• Performance Schedule:
  ramuji @ Rakuza on Friday 14 July

Here is a short clip of a song that I began working on in May. It started off as the relatively simple structure presented here, and then I expanded it a bit last week for the show at Rakuza. It is currently untitled, and still needs a bit of (songwriting) work.

Untitled (1,374KB mp3 stereo sound file)

This clip was recorded at home with Guitar Rig 2, and then imported into Audio Desk for minor editing. I haven’t done much recording until now, so it is really an eye opener for me to listen back and hear how clearly my mistakes stand out. In particular, the left hand bass lines are much rougher than I had realized, and that is one area that I will need to focus a lot of attention. I had a click track in my headphones while making this recording, and yet it’s pretty obvious that I need to spend more time practicing with a metronome.

Native Instruments has announced the release of version 2 of their Guitar Rig amp/cabinet/effects simulation software. It seems that it will be available sometime in November, although I haven’t yet been able to find a release date on their website.Highlights in the new version appear to be a few new amps and cab sims (including for bass), rotary speaker sims, a handful of new effect sims (including analog synthesizer filter), a crossover mix function for high frequency and low frequency splits, a group of modulators (LFO, analog sequencer, step sequencer, multi-step envelope), and a loop machine.

I’m very excited about the new possibilities that will be available, particularly the bass amp and cab sims for the bass side of the Stick, as well as the integrated looping function, and the modulators. The price for upgrade from Guitar Rig 1 seems quite reasonable.

We had a lot of fun at the San In Beach Party over the weekend. Despite the bad weather, I’m told that this was the best turnout they’ve had since the event started 5 years ago, with almost 800 tickets sold this year. Although I was probably in the minority, I actually liked the fact that it rained all weekend; since I’m not much of a summer or beach person, it was nice that the temperature remained mild with low humidity. But, I was still easily irritated by having sand everywhere I didn’t want it to be.

About 10 of us made the trip in two cars (one a rental) stuffed with musical gear, clothing, food, etc. We finally left Hiroshima at 11pm on Friday, arriving at the party site at exactly 4am Saturday. As soon as we arranged accomodations, parking, etc. with the organizers and got our things unloaded into our rooms, the timing was just perfect for us to get down on the beach to enjoy a beautiful (although overcast) sunrise. The water was so refreshing, and I bet I wasn’t the only one who would have liked to have stayed on the beach just a little bit longer. But we were all exhausted (especially the drivers) and we knew that we would need to wake up at 10am at the latest to get all the gear set up for the afternoon performances.

I find it endlessly fascinating how, when people are put in situations such as this weekend where we were all tired, sleep deprived, and under varying levels of stress, one can begin to catch glimpses of a person’s inner personality, those areas that we may be more likely to hide or suppress in normal social situations. I wonder what sides of my “hidden” personality may have slipped out for the others to see? (Other than my near-obsessive fight to keep sand out of my futon, blanket, and pillow; I did manage to keep from barking at people to stop tracking sand into the room, but just barely.)

Later in the day on Saturday, I was having some trouble with my MacRack. Luckily it didn’t happen during my solo set, only later when I was jamming with Jamie, Gale, and a drummer whose name I didn’t catch. I think the problem was in the MOTU interface, and not the Mac itself, but I still need to spend some time checking it out. Saturday evening while we were moving gear out of the way to make room for other musicians, the power cable to my Mac was inadvertently unplugged while the computer was still on. Although I believe this isn’t a major no-no, it certainly isn’t the best way to shutdown a computer. Just a few hours ago, while unpacking my gear at home, I noticed that the “sleep mode” lamp on the Mac was flashing. Hmmm? How can that be? Well, it seems that when the power cable was unplugged, the battery automatically came on. Which means that the Mac had been running since Saturday evening - through the bumps and impacts that come with loading and unloading from vehicle to room, room to vehicle, vehicle to vehicle, and the 5-hour trip back to Hiroshima. I suppose I can’t complain too much if the Mac acts a bit testy the next time I power it up, but I hope I didn’t do any serious damage.

Yesterday was a full day for me, with a return to Stick playing for the first time in several weeks. Since I haven’t been practicing much, I was half-expecting there to be some disastrous moments on stage. Although my set at Marina Hop in the early afternoon was far from smooth, I think it could have been much worse, all things considered. (OK, “it could have been a lot worse” is not a very productive way of self-analyzing a performance. I should probably stop doing that before it develops into a nasty habit.)

There were a few anxious moments when I couldn’t get my MacRack to start up. I thought I was having a problem with the computer, and that maybe I had bumped it hard enough during transit to damage the hard drive. On the verge of panicing, thinking that I would have to completely bypass all effects for the set, I finally realized that the problem was with my 828mkII interface, rather than the computer. I just needed to flip the power switch off and back on again to reset it, and then everything worked fine. Once I got into the performance, I had trouble getting my loops going, and eventually abandoned them. I need to spend a lot more time practicing with SooperLooper and my foot controls, working on my timing between hands and feet.

On top of everything else, I’ve just never really been able to enjoy outdoor performances (with a few notable exceptions). Unless the PA equipment and operator are exceptionally good, the sound from the monitors often sounds very “thin”, making it hard for me to get into my performance. Marina Hop was like that for me on Sunday, and my entire set felt very lackluster. However, My Funny Valentine came out quite nice, I felt. Nobody was more suprised by this than me, since I had moth-balled this tune several months back because I could never get it to come out right in performance. I love the song, but it was always a thorn in my side when it came to playing it in front of an audience.

So, when I did my solo set at Rendezvous last night, I decided to start off with My Funny Valentine. Now, I’m upset with myself that I didn’t take the time to record my performance, because I think that may have been my best rendition of the tune in front of an audience. I followed that tune with some minor looping over which I improvised for a while, and then segued into Lift Off. I had much better success with my loops this time, although poor monitoring made it difficult for me to hear the looping rhythms as I played through Lift Off, and I eventually had to mute the loops as I felt that I had drifted away from the looped tempo. I like this idea of using loops as rhythm and texture in Lift Off, and I’m going to work on getting it to work more smoothly. I finished my set with A Pleasant Fiction, a ballad that I like a lot. Overall, I felt it was a strong performance; the audience was very receptive and supportive, and I received several very nice compliments. In particular, Tony mentioned that he enjoyed My Funny Valentine.

The show at Rendezvous was a charity event to support GetHiroshima in their defense against a lawsuit. The last I heard, 63,000 yen had been collected from the crowd that gathered. Well done, everyone!

I just placed an order for a Behringer FCB1010 Midi Foot Controller. The FCB1010 was the first MIDI controller I ever owned, but after some searching and experimenting, I ended up replacing it with the Ground Control Pro, which I am still very happy with. So, why order an FCB1010 again? Well, I’ve recently installed the SooperLooper looping software into my MacRack, and have decided that I’m going to need a separate foot controller dedicated to looping functions. So, to recap: my original motiviation in switching from a conventional effects rack to the MacRack was the ability to expand my processing gear without increasing the size or weight of the equipment that I have to carry around. Now, with the addition of new processing software to my MacRack, I will be doubling the size and weight of the equipment I use to control it.

I’ve spent a large part of the past two days designing and creating a website for flamenco dancer Iwata Reiko. In addition to performing throughout Japan, Iwata-sensei owns and operates the Escuela de Flamenco dance studio here in Hiroshima. I think I have most of the major designing complete, but will probably be making minor adjustments over the next several days/weeks.

I have several pieces of gear, including my Rane SP 13, for sale at Yahoo!Auctions. If you are interested, please have a look at my auction page.

I spoke with Jamie on the phone today, and he invited me to perform with him, Kit, and Maggie at a local restaurant’s 2nd anniversary party on 1 March. The owner wants acoustic music, so I’ll be playing the spoons in support of Jamie and Kit’s bluesy and “fake bluegrass” music. Since I was born in Kentucky, one would expect me to have at least a little bit of bluegrass in my blood (at least compared to Jamie the Scot and Kit the Brit). While I wouldn’t say my bluegrass/blood ratio is 0, I think it isn’t too much higher than that. However, I started practicing with the spoons around the end of December, and it has grown on me a bit. This gig should be interesting.

My Guitar Rig software arrived on Saturday. Since the 828mkII is back-ordered and won’t be delivered until early February, I’m not yet able to process my Stick through the software. All I’ve been able to do so far is install Guitar Rig into my iBook and use the pre-recorded samples to experiment with the huge variety of effect/amp/cabinet simulators. This looks to be a very promising software package, although it may be a bit more of a CPU hog than I had expected. I will definitely need to dedicate my iBook specifcally to my MacRack, and avoid installing other software, or using it for the Internet or email, etc.

Very early this morning while doing some work around the outside of the house, I tried to climb up over a short cement wall with my arms full, slipped and banged up my legs and knees. It hurt pretty bad and I even felt nauseous for a very brief moment, but it passed and I finished my work with a bit of a limp. It wasn’t until I got back inside that I noticed that my right sock was quickly becoming soaked in blood. I managed to stop the bleeding, clean and disinfect the wound, and dress it with some cotton and gauze. The wound wasn’t large or very serious, but it was right on my shin, where the bone is very close to the skin, and I could see something white-ish in the wound. While I was pretty sure it wasn’t bone that I was seeing, I figured it was better to be safe than sorry, especially when it began bleeding a bit again around noon. So I went to the hospital expecting to get a stitch or two. The doctor laughed at me, closed the wound with a couple of strips of surgical tape, and sent me on my way. I’m kinda surprised he didn’t offer me a lollipop.

I’ve uploaded a new sound file into the Music section, from my performance at Jive on Friday. The song is called “Lift Off”, and is the first song I ever wrote for The Stick (or any instrument for that matter).

This evening I put in an order for the last two major components of my MacRack: an MOTU 828mkII computer interface, and Native Instuments’ Guitar Rig effects software. Both are currently on backorder, so it may be a couple of weeks before I receive the shipment.

I had a very busy weekend, and today was my first day back to work since December. Derek and his wife Hiroko arrived in Hiroshima on Thursday night. They were both quite worn out after a 6 hour drive from Kita-Kyushu, where Derek had played a gig the night before. We stayed up until about 2am talking and getting to know each other, before turning in for the night. This was the earliest night we had during the entire weekend, as Derek and I made a habit over the next 3 nights of talking about a wide variety of things until after 4am.

After brunch on Friday morning, Derek and I each retreated to our own small spaces to rehearse and prepare for our gig later that night. When we arrived at Jive at about 5pm, Kajiyama-san was already there and half-way to setting up his gear. Derek and I got set up, we all did a quick soundcheck, and then started the show on time at 8pm. I was first up with a 40 minute set (including a few minutes explaining The Stick), followed by Kajiyama-san and then Derek, each playing about 45 minutes. We played to a full house of about 40 people, who were very attentative and seemed to enjoy the show very much. Kajiyama-san is quite well known and respected in Hiroshima, and gave one of his usual powerful performances. Many people had great things to say about Derek and his music (Jamie: “Where did you find this guy?”), and Derek sold 8 of his CDs.

Saturday was a day of relaxation and a very brief tour of Hiroshima City, including Peace Memorial Park and the A-Bomb Dome. We also had a wonderful early dinner at my favorite Indian restaurant, where Derek struck up a conversation with a waiter who was from a city in northern India where Derek lived for a few years.

Sunday night we played at a benefit event organized by Jamie and his wife Natasha, from which all proceeds will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society to assist the victims of the tsunami that hit many Asian countries in December. Derek and I were the first to perform, and then quickly removed all of our gear from the stage so we could leave early. I knew that Hiroko (the driver) would want to get home at a decent hour so she could rest up for the drive back home.

Derek and Hiroko left Hiroshima on Monday afternoon. I expect that he will be coming back to Hiroshima to perform again sometime. We have similar ideas about how we would like to do more gigs and events in western Japan and bring The Stick to the attention of more people, but we are going to move in baby steps.

On the Wednesday before Derek arrived, I purchased an iBook as the first piece of gear in my MacRack. I expect I’ll be able to have the other items I need to complete the MacRack within a few weeks.