It is almost the weekend, and while I am sure many of you have grandiose plans (which we would like to hear about to be envious over), I will be spending most of my weekend in, wrapping up the 3rd report for my 'experimental and classical soils mechanics' course. It involved triaxial and consolidation testing of sands and clays, and comparing it with all those fun classical models, followed by research/literature searches to see what improvements you could find. 3 sets of tests (sand triaxial, clay consolidation, clay triaxial) and 3 reports.
I did a full set up on the blue guitar I showed earlier this week yesterday, as my new strings were in. That said, I was not fond of the pickups or sound when I have it through a modeler. With my Mark V this guitar absolutely screams. Harmonics jump out of the bridge pickup. My only beef with it now is a lack of stainless steel frets. I am looking for luthier, as if I want it to get even close to regular play time, it needs to be a bit smoother in the fret department (probably doesn't help I forgot to polish them in my setup).
What is your favourite pedal?
I have 2, one for each instrument. For the bass guitar I love my EH micro synth, in a band situation, or when I need that extra little something it always comes through. It is easy to use, can be altered on the spot, and sounds great. It can replicate playing with a bow, old moog synth type sounds, weird dirt (as heard in anger and cold logic) octaves, sub octaves, you can have it sweep filters at an adjustable rate, or manually sweep them for a buildup / break part transition. The new version is also only 9V , it is a sweet and versatile beast.
For the guitar, it is currently the only pedal I own, just sold a modeler as even used just for effects in the loop, did not play nice with the Mark. It is a Bad Horsie 2 contour wah from Morley. I am really loving this thing, never played a wah quite like it. It is not your vintage wah people drool over, it is fat, and transparent. It enhances your playing more than over shadows it. It lacks the harshness I have always hated with crybabies, and is extremely vocal. This wah is switchless, and has no pots to wear out, it is all optical and the second the pedal starts to move it comes on. You can easily hold it in place for a filter sweep, and it is great for a quick slam to let that artificial harmonic rip the stratosphere.
I have a poly tune coming in soon too, very interested in this one, not the most accurate tuner available at .5 cents accuracy (strobostomp 2 gets .1 cent) , but it can check all 6 strings at once, on a strum (and has standard tuner too). Been looking at these for a while and managed to lasso one.
Lastly here is a bit more of my tunes, the last 2 I have for you folks (or recorded at the moment) The first one goes way back, it is a remix/restructured, leads added, my take on the last song my band put together. It is the first one I recorded so the mix is a little rough, and it is the only one I have remixed in the last month, when I went back and tackled all the other ones. The End is pretty raw, but I like it that way. The weird sound at the start is an octaved high note on bass, that I then thumb lightly to make an artificial harmonic, it is passing through that EH micro synth with square and octave, no dry, if I recall.
The second one I hesitantly call blues rock, due to some borrowed elements, the song is not a blues however. I was just trying to capture a feeling of despair, I was bored a lot at the time, unemployed and whatnot. (before I got project work and started my masters etc). 2 months is too long not to do anything, albeit I did record a bunch of tunes (flight of the kiwi, cold rain, waylaid by pirates, brittleness). Here is Cold Rain
Thanks for hanging around and replying, this has been entertaining, but very mentally wracking, hard to find 5 things to talk about.
Kyle
. Still not sure how I will go for ambient and modulation type effects. There is individual pedals which are great, due to changability. There are slightly more complicated pedals like TC nova delay and whatnot, but still can be changed on the fly. Then there is the bigger units like Nova System that get a bit daunting but are extremely powerful. Ideally I would get a g-system, but I don't need all that functionality, and they are freaking expensive. The nova system is interesting, and TC stuff is top notch, and the overall functionality likely makes it 'cheaper' than pedals. Sure it is digital, but I am not one of the analogue only crowd either.
