Monthly Archives: February 2009

Stompbox: Catalinbread Ottava Magus Octave Pedal

Octavia pedals add an octave above the original guitar signal. The are very sensitive to volume and attack and when everything falls into place the notes kind of explode or ‘bloom’ as some people put it after the intial attack. Playing two notes at once can yeild a ring modulator sound where the two frequencies add together to produce odd sounding overtones. Not necessarily beautiful – but mutated!

I bought and sold several Tychobrahe Octavia inspired pedals before settling on the Catalinbread Ottava Magus. Some of the other pedals I tried were too metallic and harsh sounding. Others only sounded good if I had everything set just right (play at the twelfth fret, turn down guitar tone and volume controls, select the rhythm pickup) which just seemed too limiting. This tiny pedal just sounds good no matter the configuration.

I fell in love with the sound after hearing Jimi Hendrix’s Who Knows from the Band of Gypsys album. Jimi broke a string and drops out of the mix for a minute or so and when he comes back he has the wah and octavia swtiched on and has the most incredible strangled twisted sounds coming out of his guitar.

Update: I’ve upgraded to the Catalinbread Ottava Magus II pedal.  It has a third control (saturation) to adjust the amount of distortion, further increasing the range of sounds I can access. It also has a cool LED effect behind the artwork if you play the pedal in a dark room – trippy!

Have a favorite octave pedal? Tell me about it in the comments!

Cirque de Soleil Beatles LOVE Show

Last week I went to see the Cirque de Soleil LOVE show at the Mirage Theater in Los Vegas, NV. We had seats in the first row near the left side of the stage.  At times, it felt almost too [...]

Last week I went to see the Cirque de Soleil LOVE show at the Mirage Theater in Los Vegas, NV. We had seats in the first row near the left side of the stage.  At times, it felt almost too close and sometimes felt overwhelming… but in a wonderful way. Being so close to the performers made me feel connected to them for brief moments in a way I wouldn’t have if we were further back. Between the ‘theater in the round’ and the ‘three ring circus’ aspects, I think you’d need to go the show more than once to really absorb everything.

The thing I remember most, is how happy so many of them seemed – especially the younger performers (some were little kids). That’s one aspect of the Beatles they really highlighted – the happiness and joy they radiated.

All the stage effects were amazing – with scenery and people being raised and lowered constantly up from out of the stage and down from the ceiling. The surface of the stage itself was constantly changing – sometimes it was completely sunken and sometimes completely flat with various constructions rising up out of the floor or being lowered down from above.

I especially liked how they employed the projections on the curtains which got raised and lowered at various times during the show (you can see some of them in the last photo). And then on top of all this, the performers climbing and flying around on cables… makes it hard to imagine them ever taking this show on the road without major modifications. Here are a few photos I took with my cellphone…

This is the main entrance to the theater (at the Mirage). The floor keeps changing color – like walking on a moving rainbow…

… and we were mezmerized by the mirrored balls on the ceiling…

This was a plaque on one of the walls where the image of John was created in relief…

This was a poster in the gift shop window…

Before the show began, there were many announcements about no picture taking. The show itself was so engrossing that I forgot all about my phone camera but I couldn’t resist taking one quick pic after the incredible finale had ended.

A splendid time indeed!

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Stompbox: Teese RMC3 Wah Pedal

The great thing about the Teese RMC3 Wah pedal is that you can configure it to sound like almost any wah wah pedal that’s ever been made. The downside is that there are so many options, it can seem daunting [...]

The great thing about the Teese RMC3 Wah pedal is that you can configure it to sound like almost any wah wah pedal that’s ever been made. The downside is that there are so many options, it can seem daunting to try to dial in just the sound you are looking for.

I haven’t managed to configure it to reproduce my ultimate wah sound perfectly – which is somewhere in the neighborhood of “Still Raining, Still Dreaming” by Jimi Hendrix -but I’m having a lot of fun trying!

Soon after purchasing, I found there was a scratchy pot issue and I contacted Teese by email.  He said that I had purchased a slightly older version which had an inferior potentiometer to the one he was now using.  I shipped it back to him and he replaced the pot and shipped it back to me at no extra charge – nice service!

Have a favorite wah of your own?  Tell me about it in the comments!

Stompbox: Barber Tone Press

This is a great sounding pedal and it seems extremely well built. The standout feature that differentiates it from other compressor pedals is the blend control which allows you to mix the original uncompressed guitar signal in with the compressed [...]

This is a great sounding pedal and it seems extremely well built. The standout feature that differentiates it from other compressor pedals is the blend control which allows you to mix the original uncompressed guitar signal in with the compressed signal.

Turned all the way to the left, you hear mostly the uncompressed source guitar. Turned all the way to the right, you hear a warm squashed guitar sound reminicent of the classic guitar compressors of the past. This provides a lot of flexibility in adjusting your sound. Set near the middle you can still have the agressive attack of your pick sound while at the same time increasing your sustain.

I often use this effect to play around with feedback as it’s pretty easy to get some wailing and howling going with the compression turned all the way up.

Have a favorite compressor pedal of your own? Tell me about it in the comments!

Sitting In Silence (Part 3)

After several days passed I began to experience some sitting meditations where my mind got very quiet and I was able to follow the breath for several minutes at a time without any distractions.  One day I noticed this odd [...]

After several days passed I began to experience some sitting meditations where my mind got very quiet and I was able to follow the breath for several minutes at a time without any distractions.  One day I noticed this odd sensation on the in-breath which eventually revealed itself to be my heart beating.  I always have this image of the cresent moon coming out from behind a cloud when I think about the impact of suddenly having a clear perception of my beating heart and it’s relationship to the breath, like the lifting of a veil.  I began to go deeper into the sensation of my beating heart and I found that I could feel the pulsation of the blood radiating outward from the heart.  I could follow that sensation with my mind outward from the center of my chest and into my arms and legs.  As I focused on the sensations of the pulsations, I got a very clear sense of the circulatory system and the way the arteries divide into smaller and smaller branches.  When my concentration was strong enough, I could sense my heartbeats radiating all the way into the capillaries in my fingers.  The image in my mind’s eye was incredibly clear and three dimensional, like something you might see in an Alex Grey painting.  When I would get up to transition into walking meditation, I would try to move very slowly, trying to maintain my deep concentration on the circulatory sensations as I rose to standing but the flood of different sensations that arise with movement made focusing so intently on any one aspect too challenging.

February is such a wonderful time to be there as the weather can be quite warm at times and the creeks are often full of water at that time of year.  The frog chorus from the surrounding creeks can seem incredibly loud and you can hear them peeping away from inside the meditation hall.  Invariably they would all go silent in unison, perhaps scared by some creatures movement.  Then after a minute or so one brave one would start with a peep.  And then another from further away.  And you could hear the sound begin to spread off into the distance along the length of the creek.

I remember one time, sitting in the meditation hall in the afternoon when everything became particularly still and my mind seemed incredibly clear.  Somebody in the room coughed and I felt the sound in my body.  I began to notice various sounds in the room of people breathing and shifting positions and all the sounds seemed to be coming from inside of me rather than outside – as if I had expanded to contain all that was happening in the room.

The two weeks passed really quickly.  I remember thinking several times that I could spend my whole life living like this.  Time spent at a meditation retreat is so sweet.  All of your basic needs are met and there’s nothing you need to do but just experience each moment as fully as possible.  It felt like heaven.  Not that every moment was blissful – not by a long shot.  There were plenty of unpleasant experiences to be had, but I felt so grateful for the opportunity to just stop everything and experience being.

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