. I would play the same old songs rather than learning new ones. Back then you had to get books or magazines if you were not learning by ear. Now you can find a lesson for just about any song on-line. That's a facility I'm making a lot of use of.<br />
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These days I play for several hours a week rather than watching television as my evening relaxation. The obstacle to that is that I have two teenage children who also want to use the study/studio for playing music or games. I have to grab some time once they have been sent to bed and at weekends when they are all out doing stuff. I'm not logging my time, but wonder if I will ever get to 10,000 hours, if that even matters. I'm trying to apply myself to improving my playing using the lessons on the <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/111873888345846244686" target="_blank">+ArtistWorks</a> <a href="http://artistworks.com/lNO">Paul Gilbert Rock Guitar course</a>. I reckon that has done a lot of my technique since I started in January. I've had a dozen video responses from Paul where he has picked up on various issues to keep me on the right course. I'll get to see him on stage next month when <a href="http://www.mrbigsite.com/">Mr. Big</a> play in London.<br />
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I've still playing with the blues/rock band. I have been doing the singing, but we have agreed that we need someone with a better voice. We're in the process of auditioning people. We need to find someone whose ambitions are compatible with ours as well as having the talent. We only really aspire to playing a few pub gigs each year. Ideally we want someone who also plays guitar to fill out some of the songs that need it. I'd still like to at least do backing vocals and maybe sing a couple of songs. I'm getting more confidence at playing lead guitar. I'm trying to learn a few of the original solos to start with, but will look to do my own variations. With luck we could gig early next year, if not before. We need a few more songs in the set first and to get them 'polished'.<br />
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On top of this I'd like to do more recording at home. I've had some technical issues with this lately, but I've tried doing a fresh <a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/">Linux Mint</a> install at the weekend that seems to be working better so far. My daughter wants to record a rock violin piece, so we'll aim to do that soon. Stay tuned...Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-32810018560842493112014-08-22T18:48:00.000+01:002014-11-25T10:31:33.157+00:00Radio GuitarI may have mentioned that I listen to a lot of podcasts on my long drive to work. I listened to the radio in the past, but got bored with that. I went through burning podcasts to CD to playing them from my phone once I had a way to plug it in. I listen to shows about music, science, technology, comedy and other assorted shows that take my interest.<br />
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Since the demise of the mighty <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/114158668763467459433" target="_blank">+Six-String Bliss: The Guitar Podcast</a> I have sought ways to fill the guitar-shaped hole. Some of the community members have been inspired to start their own shows, so I listen to:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://fromwherewestand.podomatic.com/">From Where We Stand</a> - Rhod and friends talk about songs they love</li>
<li><a href="http://alfalfasprout69.podomatic.com/">alfalfasprout69 Rantcast</a> - Alfie talks guitars</li>
<li><a href="http://ashbrookemusic.com/">Ashbrooke Music</a> - Larry interviews musicians and gear builders</li>
</ul>
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None of these could be called regular, but the guys are doing them for fun when they have the time.</div>
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There are also a few others that I've found:</div>
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.thepickupradio.com/">The Pickup Radio</a> - <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/102366655585860589479" target="_blank">+Joe Bonamassa</a> talks about music and guitars he loves</li>
<li><u><a href="http://theguitarchannel.biz/">The Guitar Channel</a></u> - Interviews with lots of the greats</li>
<li><a href="http://www.theguitarpodcast.net/">The Guitar Podcast</a> - A one man show sharing his experience</li>
<li><a href="http://thedoublestop.com/">The Double Stop</a> - In-depth interviews with musicians and producers</li>
<li><a href="http://bobbyoinnercircle.com/">Inner Circle</a> - <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/101849799009221052035" target="_blank">+Bobby Owsinski</a> interviews people from the music industry</li>
<li><a href="http://www.sodajerker.com/">Sodajerker</a> - Interviews with songwriters</li>
<li><a href="http://www.homestudiocorner.com/blog/">Home Studio Corner</a> - Recording tips</li>
<li><a href="http://www.fretboardjournal.com/audio">Fretboard Journal</a> - A 'boutique' podcast?</li>
<li><a href="http://www.bossus.com/experience/podcasts/">Boss Tone Radio</a> - More interviews</li>
</ul>
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There are probably more. A few I've listened to are no longer active, but you may be able to find archives out there. There's probably enough to keep you busy for years.</div>
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I only just learned about the one from <a href="http://www.gak.co.uk/en/podcast">GAK</a>. Will check it out soon.<br />
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Update 25/11/14: I've also started listening to the show from <a href="http://www.wamplerpedals.com/podcast/">Wampler Pedals</a>. They tend to ramble off-topic, but it's fun. </div>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-34517192850788377302014-07-01T13:22:00.000+01:002014-07-01T13:22:33.550+01:00Still got the bluesI've been keeping fairly busy musically. The band I mentioned a while back is starting to get somewhere. I'd played a few times with the bassist, but last week we had a rehearsal session at a local studio with a drummer. That really makes a difference and I found myself really going for it on the solos. The new tube amp was sounding great. I used a few effects on my Zoom G3X for variety. We're building a set list of covers. I thought we needed another guitar to fill the sound on some of them and we may have someone joining us next time. Stay tuned. We need to come up with a band name. We're a bunch of older guys playing blues, classic rock and southern boogie. Could probably come up with some pun on that.<br />
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I'm still doing the <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/111873888345846244686" target="_blank">+ArtistWorks</a> course, but need to get back to working through the lessons and submitting some videos. I ought to find some areas of my soloing to get suggestions on. I also have some extra learning material after winning a competition by <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/104752047259593204168" target="_blank">+Licklibrary - Online Guitar Lessons</a>. I now have DVDs for the styles of Billy Gibbons and Gary Moore. I've started on the former and am incorporating it already. I'm playing most evenings. I need to learn more songs for the band as well as developing my general playing. It's good to have a focus now as I was lacking direction between bands.<br />
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The new PC is mostly working fine. I've had some audio issues. The sample rate for the interface does not always get properly initialised, so audio ends up playing too slow. I had a workaround until it seemed to sort itself. I think there may have been a driver update. Unfortunately the problem came back this week. I've not being doing any recording lately, but I'll need to get this fixed somehow.<br />
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To try and get the PC nearer to silent I purchased a <a href="http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/CR-80EH.php">NoFan CR-80EH</a> fanless cooler. It's an interesting design that should work on my 65W CPU, but when I got it installed I found that the temperature was going over the specified maximum, even with no load. I could only check this from the BIOS anyway. I also had some issues installing it. I had some contact with the manufacturers in Korea, but they couldn't come up with any answers, so I've sent it back. I'll probably get something else with a quiet fan. The AMD cooler is just loud enough to be annoying.<br />
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When I do get to some recording I have a new set of plug-ins from <a href="http://www.linuxdsp.co.uk/">Linux DSP</a>. They were on special offer for a while and I couldn't resist. I'm still learning to use things like EQ and compression, but these come with detailed manuals that I need to read.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-36203676251721463422014-05-12T13:45:00.000+01:002014-05-13T08:36:51.951+01:00Bigger and betterA while back I <a href="http://studiospoon.blogspot.com/2012/03/look-sir-droids.html">blogged</a> about my PC. It has served me well for about seven years, but has been showing signs of age lately. There's some hardware issue that causes it to lock up at times and it seemed to struggle with modern web video, e.g. HD Youtube or G+ video hangouts. Things have moved on a lot since I built it, so I finally pulled the trigger on a new build.<br />
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I've gone with AMD processors in the past and sort of know what to expect from them, so I went with the <a href="http://shop.amd.com/uk/All/Detail/Processor/AD6500OKHLBOX">A8 6500</a>. The price is reasonable and it's a 65W chip which should run a little cooler than some of the others. I've used nVidia graphics that came on the previous motherboards, but this processor incorporates Radeon graphics that should be supported on Linux.<br />
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Motherboard is a <a href="http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4714#ov">Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-D3H </a>(eh?). I wanted a couple of PCI slots for my old cards. This seemed to have all the connections I need, but won't support any old IDE drives. I didn't order an optical drive as I was thinking of re-using my old one, but it won't work with this. It's not expensive to but a new one, a big change since I paid about £150 for a DVD/CD-RW combo drive many moons ago.<br />
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I've gone for 8GB of memory for now. It's from Crucial, who have a good reputation. I've never had memory with heatsinks on before. I don't plan to overclock, but I want everything to be stable.<br />
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Storage is via a 120GB Kingston SSD for the operating system and a 2TB Seagate for data.<br />
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I paid more than previously for a case to try and keep the noise down. The <a href="http://www.coolermaster.com/case/mid-tower/silencio-550/">Cooler Master Silencio 550</a> has foam on the sides and a door on the front to contain the noise. Power is from a <a href="http://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/391">Be Quiet L8 350W</a> PSU.<br />
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All the parts came from <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/110474216070270653939" target="_blank">+Ebuyer.com</a>, who I have used in the past and have no problems with.<br />
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It was pretty easy to put together. It's easier in a large case. I like the screw-less drive mountings. It's a shame nobody has come up with a simpler way to wire up the case switches and lights. There was a moment of drama when a glass lampshade above the dining table dropped into the open PC. Luckily it didn't break, but it gave me a shock. It's a new light, but it looks like the glue failed on that shade. Something else to get fixed.<br />
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I installed my old M-Audio Delta 66 audio interface and my Freeview TV card.<br />
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Installing <a href="http://www.kubuntu.org/">Kubuntu Linux</a> from a flash drive did not take long. Everything is working nicely. Linux hardware support is really good these days. It's probably easier than Windows. I have an issue with the sound distorting that I still need to investigate.<br />
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So is this PC really quiet? It's certainly quieter than the old one, but not silent. I used the standard AMD CPU cooler and I can hear that. It may be annoying enough to replace, but I don't really hear anything else. I've run a few tests on the things that were stressing the old machine and this one has plenty of spare capacity.I'm hoping it will last me a good few years. I still need to set up the recording apps. I'll be using the <a href="http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/">KXStudio</a> suite again.<br />
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I need to copy files over from the old machine. I tried it over the network using both Samba and SSH/FTP, but both were incredibly slow. What I could do is to just mount the old drive. That should be the quickest way. I intend to keep the old PC as a spare in the study. My kids use the computer a lot for schoolwork.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0Arlesey, Central Bedfordshire, UK52.015347 -0.2632599999999456551.937151 -0.42462149999994564 52.093543 -0.10189849999994566tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-75846309544092286902014-04-13T17:27:00.000+01:002014-04-13T17:27:29.401+01:00Triple timeMy latest video exchange with Paul Gilbert involved me playing some triplet pull-offs. He picked up that I was actually playing three 1/16th notes. Actually it may have been somewhere in between the two. It's a subtle difference, but they are different musical feels. This is the sort of thing you need a guitar teacher to tell you.<br />
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He's given me a few examples of songs that use triplets to listen to. I should really know this as I've played various music that uses triplets on guitar and djembe. I obviously didn't have it as well ingrained as I thought.<br />
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This is what I sent him. It's part of a series of lessons with this sort of groove.<br />
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One of his suggestions was this<br />
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Paul is actually touring in Chile at the moment, so he recorded his video to me in his hotel room. The guy is really dedicated to this course.
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Another feature of the <a href="http://www.artistworks.com/affiliate/24065/home">ArtistWorks</a> site is a course in music theory. I've done the first part of this. There was a lot of stuff in there I didn't know. The quiz was fairly tough, but I've passed to allow me proceed to the next part.<br />
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My daughter has been pursuing her own guitar studies playing along to some of her favourite songs. We just recorded one of those. She did bass, guitar and vocals. The drums came from a video I found of someone playing along with the song. Youtube is a wonderful resource.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/144392365&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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This is the drum track we used.
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<br />Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0Arlesey, Central Bedfordshire, UK52.015347 -0.2632599999999456551.937151 -0.42462149999994564 52.093543 -0.10189849999994566tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-15783178001182415622014-04-06T14:13:00.000+01:002014-04-06T14:13:08.291+01:00It's all theoreticalI'm taking yet another on-line course at <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/111950594039269281469" target="_blank">+Coursera</a>. This one is on <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/musicianship">musicianship</a>. It covers the basics of harmony and melody with some emphasis on ear training. In the first week we had to recognise 2nd and major 3rd intervals. I know I should be able to do that anyway, but it's an unconscious thing and I need to work on it. I can often pick out tunes on the guitar by ear and get most of the notes right, but by improving my knowledge of intervals I would hope to make this easier. As with most things it needs lots of practice.<br />
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This course has peer-reviewed assessments. This week we had to find some songs in the key of C major. It's not the most common key for popular music. I found a site that listed such songs, but a lot are actually in A minor, which has the same notes, but is by no means the same thing. Anyway, I found a few, partly from that list, but I checked to make sure they really are in C.<br />
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I have another course on <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/musictheory">music theory</a> in a few months. I regret not doing more music when I was at school. It is possible to make great music without knowing this stuff, as many people do, but my analytical brain likes to know what is going on. I should ask my daughter as she is doing music GCSE and working on the theory grades too.<br />
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I plan to keep doing courses on things that interest me. It's better for me than randomly surfing the web. It's made me cut down on that to make the time for learning. You can pick up a lot of things by surfing, but there is no focus and I need that. The big one will be <a href="https://www.edx.org/course/linuxfoundationx/linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-introduction-1621">Introduction to Linux</a> later in the year. I hope that will fill some of the gaping holes in my knowledge. It's amazing that all this stuff is free. Mind you, I have paid for another year on the Paul Gilbert course at <a href="http://www.artistworks.com/affiliate/24065/home">Artistworks</a>. Still having fun with that.<br />
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Oh, and on top of all that I have the beginnings of a possible band project. I found a bassist who wants to do some blues and rock. We've met a couple of times to play through some covers. We'll have to recruit some others if we are going to gig. I've been doing the singing, but I know my limitations. Stay tuned...Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0Arlesey, Central Bedfordshire, UK52.015347 -0.2632599999999456551.937151 -0.42462149999994564 52.093543 -0.10189849999994566tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-36866551896305078432014-03-16T22:06:00.001+00:002014-03-16T22:06:57.763+00:00All you need...I've just finished working on <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/beatles">this course</a> from <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/111950594039269281469" target="_blank">+Coursera</a> <span style="line-height: 20.22222328186035px;">about the music of The Beatles. I've not got my final mark yet, but I did okay on the quizzes, so I'm assuming a good pass.<br />
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It's been very interesting to learn about how they crafted their songs and has led me to listen to lots of them. I've had to use Youtube as I don't actually have the albums or many of the singles, apart from the number 1s CD. I may pick some of them up some time.<br />
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<a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/101557397404349125718" target="_blank">+John Covach</a> did a very good job. It's a real shame he can't play the music or even quote much of the lyrics for fear of the copyright police. This should be counted as 'fair use', and it's not as if they need the extra money.<br />
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This is part of my on-going efforts to educate myself. I have some other courses on music theory coming up as well as <a href="https://www.edx.org/course/linuxfoundationx/linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-introduction-1621">one on Linux</a> to expand my knowledge. These are all free, but I intend to keep paying for the Paul Gilbert course on <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/111873888345846244686" target="_blank">+ArtistWorks</a> too. I just have to ensure I have enough time for those things I want to prioritise.<br />
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I've just embarked on another possible band project with a local bassist. We're working on various blues and rock covers. It's very early days, but we'd both like to gig at some stage. I'm covering the guitar and vocal areas for now. I want to attempt more lead stuff, so I'm working on learning some solos and expanding my musical vocabulary to improvise my own.<br />
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On top of all those I need to record tracks for some <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/114158668763467459433" target="_blank">+Six-String Bliss: The Guitar Podcast</a> albums. I've done one acoustic cover. That used my new <a href="http://www.mxlmics.com/microphones/900-series/990/">MXL 990 microphone</a>.</span>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-46094144475529706522014-02-12T08:57:00.000+00:002014-02-12T08:57:23.117+00:00Taking the MicI'm still plugging away on the <a href="http://artistworks.com/paul-gilbert">Paul Gilbert guitar course</a>. I'm trying to put in an hour a day, but have been slipping lately. There isn't a fixed practice schedule, so I tend to work on various exercises from lessons I've already seen for a while and then go looking for some more. This will either be the next ones in the sequence or I'll find a video response that looks interesting. I'm learned a couple of new songs from those.<br />
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I've had four video responses from Paul now. It takes around a week for him to do these, but he's doing a lot of them. They are mostly done from a studio, but I've seen one done from the back of a car somewhere in the UK.<br />
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I may be taking on too much, but I've also enrolled in another <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/111950594039269281469" target="_blank">+Coursera</a> course about the <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/beatles">Music of The Beatles</a>. I'm hoping that I can fit in watching the videos when the study is occupied. Although I've heard the band all my life I've not owned their albums and don't know all the background. One of the introductory videos explores some of the available books. There are plenty of those that go into minute detail of how they recorded, the gear they used and the stories behind the songs. I'll look out for those, but I'm loaded up with books right now. Currently reading <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11797453-guitar-zero">Guitar Zero</a> about how our brains handle music.<br />
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We're also doing some family tree research at the moment. We're concentrating on my wife's family. They have been in Arlesey for a long time. There's a local project based around those men on the war memorial as we commemorate the centenary of the First World War. We have a lot of family photos, but don't know who they all are.<br />
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The studio has had an upgrade in the form of an <a href="http://www.mxlmics.com/microphones/900-series/990/">MXL 990</a> condenser microphone. I've been wanting a decent microphone to use instead of my Zoom H4. That does a good job, but it is difficult to adjust the levels on it and I'm not sure it's ideal for voice. I've done some vocal testing that sounded good. I also tried it with my classical guitar. I've not played that much lately, so I was a bit rusty.<br />
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I need to record my acoustic for the Six String Bliss 70s project soon. Something I want to try is to record it with both of my microphones plus the pickup. I've got enough inputs to do all of those at once, so I can do a proper comparison. I'll try to do that soon and post the results.<br />
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Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-68385050145294645162014-01-29T13:10:00.001+00:002014-01-29T13:10:30.976+00:00Where did I put my flares?The <a href="http://www.sixstringbliss.com/">Six String Bliss</a> podcasts have come to an end (unless the hosts have a change of heart), but the community lives on. We're going to try and keep producing albums for our own enjoyment. There are actually two projects in progress at the moment. One was proposed as a 'quick and dirty' 'EP' of songs from the 70s, but seems to be growing into more of an album based on songs people have reserved. The other is to cover songs from the original Woodstock festival.<br />
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I plan to contribute to at least one of these. I have a couple of ideas for 70s songs. They are songs that I know pretty well and have wanted to record anyway, so this could push be into getting that done. One will be a stripped-back acoustic version whilst the other will be a full band arrangement where I aim to play all the parts. I usually shy away from programming drum tracks, but will give it a try this time, with a MIDI file I found as a back-up.<br />
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I've not decided on anything from Woodstock yet. There are loads of possibilities, but I need to do some listening to make up my mind. I'll see if anyone wants to collaborate.<br />
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Forum stalwart JMan is <a href="http://studio23hamburg.blogspot.de/">blogging</a> about his recording process, without giving away the actual song(s). This is very useful as many of us are not too organised in how we record and could do with some tips to make it run smoother. I could do with a bit more structure to how I work, but I don't know if I will ever be as organised as JMan.<br />
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I'll be using my usual toolset of Ardour and Hydrogen (from the KXStudio repos) plus various plug-ins. I may use my Zoom G3X for effects and amplifier emulation, but I need to check in on the state of <a href="http://guitarix.sourceforge.net/">Guitarix</a> again soon.<br />
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Meanwhile, I'm still working hard on the <a href="http://artistworks.com/paul-gilbert">Paul Gilbert guitar course</a>. I've had two video responses from him now that were spot-on for what I needed. He puts a lot of emphasis on muting as this is vital for playing loud without extra string noise and is also fun for 'chikka' noises. I was working on an exercise using this last night that was crying out for some wah. I've only gained a wah fairly recently on the G3X and am slowly learning to use it.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/131882469&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe>Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-55421170896378886052014-01-11T21:31:00.000+00:002014-01-11T21:31:15.211+00:00Star struckA while back I posted about <a href="http://studiospoon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/lessons-to-be-learned.html">taking some private guitar lessons</a>. The lessons were good, but getting to them proved to be a pain. It was only a few miles from the office, but getting there after work could take a ridiculously long time. Regretfully I had to give them up, but Stuart left me with lots of material to keep working on. We did an extended last session about chords.<br />
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I had also been looking into some of the on-line courses available. I liked the look of the <a href="http://artistworks.com/paul-gilbert">Paul Gilbert school</a> from <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/107739712035562826669" target="_blank">+ArtistWorks</a>. I like Paul's teaching style. They had some special offers at the end of the year, so I treated myself to a three month subscription that started last week.<br />
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The school consists of lots of lessons grouped as Fundamental, Intermediate and Advanced. In his introduction Paul recommends that everyone work through from the start and I can see why. He includes lots of good tips in each video that are applicable to most players on basics like tuning and holding the pick. The latter is different to what I have always used. He uses his thumb and two fingers. I'm giving that a try and finding that I need to use a lighter pick to get smooth strums.<br />
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Fairly early on he introduces muting, which is a vital skill for electric guitar. Some of the exercises are fairly tricky, e.g. playing <a href="http://artistworks.com/blog/paul-gilberts-guitar-scale-exercise">left-hand muted strums</a> between each note of a pentatonic scale.<br />
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One of the big selling points of this site is that the instructor will give feedback on videos which you submit for specific lessons. I've sent in my first one and have another ready. I used <a href="https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Cheese">Cheese</a> to record the first one, but then had to convert the video (using <a href="http://handbrake.fr/">Handbrake</a>) to a format that they accept. <a href="http://guvcview.sourceforge.net/">GUVC</a> offers more options, but I still had to convert the file. This is my second video. I can't send it in until Paul responds to the first. That seems to be taking a while.<br />
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I can't post Paul's response as it's locked into the site, but if you join then you can see all of them. He gives different suggestions for each person, so that makes for a lot of extra material to learn from. It's actually overwhelming how much there is.<br />
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The site has various social aspects including a forum and 'shout out' board that Paul participates in. There are also some interviews including <a href="http://artistworks.com/lesson/65128">this one</a> with Dweezil Zappa. The whole thing is eight parts and they cover a lot of ground.<br />
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There is a free <a href="http://artistworks.com/learn-to-play-guitar">acoustic school</a> you can join to see how it suits you. This is fairly basic stuff and I have only looked at a few of the early lessons. There are lots of other schools for different instruments and genres. Everything from classical to bluegrass.<br />
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ArtistWorks has an affiliate scheme. If you join with <a href="http://www.artistworks.com/affiliate/24065/home">this link</a> then we both get a free extra month. I think the prices are pretty good as you are only paying the equivalent of one private lesson each month.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-14854979702600205112013-11-20T15:18:00.001+00:002013-11-20T15:18:52.500+00:00Still pondering the upgradeI wrote <a href="http://studiospoon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/attack-of-clones.html">some thoughts</a> about building a new PC six months ago. I still haven't pulled the trigger, although I did get an SSD for the current PC. I need to re-install that to make it operational again.<br />
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I've just been putting together a <a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/lists/list/266379">shopping list</a> of components. This ought to give me a big performance boost, mainly due to the CPU.<br />
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<ul>
<li>AMD APU A10 6700 4.3GHz: Nearly double the clock speed of the current unit and double the cores. I don't really want to have to get a separate graphics card. This should be enough for the few simple games I might play. It's a 65W TDP model, which I assume means it will need less cooling than the 100W models. From what I've read Linux has support for the graphics, but there's not a huge amount of information on this</li>
<li>Biostar Hi-Fi A85W Socket FM2: Just a generic ATX motherboard with the PCI slots I need for my audio interface. I don't need much from the motherboard. I've used smaller boards before, but they can be fiddly to work on</li>
<li>Corsair 8GB DDR3 1866Mhz: 8GB is probably enough for now. Not going for anything too fancy as I don't plan to overclock</li>
<li>be quiet! PURE POWER L8 400W: 400W is probably more than enough. I mainly need quietness</li>
<li>Fractal Design Define R4: A friend has this case. It has some sound-deadening material in it. It will be under my desk, so size is not a major issue</li>
<li>SANDISK ULTRA PLUS SSD 128GB: This will be the boot drive</li>
<li>Seagate 2TB BARRACUDA 3.5" SATA-III: The data drive. That's far more than I have now</li>
<li>I've not settled on a CPU cooler. Not seeing too many that say they work on the FM2 socket. Looking for something up to £25. Any suggestions?</li>
<li>Audio interface and DVD will be moved from the old PC</li>
</ul>
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That lot comes in at around £500. Making it totally silent could add around £100 for a better power supply and cooler. Some of these parts have got cheaper since I looked a few months back. I probably won't be buying anything until the new year, but they may get even cheaper.</div>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-31428790517522186812013-10-15T13:29:00.000+01:002013-10-15T13:29:03.233+01:00Do not underestimate the power!One of the weaknesses of my recording set-up has been the speakers. I've been using the <a href="http://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-visual/speaker-systems/home-speaker-systems/ystm20dsp/">Yamaha YSTM20DSP</a> speakers that came with the PC I bought many years ago. They are not as bad as some computer speakers, but you can't expect much bass from such small units.<br />
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I've been eyeing up various monitors for some time. There's a vast price range, but I was aiming at the lower end. I know people who have the <a href="http://www.krksys.com/krk-studio-monitor-speakers/rokit/rokit-5.html">KRK Rokit</a> and like them. I eventually managed to get some money put aside, but had to set my sights slightly lower. The <a href="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb12/articles/m-audio-bx5-d2.htm">M-Audio BX5 D2</a> looked good. One problem is the lack of places where you can actually go and try out the various options, especially if you are looking at the lower end models. I've been mostly going my reviews and forum postings. <a href="http://www.gearslutz.com/">Gearslutz</a> has plenty of opinions, but may just leave you overwhelmed.<br />
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Then I saw the <a href="http://www.studiospares.com/studio-monitors/studiospares-seiwin-powered-monitors-pair/invt/248030">Studiospares Seiwin</a> monitors. These were a similar price to the BX5, but with bigger speakers and more power. The reviews I found were positive, so I decided to take a chance on them. <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/113770482731451140750" target="_blank">+Studiospares Ltd</a> is near where I work and I've driven past them hundreds of times without going in. I popped in last week to buy these. They had a deal that included some isolation pads and I found some cheap (balanced) cables. They were friendly in there. I will probably be back some time.<br />
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So I got them home and set up. First impressions are good. I can just hear so much more. Not just the bass, but the drums are also much clearer. Vocals seem to come from a point just in front of me. Listening to some Björk was a wonderful experience.<br />
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I'm using the swiveling shelves on the sides of my Ikea Jerker desk. I've seen comments that this desk is not ideal as the speakers really need to go where the uprights for the upper shelves are. So mine are further apart than most sources recommend. The ideal is supposed to be where the speakers and your head are in an equilateral triangle. That <a href="http://gikacoustics.co.uk/monitor-positioning/">may not always be the case</a>. I need to experiment a lot more. In any case they should give me a more accurate picture of what my mixes sound like than the Yamahas.<br />
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The other aspect you will see mentioned a lot is acoustic treatment of the room. I may look into getting some for the corners behind the desk and the walls on each side. The wall behind me is covered in shelves of books etc that may absorb some sound. Again, I'm not looking to spend a fortune. An 'ideal' room needs to be specially built. Maybe I should have taken that into consideration when we built the house. Oh, and eggboxes do not do much to help acoustics, even if they look a bit like some of the materials used in studios.<br />
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You may also notice in the picture my new <a href="http://en-uk.sennheiser.com/headphones-stereo-hd-201">Sennheiser HD201</a> headphones. I needed something new as some of my old headphones are falling apart. I needed something better for monitoring that didn't leak much sound, or creak like my old Sonys. These seem popular as a budget option.<br />
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Now I just need to do some more recording...<br />
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By the way, I've only recently discovered that my M-Audio Omni i/o box is more useful than I realised. It can take extra inputs that just get mixed with the usual output without being available to the computer. So I now have my record player and my Zoom G3X guitar rig plugged in so that everything can go through the new speakers. You can't easily tweak the individual levels, but this is very convenient.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-7297405787897493362013-09-11T11:26:00.001+01:002013-09-11T11:26:47.591+01:00Lessons to be learnedAs I've <a href="http://studiospoon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/guitaring.html">previously said</a>, I've been thinking about getting more guitar lessons. I found <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/100656782422817134144" target="_blank">+Stuart Bahn</a> on Google+ where he was posting some interesting articles and eventually realised that he's based not far from where I work in London. My first lesson was last night.<div>
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I told him that I want to improve my ability to solo in blues and rock. Whenever I try this I seem to just play cliches or get stuck in very linear patterns. I have tried learning more licks from various tutorials, but haven't done so well at applying them.</div>
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Stuart is taking me back to basics on really learning the minor/blues pentatonic scales in all positions and exploiting the extra notes and bends you can use. He did a good job of explaining the basic theory behind why certain notes sound good. I knew some of this, but he's filling some gaps. We went through some example licks to apply this, but he emphasised using variations of those for variety.</div>
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He also picked on up various issues with my technique. I expected this as I knew I had some bad habits. I need to work on all areas of picking, bending and muting. I generally just play my electric without plugging in, but he said I should use an amplifier or other effects so that I can more clearly hear where the issues are, e.g. other strings sounding when they shouldn't.</div>
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I've got a load of stuff to work on before my next lesson in a couple of weeks. I have been playing a fair bit anyway, but it was not generally focused on anything specific. I have been trying to use some books, but not sticking to a schedule. I will review those in the context of what I'm doing in the lessons.</div>
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Of course I need somewhere to apply all this learning. I'll look again at trying to get involved in some sort of jam at least.</div>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-34934475657338066752013-07-11T11:08:00.000+01:002013-07-11T11:08:59.243+01:00GuitaringAlthough I've been playing guitar for about 35 years I don't consider myself to be that good a player in various areas. I've mostly been a bedroom player and just learnt songs, or parts of songs that took my fancy. I've also done lots of tutorials, initially from magazines, and later on-line. I've not done much actual performance where I need to bring it all together. I have played in a couple of band line-ups, mostly playing rhythm. I have improved at that, but could do with expanding my chord vocabulary.<br />
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I've recorded a few songs where I played several parts, but those are invariably built up from lots of small sections and I've not done much soloing.<br />
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Soloing is probably my weakest area. I know lots of licks, but when I try to string them together it all sounds terribly clichéd. My recent jazz improvisation course showed up some of my limitations, but may have been too advanced or the wrong approach for me. Perhaps my mindset of being analytical rather than spontaneous is part of the issue.<br />
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I'm thinking of ways to move forward. One is to find a good teacher who can guide me to a new approach. I have some leads on that to follow up. My other thought is to try learning more full songs, complete with the original solo. I have quite a few of those in magazines, with backing tracks. I'd aim to play the song 'live' as if performing it. I really want to do some gigs at some point, but just don't feel quite ready yet.<br />
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This post is an incentive to actually get on with achieving my goals, so that I need to update you later. Stay tuned.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-9163366773698448132013-05-30T12:57:00.000+01:002013-05-30T12:57:40.168+01:00Attack of the ClonesI built my <a href="http://studiospoon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/look-sir-droids.html">current PC</a> six years ago. That's not bad going and shows how the technology had matured by then. I do not play high end games and so it has generally been quite adequate for my needs. Back then I could get a dual-core CPU (AMD 4600+), 2GB of memory, motherboard and case for just over £200. I recycled the drives and other hardware. It has since been upgraded a little with more memory and a better CPU cooler.<br />
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Since then I have not really been keeping up with developments in hardware. Intel and AMD have all sorts of newer processors, but the actual clock speeds have not increased very much. You just seem to get more cores for your money, and other technology to optimise processing. I would hope that the processing per Watt has improved significantly, but the power ratings do not seem to have come down much.<br />
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My requirements from a new PC are:<br />
<ul>
<li>More processing power. The heaviest things I do are real-time audio effects and video rendering. I'd like to be able to use more effects and not have to wait so long for my videos</li>
<li>Faster boot. I want to minimise the time from inspiration to recording</li>
<li>Quietness. Silence would be ideal for the recording environment. The existing PC is not as noisy as some I've used, but I'm conscious of the fans. I've not noticed it intruding into my recordings, but it is in the mix somewhere</li>
<li>Compatibility with existing hardware. The main thing I would re-use is my M-Audio Delta 66 audio interface, which uses a PCI slot. Replacing that with a USB interface could cost almost as much as the PC</li>
<li>More memory to keep things running smoothly, i.e. not using swap</li>
<li>Not too energy hungry to keep the bills down, but also to making cooling easier.</li>
<li>Cheap. Computers are generally cheap these days. It used to be that a decent system would cost at least £1000, but that has come down</li>
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I realise I could use a laptop for most of what I do, but I like having a big screen, proper keyboard and some facility to upgrade. I do not really need mobility for the main PC and I have plenty of space.</div>
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I've tended to buy AMD processors in the past. I'd be looking for at least quad-core. The choice seems to be between the FX range and the A series that incorporate a GPU. The FX seem to consume more power. I shall compare with the Intel offerings around the £80 mark.</div>
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I'd go for a basic motherboard with on-board graphics. Needs at least two monitor outputs, a PCI slot and plenty of USB. 8GB of memory would be double what I have and is relatively cheap. I wouldn't go for the exotic ones as I don't plan to overclock. I have heard of some issues with Intel boards and PCI.</div>
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I quite like small cases. They are trickier to work on, but I don't expect to be in there too often. I used to use a nice little Antec. A modern equivalent is the <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/6110/cooler-master-elite-120-advanced-case-review-little-in-almost-every-way">Cooler Master Elite 120</a>. It takes a standard PSU and has a few drive bays. Pretty cheap too, but the fans may be noisy.</div>
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I'll go for a silent PSU if the price is right. 300W should be adequate. The case may limit what CPU coolers I can use, but something passive would be optimal. Water cooling may be an option that I haven't tried before. There seem to be some more compact systems these days.</div>
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I know optical media is dying, but I still like to have a DVD drive for ripping CDs and playing movies. I'll probably re-use the one I have.</div>
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I'm hoping that a major increase in performance will come from using an SSD. These have come down a lot in price. I would aim for a 128GB for the OS (Linux of course) and some other files. There is some variation in speed, but I would pay extra for a faster one. For the rest of the files a 1TB hard drive should be enough. I have yet to fill my old 500GB.</div>
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All this should cost under £400. Unfortunately I do not have that budget ready just yet. I have contemplated just getting the SSD for now to improve the old PC. That is probably more likely to happen in the short term, so I will report back when it happens.<br />
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Feel free to chip in with anything else I should consider.</div>
Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-72184862567916257882013-05-13T09:17:00.001+01:002013-05-13T09:17:20.991+01:00Jazz for dummiesThe title refers to what I think I need, rather than what I'm getting. I'm a couple of weeks into <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/improvisation">this course</a> and struggling already. The first week had Gary talking a lot about what the course is about and not much on the theory. For the first assignment we had to analyse one of his solos and do our own over the same backing. I made a few notes about his solo, mostly based on a transcription where I could actually see what notes he was using and relate them to the chords. I understand the basics of how chords are built, but not necessarily how to use them or even play some of them on guitar. My own solo was based partly on what I worked out and partly on what sounded right.<br />
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The marks are in and I managed 5/8 on the analysis. The solos were not graded, but I got a few interesting comments. They could tell I was bluffing, but I had confessed that anyway. They suggest what scales I could have used, but the course had not covered that. I know I'm not great at soloing. I usually just play around with the blues scale, but have been trying to move beyond that. That's part of why I'm taking this course.<br />
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Week two introduced a whole load of scales. I was aware of the various 'modes', but not how to use them. There were also some other 'altered' scales. Gary zooms through these, but it's still not giving me enough context. I don't even know what a dominant 7th really is. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_seventh_chord">Wikipedia</a> didn't enlighten me. The assignment is to play around with several of these scales. I can at least do random selections based on fingerings I've worked out and maybe come up with some tunes. I need to do that in the next couple of days. I've listened to what some others have done and their efforts are more elaborate than I could manage.<br />
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I was already aware that jazz is based on a lot of theory, but still find it amazing that people can apply all this in real-time whilst playing. I guess it comes from lots of playing. We covered some of the basics on the evening course I did years ago where we would work on a tune each week, but I've forgotten most of it as I didn't get to apply it outside the lessons.<br />
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I listen to some jazz for fun, but can't really tell if it's using the theory. Of course some rock and blues players do great solos without knowing any of this, but might be more limited in what they play. I am generally more analytical than spontaneous, but this theory is hard. I shall persist as long as I can with the course. It doesn't really matter if I don't pass in the end.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-44579550078373021522013-05-01T13:27:00.001+01:002013-05-01T13:27:22.751+01:00Making it upAfter my <a href="http://studiospoon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/jedi-in-training.html">technical course</a> on music production I'm now onto another from <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/111950594039269281469" target="_blank">+Coursera</a> on <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/improvisation">improvisation</a>. This is being taught by jazz great <a href="http://www.garyburton.com/">Gary Burton</a>. I see he just blogged that 39,000 people are signed up! As with the other course a lot of people will sign up just because it's free and not stay with it.<br />
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I'm no expert on jazz. I've listened to a fair bit and been to some very cool gigs, but don't totally get it. I even did an evening class on jazz improvisation years ago. That was fun. I mostly got by on the few scales I know and some hints from the teacher. Watching another guy there playing a million chords on his big Gibson made me appreciate how little I know.<br />
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So far my improvising has been fairly aimless. I know lots of neat riffs, but can't always use them in the right context or come up with my own. I hope this course will help me move forward. The first week's lessons have just covered what the course is about and some explanation of what improvisation is. No details of chords and scales yet. The first assignment involves analysing one of his solos and then improvising over the same backing. This has some extended chords that I wouldn't know how to play. My friend <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/109651319107462770519" target="_blank">+AshBrooke Music</a>, who is also on the course, suggested starting with a C Major scale. I tried that and I can hear some places where a flattened 7th or 3rd will sound better. I need to work out which chords that applies to. I thought I'd record something straight away. This will at least give me something to compare to later and I ought to be recording myself more anyway.<br />
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I know it's not great, but I think I have some feel for the rhythm and for ending up on the 'right' notes. You will hear me searching for the note in places. This ties in with the Chord Tone Soloing book I'm reading, but haven't fully grasped yet.<br />
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I plan to look at Gary's solo and work out what is happening with the chords.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0Arlesey, Central Bedfordshire, UK52.015347 -0.2632599999999456551.937151 -0.42462149999994564 52.093543 -0.10189849999994566tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-9121786885173507242013-04-20T17:29:00.000+01:002013-04-20T17:29:34.817+01:00Jedi in trainingYay, another Star Wars title!<br />
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As <a href="http://studiospoon.blogspot.com/2013/03/back-to-school.html">previously mentioned</a> I am doing a course in music production. I'm now four weeks in with two to go. We've covered a lot of ground and I'm learning a lot. So far I have got by in recording mostly by instinct and from reading a few things or watching videos. There are lots of subtleties I've missed.<br />
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Week one was about how sound works and how signals flow through the studio. I did an assignment about recording spoken audio using my trusty Zoom H4 and my webcam.<br />
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I posted this on one of the G+ communities where it was seen by our 'professor' who said nice things about it. He did a hangout where I was able to say hi and he remembered me.<br />
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However, there were a few issues with this video and I had problems trying to edit in Kdenlive. So I re-did it as an audio only lesson and was able to easily do lots of editing in Audacity.<br />
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We all have to assess others, which has been interesting. Most people have put in a lot of effort, but a few have just written a few lines or even copied from elsewhere in some cases. I've not noticed any plagiarism in those I've seen. I was pleasantly surprised to get full marks for my effort.<br />
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Week two was an introduction to the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). He has tried to keep things general as people are using lots of different applications. <a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a> seems fairly popular, but I've seen a lot of Reaper and Cubase. It's interesting to see what you can do with those. I can certainly see why people use Reaper.<br />
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I did an assignment on setting up a project in Ardour. I tried some methods of recording a screencast, but they were not working for me, so I used a digital camera to film the screen. The result was not ideal. Hard to read the screen and the audio was very low. I used an effect in Kdenlive to bring the level up a bit, but, of course, that added noise, as we have been taught. I seemed to lose a few marks because of the video quality.<br />
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Week three was on how the mixing part of the DAW functions. I learnt about what inserts can do and how parallel effects work. As this was new to me I used it as the subject for my assignment. I'd now found some scripts that could record the screen, including the Jack audio using a combination of ffmpeg and jack_capture. I just captured part of the screen to try and preserve the full resolution in Youtube, but that meant that some menus went off the screen. I've been using the older version of Ardour (2.8) as I don't have version 3 on my main system yet. For my audio example I had a go at a short section of an 'a capella' song I've been thinking of doing. I sang it as part of a huge choir at <a href="http://www.towerseyfestival.com/">Towersey</a> last year.<br />
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Week four was on dynamic effects such as compressors, gates an limiters. I have tried using compressors in my recordings, but without really knowing what I was doing. I find it helps to use a plug-in with a graphical display so I can see what is happening. The <a href="http://calf.sourceforge.net/">Calf</a> compressor has this facility, but only if you start it separately and use it as an insert. I need to get to grips with the different types of plug-ins available. I did a quick video on compression. This time I recorded the whole screen and the result doesn't look too bad. I did some fairly bad beat-boxing as my audio.<br />
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Week five was on filters and delays. Some interesting stuff on how a delay can act as a filter. I understand better the phase effects you can get with microphones. There was some discussion of mixing, but not in huge depth. I was going to do a video on setting up an EQ plug-in based on a hardware mixer, but my screen capture script was having issues getting the video. So I did a document instead. I've reviewed a lot of documents by others and tried to make mine look reasonable by including lots of screen shots. I used the <a href="http://eq10q.sourceforge.net/">EQ10Q</a> plug-in. That has ten parametric filters that can be of various sorts and gives a nice graph. I've seen plug-ins that show the spectrum of the audio overlaid on the filter, but I don't know if you can do that on Linux.<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/hxg05mlii4nfzv1/IMPW5.pdf">Setting up EQ plug-in</a><br />
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The course syllabus seems to have changed from what was originally planned. There was supposed to be some discussion of MIDI, but the final week ended up being about synthesis. This is interesting and explains more about audio theory, but may not be what some people wanted to learn about. I haven't experimented with creating my own synth patches, but I may try it in future. I based my assignment around <a href="https://code.google.com/p/amsynth/">amsynth</a>. I just need to get my Casio keyboard and MIDI interface working again so I can control it.<br />
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<a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7ijZ8HYWYaTWEZYMWcyVms5WFk/edit?usp=sharing">Synth modules</a><br />
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I did have a quick play with an on-screen keyboard that let you use the PC keyboard to play tunes and knocked this out in a few minutes for a laugh<br />
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The final exam was just a selection of questions from the quizzes. I didn't do extra revision, but still got most of them right. As I mostly got full marks on the assignments and the quizzes I should be guaranteed a pass. I think we get our 'certificates' next week. It's been a cool experience, helped by encouragement from my on-line buddies. We formed a G+ group to discuss it. I'm starting another course on <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/improvisation">improvisation</a> soon. That will be a different sort of challenge, but I really need to get to grips with this aspect of music. When I do attempt improvisation it all sounds like a string of clichés. I'll report on my progress in due course.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0Arlesey, Central Bedfordshire, UK52.015347 -0.2632599999999456551.937152 -0.42462149999994564 52.093542 -0.10189849999994566tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7467466638569499257.post-39627627890973850782013-04-17T21:58:00.000+01:002013-04-19T17:56:00.126+01:00Infinite sustainBack in mid-2011 I donated to a <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1819373046/the-musicwood-documentary">Kickstarter campaign</a> to make a film about the issues with some of the woods used in making acoustic guitars. The Sitka spruce used for guitars comes from an area of Alaska that is being 'harvested' by a corporation run by the native Americans. Bob Taylor of <a href="http://www.taylorguitars.com/">Taylor Guitars</a> put well when he described what they are doing as mining because they are not growing a crop, they are destroying an environment with no hope of it recovering.<br />
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I finally got my download of <a href="http://musicwoodthefilm.com/">the film</a> this month and it's moving stuff.<br />
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The guitar companies, which also included <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/117325799252371259216" target="_blank">+Gibson Guitar</a> and <a class="g-profile" href="http://plus.google.com/106013863968923845629" target="_blank">+Martin Guitar</a>, were brought together by <a href="http://www.greenpeaceusa.org/">Greenpeace</a> to see what was happening and they formed the <a href="http://www.musicwood.org/">Musicwood Coalition</a>. To build their guitars they need wood from old trees (as in hundreds of years old) and those are running out. Most of the timber is exported for pulp and construction with a tiny fraction being used for guitars.<br />
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As of now things are not looking great with the native Americans fighting to get more land allocated to them and not moving forward on getting <a href="https://ic.fsc.org/">FSC</a> certification.<br />
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There is also mention of the issues of woods from Madagascar. Gibson were raided over potentially illegal imported woods. Not sure what's happening about those woods.<br />
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As with many areas we are consuming these resources at an unsustainable rate in the name of profit. The guitar builders will have to adapt and do without some of the woods they are used to. I've read something from Bob Taylor about using ebony that isn't purely black as many trees are discarded because their wood is not what people expect. We can't afford to waste.<br />
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Coincidentally I saw <a href="http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22094279">this story</a> this week about wood from Swiss forests for violins. I hope they are managing that better.<br />
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Some companies are looking into non-wood alternatives, such as carbon fibre, but a lot of people still want those precious woods. We can expect the prices for those to increase steeply.Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00429920503728251890noreply@blogger.com0