Don't Put It Off...Do It!

Hi guys. New to the forum... off the cuff question... i have a 25th anniversary custom 24 with 57/08 pickups. The brass on these pickups have faded somewhat... is this normal??? Got spots of silver come through and wondering about any fixes. Cheers in advance
 
Thanks for the nudge, Les. I have so much music rotting away on hard-drives. I used to worry that I would die and my music would be lost. These days I hardly think about it but seem to be heading back into a creative phase; which is odd. I'm exceptionally happy these days and my creative phases are typically reserved for long periods of solitude.


I enjoyed this tune (above), Les. I wouldn't even comment if I hadn't, if that gives you any confidence that I'm not just blowing up your skirt (not that blowing up skirts is a bad thing).

The "fretless bass" surprised me. It was convincing in the mix. Are you using a sampler?

https://soundcloud.com/lschefman/welcome-to-1982

This song is more what I expected by the description in your first post. But I enjoyed the first song more. In the same way chefs stray from safe food and usual flavors (presumably as a means to cure boredom), habitual musicians tend to stray from usual tones and chord progressions. In that regard, I'm guessing this song is more fulfilling for you to play than the first one.

I can't help but wonder how it would translate (as the listener) with a grand piano sample instead of the synth. I blame the first song for that. ;)

Thanks again for sharing.
 
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I enjoyed this tune (above), Les. I wouldn't even comment if I hadn't, if that gives you any confidence that I'm not just blowing up your skirt (not that blowing up skirts is a bad thing).

The "fretless bass" surprised me. It was convincing in the mix. Are you using a sampler?

Thanks! I hope to hear your work - pull it out of the vaults and get it out there!

The bass -- I used a sampler on that, which is unusual for me, because I can play bass. But I don't have a standup bass (or fretless), and I felt like that tune needed one. If memory serves, it was from a third party bass library that works with Native Instruments' Kontakt, which seems to be the most compatible software for third party samples. To give it a little more realism I used an SPL transient shaper so the attacks sound a little more natural - the idea is to have notes sound more like it's produced by fingers than keystrokes. I find with bass samples that when they have a player play a note to sample it, the player is naturally going to want to give the note a good pull so the tone is clear, etc. But when you play real bass with fingers, the attacks vary between notes, because our fingers don't do that, they pull a note differently with every stroke in sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle ways. So to vary how the notes are attacked when using samples gives them more realism.

I know that guys who make sample libraries will try to have the player vary the attack with different velocity levels, and different sample layers, but it still sounds stiff to me, so SPL makes a nice tool that allows me to get in there and add a little more realism here and there.

I probably also used a little parallel compression.

This tune was another one of those "period" pieces. I was thinking "cool" jazz, not bebop or other jazz styles. Stuff like that was coming out of CA and NY in the 60s. Pharaoh Sanders might have played on something in that style, though of course his work was much better. I wish I'd had a sax player for that one. I hate sax samples, so I won't use them. They're like guitar samples...they don't work at all.

This song is more what I expected by the description in your first post. But I enjoyed the first song more. In the same way chefs stray from safe food and usual flavors (presumably as a means to cure boredom), habitual musicians tend to stray from usual tones and chord progressions. In that regard, I'm guessing this song is more fulfilling for you to play than the first one.

I can't help but wonder how it would translate (as the listener) with a grand piano sample instead of the synth. I blame the first song for that. ;)

Well, that tune came about in a kind of weird way. I was playing around with one of the soft synths from Arturia that emulate the old analog synths, and found a patch that sounded a lot like the fusion that was coming out in the late 70s and early 80s, with one of the oscillators tuned a fifth higher than the other one. Hence the title, "Welcome to 1982." I really wanted to do an early 80s thing.

So I started tweaking the patch to be even more 80s, and began noodling around in that style. The noodling turned into kind of a melody, so I recorded it, and then decided to add bass and drums to finish it to have guys be able to play around on the Forum with it. Without the patch with the oscillators set to different frequencies, the melody would be pretty boring.

It's one of those things like a tune that sounds good on guitar, but falls flat on piano -I doubt it'd work with piano, but I'll give it a whirl and see.

The new stuff I'm working on isn't jazzy-1980s fusion, it's contemporary; some edgy, some ambient. I'll post some of it once I've registered the copyrights.

I appreciate the kind words, Hans!
 
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Great advice Les! Also I wouldn't mind trying to put something over those 2 tracks. It would do me some good creatively to work on something in that vein. I like both of them.
 
Funnily enough I just bought a maschine with the objective of trying to find a "fusion" approach to music. Even before I got it I could see this was serious musical instrument with all the effort that requires, but a ton of fun.
 
Great advice Les! Also I wouldn't mind trying to put something over those 2 tracks. It would do me some good creatively to work on something in that vein. I like both of them.

Thanks1 I will get them to you in the next couple of days. I will also have more modern longer-format electronic tracks soon, but I have to register the copyrights first.
 
Funnily enough I just bought a maschine with the objective of trying to find a "fusion" approach to music. Even before I got it I could see this was serious musical instrument with all the effort that requires, but a ton of fun.

Yup. Maschine is a very good piece of equipment. My business partner uses it a lot, and I got it for my son a few years ago for his birthday before he got back into the sort of hard rock he's doing now. I thought it was VERY cool.
 
https://m.soundcloud.com/lucent-dreamer/w-m-i-y-a
This is a great thread! With my dad passing last year and my sister in hospice, I'm realizing at 57 that life can pass you by if you're not careful. (Pink Floyd warned me about that in high school!) Your points are well taken my friend, and I recently developed numbness in my pinky that the doctor calls ulnar entrapment. So yes! Even though I'm no professional, I am grateful for having taken the time to record a few songs for the sheer pleasure of doing it. Here's an instrumental (I cant sing for crap) of a favorite song by Michael Gungor, recorded on my $35 music software, with a Motif synth and a PRS SE SC through a Digitech RP350. Low tech working man's gear, but what the heck, it was fun as all get out.
 
https://m.soundcloud.com/lucent-dreamer/w-m-i-y-a
This is a great thread! With my dad passing last year and my sister in hospice, I'm realizing at 57 that life can pass you by if you're not careful. (Pink Floyd warned me about that in high school!) Your points are well taken my friend, and I recently developed numbness in my pinky that the doctor calls ulnar entrapment. So yes! Even though I'm no professional, I am grateful for having taken the time to record a few songs for the sheer pleasure of doing it. Here's an instrumental (I cant sing for crap) of a favorite song by Michael Gungor, recorded on my $35 music software, with a Motif synth and a PRS SE SC through a Digitech RP350. Low tech working man's gear, but what the heck, it was fun as all get out.

Man, I enjoyed it! You did a great job. Very nice work indeed. You brought out emotion, the thing builds to a nice climax...very sweet.

Be careful with the ulnar nerve entrapment - looks like I'm having surgery for it in a few weeks. That's what's killing my 4th and 5th fingers, and weakening the small muscles in my hand. Eventually, if it progresses (which can happen quickly) it can screw up the muscles in your hand.
 
Thanks so much Les! I just saw the doc a couple weeks ago. I've been debating the surgery. I've still got the muscle strength but my accuracy suffers because I can't feel which string my pinky is on. I may get a chance in the near future to finally get a USA guitar, and if so, I'd like to be able to play it without waiting two months for recovery. I wish you all the best on your surgery brother. I've heard it can help greatly if it goes well. I pray that's the case for you as well.
 
I used to dabble with house music (still love it) with a DJ friend of mine stage name "Jon the Dentist". He had a full blown studio with something like six synths, drum machines etc, all running through CuBase. After he closed the studio I carried on for a while at home with Cubase and one synth. I found Cubase hard work without lots of synths plugged in and got introduced to Reason. I could program Reason completely by hand without synth input and did so for a while but lost interest a bit when I rekindled my love of the guitar. I still use the Reason drum machines and the odd bass line when I'm practising guitar.
 
So my wife reminded me of this on the weekend. I was sitting playing and when I finished a piece she said "Are you going to remember that one?"
I said "I don't know. Should I?"
She said "Yes. It's nice"
Yesterday I thought I would try it again. I remembered the general idea I started with, but not at all what I did with it.
 
Thanks so much Les! I just saw the doc a couple weeks ago. I've been debating the surgery. I've still got the muscle strength but my accuracy suffers because I can't feel which string my pinky is on. I may get a chance in the near future to finally get a USA guitar, and if so, I'd like to be able to play it without waiting two months for recovery. I wish you all the best on your surgery brother. I've heard it can help greatly if it goes well. I pray that's the case for you as well.

I'm only getting the surgery because the other fingers started going all rubbery on me, and I got to the point where some days I can't even do a cowboy chord. Also, the 4th and 5th fingers started curling toward the palm of my hand. So it's Stage 3, which means you're in trouble if you don't do the surgery. There are more conservative treatments if you're not at Stage 3, I'm told.
 
So my wife reminded me of this on the weekend. I was sitting playing and when I finished a piece she said "Are you going to remember that one?"
I said "I don't know. Should I?"
She said "Yes. It's nice"
Yesterday I thought I would try it again. I remembered the general idea I started with, but not at all what I did with it.

Ya gotta record a good idea while you still have it!
 
I used to dabble with house music (still love it) with a DJ friend of mine stage name "Jon the Dentist". He had a full blown studio with something like six synths, drum machines etc, all running through CuBase. After he closed the studio I carried on for a while at home with Cubase and one synth. I found Cubase hard work without lots of synths plugged in and got introduced to Reason. I could program Reason completely by hand without synth input and did so for a while but lost interest a bit when I rekindled my love of the guitar. I still use the Reason drum machines and the odd bass line when I'm practising guitar.

My partner uses Cubase, I use Logic, but they're very similar. I did use Reason in conjunction with Digital Performer when it first came out, back around 2000 until I got Logic - you could run them both at the same time via a link between the DAWs, and get the benefits of both. Reason's cool. Being a keyboard player by training, it really doesn't matter for me which DAW I use.
 
Ya................. Let us know what the kid says when you tell him that your internet buddies had to point out that the pretty girl was a real movie star.:D

I told him, he just laughed and reminded me that I need to get out of the studio more. ;)

When the Oscars were on I was reading a book, and my wife said, "Check this out!" Sure enough, there was that gorgeous woman and Jared Leto. Jamie's still close with the 30 STM guys, so I thought that was pretty cool.
 
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