Dallas, TX –
The parts were practiced and ready.
The strings had just been replaced so they had that bright, lively sound.
Everything was plugged in, turned on, tuned up.
So, I pressed “Record” and…
Nothing…
It’s disheartening when the equipment you rely on doesn’t work, and it seems to always fail at the most inopportune moment.
Like your car breaking down when you’re running late to an important appointment.
There was this one time, back in college; I had a gig playing in a small pit orchestra for a community musical theater. I was riding with my friend (who was also in the pit orchestra, we were two of the five members, and the entire horn section) on the way to opening night, when his car died.
I’m talking dead as a doornail, on the streets of Boston.
I stayed with the car as he ran to find a phone (this was way before the days of everyone having a cell phone, so he had to find a pay phone).
Long story short, we got a cab and finally arrived at the gig, and came racing down the aisle with two or three instruments apiece, the audience all in their seats, waiting for the overture to begin.
Talk about making an entrance!
Anyway, back to the present day.
I’m one of those musicians who approach recording as painting with sound. I like to mix and match aural textures to get just the shade that I want.
The problem with this approach is that I have a small home office that doubles as my primary recording studio. There’s not a lot of room for extra instruments.
Just for the different guitar sounds I like to use, I would need at least four more electric guitars than I currently have.
Where would I put them?
So, about a dozen years or so ago, I made a purchase that has served me well. I bought a Roland VG-88, a guitar-modeling unit that lets me shape the raw string sound into whatever type of guitar I want. And because this requires a special pick-up on the guitar which senses each string individually, I bought a “Roland-ready” Stratocaster.
See normally, this special pick-up is mounted onto a guitar as an after-market add-on. It sits on top of the guitar, looking like some sort of Borg-style enhancement. But with this special Strat, it’s already built in, and requires a close examination to see the additional pick-up and switches that are not normal.
This has been my work-horse for any and all guitar parts that I’ve record for years now. So it was with a significant amount of consternation that I plugged it in and no sound came out.
I panicked. This is a model that hasn’t been available for several years. Replacing it would require a significant investment in both money and time (to learn a completely new system). Neither of which would be very convenient at the moment.
Not that there’s any time when it’s convenient to spend a large chunk of money, but that’s another story.
So, calm down, take a deep breath, and start again, try to figure out where the problem lies, and is it something that I can fix myself. Maybe something just isn’t plugged in correctly. Maybe it’s just a bad cable.
The next day, I found the primary culprit. There’s an output level knob that I’ve tweaked maybe twice in the dozen or so years I’ve owned the thing. One of those knobs that, once I had it set where I wanted, there was no need to touch it again.
Until it somehow got turned all the way down, all on its own.
Hmm, maybe one of the dogs did it.
Well, mystery solved, I once again make an attempt to record the parts that I was ready to lay down.
Only I can’t get my high-E string to sound.
No biggie, this is a problem that has pestered me since I first got this setup. All I have to do is unplug the special cable from the guitar and plug it back in to get that one string connector seated correctly.
Only this time, that fix doesn’t work. No matter how many times I unplug and re-plug the cable, I can’t get that one string to sound.
So I dig out another cable and try again.
Still nothing.
Sigh, I guess I’m going to have to take my guitar into the shop to have it looked at. In the meantime, I’m limited to playing parts that only use the lower five strings. I can always bypass the modeling unit and use the standard Stratocaster electronics, limiting my sound to that of a Strat.
Maybe I’ll stick to playing acoustic for now. As long as the microphone works, I’m golden…
For a small sampling of my music, click here.
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