Cycfi Research Neo Pickups Now Available!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Yes, folks. Cycfi Research has decided to release the latest incarnation of the Neo Pickups. The Neo Pickups are full-range, low impedance (active) pickups that can be powered via lithium ion batteries (the kind of stuff that powers your smartphone). If you’re a luthier or a DIY musical instrument builder, this might be the thing that you are looking for. If you have luthiery knowledge plus the capability to understand wiring diagrams, then these pickups might just be the thing you will need to amplify any steel-stringed instrument such as guitars, mandolins, pianos, etc.

The Neo Pickups are for serious hackers and DIYers only. If you’re an end-user (such as myself), these are not for you. You will need the assistance of somebody who knows electronics well in order to get them working for you. As far as I know, end-user versions of the Neos are currently under development. However, I do think that this initial release will pave the way for the end-user version to make its appearance.

I have used the prototype pickups before, and one thing I could say is that the sound of these pickups is comparable to a canvass i.e. the transparent sound of the pickups plus EQ for filtering will allow you to get all sorts of guitar tones that you can think of. At the bare minimum, you can emulate single coils from Strats,  humbuckers from Les Pauls, a shamisen, a classical guitar, a dreadnought acoustic, and other kind of stringed instruments by merely getting a spectral analysis of the instrument you wish to mimic and then apply the information to create EQ settings that will let you get the sound that you want. Goodbye piezos as far as I’m concerned.

To purchase your set of Neos, please go to http://www.cycfi-research.com to purchase. It costs $25 per coil so a set of six coils for your guitar costs $150.

For more information, read Cycfi Research’s own announcement at http://www.cycfi.com/2014/04/its-official-neo-series-now-available/.

Going Back to Facebook?

Okay. If you are one of those 10 in a billion readers of this blog, you might be aware of my views towards Facebook (not so pretty). However, given the sort of livelihood I’m trying to keep, it is necessary for me to engage in social media. I realized that (regardless of how much I dislike it) this should be done. This is something I learned from a seminar conducted by Filipino advertising guru Roberto Caballero (they guy behind the WOW! Philippines advertising campaign). Therefore, I have created another Facebook account. The big difference now is that this new account is strictly from a professional visibility standpoint. The likelihood of seeing yours truly on Facebook as “Mark the Person” is highly unlikely.

Anyway, should you find it within reasonable bounds, please visit my Facebook page at  https://www.facebook.com/markgalangmusic. “Likes” are much appreciated. Thank you very much. Now, it’s time to go back to chores and writing music under my work-for-hire contracts.

The Joys of Using Contemporary Technology and Electronic Musical Instruments

In an ideal situation, I would have a perfectly soundproofred and treated recording studio with a live room, a vocal booth, and a dead room. I would have the drum kit of my dreams in its own booth mic’ed up properly, and I would would have another room for guitars, a grand piano inside the live room, a rack of synthesizers, an orchestral room (with instruments), etc. I could go on and on about what I would like to have. Unfortunately, budgetary constraints would not permit this. I don’t have a million dollars to fund such things. Thanks to latest advances in technology, I don’t need too much equipment in my home studio.

I actually make a living with an electronic piano from the ’80s hooked up via MIDI, a couple of guitars, a condenser mic, a multi-effects pedal with modeling, a tube amp, a number of VST instruments, scorewriters and a DAW, an audio interface (that I should replace soon!), and other bits and pieces here and there that make noise. That’s about it. Thanks to VST instruments, I have access to great quality sounds that about 10 to 15 years ago I would not have such as orchestral sounds, horn sections, and drums. Many thanks to the people who have made home recording a lot more convenient!

At this point, I don’t have the funds for acoustic treatment or soundproofing, and so I have to make do with recording acoustically using a number of workarounds such as putting a thick comforter or blanket over my amp and mic for recording electric guitar old-school style, recording vocals during the “dead” hours of the day (or inside the car using my Zoom H4n). So far, I have been successfully recording acoustic stuff this way, not the most ideal thing in the world. However, these workarounds will certainly fail if I were to record acoustic drums. Not only will I have a lot of difficulty finding mics (which I don’t have) or the quietest pieces of hardware around, I will also be in trouble with my wife (who will most certainly wake up to the noise of drums) as well as the neighbors. I had experienced getting a phone call from an irate neighbor once when I was rehearsing with Jacob’s Ladder (about 15 years ago!), and I’m not going to have that kind of trouble again. And so, the solution for that would be MIDI capable electronic drums. I found this video that will explain better how electronic drums are advantageous over acoustic drums, fully convincing me that this is the way to go if I’m going to do drums faster rather than programming those parts (a tedious process, BTW):

Speaking of workarounds, even highly acclaimed bands like Haken (my son’s current favorite) use such techniques to record their albums. The next video shows how Haken vocalist Ross Jennings records some of his stuff:

As you can see, you can record vocals in an attic with some blankets, duct tape, and a good mic hooked up to a DAW. Of course, nothing beats a professional recording studio for the job, but workarounds like these augmented with today’s technology can deliver results that are pretty much close at the fraction of the cost.

These things, dear readers,  are only a few examples of the joys of using contemporary technology and electronic musical instruments.

 

Cycfi Inc., Neo Pickups Coming Out…Soon!

I happen to be one of the few people who have tried out the prototype of Cycfi’s Neo Pickups, and so I have first hand experience of how awesome they really are. With its flat response, Joel (Mr. Cycfi Research himself) and I were talking about sculpting and shaping its sound to whatever we want, only to be limited by the capabilities of a parametric EQ and one’s imagination. I remember saying that one of the most basic things you can do with it is mimic an acoustic guitar. A few days later, we now have this video demonstration:

Notice that this guitar player is assuming a classical guitarist’s seated posture, playing Francisco Tarrega’s “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” on a Fender Strat, but it does not in any way sound like your typical quacking Strat! (I would know how a Strat should sound like because I grew up with one). Matter of fact is that it sounds eerily close to a concert classical guitar. I’ll be first to admit that (having had some classical guitar training) certain nuances like the sustain and attack of the notes would give away that it’s not a classical guitar, the timbre is very close that only classical guitar nuts (like some of the people I know) would be able to tell that it’s not. Perhaps there is some form of bias on my part that I know it’s not a classical guitar (having physically manipulated that guitar), but it would be safe to assume that a casual listener might not be able to figure it out.

This is a point that was proven in a blog post by Roy C (http://royconguitars.blogspot.com/) regarding the Neo Pickups. In this test, there are four clips and the challenge was to try and identify what sort of guitar and/or pickups were used in each clip:

Is it a MIDI guitar, a Martin, a Taylor, a Gibson, EMG 81s? None of the above, folks! It’s just a Fender Strat with Neo Pickups. Heck, the guitar could have been a cheap knockoff and it would have sounded like some of the most expensive guitars in the world with those pickups. I suppose it would be safe to say that what the E-Bow people call “string synthesis” could be easily done with Neo Pickups. Who needs MIDI guitars when you have these, right? And it is very obvious that I am GASsing for one of those that I already envision taking out the EMGs on my ESP LTD and replacing them with these. Without a doubt, I will soon write a composition utilizing these pickups (with the side effect of fulfilling one of my composition requirements at the university, hahaha!).

The Cycfi Neo Pickups target release date will be somewhere around March 2014. For more details, visit http://www.cycfi.com/projects/neo-series/.

The Never-Ending Quest for Tone

Every musician wants to sound excellent, hence we find the never-ending quest for tone. You see it everywhere: at the NAMM and Musik Messe shows, musician’s forums, and music stores. At the dawn of the internet age, everybody can call himself or herself an expert, even without qualification, and thus we see conflicting information about how to achieve great tone as a musician. What is it that can really lead us to achieve that perfect tone? As far as musical instruments are concerned, I have come to the conclusion that there are two general things that lead to great tone: musicianship and craftsmanship.

I once learned from a short video tutorial by guitar giant Steve Vai that great tone starts at your fingertips. I do believe that to be true. My piano teacher, Prof. Richelle Rivera, had always stressed that proper hand positioning, correct wrist motion, and exploiting gravity produce the desired full tone over the piano. This is the reason why seemingly thin-framed pianists like Franz Liszt as well as my teacher (a rather petite woman) could achieve a sound like thunder over the piano even though they are not muscular like John Petrucci. This is one reason why my piano teacher wanted me to practice those wrist motions as I play through pieces over and over again against a constant metronome beat, something that would result in impressive tone and robot-like precision. Guitars and violins also follow the same principle that training results in the best possible tone. Although I can find whatever note I want over a fretless violin fingerboard, I could never bow a violin properly unlike my son who years of training developing his bowing hand. It was only after a number of years of practice on the guitar that I could achieve the kind of tone I wanted on that instrument. This is why they say that every great musician will be able to play great music even on the crappiest of instruments.

Craftsmanship is the second ingredient towards a great tone. You cannot really justify that tone comes out of tonewoods. Even if you give a mediocre luthier excellent materials like hard and flamed maple, ebony, Brazilian rosewood, and cedar, all of those expensive materials will still yield an instrument that sounds like crap. Hand over plywood to an excellent luthier and he will produce a cheap $75 guitar that sounds like $3,000 one. I have a Greg Bennett CD3 that can rival the tone of an expensive Gibson Les Paul. I also have a Korean-made Axtech Stratocaster copy that sounds like a Fender Strat and have tested a Chinese-made Jay Turser guitar modeled after the Fender Thinline Telecaster that can give the original a run for its money. The point is that excellent craftsmanship will always yield an excellent tone.

We can all sum up my ramblings as follows: To acquire excellent tone, practice on your instrument regularly and listen to yourself. Afterwards, when you are about to buy your next guitar, inspect for craftmanship and test it to see whether or not it can provide the best tone you can possibly have.

Steve Dahlberg’s “Play Delta Blues Now”

People have to know that there’s more to Blues than the kind you hear from Stevie Ray Vaughn, Johnny Winter, and others who have excelled in the popular variant called Texas Blues. If you want to be able to play the Blues during the prewar period or sound like you’re from somewhere around the Mississippi Delta, Steve Dahlberg’s the man who can show you how to do that with his new course “Play Delta Blues Now”.

“Play Delta Blues Now” is an acoustic blues course that will teach you the essentials of how to sound like the Johnsons (Blind Willie, Tommy, Robert, etc.) or Charley Patton. Again, this is NOT your electric blues guitar course. You will NOT make your guitar cry like Gary Moore or go to a getaway like Robben Ford. It’s closer to playing classical guitar (except with blues notes, bottlenecks, open tunings, and an emphasis on the I-IV-V chord progression).

The course will be launched on January 29, 2014, 9 p.m. U.S. Eastern time. So, if you want to acquire what it takes to play the Blues on acoustic, go grab a copy of this course by going to the link below:

As usual, sheet music transcription in standard notation and guitar tab is by yours truly.

In other matters unrelated to “Play Delta Blues Now”, here’s Gary Moore, here’s “Still Got the Blues”, a song that my uncle Joe taught me how to play back in 1994 when I was in my 2nd year of high school:

Some Musings on Education, Creativity, and Music

I have always believed that there is something miserably wrong with education, especially here in the Philippines. Growing up, I had to go to school every day, wear my uniform, pin my ID in a very specific manner, and keep a hairstyle exactly as described in the student handbook for discipline. The one thing that baffled me was why did I have to look like everybody else in order for me to have a good education? Does that exercise in conformity lead to anything beneficial? I have always thought that the answer was no. I have always thought that such rules were of no value and they only contributed to a superficial sense of order and discipline. A prescribed haircut never contributes to knowledge within my head or the life skills that I should possess. Matter of fact was it even encouraged me to rebel, seeing how utterly useless such rules were. Looking at the bigger picture of things, it seemed to me that schools (yes, even private ones with expensive tuition fees) are hell bent on producing “cookies”, mass producing students who eventually become part of a grand industrial assembly line. This cookie-cutter-style education, as Sir Ken Robinson puts it, kills creativity.

I can remember how many times I’ve heard something like I should be this or I should be that. It can become really frustrating because many people try to put you in a mold where you don’t really fit. I’m guessing all would agree that with the exception of art schools, the arts (music included) are of a low hierarchal standing in many educational systems. It’s good that we do have to place good regard for math, the sciences, and language studies, but shouldn’t we put the arts in equal footing? It’s really sad to see in this part of the world where I live that music is lumped together with other arts and physical education into a single subject. It’s just wrong! What happens in the end really is that these schools produce students who have some semblance of athletic ability, standard curriculum knowledge, zero knowledge about and appreciation for art, and almost nothing about music except some form of dancing to it and barely carrying out a tune. It really is sad given that one of the primary ways of learning is through listening, the primary sense that music appeals to. By lumping all of the arts into a single subject called MAPE and then placing it at a category lower than all other subjects, the present education system in the part of the world where I live is indeed killing creativity.

One thing that I have to say, however, is that in order to translate creative ideas into tangible output, discipline still is necessary. I remember my classical piano training in that regard: I would have to say (without any offense to my wonderful piano teacher) that it is the farthest anyone can go from exercising creativity in terms of music. It’s the kind of training that expects you to become as accurate as a MIDI player, and unfortunately I don’t seem to be very good at it. You have to follow the whims of the composer almost 100% of the time. One thing I would appreciate about it, however, is that it builds the skills that are necessary for me to be able to execute or communicate to others my own musical ideas without needing the assistance of a performer. Even something as free-spirited as jazz or the Blues requires knowing how to play a pentatonic scale. While the creative impulse has to be fed, it still requires discipline to execute properly.

The discipline we get out of schools is much appreciated, but if we lose touch of any attempts to become creative then such discipline is worthless study. The discipline and order we get out of education should go hand-in-hand with exercises in creativity, and therefore education shouldn’t be a lopsided affair where we push math, science, and linguistic studies to the top and regard music, dancing, painting, sculpture, etc. as mere extracurricular activities. It is true that you cannot produce creative output without the means to execute it. It is also true that without any semblance of creativity, all those means of execution obtained from rigorous discipline is unusable.

Play Blues Now: New Steve Stine Course @ GuitarZoom

A few days prior to Christmas 2013, I was working long hours to complete transcribing the sheet music for this course while juggling other important tasks such as our church’s Christmas concert rehearsals, finishing my composition for the said concert, working on other projects, being a parent and homeschool teacher, graduate school stuff, and others. It was a tough time, and though I’m able to relax for now I do have other things that I have to complete. Anyway, going back to the course, this is a beginner blues course for guitar by none other than in-demand modern guitar pedagogue, Steve Stine.

To cut things short, this is an excellent course (in my biased opinion) for anyone who wants to know the nitty-gritty on the Blues. It covers the essentials of the Blues from the rhythm up to improvisation and soloing, making it a very complete course that will enable you to do what it says: Play Blues Now!

If you want to purchase the DVD and book, please click on the image above. Sheet music transcription by none other but yours truly.

Firestorm Guitar: New GuitarZoom Course by Steve Stine

Because of the great interest in learning how to play lead in an effort to be the next Yngwie Malmsteen or the next darling of Shrapnel Records or what have you, education regarding rhythm guitar playing is usually underrated or neglected. In many occasions, we often fail to realize that rhythm is the bedrock in which all genres and styles of music settle in. Well, this is no longer the case. Steve Stine addresses this concern with his new course called “Firestorm Guitar”, a very comprehensive rhythm guitar course. As usual, sheet music transcription and engraving was done by none other than yours truly.

Some of the interesting things that Steve teaches in this course include how closely related rhythm guitar playing is to playing hand percussion like maracas, the “ocean effect” or “organic strumming”, and figuring out appropriate rhythm patterns for any song. And so, if you’ve always wondered how you could become a better rhythm guitar player and you want to push your skills up to the next level, I highly recommend going to the GuitarZoom website and clicking on the graphic above to check out Firestorm Guitar.

Fourth Day at Grad School

As some of you may or may not know, I still have some knowledge gaps to fill hence my latest endeavor: going back to school. I attend school here:

This is the exterior of the Philippine Women’s University where I attend classes at the School of Music (a department which has been declared by CHED as a center of excellence for music) with the hopes of earning an M.A. in music education. It’s in Manila, not a pretty city by any stretch of the imagination.

The school building is pretty old, but I could imagine that it was a glorious place when it was built. It has this center, open-air courtyard, which I think is a good idea:

Anyway, enough talk about the school building. When I’m by my lonesome self, I tend to eat cheap, hence after my morning Intro to Grad. Studies and Ethnomusicology class I walked a few blocks to Pedro Gil St. and found myself at a street stall for my lunch which looked like this:

Filipinos call this thing “kwek kwek” or “hepalog” (as I’d like to call it). It could take the form of balut (duck embryo with yolk and albumin) or penoy (fertilized duck egg) deep fried in orange batter. With what seemed to be like an unlimited supply of chopped shallots and cucumbers, I topped it off with some chili flakes and some mystery sauce (vinegar based). It certainly looks ugly but I’ve always found this stuff to be delicious. I had three of these plus some water and a soya drink from the nearby convenience store.

Since I still had two hours before my piano class, I practiced in one of the practice rooms at school. Let’s say that the piano I got to use was less than satisfactory:

At the very least I am fortunate enough to be able to practice in one of these.

Anyway, 30 minutes before class, my piano teacher allowed me to practice at the school’s piano lab, which has an excellent upright piano. Too bad I was unable to take a picture of that. The thing that I am very grateful for in my piano class is that my teacher is very patient and I get to learn something new every meeting. I always receive tips on how to improve my technique and build precision. I still find the training to be difficult (having come from a background that relies heavily on improvisation), but I appreciate it very much. The kind of discipline you can get from classical piano training is something that I do think would help me take my skills to higher levels. I do think I am very much too old to become a concert pianist, but at the very least I know I can polish my technique as I attend these piano classes. It’s an effort to bring me closer to gaining the physical skills to bring my musical ideas to life in the best way possible.

Tomorrow is another day where I get to juggle homeschooling my son with schooling myself and working my ass off. I am very much grateful to The LORD for granting me such an opportunity.