A Merry Christmas to anybody who might be looking in and enjoy this FREE festive EP download from my favorite Ukulele(and mouth trumpet)player Victoria Vox!
http://victoriavox.bandcamp.com/
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Open Mic at Gary's Club including video
Open mic night at Gary's club.
I had a great open mic at Gary's club last night. I felt far more confident and go to grips (at last) with singing through a microphone!
Unlike a normal open mic where you only get to do one or two songs Gary pre-books you in for a 20 minute slot so you can really
start to develop a proper set. It was a great evening with 6 of these slots and a really varied selection of styles and I was asked back
to do another in about 4 or 5 months or so,in the mean time I'll definitely be back to watch!
I had a great open mic at Gary's club last night. I felt far more confident and go to grips (at last) with singing through a microphone!
Unlike a normal open mic where you only get to do one or two songs Gary pre-books you in for a 20 minute slot so you can really
start to develop a proper set. It was a great evening with 6 of these slots and a really varied selection of styles and I was asked back
to do another in about 4 or 5 months or so,in the mean time I'll definitely be back to watch!
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
100 watt homemade guitar amplifier MK 3
My main homemade guitar amplifier is undergoing its third reincarnation!
It is based around Maplin 100watt Mosfet power amplifier kit which was popular for use as a disco amplifier in the 1980’s and is no longer made.
I remember I originally built it as a general purpose amp in the early 90’s then in 1997 (see photo) I built it into an old tape recorder cabinet cobbled together with a hodge podge of different projects which included several relays, one valve (tube), five power supplies and a loud speaker from the late1950’s to make a very useful amp indeed! I used it for many a Prison Fellowship visit into jail in the trio El Camino and despite its heath Robertson nature and being shaken up on a bone rattling trolley it never let me down even surviving being dropped and landing upside down! Its only problem was it had so many controls I would get to the end of a gig and wonder why my sound wasn’t quite right to find a knob on the wrong setting!
After we’d stopped doing the prison visits it languished in my shed for a few years and when I fired it up last year I discovered that part of it had ceased to function and rather than trace the fault in it rats nest wiring pulled it to pieces and put the components aside for later.
My modern digital VOX ACD30 is great but somehow I feel I should be playing through something homemade and also I’m missing the thunderous roar of my old 100 watt monster so I’m rebuilding it (neatly this time!) into an old (digital!) 30watt amplifier cabinet, I’m not sure if I can shoehorn the old speaker in there yet!
Co-worker Graham is kindly building it a new neater Craig Anderton “Super Tone Control” circuit, I have already got the powers supplies into the new chassis.
Photos etc to follow!
For the geeky here is a list of its circuits: (so far!)
Germanium transistor “range master” booster (New to this build)
Preamp from a tiny Fender mini twin battery amp
“Super Tone Control” from the Craig Anderton book Projects for Musicians
Maplin Spring line reverb driver
It is based around Maplin 100watt Mosfet power amplifier kit which was popular for use as a disco amplifier in the 1980’s and is no longer made.
I remember I originally built it as a general purpose amp in the early 90’s then in 1997 (see photo) I built it into an old tape recorder cabinet cobbled together with a hodge podge of different projects which included several relays, one valve (tube), five power supplies and a loud speaker from the late1950’s to make a very useful amp indeed! I used it for many a Prison Fellowship visit into jail in the trio El Camino and despite its heath Robertson nature and being shaken up on a bone rattling trolley it never let me down even surviving being dropped and landing upside down! Its only problem was it had so many controls I would get to the end of a gig and wonder why my sound wasn’t quite right to find a knob on the wrong setting!
After we’d stopped doing the prison visits it languished in my shed for a few years and when I fired it up last year I discovered that part of it had ceased to function and rather than trace the fault in it rats nest wiring pulled it to pieces and put the components aside for later.
My modern digital VOX ACD30 is great but somehow I feel I should be playing through something homemade and also I’m missing the thunderous roar of my old 100 watt monster so I’m rebuilding it (neatly this time!) into an old (digital!) 30watt amplifier cabinet, I’m not sure if I can shoehorn the old speaker in there yet!
Co-worker Graham is kindly building it a new neater Craig Anderton “Super Tone Control” circuit, I have already got the powers supplies into the new chassis.
Photos etc to follow!
For the geeky here is a list of its circuits: (so far!)
Germanium transistor “range master” booster (New to this build)
Preamp from a tiny Fender mini twin battery amp
“Super Tone Control” from the Craig Anderton book Projects for Musicians
Maplin Spring line reverb driver
“ line driver & 100 watt mosfet amplifier
I’ve just remembered that I want to put in a microphone input too so I can use it as a joint guitar amp and PA system like Carvin make. This is going to be an epic project!
I’ve just remembered that I want to put in a microphone input too so I can use it as a joint guitar amp and PA system like Carvin make. This is going to be an epic project!
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Last night I got my song Want and Need to work on the ukulele and it has given me the upbeat ukulele tune that I needed (or was that wanted?) so now I have a four song acoustic mini set finalised for the Gary’s club open mic in two weeks time.
I’ll play two on my Faith jumbo acoustic and two on the uke. No pew guitar or spinning speakers this time I’m concentrating on the songs! Just need to decide which order to play them in. and practice!
Set list:
Want and Need
The Last Days of Summer
Black River
The Grand Old Pier
Event details:
Admission £4 in advance or on the door.
Friday December 11th 2009
7.30pm for 8pm start, Coolham Village Hall, A272 nr Billingshurst, West Sussex RH13 8QN
Free tea & coffee available, bring your own mug.
(Performers slots now fully booked 11/09/09)
Event is open to general public, all welcome.
The stage will be full concert set up with lighting & PA. Seating with tables for audience members provided numbers fall within the fire regulations or it will be concert seating format.
Performers on Friday December 11th 2009
Stick In A Pot
Andrew Perry & Peter Clifton
Andy Stone
Dianan Plummer & Chris Wolferstan
Charlie Davies
Les Elvin
Headline performance 10pm - 10.30pm
'3 Of Us'
Please contact Gary on 01403 785674 for information.
I’ll play two on my Faith jumbo acoustic and two on the uke. No pew guitar or spinning speakers this time I’m concentrating on the songs! Just need to decide which order to play them in. and practice!
Set list:
Want and Need
The Last Days of Summer
Black River
The Grand Old Pier
Event details:
Admission £4 in advance or on the door.
Friday December 11th 2009
7.30pm for 8pm start, Coolham Village Hall, A272 nr Billingshurst, West Sussex RH13 8QN
Free tea & coffee available, bring your own mug.
(Performers slots now fully booked 11/09/09)
Event is open to general public, all welcome.
The stage will be full concert set up with lighting & PA. Seating with tables for audience members provided numbers fall within the fire regulations or it will be concert seating format.
Performers on Friday December 11th 2009
Stick In A Pot
Andrew Perry & Peter Clifton
Andy Stone
Dianan Plummer & Chris Wolferstan
Charlie Davies
Les Elvin
Headline performance 10pm - 10.30pm
'3 Of Us'
Please contact Gary on 01403 785674 for information.
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Mando-guitar to Mandolele in an hour!
How to make a Ukulele in an hour!
Bluey my 2nd mando guitar is no longer! No don't worry she's undergone a little tuning change and is now a double 6 steel string ukulele! (approximately concert size) I've changed a few string gauges around and she now tuned ADGCEA All the pairs are in unison but the extra A&D also tuned like the G in what Ukulele players call re-entery or in plain English an octave up from what you'd expect. So I play my standard guitar chords but have no bass but can now play melody lines on what usually are the bottom strings! Weird! Strum across the strings once and it sounds like twice! (Is that like Nashville style tuning Ed?) I just need t o replace all the stings I stole from Mando guitar Woody! (Who is made to a standard mando scale length but tuned DGCFAD and capoed to save string breakage!) I made Bluey shorter so she could easily tune up the whole octave but I choose Bluey to adapt mainly because being shorter her bass strings sound a bit duller and has a zero fret and so it's nut is therefore less fussy about string gauges. So the result is a new instrument in about an hour!
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Compareing the Ukulele! Simples!
Yesterday I went back to “Hobgoblin” my local folk music shop where I bought the tuners and strings for my uke because the staff there where curious to see how it turned out, I was slightly apprehensive bcz I knew I would want to try out some of the real ukuleles they had for sale and didn’t know if I was going to go away disappointed with my effort.
I needn’t have worried the cheap models weren’t much more than toys and only the pricy £206 ($312) one sounded immediately better than mine, it was louder as it projected the sound better but maybe the tone was a little too pure because to my ears mine still sounded warmer and I think sweeter. I was told mine has cheap strings on it too! They sat and played mine and seemed to love it! I don’t think they had a cigar box instrument in the store before and loved the novelty of being able to open the lid to alter the tone.. They even took my photo with to put on the shop wall! Maybe I can email them and get a copy.
So I came away feeling rather pleased with myself and my little rectangular uke!
(It still needs a name btw)
Anyway you can judge for yourself because here’s a little video I made with my new iPod nano, it’s so handy having a sleek multipurpose device that plays my mp3s (mainly artists I’ve found on myspace!) but also shoots video and records sound for recording song ideas! It’s worth every penny!
Btw I never use the headphones but plug it into my pc speakers at work.
Oh back to the video, I made it in my lunch break, what a div! That was my first attempt at “Don’t Worry-Be Happy”, I think I’ll practice it for the folk club but do I look irritatingly happy enough?(or at all) Maybe I should just do it with a dead pan face little like Jack Dee.(Don’t you dare make comments about Lead Balloons!) I could finish it off with a round of “I know a song that’ll get on yer nerves-get on yer nerves-get on yer nerves!” Know wot I mean Ellen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llMHta980go
And like in Nancy Kelly’s latest Dulcet Dreams blog I’ll have to just post a link because I can’t find the embed code either!
What have youtube done? Why can’t sites leave things alone!
I needn’t have worried the cheap models weren’t much more than toys and only the pricy £206 ($312) one sounded immediately better than mine, it was louder as it projected the sound better but maybe the tone was a little too pure because to my ears mine still sounded warmer and I think sweeter. I was told mine has cheap strings on it too! They sat and played mine and seemed to love it! I don’t think they had a cigar box instrument in the store before and loved the novelty of being able to open the lid to alter the tone.. They even took my photo with to put on the shop wall! Maybe I can email them and get a copy.
So I came away feeling rather pleased with myself and my little rectangular uke!
(It still needs a name btw)
Anyway you can judge for yourself because here’s a little video I made with my new iPod nano, it’s so handy having a sleek multipurpose device that plays my mp3s (mainly artists I’ve found on myspace!) but also shoots video and records sound for recording song ideas! It’s worth every penny!
Btw I never use the headphones but plug it into my pc speakers at work.
Oh back to the video, I made it in my lunch break, what a div! That was my first attempt at “Don’t Worry-Be Happy”, I think I’ll practice it for the folk club but do I look irritatingly happy enough?(or at all) Maybe I should just do it with a dead pan face little like Jack Dee.(Don’t you dare make comments about Lead Balloons!) I could finish it off with a round of “I know a song that’ll get on yer nerves-get on yer nerves-get on yer nerves!” Know wot I mean Ellen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llMHta980go
And like in Nancy Kelly’s latest Dulcet Dreams blog I’ll have to just post a link because I can’t find the embed code either!
What have youtube done? Why can’t sites leave things alone!
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Finished cigar box ukulele!
A quick update just to show it off now it's been varnished! Looking far more like a vintage musical instrument and less like something thats just been bought at Ikea!Hopefully I will be able to upload a video of it in action soon!
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