Pamparo in Toronto

As I have mentioned before in my previous post, this is my first post (technically second only to this post) in a series of 1/2 minute clips.

This one is a slow 90bpm, 3/4 time and 15 bars of short music. It is a lullaby that I have actually written a bit of music as well. Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on where you’re sitting), I couldn’t get myself to sing it while recording. So I am just printing the words here, just try to follow along. The melody is clearly defined, I think

Goodnight, Sleep

Close your eyes
Rest your mind
Daddy’s here
By your side
The sun had set
The moon up high
Goodnight, sleep, little child

Without further ado, here’s a 30-second Lullaby. Oh btw, there are a couple of bum notes here. I was too lazy to re-record!

For those in Facebook, you may have to click here to listen to the song: Lullaby in 3/4

Enjoy!

Inspired by a previous post (1/2 Minute Clip), I will be starting a series of posts that will contain music of more-or-less 30 seconds in length. The challenge is to make the music sound like a “full” song and with structure. It may seem limiting but I think the more there is a limit, the more there is a potential for coming up with creative ideas.

Now, how do I make sure that I can fit a piece of music in that time-frame? I kinda used this guideline …

The music in the previous post was actually calculated as:

Time Signature 4/4
Tempo: 120 bpm

To get 30-secs worth of music: 120 bpm / 2 = 60 — now I know I have 60 beats to fill
To find out how many bars: 60 / 4 counts = 15 bars — this is the total number of bars I have

Once I have all these info, all I need to do is find a groove, a key and a motif … that actually sounded like a lot after I wrote that!

Here are some of the songs that I’ll be working on:
3/4, 90bpm = 45/3 = 15 bars
4/4, 96bpm = 48/4 = 12 bars
5/4, 100bpm = 50/5 = 10 bars

Now, who ever said math is over-rated?!

Next part of the series, the music will be in 3/4 @ 90bpm! It’s somewhat of a lullaby

Tried out some pedals that I bought recently … managed to cook up something, albeit, a little raw … Enjoy!

some technical info (for those in the know)
- Rhythm1: DLS with Brigadier
- Rhythm2: 1/2 Gainer
- Lead: Zen into DLS with Diamond ML
- Guitar: Fender Telecaster
- Bass: Fender Mustang
- Amp: PODFarm plugin for Logic

Catalinbread's Dirty Little Secret

And you think it’s something interesting!

Thanks to my rarely-used Analogman Bi-Chorus (which was sold for fairly good price), I managed to get this “Marshall-in-a-Box” pedal. Man, only if I can buy the chops of the pros! Alas, it’s not to be! At least, getting stuff like this makes me feel like a rockstar!

First impression … as soon as I struck an open-G chord with the gain barely at 9 o’clock position, I thought that I’d be keeping this for a while!

So there, now you know my Dirty Little Secret by Catalinbread!

It took forever to get the pedal shipped that my excitement had died down and had been replaced with anxiousness, second-guessing and to be honest, annoyed that it took more than 2-weeks from US to Canada. I’ll bet those people in Customs were all watching the Winter Olympics!

Regardless, it is here now and that’s what matters!

Apparently, this device is using the same chip that was on the DamageControl Timeline (SHARC AD21369). That is a lot of processing power and it’s evident that the engineers has put in a lot of efforts in creating this.

Pros:
1. Great analog sounds especially with the Bucket Loss
2. Tap-Tempo with dotted-8ths/triplets
3. Modulation can be very subtle to “warble’y” sounds when maxed

Cons:
1. Power, why does it have to use more than 100mA!!! oh well
2. Can’t go back to default non-tapped setting without changing the speed dial

On a side note, I compared it side-by-side with my Diamond Memory Lane (v1). Although the Brigadier sounded good by itself, it could not match the way the delay degrades on the ML. And this is not a knock against Strymon but I was just a little surprised that the ML really stood it’s ground.

Anyhow, here’s some random noodling that I did as soon as I got this baby!

The verdict after 30 minutes of playing with it … it has a velcro and a place in the board!

Pedalboard as of March 2010 (with Brigadier)

Obviously, I have to put more mileage into this to be able to utilize and judge all the features. But right out of the box, it produces very usable tones. It’s not as pristine as a digital delay even with the bucket loss at 0. And this is not what it was intended for. It was intended to simulate the bucket brigade analog chips which are really getting close to extinction. It does a great job at doing that … and a whole lot more. This will definitely stay with me for quite some time!