I've Got You

I've Got You

A new track featuring Lily Adams on my new MartinBirdMusic soundcloud page.

Bogner Shiva

I recently traded my trusty Blackstar Artisan 30 amp for this wonderful Bogner Shiva.

This is the 6L6 model, which is  60 watts and has a touch more lowend/highend that's more in the American-style. This also has a wonderful rich reverb which sounds fantastic on the clean channel especially with my Stratocaster plugged in. This being the 1x12 Combo features a ported speaker enclosure that sounds very full, almost like a 4x12 cabinet.

The real joy starts when my Gibson SG is cranked up through the high gain, just pure bliss. Time to spark up the Shiva methinks!

Connected (short film)

Earlier in the year I did the music to Connected a short film starring Kevin Eldon and Miles Jupp. Directed by Chris Connatty it is a film about a man isolated by modern technology, it is presently doing the rounds at festivals in New York, Leeds, Houston and Sweden.

source

For the last year I have been working (in down time) with  'RavenRook' who are the exceptionally talented twins Lily and Violet Adams. Their music has many roots but mostly in folk with a unique twist, and with their wonderful lyrics and harmonies they really are in my opinion one to look out for.

They are hoping to release their CD 'New Horizons' over the next couple of months.

LovePedal Babyface Tremolo

I've just added a very dinky Babyface Tremolo from Lovepedal  to my pedal-board. This pedal boosts 3 switchable waveforms via a mini toggle which lets you choose between the opto sound (sine wave) of a blackface amplifier, a sawtooth wave that recalls the tremolo of an Ampeg amp, and a full square wave, which is suitable for stutter and chopper effects (great with distortion or fuzz, which I particularly enjoyed). Boasting just one speed knob it is simplicity itself.

After playing with it for a while I was struck by it's smooth warm analogue sound and liked what I was getting out of this tiny pedal. Perhaps the main drawback could be that to access the depth and volume trim pots you need to remove four screws and take the back panel off, where the pots are then easily adjustable with a small screwdriver. I find that with a Tremolo pedal I pretty much stick to one sound,  however I did  set the depth a bit deeper and tweaked the volume up slightly which stopped the psycho-acoustic volume drop that happens with some tremolo pedals, and I think this will cover my options nicely.

All in all a great little pedal that I think will definitely be staying on my Pedalboard

Heart Full Of Soul

I was intrigued to learn that the 1965 single "Heart Full of Soul" by  The Yardbirds was written by Graham Gouldman of 10cc fame (popular belief is that they adopted the name 10cc because the average male ejaculation is 9cc and the band was above average with 1cc more than that. So 1 more just like 11). Gouldman was a prolific songwriter who also came up with songs for The Hollies, Cher, The Shadows, and Herman's Hermits.

The song features Jeff Beck playing his Telecaster employing early use of a fuzz box (a Tonebender MK I designed by Gary Hurst) on his lead part. The original arrangement called for a sitar playing the lead guitar part, but they instead opted for Beck's sitar-sounding guitar.(An authentic Indian sitar player was brought into the studio, as well as a tabla player who could not get the 4/4 time signatures right)

                                                           Tone Bender Mk1

Engineered by Brian Auger this was one of the first songs to use the "Eastern-exotic"influences that became so popular with George Harrison at the forefront.

Although it is Beck that plays on the song, the U.S. single was released with a picture sleeve showing the Eric Clapton lineup. A March 1968 appearance on the music show "Upbeat" features the final lineup with Jimmy Page guitar-synching to the record (Jimmy Page miming to Jeff Beck!).

It charted in the United States at number nine and at number two in the United Kingdom. 

Heart Full of Soul - The Yardbirds

Sick at heart and lonely, deep in dark despair.
When you want her only, tell me where is she where?
And if she says to you, that she don't love me.
Just give her my message, tell her of my plea.
And I know, if I could have her back again, I would never make her sad.
I got a heart full of soul. I got a heart full of soul.
She's been gone such a long time, longer than I can bear.
But if she says she wants me, tell her I'll be there.

And I know, if I could have her back again, I would never make her sad.
I got a heart full of soul. I got a heart full of soul.
Sick at heart and lonely, deep in dark despair.
When you want her only, tell me where is she where?
And if she says to you, that she don't love me.
Just give her my message, tell her of my plea.
And I know, if I could have her back again, I would never make her sad.
I got a heart full of soul. I got a heart full of soul.
I got a heart full of soul!

Writer/s: GOULDMAN, GRAHAM
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

Electro Harmonix Micro Pog

My of my favourite pedals on my pedalboard at the moment is the Electro Harmonix Micro Pog, this little blighter is a fantastic sonic addition to any set-up.

Basically it's polyphonic, got 3 very user-friendly knobs, dry signal (input signal) volume, sub octave volume (-1 octave), octave up volume (+1 octave) the octave sound it creates reacts fast and sticks closely along side your original guitar signal and you can play more than one note through this unit at a time tracing your notes and chords almost seamlessly.  It's great for electric organ sounds, or can make a 6 string guitar sound like a bass or 12 string, you can get great Jack White tones when distortion, overdrive and basically anything over 11 is applied.

Time to fire up my amp methinks.

                                                  image Sound Unlimited