Vocal Effects

A very nice closeup I stole off FB.

Related, last night I got a rough mix of a few songs that were recorded live from a CJ show recently. The sound guy pulled everything straight off the board. It probably counts as the closest thing to a legitimate recording that we've ever had (or may ever have in the future, since recording really isn't the main concern of a tribute act). He had the effects turned up super high on RS's voice (perhaps borderline too high) and it made RS sound like magic...like an entirely different person. I kept having to remind myself that I was listening to...well US...because it sounded so otherworldly, polished, and...ahem...professional.  

I can't say that it did the same for my little vocal bits, but that's probably just me not being able to listen to myself sing without wanting to vomit.  But it is worth remembering that the dry ass, bare-bones, shitty quality mic/PA combos (run by no one at all often) that I'm used to singing through probably do me no favors. Nor the shitty rooms. I'm no great singer...and I'm not trying to make excuses...but even the pros would probably sound a bunch worse under the performance conditions in which I find myself.

Effects Pedals

Not having a fully developed identity as a player yet...and not having a great ear for sound quality...means that I don't mess much with effects. KiD plays a pretty clean, straight signal bass...so I haven't needed to mess much with it. I have takent the baby step to notice and react to the fact that she played a different kind of bass at different points in the Pixies' career and that this changed the tone. I might not have noticed this on my own admittedly, but I read it online.

Aria Pro II Cardinal Series – The Pixies' first bass belonged to Kelley,and is heard on Come On Pilgrim, Surfer Rosa and seen on the Town & Country live video. It later reappeared in the Kelley Deal 6000.

1962 Fender Precision Reissue– Acquired for use on Doolittle on Gil Norton's insistence. It appears in the video for "Here Comes Your Man". On the Bossanova album, the Precision was used on "Dig for Fire" for its "lazier, growlier sound" that was "not as boingy-boingy-sproingy".

Music Man Stingray – Added in time for Bossanova "because it was active and had a different sound" and became her main live bass "because it was a little less country-sounding than the Fender". The instrument was afterwards played by Josephine Wiggs in The Breeders and Luis Lerma in The Amps.

Steinberger headless (but full-bodied, two-cutaway) bass – Bought during the recording of Trompe Le Monde because the other basses were out of tune on the higher frets. Deal described it as having a "weird, organ-y sound".

The upshot for me as a practical matter is that there are a few songs that I either play with a pick or turn the tone knob "brighter" on. Well...now that I think about it...I really only do this for one song...Bird Dream. I turn the knob all the way bright (I normally play all the way the opposite). I play with a pick on Debaser, Blown Away, and Is She Weird...not for tone reasons per se, but because there are parts of those songs where I play alone and the boys couldn't clearly make out the notes (and thus the tempo) because they were too muddy. So I play with a pick to make them more articulated and louder. But as we are getting into the last of the Trompe le Monde and Bossonova songs I AM more aware of the different, brighter, tone. And I will probably adjust the tone.

My only other experience with effects or tone was for the Flaming Lips tribute. I bought a bass distortion pedal for that (that, even though it is the actual pedal that Michael Ivins uses live, I only ended up using on one song for an over the top punch in wall of ridiculous sound)fuzz pedal for that and borrowed a Peach Fuzz pedal (which is awesome, but pricey). I also briefly experimented with a multi-effects pedal on one song...but we ended up having the keyboard player use that pedal instead for that song.

I don't much fiddle with the knobs on my amp. I'm not sure what I'd even be trying to accomplish. I also have a modern and a vintage channel on my amp...but I don't much know the difference. I know that I like a fatter, less treble, bass sound. That's all I know.

I feel like I ought to try and understand more about effects and the quality of sound. Not so much because I care, but because it is part of the language. It would be nice, when RS and CT are debating this or that tone, if I had any idea what they were talking about.

So I've been obsessed with R Ring lately. And they use some serious effects...and in weird ways I gather. I took some pictures of their pedals the other night.

Here's KeD's guitar pedals. It is a little hard to make out what they are. Left to right it looks like...Boss tuner, Boss Digital Delay DD7, Ibanez/Tube Works Tube King Overdrive TK999 (maybe an older one), and Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano Reverb.  It helps to look at these pics on Flickr blown up and flipped right side up.

Here's KeD's vocal pedals. She kneels on the floor and adjusts these throughout the songs that she uses them on (personal side note here...the setlist is in this photo!). Left to right below is Boss Digital Reverb Delay RV-3, Boss Distortion DS-1, and...and...the label is covered...but it sure looks like a second Boss Digital Reverb Delay RV-3. I'm not sure if she runs these through her amp or through the PA. There's a direct box sitting there. I'm pretty sure that the acoustic guitars were run through the amps, so there's good odds that that direct box is for the mic that runs through the pedals. I don't remember her switching mics though. She would unplug her guitars/keys and run them through the same cable. But I don't remember that with the vocal mic. Hmm.

Last but not least here's MM's board from two angles. Top left to right: Boss Delay DM-2 (red), Boss Tuner, Radial Tonebone JX2 Pro Switchbone AB/Y Pedal. Bottom left to right: Boss Equalizer GE-7, Death by Audio Fuzzwar

I really have no idea how these particular combinations result in the sounds they produced on stage. But at least I know what they were using.

Bass Lessons: Week One

I had my first lesson with H last night. Mostly she showed me lots of stuff. It was alot to take in, but not too much. At the end of the lesson she tried to write down what we'd done (which may mean that she picked up that I wanted this from my inquiry email).
Take-aways:

• I should learn the 2-3 octave "box" patterns for major and minor scales. Just gotta do that. Other scales probably aren't so very important at this point.
• I should be thinking about intervals and relative placement on the fretboard...so like knowing if I'm on the root...where else does the root live...and where do the 3rd, 5th, and octave live. Like the scale boxes, this is just memorization and repetition. the other intervals are important too...but maybe less so at first. And they will come with knowing these main ones. She also highlighted the importance of the 9th, which I've never thought much about before, but it does sound nice.
• We talked alot about the role of various scale intervals for major and minor scales in playing against guitar chords. She encouraged me to think in terms of bass lines against chords...rather than about scales and theory per se. And this is already how I think, so that was good.
• She talked about passing notes and moving from one chord to another and how to think about a progression.
• Despite the above, she encouraged me not to get lost in the theory, though.  To more just play and try things and not be afraid to mess up and to just learn what sounds good. To do this she suggested recording guitar chords and playing along and trying to write various parts. Just noodle and figure it out.
• She said that it is always nerve wracking to write parts on the fly even if you know what you're doing. So there's nothing wrong with being prepared.
• She reminded me that strategic accents can really change up a part
• What you play will often come from listening to the rest of the band. More on this below.
• I got a little confirmation on correct technique. With the left hand think of a claw...and with little pressure on the thumb. Don't let the fingers flatten. Use a soft touch. She recommended running scales with a metronome at various tempos and said that if you do this enough good technique just comes because you can't play fast without good technique. It was a similar exercise to the one I've seen before and already knew was a good idea. She also said "but maybe you don't care about playing fast" which was a nice point. I do think these exercises are easy and worthwhile though.

Going forward I'm going to try to have a lesson every other Thursday and see how it goes. She thought that we could either have me bring in songs that I'm working on parts for...or she could play guitar and I could try to write songs along to it. There were a couple of other ideas that I can't remember now. I asked if she had a certain approach to teaching and she said it was really individual. Usually people want to learn a certain song, or how to read music, etc. So it is well defined. What I'm asking is to develop my own style and voice...and that's a harder thing to address.  "You can't tell me who I am." I said and she nodded. But I think she'll be a good guide. She's open and non-threatening and didn't have any set expectations. A few times when she took a scale too fast I didn't have to say much and she was right there slowing it down and doing it over again. She could tell when I was confused and needed reinforcement.

On the drive home it struck me that I'm really interested in R Ring right now and that they play music without a bass. So writing parts for their songs would be a perfect exercise. So I think I'll use that as a jumping off place...along with refining the parts for Halle and Sarah's songs.  Those are the two things I think I'll bring in to lessons. At home...mostly I just need to play the damn scales every day and learn the pattern and start thinking more about relative intervals. It'll come if I just do the work. 

This morning I sat down before work and figured out a bass part to Hundred Dollar Heat pretty easily. Mike plays a bass line of sorts on the guitar, so it was cheating a bit because I was more following along with him rather than writing my own part, but it was still a good exercise. It also showed me that I pull alot from the other players...like the strumming style...in the case of Hundred Dollar Heat it is wide open and syncopated at the start in the verses and then becomes more driving and 8th note based and dense in the chorus. I followed along with that instinctually. I guess I always think of this as cheating...like when my bass drum line follows Twan's bass guitar line or J's vocal...but maybe it isn't so much cheating as just serving the song.

I think that I get really caught up in whether or not I'm complicated or technical enough...on whether I'm going to be "found out" as a total hack. But maybe fitting in doesn't make you a hack...it makes you a sensitive musician.  And there's the whole thing about...the million dollar riff doesn't come along every day. Not every song can be the catchy song from hell. And they don't all have to be. I don't know. I have alot of basic practice work to do...but way more than that I have alot of mental work to do. I need to stop telling myself these stories about how well I play or what I ought to be doing and just...play. As much as possible. 

I don't know who I am as a bass player yet. How could I? It's too soon. So I should stop putting myself in boxes and tearing myself down. I'm like a teenager in my bass life. I've got this whole long life ahead of me and who knows who I'm gonna become. I should give myself the space to have an adolescence without so much pressure to grow up.

The Theory of Repetition

I have this theory about myself...though it is probably true of most humans in general. If I listen to a song enough times I will like it.  There are songs or groups that you like the first time out. And there are songs or groups that you'll never like no matter what. But for everything in between...listen enough and you'll like it. It's why people hear a song at wedding that they hated in high school and go "I love this song." It is because it is familiar.

I've been following RR over the last year or so not because I loved the music...but because I admired the artists as people. But today...just now...listening to a live recording session after a week of hearing the songs several times in a row...I began to like their music. Going to a show tonight and it'll all be familiar and appropriately beloved.

This probably somehow reduces the value of music...that if you listen enough you like. But I guess I'm just happy to be happy.

The Strangest Weekend of My Life

So I have two blogs currently...in addition to twitter and facebook...which end up being kind of blogs. I try to keep the blogs anonymous as possible and to not advertise them around. The writing is really just meant for me, my long-distance partner, and the odd person that I've never met on the internet to stumble upon and maybe enjoy. I try to keep the blogs topic-focused and not veer off into too much navel gazing. They are really tools of record-keeping for me to mark progress and track resources. I try not to link between the two blogs...or link to them at all.

I recognize that all of this pretend caution is for naught and that some day something on the internet will destroy me. It has happened before and it will happen again. And again.

So it is in passing here that I'll note that on Saturday I spent much of the day with KeD and her current bandmate (one hell of a guy) and that she slept on my couch. I have gone into nausiating detail about this on the other blog and will leave it there. And probably regret having written it someday. I kind of already do. But it feels like it happened in a dream and I'm still trying to process it into concrete. I don't mean a dream like "it was a dream come true"...I mean like I feel like I took some kind of LSD or something and this all happened in that kind of haze. Like watching a movie of yourself. Lack of sleep, lots of driving, and pet health emergencies over the last several days have probably contributed to the effect.

Item of pertinent interest to this blog...she liked the color of my Billy Sheehan knock off bass.

The big take home...I am a little boring but perhaps not too scary of a person. And people are people. And I ought to keep focusing on doing all this music stuff and not worry too much about how well I'm doing or what it all means or where I'm headed. Just keep trying and hopefully having a good time. And try to be nice to people...to everyone...not just the people who seem important at the moment. Everyone ends up being important in the end and you won't know who until it's too late. And remember that, even though it doesn't always SEEM this way, everything is always better done without alcohol. At least anything that matters. And the secret is...everything matters.