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The Number 23
14 years ago
General
(Not starring Jim Carrey).
I'm getting too damn old haha.
So I turned 23 what is now yesterday. Pretty good day overall. I had been visiting my grandparents the past few days, after spending the long weekend at the family cabin, so I spent the morning there, drove home 3 hours back to Vancouver mid-day and then my buddy and his girlfriend invited me over and made my favourite for dinner, fettuccine alfredo. I've got plans to go downtown to Shabusen, a Japanese and Korean BBQ house, but have to make it into two trips to accommodate everyone's work schedules and availability, which is fine by me, I love going there. There's a kick ass band playing at the Railway Club Saturday night, so we're going down for that too.
While I was at my grandparents, I finally was able to finish my Moog Taurus MIDI pedals project, which I think has gone on well over a year. I can't remember when I bought the pedals and keyboard off eBay. I need to find out what's going on with the G#-C pedals though, that group isn't working for some reason, although I know it functioned fine after it was wired up, (although that was a while ago and it's been sitting, waiting for it's wooden enclosure. Aside from wiring problems, all it needs is another coat of black paint on the sides and around the top and she's done. I'll probably toss up a collage of pictures on here in the next few days.
I've been back from my travels for a bit of time now, came home on the 23rd of June. Haven't done a whole lot in the way of recording lately, even with all my free time, having quit my job before leaving. Even before I left, I was in a musical drought. I'm looking for studio work/a production company job, as I'm tired of doing jobs that get me nowhere closer to what I want to do and are purely just a means for monetary support, although a necessary evil. Gonna start making the moves this week.
I've been working good with my band though, which I should mention that I've got myself into my own band now. I'm playing both guitar and bass, switching off with the other guitarist. I may do a bit of keys as well, as there's some places in songs where I can jump on the keys for their little part, as my guitar part is just doubling up the other guitar. We've got a show lined up...I think. There's some discrepancy with the date and whether we're confirmed or not. The original date was the 20th of August, which then moved to the 27th, then I heard possibly all the way to September 30th! So, I'm not sure what's up with that. I'll try and find some more stuff before then hopefully. At least it'll give us time to practice and polish up our set, and find a dedicated synth player, or best case scenario, another multi-instrumentalist. That way we're ridiculously flexible in our instrumentation.
I may have a WIP or two that I never posted that I can toss up here, so as not to make this account look like a total ghost town in way of activity. I actually do have a recent short instrumental thing I made the day I had surgery on my foot last week, while the numbing was wearing away and I hadn't taken any painkillers to buffer it before it wore off. That was fun. Spent the entirety of the next day after unable to leave my bed, with my leg elevated. Any circulation to my foot would make it feel quite literally on fire, which the painkillers did shit-all for. Worse pain I have ever experienced. I can at least walk now. Was hobbling around for a few days after, but by this past weekend I was good to go and was riding dirt bikes through the wilderness, while wearing a spare pair of my friends comically huge shoes that could accommodate my bandaged toe. Went for a few really long rides last weekend, (which is the smart thing to do a few days after surgery right?), most notably a 53km trip last Sunday to the tops of several mountains and down so many little trails, which provided a spectacular view and was the highlight of my week for sure.
But ya, so that's a little update, I suppose. Got my fingers crossed for a music-related job, wish me luck!
Hope everyone's had a good summer so far!
I'm getting too damn old haha.
So I turned 23 what is now yesterday. Pretty good day overall. I had been visiting my grandparents the past few days, after spending the long weekend at the family cabin, so I spent the morning there, drove home 3 hours back to Vancouver mid-day and then my buddy and his girlfriend invited me over and made my favourite for dinner, fettuccine alfredo. I've got plans to go downtown to Shabusen, a Japanese and Korean BBQ house, but have to make it into two trips to accommodate everyone's work schedules and availability, which is fine by me, I love going there. There's a kick ass band playing at the Railway Club Saturday night, so we're going down for that too.
While I was at my grandparents, I finally was able to finish my Moog Taurus MIDI pedals project, which I think has gone on well over a year. I can't remember when I bought the pedals and keyboard off eBay. I need to find out what's going on with the G#-C pedals though, that group isn't working for some reason, although I know it functioned fine after it was wired up, (although that was a while ago and it's been sitting, waiting for it's wooden enclosure. Aside from wiring problems, all it needs is another coat of black paint on the sides and around the top and she's done. I'll probably toss up a collage of pictures on here in the next few days.
I've been back from my travels for a bit of time now, came home on the 23rd of June. Haven't done a whole lot in the way of recording lately, even with all my free time, having quit my job before leaving. Even before I left, I was in a musical drought. I'm looking for studio work/a production company job, as I'm tired of doing jobs that get me nowhere closer to what I want to do and are purely just a means for monetary support, although a necessary evil. Gonna start making the moves this week.
I've been working good with my band though, which I should mention that I've got myself into my own band now. I'm playing both guitar and bass, switching off with the other guitarist. I may do a bit of keys as well, as there's some places in songs where I can jump on the keys for their little part, as my guitar part is just doubling up the other guitar. We've got a show lined up...I think. There's some discrepancy with the date and whether we're confirmed or not. The original date was the 20th of August, which then moved to the 27th, then I heard possibly all the way to September 30th! So, I'm not sure what's up with that. I'll try and find some more stuff before then hopefully. At least it'll give us time to practice and polish up our set, and find a dedicated synth player, or best case scenario, another multi-instrumentalist. That way we're ridiculously flexible in our instrumentation.
I may have a WIP or two that I never posted that I can toss up here, so as not to make this account look like a total ghost town in way of activity. I actually do have a recent short instrumental thing I made the day I had surgery on my foot last week, while the numbing was wearing away and I hadn't taken any painkillers to buffer it before it wore off. That was fun. Spent the entirety of the next day after unable to leave my bed, with my leg elevated. Any circulation to my foot would make it feel quite literally on fire, which the painkillers did shit-all for. Worse pain I have ever experienced. I can at least walk now. Was hobbling around for a few days after, but by this past weekend I was good to go and was riding dirt bikes through the wilderness, while wearing a spare pair of my friends comically huge shoes that could accommodate my bandaged toe. Went for a few really long rides last weekend, (which is the smart thing to do a few days after surgery right?), most notably a 53km trip last Sunday to the tops of several mountains and down so many little trails, which provided a spectacular view and was the highlight of my week for sure.
But ya, so that's a little update, I suppose. Got my fingers crossed for a music-related job, wish me luck!
Hope everyone's had a good summer so far!
I thought I had the problem identified today with the pedals, but after re-soldering several loose or potentially loose wires, it seems to have reverted to an earlier problem of playing the wrong notes. I know why it's doing it, I just haven't figured out how to get it to go back to working. Cause it was working before all this enclosure construction. It did also just sat on the dining room table for about 3 months after it was finally wired and working though haha.
So...plan A is to get better solder tomorrow and re-do the trouble notes, (cause I think my re-soldering may have been piss-poor and the reason it's buggering up); and plan B is to use the circuit board that originally was on the organ pedals themselves. I had made my own simplified version, using a piece of what I think is Acetal with springs in the same spots they were on the original board and soldering one connection to each spring and is respective hook, which is screwed into each pedal and moves up, contacting the spring. This way I got out of trying to think of a way to get the common on the organ board to work with the commons on the keyboards circuit. But if re-doing my half-assed board doesn't work, I'll cut the common circuit between the points on the organ board and wire it up similarly to what I've got now.
It's just annoying that it was working 100% when it was first wired up. Now it just doesn't want to cooperate for whatever reason. Ehh, I'm sure I'll figure it out one way or another. Just trying to think how reliable this thing'll be if I ever gigged with it. So long as I can get it working and I don't fiddle with it afterwards, just lock it away in it's enclosure, I should be fine. Hopefully. Maybe?
I'm thinking the solder was too thick, it wasn't melting all that good. Not that it was super thick or anything, but it was notably thicker than what we used before. I've got some 0.8mm stuff, which is what I think we used when it was first wired up.
I may work on it today after I get my cavity dealt with this afternoon. In 23 years, this is my first. It's a running joke in my family that I got all the enamel, as everyone else has a mouthful of cavities.
Sorry, bad bad Blind Melon reference. I'll just be quiet now.