jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

I'm going to use my own music to illustrate the development and variation of theme again, sorrym butI knowwhat I did and why I did it

if you listen the 'chorus' section contains a repetitive motif with an open ended m6 harmony at the end that allows me to return to the 'verse' theme or to modulate in a few directions and in the end of the piece I continuously change the key of the theme without changing the motif to add interest and movement as well as a slowly gradating emotional 'shading', a movement of the sense of mystery as the arrangement changes register that tickles the ear until I gt bored and returned to another theme to close out

the verse is also intensely thematic, though it cycles keys and varies chord changes (harmonies) it follows a very set 4 bar motif

I apologize, but the track is not mixed nor is the synth programming done, its just a rough draft sequence I left off on to await further inspiration

this is not book work

for starters try to imagine the rhythmic motif established by your string arpeggiation across alternate harmonic forms... stick with triads by all means but vary.....

its called school.... developing a theme int he classical style is something that only class can teach you unless you are Mozart

EDIT: its way outside the scope of a forum post for me to try to pass down my formal music education to you, I apologize... there are years of study of harmony and the interweaving of harmonic and melodic motifs to develop a piece that I would be hard pressed to explain in print.... class can often be a nonverbal meeting of the minds between the aspiring student and the experienced teacher....

its like Harry Potter and Hogwarts, so much rests within the mind and inhabits the world of ideas.... it helps to read music if you want to communicate with a potential teacher more rapidly, but some of it is just mystical and hard to explain

you have a good ear and a good feel for music and I daresay its a shame you were not nurtured earlier

I had no idea what I took home when I got my 1st amp.... dumb luck

I was so sure my sound was great because I owned a passable strat.... took until highschool for me to realize the amp was the magic as I plugged my 3rd guitar in and realized what the common denominator really was

take it down, write the rest.... great start... very soundtracky and well puttogether compositionally but it fails to develop. What you have is an intro. You could work that theme into 10 to 15 minutes of continuous music. And you should.... its Hans Zimmerish to the point of plajarism, but just to the edge of it.... ;-)

mine's a good one, 1964 Princeton reverb (before the vintage craze began and before the small amp craze too)

http://www.rainbowguitars.com/imagesproduct/us/usfenderprincerev-xl.jpg

I miss her, sadly she was stolen 10 years ago.

2nd guitar anyone???

mine was a 1 pickup guild starfire:

http://www.robwesley.com/guitars/listings/Guild%20Starfire%20I%20natural%201960/Guild%20Starfire%20I%20natural%201960%20AUT_5228.JPG

then because of feedback issues I swapped it for one of these old Carvins:

https://reverb-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/s--Tw8ijPbZ--/a_exif,c_limit,e_unsharp_mask:80,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_south,h_620,q_90,w_620/v1435346702/jec3zfpmwykevsek9qba.jpg

bad trade, the carvin did not hold up well while my old guild is in the hands of my uncle, still killin' it

Gibson SG Standard 🤘

Holy shit, gchiaren, how?

I bet he started as an adult with resources to throw at a good 1st axe.

all fender guitars 'make me go a big rubbery one' (in the words of chuck pahliunik)

I tend to put regular slinkies on my guitars because I am sued to them and play well on them.... are they the ebst? that's subjective. they fall short in many areas of more expensive options but the sound is adequate and the feel is what I am used to since they were my 1st set of electric string way back in the very early 90s. If it feels good then it is good. Your tone is as good as your performance and comfort is a priority.

where's the rest of the piece? its not done, just the first 2 minutes, right?

I've literally had TC's plate sim against a real EMT plate in a studio and in the mix we are talking negligible difference for guitar purposes.... they can be dialed in to sound very close other than a slight artificial sheen to the top end of the TC sound that thru guitar speakers will likely be inaudible unless you are standing right next to the amp

tell me about it

everyone loves the EHX holy grail line.... TC's hall of fame has all the excellent halls and plates TC is famed for and having owned some of their rack units I can say they are great sounds if you like reverb

another good way to go is playing stupid loud so that whatever room you are in produces plenty of its own reverb LOL

don't discount a nice warm slap echo as a form of reverb either... its often the way to go for clarity with ambience in small venues

agreed! I used to use tape Dictaphones in the 90s and then transcribe to my staff paper notebook alter to think about it in an even more abstract way... being odler and more skilled now I tend to write it directly to paper (without touching an instrument if possible) -- sometimes I will also just have an idea, start humming, grab a guitar or sit at the piano and start playing along and the song pours out because it was up there all along.... other times its notes and months of consideration in the back of my head before I touch an instrument like I mentioned earlier

I think writing is a lot of waiting in the beginning and then a lot of individualized screwdriver work to finish something to a point where you can even think about how to present it as a finished live or recorded piece

I find it VERY difficult to describe my process to people, its veryitnernal, slow but effective.... its easier for me to tell people how it fails to work for me and how I've seen a lot of other aspiring songwriters I know fall on their faces. In order to help you figure out what will work for you I find it best to tell you what usually doesn't work. Although it entirely depends what standards you are aiming for. In general when I've had 'noodlers' present me their song attempts in band situations they are telling me its not very good before I can even voice my negative opinion and I can just answer with a nod and ask them if they want constructive criticism or advice to start over from scratch.

but recorder app, YES

the whole ehading here, writing for guitar? wrong ehaded! writing is writing.... music exists independent of instruments and is an almost mathematical construct.... I have a real Platonic view of music in that I feel it exists like Plato's ideal forms (like a perfect right triangleor the idea of a just government). If you are writing FOR GUITAR you are not in the world of forms and you are trapped in Plato's cave trying to compose with the shadows of the physical world. True art will be created with pure ideas that can then bend physical reality into the creator's intended form and will likely have more appeal to the author and the audience. But I am a nut, YMMV

Angus, if you are unfamiliar with Plato, look him up.... writing music is a highly creative and exciting entrée to the abstract world of ideas and I envy anyone just embarking on this intellectual and creative journey

writing is an act of sheer intellect and will that affirms your humanity and makes you feel alive... also, getting ones songwriting pat has other, non-intellectual benefits

I disagree ALMOST entirely (think of a tune in your head is 100% the way to go), the random style is one way to write a riff, but focus and intention is 9 times out of 10 better.... the random approach is cool for phrases in solos though

not everyone is a writer.... anyone can develop writing technique, not everyone has ideas

when writing parts (arranging) attempt to hear the finished song in your 'inner ear' as you imagine it and then try to isolate a part, say the guitar, and focus on it until you can hum or sing it out loud... then approach the instrument and make it come out of the instrument... you might improve it while playing with a hint of random luck changing a note or phrasing here or there through happy accident, but the core of that idea should come from inside you, not outside

small accidents and bits of randomness may be a disguised intention, a musical Freudian slip, but just fiddling around aimlessly seldom yields great music for most musicians though I admit there are exceptions

you start with a good idea you can hum... you start by not trying... when you become inspired you will hum those notes and then find them on aninstrument because you will be compelled by the originality of the idea

if you're fishing for ideas then stop.... the hard work end is the screwdriver work, the initial theme(s) should flow naturally out of your head, fully inspired and original

to be fair I have forced myself to write some stuff for contractual reasons, but its never as good as the music I write by waiting for inspiration and then pouring all my effort and inventiveness onto that little kernel of idea until I have something I can feel proud of

also, stop thinking about writing on guitar, its just writing.... a good musical idea can be framed more than one way.... if you have a guitar centric idea that will only work in the style of 'angus' or whoever then tis probably a weak idea (though once in a while one gets lucky with something specific having universal appeal, I never have though)

the more you work on finishing songs, the more inspiration you will find you have and the more easily you will be able to develop them.... the bands you like come from a hodge podge of pop songwriting traditions so you may wish to research song construction and the history of songwriting from troubadours to hank Williams to the beatles to Motown to emo

so it IS a partscaster?

Also the only youth centre are for ages 6-11 I'm 15

so? barge in and ask if you can put on a metal show with a couple bands for ages 6 to 18, just a general all ages rock show, promise no profanity and to clean the place up at the end.... draw up flyers and pepper all the sign psots and phone poles in a 50 mile radius on foot

oh yeah, start a metal band too

and be prepared to pick up brooms and toilet brushes and clean the palce top to bottom afterwards if you get a decent enough turnout to make a mess...

seriously, it shouldn't be that hard to find kids who like metal at school or something even if they don't play anything yet, and then goad them into getting isntruments.... you ay not be good right away but that's what the next 15 years are for.... creating your own gigs is not as hard as all that, when I was a kid that's how everyone did it at your age whether they were in a big city or a tiny ton in the middle of nowhere.... and I have played some really great youth center and house shows in the middle of farm country that were more fun than the big pro shows I played in my adult music career

your biggest obstacle is the death of record stores which were a great place to network when I was a kid, but you guys have the internet which was brand new and pretty devoid of anyone bu hackers when I was a boy, so there's that... if you don't wanna listen to Boom and Tel_Nobody then get up and make your own scene

if I recall correctly my 1st show was at an illegal, underaged keg party and I was so young you could barely see me past the enormous Guild hollowbody I owned at the time... liquor and a lack of parents drew the crowd and drunken teenagers are into anything.... and elt me tell you, that was a BAD band....

Absolutely. My delivery window is still February. No music til then.

oh yeah, I forgot about that.... it feel like February already my week has been so long

you ever going to sing that song you said you were going to sing for me?

as long as its not a partscaster you built and its truly a unique instrument? sure

yeah, no problem, cheers, happy new year

suit yourselves, maybe my comments will make more sense to you when you start to reach a quarter century in music with thousands of shows under your belt in your own bands and as a sideman from everything from industrial music to jazz and contemporary country. I reached a point as I got older that I realized I am always just happy to be playing, especially for an audience and then I started to learn a lot by running ideas from types of music I woulda never listened to as a fan through the weird music filter of my own brain and hands. But YMMV

I use a TC Flashback X4 with ac30s and have no issue, again, check your cables

I'm not sure what anyone needs an EQ for outside gimmick sounds in the studio where you shape the sound really ahrd before it overloads an amp or you filter a vintage fuzz pedal or something ala dave Gilmour... if your guitar sounds good and your amp is a good amp you should be covered. Embrace that combination and make it your own. All the circuitry in an EQ is a real tone sucker. Its a really complicated circuit and to keep the price point reasonable they usually aren't using audiophile components and in circuits like EQ you really want really high end parts like in studio equipment. I find I can achieve more frequency changing effects with good hand technique than I ever could with EQ.... if I want really drastic esponse changes I use my guitar controls in conjunction with different picking/strumming emthods and positions in relation to the bridge and I can get hundreds of very distinct sounds from a guitar as simple as an SG using the normal channel on an AC30 with no tone controls at all. Or the other good EQ-like trick is to straight up swap guitars on some songs during the set. I always enjoy playing a show with a Gibson and a Fender using the same amp settings. Instant EQ change for that jangly ballad and then you go SG to bring back the rock.

so anyway, check your cables, look at a boutique EQ if you must or just embrace the sonic hash when your pedals are disengaged, which a lot of guys do without ever worrying about it.

do you guys have youth centers, YNCAs, that type of thing?

when you looked into the mirror did your reflection turn into a 303?

yeah, the ac30 type design is pedal unfriendly.... really sensitive to impedance! you have to spend a lot of time tweaking your FX chain not to degrade your core tone

see? I'm not crazy. Apart from understanding the electrical aspects I am also MR AC30

EDIT: now you wanna address your FX chain... dump the EQ completely, make sure the TC is in true bypass mode and then see what you get.... if its good, then the impedance change frm the buffer is the problem and you can either try a better buffer or just forget about buffering.... if the sound is still grainy look at the jumper cables between your pedals. Maybe theyr'e putting the drag on your signal? You can't reduce the capacitance from the internal bypass wiring on your FX but making sure you have short, low capacitance leads between them will probably help. Also, use the shortest, best quality cable you can get away with from guitar to FX and FX to amp. On a different amp this wouldn't be such a big deal, but voxes, hiwatts etc are really sensitive designs.

an SG can fit in a les paul case if you cut a piece of foam to support the SG behind the neck joint. An actual SG case is just an LP case with extra padding added to sit the thinner body at an angle....

there's a quality to that tone that screams post production.... my ear is telling me its squashed with something like an 1176 in the mix to give it the squeezing quality, but maybe there's something between his guitar and amp doing it....

its also got a very distorted quality that could be from a pedal

if I had to do that live I would try maybe a Rat into a studio compressor into a british amp that's just breakin' up... go with a compressed amp like a marshall, maybe a vox.... definitely not something more dynamic like an old orange or hiwatt

that's to start.... you might have to scrap it and try something completely different? maybe a high gain amp with a compressor in the FX loop (can you do that it guitar rig?)

EDIT:

check out this quote from sound on sound:

“For the final guitar sounds we had a very extensive setup in the main live room. We used several Mills Acoustic Afterburner 4x12 cabs, and I put a huge amount of mics on them, and on other cabs, and start swapping heads to see how they react on the different mics, and we’d pick the head, cab and mic combinations we liked the best. I’m very scientific about this, making sure I replicate the sound of two of the elements exactly, so I can hear the difference the third variable makes. We ended up with two Mills cabs, one with a modified Ampeg V4, which originally was a bass amp and has a very deep sound, or with the modified Marshall 1959 head, or sometimes a Marshall Plexi amp from the studio. Another Mills cab was fed from the Diezel VH4, which we mostly use for clean sounds or highly distorted sounds. The Diezel is not the best amp for saturated mid–crunch sounds, but it’s very good for extremes. We also used the JMI Vox amp, and we had Fender combo–style amps, like the Super Reverb, plus a Watkins amp and a Selmer amp if we wanted to be a bit more experimental. We have not used many Fender amps in the past with Muse, so this was new."

pretty wide range of amps, man.... I suspect that sound may be the diezel having read this as its very compressed.... however I dunno what the mods on his plexis and ampeg are so it could be one of those too and the article ssays the diezel was for 'extreme' sounds and I don't know if they'd call that extreme. The article also states earlier that the psycho guitars are the original scratch tracks, so w/o knowing what amp(s) he had setup during the initial sessions I can't narrow the lsit. I am just pretty sure I am not hearing a Fender or JMI Vox AC30. Definitely Marshall/hi-gain camp. My selmer might get that sound as may the right WEM.... tough to say. Its a really distinctive tone, familiar yet unique in certain ways, man and I like it a lot, I just don't know how I would get it in the studio even with a pile of gear.... I think I could do it but I would have to experiment with everything for hours.

here's the article:

http://www.soundonsound.com/people/inside-track-muses-drones

EDIT:

wait, in the previous paragraph it mentions during the 1st week they only used a plexi, a VH4 and vintage voxes.... it also says they took 2 DIs, one dry and one with effects.... try a plexi model.... hmmm, so many things to try -- try whacking away at it with that sueprlead model 1st as I think it a tube amp but it could even have some crazy DI shit mixed in

I wasn't going to post on this because I am not a metal afficianado, but in my capacity as a recording engineer I think the most BROOTAL bass sound I ever put to tape was achieved with one of those little Steinberger basses with no headstock. That thing kicked like a mule just run direct with a little sansamp into an 1176. It was pure doom. Not sure how it would handle extreme downtuning, but the active electronics were great on it and it just had a pure thumping low, a little growl and super clear top that worked for that band. It just sounded unbelievably heavy. I coul be idealizing it in my head as I don't have a copy of that EP laying around, but I just remember wanting to headbang during playbacks, and the songs weren't that good LOL

the tele has a certain boat paddle chic that's not for everyone!

in general I agree with Boom's suggestion but let me start off by asking your age bracket? teen? young adult?

all music has some merits, well, most of it.... and as a player and writer you should listen to music you hate just to figure out what other people like about it and then assimilate those ideas. Playing music you dislike well is a challenge every musician should take on.

I was a strat man for decades, but I came around to the tele while recording an album with a nice Deluxe USA model available for some rhythm work and then started buying piles of them... I wound up with 2 in the end and I only have 1 strat left, so what's that tell you? But seriously, it depends what kinda music I'm playing.... plus the strat is a vastly superior mod platform to the tele.On the other hand, a well made tele is so tuning stable and just so satisfying out of the box. Who could pick?

black MIJ squire strat, looked just like this other than the rising sun sticker LOL

http://copywriters.co.uk/guitars/blq1.jpg

If the impedance is the same, I don't see it being a problem to have a guitar 410 and a bass 410 running into the same Head.

it might actually sound good! mismatching speakers and cabs is an old guitarist trick to make your live sound more '3D' -- just match the impedance and make sure the guitar cab hands about triple the wattage you are putting out since most guitar speakers don't have sturdy enough cones to handle large low frequency transients close to their wattage limit....

the DC30, as I said, is virtually the same amp as an AC30 on the top boost channel.... theyc an be made to sound VERY similar if you spend some time just with the amp getting to know the intricacies of the tone control interactions and how it responds to your picups... some of it will be in your playing, the ac30 is pretty sensitive to technique... just don't turn your effects on until you have the sound since Bellamy isn't using any drive stuff

he MADE them, I don't think he's still at it since the custom shop started doing decent reissues... I could be wrong. The '59 copy was a real 70s/80s phenomenon and 1 offs like Max made are very nice guitars. The top of the line Japanese knockoffs by Toai, Greco etc are excellent guitars too. Chinese stuff isn't even in the same league. Also, Gibson wasn't making a proper 59 style les paul during the high quality replica boom of my youth. They started to attempt it in the 80s, but only with limited runs and mixed quality... there are rumors they consulted the Japanese and some of the best American replica luthiers as they went on and eventually the R9 resulted and its been getting refined every year ever since. The current R9 is also a very good guitar, and it oughta be for the money.

But the replicas are fake, yes, but they are legitimately great, vintage guitars from an era when you couldn't get a true reissue from Gibson. The Chinese thing is different.

1) your EQ pedal is a buffer when bypassed unless its an old model, like pre-1980 stuff... your TC delay also has a buffered bypass mode, the 'trails' mode and the TC buffer is pretty good as far as affordable pedals with a buffer go

2) there's nothing wrong with it, I am merely suggesting you learn what your amp can do with nothing in line for a few weeks and then add your effects back in and make sure that you are able to get it to sound the same with your effects in line and if it doesn't figure out the culrpits and change your effects chain only once you know what the amp is really capable of on its own... not all buffers are created equal, none are truly transparent and you would know this if you understood what they do electronically and the reasons someone chooses to buffer their signal and where in the chain it should go to reap maximum benefit...

anyway, it just seems like you are not intimate with your amp and its a pretty good amp capable of a lot of great sounds without effects.... its just easier to build a relationship with your amp using only a cable for a little while, especially when its an amp as unique as the ac30. I know the Muse guy is a pretty big FX head, but he's got a good core tone and that's the basic building block you're seeking. The ac30 will do a lot of heavy lifting for you tonally if you figure out how to get the most out of her.