Blueprints discussed

We met with them yesterday (a day later than planned thanks to a long day at work courtesy of our perennially absent examiner, no names mentioned), and went through the blueprints and discussed our changes. They seemed surprised by the home theater dimensions but we were able to show them we requested 15x25 on the original documents, so they're going to fix that. We are waiting for an estimate on the cost of the bar, but they predicted it could be done for around $3K, so that's definitely worth it for us. We were able to move some lights around as they had recessed lights in several places that we didn't really care about so we changed four of them for in the home theater. We also got them to agree to install an equipment shelf on the left wall of the theater that will open up to the guest room closet and give me access to my a/v rack from behind. That should eliminate the frustration of installation and upgrades to my a/v gear in the future.

We made a few other modifications here and there but it's fairly close to what we originally requested. They predicted 10 days to get the blueprints back, so that means they'll probably not break ground until the first week or so of February. That will push us into an August completion and most likely a September closing date. Maybe they'll be able to build faster than predicted, but I'm not holding my breath. We will be having ongoing meetings with them to choose cabinets, counters, and other finishes and colors. It's nice to be involved in each step, but we always have the feeling we're missing something critical. We at least have the experience of our first house to know a little better about our preferences.

No house can be perfect because there will always be little tweaks and changes you want to make, but this house is shaping up to be really close to our ideal. This house gives us a slight case of deja vu because the front layout and kitchen area are really similar to our first home. The foyer, office, dining room, and kitchen are almost identical with only a slight difference in kitchen design. The locations are all the same, so we get the same feeling walking in the front door of this house as we did in our first house. It's probably not that uncommon because there are only so many basic home designs among all builders. Things can get decidedly different with custom builders or in other countries, but in Texas at least, the home builders only have so many stock plans and they just make tweaks to separate themselves.

Hallo there...

Not much new happening here in strumville. We did go ahead and sign the build contract and we're moving forward with the home in Mustang Creek. We've done the preliminary design and we meet with them tomorrow to see the blueprints, to which we're already going to make some tweaks. We asked for a 15x25 home theater (we now have a 13x20, and it's a decent size but needs a little more elbow and furniture room) and the blueprints are showing a 16x22 which is dangerously close to a bad ratio with the 10 foot high ceilings. I don't profess to really know what I'm talking about, but in acoustic room design you never want to have a size dimension that's half/double of one of the others. This creates standing sound waves which I think is equivalent to feedback which can be a serious detriment to good sound mixing. 19-21 feet is a no fly zone with the 10 foot ceilings, so we're going to insist on the 15x25 that we requested (the inner dimension, not the outer walls).

We're also asking them to add a bar to the rear of the home theater and I have a feeling that's going to add another $5K to the price at least, but if they can do it for that much, we'll get it done. We're hoping to make this home a true turnkey experience where we don't have any sense that we should change things substantially. There will always be tweaks over time, but we're hoping they'll mostly be cosmetic diy projects that we can handle and not major home renovations. We're hoping to get our dream home that we'll be satisfied with in the long run.

We move forward

It's Friday or 금요일 as our allies in the Pacific Rim are fond of saying. By the way, the trailer for Pacific Rim came out this week and it looks tasty. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro (who has done some great work in the past) but produced by Michael Bay this thing looks like a Transformers meets Godzilla type flick but with Del Toro directing, it's sure to have his very crafty spin on it.

We're about to pull the trigger on getting a new house. We sold the Killeen house in September and we were contemplating waiting for a few years but we've decided we don't want to wait too long and have the interest rates and housing prices start to climb back up on us. We may be proven wrong, but I don't think mortgage rates can go much lower than now at ~3%. We've been looking at some acre sized properties in a few newish developments in Benbrook since we moved here and we've settled on Mustang Creek.

We're meeting with Royal Crest Custom Homes next week and will try and get the ball rolling. Luckily the owner of our current rental house has agreed to let us stay a few months past the current lease if the house can't be completed by July 1st. I have a feeling since it's already mid-December that it will be July or later before it can be finished. We're stretching our comfort zone on the price but we're essentially getting our dream home and we should be comfortable staying there indefinitely barring some major unforeseen event or change in our status.

Aeyong is getting a larger property which will give her the freedom to further develop her green thumbs & fingers and it will also be a great boon to our four legged children. Probably the nicest part of a larger plot for me is the separation from your next door neighbors. Less concern about wearing out my welcome via Les Paul. We're going to have a home theater as well as a nice covered patio with outdoor kitchen and fireplace. We're going for upgraded finishes inside as well to include granite countertops in kitchen/bathrooms and scrubbed hardwood in the office/dining/living rooms. I'll get a bonus room above the garage for my glorified music studio. It's a bit odd shaped by the square footage is large enough that I should have plenty of room.

It's probably a lot more house than we need, but our home has always been the one great investment/expenditure that we both agreed on being the top priority. We like to get out and travel, see concerts, etc. but we're homebodies at heart. Hopefully we're going to finally be planting roots after 25 years.

On the concert calendar (how could I not include a concert calendar update? it's like the daily weather), we're going to be seeing Yes and then Jim Gaffigan on back to back nights in March. Fleetwood Mac also went on sale this week for a June show at AA center but by the time I found out about it the AMEX presale was a few days old and all the great seats had already been snatched up by the online scalpers. We may skip this one unless we can get a decent deal, which is too bad since we haven't seen FMac since 2004 and Aeyong likes them, which can't always be said about the shows we attend. The Yes show has yet another different new lead singer from a Yes cover band that started touring with them this year when Benoit David took ill. I hear good reports, but it would be nice if they could just work things out with Jon Anderson. Nevertheless, it's still Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, and Geoff Downes and they are going to be playing The Yes Album, Close to the Edge, and Going for the One in succession. That means I'll get to hear CTTE and Awaken live for the first time, which will be very cool.

Zee latest...

Got back to work this week after a very nice extended Thanksgiving holiday. We spent T-Day with le fam at my sister Debbie's house. All in all a decent day. The Cowboys found a way to lose to the skins at home on T-Day, which is apropos of the last 15 years. The highlight of the break was seeing Rush on their Clockwork Angels tour at AA center in Dallas. We went for the VIP tix and weren't disappointed. We got 3rd row center just a few seats off center of mass for Neil's drum kit, but with a perfect view regardless. Luckily we had a short lady in front of us, so Aeyong had an unobstructed view which is a rarity on the floor for her. It was a great show with an 80's centric set list which I initially wasn't thrilled about but I eventually warmed up to the idea and it was really nice hearing some of those tunes for the first time in a long time. It was about 27 years ago when I saw Rush at Reunion Arena for their Power Windows tour and a few of those tunes hadn't been played since that tour. Even better, they filmed this tour's DVD in Dallas & Phoenix (and the rumor is that it will be mostly Dallas) so we'll have a video record of the show to enjoy in the future. I've only had that experience once before, at the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas and out of that whole video I probably only attended 50% of those shows in person. There's a chance we may even be able to spot ourselves in the crowd shots since we were that close, so we're looking forward to that as well, although I'm not holding my breath.

We're trying to move forward on the housing front. We've had a few back & forths with a local custom home builder and they are quoting a bit high for our preference at this point. Hopefully we can talk them down to our range and get the house we want. If so, we may be moving in to a new home this summer. Time will tell. There's still a bit of uncertainty about the housing market and mortgage rates. Everything points to a rebound (it's already happening essentially) and that means housing costs and mortgage rates will rise. The big uncertainty revolves around the "fiscal cliff" looming for our government and the good chance that tax rates will increase across the board. If this happens I expect home sales to flatten out and we may be better off waiting to see if the prices will drop again. All that being said, if this builder will respond to our requests and give us our minimums within our price range, we'll probably press Go.

I think since the last post I moved some things around in the music room. I decided to bring the roland piano back onto the desk so I would be more inclined to play it and to give me access to a full 88 key midi instrument as well for recording. I also started practicing bass again. I had focused on acoustic for several weeks in preparation for my grandmother's memorial service back in August and I hadn't ever gotten back to my regular schedule of piano in the morning and then bass for about 30 min to start off my evening practice session. I'm still trying to work on the songs I was putting together for my "Guitar Hero" (not the game) project. That is a slow process since I'm exploring a few songs that involve relatively new techniques for me. Just "Rock Around The Clock" alone is quite the challenge. It's a very fast, clean solo and there's nothing to hide behind when you play it. You either play it right or it's obvious if you don't. Similar to many acoustic songs in that respect.

There's been such a large amount of transition in my practice area, computers, gear and practice time in the recent past that I'm just now starting to feel as if I can settle into a regular schedule again and start prioritizing my practice schedule. It's funny how that although you don't practice something you may still notice improvement. I think our nervous system takes longer to respond to our demands and it doesn't necessarily stop working just because we stop. I have noticed on various occasions in the past that if I have had a break in practicing an instrument that when I return to it I will sometimes find certain things slightly easier to play than before. I think when you practice something every day that if you are making progress it's so slow that it doesn't seem to be happening, but I believe even when you stop practicing for awhile your body is still trying to adapt to the demands you placed on it before, so in a sense, progress is still being made.

Troops...

It's another glorious Friday in the dee-eff-dub...

Tonight we're going to see Asia for the third time, this time in support of their XXX album as well as a sort of 30th anniversary of the original Asia album. They're supposed to play most of the album (although it doesn't appear to be in album order) as well as few from the new album and select songs from the others. They're playing at the Granada which is a decent small venue on Greenville in Dallas. We saw Eric Johnson there in October and I would swear I had seen shows there way back in the past before I joined the Army but I couldn't find any ticket stubs to corroborate that. I know I saw a lot of shows at the Arcadia, which is not too far away, so maybe I just remember the name. We originally had gen admission tickets but luckily they offered seats as an upgrade later after the original on sale so we took advantage. I hate asking Aeyoung to stand for two hours, especially when it's a band that only I really get into.

Next week is a short week before Thanksgiving on Thursday and starting on that day I have 11 days off in a row. Which is nice. We don't have any special plans other than decompressing. Well, there is the Rush show the following week. That's kind of a big deal, at least for me. Rush announced two days ago that they would be filming Phoenix and Dallas for the next DVD which was a pretty big surprise. I'm not sure what motivated them to shoot in these locations, but I'm pretty happy about it. The only other concert video I have of a show I actually attended is the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas from 2004. That's a compilation DVD and I didn't attend all the shows on the DVD. I did make a very brief appearance (in the audience) in the small set by Union Station (Man of Constant Sorrow), which was the band a set or two before the real reason I was there, Eric Johnson. We have VIP tickets for Rush and our purchase was complete at one minute past the on sale time, so I'm cautiously optimistic we'll be somewhere close enough to actually show up on the DVD at some point. Even more important, we'll have a concert video of a show we attended to enjoy for the rest of our lives. That is a great thing.

There haven't been any other world shaking developments on the homefront. We're starting to put money away each month with the eventual home purchase in mind. I transferred most of the music related artwork & paraphernalia from the big bonus room to my studio/home theater room. It seems trivial, but having all that music memorabilia on the walls and scattered about the room really enhances the vibe. I'm actually pretty happy with the overall size of that space and I think it would be fine for our eventual home. I definitely plan to separate the home theater and music studio at our eventual home, but I know I don't necessarily need a huge room for my music studio.

I've learned a few hard lessons thanks to Apple, Inc. lately. Mainly that they have started to morph into a more MS Windows kind of experience in the recent past. The more systemic chronic problems really began with my purchase of Mountain Lion when the installer informed me my hard drive was about to die. Too bad I didn't know then that Apple would eventually deem these hard drives defective and offer free replacements (3 months and one new hard drive too late for me). Adding to the Apple frustrations were my even longer standing issues with Itunes and my portable devices (iphone/ipad). My problems always stem from not being able to get complete information transferred from my computer to the device when adding new music. I still buy new music several times a month and for whatever reason, itunes just arbitrarily (it seems) will fail to copy album art, or the complete album, or some other frustrating element whenever I try to copy new music over to my devices.

After multiple attempts to fix the problem manually I eventually have settled on periodic complete wipes and restores of the devices. This seems to be the only effective way to ensure that everything from the mac will transfer to the device. I'm not really ocd about much, but my music collection (and the problems associated with itunes) can make me certifiable. I don't know why with the long age of itunes software that it's still such a common problem to just transfer media files between the mac and the device. I understand the need for DRM, but I don't download much of my music at all. It's about 99% (literally) ripped from cd's I have purchased, because that's still the way I prefer to buy my music. Knock on wood, it seems to be working for me.

Right along with the itunes/media devices frustration I started to experience problems with mountain lion itself. The two most important peripherals (not counting my backup hard drive) I use are my presonus mixer and axefx. These both worked as audio devices initially when I upgraded to mountain lion. But for some reason over time, one and then the other stopped being recognized by the system. I went through the whole nutroll with deleting all traces, reinstalling, updating, lather, rinse, repeat with both devices. I reinstalled mountain lion several times. Then I got desperate. I wiped the mac and installed mountain lion clean. No joy. I then jumped through several hoops until I could get Lion installed on a usb drive so I could perform a complete wipe and fresh install of Lion. This also now seems to be working for me.

All of this with no significant changes on my end, just wanting to add music to my mac/devices and to use the gear that had previously been working. During the process I got to a point that I thought my mac was truly dead and I was going to have to replace it. I had also been thinking about getting a pc at the time (mainly so I could play guild wars 2) to use separately because for some reason along with mountain lion, the mac no longer wanted to let me install a bootcamp partition. So I got the pc during the time I thought the mac might be truly dead but it made a comeback once I went back and wiped everything and started over. Now I have the mac dedicated to music and just basic mail/internet browsing. Hopefully that will provide some more longevity so I'm not compelled to upgrade too soon. With the software I own, I still feel the mac is better suited for music production. Unfortunately I'm starting to get the feeling apple is more concerned with selling portable devices since that's where the real money lies, and they are going to continue marginalizing the power users.

Updates

A lot of this info is way after the fact due to my inconsistency in posting as well as the squarespace app on the ipad not getting along well with IOS6.  I had typed up a few updates in the last month or so only to find out I couldn't save or post them because the app is basically inoperative. 

Most importantly, we sold our house at the end of August (and paid $30K for the privilege) so we're now fully disconnected from Killeen and beginning the next chapter which should eventually result in our permanent residence here in DFW. 

In the gear section updates, PRS finally released the Angelus Custom SE to dealers and I got the first one from Sweetwater. I'm really happy with it so far, it reminds me alot of the Taylor I previously owned although I prefer this sound more (despite the Taylor costing 3x as much). I also was able to sell the Maton on Ebay and I got my buy it now price almost immediately. It's out for delivery today to the buyer and hopefully I'll get positive feedback and funds release from paypal not too long after. 

Aeyong made her trip home for her mother's 70th birthday and had a good time while she was there. It was nice for her to be able to make the trip, and paying for it with bonus credit card points was nice as well.  The only bad thing about it was April coming down with a really bad case of the runs and me having to stay home with her for a few days until she recovered enough that I wasn't worried about the house becoming a biohazard. I think it was a combination of stress from the separation and I might have fed her a bit too much cottage cheese one night. You live and learn. 

There are more details to relate but I wanted to at least get this update down while it was on my mind

Concert Calendar Update

It's a good thing I periodically check artist websites, because I would otherwise miss out on some great shows. A random check of Eric Johnson's website showed he was playing the Granada in Dallas in October and then checking their website I found out Asia is playing there in November, and performing their eponymous first album in its entirety. So tickets have been purchased for both. I got Aeyong a seat for EJ and I bought a gen admission ticket for myself so I can get close. Asia is all gen admission so we didn't have a choice for them.

So September is actually looking light with only Slash (an understatement, I've been wanting to see him and Myles Kennedy for awhile now), October has Australian Pink Floyd, Eric Johnson, and Joe Bonamassa and then November will have Asia and Rush. 2012 has been a pretty good concert year. I've seen Opeth, Mastodon, Ghost, Roger Waters, Boston and Tenacious D for the first time(s). You could add Led Zeppelin 2, who, despite being a cover band really did nail LZ in all aspects. It was really close to what seeing them circa 1977 must have been like. Add Tommy Emmanuel, Van Halen, and Iron Maiden to the repeat concerts and the previously mentioned upcoming shows proves it's been a fairly stellar concert year. We're at a point now that we're still fairly selective about who we see.

There are a few shows we skip depending upon the night of the week, venue, whether we've seen them recently, and other reasons. We missed Tool since they were the same night as LZ2 and we already had tickets (no, I would never have skipped Tool for a cover band otherwise). We skipped Coldplay, because although I really like their 2nd album, their subsequent albums have progressively lost a little bit of what made the 2nd album great. I would still see them, but I really didn't feel like hanging out with loads of iFans at American Airlines. No disrespect to Chris Martin, but, the few times I've heard him live I've been less than impressed as well.

There are still a few big gaps in our concert history. Right now among the large venue bands it would have to be Foo Fighters and The Killers. Hopefully we'll get chances to see both although I don't relish the large venue ticket sticker shock I'm sure will be the case. I know Aeyong would enjoy Jason Mraz, and Mark Knopfler as well. Knopfler's playing as opener for Bob Dylan and I'm tempted, but we'd probably rather see him do a full solo show. I respect the hell out of Dylan's songwriting, but I've never gelled with his vocal/music style live.

Acoustic & Bass considerations

As an addendum to the gear updates, I'm going to need to figure out a good way to combine the capabilities of the Fishman Aura with the AxeFx. The Aura is a brilliant preamp/guitar modeler for lack of a better description, but when I run it into the Atomic, I am giving up any reverb or other effects (the little Roland AC33 actually has onboard reverb and chorus) and I find that I really prefer at least reverb, even if it's used in a subtle manner. I think I can use the line level input on the back of the Axe, although I'll probably have to tweak the I/O settings for that to work. I don't think going into the instrument level input on the front is the right way to do it. As far as the bass, there's nothing special to do other than it will only really work with the Atomic. It might work with the Mesa as well, but I'm sure I'll be giving up low end that I don't want to lose.

Updated Gear List and future planning

Guitars
Gibson Les Paul Custom Black
Suhr Modern Black Cherry
Fender Eric Johnson Stratocaster Tobacco Sunburst
James Tyler Variax Tobacco Sunburst
Maton EBG808 Acoustic
Fender Geddy Lee Jazz Bass Tobacco Sunburst
Yamaha Classical

Keyboards
Roland RD700GX Digital Piano
M-Audio Oxygen 25 Midi Controller/Keyboard

Preamp/Processors
Fractal Audio Axe Fx II
Fractal Audio MFC 101 Floor Controller (Mission Engineering EP-1 Expression Pedals (2))
Fishman Aura Spectrum DI/Acoustic Guitar Preamp/Modeler
TC Helicon Voiceworks Plus

Mixing/Signal routing
Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2 Digital Mixer
Line 6 Relay G50 Wireless

Amplification/Sound Reproduction
Matrix Amplification GT1000FX SS Amplifier
JBL EON 515 (2)
Atomic Amplification Reactor Powered Wedge
Mesa Stiletto 4x12 Cabinet
Roland AC-33 Acoustic Amp
M-Audio BX5A Studio Monitors (2)

Computer Hardware/Software
Apple iMac desktop (primary DAW)
Apple Macbook Pro (secondary - used with roland setup)
Apple Logic Studio
Native Instruments Komplete 7

Miscellaneous
Blue Chip picks (regular & thumb)
Slick Pick Thumbpicks
Elixir acoustic strings
D'Addario electric strings
Lava Cables
NYC Pedalboard

Future plans - I've essentially decided (see below) to get rid of the Mesa 4x12 and replace it with a larger FRFR solution. Basically the large venue version of the Atomic Wedge. I want to have a unified and compact(ish) solution for my guitar rig. That will mean a 6u or 8u rack case to put the AxeFx, Matrix GT1000, and whatever else I deem necessary, the pedalboard case with the MFC and pedals, and the speaker cab which will be the Atomic Wedge (1x12 equiv) for smaller venues, or the Jet City 700DP (essentially a 2x12 but full range and essentially taking the place of a 4x12 in sound capability). I'm getting a nicer multi-guitar rack for my home studio and I'm also considering whether I want a portable case rack for gigging. A lot of this is very tentative planning based on the supposition that I will be gigging at some point in the future. If I need the ultimately small gig setup, I can go with one guitar (probably the Suhr if I need just one), and just the Axe provided I have a FOH/PA at the site of the gig. This would leave out the pedalboard, so I'm not sure if that's doable or will even be necessary in the long run.
Future Gear: Jet City 700DP, 6u/8u rack case, PRS Angelus Custom, Roland E Drums, nicer monitors.

Gear, Gear, Gear...

why do you vex me so? The very nature of gearheads is that we're never content. There are fortunately some items that fulfill their role well and so remain one of the pillars of our sound construction. For me, several of my guitars fit that role. The Les Paul, Strat, Suhr, and Jazz Bass are unlikely to ever get swapped out. They do their job as intended and they do it well. Okay, I might swap the EMGs out of the Suhr, but the guitar itself is brilliant. Most of the elements in my signal chain have also met my expectations (after much trial and error) and so the overall setup is fairly stable at this point. As my primary tone shaper, the Fractal Audio AxeFx is probably the best option for the foreseeable future.

I would never say permanent since technology continues to progress at exponential rates. The pinnacle of sound modeling five years ago now falls woefully short when compared to the AxeFx. Along those lines, my current vexation is related to speakers/cabinets. I originally was running the Axe through cheap M-Audio monitors. When I upgraded to the Atomic wedge, it was a revelation. Not long after I had purchased JBL EONs for my keyboard and other FR PA needs and before long I decided I liked the stereo FR option compared to the wedge.

My Mesa 4x12 had been gathering dust for the past few years but I kept the option open to run it as my cab with the Axe amp modeling running and the cabinet modeling bypassed. When I saw Pete Thorn's demo of the Matrix GT1000FX, I was sold on pursuing that route. I had been thinking I needed a more traditional amp/cab look/sound if I was going to play with a band. After experimenting with the Mesa 4x12, I've found that while it's possible to dial in great tones, I feel limited since I was so accustomed to running all the custom cab options with the AxeFx.

I think I've finally come full circle and I plan on selling the Mesa and embracing FRFR only. I plan on selling the Mesa, and perhaps even the JBL EONs and replacing the Mesa cab with an FRFR cab or equivalent. My vision is to have the Atomic as my smaller gig amp and the new Jet City FRFR half stack as my larger/louder venue amp. I can see myself selling the JBLs and M-Audios, and replacing them with a good set of studio monitors. The Jet City would be the more powerful large venue option, and the atomic would be for smaller venues and/or acoustic with the small Roland ac-33 for the smallest size venues.

Of course, we eventually want to build our permanent home in the next few years so I may find the JBLs will be needed if I'm going to ever host band practice or equivalent. Having a constantly shifting set of desires and needs is part of what keeps it interesting I suppose.

Gear update addendum

After running the Axe through the Mesa 4x12 for several days, I couldn't help but feel a bit constrained with the cab tone. I slid my seldom used Atomic powered wedge over alongside the Mesa and resumed running the full amp/cab emulation patches on the Axe. I don't know why, but I guess since I've been running the JBL EONs for so long, I had forgotten the relative loudness and amp/cab rigness of the Atomic. It holds its own alongside the Mesa, especially at bedroom volumes. I have only been turning the volume knob on the Atomic to about 25% and it's been plenty loud. I actually think it should be enough for most smaller gigs I'm likely to play. I have to put it up next to a regular drum kit to see if it will be enough. Now I'm rethinking the whole keep the Mesa decision. I think I'm going to try and sell it on Ebay and then look at some full cab size FRFR options coming out later this year, such as Jet City's 700DP.

New Gear Updates

Since the last gear update (L6 Variax, if I recall) I've added a few new pieces. I bought a new acoustic amp (Roland AC33) that I was planning to use during my first gig since we thought we would be playing outside and I needed something that could run on batteries. After attempting to play guitar during an August afternoon in Texas I prevailed on my mother to have the service indoors. Along with the amp I bought a preamp/IR modeler from Fishman called the Aura Spectrum. It's basic function is to recreate the sonic characteristics of various acoustic guitars and it also functions as a preamp, providing volume, tone, and compression controls. It has actually done wonders for the straight piezo sound by warming it up and adding a fullness to the tone that I couldn't previously create even with the AxeFx (it's probably possible, but would need a lot more tweakage).

The Roland is a good little amp, although in a small room it definitely as some mid/low feedback problems. Both the Roland and Fishman have feedback defeat circuits and even using these combined with a soundhole cover on my Maton weren't enough to eliminate the feedback entirely. I think this would be a non issue in bigger or more absorptive rooms, but I decided not to chance it and just played straight acoustic during the gig.

Not too long after that I saw Pete Thorn demoing the Matrix amps GT1000 and GT800 models. These are solid state flat response power amps designed to be used with the Axe Fx and other high quality modelers. Pete is the ultimate gear demo man since he's well spoken, concise, has chops for days, and always picks little song excerpts and licks that you would see yourself playing. Whenever he demos a product I always see the "What if" scenario played out to the fullest. So that means I usually end up buying the gear he demos if it's something I was considering. (I don't buy everything I see him demo, I would be broke if that were the case). The main motivation for getting this amp was that I still have a Mesa 4x12 cabinet that I custom ordered from Sweetwater at the same time I had purchased a Mesa Mark V. As luck would have it, I also got the AxeFx at the same time and quickly realized I had no need for a separate amp head. I was able to return the Amp head, but the cabinet was a custom order and couldn't be sent back.

I had been toying with the idea of selling the cab on Ebay for several months but I decided I really wanted to get the Axe setup like a regular rig. So far I've been pretty happy with it. I don't know yet if the Mesa Stiletto is the long term cab for me or not, but I like having the isolated guitar sound coming from one amp and believe me, this thing can get LOUD. I have only turned the volume on the Matrix to about 20% of it's range and it's already pushing the "pissing off the neighbors" range. It should be plenty for a band, even with a loud drummer.

Gig Report

I'm trying to think of a way that could sound more pretentious, but I think I nailed it right there. For lack of a better term, I played my first gig (ever) as a musician this past Saturday. It was for a sitting room only crowd of 15 family, friends, and general well wishers. I played acoustic guitar while my sister Debbie sang Amazing Grace, followed by my niece Heather on Over the Rainbow and finally with How Great Thou Art (Carrie Underwood version) with Debbie on lead vocals and Heather singing harmony.

I played modified versions of the Tommy Emmanuel arrangements of AG and OTR. It was a memorial service for our grandmother Nonie who passed away last month at the age of 85. It went pretty well, there were no big mistakes and everyone seemed to appreciate the effort. Heather was temporarily overcome with emotion while singing OTR because she said made eye contact with our audience and they were all crying and that set her off. It made the moment more emotional and poignant. I studiously looked at the guitar and didn't look at audience. I don't know if I would have become overly emotional, but I could have easily lost track of where I was in the song.

I know I didn't play it as well as I would want, but it went okay and there were no glaring errors made. Somewhere in there I started to actually disconnect from the mechanics and feel the emotion of the songs. I can say that details are hard to recall, it was mostly a blur. I want to get out and perform again but I'm not sure if I want to pursue the solo acoustic path or electric guitar in a rock band path first. I want to do both, but I'm a little more inclined to rock right now. I need to keep working on my set list of known songs so I have something to offer any potential bands. I'm more inclined to play with a covers band, at least at first.

House

We received an offer on the house, and like all previous offers, they underbid what we were asking. The difference this time is that we accepted anyway since the three previous times we counter offered the potential buyers backed out. We didn't want to lose this chance to sell so we're just going to cope with forking over money to get this house off our hands. In the end, the sale alone is costing us 30 grand. Counting the mortgage payments we've put over 100 grand into that house and it was only worth 250 to start with. We've learned a valuable lesson, and that's not to buy again unless we're really sure we want to stay in that house for a long, long time.

No one could have predicted the market would actually continue to get worse in our area, but we unfortunately experienced a perfect storm of bad market conditions unique to our little subdivision and not just a reflection on the overall national housing market. We've had to compete with our home builder selling the exact same layout for not only less than what we paid for it, but for less than we were listing it for. You can't compete with a cheaper, newer version of the same house from the same builder. We paid extra on the mortgage just to get the balance down so we could drop the price to a competitive level.

We have a few hoops to jump through including home inspection and getting a POA for Aeyong since she will be in Korea during the projected closing time. Hopefully by this time next month or shortly thereafter we'll have permanently washed our hands of that debacle.

First Gig

It's been awhile since the last update. There's lots to talk about, but of primary importance is my first "gig" coming up Saturday. Gig is probably being generous as it's just a couple of songs for my Grandmother Nonie's memorial service. Luckily my big sister Debbie and niece Heather will be singing vocals so that can only help me sound better. We'll be doing altered versions of Amazing Grace and Over the Rainbow as arranged by Tommy Emmanuel but adapted for vocals and my technical limitations. We'll also be doing How Great Thou Art at my mother's request, although it will be the Carrie Underwood version. I'll be playing my Maton acoustic through my recently acquired Fishman Aura preamp and Roland AC-33 acoustic amp. I bought the Roland because I thought we would be doing the ceremony outside, as it's capable of running on batteries. Fortunately the venue has moved indoors, so I'm assuming we'll have access to power. I could probably go straight acoustic, but I wanted some extra compression/reverb for the harmonics on OTR. It's been a learning experience as I've discovered the challenge of playing an instrument while trying to listen and respond to a vocalist. This may encourage me to purse an open mic in the future.

Concert Schedule (Updated)

Roger Waters - The Wall - Austin 5/3/12
Van Halen - Dallas 6/20/12
Boston - Grand Prairie 7/10/12
Tenacious D - Dallas 7/20/12
Iron Maiden - Dallas 8/17/12
Australian Pink Floyd- G. Prairie 10/4/12
Joe Bonamassa - Dallas 10/30/12
Rush - Dallas 11/28/12

Just recently saw Opeth/Mastodon/Ghost at the Palladium in Dallas. It was a good show overall. I enjoyed all three sets, but definitely enjoyed Opeth the most. The biggest con were the truncated sets since they were dual headlining. Mastodon played about 80 or so minutes and Opeth was shorter than that. It was a decent set list, mostly from the new album and a few select cuts from the past, most of which were regular vocals. They played a couple growl tunes at the end for their long term fans. They closed out with "The Grand Conjuration" from Ghost Reveries which is a pretty cool tune. I wish they would have played something from Blackwater Park, but hopefully I'll get another chance to see them when they're performing a full set.

Mastodon was high energy, but it was near impossible to understand the vocals, or even sus out exactly what the guitars and bass were doing at any given point. Loud and distorted but lacking a little on the clarity. Not that I was surprised by that. I think most of the fans (and it was a young crowd) were there for Mastodon and probably less than half were there for Opeth.

New Rush Day!!!

Well, technically the real New Rush Day is in June, but they released the first new single (since Caravan/BU2B last year) for their new album, "Clockwork Angels". 

If the three songs released so far are any indication, this album is going to be one of the all time Rush classics. Yes, I'm biased, but even taking that into consideration, this thing is sounding epic. Listen for yourself. 

I'll have a shoe with cheese on it...

‎"Anha nemo afichak orze ma jelloon meshes. Emmas mae fothaan majin anha zalak volderat kristasof yeri."

Yes, you guessed right. It's the Dothraki translation for: "I'll have a shoe with cheese on it, force it down my throat, and I want to massage your Grandmother" 

If you're doubting the accuracy, that's translated by the guy who created the language for Game of Thrones. At my request. Quite the indulgent philologist, if I do say. And I do. Be do be do.

Feel free to use it in conversation. Thank me later.

Concert season is warming up

March is dry for concerts, but starting in April we'll have a regular run of at least one concert a month until August. Coming up in two weeks is Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree fame on his solo tour supporting his second album. He'll be playing the HOB Dallas and the only real negative is that it's on a Monday night, which along with Tuesday night are the least desirable concert nights. I like to combine concerts with a long weekend and those two nights are the least ideal.

The next week (Thursday, yes!) it's Opeth/Mastodon/Ghost for some metal mayhem at the Palladium. Aeyong will be skipping that one, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't enjoy it that much. A couple weeks after that it's Roger Waters performing "The Wall" in it's entirety (and apparently nothing else) in Austin. I had skipped the last few Roger Waters tours because I've always held out hope I could see David Gilmour and he has always been my preferred member of the band. But I came to realize that if I don't see Roger Waters now, I'll most likely never have seen any member of Pink Floyd live in my life, and that's a huge void in my concert going history. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Queen are probably the 3 biggest omissions that I wish I could rectify, but it isn't likely to ever happen. If Queen tours with Paul Rodgers (or even Adam Lambert) I'll go see them, because I love Brian May and Roger Taylor and Paul Rodgers is awesome (actually saw him twice with Jimmy Page in the Firm) and I can tolerate other singers if the band founders find them suitable.

Case in point would be Yes with Benoit David (although I'm not sure if he got fired now). We have seen the more recent lineup with Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, Oliver Wakeman, and Benoit David and I think they did a fantastic job. I think the "Fly from Here" album is the best thing Yes (the more classical-ish, non Trevor Rabin lineup) have done since ABWH. I love the Trevor Rabin Yes as well, it's just a different band with him in it. Trevor is such a strong musical force, that the magnetic poles in Yes shift when he's in the band, more than with Steve (and I love Steve and consider him a primary influence).

Anywhoooo....

Roger Waters is in early May, and then about 6-7 weeks later is potentially the highlight (for me, anyway) of the summer with Van Halen at AA center in Dallas for the "A Different Kind of Truth" tour. A new album, with David Lee Roth. A really good, no great VH album, with David Lee Roth. Let that sink in. Have you bought it? Listened to it? No, I mean, LISTENED to it? If not, go do that and come back. Take a couple weeks of heavy rotation. Preferably on a good home stereo if you have one of those. No, not those crap logitechs next to your monitor. I mean a home stereo. Not the $199 HTIB that you got on black friday 7 years ago at WalMart. Ok, if necessary, go make some money, buy a respectable home theater speaker system (or go old school stereo if you want, that's perfectly acceptable, and you get style points from the audiophiles if it's a good set of speakers) and then listen to the cd or make sure you're listening to a lossless or high resolution audio format. Lather, rinse, repeat.

WARNING - MINI VH ALBUM REVIEW FOLLOWS THEN CONCERT DISCUSSION RESUMES LATER
This new Van Halen album is easily the best thing they've done since 1984. Sure, it would be different than the SH (or even Gary Cherone if you include him) era because of DLR and Wolfie, but it's not the novelty of having DLR back. I honestly considered DLR peripheral to most of the VH stuff I really loved, because it was always about 80% Eddie, 10% Alex, and 10% of the other two for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Michael Anthony sings great backing vocals and is a "decent" bassist (staying out of Eddie's way is his best skill), and DLR is the ultimate showman. Yada, Yada, Yada. I just always felt like VH could have been a Zeppelin equivalent (in importance, not as a successor to their sound) for me if EVH had a vocalist/lyricist and bassist that were in the same league as him. Imagine if Eddie had musicians as talented as John Paul Jones and Robert Plant or Freddie Mercury in Van Halen. Think of all the great music and imagine if you had someone like Roger Waters writing lyrics for it. See?

But all criticisms aside, DLR has truly gained some wisdom and honed his craft as a lyricist and singer since we last saw him and the VH boys. It's amazing because he's still the same vaudevillian/showman that he has always been, but he's gotten really good at it and his lyrics are so much beyond what they were in the past. Funny, irreverent, insightful, obscure, random. These are just some of the qualities to his new lyric writing. "Swapmeet Sally, Trampstamp Tat, Mousewife to Momshell in the time it took to get that new tattoo, tattoo, tattoo". I don't care what anyone says, those are perfect VH lyrics. It reminds me of Alice Cooper and some other great cerebrally funny lyricists through the years.

DLR manages to reference current popular culture (social media, music, mid life crises, etc) and mix it with classic Vh tropes (sex, drugs, and RnFR baby) while ensuring that it fits the feel of the music perfectly. This album actually makes me feel like the perfect VH lineup was always there, but in DLR and wolfie's (more about him soon) case, it just needed to mature (literally in Wolfie's case, he was an infant in their heyday).
On the subject of Wolfgang, or Ed Jr. (probably either is appropriate) he has really developed as a musician. We first saw him during the VH 2004 tour where he came out during EVH's solo (it was a running gag, EVH stops playing and the solo continues on the PA. A few seconds later, out comes a mini-Ed playing a Frankenstrat and it's Wolfgang, sounding like his Dad). Fast forward to 2011 and he's been the bass player since 2007 (maybe much earlier, not sure how long he's been playing bass). This dude has chops. He's a chip off the old block and now Eddie finally has a bass player that can keep up with him. It's actually changed the dynamics in the band quite a bit now, and I even think Eddie is approaching his tone differently (wah, anyone?) because of Wolfgang. More on VH later. Suffice to say, the new album is what the VH diehards have been hoping for all these years. All the people whining about the exclusion of Michael Anthony are seriously lacking in musical taste. And I think Michael's a respectable bassist and great backup singer. Wolfie's better, much better. And now it's the new and improved Van Halen. With 25% more Van Halen than ever before (see what I did there?). I don't know if any other living Van Halen's are musical (their Dad was, but I think he's probably passed on by now) but it would be interesting to see if they could pull off a VH quadfecta just for laughs.

BACK TO CONCERT CALENDAR DISCUSSION

VH in mid June followed by Boston in early July. Tom Scholz is essentially the only original member of the band now as far as I know, but that's fine with me, since Tom Scholz is Boston to me. Brad Delp is definitely out since he committed suicide several years ago. I haven't really kept up with them, but Boston and Scholz's guitar tone were defining sounds for me early in my guitar fandom. Don't Look Back was one of the earlier albums I purchased and really got into, replaying it on my turntable over and over. I know I definitely air guitared my ass off to that album. And, as established by Whitehead/Russell in Principia Mathematica, Air Guitar Worthy=Concert Worthy. It's in the appendix, look it up.

Closing out the presumably sweltering summer in August will be Iron Maiden back at the Smirnoff, I mean Superpages, I mean, whatever the hell they're calling it now shed. Iron Maiden is supposedly going to feature a big chunk of the set list from the "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" tour, so that should be cool. I was a bit letdown by the last set list in 2010, but I'm going to make sure I'm more familiar this time around. I have always been a Number of the Beast through Somewhere in Time era fan, but there are some other great Iron Maiden albums in there as well.

And hopefully concert season will be closed out by Rush in the early fall for their Clockwork Angels tour. All in all, it's going to be a good concert season.

NGD!

If you have to ask, this is probably not the blog for you. Ok, ok, the fact that you are actually reading this means you're the other person who reads my blog and for that I'll make an exception. NGD is New Gear Day, my friend. Yes, it's capitalized since it's essentially a national holiday (so why the hell am I at work?). I shipped out my two most recent Ebay sales (Charvel San Dimas and Line 6 Variax Acoustic) yesterday, and their sale essentially netted me a new James Tyler Variax (with the newest generation of L6 variax modeling hardware) and about $100 cash. I technically lost money on the guitars themselves, but I don't mind depreciation in a guitar that's not being used anymore since it allows me to replace it with something I will use. I didn't lose too much on either guitar, and I actually exceeded the most recent average auction prices for both guitars which made me very happy. I actually lucked out because I thought I had put a Buy It Now price on both, but I forgot to do that and I ended up getting more than the Buy It Now amount I would have set.

The Charvel was a good guitar but with the Suhr Modern, I really wasn't going to use it anymore. The intent with all my instruments is for them to fulfill a role sonically, and if they're redundant, I'll probably replace them or sell them. With the addition of the JT variax, my arsenal is going to be pretty stable until I add a PRS SE Angelus acoustic when they hit the market later this year. After that, it will probably be several years before the next new guitar (famous last words). It's a good thing my wife doesn't read this blog, or she would use it as evidence against me.

The L6 acoustic was good for what it did in its time, but I have grown more picky when it comes to acoustic tone, and I was just rarely using it at all. It would have been good as a swiss army knife guitar live, but once I saw the newer capabilities of 2nd? generation variaxes and found out that they were actually James Tyler designed guitars that were regular electrics in addition to being variaxes, it was an easy decision to replace the L6 acoustic.

One of the great things about the JT is that it has four times the processing power of the previous generation and they have used that power to make the most common alternate tunings as well as improved models of a variety of electric and acoustic guitars available at the flip of a switch. These guitars can be played like straight electrics, straight models, or a mix. In a way, this will give me capabilities that I haven't had since I sold the Brian Moore several years ago. To wit: dual guitar tones concurrently. I'm not sure how easy it will be (pretty easy I think), but it will be nice to be able to alternate quickly between electric and acoustic during the same song.

It's on the Fedexcellent express right now, hopefully it will be there when I get home tonight.