General updates

Work: still looking. Though I did speak with an old coworker last week. She was someone that was at MS, then went to Amazon and she reached out to me via LinkedIn. I was surprised to hear from her, but she gave me some great ideas. One of which was to join LinkedIn premium. It's $39.99/month but you get some perks and weirdly, since I did that, I've been getting some action, but still no jobs.

Yesterday, another former MS worker reached out to me and we chatted for a bit. His company is hiring and the role sounds totally like something I could do. It's 100% remote and a full-time gig and based on what he said, would pay me what I'm seeking. That would be cool; I've emailed his hiring managers but have yet to hear back.

And then, while I was on that call, my last manager texted me and asked if I was still looking, and then said a colleague of hers was gonna reach out to me to see if I'd want another contract with Amazon. I did see that he looked at my LI profile, but I have not heard from him yet.

Music: no gigs until May. Working on some new songs with PITO. Cool ones. Tried my new pedal with PITO and I think I'm gonna stay with my old rig for that band. It does work great with the SGs though, and that's been fun to get dialed in.

My guy Jim from Facebook has also reached out. Last year he messaged me out of the blue to play bass on a song that he submitted to some compilation by a band called the Pencils. That got great feedback and he loved what I did, so he asked me to do some recording on some tunes. I just got one guitar/drum/vocal track and I'm gonna try doing some recording today.

I also got double booked for 7/21 somehow. I got PITO booked at a place on Vashon, but then found out last week that SGs are looking to book that same date. With a nice fat payday for the band, I didn't want to jeopardize that, so I asked PITO if we could back out of that Vashon gig. Luckily they were really cool about it and said sure. Even though they were going to pay us $500 total + ferry tix to play, after staying overnight and paying for that, we'd likely each be losing money.

Books: Just finished Don Winslow's City of Dreams. Danny Ryan in California and it was great. Next up is City in Ruins, but that's not coming out until next year. :( So instead, I'm reading The Power of the Dog again. My notes indicate I've only read it once, but I swear this is my third time through it.

Gamez: Finished Hi-Fi Rush last night. What a great freakin' game. So awesome. Loved it, but some of the boss battles were tricky. Gorgeous art direction, great music, fantastic characters and levels and gameplay. 10/10. And now Star Wars Jedi: Survivor comes out in two days. The question is, do I buy it for PC or wait for it on GamePass? Jedi: Fallen Order runs OK on this PC; I have to dial down to 1920x1080, but it plays good enough. Hopefuly SWJS isn't too taxing, even on this beast of a computer.

Life: We celebrated Ted's one year passing on Sunday. Haley came home for her birthday on Sat and we went to dinner at Grillbird in W Seattle. Sunday, we met with my friend Steve, who took us out on a 26' sailboat in the wind to remember Ted. It was windy and cold, but so great. We spent the day in Ballard, enjoying the Farmer's Market, had lunch at the Matador, found out Hay was chased around Seattle by some mystery BMW, had some molten cakes, shopped at KAVU, and then headed home. It was a good day.

Zoom B2 Four mini-review

For my birthday this year, Mom decided to go big. Usually she says to use her card and buy something around $100. This year, with me turning 51, apparently she thought I should go bigger. She gave me a budget of $300, so of course, I started looking at gear.

Back in the day, like in the late 90s, when I was in a struggling prog trio that was forever seeking a lead singer, I purchased a Line 6 Bass Pod, the red one shaped like a bean. It had all sorts of modeling modes and sounds and I could never figure that thing out. It was definitely more than I needed and I also didn't have the maturity to understand how to use it. I ended up selling it or something, I can't remember. And that was my first and only experience with a multi-effects unit.

Over the years I've had plenty of pedals and things, but not until last year or so did I start getting more pedals. They haven't become a lifestyle for me like they are for some, but I have a handful that I use and enjoy.

Top row, L-R: Aguilar Tone Hammer DI, Electro Harmonix Bass Clone (chorus), A/B switch, Rolls personal monitor
Bottom row, L-R: Ibanez SB7, TC Electronic Spark Booster, MXR Octave, MXR Bass Compressor, Korg tuner

I've had the setup above for a few months now and I use it in all my bands. For the most part, I like the sounds I get, though the Ibanez synth pedal is a little limited in what it offers. The reason I wanted to look at multi-effects was after hearing my bandmate in the Sunset Grooves use his on guitar. He has a Boss unit and after hearing his tones on some of our cover tunes, I decided I wanted to have a better grasp of bass tones for some songs that need it.

On a song like Jive Talkin' by the Bee Gees, though it's likely played on synth, the recorded bass tone is definitely distorted, with a filter or modulation of some sort. In their "official video," the bassist plays a Ric with pick, which is definitely not how that would sound. I play it fingerstyle, with my octaver and bass synth engaged and it sounds OK. But as a result of that song, and others, the search was on.

On my birthday the other day, I went to Guitar Center as they had some pedals in stock, including the Boss GT-1B, as well as the Zoom B1X Four. The Boss was new-in-box and the GC guys were kind enough to let me open it up and try it. But first, I tried out the Zoom. I grabbed a nice Squier vintage 70's P in Seafoam Green and got to work.

The little red Zoom pedal was as the online reviews described. Sort of cheap feeling, being plastic and all, but once I got past that, the sounds were really cool. The interface was pretty intuitive for me, with the pedals, dials/knobs and screen all making sense after a few minutes. I noodled around on that and figured that its newly announced replacement, the B2 Four, would at least sound as good, but with new updates and improvements. (I also tried the Boss, but didn't like its interface as much, so it went back in the box)

With my mind made up on the Zoom, I ordered the B2 Four and it arrived yesterday. I unboxed it and read up on some of the PDFs offered online (no manual in box, just quick start directions). I messed around with it on my desk and headphones and it was pretty cool.

Right off the bat, I realized how deep this pedal went. Something like 250 (!) preprogrammed sounds. They all have names based on the songs the bass tones might come from. Stuff like "Hysteria" and "7Nation" based on the songs of the same names. And they sound pretty good! But there are a bunch that need a far more nuanced ear to hear than I can hear.

Anyway, I plugged into my Trace amp (GP-12 Series 6) post-EQ and Avatar 212 cabinet to see how it sounded and mess around with the interface. I also downloaded the Handy Guitar Lab app onto my iPad. Interestingly enough, they charge .99 for it, so be aware of that! But, it is way worth it as it makes it so much easier to manipulate instead of sitting on the floor or having the B24 on a table.

Soundwise via the amp and cab, I liked what I heard. I barely scratched the surface, but did dial through some sounds as well as try to set up my own patches (effects, settings to my personal liking). I did some programming and dial turning and IEM use via the headphone out jack and it seems like it will be great for Sunset Grooves.

I brought it to Planets practice as well. I had set a PITO patch, with compression, an overdrive, and an EQ. I played through my Orange Terror Bass and Avatar 210 and Ashdown 15 and dang if it didn't sound as good as my regular pedals. I did find the OD to be redundant as whether it was on or off, the OD from the amp sounded very similar. Same with the EQ; on or off, it didn't seem to matter.

I even added a chorus pedal on the fly using the interface while it was on the floor. I could do it with my feet, but one thing I noticed was that for my eyes, the screen was too small. I had to bend over a little to read it properly as when you are choosing effects, they are portrayed as graphical renditions of the real thing, but 8-bit style. Looks cool, but hard to see from a standing position. Also, if you want to adjust, you do have to bend over and turn knobs as you would with traditional pedals.

Overall, despite feeling a little overwhelmed when I first opened it up, after messing around with it all day and then actually using it last night, I'm feeling better about it. I think it will be excellent at Sunset Grooves practice and shows once I get the sounds dialed in. In fact, there are a few patches that are named for songs we actually do, like "Maneater" and one other that I can't remember right now. Plus, the B24 has a DI out, which the previous version did not, so that will be useful for me. Looking forward to playing around with it some more over the next few days.

Computer stuff and Titanfall 2

Many many years ago, I built a PC to run Half-Life 2. So it's been a while. That PC ran for several years and I think I just got an Xbox instead.

Over the years, it's been Xbox for games and laptops for not game stuff. Until recently.

I was fortunate enough to come across a PC that had a nice gaming graphics card in it, a GTX 1060. It's a few years old, but after having the PC sitting in the basement for about a year and realizing it would likely multitask the videos and audio stuff I've been doing way better than my HP laptop, I decided to set it up.

Anyway, long story short, it's nice to have a beefy PC to do the music and videos. AND, an added bonus has been revisiting my love for PC games. Xbox Game Pass has been crucial in that. I have downloaded a few games and been enjoying them quite a bit. At first I started with HiFi Rush, a game that I have to stream via cloud on the Xbox, but on the PC, I can download it and play it and it is sublime.

But, I got distracted with a game I played on Xbox a few years ago, Titanfall 2. I downloaded it to the PC and, wow, what a great game. I finished it last night after working on it for a few weeks. Still challenging and looks incredible after 7 years still. Turns out the studio that did TF2, Respawn, is the same studio that did the Star Wars game I geeked out on a few weeks ago. And the follow up, Jedi Forever or something, is out at the end of the month.

Looks like I'll be buying my first PC game in years... though I could wait until it comes out on Game Pass later this year, probably.