What's happening April 2013

Another poll finished, I tried to predict the results on this one, let's see how I went...For "Is this your first visit to this site?" I said:

75% Yes
15% No
10% I don't know

The actual results:

63% (87 votes) Yes
35% (48 votes) No
1%  (2  votes) I don't know

It would seem that most people know where they've been and I have more regulars than I thought - thanks everybody, okay, I should write more!

I've still got my Thursday night gig, I'm still enjoying it. With the colder weather I'm playing less outside and more inside, and the number of patrons is shrinking. Maybe it might soon end for the season, I'll see what the boss is thinking.

I volunteered for a gig at a different place Sunday afternoon, this one was part of a fundraiser for Teen Challenge (an initiative to help people to get out of bad places - drugs, alcohol, self harm, those sorts of bad places.) It's a good cause and I was happy to be part of a lineup of 8 different performers. This gig came about through a friend mentioning me to a friend.

Since I've been gigging for a while I'm pretty comfortable with any sort of gig "at my level", that is, somewhere between 1 and 50 people in a small venue. This venue was another cafe style place. So I just grabbed my guitar and amp and headed in. It was all inside, with a lot of concrete, although a lot higher roof. I was concerned that the acoustics would be poor, I was in for a surprise!

The organiser had a PA setup - two very big speakers and a little 2-channel mixing table. They saw my amp and said "ah, okay, you bought your own gear" and I said "Whoa, yours looks heaps better, I'll use that!" I fumbled around with the mixer for a while and got a sensational sound out of their system. So clean, clear, true to the sound of the guitar and full, solid. It is hard to describe - the sound from my little amp is clean but it doesn't have the "presence", that big solid sound this thing had. Not loud, just solid. That represents a problem...now I am very dissappointed with my amp!

I had previously tried a modular PA system in a music shop and I knew that is the next step, but whoa, yeah thanks for the reminder, I don't need reasons to spend more money!

The guy who brought it down for the event wasn't there to set it up, which is a shame, he is a sound engineer apparently and I would have loved to talk to him. It also was a problem because the two speakers were pointing away from me so I couldn't "hear" what the audience was hearing. I needed a little monitor speaker pointing at me, I was playing mostly on the acoustic sound I was getting just from the guitar being in my hands. I was aware that there was a solid soung being projected, but the lesson is you need to have some of that sound coming at you. At my normal gig with my little amp I sit myself so that the amp is pointing a little bit at me, so I can hear the sound being projected. That wasn't possible here.

I also noticed the bass E string felt overly boomy - out of balance from the other strings. As if someone had wound up the bass EQ way too high. When I thought about it, I suspected the resonance of the room was causing that. The room happily reflected deep bass but mids and trebles didn't reflect. That's I guess what sound engineers are for - listening and tuning the sound. Even when you have a monitor speaker pointed at you you won't know what the sound is like for the guy in the back...when you are by yourself you just have to suck it and see, hope for the best, go with experience (which is low for me!)

(I asked the audience a few times "Is it too loud? Is it too quiet? How is the equalisation, does that bass sounds boomy? It the response flat? How are the dynamics? Do I need to ease off on the soundboard pickup and stick more to the undersaddle transducer? Do you think I should switch the pickup to phase invert between the two pickups?" Okay, I didn't really ask those questions but I wanted to. I need to play a venue where a sound engineer is in control - and see what they do! :))

JAW

Talk me through a night at the gig JAW!

Thursday afternoon, 28th Feb 2013, as per usual I leave work early so I can have dinner with the family and still get to the gig on time.  After dinner, and giving the wife and kids a kiss, I put the guitar and the amp in the car.  I leave two instrument cables in the car at all times, and one power cable, but I always take the guitar and amp out at the end of the night.

I wear the same as what I wear to work, nice trousers and dress shoes but keep it casual with a polo shirt up top.  This time of year (summer) the trousers can get a bit hot, but I don't want to be seen in shorts :)

When I arrive about quarter to seven (I'm always on time), I can lug the amp and cables in one hand and the guitar in the other to the gig, no trolley needed, one trip only.  The amp is just a buskers amp so it isn't big, but it is heavy because it has a big battery in it.  I run it plugged in however.  It has a very clean and crisp sound, very true to the natural sound of the guitar, and has enough oomphf for the venue.  I play outside, the maximum capacity is about 50 people, I want there to be enough volume that people can hear me, but they can still have a conversation without having to shout.  Next amp will be a PA...a subject for another story...

There are regulars on Thursday night - Steve, Barry and Ian are there almost every time.  Steve and Barry both love Whiskey and pour me two or three...I think they use me as an excuse to have a drink :)  Not a problem though, they are educating me on whiskey and are very generous with it!  They often invite other blokes down for whiskeys, Ian would be there every second time and he always puts some cash in my guitar case.  Great guys!

The shopping centre "caretaker" loves to come and listen, I often ask her what is the favourite song I play, she always says "any of them, I'm not fussy!"  I must learn her name.  I make it a habit to learn as many names as possible.  This is a good life skill for anyone for anything!  Mal is the owner and his wife Liz is often there.  They have a friend Vivian, who is often there, she calls me "Jason the engineer".  Mauricio runs the kitchen and is a really friendly guy.  He and his wife came over from Brasil and just a few months ago he had to spend some time in Bali, out of Australia, waiting for a new visa.  He's back now, which is great, he cooks me a fantastic wood fired pizza every Thursday!

All of the staff are great - sweet baby voiced Hannah...Milli, Korina, Troy, Das, Adam - staff do come and go, but it's good to get to know them.

I plug in, I put the amp on a limestone wall that borders the venue, I've learnt that having the amp more at ear height is better than on the ground.  I like to have it pointing towards the crowd and having me sit off to the side, but slightly in the direction the sound is coming from.  That way I can easily monitor the sound - you want to be able to play to the sound.

I tune up, have a bit of a chat to the regulars, and start with a few warm up songs.  Something easy, but catchy.  Retune after the first song as your body will have warmed up the guitar and put it out of tune.  There after, tune every now and then, but mostly if you've been playing hard and can hear it is out of tune!

I play a few crowd pleasers, I generally stick to themes. I'll play a few rocky songs, then a few quieter ones; or I'll play a few Beatles, then a few Pink Floyd.  I get a feel for the crowd, which changes week to week.  I get a few return visitors (for me or the cafe, who knows?! :))

A mum comes over with a young daughter, about 9, for a photo.  A mature aged lady, passes by and then sits down for an hour and a half listening and talking occasionally to me.  A younger couple stays to the very end; surprisingly, the maybe 20 year old girl knows almost every song I play.  A dear old lady as she is leaving comes up to me all smiles and thanks me for the music.

I play a few "work in progress" when I'm down to about 10 people left, I try to keep the tempo constant so even if I muff it, which I do, it still holds together for the casual listener.

I generally don't stop, except to pour myself another glass of water.  I've got more than 2.5 hours of material with only around 2 hours of gig time.  My fingers don't hurt, but my butt can get sore so I stand up every now and then.  Yeah, I know, playing non-stop isn't very professional, but I want to be able to play as much as I can, for me it is practise!

Since I'm a Pink Floyd nut, I always want to go through all my floyd...but if I detect that nobody is "getting it" I ease back on too much floyd.  Probably 45 mins of my set would be floyd.  But, play to the crowd!

By nine pm the staff are packing up, most of the customers have left, so I pack it in for the night, collect some money and a pizza, all done until next week!

* * *

Look, it took a while to find something like this that was "compatible" with me.  I didn't want a big wild gig, something cosy and small is what I wanted.  I didn't want a weekend gig, although they would prefer to have me on the weekend they let me go on a Thursday night.  It took about 15 potential places before I stumbled on Mal who wanted to "liven" up his cafe with live music.  Good on him.  He now has me on Thursday, Ben plays Friday and a Jazz trio plays Sunday.  I think it probably costs him money, but he is looking long term - to try and establish his venue as a place for live music.  I'll tell you what he pays me if you want to know, you might not be impressed though.  Some nights there might only be fifteen people all night, some nights there might be seventy.  You have to charge, you can't work for free, even if like me you have a day job.  There are too many struggling musicians out there.  Okay, he pays me $60, and pretty much as many pizzas as I want.  It is cash, I'll let you decide what that means.

Nervous?  Nope, after more than six months of doing this gig, I don't get nervous.  Bored?  No, it is still a highlight of the week.  Time consuming?  Only if you want it to be.  Most weeks, I don't even take the guitar out of the case between gigs!  I'd like to add some more songs to the set, but my life it already too full.  One day.

I think it is a great gig, it was a bit of effort to get it established (35 years of playing guitar and a year of talking around) but it is doable.  Give it a try!

JAW

What's happening February 2013

Results from the "confirmation" poll, "Do you play guitar?" are in. From 185 votes we had:

139 (75%) Yes
45  (24%) Just Starting
1   ( 1%) No

Well this is a guitar site after all, so not surprises there. But the ratio of Yes to Just Starting, of one in four people are "Just Starting" tells us something. Okay, maybe it tells us nothing. What one person considers "Just Starting" will differ from the next. And even then, if we said that once you can swap fluently between strumming G to C to D you were no longer "Just starting", there is still no real information in that statistic. One of the trickiest parts of polls is that your information is already in a subset of people who click on polls! :)

One day I might have enough information from polls to deduce something; for now it's just kinda fun.  I've popped up another simple poll - let me predict the results right now:  "Is this your first visit to this site?" Yes will be 75%, No will be 15% and "I don't know" will be 10%.  Let's see how I go!

On the guitar front, I'm in the steady state of not much going on at all.  I'm still playing for 2-2.5hours at BBar every Thursday night and am still enjoying it.  I have a few regulars that I see every week or every second week, and a few people that I've seen before once or twice.  Mostly they are all new people, when I chat to them the common response is "I really enjoyed that!" It might be true, or it might be standard Aussie politeness.  Us Aussies aren't very good at criticism, which isn't good, we need to learn how to say what we feel.  Aussies criticise with their feet - that is, they leave, say nothing, and never return.  Nobody gets to learn from that response!

I'm comfortable enough at BBar now that given the right "mood" (both the audience and my mood) I will play stuff I haven't perfected.  Yep, that's right, practising!  Even if I'm fumbling around with it.  Not much though, I still want to seem professional, but a bit of "raw edge" isn't scorned upon.  The trick seems to be to make it look like you aren't practising - so play through your mistakes, don't pause, if you are going to repeat a section because you muffed it up and what to try again, do it, but on beat.  A few new pieces and some old forgotten ones are finding their way back in.  My set is now 2.5hrs long, so I normally don't get to play the entire thing.  This is good, it means I can tune the set to meet the crowd.  It's also bad, because I don't freshen up my songs every week.

What gigging does mean for my guitar life (which is still very limited due to work and family commitments) is that the gig is everything at the moment.  In the last three weeks I have only played guitar three times...so although I'm enjoying the performing (and polishing/practising my set list) I'm not creating anything new.  Which is all I used to do.

Times and seasons.  The season at the moment is performing to audiences, and seeing as I haven't spent much of my guitar life doing it, I'm happy to keep it just at that for now!

JAW

Back to Gigging and Youtube Channel Question Response

I'm back gigging at BBar Cafe close to where I live in Gwelup.  Last Thursday was my first night back and uncharacteristically for this time of year there was a storm howling through, so I played inside.  I had played inside once before...let's just say I prefer to play outside in the alfresco.  The problem with inside is it's an all concrete area so getting the sound right is difficult.  And what tends to happen is people who are having a conversation over their meal need to talk over me...so I end up feeling more annoying than enjoyable.  I've experienced this myself many times - been at a venue where I just want to sit back and chat, but instead I almost can't hear the person next to me, shouting to get over top of the music playing.

But I was actually playing quite well, it felt good, it is great to be back.  I'm looking forward to the warm nights out in the alfresco where the acoustics are great, and people can choose to listen or chat, where I'm not competing with conversation.


In other news, I recently exchanged some messages online with a professional guitarist who is at the starting point of establishing his youtube channel.  I had a look at some of his work, it's good stuff, I could get a lot of guitar playing tips from him!  He wanted to know how I got my youtube channel to where it is now.  I was in a very chatty mood at the time so I thought it was worth posting here  My apologies, it's rambly, I could surmise it a few brief paragraphs, but then it wouldn't sound like me!  Here is the slightly edited response:

---
Mark, you don't need advice from me, I need advice from you! :) You've got the skills no doubt, you are playing with feeling, looks like you have the repertoire too - I mean you play guitar for a living! Although I wish I could pour time into guitar, it's just a hobby for me, the family and the day job mean I only get 5 hours a week if I'm lucky to play and arrange. It's not enough to take the guitar anywhere special, but for this stage in my life it will have to do.

The problem with your youtube channel is exposure. I got lucky. I started a long time ago, in 2006 youtube wasn't even a year old. I posted a (dreadful) cover of Canon in D, a song everybody loves, which became popular and created enough "interest" that at my peak I was getting around 7,000 views per day. That's gone down to about 2,500 now; there are sooo many great guitarists out there I'm competing with now it is to be expected.

There ain't much you can do in a hurry. Post videos of songs you know people like. Watch other people play, and comment on their stuff and press "like" a lot. Don't hassle people to come look at your stuff, just comment on their stuff.  They will come and look at your stuff if they want to. I believe you will get more people coming and looking from a good comment than a trawling comment.  It's all just an investment in time and being active. I didn't realise what I was creating during the time I was very active on youtube, in hindsight it is quite obvious what happened.  Firstly I was increasing my youtube search ranking, but more importantly I was creating connections with an audience who would hang around.

Keep your video and audio quality high. If you can post a video once per week, do it. Don't post a whole bunch in a batch, spread them out over a couple of days at least, so people can keep up. Videos don't need to be "super professional", as in filmed in a studio environment. The audio and video still needs to be high quality, but a few mistakes in playing a song makes it more real, more human. That surprised me at first, but that is what I have discovered my audience appreciates (my youtube audience consists mostly of non-guitarist casual listeners but also some guitar playing listeners.)  I think you connect better, in the youtube environment, if you are "real" - not some ultra professional presenter, but rather you are giving a comfortable experience as a fellow human with faults.  On some level I suspect a listener is thinking "this guy is great, but he isn't perfect, I could do what he does if I tried hard.  That makes me feel good.  What I'm listening to isn't unattainable."

Comment back on interesting comments from viewers. Not every comment, for example "You are great!" doesn't need a response, just smile, nod appreciatively, and move on. Just be active on youtube. You've got the chops, you're a better player than me, it's just an investment in time now, building connections with people (which in turn creates more connections) and away you go. Be active on your blog too, keep it useful. Talk about how you create, the little things that people like to hear they don't hear anywhere else. That you would have liked to have heard when you were starting out.  Pick your audience. Talk about your gigs from a technical point of view and you will attract an audience of hobbyist guitarists that want to be playing and gigging like you. Talk about the beauty of the songs you are arranging and you'll get an audience of music lovers. It's all pretty obvious, I doubt I'm telling you anything you don't already know...

Add value to your videos - post tabs if you can, people *love* tabs. But that only increases your popularity in the guitarist scene.  They don't represent the majority of my listeners, but for me they are _my connections_.  They are the people I invest my energy into, they are the ones I chat with, and exchange ideas, and critique each others work.  They are the reason I'm here at all.  It's interesting; I love playing live to an audience who appreciates the same music as I do, who "gets" what I'm playing.  But online, you don't get that real-time connection with people.  Online I love the conversations I have with fellow guitarists. I don't feel as connected with the online listeners.  I'm not sure how to approach that disconnection...maybe you can take that to a new level.  I think I'm more of a teacher than an outright performer, which "limits my potential audience"...perhaps you should take my learnings and modify them to reach a different audience?

I lost all my early momentum on youtube because I can't update often enough. But there is a baseline momentum that stays alive that keeps me ticking along. Throwing a handful of songs out per year keeps me in the game.  Keep up your momentum.  It means you have to be passionate about what you are doing, and be true to what you are doing.

What are you after? Hooking up more gigs? Want to share/teach? Make money online? There isn't much money to be made in just online videos and blogs. Even with 2,500 views per day I make slightly less than $100AUD(2012) per month. If I licensed and sold tabs, or instructional DVDs, that could make more money. But that is difficult to do legally and would take me a lot of time. I estimate if I recorded a CD I could sell about 3 per day, priced at say $12ea I could probably make $20/day in sales. But that requires time to make a _great_ CD (I would want it to be great) and managing the sales myself. I could make it work, because I have a constant flow of visitors. If you don't have a constant flow of visitors, you won't sell stuff.

Spend time. Create connections with audience. But most importantly what are you after - your answer will tell you what to do.

Oh and be careful; posting covers is a tiny bit illegal. I've had one video claimed (the copyright owner makes money from it, quite sensible, they could have had a take down notice on me but chose instead to cash in) and one video taken down. Three take downs and your account is suspended. I can't give you any advice on who will give you takedowns - maybe surf the net for it, I've only had one in six years so it isn't a problem, but perhaps it might be in the future. Avoid Supertramp covers is all I can tell you so far.

Good luck and good skill!

JAW

I'm Still Here November Update

Hey I ran a poll recently (if anyone has a burning question they'd like to see polled, let me know) "Where do you place yourself in your guitar journey?" From 195 votes we had:

6  ( 3%) Expert
18 ( 9%) Just Started
22 (11%) Advanced
61 (31%) Beginner
88 (45%) Intermediate

Only 3% call themselves an expert; I'm going to put that down to (a) "Aww shucks, I'm no expert!" and (b) Experts don't need help from the internet.  Look I don't even want to call myself an expert, there is so much about guitar and music theory I don't know, but if you are talking cover arrangements in fingerstyle, OK, I will begrudgingly call myself an expert.

"Just started and Beginner" was purposely broken into two to provide an escape hatch - "Just started" is a real beginner, but some people who have been playing for 10 years might still be "Aww shucks, I'm just a beginner" so they need the "Beginner" option.

"Intermediate" at nearly half is to be expected.  I would consider most guitarists who have mastered the basics, and have access, would search the internet for ideas and inspiration.  My humble site here hopefully offers ideas and inspiration, so welcome! :)

"Advanced" was also offered as an escape hatch for "Expert", I would have thought there would be more.  I was thinking there would be say 25% in the Advanced/Expert class, 25% in the Just Started/Beginner class and 50% in the Intermediate class.  However it's not like this poll is a true cross section of the community, it is roughly a cross section of solo acoustic fingerstyle. At best.  I imagine a similar poll on a learners site would have the results skewed quite differently.

Anyway, polls are fun.  I'm not sure how much to read into this one.  Must be time for another!

Meanwhile, I recorded another Billy Joel cover and posted it on youtube, you can see it here: http://youtu.be/wHwSqIG12wM  I liked this one because the bass line challenged me a little bit - root notes on beats 1, 2&, 3 and different (but in chord) note on beat 4.  Chuck the simple melody on top and finger flick some chord fragment fills in where you can.  Because of the reasonably busy bass line I didn't find much room for flicked chord fragments.  As you know I like my arrangements less regimented - the fragments add a dimension of "feel" unlike pure alternate bass style picking which is clever but, erm, clinical?  Mathematical?  I was forced down that line somewhat in this song which to be honest is often a good thing - too much flicked chord fragments "muddies" a song, the distinctions are lost, the melody is not clear and the arrangement approaches strumming.

There is a fine line between "Clinical but clear and distinct" and "Muddy but warm with feel".  And a balance to be found.  You can't go clinical for 20 bars, then go muddy for the next twenty...well okay you can, but only when it is balanced.  I think I got a reasonable balance with this arrangement - I was strict on the bass line in places, but loosened off when I needed to.  I'm still learning! :)

I haven't decided what arrangement to focus on next.  I've got a few unfinished to get back to sometime, I've also got a few songs to re-learn.  Gigging is going to be back on in the next few weeks (not that I have time for it, but you must make time!) and I like to have a solid two hours of material, with maybe only a few that I play with trepidation in the fear of botching it...when some nights I'll have a crack at it when I'm feeling good, some nights I'll leave it alone.

However as of today, I haven't picked up the guitar in five days!  It is terrible!  And even then five days ago I only played for an hour!  I've been working 50-55 hours a week, and I'm laying some flooring at home and other renovation work.  Yes; it doesn't sound much like a guitarist...working big hours at a day job doing engineering, and in the evenings DIY home improvements.  I think that is the reality for most of us hobbyists.  Sometimes life gets in the way...priority can't be the guitar.  But it is always there, waiting for when life isn't quite so demanding :)

JAW

Video Blog: Disco fan confession with Funky Town

I talk a bit about thumb independence, and play a bit of "Funky Town"...and admit to being a Disco fan. I'm a bit rambly in this one, sorry, I need to plan what I'm going to talk about more!

JAW

Guitar Cam session two

Guitar cam certainly isn't new, I first remember being amazed by it in the AC/DC video "Thunderstruck" in the early 90's. Concept - rigidly attach a camera to your guitar, the guitar stays still and everything else revolves around it. Heh, everything revolves around guitar, I like it :)

GoPro have specifically targeted this "action cam" scene, and that is the first one I looked at. They have good brackets, but the camera specification is more about being rugged than high performance. Really, any camera you buy these days has the same mounting point so you could use the same bracket with anything. But what really threw me with the gopro was the very wide fish eye lens. I didn't really want to have a "bent" guitar - fish eye is for extreme offroad action. But you need to be kinda wide, so I made sure the camera I grabbed was averagely wide. Wide as in it can capture the whole guitar in the frame even when the camera is really close to the guitar.

I trawled ebay for brackets, and nothing appealed to me. You know what that means - DIY JAW on the scene :)

The first bracket I made was a bit of a mock, consisted of a bit of aluminium, fencing wire and some wood. I didn't even take a photo it was that bad. The second bracket used learnings from the first. And the third bracket, yet to be made, will use learnings from the second!

Okay, things of note:

• Double clamp - this is just two $1.50 clamps from the hardware store joined together with two little plates. Drill a hole through the plates, screw straight into the plastic handles. Some sheet rubber glued to the clamp faces makes sure it won't scratch the guitar. Two clamps to be doubly sure there is no movement when clamped on!


• Steel bar - welded to one of the plates on the clamp with a second piece at ninety degrees to the first for more rigidity. The problem is the arm is longer than it needs to be, and because it is steel it is heavy. The heavier, the more mass is bouncing around when I'm rocking out, the more rigid it needs to be so you don't see shocks. And the heaviness makes it harder to play.


• Angle/position - the bar is long because I wanted, well, the view you see. Of course it means more mass, more bouncing around, and the further out the worse the bouncing. Version 3 of the bracket will have a "more direct" angle/position - same good view of left hand and right hand - but lighter.


• Camera mount - just a hole in the end of the bracket and a 1/4" imperial thread welded to a tab of metal to make attaching the camera easy.


• Camera - Panasonic HC-V100. Not amazing, but it has a 32.5mm wide-angle lens, very small and light (lighter than the bracket!) and the iFrame recording codec is nice to work with.

For my first test I played six songs, my arm was tired after that. Of the six, five were "cafe standard" - means not bad, but a few too many fubs for my liking so I won't upload them to my normal youtube channel. One was good, I've already uploaded it :) One key learning was with my nice Zoom H1 microphone, tapping my foot comes through as an annoying thump. Don't tap foot (but I like to tap foot!) DON'T TAP FOOT!

Anyway, here are photos. And since the other 5 songs were cafe standard, that's good enough for my blog. I will be playing and uploading more to my normal channel as I go, but I thought I'd share some more with my !34! mates right now :)

Oh and yep, I think picking up the guitar at the start and putting it down at the end, guitar-cam effect, will be my thing...

JAW

What's happening June 2012

[insert standard disclaimer about being busy etc etc] While running some errands the other day I was passing by a music store I'd been in several times before and I thought "Hang it, I'm gunna go in and see if they have anything 'interesting'" - und I did.

On the shelf I didn't see any nylon/classicals that were interesting at all.  It's not really that type of shop (yes, someone was playing the smoke on the water riff with heavy distortion as I walked in).  I asked a guy if they had anything else, no, so I grabbed the most expensive guitar they had, a Yamaha CGX171.  Which, of the three nylon guitars I have, that is actually one on them.  I'm not sure why, but I'm sure it had a wider neck than my one.  Hmmm...

Anyway, seeing as a CGX171 wasn't interesting, I asked to play through an amp.  The guy set me up with a Fender amp I'd tried before, they are okay.  He dug out the nice AER 60W acoustic which I had previously decided was the best amp and if I was to get another that would be it.  It is still nice, but I think he could tell that I wasn't inspired.  He said "How many people do you play to?"  (Which was really nice to hear, I hadn't said anything about performing, he simply assumed that I played to audiences.  Either I look/feel/sound like a performing guitarist or he's a really good salesman.)  He told me "you need to be looking at a PA."  "Have you got anything I can try?"  "Yeah sure, come with me."

I then got quite a good lesson about PA systems from a sound engineer.  There is an interesting system, very modular by a company that is trying to fill gap between cabinet amps and full PA systems.  Imagine an amp/sub box, then a pole, then sets of speakers mounted on the pole.  Except you want a few more speakers, so you click some more on the top.  You want some facing you and some facing the crowd this way and that way, just rotate them.  Basically a click together - no cables except the one to your guitar - modular PA system.  Pull apart to get back on the road.  It requires a mixing desk/box thing, they had a simple 4 channel one, because generally in a PA system you'd have a microphone and more than just a guitar.

Really interesting.  I think that is what I'd need rather than just a cabinet amp on the floor.  Pricey though - perhaps I should stockpile my earnings from gigging to purchase one, starting system is around $AUD2000 (in 2012).

The sound engineering side of it is interesting too.  Because I sit behind the guitar I'm never quite sure what everyone is hearing.  It has made me want to play a gig at a place where there is a sound engineer weaving their magic through the PA.  I know a place - open mic style.  I have avoided it thus far because I picture it as a pub generally full of drunken yobbos where most performers are bands playing loud rock.  I'm not sure I'd fit in there, but perhaps I should give it a go just for the sound engineer PA side of things.


In other news, whilst wholely heartened by my previous gigging, I am disheartened at playing the guitar not gigging.  Aside being busy at work (see disclaimer) I just haven't set aside any time to play.  It is actually at a point where "why bother playing when nobody is listening and nobody is paying?" :) Okay, not quite that bad, but "gigging changes you".  Over the past month I think I've played for maybe 4 hours on 4 separate occasions.  Don't fear though, because...


I made Guitar Cam Version 2 last weekend.  I worked out from Version 1 that the mounting bracket needs to be _very_ rigid, so I doubled the amount of clamping and welded together a very sturdy steel bracket.  I adjusted the viewing angle too, and it worked out great!  The rigidity is not quite there yet; what happened in version 2 is that to make it ultra rigid I made it too heavy, this time the weight causes it to move slightly when I'm digging into the song.  It's only just noticeable, and it isn't detracting, but the weight means I can only play for maybe 15-20mins at a time before it is starting to be uncomfortable.  I'm going to record a couple of Jawmunji Channel Youtube clips for it over the next week; I think you'll really like it and I'm quite excited about doing it.

Guitar Cam Version 3 needs to be made though and I think this time it needs to be aluminium.  I don't have anything to weld aluminium, so that is going to be an interesting project.

JAW

Guitar Cam - Attempt 1

First crack at Guitar Cam. The "test bracket" I made was not rigid enough, so the camera was bouncing around. I'll have to crack out the welder and make a nice solid steel one. But as far as a test goes, I think it was okay. I think the camera needs to come out further to catch more of the left hand fingering, but it's an interesting view. The song ended up a bit rough, I was aware the camera was bouncing and it threw me. Once I have a really solid rigid mount, I think the view will be more interesting and my distractions less...distracting :)

But what I hope you appreciate the most is I bought another video camera, nothing fancy just a low end consumer unit, but it makes a nice clear video. It has fancy optical stabilisation, low light is not bad, but importantly it has the nice Apple "iFrame" codec built in, which takes 960x540 video at 25fps (PAL) and every frame is an i-frame. Compression is H.264 for video and AAC for audio, which is fine, that is modern day (2012) top notch compression. iFrame as a codec is good for editing, each frame is a nice clear picture. I just used VirtualDub to knock this out up - synchronising the Zoom H1 audio from the mic to the video feed and adding a text overlay is pretty quick and easy (once you know how). I dropped the bitrate really low (the file is 90MB) because my upload speed is pretty slow and I want to go to bed.  I was experimenting with Cyberlink PowerDirector to render this video, but it was pissing me off (excuse the French) so I stuck to my tried tested and true VirtualDub.  Thanks Avery.

Enough talk, have a look, and offer suggestions - is the viewing angle too horrible? Not enough information coming through on the left hand, too far away from the right? Let me know.

JAW

Gig update

Well I had about two and a half months of gig enjoyment, but the colder weather has dropped the number of patrons, so the gig couldn't pay for itself anymore - it's all over!  Paul from B-Bar was really happy and will get back to me when the weather starts to warm up.  I'm thinking of leaving it at that and wait - I do feel a level of pressure to make sure my playing is in good form, the repertoire is up to speed and I'm adding the occasional new song in from time to time.  With work asking me to increase the number of hours I do a week (they'd like 50 hours a week, plus my 60-70minutes per day commute time) and the number of activities I have on with the wife and three little kids - I just can't fit it in.  I made it happen up until now, but I had to hold myself back from really getting into it. By spring next year work (should) have dropped back, so it could line up nicely.

Alternatively, knowing what I know now I think I could fairly easily line up another gig in a less "seasonal" location.  It's a tough call - stop for a while, or keep going.

I know I do tend to go on and on about not having enough time, sorry, but it's the truth!  Life is balances, and one day I'm sure to be ramping up the amount of guitar that fits into it - and then you'll know all about it :)  In the meantime, I'm not going anywhere, in fact I'm hoping to have a few new videos soon.  I've just bought a video camera (they are pretty cheap these days even for 1080p!) and I have a little project in mind to make a guitar-cam bracket.  I still like to weld and grind and create tools and a mounting bracket for guitar-cam videos would be cool.  I'll keep you posted.