Line 6 Delay and a Whole New Sound
I got a new Line 6 delay module (It’s DL 4 if you care to know). If you are wondering what that is then I’ll tell you. It’s the coolest delay pedal known to mankind. It’s pretty awesome, there are about 20 different kinds of delay on there, all with tap tempo. You can mix them however you want them and save them as presets, having up to three kinds of delay per song. Not only that but I can record and loop stuff (up to 14 seconds long) on the fly. You can have an infinite number of tracks playing at once. You can play them forward, you can play them backward, you can do just about anything with it.
Collin has one of these as well, so between the two of us we will be getting some killer new sounds. We’re getting together on Wednesday to mess around with them and come up with some cool stuff.
Now all I want to do is play guitar. It’s so fun getting so many new sounds, experimenting with a thousand new things, and writing new music. One of the best things about it is that I can play one of our songs (“If I Ever” for instance) and record it, looping it back over and over. Then I can take my good old time and write a nice solo over top of that. It’s a great writing tool, and it makes just me sound like a whole band. Hm… this would be a great way to launch my solo career! I will be the Ian Machine.
31 Comments:
"The Ian Machine" is not a good name for a band. Try "Solostification." Or "Too Sexy For My Other Band."
awesome..
rock.. rock on!
Hey all you bush supporters what is going on with all the people that was with bush the last four years most of them are resigning from their postion. Dose this look bad on bush? I am for Bush but I don't think that this reflects good on him.
I got this from CNN
"Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge will announce this afternoon that he is stepping down from his post, department officials tell CNN. Since the November 2 election, several Cabinet members have resigned including Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, Education Secretary Rod Paige, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham."
JOEMAMA
Heh rockin cool Ian and i have no clue whats going on in the white house. I need to catch up with current events i love you all
~poncho
Just so that you guys know, none of your your downloads on your "downloads" page work. I just thought that you might want to fix that so that when people stumble across your band on the web, they can hear you. peace.
JOEMAMMA
Not to compare Bush to Clinton, but I remember after Clinton was elected for his 2nd term a lot of his cabinet left for other jobs. I don't know if its a normal thing but its at least happened in the past two administrations.
Maybe it has something to do with going out on top.
Ooh, look at me posting and everything. Haha... "rock, rock on" I love that kind of stuff. Jayson is just the coolest. Ever. I got one of them Line 6 dee-lay pedals in the mail coming to me. Gonna be a live/utility thing to supplement my analog unit (getting the Line 6 cuz the Boss DD-20 doesn't have dedicated tap-tempo and you gotta SCROLL through the presets. yikes! that's not for me. plus the Line 6 is true-bypass... even though it's relay switched and not true mechanical, judging by the action on the switch... that's cheating! ha.). I'm currently assembling the Greatest Pedal Board Known To Man. I will unveil it someday.
Huh?!? I have a viola... it features strings, and a bridge, and I play it with a horsehair bow... anyway... I also know how to sing...
I'm really glad for you guys that you got a drummer that's old enough to play at bars. you guys play out so much, you really need to be of drinking age, i'm glad that you're all at least eighteen. You play so many shows in adult environments...
adult environment... i heard that. one time i booked the machine for my friends bachelor party to play a couple songs. To make a long and debaucherious story short, i don't know what they thought this bachelor was going to be like, but making his grand entrance, collin popped out of a cake wearing only a g-string, not even the low E string. sheeeesh... and it only got worse.... these guys were out of control.
~Jeremiah Johnson
Aaron R. sounds (musically) dorky. Shane sounds (confusingly) bitter. Jeremiah Johnson sounds (amusingly) gross. I love this weblog.
Xerxes is most likely (terrifyingly) in a well, um... certain type of suit...
Happy BIRTHDAY Xerxes. :)
. . . perverts.
Great... I post one time and get called "dorky."
I like viola. Just like John Cale.
Aaron, have you gotten your pedal yet? I'm sure you'll love it when you do! I'm thinking of making some sort of pedal board as well, do you have any suggestions?
Consider the source. . . "dorky" from Xerxes is actually a compliment.
Welcome aboard dork.
I was a dork once. For 20 minutes. Wearing a penguin instead of clothes.
Do you know what a dork is?
IT'S A WHALE'S PEN15.
right, Xerxes?
Hey Ian. I got the pedal and I am enjoying it. Works good right out of the box.
As far as pedalboards: I made my own and I'm constantly upgrading it. I think just getting a piece of plywood cut to size, painted, with velcro on it works great. You could try to find some sort of soft carrying bag for that, too.
The regular board and velcro works good; I used that for a while. When I was playing out constantly a few years ago I made up one with a hard case around it so it could be stacked up with other gear. If you have some carpentry skills you could save some money and make one pretty nice (I'll put pictures up of mine sometime). You can finish it off with speaker box cover material (or vinyl) and it looks pro. They charge a lot to make this stuff, as you might find if you looked around on the 'net. Maybe it's worth it for you though, to not have the hassle of making it. The wood and hardware does add up, but if you can get some wood from some friends in construction you could be ahead of the game.
I can hardly live without some kind of board anymore. Everything hooked up, complete with power supply is great. Another tip: for power supply I would suggest the Visual Sound One-Spot. It's a simple adaptor that you can get a chain for to connect many pedals. It's about about 1/6th the cost of other 'deluxe' power units and a bargain as far as I'm concerned. It costs around $25-30 for the AC adaptor and the chain together (try places besides the Visual Sound site, either Reverend Direct or Musician's Friend). A friend of mine has two $180 power supplies and he suggested I get the Visual Sound unit instead.
Hey, I could talk up this stuff for hours. If you want to know about pedals, well... I have a good amount of high-end stuff and could make some suggestions, if you want. I could also go on about any other aspect of the whole gear issue, as you might have noticed.
Me again.
I looked at a couple of prices on a site I found (http://www.rockonpedalboards.com/) that goes for $90 including the soft case for the smaller one; you may want a bigger one depending on how much stuff you have and if you want room to grow. I've seen a few people using them and I believe they like them. It's gonna be like $160+ for a hard case (a SMALL case) just about anywhere you look.
If you want to make a board with a hard case yourself, it will cost:
~$20 for wood (this price I'm not sure of, actually)
~$15 for velcro
~$15 for covering
~$25-30 for hardware (latches, hinges, handle, corners, screws)
So, about $70-80 plus your time. But that's for a hard case, and a big one at that. I made one 30' x 20' (again, I've got lots of stuff) for that price. If you look at this link: http://www.stompin-ground.com/products/sgprice.htm you can see an example of prices you'll pay for a hard case. It's about $230 for the budget one on the size I made, which is pretty good quality on there. The puny one costs $165.95.
Just to give you an idea...
Thanks for that tip about the power chain thing. That would be a great help. Does it have an adapter that will fit the Line6? I can't seem to find one and I hate using batteries.
So, I know it's late, but I figured, "Why not see what's going on with my favorite weblog?"
BORING!!!
I mean, maybe if I knew anything about anything you were saying . . . but the only thing I recognized was "plywood."
P.S. Whoever posted about the Whale's thingee. How in flippin heck do think I would know what the term for a Whale's thingee is?
P.P.S. Jason. How would dorky coming from me be a compliment? Even if I was a super dork, my calling him a dork would make him Dorko Supremo. (As would using the term Dorko Supremo)
P.P.P.S. Snake Man. Don't steal my bit!
Yes, you can get a Line 6 adaptor for it. I am using one right now. You just stick the adaptor on the end of one of the plugs on the chain. The adaptor is available on the Reverend site along with the other accessories (http://www.reverenddirect.com/reverend/amps_etc/1_spot_adapter.html). They seem to be about the cheapest there... they are more expensive from the Visual Sound site itself.
Here's a link to a compatibility chart with the unit: http://www.visualsound.net/PDF/1SPOTCompatibilityChart.pdf
It works with almost every conceivable effect. If an adaptor is needed it lists it there.
The 1 Spot can source 1000mA of current, which is usually enough to power an entire board. Most stuff draws about 50mA, though some digital stuff goes up to 80-90mA. Line 6 does about 350mA, which is quite high, but the 1 Spot can do a couple of them with power to spare.
If you look at the back of the DL4, it actually says it might draw a max of 1200mA, but that's insane. The thing would be hot to the touch if it drew that much current. It's not like it's running on Pentium. I doubt the batteries could even sustain that much juice. They also address this on the VS site: http://www.visualsound.net/faq.htm#5
For Xerxes: plywood and 2x4s are good for makeshift bike ramps. That should be a good bit of non-boring fun!
Aaron, thanks again for all the info! I was wondering, do you play in a band? If so, what one? Could I download any of your tunes?
I'm in a little in-between period right now. I used to play in a band at Penn State called The Less Miserables (it was a dumb name we came up with when we were young, ha). We had a great live show and routinely dominated Battle of the Bands type stuff. We played at the Crowbar several times, which is the biggest music venue in that area (besides the Jordan Center arena). We were a female-fronted pop/rock type outfit. Kind of Sundays or Cranberries but a little more rock, typically. We had a demo we made a long time ago (when we could barely play our instruments) produced by Bill Campbell, who used to be in a band called The Throes. Funny, we never got around to recording stuff after we started to play very well and write better songs. The band has been broken up for a few years.
Since then I've been sitting in and doing some "session work" for friends and people I've run into over the years. I played with a Cincinnati-based band called Brownhouse for a while, including a show at Cornerstone music festival, which was fun. Brownhouse had (they broke up too) an amazing lead singer, who is sort of the protege of Karin Berquist of Over the Rhine. I hope to work with her again sometime. Besides Brownhouse, I also played some stuff with a few songwriter friends, live and in the studio. Hmm... I'll have to see if they have clips up anywhere. I know Michael Pritzl and the rest of the guys in Violet Burning - we hang out when they are in town (and they still stay at my parents house in Harrisburg when they are there, haha). A while back Michael asked if I was interested in coming on tour to fill in. Alas, it didn't work with preparing for the tour with them all on the west coast. Sigh.
Right now I'm working on putting together a 'super group' of good musicians I know in the area. Hopefully we'll start demoing stuff within the next few months (and I'll have clips!). 'Til then I'll just be playing at the 9am service at VCF at the Barn! I'm working on some improvements to my main pedalboard at the moment, so I'll just have my old, small one this week. Maybe next week I'll have it all together and I'll wait around and show you my stuff. Oh, and I just got a Reverend Goblin amp for a low wattage amp to play there and stuff (which is why I've been at that Reverend site lately). It's switchable from 5 to 15 watts. My other amps are way too powerful for playing in a smaller room. It's pretty cool, though 5 watts from a tube amp can still be pretty loud for that setting! Gotta have the tubes, though.
Man, word for word I may the biggest non-band member poster on here lately. Fun.
Nice post! Keep them coming.
I would love to play Cornerstone. How fun was that? That's awesome. I also love the Violet Burning, you should jump at the chance to play with them if it arises again.
And I actually like the name The Less Miserables. It's pretty cool. And I also remember and like the Throes. I saw them play with the Choir at Drexel around the time of the Circle Slide album.
Cornerstone was fun. We played a side stage (of course). Linford Detweiler from Over the Rhine put in a word for us and got us in to begin with. With Brownhouse I actually played mostly piano and Rhodes. So, we were there setting up and of course Linford was in the audience and I was getting nervous ('cause he's a great player of keyboard instruments). To make matters worse I was doing soundcheck and couldn't think of anything to play... I panicked and started playing an Over the Rhine song just to do something. I felt like such a dork (there you go, Xerxes). But, the show went well and I played fine. Another interesting note is that some members of the band Eisley (then called Mos Eisley) were sitting in the front at the show. There was buzz about them at the festival and how they had prospects. They went on to touring with Coldplay and getting signed to a major label. The keyboard player was checking my playing...
I'd still love to get the chance to play with the Violets. Right now Michael has a pretty stable line-up so it might not happen soon, but you never know!
Yeah, The Less Miserables name isn't too bad, aside from the pun. The hard part was that "miserable" isn't typically a noun, and trying to make people say "miserables", a non-existent English word, over saying the actual French word can be difficult. I did like the dry, understated nature of it, though. If we had kept going we may have just made it Less Miserable and been done with it.
Wow, I have to say, I am jealous that you played there. I would love to do that. Maybe next year...
Thanks four all of your tips on fx and electronics. Rock on!
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