I'm happy to be home for October, and looking forward to hosting the seminar in a couple of weeks. I've been trying to play more locally, and cultivate relationships with other local musicians. It seems to be going well. Lots of local shows (here and in Blacksburg this month including the 4-hour Stick Night on October 16th. See Stick Events below for more info on those.

Thanks to those of you who have been coming out to my local shows so frequently, it's good to be home. I'm also looking forward to heading over to Europe in November for some shows with Jan Wolfkamp. More about that next time...

SEMINAR UPDATE:

If you were worried about missing the deadline to reserve rooms for the Stick Seminar, you've got a few more days. I sope with my contact at the English Inn and they have agreed to hold a few rooms until October 5th. More details at:

http://www.stick.com/events/seminars/virginia2004/

Happy Tapping,
Greg
http://www.greghoward.com

Hi all,

at: http://www.planetbass.co.uk/ there are interviews (oh yes, you can see it comin' like a boulder rollin' down the hill) I'm in the interview section. Nick Beggs, I see is in their too... so I'm not just jumpin' up and down for myself... it's for my health and helping others... see what a nice guy I am. Healthy, Happy and Helpful... I'm gonna start my on "3H" club.

The articals are mainly from the "bass player" perspective hence the "planetbass" name... However there is Stick and NS/Stick in there NOW!

Take care,
Don

Hi everyone,

The two lowest (C & G) bass strings from my last batch of strings (Mediums from Stick Enterprises) seem to have gone dead much faster than on previous sets. I normally get 5-6 months of use out of them, but these have had about two months use. The degradation also appeared to happen much faster (overnight) which is quite different from the very gradual loss of "brightness" that I have experienced before. Does anyone know if the manufacturing process or specs for Stick strings has changed in any way? Am I the only one who has had this problem recently? Maybe I'm playing more, and just don't know it...

Greetings,
Andy Salvanos
South Australia

--

Hi Andy,

I know Emmett tests each batch of strings he receives, and if the ones he tests are bad, he returns the batch (much to the shagrin of the string-makers, I'm sure). I imagine that some bad strings would occasionally get through, anyway. I'd suggest that you write to Stick Enterprises and see what they have to say. I imagine they would replace your strings if they were actually bad.

Hope that helps, Greg

hi there
finally i did my first Stick-gig together with ron baggerman and carel vrieling , in zaandijk-holland. i felt as nervous as i did on my first vocal gig but it was fun. ron played some tunes of his own and i improvised some vocal lines on it; first time as well.......no lines but just sing things wich come out at that moment, quite a refreshing experience as i sing for more than 30 years with all kind of bands. right now i'm the singer of a big-band. but the way we played last friday, was even more fun! ron improvising on the simple tunes i make, encourages me to develop my Stick playing to something serious. some lessons of ron will do more, but the dental shit takes much of my freetime.

for the next Stick seminar in holland, i'll try to improve my playing, so i can share some of my ideas with you; i'm curious about your judgement...... frank leurs: NO POINTS !, joke of the european songcontest.

see you, frank leurs, holland

Hi Greg!

On November 6/7,2004 the 4. German Stick Seminar will take place in Karlsbad, Germany.

Teachers are Bob Culbertson and Jim Lampi, guest appearance by Ron Baggerman.

Further details can be found on
www.chapman-stick.de/seminar4/e_seminar4.htm.

Best regards,

Karsten

--
www.chapman-stick.de

Oct 7 - Michael's Bistro in Charlottesville with drummer James McLaughlin
Oct 11 - Miller's in Charlottesville solo
Oct 16 - Stick Night at Gravity Lounge in Charlottesville
Bob Culbertsons, Virginia Splendore, Jim Reilly and many more from the seminar Oct 19 - The Cellar in Blacksburg
with drummer Matt Wyatt
Oct 21 - WTJU Jazz Marathon studio performance in Charlottesville
with Matt Wyatt and other guests
Oct 25 - Miller's in Charlottesville solo
Oct 28 - Michael's Bistro in Charlottesvile with drummer James McLaughlin
info at http://www.greghoward.com/events/2410
Thanks for supporting live music,
Greg

Jeremy Nesse appearing with Cool Dry Place

Sat Oct 2nd - 9:30 p.m.
@ The Derby
4500 Los Feliz Blvd. (at Hillhurst)
Los Feliz, CA 90027
323-663-8979

$10 @Door / $8 w/ flyer

Support live music!

Check out http://cooldryplace.net or http://jeremynesse.com

Hi Greg

Please post this in the gigs section. I'm playing solo on this occasion. Many thanks, Tony Bowler

Thursday 7th October 2004 7.30pm
The Literary and Philosophical
Society of Newcastle upon Tyne
Westgate Road
Newcastle
England

Join _Julia Darling_ (http://www.juliadarling.co.uk/) and a host of local poets at the Lit & Phil for a Feast of Poetry with:

Monica Cheale, Linda France, Adam Fish, Anne Stevenson, Cynthia Fuller, Charles Gardiner, Kathleen Kenny, Valerie Laws, Jeanne Macdonald, Sheree Mack, Lisa Matthews, Peter Mortimer, Ellen Phethean, Pauline Plummer, Subhadassi, Fiona Ritchie Walker, Anna Woodford and Heather Young Music on The Stick from Tony Bowler

Minimum donation of £5 on door to include refreshments and programme.
Please note: some of the audience will be standing
Places limited - booking essential.
Tel. 0191 2320192, _e-mail_ (mailto:library@litandphil.org.uk)
See the website for details: _http://www.litandphil.org.uk_ (http://www.litandphil.org.uk)

1)
Re: Aaron's cabinet search, using a crossover

Perhaps due to having too much mental time on my hands, I got very curious about using crossovers in a variety of unconventional ways to route sound from the Stick and effects. I was able to get my hands on a sophisticated 4-channel crossover to experiment with. It was fun. But in the end, I felt it was not very effective when working with a L/R pair of full range cabinets. (note: I was not trying to use a high/low freq. pair of cabinets).

Aaron's idea, if I understood correctly, was to split the low freq. and route them to a pair of L/R cabinets, while keeping the highs routed primarily to one of the two cabinets. IMO, crossing over as you describe will breat apart the full-range signal and cause your low sound to sound very dull, and the highs to sound very thin. I did have fun routing just the highs (with an adjustable cut-off freq dial) to multi-fx to hear how it changes the sound. But as always, your experience may vary - considerably ;-)
Happy experimenting,
-Qua

2)
Re: creating volume swells using an SE-70

Hi Greg,
So far, when I've used an expression pedal on an VF-1, (the "Foot Volume" parameter, or "Master Volume") the entire sound goes away when I bring the volume down. I recall you describing how to using the noise suppression parameter in the SE-70 to create volume swells that don't cut off the tails of reverb, or delays, etc when you bring the volume down. I think it is done by creating a patch in the SE-70 that only uses Noise Suppression, and no other effects. So essentially you have an expensive, but very nice way to control the volume. This is then patched in front of other effects processors that provide reverb, delays, etc. Is that correct?

I was trying to achieve this on a VF-1, but so far haven't figured it out. Hopefully others, besides me, would be interested in hearing how this is done on either/both the VF-1 or SE-70, or processors in general.

Thanks!
-Qua

--

Hi Qua,

I assign the controller to the level of the noise supressor, which on the SE-70 and VF-1 is positioned prior to the delay and reverb-based algorithms in the effects chain.

Happy Tapping,
Greg

Copyright 2004 by Greg Howard, all rights reserved, except where noted. The opinions expressed by subscribers and contributors to this digest are not necessarily those of the publisher. Any business transactions arranged by readers of Sticknews are solely their responsibility, and not those of Greg Howard.

Stick and Chapman Stick are registered trademarks of Stick Enterprises, Inc., and are used in the title of this digest with permission.

end of Sticknews #265