Of Jazzmasters and Locking Tuners

 Where DOES the time go?  The rate of speed that time passes for me these days is beyond frightening.  I always heard that time seems to "speed" up as we get older but I seriously never imagined this.  I sometimes feel like I woke up and then went to bed about an hour later.  Maybe I'm just losing my mind.

I was hoping to do a lot of tinkering with the "jazz machine" tracks this weekend but, like most weekends, time got way from me so I only managed a small bit of tinkering.  I mainly played around with "As Evening Brings Tears", one of my favorite tracks on the album.  Have I mentioned here (opposed to in my head) how I composed 90% of this album literally in one "jam" idea session, lasting about 1 hour?  I don't think I've ever written the blueprints for an entire album in one sitting, let alone the FIRST sitting.  It's kind of weird, and it almost seemed like this album wanted to live and be real, and therefore I made the decision to start working on it mid-last year even though I had countless other things to work on.

I'm trying to put this album together in a true band manner, meaning not doing a ton of overdubs of guitars, etc.  Instead, I'm trying to lay it out as if a small quartet was actually playing it, and again this is new for me.  The idea behind this album is for it to be fairly close to the kind of music that I actually listen to, and it's what I frequently think of as "night" or "rainy day" instrumental music.  These sorts of songs aren't terribly heavy on frantic fretboard burning up or getting paid by the amount of notes played, etc., and instead it's fairly relaxing music overall, in my opinion at least.  I'll be very curious to hear comments on this one.

Other than that, I've been playing around with a drop D tuning on a used Breedlove Celtic A25 guitar that I recently picked up.  I kind of want to dive into alternate tunings and used that as an excuse for acquiring another acoustic.  I'm liking the tuning so far but it has yet to open up the world of possibility that I was hoping for, and instead it feels more restricted, but it's probably because I don't know the chord variations and such.  The guitar is quite nice but needs a serious adjustment on the neck which I'm currently putting off since I have yet to decide on the final tuning.  I'm interested in checking out Fripp's NST in the near future as well but I'm not sure what guitar to do that on either.

I also want to say a couple words about my Fender Jazzmaster Ultra which I pulled out this weekend.  I think Fender released this line of guitars about 1-2 years ago and I was so impressed by what I had heard and read that I opted to go into my local Guitar Center and try one out.  This is no easy feat during COVID, and I had to elicit the help of a clerk since the guitar was on the row closest to the ceiling.  Before agreeing to pull it down, the clerk asked, "Um, are you intending to buy it?"  I said I don't know...I haven't yet even played or touched it.  Seemed like a fair response to me, although I do get their point.  I only had the guitar in my hand unplugged for about 1 minute and could already tell how much better the quality was versus my American Special Jazzmaster which I picked up a few years back and hardly ever play.  I opted to take the plunge (not from Guitar Center, mind you) and ordered an Ultra; I've had an American Special Jazzmaster in mint condition for sale ever since.  Yes, I must say that the changes that Fender made to the Jazzmaster Ultra are quite incredible over the other one and it's almost like it's not even remotely the same guitar, except for the overall shape.  If you're looking for a Jazzmaster, I highly recommend the Ultra, and I'm quite taken by the Mocha Burst color as well which looks way better in person than online.

It's also the first guitar I own with so called "locking tuners".  I've avoided any instrument my whole life with those and, as it turns out, I guess I never understood exactly what they were and therefore my aversion to them was completely in vain.  It just shows what happens when you think you understand something and, well, don't.  I guess that could be said about a lot of things (sigh).

"Tonight..." Leads

  I spent this weekend finally putting down the main guitar melodies/leads for a song called "Tonight, You Reached Me" which will be on the "jazz machine" album.  I was supposed to do it back in early January but it was put off since I wasn't feeling well, etc.  The recording went really well this weekend and I'm pretty pleased with my results.  I also had to re-record the solo on "As Evening Brings Tears", the opening track on the same album, since the previous solo was basically a compiled mix of many different takes all sewn together, and because of it, I just didn't feel like it had a nice cohesive feel.  Therefore, I listened to the compiled solo quite a few times, wrote down what pieces I liked the best from it, and then tried to recreate it in a more listenable fashion that flowed in a better manner.  I think it worked and was a good choice.

The solos on "Tonight..." were interesting since I took the approach of doing it much more slowly, deliberately, and doing a lot of listening in the process.  The rest of this album so far has been done in more of improv vein, trying to preserve anything unexpected wherever possible.  "Tonight..." feels much more deliberate and then also has a more proper melody line flowing through it.  It was also the first time I've recorded with my Les Paul Std.

I decided to use my old Electro Harmonix Micro QTron pedal for the third verse of "Tonight...".  I had an idea in my head that using a strong effect like this would create an interesting alteration to just having another standard verse sound, and I think I was correct.  I don't know why people don't like the Micro Qtron; in fact, I believe it's now discontinued and I frequently see them for sale for around $60.  I think it's a great pedal, personally, but it's something you only really use in short bursts, and maybe that's what throws people about it.  I personally can't imagine trying to run the pedal continuously through an entire song since it would get fatiguing very fast.  They still make the full size QTron, which I personally find odd since EH full size pedals are kind of big and clunky, and I don't know what more you could need that the micro version doesn't do.  Who knows.

It should also be noted that the entire "jazz machine" album so far has been recorded exclusively on the Benson Vinny with the 10" cabinet.  This little sucker is pretty phenomenal, in my opinion, and it's worked really well for this style of music.  Sure, you lose the low end with the 10" cabinet but I probably would have just EQ'd it out anyhow so in essence the cabinet saves me some work.  The crazy thing is the whole amp and cabinet are about the size of 2 boxes of cereal.  I can't recommend this thing enough so far and I'm sure it'll become my goto going forward.