Fender Stratocaster!

This is a pretty late update...a month late! My birthday gift from my wife is a Fender Stratocaster!! :) Well it wasn't a surprise on the birthday, coz I knew it a bit ahead. But it surely was a sweet surprise when I first knew that she was planning for it.



Fender Stratocasters are the most popular and the most copied style of electric Guitars. There are lots of versions in the Stratocaster family. The one I got is a Highway One Stratocaster. This is the starting level in the American made strats. This model is priced in between the Made in Mexico and American Standard models. This has 70s style headstock, bigger frets, alnico pickups, nitro cellulose finish, mapel neck...

The best part is the pickups and the tones. Even though I knew and heard lots of times, the feel I got when I played it is amazing! I played around all the 5 switch positions on and on. From the bluesy feel to the typical crunchy strat sound, each switch position offers a lot that you can experiment. Will record some stuff soon and post it.

Marshall Amplifier

Bought a new Marshall Amp for the Guitar yesterday :) Hurray!!
In fact I will be using it only for acoustic and classical for now...but will mainly use it for the electric Guitar which I am planning to buy some time soon. You know, buying stuff in installments helps!

This is Marshall MG15CD amp. It is a 15-watt amplifier. There are options for overdrive, bass, contour and treble..Played it a lot yesterday evening after buying it...Sounds wonderful :) We can also plug in laptop's output to it...so something for my wife too...she can hear her old Hindi songs :P...Probably otherwise she wouldn't hav let me buy!

Here's the pic....Time to Rock On!!

Some updates

Woah...just realized it has been too long since I stopped posting....My wedding, setting up new home in Bangalore, work as usual.....Lot of things put me busy...Once u stop for sometime, it is really hard to come back on track!...anyway finally I came out of that and decided to post..There were some things that happened on the music front after I am back to India. I didn't practice much as I wanted to...Have to put more hours into practice from now on. Some of the things which happened over the last few months:-

IODC Idol - The offshore Development Centre Idol. ha ha..On the lines of Indian Idol huh? :) Audience polls, Judges opinions...It had music, dance, mimicry, acting everything...there were prelims and then the finals...Played 'Aap ki Dua' with karthick for the prelims. Then came up with a medley for the finals. A medley of Mahaganapathim (Carnatic), Mundinam parthene (Tamil movie song), When you say nothing at all, a small Flamenco solo leading to Chura Liya (Hindi movie song) and ended with the song from Rock On - Na na na na na...Managed runners up in that! Nice fun. Like in Engg, we came up with this at the nick of the time. 1 day before the finals.
Me & Karthick here in red..before the finals...haven't got a pic of us playing :(



DISCO - a decade of partnership with our client...Managed to get some 5 mins slot there. Played 'But it rained' along with Sarang. Then we tried a fusion between Flamenco and Tabla! I played a Tangos piece and Sarang gave amazing Tabla to that.
This too was composed on Sunday, when the event was on Monday! But this time, I goofed up a bit in the solo. I couldnt hear the tabla properly and missed some beat and Sarang somehow managed, but any trained ear can make out that I goofed up there :D! Anyway the Convention Center was awesome and our CEO and the director from client company were there too.

@Convention Center


Band - Regular meetings on weekends. Jamming the compositions with Srinath, adding a few...In fact very slow progress, but fun for sure. So finally 2010 is the year we r playing live with Srinath and Sarang. Hope to post more updates on this in the coming days..

Jamming at my apt...



Excited for 2010 :)

Audacity - Recording Software

I've been using Audacity recording software since long time, so I thought it would be better to write about it. I think this is one of the best software available if you are recording in your room, or any place other than a recording studio. And since it is an open source, it is free!

It has multi-track recording, multiple effects (echo, compress, delay etc) which can be dowloaded and also the option to export your songs to mp3. Noise removal feature is pretty cool. And also there is a Audacity Wiki for help on any feature.

There are some issues though like aligining the different tracks...Like if u record a track and record one more on it, there is a slight delay. We need to align the tracks to make sure they sound right. This can get a bit tiresome sometimes, but I observed that the difference in the alignment is constant always. So if you just select that difference in the track and delete it, your job is done.

Nahin Rakhta Dil Mein Kuch - Sifar

UPDATE - I have used the 'Noise Removal' from Audacity and removed the background noise considerably...Hav re-uploaded the song now..Audacity is an excellent software for small time users like me!


I found a new interface to add music into the blog using Muziboo. Got this info from my friend Sunil's blog. Thanks Sunil :)

This song is Nahin Rakhta Dil Mein the album Sifar by Lucky Ali. I’ve recorded this with Audacity software from laptop on a late night…I kind of mellowed down my voice a bit and also added Guitar parts instead of the high pitched ‘Oh-O-O’s as I was too scared to face the wrath of my room mates who were sleeping :) Will try to record a better one…but this one is just to try and start using ‘Muziboo’ in my blog!

Sifar is one of my favourite albums. We used to hear it a lot in early Engg days and particularly 'Dekha hai aise bhi' and 'Nahin Rakhta Dil Mein'.

I should tell - the recording is not that gud....so Solpa adjust maadi :)

One of my dearest frnds asked - 'who played the flute at 1:56'..
me - "What??!! There was no flute in there!"
I went back and checked it and at around 1:56 in the song...there was a mosquito flying around the mic...which resulted in a buzzzzzzz :D...


Nahin Rakhta Dil Mein | Upload Music

New Flamenco Guitar

Finally!! After a bit of delay and inaction on the music front, I now bought a Flamenco Guitar. Yamaha CG171SF. I've been checking the reviews in the net and for the budget of $350, this Guitar has been getting good reviews. But when I checked it live today, I felt this is the one...It has an excellent tone and I tried some other Guitars upto $700 range...but this surely is a well made Guitar.

Bought this from Guitar Center in Santa Clara. Guitar Center is an awesome collection of Guitars. A Guitar enthusiast would feel like a kid in a toy store! The sheer numbers are over-whelming. It does have a corporate feeling though. It is a very big store and you might miss the personalized treatment which u might get in a local store...but the guy who helped me was pretty decent.
I will be playing again and hopefully record some good ones soon...Right now I'm pretty excited about my new Guitar!


I did try some electric Guitars tooo...This below one is a Gibson Les Paul worth $2000..That requires a bit of saving from now :)

Relocation

It has been a long pause for my blog as I had relocated to San Jose, CA. It is sad that I have to leave my family & friends, BSM, my Guitars, my bike...just about everything in India...but something which is exciting is that I am in a new world of music and have access to a lot of different styles here :) Surely something to cheer about...

Well I didn't waste much time in thinking about my music plans here. I planned to join Flamenco Guitar classes. (And also that loooong time dream to buy an American Fender Stratocaster!) We don't have Flamenco Schools back in India. So it is like an opportunity for me now. I searched in the net and came to know about 'The Flamenco Society of San Jose'. I was thrilled and mailed them at once to find out about the Guitar classes. I was too excited and searched how to reach there too using Google Maps.

But my celebrations had to wait :( I got a reply yesterday that the Flamenco instructor had to give up teaching there and they are in process of finding another instructor. I hope they will find one soon. Anyway it has been only a week since I came here. So I too will take some time to settle and be done with all other stuff meanwhile. I hope by that time, the classes can be ready. I am also trying other pointers too. Wish I would soon get into one :) Will keep posting about the new things.