A Week in the Ruts.
This week was a rough one for practicing...out of town family here for my daughters 1st birthday party, a landscaping job on my house gone out of control, work and more work. Needless to say I won't be posting a video today since I just got back to work on my Bluegrass material and there is not really any progress to share.
A few things did happen this week, though.
One was that I got an MXR Carbon Copy digital delay pedal. I actually ordered it for inventory for our online store (www.MWGLstore.com) since they seemed to be fairly popular and I decided to give it a try. Since many of my favorite players are Echoplex guys at one point or another the pedal actually fit into my sound quite a bit better than the Boss DD6 digital delay pedal that I have been using for a little "depth" in my live tone. Its very warm sounding and I really like that the original signal isn't obliterated by the effected sound. I'm actually running it a bit more audibly than the old pedal and switching it off and on more for effect than what I used to do which was leave the delay on almost all the time with just a small touch of delay in the mix. I was hoping to eventually get a nicer delay with tap tempo and presets like the Eventide Timefactor or even the Satriani Time Machine pedal but this is making me pretty happy right now. It complements my sound nicely. I was able to use my ailing 1971 Deluxe Reverb for about an hour before it quit on me and it reminded me how much I love that amp. With my current complement of pedals I am able to get about 90% of the sounds that I need or want beautifully....
Another was that Thursday night was our last "late night" rehearsal. We have only been able to practice as a band after 9pm on weeknights with all of our schedules and we've been much less than productive although we end up hanging out until 1am or so. Next week we'll be able to do Friday afternoons and I am hoping that it will help me be more effective learning the music without a 16 hour day already worked before we even start.
This weeks big project for the band was learning "My Sharona" by the Knack. This song was more of a punchline and an indicator of unhipness when I was a kid so I never really paid it much attention but the reality is that its an incredibly well put together pop song with an interesting (and very long) guitar. As I was working on it I found this great video of them performing on what seems like a VH1 classics concert...
So I've had this song stuck in my head for the last 3 days
A few things did happen this week, though.
One was that I got an MXR Carbon Copy digital delay pedal. I actually ordered it for inventory for our online store (www.MWGLstore.com) since they seemed to be fairly popular and I decided to give it a try. Since many of my favorite players are Echoplex guys at one point or another the pedal actually fit into my sound quite a bit better than the Boss DD6 digital delay pedal that I have been using for a little "depth" in my live tone. Its very warm sounding and I really like that the original signal isn't obliterated by the effected sound. I'm actually running it a bit more audibly than the old pedal and switching it off and on more for effect than what I used to do which was leave the delay on almost all the time with just a small touch of delay in the mix. I was hoping to eventually get a nicer delay with tap tempo and presets like the Eventide Timefactor or even the Satriani Time Machine pedal but this is making me pretty happy right now. It complements my sound nicely. I was able to use my ailing 1971 Deluxe Reverb for about an hour before it quit on me and it reminded me how much I love that amp. With my current complement of pedals I am able to get about 90% of the sounds that I need or want beautifully....
Another was that Thursday night was our last "late night" rehearsal. We have only been able to practice as a band after 9pm on weeknights with all of our schedules and we've been much less than productive although we end up hanging out until 1am or so. Next week we'll be able to do Friday afternoons and I am hoping that it will help me be more effective learning the music without a 16 hour day already worked before we even start.
This weeks big project for the band was learning "My Sharona" by the Knack. This song was more of a punchline and an indicator of unhipness when I was a kid so I never really paid it much attention but the reality is that its an incredibly well put together pop song with an interesting (and very long) guitar. As I was working on it I found this great video of them performing on what seems like a VH1 classics concert...
So I've had this song stuck in my head for the last 3 days
Posted by Mark Wein at 10/10/2009 8:58 AM 
Categories: blog
Tags: my sharona deluxe reverb carbon copy bluegrass practicing.
Categories: blog
Tags: my sharona deluxe reverb carbon copy bluegrass practicing.
Yeah I have a Carbon Copy and it's great. What is really cool about those analogue delay pedals is how you can set them up to repeat indefinitely, and then change the pitch by twiddling the knobs. Great for recording those super spaced-out hawkwind or monster magnet sounds.
If I had a need for a delay for live stuff though I would probably go for something digital, with tap tempo and the luxury of longer delay times without self-oscillating.
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I have an old Boss analog delay that is awesome for the "Radiohead" type of wackyness that you describe. My original intent was to get something digital with a tap tempo feature and I still might but for right now I'm actually pretty happy with what I've got.
For the time being, at last
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