musician/pederson/steve

Yesterday I had the awesome opportunity to introduce my church to a new congregational worship song that I wrote called Great is Your Name. Not only was it a privilege and an honor, but it was also a lot of fun. The sample that I have below is just guitar and vocals. When we performed it live yesterday, the band really filled out the song – giving it a rich full sound. Given the sound of the band, I felt a little bit like Tom Petty. It was pretty cool. I was grateful to get a lot of positive feedback about the song.

Here is a sample of the song: This is the chorus.

(I have a sample of the song here, but I’m having trouble posting a link to it the way I want. I tried the Audio-Player plugin for WordPress, but it doesn’t seem to work. I’ve also tried inserting the media file into my post, but nothing shows up. I’ve found the online help documentation and support forums useless, so if anyone has any practical solutions, they are welcome here.)

Recently I picked up a CD set that I’ve really been getting into and have been very impressed with. It’s a 3 CD set  called World Acoustic, which claims it is 3 CDs of essential acoustic beats. I had seen it on sale at Half-Price Books a while back, and it piqued my curiosity. Sometimes, however, those obscure collections can be pretty lame, so instead I bought 4 R.E.M. CDs for about $10.

Since I’ve been working on the committee to get the RootsRoom up and running, though, I thought I would check it out and see if it would be something that we could use as background music at this club. I’ve been giving it a listen, and I find that it is very well done and very interesting to listen to.

The strange thing about it, though, is that the music that is on the CDs doesn’t really seem to match what the packaging would lead you to believe would be on there. First of all, you have the title – World Acoustic. Then, on the cover, there is the picture of a sitar and some type of non-Western drum and, as I said, the subtitle stating that it is 3 CDs of essential acoustic beats. All this, to me, sets the stage that I’m about to hear a lot of music that I may not be accustomed to. Certainly I should expect to hear some sitars and other “unusual” sounds – perhaps even some stuff that I might find out of my league and hard to comprehend. I’m expecting to hear cultural music from places like India and other places in the middle or far east. I’m expecting to hear non-traditional, non-Western acoustic sounds and rhythms. Sounds like fun, right? Not only do I expect to hear some “obscure” music, but for some reason I expect that the recording quality to not be that great either. I expect maybe these would be recordings that somebody made with a hand-held, battery-powered MP3 recorder that they brought with on a journey high atop the Himalayas or in the dark jungles of South America.

That’s not really what you hear…at all. First of all, the recording quality is top-notch. It sounds like all the music was recorded and mastered in high-end professional studios by very talented musicians. As for the music, well, it sounds very Western. It sounds just like the kind of stuff you would typically hear on a smooth jazz station in a big city.

As for the instrumentation, it didn’t seem like I was exposed to anything new. Most songs featured steel-string acoustic guitars. I don’t think I heard one sitar on the entire collection. Drums and percussion were standard sounds that I’d heard before. It sounds like at least half of the drumming and beats seem to come from drum loop synthesis as opposed to live musicians. It doesn’t sound bad, but to the trained ear, you can tell the difference. Plus, there was more than just acoustic instruments on there. A couple of songs had electric guitars. Though it is not an electric instrument, the soprano saxophone doesn’t usually come to mind when I think of the world acoustic genre. A couple of songs had vocals, but not your typical verse-chorus type stuff, but a bit more like Pat Metheny, where the vocals were there more for effect.

Both my wife and I, and the folks at the RootsRoom, found the music very enjoyable to listen to. It’s very interesting and even inspired a few new ideas of my own. It’s rich and complex and satisfying – like a cup of coffee. This music will not get you jacked up, and may not be quite as addicting, but I would definitely give it a listen. I’m sure you will enjoy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I did indeed pick up another new pedal for my electric guitar rig. This time it was the AC Plus – a boost/overdrive pedal made by Xotic Effects. A guitar player friend of mine turned me on to the Xotic effects line. From their web site I learned of the AC Plus. After watching some videos I decided I needed to try it out.

Though the pedal can be purchased through Amazon.com, it’s hard to try one online. So, I made my first trip ever over to Rock and Roll Vintage Inc. in Chicago – near the Old Town School of Folk Music. I brought my Ibanez TS-9 along to compare to whatever TS-808s they had on hand as well. I actually found that I liked my TS-9 better than the 808 they had on hand, which was from the 80s.

But, I digress. Strapped to a Strat and a vintage Deluxe Reverb (or equivilent, I don’t actually remember), I test drove the AC Plus. WOW! Amazing tone is all I could say. I then tried it with a ’74 Les Paul and thought I was in heaven. Incredible. It didn’t take too much convincing to realize that this was a pedal for me. I also wished I could’ve brought home half the store, but hey…

While I was there I also tried a ’68 Gibson Semi-Hallow with stereo output. I never knew such a thing existed. The pickups on it looked like an old car battery with corrosion all over. Pretty nasty lookin’, but sounded like butter.

Since I’ve brougt it home I can’t stop playing with the pedal. I’ve found a setting that just makes a great sound that has me freakin’ out. This is a very versitile pedal. It’s actually 2 pedals in one. It has 2 separate channels which can be configured to run with the A channel before the B channel or vice versa. Each channel has a number of variations, so the possibilities of sound are quite expansive. This was a very good buy in my opinion. I paid around $274 with tax.

Last week I got 2 new stomp pedals from my friends over at Sweetwater. I’ve been wanting to add a little dimension to my electric guitar sound, so I ordered the Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe and the MXR ’74 Vintage Phase 90 re-issue.

I’ve used the Micro Vibe before, as a guitar player friend of mine let me borrow his for a gig that I played on at the UIC Forum. I absolutely loved the sound and tone of the pedal, so it was really a no-brainer. I was particularly excited to see that the latest version of this pedal has an LED indicator light. The one that I borrowed from my friend didn’t have one, and I sure could have used that feature when playing the gig. I had to start out a song with a solo guitar riff, and I couldn’t tell if the pedal was activated or not. Fortunately it wasn’t, but when you’re playing for a couple thousand people, you want to be sure.

I haven’t used a phase pedal much, but I’ve tried them, and I know I love the sound. I called a well-known, giant guitar retail store here in Chicago to see if they had the ’74 Phase 90 re-issue in stock, but they informed me that none of their Illinois locations had one in stock – nor did another instrument retailer I had been turned on to. Without being able to try one, I did some listening to some comparison videos on YouTube and decided I would really like this pedal.

The unfortunate thing about the ’74 Vintage Phase 90 pedal is 1) there is no LED indicator light and, most importantly, 2) there is no way to hook up a 9V AC adapter to the pedal – it only runs on batteries. Definitely retro across the board. This is pretty lame. I didn’t even realize this until I got the pedal out of the box. Since I’m not extremely picky about the sound of the pedal, I may opt to return the ’74 vintage model and instead get the MXR Script Phase 90 – you know, ’cause I gotta have that unmistakable script on my pedal!

So, why both a Micro Vibe and a Phase 90? Don’t the pedals make basically the same sound? Uh, no. The difference is subtle, but there definitely is a difference.

Stay tuned. I’ve also been turned on to the Xotic pedal line. I may be picking up an AC+ pretty soon.