TV Set & Internet Upgrade

Well, I decided to finally join the 21st century! Above, see my old TV. Below - Verizon FIOS, TV & Internet, and my new 37" HD TV - welcome to the 21st century for me.

WOW, I can't believe how sharp HD shtuff is! Also, I couldn't believe how much dust there was behind the old set. Mountains I'm talkin'.

So I have this fiber-optic line now. It comes into the house and goes to this big white box installed in the basement. It's like I've got the HAL computer now (2001 Space Oddesey movie) running all my comm equipment.

FAAAAST internet - 15 Mbps download, and 5 Mb upload. Great for multi-media.

Now I just have to learn how all this new shtuff works. And what am I gonna do with all my old VHS video tapes? I guess I'll be copying them over to DVD now. They all look so blurry though, now that I'm spoiled w/ HD.

Music, sports, movies - on demand, WOO-HOO!

Talas - A Buffalo Rock Legend

I don't know how I ever survived before YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFcTuQsr1TM&feature=related
\

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JK7DUfB8Fo&NR=1

Rock on Buffalonians!

Talas is one of the best bands to ever play in Buffalo. Billy Sheehan is one of the best bass players I have ever listened to. Check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Sheehan

I think that because I'm from Buffalo I should shout about the good things in this city. This is one of those moments.

MY FIRST ORIGINAL TUNE IS NOW ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!!!!

FYI - MY FIRST ORIGINAL SONG IS NOW LIVE ON THE INTERNET ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Whew, it sure took long enough.

Here's the link:

http://home.att.net/~born2playtunes

Then, go to the Links tab and it's the song Nude Day. The song reminds me of a newborn baby, since it was my first original song I ever recorded, and of course we are all nude when we're born. Unless there's something really wrong that is.

It's a play on words with 'New Day'. Get it, new day, nude day? They sound the same in English.

This song was recorded in 1996. I was in a band at the time, and Ollie was our lead guitarist. He had a 4-track cassette tape recorder and we recorded this tune with a drum machine, guitars/bass, and the cassette machine. Ollie programmed the drum machine, I recorded the guitars & bass, and he recorded it all. If I recall, he owed me a debt of some kind and this was easier than waiting for him to come up with the cash.

Oh, and always follow your dreams - and this song is one of my dreams - to have an original song live on the internet. Woo-Hoo!!! THE DREAM IS NOW REALITY ! ! ! Now I just need to write some lyrics and vocal melodies...

Back From Blogging Vacation

Well, I've been taking a vacation from blogging for the month of December. Now I'm baaaaaaaaaccckkkkkk.

I decided to try not blogging for a month, and it was nice. However, time to get back into it. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to evaluate all my internet/on-line shtuff and see what can be done to improve things.

Also on the Resolutions list: play music every day, and lift weights every day, unless too sore from the day before.

Happy New Year to all and may 2010 be better than ever!

Drum Machine Project

Time for fixing up an old electronics project - the 2-chip drum machine.

It's a glorified metronome.

It has a timer chip and an audio amp chip. If I recall, the timer is a dual 555 timer, which is an industry standard. It makes a couple of different sounds in repetition.

Runs off 2 9-volt batteries. In an upcoming post I'll go over a bunch of rechargeable batteries I use, and the little battery charger.

Tribute To A Great Band - IRON MAIDEN!!!

I was looking at my blog and realized that I need a tribute to one of my favorite bands of all-time:

IRON MAIDEN ! ! !


Recent Video: Flight 666. They filmed a tour where they flew around the world on a custom 757 jet, complete with their logos, and Eddie, their mascot.

The jet was called Ed Force One - a force to be reckoned with, no doubt.

Some of you may be saying "WHO???" Well, they're one of the great metal bands of all time. This means they got popular without being on all the usual pop-star radio stations, and MTV, VH1 etc. They've only sold over 70 million albums in like 30 years or so. They don't need #1 songs like the Beatles had.






Then again, some of you may be saying - YEAH! I know these dudes (or blokes - they're British) and they ROCK!

Here's Dave & Adrian.





Well, you know of Wikipedia? Check it out!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Maiden



Here's Jannick & Steve.

And, last but not least, Niko!

Check out www.youtube.com and search for Iron Maiden. Search for Iron Maiden Flight 666. You will find numerous (and usually illegal) clips of the movie.

People, these guys are pros. Do not attempt this at home. Plus, their singer is the pilot of the real 757 they flew around the world in. He's a real licensed pilot, and a real kick-ass singer as well. Now that's what I call a leader.

Rock on people!

Wordless Wednesday

Time for a Wordless Wednesday. This one is for people who can read sheet music and know Mozart.

Enjoy!

Oh, and follow your dreams.

Astronomy - Orion & Cygnus

Here are a couple really cool pictures from apod.nasa.gov.

First, Part of the Orion constellation - 3 stars on the left are easy to see at night, but then when you zoom in with some really powerful telescope - so much more. Cool. This picture is from many pictures 'digitally stitched' into one.

Plus, here's a black hole - this one I don't think is a photo. Looks like an artist's picture, but very cool anyway. Cygnus X-1 is the name. Rush made a cool song about this decades ago. They had an album, A Farewell To Kings, and their big song was Closer To The Heart. They had another song, Cygnus X-1 - great song, but no one cared about it if they heard Closer To The Heart. Oh well, I guess black holes don't make good songwriting material compared to songs about the heart. Makes sense.

It's A Killing Joke!

Here's a tribute to one of my favorite bands - Killing Joke!




Personally, I would not pick a name like Killing Joke if I was in a band. First, all the cops in town would be looking for me because they think I'm a murderer (not that any cop isn't trained to kill people) and second, you don't usually want 'joke' in your name.

However, this band kicks so much ass that I have a sore toe. Kinda like Turrell Owens, only with music.

This band reminds me of the band Simple Minds. They can have totally great music, then they have a crap album after that, but then they have another great album. Oh well, that's music for ya.

The Joke Rocks!!!! That's no joke! Rock on people!!!

Fill 'er Up! Git 'er Done!!

Here's a new toy - The Liquor gas pump - WOO HOO!!!
I want to thank my uncle for this, it is appreciated greatly.

It's a little replica of a gas pump, except, to keep with the 'green' 'feelings' people have these days, it serves up a delicious distilled beverage - Jack Daniels green label whiskey.

FILL'ER UP!

Plus, since it's gravity fed, there's no electricity required. Good to have on hand in case of any power outage. Then you can fuel up and be on your way.

Go Green!!!

Oh, and follow your dreams ! ! !

Oh, and don't drink N drive. As one of my favorite bass players of all-time, John Entwistle, once said - "I prefer to drink and not drive" - although that was mainly because he didn't have a driver's license, plus he was affluent enough to afford a driver with a limo. Hey, he was in the band The Who - what do you expect?

SRV - One Great Guitarist

This post is a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughn. One great guitarist and bluesman, may he rest in peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GSpbuFSr2o

Pictures From A Past Refurbishing Project

Here are some pictures I stumbled upon while doing some recent spring cleaning (even though it's officially summer in like 1 day from now).

This is my Digi-Tech guitar effects unit. It's one of those all-in-one units, with guitar effects like distortion & overdrive, EQ, all kinds of different reverb and echo sounds, and it has 40 prepared sounds in it's memory, and it allows 40 user-defined sounds, all saved in flash memory. It's really a simple computer tailor-made for manipulating audio from guitars. Ok, so when I say "simple computer" it's really a contradiction of terms.

Anyway, the pedals are intended to be operated by your foot, so you can change your sound without having to stop playing guitar, since the guitar takes up both hands to play.

Well, eventually the pedal switches started to become less and less responsive until some of them no longer worked at all. I decided to take it apart and investigate.

I just love staring at electronic stuff. I don't know why. I'd rather just stare at a hot female, but if there's none around, electronics are ok. Or hot cars.

I found that the plasic part that touches the switches was flattening out a bit from wear. I cut out and taped a thin piece of cardbord to fill in the gap.

I put it back together and the switches were then working great, almost like new.

Of course, my cat Lexus just had to investigate my guitar gear. As soon as I go to play something though, she hauls ass to get away from the sound. She does not like guitars or basses that are making music. Or, maybe she just hates my music.

YES - Christopher Squire, Bass Player Extrordinaire!!!

Time for another excellent Bass player - Chris Squire from Yes.

He's one of my fave all-time bassists - because he kicks ass!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Squire

Finally Recording Original Music

Yesterday I finally got back into recording SOME OF MY ORIGINAL MUSIC ! ! ! !

So please excuse all the excitement.

One of my friends got hooked up with a digital recording interface so we can record music into the computer using some really cool RECORDING STUDIO SOFTWARE!!!!!!

First, he's got this interface from Presonus. You can record like EIGHT CHANNELS OF AUDIO AT ONCE !!!!!!

Wow.

Here's a mixing board. We used this to control the music signals coming from guitar, bass, and a vocal microphone.

On the computer - CUBASE RECORDING STUDIO SOFTWARE !!!!!!

Pronounced Q-base.

I'm trying not to get too excited while typing, but it's not working.

I started off by copying some drum & guitar loops into the audio tracks. Then we added some guitar solos, to boost our guitar-hero egos, of course.

Then I worked on a totally new tune I just pulled out of thin air (or as we put it, out of my ass). Normally you would never want to make up a song while you're in a recording studio, since you would probably be paying at least $40 bones an hour. However, when you have your own gear, you can just throw down whatever you want!!! If it sucks, you just start over, and you haven't wasted oodles of cash, just a little time. And you're not really wasting time, since when you write your own material, you have to write 5 or 10 things before something good really shows up.

The tunes we did yesterday were pretty rough, but when we work on them more and they sound better, I'll try to post some sound clips RIGHT HERE BABY!!!!! Can you sense any excitement from me?

Fixing Up My Old Practice Guitar Amp

Here are some photos of my recent project to rejuvinate an old practice guitar amp.

I am using a power supply to power it up. It's your typical 12-volt/13.8-volt DC power supply from a surplus electronics place. Better than batteris, although I could hook up a 12-volt battery in it's place if I want to use it somewhere away from AC current. Or I could use a bunch of D batteries.

It's got a nice power transistor on the back with a heatsink, to dissipate all that heat from crankin' up the volume. Cool (or Hot, however you want to look at it).

Here's a close-up shot of the amp chip. This amp is actually powered by an integrated circuit amplifier. All the transisters and what-not are on a single chip! This has some advantages and disadvantages. The main thing is it makes the whole circuit nice and small. The chip also has a heat-sink on it, to dissipate all that heat from crankin'up the volume.

I've got the amp board wired to an 8" speaker that was once a woofer in a small set of bookshelf speakers. It seems to have a decent treble response, at least for a practice amp.

Here's the amp hooked up to the power supply.

I hope to put this thing into a real cabinet sometime soon. Right now it's just sitting in a cardboard box, which isn't the best way to go.

Here's a little sample of that powerful tone. Actually, it's not that loud. I think the chip is only capable of about 8 watts of output. Not much, but this is only intended to be a little practice amp.

Rock on people.

Introducing Lemmy On Bass & Vocals

Hey, What's up people???





Tonight I'd like to introduce one of my favorite BASS PLAYERS of all time. Yes, I mean ALL-TIME because this guy has been around since the 60's. He was actually one of the roadies for Jimi Hendrix. He is around 63 years old now, and he is ugly as all hell. Somehow ugly works for him.

I remember hearing about Motorhead when I was a little kid. That's when the tune "The Ace Of Spades" came out, their most well-known tune (and most despised tune by the do-gooders in the world).



One reason he's my favorite bass player is because he happens to also be a lead singer. He's got those big moles on his face and he makes it look like he's a big friggin' teddy bear of cool. He seems like a cool guy when you see videos of him. He just does not seem to be a mean dude, even though a lot of his lyrics are tough-guy stuff. And the tattoos on his arms are cool.

He wrote the lyrics for the song Ozzy Osbourne did - "Mama I'm Comin' Home", which was a big hit for the Oz-ster. Lemmy said he made more money off the royalties for that song than all the money he ever made playing in Motorhead.

I once thought about getting a tatoo of the Motorhead mascott, snaggle-tooth.

His Wikipedia entry says he's had sex with over 1000 women. Wow, that must be alot of Valentine's Day cards to send out. Image the postage! Maybe that's how he got all those moles on his face. From burying his face you-know-where.


LEMMY - FROM MOTORHEAD ! ! ! ! ! !



Rock on.

New Year's Resolutions

Well, here we are at another New Year's Eve. Time to celebrate the beginning of a new year. I always wondered, if we're celebrating a new year, does that mean the old year sucked totally? Think about it. If this year is great, we would not celebrate the end of it. On the other hand, if the old year sucked, then we'd celebrate a new year since we can't wait to get rid of the old one. Substitute 'car' for 'year'. You would celebrate a new car if your old one was such a piece of crap that you had to get rid of it. If you have a new car but your old one is still pretty cool, then you get a new car that sucks, who celebrates that? But nooooooo, we just celebrate the new year without any idea of whether the new one will really be better. Oh well.


Here are my New Year's Resolutions:

1) Clean out the garage so I can actually park my truck in it.

2) Barbeque more. Much more. You may see many more food and BBQ posts on my blog soon.

3) Work on more electronics and computer projects. I have not put any posts up yet about my interests in electronics and computers. This will probably change.

4) Work on recording some of my original music I have written. This is something I've done in the past but never really finished.

5) Limit my resolutions to 4, then stop.



Whew, that sounds like a lot of work. Good thing I have one year to do it.

John Entwistle video

John Entwistle video: a video about one of my favorite bass players. Plus it has some of my other favorite bass players talking about how great he was. Priceless, if you're a bass player.