Beyond Puddin'

I keep taking guitars (and basses) with problems to San Francisco Guitarworks, and they keep converting decent instruments + money into amazing instruments.

Yesterday I got my Rickenbacker 360/12 back. Previously it looked amazing, sounded amazing, and played more or less like catching a muddy frog with your hand, if your hand already contained your car keys. Now it’s more like spelling your first name, and you get three tries to get it right.

Seriously, if you have a guitar (or guitar-like instrument) that needs some major (or minor) surgery, they will make it right. I think I’ve taken 4 different instruments there over the years, and each time the result is like the wand shop scene in Harry Potter when they finally pick the right wand.

P.S. if they ask if you want the Plek treatment, the answer is yes.

We (TungstenSF) recorded 2 songs (yes, 2 songs = 25 minutes!) a week ago and here is the result for all to see:

TungstenSF: Mercy II and Houdini

Enjoy!

In Part 1 I talked about the reason why bass players basically can’t avoid the need for lots of amplification power on stage. In this part I’ll talk about picking amplifiers and speakers and how to shop for them.
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Yesterday I brought my full bass rig (meaning not the little practice amp I use at home, but the full live setup with effects, amp, and speakers) to the studio for a performance-volume rehearsal. It was not loud enough. I spent about 5 hours yesterday and 2 hours today studying up on what’s out there, and I ordered something new today.

I realized today that I’ve read a whole lot about bass amplification over the years and had plenty of real world experience with different approaches, and I think this information is interesting to bass players at least, and probably rock music audiences and price/performance minded home audio enthusiasts too. So, I’ll start with some basic information about the state of live rock music amplification in Part 1, and then share some of my recently acquired knowledge with you in Part 2.
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I’m in a new band that formed in February 2007. It’s called Tungsten SF at the moment; we might drop the SF part. Here’s the Tungsten SF web site which has bio info, news, audio clips, and a snazzy band photo / desktop wallpaper in widescreen format.

If you’re on MySpace, please add tungstensf to your friends!

Hi there. This is my new all-music web site & blog, separated from my more social and all-encompassing web site here.

This is where my news, works in progress, and small works will be published for fun. Later on I’ll include a performance calendar (once I figure that out).

For now, I’ve posted all of my old odds and ends (song and song fragments) here with a nifty and simple Flash MP3 player. Let me know if this breaks for you; I haven’t tested it much yet but this setup beats the empty “coming soon” page I had here before today.