And BTW, I want to emphasize that there’s nothing wrong in the above approach to designing an overdrive, particularly when the similarity is only in general topology.
There’s only so many ways to design an overdrive that sounds like what our ears are trained to expect. So just as with guitar amps, almost every new design is a variation on an existing design (and with pedals, many designs are just blatant rip-offs of older designs - practically every pedal manufacturer has made a model that differs only trivially from a Tube Screamer).
The same is true with music, as lotsa people on this board have pointed out. There’re only so many ways to combine the 12 tones in our chromatic scale, so when Scabpicker records a (really good sounding) idea, damned if it doesn’t sound a bit like somebody else’s song. Nowadays, you can get sued over musical similarities that aren’t even very pronounced.
I’ve got about a million tapes full of sound bites that needs to be shaped into songs, and I worry about which ones might have come from somebody else’s record.
How are other people coping with this? Does anybody know of software that can perform a search to avoid copyright infringement?
No clue about the copyright software, sorry. Love the info about the circuits. Didn’t realize the Blackstone was similar to a Tube Screamer. I was a Rat guy (I have a first gen from back in the day), not a TS guy, but feel like the Blackstone gets me there and is more versatile.
You could try something like the SoundHound app, which can at least attempt to identify songs you hum into it. Not comprehensive or foolproof, but might be able to identify if you’ve unintentionally duplicated a melody (and point you to what it thinks you’re humming/singing/playing so you can decide for yourself).
Well actually, I mean that the Blackstone is a close relative of the Electro Harmonix “Hot Tubes” pedal from the 70’s, which, I don’t know, may have been the first pedal to use the UB4049 chip for overdrive sounds. At some point in the past, this idea was damned original, since that chip was definitely not developed for that use.
Since then, the Hot Tubes went out of production, and then was reintroduced because demand was so high for the vintage model. I do wonder if that high demand was what inspired the manufacture of the Blackstone, or was it just a happy coincidence?
Ah, there ya go. I don’t know anything about chip stuff. Cool. Funny that such a booteek pedal like that has EH roots. Cool. And it is a great tool. When running through the Tweed it’s almost always on. Yeah, the Blue complements the rawer 6V6 tubes - that stuff I do know!
Well, I could keep throwing more cabs at it and eventually get there, but that’s probably going to end up being more of a pain in the ass than carrying around a SVT.
Hehehe, I’m not sure it shares anything with Cannonball but a heavy dependence on a I-IV change. I don’t think you can sue over that chord change.
However, you may have hit on why I didn’t get a bunch of enthusiastic messages back from my band mates about that song idea. It’s pretty poppy compared to their normal tastes. Either way, I can hear the vocal part in my head now. I’m going to have to write lyrics for it whether that band uses it or not.
Thank you guys for listening!
Mine and the other band members’ memory does a good job of this. If I don’t notice it being similar to something else, and they don’t either, I usually figure it’s unique enough (or a reworking of an old enough form) that we won’t be sued.
Either way, I wouldn’t sweat it much. Folks don’t usually sue people who aren’t making money off their songs. If you’re making money off your songs, I’d probably advise retaining a lawyer.
scabby - all good. Listen, when I name-checked Cannonball, I was merely going for a shorthand feel I got. Wasn’t even thinking about blocking your inspiration by getting a diff song in your head - sorry. And yeah, I live on I-IV. E to A; A to D; G-C – heck, that’s meat and potatoes for a groove player like me.
As I have been transitioning to fingerstyle, I set up a I-IV with some finger-y thing I want to do, like strum, hit a little single-string lead fill, and pop back into the strum groove and stick on it for minutes.
EtFlagon - I stink at Fragment Mgmt™. I mean, it could be a business or an app, couldn’t it? When I get a fragment going I finish the song. It’s the only way that works for me. I apply craft skills and build out a standard song structure. If I have a chorus, well, I need a verse and a middle eight. Beatles stuff. I fit something in and I play the song into a Voice Note.
It’s a complete song. And I hate it. The verse sucks - and why wouldn’t it, I backfilled it (although sometimes I get lucky!) but it’s a complete song, and that seems to matter in my brain.
So that eats at me until I get a better verse, and that goes into the voice note. By a few sucky ones, it starts sounds credible.
I haven’t done a thing about production. I get the song done.
So - I in no way answered your question, and if my macho-songwriter mindset misses the point to how you create, I totally get and respect that. I avoid fragments by not allowing them!!
Yeah, you should do that, it sounds great so far. Your band wouldn’t happen to be the Butthole Surfers, would it?
Thanks, that’s a good point. I’m totally stealing it.
Oh, totally. I’d pay real American dollars for something that’d allow me to instantly combine any of those thousands of song fragments to see what fits together. Maybe it already exists, I dunno - I probably need to go digital.
That’s pretty hardcore, I think, but don’t stop doing it unless it stops working.
Anybody have recommendations for recording hardware/software?
I’ve got my eye on a Steinberg/Reaper combination, based on a friend’s recommendation, but always interested in what people have to say.
Oh, no, I didn’t take it that way at all. I was mostly surprised that it made folks think of a specific band or song, and didn’t dismiss it as generic. When I played it for my brother, his first reaction was that it sounded very much like a song the Pixies would write. I told him about your comparison to Cannonball, and he thought it was even more spot-on.
And like I said, you kind of made me realize that it was really very poppy. I’ll probably have to re-work it a little or sell it with lyrics to make it work with this band. I think this is the first time I’ve exposed something “in progress” to people who weren’t sleeping with me, part of the band, or a pretty close friend. It hasn’t been bad so far.
Hehehe. I kind of follow this philosophy, in that I don’t record anything until I have two parts for an instrument that I think “work” together. When I record it the first time, I might try to throw an intro or an outro or a bridge on it. If I’m lucky, and already have three parts, I may try to put them in something other than an A/B/A/B/A/B structure.
But if I’m hearing you right, you’ve got words of some sort by the time you’re putting down an idea, right?
I don’t do words or percussion before I jot it down or record it. I find words to be insanely flexible - heck, half of the singers I’ve worked with will re-write it completely once you’ve given them your plan and they know where you want the lyrics to go. When I write them, I know they’re usually placeholders.
I fortunately have a drummer who somehow figured out that our brains work together rhythmically some twenty years ago. I didn’t realize what he meant until about five years ago, and he had been grabbing me and putting me in bands for years without me realizing whats going on the whole time. So, normally when he gets the recording, he already knows 90% of what he wants to play on the first listen. It’s like having a sentient drum machine that has a wife, children and a business. And I guess he’s getting a sentient bass synth that smokes too much pot but can still hold a steady job and feed itself. Now that I think of it, that man is brilliant. This is one of the sweetest musical relationships I’ve ever had.
Woah, that got long. Either way, yeah, fragments float around my head until I can pull the most basic structure of a song out of them. Who suffers? My sweet, poor wife. She hears me experiment with the same parts long enough that when someone asks “What song are you playing?”, she answers for me with, “Nothing, he’s just messing around”. She somehow knows when it’s become a “song”.
Lyrics - I use the Sir Paul “scrambled egg” approach: singing nonsense syllables or phrases until I have blocked out what I need to fit the melodic idea I am trying over the chords.
Then I try to come with a cool opening phrase that fits in that chord/melody box, that also functions as a grabber: e.g., “Another long drive home, trying to figure out what went wrong this time.”
Or: “The drink picks a lock in my head. I say things better left unsaid.”
And then I have to figure out what the heck I am unearthing in my brain.
Umm, I think you’re just trying to make me blush at this point. It is working.
As far as home recording goes, I’ve got an Alesis…watchamacalit…MultiMix4 USB from ages ago (jeebus, they still sell something with the same name!). As the name says, it’s a 4 channel (2 balanced) usb mixer. Used ones shaped like mine seem to go for about $50. That currently goes into whatever laptop I have, which is running Linux as on OS. Ardour is the DAW I use, which runs on OSX or Linux.
Can I recommend them? I don’t know. I sometimes get a weird phaser effect on mix down that is more pronounced when I listen to the track back through the Alesis than through other sound interfaces. Ardour is using the Alesis’ chip for both recording and mixdown, but I’ve never heard it during the recording. It also doesn’t always happen. I don’t know who’s to blame - the free DAW or the cheap and old USB interface, or the hack working them. A SM57 will set you back…checks prices…WTF???. Umm, GC has them for $99, and used are around $75. Umm, I bought mine not that many ages ago for for $50 new.
Either way, if you have a Mac or want to dual-boot Linux, and dismiss the cost of the computer that you probably already own, and want to deal with the complexity (and flexibility) of a DAW: you can pick up the exact same recording quality I have for around $150.
On preview: I’m not gonna say anything other than: Well said, WordMan!
Oh, and I forgot to add: If you just want a cheap hardware flexible audio scratchpad, the Tascam DR-05 can be had on sale for around $99, $139 new if you’re impatient. I’ve used mine for everything from environmental recording, to recording myself on acoustic, to recording the above band at practice. I can make good, consistent live recordings with it than any other recording setup I’ve owned. As long as you know how to set a level, you can get a workable recording from it.
So I tried that this morning, because it’s been so long since I’ve used this device, and got out of bed singing, “Obama’s rocked and is deeply shocked in a person’s behavior this year” (sure glad there’s no prohibition on nonsense) - worked like a charm (wait, do charms actually work?); I still remember it, and I’ll remember it long enough to sing it into the portastudio, which has many times been a struggle (remembering, not singing, though opinions may vary). So thanks.
Hey, that’s really good. I’m stealing that. To my taste, I could see pairing that with a Richard Thompson type arrangement, or a slow, boozy country song.
[QUOTE=scabpicker]
Can I recommend them? I don’t know. I sometimes get a weird phaser effect on mix down that is more pronounced when I listen to the track back through the Alesis than through other sound interfaces. Ardour is using the Alesis’ chip for both recording and mixdown, but I’ve never heard it during the recording. It also doesn’t always happen. I don’t know who’s to blame - the free DAW or the cheap and old USB interface, or the hack working them.
[/Quote]
Well Reaper comes highly recommended, and a personal license is just $60, if you ever feel like migrating.
[QUOTE=scabpicker]
Oh, and I forgot to add: If you just want a cheap hardware flexible audio scratchpad, the Tascam DR-05 can be had on sale for around $99, $139 new if you’re impatient. I’ve used mine for everything from environmental recording, to recording myself on acoustic, to recording the above band at practice. I can make good, consistent live recordings with it than any other recording setup I’ve owned. As long as you know how to set a level, you can get a workable recording from it.
[/QUOTE]
Isn’t it amazing what you can get for a $100 nowadays? In my day, you had two tin cans on a string, and you recorded by carving into a stone tablet (unless you were rich and could afford a brick).
Plus, that thing’s got Robot Mickey Mouse ears. How can you go wrong with Robot Mickey Mouse ears? Answer: you can’t. If I ever need a deluxe portable recorder, that’s my answer.
Have you ever braced a piece of wood with your hands, or even your hip or something, when you or someone is sawing into it with a power tool? That hard buzz of vibration that hits you when the blade bites?
That’s what it feels like with these heavy .12’s on my Tele when I dig into it with a pick. To drive the amp the way I like, I am pushing the pick through the strings, down by the bridge- not so close to sound plinky, but sharpen it up. I feel those cheese-slicer strings buzzing the plank of a body right up against my thigh. Cool.
I have to get new bridge saddles; ones with grooves in the brass so the strings track correctly. A couple are up against the set screws that adjust height. I keep breaking my A and D strings with my heavy play ;).
I’ve heard that John Henry had the same problem. At this point you may as well give me your amplifier; you’re probably just as loud without it.
Speaking of amplifiers, and YouTube gear reviews, the lads at Andertons Music are calling the new Fender Bassbreaker 15 the “best amp that Fender ever made.” Hyperboogle? Judge for yourselves, tonemoochers:
Paint Over Rust, huh? Characteristically generous, but I know when I’m in over my head. Nobody would ever believe I wrote that.
It’s like if the guys from Duck Dynasty got pulled over by the cops while speeding in a Rolls Royce: “Sure officer, this here Roycie Roller’s ours. We, uh, won it. In a, uh, tobacco spittin’ contest”.
mindset misses the point to how you create, I totally get and respect that. I avoid fragments by not allowing them!!
To my taste, I could see pairing that with a Richard Thompson type arrangement, or a slow, boozy country song.