Twin Creeks Fall Carnival 2016
Fun time with the Drop Daddies on Friday, playing a set with the Twin Creeks Elementary chorus at their Fall Carnival.
- Blogging
- Electronics
- Gear Diary
- Geek
- Gigs
- Guitar
- Guitar Circuit Wiring
- Guitar Potentiometers
- Guitar Preamp Cable
- Guitar Tone Capacitors
- Guitar Treble Bleed
- Korg
- modwave
- Music Production
- Other
- Pedal Building
- Photo and Video
- Semi-Hollowbody Electronics
- VOX AC15
- Wave Away
- Wavestate
- Wood
Sunglasses for the HD500X
My band plays a number of outdoor gigs every year, and I usually need to wear sunglasses to survive the gig.
Aside from the sunlight-triggered-wah-freakout issue I wrote about last year, the HD500X works fairly well in the sun. The light rings around the footswitches tend to disappear in bright light, but the main display seems to maintain reasonable visibility.More
Walk to End Alzheimer’s 2016
Proud to have been a part of the Walnut Creek to Walk to End Alzheimer’s again with the Drop Daddies – our third year!
DIY Guitar Pedal Building Series
My 2012 series on DIY Guitar Pedal building continues to draw visitors to planetz. I just went through and updated a few stale links, and I noticed that I never really posted entire table of contents for the series. So here it is. I also added these links to the top of each page. Better late than never!
- Intro to DIY Pedal Building
- Beginner’s Course in Sketchup, Modeling a 125B Guitar Pedal Enclosure
- Drilling a 125B Guitar Effects Pedal Enclosure
- Pedal Enclosure Finishing: Surface Prep, Priming and Painting
- Using GIMP to Create Pedal Artwork
- Printing and Applying Waterslide Decal to Pedal Enclosure
I also made a youtube playlist: DIY Guitar Pedal Building
Danville 4th of July Parade
Parade Banners
My band is looking forward to playing in this year’s Kiwanis 4th of July Parade in Danville. We’ll be on a huge flatbed truck, so we need some big banners. I prepared a modified version of our business card as vector graphics pdf, and sent it to this company BingBanners down in LA. I orderd two 3’x6’ vinyl banners, very reasonably priced, and the banners showed up the next day!
The logo is printed over a dark eggplant-purple color, and I wasn’t sure how it would turn out on vinyl, but they turned out fantastic! And I’m sure we’ll be able to use these at other gigs as well.
Here’s the artwork:
Followup: here’s how the banner looked on the truck in the parade. Maybe we should’ve gone even bigger!
Jerrel’s 50th Birthday Gig
St. Patricks’ Day Gig 2016
Ultimate Guitar Stand
I’ve used the classic A-frame OnStage stand forever, but its time to upgrade to something better! There have been too many near misses, where my guitar nearly fell off its stand. And, these strange reactions between the foam and the guitar finish are just not worth it.
This is the Ultimate Support GS-1000 Pro. It has a very unique design with a sturdy asymmetric tripod base and telescoping top yoke that basically guarantees that the guitar won’t tip over.
Working With DL32R Multi Track Audio
One of the great features of our Mackie DL32R mixer is the ability to record rehearsals and gigs in fully independent multi-track audio.
We don’t have a sound guy in my band, so this feature lets us record the soundcheck at a gig, then walk out front and play it right back. We can listen to it in the room from the audience perspective, adjusting the channel levels and EQ as necessary. Much easier than trying to walk out front while playing!More