Jun

29

Phaseous on foxbusiness.com

Filed Under marketing, pete lacis, public relations, technology | Leave a Comment 

Check out this article by Nancy Colasurdo on foxbusiness.com in which my company Phaseous was featured discussing the virtues of Search Engine Optimization, branding and putting users in control of their online communications.

“You Are Your Website”

Jun

1

Danelectro Cool Cat! Pedal Sound Clips

Filed Under amplifiers, audio clips, musical instruments | Leave a Comment 

Through a relationship I’ve built over at the Huge Racks Inc Forum, I was asked to participate in a pilot program to help test out and launch the new Cool Cat! pedals from Danelectro.

Pedals tested: Vibe, Fuzz and Metal II Danelectro Cool Cat!

In attempt to keeps things equal, I played each pedal via a Suhr Classic (alder body, Brazilian rosewood fingerboard, Suhr V60LP single coil pickups and Suhr SSC system) through a Custom Audio Amplifiers (CAA) OD100 Classic Plus. Cabs are CAA 1×12’s with Eminence Governors and I mic’d one of the cabs with a SM57. There are two clips for each pedal: one through the clean channel of the amp and one through the overdrive channel. Each clips begins with an un-effected riff for two bars and then alternates between effected and un-effected each two bars after that. Some clips have a little extra “stuff” going on at the end to demo the pedals a little further.

Danelectro Cool Cat Vibe - Clean

Danelectro Cool Cat Vibe - Dirty

Danelectro Cool Cat Fuzz - Clean

Danelectro Cool Cat Fuzz - Dirty

Danelectro Cool Cat Metal II - Clean

Danelectro Cool Cat Metal II - Dirty

Out of the three pedals, I dug the vibe pedal the most. That said, it had a rather pronounced (or perceived) volume boost when the pedal was engaged. It was the only pedal I tested that does not have a volume control (only mix).

Being that these pedals were true-bypass and of solid construction, I’d say that they would make a solid addition to any pedalboard. I’m certainly interested in checking out more of their product line. So far, so good.

Mar

20

Baker B1 7 - my entrance into the world of the seven string guitar

Filed Under music, musical instruments, musician, pete lacis | Leave a Comment 

Baker B1 7During the mid 90’s when it wasn’t cool to be good at guitar, I eschewed the grundge movement and threw myself into the world of jazz. Being a big fan of “Birth of the Cool” music up through the heavy, funky grooves of Medeski Martin & Wood, I decided to focus my efforts on playing bass with my organ trio (sometimes quartet and quintet), Thique. It wasn’t long before I discovered the power of the bass in music, and the bassist among musicians. Truly, the bassist has the power to subvertly (or overtly for that matter) influence the entire rest of the band through changes in groove, rhythm or harmonic structure. I was truly in awe of this awesome responsibility.

Fast forward more than 10 years later, I found myself looking to influence the music and the musicians I play with in a new way. I wanted a way to extend the range of what I was doing without playing a completely different instrument. I like the way guitar can influence harmony and rhythm. But I wanted a little of that subversion back. Enter the seven string guitar.

Steve Vai can be thanked for bringing the seven string solidbody (seven string guitars archtop hollowbodies have been popular with jazz guitarists for many years) to the masses in the early nineties via his solo album “Passion & Warfare” along with Whitesnake’s “Slip of the Tongue” (the latter gig which he took to fund and promote the prior). The seven string solidbody then experienced a renaissance in the late 90’s/early 2000’s when nu-metal bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit. However, because of its extended range and ability to be significantly down-tuned plus the addition of more modern amplification options with solid state rectifiers, most seven strings found their way into metal, nu-metal, nu-nu-meteal, etc.

Since the music I enjoy and play is more of an extension of jam bands (fusion of rock, funk, jazz, electronica, etc), I thought it would be really cool to bring the new sonic capabilities of the seven string to that sound…..to the best of my knowledge it hasn’t been done before. Only problem was most seven strings were designed for extreme metal. That certainly wasn’t going to do.

So enter January 2008. At the NAMM Tone Merchants party I had an opportunity to play a seven string Vigier through a Cornford MK50 II. Wow! What a sound! OK, now I confirmed that I wanted to explore this further. Then, after Suhr Guitars debuted their new “Modern” 24 fret model, there was talk that they might offer a seven string model. Being a fan of Suhr’s work, I was very excited about the prospects. However, that hope was short-lived as the Suhr guys soon found themselves overwhelmed with demand for their new products that had been developed, let alone any items that they might develop. So my dream of a seven string Suhr would have to wait for some time.

Based on my own tonal explorations, I knew I wanted a guitar with a mahogany body, mahogany neck, maple top and Brazilian rosewood fingerboard. The trouble was finding one. There weren’t any mass-produced models that met my needs. Ibanez is probably the most well know main stream seven string manufacturer, but there guitars always had maple necks and I can’t say enough about how much I dislike the sound of a maple neck on a mahogany body. That, and well, I’ve never cared for Ibanezes. I soon realized I would have to go boutique if I wanted anything that was of quality and with the woods that I wanted. I new Gene Baker make a few sevens years ago, but his old company was since out of business and his new pursuits were focusing on more “conservative” models. Luckily I’ve been following the muses of Matte Henderson for some time (extreme seven string enthusiast). I’ve kept in touch with him over time in case he ever wanted to sell any of his custom seven string beauties and he had one for sale…..but it was korina. I learned not too long ago (through a couple of Gene Baker BX3’s) that I greatly preferred the tonal qualities of mahogany over korina…..though they are within the same ballpark. However that interaction brought to mind another Baker seven string that I became aware of at least a year earlier.

My friend Dave Kaplowitz had acquired a fine Baker B1 7 from Joe Gamble (in of all places, about ten miles from where I live in Colorado). As fate would have it, Dave wasn’t really playing the Baker and a deal was struck to bring her back to CO.

While I would have preferred a trem and 25.5″ scale length, I’m more than happy with the quality, sound and playability of this 25″ fixed bridge Baker B1 7. I’m going to experiment with new pickups (the stock Dimarzio Airbuckers are way too dark and hot for my tastes) and some different string gauges (the low A is an .080!), but all in all, I’m very excited about the prospects of developing some new sounds with this guitar. Look out jamband scene of Colorado! This is not Jerry Garcia’s kind of guitar!

Mar

7

Fox News, Cosmopolitan & my wife Erin Weed

Filed Under life | Leave a Comment 

As I’m awaiting my flight to Chicago at DIA, I received word that my wife Erin Weed was featured in a piece on Fox News Business.  As if that wasn’t enough, as of today she’s also in the current issue of Cosmopolitan.

Mar

5

Steve Jobs kills hopes of flash on the iPhone

Filed Under annoyances, apple, technology | Leave a Comment 

iPhone Douche BagWith the release of the iPhone SDK just around the corner, many in the tech community were surprised (read: bummed) to learn that there will be no flash support on the iPhone (source: Steve Jobs CNN article). While there are arguments with respect to flash using up too much power (thus prematurely discharging the battery), I’d put my money on Adobe not capitulating to the financial pressures that Jobs is infamous for. Looking forward to the back-story on this one.

Feb

27

Egnater Amp Building Seminar, Premier Guitar Magazine & Video Feature of Yours Truly

Filed Under amplifiers, audio clips, music, musical instruments, pete lacis, technology | Leave a Comment 

This past weekend I had the priveledge to attend the Egnater amp building seminar outside of Detroit, MI. It was an amazing experience to build my own JTM 45 - inspired amp, let alone to learn about all of the theory behind how and why these things work. I was amazed at seemingly how few of the amp’s components actually let to it sounding like a Marshall, Fender, Vox, etc. The amp sounds great as is, but I’m psyched to get back under the hood and start some tweaking!

In related news, Premier Guitar Magazine’s Joe Coffey was in attendance to participate and document the class. Afterward he asked be to demo my completed amp (with my Suhr Standard). I just learned that the magazine decided to put that video up as a feature on their site! Check it out:

Feb

16

The annoying thing about upgrading to OS X 10.5.2

Filed Under annoyances, apple, technology | Leave a Comment 

While overall I’ve been very happy with the results my new 200 GB hard drive, OS X 10.5.2 and Office 2008 install, I’m a bit annoyed that capability I had with my MacBook Pro out of the box with OS X 10.4 are now missing……namely iDVD, iMovie and iPhoto.  Sure, I can regain those capabilities via $99 family pack upgrade.  However, its the principle of having to pay for capabilities I already had (and had already paid for) that is just not right.  First the $200 penalty for iPhone early adopters, now this.

Feb

15

Upgrading the Hard Drive in my MacBook Pro and installing Leopard

Filed Under apple, technology | Leave a Comment 

As a musician and multimedia creation expert, I’ve run into trouble attempting to maximize performance and storage space.  Specifically, my 17″ MacBook Pro had 90 GB hard drive at 7200 rpm.  It was speedy for sure…..but it was so loaded with apps that I had little to no room for data.  Being that I have almost three terabytes of external storage, somethings were just not as efficient as I would have liked (namely Native Instruments sample libraries for Komplete 4 had to be housed externally).  After much frustration and a bit of research, I recently pulled the trigger on a 200GB Seagate drive that runs at 7200 rpm.  After backing up things the old fashion way (I was running 10.4.11 on the old drive), I’ve replaced the drive and installed Leopard.  Stay tuned for how well the migration goes….Entourage 2004 is my primary concern (upgrading to Entourage 2008), but I have a LOAD of apps to install including NI Komplete, Ableton Live 6, Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Studio 8, MS Office 2008 and then some.

Feb

5

Colorado Caucuses and being a new resident

Filed Under life, pete lacis | Leave a Comment 

Colorado CaucusWith all of the great enthusiasm surrounding the current election, my wife and I were looking forward to participating in the process in our new home state of Colorado.  However, we learned yesterday that in this day and age of Internet instant gratification, participating in a Colorado caucus can’t be a last minute decision.  Guess we’ll have to wait until the general election when our vote doesn’t really count.

Jan

23

Blabbermouth.net and posting my content without credit

Filed Under music, musical instruments, technology | 1 Comment 

I received an interesting lesson regarding free syndication of content today via Google Alerts. Apparently Blabbermouth.net chose to post some of my videos from my NAMM coverage. Fine, but not only did they not give any credit, they even posted my descriptions verbatim from my YouTube entries. I set the content up to be freely distributed in an effort to help spread the word about certain artists and manufacturers. That said, posting someone else’s content without citing a source or giving credit is totally wrong in my book.

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