Computer Recording Interface for $3.24…

So I have been pondering getting a computer recording setup. Maybe firewire for my Mac… I was prepared to burn a couple hundred dollars, but I had a stroke of brilliance last night on my way home from work last night…

I went over to Radio Shack and purchased one of these: 1/4" Mono Jack to 1/8" Mono Plug Adapter

So the moment of truth was when I got home, and plugged my bass directly into the 1/8” microphone jack on the back of my laptop. Mind you, my basses are all passive with no electronics… I turned up the sound, launched Garageband, and voila’. Sound!!! The sound wasn’t half bad, and there was no latency that I noticed, and I was able to use all of the effects that Garageband has… Pretty cool. The only noticeable problem is that if I am playing too close to my computer, I can hear an electrical hum in my headphones, but that’s about it… This weekend, I’ll try adding my boost pedal into the mix to get a stronger signal, but I’m overall happy with my discovery and decision… Now I can start recording stuff on my own time just for kicks…

Now, my next question is does anybody read this silly blog???

Realizations for 2009

Hope you all had a Happy Holiday Season, and a very Happy New Year!

So for 2009, I have made a resolution not to make any new year resolutions, for fear of breaking them in the near future out of laziness or forgetfulness…

Sometime late last year, or early this year, I read a blog entry from Bay Area bassist Jeff Schmidt on his Myspace page called: Not sucking Donkey Balls Isn’t enough for success. It includes a video of Malcolm Gladwell interviewed by Charlie Rose. Basically the gist of it is that in order to master something you need to do it for about 10,000 hours under the right circumstances… Watch the video and you’ll understand…

Also, last year, I was pondering selling my bass rig in order to get something smaller and less cumbersome to move around, and to get some cash back… Well that sort of happened, but not really… I ended up selling most of my pedals that I don’t use… So I’m left with the following:

Barber Electronics Launch Pad Boost Pedal (my preamp)
QSC PLX 1804 (power amp)
Dr. Bass 1580 (speaker cabinet)

Let me preface this by saying that my band Har Ik Zehr played a show on December 26th for some sort of Paki Cultural/Political Event in Long Island City, Queens… We had to bring all of our equipment, etc… We were promised a 30 minute set, but were cut off after not even the end of our 2nd song… Anyways, we as a band decided that this show never existed… But I came to the realization, that my amplification set-up is fine, it sounds good, it’s a little bigger than I’d like, but it sounds great, and is loud enough for most venues…

Also, to go off on another tangent, I had dinner with Yves Carbonne and his wife last night in NYC… It was so nice to actually meet him in person, and to see how passionate he is about music…

So anyways, more about Yves later… But I’ve come to realize that more gear, even better gear doesn’t make you a better player or musician… More life, more practice, and finding yourself and your own musical voice/style make you a better musician… So, to make a long story short, I better get on with those 10,000 hours of practice…

My Sweet Potato Pugliese Bread Recipe Featured on http://www.thefreshloaf.com

Sweet Potato Pugliese Bread

This is an 85% hydration dough. Crumb is very light, airy, and moist.
Makes two approx. 500g loaves.

Time Required: 5-6 hours with 30 minutes active work.

Ingredients:
400g all purpose unbleached flour (70%)
100g bread flour (17%)
60g whole wheat flour (10%)
20g rye flour (3%)
493 grams of water (85%)
14g kosher salt (2.5%)
1 tsp active dry yeast (1%)
125g mashed sweet potato (see instructions) (22%)

Tools required:
Large mixing bowl with cover, or plastic wrap
Wooden spoon
Kitchen Scale
Baking Stone
Peel
Tea towels, or linen baker’s couches
Small pot
Immersion blender

1. Peel sweet potato and cut into small chunks and measure out 125g. Place sweet potato in small pot with just enough water to cover. Bring water to boil and cook sweet potato until it can be mashed easily with a fork.

2. When sweet potato is cooked, remove from heat and separate sweet potato from cooking liquid.

3. Using a kitchen scale, add the sweet potato cooking liquid, and add room temperature water to make 493g of total liquid.

4. Add cooked sweet potato to the liquid and process with stick blender until there are no chunks of sweet potato. Make sure the liquid mixture is less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

5. Using a kitchen scale, measure out dry ingredients (flours, salt, yeast), place in large bowl and mix well with wooden spoon, then add sweet potato liquid mixture, and mix into choppy dough, and let rest covered for about 20-30 minutes (autolyse)

6. After rest, mix dough again with wooden spoon until dough becomes smooth and wraps around wooden spoon. Turn dough out onto heavily floured work surface, and turn dough using the fold and stretch method, returning dough to covered bowl between turns. Repeat at 20 minute intervals 4 times. At last turn, let dough rise in covered bowl undisturbed for another 90 minutes.

7. After final rise, turn dough out onto heavily floured work surface, gently stretch and fold dough into thirds with the last fold overlapping the first and divide into two loaves. (approx 630g).

8. Form loaves by gently stretching them out and folding them in thirds with the last fold overlapping the first, and place seam side down on heavily floured tea towels or linen baker’s couch with a wall between the 2 loaves. Be careful not to handle to dough to much to preserve the air pockets. Be sure to flour the loaves well so they don’t stick to the tea towels or couche. Cover with remaining couch or tea towels and let proof for about 45 minutes or until they are well expanded and barely spring back when touched.

9. Place baking stone on middle rack of oven and turn on to 500 degrees Fahrenheit and preheat for at least 45 minutes.

10. Turn loaves onto peel (seam side up) and place directly on to the baking stone. Turn oven temperature down to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, and bake for 40-45 minutes turning them 180 degrees half way into baking time. Loaves are done when they are a deep golden brown and the internal temperature is between 205F to 210F.

11. Let loaves cool completely before cutting and eating.

Baking Bread While Waiting For My Delano Pickups...

So on September 11, 2008, I ordered a set of Delano pickups for my bass from Fearless Guitars out in Portland Oregon... Sometime in early November, Chance Walte of Fearless Guitars told me that Delano screwed up some of the orders, and had to remake some of them... My order was one of them... Anyways, it's December 8th now, almost 3 months, and still no word on the progress of my order... Funny thing is that Delano is from Germany... ETS is also from Germany... My custom order from ETS also suffered the same fate, but was much longer... Almost double what I am waiting for my Delano pickups... Anyways, there isn't much I can do other than wait, and send emails to Fearless Guitars, or try to contact then over the phone... It's almost like watching grass grow... But here in NYC, it's a luxury to have a lawn, so I bake bread instead...

So leading up to Thanksgiving, I decided to start up baking bread again, since the weather is cooler, or colder, so I can fire up the old oven without much worry... Pre-Thanksgiving, I decided to see what I could do in 5 hours, but that was a distaster that went straight to the trash... For Thanksgiving, I allowed myself much more time and had a pretty successful run baking 4 loaves, 2 plain loaves, and 2 caraway seed w/raisins, dried blueberries & cranberries... I will repeat the caraway dried fruit loaves very soon, however, I'm always up for trying something new...

So today, on Dec. 8th, I am working on the following:
3 loaves of a simple crusty bread
3 loaves of ciabatta

Each of the loaves I'm hoping will be about 500g.

Please see preceeding blog entries for the recipes...

For more in artisan bread baking, please check out the following books:
Artisan Baking Across America by Maggie Glezer
and
The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Rheinhart

I highly recommend these books, but what is most important including following the recipes is time and patience... If you rush, you will surely fail...

Happy Post-Thanksgiving

Funny thing I noticed last night... Just outside of the subway stop near my apt, I noticed that there are Christmas trees for sale already... Even just before Thanksgiving, I noticed that their stands were already set up, just waiting for the trees to arrive... There was some dude manning the stands, and freezing his *ss off... I guess you need to have a constant watch over your stuff here in NYC, or else someone will make off with it...

Anyways, I hope you are all still enjoying your leftovers... Dinner went off without a hitch, and the Turchicken that I attempted came out preety good along with the turky leg/wings confit, and fresh bread... I will start posting my bread experiments shortly... On a related note, I am on my 5th day of turkey, and variations on my Thanksgiving dinner... I have done about 5 loads of dishes in my dishwasher... There is 1 more load I think... I'll be very happy when my fridge is clear of all the leftovers, and my kitchen.

Finally, I have successfully resisted the "Black Friday" shopping frenzy... Actually, didn't do any shopping, so that means more money that I didn't spend... Yay...

Well, signing off for now... More updates soon...

Downsizing...

Sorry for the lack of posts... I've been pondering a few things lately in regards to musical gear and stuff... Just trying to figure out what I really need to get the sound that I am hearing in my head... My conclusion is that less is more... Get that one piece of gear that you really want, instead of lots of little things here and there that sort of get the job done... So in light of this, I am pondering a new, simpler bass set-up, and am selling things that I don't use much... So in the coming weeks I will be selling stuff on eBay...

Currently up for sale is a Zoom PD-01 Analog Distortion Pedal, and a BBE Opto Stomp Compressor Pedal... Nice stuff, but don't seem to use them anymore... Maybe after Thanksgiving, I'll put up my 4 string bass, and jazz guitar up for sale... Also, somebody has dibs on my Dr. Bass 1580 speaker cab...

I have my sights on a powered speaker cabinet, which will get rid of the separate head/pre/power amp/speaker cabinet ordeal... I'm looking into the Roland D-Bass 115X powered extension cabinet. The Barber Electronics Launch Pad Boost Pedal should suffice as a pre-amp for a long time, and I'll be keeping my pedal tuner...

I think for me, this is an excercise in not getting too attached to material things... Basses, and musical instruments are just tools... When they have served their purpose, and are no longer useful, and are just taking up space and collecting dust, they should be sold... This is also the great thing about musical instruments... If they are cared for, they can be resold at very little loss...

Rediscovering Living Colour...