Recording for the next demos

Spent a couple of days in the studio this weekend working on the next set of Bethlehem Slouch demos. Took a few photos of James and put them on my Flickr page.

Rickenbacker 330/12 FG - revelations

So, I've had the Ric for 1 year and 5 months. Truly an item of luxury and craftsmanship. It puts the build quality of my other guitars to shame.

Since then I've tried the Pyramid strings that people rave about which had nice flatwound feel but terrible intonation, didn't fit in the nut of the guitar properly and were unbelievably expensive. I've now gone back and tried the Rickenbacker strings to find they have excellent intonation, even on the six saddle bridge. It must have been the strings that were originally on the guitar when I got it that were terrible. Maybe because they were at least a year old? Another strange thing about the strings is the gauges seem light at the bass end, but when strung up the tension still feels right.

When I changed the strings, I took the opportunity of setting the guitar up properly. With the 12-string, just changing the strings is a mammoth task, so why not go the whole nine yards? After a little research on the Rickenbacker website I discovered that instead of having relief in the neck, Rics are meant to have an absolutely straight neck! So off with the bridge cover, off with the truss rod cover and to work with a nut driver and the allen keys. But what did I find?

When I originally got the guitar, it was meant to have been set up professionally. Removing the truss rod cover revealed some terrible sins. Whoever set the guitar up had not adjusted the truss rods incorrectly but had done so with a spanner and left large scars down the soft metal. For a guitar that was sold to me as being brand new, this is a bad thing. Maybe the lesson here is to buy from a reputable Rickenbacker dealer and no to go for the bargains?

Anyway, using the proper tool (an imperial nut driver) I managed to take out the relief from the neck that the previous 'professional' had put in and get the neck completely straight. I then tuned the guitar up to pitch and checked the intonation, corrected that, tuned to pitch, checked the relief, detuned the strings, adjusted the truss rods (different amounts on each one) and repeated ad nauseam until I was satisfied (quite a long while after). For the relief, I found the point where I had a very slight amount of relief on both sides of the neck and then adjusted each truss rod back ever so slightly until it only just disappeared.

Now with the guitar set up as it should be, straight neck, intonating nicely on all string pairs and with fresh strings I had a play. It was like having a completely different guitar. From a slow feeling and difficult neck with pairs of strings that went relatively out of tune with each other as you played higher to a slinky beast that feels fast, has almost no buzz and stays in tune all the way up the neck.

Amazing what a little research and effort can do. And a raised middle finger to that unprofessional 'professional'.

I've waited 18 years to be able to get one of these

OMFG. Luxury, with 12 strings. Truly a piece of craftmanship.
A Rickenbacker 330/12 in FireGlo.

Don't attempt this when drunk ...

... because I did.

I replaced the battery in my 3rd generation iPod last night. I ordered a new one online from a UK battery reseller for only £20. It arrived in a baggie with just the battery and two plastic tools for opening the iPod up. Nothing else. No instructions. Nada.

So here is the online video showing you how to replace an iPod battery. WARNING! 16MB movie!

Notice how easily the iPod comes apart for this guy. It took me ages of fiddling and nearly breaking the plastic chopstick before mine came apart. Every time I got the tool round to the other side, the opposite side would click back together! Arrghh! You also need really small and slender fingers to undo the battery clip and the hard drive connector, once you've got the little **** apart. It's an amazing miracle of modern technology just how small the components inside of it are.

But still, I managed it after about half an hour! So, it's fixed, it's working and the battery lasts the whole day again just like when it was new! I'm a happy man. And I saved £70 on Apple's ridiculously high UK iPod replacement battery prices.

But I have to reiterate. Don't attempt it when drunk. It's scary.

17th of July: Non-Photography Day

Someone's been flyposting in Brighton that 17 July is Non-Photography Day. "CELEBRATE THE MOMENT DON'T DOCUMENT IT". It turns out that it's 'Becca, a Brighton based photographic artist'. Hmmm.

So, being a perverse kind of chap, I thought it would be a great idea to create a Flickr group especially for it! So, I go off to check and of course someone's beaten me to it. Twice.

But neither of them have hit on my great twist! For my group you can only post pictures of people taking pictures on non-photography day!! Pictures of people flouting the essentialness of celebrating the moment!!!

But then I got bored and didn't do it. Oh well.

I know it's the sixth month of the sixth year but really!

Is my Joy of Tech widget trying to tell me something?

Me vs. Hedge trimmers ... score 0-1

I broke the hedge trimmers again last night when cutting Mum's hedge. After last years excellent 'cutting of the power cord extravanga' (I did it twice), this year we have 'trying to cut a metal pole that happenned to be in the hedge' (wah?) which bent the blade and caused the whole thing to jam solid. I don't think that this power tool was designed for me. Mum kindly said I was the only one who had problems with the trimmers because I was the only one who cut the hedge!

If I ever venture in the vicinity of a circular saw, please knock me unconcious before I get too close.

If you're wondering, I bent the blade back with the help of a small chisel, a club hammer and a vice. Nice.

... and who would you like to do business with?

The scruffy one with the sneakers, hands in his pockets, jeans that are too long, unshaven face and smart-arse attitude
or
the one with the shiny shoes, nice suit, clean shaven and quite a bit more humble attitude?

Back to the old school

Had a look in my cupboard the other day. There at the bottom covered by a plastic bag was my old guitar amp, a Park 20 Watt Vintage Combo L.E. Last time I used it (7 years ago?) it made a few spluttering sounds and a fizzling noise then refused to do anything else. I've tried looking on the 'net for information about it without any luck at all. About the only information I can find is that the original Park amplifiers were made by Marshall from about 1965 to 1980 to get around a distribtion agreement with Rose Morris. The insides of the amp are meant to be identical to similar Marshall models from the same period, so the nearest thing I can find is the 1974 Lead & Bass, 20W 1x12" combo. These were made between 1967 and 1974. It's possible that my amp may have been made during that period, but I have a feeling that it's a bit later due to the 'Vintage' tag on the amp. Maybe Marshall was using up spare parts of the other combos? I bought the thing in the late 80s from a second-hand guitar shop in Brighton for about £70.

I thought I really should try to get this thing fixed. It was the main part of 'my guitar sound' for so many years that it would be a shame to leave it languishing at the bottom of the cupboard. I pulled the valves out of the back of the amp and had a Google to see which valves I'd need. Luckily the smaller pair of the four valves inside had the code ECC83. The larger pair took a bit of digging until I found out they were EL84 or 12AX7. So a quick trip down to the local guitar store and I returned with four shiny new valves manufactured by Electro Harmonix and made in Russia. Cost me a pretty penny too. Way over the dollar to pound conversion on the Electro Harmonix website.

So tonight I'm taking it on a little trip down the rehearsal studio to see how it performs after all these years. Fingers crossed there won't be any spluttering or fizzing this time.

Garden Snail

Garden Snail
Originally uploaded by Dan Burgess.

Took this photo with my new Fuji Finepix S7000. It has a great super-macro setting, as you can see. I really like the small depth-of-field that the macro setting has.

It had just finished raining and all the snails in my Mum's street had decided to come out and have a scoot around. This one was going up the wall and trying to get into the garden. The picture was taken from above looking down.