Spinny's Strumming Practice Redux

spinland
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Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:43 pm

NOTE: I changed the thread title because, rather than litter this forum with new threads every time I start working on a new song, I feel I should just collect my clips here.




I'm getting closer to having this tune in sorta-busking shape. Main issue is still working on smoothly forming that dreaded "F You" chord and that will only come from MOAR PRAKTUSS. Just gotta keep running through that passage over and over as many thousands of times as it takes until my fingers understand where they're supposed to go and do so smartly. The barre Bb is comparatively much easier.

I'm doing this song on my PRS because, frankly, I miss it and I want to make sure I give it equal time with my Grand Old Dame. I'm also running it through my new BOSS ME-80 multi effects pedal set up to give it a nice, clean acoustic tone.

[video type=youtube]bgz-n5q62z0[/video]

I'd be willing to bet money you've not heard of this song, and maybe not even the artist. They were very, very short-lived and obscure and I had a helluva time even finding a copy of the album online. Forget about tab or chord charts, had to arrange this entirely by ear. That's actually a good thing as the practice has been entertaining and fun. I'll spill the beans as to name and title when I'm ready to busk it; don't want to spoil the surprise. :silly:

More to come.

Mark


wrsomers
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 5:26 am

Hi Mark,
Thanks for posting an update on your techniques. In watching this video and reading your comments I noticed something that I think you need to work on. I refer you to Ness' video lesson to you a while back, particularly with regard to your wrist position at 9:00 in her video:



I seems you still have your wrist placed incorrectly. In my opinion, that is the reason you are having such a hard time with the F barre chord. As Ness pointed out, your palm/wrist needs to be supinated (palm parallel with the neck of the guitar). It appears to me that your palm is more at a 45 degree angle pointing to your right Bringing your right elbow closer to your side should go a long way to getting in the correct position.

Also, speaking as a golf teaching pro, I need to comment on your statement...,"MOAR PRAKTUS". Yes, practice is essential, but only when you practice correctly. Practice doesn't make perfect...practice makes permanent...only perfect practice makes perfect. In other words, and I will use a golf analogy here...if you go to the range and hit a bucket of balls with your driver hoping your slice will disappear by doing the same thing over and over, you'll only make that slice a permanent part of your game. (It's amazing how many people I've seen doing this. :huh: )

I hope this helps. Keep up the good work. :)

Bill


spinland
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 5:53 am

Morning, Bill!

Many thanks for that spot-on reminder!

Also, as a high-handicapper hack, please keep the golf analogies coming. Work perfectly on me! :side:

Mark


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daryl
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 7:01 am

Hey Mark. Gotta agree with Bill there about the wrist position. Also, I'd love to hear more about what your pedal box can do.

Edit: Did this video contain my "trick"? If so, it was quite subtle. What "nudge" value did you use?


spinland
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 2:05 pm

daryl wrote:
Hey Mark. Gotta agree with Bill there about the wrist position. Also, I'd love to hear more about what your pedal box can do.

Edit: Did this video contain my "trick"? If so, it was quite subtle. What "nudge" value did you use?
Hi, Daryl!

Yes, I used the pan/delay trick. Here's a couple of screenies of my DAW settings:

Image

The mono signal from the pedal box was split into two bus channels, one of those had delay added (31.3ms), and both were panned hard left/right before being combined into the final stereo output bus. That's all I did in the DAW, everything else was handled by the pedal box.

Here are the pedal settings I used for that recording (it's kind of a large image but i wanted the knobs to be easily visible):

Image

Quick run-down: clean preamp with low-mid gain and the treble dialed down a bit. Then the acoustic sim pedal (same as the BOSS AC-3 pedal). Then an EQ pedal but I left the settings all at 12 O'clock, didn't need to tweak more than what the preamp was already doing. Then a wee bit of room reverb followed by a tiny hint of tape delay, both put in to thicken the final tone a bit. Probably a bit south of US$800 worth of pedals if purchased separately, and that's only small subset of what this thing gives me access to. I'm busy working on this song but when I've recorded it my next project will be playing with my newly-wired acoustic to see what I can do what that tone, too. Thus far I'm really digging this new toy.

Mark


spinland
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 2:34 pm

wrsomers wrote:
As Ness pointed out, your palm/wrist needs to be supinated (palm parallel with the neck of the guitar).
Hi again, Bill! I performed miserably in all my educational coursework where things that were wiggly (biology) or smelly (chemistry) were involved. I knew that "supinated" is the opposite of "pronated" and that they involve body parts going bendy, but which was which was over my head (the "palm parallel" part helped a lot but the geek in me was unhappy about not grokking the terms).

Fortunately I talked to my buddy Google and he showed me this video:

[video type=youtube]ApLGhye21R8[/video]

Now ist Alles klar. I get a kick out of learning new stuff. :side:

Mark


sandysue
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 2:46 pm

You sound pretty good Mark. I just listened to that link to Vanessa that Bill posted for you. It was very helpful to me as well.

Sandy


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daryl
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 4:41 pm

Thanks for the detailed look. So tracks GL and GR are panned (mostly) left and right with the GR track delayed by ~30ms. But are tracks GuitarF1 and GuitarF2 playing as well? I don't see that they are muted. But then again I don't know your DAW.

Your pedal board looks VERY powerful. I'd loved to hear some different settings (when you have nothing else to do!). ;-)


spinland
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 5:55 pm

sandysue wrote:
You sound pretty good Mark. I just listened to that link to Vanessa that Bill posted for you. It was very helpful to me as well.
Thanks for the kind words, Sandy!

I'm enjoying this new journey so much, and this time I'm going to stick with it. Connecting with you guys is a huge part of that resolve (and fun).

Yeah, I was bowled over by Ness's detailed feedback, and clearly it's useful for me to continue to refer back to it. :blush:

Mark


spinland
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Wed Mar 22, 2017 6:14 pm

daryl wrote:
So tracks GL and GR are panned (mostly) left and right with the GR track delayed by ~30ms. But are tracks GuitarF1 and GuitarF2 playing as well? I don't see that they are muted. But then again I don't know your DAW.
That's just the mixer panel interface, and not the audio tracks; Logic has distinct windows for recording and for connecting the signal paths behind the scenes. It works much like a physical mixing board: you connect the aux tracks to each other however you want and then link in effects where you want them. F1 is just the jumping-off point that splits the mono signal into two streams so I can then use the GL and GR mixers to fold, bend, spindle or mutilate each independent of the other. They became left and right tracks when I set their pan values.

Those are actually panned 100% each direction, Logic uses MIDI notation for a lot of stuff, even controls that affect analog signals, and the control signal for panning goes from -64 to +63 which is the range of the MIDI Continuous Control channel for panning. The rationale is I could then control panning on the fly using any MIDI controller that can output CC signal to the proper channel.

Channel F2 is just an intermediate connecting point (The F stands for Funnel, helps me remember what they do in a complex rig; F1 is really a splitter but to me they come in pairs: one to split and one to rejoin) in the path that collects the left and right mono signals and outputs a merged stereo track to the final output channel that creates the final bounce (audio file). Of all that stuff, only the panning and delay are changes, everything else is a simple pass-through that has no effect on the signal. That set-up might be a bit overkill for such a basic alteration but I have a standard 32-track virtual mixing board that I use as a template for everything; I only connect enough tracks from that "board" to do what I want with the signal and the rest just let it pass through.

In theory I have over a hundred distinct bus channels available to me, and I can split, rejoin, redirect and connect them any way I want so I have complete control over the signal path and can then inject stuff wherever I want it. Professional sound engineers use the crap out of that power; I barely scratch the surface but I'm learning more almost daily.
Your pedal board looks VERY powerful. I'd loved to hear some different settings (when you have nothing else to do!). ;-)
Yeah, I think it's going to be a powerhouse (once I figure all this stuff out). I've gone through a lot of other less-able options coming to this point, and they all left me wanting. I don't want to fall into the rabbit hole of collecting stomp boxes, building a pedal board, crafting complex signal chains and wiring harnesses, and all that mess; this board promises to give me most of the tone-bending power of such a high-maintenance rig with plug and play convenience. :side:

Mark


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