Ok, video is coming: I’m cutting out snippets of the set and the save process is slow plus i have to splice them so that will drop in this thread later tonight.
For context here are the two posts that kind of set this up:
First impressions: I listened to the same song on my Parlor and the Taylor and a bigger body makes a huge difference. The tone is so much fuller and richer. It was evident in the first bar. Whew! My ears didn’t lie at the guitar shop😀.
The setup worked, put the Spark Mini amp on the piano behind me facing me and the audience and it comes through at least to the Go Pro about 15 feet away pretty well. I’m standing between it and the camera.
I was nervous and cratered the first song. I stopped it about midway through verse 1, apologized and started over, got through it fine. Even i am not going to show you that .
Mostly it went well i learned that i can’t stomp the beat buddy too quickly as my toes hit some other button and i couldn’t control it any more from the footswitch! Nobody knew but me. Good lesson.
Got to work on avoiding looking down but that’s a time thing I’m just too fussy with the pedals right now.
I left off the capo on Take it Easy. Sung that one a little too low😉.
Overall it was a good experience i had a moment during Take Me Home Country Roads where i was just lost in the song and having an out of body experience in a good way!
I have learned that the total amount of task processing in my brain is limited at this stage, and that the thing that will go first is the vocal :-). I am happy to report that it seems like the guitar part auto pilots well, the pedals pretty well but it’s the vocal that will suffer when my brain is overwhelmed; again it’s just a time thing and I keep putting myself out there because sooner or later this will all get easier. The retirement folks do give me a lot of grace😉.
Thanks Sir but it’s not the footswitch it’s the Beat Buddy big pedal and above it are the arrow buttons that allow you to navigate the song list. I hit one of those inadvertently and took it out of the song playlist and apparently in that space it keeps playing but the footswitch does nothing. You’ll see that at the end of Peaceful Easy Feeling.…… I may need those for the footswitch though!.. Rod
Well this is stupid long at almost 10 mins. It’s 6 songs in the set, 5 partial clips and the one full song in the middle is Take Me Home Country Roads. I tried to show the different pedal parts and places folks may find interesting, but it’s a guess. Even put in the place where my foot hit the other buttons on the Beat Buddy and disconnected the foot switch😲. I left off doing Lying Eyes completely in the live set as I was running long with just the 6. At the end I grab the camera and do a quick 360 of the room. I try not to put folks on camera so it’s a spin just to give a feel for the space size. I believe it holds 120 ish and I’m on about an hour before lunch so my crowd is usually around 20.
For 7 days of having the Beat Buddy and 4 days with the Footswitch I think it went fine. I can tell though the drum thing is the way to go for timing and just plain fun factor. I would probably be better off if I just played to the beat left off the fills, etc but they sound so cool they are hard to give up😁. Time will smooth out a lot of the niggly stuff, I’ll keep practicing in public😁.
As always any views or comments are appreciated…Rod
Well Rod, I just want to offer a virtual handshake because I think that was great mate.
Firstly I think that guitar sounds really nice, and its easy on the eye too. I loved the strumming and picking especially for Everybody Hurts and Country Road. I have been enjoying working on Everybody Hurts and hats off to everyone that can pick, sing and juggle anything else
I see what looks like a small amp behind you and to your left but couldn’t see any cables from the guitar and can’t see a mic so are these purely an acoustic performance or are you putting guitar and vocal through the small amp?
On another note, some great vocal moments in there too Rod .
Lastly, that is an impressive trophy behind you
Thanks for posting the whole journey I’ve enjoyed reading and watching.
Very kind @CD02 , the only thing going through the amp (Spark Mini) is the Beat Buddy. This is clearly a venue that can use a PA but A) don’t have one (yet) and B) I started this with what i had and have tried to keep it simple. I have obviously failed in that goal with the Beat Buddy😉.
When i first started this last May i ran my acoustic through the Mini and even at low volumes the audience said they could not hear the vocal. For the last few months its just been the guitar un plugged and me. However the Beat has to have something to hear it so i thought why not use the Mini? The drum manufacturer does not recommend an amp for best sound because you can distort the sound of the drums with effects, etc but if you do use one set it to clean and you should be ok. My acoustic setting on the Mini is just that so boom! sound for the drums in a portable package! The Mini is battery powered and there is a 1/4 instrument cable running from the Beat Buddy to the amp you just can’t see it in this set up. I have tested my wireless Xvive’s to replace that cable and it works. But i was plowing so much new ground i decided against using those for this outing.
So the vocal and guitar are un plugged and in this venue its not ideal but it’s such a small audience i just go with it.
The fingerpicking and singing thing was a big hurdle for me last year and i can manage the slow stuff; Dust in the Wind will be a while. As others have said in this forum the more you stay with it the easier it becomes. Still a journey like most everything else!
The trophy was for the chef at the Lodge; I’m just glad they weren’t replacing the windows behind me like in the summer!
Now I’ve got to work on matching drum sets to some of my existing repertoire!…Rod
That was very enjoyable to listen to Rod.
You’ve put a lot of work into producing that.
Excellent Man.
You should be real proud of the way that came out.
I bet the folks in the crowd enjoyed that.
You sing and play some good music man!
I enjoyed reading your journey here and watching the videos. You have done really well. The Beat Buddy and the Mini Amp are really neat. Your guitar is beautiful and sounds great! How were you able to wait till Christmas to use it?! I enjoyed your song lineup and your vocals are very pleasing also. Well played, Rod!
for just being week in a band with Dirk (I love that you gave your BB a name!), you’re doing really good together already!
Loved also to here the folks’ applause in the video, very well deserved. Playing and singing a pleasure, as always. That new guitar really sounds amazing!
Looking forward to some more, once you and Dirk grow together even closer.
Thanks for taking the time to join me and grateful for your support. I must say it was tempting to retrieve it and play so instead I just looked at the pictures and remembered playing it in the shop!….Rod
Thank you Obi Wan! This whole thing with The Lodge is really my motivation to practice and play. I treat it like someone is waiting on me so I better get busy!..Rod
Hi Rod,
I just stumbled into your live video and it was very well done. Your performance was top notch and you handled any burps with fluid execution. The sound quality to my ears was quite good. I think in light of all you got going, that is a feat in of itself. Your “simple” setup is working well for you and produces a quality show. I was impressed with your footwork on the pedals. I think that would totally throw me off to try that. I imagine a lot of practice went into what you are doing?
I think your use of the beat buddy keeps things containerized, in a box and simple. Though I can think of another way to do this that might be more versatile. If one were to take whatever pad (iPad? Or tablet) you have there and run a DAW with it, many things would open up for the performance. Simply put; the lyrics and drums could be in the DAW. This setup would allow for as complex of drum patterns as one desires. You could have an intro, fills, main beat, outro and more set up. Basically you would do as you are now doing. Play along to the drums and sing. This would eliminate a lot of the footwork your doing now. In addition you could also do more sophisticated things, like backing vocals, lead guitar, bass, keys and anything else you wanted in a song. It would take a lot of prep to pull off, but your “band” would take on a whole new level of possibilities. I think if I went down this path I would buy a new iPad or whatever tablet your using and have the old one as a backup. There would be a lot riding on the tablet and failure at that point would be a show stopper. Thus, the backup, just in case.
The above is just an idea on another way to go. You certainly have a great gig going as is and you look and sound great too. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing!
EDIT - I am assuming you are using some sort of tablet on the stand? If not, one would have to be procured…
Also, you might have a PA lying around… Do you have an old stereo amp and speakers? If so, you might experiment with them at home as a PA substitute…
Be well,
LB
Hello Rod, just few days ago, I wondered whether you were still performing at the elderly residence. And here is the answer - yes .
I’m really impressed by you’re steadily growing skills and equipment. So well played and sung. Very steady strumming and even fingerpicking .
And what a beautiful and fantastic sounding guitar you’ve got for Christmas .
I thought that was pretty good for a first try Rod and stomping pedals is something that needs to be practiced. I assume you’ve got the FULL Beat Buddy which is an expensive beast BUT actually lets you do an awful lot more than just the canned drum patterns etc. The Mini Beat Buddy I know is more restrictive.
I’ve looked at them a number of times as a potential different solution than the Trio+ but in the end I stuck with Trio+ as I find it easy to put together “good enough” backing tracks and if I’m playing on my own (generally it’s me an bass player) then I’ve got that option as well. I never do anything on the fly with the Trio+, I prepare all my tracks in advance AND I know some would say well why not just download backing track to an IPAD…but I like to think there is still a creative element in building the backing track AND it’s rare I play cover EXACTLY like the original so it works for that as well.
I’m sure you’ll get good mileage from the Beat Buddy as you use it more. Look forward to future installments.
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