http://www.jamesbisset.com The ongoing tale of a fifty year old man trying to build a guitar, write some songs and record an album in his spare time Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:15:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Podcasting on electric guitars, songwriting and recording The ongoing tale of a fifty year old man trying to build a guitar, write some songs and record an album in his spare time James Bisset http://www.jamesbisset.com/files/pics/50th-anniversary-edition.jpghttp://www.jamesbisset.com James,Bisset no James Bisset james@bisset.com http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/what-does-fat-sound-like http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/what-does-fat-sound-like#comments Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:12:02 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/?p=719 http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/what-does-fat-sound-like/feed 0 When I was recording for the Caedmon album ‘Chicken to Hug’ I used my James Bisset Fiftieth Anniversary Edition strat almost exclusively. This worked fine until one day the engineer and producer piped up nervously and said the guitar sounded ‘thin’. I rolled the tone down on the guitar, but that didn’t convince him at all. So we changed amps, fiddled with settings, and even tried using the Dan Armstrong and finally the producer’s American Fender Tele. Nothing satisfied. So when we came away, I began to contemplate making a ‘fat’ guitar to complement my Strat. This guitar would have to be as thick and chewy as possible. It would need to sound like toffee. And it would need to cost peanuts – I wasn’t about to wander out and buy a Gibson 335. (Peanuts… toffee… is there a recipe here?) I already had a spare Warmoth strat neck so really, we were almost there. For the body, I cut down a cherry tree which had outlived its usefulness on the allotment. However, the cherry tree trunk will take a couple of years to dry out (if I find someone willing to cut it into boards). And it’s going to be a very special, unique piece of wood. I need to know exactly what I’m doing with it before I point power tools at it. So I found an unfinished Strat hardtail body on Ebay for £50 which I could use as a testbed, and a Schaller bridge for £30. That just left the pickups. And, rummaging about in my bits box, look what I found: Dimarzio super distortion and P90 A couple of second hand pickups from my eighties: a (Gibson?) P90 dog ear hybrid and an early Dimarzio super distortion P90 replacement. The Dimarzio I had used briefly in a semi-acoustic where it just screamed mercilessly, but the P90 I had bought and then stuck in a box for a rainy day. Scared of what I might do let loose with a router, a guitar and a kitchen table, I took the bits to Steve at Manchester Guitar Tech. So really, although I conceived the creature, it was Steve who cranked up the pulleys, charged the conductors, and then blasted this monster into life. I already have plans to paint it black and use a cream pickguard, so that it really looks like the antithesis of my cream strat. Yes, but what does it sound like Of course, you’re probably wondering by now what it sounds like. You’ll be pleased to know that I’m not going to hit you with the usual meaningless marketing speak. You can judge for yourselves. But please note that we’re comparing chalk and cheese here. I’ll get down to a proper analysis later. In the meantime, we’re comparing: A two piece Alder body vs a 3 piece (European?) Ash body A Schaller top-loading bridge vs a Callaham Strat ‘Vintage’ tremolo bridge Tonerider ‘Pure Vintage’ strat neck pickup vs a P90 hybrid of unknown provenance in neck position The pickup test suite is a looped track set up in Logic Studio. All the guitars are DI and then bussed through the same amp simulator – in this instance a preset ‘British Blues Combo – clean’. The only difference not clearly indicated by the bakeoff is the volume of the Frankenstrat – monstrous! When I was recording for the Caedmon album ‘Chicken to Hug’ I used my James Bisset Fiftieth Anniversary Edition strat almost exclusively. This worked fine until one day the engineer and producer piped up nervously and said the guitar sounded… http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/recording/old-enough-to-know-better http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/recording/old-enough-to-know-better#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:27:10 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/?p=693 http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/recording/old-enough-to-know-better/feed 0 Caedmon has been rehearsing around once every three months as we prepare for potential gigs in the spring and a follow on studio session to record the new album. I have a small problem with this: at my age, I can’t remember from one rehearsal to the next what i’m supposed to be playing and worse, I can’t even remember how my own songs are supposed to go. In an effort to get on top of this, I decided to record my Caedmon songs in the 50th Anniversary Studio and work out for once and for all what I’m supposed to be doing. Of course, what’s happened is that so far, I’ve arranged and produced a 50th Anniversary Edition version of ‘Old Enough to Know Better’ which will probably bear no relation to the Caedmon ‘Acid Folk’ version. But then I was always trying to foist muscular funk rock onto Caedmon’s fey folky shoulders. Not much change there then, Jim. So, here for your amusement is a demo of ‘Old Enough to Know Better’ as you will probably never hear it again, with strings, horns and thrashing guitars. In an effort to remember what I'm supposed to be playing for Caedmon's Return, I've taken to arranging and recording demos in my own studio. And here's 'Old Enough to Know Better'. http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/progress/the-mysterious-art-of-beat-mapping-in-logic http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/progress/the-mysterious-art-of-beat-mapping-in-logic#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:14:30 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/?p=325 http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/progress/the-mysterious-art-of-beat-mapping-in-logic/feed 19 So, for my sins (and because I have one studio more that everyone else) I’ve been given the job of doing the early stage mixing of six new Caedmon tracks. When we first started recording, we decided to work to a click track because it would make everything much simpler when it came to drop ins and edits and loops and the rest. By the time we came to the second recording session, we had binned the idea of click tracks and recorded everything ‘live’. Being the anal kind of guy who expects bar markers on the screen to line up with the bars we’re playing, I decided to explore what’s called ‘beat mapping’ once again. I’d wasted the best part of a day trying to do this on the 50th Anniversary Retreat and failed, but now I had the advantage of Google and Youtube on my side. Here is the before and after, so you can see what I’m talking about: And this is how to Beat your Map in Logic So, without further ado, this is how to make your click track follow your performance instead of the other way around. 1. This is essential, and not always mentioned in other tutorials: lock your regions to SMTPE time code before you start. Otherwise, if your regions start at different positions or you have multiple regions per track, Logic will happily shift the regions to match the new bar positions you’re going to create and your recording will fall apart. So select all regions, and using the contextual menu, choose ‘Lock SMTPE position’. 2. Unless you’ve already fiddled with it, your current BPM is likely to be set to 120bpm. Use the BPM counter plugin on one track to give you some idea of the general tempo – preferably something simple like a kick. When you have a good idea of the average tempo, set it in the transport bar. 3. Beat mapping is a ‘Global Track’. You’ll probably need to expose it by modifying the Global Track configuration. So use the View menu in the arrange window to display your Beat mapping. 4. Now select the track that you’re going to use to set the tempo and define the bars. Again, something like a kick track is ideal, but in this case I didn’t have that luxury and used an acoustic guitar track (yes, I know the picture says ‘Sam Bass’. OK, so the acoustic guitar got recorded on the track previously called Bass. I’ll rename it – don’t worry about it). With the track selected, click ‘Analyse’ in the beat mapping section. Logic will display lines to indicate what it calls the ‘transients’ on that track, below the bar and beat markers. Now all we have to do is line them up. Use the sensitivity box to increase or decrease the number of transients to suit. 5. Now comes the magic part. Using your pointer tool, click on a bar marker on the Beat mapping track, and drag down to the transient which matches that beat position. Advance along the track doing this once for every bar. Unless the timing really does drift dramatically, matching the first beat in every bar should be enough. Check your progress every so often by playing the track with the click switched on. And that’s it. Now you can work on your track secure in the knowledge that going to bar 36 will actually take you to bar 36. You can slap in Apple loops that will stay in time with your drifting tempo. You can happily cycle 4 bars while tweaking. Credits It would have taken ages to work this out without the beatmapping video tutorial on Youtube by SFLogicNinja and the advice in the Apple Logic forum. (Below is an update to the original post, added in response to my own troubleshooting and Lionel Cartwright’s comment below) Increase the sensitivity If you can’t get the ‘on the bar’ beats all the time, try increasing the sensitivity and mapping one of the beats inside the bar. Maybe you can catch a snare on the 2 and 4? The tempo track doesn’t have to change exactly on the first beat of each bar, as long as it keeps in time. Use multiple tracks If you have the luxury of a multi-track recording, try [...] At last, almost four years after my first attempt at making a click track follow a live performance, I've finally sussed out how to do it in Logic. And here's how you can do it too! http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/clarity-and-sparkle-show-episode-2 http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/clarity-and-sparkle-show-episode-2#comments Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:58:51 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/clarity-and-sparkle-show-episode-2/ http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/clarity-and-sparkle-show-episode-2/feed 2 As you will know, I entered Fergus, my custom built ‘Strat’ style guitar into the Clarity and Sparkle Show a few months back. The results were disastrous. Fergus and I retreated to a health farm and slowly rebuilt our confidence and our wiring. But the good news was that The Clarity and Sparkle Show asked us back. We surmised that this might have been due to the recent controversy over TV games shows and fixed results and that Clarity and Sparkle were just trying to keep their noses clean, but whatever the reason, we grabbed the chance for a comeback with both hands. The show was recorded late last year, but finally they’ve sent me a recording of the event and I can now announce that Fergus just barnstormed the whole thing! It was brilliant! Fergus sounded great and we just couldn’t stop playing. But the amazing thing was that the house band got the buzz as well and we all started jamming right there and then in the middle of the show! Anyway, they’ve given me permission to post the recording on the blog, so here you go. Pour yourself a stiff drink and enjoy the drama. I know I did. Clarity and Sparkle Show: Episode 2 Fergus gets his chance to show what he's made of (wood, mostly) in a return match at The Clarity and Sparkle Show. http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/speaker-simulation-in-logic http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/speaker-simulation-in-logic#comments Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:27:00 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/speaker-simulation-in-logic/ http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/speaker-simulation-in-logic/feed 0 A while ago, I delighted in the fact that my little Epiphone Valve Junior 5 watt practice amp had been modded to include a line feed from the output transformer. As aficionados will know, this means that I can get all the tone that a simple valve amp creates, but because I’m bypassing the speaker I don’t need to wake the neighbours. But of course, the downside is that a guitar amp speaker tends to colour the sound too, which is why guitars still get played through vintage Celestions instead of modern hi-fi speakers. The plan was to use to use the guitar amp simulator in Logic (Guitar Amp Pro or GAP) to simulate the speaker cab I wanted, but I was disappointed to discover that I couldn’t have the speaker simulation without amp simulation too. Which kind of defeated the purpose. So I posted a little moan on the Logic Studio discussion forum and forgot all about it. The day job and the life domestic has occupied my time since, but this weekend I decided to check up on the discussion thread. In response, one by the name ‘bdevoid’ had suggested using Space Designer and a link to a selection of impulse responses for same. [Cue thunder, lightning, light bulb switching on] Doh! Space Designer is a tool for simulating a space like a bathroom or a cave or the Albert Hall (did I mention that I played in the Albert Hall once?). But the space could just as easily be a speaker cab, or for that matter, an acoustic guitar body. I promptly downloaded the Beamsonic Impulse Responses he’d linked to and discovered a ‘Matchless Chieftain’ amongst a whole lot of other goodies. You can hear the result here: A while ago, I delighted in the fact that my little Epiphone Valve Junior 5 watt practice amp had been modded to include a line feed from the output transformer. As aficionados will know, this means that I can get… http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/the-clarity-and-sparkle-show http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/the-clarity-and-sparkle-show#comments Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:46:47 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/the-clarity-and-sparkle-show/ http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/the-clarity-and-sparkle-show/feed 3 Last time I blogged, I noted that my guitar sounded strangely muffled compared to the stock Telecaster with which I tested my modded EVJ (Epiphone Valve Junior) combo. At the time, I put it down to the fact that Telecasters are often wired with a ‘bleed’ capacitor, which leaks treble frequencies when the guitar volume is turned down in order to keep that Telecaster edge. But when Alnicomagnet (for it was he) pointed out that his Telecaster was so ‘stock’ that it didn’t even include a bleed capacitor, I decided that it was time to INVESTIGATE. As previously described, I had replaced my Kent Armstrong pickups with GFS pickups. Would it make any difference? This is a simple exercise: record several different guitars, compare them and broadcast the results. “Cue music. FX. Whisky for the Director! Action…” As if anything was that simple I’m writing these Progress updates using a “web log” tool called WordPress, which automatically generates an RSS feed (don’t ask). Every time I post an update on the progress section of the site, WordPress automagically generates an RSS version of the story. Using the right software, you can ‘subscribe’ to this RSS feed and you’ll get notified every time there’s a new story. Now, a ‘Podcast’ is really just the combination of an RSS feed with an attached audio file. You subscribe to the blog, and every time an audio file is attached to an RSS feed, your podcast software checks it, downloads it and slaps it on your iPod. So, if I attempt to demonstrate the nature of modern electric guitar wiring by attaching an audio file to this post, I am by default, podcasting. Which means that I really ought to include some sort of explanation on the audio file explaining what I’m doing, or the poor bugger who has subscribed to the James Bisset Fiftieth Anniversary Edition Podcasts, will download and be baffled by something that sounds suspiciously like me tuning up several guitars. Clarity and Sparkle OK – back to the purpose of this post. I’d spent altogether too much time and stress (did I say that I’ve stopped smoking again?) rewiring my custom built strat with ‘vintage’ style pickups to try and clean up the sound, which was muddy when the guitar volume was turned down low. How do the new pickups compare with my other guitars? So I’ve recorded four different guitars playing through the EVJ amp. I’ve included all four recordings on one podcast. And I’ve even made the podcast self-explanatory for anyone who downloads the podcasts and doesn’t bother with the blog. And for those of you in too much of a hurry even to listen to the podcasts: the muddiness is apparent using the Kent Armstrong pickups AND the GFS pickups. Conclusion: there’s nothing wrong with the pickups, but there’s something freaky about the star-grounding wiring technique. A podcast in which 4 electric guitars face up to the challenge of competing on the Clarity and Sparkle Game Show. Who will be the lucky winner! http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/epiphone-valve-junior-vs-marshall-4140-2 http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/epiphone-valve-junior-vs-marshall-4140-2#comments Sat, 31 Mar 2007 01:11:56 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/epiphone-valve-junior-vs-marshall-4140-2/ http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/epiphone-valve-junior-vs-marshall-4140-2/feed 1 I said I would post a recording of the real thing, and it’s taken only a week longer than I’d planned, but I’m guessing you’re used to that by now. Anyway, without further ado, and with only a discreet fanfare of trumpets, here’s another podcast – for guitar and guitar amp enthusiasts only – comparing my new (and heavily modded by Alnicomagnet) Epiphone Valve Junior with my old Marshall 4140 Club and Country. In the podcast I noted that my old Kent Armstrong pickups sounded muddy when the guitar volume was turned down, unlike the stock Telecaster with which I first tested the modded amp. I put this down to the common Telecaster wiring trick of installing a treble bleed capacitor, but Alnicomagnet informs me that his Telecaster has no bleed capacitor. I said I would post a recording of the real thing, and it’s taken only a week longer than I’d planned, but I’m guessing you’re used to that by now. Anyway, without further ado, and with only a discreet fanfare… http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/freshman-fa400fbj-versus-yamaha-fg200 http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/freshman-fa400fbj-versus-yamaha-fg200#comments Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:19:57 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/podcasts/freshman-fa400fbj-versus-yamaha-fg200/ http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/freshman-fa400fbj-versus-yamaha-fg200/feed 0 OK, I know it’s not a fair contest. The Yamaha FG200 is from another millennium, when budget guitars were made from plywood (sorry, laminated tonewoods ) and the Freshman is made of solid woods throughout, 21st century and designed to improve through the years. But I thought it was worth giving you, readers and listeners, the opportunity to decide for yourselves what difference a decent guitar makes to a POP MUSIC! recording. So, with the aid of an AKG C 3000 B condenser mic (excellent for background vocals) and a much older AKG D 320 B dynamic (just like an SM57 – honest), I’ve attempted to record the definitive acoustic guitar reference audio check thingie. And what’s more, make it into a podcast! And, I’ll be honest here, it’s nearly two in the morning and I’m desperate for a fag. But peanuts and whisky will have to do – onwards… If I play the two guitars to any listeners, it’s immediately obvious which one has the resonance and tone; the Freshman vibrates and sings and sparkles and snaps. And because it’s built with solid tonewoods, the sound will improve as the guitar is played in. But in a recording setup like mine, it’s much less clear which is the best guitar for recording. So, with two new sets of D’addario acoustic light 11 through to 52 strings, a fairly soft (0.8mm) nylon pick and a couple of beginner chords, let’s go! Whaddayathunk? OK, I know it’s not a fair contest. The Yamaha FG200 is from another millennium, when budget guitars were made from plywood (sorry, laminated tonewoods ) and the Freshman is made of solid woods throughout, 21st century and designed to… http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/to-do-list/at-last-an-audio-player-on-site http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/to-do-list/at-last-an-audio-player-on-site#comments Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:22:04 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/to-do-list/at-last-an-audio-player-on-site/ http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/to-do-list/at-last-an-audio-player-on-site/feed 0 It’s always been on my to do list to have an audio player on the site, so that as well as having links to audio files, there would be some way of listening to the tunes or podcasts without readers having to fire up a third party plugin or app to download and listen. I’ve fiddled around with a few Flash players, but I couldn’t find anything that ‘just worked’ and I don’t have the time to build one myself. And now, it looks like the search is over. I stumbled across the snappily titled ‘Audio Player’ from 1 Pixel Out and it does virtually everything I require and a few things I didn’t expect. So to celebrate this funky little upgrade, I’ve added a wee podcast so you can play with it. And the podcast even features a new musical excerpt published here for the first time. It’s provisionally entitled ‘Captain Clare’. Except bizarrely, it’s not working yet. Which is odd, because I’ve got it working here: Basswood versus Alder. Update 01:01:2009 – As I’m currently using the Podcasting plugin for all audio on the site, I’m using the built-in player that comes with Podcasting. But it’s still ‘Audio Player’ from 1 Pixel Out. Yay! It’s always been on my to do list to have an audio player on the site, so that as well as having links to audio files, there would be some way of listening to the tunes or podcasts without readers… http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/basswood-versus-alder http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/basswood-versus-alder#comments Sat, 04 Mar 2006 01:30:58 +0000 Jim http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/basswood-versus-alder/ http://www.jamesbisset.com/blog/guitar/basswood-versus-alder/feed 12 Yup. I got around to it. I threatened in the last post to supply some audio files which would help to illustrate the process of building the James Bisset 50th Anniversary Strat. And hey Ma! I done it! I’ve also been working on WURK until around 3am every day this week, so tonight, in an attempt to blast it out of my system before having a cool weekend with my family, I appear to have drunk half a bottle of whisky. My delighted apologies if this post seems garbled. To re-iterate: I had a Japanese ‘Hank Marvin’ Squier Strat which I loved. It didn’t sound fantastic, but it felt just right. So I decided to add the elusive quality to ‘Hank’ that would turn him from yet-another-guitar into what I remember one writer calling the sound of ‘silk and barbed wire’. Rather like whisky, don’t you think? Most guitarists tend to upgrade their guitars to improve the sound by replacing the pickups, but the pickups can only reproduce what’s there already (and anyway, I’d already upgraded my pickups) and it seemed obvious to me that the guitar body wood had a significant impact on the sound. If I replaced the Basswood body on Hank with a slab of foam it would certainly sound different. What would happen if I replaced it with Alder, the traditional Strat body wood? I hunted around for research on what are known as ‘tonewoods’ and after swithering over Ash and Swamp Ash – both woods that Leo Fender used, I plumped for Alder (I found tonosity.com very helpful – although the link doesn’t seem to be working now). When my new guitar body arrived, I was desperate to convince myself that the cost would make a significant difference, so I recorded Hank, then stripped it down and screwed and bolted all the bits onto the new body. Then I recorded again so I could compare the two. For the record: the neck pocket on the new body was slightly deeper, which resulted in the action being so low that the strings buzzed nervously every time I picked up a plectrum. I wasn’t about to spend hours fiddling about to get the settings just right before stripping it all apart again to paint and rebuild, so I left it like that. I D.I.ed the guitar straight into the computer. How can you compare guitar sounds if you introduce a valve amp, volume settings, mikes etc. into the equation? I use relatively heavy strings – 11-49 D’Addario when I can get them. Anyway, have a listen. see what difference a slab of wood makes even in the 21st century; Yup. I got around to it. I threatened in the last post to supply some audio files which would help to illustrate the process of building the James Bisset 50th Anniversary Strat. And hey Ma! I done it! I’ve also…