September 6 2011

Recording and Playing Live: Ever since Christmas things have really started to take on a serious direction for the sound. Jamie bought a Gretsch. It's a gorgeous hollow-body with a nice, perfect fretboard that makes playing so easy. They played live at Wunder Bar on Whyte Ave in Edmonton Alberta just this past August and got the chance to really push the limits. Keith bought a VHT tube amp just a week before and they go hand-in-hand.

It turns out he had been making a mistake all along. There's a belief that the ear of a musician has to go through experiences to become more refined. "What makes an instrument sound good? Why does one violin sound like a cardboard box and another sound smooth and rich? The same question can be applied to an electric guitar. Would an Ibanez guitar sound good plugged into a tube amp? Maybe. But it wouldn't sound as warm and easy as that Gretsch hollow-body." The VHT amp was a sweet find and totally a new direction to bring Keith away from digital effects altogether. Why?

It's just that when you hear the sound of a natural instrument without all the digital crap... it's an honest sound. The VHT amp, (and there are many other great amps) has the clearest, warmest clean sound but with that hollow-body and the pickup in the Gretsch... and maybe pushing the tubes to the limit... there's such a great, vintage sound. "I recognized it like the sound that all of these digital effects were trying to render but just couldn't nail it."

That sound accompanying Jamie and his vocals and acoustic guitar was the perfect combination. That Gretsch in the hands of a musician who knew when to hold back and keep it simple or to play the right melody with the right feel made the song feel right. It's how you express the right kind of emotion in a way that captivates the audience.

The violin/fiddle is another story. Keith got his first experience playing a "real" violin back in Halifax Nova Scotia at the Halifax Folk Centre, across the street from the Public Library. There were some gorgeous

violins there that sounded absolutely unbelievable. Some of them went up to $5,000 or so. Some might have been a bit more but I was too shy to ask the guy to let me play it. He knew I was too broke anyway so I didn't wanna piss him off. Anyways I got to play some fairly expensive ones and I got a taste for what a good violin is supposed to sound like. I don't know how they make them that way, but when you play a good violin they fit in your hands perfectly.

Fast forward a couple years and I finally got the money to buy a decent one. I bought one on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton for a grand or so but it only went so far. Two years later I bought one for several grand and I'm finally happy with it. It's got a nice wooden tone? I can't really describe it but the high notes don't shriek and the middle notes don't sound "uncertain" but most of all, the low notes are actually soothing. Even still, in the recordings I have to keep the violin subtle to make everything blend nicely.