My music

A neat online Competition. You buy a backing track, record the lead guitar and might be the lucky one to win a guitar lesson with Mark Knopfler.

Three songs you can mimic on this competition:

• Sultans of Swing
• Calling Elvis
• Speedway at Nazareth

I’ll try Sultans, just for the fun it is to play, as MK says, “that little four piece of historic frolic”.

You get new gear, read magazines, forums, blogs, reviews… but there’s nothing better for improvement than practice. I’ve been doing that lately, mainly improving my skills in the recording process.

Summing up, here’s what I have learned:

• After ten years using Cubasis VST and Cubase LE 4, I’ll switch to Logic Express 9. Using GarageBand lately convinced me to do so. The sound is better, tighter, less crashes (using OS X now);

• Composing exclusively “outside” of the recording environment is not desirable. I can improve a lot while jamming in GarageBand;

• Keep low volume always. It’s a matter of habit… keeping it low, a two hour practice session seems easy enough to me;

• Plugins are not as bad as they say it is. I cannot afford a professional studio and therefore, my album will be recorded at home. Amplitube Fender and my POD XT running through a tube preamp will suffice, as the expressiveness of music is not lost this way.

Definitely going to buy this plugin. It perfectly emulates a Fender amp (and I’ve tried a few ones).

Although it does not replaces the real deal, it is a handy tool for home recordng, specially for those tones you can afford having in a flat (like a Bassman, fully cranked up).

Edit: It seems that the player is not starting in Firefox. Hope to fix this soon.

Did a small after-work sound test session with the twin Champs. I sarted with the whole gear setup, as follows:

guitar –> pedal –> amps –> mic –> preamp –> soundcard –> computer

After some thirty minutes or so, it was not clear why I was not getting proper sounds. I was hearing the full wet sound (post processed) and even with the most weird mic positions it did not work. So I started the whole thing from the beguinning and spent another great deal of time with the folowing setup:

guitar –> pedal –> amps –> mic –> preamp –> headphones

Of course now I was only getting the dry signal, but keeping focus on this first stage only, I realized that putting the microphone a few steps away from the amps and slightly twisted and off centered (see photo), it worked. I could crank the amps a bit louder and still the sound did not become muddy.

Next step will be trying to hear what will sound with the soundcard.

Here’s a few short snippets of my Fender Champs (I’ll see you in my dreams and Summertime).

What’s better than a Fender Twin? A couple of low wattage twin Champion 600 amps.

The one at the left is a modified one, by alnicomagnet, and on the right side is my two year old stock amp, serving as an extra speaker.

Looking forward to sound test these.

In a few days I expect receiving a modified Fender Champ 600 I bought. The pictured one, a stock amp, have too many faults to be used for recording, although changing tubes to JJ tubes get the sound more defined.

I’m as close at it gets of having the definitive home studio set, and will start to kick of recordings.

The gear is, as follows (more detailed gallery to be made available soon):

Guitars: Fender Stratocaster, Epiphone Les Paul, Admira Sombra, K Yairi G1F, Yamaha FG 720 S, España CS-50
Amplifier: Fender Champion 600 5 watt tube amp
Software: Cubase 4 LE
Hardware: iMac 2.6Ghz Dual core, Focusrite Saffire Firewire soundcard
Microphone: Behringer B2 condenser microphone