Archive for How-To
Digital SLR Joy (the obligatory moon shot)
As I’ve been trying to shoot imagery for SOUNDTRACK, it has become fairly clear to me that my trusty point-and-shoot Canon A630 would not do the job as well as I’d like. My main concern is blowing the pictures up for print purposes, and not having that graininess that seems to be part of all [...]
Songwriting Basics: How To Manage Your Muse
If you are a musician who writes, we might have something in common other than being musicians -we have zillions of half-finished songs and grooves laying around that were going to be your very next project, but just when you fire up your recording setup to do just that, another fit of inspiration strikes, so [...]
Guitar String Breakage #1: How To File Your String Saddles
Breaking strings got you down? Read on to see how I took care of business.
Things work out in a funny way sometimes, and although my original plan to have work done to my Epiphone Dot fell through, it provided me with the impetus needed to just go ahead and do this myself. The [...]
Online Songwriting Collaboration - How Does It Work?
One of my favourite musical projects is the band Gert. 6 of us regularly get together on the interweb, to plan out and ultimately record music we write together. The process we employ to actually get things done might be of interest to those of you who write music, and defintely to those of you who do [...]
How To Hook Up Cabinets, Heads, Speakers Without Causing Fire
I recently picked up a couple of JBL K140 15″ speakers for dirt cheap. At the time I had only my trusty Fender Deluxe 90 for amplification, and I was yearning for more “beef” in my sound, so I thought I might be able to somehow use one of these in a cabinet or [...]
How To Record Acoustic Guitar
It seems to me that many songwriters begin their work with an acoustic guitar. If you’re like me, you’ll probably record most things with acoustic guitar first. I like acoustic guitar because it’s full sounding, has great percussive qualities for banging out a pulse while strumming, and it doesn’t need anything else for [...]
How To Make Your Band Look Awesome On Stage
Last night Michelle and I had a great time taking in all the sights and sounds of Delerium - Cirque du Soleil’s “live music conert that pushes the limit of arena performance.” And holy cow, it was fantastic.
I was stunned by the visual presentation of the show. The multimedia stuff that was being [...]