I rang the GAS bell today…want to see what I got?
That’s right, bitches, a POD HD500 and a Fender Blacktop baritone Telecaster. Rawk. \m/
This entry was written by , posted on April 10, 2012 at 8:15 pm, filed under geekery, guitar, music, recording, tech, Video and tagged baritone, blacktop, fender, guitar, hd500, line 6, music, pod, recording, telecaster, video, youtube. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Metal Shop Podcast is back! You thought is was dead, but as Tenacious D taught us, you can’t kill the metal.
This entry was written by , posted on April 1, 2012 at 9:43 pm, filed under music, podcasting, recording, tech, Video and tagged bass, drums, guitar, metal, music, podcasting, recording, video, youtube. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
In November 2011, I took a trip down to Doncaster, to play guitar, drink beer, eat unhealthy food and spend time with some of the best folk I know. Join me, won’t you?
This entry was written by , posted on March 23, 2012 at 8:36 pm, filed under guitar, music, Video and tagged Doncaster, guitar, ukmg, video, youtube. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s the deal- thanks to the overwhelming success of my ‘Siri Answers The Ultimate Question‘ video on YouTube, and YouTube inviting me into their video monetisation programme, I have managed to squirrel away a few quid.
Subsequently, I’m quite fancying getting a 27″ iMac. The only thing that’s holding me back now is- do I buy now or wait until the forthcoming Ivy Bridge model refresh?
This entry was written by , posted on February 18, 2012 at 4:28 pm, filed under apple, geekery, life, Mac, musings, tech and tagged apple, dilemma, firewire, iMac, Mac, OSX, presonus. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Today marks what would’ve been the 65th birthday of the late, great Freddie Mercury. Additionally, this November also marks twenty years since Freddie died, so this year is quite poignant for fans of rock’s greatest frontman.
In that vein, I’ve been thinking lately about what a modern-day version of 1992′s Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert would be like or, to be more specific, who would perform? Here are my thoughts, feel free to chime in with your own in the comments.
(more…)
This entry was written by , posted on September 5, 2011 at 5:36 pm, filed under music, musings and tagged Brian may, Freddie mercury, music, musings, queen, Roger Taylor. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
In the last few months, I’ve dabbled on and off with the excellent PC game Minecraft. Its world-generation system, which utilises strings of characters known as seeds to create the world in which you play, can throw up some fascinating results. Type in ‘glacier’ as your seed and you play in a gorgeous mountainous rainforest type setting. The seed ‘gargamel’ starts you off underground, and, if you’re playing on any difficulty other than Peaceful, you’ll invariably be getting your arse chewed off by zombies right from the get-go because of it. These ‘interesting’ seeds are highly sought after by the Minecraft community, and I’ve stumbled on another interesting one – ‘Deconstruction’. Yes, you have to capitalise the ‘D’. It matters, if you weren’t aware of that before.
So, I stuck ‘Deconstruction’ in as my seed (inspired by the mighty Devin Townsend’s newest album), and I discover the following…
This entry was written by , posted on August 21, 2011 at 7:34 pm, filed under gaming, geekery, minecraft and tagged gaming, minecraft, seeds. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Sorry folks, couldn’t get a song out this week. A combination of a lack of anything remotely decent coming out of my brain/fingers and work/personal-related stuff continually getting in the way put paid to any chance of me getting anything that wasn’t utter shite out there.
However, the objective remains the same – 52 songs in 52 weeks, and I’ll do some catching up on my two weeks off work at the start of March.
In the meantime, you can download an album I co-produced and co-engineered back in 2006 (95MB .zip file). The album is by a band called The Mocha Nights, who are, for all intents and purposes, no more.
My mate James did a new mix on the album to make it sound ‘massive and modern’. While it’s not the way I would’ve mixed it (and hopefully will mix it one day…I still have all the master multitracks on my hard drive….) it sounds great and I’m glad that the songs are out there again. This band should’ve been massive, but things didn’t go the way they perhaps should’ve.
This entry was written by , posted on January 30, 2011 at 7:34 pm, filed under 52 weeks of music, life, music, recording and tagged 52 weeks of music, music, recording, the mocha nights. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Song 3, after some teething troubles, is finally done. It’s called Complications, and it’s a lot shorter than the last song.
Download it HERE.
The song was based on an idea I was originally planning to do for Week 4, but I decided to use it for Week 3. Why?
Well, my original plan for this week was to revisit one of my old songs, Can You See Me?, but after programming the drums, putting down a bass part and having a play through on guitar, I decided I just wasn’t feeling it, and decided to use the new idea I’d put down on the Voice Memos app on my iPhone the night previous. And thus, Complications was born.
I could’ve quite easily made it longer – some sort of turnaround bridge section would’ve been nice, and maybe another verse and/or chorus could’ve been squeezed in, but in this case, I quite like it the way it is.
And yes, it’s not my best vocal performance. Been feeling very tired and under the weather today. 
Still, at least I’m maintaining my 100% strike rate. 
This entry was written by , posted on January 21, 2011 at 3:28 pm, filed under music, recording and tagged 52 weeks of music, guitar, music, recording, songwriting. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Hopefully this works properly – I’m posting this from my iPhone and subsequently have no way of knowing if the video embeds….
This entry was written by , posted on January 12, 2011 at 4:58 pm, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Well, here we are again, and after a few hours slaving over a hot DAW, I’m back with another all-new, all-original piece of music for your delectation.
This time, I’ve farted out a blatant Devin Townsend rip-off, all downtuning and delays and Lydian scales. The song is called Bring Me Home.
Download the song here – Bring Me Home
Some technical notes: this song uses my Yamaha RGX-420 Drop 6 baritone guitar, which is tuned down a fourth to B-E-A-D-F#-B as standard. Unfortunately, this required me to use my 5-string bass, which, to be frank, sounds a bit crap compared to my Ibanez 4-stringer. Anyone want to buy me a new 5-string bass?
Also, after polling for opinions on Twitter, I’m going to record a podcast where I talk about the songs and the recordings in a bit more detail. More on that when it’s done, hopefully later tonight. If not later tonight, then probably Saturday.
Anyway, enjoy the tunes, and be sure and tell yer pals!
This entry was written by , posted on January 11, 2011 at 5:25 pm, filed under 52 weeks of music, music, recording and tagged daw, guitar, music, podcast, pop, recording. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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