First rehearsal in 18 months! Loop controllers and the new kit I got to use at last...

[51m0n]

So on Sunday we had our first rehearsal for 18 months. Gasp!

Not everyone was there, our percussionist is taking a break from music to look after his folks for the foreseeable future as they're old and very frail, our bass trombonist was working overtime and our keys player hasn't had two jabs yet so declined the offer. But nevertheless, drums, bass, guitar and trumpet were all in the house of noise.

Its made me realise what a cathartic tonic to the mundane endless DIY/work/parenting cycle of life music making is for me. I truly love these people, they lift my spirit and bring me moments of Zen like peace and joy coupled with boundless energy that I happily pay the price for for days afterwards, then the guitarist farts usually but you have to forgive him this, he's not really house trained yet. 

Things of note - we may not have been playing but the general kit expenditure through GAS has been relentless, I took along my new Roscoe and my at last finished for now new pedalboard (pictured) with the Becos Twain. Temple Audio boards are almost ridiculously expensive post Covid/Brexit but I actually bought it a while ago (about a 18 months as it happens) in order to fit the Caiman Tail Loop by One Control on there when they were a bit more reasonable.

So I bought the Caiman Tail Loop because I had a pedalboard failure in a gig and had to unplug the entire thing - which put me right off my stroke for the rest of the gig. The theory being that a pedal dying wont matter since I can take it out of the loop completely now. Unless its the loop controller of course, there is still that risk. For this alone I give it 10/10. But its absurdly programmable to, meaning when I need to I can set up multiple pedal changes to work at the click of a switch - I can even send midi control messages and channel switching if I ever need to - love a bit of future proofing so I do!

The other reason I got this was that my signal chain's low end and punch was noticeably degraded by the pedals all in line. Not noticeable by punters maybe, but by me, and that bugged me no end. I hated knowing I couldn't get all my beautiful bass's tone out if I wanted effects at any point in a gig. For this I give it another 10/10 it has absolutely completely changed everything for me. But not just the tone of my bass alone, any two pedals sound better than they did before too, probably any three but I just don't tend to go there. Most notably is my cheap and nasty octave/'overdrive' pedal, which I always thought had a somewhat anaemic octave output because it was cheap - not so, it now sounds absurdly fat, not quite too much but nearly. All of them sound significantly better for this change - like an entirely new board of fx. Brilliant!

In fairness a lot of my pedals are rather cheap and nasty, I rather like them all though, the phaser, a mega chip dirty knock off sounds superb, and gives a little bump in output when engaged which helps. I certainly am not losing low end or punch anymore even though its a lot of cheapy knock off crap really compared to some of the pedal officiandos works of art on here.

And then there is the Becos Twain - I have promised an in depth review since I got it, but no playing loud rather rendered that pointless, and in order to give it a really good review I want to use it for a fair bit longer, but in short, its a lot of knobs, it has a very specific and detailed setup process that is not at all obvious, RTFM for sure, but by gum it delivers what I wanted by the bucket load! I can set the top end to clamp down hard and fast on very loud peaks only, which means this, pops get that really nice compressed sound, but fingerstyle and dynamics (which are as much transient to volume ratio as sheer power output) are just untouched in the top end and transient areas. At the same time I can have some healthy punch off the low end, with a slower attack/release whilst the side chain filter stops very low level energy triggering the low side of the  device and pulling things down too readily, keeping it all sounding far more natural than it probably seems like it should - these THAT compressor chips are brilliant. It is absolute genius. Although really not for the feinthearted. Does anyone want to buy a Focusrite Compounder? Crikey I haven't even played with the two germanium overdrive circuits on the clean side of the two compression engines

I am not the only one to have a major rig overhaul - the guitarist turned up with one of the new Barefaced guitar cabs, a 112, and a brand new Blackstar 50w head which it turns out keeps up with the band at 5w, albeit with a bit of fuzziness and is effortlessly clean when set to 50w, and 3 guitars, one he had before but with all new electronics, and two previously unseen ones. And a complete pedal board upgrade too, Strymon modulation effects are awesome it turns out. Even the drummer had new cymbals!

Such a fantastic evening - we've been writing all through lockdown and sharing ideas, but its not the same as trying to play them together, and laughing, and just enjoying actually seeing people again - no office for me means I haven't interacted with people other than direct family for the entire time, except to avoid them in the shops. Its been very strange. Stranger to be getting out and seeing some friends, which just feels wrong.

Anyway sorry for the diary entry but it was kinda momentous for me, as you were, carry on....