Wahhhhhh and Day 34

The Wah, the Auto-Wah, and the Envelope Filter.

These are some of my favorite filters for just having "fun" with.  If you are new to instruments, you can sound like you know what you're doing if you have one of these to play with.  Its the funk "wick wicka wick wah" sound, the "bow chicka wow wow" sound.  To the new, they all seem the same, but to someone presented with the 3, it becomes a little more clear.  So here's what they are, and consequentially the differences.

First off I should talk about the origins.  The origins in modern music is thought to be traced back to the 20's and 30's when horn players learned they could manipulate the horn mute in and out to create a "wah" kind of vocal sound to their playing.  Later this was reproduced in electronics in the form of a Wah Pedal, later came the envelope filters.  Sitars are known to be able to make this type of sound too, but the influence in modern rock is from the horn players.

A wah-pedal is a filter that let's you change the filter's "Peak" by using your foot.  Where the peak is determines where the sound gets highest or lowest in the signal modulation.  You can hear it very noticeably in Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child(slight return)".  The Wah-pedal makes every performance a unique experience, with slight changes in how much the player uses the pedal affecting how the song sounds.  The performance is not standardized, but there's much more "expression" from the player.

(video above is my favorite pedal of any type for any instrument of all time, the Bass IQ from EBS)

Technically an Auto-wah is an Envelope Filter.  A pedal uses an Envelope follower to create a voltage from the volume signal of the guitar.  This volume signal changes the peak of the modulation of the signal.  The difference is that an Auto-wah typically stays set at a fixed position that you choose and creates a much more consistent sound.  This is useful for recording or freeing the player from having to manipulate a pedal and focus on playing.  The notes will always trigger the auto-wah at the same spot and make the same sound.  What is typically known as an Envelope Filter allows the intensity of your playing to alter the sweep.  If you play lightly, you sweep slower, lower, longer and softer.  If you play hard, you'll trigger the sound to make a fast, quick, snappy and short sweeping sound.  It brings in the "expression" from a wah pedal, but frees the player from having to mess with a pedal just like an auto-wah.

I am a huge fan of Envelope Filters on bass guitar, though my enthusiasm for wah of all types on guitar is growing.

Day 34

Wow.  Some days.  Some times there's like this thing in the air.  Your state of mind, the atmosphere, the guitar is tuned just right or the knobs on the amp are tweaked to some kind of point... Today I had the most metal practice session ever.  Like, I would not mind playing in front of some people kind of playing.  I needed extra arms to make the lml etal horns while I played.  I was playing so metal, I am pretty sure that I accidentally bumped into actual parts of Black Sabbath songs.  I would look up those parts to see how close I was to them, but then I'd be so excited I'd play 3 more hours and I just can't do that right now lol.

Its snowing outside, and I'm pretty sure I was playing the Viking raiding anthem.  I dare not entice them more.

The ironic thing is, I was like "ok, today I'm mastering the next tier of "Simple kind of man".  A song that is decidedly un-metal.  I just don't know what got into me, but I kinda wished it did so more often.  Anyway, I have began noticing people playing chords that I know while watching TV, movies or youtube.  Now I'm starting to recognize when people are playing a bunch of power chords.  I was watching some really good pedal demos today, demos done by the people that make the pedals, and they sounded really good and all they did was play power chords.  I experimented with power chords which lead to my metal practice today.

I know there's a hipster sort of thing going on and has been for a long while, where if someone is playing a lot of power chords, some smart ass says "pfft, they're just playing a bunch of power chords" and frequently its by people that a power chord is just about the only term outside of "note" that they know.  Come on.  People are better than that.  Music is music.  Do not become a snob of technique, because let me tell you, unless you're Bucket Head, Joe Satch or Malmsteen, there's always going to be someone that can put your skill to shame.

Appreciate the simple and complex.

And never be ashamed of the music you make(I need to listen to this advice myself).

Legendary: Bass of Doom and day 32

It is no secret that Jaco was a troubled man.  Mentally unstable and an abuser of drugs, Jaco's reputation for being troubled was only matched by his virtuosity as a bass player.  In a spark of this inspiration, he pulled the frets out of his Fender with a butter knife, filled in the holes with plastic wood, and then coated the board with epoxy.  He had just invented the modern Fretless bass.

I waited to talk about this bass till after I had said something about the "Tool" vs "Art" views people have on instruments.  Jaco definitely fell in the "tool" category.  All he cared about was the sound that it made, and so he had several basses over the years depending on the sound he wanted.  His most famous though was a 1962 jazz that he defretted, now called "The Bass of Doom".  Jaco was reported to have drug it around by its headstock, letting the body scrape on concrete and tile floors.

In the mid-60's, the broadcast company CBS bought the Fender company and started running it like any other business.  They started gutting out the higher quality parts and started substituting bulk supplies of wood, cheaper grade hardware, and cutting corners on assembly.  The 1962 that Jaco played was a Pre-CBS Fender, of which the Jazz bass is the rarer type, as the P-bass, Stratocaster, and Telecaster had been made in the 50's, and in higher numbers.  It is of the most valuable and expensive bass types in the world.


Shortly before Jaco met his death, his bass was reportedly stolen from a park bench in New York.  Jaco was never one to cherish the instrument, and simply left it there while he did other things.  The bass disappeared for many years until someone brought it into a shop in 2007 to sell it for some cash.



How did the bass disappear so easily?  Well it was almost always photographed in its 70's and 80's condition.  In 1986 the bass was broken into chunks.  For five months a luthier put it back together.  They had to use maple vaneers on the top and back of the body to add stability.  This radically changed the look of it.  There were also other rumors.  There was confusion over if the bass had been lightly spray painted purple by the mentally unstable musician in his later years.  Also, there were many look alikes by the early 90's, as the color was common, and so were the modifications that Jaco had popularized.

The guitar resurfaced and Jaco's family went to court to get it back.  The most recent bassist for Metallica was a huge Jaco fan, and spared no expense to help the legal proceedings go toward the family of Jaco.  It is still owned by him, though the family can buy it back at any time for the price Robert Trujillo payed the family.  It is reported that Robert has let many of Jaco's famous followers come over to admire and play the bass.

Day 32

I"m continuing to make progress in my chord work.  I'm picking up the chords fast, but being able to switch between them accurately or fast enough for a song is taking time.  I am doing better than I ever imagined I would, but then again chords have always been the bane of my music progression.

I have an envelope filter that I bought for use with my bass guitar.  It is a cheap one, but regarded well among several people since it can be used for bass or guitar.  Years ago was the last time I plugged it into my guitar, and I don't think I got a single usable or musical sound out of that combination.  That's why it took me years to try it again.  I'm happy to say that my skills have definitely improved since the last time.  I had a lot of fun with it, and its definitely something I plan to do more often to lighten my spirits.  An envelope filter is sort of like an auto-wah.  It is dynamic in its execution, so if you pick hard, you get a quick and snappy "womp" but if you pick lightly and slow you get a "woooooooomphh".  If you mute the strings, you get a sort of poppy sound like opening a wine bottle.  Its an essential sound for funk.

I have begun to find power chord areas on the neck that I really like and sound decent through a clean, kind of acoustic setting.  I'm mainly saving these sounds in my head for when I don't have to substitute power chords, and use real chords.  Its a kind of "saving for later" thing I guess.  I have a few sound recordings of things from before this Rocksmith challenge started, and as I have progressed, so too have these sound recordings progressed.  They've gone from a wide open, tons of incorrect notes, to a more focused, smaller amount of incorrect notes.  Still, I think they are sounding better as time goes.