Thursday, June 30, 2011

Song in my head today by Owl City

This Owl City's instrumental (for the most part) remix of their song "Hello Seattle." I've had this song in my head today. I love it. I could listen to it all the time!


Brandon

Post Office - NO COLLECTION


I suppose you can't have everything. What's a Post Office without collection? What? They're closed?! That doesn't make sense! The nerve!

Obviously, this was doctored. I used GIMP (free, but like Photoshop) to do this. Copy, paste, smudge, and blur did the trick. LOL.

I saw No Collection on this sign when I went to the P.O. today, and I couldn't resist. ;D

Mt. Dew Monster Machine

It's weird that they only put Mt. Dew in this one machine. I call it the Mt. Dew Monster Machine! I promise this isn't photo-shopped. This is at my school.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Not a country fan, but this...

Yeah, I don't normally listen to country. I normally cringe when I hear it on the radio. It's mostly the words that are disturbing at times. Going overboard you say? Well...I've heard some country songs that are not appropriate at all. I used to listen to country when I went through a half year phase. But this kind of country here it very nice to listen to.



Muris is an amazing instructor. He now teaches at Live4Guitar.com. I'm not currently a member there, but I am a member of GuitarMasterClass.net (GMC) where he formerly taught. He still has all of his lessons there. It's cool, because he's a Christian too. :)

Check out this very fast country solo he did at GMC.


What's your thoughts on country, and what are your reactions to these videos?

Brandon

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Drop A Tuning!!

I got my guitar set up for Drop A tuning! I have a 68 gauge string on the bottom! These things are monsters!! I can hammer away without my strings vibrating out of tune! Now I can do some heavy songs.

Another sneak peek at "Determination"

I have been doing some major reconstructing. Here I am linking you to a snippet of the beginning.


My new mouse pad



6/27/2011: I found out that the ink can rub off kind of easy, so be careful. I have a faded white spot on mine now where I thought the discoloration was chalk or something. :/ You'd think it'd be better quality than that. Well, it's going to happen anyway. Grr.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

NO STRAY CATS ALLOWED

We have been having stray cats come to our house all the time wanting handouts. We simply can't keep them. We have chased them off in various ways. Finally, my Mom chalked this notice on the back patio where they have been coming. It has been several days now. They haven't come back since. LOL.


Brandon

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The best is yet to come

Hello everybody!

Wow, how time has flown by so quickly! I remember the first day of college as though it were yesterday. I know that's what we all say, but it's true in a sense. We keep our most cherished memories vivid in our minds as to not forget them. I wore my Three Rivers shirt the first and last days of every semester. I took 63 hours with an overall average GPA of 3.762. All of my classes were 3 credit hours, except one 6 hour class that was my internship with the IT Department. It's amazing how much information that can be hurled at us in such a short time.

I have had a lot of experiences, met many new people, became acquainted with many, and friends with a few. Some experiences and decisions affected me for life, and some are just short term. We have only one life to live. We must live it to the fullest.....with God. You knew I would say that, didn't you? You may not have liked that I said it. I may have made you feel uncomfortable. But the fact is - we will all die one day. This life is not all there is. We must make a decision. Will we accept who our Creator is, or will we reject Him? My friend, if you don't let God become a part of your life, one day you will regret it. I can't change reality. You must choose.

I thank God that He rescued me from going to Hell. When I was 8 years old, I accepted that God sent His Son to die for me (you too) because He loves me (and you too). I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins (things we do wrong) and to become a part of my life. To do this, you must give full control to Him. You can't do it on your own. Sure, we're gonna mess up. We're not perfect, but God loved us so much that He wanted to rescue us from eternal separation from Him. You see, we all are sinners, and God cannot look on sin. To get to Heaven on our own we have to live a perfect life. That's impossible. So God provided a way. God's only Son, Jesus, was the perfect sacrifice for us because He came to this earth and lived a perfect life. All we have to do is accept this - admit we can't do it on our own. God knows the heart - it's not about words.

Anyway, I know God has a plan for me. Just like the song "Best is yet to come" written by the band RED, the best is yet to come, because God's plans are always the best. He knows our lives backwards and forwards. I covered RED's song, and you can find me playing it on YouTube in my cap and gown.

Peace out, ladies and gentlemen.


-Brandon Burch

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Collabs = Exhaustion ;)

I love joining guitar collabs, but the following have the potential to happen:

1. 30+ takes
2. Computer freeze up (lose work)
3. Room gets very hot with all the lighting
4. Fatigue after so many takes
5. Forget to save a project

That last one is most unlikely, but just a while ago I got a good take, exported the WAV file of my guitar and backing, but I also needed the guitar by itself. I didn't save the project. Thus, I had to do a re-take.

I am always exhausted after I do so many takes. It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't such a perfectionist. I prefer improvising while playing along with the backing track for the collab. Mistakes happen, and I want to fix them.

I always put my all in these takes, and the more you do, you wish you had those older files back to go with them. Usually, those files were the best takes.

The best thing to do is come back to it later.

Goodbye Vox VT 30 amp

Today I sold my Vox VT 30 amp. I no longer enjoyed the sound. It's too thin for my taste. I'm searching for another amp. This is a long term goal, as the tone I am seeking will require a fat wallet.

Even before I sold this amp (I was thinking about it) I played a Marshall Haze 15 in a store close to me. It sounded nice - at least for the first amp I ever tried in my searching. It had a great gain. However, I had a inkling I would not enjoy it for long. The amp just didn't impress me all that much. It was a good smaller size, but it definitely wasn't a 10/10...more like a 7/10.

But after all, it was only the first amp I tried. I had to play on some more before I made a final decision. I tried a few other smaller amps in the store, but none came close to the Haze 15. The clerk even cranked it up for me to play to hear what it would really do. Wow. Loud. Big. Cool.

When I sold my amp today at another guitar shop, I played on two bigger amps that really impressed me. They were a Mesa Boogie Mark Five and a Marshall JCM 2000 Dual Super Lead. They were BIG amps! One of these definitely would be too big for my room. Perhaps having a bigger room and a fatter wallet will go hand in hand in years to come.

The Mesa I played had the most complex and customizable head I had ever seen! The clerk walked me through so many different tones possible on that amp. It was very expensive though. Nevertheless, I was very impressed with the amp, and with what I've seen so far, I'd give it a 10/10.

You can see the two amps I played are sitting side by side. How convenient!

The Marshall JCM was very cool and had a killer high gain tone, just as the Mesa. However, the fact that it didn't have a wide variety of tones was a disadvantage. I'd give it a 9/10 for that reason. However, it was half the price because it was used. That didn't make any difference anyway. I have no where near the money for either of these amps. Let's just call this a very long term goal. Perhaps it would span a few years from now.

I was thinking of getting a Mesa Dual Rectifier as Anthony Armstrong has in the band RED, but I haven't even tried it, and yet again, a new amp that I would enjoy the most is way out of my price range.

So what do I have for an amp now, you ask? I have a cheap Ibanez GTA 15R. That and a Tube Screamer guitar pedal is what I'll use to produce live performances for others. But I usually use POD Farm anyway. The reason I sold the Vox right now is because I don't use it anyway - except for clean channel occasionally, but I can get that from my little amp. I didn't see much sense keeping it if I wasn't happy with it. I just got a little bit of store credit. :)

And so the tone adventure continues!

While I was there at the shop playing on these amps, I also dropped off my red Jackson SLSMG for modification and setup. I am getting it modified for Drop A tuning! I'm going to use GHS Baritone Guitar strings (14-70 gauge). This will definitely be heavy! It will probably be the end of next week when I get the Jackson back. In the meantime, I will be playing my two Ibanezes.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Canon Rock 2011

I have recorded yet a newer version of Canon Rock. I hope you enjoy.



See YouTube for full description.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Owl City - Fireflies (Extended)

So, last post was the original version, but here's my remixed version.



The only thing I did was extend the original ending of the song. I raised the pitch up a half step for the last original chorus, then I spliced the first chorus in for the outro and added the echo effect to make a smooth ending.

I used Audacity 1.3 to do this. It was really fun!

For the video clips I used these sites as my sources:
DreamScene.org
IgniteMotion.com
FreeVideoBacks.com

I edited the video with Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10.

Thursday, June 9, 2011