Alex's Practice Log 2011

[alcoyot]

My technical focus today was on 2 major things. The guitar, and a certain mic preamp I have, which I'll get into.

The guitar I am currently using is a Yamaha Pacifica. I was using a strat before, but it broke down from a poor wiring job I did on it, and I did not want to spend an entire day taking it apart and fixing it, so I put it to the side. The thing with the pacifica is that it sounds perfectly great through any good amp/speaker, but when you DI it, it sounds nothing like it does in real life. The treble/bridge humbucker sounds like some kind of wierd funk/filter effect half the time, while the neck pickup, has an extreme baggage of voice of god bass, that overwhelms everything.
The setting I decided on was the bass pickup, with the tone knob turned all the way up towards treble. Even with this setting though the bass was wayyyy too much. I should add that another thing I did to combat this, was while playing, I totally avoided playing the low E string.
Once I recorded it, I had to experiment with elaborate combinations of Bass EQ effects to get it right. I won't get into it, but some of the ones I used were very confusing to deal with and I actually ended up boosting the bass at one point, which sounded terrible. I ended up with a high pass filter, with kind of a strange counterintuitive setting, combined with a free garageband plugin I have called "bass reduction". This got an acceptable sound, but, I find myself wishing for the strat. There is nothing I've heard that comes close the auburn warmth of a strat's neck pickup. Also in the future, I'm going to go back to using microphones for recording guitar.
I'll go into the preamp issue in another post. I've had an issue with a tube preamp I own that's gone on for a while, and after spending forever researching it, I finally mostly have the solution and I'm pretty excited about the sound. Compared to my plain solid state preamps (not fancy ones like a neve) the tube preamp I own sounds in another league. The best I can put it is that the sound is bigger, more powerful, and it adds a sense of "atmosphere" around it, if that makes any sense. This was after doing several volume matched A/B tests of this song.

PS-Just had a quick realization to add on. One thing that might really help is one of those graphic EQ guitar pedals. I'll have to remember to grab one if I can find one used or cheap. Its something that's probably unnecessary for live playing but in recording it could make all the difference.
PPS- Another thing I just realized from something I was reading. It would be really useful to have a piece of gear that is a series of high pass filters all lined up in a row. I'm pretty sure nobody has thought to make something like this, but it would sell really well if they did.

[N E Y]

would be really useful to have a piece of gear that is a series of high pass filters all lined up in a row. I'm pretty sure nobody has thought to make something like this, but it would sell really well if they did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ney_mello
http://www.youtube.com/user/NeyMelloOfficial?
http://bit.ly/aSUSw6
http://www.musicarts.com/Stores/Store.a ... 320&mode=1
http://www.facebook.com/pages/NEY-MELLO/8702485599
http://www.myspace.com/neymello
http://www.twitter.com/NeyMelloGuitar

[alcoyot]

Such a great week of practicing this week. I was kind of sick earlier this week, but still did a ton of intense practicing, many hours each day. Many quality repetitions, devoting every spare moment to working on stuff. Been up all night and still in the middle of practicing right now, just taking a 2 minute break to post this. Hopefully I will put up a video sometime soon, since I've made some more progress.

Things I've been listening to. Percy Sledge, wow what an amazing artist. He is one of those singers who seems to have a mysterious wellspring of confidence and emanates charisma. Every song he does is great.
Also Loggins and Messina, their first album I think. I can't stop listening to this, they pile on a ton of reverb, but it sounds so good and natural, like they used a chamber or something which they probably did. If I see this on Vinyl I'm buying it. I recently got my phonograph working and listened to LA woman, the whole album with decent headphones. I hear so much detail in that I never got from the CD.

[N E Y]

Go Alex!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ney_mello
2011 going on 2012? We know it is time to care about cool music seriously again!...and Your guitar is part of the scene!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001KMH8FM/?ta ... ppv63sgm_b

[guizz]

Thanks Alex,

I went to bed lately yesterday and open my computer.
I took the time to read all your post about your practise, it was long but very intertesting.
I struggle about the same things to get my practise done and to be open to new possibilities.

It is an helpfull reading.

[alcoyot]

Thanks Alex,

I went to bed lately yesterday and open my computer.
I took the time to read all your post about your practise, it was long but very intertesting.
I struggle about the same things to get my practise done and to be open to new possibilities.

It is an helpfull reading.

Wow thanks for reading. It seems most people have different goals this forum, other than writing and recording original songs.

[alcoyot]

Just had an amazing practice session Al DiMeola style. Went through all my original songs nothing without foot tapping and metronome throughout the entire thing. One of those days where I feel I made significantly more progress than usual. Lately I've been thinking about the idea that you cannot master anything in one day, and its implications.

No matter what you do, you can't master anything in one day, no matter how much time of the day you devote to it. This means that every day at some point you will pass out unconscious having failed to achieve the goal. It sounds harsh but that's just the reality of our existence. Furthermore, most of the time, you can't even achieve much progress in one day either. If you spend 5 hours making progress on something, in the big picture you've hardly done anything at all.
But this small significant progress is all we have. Its the only choice, either that or make no progress whatsoever. So I guess we have to learn to enjoy not achieving what we want in terms of goals, because that is how it is 99% of all the days we are alive. Or possibly enjoy the small progress we can and do make in one day, without being so cynical as I am now .

[N E Y]

.




Well Alex...There are ways to make a lot of progress in one minute! Let alone in one day!!!!
But you have to know ALL the factors to practice. You are making slow progress because you are not -yet- aware off all the details that you need to practice for each specific goal.

Physical performance in music is, compared to your ordeal, very easy to attain if one KNOWS all the factors to be developed with great exactitude and completeness . But of course 99.9% due to mental blocks, impatience, and lack of awareness, know nothing or next to nothing at all of these factors! and you are already way ahead of them.

Having the ability to notice all these factors is to be pure of mind. Very few of us are pure enough ego-wise for this amazing task, and even fewer are prepared to purify their character to be able to learn at that very fast rate of expansion.

When your mind is not pure you cannot see what is right in front of you or you cannot see it clearly enough to understand it: The complete Virtuoso technique details have always been staring me glaringly in the face...since childhood!!! But as a natural talent I was aware of only SOME of them....The rest were very clear, but too subtle for my egotistically concerned impure mind to pay due attention to them!..So I had to purify my mind for years! and Then once I paid attention to the then subtle but now obvious details I was neglecting for decades... things started to be easily mastered in 5 minutes, one week , 2 months instead of in 6 month increments.

Frequent impurities that block our genius are: Impatience, complacency, obstinacy, pride, technical ideologisms, dogmas, metal polarization( prisoner of incomplete information sets), mental laziness, which is accepting everyone's opinion regardless of who they are and even accepting if they cannot play and have no public record of being great performers, just because you read it )emotional polarization and a sense of entitlement to play well without having to earn it.

Of course today constant connectivity on smart phones and computers preserves and frequently increases the impurities in our minds.....So purification has to prioritized!!!



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001KMH8FM/?ta ... ppv63sgm_b

[alcoyot]

This week, not as much guitar practice but many hours of meditation. On myself, the future, my relationships, the energy I am and will put out. Kind of just drifting into the future, and experiencing what I face.
Sometimes with no music, sometimes with certain flamenco styles, farrucas, soleares, tarantas, Zambras, and some with singing, cante jondo involved. My favorite player is Juan Serrano, although others are extremely good as well.

[alcoyot]

Practice seems to be going well, slow but definitely some concrete improvements. I was living life pretty out of control a couple weeks back, but now back and very focused on a bunch of responsibilities. I feel probably to reach the next level I will need to get a lesson from a a master soon. I am expecting a stipend check soon, so that will give me some money to spend on furthering my abilities.