Pamparo in Toronto

Bleeding Red

I was cut and I bled green
For a moment that’s what it seems
I looked closely to be sure
‘Am glad to see, it is still red

… this is a very short poem that kinda describes what is happening with me for the past six months career-wise!

I wasn’t feeling well today so I went home from work to get some sleep. Amazing what extra rest can do to a person. I was feeling much better when I woke up and had a chance to do a little bit of noodling. Here’s a very short demo of what I was doing …

Some detailed info/settings:
- Fender Telecaster (Bridge pickup for rhythm, Neck for lead)
- Hermida Zendrive (Vol: 11, Gain: 12, Tone: 4, Voice: 9 o’clock)
- Seymour Duncan SFX-03 (Ch1 – Vol: 9, Bass: 12, Treble: 2, Gain: 2 o’clock)
- Fender Jaguar Bass
- drum loop from Beta Monkey
- 90 bpm, I-V-VI in the key of G

All tracks recorded using Logic Express with POD Farm for both guitar & bass tracks.

Hope you liked it …

Here’s my new pedalboard layout as of March, 2009 (v03/09) with the Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus:

Signal Chain:
TU-2 -> Sparkle Drive -> Zendrive -> SFX-03 -> Bi-Chorus -> Tremolo -> ML Delay -> VP Jr -> I/O

Power Config:
Out 1 – Hermida Zendrive (12V)
Out 2 – Analogman Bi-Chorus (12V)
Out 3 – Empress Tremolo
Out 4 – empty
Out 5 – Diamond Memory Lane (in-series with Out 6 for 18V operation)
Out 7 – Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive (non-sag, 9V)
Out 8 – Boss TU-2
Courtesy Outlet – Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic (SFX-03)

I noticed my Diamond ML is much clearer & articulated but also noticed the slight volume boost when its engaged. The Zendrive seems to be a little bit more open running at 12V.

It may seem logical to get another pedal to use with “Out 4″ but I think this pedalboard configuration will stay for a little while with minimal changes!

Here are some very good links explaining how the “Circle of Fifths” can be used by guitarists to figure out the chord progressions for any given key as well as how to construct scales out from the circle. Apparently, in jazz circle, the call it “the cycle”. So there you go, you are now in the know!

http://www.theguitarsuite.com/circleof5.html
http://music.linear1.org/2007/01/17/circle-of-fifths/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths
http://theguitarresource.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/circle-of-fiths.pdf

Now the trick is knowing how to apply this in our day-to-day playing. I am still in the hunt and my head is still spinning with all these theory. But I will give this a go and get some inspiration out of it!

Have fun …

Wanted to share a great resource I found for Sony Ericsson cellphones. Its the “unofficial theme maker” that Sony developers are sharing to other users.

Here’s the download link for both Mac & Windows version: http://developer.sonyericsson.com/getDocument.do?docId=70025

You can also attach a ring tone to the theme. Unfortunately, some companies here in Canada (not sure for the rest of the world) lock the phone so that you can only use DRM-protected tunes as supposed to straight-up mp3 that phones would happily play. The good news is that Sony developers are all kind and very helpful to the user community. They are providing this link for “DRM Packager” that will take an MP3 and put DRM for use as ringtone.

Follow the steps here: http://cellphoneforums.net/sony-ericsson/t263402-mp3-your-ringtones-w580i.html

Here are the download link for,
MAC: http://developer.sonyericsson.com/getDocument.do?docId=76996
Win: http://developer.sonyericsson.com/getDocument.do?docId=76997

This is a theme that I tested, it’s not as fancy but I’m getting there. Make sure you right-click and do a “Save link as”, the browser might try to load it and it’s not pretty!

Pixar’s Cars theme for a W380a

Have fun and please share your themes for FREE!