Yesterday, I posted that I was closing my comments due to spam. I have since found a “call and response” plugin that should weed out the spam bots. I have implemented it now, so please feel free to test my comment button and leave a message.
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Unfortunately, my little blog is being spammed to hell and today I logged into find that I had over 4000 spam comments in my spam bin. This took an awful long time to clear up. So, with a heavy heart because I really like your little comments, I am disabling “anonymous” comments from the blog.
But don’t worry, if you really want to leave a comment you can log in using your Facebook account or one of the other proscribed verification systems that the Movable Type system uses.
So I expect this to limit feedback greatly from genuine users, but you can still email your comments to me (using the link on the home page – top right hand corner) and I will put them up myself, manually. Huzzah!
Normally, when it comes to explaining how I record, I tend to put out a podcast. But because I have a terrible cold at the moment and I sound like Malcolm from the “Tunes” advert from the 1970s asking for a “A second-class return to Dottingham (Nottingham)”, I thought it better that I jot down some thoughts about my musical meanderings.
Firstly, I don’t have as much time as I used to record. My studio is half-complete, I’ve got all my effects racks and mixer housed in a flight-case and this is the third iteration of “StudioLock” that it has seen. The first was a shed near an abbatoir, the second was the box room back at the shop and now I have a draughty corner of a 1930s house we are renting for too much money and is colder than living in that fricking barn conversion in the middle of the Norfolk countryside. Plus, I now care full-time for my kids during the day and sometimes feel a little burned out in the evenings to do anything. But I am sure once I get into the rhythm of things I will start spurting my creative juices from every pore. What a charming image I paint with these ‘ere words.
But I digress…
Andreas Hoffmann delivered a wonderful backing track. My initial thoughts were “What can I add to this?” I am primarily a creature of rhythm first, melody later. Attack from the hips – worry about the details when you have time. So it was just a matter of dialling up a suitably trebly patch on my VG-99 and adding a panned delay to the output. So, muting the strings with my right-hand as I picked, I created a suitably bouncy rhythm guitar part. It is simple and fit nicely with the loops.
This method of rhythm guitar I kind of coined from Mike Rutherford and his playing on “Invisible Touch” by Genesis. A lot of people slated that album off for being too poppy, but the 5.1 surround sound mix of it really brought out the staccato rhythm guitar of Rutherford and I was genuinely surprised by his technique (or lack of), but it seemed to fit so well into a very rythmic soundscape. So I’ve been using that technique for a while now, but throwing in some delay pedal for added depth.
Then there was the lead guitar, which was just another patch from the VG-99 dialled up and recorded in one take. I think my ears are on wrong though because sometimes it sounds fine and there are other times when I think it sounds a little out of tune, but hey, honour your mistakes, that’s what I believe. (Thanks to those Oblique Stategy cards, Mr Eno!)
Finally, it was a very simplistic bass line underpinning the proceedings. Unfortunately, the frequency of the bass drum on the original MP3 track kind of drowns it out, but it is there somewhere. This was all recorded using Sonar X1 Producer, my DAW of choice these days with a little EQ and reverb on the guitar parts and T-RackS3 handling the final mastering of the track.
Anyway, this is part of my actual contribution to that track with the backing stripped out, featuring the panned delay rhythm guitar, the lead guitar and the boring bass line.
The Hoffmann Effect [My Contribution Solo’d]
Direct download: CLICK HERE
Put all that together with the backing track and you have “The Hoffmann Effect”.
Tonight, I received an email from Andreas Hoffmann, the second Hoffmann the Internet has introduced to me. Andreas heard some of my stuff on the YouTube and decided to offer me the chance to spray my guitar all over one of his musical tracks like a feral dog on heat.
I don’t know if I’ve done a good enough job, but this is 60-minute’s worth of effort from me. And I’m suffering from a man-cold at the moment and haven’t played in about a month. Excuses, excuses, excuses… I must stop trying to impress the Hoffmanns… 🙂
Mind you, I was only thinking the other day about somehow being part of a band or something. Here is my effort for you to enjoy.
The Hoffmann Effect
Direct download: CLICK HERE
If you want to hear the unexpurgated version, truck along to this Soundcloud page.
Huzzah! ‘Tis my fortieth year on this lump of rock spinning through the void of space and time. To celebrate (or as punishment depending on your perspective) here’s a little sampler I created over on my Soundcloud account. It’s only 51 songs covering four hours of stuff I’ve recorded. As they say, there’s plenty more where that came from…
Enjoy!
As it was the weekend we thought it might be nice to cheer up Verity with a quick trip to Toys R Us while Herbie had his afternoon nap under the watchful eye of his nan. The trip went as expected and she found the two Wonder Pets soft toys she had been looking for to bolster her collection to 3 x Ming Mings, 2 x Linnys and 2 x Tucks. Of course, I don’t expect you to understand the workings of the Wonder Pets and the characters.
While we were choosing a suitable soft toy for Herbie a family descended upon us and before we knew what was happening a large child (probably 11 or 12) had grabbed Verity by the arm and was using her as some kind of cantilever to lean forward into the soft toy display.
The Missus disengaged his grip while I tried to move my child out of the skirmish. She spoke to the father who replied with a pathetic excuse for his child’s obnoxious behaviour, which bordered on common assault on Verity:
“He’s autistic.”
I kept my reply simple and short: “Well you should keep him under control.”
As I shuffled away, shielding Verity from the sudden air of unpleasantness, I didn’t notice that the child had pulled Verity’s hat off or the father telling me curtly to “Fuck off!”. Thankfully, I was out of earshot otherwise the incident would have turned very bloody, very quickly.
I am sick of pathetic excuses. I am sure that there are plenty of parents out there with autistic children who do not use their condition as a reason for them to indulge in bad, threatening behaviour. This fellow should be grateful that they weren’t born fifty or hundred years earlier in a time where his “special” child would have been locked away in an asylum for their own protection and the protection of the public.
But hey, we live in enlightened times, don’t we? Whoopee-fucking-doo! Don’t it make you feel proud?
Nope…
Life and death is very much order of the day and quite a conversation topic for Verity. The departure of her friend Jim still weighs on her and she is equating getting older with dying. Asking me how long we’ve had Alex the Wonderdog, I tell her that it has been nearly ten years and he’s getting an old dog.
“Alex is old,” she says with alarming frequency now, “And when he dies we are going to get a new dog. A spotty dog. One I can stroke.”
No wonder Alex the Wonderdog growls at her and eyes her with suspicion.
The same logic has been applied to my up-coming birthday and with cold precision she keep foretelling my death and saying she’s going to buy a new dad when I’m gone.
You soon learn to grow a thick skin in this business.
One shaft of light appeared today when I told her that I needed to make some phonecalls and that I needed to call the estate agents.
“Estate agents are bad people!” she exclaimed, before running away in tears.
‘Nuff said.