Wednesday, October 21, 2009

TBMT


Only a handful of people know about TBMT (The Blue Mango Tree) and even fewer (myself included) know what it is. Currently, it is the umbrella project that holds all of my various side projects together. While I don't really know what it is, that doesn't stop me from spending a fair amount of my creative energy designing logos for it. Here is the newest one. Let me know what you think.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

My Rhodes Update

So, I've officially started the refurbishing process on my Rhodes. At the moment, it is in about a hundred pieces scattered around my studio. That is not a figure of speech. It truly is in about a hundred pieces. I've removed all 73 keys and I'm currently in the process of pulling all of my tonebars and tines off of the harp and cleaning them. This has turned out to be a really long process, but I'm looking forward to playing it after all of this work is done. I'm using Scotch bright to scrub off any oxidation and rust that I find on my tines. It is obvious from the tines (and the condition of the wood on the keys) that this Rhodes was stored in a damp place for a long time. Nearly all of my keys had expanded and that is what was causing a lot of my action problems. This is also (if I didn't mention it last time) a 1976 Rhodes. It was around this time period (76-77) that Rhodes placed the key felts on the bottom of the hammers and not on the top of the keys. So, pianos made during this time period tend to have a "heavier" feeling action anyway. That plus the swollen keys is holding this particular instrument back as far as playability are concerned.

To fix the action issues, I've ordered the "miracle mod" or "bump mod" which is designed to fix the felt on the bottom of the hammers issue. I'm also going to lube my guide pins and stretch out my bushings. This should help with the expanded wood issue on the keys. That should fix most (if not all) of the action issues. The best laid plans of mice and men... eh?

While I'm working on fixing the action, I am also going to work on the sound. I've also ordered new damper felts, screws, washers, grommets, and hammer tips to completely refurbish this Rhodes. My grommets are beyond the point of needing to be replaced, the srews are bent and rusted out, the damper felts are grooved and the hammer tips banged up. So, thats what I have on my plate. Alot of work still ahead, but so worth it.

Peter

Sunday, October 4, 2009

My Rhodes

The most beautiful/amazing/wonderful sound on the planet is that of an actual Rhodes mkI. That is not an opinion. That is fact! Look it up on Wikipedia if you don't believe me. Do it... see if I care.

Anyways, I digress. As you can probably tell, I am kind of a fan of that vintage sound and vibe. Up until this point, I have been using every synth patch and sample I could get my hands on and never really being satisfied with the results. Since I use some sort of electric mechanical sound on every track that I work on, that adds up to a whole lot of disapointment.

So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a look on craigslist to see if I could track down a Rhodes in my price range. To my surprise, I found a good looking Rhodes for pretty cheap and close to where I live. I immediately sent the guy an e-mail to see if I could swing by and take a look at it. He sent a reply saying that he had just sold it that night. Being that close to owning a Rhodes and then losing it, only pushed me to wanting to buy one even more. So, I went to eBay and found another Rhodes that was kind of a "fixer upper" and started bidding on it. After thinking that I finally found my Rhodes, I started to lose the bid and the price was going up more and more. Combined with the shipping costs to get it to me and knowing how much work was going to have to go into it, I was starting to think that maybe I would have to look some more for a Rhodes or just wait until I could afford to spend a little more money on one. My auction was going to end in 2 days and I decided to go back to craigslist to see if someone had posted another Rhodes. To my surprise, there was another Rhodes that looked pretty good. I sent him an e-mail and asked to take a look at it (letting him know that I was also bidding on eBay for a Rhodes so I needed to make a decision quickly). I went over to his house the day that my auction was going to end and finally got to play a real Rhodes for the first time in my life.

It sounded GREAT! It played BAD! Since I was kind of looking forward to working on a Rhodes, so I bought it. It turns out that it is built in 1976 and has all of the original factory parts including the legs and sustain pedal. I've already made some adjustments to the tonebars and tines, but haven't done too much to fix it up. I'm planning on refurbishing the whole thing and looking forward to having a new project to work on. I'll keep you posted on how things go (all of my devoted readers who are eagerly awaiting to hear about what I am up to and doing at all times).

Monday, September 21, 2009

DIY Vocal Booth (Big Blue)

So, I started building a modest studio in a bedroom of my townhouse. Unfortunately, it is the most god awful room in the world to record anything in. The largest surface area in the entire room (besides the ceiling) is literally a brick wall. If that wasn't bad enough (and trust me, it is bad enough) I live right next train tracks and a free way. When I say I live right next to train tracks and a freeway I don't mean I live close enough to hear trains off in the distance. I mean, I have:

Back Yard-->Fence-->Train Tracks-->Freeway

To drive the point home even farther, I am sitting in my studio writing this and out of the one window, I can see both the train tracks and freeway. That is my view. Hahaha.

So, I needed someway of getting a little control over my recording environment. Like a lot of people, I don't have the option of destroying a room and properly turning it into a recording studio because I am renting. I am pretty cool with my landlords, but I think even they would have a problem with seeing a room completely covered in sound dampening foam with a built in room devoted to vocal recording. So I looked around the internet to see what other people were doing and did some research to see if I could buy something to reduce sound bouncing around this room and to screen some of that noise coming from outside.

I found everything from small rooms built out of sound dampening foam (for $1,000+) to an Se Reflexion filter ($300), but nothing that was really in my price range or I thought would realistically work for my needs. On a side note, I think that the Se Reflexion filter is a fantastic product and I might eventually purchase one. Just not right now. In my journey around the net I stumbled across a blog that discussed how this guitarist made 2 walls out of PVC pipe and moving blankets to cut down of frequencies bouncing around. I thought that was a great idea so I made a vocal booth out of the same materials. After I was done, I found a number of people that did exactly the same thing (I could probably have saved myself a few headaches if I had found them sooner). In total, I probably spent about $80 to $100 for my booth that is about 72" tall by 46" wide and 46" deep.

Since no glue was used, it is completely portable and light enough (even though it is huge) to move around my room with ease. While it certainly isn't perfect, it is a great start in the right direction. I had a recording that I did as a test when I got my bluebird and then I tested it again with the same song inside Big Blue and the difference was definitely worth the $100.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Its a start

Tomorrow (or later to today rather) is the day that my Digidesign 003 Rack + arrives. I can't even begin to explain how excited I am about starting my home studio. While I am way more familiar with Digital Performer, I welcome the new ProTools environment. I hope to start recording right away and hopefully have some new material soon. I will post as things start coming together, so all of you eagerly sitting at the edges of your seats (yet another joke about the number of people that read this blog) can hear the odd collection of sounds that bounce around my head all day.

I haven't purchased a mic yet (waiting to get more familiar with Pro Tools before jumping in and starting to record). I recently built a low fi microphone out of an old telephone, so I'm looking forward to playing around with that as well. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Lots of fun, learning, and hours.

Peter "Flying Soulo" Jones

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Home

So... Europe was great. It was great to meet new people and visit new places and get away from the ordinary for a little while (yeah, that was too many ands in one sentence and I'm going to leave it that way just to bother you). We started our little European tour in Utrecht. Utrecht is a beautiful little city in Holland. We quickly discovered that the primary form of transportation in Holland is bicycle (my kind of people). Brennan and I were smart enough to rent bikes for the week and that was a blast in and of itself (when in Rome... or in this case Utrecht).

We did 2 gigs in Utrecht (we performed more than that, but 2 actual gigs) and they happened to be back to back. As in one right after the other (about 20-30 minutes apart). We have never done that before and it was pretty stressful, but a great experience. Performing in Europe is a completely different experience then gigging in the states. The music that we do is more popular over there (as sad as that is).

We left Utrecht and rode on a train to Germany. We had a guide with us on this leg of the tour, which was fantastic. The first hotel we stayed at was actually closed, but they opened up the hotel for us (and only us). They made us homemade German food (which was incredible) and they drove us to the gig and then back home (we didn't even have to worry about it). I could definately get used to being treated like that. We got to perform for a great crowd. It was an outdoor gig and they stuck around eventhough it started to rain. They just put on their ponchos and pulled open their umbrellas.

The next day, we performed in a different Germane village called Rockenhausen (no. I'm not making that up). It was another outdoor gig, but the venue was at the hotel we were staying at. In fact, I could see the stage from my hotel room. We had a great crowd (some of which were actually dancing) and it was a great night to end our tour on. No rain, great people, fantastic food. I didn't want to come home, but everyone was telling me that I had to.

The flight home was a nightmare. Not that there was anything wrong with the planes or the service, it was just very very very long. I got a cold at some point during the trip, so I was sick on the plane which did not help at all. We made it home safe and sound and now (a couple weeks later) I am writing you all (I say that jokingly because there is no one following this blog and I don't think anyone is actually reading this) to tell you about that one time we were all treated like famous people.

Peter

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Failure to launch

We (GFT) have had a very stressful couple of days. We have spent the last 2 days at SeaTac airport trying desperately to get to Nebraska to do a performance. Currently, I am exhausted, extremely irritated and smell heavily of lady speed stick; but I am getting ahead of myself.

It all started Monday morning. We arrive at SeaTac airport at 5:00am for our 7:00 flight. We check our baggage which includes most of the sound equipment we need to perform and all of our performance clothes. We have to pay extra to check 2 bags, but because of the amount of gear that we travel with, each member has to check one case of equipment and carry on one case of equipment.

Unfortunately, James could not make the gig in Nebraska so we have along a guest sub who lives in Sedro Woolley (which is about as close to Canada as you can possibly get and still be in Washington). He loses his ID somewhere between Sedro and SeaTac. He then calls someone to pick up some form of ID and drive it to the airport. Fortunately (and I use this term lightly), our flight is delayed because of mechanical issues and his ID arrives at the airport in time for him to board the airplane.

Our flight has, at this point, been delayed for 2 hours. We board the plane and prepare for take off. I should probably mention a fun little known fact about Groove For Thought and airplanes at this point. We ALWAYS end up sitting at the back of the plane. This time was no different. My seat was the LAST seat on the plane. Once we are all settled into our seats and deal with a complete lack of overhead bin space for our 2 carry on items, the pilot announces that we can not take off because the mechanical issue (that appeared to be fixed) was actually still broken. We get off the plane (remember where I said we were seated on the plane) to see a huge line of about 130 very upset passangers.

We stand in this very very very slow moving line for 2 and a half hours. While most of us are in line, Kelly and Jeff go back out to the front desks to see about how we can get to Nebraska before our gig on Tuesday night. Finally, Brennan and I get called up to talk about a new flight. The man at the desk suggests that we get a flight to Omaha and then drive (an hour and a half) to where our performance is. At this point we decide that this is our best option so we agree to this and he gets us tickets on a different airline to San Frinsico with a connection flight to Omaha. By the time we get our new tickets, we have half an hour to get from the S gate to the C gate which is 2 shuttles away.

We run (litterally) from the S gate all the way to the C gate. Meanwhile Kelly and Jeff start to head towards the C gate and get stuck in the security line because of a security breach. We all finally get to the correct gate only to find out that the flight to San Fransisco has been delayed. When we talk to the woman at this gate she tells us that we would be delayed to long to catch our flight to Omaha. So Brennan goes back out to the front desk to see about our options. In the end, the airline (whose name I won't mention) comps us hotel rooms in SeaTac and books us for a flight Tuesday morning at 7:00am. We leave the airport at about 3:00pm to go to our hotel.

We get to our hotel, which is actually quite nice, and check into our rooms. Keep in mind that we have checked all of clothing and toiletries. We have to sleep in the clothes we have been in all day and fortunately the hotel has some free shaving cream, toothbrushes, and deoderant (this is where the Lady Speed Stick comes in). So the next morning 7 grown men come down stairs to eat breakfast at 5:00am smelling like women's deoderant in wearing the same clothing we wore the day before.

We show up at the airport at 5:30am. Go to get our boarding passes and find out, that we aren't actually booked to be on any flight. Even though Jeff has our reservations in his hands they say we don't have tickets for our flight. Most of us sit down while Jeff and Brennan try to figure things out. They have to stand in 3 different lines. They get to the head of one line only to find out that that particular line is for a different airline (eventhough there is no way to identify the difference between the two), the get to the head of the next line only to have the woman at the counter refuse to help them because she "wasn't going to deal with this" because she "got off in 10 minutes". Finally they were able to speak to someone who actually was willing to talk to us about the situation, but was absolutely no help. We couldn't get to Nebraska (because of the delays from the previous 2 lines) until well after the performance would start and end.

Now, tired and extremely irritated we go about trying to figure out 1.) where in the world (literally) our baggage is. 2.) how we can get our money back after the non-comedy of errors. We find out that, miraculously, our bags made it to Omaha. I know what your thinking. How did they... and you couldn't...? Yeah. Still working that one over in my head. We set things up to get our bags sent back to us. Which needs to happen as soon as possible because we leave on Thursday to to fly to the Netherlands. Then we spend hours and hours trying to get our money back which at first seems like it is NOT possible.

Brennan and I go to see if we can talk to someone higher up than the people who work at the front counter. I ask one woman if I could speak to her manager. She replies "Ok. I'll go get Roy". About 5 minutes later a different woman asks if we are being helped. We say "Yes. A woman left to go get Roy". She replies "Roy? Roy is on vacation". We didn't see the first woman again, but the second (much more friendly, helpful, and attractive woman) [yeah. I said it.] went and actually found a supervisor. After another couple of hours we had finally gotten our money back for the tickets that took us nowhere. After another 6 hour day, we were finally able to go home. Poor Jeff had to call the people who were running the performance in Nebraska and tell them that we weren't coming and call Nick (our pianist who was already in Nebraska) that we wouldn't make the gig and that he needed to make arrangements to come back home.

How is that for a travel story? It was the longest and shortest trip of my life! Like I said, we fly out to the Netherlands on Thursday and we have all of Wednesday to emotionally prepare ourselves for the second leg of our summer tour.