The Madman’s Diaries - The Blues Chapters - Chapter Two - Updated 161023 New Recording Added

stitch · October 6, 2023, 3:25pm

Noticed a lot of action on this thread so I figured I’d check it out again. Well you slipped in 3 more videos. The first 2 study pieces are what they are and you don’t need me to tell you what was good and what wasn’t so I’ll skip to you Playground piece.

Good practice for tremolo, for the most part you kept it pretty steady. I’d like to comment on your bends. At the 2:30 mark you did a repeating bend lick. This was executed very well. You attacked the bends and kept good pitch thou out. This is how you should attack all your bends(some of your full bends fell a bit flat) so for a self study go back and take a good look at your technique at 2:30 and try and file that in the well done folder.

At the 3:30 mark when you are doing the hammer ons one suggestion is to off set you pick and hammer ons this will give you a triplet affect Pick, Hammer, pull off repeat.

Your soloing has jumped to the next level good job.

brianlarsen · October 6, 2023, 4:07pm

Well, mon fou, I winced a little at a ‘seagull’ effect on your very first Gilmour note, but it settled down nicely as the piece progressed… (As you can see, I’m an 'expert now, after my Floyd strum with Stefan ).
Regarding the rest: a) it’s good, beyond my paygrade and also, the Rick has spoken. 'Nuff said.
I was happy to see you go for a wig-out impro. Those are the nuggets we live for
Hope the missus is holding her own.
Look forward to the next instalment

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 6, 2023, 4:12pm

Its taken friggin long enough Rick !

But I guess there has been more of a focused effort this year. If I could get rid of the tension in my playing when I am recording, those bends would have been a whole lot better, as they generally OK when I am just jamming these studies, as you call them but point taken. The playground was generally dickin, around but funny what happens when you are just messing around with no real intent (the frequent bum notes were the give away, nothing planned on that impro).

Point taken on that repeater bend lick, it really just flowed. By 3:30 I was pushing boundaries where I had no right to be and my left hand just could not keep up with the picking.
I can see where pick hammer pull would a) give that triplet feel but also be more efficient as my fingers are just not that fast and it all suddenly went out of sync !

I hoping that I’ll get the Allman Bros style study recorded in a few weeks but its been a real challenge tempo wise. But it includes a couple of “country” bends and learning it has helped me get past the “I Need You” brick wall, in the 2nd half of the solo. So that may also get recorded (this year!!). Then I’ll look at the whole song, with that vid you shared.

Back on the acoustic today and ironing out some of the other challenges, so this post may get another bump in a week or so.

As usual, thanks for the advice and support over the years. Feel like I’ve finally started to make some real progress and you’ve been a big part of that sir !!

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 6, 2023, 4:58pm

Merci Frere Larsen. Yes it was just like being on the New Brighton Prom with a big bag of chips in your mitts. Jonathon Livingston would have been proud ! I should have hit the brakes and gone for take 42 but rocked on regardless. Your South Manc Floyd fest was certainly more entertaining for sure. And yes I had a bit of a Fabricant moment on the impro but unlike the man of Lichfield twas a great hoot ! Thanks for the concern for the other half, doing ok on that rollacoaster ! And yes there will be more.

As an aside, when you’ve a need to get past those factory presets on the PG, check this guy out. https://www.youtube.com/@JoshGordonGuitar downloads available from Line 6 Market Place Line 6 CustomTone

DavidP · October 7, 2023, 6:22am

Tip the hat, Toby, you look and sound the part … blues rocking lead man who gives us the vocals as well.

I spotted the tremolo pick fest on my YT home page and had to hunt around to find it in chapter 2. Really annoying when I miss the addition of a new set of videos on an existing Topic.

Keep working it, the fruits are sweet and juicy.

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 7, 2023, 6:46am

Always appreciate you taking a listen David, thanks for the comments. Just as well I made it public then by the sound of it !

In fact as this the first restricted monthly post, where I had added additional recordings, I was going to drop you and @Richard_close2u a DM about how to make the new material stand out. I changed the title to show it had been updated and added a hyper link in the opening post to the new post containing the newly added recordings (note the impro was not linked, as outside the scope of the project ) and I am not sure what else I could do.
But clearly based on yours and Rick comments, the newly added recordings aren’t popping.
And I am sure I am missing many other recording by other folk who add new material throughout the month.

Plus I don’t want to add to the mods burden of having to sweep things up into a collective audio bucket.

Just wonder if the restriction is still needed but guess impossible to get comparative metric, as who knows what’s buried beneath each AVOYP topic now and too big an overhead to investigate. I know we had a flurry of multi shot recording “dumpers” but is that still the case?

Anyway at least I’m recording again ! Advice welcome as I am likely to dump another couple of sub chapters in the coming weeks.

DavidP · October 7, 2023, 7:18am

Toby, don’t think you can do more than what you did. More my bad and ought to have added a Watch to the Topic so I get a notification when there’s a reply.

Look forward to the next recordings.

Digger72 · October 7, 2023, 9:09am

Hi Toby,

Cool jams - loving that low end coming through.
I didn’t notice any imperfections you mention. Love that it’s live and raw.
Imperfectly good is better than perfectly c**p.

Digger

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 7, 2023, 9:49am

Thanks for the comments Digger, always appreciate your input. Assume that was purely on the acoustic Blues work, given what you said about the low end (dead thumb). There another couple of recording buried in the middle of this monthly thread, that’s a bit spicier, if you have time to listen

https://community.justinguitar.com/t/the-madman-s-diaries-the-blues-chapters-chapter-two-updated-051023/249260/28

jkahn · October 8, 2023, 4:03am

I had a listen to your blues solos last night Toby. Sounding good there! Beyond my play grade, and some great advice here already on bends. Bends are so hard imho…

Really enjoyed them. I like these short videos btw, they’re like a little taste each time that just makes me want to hit the next one.

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 8, 2023, 1:12pm

Thanks for the listen JK.

The acoustic studies are all standard 12 or 16 bar pieces but obviously can be looped around for a full “song” but once I finish the course I’ll take a selection of the 20 (Key dependant) and mix and match into longer runs.

On the solo’s, I think when you are building your lead skills, is best to keep things short. What I haven’t done with the licks presented in this course (and what I did with Justin’s 5x5 licks) is find their octaves and unisons. That the plan once the last 2 are nailed, then the solos can be extended. After that some longer solos from another course, that will add to the licks I know but test me on learning something getting on for 2 minutes. But that will have to wait until the new year, as I am sticking with the plan to focus on fingerstlye for the next couple of months, assuming my finger tips hold out !!

NicoleKKB · October 8, 2023, 6:20pm

Hi Toby, when I realized, you’ve added another video, I expected to see the missing no. 12 of your blues study. I was quite surprised to find something totally different .
I like all three pieces, but I think my favourite is your improv . That was some really impressive and enjoyable playing!!

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 8, 2023, 6:26pm

I should try and play off script and out of control more often. No 12 is coming along but there are some tricky sections that I can only get real slow. So a lot of work on that over the weekend. And No 15 is proving an equal challenge. The folk fingerstyle is coming along in parallel and a welcome distraction. All good fun and always challenging. Appreciate you taking a listen and for your comments.

pkboo3 · October 9, 2023, 3:15pm

Toby, you seem so relaxed and you played smoothly. You hide your RBS issue really well! Each video, every bit, well done. I’m impressed!

nzmetal · October 10, 2023, 2:46am

Hey Toby, I’ve been holding off going through this until I had time to properly follow the whole thread through, it was well worth the wait!

Acoustic Blues
So cool! Thoroughly enjoyed each piece, with much for me to take away and consider with regards to my own (very early days) journey into blues. Delta style blues I’ve become drawn to, however finger style playing is not an avenue I’ve explored, so may have to rectify that in the future. I am impressed by the steadiness of the bass note momentum throughout all three recordings along with the effortless navigating of the melody with the remaining fingers (despite the RBS stiffness you’ve mentioned!). #13 was my favourite although all were very enjoyable listens.

Electric Blues
Again, many things for me to take away. Impressive playing on both set pieces, much for me to aspire to! Nothing further to add to the many great points above, just a hearty congrats on this excellent progress!

Improv/playground
As others have already said, this was a special treat! Very entertaining listen and many cool little moments sprinkled throughout, with the repeat bend which Rick pointed out being a highlight to me also. More of that please!

Don’t think anyone else mentioned this either??! A new addition!! Story?

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 10, 2023, 7:06am

Hey Jeff

Thanks for taking a listen, I’ll start with your astute observation first. Yes a new addition to the MMS gallery but I think he made a sneak appearance when I sat on the audience for OM 18 or 19. Back story is, after some discussion here on AI, I dropped on a AI art website Nightcafe Studio and started playing around. One of the ideas was to use it to create our OM posters but I’ve not cracked that. But being into bikes, science fantasy art from the 70s and especially sci fan landscape I experimented a bit and develop quite a portfolio.
When we started the OM Steering Group I had a bit of fun trying to create some images based on this text prompt

Artificial Intelligence confrontation. Seven man Heavy Metal Rock Band on stage with guitars post-apocalyptic mad max

Resultant images were along these lines

I’ll let you figure out who’s who but that could be Justin in the background keeping a watchful eye !

Anyway, for some reason the prompt threw up this single “person” image which I thought was pretty cool, so added him to the MMS frame, so good spot.

On the playing front, thanks for the comments. The acoustic Blues has been a lot of fun and very satisfying. I never quite gelled with folk fingerstyle in the early BC & IM days but did the ritual Everybody Hurts and Can’t Help Uhu Uhu Failing in Love then dropped it.
I’d bought Justin’s Solo Blues Course but hardly looked at it since. Listening to the old Bluesmen of the 30s & 40s rekindle the interest. Went back and learned Justin’s first two songs then found some material on Truefire that I really liked. This is the end result.
Like most things its learned in layers, the bass line, the melody line then combining the two. Its funny that with only 12 notes, you start to recognise phrases in the melody that you’ve heard so many times before. So it actually works well with improvising and adding to the vocabulary, mainly finding other areas (octaves and unisons) to speak the words.
Definite worth looking at from that perspective.

The electric stuff is more ongoing development, following from Justin’s Blues Lead but I like the end result having some studies which apply what’s been learnt. More to come.

The impro was just winging it and totally unplanned. But as I mentioned elsewhere its that one is just a cool backing track to jam with, so it was a real moment of madness. But I even surprised myself as its not something I work on.

But if you’re looking for some extended tracks to work on your improing, here’s my normal go to place, away from the course material. Easy to get lost in these 10 minute tracks and a smorgasbord of styles to choose from.

https://www.youtube.com/@ElevatedJamTracks

stitch · October 10, 2023, 2:29pm

This is where your wrong Toby. You’ve been working ln this since we met 10 years ago. Remember me telling you and David there is no such thing as improvising it playing things you know very well in a different context. Well you’ve arrived, your fingers know what will sound good with what your ears are hearing without the brain screwing it up. This is what improvising is. Now all you need to do add to that bucket of tricks.n

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 10, 2023, 2:48pm

Thank you for the vote of confidence Rick. I often think you have more belief in me than I do myself. A reason why I have shied away from some of these “challenges” over the years and lent toward a more safer steady path. About time I step out of the shadows while there’s still time !

stitch · October 10, 2023, 2:59pm

You need the safe steady path to learn what will come natural later but you also need the challenges to use the things you’ve learnt. Without pushing the limit you’ll never find your musical personality. Think of music like a sport, you practice the skills you need to play. When playing a sport you have to go with what the other team is doing. It’s not scripted, so the skills you learnt when practicing just come naturally, you don’t think you just react to what’s happening and hopefully you win.

TheMadman_tobyjenner · October 16, 2023, 2:25pm

UPDATED THREAD 161023

Hamburger Recording #12 - Long read never a dull moment

OK this has taken a bit longer to post than planned and was actually in a recordable state a week ago while #15 got its finishing touches. What followed could only be described as a mare of a week on the recording front. And not on the playing side, that came later !

So after a sunny Saturday ride out on the Low Rider 8 days ago and some reasonably captured helmet cam footage (testing new batteries), I planned to drop some Elevated Jam tracks goodies over the footage and share here abouts. Only to find that Reaper playback was stalling when using my Xenyx AI as the audio souce. Also OBS could not see the output channels, so something weird was going on, as everything was ok the week before.

When OBS or Reaper were set up using my UMC1820 and driver all was fine. Setting the Xenyx up as a non-asio device, all was fine. So I spent a week trying to work out what was going on. All the usual settings were in sync and I ended up uninstalling Reaper, OBS and ASIO4ALL and clearing out the Win Registry settings in case something was under the covers. Still no joy but I eventually got the Xenyx working in OBS and Reaper using FlexAsio !

I would guess the ASIO4ALL problem is a buffer issue, as the only way to get some semblance of playback in Reaper was to set it to 2048 and it still stalled every few seconds. I was previously running at 512 and FlexAsio is happy at 256. Freaking mystery but I’ve moved on.

So on Saturday the plan was to record “exercises” #12 and #15 on the T-Bucket, with my standard Xenyx set up and a bit of verb (for Mr Larasen of course). Then the RBS kicked in.
What should have been a one take weekend, turned into a sixty take Saturday and still nowt to show in the can.

Come Sunday afternoon I decided rather than go for another recording drama, I’d use my two acoustic Blues WIPS, a couple of folk fingerstyle pieces and my Dust In The Wind slow burn as vehicles, while I set up a couple of Acoustic Presets on the POD Go, been meaning to do it for a while. So a good couple or three hours was spent selecting components swapping guitars and endlessly recycling the tracks I’m working on. And the bonus was #12 and #15 were beginning to play themselves on autopilot. Cushty

So post the morning riverside walk, I set up for what I thought would be a 15 minute recording session, then carry on learning Hamburger #16 that’s half under my fingers.
Should have know better. Another 90 minutes of crash and burn before finally getting this one recording down, yee ha !

Self critique - there’s the odd missed thumb on the beat, a couple of weak hammer ons and a few muffled melody notes but it will do for now after what has been an epic 9 days !
Whether I’ll get #15 recorded this month I am not sure, #16 features lots of thumb over bass notes that’s proving a challenge on the acoustics and will need some work to be consistent.

On the workflow front for those who are interested.

The recording was made in OBS using the POD Go via my UMC1820 AI.
Guitar into POD Go -
Interstate Zed amp (based on a Dr Z Route 66), 2x12 Interstate Cab (based on Dr Z Z Best V30) and Ganymede Reverb (Line 6 original), preset has delay and chorus but not used.
OBS video/audio imported into Reaper as two tracks, panned 10% L & R for a little width.
Reaper master track was treated with Waves Scheps Omni Channel and the Andrew Scheps “Clean Up My Acoustic Gtr” preset. ReaLimit to mitigate clipping and meeting YT thresholds.
Final video/audio mix rendered to MP4, job done.

If you’ve got this far I applaud your patience and hope that you will have forgotten all about the recording.

Finally, today marks the start of week five of my focused fingerstyle master plan. And despite the fact I am continuing to work on the acoustic Blues course, the folk fingerstyle pieces are coming together and chord changes I took for granted seem to be working again.

That will do for today, let see what the rest of the week brings.

Be safe and well peeps !