Some live guitar looping as a departure from the usual layered stuff - time to chill. Guitar used was a recently acquired Ibanez AF75
awesome ambient sounds:)
great one, I must spend more time listening to your music also!
Heavy shit! Nice one
Great use of effects: relied on Ebow, 'slow gear setting', as well as ye olde delay and reverb, of course.
Love the trippy vibes - using the looper there to bring in some cosmic debris that had accumulated - bring it then shut it down as I'm playing
Nice atmosphere and consistent themic playing. Great playing. Nice guitar. Comes into it's own on some of the deeper sounds and handles the treble well - it's where a hollow body arch top guitar with humbuckers is most happy, being that 'little orchestra'. When the sound is right, then you have to play very little - the sounds lead you; that's what happened here - a live one off improv.
I've just wired up a hollow body for the first time. Its an Epiphone Casino I got as a mini project as it was in a bad state with faulty pickups and it needed gutting. There was duct tape and velcro under the dogears! I've no idea yet whether the p90s will do a similar thing. I was amazed to find it all working properly when I'd finished stuffing things back through the f holes. Only trouble is I didn't realise until afterwards that the neck and bridge volume pots somehow got swapped over! It's not a high end guitar by any stretch but it'smy first guitar without a centre block.
One thing I like doing with the hollow body is putting a contact pick up on it too, and then mixing that in with the pick up sound. P90s should do the trick, but the sound will be different to the deeper hollow body with humbuckers along the 175 lines. One important factor is the floating wooden bridge on the latter. I think the Casino has the bridge screwed into the top. The floating bridge just adds to the overall resonance of the top. Of course, it presents some difficulties - you can't do wild bends without moving the bridge sideways! But the overall shimmer of an archtop with a floating bridge is something else. Put humbuckers on the top and the whole thing is making sounds before you even touch it.
The little synth/filter on the end works well.: actually I did a tiny stretch on the final chord to pull it out longer
Ah, wasn't sure how much post was flying!
Keep waiting for the bomb to drop.: don't know whether it's restraint or ennui: When in doubt, go for both!
The little fades and the call of silence works so well.: a call to silence, rather than a call to prayer ... I like that: Sometimes the best prayers are silence, as well!
As someone who just spent an hour in ebow echo, this is relaxing somehow.: ebow has to be one of the most important guitar inventions since the humbucker: It honestly does, to this day I don't understand why it's not more utilized. And I even have one of the allegedly reviled early 90s "hot" ones - I like it enough that it's been back to the mothership twice to have the switch replaced. Both times I asked if they could keep all existing electronics otherwise, and they did (and understood why)!
Sometimes the dogs must whine and the winds blow, sir.
: dogs begin to bark, and hounds begin to howl ...
Love this !Cosmic Whales indeedy - look what the Floyd started
this is without a doubt a lovely piece of music! Thank you
Lushness!
: Yeah - that is what the hollow body electric with the humbuckers on the body [rather than floating] has. I think I'm going to have a collection only of hollow and semis ... only thing is I need that Strat type trem ... I'm sure I saw a 335 with a strat type trem - was it one of Alvin Lee's tribute guitars?
Fascinating sound creation and shaping..I have an Ibanez very similar..a 185..love it..Can't do this with it though!
AK85, sorry..had to look it up :)
Yeah - Ibanez's coding for these models lacks some logic, but then apparently Gibson coded the ES 335 etc. according to the price - the 335 cost $335! I presume in the Ibanez line the A is for archtop ... yours is an excellent model - mine is the cheapest but even then its production values and quality are top notch
This outro is sublime! as it unfurled I remember half-thinking [I try not to think too much], 'mmm, will that work?' Damn right it will! It worked because it was made to work. One of the basic rules of improv.
Thinking is for the birds, sir!
I love hearing you in this stripped down and spontaneous context. Every bit as intense and musical as your more produced stuff, but I love the immediacy and spare qualities. - because the guitar is a 'small orchestra' in itself, there is something special about one guitar on its own. As soon as other instruments etc., are introduced, the guitar becomes more of a 'voice' among other voices.
umph!: slide and ebow together is a pretty deadly combination
When you say "added atmos", did you overdub at all, or was it all one take in real time, perhaps using an expression pedal to introduce some of the "background" sounds?: It's not far off all one take in real time, and I could've posted it like that and it wouldn't have been too different. It was hearing a really good guitarist called Ava Mendoza do just that which inspired me to play like that in the first place. But as I listened back to it, the producer in me wanted to add some birdsounds and low background reverb pad! I had to stop there!
: It was also part of a longer solo using a Boss looper station, so at times - in real time - I switch the looper on which had collected a fair bit of cosmic debris, and that shudders in - but I do that sparingly
: Well you did make it work, and it still does feel very pared down in a way I like. Thanks for pointing me to Ava. I didn't know her.
: bit of blues slips in there, as the slide reveals itself
That's a nice looking guitar, Bill and it sounds great. At first I thought you were using an eBow, but then realised it was a slide which you have used to great effect. The atmospheric backing is very David Lynch.
, I just developed a yearning for a hollow body guitar and thought that the Ibanez's are good value and good quality. It's like a Gibson 175 but with a rounded cutaway. You can get a fullness of tone on this that is fairly impossible on a solid body. It is actually a combination of Ebow and slide as well as fingers. I imagined that I threw the studio's windows open in the middle so you can hear the various riverside birds etc. flood in to the mic.
: So, my first impression was right! The Ibanez really does have an amazing tone. I must admit that I have never used anything other than a solid body electric (apart, of course, from some electro-acoustic meanderings). I might see if I can sneak a shot of one in my local guitar shop!
: Yeah - as you know, hollow body electrics fell out of favour due to feedback problems on stage with loud amplifiers. But even with a solid body, a good indicator of sound is how it sounds acoustically. So it seems to me that the more resonance you can build in the better. And I've always like that rich jazz tone - but there's also a lot of bite to the treble pick up too - it's just richer in every way. It's a more complete guitar. And very cheap for what it is. You would play a blinder on one.
interesting ?
Different too, to my usual tracks as this is just one guitar and I usually 'orchestrate' about 12 guitars at once! But doing something like this helps to reminds me that a single guitar is a 'small orchestra' in itself.
Oh ! I see that we understand each other, it is a bit like the accordion which is quite complete, and with effects pedals ... everything can change the situation!
lyrics
Whistling down the whale’s road.
... a land lubber’s lament.
I’ve had me fill a’ sailing the cosmic wave.
Let me drag me feet here on earth awhile,
And pick me a whale bone grave,
credits
from Viral Reality,
released October 14, 2017
Bill Boethius; Live solo guitar with some added atmos.
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