Another Hog Heaven Music Space Done. Pics.

Chris C · 2011-10-30T06:45:01Z

Hi all,At last! My "Play-Attic" is pretty much all gassed up and really to roll. :D I've long admired TR's splendid Man Cave and have also been inspired by pics of Dogbite's collections, Roy's (rparker) recent room upgrade, etc. In my case, the main aim has not so much been about a full on performance space but about gathering a reasonable range of tools to support the hobby of attempting to write songs, and also to generally explore music and have some fun with it all. I'm not shooting for gigs or expecting to gain proper performance skills on all the bits of gear. Just aiming for enough basic ability to get a practical handle on how the various elements of a song arrangement can be fitted together. For instance, I could write drum tracks in midi, but I seem to learn more about rhythms by actually banging things! 8) Of course it would be good to become more proficient at playing but the other aim is to master the software well enough to be able to paper over the musical cracks by correcting, cutting, pasting, fixing up, and generally stitching together enough nearly adequate takes, scraps and bits to make a few more new songs. Frankensongs-R-Us...The hugely long â€˜Scrimp, Save and Salivate' stage appears to be about over (5 years or more??). I've now finally collected just about everything on my list of â€œSong-writing accessories that I'd like to own one dayâ€. So, I've got the gear - now I just need to put in a few more thousand hours to build the desired skills.... :shock: There's a saying that I believe comes from Texas - "All Hat and No Cattle" - to describe somebody who tries to look the part but doesn't really have any stock yet. In my case the missing "cattle" is the required range of playing chops - which are mostly still at the stage of putting the bull to the cow. So I currently produce a lot of bellowing and mooing - not to mention a great deal of bullsh*t - but the talent 'herd' still only consists of a couple of fairly small calves. Fortunately though, I do have some mates with genuine ability so the gear does sometimes have a break from my amateurish thunking and gets to crank out some really good stuff as well. :note1: :note2: :note1: So this is my 'retirement kit'. I turn 65 in a couple of weeks and will therefore be officially senile enough to be locked in the attic with my toys. Woohoo....View from the top of the stairsThe main working area. Keyboard, guitar, Eleven rack and drums all in easy reach. Close at hand for plinking out melody ideas, testing out rhythms and harmonies etc.Some of the twanging and honking machinery Guitar stand hastily made this morning. Rock bottom cheapie sax and clarinet, but some of the guitars are reasonable. The SpiderOne of the most recent items that I've finally saved up the cash for is a Roland TD-4 drum kit. It can either put out its own drum audio or else trigger other drum sounds via midi, including all the percussion in the Garritan World Instruments software. Hmm... hit, smile, hit, smile... . Not quite as easy as one might hope, but good fun to learn. Requires a good deal of stamina just to keep that right leg pumping away in time. My admiration for drummers who play full throttle for entire gigs has risen dramatically! For those with bass instincts... The last purchase. An American Special Jazz Bass. What a pleasure to play, and I can finally put the Bass book that I bought eons ago to good use. (Kudos and thanks to author David H - it's proving very useful! :D ) Press Enough of the Right Buttons and Music-like Noises Do Occasionally Emerge...Two rods pull out from the front of the desk to support an Axiom midi keyboard, if needed. The Eleven rack is adjustable, across a huge range of emulations, either on screen (the black section) or with proper knobs and buttons on the unit. Neither piece of kit is hard to use in a basic way but I'll need a LOT more study before I can claim to be really competent with either of them.I won't need to work out how to burn demo disks any time soon but, hey, it's been a lot of fun so far. If it keeps one more old fool off the streets it can't be bad... :wink: Cheers,ChrisJust a couple more beers and the singing will surely improve....won't it???...

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imalone

(@imalone)

Posts: 267

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All I know was when I moved from a extra bedroom upstairs, down to the celler, I found I could turn off the reverb on my amp.
Kind of like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0k_l4CYHbM (apologies, it does have an advert in it).

Posted : 05/11/2011 8:14 pm

s1120

(@s1120)

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Paul B

Posted : 05/11/2011 10:21 pm

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Another Hog Heaven Music Space Done. Pics.

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