On the Nature of Things | Forum

imnho non crap fusion.


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To get bogged down in definitions without distinction, I never really thought of any of these guys as fusion-ists.

To me, they are all experimental/sui generis types.

When I think of fusion, my mind wanders to John McLaughlin; Jeff Beck; Carlos Santana....

I guess it would be musicians who crossed that old pop/rock/jazz style boundaries but weren't terribly interested in pushing through to the avant garde , developing into weird margins and perusing novelty (or novel techniques.)

...and I have a list of detractions for each one of them!

aaah, so a blend of rock and jazz that is bland and boring is fusion, whilst blends of rock and jazz that are more interesting to listen to are avant garde


Carlos Santana only has one song, and its a MOR/easy listening one at that, i wouldnt actually have thought of him as fusion, just a one trick pony in dorian.

John McLaughlin is a prime example of tedious running of the scales, boring++

Jeff Beck, accidentally good one song per album but imho doesnt have the chops of a mike stern nor the blues riffin of a billy gibbons and usually ends up in nowhere land.

I never said any of them were going to be good

I think that being a talented musician, having one or two major hits,
and then having to perform them for the rest of one's life would be a special type of hell.
At least, it would be for me.

Imagine having to sing "Muskrat Love" year after year.

When people go to see Eric Clapton, most are waiting to hear "Layla".

I am in awe of the creative ability of musicians who write dozens of songs that remain popular for years, and sometimes, decades.

Since you are discussing fusion I'll segue into jazz* which I regard as "musician's music". A lot more fun to play, than to listen to.
Still, the ability to improvise "of the moment" is also remarkable skill.

*Back in the US Midwest, a Brazilian colleague of mine was a jazz fanatic, he even had his own radio show back in São Paulo.
He used to drag me to the "Jazz Showcase" at the Blackstone Hotel on Michigan Ave in Chicago.
Well, I did get to hear a number of world famous, as I later learned, jazz musicians.

I think it depends on the person.

"Muskrat Love" is a guaranteed income stream (or at least was, pre-Napster)

The guy who wrote that has a very interesting backstory and has made a career on essentially one album with material that has been covered numerous times.

It may bug those who are primarily performers more. I once met this guy who had "that one song" and he had to come to terms with a)peaking out in popularity b)having to deal with the lousy deal he got from his label which led to c)having to deal with people yelling through his whole set at some dinky place for that one song.

He finally came to appreciate that so few people get to be in that position that he should be grateful that he wrote something people want to hear every night, anywhere he goes. And it has also provided him with the ability to continue playing his own music as a full-time job.

Guys & gals with a bunch of hits get stuck in the same rut too. Very few of them turn into Paul McCartney with a catalog of hundreds of hits or familiar songs/fan favorites that they can mix and match every tour depending on their mood; he could play all his new material too without having to worry that it'll be money losing in the long run.

the only thing worse than being typecast is not being cast at all!

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those are very cool fx pedals

Ive been very impressed with my cheap and cheesy modelling amp - digital processing has come so far since I played for real (90's) except for the fact you cant leave the model - the old pedals dont seem to work with it.

I bought the parts for doing my own fx gear but its so far down the hobby project list i doubt ill ever get to it.

that's strange, it doesn't do the whole "Direct" modelling thing?

to clarify - it has builtin emulation of many pedals and they all sound good, except its limited to one "stompbox" at a time due it being the weeny beginners version.

if i plug in my octaver, or i assume, other pedals that dont stuff with line levels, it sounds ok.

however if i plug in any of my copious collection of overdrives/fuzz's/tubescreamers it sounds like a turd - the modelling doesnt seem to like getting that as an input.

luckily im not that fussed as all i wanted was the fat-fender bassman sound ala early marshalls and it does a ripper version of that - including the dyamic range induced by different picking techniques and subtle volume knobbery.

noddy wrote:to clarify - it has builtin emulation of many pedals and they all sound good, except its limited to one "stompbox" at a time due it being the weeny beginners version.

if i plug in my octaver, or i assume, other pedals that dont stuff with line levels, it sounds ok.

however if i plug in any of my copious collection of overdrives/fuzz's/tubescreamers it sounds like a turd - the modelling doesnt seem to like getting that as an input.

luckily im not that fussed as all i wanted was the fat-fender bassman sound ala early marshalls and it does a ripper version of that - including the dyamic range induced by different picking techniques and subtle volume knobbery.

okay, I misunderstood

Nonc Hilaire wrote:

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:I had a real nice organ attached with a Leslie; the upkeep and the horror of lugging it around made me cut it off.

"Whiter Shade of Pale" referred to the organ player's complexion after lugging that Leslie from venue to venue.

It's amazing how popular some of the old stuff was considering how it was both:

a) fragile
b) practically immovable

I was talking to a guy who gigged in a smaller time 70s prog-rock band and he was talking about moving a mellotron! (and all the subsequent synthesizer updates) from gig to gig.

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in another fit of whimsy ive bought a cheap bass and amp to learn/practice with - a fender squire p/j bass which is a precision bass that has the jazz bass pickup added for a vaguely best of both worlds.

i always was a frustrated bass player and now i get to indulge in it, which is fun.

it appears my industry is in collapse mode right now so im making sure any downtime i get is well used ahah.

I've been experimenting with one (cardoid) mic drum recording.

I don't like in-your-face drums and the wide bandwidth modern drums take. I don't like dealing with the phasing issues. I don't like how many modern recordings are the same drum samples added on top of real playing. (Andy Wallace made a whole career of using the exact same snare and kick sample on every record he does.) [not against drum samples but talk about unimaginative]

Truth be told, there is very little pop/rock drumming I like- nothing beats jazz drummers; and the best pop/rock drummers, in my opinion, have some familiarity with jazz drumming (even if they were likely bad at it.)

All modern drum recording, with its 8+ mic placement, is an accidental tradition outgrown from the limits of early stereo recording.

...I'm bringing up the jazz drummer thing because recording with one mic on the drum set requires excellent drummers, as it limits the ability to punch in mistakes, or fix eq or any sort of production trickery.

At the same time, that Glyn Johns method and all his epigones make me ill, in the main. I can't think of too many exceptions to the rule; I do not like that room sound; that half live/half your standing right there!/all stupid sound.

This is the new standard.

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Mr. Perfect wrote:This is the new standard.

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sounds thin

edit: it's still impressive though, and will be the standard very soon. I just don't think it's quite there yet.

I personally am not attached to that whole debate. Tube Amps are a tremendous hassle and I look forward to the day when no one has to deal with them.

Did someone mention bandwidth?

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I eschew all digital technology I can when playing, the only digital I have is an Eventide H8000 for delay/reverb, pitch shifting and maybe chorus. Everything else is analog especially amps. So I'm old school in that regard, everything I have could have come from the late 60's EXCEPT for the Millenium Falcon effects processor LOL.

I was backstage at a few shows this summer and EVERYONE from Europe is straight Kemper. I've never actually used one but the B level touring bros are all switching over. No weight no space nobody can tell the difference in a crappy club.

I haven't played much in the last few years, but at that time it looked like Ax FX was going to take over, but things changed.

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Typhoon wrote:Did someone mention bandwidth?

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The 'loudness wars' are winding down- it's not as bad as it was in the early 2000s.

What's ending it is youtube and spotify and the streaming services.

They all have in-house normalization techniques on their ends to prevent songs from being blasted from click to click.

The audio quality still isn't good, of course; but what it has done is neutered the ability of the loudness to catch a listeners ear. Since it is no longer a draw, it is highlighting how badly screwed up some of those loudness tracks are compared to punchier, dynamic productions.

Now I am not a fussy audiophile but it is embarrassing how many albums were shipped from major-related studios and artists, from let's say 1998 to 2010 or so, which had actual clipping.

Phys | Revolutionary guitar string rocks the guitar world

PLOS | The physics of unwound and wound strings on the electric guitar applied to the pitch intervals produced by tremolo/vibrato arm systems

No idea, not being a guitar player, as to how "revolutionary" this development may prove to be.

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote: . . .

Now I am not a fussy audiophile but it is embarrassing how many albums were shipped from major-related studios and artists, from let's say 1998 to 2010 or so, which had actual clipping.

Frustrating to find a video of a favourite performance with reasonable video quality only to find that the audio has been clipped and undersampled.

That being said, you always hear these complaints about loudness but I wonder how much of bleeds over from the average listener?

I'm thinking teenagers, specifically because that's who this is aimed at.

They response very much to loudness and more loudness and the physiological response loudness creates. Maybe that Thomas Beechem observation is right, "People don't like music, they just like the way it sounds."

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:That being said, you always hear these complaints about loudness but I wonder how much of bleeds over from the average listener?

I'm thinking teenagers, specifically because that's who this is aimed at.

They response very much to loudness and more loudness and the physiological response loudness creates. Maybe that Thomas Beechem observation is right, "People don't like music, they just like the way it sounds."

Have always found places with loud music frustrating as I have a low voice which is drowned out by the loud music and talk.