if i thought you were listening, i'd never say a word: November 2023

Tuesday 28 November 2023

The London Sinfonietta / Mixing Desk

The London Sinfonietta with the Marius Nieset quintet. One honk from a tenor sax can be heard at the back of the Queen Elizabeth Hall no problem. Ditto any of the instruments. But they have a house PA there (two sets of speakers hanging from the ceiling each side of the stage, very black so they fade into the background) and everyone plugs in. So we're not really hearing the sound of the band on the stage. We're hearing the sound of the band picked up by mics, processed and amplified.

My hi-fi has a clearer sound and better soundstaging than the QEH's PA. Maybe than the QEH acoustically. Though we would never know.

Friday 24 November 2023

The Les Paul / Katana Tone Journey - Continued

(Updated at publication date)

The Guitar

Flat-wound 10's and liking it.

The base setting for the dials is "all the 7's", and the pickup selector default position is in the middle.

I experimented with pickup height, and in the end did what would make a well-bred tech shudder, set the heights by tone. The neck is practically flush with the surround, and the bridge is about where a good tech would put it. Switching from neck to bridge does not lose or gain volume - the SPL meter on my iDevice confirms it. All the problems I have had with the characteristic Epiphone Pro-Bucker tone have vanished.

The Amp

I was determined to get that Marshall-ish sound. These are the Panel settings

and this is the all-important EQ setting

The power setting is 0.5W. This is not optional. Neither is the 12dB attenuation. I have no attenuation on the 4kHz and 2kHz bands, because that's where a lot of the distortion comes from.

Use the Neck pickup, turn the tone dial to 0 and the volume to 8/9, play above the eighth fret and you will get that creamy 1960's distortion sound. There's a reason no-one needed pedals back in the 60's. Turn the tone dial back to 7 or 8, and all that crunchy Marshall-ish goodness comes back.

This tone does not play well with anything except the Limiter. But then, if you're using it, you won't want any other effects.

Having done that, I went for the Fender-y sound. These are the Panel settings

And these are the all-important EQ settings.

There's a trick. Just a little touch, the lightest sprinkle, of the distortion effect, to put a bit of bite into the sound and stop it sounding like a sodding jazz guitar.

The power setting is 25W. This is not optional either.

This sound is a base for putting the modulation and time effects over: it isn't really a tone in its own right.

Neither of these sounds are the "dials at 12:00" type, and in fact are quite extreme. If they weren't, they wouldn't be iconic. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

I have simplified the options, the idea being to approximate a pedals - amp - speaker set-up. The Chain has all the effects (except Reverb) are before the Pre-Amp.

Recording via USB

I've tried. Lost cause. Too much faffing around. If I want to record, I'll get the specialist gear.

Tuesday 21 November 2023

Moleskin, Covent Garden

This starts with the weird Saturday morning train times. I can get into Waterloo way-too-early or just a little bit too late, for a 10:00 AM appointment. So I get in way-too-early and to pass the time, take photographs of the shops in the area around Covent Garden.

(I know. Who lives at number 40?)

Friday 17 November 2023

He Shot, She Shot

On our recent walk round Hampstead Heath, Sis suggested I take a photograph of this pond. So I took...

Sis took a look via the screen and asked if she could borrow the camera. She took...

Sis is, as you will realise, a Proper Artist, while I am a mere snap-shooter.

Tuesday 14 November 2023

Hampstead Heath (The Red Coat)

I loved the way those Victorian and Edwardian painters would name a picture after some tiny detail off to one side. The modern version used to be calling everything "Untitled (Mary in her Boudoir)" or somesuch. Do painters still do that?