NWB - Community Blog

Changing strings and tuning always seem a tad extreme to me :-)

Seriously I get worried whenever people start to get into synths and DAWs. There seems to be a tendency to into trying to get something 100% perfect, even if they don't know what perfect is, and output becomes non-existent! Technology has its place but the focus should still be the music.

Can't be doing with "this chord is kinda like an augmented 9th with a flattened 5th and a natural minored harmonic 6th"!!! What the fuck are you on about you twat?? Is it in E or fucking D!!!!

It is all about "one upmanship"
people like to look clever, just leave em to it, with the modern art lovers, cheese sniffers, and wine enthusiasts.... i'll have to go now, my Amplifiers Tubes are in the Freezer.

;)

G.

I'm getting worried that the felt washers on my cymbals stands are damping down the natural resonance of my cymbals.

I'm also wondering about the feasability of a hermetically sealed unit for enclosing my entire drumkit. This would stop temperature and humidity changes affecting the tuning of the skins and prevent the drums and cymbals from expanding and contracting.

I do wonder about Keith's use of three guitars though. I mean - they all sound the same don't they?

AYP

I'm a self confessed geek, but draw the line at gimmicks. I like trying new things, but if it doesn't improve my sound then it very quickly gets cast aside.

Have you tried the rubber cymbal "washers" that come on Mapex kits Al? That would increase resonance. I have a set somewhere I took off my kit. Too much resonance for my taste.

I can't think of any fellow musicians who buy into gimmicks. I guess that makes me the lucky one.

Some players ( I don't use the word "musician" for this kind of thing as 99% of us are hobby players, not musicians) get really obsessed on finding the holy grail sound.

One of the things that is really to our advantage now is the amount of video demos available. I always check if theres a demo of a piece of kit before pulling the trigger on it. It's been an invaluable source of information and it means you don't have to wade through site after site of opinion dressed up as fact.

True that Mick.
in many cases,and i include myself in this, a thousand pounds on a Guitar for example, would be better spent £400 on a guitar and £600 on lessons.

from my point of view ... i could spend £3000 on a bass and would end up driving the fucker to the back of beyond and getting my sound...might be better off with a healthy bank account and a westone........

i tend to find that the anal ones are the ones without a gig ... cheifly cos they are a pain in the arse to actually get anything moving with....if they are that emotional about a bass drum tone .. imagine what they will be like when i forget a bass line and improvise (wiggle my fingers vaguely in time) until i find a bit i know again.....they would blow a gasket and i would end up having to steam clean blood out of another headstock :o(

Al, it's 3 guitars......cos I can!

@4mostwanted Is that really a good example? I dont believe there is anything anal about knowing how to talk properly about the music you are playing. It makes it easier to communicate with a jazz pianist, classical musician or a composer who might not understand "well im playing the 5th fret on this string and the 7th fret on the next string."

What you have essentially said is the musical equivalent of " Cant be doing with all this punctuation, sentence structure and korect spelling...."

However as far as anal goes i have heard some crackers such as the kind of batteries in your acoustic guitar will effect your tone despite simply being a power source that provides energy to power your pickup system. Im fairly sure your guitar will work just as well and sound just as angelic if powered by asda price batteries, coal or cow shit. Another one being the whole relic guitar thing. The man who works on my guitars has a large collection of old bits that he has from decades ago and he has sold pickup switches for 60s strats for over a hundred quid...thats the plastic tip and metal bit you switch pickups with...all for the sake of being "all original!"

I couldnt sleep last night,at first i thought it was down to the clocks changing.Then i started thinking about the retractable spike on my double bass,should it be out 6 inch,or 5 and 3/4 inch?So in the dark, i walked into the room where it stands,screwdiver in hand.It stood there looking at me as if to say, well come on then.
I altered it,played a bit of Old Joe Clark,no difference whatsoever.
You wont believe how relieved i was to realise i hadnt been playing it wrong for 30 years,so i went back to bed happy and content,I was just about to nod off when i sat bolt upright thinking,did i play Old Joe Clark right?......T

I definately play the instrument that is home to the biggest psuedo-science behind it - the synthesizer. Which is ironic seeing as it's the most scientific of all instruments. I've had to give up on keyboard forums as I can't handle them anymore. I'm sure most of it is propagated by people who are trying to sell undesirable gear and are trying to make their stuff seem greater than it is. The annoying thing is that the myths seem to grow and take on a life of their own and somehow it ends up being the truth.

One thing I do obsess about with synths is programming my own sounds. It's particularly relevant with today's instruments as their patches are inevitably just prog-rock, hip hop and dance cliches. I rarely use preset sounds unless it's a deliberately ironic use of a really seminal sound specific to that instrument - think DX7 piano (most mid 80s records), Emulator Arco Strings (think Pet Shop Boys) and that sort of stuff.

I also think it pays to be meticulous in the studio. You may as well do everything in your power to make your recording as good as it can be.

Reading the comments from @Bright shapes and @4most wanted reminds me of a project I started a couple of years ago and which is still rumbling away on the very backest of back burners. Ever come across zaum? It was an approach to words and sounds which came to the fore as part of DaDa/the caberet voltaire (my art history is fairly poor) and my understanding is that it was an attempt to break the constraints of language using (fairly) random and often made up words, or blending different languages, to create a form of poetry where the words and other things which constitute language have value but only to the extent that they provide a melody. Then I thought about Harry Patch and his "new scale" - was it something like 42 intervals - where he had to build his own "orchestra" of instruments for obvious reasons. Hopefully people are getting where I'm going with all that but...

...Anyway, getting back to the point, or rather waffling on for a bit longer whilst avoiding what I'm being paid to do, for a bass player its too easy to get round things by saying "he's making an E barre shape at the 5th fret so I'm going to play A, maybe throw in a D, an E or even a G or a G# amd lets not forget C if I'm feeling like taking a risk" and that sort of works with a lot of the musical forms represented here but it don't half limit the fun you can have. My musical education is minimal and someone on here introduced me to the concept of modality which finally let me put a name to something I've always done - play notes and if the world doesn't vibrate then they go together ;-) It would be nice were I able to speak that language properly but it ain't gonna happen, its just too conventional *|->

...and 'ere's me thinking it was just hitting different sized bins with sticks.

Hell fire,im going to have words with me double bass,what've i been missing out on....T

I get "anal" over tribute bands but that's about it. If it sounds great do it...If not...Don't ;-)

Best wishes

John

@ John, leave it while before you come seeing us then (if indeed you were) for your anal obsession - that sounds dirty pmsl


Gary
BOF

@Bright Shapes - absolute nonsense!! Basically what I'm trying to say is the musical equivalent of:
Why say "Go forth and multiply as I no longer wish to converse with you" when "Fuck off" will do?
How many people on this site, ( and I stand corrected and apologise to those who do if there are loads) actually work with jazz pianists, classical musicians or composers? How many will actually get into the realm of "punctuation, sentence structure and korect spelling...."?
Look at the Set List Chart and pray tell how many of those songs will actually be broken down and analysed (or analised for want of a better word!), so as to better understand the content?
So whilst it's marvellous to have "the knowledge", and respect to those that do, in 95% of the situations most of us will find ourselves in, it's usually a bit over the top.
A little knowledge goes a long way. But a little knowledge in the wrong hands is extremely dangerous...........

Hi Gary.

LOL. I'm anal and dirty ;-)

Sorry matey but to my shame I don't know One Foo Fighters song :-(

Can you recommend a few?

If you want some venues and advice then please give me a shout.

Best wishes and good luck with the band.

John

@ john, don't worry no-ones perfect. Their best album (for me and a few on here) is the colour and the shape.


Songs to listen to:
Monkey wrench - will give you the power.
Rope - sheer musicianship
My Hero - great song
Everlong (both full band and acoustic) - GETS THE LADIES LOVING IT LOL



As for advice on venues, i was going to send a message to pick your brains but as ive never met you i thought that to be extremely cheeky lol.

Many thanks,
Gary

Hi Gary...Pick away :-)

Best wishes

John

@4mostwanted and if the situation calls for "fuck off" then thats fine but some songs require a more sophisticated approach im sure you would agree. If you had to work out a song by for example the stray cats then you would be wrong in assuming you could get away with just "D or fucking E." Even Setzers rockiest moments usually contain chord some inversions and alterted chords such as 13sus4 or 7 #9 #5 and to do the song justice and play it right you would have to play those chords.

There is no shame in knowing what you are doing in fact music is one of the few professions where not knowing what you are doing is Cool and thats a fucking shame! If a scientist didnt know the names of the chemicals he was mixing or the atoms he was smashing together you would think there was something wrong so why should musicians actually aspire to ignorance?

Please dont misunderstand me not knowing is not a bad thing in fact some of my favourite players and some of the best musicians in the world haven't got a clue about the "numbers and language" but I bet the majority of them didn't actively walk away from that knowledge!

@Bright Shapes .... come on, we'd all love to be operated on by a self taught brain surgeon!!! lol

with regard to the original blog and anality (made up word) - I definitely think gold tipped jack plugs sound miles better for guitarists!

;0)

I'm glad I'm not a musician - I just enjoy hitting things!

Hmmm - I wonder if gold tips on my drumsticks would sound better then Jez? Can I borrow one of your but...er, jack plugs?

AYP

Perhaps we need a 5th guideline - don't rise to it, changing people's minds often requires extensive and expensive surgery

have worked with a multitude of drummers over the years (and the 2 i work with at the moment dom and gareth i consider up there with the best - but i would say that wouldnt i?) and can safely say that i wouldnt care if they were hitting their kits using drum sticks tipped with puffin beaks or choir boys bollocks.... just as long as the CRACK BUFF BIFF CRACK BUFF BUFF BIFF was in the right order .... (obviously it is nicer if that is punctuated with some TSS TACKA TSS TACKA and the odd DACKA DACKA DACKA DACKA (depending on number of toms at their disposal))

Anything more than that will wash over me completely as background noise and falls squarely in their department ... they are the drummer and it is their artform.

Similarly dont think Dom and Gareth could give one stringey piece of cat shit whether i am using a £40 set of Black coated DR strings or some barbed wire off a farmers fence post.......

The anal analysis of our craft is fine and dandy but who really gives two hoots out front? Anyone who does is dangerous and should be birched repeatedly..

@ LA80 - bang on matey.

Now, about this birch; should the bark be stripped off it, and does it 'whip' better when oiled?
You could put some gold tips on it.....

AYP

ah now then Al thats where you have outted me as a hypocritical bastard.... musician geekiness is something i cant stomach, but other things such as perversion of smurfs, seduction of octagenarians and in particular punishment beatings --- these are subjects which i take very seriously.....

bark obviously off the birch, and soaked in white wine vinegar for 30 days... the chemical reaction of natural organic material and acid creates the whip which will strip skin down to the bone. The oil creates the satisfying whoosh in D minor and the trick is to flay em till they screech in a nice complimentary F......

red wine vinegar will cut em clean in two so make sure you know what you wanna do to em before proceeding.

@Bright Shapes - I do actually agree with you and I'm not walking away from the knowledge. I'm actually classically trained myself. But the whole point of the blog ( I think !), is the pretentiousness of certain individuals who delve rather too deeply into "what sounds right". My comments were stated tongue in cheek and not meant to cause offence, but to the average bassist, (and I class myself as an average bassist, before I get ganged up on again!!), drummist and singist person, 13sus4 or 7 #9 #5 means absolutely fuck all. In fact, it may as well be Mandarin Chinese.

Please read LA80 Mark's comments above - "The anal analysis of our craft is fine and dandy but who really gives two hoots out front? Anyone who does is dangerous and should be birched repeatedly..". Brutal I suppose, but quite correct.

Or in the words of Connery's Bond - It's far too technical............

@Mark - Damn right mate. Every time I catch myself getting geeky I remind myself that no bugger listens to the bass anyway! As long as my amp is capable of rattling glasses behind the bar, it's good enough for me. Having said that - I've got myself a Neo cab because I can look at it without getting a hernia. I'm bothered about how good I sound, but I'm under no illusions that it matters an owl's chuff to anyone except me.

You guys are on at the Brooklands Tap in December aren't you? I might have to turn up in my best anorak!

Andy - JTS

Floor toms? I thought that they were for putting your set list on.... ;-)

@ jump the shark ... yes we are on the tap in dec .........will have to become a pedant and make sure my sound is especially distorted now to prove a point ... damn!

guess the answer to this blog is quite simple.... you go to whatever lengths you want or need to to make that couple of hours on stage as comfortable as possible for you ... cutting out variables or personal dislikes to make the experience more palatable for YOU the musician........ The drummer comment in the blog post above "does hanging your stick bag on a tom affect the tone of the tom?".. The answer is yes it does to that drummer, he has thought about it, it is bouncing round his head and will gnaw away at him until he fixes it....he may spend a few quid buying a cheap high hat stand to get over it and it will benefit his playing as a result....

I had a similar thing with active basses and the batteries coupled with the amount i sweat when i play ...... i was constantly convinced the battery was getting low on power and my sound was being affected as a result .... also had an unfortunate incident with a tobias toby pro bass at a really hot sweaty gig where i literally had to sponge out the puddle of sweat from the cavity afterwards......I was convinced that the moisture would/had shorted summat out and .... you get the picture Im sure.

Solution .... get rid of actives .... buy 2 high powered passive basses and move on ... one less dilemma and space for my mind to encompass, comprehend and then blatantly ignore what i shoudl play over a Fminor susp 13 chord.

@4mostwanted No offence was taken at all and I dont believe any should be taken in a healthy debate its just a sharing of perceptions and opinions. I agree that whilst i like to know what im playing its not neccessary as long as things sound right. I think of the theory i know as a convenient form of reference but i certainly dont think about it whilst playing. I listen instead. To paraphrase Bruce Lee "With all the knowledge in the world without the ability to apply it its useless...all you can do is sit there and sound smug over a glass of cheap wine."

The thing i do find anal and mildly offensive yet amusing are the people that scoff at people who play simple chords or choose not to play the 3rd inversion of the #9 b5. You cant beat a good old open A ACDC style!

@AYP - Gold tipped drumsticks - now there is a thought!!! Could market them saying they improve stick response and eliminate unwanted ringing in the mid frequencies!

I love music bullshit!!! lol

:0)