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  Messing around these nights in the basement with open G tuning on the acoustics. Putting down some John Lee Hooker-ish shuffle tracks. Looks like I’m building a new song. #music #guitar #recording #songwriting

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  Finished my acoustic tribute song in honour of Glen Hansard. Recorded down in the basement. Guitars are a Takamine EF407 acoustic guitar in standard tuning (L), an Alvarez Artist 5014 acoustic guitar in Nashville high tuning (R) and a Fender Mustang Bass. Vocal mic is an Apex 550 FET. Interface was Scarlett 4i4 recorded in Tracktion Waveform DAW. 160 bpm. #music #guitar #recording #songwriting https://youtu.be/wIr2M4-g0C0

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  New string night. Putting some custom light 11-52 Elixir Nanoweb strings on the little Takamine EF-407. It’s been a while. Was sounding a bit dull. Nice and bright now. When I bought the Tak, I had Old Town Strings in Victoria shape and install a new bone saddle. Action and set up is incredible with no fret buzz. The guitar plays like an electric.

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  Went to the Victoria Highland Games today. Good fun.

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  More fun from the Victoria Highland Games today.

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  Good piece about the Fender debacle. #music #guitar #gearsquad https://yamahamusicians.com/fender-the-money-behind-the-letters/

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  Stephen Colbert unleashed. Not wasting any time! https://youtu.be/jJTXB5uT_C4?si=7XKn0SvC0QuiBaVv

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  Totally dig Jack White’s sound system setup on Stephen Colbert’s new community cable tv gig. Awesome show.

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  Picked up a Korg Volca Drum unit. Messing around in the basement on a Saturday night. #music #synth

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  Contemplating a new studio vocal recording mic exclusively for singing. I’ve got an SM58 and mostly use an old Apex 550 FET condenser mic for vocals. I’m looking at the Universal Audio SD-1 dynamic mic. Anyone tried this mic before? I’ve watched a whack of vid reviews and it sounds pretty good. My budget is around $350 CAD. #music #gearsquad

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  Harrison Ford’s incredible ASU speech from a couple days ago. Worth watching. https://youtu.be/NK5Y4YD0mOA?si=qmEQ4AM8RdgTw9Pu

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  Holy crap, they’re back like it’s the early 1970’s. Jagger’s voice is amazing. And the riffs. Wow. #music #TheRollingStones https://youtu.be/FHaEFarmZx8?si=RptX8pXuqWQ_auD9

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  Hiking today. North side of Cobble Hill Mountain.

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  I made a thing. Plywood box with laminate countertop material. Plugs a hole at the end of a small bathtub in a tiny home.

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  Coffee time and Ollie cat on my lap.

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  Just changed our water filter. Water well on our rural property and lots of iron. Every couple of months kinda thing.

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  Got musician burnout. So I’m just messing around these days. Bought a synth several years ago, so playing around with it and learning how to do really simple stuff like loading free presets and learning step sequencing. Don’t really have a clue what I’m doing. Bit of a challenge for my analogue old school brain. But having some kind of weird fun.

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  Jumpin’ jesus, synthesizers are powerful little beasts. Doing some step sequencing. Trying to figure out some weird grooves. Gotta pick up some midi cables tomorrow. So far, I’m just inputting synth audio via TRS into the interface and DAW. I checked and my interface has midi in/out on the back. Don’t have a clue what I’m doing so I’ll see what midi signals are all about. I think I better watch some vid tutorials.

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  Picked up a couple midi cables yesterday and been DAW test tracking some synth in both audio in and midi in. I can see the degree of flexibility with midi tracking, especially with quantizing. Tried that and it’s pretty darn cool. But I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m more of an old school analogue audio waveform kinda person, so may just stick with that for recording. I’m totally new to messing around with synthesizers, so any ideas or tips about recording synth would be greatly appreciated....

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  More firewood moving today from the downed winter windfall. Carrying fir rounds out of the bush to our little logging truck.

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  Basement session tonight. Been tracking harmonica on my new blues tune for a couple evenings. Got some good takes. Using the B-flat Hohner Special 20 through Apex 327 harp mic into MXR Timmy. Got the masking tape over the mic volume knob to keep it from moving around. Lol. High tech fix. #music #gearsquad #recording #blues

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  Evening basement session. Comped the harp tracks on my blues tune tonight. Mixing time. Getting closer. Light at the end of the tunnel.

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  Wrote and recorded this tune in the basement around the time of the last No Kings protests. End the authoritarianism and oppression. #music https://youtu.be/zgLh6wltQPA?si=QU4tAqLfhzsxkYYa

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  Basement session tonight. Working on the new 12-bar shuffle blues thing. Recorded a few test tracks with the new PJ bass. Short scale is nice to play. The Mustang has the same punch as the p-bass, with some tonal flexibility, having both precision and jazz pickups. So far, I’m liking it. Played a few test harp tracks too. #music #gearsquad #bass #guitar

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  Basement session tonight. Printed lyrics and recorded a couple test vocal tracks on my new 12-bar blues shuffle thing. It’s gonna work. Never quite know until a few run throughs to get the vibe. Harmonica will be good. It’s a great track for blowing harp. #music #recording #songwriting

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  Beautiful warm sunny day. Took the VW camper van down to Cowichan Bay, hung out and made some tea and coffee. Went for a walk. Found these cool little blue flowers growing in a small clump on the side of a trail. Looked them up and they’re called “glory of the snow.”

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  Basement session last night. Comped vocals on the new blues shuffle tune. It’s coming together. Tracking harmonica next. #music

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  Got the riffs sussed for a new shuffle blues tune. Key is a bit high for my vocal so may use the Danelectro baritone. Gotta drop the harp key down too. Work in progress. #music

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  Another basement session tonight. Finally got the key figured out for the shuffle blues tune I’m working on. Using the Danelectro baritone. I’ve steadily gone down the scale for the harp and my vocal. Started with an F harp, then D and now down to A. It works. #music

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  Ollie cat’s having a lazy Sunday. #cats #catsofmastodon