It annoyed me that I’d made the snare too prominent on this so I’ve knocked out a new version and taken the opportunity to make the second bit of vocals marginally less bad.
Titlewise relevant text…
A Shade Loud On The Snare Drum
Man Of Arun
Noise from the late 2010s on
A Little Night Music No. 9
I shall now probably only play acoustic instruments for the next decade.
And what has now become traditional the accompanying backing track version.
A Little Night Music No. 8
When I say music…
The usual suspects are joined by a Source Audio Super Collider delaying and reverbing at the end of the signal chain. Or not quite the end as there be a Digitech JamMan Solo XT recording the outcome. Continuing the Digitech theme a Polara provides the reverse reverb.
The Poly Effects Bebo is mainly for delay in quantity at the following lengths: 31, 32, 96 and 128 seconds. Some chorus and phasing is included for good measure. (Patch photo at the end of the video).
The Zoia is running ‘Parts’ by who else but Christopher H. M. Jacques: ’10 … loopers probabilistically record and play back … depending on a “Density” control. The loops are randomly panned throughout the stereo field, and can be set to different pitches and reversed.’ It is that very Density control I can be seen twiddling.
Today’s guitar is a new old stock DBZ Royale ST as knocked out by Scan Computers in the UK at very reasonable rates (if you can still be bothered to fight your way past Cloudfront Captchas). It’s thin and lightweight but a gnats neck heavy. I got is specifically to set up with very thin strings and ludicrously low action to be easy to play when my shoulder and wrists aren’t in the mood for anything with more resistance.
Speaking of heavy it comes with high output humbuckers – fine for energetic styles but replaced on mine with the more mellow Warman Retro Rockers.
There is also a longer, and though it’s hard to believe, duller version of this on the channel as I had uploaded it before realising the folly of my ways.
Man Of Arun – Felt Part 3 (2017)
Originally the light relief in a forty five minute track it’s presented here extracted and mucked around with. The video was made using state of the art (in 2001) audio visualisation technology originally developed as the Milkshake plugin for WinAmp and here implemented for cross platform use by ProjectM.
Other than the sequenced backing all the synth parts are from sticking the bass and guitar parts through Jam Origin Midi Guitar II.
From Happy Fun Tunes
Man Of Arun – The Streaming Suite
Seemed apt.
From the EP of a different name…
Man Of Arun – Wait A Minute
Still knocking out the videos to have something to put on YouTube.
As seen on…
Man Of Arun – Bandcamp (Slight Return)
In the olden days, 2019, I did a tune bemoaning people using Bandcamp as a shop window and selling elsewhere. Doesn’t happen so much now, can’t think why. I did dull video for it recently just to have something to put on YouTube and Bandcamp No Fee Friday seemed an apt time to publish it.
A Little Night Music No.2
During which which I finally succeed in recreating the sound of a cheap children’s ‘mooing’ toy using hundreds of pounds worth of equipment.
On an interesting Sound On Sound podcast interviewing a developer of Yamaha’s FM synths they mentioned the FS1R module, one of which I bought around the turn of the century when they were going cheap having not proved popular. On that prompt I looked up what they were being sold for these days and after getting over the shock I dragged mine out for a noodle.
Backing comes courtesy of an Argon 8M and Arturia Microfreak (C’est chic).
Made up on the spot – hard to believe I know.
What I’d forgotten was that the FS1R has the elusive MIDI Mode 4 allowing each string to have its own channel meaning amongst other things better tracking and independent pitch bend. A bit like MIDI Polyphonic Expression does today and allowing you to play in a more guitar like manner. (I may go wild and do a video at some point that demonstrates that rather more obviously than the one here.)
Perhaps of note is that the Yamaha synthesizer and Roland GR33 I’m using to convert the signal from the hexaphonic pickup on the guitar to MIDI are twenty year old technology. (Hexaphonic means it picks up each of the six strings individually for later processing. Some very clever modern pedals and software can work out individual notes from a standard guitar output but there are still some things that can’t be deduced using that method).
The Cyclone II is of similar vintage with some modern accoutrements, most recently Wilkinson WLS130 locking saddles which are a great aid to tuning stability on an old fashioned Fender type of tremolo unit if you’re attempting extreme wobbles. It also has a LSR roller nut, Graphtec string tree and locking tuners I stuck on over a decade ago and can’t remember what they are.
The Cyclone shouldn’t be confused with the Squier reissue which has Stratocaster rather than Jaguar pickups and most importantly lacks the go faster stripes of the original.
Man Of Arun – Fallen (2019)
Man Of Arun – Indiecompetent Band (2019)
I’ve been knocking out videos for some of the Bandcamp stuff to stick ’em on YouTube. Just words and chords.
