Many of you Ableton Live users might have seen this article over at the Ableton Web site concerning follow actions. Anyway, it’s worth repeating, it’s a short and to the point article. This article is especially good for anyone who wants to set up an Ableton Live system for personal jamming purposes, guitar playing for example, hint hint.

For me, I was really looking seriously at maybe getting the Line 6 Spider Jam system, but realized that: hey, I have Ableton Live, I could write any kind of jam setup I want.  So even if the new Line 6 Spider Jam is elegant, as well as the new LM4 Looper system from Line 6 (not yet shipping), you have a lot of flexibility using Ableton Live to create similar setups using the follow action model and lots of loops. You could even emulate the guitar loop processing part itself in case someone is interested.

Then all you need is the laptop hooked to the amp via the CD3/MP3 input, or just feed it to the PA via a mixer and the job is done. The last part is to control the start and stop. For a guitar player, the only real good option is to get a cheap midi foot pedal controller, but you could get those for $100 or below. I’ve even seen those who take an old mouse and convert it to a cheap start/stop foot button. Anyway, if someone else has good ideas how to control Ableton Live via a cheap foot pedal, let us know.

I think I need to get Line 6 T-shirts… My studio is getting full of Line 6 gear. I just got a Line 6 Spider III 75 guitar amp. I have an old Marshall JCM900 50W combo (that I’m trying to sell just now), as I wanted a light-weight guitar amp for session work.)

The nice thing with Spider III amps is that they have 12 amp simulation models, each sounding different. Yes, it does not sound exactly as a Marshall, and a trained ear could hear some issues with the mid-range levels, especially when pushing through a 12″ Celestion speaker.

Anyway, for a majority of the audience they would not notice anything. But for me as a guitar player I could have fun with all kinds of interesting settings, all built into the amp, including many basic effects.This one is also a 33 pound unit, so it’s easy to transport around.

Plus, it’s fun having so much flexibility as a guitar player on stage.

Recently when I visited the library I found a catalogue listing Ibanez Guitars, especially pricing information about old guitars, what the street value is today. That was interesting reading. My first Ibanez was a Flying V (clone of the famous Gibson version), it actually had a good sound but the tuning was hard to keep in place. And of course you could not really use it easily in studio sessions — but for stage presence it had it’s plus moments. I sold it long time ago. The catalogue told me that the current price is between $1500 and $1800. Ouch. 

My next Ibanez was a RoadStar II. Those were clones of the Stratocaster model. They were nice, light, but the tone was somewhat thin, but that’s what you get with Stratocasters, anyway. I still have it around. But I don’t think it’s a special guitar, exactly. The catalogue price was $500-800. Huh. 

My current Ibanez is an RG-750. I still think this is one of the best ever Ibanez models made, a high end system back in 1990-92. Custom made in Japan. Has the best tone and playability I’ve ever had. Still using it today. Catalogue price: $400-600. What?

Anyway, in case you have old Ibanez guitars in your attic, now is the time to sell them. As for current guitars, I do think that a large selection of today’s guitars, in the $400-800 range, are really good. You have to pay a lot of money to get the extra quality or tonality, and with effects and other parts it’s doubtful you could invest in that, unless you really know what you want. They are not vintage guitars — but frankly speaking I do think a lot of contemporary guitars today are really well made, compared with the old produces.

The reason is that a lot of today’s guitars are made with CNC manufacturing. The robots could cut out parts from wood that few craftsmen could do, 24 hours a day. The only bonus humans could achieve is in the really high end — think of the ’samurai swords’ of guitars. Super-good, but you pay a lot for that. I would actually recommend to watch the factory tour video from Carvin that shows how guitars are carved out with CNC systems — quite fascinating. You could also get the videos via the free DVD. Anyway, I think it will open up your eyes why you could get really good quality guitars and other equipment from countries like Indonesia today. An sell your old vintage guitar, now is the time!

I read some time ago Oliver Sack’s book Musicophilia. This was quite a fascinating book, I would recommend any musician to take time reading it, or think about the issues the book raises.

Oliver Sacks is actually a neurologist, and he has been involved with all kinds of strange states concerning brain and music. Usually after some kind of internal brain damage or accident, various people have strange problems concerning music and audio. For example, one person was struck with lightning, after this he became so passionate about music (not before) that he is constantly composing and playing, hearing songs in his head.

Others have annoying music loops playing over and over in their heads after an accident or problems. Some become totally tone deaf.

The book really points out that there are sections in the brain that controls the level of musicality for persons. A damage and it’s over. Or then something else strange happens and new patterns emerge. It would also explain how composers such as Mozart constantly heard music, all they needed was to write it down. And why for some others they can’t really hear much, even to a point that they attend American Idol and believe their voice is godlike, while they can’t even hold a tune.

It might even explain why I’ve had bass licks and melodies that suddenly started playing in my mind in mid-December, hence I’m nowadays a bass player.

Anyway, in practical terms it means that for us musicians, we need to take care of our brain. Never go out biking without a helmet. Use aspirin every day to make the blood elastic to avoid any sudden blood bursts in the brain. Check your blood pressure, take it down with all means, if something bad happens — like a bursted blood vessel — it might be the last time you could create music. Take down the overall weight. Take care of your brain.

Here’s another article on the web talking about how jazz musicians turn off certain sections of the brain and enact other when jamming together.

Anyway, there’s still the mystery why some get the right wirings in the brain and become amazing musicians — supposedly nobody in Steve Vai’s family is a musician — so there’s more than genes in action. And it can’t be just random patterns, that’s not logical. But that’s another deeper philosophical issue.

This is about chemicals. I had this somewhat old (10+ year old) Marshal JCM900 guitar combo amp that has been collecting dust in my studio. Not just literally, really.

And of course after such a long time of no usage, the potentiometers had squeaky sounds when I booted up the amplifier. I had a spray can of WD-40 back home, assumed that this miracle chemical would fix anything, but especially one of the volume knobs still didn’t work properly.

So today I stopped by one of the local Frys and looked at other solutions, I found Puretronics contact cleaner, it was a cheap can, $6, so I took one home. I sprayed the pots, and yes, now they work fine.

The local Starving Musician also sold me an old Marshall channel switcher, for $10, and of course this one didn’t work. So I sprayed it with Puretronics, and yes, now it works fine.

Lessons learned, keep a bottle of this around, there’s a lot of stuff in your studio that could get dust and dirt inside the volume potentiometers, sliders, contacts and so on. There could be many cases where you think your equipment is broken, while all it would take would be to fix bad connections with something like this.

The other lesson learned was that WD-40 is not that universal; use something dedicated for electrical contacts. No, Puretronics has not sponsored me. That bottle I purchased today should be enough for the next five years or more.

Phew, my mind was expanded when looking at Steve Vai’s guitar collection over at his site. That’s quite a big of a collection, and most of them are custom made. He has even more gear, see the rest over at his site.

I have an Ibanez RG series guitar, owned that one since 1992 I think. I’ve actually been an Ibanez only electrical guitar owner since my first Ibanez back in 1978, purchased a Flying V copy model. It was a fun guitar, but unpractical for studio work, of known reasons.

Anyway, makes me go and check out other Ibanez models this weekend…

Speaking of Steve Vai, he’s one of the few guitar players whose solos I actually like (Eric Clapton being another player). You could get a free DVD from the Carvin site, check out the really funny solo Steve Vai does on that DVD — even my wife who is bored of guitar music was impressed. What makes Vai’s playing interesting is that he is interesting, unique. Something to strive for. There’s no need to be a technocrat player, speed is not everything. Don’t be a copycat, invent your own style, in whatever musical genre. One Daft Punk is enough.

Recently my studio has turned into a hardware centric place with two guitar amps, Line 6 Pod XT, cables, pedals, guitars, bass guitar, lots of stuff around the place.

As part of ramping up the traditional instrument side I’ve been purchasing stuff from online stores and other places. Here are some notes in case you want to save money.

One place that I like is Musicians Advocate.  They don’t have all the brands, but a nice wide selection of instruments, amps, effects, MIDI interfaces, even software. The cheap prices are the ones you need to click for generating an email response. I suspect that those are B-stock units. B-Stock is where something has a flaw, either as part of shipping or being in a store for weeks, resulting in something that can’t be sold as brand-new. But hey, if a little bit paint is gone in a corner, that’s not a big deal, especially as musical instruments in use will become tarnished over time, anyway.

Another interesting link that I check from time to time is Musician’s Friend Stupid Deal of the Day. They have different kinds of things there, a couple of days’ ago they sold bass softcover bags for $9.95 plus shipping. But if you suddenly wants something they announce, it’s a quick way to get something cheaply.

Another place I check is DealNews,  but this is mostly to catch any interesting coupons for online stores. Speaking of coupons, do a net search in case the brand of the product purchased has a special deal for sending in a coupon (usually a PDF file to be filled in) and you get something extra or money cash-back.

I’m also using Google’s Shopping service to quickly get a rough idea what the street price is for various products. Also, using Amazon I have found even lower prices for the same music online sites that sell via Amazon compared with their online prices at their site. One of those mysteries of this universe.

There’s the obvious eBay and CraigsList. I prefer Craigslist as I could locally meet the seller and check out the product before taking it home. eBay purchases are more risky in my opinion, the picture looks nice but it might be broken, or the shipment might cause damage to the product — as shipping electronics is a delicate matter.

Many music stores also have a special swap shop section. Here in the San Francisco Bay area the Guitar Showcase swap shop and Starving Musician are good places, they even have their listings online so you don’t need to visit the places unless you see something you want to purchase. The Guitar Showcase has some kind of deal with Ibanez USA about B-Stock, I’ve seen a lot of really good Ibanez electric and bass guitars for ridiculously low prices over there every week.

Finally, if you purchased something that you are not really using, just re-sell it. No idea wasting studio space for unused gear.

See Ars Technica report from the Digital Music Forum.

Imagine how much money and new ideas the major labels would have made over ten years ago if they understood the power behind Napster. This will to to the classic business blunders of all times.

Maybe by now you have noticed that I’m on a small quest to bring musicianship back to electronic music. That means that there’s an attempt and it takes time to learn an instrument, but then you have far more nuances compared with copy/pasting loops or using fixed MIDI sequences.

For example, the state of art concerning electronic drum kits are far beyond the early days of the Simmons sets. Check out the Roland TD-3S kit, a very reasonable price, you could usually get them for below $1000 or even lower. The videos at the link also shows what could be done, provided you do your homework and learn to play the instrument.

Now, compare using something like this for recordings or live sessions versus using a drum machine or drum loops. There’s something special about humans that play, the nuances will pop out. Yes, I know, many of us try to put them back with shuffle modes and all kinds of tricks, so that’s another way to do it. But then again you could do it in one take — assuming you want to learn to play drums.

Those electronic drum kits are also easy to transport, for example for jam sessions. Not to speak of the clarity of the drum sounds when running them through a PA. And we have not even touched the options to trigger and play all kinds of percussive and non-percussive sounds during a live set. The other bonus is that the audience loves people playing instruments.

I guess someone had time collecting a lot of records, see this article about an eBay sale of a collection of three million records and 300,000 CDs.

Physical record collections are important, in this age of digital material, especially unreleased stuff, it’s easy for a hard disk to fry. I don’t even know if my old archives work any longer, speaking of +12 year collections of stuff on hard disks. I might not even be able to open them up due to  material produced with Opcode Studio Vision. I think some material is still on a DAT tape, and one might wonder if that’s even playable today.

Now, has this person listened to all the tracks? That would take multiple lifetimes…

I was looking around, once again, for any used Roland AX-7 keytars, but the eBay prices are just horrible, too high. To recap, Roland stopped selling these units last year, just when everyone discovered them, from Beyonce’s band to Justin Timberlake and many others.

The Create Digital Music blog had a new entry about this also today.Roland is a great company, and I’ve been a Roland customer since Jupiter-6 days — owned one of the first ever Jupiter-6 keyboards back in 1983 as it had the first MIDI implementation (I still think it was earlier than Prophet-5.) However, they have a reputation of introducing cool things and then just abandon the concept and go on with something new, instead of refining a good product.

If someone knows of an email address where to send feedback to Roland, please let us know. Also if you are involved with any other bigger keyboard company, Yamaha et rest, let them know that there’s a nice market to be taken over in case Roland is not re-introducing new keytar models.

As for me, it would be fun going to jam sessions as a bass player, but using a keytar instead of a bass. I could also figure out tons of other similar ideas using a portable keyboard controller for various projects….

It is really important that we have good controllers in this new age of electronics. We don’t want to sit behind a pile of equipment, thanks. I don’t want to climb inside a pyramid, either :-).

Hey, that’s good news. Even better, Alex Patterson is going back to the U.F. Orb sound roots.

Here’s the link to the Resident Advisor article, it also has a youtube video which is quite funny.

I always felt Alex Patterson is the closest to a ‘Frank Zappa of the electronic music world.’ Frank Zappa actually also worked a little bit with electronic music, check out Jazz from Hell.

Now, all we need are more innovative electronic music producers, those who dare to do something different.

I recorded the Classics Series, Frank Zappa Apostrophe/Over-nite Sensation program to my DVR as it was shown via the VH1 Classics cable channel a couple of nights ago.

Wow! I used to listen to Frank Zappa quite a lot during my high school days, but I suspect I didn’t really appreciate Apostrophe as much as now when I’m older.

If there was an artist that was so opposite of the classical ‘rock&rock’ archetype artist, this is it. Frank Zappa was really a composer that made use of rock music as his medium.

Watching and listening to programs such as this one makes me go back to the studio and really make use of arrangements, triads, non-standard tonality changes, scales. I miss all that stuff after a longer stint doing techno productions….

PS: If you ever have the stamina to watch this movie from beginning to end, Frank Zappa’s Baby Snakes movie is very, very interesting. Not to speak of the concert scenes, too..

Another thing to get the creativity up is to experiment with other musicians. You could join various jams, craigslist is a good source of finding what’s going on. Or then ask around, or find out what’s going on.

The nice thing with playing other musicians is that you really never know the outcome. Which is for me very liberating — after living years and years inside a production studio and controlling every aspect of the production.

Sometimes the whole of it all sounds very inspiring, compared with you controlling every aspect.

As a DJ, it is not so hard to hook together two systems with MIDI synchronization. In the case of Ableton Live, read the manuals that has the info. You only need MIDI in/out ports on your audio card/box. Then one could play tracks and the other annotates them, and you could switch roles. Or even more fancy, do a totally free-form jam with dance tracks.

It is the unexpected result that is the interesting aspect when working with other musicians. It’s fun to fine-tune a performance, as well. But for me, the interesting thing is when multiple musicians get together and have a good way of communicating and creating music on the spot.

This is part two of how to get the mojo back, creativity, inspiration, you know that feeling where you really are in the flow and want to make music.

For me it was to get a bass guitar and a bass amp? Why? Well, I got recently to a point when doing digital dance music where I realized that most of my time I spend with polishing and fixing audio material on a screen, mostly using my own loop snippets. Even worse, taking out nuances such as sloppy playing and so on. It makes the music exact, but there’s no breathing in it.

In addition, mostly with keyboards you really don’t get that much variation across a song played, especially if you use copy-paste to line out song structures.

With a bass guitar, I could have small timing parts that I deliberately create in order to get to the groove pocket. I could use my fingers with all kinds of variations to change the sound. I could put in different strings, experiment with my amp simulator in my Line 6 LD150, and so on… I kind of missed that part.

In addition, it’s fun playing with other musicians, of all kinds. Sitting by myself in a studio became somewhat an isolated experience. The sum of it all is sometimes much more interesting than the single-person total control of a production.

There’s nothing wrong to expand and learn playing guitars and so on. I’m an ex guitar-player, even ex bass session player (used to do hundreds of gigs back in college days), but it’s been 25+ years since I last seriously played bass. Anyway, getting back to bass playing has  been fun, indeed.