MUSIKA

Hello Blogateers - long time no post!  Just thought I jot down some quick notes on the start of a new music project. 

I met up with songwriter Stuart in the summer and I liked what he was doing even if was a bit outside my usual box.  I elected to play bass on this project thinking that was what was needed to take things forward. But I had a lot on, holiday and domestically wise, so we agreed to meet up in the autumn to commence work on a project to record a set of Stuart's songs and possibly gig it.  The initial session in September confirmed my view the material was good and I found I was quite enjoying playing bass again after a few decades on guitar.  First we set about documenting the arrangements and then I produced a test demo showing the potential but with me drumming and playing the solo parts on Mellotron and guitar:

Unashamed - Rough Demo

Although we talked about playing and gigging it as a duo,  it was clear percussion would be the best initial addition so I asked local drummer Ian if he would be up for drumming on the project.  He came along to try out and we were pleased to sign him up for the band:  now named MUSIKA.  After a few Monday night practice sessions we are starting to gel and are currently about halfway through learning the set.  Here's a snapshot of one under construction!

MUSIKA - I Dont Know - try out

We are going to add some vocal arrangements and try to get the band working as a three piece.  But we do remain open to the idea of a 4th member to add another voice and instrumentation:  ideally a multi instrumentalist playing at least a couple of these:  violin, sax,  flute and keys. 

Hopefully we'll reach our target of set completion by Christmas - but there is no time pressure at the mo' so we can try and build quality rather than quantity!

Raye Duval

Old friend,  drummer and bandleader Raye Duval passed away on 4th July 2017;  closing a big chapter in my life as a member of  "The Checkmates".

I put together this little video tribute to Raye of our last performance at the Borderline Soho in 2015.  The last couple of song clips are poignant given he passed away early in the morning.  No doubt he is starting to rock in that great gig in the sky with all the other rock and roll legends who made it there before him - cheers Raye and many thanks for the opportunity!

Raye at the Borderline

Passing Along The Horizon

A long time since the last post, I've been kept busy with grandsons and non-music activities! 

But I have been tinkering along with the demo below for a few weeks now. I must admit to using preset midi drum parts for most of the rhythm on this one,  but I played and sang the rest myself.  I'm happy with the arrangement and backing and just need to re-do the ragged vocals - but that will take a while so in case you blogateers can't wait here is the first demo of "Passing Along The Horizon"!

Passing Along Horizon

Not a song about love but it fits into the tale of the Garon's Daughter somewhere!

Dan's Les Paul

Last time Dan was over in UK he left his Les Paul with me on long term loan.  I offered to refurb it and then promptly left it for several months until I had a quiet day. 

I had already identified it as a mid 1970's version made in Gibson's Nashville plant.  The late 60's through to the late 70's were the heyday of the Les Paul, particularly in blues and rock and this guitar was typical of those times being very heavy,  having a very high output with bags of sustain and a fast low action: ideal for lengthy blues solos with lots of notes in!  It's in pretty good condition with only a few dings in the body,  but it crackled quite a lot when I plugged it in.  So I sprayed the electrics with 'Funk Out',  changed the strings,  adjusted the pickups and bridge to get a more even sound across the strings, cleaned the body and lemon oiled the fingerboard.  It felt and smelt good!

Plugging it in I noticed that thinner jack plugs made a poor connection the guitar's jack socket.  I would have adjusted the jack socket contacts but it's sealed up in a tin can to minimise hum,  so I settled for more 'funk out' and used a 'Planet Waves' lead with expanding contacts on the plug.  It was time to test it.

First test was on the neck pick up playing a shadows number - not a guitar I would normally pick for this job with its beefy humbucker sound,  but I thought it sounded quite good in this demo.

Gibson WondLand

Next up I tried the bridge pick up on a 60's song - the compressed Les Paul sound quite suited this I thought.

Gibson YouNoGood

In conclusion I must say I was quite pleased with the playability and sustain,  The sound is OK but I still prefer a single coil over a humbucker for clean sounds.   But I soon became weary of toting this guitar's weight -  alright when you are a muscular young rock god,  but very wearing for an old, easy listening player such as myself! 

Circular Peter Revisited

I have always been a big fan of the Mellotron and was about to buy one in the mid 70's when the first string synthesizers were invented -  at the time I settled for an Elka Rhapsody rather than a Mellotron:  good decision in view of the cost and unreliability of the Mellotron then.  Cue 40 odd years later and the solid state Melly is much more affordable!   So I have fulfilled a long held ambition and taken delivery of a Mellotron rack since the last blog.

That's an old MicroKorg keyboard on top that I picked up second hand to drive it.

Sitting quietly nursing a return to health after my latest sniffy cold gift from grandsons,  I resolved to re-visit the first demo of Circular Peter and try out the new Mellotron on it.  I wasn't in any shape to re-record any vocals or instrument tracks so the only thing new would be to add Mellotron strings and bells and then remix.  I re-arranged to shorten the song and conceived a Mellotronic doorbell sound to open proceedings followed by an acoustic verse before the band came in.  I made changes in the original demo clips and tracks in Cakewalk Sonar to arrive at the new arrangement.  If you listen carefully you can hear the "join" here and there as I cut and pasted the original recording around.  But overall I thought it was fit for demo purpose!

Then I recorded the Mellotron strings and bell parts and set about the remix.  The remix was very difficult.  I tried stereo this time but the original recordings are sufficiently flawed to make it all a frustrating compromise.  I had to remind myself that 'one day' I would attempt to record it for real (probably) using hired in musos.  But,  in the end,  I settled for the remix at the following link.

circular-peter-final-stereo-demo

Conclusion:  The Mellotron certainly cuts through the mix - I bet it would be great in a live context,  just need to find or put together a band sympathetic to the moody Melly sound.  Time to move onto the next song in the project I think!

Circular Peter

Been suffering from yet another cold and took a couple of days rest from work etc.  But,  rather than take to my bed,  I couldn't resist playing around with another song resurrection from the  previously mentioned "Bringing It All Back Up" album produced in 1970 on reel to reel tape.  Listening to the original of "Circular Peter" the words were clearly a bit of doggerel that had not really been completed properly and it only lasted a minute and a half?  However,  I thought the tune was interesting and some of the words were relevant to the new work "The Garon's Daughter",  so I thought I would add the extra verses and make a full song of it.

The ambition remained to produce to demo standard in Cakewalk Sonar - I wouldn't be spending too much time tracking the backing. 

I started with an acoustic guitar track - once again on the Takamine.  I recorded this to a click track so the timing was available for added midi tracks. 

Then I added bass using Dan's 1970's Jazz bass.  I played this live and it is a bit on the loose side despite several takes at it.

The hardest bit was doing the strange drumming.  I tried various techniques playing live but they all suffered from lack of consistency and my limited drumming ability.  In the end I settled for laying down the key percussion phrases in midi using Yamaha DD65 drum machine pads and quantizing for tight feel - too tight really but it adds character against the loose bass line!

I then added various guitar parts using my PRS and Rickenbacker 12 strings.  I am trying to limit guitar parts in the resurrection project to 12 string only to build a characteristic style to the project.

Then, using a guitar driving my EHX Mel 9, I was able to add Mellotron type string parts played on guitar.  This worked better than I expected giving the slow attack and quick release character of a Mellotron.  Playing it live into the track no keyboard skills and midi needed on this occasion.

I did several sessions to track the vocals and post process them for a weird choral sound in the choruses.  I took a decision early on to build the song from a basic band with one voice start to a full sounding finale.  The only problem with this is the first 3 minutes are relatively simple - telling a story of unrequited love of sorts and most of the sound production is in the last minute.  I did toy with the idea of starting it with just guitar and vocal to give even more dynamic contrast between beginning and end but couldn't find a way of convincingly bringing in bass and drums without re-recording the start of those instruments.  Might well do that on a properly produced version however. 

So its well worth listening to the end even if you don't care for the beginning blogateers!  Final mix of the demo was mono and set at a conservative level.  If you are up for it,  follow the link below and have a listen  -  wishing a merry Xmas to all you Blogettes and Blogateers out there (not with this song though!)

Circular Peter Mono Demo

Los Tres Amigos at The Oxford Totterdown Bristol

Jacqui and I had planned to take a week off to progress through market towns and small cities in the west of England when my brother in law suggested we also call into Bristol and make an appearance at an open mic night along with his son in law Simon.  Bring a guitar he said!  Our trio (later to be known as Los Tres Amigos) would be me on guitar,  Roy on harmonica and Simon on vocals;  and would do a few blues numbers. Ok I said and I packed my old stage Godin XTSA and the small Vox Valvetronix I had used at a previous gig in Bristol.  Then the news came though that we would probably play through the house PA and an amp wouldn't be needed - I thought I'd leave it in the car anyway!  So now I would need a guitar FX unit.  I opted to pack my 'spare' Boss GP 10 in a haversack.  I had used this on my last Checkmates appearance where carrying stuff on public transport was a prime consideration.   

Jacqui and I had an enjoyable few days taking in Worcester and Tewksbury before driving the 50 miles to Bristol, partly through the scenic Malvern hills.  We arrived at Roy and Ann's house and enjoyed a jolly good feed and aperitif before setting off in the luxury of a taxi the 5 miles or so to Totterdown.  Here we met up with Simon and our nieces Jo and Sian and enjoyed a beer or two watching a variety of other 'turns'. Mostly singer/acoustic guitarists,  but one was a mobile phone percussion player!   Our spot came up at 10:15pm and I plugged into the house pa,  did a quick tune up,  set the sound on the GP10 and gave the OK to Simon.  At the last minute Simon had elected to start with "Brown Eyed Girl" and Roy thought that wouldn't need harp,  so it was just the two of us.  I started the opening riff but Simon missed the cue and asked me to go round again which I did with mixed fingers (not having played it for a while).  This time he came in OK and we romped though the first couple of verses in good order,  when it suddenly dawned on me I was expected to join in on the 'sha la la 's in the chorus.  Not having sung for a while I plunged in with a falsetto over Simon's line which seemed to work - good job 'cos it was the best I could do on the night.  Then the next problem loomed -  the bass solo!!  At the last second I elected to play the chords rhythmically  rather than pick out the bass notes.  It worked well and I was able to finely cue Simon into the last verse.  We finished to good applause and Roy came up with his harp.  I switched the guitar sound to a bit of crunch and we did "Hoochie Coochie Man and Folsom Brison Blues"  Took a bit of getting used to without drums and bass but both were well received.  A rough phone vid of a little of each of these was taken and are presented here for Blogateer and Blogette consumption:

Hoochie Coochie

Folsom


After we finished I was delighted to find out performers had a free beer so it was approaching midnight as we left to get the bus home -  but a taxi came by and we were able to hail that.  Another beer back at base ended a jolly fine night.

Comparing Sonar Backing Tracks with Merish

Hello Blogateers.  Sorry for the long absence I have been busy with a new music project (more on that later)

I have about finished the project to set up backing tracks for cover band duties and thought I'd like to compare the results of the two players  Cakewalk Sonar and the Merish 3 player.  We have two short videos here which illustrate the outcome:

Beautiful Woman Sonar


Beautiful Woman Merish


They are very similar but I think Sonar just edges it.  I'd be happy to gig with either but the Merish is easier to handle in a live situation.  It's also more flexible in that if you have a bassist or a drummer available you can switch that track out to let the live person play that part! 

I'll use either to keep my hand in doing home practice so now its time to move onto the next challenge!

Many decades ago I set about producing my own popera,  with a story,  music and film in mind as the end game.  Very ambitious and unlikely to be ever realised! But I thought I'd have a go at the music while my fingers still work.  I have rescued from an old reel to reel recording a very poor digital rendition of songs that were originally recorded in the early 1970s by me,  Dan Woodman and another flatmate or two who's names escape me for now.  With a very poor signal to noise ratio and a very contracted bandwidth the original recordings are not at all listenable but I can hear the songs just enough to work out the words and arrangements.   So my initial aim is simply to produce some demos capturing the original flavour of the songs.  I can then maybe then go on to review,  rearrange and produce the songs to the best of my ability in a more contemporary style.

Although I have been very busy with family duties this Summer I found enough time on a couple of wet days to pilot the project with a new recording of one of the songs called "Cracking Fingers".  I laid down a Takamine 12 string guitar track as the basis,  then added a bass line using Dan's Fender Jazz.  I did try using drum patterns but ended up laying down a live and loose drum track on my Roland TDK kit.  A couple of vocal lines,  some bells and special cracking effects later,  I had a loose but listenable demo that does indeed capture the flavour of the original.  

I have set up a SoundCloud account under the name Mr Mog to drop the finished products into and, risking some credibility, I offer a link to the SoundCloud recording here - enjoy?

Soundcloud: Cracking Fingers

EHX Mel 9 Mellotron Pedal Test

I was looking around for a Mellotron sound for a recording project and this little Electro Harmonix Mel 9 FX pedal popped up as an advert in the browser.  The brilliant thing is you just plug the guitar in,  no midi pick up needed,  so could this be an easy win to replace my midi pick up driven strings in my live set up?  Not too expensive so I thought I'd give it a go.

I tried setting it up by sending an aux signal from my FX unit to the Mel 9,  but it didn't drive the Mel 9 too well.  But I got a really good result by plugging guitar straight into the Mel 9 and taking its dry output into my FX pedal. A credit to the quality of the EFX signal splitter which adds no detectable colouration on the guitar sound.

The first test had to be a bit of King Crimson!  Apologies for the under rehearsal - but I was impatient to hear the device.  Follow this link to hear:

Crimson


Very powerful sound but harder to control than my existing midi set up which has a volume control on the guitar.  The Mel 9 would sit better in a live band I'm sure or I could simly set up a volume pedal for it - but I am trying to keep my guitar FX foot print to a reasonable size!

Playing covers would only need a string pad so next I tried it in a ballad:

Hollies

Not quite as smooth as the existing set up but I think the sound could be quite usable in a band if I set the volume pedal up.  I've got one somewhere in my music room so that will be another test session when I find it!

In conclusion - yes I think it can be tamed with a volume pedal for live use.  Unlikely I will use it on a recording because there are so many quality string plug ins - including some great Mellotron samples from G-Force.
  

First Test of Merish Midi Player

Got the Merish 3 midi player in June 16 and spent the rest of my music time in the Summer editing midi files.  Towards the end of August I got things going reasonably well.  So I did a little test playing along to an old Kinks number.  This is all mono through a single Bose system,  but I now have the ability to separately route Bass and Drums which may be worth demonstrating in the future.

Tired of Waiting Test

Although I'm happy enough with the sound in the room,  the video suggest drums will need to come up if I was using it for real.

My next test will attempt to demonstrate a comparison between the Merish and the same file played through Cakewalk Sonar using their quality plug ins.

Rickenbacker Wiring Modification

I finally plucked up courage to do the mod I had proposed a few months ago. The idea was to re-engineer the two pick up tone controls into a Master Volume and Master Tone. Easter weekend was ideal because the weather was poor and I had plenty of time to do it without interruption.  I carefully prepped the kitchen table for the work.

Then I gently removed the pickguard screws hoping for plain wiring and not a circuit board.  Opening it up I was delighted to see a wiring layout I could work with.

I reviewed and checked the diagram against the actual wiring:

I plugged the guitar into an amp so I could check the outcomes before I closed it up.  Now the moment of truth - I unsoldered a couple of wires added a link wire and then soldered it all lightly up for check. First time the new Master Volume worked the wrong way round.  That was simply rewired to the opposite end of the potentiometer to give a clockwise "volume up" ergonomic.  Finally I made sure the soldered connections were sound and insulated the one hanging wire left.

 

Here is the final wiring - hard to tell any difference though!  The large black thing is an insulated hanging wire I would need to reconnect if I ever put it back to spec.

Then it was time to close up.

And jangle the rest of the day away - it all worked beautifully!

ReTrio's Final Gig at Bramford British Legion

Chris had booked me a few months previously to do this gig as ReTrio because Steve would be on a cruise.  I was hoping to have a good last night but I was still recovering from a sniffy cold.  However, I put together a special set list to include a few instrumentals,  old timers and Xmas songs to get us through the night.  Jacqui kindly said she would accompany me for moral support so we set off at 6:10pm to make the 40 minute trip to Bramford.  It was quite dark and, when we arrived,  turning round on the main street was very difficult do with lots of traffic wanting to use the side street I chose for the turn.  Even though we weren't in convoy, Chris had appeared right behind me to add to the confusion.  We eventually lined up to park outside the club and my wing mirror clipped another wing mirror as we attempted to pull into the curb in the face of another bunch of vehicles - fortunately no damage done and for once I was parked right outside the club!

We just got loaded in when Ian and Sharon arrived.  Chris said hello to the governess who said she might be back later - but the word from the bar was she and most of the other club members would be attending a big 60th birthday elsewhere in town on this evening and we would be looked after by the lovely Chloe (on a break from college?) who was to perform the role of concert secretary for the night.

Set up went well,  the stage seemed bigger that our last visit and we easily fitted on.  We put the Bose on Chris's side forward where a normal PA would be and mine was at the back as usual.  Tonight I was using my Audix OM7.  The OM7 needs an extra 12 dB or so over the OM5 because it is transformerless.  Because it runs through the VoiceLive the adjustments to trim are done in there,  the mixer trims receiving the VoiceLive outputs remaining the same. 

Had a brief moment of panic when the mixer didn't boot up right.  I found I had to unplug some of the mics to get it to boot up.  May be something to do with rural electricity voltage?  Despite that, set up time for me is much quicker than my previous arrangement which had lots of send and receive cables running to and from the foot switch area.  This club has the dreaded sound meter controlling the mains system.  There were only a few in the room as we sound checked.  It sounded quite loud to me but the meter was well in the green.  To be on the safe side, I reduced the PA a couple of dB to get us well below the feedback ceiling.  Chris reminded me to put some background musak on and it was only after the third play of Rod Stewarts "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" that I realised the player was on 'repeat tune' - it took a couple of minutes to work out how to fix that!  There were only 20 ish in the room as it approached show time.  Chris said don't bother with ties as we got changed and we were soon lining up to be introduced by Chloe. 

Bang on 8:30pm we struck up with "F B I" which sounded fine and didn't disturb the sound meter.  We progressed on through a set that worked well for this small audience.  I was able to engage them in banter from the off which helped;  and I remembered from previous visits they like slowies early in the night.  So I had lined up "My Only Possession",  "Halfway" and "Albatross" to slow things down and in amongst the Rock n Rollers we did "Rockin Around the Xmas Tree" to set a Xmas tone to proceedings.  I was very happy with the guitar and vocal sound.  True I had a cold and sounded a bit nasal; but I was able to sing my usual range and the throat was free of gunk thanks to a LemSip taken just before we came out.  The VoiceLive effects on voice and guitar all work well for me now and I am 90% there on smooth FX transitions through nimble footwork, so show continuity is good.  Chris and Ian looked like they were enjoying it so I sprang a surprise on Ian by calling for "Ring of Fire" as the country song for the night.  I thought it went well despite Ian never playing it before!

ReTrio - Ring of Fire

After the Beatles and Searchers medleys, we got them up and dancing with "All Shook Up and Runaround Sue".  We finished, what felt like an hour's set, with "Wonder of You" inducing good audience sing-a-long participation from the 25ish attending.  It went well despite me chickening out with the easy vocal finish.

Set 2 came quickly as there weren't enough to run a raffle on the night.  We opened with "Apache" but not a lot of walking tonight with my short guitar/synth lead restricting movement. After a few sing-a-long numbers and early in the set we did a special request for Ian in the shape of "Penny Arcade" - he loves the change in beat and he finds it so catchy he uses it in his drum tuition sessions. 

Penny Arcade

A few got up to dance so we carried on to play a typical dance selection up to "Bad Moon Rising".

Bad Moon

After this we fitted in "White Xmas as the mid set slowie and followed it with "Raining in my Heart to keep the slow dancers going.  Then we finished with "Hippy Shakes and Hot Love"  Considering we only had a small audience I was pleased most of them danced through to the end.  We had a few requests in the break and,  because they were mostly already on our play list I was pleased to fit them in - but one was for a drum solo!

Chloe introduced us for Set 3.  I chose to open with "Flingel Bunt" on guitar and bass which was a surprise for Ian but it maintained continuity and saved explaining the drum intro to him.  Next up it was the request for a drum solo.  I had promised someone from the audience Ian would attempt "Let There Be Drums".  Ian set off and I talked Chris through some chords as we joined in.  We were just coming to the bit where the band would come back in when Ian double handedly switched the power off with some mighty cymbal bashing. 

ReTrio - Let There Be Drums Power Out

I couldn't get the power to restart so I plugged the band into a none controlled socket and we finished the number off to big applause.

Then it was right through a typical set with just a few breaks as I led the band through to the big finale with one of our requests for "American Trilogy".  Although the voice was a bit shot we got through to the big end and then rounded off the night with "Johnny B Goode"

Johnny B Goode Play Out

I thought we had had a good night to consign ReTrio to history - the band all enjoyed themselves and we did the best we could with a small audience.  Pack and load went well and meant we were home by 1am - Ms J and I both had a well deserved cocoa.


 

Still Depping with Coast - at Horringer Casino Charity Event

I was looking forward to this gig 'cos we had a good time last year and were able to take the time to get set up properly in a good sized village hall. 

We would be using my PA.  Mainly because Steve was departing on a cruise the next day and needed to be away early,  but also so I knew everything was working for our ReTrio re-incarnation the following week at Bramford.  So on the Thursday I ran the PA up to make sure all was OK.  It did need quite a few tweaks to accommodate my new VoiceLive FX unit so I left the old settings as ReTrio in case I ever need to go back to them and saved the new settings as Band for the preferred set up going forward.    I had been trying to fix the piezo under the 'g' string on my Koa Godin XTSA. The volume from it had dropped dramatically following a recent restring where the cap containing the piezo element had worked loose.  When I re-fitted it the piezo was hardly working?  I took it apart and its very fiddly but it seems the piezo element may need fixing in place with glue?  Looking on the net it seems this is not uncommon and I had a go a re-fixing it with mixed success.  I decided to use my 'spare' red XTSA for gigs for the time being and will see if I can find a guitar repairer to have a go at this fiddly job.

I had hoped that I would be finished with the sniffy cold by now but 'no' I would still need plenty of meds to keep the coughing and sneezing at bay on the night.  I left home at 4:40 to get through Friday traffic in Bury to arrive at the gig at the target of 5pm. Chris arrived a few minutes after me,  so I had prime position at the doors!   I was pleased to see the hall was open and the chap doing the janitoring turned out to be fellow guitarist.  We swapped stories as I loaded in - he plays in a Killers tribute band and another band doing original material.  Chris took the opportunity to ask him if he fancied taking on the guitar role in Coast and he said he'd have a think!

Set up went well on the big stage and I took some time to get my stuff all optimised before looking at the band mics.  They went smoothly apart from Ian's vocal which didn't work?  I proved the mic was ok and then delved deep into the settings on his channel.  It turned out I had set a gate on the drum vocal mic so it closed when he wasn't singing and the threshold was much too low which resulted in switching off the mic completely.  For a quick fix I switched the gate out of the set up and all was well!  Steve was using a Shure PG58 which was quite a middley tone compared to the rest of the mics but he said he liked the sound so I didn't faff.  The feedback suppressors took some high end out anyway! We put in Steve's spare radio mic into the spare drum overhead channel on the mixer to give the compere a roving mic.  It worked and delivered a good sound first time! 

Chris and I had been discussing how we might improve what he hears from the bass when stood in front on the stack.  I hear it fine on my side and we know it sounds great out in the hall.  Ian said: 'Slade used to have a bass speaker cab each side in the 70's why not try that!'  So we did.  Chris brought a cab over to my side and I sited it on the far side of the Bose.  Well, this simple change had a radical effect on Chris's hearing of the bass.  For me it was slightly louder and clearer,  but for him it was a huge improvement.  And there is room at most gigs to do this if you put the guitar amp on top of the remote bass cab.  And raising the guitar amp would also aid guitarist's to hear their own sound.  Be interesting to see how we get on at next weeks small stage at Bramford.  Finally,  we put Chris's phone on a back ground music playlist and I took his minijack into the mixer and we were set to go.

Probably about 120 in the hall.  About 80% of the attendees were 6th form students;  with teachers,  parents and band wives (Jacqui,  Bridget and Sharon) making up the senior element!  There was no buffet as such,  but the tables were populated with pots of nuts and crisps so we filled our boots with them and beer.  We had got changed into our Dinner Jackets so the ladies could inspect us - for tidiness not dry rot!  Bridget's teacher son Nathan was the organiser and he had got a few colleagues to run the gambling casino attractions and compere the night.  The compere was very good explaining the flow of the evening and he had a good line and relaxed manner with banter I thought.

But there was some confusion between the compere and the band.  He started announcing the band before we were even on the stage so that left a gap of a few minutes whilst we got sorted.  Once up and running we opened with "FBI".  I was happy with the sound of the band but just needed to roll back the guitar volume a little.  I'd asked Steve to stay on the dance floor to listen for any balance issues.  He remained impassive out there but when he came on to sing "Heartbeat" he said the band sounded good.  We brought him on by playing a few bars from the "James Bond Theme".  I was really very pleased with the on stage band sound over the first few numbers.  The problems I faced were operational - i.e. me getting used to the new approach to changing sounds with the VoiceLive 3.  In the light of this performance I'm going to move the tremolo sound next to my standard pop sound so I can select it without passing through any other sounds. We weren't doing any bantering,  just following the set list with 'as quick as we could manage' changes into the next number. I was able to cue Steve through some of the arrangements;  some we had to follow him though.  Folsom went a bit awry - here's the strange ending but I guess this one was mainly down to me!?!

But,  on the whole,  performance and continuity was a lot better than previous gigs.  I brought the harmoniser in on the "Searchers" medley and that subtly and successfully filled out the vocal sixties sound.  We were getting some good audience response from the seniors in the crowd who you could see were impressed with the sound and applauding well.  I think some might have been fearful of a loud unbalanced noise (like it really was in the sixties).  Jacqui later reported the band sound as excellent - loud and clear enough to command attention but not so loud it precluded conversation, just perfect for this gig.

We sat out the gambling.  The youngsters looked like they were enjoying it and the compere was doing a good job of holding the event to time. Thinking Chris would have learned from out late arrival on stage for set 1,  I was surprised that he hadn't rounded us up by the time we heard the announcement " And now back to our excellent band - a big hand for Coast".  We scrambled back to the stage and opened a few minutes late again with "Apache".  Steve and I went out front and started the walk.  A few girls also joined in which was pleasing to see.  Another nice touch was that as we approached the end I was able to walk up the stairs (still playing) and get to my stage position for the next number.  We got a great response anyway and then got going 'fairly' smoothly into "Do You Wanna Dance" - I had to remind Ian of the starting drum fill!  Once underway the dance floor got quite busy so I made Steve go round another verse and chorus to finish.  We carried on with some sing-a-long in the shape of "Daydream Believer and Sweet Caroline" but the dancers drifted away.  Ian called for a slowey.  Catching the band mood,  I started "Nights in White Satin".  This went unbelievably well as I added big dollops of strings and harmoniser and the band started to feel and play the dynamics of the piece. Steve did a creditable flute sole substituting some focussed vocal 'oohs' for the flute.   I kept the song short pushing Steve into a big finish after the solo.  Actually I thought he sang this song quite well as well.  But the response the band got was fantastic (even from the youngsters) - it must have sounded really good out there.  Jacqui later confirmed that even though she didn't care for the song she thought the band sound, vocals and light and shade were excellent.  Chris called for "Albatross" to follow - which we did well.

Then we got back on with some dancier stuff culminating in "Proud Mary" which went down very well and filled the floor.  I was just about to start into Bad Moon when Chris called for "Johnny B Goode" as the last number for this set.  It turned out to be an inspired choice.  The youngsters and oldsters all knew the song.  As we came to the solo's Steve had organised the youngsters into a conga line of duckwalkers.  So there I was centre stage playing the iconic solos as about 25 6th formers duck-walked across the dancefloor in front of me. It was like a scene from Back to the Future - it was just brilliant!

Then there was another spell of gambling and then the raffle was drawn.  Jacqui won a bottle of Prosecco and I won a few numbers later but asked for the prize to be awarded to the next number.

The band went on to play the third set opening with "Honk Tonk Women" but the hall started to empty so we didn't stay long just playing a couple more numbers. 

As we packed up Sharon introduced me to Ian's bass playing son (from Reading).  Apparently he is quite accomplished and plays esoteric jazz fusion in weird time signatures - he plays a Sandberg bass.  He made my night by saying what a great guitar sound I had and how he liked my style which fitted so well within the confines of the line up and repertoire.  I showed him the gear as we were packing up and I think he was quite impressed an old codger like me would dabble in such modern techniques.

Pack up was tortuous as my cold symptoms returned.  Jacqui and I were pleased to make the short journey home and I took a shot of Lemsip as soon as I got in.



      

Dep for Coast at the Dolphin Felixstowe

Went down with a cold just before this gig.  Jacqui and I went out for a strong curry on the Friday hoping it would cure it before it took hold,  but I was still very rough and sniffy Saturday morning.  I loaded up under the influence of Lemsip and, to keep things simple at a small gig, I decided to try the Mesa Lonestar for guitar amplification with the new TC-H Voicelive3.  I got changed into black shirt, thermal vest, and trousers so there would be no need to change at the gig.

Windy evening as I set off about 6:20pm.  Arrived at the gig to find Chris and Ian loading in.  I wheeled my amp in and then one small case of leads and FX.  Another trip brought mic, guitar and music stands in and I was ready to set up.  Only problem was a Xmas tree right in the way on my side,  Still I was able to work round it - good job I brought the small Mesa amp.  Steve arrived with the PA.  Instant decision = no room for monitors. 

I set my stuff up. It all sounded OK in an empty room.  No sound check so we got interested in beer which was good for my cold.   There weren't many in the "concert lounge" but there was an interesting fancy dress party going on in the sports bar in the next room. e.g. a chap was dressed as Wonder Woman!  Meanwhile, we agreed to abandon ties for this performance.  By show time there were still only about 15 in our room.  But,  at least one couple had ventured out from our old residency at the Felstowe Arms specifically to see us which was good to see.

We played a selection from the Set 1 listing.  As soon as we struck up with "F B I" I was distressed with the guitar sound which was thin and trebly with a toppy break up spoiling the clean Shads sound I was hoping for.   Strangely as Steve came on he said "great sound".  Nevertheless,  I dropped the treble and presence a notch and pushed up mid from 5 to 6.5.  This now sounded more clear and commanding but it was only when I ventured out on to the dance area that I could hear just how clear the guitar sound actually was.  Standing in front of the amp it seems you just get the distortion and other artefacts wafting up.   My sore throat and lack of monitors precluded any heroics in harmony singing but,  by trying out VoiceLive FX such as doubling and harmony we were delivering quite a full sound vocally.  With minimal audience interaction,  poor continuity between songs;  and strange arrangements and melodies when actually playing songs, I expected a poor reception.  However, as we warmed to the task, we seemed to go down alright with the small crowd? 

Set 2 continued the same theme.  I was getting increasingly irritated with the compression setting on the VoiceLive which didn't seem to work well with the Mesa's natural valve compression delivering a flat squashed solo sound.  As I was only using the compression settings to boost the guitar for solos,  I made a mental note to eliminate compression from the guitar FX patches but use the compressors 'make up gain' to boost the guitar solo sound when I get time.

We came on for the final set and a few numbers in I mucked up the chords in the second verse of "You Say Nothing At All" trying to play the arpeggios like the record. But the VoiceLive harmonies in this song were rather good and we got a good response to it - some wag in the crowd said it sounded like "El Divo".  A few numbers later I think we were all pleased to finish with "500 Miles" - but there were enough shouts for more for us to do "Johnny B Goode" as an encore.  And I was pleased we did 'cos this was a better final memory of the gig.  I was able to crank the guitar up enough to get the Mesa to 'sing' a little with some nice sustain and just a slight halo of distortion.  So, by the end of the night I had got the guitar sound sorted and knew what to do on the next FX programming session.  But,  feeling rough,  I packed up and loaded quickly and took off for home ahead of the boys.  I was home by 12:45 am which was good because the next morning we were driving to Bristol to visit brother in law Roy in hospital following his bike fall earlier in the week.

Postscript: the cold got worse on the Sunday trip to Bristol and back so I took the day off work on Monday hoping to get fit for the next gig at the weekend.  Steve's on holiday after next Friday's gig and we are going to use my PA so he can get away early.  I'll have to fire it up in the week to make sure all is working.

Dep for Coast at Home Guard Club Bury St Edmunds

Preparing for this local gig I decided to try out another 'music tech toy' I'd got hold of earlier in the week - a TC-Helicon VoiceLive3! I hoped this single unit would replace 3 floor based units to provide Vocal and Guitar effects processing with a much smaller foot print and simplified wiring. I'd spent a couple of days checking it out and building a set of sounds for gigging. Inevitably there are a few compromises in how to operate it but the sounds seemed good to me. So I loaded it in the car for the gig along with my trusty Boss GT100 as insurance if it didn't work out.  a 6:30 departure on a dark, windy and wet evening got me to the club by 6:50.  Chris and Ian were loading in so I only needed to back up to the fire escape door to join in.  I was only carrying my Bose L1 T1 single B1 bass cab system with just one guitar for this compact gig,  so load in was easy.  Steve arrived about 20 mins later with the PA

Setting up was straight forward except for a couple of issues with the new FX unit.  I had colour coded two vocal XLR leads to the PA, red for dry voice and yellow for vocal FX. First issue was these leads were tight in length to reach the PA - balanced on top of Chris's bass stack.  I re-routed to gain enough length for health and safety purposes (of course these leads will be plenty long enough when I operate my PA on my side).  The second issue was,  ignoring my colour code,  I had put the leads in wrong way round in the FX output XLRs,  so initially all I was hearing was the fully wet echoes!?!  That was soon fixed and I threw a basic PA setting together  -  it all worked!  The guitar sounded ok ish though the Bose but it was only when I pushed the jack fully home in the back of the FX unit that the sound level came up to expectation!

All well and good, we sound checked with half of "Heartbeat" which I thought was nicely balanced for the room.  I tried out some of the vocal and guitar FX in this and they sounded good to my ear.  The main challenge would be operation which was somewhat different to what I was used to.  The concert sec came over and bought us a beer and indicated that band beers would be on the house all night - brilliant!

It was soon show time and as we opened with "FBI" I could tell the guitar sound was improved. I had based it on TC's Fender Bassman amp model and it was producing a tighter,  clearer sound than the GT100.  Maybe it will need some EQ tweaking for mid and hi's but the bass end was spot on with a tight low end roll off that kept the band soundscape uncluttered and the guitar well defined.  We carried on through the set relatively smoothly.  I was finding operation of the FX on basic guitar duties of rhythm and clean soloing straight forward,  but I was learning stuff as we progressed e.g. you can switch the FX footswitches between vocal (the switches light up blue) and guitar (they light up red).  My default tends to be blue so I can switch vocal FX in and out on the fly.  But sometimes you want access to all the guitar FX and I switch to the red guitar layer leaving vocals to take care of themselves.  I had thought that switching to a new preset would reset to the default vocal blue,  but it seems selection of vocal or guitar layer is a live user operation that is not stored in a preset.  Actually I soon got to prefer this approach and, by the end of the set,  I was happy on pop and rock n roll stuff.  

Chris introduced a young lad 'Eddie' in the break.  He'd come to see the band (with his mum) with a view to taking on the guitar role.  I reckon he was under 20,  but,  talking to him, he had a good grasp of what was needed in a covers band and seemed to have the skills.  Commenting on my guitar sound he said it was just great.  I was pleased to hear this 'cos you don't always know what it sounds like out front.  I explained how I was doing it.  He understood the principles and I think he was impressed that an old fella would take on such a challenge.  His own style was old school:  using a valve amp (Laney) with a Gibson /  Fender set on the edge of break up to allow a mix of clean and crunch sounds.  And,  most importantly,  he said, unlike some of his compatriots, he recognised how important it was to be able to produce a good clean sound for rock n roll and covers.  But when he played the blues he preferred a crunchy sustain.  Much in line with my old head thinking as well!

We got back on for set 2 with demo of the Shads walk to "Apache".  This was well received and Eddie's mum came up to join in the dance - all a bit 'Strictly'.  We followed quickly into "Do You Wanna Dance".  Like many of the other numbers we do,  Steve carves his own arrangement out and its different every time.  But we did see the first few folks to come up and dance to this.  Things carried on well enough through a mainly pop set.  Cunningly,  when someone called for "Freebird" we did a bird related number: "Albatross",  and got a good round of applause for that.  It was when we came to do a rockier toned number I ran into trouble.  Chris called for "Honky Tonk Women" and I selected the drive setting on the FX unit.  It was quite poor - more of a bassy fuzz tone than overdriven, middly break up!  I had to carry on with it because I couldn't see an alternative I could switch to but I knew I would have to find a solution in the next break before we tackled "All Right Now".

So during the break,  I cranked up the middle EQ on the pre-amp model a couple of dB and that was enough to force the Bassman simulation into break up using full volume on my Godin XTSA.  I was still able to maintain a clean sound by winding the guitar volume back 10% or more.  We opened with "Great Balls" which proved the clean sound worked (actually it did break up a little as I dug deep but it fitted).  When we came to "Alright Now",  to be on the safe side,  I started on the powerful bridge humbucker pick up.  But it was too much and when I switched immediately back to the single coil middle pick up it was about right - maybe I'll increase pre-amp gain a dB or two when I get home.  I drew the conclusion there is no need for the drive switch with its old fashioned and unpleasant fuzz tone - I'll probably re-configure it to deliver volume gain for solo's.  The rest of the night went OK,  the audience were forgiving for the continuing arrangement mess ups.  I made a few cock ups as well but hopefully nothing too noticeable out there.  We finished with "Johnny B Goode" and encored with "Mustang Sally" to a good reception - despite the errors it had been a good night for the band.  We were in a good mood as we did glad handing - Chris reckons he got another couple of gig leads out of it.

As we packed up Ian said he wasn't too sure about taking on Eddie - would he have the commitment?  But Chris was keen and I urged them to at least try him out.  Chris asked me would I host a session to try him out?   I said yes - so its up to them now.  I was home by 12:30 am,  time for cocoa and a snack before bed.  Reflecting on the VoiceLive guitar sounds I think it does make sense to have one set of ultra clean sounds for Shads etc and another based on break up when pushed for rock n roll and rock.  Vocally, it might need a few touches as well.  I reckon it will take another gig or two to tweak the unit to satisfaction.



 

Dep for Coast at Burwell Social

The next gig in this run of deps was at Burwell,  not far from last weeks gig at Bottisham.  I had played this gig before but memory was hazy as to exactly where it was.   I took a look on Google Maps.  I couldn't actually find it on Street View,  but I knew the street it was on and decided no Sat Nav necessary.  Come 6pm I loaded my guitars in and set off about 6:10 on a dark, windy,  rainy night heading West along the A14.  I had pin pointed the junction I needed to come off at but for some strange reason,  driving along,  I re-fixed in my mind to aim for the junction after!?!  So the junction I came off at was actually the Bottisham exit of the previous week.  I thought 'strange that they make the roads all look similar in Cambridgeshire'.  But as I followed the signs to Burwell I felt disorientated because, still believing I was a junction back,  Bottisham and Burwell were signed posted in the 'wrong' directions.  I stopped after a bit but not enough signal for the phone to show location on a map and looking at my paper map I couldn't make sense of it at all.  I wondered if some youths had switched the signs!  I decided to follow the signs to Burwell regardless. It was considerably longer than the 6 miles I thought it should be and all the places I passed through were unfamiliar. But eventually I arrived in Burwell and spotted the club 'on the wrong side of the road?'  I had clearly approached it from the West rather than the East and was about 20 minutes later than intended.   Anyway I put all that to one side and concentrated on load in.  Chris and Ian were already there setting up and as I came out to get some more gear Steve arrived so we were quorate!

I was using my Bose,  Godin XTSA and PRS 12 again.  This is a much more absorbent hall than Bottisham and after set up we did a soundcheck with "Folsom"  and I went out front on a long lead to assess it.  After adjusting the PA and bass to match up with the drums I thought we had a decent sound and a nice overall level for the 20 or so mainly seniors already in the hall.  I had brought my Jazz bass copy for Chris to try through his rig.  It sounded very classy but didn't have quite the 'big bottom' of his G&L bass.  Mind you he pointed out that the controls on the amp had plenty of scope to sculpt the ideal sound.  With the G&L he doesn't use sub-bass and even his bass control is only on 25%.   I left him the copy bass in case he wanted to try it in the sets (he didn't actually do that though).  I turned my attention to the monitors - they seemed to be ok if a little muddy.  Good to go I declared and went off to enjoy the club's beer -  the band's first drink is on the house!

We opened set 1 with "F B I"  and it sounded fine and we got a good round of applause from the (by now) 30 ish in the concert room.  Steve came up to do "Heartbeat" and almost immediately the monitor on my side started distorting.  I just bent down and turned it off! We completed the set.  Steve was better than the previous week and close enough for me to tap him on the shoulder to alert him to the various solos.  He has his crib sheets in front of him but, reading the words, he doesn't scan correctly on some songs - but "Smiling" was a lot better this week.  Mind you we in the band were making odd fluffs  e.g. I was so concentrated on getting Steve to do the gap and scream before the solo in "Can't Buy Me Love" that I missed the start of it on guitar!  We carried on through to the end of the set with good applause and bits of dancing and finished with "Runaround Sue" which Steve does a good job of.

In the break I replaced the dodgy monitor with a spare Behringer 1x10 monitor I had brought along to try and diagnose where the fault was.  I connected it up using one of my jack to jack leads and it sounded good and clean (brighter than the other monitor).  I told Steve that therefore the fault was either in his lead or the monitor itself. He said he'd check it out but I resolved to keep bringing the Behringer to be on the safe side!

Set 2 we opened with "Apache".  This always goes well at these clubs and Steve joining in the dance sells it even more.  This time we had a few come up and do the 'Shads Walk' along with the band and it got a great response at the end.  We got back on stage to start "Do You Wanna Dance".  A good rhythm driven by Ian was rewarded by the dance floor filling.  Steve carved his own arrangement out which would have shortened it so I made him go round another verse and solo before we brought it to a finish.  Then there was a bit of a band discussion on what to do to follow it up (I sat this debate out 'cos I was the hired hand)   - but by the time that had been sorted several had left the floor.   And that set the pattern for the rest of the set which lacked the continuity and slickness I like to see.  Despite this,  the band was doing well and responding to audience mood.  For instance,  after "Raining In My Heart" they needed another slowey and Steve called for "Nights in White Satin".  This went down much better than I would have thought and we played it well.  Mind you I missed the synth strings and harmoniser of the good old days!

There was a long gap before the final set and I noticed Ian was on the whiskey chasers.  Some folks had drifted away by the resumption.  Nevertheless, the band did well doing a rockier set that wasn't excessively loud and Ian, myself and Chris put in quite a few accents and tight ends to spice it up. Mind you I reckon some of Ian's fills were noticeably 'under the influence'.   We finished with an unexpectedly good rendition of "Summer of 69" and encored with "Mustang Sally"  rather than the usual J B Goode and that worked well enough. 

We set about packing up in broadly good humour but there was slight atmosphere I couldn't put my finger on.  I think Ian was struggling with a combination of a lot to drink and his own concerns about the band quality.  In my opinion he is now the 'top dog' in the band and the others toe his line to an extent.  As a dep I am clear of all of that;  but I did think it had been a good night for the band and when the guvnor came over he was happy and will be rebooking.  A few folk on their way out chatted kindly about the night,  but in general there is an air of the club in decline and needing new blood to continue in the longer term.

I left the others eating burgers sourced from a van outside the club and set off home.  Well,  I set off on the right road in the right direction,  but I missed a turning in Exning and ended up going over the A14 into Newmarket and then back out from Newmarket to join the A14 a junction further East than intended - adding about 15 mins to the overall journey.  It was only when I saw Bury in the distance that I realised I had forgotten my bass.  I called Chris who was probably about 10 minutes behind me on the A14.  His car is similar to mine so we established a complete Ford hands free connection!  'Yes he'd found it but no room in his car 'cos it was full of Ian's drums'  so Steve had taken it.  That was a relief and I continued home getting in about 1:30 am.  Ms J was till up catching up on Strictly so we had cocoa together.



 

Deputizing with Coast at Bottisham British Legion

Chris from Coast asked me if I would deputize for Coast up to Xmas because their guitarist,  Glyn,  had resigned after becoming somewhat disillusioned with the band - particularly its singer Steve.  Chris also asked me to host a practice session to look into Glyn's criticism of Steve.     Chris also asked me if I'd mind looking into Glyn's criticism of Steve.  So in the week we had a session in my back room and it is true Steve does have some timing and consistency issues and some songs just don't suit.  I suggested they drop a couple of the worse ones and pad out the sets with some Shads instrumentals while I'm depping with them.   

 

On a windy, mild Autumnal evening,  Jacqui and I set off for Bottisham at 6:25pm arriving at the gig just after 7pm.  Chris and Ian were already there and Chris gave me hand in with my gear.  I had decided to give my Bose system with T1 mixer and single bass bin an airing and that set up and sounded just fine with my usual Godin XTSA gig guitar.    I planned to to use my PRS 12 string for some songs in set 1 and I gave that a good sound test in the empty hall.  Interestingly,  what sounds too toppy near the Bose sounded good in the hall.  I had in mind a comparison with the Rickenbacker which is quite a toppy, compressed sound and was quite pleased with the PRS which I think is more strident and less compressed.  My view is that it fills the guitar spectrum better in a single guitar,  bass and drums line up;  but I see how the Ricky could work better sharing the soundscape in a 2 guitar band set up. 

Steve arrived and the boys swang into action with the PA  which seems to be a combination of Ian's Behringer Europowered mixer with (Steve's) 15" plus horn speakers (not sure of the make).

To be fair the vocal mics sound OK through the main PA but the monitors are crackly,  slightly distorted (and later on cutting in and out).  The whole thing could do with an overhaul in my opinion.  They don't make much use of FX which was OK for this lively hall.  Even with maximum bass EQ the bass drum mic wasn't deep enough for me (miss that sub-bass on my Line 6 mixer).

We sound checked with "Smiling".  Steve carves his 'own' melody out but it was fine sound wise.  I suggested bringing the volume down to help deal with the lively hall,  then it was off for beer!

Probably about 25 in the room by 8pm.  We got changed and poppied up for an 8:30 start (Remembrance Day on the way!).  I was happy to start with FBI - it sounded OK to me and we got a good round of applause,  Steve came up and opened the vocals with "Heartbeat".   About 3 numbers later Chris broke his D string.  We decided to continue with "Alright Mama and Folsom Prison" while he changed it. Then we continued with a typical Coast set. I enjoyed playing the PRS 12 string on the Beatles and Searchers numbers and they went down well.  After a few unexpected spells of Steve singing over solos and coming in early or late making for strange arrangements,  I found I was having to signal him from afar as to when solo's and middle 8s were coming.   We finished with "Runaround Sue" which he sang very well - nailing that Dion over saturated vocal sound.  In the break Jacqui let me know the band was too loud and my harmonies were too low in the mix,  so I pushed up my mic volume a bit (Steve has a very middley, penetrating voice and is very loud to compete with).  

We returned to open with "Apache"  to which Steve and I did the Shadows walk.  It was quite fun 'walking' with another person and we got a truly great reception for it with thunderous applause from the 30 or so in the hall! 

The set continued the patterns of before but I was stronger in conducting than before and we tightened up quite a bit to get some dancing going.  Right at the end we had a request for "Moon of Love" so I took the boys into it.  Steve knew enough words to karaoke it and it went surprisingly well.

In the break a local DJ had come up and talked about recently departed musicians and said he'd love to hear "Diamonds" from Jet Harris.  I had told him about my time with the Checkmates and he said do "Eyes" as well (even though Emile is still about).  So when we returned we duly obliged with a verse of "Diamonds" then into "Eyes" which Steve knew enough to improvise the words (and Chris remembered from my time with him in ReTrio).  We now had the audience well onside and we rattled on through the set to "Johnny B Good" to finish.  We got a lot of shouts for 'more'  so Chris called for "Mustang Sally as the encore.  As we came off my ears were ringing - the band had been very loud in the last set.

Looked at Chris's bass as we packed away.  On the night, I couldn't see any sharp edges that would have led to the D string breaking.  He said he'd restring the bass in the week and asked if I would give it a onceover and check intonation before the next gig.  No problem I said.

Jacqui and I were able to get away quickly and made good time home - in for cocoa at 12:40am!  Headachey the next day.



 

 

 

Depping for Coast at Searles Hunstanton

Chris the bass,  old bandmate from ReTrio,  asked me If I could stand in at Hunstanton for their new band Coast -  guitarist Glynn was off unwell.  They would provide PA and I would only need to bring a guitar amp,  mic and stand. Steve would do lead vocal and if I was up for it could I sing a couple as well.  Fine I said.
Come the day I loaded up my big sounding but physically small Mesa Lonestar valve amp,  Boss FX,  OM6 mic and stand.  And a music stand 'cos there were a couple of songs in the set list I wasn't familiar enough to busk.  As well as the usual Godin XTSA, I took my Rickenbacker 620-12 to give it a live airing.  Jacqui kindly agreed to accompany me and we set of for the North Norfolk coast at 6pm on a fine day.

Arriving at the gig I spotted Chris sorting the trolley to load in the gear and within a few minutes the gear was in,  car parked and I was ordering drinks!

Set up was easy and my stuff worked OK.  But the band had some problems with the PA monitors - in the end they settled for one monitor and we did Heartbeat as a sound check.  Time was short so just had time to down a beer and then we got changed for the 9pm start.  I would say the venue was about 70% full as we took to the stage.

We kicked off with "Heartbeat".  I found it a bit odd with Steve singing because I am so used to singing this song and lots of my performance cues are tied into doing that.   Despite the sound check,  the guitar sound was a bit toppy and when I switched to clean lead it was more so and a little distorted as well.  As the set progressed I decided to adjust amp levels to make it more power amp and less pre-amp but it didn't make much difference.  But it was good enough to play the gig and I don't think the audience would have been bothered. 

I picked up the Rickenbacker to do a 5 song Beatles / Searchers sequence.  Now the toppy problem was exacerbated!  Although it was interesting to play the Ricky live and it did sound very 60s,  it wasn't really the sound I wanted and I wasn't happy with the 2 volume controls. The band was going down Okish with a relatively quiet audience but the show was a little disjointed in places as they worked out what to do next. I was familiar with every song but some of the arrangements were strange.  I remember at one point playing "Albatross" which I jokingly renamed "Seagullross".  I felt I played it well and we did finish to some good applause.   We closed with "Runaround Sue.  I had finished the set on the 6 string and, with nothing jangly coming up next set,  I decided to pack the Ricky away.  As I came off Jacqui told me the guitar needed to come up a bit so I had a good look at the amp settings before we resumed.  I decided to take the treble down 10% and put up the mid 10%.  The way tone controls work on the Mesa is strange -  a reduction in treble seems to automatically boost mid and bass,  so this was a more than subtle change!

As we got going with set 2 it was clear the changes had fixed the toppy distortion and I was now happy with the sound.  I had to concentrate a bit 'cos some of Steve's arrangements were different from the record and I soon learned to keep an eye on where he was going with the song.  (Chris and Ian had mentioned that Steve's arrangements change every night!)  So there were a few mistakes and misunderstandings going on - but nothing too fatal.  I got to sing "Penny Arcade" as a request and it went down well.  A slowey followed:

The audience livened up for set 3 but the entertainments staff asked us to turn it down.  The set was not as slick as it used to be in ReTrio but Steve does a good job of working the crowd. By now Steve's missus Julie had enjoyed a drink and was joining in on lots of the dancing.  We approached the end doing "Johnny B Goode" which was interesting 'cos I could concentrate on guitar;  but again the arrangement was not what I expected.  We did try an encore with "Caroline" but it was a bit slower than it should have been.  Mind you it suited the crowd at that time of night. As we finished Ian gave me a big hug and asked me to consider coming back - they missed the leadership!  He asked Jacqui to work on me too.  Pack up was easy and we were on the way home by 12:15 getting in about 1:40am.  Tired the next day!  Reflecting on things,  its nice to be appreciated now I've gone but I'm pleased to be out of this set up.  I need some new challenges and I like things to be slick.   I had told Chris I'd be happy to dep with the boys again and he has already booked me to stand in for Steve in mid-December at Bramford so I'll need to keep in practice.

Proposed Rickenbacker Mod

After living with the new Rickenbacker 620-12 for a while I have become a little frustrated with the control system.  For a start tone controls are at the top,  but more importantly there is no master volume.

So I propose a mod' as per diagram below.  This will convert the two pick up tone controls into a master volume and master tone,  leaving the volume controls of the individual pickups as they were  -  but will I have the courage to actually do it???

 

A New Addition

A couple of weeks ago I was in a good mood following birth of grandson.  Had a day off and I was tinkering on 12 string guitars and realised I was finding it quite hard to hold the strings down across the full width of the neck.  This was particularly the case on my acoustic Takamine JC120 but even my PRS 12 string was relatively hard going.  Some of this is down to lack of musical fitness and some down to losing muscle strength as you get older.

Rickenbacker 12s are renowned for being strung opposite to most 12 strings with the bass string of the pair first on a down stroke,  and they are also known for their thin necks and close action!   I had tried a Rickenbacker 6 string a couple of years ago at friend Jack's house and remembered it being different with a very thin neck and a low but quite playable action.   A bit of research later revealed that neck nut width on most Ricky 6s and 12s is small at 41.4mm compared to a more typical 44 - 46mm from other manufacturers.  Of course with a 12 string 'real estate' on the finger board cramps fingers much tighter than a 6 string!  During this piece of 'guitar porn' research I found I was most attracted to the image of the 600 solid body series.   The Ricky 660-12 is a relatively new model and, in response to customer pressure, has a wider 44.45 mm nut width - but it is quite expensive.  In the end I decided to look for a more common and cheaper 620-12 with the thin neck to try out.  I particularly liked the Mapleglo models and, looking on the net, I found a Mapleglo 620-12 in stock at Music Warehouse Colchester.  So next time I went to the Ipswich office I finished a bit earlier and took a trip down to Colchester to try one out.

Well it looked fabulous and I immediately noted the price in the shop was lower than the web price ;-)   I plinked away for about half an hour and concluded:  + Easy action. + Perfect intonation.  + Love the sound,  its less strident than a normally strung 12 string and delivers a sort of natural chorusing sound when strummed. + The acoustic and amplified sound was very even across all the strings,  and  with a slight natural resonance,  I would say it was nicely compressed acoustically!  - The big playing drawback is the neck width cramping fingers.  Its easy to strum but hard to pick out notes to create arpeggios etc.  The neck depth comes across as feeling deep and chunkily full in the hand but with a nice silky feel. 

Rick's have a quirky control system!  You can select neck and bridge pickups individually or combined like a Les Paul - not my preferred system, I like one volume control!  There is a blend control which seems to combine pickups to give a more semi acoustic sound at one extreme and a trebley single coil sound at the other extreme.  There is a stereo "Rick-o-Sound" output which splits the pickups across two jacks,   its unlikely I'll use that.  Even in the shop it was clear that the hi gain pickups deliver a good sound level and lots of treble when you need it.

So it became 'make your mind up time'.  I could see just by playing I was getting more used to the thin neck and fingerboard so I decided if the price was right I'd go for it!  I cut the deal I wanted with the shop and left with the guitar in a strong but light Ricky case.

Here it is at home:

Now I've lived with it for a few days my playing on it is improving and, importantly, not really affecting how I play on a normal neck width guitar.  A bit like driving different cars?

This photo shows a comparison of the two necks side by side.  You can't really see much difference?   But they feel sooo different!

Soundwise I'm really happy with the Ricky and I'd love to try it on a gig sometime.  Maybe I'll work up a recording to demo it - something Beatley perhaps?  I'd also like to try out a semi-acoustic 360-12 or,  if money was no object,  the Pete Townshend 1993 12 which has the wider neck.  Dream on Mr Mog!