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February 22 Old Friend gets an LR Baggs iMix No Cut and Sounds Great
Last week I decided to install a pickup in my C-10BZ Larrivée (pictured to the right). Today I picked it up at the shop. It had the new LR Baggs iMix No Cut installed and proceeded to a gig. Actually I was several hours early so I just got set up and got to know the Guitar and the iMix. I play through a Bose L1® Model IIBose L1® Model II (the new one) with the LR Baggs ToneMatch® Presets into my T1® just before I headed out the door. It was very simple to find a sound with this combination of gear that sounded great. During the gig a very busy local musician dropped in and enjoyed a great meal and the music (so he told me). He was really impressed with how natural the Guitar sounded. He made a point of telling me so. My main Guitar for acoustic gigs for the past ten years has been a Morgan with a Florentine Cutaway, curly maple back and sides. I do a lot of acoustic lead work and this has always allowed me to cut through the mix with a Fishman Acoustic Matrix Under Saddle Transducer. About a year ago I added David Enke's PUTW Quackbuster. This has been working extremely well for me. Compared to the Morgan, the Larrivée C 10 BZ is about the same size and shape, the neck is just a little narrower and seems to have a narrower radius. The Morgan radius is almost flat and I have it set for really low action and almost no relief. I am a finger style player and this Morgan has been terrific for giving me the room I need to work. The lovely Larrivée has seen very little play time over the ten years that I've had it because I rehearse with the same instruments and gear as I use when performing. Since there was no pickup in the Larrivée I wasn't playing it out and I wasn't playing it much at all. The net result was I needed a little time to get used to the Larrivée and the new strings they put on at the shop when they installed the iMix. I guess these are Cleartones. I normally play John Pearse strings on my acoustics and really like them. The new strings seemed a little noisy. Squeaky by comparison. On the way to the gig I picked up some Elixer 20/80s to try when I take the Cleartones off. Anyway, after a couple of hours of playing and listening, a three hour gig, and some comments from players who happened by... The iMix was a good choice. I think that I am going to be very happy with the Guitar and the iMix. I will have to get used to changing between the I-Beam and the Element pickups on the fly. I may switch over to stereo mode and manage the pickups independently in the T1®. The Guitar sounds phenomenal (except for the squeaky strings). I'll have to see how that works out. February 07 A New Old Friend - a Classical GasThis sounds absolutely amazing through the L1™ Model II.
Twenty seven years old and still a beauty. I played it at my solo gig last Sunday. It was wonderful! It has a passive under saddle piezo pickup. I love the sound with an AKG C451 E (small diaphragm cardioid condenser microphone). It also sounds great with a Neumann KM184 but the AKG is a little brighter. I am running through the T1 ToneMatch™ audio engine to an L1™ Model II. Presets: With a microphone (either 3" from the fingerboard half-way between the 12th fret and the sound hole - or - 6" back from the sound hole). Using the Pickup I really liked it with Pickup and
Going It AloneI originally wrote this on February 2nd.
A funny thing happened last weekend. I had a great gig on Friday night with my old duo partner. We've recently started playing together again and we've been keeping busy since the beginning of the year. We have a regular Sunday gig, afternoons at an art gallery / coffee house. He called late Saturday night to tell me that he had to rush out of town for a family emergency. My other regular duo partner was out of town and everyone else I could think of was busy. So I didn't have anybody to play with on this short notice.
I don't know if I have ever done a solo gig. If so I've long since forgotten. But I didn't want to let down our regulars (over half the crowd at that show) so I spent the next several hours dusting off the tunes that I can pull off solo and then got some sleep.
The gig went great. I did a lot more talking than usual between songs. Basically telling a little about the song and maybe some background about why it is important to me. I kind of had to — s t r e t c h — a little because when I play with other people, most songs are longer because I do some soloing for a verse or two. Since I had no rhythm section, that part wasn't there. But I did do some vocal scatting in some of the songs and that helped. I don't have enough material to do a full three sets solo. I've never had to do it. But I spent more time chatting with folks at their tables and I don't think anybody minded shorter sets.
The tip jar had as much as we've ever seen, so I guess it was okay.
In the middle of the week the owner of the place called me to say that he had heard about the show and that people had really liked it. The place is in a an area of city separated from the rest by a couple of big bridges. It's like a small town over there. I guess that's why he heard about the show and why he thought to call. That was nice.
My duo partner came back mid-week but he has to leave again in the morning. I'll be doing the show solo tomorrow.
I've been a side-man, lead player, backup vocalist all this time. So going it alone was pretty interesting.
What happened to January?It was a super busy month. It is nice to take a breath. I reconnected with an old duo partner and we have been playing steadily since the new year. My regular duo partner and I were not quite as busy as he was out of town for a couple of weeks. Ken-at-Bose has started a new series of discussions called Succeeding in the Performing Arts on the Bose Musicians' Community Message Boards. This has led to lots of great input from the community. Check out the link that goes to a summary of the main ideas in the wiki. Succeeding in the Performing Arts Little did I know in January, just how much I would be thinking about this in the days to come. |
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