New Music in a New Year

The days leading up to and into the new year have been busy at Man's Game Studio, which is where we are working on Ryan Traster's first full-length album as a solo artist. The core ensemble of Ryan, myself, Peter Anderson, and Jim O'Neill is back with Nick Johnson in on bass and a number of guests. As seen in the photo we are also frequently joined by Sadie, my Great Pyrenees.

At the moment, we have drums, bass, rhythm guitar, and some vocals finished, but a unique issue has arisen in the process. This is the first project we've done without an outside producer, and while the total freedom is nice, the lack of another editing voice has been a challenge. Ryan's EP, The Tourists, was tracked mostly live on a tight budget and timeline, meaning that we truly had to live or die by the few performances of each song that we got. Having our own space to record has given us (maybe too much) time to mull over details.

We'll be taking a few days off this week for some performances, which will include Ryan sitting in with Jim's group tonight at the Aster Cafe on St. Anthony Main and another Music Sketch event this Friday with Patrick Kemal Pryor. I'm especially looking forward to using my new Epiphone Mandobird with Jim's group and seeing the results of another Music Sketch.

Me As A Pilot Full-Length Available Now

Meraki, the debut full-length from Me As A Pilot and the first complete project recorded at my own Man's Game Studio is available now via iTunes and other digital outlets. I play electric guitar and lap steel in the group, and we had a very fun release show last weekend. A handful of videos from the show are currently on YouTube and Facebook, and will soon be linked here as well.

Totally Tiple-less

My birthday recently passed, and I had initially wanted to pool any gift money into an interesting new instrument purchase. Enter the tiple. The tiple first came to my attention in the current issue of the Fretboard Journal, which features an article written by a man named Ed Askew that is a sort of ode to the instrument. Intrigue sat in, and I set about looking for a tiple.

From the description in the article, a tiple seemed like a rather modest instrument; similar in size and tuning to the ukulele, but with a unique arrangement of strings that yields four sets of courses. I took to the internet to begin looking, and I quickly learned a few things about the tiple. First, the tiple exists in many forms, with one of the more common being the South American instrument most closely related to the guitar family, and another being the American anomaly that had been part of the ukulele craze of the early 20th century. Second, tiples are quite uncommon. Now I was really interested.

A simple search of items available for sale online reveals that the primary tiple in production and available in North America today is one in the South American style, which is made in the famous guitar town of Paracho, Mexico and sold under a handful of brand names. This tiple has four courses, each of which is tripled (for a total of 12 strings), and it is often tuned to the highest four strings of a guitar. This tuning in conjunction with a more guitar-like body shape has long made the tiple a member of the guitar family within traditional South American musical forms. While the Paracho models available appear to be reasonably well made, they seem to more or less occupy a position of novelty in the market, and I was interested in something that might stand as a better investment.

My first thought was that there may be some tiples floating around the vintage market, possibly brought back from travels abroad or sold off as curiousities. When it comes to a world perspective, I knew that Andy's Music in Chicago would be a great first call. Andy's specializes in a dizzying array of instruments that span many cultures and eras, and I was confident that they would at least know what a tiple was. They did, but sadly, they only had a new Paracho model, and an antique Italian piece that wasn't quite what I was looking for or could afford. Not deterred, I continued to make phones calls, and began to learn more about the tiple's strange existence in America.

The American tiple is typified by the instruments produced by Martin beginning in the early part of the 20th century, although a handful of other companies also produced similar models around that time. These tiples feature ukulele-type bodies and scales, as well as a different take on the four courses of strings. On these tiples, the outer two courses are doubled, with the inner two sets tripled for a total of 10 strings, and it is tuned like a ukulele (some instruction books at the time were actually marketed as primers in ukulele and tiple). This is the instrument that most vintage dealers in the country are familiar with, although they don't often have them for sale.

Now confident that my best shot at a tiple would be an American style instrument on the vintage market, I called a few shops in town looking for suggestions. I gathered a short list of names of some of the prominent acoustic instrument dealers around the country, and I put my free long distance to work. My call to Mandolin Brothers was met with a quick "not a one", followed by an offer to contact an individual who may have had a Regal tiple for sale. I gave my contact information, but I had to accept the lack of a response as confirmation of another dead end. The gentleman at Gruhn actually said "good luck", so I knew that was a bad sign. Then, while digging through pages and pages of tiple-related search results online, I came upon the website of Vintage Mandolin, a small vintage instrument business run by a man named Charles Johnson in Virginia. As if I hadn't faced enough roadblocks, my computer wouldn't display the entire page, so I could see in the search result that a tiple was mentioned, but I could see what was included in the inventory. I did however find a phone number, and I wasted no time in calling. I was somewhat surprised when a woman answered, who quickly identified herself as Mr. Johnson's wife, and she happily gave me his cell phone number to reach him while he was out. Another call made, and I had a man on the phone who had not one, but two Martin tiples.

Happy as I was to have finally found some of these instruments, this phonecall was the beginning of the end in my search for a tiple. Vintage Mandolin had one Martin tiple from the 1920s that had seen many years and a fair amount of repair/refinish work, and it was considered a steal at just under a $1000. While that was out of my price range, it was nothing compared to the other tiple for sale, which was a brazilian rosewood Martin from the 1950s, priced at well over $3000. I quickly realized that this would not be the way to go for a decently made, fun little instrument, but I was very thankful for the time Mr. Johnson took in discussing some of the details of the instruments and their history. It reminded me that no amount of sifting through web pages can replace a simple conversation with someone willing to share what they know about a given subject, and while I may not have a tiple, I do have a better understanding of why this is so.

In Search: Part 2

Having tried an amplifier that had everything I wanted and more in the Two-Rock, it was time for me to return to Earth to find a more practical solution. I thought more about it, and reminded myself that what I was initially interested in was the sound of Fender's mid-60s amplifers, known as "blackface" models. So what better to do than to go back to the source, and again try to find a vintage piece that I liked and could afford.

Since I had exhausted my list of usual shops, I was left with one place that I thought might reasonably have something I would like. This store truly defines the hole-in-the-wall label: a narrow, cluttered space with gear stacked in ways that actually disguise pieces from view. Here, it really is a search. I had been to the shop numerous times before, where they often would have some intriguing guitars, or an amp or two of interest. On this day however, the stars seemed to have been aligned in my favor. I walked in and looked down, and there I saw a literal pile of Fender blackfaces. A Deluxe Reverb, a Princeton, and a Princeton Reverb sat among some later silverface amps and reissues. A happy surprise indeed.

I plugged in a few of these, but I still wasn't hearing what I wanted. I took another look around, and then I got more curious, and started looking behind amps that concealed others against the wall. It was then that I spotted the faceplate of a blackface Super Reverb. After pulling it out and playing through it for a while, I was convinced enough to place it on hold for a day and return with some pedals. The next day, I was still impressed, and to my good fortune, the store was having a small sale that put the amp within reach. It's been a joy to play since, and I can clearly see why these Fender amps have become the foundation upon which so many boutique makers have built. Just the right features doing just the right things and going strong 40 years on. I look forward to using it in the studio on a couple of projects this summer, and maybe getting the volume past 3 . Here's to the search.

In Search: Part 1

Sometimes knowing what you want is far worse than the alternative. A case in point would be my search for a guitar amplifier, which quite thankfully came to an end last week. For years now I've bought, sold, and borrowed amps in an attempt to find that one that would best suit my taste and needs. The problem was that for the majority of those years, I didn't really know what I was looking for. I'd plug in briefly, strum something, and decide that it would do for the time being. Without fail, further exploration would reveal something unpleasant about the tone or character of the amp, and out it would go. Over the course of the last few months, I finally sold off everything but a Fender Blues Junior, and set about finding the amp for me.

I began with a rather general premise, which held that a Fender blackface-era type amp with a mid-power wattage rating would get me close to the sound I wanted. In addition, I was hoping for a full range (treble, middle, and bass) EQ, and reverb. So I set out to find an amp, with my first stop being my favorite local guitar shop. There I did not find any vintage pieces that fit the bill, but there were a few boutique makers with amps built on the promise of blackface-type circuits. Disregarding price tags, I took one home for what the shop calls a "test drive". This was the Carr Rambler, which is a very nice point-to-point wired amplifier with everything I was looking for, in addition to tremolo. The model the shop had was a 1x12 combo, which also made it a practical choice for transport. I got it home, lined it up next to the Blues Junior, and for hours, I couldn't quite find anything that would justify the expense. The amp went back to the shop, and I to the drawing board.

Not having been wowed, my next tactic (borrowed from high-end home audio) involved trying something so out of my league that there would have to be a notable difference. So a few weeks later I found myself in a private room at another boutique, facing down a Two-Rock Custom Reverb head atop their matching 2x12 cabinet. I plugged in my Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Nashville Model, and indeed, I was amazed. The amp far exceeded my needs in the bells-and-whistles department, and sat well out of reach financially. Regardless, I couldn't help but to stay for well over an hour, marvelling at the lush reverb, and the wonderful, warm gain on the second channel. It left me very briefly considering ways to obtain one, but I instead decided it would be best to chalk it up to a fun experience. And so I found myself asking a question so many musicians do, which is; "How do I get the sound of insanely expensive item X, for far less"? More on that to come.

Clearing the Path

After well over a year of trying all manner of pedalboard arrangements, cables, and more, I have decided to commission a Custom Audio Electronics switching system. This of course was no easy move, given the amount of time and money that will also go into the CAE system, but I feel as if it will be well worth it.

The CAE pedal switching system will not only clear up a signal path that has otherwise been clogged with effects, but it will also introduce a new level of functionality to my rig. Besides providing 100% bypass and direct access to individual effects, it will also allow for presets of certain effect combinations to be selected from their RS-5 foot controller. As I get the components together and wait for the arrival of the switcher and foot controller, I will post pieces of the process. 

Vibrolux Vibe

My band returned to Ed Ackerson's Flowers Studio this past weekend to wrap up tracks for our forthcoming full length, and I once again had the chance to utilize pieces from Ed's top-notch collection of vintage gear. When setting up the guitar rigs, Ed pointed out a 1963 brown tolex Fender Vibrolux that had recently come back into use with the installation of a Jensen speaker. After playing through it for a few minutes it became the clear choice for my guitar parts on the songs. A real highlight was the sound of my '67 Gretsch Chet Atkins Nashville Model 6120 through the amp's Bright channel - just great.

One of the things that Ed mentioned about the amp was that he had acquired it via a trade, and that when it came into his possession it had a Fane speaker installed. This seemed weird to him, and apparently it didn't do the amp any favors either. At home later that night I was paging through Tom Wheeler's The Soul of Tone: Celebrating 60 Years of Fender Amps for some more info on the Vibrolux, and I came across an interesting side note about the model. Apparently, Mark Knopfler had told a Fender employee that his guitar sound on "Sultans of Swing" was a Strat into a '61 Vibrolux with a Fane speaker swapped in for a damaged Oxford. So maybe that solves it: A cult of Knopfler devotees putting Fane speakers in brown Vibroluxes. Check your amps folks, and if you own a '63 or later, start searching for a Jensen.