E-Bow... The Letter

[waitingman]

Studio session #456,845,375,001 for the World's Longest Album Project completed.

And I was pretty happy with the results. After a couple of hours fixing & mixing keyboard & bass parts, I recorded two rhythm guitar parts, two 'middle 8' melodies & two solos.

I was particularly happy about the solos as they were played on my ancient E-bow, which I make a point of trying to include in every recording or playing project I do & this was the first opportunity I'd had with this album. Job done.

I detect a bit of an upswing in my musical mood, which started with my L-SP's gift of an Irish Bouzouki (or Octave Mandolin if you prefer) for my last birthday & strengthened with last night's efforts. While I was waiting around as the Engineer played with basslines in ProTools, I played both my main electric & acoustic guitars along with the bass parts ~ ostensibly to warm up, but with an increasing awareness of awakening creativity & composition. Nothing of any note, or use, was really forthcoming, but at least the desire & will to play were actively engaged for the first time in a looong time.

My medium-term goal is still to complete my computer set-up as a kind of 'SketchPad Studio' (TM), with the even longer-term goal of submitting to my latent Muse & seeing what may come...

Comments

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

E-bow! We got to have a lot of fun with one of those in the prog band (well, the guitarist did, anyway - but it was fun to sing with so that counts).

I'm curious as to what would make a SketchPad Studio setup for you? I've been rethinking my own needs recently, so I'm wondering how other folks do it. Of course, I'm not nearly in such a good position to play and layer riffs when pootling around with new ideas, which doesn't help...

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

I love my E-Bow... I saw one of the guitarists from The Church (the band, not the institution) using one back in the late 80s & walked into a guitar shop the next day demanding they sell me one...

A 'Sketchpad Studio' for me would consist of a decent analog to digital soundcard, which allows me to plug guitars & microphones into the computer, suitable software to multi-track record & various on-board effects to use during mixing. There are people I know who have gone much further in both location & equipment setups & they're the people I'd take my sketches to, so we could develop them into something more fully realised.

I was talking to a fellow semi-retired player the other night at my ex-bandmate's birthday & he's pointed me in the direction of a promising soundcard/software package that seems to be just what I'm after. We shall see...

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

They certainly look interesting to play with, and I do like the sound.

Thanks for sharing. It sounds like an interesting prospect, though rather more advanced than I'd be capable of doing justice to at my current levels! Most of my demos are being put together in GarageBand with just the onboard mike for recording, since that's the tech level I've managed to wrap my head around to date. *wry smile*

Anyway, I wish you the very best putting it together, and may nifty results come of it when you do!