Award Sounds Music, Photography and Consultancy

Episode 2 of Venn has been released.
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I've been looking for a nice small electronics project so I took some time out to build a new guitar fx pedal. I've never really seen the point of a fuzz pedal, always seemed to deteriorate the signal too much for my liking. I do like boost pedals, especially nice clean ones that push the preamp just to the point where it starts to distort the signal nicely.

Triboost  read more »

I've been on the look-out for a Sci-Fi movie series a to get involved with. I wanted a side-project and after coming across a few old books I read and a few movies, I decided on the Space Opera theme. Lots of scope for over-the-top thematic music, a bit of rock and some atmosphere.

New Haven

I picked the New Haven project (previously known as Ticonderoga) as it fitted everything I was looking for out of a side-project. This had to fit alongside the normal jobs and projects.  read more »

Compressors are regularly used to tame errant dynamics or to increase the perceived volume of a track. As well as squashing the audio, the compressor can be used to bring out some elements more than others.

Letting the attack through  read more »

However, I love putting an ordinary audio track through a plug-in and working through the presets, especially those presets that it's not designed for.  read more »

Mention an octaver to a musician, especially a guitarist, and you're heading for a conversation about Hendrix.

It can be used for other styles. So here's a quick trick for writing funk. Forget the bass when you start. I half-expected to get lynched, but bear with me, at least until the end.

Background

I like the old P-funk of Funkadelic and Parliament. I think what made me hear it more was the inclusion of a distorted guitar in a funk show. This was often played in sync with the bass guitar.

Setting the groove  read more »

I've recently received the video for the 1st episode of Venn (the previous release was a pilot and called Episode 0)

Again the episode is by Spinneyhead Presents. Episode 1 picks up from that and plays on the theme of the celibacy bet. The content is better than Episode 0, the scripts are better and from my perspective, the audio is so much better. It's definitely better than the first series, Memory.  read more »

I've talked about tremolo as a musical feature before, this time I want to go into more detail.

First things first, let's sort out the guitarists: I don't mean using the tremolo arm/whammy bar or whatever you want to call it ("handle" as my girlfriend called it - and no she won't be picking up my guitars for a while). The whammy bar creates a vibrato feature, not a tremolo. Vibrato alters pitch.

Amplitude  read more »

13. Meet Other people

13a avoid being recluse

Composing music can be a solitary activity. For some that works, for others it can be a lonely experience. Whatever the perspective, it can quickly turn into isolation. Collaborating with others reduces the isolation.

13b friends

I've met most of my best friends through music and music-related activities. Some of the people I met as acquaintances have turned into good friends over time.  read more »

Even arranging a loan with your bank manager is a form of collaboration. Ok, it's a purchase of a product by you from them, but if responsible, then the bank should be acting in partnership with you. I'm working on a few projects where I can see finances becoming an issue in the medium term. I could also see a few of the project members funding their own areas. None could fund the whole project, but as each could fund their own area, the project could still work. It's like pooling resources but more controlled.

8. Opportunities  read more »