whatz on your mind

Another technique I have found works well for myself and others is to have all players in the group repeat a main pattern together every once in a while to reinforce the songs main line and to help keep the rhythm. This can be done by most of the players repeating the same notes with the same timing for a bar or two. I also can be done by having those who are soloing play the same notes, hit and hold the root of the chord or the chord itself. This can keep the solo from staying too far from the main line in the song and also make it smoother for the listeners. I often find that if at least the BASS and soloing instrument do this together it works well. Give it a try and see how it works for you. Add your comments on this or similar techniques you have used.

Well had a great Jam session the other day with my friend Jimmy J. ! But took a while for the session to heat up and the main problem was with the timing of our playing. Music can sound sweet or like the clanging of a bad piston in a car. Just like the piston if the timing is off the music will not run right. So how did we get into time and how can you do this too? Try to jam along with a drum machine or something that has a beat to it. This will improve your timing and ability to keep a rhythm going. Many instructional methods now have CDs with them that you play along with. If you can afford a drum machine or guitar effects pedal or amp with a drum machine built in go for it. You can also buy a keyboard or Synth that has rhythmns and patterns built in to play along with. The Korg R3 and the Boss BR1600 both mentioned in other articles have these features to some extent. The more reinforced the Beat is the easier it is to follow. This means having a drum and Bass guitar track is usually easier to follow than just a drum track. I hope this will help you. Check out my tunes at Reverb Nation especially the Track ‘Hole in my Shoe’ Jimmy J. and I just completed! click here.

I was working with the R3 Last night and put together a song by overlaying 4 of the different effects. I started with a keyboard effect intro and then went with the decibell voice laying down a machine like sound. I then added the first melody and finally an almost crying voice just off an 1/8 beat from the first melody. Putting the patterns off by just a 1/16 or 1/8 beat allows them to be heard but yet blend with the other effects. I placed this song at my reverbnation site click here to hear it! It is just a small demonstration of the R3.

Well finally got the Korg R3 synth I ordered a couple weeks ago and let me say it ROCKS!! This synth not only has all the great synth sounds with 128 different patterns but you can tweak the modulation, pitch and so many other things it could take years to use them all well. Not to woory though because you can quickly grasp how to make sounds work for you and with your other instruments and recording equipment. I already have a rough cut of a new tune that I decided to post at Reverb nation after only a few hours of use!! I took the SEA TALK setting on the R3 and a drum pattern from my BR1600 and put them together. It did take a while to get the drum beat to a tempo that closely matched the delaay and modulation on the R3. After a couple dozen tries I found a good match and then added some guitar to it.

click here to give it a listen at Reverb Nation when you get there just click on the song titled ELECTRONIC PSYCHOCUTION!!

So for the last 3 days, I have been changing around things in my music studio. I bought some rather inexpensive plastic racks and glued some laminated counter tops on them then transfered my equipment to them. This not only gave me more room but organized the equipment better. I also rearranged the furniture in the room so that the speakers all have open space to play in and their is room for 8 to 10 people to play in. The Racks and the counter tops I bought at Menards for under $125 so I feel this was a great investment. see the picture below or all my pictures in the

Racks give room to work in

gallery at reverbnation by clicking here!

Well if you haven’t checked out my site at Reverb Nation yet CLICK HERE TO DO SO!! I suggest signing up as a fan too and this will give you a lot of great benefits!! You will get your own page which will give you a list of Artists playing in your area at clubs and events and you can search for Music in any Genre and usually listen to it for free and many time download it for Free too. I signed up and downloaded my tunes and also have been checking out all the other artists and local events! Can enjoy a few of my songs just by playing them there!

Well just recorded a new tune “Purple Microdot” which includes a strong 70’s bass background and uses the boss GT 10 Purple Stack setting for a Hendrix-like guitar sound. I again set the drums using the Pattern setting and not the arrangement setting so the beat would remain the same throughout the song. I heard a dance tune with a nice bass part that kept repeating in my head and when I got this drum pattern going and slowed it to 80BPM suddenly it mutated to this Bass which reminds me of some 70’s bands. Played the guitar on several effects and finally found the purple stack setting which fit with the bass beat. I added a short set of lyrics just for fun using the COSM voice effects. I found that I could make even my voice sound fairly good by using the FX3 setting and tweaking it a little. I am planning on adding a video on basic use of the BR1600 to my JolietJeff website soon, since the manual from Roland is hard to follow. I then just sent the final take to my eridol recorder since I haven’t had time to try mastering a track on the BR1600 so can hear a little degradation of the sound on the recording you can listen to now at Reverbnation just click here!

I just bought a new Roland BossBR-1600CD digital recorder unit and am trying to learn how to use it. I bought this unit to expand my recording capabilities from 2 to 8 instruments or vocal tracks at one time. Also the unit has some great special effects and will burn the CD’s from it’s built in hard drive. I was able to plug in multiple instruments and record them on the unit while using one of the drum patterns that is built into the unit. But unfortunately the drum pattern ended after about 1 1/2 minutes so need to find how to extend the pattern’s play time and use many of the other functions. This unit comes with a lot of special effects but am finding that when using multiple tracks many of them might not work? Well I will be adding comments as I learn new things about using the unit although seems like a very long task. Was hoping this would be easy but this is not true. My next task will be to extend the drum pattern for 5 minutes and also learning to record a pattern of my own and save it. Got started on this but after about an hour gave up for the day. IF YOU HAVE SOME TIPS LEAVE FOR US HERE!

I Just posted and article on my main site JolietJeff.com on how to record your music on a computer based system. It is very basic but could give you the start up information you need. After reading the info you can post any creative suggestions for the article here! Click here to read the article or to go to my JolietJeff site!!