Taking a walk

Here's another from our latest jam. In this one I'm playing bass, attempting a walking bass line. I was inspired by Eric's artistic drumming. I'm guessing Sheldon and Jamie are on Eric's and my guitars but I can't really tell. Definitely one of our more unique jams. Maybe one of my favorites. It's growing on me.
http://thesb.org/fur/fuzz.10.7.9.d.mp3

fuzz 9/03/2009

This is an older jam that I thought sounded interesting. I think it's me on guitar, Jamie on drums, and I'm guessing Sheldon on Eric's guitar rig and Eric on Jamie's bass. The mix sounds a little guitar-heavy. I'm pretty sure I was playing the carvin which is the guitar on the left in the photo. I was probably testing out a new Wampler Distortion Pedal. Anyway, check it out:
http://thesb.org/fur/fuzz.9.3.9.f.mp3

Smoke break 10/7/2009

Okay, so I haven't been posting much for a while but I have been jamming semi-regularly for the past couple months with Eric, Jamie, and Sheldon. We usually jam after work and after many beers so we tend to be pretty sloppy but every now and then there's some cool stuff for sure. Here's something I found tonight while listening to our jam on Oct 7, 2009. It sounds like me on drums and Jamie on bass. Eric and Sheldon are out on their smoke break. After a few minutes of the bass/drums jam, Eric and Sheldon start playing. I assume it's Eric on his guitar rig and Sheldon on his rig (guitar or bass, not sure). A plethora of effects to be sure. Check this out:
http://thesb.org/fur/fuzz.10.7.9.h.mp3

Building Pedals

In my search for the perfect guitar rig I've decided to build my own gear. Here's my first attempt at a tube overdrive pedal based on a circuit called the Valvecaster, it incorporates a 386-chip-based boost circuit to get a nice overdriven sound. This is called the "fire hazard" because, well, I wouldn't leave it plugged in unattended...
You can hear my playing through the Fire Hazard pedal in this jam session from a few weeks ago. In this jam you can hear two guitars. Mine is the sort of obnoxious heavy shredding style and the second guitar is the inimitable avant-garde style of the one and only Eric Maurer. I'm also playing around with my wah quite a bit. Jamie Williams is on drums, and Sheldon Chow is on bass.

My second pedal is pure tube, using two tubes (valves). I went for a more crunchy distortion this time. I really like this pedal a lot although I'm not too happy with this demo recording I made the other day. I started calling it blinky because it has 3 knobs that remind me of the 3-eyed fish from the Simpsons. Here's a sample: http://homepage.mac.com/dshimmyo/musicForBlog/blinky01Test.mp3

Mount Kisco Jam 1

Jon Townley booked 2 hours at Satellite Sound in Mount Kisco. Jamie Williams joined us for a couple hours of cool jams. I had the opportunity to bring out my guitar and some new pedals (Rat Distortion and Digitech Whammy) and some old ones (Dunlop Crybaby and EHX English Muff'n) for a spin. Anyway, check out these jams:
track1_JonGtrJamieBassDanLead.MP3
track2_JonGtrJamieBassDanDrums.MP3
track3_JonGtrJamieBassDanDrums.MP3
track4_JonBassJamieDrumsDanGtr.MP3
track5_JonGtrJamieDrumsDanBass.MP3

Testing a cornford amp

Jack Ham lent me this amp. I had never heard of it so I took it home and tried it out. It has one of the best british tube amp sounds I've ever heard. I was inspired to set up a recording studio in my livingroom just to see how great this amp sounds recorded so I hooked up a mic and plugged in some pedals and recorded myself goofing around. I started playing the rhythm section of a song called Gettin' Better by Tesla on the Mechanical Resonance album, probably because the tone I was getting sounds a lot like theirs. Just for fun, the left guitar track and solo were recorded with the cornford's built-in overdrive and the right channel guitar gets its overdrive sound from my Electro Harmonix English Muff'n pedal. I'm amazed at how transparent the overdrive pedal is with this amp, I almost can't tell the two guitars apart. Anyway, I recorded my bass and programmed some drums using the midi editor in Garage Band. Added some reverb and did some volume tweaking and chugged out this mp3 file. Well, I like the way this amp sounds so I'll probably be owning it soon...
cornford_test.mp3