Sam's A-Z Self-Isolation Playlist - Day 1 (A) - Adwaith

Sam's A-Z Self-Isolation Playlist - Day 1 (A) - Adwaith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfhv6kIS3Dc

Crossroads

Daily blues practice. It's all about practice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEdfloREack

Easter Dance Show!

This is my first public dance show and it was at the local town hall. It was a really good venue with a good stage.

We only practice 20 minutes a week but we put on a great choreographed show.

Pedalboard Complete!

It took an age to finish as Frantone pedals are very expensive and it takes a long time to find them at a reasonable price.

These are the pedals (in sequence):

A clone of a Devi Ever Hyperion Fuzz. Devi Ever used to made the fuzziest fuzz pedals - and this one is super-fuzz, even on the low setting!

A rare Frantone Thunderhead Bass Booster. You can use it as a clean boost or turn the bass boost up to 11 and explode your speakers!

A Frantone Brooklyn Overdrive. Complete with Fran's trademark sound and arguably one of the best overdrives you can get!

A Raygun FX Ghosty modulator, which gives a wharbley, tape delayey, chorusy effect from suttle to crazy ring modulatoresque!

A clone of a Malekko spring reverb to give Dick Dale drippy surf!

All powered by a Harley Benton PowerPlant ISO-1 Pro. Frantone pedals need a good, clean power supply and the HB does the job.

Housed in a laptop bag with a homemade wooden board.

I've also got a BOSS ME-25 which is more convenient, so I can keep this for special occasions.

Cool Jerk

This is my Cool Jerk song. The idea started when I did 'Cool Jerk' by 'The Capitols' in the Soul Band at school and thought it would be a great idea to do my own version.

I wanted a minimal version based on the main riff and a drone. I got the drone by using the 'Didgeridoo Thingy' setting on my EHX Ravish Sitar. I did a guitar riff on a Harley Benton Les Paul, through my Frantone Brooklyn overdrive pedal into my Raygun FX Ghosty modulator with spring reverb. I did the bass riff with my Yamaha 5-string bass, through the Frantone Thunderhead with spring reverb.

I kept the vocals minimal by just saying 'Cool Jerk' and got the help of Mademoiselle Google to do the French translation!

Here it is:
https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/cool-jerk

Rock 'n' Roll

School homework!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVIttmFAzek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHEmDLQKrrk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HNznSyu4PA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnAQATKRBN0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hb9QSGmtqM

Ravish Drone

This is my drone song.

I did it by firstly getting a lot of 'sympathetic' drone sounds of my EHX Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar pedal, with just the open low E string on my guitar.

Then I duplicated the main drone (Koto) and adjusted the pitch in Audacity, to reflect a 12 bar blues pattern.

Next, I got the background stereo drones (Bumblebee and Didgeridoo Thingy), reversed one channel of each and then duplicated them throughout the piece.

Finally, I added an Audacity metronome click track in the background.

Use headphones and loop play for best results!

https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/sam-drone

King Blues Mug

Another Christmas present!

A custom printed mug - with the 3 'Kings' (Albert, Freddie and B.B.)!

On an Ernie Ball coaster (1 of 6 I got as another present)!

All from RockStar Guitars.

Cool Wall 2019

Another Christmas present!

12 homemade posters - my 'Cool Wall' extension.

Check them out on Youtube and buy their LP/CDs if you like them.

Albert King, The B-52's, Dick Dale, Ernest Tubb, Freddie King, Janis Joplin, Jethro Tull, Link Wray, Richard Thompson, Shonen Knife, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Slade.

BOSS ME-25 Xmas Present

This year, Father Christmas brought me an ME-25 multi-effect box of magic.

My guitar teacher also has an ME-25 and being a BOSS, you know the quality will be good.

It's got a solid metal casing and is packed full with fancy features, including ring modulator sounds.

I'll need to get a feel for it first, then I can set up some favourite custom patches.

School Band Carol Concert

I am in the school band at school and to finish the term we performed in the Carol Concert at the local church. I played my 5-string bass guitar. It was all off sheet music so no improvisation but the church had some good acoustics.

Birthday CDs

I got these CDs for my birthday. They're really good.

The two jazz albums are debut albums and you wouldn't think they were recorded in 1959 & 1971, they could have been recorded yesterday.

The Dick Dale album is also his debut and is great surf rock and roll. It's amazing he was still performing live up to his death this year, aged 81.

The B.B. King is my first B.B. album and it really shows his skill as a live performer.

Yamaha P-125 Piano

For my birthday, I've got a new digital piano, a Yamaha P-125, to replace my Yamaha PSR-E333 keyboard.

I like it because it has a 'piano feel'. For instance, the keys are weighted and cover a full octave span.

The speakers are better as well - plus there's four of them!

It also has a variety of reverbs.

One drawback over a keyboard is that it doesn't have the vast range of voices, but the ones it does have are really good.

https://youtu.be/DMLClqPkzzc

Thunderbirds Are Finished!

This is the (finished!) version of my Thunderbirds Project.

I did the outro's drum roll and fanfare parts on my Yamaha keyboard; then I did the explosions using the airplane and drumulele sounds on my home-coded synthesiser. I tweaked the track volume and panning levels in Audacity.

For the accompanying image I turned myself into a Thunderbird complete with 'Thunderbird eyebrows'!

Here it is! FAB!
https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/thunderbirds-theme-project

Thunderbirds Project - Main Section (2) - Added Frantone Thunderhead!

I wanted a bassy melody to follow on from the jazz organ.

I was going to play it on my 5-string bass but the melody isn't suited for playing on bass! So I switched to my Harley Benton Les Paul guitar. I used the neck pickup, rolled off the tone pot and cranked the Frantone Thunderhead bass boost to 11! And a drippy spring reverb.

Next up will be the banjo ukulele melody! Turned out FAB again!

https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/thunderbirds-project-added-frantone

Thunderbirds Project - Main Section (1)

This is the (work in progress) countdown, spoiler and main sections of the Thunderbirds theme.

To do this I began with using a drum kit on my Yamaha keyboard and also my drumulele to create a stereo-based drum track.

Then I used a violin voice on my keyboard that had a tremolo effect, before doing the trombone backing.

Then for the (first - there will be more to come!) main section, I chose a jazz organ voice on my keyboard, because the Tracys were always into their jazz. Nice.

Here it is! FAB!
https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/thunderbirds-main-section

French Homework

My French homework was to do a verb 'to have' (avoir) rap. But I don't like rap and wanted to 'push the envelope' of the spec to try and get a house point!

I was listening to Datblygu today so I thought I'd do something in their vein. So...

I played a rhythmic dyad track on my Les Paul guitar through my Frantone Thunderhead bass boost pedal and my spring reverb pedal into my Orange 20W amp and into my Tascam.

Then I recorded the vocals direct into the Tascam and put it into Audacity, before adding a Sopwith Camel drone sound from my home-coded synthesizer!

I'm NOT too happy with the vocals, since there was clipping and breathing sounds but I don't have time to re-record it. It's not too bad as it stands.

https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/french-homework

Thunderbirds Project - Countdown and Spoiler Sections

This is the countdown and spoiler sections of my 'Thunderbirds' theme.

I recorded the melody part on my Yamaha keyboard with a trombone section voice.

Then I got the thunderclap from the intro of 'The Prisoner' theme.

Then I mixed it into Audacity and tacked it on to the countdown section I had done previously.

Here it is. Next up will be the main section. FAB!
https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/thunderbirds-countdown-spoiler-sections

Thunderbirds Project - 'Spoiler' Percussion Sample

I was trying to get the percussion for the 'spoiler' part of the theme (the bit just after the countdown).

I thought it might be a complex polyrhythm at first but after listening to it carefully, it seems to be a (much simpler!) crazy beat!

So for my version I decided to bang out a crazy beat on my drumulele; firstly with pencils, then with fingers!

Then I mixed the two tracks together in Audacity with the compressor and amplify functions, and making it slightly out of phase!

Here it is. FAB!
https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/thunderbirds-spoiler-section-percussion

(I will try to do the melody part on my keyboard over the weekend.)

Thunderbirds Project - Countdown Sample

This is the countdown section of my Thunderbirds theme homage.

I used my Yamaha keyboard to get the trumpet sound and recorded it into my Tascam recorder.

Then I recorded the countdown vocals into my Tascam

Then, I created the Thunderbird launch noise using the English Electric Canberra jet engine sample in my home-coded 'blue noize' synthesizer.

Finally I mixed them together in Audacity.

Here it is! FAB!

https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/thunderbirds-project-countdown-section

Thunderbirds Project - Percussion Sample

This is the main percussive layer for the main section of the Thunderbirds theme.
To do this I started by dusting off my old drumulele!
Then I slowed down the theme and worked out a simple rhythm that could be repeated.
So I tapped it on the drumulele and recorded it into my Tascam.
Then, in Audacity, I selected the 4 best repeats and compressed it to make the peaks even, before speeding it up to 120bpm.
Later I can 'copy and paste' repeat the sample to form a percussive layer.

Here it is! FAB!
https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/thunderbirds-section-c-percussion-1

Thunderbirds Project - The Score

Thunderbirds Project - The Score.

This started with the school band that I have joined! 'Thunderbirds Are Go' is one of the songs we will be practicing but the first week the music teacher didn't let us take the music home to practice and the second week he forgot my bass music so I had to just "sit and listen" for an hour!

So I thought it would be a good idea to do my own Thunderbirds project at home using my keyboard, guitar, bass, home-coded syntesizer and anything else I can think of.

I could have played the melody from memory but thought that it would be good to have a music score to use as a guide. So I had a look on the Internet but the ones I found didn't seem right so I created my own by listening to the theme tune and creating a score in Musescore.

Here it is!

P.S. This is a long term project so watch this space, FAB!

Rumble with bass

This is 'Rumble' on a keyboard track with added Frantone bass.

I played my 5-string bass through a Frantone Brooklyn overdrive and Thunderhead bass boost into a Fender amp.

https://soundcloud.com/samsswingnskank/rumble-v2

Nervous Twitch @ Kirkstapalooza 2019

I saw Nervous Twitch supporting Shonen Knife at Halifax and I liked them so I followed them on Facebook and I found they were actually playing at Kirkstapalooza, at Kirkstall Bridge, Leeds and it's a child-friendly venue!

So I travelled up the M1 and then had a delicious beef burger in the pub, and was lucky enough to meet the band and have a photo with them. hey were really friendly and we had a good chat.

I stood by the sound man outside and had a good chat with him about his mixing desk before Nervous Twitch came on.

Their set was really good. I'm looking forward to seeing them again.

https://youtu.be/siJEoauGjpk

https://www.facebook.com/KirkstallBridge/

https://www.facebook.com/nervoustwitchband/

Yamaha HR-2000 Amplifier

This is my new amp, but there is no information about it on the Internet! It seems to be quite rare. I eventually found information for the amp on a Japanese catalogue archive.

I took some photos to show the details and a couple of demo videos.

The amp is a 20W solid state combo amp, with a 10" speaker, delay, chorus and compressor effects, and a Yamaha EAS-25P181A 8ohm speaker.

I really like it, it has a great sound, perfect for home.

https://youtu.be/C6KqcjNj61U

https://youtu.be/4vpyqCcsJV4