nickgrooves's forum posts 170

You mentioned it before this thread began, yes.

EB needs a "like" button. Or the FB API (?)

Oh, I believe you! I'm no stranger to re-purposing empty containers. And guess what my parents got me for my birthday this year ... no joke ... two metal tins and two wooden cigar boxes, all empty. LOL

So I take it the song's OK when measured by your yardstick.

Honestly, I haven't taken much of a look at it. Seemed like a few heads were involved, so I glossed over the thread for any quick helps I could offer. Hence the 7b5 business. I will take a much closer look at it, over the next couple weeks as time allows, and then lay down some piano thoughts. The first few bars of lyrics I saw were very nice though!

I just felt really good about this when the ideas to tie it up came t me this week... yes, while vacuuming my house.

You may be surprised to know how many musical epiphanies I've had over the last 20 years whilst mowing the lawn or vacuuming. I call it "The Mantra Effect." :)

70s Gibson T-Top humbuckers sound really good driving a vox you know...

So do DiMarzio Air Nortons, IMHO :)

can I con you into playing a piano line for this song?

Consider it done, but not for a couple weeks at the earliest.

I think whomever won this giveaway should be required to contribute to Jimbo's songwriting collaboration project (see the much more recent thread).

Keep it in the family, ya know. My 2¢

a-cha! a-cha! Now I see ...

Thank you, sir.

Either way, it was an old cable and no one uses it anymore.

I love simple solutions such as this :D

Oh how I miss my college days.

Have not changed the pres yet ... I like to discuss online and sleep on it for a week or two before buying parts.

I thought I saw Narcist say something about not being familiar with 7b5 chords ... eh well maybe some of these youngsters will learn something new! If not, then at least maybe EB will get some SEO points.

Tritones...devil's interval...it's true, sadly but only in the early years. Classical music underwent many changes and luckily that devil business didn't last very long.

Cheers! haha. The ending of that song is the masterpiece. I also like what happened to the harmonies on "for a pile of coal" it sounds so dark, then "sell their soul" just comes out carrying that emotion... too bad I couldn't get the entire song to work that magically.

Re: the 7b5 chord variant, for those unfamiliar, I mostly use it as a passing chord, often handy between two chords which are a whole-step apart. For example, C to Dm or F to G ...

C7 -- C#m 7b5 -- Dm7 ......... [or] .......... F -- F#7b5 -- G7

Both of these examples have good common tones, tight movements, voice leading ... half steps motion:

C, E, G,Bb

C#,E,G,B

D, F, A, C

F, A, C, F

F#,A#,C,E

G,B,D,F

Lots of decent threads elsewhere online about how to utilize these chords in various genres. Most common I have seen are Jazz, followed by Blues, and then Classical (often respelled as #4#6) but even Pop artists sometimes do it - usually by accident! ;)

Haha, yeah. I guess I just don't like to have people waiting until I get something done.

You will go very far in Life, young padawan.

Also, damn, most people are a lot older than I expected. Jim's a dad, Nick looks to be in his early 30's, I'm sure the admins are college graduates since they made this site so well, and I'm a college freshy... Better keep practising.

Don't have to be old to be a dad, but good eyes. I am indeed in my early 30s. Thanks for saying that is old :) Enjoy your 20s. They will pass by extremely quickly. I am also a dad, FWIW.

Do you write decent lyrics? I find it to be a struggle to even get to a rough draft... I am stuck right now. ugh.

I think that is a question you have to answer yourself, eye of the beholder and all that. I believe the answer is "yes" though, based on customer feedback over the years :)

It's different for everyone and it's different from song to song. Sometimes lyrics come to me a few lines at a time, over weeks or months. Sometimes the whole song flows in 3-4 minutes as I play the chords. Sometimes if I have writer's block it helps to play a different instrument (like maybe sit down at the piano for a minute). Sometimes I have an agenda, like "I'm going to write a song about the coal industry in West Virginia" and I work at it, and maybe it's decent or maybe not ... http://nicke.bandcamp.com/track/500-mountains

by the way, you look exactly how I expected you to in that TON user pic

Maybe because I have a user pic here, too? ;) j/k. Thanks.

As a Jewish man, and friend of many Jewish men, I have no idea what you are talking about ...

Neil Gaiman (spelled wrong?) created Sandman didn't he? Major book, won lots of awards, just released the 25th anniversary omnibus. No idea who Wesley Dodds is ... will have to Google that I suppose.

I love the idea of Jewish comic heroes and all that. I've got a few books myself. Just wondering how and at what point it was determined that Flash, Batwoman, etc. are Jewish. Would love to get a copy of the issue where they light their Hanukkah menorah for my son to read.

Since I've never had this issue before with this amp, and not in this location until just very recently, and even then only a couple times in the past three months, it feels unlikely that it's a wiring issue (which has been unchanged since it's purchase years ago). But what do I know. Seriously, I'm not an amp head or even a gear head like most folks here. Just a logical fellow.

I am of the belief that something changed to cause this new effect. But I appreciate all the suggestions and I will give them some more serious consideration before total dismissal :)

Check out http://TribeOfNoise.com/Nick

(the entire site is founded on the mission you describe)

or if you want to make it an EB thing, that's cool, I am on T.O.N. so clearly I'm game for collabs

Year-end giving option, music camp for teens (songwriting and recording camp):

http://bit.ly/JudaicMosaic

Full disclosure, I am the executive director of this camp, however we are all volunteer staff (the money isn't going into my pockets). Also, we are fiscally sponsored by a registered non-profit, so the tax deduction is 100% and totally legit.

I think it's because I need a new pre-amp tube but, just to be certain ...

Why is the little Fender [tube] amp in my lessons studio transmitting radio signal? It is random, and infrequent, and I think a localized signal (like from 100 ft or so away) because when there's no radio, I still get lots of hum and noise (more than usual). The latter seems to be from my iPhone.

yes, when I move farther away from the amp and/or direct my pickups away the hum decreases but the radio broadcast was unaffected

yes, I know if I switch to a two-coil combo or a humbucker pickup the noise will decrease

yes, I know about the electrical hum from light fixtures and such; this is not that

yes, I know about 60-cycle hum; this is not that

T.I.A. ;)

Perhaps warm was the wrong word. Room temperature? Similar to the proper temperature of a red wine? It was definitely not cold, on purpose. This is quite normal everywhere else in the world except USA where we need "ice-cold Miller light from the snow capped mountains of the Coors Rockies" garbage. I think the warmer (more accurate?) temperature allows the flavors of the ale to shine? I am not an expert just an enthusiast. The ale I had was not Fosters, nor was it expensive compared to USA prices. Although, London was much more expensive overall than our other European city stops.

I managed to find a pub (OK, we don't have real pubs, but this place is pretty close to a real British pub) in Atlanta that serves a revolving menu of craft ales at the proper - not ice cold - temperature. They had something called Old Rasputin. Don't remember the maker but it was mighty delicious. Next time I go, I'll snap a photo of the beer list for ya. Cheers!

oh and about the monarchs, for me it's the bigger picture - the castles and the knights and the nationalism and the architecture and city planning. You just sense a heavy weight of history that predates any of the modern 20th century crap like our horrible world wars and Nazis (believe me, I am not a fan). Just a beautiful city that simply can not exist here in the US because it demands a heavy hand of government to create such grand arches and squares and such. We Americans have Washington D.C. and that's about it. We have tall skyscrapers and skylines, which London seemed to lack a bit. Maybe I'm not being clear, it is quite late (early?) here. But it felt different. Old. Like James Bond. There's a cool factor there, which is much bigger than the individuals themselves (kings and queens; James Bond is cool always).

I am still waiting for a famous musician to do a demo video of "a cheap $200 guitar." Are these guys famous musicians? I don't think so ... maybe I'm wrong. I do not consider "youtube stars" to be famous musicians. I am thinking of people like Eric Johnson, Robben Ford, Steve Vai, or ... ugh this is difficult to type .. Joe Bonnamassa (sp?).

Here's a thought: EB pays (in this hypothetical scenario) a monthly license fee to either Getty Images or AP. Before you click away or chuckle, consider this would be no less fair/logical than all the small-to-midsize clubs, bars, and restaurants around the country who pay license fees to BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC for the right to blast radio and hire live musicians to entertain their patrons. Incidentally, BMI does pass some of those fees onto the performers as "live performance royalty" even though it's not very much. I don't know if ASCAP or SESAC do this. They probably do. They definitely should.

WTF seriously?

Sorry I let this thread go necro. That was not my intent. I am aware of the difference between isolation and conditioning ... but thanks for posting as I'm sure other readers may not be aware and it's an important distinction to make!

There are some acoustic ceiling tiles, for drop ceilings, and other products, that are for isolation purposes, but for true soundproofing you do need structural changes. I thought I had already clarified that my goal is not soundproofing. I believe my original post called for "insulating" ... and baffling ... in other words, sound muffling / dampening / volume lowering.

The room is working for me as Jimbo said. The Auralex tiles, to be quite honest, are more for appearance than anything else. The room sounded fine before, but having foam tiles on the walls makes it look "like a real studio" instead of well, you know, a regular room. That and all the music gear helps, too :P

Also worth reminding, as previously mentioned, this studio is more of a lessons studio and less of a recording studio. Demo recordings, some light rehearsals maybe, but mostly lessons and even some administrative work on the computer. I may do some mixing work. Definitely a ton of charts, arrangements, etc. Never going to be multi-tracking or even attempting a commercial-quality production.

Regarding the rental of space versus having your own, when it comes to lessons (and I've taught in many lessons studios over the years) this place is just as good if not better. Most lesson studios are the back room of a store, or a hallway of rooms, or both, and have zero isolation. At least my room has some isolation. Honestly, it's kinda perfect for what I need.

Current short-term goals:

• build a shelf to get cases off the floor/out of the corner
• unpack and display various action figures, chatchkeys, and other stuff to make the space more personal

I think this has started to go from friendly sleepover party in comics pajamas to Yuppies arguing in line at Starbucks. Let's take a breath and remember we are all friends :)

Also, matzoh woman? WTF. I can't imagine what power(s?) she could possibly have. That's a horrible, horrible name for a superhero. Wow. Just, face palm!

There have been many, many [successful, i.o. Marvel and DC] Jewish comic book authors, ink men, etc. But I do not recall reading anything about such religious persuasions on the actual pages themselves. Clearly I have not read enough books? Thought I was a big Flash fan, but did not realize Barry Allen was mispucha. And Batwoman, that's another surprise.

How can Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" character be Jewish? isn't he an eternal? They don't have religion, do they? So are you just making this list based on the comic creators? Because if that's your method, I think your list is way too short ...

1) That wolf Alice chick is stuck in the middle because she needs more stage presence and better vocals. Her guitar playing is fine for pop, although nothing special if judged solely on that video performance (even for the part she's playing, it could be executed better). She has a nice voice but she's only singing like 3-4 notes the entire song. Step out a bit, get into it more.

2) UK is a beautiful country. I used to think the monarchy stuff was dumb, and then I found myself in London, and loving it so much. I'm not saying I am having dreams of kings and queens or anything, but damn it was an amazing city. Covent Garden is getting more and more touristy by the day. Leicester Square is the original Times Square apparently, yeah. NYC has nothing on London. Sad but true. I found myself wishing I could stay a bit longer.

3) Best beer I've ever had in my entire life (early 30s) was a warm - yes, warm - ale and hot pie. Don't mock it until you've had it. Why we Americans drink cold beer is beyond my comprehension. All beer should be a pint of warm ale.

MAZEL-TOV!

I'm in all caps mode tonight. Makin' it rain caps! Seriously though, congrats on your son's birth. Treasure every moment. Stop going online and stare at your son again! I know you just saw him, but they grow up so fast man ... Mine is about 2.5 years old now and my memory is already starting to fade on his infant days.

• TAKE VIDEO, pics are good but video is awesome and so easy now • give the camera to someone else so you can BE IN THE VIDEO/PICS and also, yeah, enjoy the moment / live in the moment

Talking of imagine dragons, who's seen their rig rundown.

I laughed, and felt jealous, and outdone for hours after that; he changes his bloody tubes EVERY GIG, his gold plated guitar has a built in carbon copy, and two other effects I can't remember, and he does little more than basic rhythm playing, and crappy leads.

There are amazing artists out there playing with just the bare bones, and these nutter needs all the ridiculous stuff in his video.

I don't know if it's this rig rundown where he the guitarist says he uses a friedman, to get "that real gritty marshall tone". USE A MARHSALL!!! There are some hilarious moments in our little sub-culture of guitarness.

A - F'ing - MEN

I am not saying ANYTHING, though the surprises were all predictable.... but so were the surprises in Empire Strikes Back, that's part of the Star Wars ethos. This was a worthy successor to the first trilogy I grew up with.

[SPOILER ... SPOILER ... YOU SHOULD STOP READING NOW... ]

Probably because it's almost a carbon copy. I definitely enjoyed the film. I'm not saying anything negative about it. But let's be honest, there was SO much ... borrowed. SO many scenes/camera shots/transitions identical to IV-V-VI, clearly the '70s vintage style. The funny thing was how they broke Luke's character into three different people:

• Ray's character to kid Anakin/Luke, growing up poor in white rags on a desert planet scrapping old ship parts for food (they couldn't find her a different costume? and did I see tuscan raiders? but we aren't on Tatooine...)
• Poe is Luke the pilot, even had the same suicide run down that narrow corridor to fly into the ship and fire the winning shot (this scene was a combo of Luke's "swamp rat" shot and Anakin's scene flying that bright yellow ship around the cargo bay)
• Fn ("Finn") is Luke the hero, emotionally head-strong charging into battle despite being less-skilled, inexperienced, and having no real plan of attack
• our hero (FN) ends up on a medical bed in white cloth robe with the heroine at his bedside (again, Luke)

There were so many other "borrowed" scenes and stuff:

• total cantina band scene ripoff, down to the fat Jabba-esque lounging dude and his slave girl
• the rebel pilots saying goodbyes and getting into their X-wings, remember that scene with Luke and Han? mm hmm same scene and even the other pilots had same alien faces and same helmet assortment and jump suits and everything. Leia's control room was the same. It's like they never left the set of Episode VI (maybe for continuity?)
• Han's last scene with the big bad takes place in - you guessed it - the abandoned death star way high up on a narrow utility bridge/catwalk, and of course there's the epic fall into abyss

The only thing I was hoping they'd reuse was the music, but they actually didn't. Not really. Much more original score, I think, than what I've heard other trilogies regurgitate. It was beautiful (again, not negative) but I kinda missed the classic character themes. I did notice one similar theme ... from Episodes I-II-III ... the Anakin / Padme love theme! It came back. I don't remember exactly which scene, but I totally heard it at least twice in Force Awakens. That was a shocker because I remember it getting not-so-rave fan reviews.

... There's so much you can with an instrument, but when you limit yourself... you're just as bad as these guys, except they care...

I may need to frame this and hang it on the wall. Or at least make a meme (sp?) and post on facebook. Yes, I purposefully did not capitalize facebook. It doesn't deserve the caps IMHO :P

That's the second brilliant post you've made on this thread, old friend. I'm clapping.

Well, what I'm hearing is the same thing I hear when I plug straight into my bluesy Fender amp. At a high amp volume (knobs at 5 or better) when you're strumming hard on that bridge pickup you get a fat, slightly "dirty" amp tone. When he steps on that compressor it's like he rolled the volume down just a little and got that clean tone. Sounds like he is picking more gently too, on that chord arpeggio. So just sending a gentler signal to those pickups and using good old fashioned dynamics. The compressor is probably helping to keep the pickups from peaking and breaking up the amp. I dunno that's the only explanation that makes sense.

Go to any blues club you'll see guys rolling their volume knobs down to play clean and then rolling up to 10 for a dirty solo. Breaking up the amp.

My favorite takeaway from that video clip is the script phaser. I have that exact same pedal, but I rarely ever use it. Now I saw that, makes me wanna use it more often. He says he uses it on "almost every solo" ... find that hard to believe and yet his FX blend knob is really far down whereas mine is pretty high. I bet if I rolled my knob way down to 2 or 3 it would probably sound great on all my solos too ;)

I freaking LOVE the fact that there is a remote control option (for an additional $1,000 ... because remote controls are expensive hardware ...) you know in case you are too friggin lazy to turn the dials. Or in the case of Metallica, have your guitar tech turn dials on your behalf.

What a joke.

Oh yeah I watched that source video, too. Good production quality but that guy is a funny cat man. He's spent all that money on two of these fancy heads, and he is using the ... wait for it ... Behringer preset? Really? hmm. OK sure man. But wait, it gets better ... he is using the Ibanez wah preset. WTF why would you pay so much money for these heads and then use low-budget preset tones.

I also don't understand why he's got both of them powered on. The whole point of having a backup is in case your main one fails or burns out or gets damaged. If your backup is powered on the same number of hours, right next to the main head, then if anything happens to the main head (like a power surge or something falling on it) chances are high your backup will be screwed as well. Better off putting your backup in a safe storage location in your rack or backstage, powered OFF, so the circuit / software lifespan isn't being wasted.

I used one here, sort of (Catalinbread Heliotrope is more than just a ring modulator but basically that's what it does):

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tower-pound-king-offa/id547540765?i=547540953

(you can hear it in the preview without purchasing ...)

a) From what I know about the Pitchfork, for most of the sounds he demos, no ... IMHO the Digitech Whammy (the red one made famous by Joe Satriani and other big players in the mid-late 90s) is still on top.

b) The intro song is Boston's "More Than A Feeling" ... there are a couple other moments of classic rock hits but a lot of what he's doing is just random chords and scales noodling.

Real estate is limited. Choose wisely my friend.

I have read about buffers and watched a youtube video on buffers in pedal chains and I'm still not entirely clear on what they do. Funny thing is, until recently (last six months?) I'd never even heard the term used in guitar rigs (only computer circuitry talk; my dad was a big-deal electrical engineer back in the days of hardware). Anyway ... best I can tell you don't need a buffer if you are only using a few pedals. It seems the folks who need buffer pedals are folks who have tons of pedals. I'm not saying that because of this thread. I'm saying it based upon what I've seen and read online, and again, not really being sure about their purpose. It seems a lot of folks who have buffers aren't really sure either they just heard they needed it and bought one.

I'm hoping Jimbo chimes in with a highly educational post but since he kind of already explained it a little here, it may not help folks like yours truly.

Well, I got some Auralex foam on the walls now. Looking like an actual musician's lair.

Vox is pretty great, but they do not "rule" haha ;)

um, how are those cables coming? I ended up doing my main pedalboard with cables I had already, tweaking them and the connectors a bit. Too many gigs were upcoming and I just couldn't wait. Which is totally fine. Secondary pedal board still needs some TLC though so ... ETA?

I agree with you, but I've also never seen a famous person holding a "junk $200 guitar"

Wow, those are some theories and rumors indeed ... not sure what to make of "Batman V: Sup..." versus "Batman VS Superman" ... not sure I agree with the logic on that one.