Words and Music by….
Great quote from Colin Newman ( guitarist/singer with the band “Wire” ) in this month’s Tape Op magazine :
I asked an engineer I used to work with in the ’80′s how he mixed records. I asked, “What are your tips about how to mix a record?” He said, “Don’t put the bass too loud.” I said, “Is that it?” He said, ” The rest is all personal taste”.
“Partial Bio”…some more detailed info…underlined links are CLICKABLE in case you don’t know who some of the things on the page are about.
Sorry if I left anyone out.
A few months back, my son and I visited Paul Dowd at his office in Bronxville NY where he demonstrated and explained (in layman’s terms) an amazing invention that he helped to develop called the Evertune bridge for the electric guitar. It replaces the original bridge on the guitar and there is some additional drilling on the back of the guitar to accommodate it.
Despite our best efforts to abuse the strings with insane stretches and pulls,the guitar stayed perfectly in tune.
Paul recommended several luthiers that are experienced in installing the piece and we decided to go with Frenster in California. Fren did an incredible job and went overboard in giving his time to make sure that we knew how to keep it maintained when changing strings (not hard at all ,once you get the concept).
I don’t know why this isn’t on every professional player’s electric guitar….It works flawlessly.
Hard to get back into the swing but coming around slowly. Lots going on..
Stay tuned.
I lost my brother to brain cancer recently…and I have lots of photos that I could put up here..but this one kind of sums him up for me…being cool but not taking himself seriously,while being enough of his own man (and style setter) to be wearing loafers with white socks at the beach.
One of his (and my) closest friends, Lee “Train” Zimmerman writes a great music blog…he has graciously allowed me to post it:
Backstage in South Florida
Bye Bye Buddy
Music vet and New Times scribe Lee Zimmerman shares stories of memorable rock ‘n’ roll encounters that took place in our local environs. This week: An indelible influence.
When somebody appears especially down in the dumps, an old adage finds others asking, “What’s wrong? You look like you just best friend!” I should know, because last week I lost my best friend.
Sorry, but you’ll have to indulge my feelings here. Although this column focuses on past musical encounters, I feel obliged to offer reflections on my pal – my brother, really – Rob Noble, a guy I’ve known for most of my life, ever since I was 17 and he was 15 and we were both attending school in the Virgin Islands. However, in remembering Rob, the Backstage theme isn’t really lost at all. In fact, when it comes to recounting the great musical moments of my life, my friendship with Rob is first and foremost.
You see, Rob was a rock star, at least in spirit, a terrific guitarist and drummer who was fanatical about music and the musicians that made it. He had both the look (imagine a cross between Eddie Van Halen and the early Keith Richards) and the attitude that sets certain people apart, and while he never made it big on his own, he was a much in demand sound man in his later hometown of Nashville. His clients included the Mavericks, the Oak Ridge Boys and guitarist Andy Summers, whom he worked with in his post Police solo tours. As kids, we’d spend hours listening to the new albums of the era, Jimi Hendrix’s Axis Bold As Love, Cream’s Disraeli Gears, and early efforts by Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. We’d hang out, reading the latest copies of Hit Parader magazine or jam, Rob and his younger brother Matt (now a producer and songwriter who’s worked with Southside Johnny, Paul Schaffer, Robin Trower and Procol Harum, among many others) playing guitars and me ineptly bashing away on drums. In fact, it was Rob who taught me to play. Although I’m right-handed and he was a lefty, I followed his lead and learned to play left-handed, which I still do to this day.
Yet even so, Rob’s greatest impact on me — the most profound thing he ever taught me – was his absolute irreverence. He simply didn’t take anything – or anyone – too seriously. People who were pompous and pretentious were his most frequent targets, but he loved people who could make him laugh, either purposely or unawares. We’d crack each other up all the time, often aiming our barbs at others we think were way too impressed with themselves, but for whom we personally we just didn’t care. Ironically, I was initially Rob’s target, well before I even had a chance to get to know him. I was new at school, having just arrived from the far more conservative suburban environs of Dallas Texas, and for some inexplicable reason, I figured it would be cool to refer to myself by my middle name “David” as opposed to “Lee.” No sooner did Rob get wind of this then he threw out a mocking taunt. “Hey DAVE!” he sneered, teasing me for daring to change my name. “Who is that bully?” I thought. Yet somehow, soon after that we connected, and from that point on we were practically inseparable.
Consequently, I have to say in retrospect that Rob was the greatest influence ever on my attitude and outlook on life. Despite age, responsibility, job obligations and all the other accoutrements that accompany “maturity,” I’ve never lost that philosophy that Rob taught me – mainly, to not take myself or anyone else too seriously, to maintain a healthy sense of irreverence, and never, ever to lose my love of music and all it entails. Rock ‘n’ Roll rules, and thanks to Rob, in my mind it always will.
It’s rare that friends who know each other for over four decades should keep in touch all those years and reconnect like there was never any lapse of time. Despite the fact that I lived here in South Florida and Rob made his way through Fort Lauderdale, Virginia and eventually Nashville, where he eventually settled, we spoke frequently and visited with one another whenever the opportunity arose. We shared a certain shorthand that allowed us to instantly know where the other was going conversation-wise, and when we discussed our mutual memories, it seemed like they were only yesterday.
Rob’s move to Nashville worked well for him. Appearance-wise, he evolved from a big-haired rock ‘n’ roller into a country gentleman, and with his gray hair and wizened countenance, he began to resemble other Nashville denizens like the great Guy Clark and the late Townes Van Zandt. When Rob discovered he had a brain tumor last fall, he never gave up or resigned himself to defeat. He maintained a stalwart sense of humor and even outright optimism. I visited him last January and he was clearly not looking well, the result of radiation, chemo and the fact that he had lost much of his movement on his right side. Nevertheless, his indomitable spirit never failed him, even when an onslaught of pneumonia brought his remaining time down to mere days and hours. Matt told me that on his last day on earth, he woke up singing while insisting that he was preparing himself for a journey back home. As always, Rob took things in stride.
I’m going to miss Rob more than I can ever express. But I console myself with the fact that his mettle and mindset will always inform my own. Rock on Rob, you’re here in my heart forever.
It’s true..you never get over the thrill of a new toy.
But this little sucker is quite a useful “piece of kit”,as they say across the pond. Aside from the usual suspects of apps, I found a full featured midi wifi connected,touch sensitive mixer/controller from Saitara Software.
The tech support from Colin is amazing..and it’s under $ 10.00 from the app store. Nothing short of revolutionary..ohhh..and it works with Pro Tools (and most,if not all,of the major music DAWs).
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention these beasts…basically,each module was a DX 7 without a programmer (which I did wind up with..it didn’t help,with the DX 7 synth programming conventions being only slightly less cryptic that the hieroglyphics in a pyramid).
Their total lack of flexibility gave them a very short shelf life in my already overstocked rack.
That being said,they did provide THAT FM 7 SOUND and were built like battleships.
How did I leave these guys out?!?
From Ensoniq, this was the sampler with a sequencer built in. If I remember correctly,I was running them in tandem via MIDI for 16 CHANNELS!! I had a nice library for this unit (on 3.5″ floppy discs) and internal memory maxed out at 26 seconds Mono. Editing the samples and the navigating the sequencer was pretty easy…but the limited number of tracks (plus having a bazillion floppies around) made the MPC pretty appealing.
The next generation of this keyboard was christened the ASR and hung in there for quite some time as the sampler of choice for many hip hop producers.
