MicsDirect...to be avoided

I bought an iSK flexible studio stand from them. It seemed a decent good quality sturdy item, but it broke unexpectedly just less than 6 months later. I contacted them about it and asales manager called Andy, told me they sold 100's of these and they don't break...when I pointed out mine had, he wanted me to explain how...I did, and sent photos of the break..They concluded from these photo's that the damage was caused by excessive force and not covered by warranty???? Ummmm....





This presumption of my inability to use a mic stand with my Gorrilla like arms and intellect to cause the damage, continued; despite my best efforts to tell them that the thing just collapsed and must therefore be faulty. All I wanted was a replacment, I wasn't trying to scam them, get refunds or anything, just my stand back...Eventually I had to quote the sale of goods act?? Why anyone ever has to is beyond me, especially as I stated all I wanted was a replacement for a clearly broken stand which should not have broken and the normal use it was put to.

This then resulted in Michelle from "customer service" taking over the communication and stating that these stands don't break, and they don't like my "tone", and do I "think they are stupid?"....no I kid you not, in fact...

"Dear Brian


Andy is away at the moment and has not had time to reply but I do not like your tone of communication to us!

The stand does not just break...do you think we are stupid?

As for your threat of litigation, I don't take that seriously!"

They did offer to repair my stand if I sent it back but I wasn't going to let the tone and Stupid comment go. So I fired back a quick reply explaing the reasons for my tone and annoyance that my explinaiton of events was being classified as lies.

Which then prompted, a fantastic "Without Prejudice" reply staying that due to my reply (yes it was a littel sarky but did offer an olive branch to try to get back on a proper customer with problem/seller wants to resolve, footing), due to my reply they would "now only proceed after examining the damage to ascertain whether it has been caused by a manufacturing fault or by forceful use"

So..no certainty that if i send it back as I had offered,at my own expense that they'd even carry out the repair or replacment...Since they clearly won't drop this presumption that I had been using my mic stand as some form of excercise equipment the discourse contined in a few ever more challenging emails and I have now given up.

Rather than seeking a repair/replacement I'm going to take them to small claims court for a refund, and complain to their MD about the shocking customer service..Though I doubt that will make a difference to this shoddy example of customer service.

Edit Oh I just discovered the owner is the self same sales manager who started the assumption of forced breakage, so I'm not going to get very far complaining about the customer service.

I'll go straight to the small claims court, I have a good case and I loathe being shafted by bad service. This blog post and another I found when googling will remain on the interwebs to act as a suitable warning to people to be careful of dealing with people who offer such bad service. I'll buy myself another stand from a reputable seller who appreciate the idea that good service brings people back, bad service drives them, along anyone they can warn, away.

So this is a warning.

Avoid MicsDirect, prices and range might be good, but if you have a problem, you're probalby going to get screwed.



Ahthankyew

Strange Ideas that refuse to die

Its odd that so many people hold views that are not only against the norm, but are factually provable to be false or at best misguided, or worse led by powerful interests intent on lining their own pockets (Tobacco???)

Consiracy theorists, Bigfoor hunters, anti vaccination lobbies, Anti taxation of the wealthy, no need for insurance just dont get sick, there is a god, Obama's an african, (or a commie), they won't give us the cure for cancer cos it'll cost them, The Royal family are flesh eating lizards, the illuminati have prison camps ready for us, Evolution is a lie, we can prove the world is 6000years old....the list goes on and on.

Occasionally I get myself involved in "debates" with these people but its really pointless...I must stop myself, when people refuse to accept any view point but their own, no matter how crazy or mad it is you have to wonder exactly how their thought processes work.

These are not stupid people, often far from it, they've read and disseminated huge amounts of informaton, even spent time analysiing it, formed an opinion, then re-inforced that opinion by only listening to other like minded people.
The problem is they have not taken the basic neutral stance you need to take in order for make an informed opinion...if all you do is build "evidence" to re-enforce a false idea while ignoring or dismissing any other evidence, then you are just really good at defending that falsehood.

So when you come along and point out a factual issue, they have mountains of "evidence" to hand to refute your claims of fact...The evidence however does not normally pass the simple tests of what constitutes evidence, its usaully some "opinion" spread by a person or group with some agenda to gain.

So you point out the failings in the source and supply accurate information and when that fails, they resort to the good old, ah but you're not really being told the truth, argument!!! More conspiracy! Can't trust those pesky facts and provable evidence, its all been set up to protect the powerful interests of the world..or religion, or whatever.
Even worse, and often funnier is when due to lack of understanding of the other viewpoint they try to discredit it while not having a clue.
For me Creationists are the worst at this, certanly the most organised since they often have churches behind them, I do reserve the right to call these people stupid..and here's some proof.



2 words...water cycle...why let a bit of factual science get in the way of a perfectly good but of athiest bashing.

Homeopathy comes close 2nd...hey do you know what they call Homepathic medicine thats been proven to work...Medicine!! I could probably list 10 or more...most are crackpot harmless..But some...some really worry me.



I really do despair at times, I just said that these people are not stupid, but they really do have some bloody stupid ideas...and thats why we're all ultimatly fucked!

Life is never dull, but it is sometimes deeply confusing. And its very late, I've done a shed load of work today, and have more to do tomorrow so time for bed.



Ahthankyew

Technology hates the old!

As someone who has made a life out of exploiting the use of technology I find my ever increasing inability to both understand and use it, frustrating

It seems more and more that every time I need to make use of technlogy for a simple task, that task becomes exponentially more difficult and takes far longer.

Take the simple act of copying a file to my flash key...no bother you say..indeed, I would normally agree, except my flash key disageed in some way with my PC and while the two of them argued it out my PC locked up and the file took over 10 mins to copy..well I assume it copied, the light stopped flashing, but the PC was still in a sulk about apparently losing the argument. Only the removal of my key from the PC finally persuaded the PC to unlock...and of course reset.
2 mins or so later when it had finished rebooting, and I needed to log back into all my web based data systems....the file had not actually copied.

grrrr

Pretty much every tech based task now seems to be fraught with difficulty, worry and stress...

I'm sure I have stumbled on the reason old people don't like technology....its because technology won't work for them...and I'm getting into that age where its all starting to go wrong..

oh and I think I have lumbago and my rhumatism is playing up.



Ahthankyew

Pedal Porn

Here they all are in their fully working glory, joined by the new RC-300 looping station, which even though I've only had 10 mins to play with it today as I frantically catch up with things after a night talking to God, Ralph and Huey on the big white telephone (dicky tummy). Its much much easer to use than my Jamman for more complex stuff...so for now the Jamman stays for some things but will probably be on the way out. I never did managed to sync things 100% of the time on it, the RC-300 fixes problems like that.

Still a few untidy wires, especially into the Adrenalinn which needs some right angled cables but thats an easy fix.

Quite pleaed with this now, I can pretty much do any kind of effect I want, or just use the standard toys on the Zoom's to play with. The trick now is to find my own tone that I can call my own...should be fun.

I'll try and have a proper play with the new looper arrangment this weekend and see if I can come up with something worth a video.


Ahthankyew

Things lasted forever when I were a lad

My nice bendy springy studio mic stand which pivots all over the place, broke this morning, snapped at the base so it can't be repaired it wasn't even being used in anger just moved out of the way of the screen.

Dammit, I've only had it 5 months...it cost 80quid and it falls apart after 5 months...thats madness, it wasn't even as if it was getting full pro usage. I've sent a snotty mail to the seller, who is a shop specialising in mics and stands on ebay so hopefully I'll get a refund or replacement under sale of goods act or something but I'm not happy about that. Things you pay decent (I know there are much more expensive mic stands but that was far from being cheap) money for should last a life time or a couple of years at least...5 months!!!!!

Rant over...back to working on tomorrow's lecture.



Ahthankyew

Last Day to clean up.

Well technically yesterday was the last holiday day, this is just the weekend..And Sunday I need to prep for work, so this is my last day to muck about and do...shit!!

In this case re-arranging my pedals and amps and putting the newcomers into place.
The AD3 just for fun does not have a flat bottom (????) to allow it to be velcro'd so its sat in place rather than fixed, and of course the Behinger board won't fit but it looks ok up front.
Last thing to go in place is my new RC-300 loop station which will sit next to the FCB1010

The AD3 now sits last in the chain, which is fine since putting it into tuning mode puts it into bypass when I don't want to use it, though it does sadly make the drum triggers on the 1010 board and the programmed drum beats, go silent...think its a bug, I will see if I can find another bypass system that will let me keep the drums on the pedal...should be possible!
Though I don't mind putting it into an amp mod mode and straight into its fine, its' only an issue if I want to then feed the signal into an amp, which I do less and less, preffering the Amps to be a cleaner signal which is why the Dunlop Crybaby is exclusive to the Marshall.
I'll need to get a couple of right angle 2ft patch cables to tidy up the cables but plugged in it all works a treat and has nice shiny lights that glow in the dark..oohh!!




Its sad that the new pedal fetish is starting to out grow the original board, but it still manages to keep everything tidy and accessable...I think I'm pretty much done with pedals now, I hae distortion, flangers, phazes, delays and loops of course so pretty much everything is covered, the only problem area is a drum machine since the ADIII really does not want to play nice with drums, but not going to worry about that, I can create MIDI files on Hydrogen, play them on my Millenium budget e-drums from the PC or Ipod/pad if I really need to get drums sorted....So I think I'm done.

The Youtube vid went out of sync a bit towards the end then came back so I need to adjust that, but overall am quite happy with the quality of it for a webcam its very good indeed, experimentation and a few more tests will find a perfect balance I'm sure, not that I expect to post much on youtube, but we'll see.

I think now that the skill levels have improved to the level I can actually play a few tunes right through its time to get on with making some music of my own. I like loop pedals and now I have 3 of them with 5 tracks (and 6 if I really pushed it by using the G-dec) I think its time to see what I can do with them..Blues does not really work for looping, but I quite like ambient dance/trace stuff, so maybe will have a play with that...or not ;)



Ahthankyew

It works..I think

My 1st ever "music" video.


It was a major pain getting this to record video and audio...The Mac would see the camera and make movies, but not get audio...I tried using editing packes to sync the audio but it never worked. So decided to put the camera in the PC..great...only now sound since it goes into the Mac...ermmmm

So..this is the Mac playing the backing track in Garage band, processing my guitar then sending the sound to the PC which did allow me to select the input for Audio from my new Sound card (well worth the 40quid just for that) and voila..

I think the sound is synced ok, I was expecting huge lag but it seems to be pretty much on the button.

So there it is my 1st ever performance video..its just a test so I'm not worried about the many mistakes, I'lll try to do more vids in future.

Oh and yes I do have an expression when I play...if you watch the eyebrows carefully they do move up and down sometimes...not in time to the music though!!

Ahthankyew

1st results.

I did find a backing track for Albert Kings Can't you see what your doing to me...not sure its going to be able to stay online since its very much Alberts record just with the guitar removed but we'll see. Copyright lawyers can be a bit of a pain even when paying tribute to great artists.
I wisely chose to let him sing this ;) I just did the guitar as close as I could get to his style....which musically is lightyears away but I am getting a bit closer.

Ahthankyew

Musical Differencse

We lost our lead guitarist Martin, for our band (provisionally called We're still Shit). Which is a shame, as he's really brilliant, but was not enjoying the slower style of music we were doing, though we had a few faster numbers in the practice pipeline... I'd noticed his frustration the last couple of practice sessions he was not at all into it, and redoing things 10 times when you're not enjoying it can't be fun...a bit like having to play never ending Bryan Adams songs...no its not Heaven..its hell!!

That means I have to take on lead duties for a while until we find a new lead guitarist...if we find a new lead guitarist ...gulp.

I think this may be the start of a fragmentation among the group though, we're not really getting together often enough and not all sharing the same musical tastes so our compromise style is not suiting some people if they are away from their preferences too long. As happened with Martin, he much prefers heavy rockier/punky stuff to the slower blues/pop stuff we've started practicing.

I did actually manage to get my head round Foo Fighers Monkey Wrench, but we never got a chance to play it with him

Oh well...musical differences are real after all, and its not just a case of someone having a strop and walking off.
I wonder who's next...I have my suspicions...we'll see.

For now, time to find a Lead Guitarist.

We are having a mini practice this week, probably just 3 of us, Britta the singer, Ed on bass and me, if it goes well I will try to record something and see how we sound...if it goes not..watch this space till we get something good enough to post.


Ahthankyew

Practice makes perfect.

Been noodling around in Bina's absence, she's been off watching the northernlights in Iceland (she managed to see them last night..she's dead chuffed) but no recordings as yet....in the works.

Got much better at a few classic numbers, Hey Joe, and even most of the rythym parts of Purple haze. A bit of All along the Watch tower...as well as some quite passible Cold Shot from SRV. Topping it all off with the rather tasty Tito and Tarantulas After Dark grooving...for those not it the know, its the music played during the sexiest dance scene with snakes and beer ever put to film..points if you know what film?
I'm hoping to get a recording of Hey Joe, Albert Kings, Can't you see what your doing to me (great Bass line) and maybe Howlin Wolf's Red Rooster done this week.

Probably will only manage one but we'll see. I dont' really have proper drums for Can't and Rooster, but got a backing track for Joe so that'll be the easiest to try.

I spent quite a lot of time messing about with my ADIII trying to get a MIDI contoller to play its drums...I was thinking if I could program a few drum patterns and then get the ADIII to play them it might even be possible to carry those MIDI patterns on an Ipod and voila, stand in drummer for practicing band numbers or filling in when he's not there.
But man what a can of worms, the only drum package I came close to working out is Open source Hydrogen (which I did stupidly buy from an ebay seller...oh well) But it "saves" a midi file it does not output on playback.

So began several frustrating days hunting and demo'ing packages reccomended to me by more musical software minded friends.

They had to be having a laugh, these things are so complex you practically need a degree to use them. Even getting a simple drum track on some packages was an effort in menu hunting and random button presses...

I needed something simple and easy and intuative, it seems it does not exisit, so maybe, I'll write one someday...

In theory though I can save MIDI from Hydrogen and play it back on my Ipod fitted with IrigMIDI through FL Studio mobile..at lest I hope so cos I certainly couldn't do anything else with FL Studio mobile, its just as complex as its PC version!!

I think the ADIII is also not really a MIDI friendly bit of kit..though you can trigger individial drums, as I do on my contoller pedal board, all I managed to do with multiple packages was sync a start..no playback..so...perhaps a lost cause.

Life is too damn short to give a damn about it...I'll just use the patterns that are in there, even if they get a bit repetative (why no fill button??). I'll kidnap Robbie the Drummer and stuff him in the cupboard till needed...a few fish heads tossed in from time to time should be all he needs.

Oh and in other news...the Satellite dish is broken..Wind damage...it pulled the main brick it was fixed to out ot place I tried to fix it but the LNB clap has snapped and its out of alignment...Tried to buy a new clamp but could not, so buying a new LBN. Fortunately not an expensive item...should be here in a few days..I'll need to get a willing helper to shout out at me if the thing is getting a signal before I tighten it all up again.






Ahthankyew

please make it stop

I had a break, frankly marking is making me google eyed and my fingers were getting soft from the lack of guitar playing, and since we have band practice tomorrow and...oh I can't think of any more excuses...I needed to twiddle with my new pedal

It really is neat, many of the settings are pretty tradional tone based fx, all very nice and really clean, but its the Sequencer fx and ryhthm based stuff that makes the ADIII stand out, here's something I was messing about with to see what the difference is with short, sustained chords and single notes..I found if I kept a bass note going as I was strumming or picking notes I got the most amazing groove going...
I recorded it.
The drums are the machine of course which locks down the beat, but the rest of it is one guitar playing a few chords and single note lines while maintaning a base note rhythm..its brill, I need to work out how to expand this into a song. I even played some blues licks over it at one point and it sounded good, so maybe some trippy blues thing...watch this space during next weeks Bina's in Iceland so Brian's going to record in his underwear week.

Ahthankyew

While the girls are watching Emmerdale

I had a tinker with my new toy.

Bloody hell

WOW!!

Can't wait till next week when I have some real time.


Ahthankyew

Real pain is....

Having new toys to play with but absolutely no time to play with them.

The Adrenalinn III FX/Drum pedal and FCB 1010 midi board arrived today, incredible service as always from Thomann.de pretty much next day delivery.



I can't really use the midi board anyway, though its perfectly possible to program it and do all kinds of things to make it work with the AdrenalinnIII, I bought a special PROM from the US which automatically programs it to work with the ADIII as a dedicated board (I have no other midi kit so might as well). I'll hold off on playing with that till the PROM arrives and is fitted, no sense in learning stuff only to end up not using it in the end.

If I can finish the marking in the next day or 2, I will finally have a whole week of free time (aside from my Didactics resit) next week for Spring(????) holiday, when I plan to do a monster recording session or 2 and get to know my new toy.


Anyway...I plugged it it to try it out and the drums sound amazing..I'll restrict myself to that for now...back to marking.

Ahthankyew

Getting the groove right

I've been toying with drums for a while, I own a very basic electronic drum kit but its not great for learning on and lets face it I have no real sense of rythm so I've been using it more for patterns and occasional high hats. I like my Cahjon a lot really need to get into that more. But I need a drummer who can play some groves for me and let me noodle along. Backing tracks and in built rythms on my pedals work ok but your kind of fixed into the 1 groove for ever or can only play as long as the track lets you.
When I want to play something I like, especially old blues songs, getting that ch ch ch ting/boom rythmn which then changes as it build ups mid way and speeds and up slows down as the mood changes, is not always easy to find, or indeed control without stopping playind and clicking on computers or something else, losing the groove.

I assumed there would be loads of guitarist drum machines on the market but it turns out there are very few and almost all adhere to the standard 3/4 4/4 rock/latin/samba type of offerings...I want something more flexible, something I can control, preferably set up on a PC and switch on and off , build up, slow down and change the grove with my feet while I play.

There are VERY few things on the market that do that...shock!

The closest is this



Which is impressive though it needs some extra pedals and software to get the best out of it.

Needless to say I'm going to try it out.

Lets hope it does the job or I may have to hire a drummer by the hour to live in thestore cupboard.



Ahthankyew

Must...keep..going

Marking marking marking...wow so much of it.

Though have tried to make a point of only doing it during working hours or when I have nothing else to do, so it does not take over my life...As always the best laid plans didn't quite work out as expected, a lot of the assignments needed careful review and reading which when you're dealing with code is a lot of reading.. Fortunatly I have one of those memories where if I see something I can recall if I've seen it before...but not always where.

Probably going to be another week, and as usual I've got people screaming that some things need to be prioritised, breaking my pattern of working on 1 thing at a time...but hey ho. I've got a big chunk of time today so might get the 1st load of IGD's finished and then do some emergency AGT's sorted out (they need the grade to be able to do other things)


Took time off a couple of evenings this week though, on Tuesday I went to the Speeltuin cafe (the play ground) which is famous for its jam sessions on Tuesday nights, you turn up, get on stage and play, basic kit is available though it seems the dedicated bring their own kit.

I almost get up with my guitar playing collegue Oliver to do a bit of blues but the stage got overtaken by a bunch of regulars who almost certainly play as a band and hogged the stage most of the night...Very good though, they played really well and way above my standard so I wasn't tempted to muscle in at any point, though Oliver joined in a few times quite impressively desptite bemoaning the quality of the guitar on offer.


Also last night, Wednesday, was the Breda Ex pats quiz night, which is a semi regular english quiz, run by the Ex pats society. My team, the Bald and the Beautiful, have won every one so far, and last night was no exception, 5 in a row.

Exciting as it is to win, its starting to get a bit much now so I think we're going to stand down for a while to give the other teams an incentive to keep coming. There was a low turnout last night due to weather and other things and we don't want to be responsible for putting people off....5 in a row though :)


Off to the docs in an hour to see about my cough, its now 7 weeks, its not as bad as it was, but its still there and it needs to be sorted out.

Then another chunk of marking and a quiet night in.

bliss.


Ahthankyew

There's no end to it.

Not the Marking, that will end eventually, if I live that long. But the constant meetings that seem to get crammed into this week, the only real week when I have no student activity, which leaves scant time left for marking and course prep.

But as I sit waiting to go into another meeting, I though I'd check out my train fares to Nantes/Saintes in July for my guitar course. Took a little bit of doing but eventually I got it sorted out. 135 euros and 6 or so hours, not bad, certainly cheaper and faster than the car, once you factor in the cost of fuel and tolls, with the added advantage of being able to read/snooze on the train.
What was even more surprising was that if I go 1st class, its cheaper!!!!!! 6 whole euro's cheaper...didn't expect that. Good for NS Trein, Fyra and TGV, whats more its only 3 trains to travel quite some 670km :D









Can't actually book it yet since it seems they only have a 3 month advance booking option, but good to know that the train can take the strain without killing my wallet.


Ahthankyew

Marking......

So now begins marking hell, 3 courses, approx 100 assignments and 1 week to get them all graded!!


lol yeah right, ask me in 2 weeks.



Ahthankyew

21 today

My lovely daughter is now 21.

wait..how its that even possible, its was only yesterday I was changing nappies and wiping her nose (not with the nappies), yet here we are 21 years on.

I missed a lot of her growing up, I was there till she started school and raised her while her mum worked, but as our relationship collapsed I had to step back and let her mum be the main parent, but I stayed around as much as I could and was always there for her, watching her grow from little girl, to moody teen, to smart young woman and now...21...wow

I am very proud of Danni, she's turned out a level headed, sensbile woman, who will tackle anything life throws at her......words don't describe how amazing a feeling that is for a dad.



Ahthankyew

storage is the key

The attic is a mess, there's cardboard and packing material and tables and bits of stuff all over the place, since I've been spending the last several days building this...



Brilliant isn't it. Storage for 9-10 guitars each side, with the bottom side being reserved for guitars in use and out of their cases.

I do really prefer them all to hand, but this at least keeps them safe and solves what was becoming a major crisis for storage.




Its basically a double Pax wardrobe from Ikea, with sliding door (don't get the expensive glass ones if you don't need them, I didn't realise I had a choice) and divided in the middle rather than adding lots of cloth hanging/storage stuff. I still want to had a bit of re-enforcment to the shelving but loading it up now to see if all fits I noted it didn't stress or bend so it seems to be ok..for now, I'm still going to put a few support pillars in. At the moment a ABS case is acting as a bit of girder holding it up if it was too heavey, but I think we're good.

Quite a palava building it, Bina and I have been banging on about getting new robes for the bedrooms for ages, and I do like the Pax ones, but after this, when we do get them, we'll hire the ikea guys to build it for us.

Only a bit of re-ordering to do now, need to get rid of a table and move things around a bit to make use of the space so we can get full use of our home cinema as well as my studio/music room office, withouth tripping over guitars.





Ahthankyew

failed...oh the shame

Well no not really shame...I didn't supply quite enough info in the assinment so have not passed, I've been given feedback on what is missing and can represent. I'll have a bit of a rest since I'm still a bit poorly with the cough and do it next week.

I was one of 3 who are having to represent, so at least I'm not alone, we still had a fun graduation ceremony and an interesting last day of tution in the art of managing groups which I found very interesting.

I even got some flowers :D very nice...Bina liked them.
Some pics were taken so I'll post them when they are sent to me.




Ahthankyew

Still coughing and the suspense is killing me

A week on and I'm still coughing like a good un, going back to the vet to see what else he can give me, not really interested in any more puffers the effectiveness seems to have worn off, I want rid.

Got some feedback from my asignment, favourable but with requests to make some ammendments and additions, which is fine. I probably will not graduate tomorrow, but that means I get a month to fix the problems and resubmit which will be a lot better over all as I have much less teaching to do next block compared to this.
I'll know for sure tomorrow.

Might now finally get a chance to finish my guitar vault and start storing things in their correct places.

I got to spend 30 mins at last with my new toy and I am really liking my EX7 it has some quite remarkable tones in it, especially the Leslie speaker emulation, which gives a warmth and richness to my playing I've not been able to get before..becuase I don't have Leslie speakers of course and am never likely to considering the cost and size of them.

I decided to get a 2nd one to take with me to band practice, since I really don't like taking pedals out of my home board and carting them around, managed to pick up a barely used one half price on ebay (pic above) even allowing for postage costs, its a heavy item, I still saved a lot on a back up that I will keep in my bag and let my home one stay on the board at all times.

The band are now resolved to do more regular practice, and we've settled on a core of 6 songs to get right before adding more, a mix, of pop, rock, blues and r&b numbers..lets hope we manage to do decent versions of them all. I'm comfortable with most of them except Foo Fighters Monkey Wrench with is a banging tune played very fast, not my usual style at all, fortunaly I just need to play 4 of 5 chords over and over again as the rythm guitar, Martin as lead can do the riffs.


Oh and in other news I got an ok to be away from Breda in July to attend another Creative Vacance guitar course, this time blues guitar, so I'm really looking forward to that, I improved so much in my acoustic playing after the last one and am hoping there will be a similar improvement in my electric playing this time. I'll get the travel arranged in advance to save costs...assuming there is a saving when you book train fares...I drove last time, which was fine, but it was a long and expensive trip once toll's were factored in. Train this time, relaxing and a chance to do any final work related stuff as I travel....few months off though.




Ahthankyew

Zzzzzzz

Assignments done...and sent, not sure they're good enough but I did my best, if they fail I get a month to fix them which should be possible in the next lighter block.
Student issues dealt with, and work related form filling and reading done

4-23am now...up at 8-45 to get ready for meeting....

life is never dull


Ahthankyew

So this is what being a student feels like?

Well its been a mad week, due to having to take a day and a half off due to the chest/cough, I've had the remaining work time filled up with other IGAD stuff, mainly students taking advantage of the ask Brian for help before he shuts down in exam week offer.
Which is fine, except for the fact I have a Didactics assignment, 2 actually to hand in this week. There simply was not enough time for that, I tried to flesh out the notes and roughs I'd build on over the weeks, but it just wasn't possible, my days of being able to work all day and night are long since passed me and I missed my deadline, fortunaly I am being allwowed to hand it in a few days late, and as a worst case if I do miss it I get a month to redo it..So it will be sorted, but for the 1st time really I've had a students view point of not being able to cope with my workload.

In my case I don't think I could have avoided it, I 've been doing my homework, making notes and roughing things out, but the sheer weight of coruse work I've had this block added to the extra faculty meetings and comittees I have to work on...its been crazy.

I've not been able to complete my guitar vault, just not enough time, though I did get 10 minutes to unpack and plug in my newest toy a Digitech Ex7 expession pedal, mainly for the awesome Leslie effect it has, but also lots of other cool fx....an incentive to get my assignment done so I can actually play with the thing.




Ahthankyew

slow, slow, qu...slow slow

Despite my cough being under control with the inhaler, I've had to avoid the cold air outside and have been messing about with assignments and grading.

Also made a start on my new IKEA guitar vault, which is basically a standard Ikea Wardrobe but built for storage and re-enforced on the shelves to hold the guitars.

Normally I love doing flatpack furniture, its just like messing with big Airfix kits, but in my not well state, it was quite an effort, having to stop at every single little step. Normally I'd have it up and done in a few hours, but this is going to be a couple of days at this rate..got the 1st section up though and trying it out for size.


All fits....there's another section to be built and joined onto that section, reenfocement on the shelves, then glass sliding doors (A slight excess on my part as I didn't realise I could buy cheaper non glass doors..) and all should be fine and dandy.

I think I can store 20 in there, 5 in each section, though maybe less if cased. The bottom rack will hold my most used non Gibsons (I'll keep the gibbos on the wal) and the other racks can keep the less often used acoustics safe and secure and snug.
All in all a huge space savingbut still accessable.

Just wish I was fit enough to get it up and done. But work commitments mean I could only do a couple of hours and thats as much as I managed.

Hoping the inhaler lets me get a full nights sleep, and not get kicked out into the spare room for keeping Bina awake...Who incidently had a wisdom tooth out today, and she's still the smartest women I know...go figure??






Ahthankyew

inhalers are ...ok

Went to docs about my cough, was lucky to get a same day appointment despite calling in later than planned.

Doc, a huge hulking ape like man who hunched over as he walked to the room with me following, had a bit of a listen, decided there was no real sign of infection but that my lungs were sensitive at the moment and prescribed an inhaler.

Funny thing is, both he and the chemist went to great pains to explain the correct way to use it, and warned of the deeply unpleasant issue of having to suppress the cough reflex you get when inhaling such things. But I must breath through it they both emphasised.

Got home...readies myself for this new, and apparently unpleasent medical experience, breathed right out, then deep breath in as shown, and pressed the inhaler button as I am taking my deepest possible breath.
....
...

nothing....did anything come out?

Pressed it onto my hand and yes sure enough, a little puff of something comes out.

So I think, it might have been a bit of an air lock in the gadget, shake it up, and repeat process...same result, absolutely no cough reflex or unpleasent sensation at all, in fact nothing whatsoever appeared to happen.

I think I just gave myself a double dose with no cough reflex.

hmmm best not do it again for a few hours then.

Oh...cough seems to have died down..so something has happened, good stuff this ;)




Ahthankyew

cough cough splutter yeeuuuugghhh

Thats the noise I've been making most of the day today as the 1st real cold day of the Winter met with the tail end of my holiday cold to give me a mother of a cough that will probably keep me awake all night and missing out on another of my cool Didactic classes as well as an important staff discussion meeting.

I'll give the doctors surgery a call tomorrow and see if I can get a same day appointment out of them to get some A/B's and proper cough meds, which are surprisingly hard to find here, as are good cold/flu meds.

Oh well....spare room for me tonight.



Ahthankyew

thats better

Fretlight's back, €35 well spent, still has a bit of a buzz somewhere probably on the bridge but that does not impact on its playing tone when amped so all is well.

The New nut is considerably better and I can do 1st,2nd and 3rd string bends with impunity now. A considerable difference seeing a proper cut nut in place compared to the badly scored bit of plastic that was on there.

I noticed though on testing it, that the humming and computer feedback is still very evident on the neck pup, even played wirelessly, you still need to have the midi contoller plugged in via a wire, to the guitar and pc so there is "noise" going back up into it. So I'm quite sure there's a quality issue in the earthing of the midi LED controller and that neck pup. But not going to worry about it, its for practice not playing, and I can use the other 2 pups no problem.

It can now take its place now in the stand near the computer ready to be plugged in with Guitar Pro6 for Fretlight to let me practice scales, modes and occasional songs. But I can't see me buying any more Fretlight products for the forseeable future.

I'll take Goldie in next to get her pickup selecter fixed, my DIY repair job has not really worked and now I can't access the neck pup or the out of phase sounds at all..best let the pro handle it.



Ahthankyew

Embarassed, moi?

Finally managed to take my fretlight to the shop today to get its nut properly installed and I thought I might as well spend a few quid to try to upgrade it generally. I was thinking, some new modest pickups, perhaps a coil tap on the humbucker. All sorts of smart ideas to make it into something worth keeping.

But the shop tech was having none of it.. simply not worth it, the bridge was the cheapest of cheap and the light wood body had little or no resonance on it to make any kind of mod viable.
It has a nice neck which is where it gets most of its sustain but otherwise its little better than some of the cheapest guitars they sell for beginners. Pickups are cheap, frets are not well dressed and of course the supplied nut is terrible and totally ineffective for proper playing.

I wanted the pickups changed to get rid of a hum on the neck pup, but he was adamant that it was simple single coil hum...I pointed out none of my other single coils hum that loud and he made a vald point, my other guitars are quality, and have quality pups.

I had to concede he was probably right.. there's no point spending money on a guitar thats only there for practicing my scales, keys and learing new songs with the supplied software.

Since its only a practice guitar and never ever ever going to be used for any serious music, changing the pups or anything else is throwing money away.

So he's going to fit a proper nut on it, set the action to a decent level and give it a proper set up. That alone will cost a couple of quid and thats where I'll leave it.
Overall todays experience in the shop confirmed what I already believed, I think that the concept of a tutor guitar with light-up fretboard is decent, but the quality of the actual instrument leaves a lot to be desired, at least on this base level model..I can't see me ever buying another. Shame really, since a harder wood and through body bridge would probably make it quite decent. I've actually bought betterr 50quid guitars on ebay...pity their fretboards didnt light up!

Oh well.








Ahthankyew

I'm cured!!!

I went with Bina to Utrecht today, she's was doing an exam for her Masters (which of course she'll get another A* for). And to amuse myself I went hunting for music shops.

I found the motherload!! Feedback Music...OMG Guitars, basses, Guitars, keyboards, Guitars, pedals, guitars, drums...everything in fact, including guitars.

Loooooads of them and proper makes, not the cheap branded chinese crap we have on sale at our local padding out the 2 or 3 decent guitars on offer.

And amazngly, all well priced....I tried loads of different ones, almost broke a Fender Acusticsonicaster thingy, which due to its thin head dropped off the wall mount after I played with it..fortunatly I caught it before it hit the ground and the shop staff wisely then placed it on a stand rather than the wall.

Lots and lots of interesting guitars, I got to try them out, even the expensive ones and for the most part I didn't like the way they felt...so no purchase. I got a chance to compare an Epiphone Lucille with my Gibsons and really there is no comparison. I tried a couple of Line6 variax's and loved the cheaper one, the top end having a strange heel join to the body that I hated. A couple of PRS Se's also felt great to play, one was on offer.....tempting. Ibanez's were nice but I just can't see the appeal myself. The Fender acoustithing was nothing to write home about. There were some very nice basses which almost had me reaching for my credit card, but nothing at a price I could justify for the amount I play, I'll stick with my old Roberts for now.

But, heres the thing, though I still have a chunk of my Xmas bonus available, I didn't purchase anything...I walked out smiling and happy with my twiddles, I know now what a range of guitars feel like and more important I know now where to go if I feel the need to buy another (I won't though...) and try before I buy.

GAS is clearly under control. Well that and the fact I am going to buy a wardrobe and convert it into a vault, as well as perhaps buy some better electronic drums as my kit is really not good for learning on, so I had other uses for my bonus money......still ....progress eh!



Ahthankyew

Home sweet home

Nice to have a break, but even nicer to come home to your own bed, even if at the moment I'm not in it, due to the fact I have a nasty cough from the cold I developed on holiday. I'll be waking Bina up if I snuggle into bed then start hacking and wretching. Though much better I'm still hacking, so spare room for me when this is done :(

I lost the final day of the holiday due to a nasty spot of food poisoning, not sure if it was the dissapointing Chinese we had or the really tasty but slighly dodgy and huge street seller candy floss I gobbled afterwards...probably the candy floss.

But a day on the couch in close running distance to a handy downstairs loo, had me back to normal again and we headed off on our trip home. Leaving my digital camera in the hire car in the process..bah..hopefully they can send it on to me...we'll have to see.

Speaking of digital camera's Bina had an absolute ball at Lorca Parque on Tenerife getting herself a yearly pass so she could go every day she wanted to see her beloved Orcas and dolphins. She went 3 times in the end. In the process taking some utterly brilliant pics which are on her facebook page, I might post a few on here too.

But holidays end, flight back was pretty good, we were worried about bad weather but we manage to miss it and had smooth flying and landings with no problems at all.

Stright to our soft and sadly seperate beds till the cough dies down.

I had a nice relaxing 1st day back with my girls, trying to do some recording of Bonamassa and Harts amazing version of Bobby Bland's "I'll take care of you", which I played on a loop 50 times at least when I was lying ill on the couch.. its just utterly brilliant.



Of course I couldn't get it down, I'll need a bit of help from my bandmates to be able to get this masterpiece recorded, and you can forget that end solo...wow.

Still I enjoyed the process of trying, its nice to have a bit of a break from playing guitar then finding that the break has made you more aware of things your doing right and wrong, so today was a good day despite the recording failure..I'll try something a bit simpler instead.....
like this


Which I can play, if not sing..

or maybe this..



a bit more challenging with several layers, but not too hard and very cool...

Watch this space and we'll see what I come up with.

New Year of course means new resolutions, my resolution is not to make any resolutions, oops which I've just broken...not to worry, I had already made up my mind to lose weight and get fitter once Holidays were all done, I'll start charting progress on that soon... The target is to lose 50lbs in 6 months, while obviously rediscovering the Charles Atlas body that is currently hidden in this Homer Simpson padded suit..
Lets just stick to the 50lbs..some diet...some....note that mum, some...But mostly more excersise.


Ahthankyew

Hello 2012

Internet is incredibley bad here in Tenerife, we seem to be bouncing off a reflected signal which comes and goes, usually right in the middle of something important that needs downloads.

So I'll keep this brief.

Happy New Year to you all, its been an interesting year, no where near as bad as 2010 but a lot more work, 2012 has promise though...lets hope we all get what we want, or if we try real hard we might get what we need.


Peace love and other assorted platitudes which probably won't post.....


Ahthankyew

Lost and Found now for some sunshine

Lost in Space did turn up, she'd been delivered to the next building, the sender seems to have forgotton to put the building number on the label, though he did put the building name on so I am surprised at UPS not making the connection with a big building with PAKHUIS carved in 3 foot high letters on the wall as well as a large PkHS logo on the front..
never mind, it arrived..sadly very slightly damaged but not in anyway that causes it to be unusable, as I said before she is a cheapo guitar, so her wood is not solid mahogany like my other axes, more plywood if you get my meaning, as a result a flake on the tip of one of the legs got bashed off and lost the paint exposing the wood. But not to worry.

So she's now waiting to be abused by hoards of students in our Game Anylsis Room...or rec room as it should be called. So long as they don't throw her around she'll be fine and we'll all have a lot of fun plugging our ipods into her..ermmmm lots of things wrong with that statement.



Lucky it did show up today, since this is our last day at work..I have a full day of GameLab supervision/help ahead but after that 2 whole weeks of Xmas holiday, much of which we are spending in sunny Tenerife, spending our lovely double salary bonus...I've mentioned how much I love my job right??

Roll on the sunshine, I must confess to beig totally exhausted this last block, with difficult classes and huge amounts of prep, admin and marking work its been pretty intensive and I need the rest.

oh well back to work..for a few more hours.




Ahthankyew

hmmmm ebay losing the plot

With The Lost in Space guitar still not resolved, and not likely to be anytime soon, this has been a pretty bad month all told for ebay purchases and postal purchases in general

I bought some expensive wireless headphones which were useless and the seller agreed to replace them, but so far has not, and has suddenly started accumulating lots of neg feedback on his store, and not responding to mailes, suggesting big issues/walked away, which might be a problem

Several small packages from the US appear to have gone awol, including Bina's Birthday pressie/s to me which she tells me was coming from the US though she thought it was NL.

I'm not overly worried about my ebay problems, I buy huge amounts of stuff, sometimes quite expensive things, and lots of small things, and problems are rare.

Paypal is of course a total joke and never any use when there are genuine issues, which is why I usually pay via paypal with my credit card, there's always a protection system in place there, so if worst comes to worst and my headphone guy has done a bunk with my cash, I can claim it back and let the UK Police pay him a visit at my credit cards request.

We'll give UPS a chance to resolve the guitar over the holiday period, its not the sellers fault, though when all said and done I have not got my goods, so if a claim has to be made, it has to be made. They can claim from UPS who have gone so far down in my estimations I don't ever want to use them again.





Ahthankyew

Lost in Space

Quite annoyed with UPS, it seems they have lost, or misdelivered a package.

I bought this,


She's a Space Invader themed flying V, as a "gift" to my work recreation area...to add to our acoustic guitar and keyboard collection which the students and staff sometimes bang out a tune on..(I may be tempted to play it a bit myself)

It wasn't expensive, but all the same it wasn't free, so was a bit narked to find that UPS reported it as delivered yesterday. I had it delivered to the work address since thats where it will live and the office is never usually empty.

Apparently it was delivered at 1.07 and signed for (with a squiggle according to image on the tracking system) by someone called Jansen

20/12/2011
13:07
BREDA, NL
DELIVERED - JANSEN

20/12/2011
03:47
EINDHOVEN, NL
IMPORT SCAN
20/12/2011

03:11
EINDHOVEN, NL
OUT FOR DELIVERY


Trouble is we have no one called Jansen here and no one saw any sign of the UPS man who's no stranger to our building.....oh dear.

So its either gone to the totally wrong address and someone has taken it in...or someone has snagged it as it was being delivered here...either way..WTF!!! are UPS doing giving large box to someone who's name is not on the box.

Lets hope the driver remembers where he delivered it, or a claim will be heading off pretty soon.




Ahthankyew

noodles

Birthday weekend == time for guitar playing ;), at least until I have to start prepping this weeks lectures.

Been wanting to do a version of this for a long time, its a really big classic of course and everyone knows the amazing original, its not often done any different, so I had planneed to do a darker version which was sounding really ermmm "nice" , when I practiced it, but I can't sing (or even think sing) and play so I got the I know I know I know bit in the wrong place when I laid down this track, but I thought it sounded great even with out the dischordant stuff I had planned ot put in, so I decided to just do a bit of mood noodling along to a great sounding 1st track riff I got down...shame its not a bit longer....might revisit this if I can find a singer to do the vocals properl

Ahthankyew

Crappy day

Won't go into too much detail since my blog is not as private as it once was, but today was a seriously crappy day...I don't think I've had a day quite like it in 3.5years of teaching, trying to get a simple and important concept across and being forced to simplify it till it had little or no meaning, only to find even that extreme simplification wasn't registering.

When you stand next a student and they can't even type in a dictation of the answer its hard work.

There's only so many ways you can express a simple concept till you end up repeating it over and over again and feel like giving up.

Going to have to have a bit of a rethink about the teaching method used and the expectations of the students involved. Some advice from my didactics tutor is needed.



Ahthankyew

Hmm I'm doing it wrong.

I am supervising 1st year IGD gamelab at work, thats my 1st time working with the IGD group and its been quite an eyeopener.

The IGD are designed to be more specialised than the Programming and Visual Art tracks, they need to be all rounders who can do some coding, some art adn some production with a view to letting them develop their own specialites.

The Gamelab concept is based normally on the idea that students get chucked into the thick of it and we stop those that are sinking from ermm sinking while the swimmers get going and in time everyone picks up the the working in a team mentality.

That works very well with PR and VA students who get mixed up and do their own thing, but we're finding IGD to be a bit more problematic.

Mainly due to the coding side of it, there has to be some level of tech skills and in this case we really don't have it. I do teach some of them programming in the 2nd block after they have already been doing gamelab for 3 months.

So its been a struggle, and this week I've been doing some work to help them get things up to spec....I can see so many basic mistakes, stuff I have been teaching in class just isn't being used.

so...while I get that they have not had the benefit of me teaching them coding for 3 months..they have had me for 5 weeks and the basics I explained just havn't been getting used...Thats my fault I think, if they are not understanding the importance of what I am explaining, especially the basics, then I'vd not done my job right.

Got 3 weeks left to get them on track before they start their next gamelab. I am going to be keepng a very close eye on them to see if my re-asserting the basics works.





Ahthankyew

Diet !!!! Hell no!

As I approach 49 (edit oops 48...maybe I can postpone the exercise a year then) in a couple of weeks...I am becoming increasingly aware of the fact I'm a right podgy bastard...most of my shirts are getting tighter....and its not due to machine washing.

Despite cycling a lot, I also eat a lot..and of course something has to happen. I am currently 14st, 92kg. Which is actually what I weighed just before my cancer. I lost a lot of weight soon after than, but slowly its been going back on.

Anyway for my height and build, I should really be around 10-11st. So.....it begins!! I can't really carry this weight around and not expect a heart attack before I'm 60. So its time to shed it...not with diet..I hate diets..but slightly more sensible eating and ...wait for it.

Excercise.

gulp

I have agreed to join Bina's Gym (which will also encourage her to go a bit more as she does not like going alone) and I'm going to take up some running.

To enforce this I just bought THE most expensive pair of trainers in the history of my ever buying trainers. 160euros..yes I said 160. Apparently after testing my running style (by videoing me running in the shop..I shit you not) the specialist show shop reccomends a set of shoes with some extra lift on the instep to help prevent injury.

160....gulp...There's an old saying which goes something like...Spend little, but spend wisely, I take that to mean don't waste money but buy the best you can...so...

I better end up being ablet to run sub 2 hour marathons after that level of investment!!!

Anyway...Starting off light till I get into the swing...Going to go for some light cycleing around the area, then some walking then light jogging.
I'll keep a track on the weight to see if its dropping.




Ahthankyew

A wall of Gibsons

There's Libby lined up with my other Gibsons.
waiting for her to warm up a bit before I tune her up and have a bit of plinkyplonky time. She's really nice though, a '98 model so nicely aged. Only 1 minor crack on her, but she has been looked after very well.

She does need a clean though...she smells a bit, think her last owner must have been a smoker.

:D

Impressive performance by DHL giving next day delivery and regular notifications. I really though it would be Friday or Monday before she got here.



Edit..ok warmed up...tuned up, plugged in.

'kin 'ell.....what a belter....fantastic just fantastic, feels amazing, sounds amazing, looks...incredible....WHY did I not buy one of these babies before...just spent nearly 2 hours noodling around, doing mega barre chords and stretches and all worked perfect, no hand strain, no hard to reach frets, nothing, perfect position, pefect weight, perfect neck, perfect sound..I am genuinely smitten.

Just need to do something about that smell of smoke..

Libby, time for a wash.....c'mere you!




Ahthankyew

Nearly here

Looks like Libby might arrive in the afternoon sometime :D
She's already on the mainland.
I am planning to get to work tomorrow, if I ever get to sleep...So with a bit of luck I'll be able to have some plinkyplonky fun when I get home.



Arrived at Sort Facility BRUSSELS - BELGIUM
Sign up for shipment notifications Thursday, December 01, 2011 at 01:45
Origin Service Area: EXETER - EXMOUTH - UK
Destination Service Area: EINDHOVEN - BREDA - NETHERLANDS, THE +1 Pieces


Thursday, December 01, 2011 Location Time Pieces
7 Arrived at Sort Facility BRUSSELS - BELGIUM BRUSSELS - BELGIUM 01:45 +1 Pieces


Wednesday, November 30, 2011 Location Time Pieces
6 Departed Facility in EAST MIDLANDS - UK EAST MIDLANDS - UK 23:32 +1 Pieces

5 Processed at EAST MIDLANDS - UK EAST MIDLANDS - UK 21:54 +1 Pieces

4 Arrived at Sort Facility EAST MIDLANDS - UK EAST MIDLANDS - UK 21:43 +1 Pieces

3 Departed Facility in EXETER - UK EXETER - UK 17:24 +1 Pieces

2 Processed at EXETER - UK EXETER - UK 16:13 +1 Pieces

1 Shipment picked up EXETER - UK 13:57


Ahthankyew

sick..

I never have sick days, and a cold does not usually stop me going to work...sick days are for wussies..I even went to work when I had cancer and bits of me were leaking and falling off....thats how hard I am.

But man flu.......oh dear...horrible horrible, if I manage to survive I'll post more later...in the meantime I will stuggle on through the pain.

.....ah balls its only a cold, but I have a really sore throat which makes talking, especially loudly to a class a bit hard, so am working from home for a couple of days, doing the last bits of marking and clearing up my backlog of admin thats been building up.

Despite being sick, its actually nice to have the time to get this done its all been causing lots of stress cos I know it had to be done there was just no time to do it..I really hope I get more prep/marking/testing time made available next block.


Ahthankyew

Busy busy

Although I have managed to get out a few times these last few weeks, a blues only jam with students at the Mezz on Thursday being a particular highlight (I even sang...in tune...kinda) I've been in marking hell this last 2 weeks.

This is my biggest issue with teaching, I need to give assignments, rather than question tests to prove they are using what they are being taught. This is almost always a simple retro game at this stage, which by their nature need to be played and checked for issues but that takes time. Sometimes a lot of time!

Since most of my students are still beginners and think nothing of little gameplay prevention bugs getting in the way, after all they know to avoid the thing that causes the crash....In time of course they will realise that having ANY kind of crash is not acceptable, but until they do I have to either find and fix the crash myself or continue to play avoiding the crash.

This all takes time, 1 assignment took me nearly 5 hours to complete, in a couple of session. Amazingly he passed just. He had no major coding bugs, just no bloody idea how to make a simple game interesting and playable so that it flowed from 1 part to the other, and it was hamstrung by a bug we have discovered in I7 cpu's which causes delta time checks to fail. So games are often absurdly fast and unplayable or absurdly slow and equally unplayble.
Since they are taught game design in a different module I can't in all fairness mark them down for shockingly bad game design....yet.

The i7 timing issue is being looked at but for now I have to swap computers around till I find one that works..usually my old samsung laptop is ok but it takes a while to set it up to run the games.

This weekend should finally see an end to it, or at the very least get all but the most problematic done.

Those who passed did ok this year, we have a good bunch of students and I am hopeful that as the year progresses their skills will increase...and their attention to gameplay with it.



Ahthankyew

Me make music

Had a great 1st band practice despite our singer being poorly (get well soon Britta), but with our backup singers taking front stage we managed a pretty damn good rehearshal and got a couple of numbers tightened up nicely. Then did an amazing Blues jam in A for 10 mins or so that was brilliant....if only I had recorded it....oh well

Some minor tech issues with my Irig connection to my Ipad, it seems to be wobbly and not always doing a stereo output..I have a better Ampkit adapter on the way (taking a while) but have also picked up a chinese copy Irig as a back up for a few quid...despite the guys laughing at my toy obsession I still prefer to route my guitar through the Ampkit/Amplitube apps on my Ipad into a PA, than into a noisy feedback prone amp...so tech issues must be resolved asap.

Blueshawk is all paid for, he's going to set up pick up on Monday so should be here next week Wed/Thurs. :D


Ahthankyew

Nothing left to collect

Well....thats it...the Blueshawk was the final piece of the quest for perfection. I now have a guitar to suit every style of music I enjoy listening to and playing.

The only things "missing" are a Fender Jaguar/Jagstang which is something I can use to make up for my small hands (it has a very small neck making it easier to reach big chords) and a proper Archtop for Jazz...but I don't like much jazz and would not really want to play it.

I can reach most of the chords, as a result of practice, on my Gibsons (shorter scale than Fenders) so the Jag is now pointless.. I therefore have my complete collection, Blues, Rock, folk, classical, bit of Country/Bluegrass and anything else that takes my fancy.

A Super strat has been suggested ala Vai and Satriani, but tbh I don't enjoy their music that much, too flash, so I don't need those uberfast necks and low frets....and an Ibanez is kinda overkill for me.

So I'm done.....I'll cull a few of the less played guitars over time to get the collection down to under 20 and those are my keepers.

Need to locate a nice guitar vault to keep them safe and sound; as much as I like having them on display and able to pick up and plinkyplonk on them, a proper storage cupboard will keep them safe for years to come..I can put them on stands when I want to use them.


Something like this :D



Mad innit...I could proably make one of these using an Ikea wardrobe as a chassis...will look into that sometime




Ahthankyew

Got her

Just waiting for the transaction to process, but I got her. A 1998 House of Blues Limited Edition Gibson Blueshawk...with some aftermarket details which make her even more limited than the 50 House of Blues varients that were made.
Her name is Libby, and no I didn't not make that up, its what her current owner called her and I will do the same.

I didn't get a bargain on this one, but also I didn't have to pay over the odds, something about the right price, which for a rare beast like this is doing well.

But I'm not adding to the collection, my Wesley Semi acoustic is going to a new home (she can't compete with Libby) so its 1 out 1 in..maybe 2 out if I can sell one of the other lesser guitars as I do need to make space.
I am playing all my "good guitars" quite regularly but its fair to say I don't really play the lesser ones much at all, so they have to go over the next few months.



Ahthankyew

Blueshawk tingles, but Fretlight woes

I've put an offer in for a Blueshawk....its a limited edition model with a few customisations, which makes it ingeresting, to me at least.. The US supplier really ended up a bit of a dead end, strange emails which felt like cut and paste efforts to other buyers so I've given up on that, despite the warehouse full of Blueshawks I suspect its going to cost too much once you factor in postage and import..so need to look to the UK/Europe.

The owner of this House of Blues BH is asking a fair bit for his, though he seems to have not noticed its been altered from stock..that removes its limited edition price tag and puts it into the slightly lower "cared for" price range, so I've offered him an amount I think reflects that..we'll see.


The Fretlight woes however continue, in spite of some sterling efforts on the part of the Fretlight exec who sent me a new cable and some replacement nuts and a huge T-shirt (thanks for that it was a nice thought but a bit big for me (must keep eating)), the thing is still noisy as hell when hooked up to a computer..Though admittidly gets better with good cables.

But shielding is clearly an issue thats not going to go away easily.

More interesting was the new nuts, I was set 4 all "cut" the same way and needed normal shaping to fit. Since I wanted to play the Fretlight today, I did a quick temp replacment of the nut myself which provides proper spacing again for the strings, but once again..the cut of the nut leaves a lot to be desired...1st and 2nd strings popping out of the cut every time you do a tone bend lower than fret 3. I'm not going to attempt a re-cut though, its too special a job.

So...basically its a pretty poor quality guitar, nut cutting is a skill that if not done correctly totally ruins an otherwise ok guitar.
Not to worry though, in the hands of a good tech it can be saved, I will be taking it to a guy in Breda to have the nut properly set (I didn't adjust the height, leaving its intonation all over the pace) and cut to hold the strings and maybe get rid of the buzzes which could be down to some poor soldering.

I've had a lot of good results in the old days when I bought mostly cheap guitars of taking them to good luthiers and having them setup properly, my old Epiphone strat copy was one of the cheapest bits of crap around but set up well I got a lot of compliments about how well it played.

I'll take the Fretlight to the shop on Monday and let them do some magic on it, if it comes back a good guitar, I'll keep it, otherwise...ebay!



Ahthankyew

The hunt continues

With all those blueshawks on sale its no surprise that I've been doing a bit of hunting..I have in fact managed to find a US supplier which a warehouse full of them in all colours and conditions...amazing....looks like he specialises in them, but costs of importing and shipping still make it hard to justify purchase from the states at the moment.

Unless he's got a Little Lucille model in stock, a very rare and much sought after varient of the Blueshawk endorsed by my hero BB King...an LLBH would look great on the wall next to her big sister...we'll have to see though.



Had a jam tonight with the Breda ex pat crew, the usual faces excluding Ed our bass player and tbh it was a pretty crap effort, no energy or real interest in the music tonight. We've had a few bad ones in the past so I guess it happens. We'll have to try and practice more and be well rested for the next one...marking permitting.



Ahthankyew

Dammit, they're like busses.

Just when you give up on them 3 come along at the same time.

My GAS (Guitar aquisition syndrome) has died down now, pretty much got everything I want now except for the damn elusive Gibson Blueshawk, which is hard to find in Europe and no longer in production, so you have to wait for 2nd hand models to turn up, thats not often as they are usually much loved and kept so not a sniff of a decent one on ebay for months...until now when of course Ebay is listing 3 of them...all overpriced and only a US one willing to ship to The Netherlands, which of course makes it even more overpriced.

bugger...will keep an eye on them for now, but only just getting my cash reserves back so will probably have to pass again for 6 months.

life is so unfair sometimes.....ah well.



Ahthankyew

Party Time, hangover follows

I had a really nice time at my colleague and old friend Martin and his wife Sally's house warming party...even managed to be part of the winning 80's pop quiz team, beating a much more knowledgable colleague who's hobby is DJ'ing 80's pop :D

Much drink was drunk, much chat was had and it was nice to have a party where no punchups or raised voices were in evidence...This I like about Holland a lot you can actually have a party, get plastered and not be afraid the bloke from accounts is going to knife you.

Even managed an extremly short guitar jam, after Martin had asked me to drag an amp and Gracie all the way over there, only for him to dissapear and leave me noodling on my own...good job the G-Dec has backing tracks to play along to. :D

Bina missed a good party, she's away in the UK visiting her mum at the moment, and eveyrone was asking about her.


Ahthankyew

Damn you technology!!

As you know I love my guitars and also the toys associated with guitars, my pedal board for example is a thing of wonder...quite a lot of pricey electric gadgets designed to make me sound a little bit better than I am, both on guitar and vocal.

But alas technology is starting to make me doubt the financial sanity of those purchases.

I have always kept up to date with using Ipod and Ipad apps to use my guitar for practice, Amplitube is especially good, but so is Ampkit. Despite the fact they tend to rip you off a little on constant in app purchases which can rack up...it is still far cheaper than and easier than owning and storing 30 odd amps and a hundred or more pedals.

But I've always considered it for practice, something to twang along with in the wee small hours downstairs so I'm not disturbing anyone.

I have changed my opinion...after this weeks ex pats jam when I had no one to give me a lift, I thought it best to travel as light as possible.. I decided to just take my ipad and Ipod and hook them up using their Iklip adaptors (handy but overpriced gadgets) to my Mic stand and then into the PA.

I had some issues with the Ipod version of vocal live, apprently not outputting, so that got put to once side but the Ipad running Ampkit was a revelation. Pumped out through the PA with no effects, leaving the Pad to do all the sound texturing. Huge variations in tone, great echo and reverb effects and most important, it sounded natural, like I had Fender, Peavy, Messa Boogie or Marshal amps on tap with lots of options clean clear tones or for screaming heat and phasers etc.

Brilliant. I will most certainly be taking just my Ipad with me to jams in future, the only drawback it has is I can't do loop stuff and switching from rhythm or acousticy stuff to solo powerchord stuff is impractical for that you need a footswitch set up..so 2 way switch system which I already have, to my mobile board might be needed for some songs...though with 2 or 3 guitarists playing its probably not needed really, just those odd days when I'm the sole string plucker.



Ahthankyew

how far?

I have to go see an intern student tomorrow, all the way up the North of this extremely small country....well, "small" is relative I suppose, its going to take 3+ hours each way...by train...thats quite some trip accross a small country.

Not having a great week at work so far, in fact for the 1st time ever I can honestly say I've started to not want to go in to work...nothing to do with students or the work load, just some issues I feel I'm being forced into that I don't want to be forced into and are causing me stress...for the 1st time ever. Hopefully they will be resolved quickly and cleanly but we'll have to see.

Can't even fully discuss it since it seems my blog is not as private as it once was, that makes me sad, I liked the chance to express myself here so mum and family/friends could keep tabs on me, but now I have to be careful and guarded...at least until things get resolved...sucks.

Had my didactics course today, which I did enjoy. It has focused a lot of material on how to put together future courses into clear perspective..I wasn't doing much wrong before but it was not properly directed so that I caught as many students attention as possible, the course is certainly making it much clearer to me that specific approaches need to be implimented rather than just me standing in front of a crowd and getting them to repeat stuff till they get it.....still a lot to do on it, but 3 weeks in I already feel quite empowered by it...Next block, once I'm back teaching and the "shit" stuff is out the way, I am looking forward to seeing some significant improvements in my students absorbtion of info.


Speaking of students, I am now busy with mountains of marking as final homework assignments come flooding in, just before final exams next week. At least thats one thing I can do on the train, I was going to take the car and shave 30mins of the trip, but better to sit and at least some of the marking and let the train take the strain.

Time for bed...




Ahthankyew

Who said Technology makes life simpler...

Whoever it was was an idiot, and has never tried to get Itunes to run on 2 computers. I can get my mac to work, but it won't hold all the songs I manually imported and there's something wrong with the USB connections on my PC which causes Itones to just fuck up royally pretty much refusing to update anything except on rare when it can be bothered occasions.

So I try to avoid using Itunes for all but the most basic of things....but when there's an update of course my pain is quadrupled.

The amount of time I've wasted tonight just trying to do a simple update for a new album I added is absurd...as I type its finally updating, and the songs have gone over...whats the betting it bombs out half with through with an "unexpected error"




Ahthankyew

We sang Coldplay

as a test for the hub, Jodie, Bina and I sang/played Trouble.


by Coldplay

I feel dirty now...


but actually it was quite nice.



Ahthankyew

its so...small!!

As the Actress said to the Bishop.

The new Jamhub has arrived, it had actually arrived when I was typing about it, in the last post, but Jodie was too busy getting readyto go out to shout upstairs to me..I only discovered it when I went downstairs a bit fed up that it was not going to arrive today... and saw the box.

Anyway..yes..it works well, at least as far as I can tell with only 1 user..needs to get a bunch of us together to play to get the best out of it, but it does do exactly what it says it does.. So if the others buy their mics and whatever else they need to get sounds into it, we'll be in business.
I was surprised by how small it was, the box was over twice the size of the actual unit. Its about the size of a laptop only a semi circle.


Less impressed with IK Multimedia's IrigMic, bought at the same time, or more accuratly the software..the mic seems fine, but the software is buggy as hell, pressing presets is just as likely to cause a crash back to IOS as do anything else, if it doesn't crash it just seems to select options without updating the screen...not good. It does work sometimes, but it seems to depend on the mood its in when it fires up...I've fired off a message on their forum to ask wtf...

I hate paying for apps that don't work, more so when I've bought hardware that needs it. Its not expensive and its just being kept as a backup for practice, I prefer my VL4 for 95% of the vocal stuff I attempt. But its good to have options.

So...lets see if we can get the band together a bit more often, at mine and or one or 2 of the other members. Fun times ahead...need a name...Broken Down Auld buggers...might not go down too well, but I like it. B-Dab ...hmmmmm :D

Time to get some grub..Bina and Jodies have gone for sushi in town..after yesterdays dicky tum I thought best of it, but now am starving, so its on the Thuisbezorgd.nl site and ordered some tasty ribs...hmmmm I can smell the msg from here.







Ahthankyew

What...wait a minute...where...eh??

It's Thursday already...what the hell...where did my holiday week go?

I want it back I never got to have long lie ins and late night piss ups..oh scratch the piss ups..I'm off drink for a while, I was feeling quite queezy and somewhat the worse for wear on Wednesday after a few too many glasses of Mosel Merlot the night before at home..

Not a good way to feel when Bina dragged me off to the other side of the country to go see Maastricht, which in fact turned out to be a girly shopping trip for her and Jodie, with me plodding along ducking into available loo's as the need took me...often urgently.

Been keeping myself busy with student questions and fixes..a few students of course not bothering to do any work despite plaintive crys for help and promises of dedication to the cause...then mailing me to say they don't know what to do...a week after being told...sad, but what can you do! Its their holiday too, so I'm not going to get too stressed..but come study week!!

Waiting for my new jamhub and a few other goodies to arrive. Was a wee bit peeved to discover that I could have got the same things a bit cheaper (about 50 euros) even factoring in delivery costs at GAK in the uk, but hey ho...next time.

In other news.

I managed to dig out my tickets for Guthrie Govens upcoming gig on 2nd December way up in Zoetermeer..no I don't know where it is...but I'll get there.

And the Veldman brothers return to Breda on the 18th, I'll go going to see them again for sure. That'll be a nice night out after my Birthday ;) I must not get drunk, can you imagine going to an electric blues gig with the tail end of a hangover.



Ahthankyew

Its not got any strings

So now that the credit card has been paid for another month, its safe to hit it again

Just bought this little beauty



Its a jamhub silent rehearsal studio, interface, thingy ma jig....basically a posh mixing desk that allows multuple players to plug in and play so we can all hear each other without using loud amps and stuff.

This is to help our "band" get together to practice in relative silence, since its not possible for us to always get together at the Mezz, this will let us practice in each others homes and only have to worry about the singer getting to loud and bothering the neighbours. Only the singer and acoustic guitars would be heard but they're not that loud as to be a worry. (Drummer has electric drums).

Bit of an investment on my part but I would love for our band to work out and this will help get it going..I can always sell it on ebay if it does not work out.
Lets hope the rest of them chip in for the headphones and mic's they will need to get the best out of it, cos I'm not buying those for them.



Ahthankyew

I had another go

And in the Process Goldie seems to have lost the output from her neck pickup....Larry is in the shop now so if they do a good job, I'll take Goldie in...Bit crap though since Goldie was supposed to have had her very nice Seth Lover pickups fitted by a pro, I've done one running repairs to her selector switch already.

Which means the solo on this is done with Rosie, my strat...she did well, but the sound is thicker than I wanted so I may redo it when Goldie is repaired.

Ahthankyew