I come here for the inane ramblings of an ageing wannabe rocker and what to I get?
Actual blues guitar sounds?!?
I demand a refund! Oh, wait… 
Coming along mightily, Toby. Steady as an iceberg.
I’m tempted to say my favourite bit was hitting the harmonic on the last note, but that could be misinterpreted 
Seriously, bien fait, mon ami 
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@Helen0609 Andrea, appreciate you taking a listen, especially twice ! And your kindness. I guess and have said this many times, that we are all very aware of the little errors, that are not obvious to folk who are listening. But as a player you know what went wrong and that things could have been better. Guess that is what encourages us to become better. And there is nothing wrong with that, even if we beat ourselves up a little too often !
@RadekSiechowicz Radek thanks for the classic Jake and Elwood photo, love that movie. The hat is actually an Australian Eureka Stockade style. Not sure of the hat’s history but the Eureka Stockade rebellion was gold miners in the OZ state of Victoria, kicking back against the British Administration. But regardless of the headwear I agree it sure is fun !
@brianlarsen You will still get the goober ramblings my friend but with an added side dish of some Delta Blooze. There’s no money back guarantee for these gigs, what you see is what you get. Good to hear you picking up on the harmonic, I seem to be doing that a little bit too frequently but at least I am finding the right ones now Finding them with a capo and beyond the land of frets is an experiment worth exploring. BTW aren’t the icebergs all melting ? Might explain a lot.
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That was good Toby.
I’ve recently taken my first dive into steady thumb work in Justin’s Grade 4 so I know how challenging it can be. And you did well.
It was hard to tell anything “untidy” unless being hyper-critical. E.g. some treble notes were more emphasized than the bass. But that’s super picky and probably just your mic tbh. So what did you mean by untidy? Is it that feeling that something-could-go-wrong rather than it being well and truly under your fingers? Because it sounded good.
PS Now I want a hamburger with this subliminal messaging.
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JK
Thanks for the comments JK.
I am probably being picky and more aware of the “errors” induced by elevated recording anxiety. As the recording failures mount, so does the tension and the end result is an unrelaxed performance and resultant inconsistencies. It’s similar to the OM comments. You know where you goofed but its not obvious to the listener. Across the 3 pieces here’s flavour :
- Missed Bass notes
- Extra Bass note on the +/and
- Too soft Bass note, inconsistent thumbing
- Over accentuated melody note, normally following a Bass goof.
- Muffled 5th and 4the string pinches - hate 4th string melody notes !
None of these are stand out in your face SNAFUs but things to be aware of moving forward.
So yes maybe over critical of myself but being aware and conscious of these things, should help me tidy them up in later recordings.
As to recording set up, no mic involved in these so I can’t blame that. Also I did not use the PlayAcoutsic for the Fender’s tone this time.
The Fender (has on board pre-amp) was DIed into my UMC 1820 and through Reaper onto OBS, where video and audio were recorded. At that stage I just had a loudness meter on the master track to ensure the levels were good for YouTube.
I then dropped the video back into Reaper on two separate tracks panned 7% L & R for a little width and each track was served with Waves CLA Unplugged with the Broken Leaves preset. End video was then rendered after a little tweaking of levels using ReaLimit, with a -2.5db ceiling to stop any clipping.
I’ll have to have a look at the G4 lessons, as I don’t recall them from the old IM, as they were a stand alone course back then.
Okay let’s start with the 
Don’t go hacking at your Wisteria in 30 degree heat Toby. That ain’t going to do you no good.
I thought your playing was a nice listen. A very bluesy feel to it and it moved along with a great groove.
What is RBS?
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I’ll show you this afternoon
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Recording Button Syndrome. Press record and your playing falls apart.
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Thanks Toby. I used to suffer from that so I just stopped posting that is just a joke.
I have just got in to the mindset now that if I’m not happy I just start again and it seems to remove the pressure for me. It’s not like it’s a live OM where it could all go to hell in a handbasket.
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Ding Ding Round Two.
Here is another couple of offerings from my Blues Journey. This time its back to electrics for some Blues Rock Soloing. These are from the culmination of a Jeff McErlain course, where similar to Justin’s Blues Lead course, he present as number of licks and brings them together in four solo’s at the end of the course. These two are based on Gilmour and Knopfler, the other two are in the style of The Allman Brothers and ACDC and are work in progress.
For those interested on the tech side, both LP and Strat were pushed through my POD Go and into Reaper via my UMC 1820. Then via ReaRoute to OBS. This time I simultaneously recorded audio in Reaper and audio and video in OBS. The OBS video was then exported back into Reaper for mixing but with the audio set to zero db - muting the track stops the video playback so better to zero the sound level. As I was happy with the Pre-sets I’d used in the POD, there was not a lot mixing wise on the GTR tracks but for Inhale they were panned 10% L & R, as I kicked in a Delay FX for the solo repeat and wanted it to pop a little more.
Both tracks have Scheps Omini Channel Stereo (Channel Strip) with the Billy Bush Heavy GTR preset, which gave a more rounded sound to the master mix (IMHO).
I’ll keep my own reflections to myself this time and see what folks have to say first.
Not sure if there will be anymore recordings this month but its back to the acoustic for a few days at least, then see how it goes from there.
Inhale in the style of Gilmour.
Guitar George in the style of Knopfler
Thought I’d add this for a laugh and to show what I get up to in my moments of insanity. Both these backing tracks are great to jam over and impro with and I often find myself going of piste having circled the solos a couple of time and just mess around. All the scale notes have been mapped out so you know where you need to go. Anyway today and for reason unclear, at the end of the Knopfler solos I went off on a tremolo picking fest. Not something I have really worked on as it normally turns out pants. Today was a little better.
Long Impro Warning 
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Well done Toby. Two styles which are easily recognizable, yet very different. I think you managed to capture the essence of both.
If I had to pick out one thing to work on, it would be the bends. I think some bends were better than others. Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Knopfler aren’t too bad at hitting those pitches, of course - so no blame there.
In addition, I would try to vary the volume/attack in the Floyd solo. Just to give it a nice laid back feeling.
The tremolo picking in the Knopfler solo stood out to me. Definitely not as easy as it looks to keep it in time for that long.
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Thanks for listening Jeff.
Yep have to agree a few bends were a little off but both of these had takes in double figures, before I saved both vids. No excuse though, as a couple were well short.
In hindsight I think the tone on the Gilmour solo was a little too gritty, especially when I listen back through the PC speakers and not headphones. A mellower tone would be better.
Glad you liked the tremolo impro. It was literally a “I wonder ???” as I finished the 2nd round of the solo. Thought “why not” and launched into it. Certainly unplanned and winging it for the whole 3+ minutes. All a bit of fun though at the end of the day.
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That was another great listen, Toby. I enjoyed both soli and the impro (maaaan, what a tremolo 
).
For the two set pieces, it is as said by Jeff already: You managed to express them in the style of Gilmour and Knopfler, it was easily recognizable and probably wouldn’t even been necessary to write their names to both. 
I favoured Inhale from a tiny bit more. You have a great feel for vibrato and it stood out in that performance. Cool stuff.
It’s above my playgrade to offer any substancial advice. So I just enjoyed what I heard and now I got some practice to do.
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Those second three were great Toby, especially that last one, very 1970’s Dire Straits and you looked so lost in it too, nice feeling coming through.
Thanks for the comments Lisa, glad you liked them, Yes they are instantly recognisable even in my hands ! The vibrato has been a long time coming and can be a bit hit and miss. With the “designated” solos from the course I also prefer to jam and loop the Inhale piece. Its just so laid back and chilled. Like this example there is no set bridge between each run, so its good to make something up that fits. Given the BTs are all around 5 minutes long, it gives you a little scope to experiment but this link is my go to if just doing a couple of circuits. The Sultan style tracks is more a buzz as its so darned fast, equally enjoyable as I never thought I’d be able to play that fast, so I guess the crazy tremolo picking was a kind of celebration !
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Haha ! Totally made up on the fly and pure impro. The first two were scripted and took some learning and the Knopfler one took good time to play at the full 145 BPM.
Apart from messing around on a single string for about 10-20 secs I’d never really explored tremolo picking. As I wound the solo up it just came to me that type of attack might work using the scales and phrases that matched the track. It could have gone pear shaped very quickly, especially as it was the first time I’d carried the technique back and forth across 3 strings. Lots of bum notes and disappearing down blind alleys but it was a great little jaunt and yeah I was well into and just trying to keep it going. Must do it again some time !
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What a week… what can I say Toby… the other Jeff would be extremely proud of you and would probably pinch your improv… lightyears beyond my play grade to give any meaningful feedback… so I’ll just finish off with telling you that I enjoyed all three very much and thought you played very well indeed.
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Nice one Toby. I always enjoy blues/ rock solo pieces of this type. Blues/ soloing being my main focus these days ( Plus there’s always the opportunity for stealing ideas 
).
A few bends are off pitch, as has been noted. Harder to nail em and hold em on those Gilmour type pieces I know. The second one, much less so. As you said though, lots of takes can start to play havoc.
Keep em comin’ 
Cheers, Shane
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More good stuff there Toby. Beyond me to comment. I just wanted you to know I’d listened.
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Saw this thread earlier and saved it straight away to check later in the day.
Acoustic blues:
Very nice and solid playing, steady thumb and everything. You are getting some famous blues licks under your fingers! Looking forward to some of acoustic blues improvs from you. I can also imagine hearing your voice over the changes (I know it’s a solo blues guitar, but still - a verse here and there can’t hurt) and a harmonica solo! Also, I absolutely love the sound of your acoustic.
PS: I forgot about/wasn’t aware of David Hamburger course, so for a moment I thought you renamed the Madman’s Diaries to Hamburger Recordings.
Electric blues:
First bend and following lick, classic Gilmour style. You also got the tone very close! Equally enjoyed the Dire Straits solo. But if you are going for the classic Knopfler tone, you might want to clean it up a bit. And if you want to go even further with the tone matching, throw your pick into the crowd and play with fingers.
Some bending is out of pitch, but otherwise you are making great progress with your blues playing! Thank you for the technical details as well. I always like to see different people’s approaches to recording.
So here I am, about to say that your next step could be relaxing just a bit to try to feel it just a bit more or as Jimi Hendrix (supposedly) said “Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.” But no, Toby is prepared for my classic comment about lack of emotional delivery and gives us another take. This time a 3 minute and a half improv solo with some additional techniques we haven’t seem from him before.
That’s what I am talking about! To use Justin’s terminology: You learnt your vocabulary, you know how to put sentences together, but now you also channeled your life’s worth of experiences and wisdom into playing (okay, I am a bit overdramatic here for the effect, but I really mean it!) and it shows. You relaxed and found your zone!
Keep rockin’ my friend!
PS:
I was really looking forward to a rambling diary entry. Sad to hear you’ve not been feeling great recently. Get better soon!
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@Socio Thanks for listening James. Yeah these made a change to the acoustic Blues and folk fingerstyle that dominated the last few weeks. I’ll look at that score you sent me once I’ve recovered from that impro. Still not sure where that came from !
@sclay Hiya Shane, knock yourself out on the pilfering ! These are taking more of a back seat for the rest of the year but I’ll do some work on the other 2 solos and hopefully post them later this year. Like you just love some Blues Rock soloing and have another course with much longer solos 90-120 secs and this was always going to the building block before moving onto to those. But as I have this fingerstyle itch that needs scratching, I’ll bide my time getting to those. But slow or fast, acoustic or electric the Blues is the Blues and that works for me ! Thanks for listening.
@sairfingers Much appreciated Gordon, thanks for taking time our to listen. Kind words.
@glpguitar Luka I see you must have taken this in as a job lot and not in “sub chapters”. That could have been a shock to the system my friend. Thanks for the feedback.
On the acoustic front, I’m not sure about the impro side of this style, maybe in time. For now I am happy being led by the nose and learning my chops track by track. The 2nd Hamburger Handbook goes down the Travis picking route, so should be fun. As to the guitars, for Chapter One I used the Takamine but I find the T-Bucket the go to tool for these last few tracks. Certainly a little brighter but I mix and match. Hey I might even mic the old Encore !!
Glad you like the plugged in stuff ! Though a bit messy in place. Interesting observation as I am hoping to exploit the fingerstyle techniques and go a bit more Knopfler sans pick in the future but that’s a long way off, Sound wise I wasn’t trying to be a Tone Clone for these but rumaged around in the POD Go pre-sets to found a couple that suited the mood of each of the tracks, opposed to being pure Floyd and Straits but they both seemed to work reasonably well. A good spot on the relaxation, with the recording glitches I was pretty tight on the two set pieces, so maybe it was relief that let fly with that crazy, sometimes iffy impro. And there’s good reason those techniques have remained hidden Not often practised and always a car crash. But yes I was really into it and at one point was getting weirdly emotional as I hit a couple of sweet spots. As you say in the zone, then I’d hit the kerb and struggle to find the right gears before heading done the next straight. Might have to try that again some time with a JazIII pick, I was using Ibanez sandgrips which are a little bigger than the Dunlops but flowed a bit better than standards. But for now that craziness will go back in the box.
Hopefully, there will be a video intro for the next chapter but can’t say when that will be.
As always appreciate the support and positive feedback. Take care pal.
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