New Fly-Out Rig!

I just built a new super compact and totally awesome sounding guitar rig for fly out dates where I can only bring a limited amount of gear.  If I had my way, I'd bring my Engl Stack and my big rack o' TC gear to every gig, but on fly out dates, that's simply not possible. 

I got tired of being at the mercy of backline companies' amps.  Usually they're ok, but you do get some poorly maintenanced stinkers every once in a while.  I didn't want to chance it anymore, so that inspired this new rig. 

Here are all the gory and geeky details:

1) My signal obviously starts with the guitar.  I use various Ernie Ball Music Man guitars, all equipped with DiMarzio pickups. 

2) This goes into an Audio Technica AEW-4110 wireless system.  This is a really great sounding and reliable wireless.  It's probably the oldest piece in my entire rig.  It's almost 10 years old and still works great.  How many pieces of electronic gear can you say that about?

3) The output of the wireless goes into a TC Electronic Poly Tune.  This is the coolest tuner ever.  You can check the tuning of all 6 strings at once.  This makes it really easy to tune during very short song breaks.

4) From the tuner, we go into the input of a Line 6 Pod HD-500.  That's right, a POD!  I used to be a tube amp purist. So why did I start using a Pod?  As I said before, the unpredictable nature of backline tube amps, made it nearly impossible to get a consistent sound.  Also, since we started using in-ear monitors, we've been able to keep the stage volume way down.  This made it easier to make this transition.  It took me a long period of tweaking, but I finally got the Pod sounding just right.  The HD models in there are very nice.  The effects are also cool, but they too require a whole lot of tweaking.  I basically use 4 sounds:

            A) Clean Fender Twin Reverb with Chorus, Delay and Reverb

           

            B) Slightly overdriven Dr. Z amp with Tube Screamer, Tremolo and Delay

            C) Crunchy Marshal JCM-800 with Chorus and Flanger

            D) Engl Fireball with 2 Delays set to different rhythms and mix levels.

Within each of these presets I have the ability to turn the individual effects on and off as if the were stomp boxes.  I also have the expression pedal set up to control the Delay mix level.  At first I was using the Pod going direct, but I wasn't thrilled with these results.  So, I ended up disabling the cabinet simulation.

5) The Pod's mono output goes into a BBE Sonic Stomp pedal.  One unexpected side effect of turning the cabinet simulation off and only using the Pod as a preamp was the loss of the low end.  Don't get me wrong, the tone was great, but that super low end depth that you get from a real amp, was just not there.  This pedal was the perfect solution to these missing freqencies.

6) From there the signal goes into a Matrix Guitar Amplification G-1000 Stereo Power Amp.  This is a solid state 1000 watt power amp that only weighs 6 pounds!!!  It's stereo, so I run it in mono mode.  I could run my rig in stereo if I wanted, but I find that my being mono is more effective in this particular band.  Buck has a really nice stereo spread on his sound, and I don't want to get in the way of that.  Since I wasn't really loving the sound of the Pod going to direct into my ears, this was a perfect solution.  I got the air moving and I got to have a little bit of stage volume. This power amp isn't as loud as you'd think, but it does give you a pretty respectable stage volume and it's totally fine if you're using in-ears.  I kind of wish the amp had a depth and presence control like other power amps, but the BBE pedal fills that void nicely.

7) The power amp goes into a Marshall 1960 Cabinet. This is the only piece of rental gear I use.  These are usually consistent enough where my sound won't change much from gig to gig.  This gets miked up and then sent to the PA.  I'd say the most important step in getting a good guitar sound through a PA is microphone placement.  Poor placement can totally wreck your sound, no matter how great your gear is.  I place the microphone myself using my in ears to monitor the sound.

So that's my new rig.  It's really small and I'm really enjoying it.

-Richie

The Abbey Road Video

            So, I've lost my damn mind and decided to do another one of these split-screen videos. I have to say that the Bohemian Rhapsody video was more successful than I could have ever imaged while making it.  I'm so honored that so many people have decided to watch it and share it with their friends.  A lot of people have subscribed to my YouTube channel and have been asking me to do another video, so here it is!

http://youtu.be/nxds-5YSWw8

            Ok, Bohemian Rhapsody is my favorite song of all time, so to me, doing that was a no-brainer.  Having been fascinated with that song for most of my life, I pretty much knew the entire thing before I went to record it. This time, I had to pick something that was not only equally epic and fun, but also something that was just as meaningful to me.  Before I get into the technical mumbo jumbo, here's a little back story about my relationship with these songs.  (If you just want to get to the tech stuff, scroll down to WARNING: TECH TALK)

            Since I was a kid, movies have had such a strong influence on me. When I saw "La Bamba" in 1987, that made me decide to start taking guitar lessons. Luckily for me, I was really into the music of the 1950's which meant that I could have an entire repertoire of music with only 4 or 5 chords under my belt. The Ritchie Valens music served as a gateway to the early American rockers like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis. I was very content just listening to this music and nothing else. That was until I saw the movie "Ferris Beuler's Day Off." There's a parade scene in that movie where Matthew Broderick mimes the Beatles' version of "Twist And Shout."  That blew me away.  It was still 3 chord rock but it was so much heavier than what I was listening to.  I knew my Uncle Phil had all of the Beatles albums in his collection so I asked him if he could make me a cassette of that song. So next time I visited him, he gave me a cassette.  On that cassette he put: Twist and Shout, She Loves You, and I Wanna Hold Your Hand.  Since I was a 50's nut, these songs weren't much of a stretch. However, he also put the entire "Rubber Soul" album on that same cassette. When I listened to that album, it changed my life.  Instantly, my favorite band was the Beatles. I took it upon myself to learn every mundane detail about the Beatles' history and music. My wardrobe consisted of mostly Beatles T-shirts, which were very hard to come by at that time. If you could imagine a time when it wasn't cool to like the Beatles, this was it.  None of the other kids understood the Beatles.  (Just a quick side note: In 1995 when the Beatles Anthology was released, all of the sudden it became cool to like Beatles. Figures.)  My Beatles fanaticism got so intense that I even begged my dad to get me a John Lennon 325 Rickenbacker (which I use in this video.)

            Once I got to High School, the Beatles became standard repertoire in most of my music classes. I was lucky enough to go to Curtis High School which is the unofficial music high school of Staten Island. Our teacher, Lou Mannarino, was also a Beatles nut so he would work a lot of Beatles songs into the curriculum. During my time at Curtis, we got to opportunity to play at Lincoln Center with our school Symphony.  This was a very exciting time. The coolest thing about it was that we were going be doing Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End as the finale song.  Playing it live was one thing, but getting to play it live with a full orchestra was mind blowing!  With rehearsals for our Lincoln Center concert underway, we were all in Beatles-mode.  We found out that Paul McCartney was going to be on the Oprah show and we managed to get tickets. During a commercial break I yelled out to Sir Paul and asked him if he would play with us at Lincoln Center.  He gave a big grin and said, "sure!"  Now we were all going nuts!  We were on cloud 9. This was like a dream come true. The news was covering the story and it was a big deal. Sadly, Paul's wife Linda passed away shortly after that taping and he wasn't able to attend our concert.

            The concert was a huge success. It was kind of bittersweet since Paul wasn't there, but it was still amazing. We all knew that we were part of something special.

            Later on in college, I had a cover band called Hit Me With It.  One day we decided that we wanted to do all of Abbey Road live. I think we had a gig on a Friday in Staten Island and we wanted to have it ready for that gig. So on Thursday, we went to our drummer's house in Westchester and we rehearsed the entire album. That was all we did, one day. That night we walked into a bar in Westchester. We noticed they didn't have any band playing that night.  We asked if we could play and they let us. We set up and did the whole album live as a kind of dress rehearsal. It was a lot of fun. The next night, we did our Staten Island show and that was also great. In fact, I posted the whole show on my YouTube channel if you want to check it out.

            These are songs that keep popping up at times in my life.  They remind me of good times and great moments.  They are really special to me so that was a big part of why I chose to do them for this video.

WARNING: TECH TALK

            Ok, so I picked this medley to do.  Apart from the sentimental reasons, there are also technical reasons.  First, this song is epic and very similar to Bohemian Rhapsody in structure. (I actually think that Bohemian Rhapsody is probably Queen's version of the Abbey Road medley, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who would disagree.) Second, I wanted an excuse to play with some instruments I've never tried before. And lastly I knew it was something I was going to be able to sing without killing myself.

            Before I get into the nitty gritty. I want to give credit where credit is due.  I did not invent this genre of video.  There is an extremely talented guy who did an amazing split-screen video of Chick Corea's "Got A Match." He inspired me to do my split-screen video. I highly recommend watching this video:  http://youtu.be/Otbe5c2OIxI

            The first thing I did was tempo mapping.  I brought the original song into Pro Tools and mapped out all of the tempo changes. There were a lot of them. This song was not recorded to a click and the tempo fluctuates about anywhere from 2 to 10 BPM from measure to measure. I initially tried to record this to a steady click, but the song just doesn't work that way. I used to think that songs with moving tempos were no good, but after listening to a lot of classic songs more carefully, I realized that many classic songs couldn't exist with a fixed tempo.

            After mapping out the tempo, I tackled the piano. I spent a good amount of time on this. It just wasn't sounding right. Something was missing. I was either playing too much or too little. After a quick internet search, I came across a YouTube video posted by YouTube user, rasboi, contaning the multi-tracks of the Abbey Road sessions.  Needless to say, this was extremely helpful and once I was able to hear the piano isolated, I could figure it out and the part just fell into place.  For the piano I'm using the Mini Grand plug in that comes with Pro Tools.

            The drums were next on my list. This was the next of several roadblocks I would encounter along the way. I called my friend, Damian Scro, and he talked me through the parts. He explained that Ringo is a lefty, so a lot of his fills move in the opposite direction of a righty drummer.  This complicated things for me since my drum skills are not that great. I found this drum part to be much harder than Bohemian Rhapsody. Bohemian Rhapsody was more structured. In this, there's a lot of jamming. I didn't want to wimp out too much on this drum part, so once again, I decided it was best to transcribe the whole thing onto paper. This was really helpful. After many attempts, I finally got a good take of the drum part. I was heartbroken when I went back to check the video footage I recorded during this take and found that it was out of focus. I was so happy with the take that I decided to leave it as is. In the video, you'll notice the drum screen looks weird when compared to the others. This is because I did my best to sharpen it and make it look semi-presentable.  I'm happy to say, that I will not be using this camera anymore after this project.

            The drums were recorded using a Roland TD-6 kit with a Alesis Surge cymbals.  I used this kit as a MIDI controller and recorded that MIDI data into Pro Tools. After that, I sent that data to FXpansion's BFD2 plug in.  To get that Abbey Road tea towel sound, I used very little ambience on the kit.  The room mics were all muted.  I also used BFD2's dampening function to get the drums to sound as close to the record as I could.

            You'll notice there are 2 drum screens. The second screen is a simple kick snare overdub. You can hear it on the original record hard panned to the right.  For that I used Sample Tank.

            Next was the bass track. This was probably the easiest thing to record. I used a Rickenbacker 4001s from the 70s that my uncle and I restored.  There is a long story about the restoration of this particular bass, but I will save that for a future post.  The bass has flat wound strings on it which are crucial to getting that Beatles bass tone.  I plugged that straight into an SSL preamp and used Native Instruments Guitar Rig 4 plug in.  I used their SVT model. I used a pick which is also a crucial part of getting the Beatles bass tone.

            Once the rhythm section was done, I was at a crossroads. Should I just use samples for the orchestra, or should I attempt to actually play all these instruments?  Well, in a moment of insanity, I decided to give the real thing a try. I was able to borrow a trumpet, trombone, violin and cello from friends and family.  My plan was to play each part 3 to 6 times to get that nice natural orchestral chorusing.  Then I would blend it all with a nice reverb and it should sound like a real orchestra, right?  WRONG!

            I started with the violin.  I was so bad at the violin that I couldn't stop myself from laughing during takes.  After 3 hours of playing violin, I managed to finish 8 bars of half notes.  That's 16 notes in 3 hours. They all sounded scratchy and horrendous.  I started to record a double of my 16 note triumph to find that 2 wrongs did not make a right. The double track sounded like bad squared.  I just could not get a useable tone from this instrument.

            I was ready to give up, but then I did some more online research and came across a very helpful YouTube video posted by theonlinepianotutor. In her first lesson she teaches how to hold the bow. At first I though that it was stupid, but then I followed her directions as closely as I could and BAM....TONE!  Granted, it wasn't a good tone, but it was useable.  I was able to produce long tones without the notes getting scratchy and that was a good start.

            Recording the violin part was a long an painstaking process involving many many takes, a lot of editing and pitch correction.  I am playing the parts you hear on the video, but I'm getting a lot of help from studio magic. After I saw how long it took to record ONE violin part, I realized there was no way I would be able to double this 6 times.  I moved right onto to violin 2.

            I will admit that as I went through the string parts, it did get a little easier. I also started to find easier ways to finger things so I wouldn't have to do too much string crossing.  I was able to get a nice tone from the lower strings so I avoid the high strings at all costs. Over the next 3 days I finished the entire string quartet. I gotta say cello was my favorite because the note spacing is closer to what I'm used to. I felt like I was smashing my fingers together to get half steps to happen on the violin.

            Once the string quartet was assembled, it sounded OK.  Not great though.  Only having 4 string instruments with no doubling was not giving me the lush sound I was hearing on the original recording.  It sounded kind of thin and harsh.  I did like the sound of real bowing.  The samples never get that right. I decided to layer my real strings with some samples from the Miroslav Philharmonik plug in. When I got the attack from my real strings blended with the sustain of the samples, it was a really great sound.  It was a sound I couldn't have achieved with real strings or samples alone. 

            I was finally satisfied with the string sound.  After a lot of coaxing and some help from layered samples, it sounded good. Now it was time to learn how to play trumpet.  Trumpet is a cruel instrument.  It was completely alien to me.  Being a guitar player, the string instruments made sense to me.  Brass is a different animal.

            If I was giddy from the sound of cats dying produced by my violin playing, then I was downright hysterical from the sound of elephants farting produced by my brass playing.  I did some more online research and found a few more helpful videos on how to play brass. (Please note, I do not recommend learning this way.  I received formal private music lessons for a very long time when I was learning guitar.) 

            What I liked about the brass is that if you could hear the note in your head, and you knew what valves to press, you could kinda sorta get the note out. I found a good trumpet note chart online and I got to work.  I got better as I went along.  My attacks and release were a bit sloppy, but I was able to hold out notes that were in tune.  I though I had trumpet licked until I got to the high parts.

            To play high notes on the trumpet, you need to make your lips as small as possible and push as much air through that tiny opening as possible.  The high notes killed me. My whole face was in pain. I was lightheaded and had to take frequent breaks.  It wasn't going well.

           

            Finally, something clicked and I just figured out how to do it. I basically let pro tools roll while I played the parts over and over again. When I actually hit the notes, I would use that particular segment and slide that into place.  It's a crummy solution, but it was either that, or no high notes.  In the end, I actually enjoyed the trumpet more than I anticipated.

            Next I moved onto the trombone.  I took a brief crash course online and found a decent slide position chart, compared to the trumpet high notes, this was a walk in the park.  I really enjoyed the simplicity of the trombone's design.  It's a fun instrument.

            I wasn't able to get my hands on a french horn, tuba or a bow for my upright bass, so I had to use samples for those parts,  They're pretty low in the mix anyway.  They mostly act as a pad for filling in the gaps.

            At this point, I was relieved the orchestra parts were done, but due to the nature of how I recorded those parts, there was no useable video footage.  This was a problem I would have to solve later.

            Now the fun part began. Guitars!  For all the guitars with the exception of the Leslie part, I used the following setup.  The guitar straight into an Engl Steve Morse head.  The head was fed into an Engl 4x12 cabinet equipped with Clestion V-60s.  This cabinet was placed in my bathroom and was miked up with a dynamic microphone slightly off axis. The microphone went into the SSL preamp and then into pro tools. The Engl head is very versatile and the EQ works like a studio EQ.  I was able to get pretty close to the tones on the record.  EQ and compression during the mix also got me a lot closer.

            For the Leslie guitar, I once again used Guitar Rig 4.  I used their AC-30 model into their Leslie emulator.  It worked pretty well.

            For guitars I used a custom Ernie Ball Music Man Axis, an Ernie Ball Music Man Silhouette Special, a Rickenbacker 325V59 and an Ibanez AE-30 acoustic.

            Vocals were straight forward.  I used an Audio Technica AT-4033 condensor microphone into the SSL preamp.  On the processing end it's EQ, Compression, De-Esser.  That is sent to a bus that has a frequency selective compressor on it designed to smooth out my voice, which can get harsh in the upper mids. I also put some more compression on it.  I had to put a gate on because I picked up a lot of weird sounds in between words with all the compression. It sounded like I was eating soup between lines.

            The mix was very large and involved. I tried to get as close to the original recording as possible without sacrificing quality. There was a lot of drastic EQ'ing and panning.

            Once the music was done, I had to solve my orchestra problem. With no useful footage recorded, I needed to come up with something. I decided to make a gag out of it and record my own green screen orchestra. This turned out to be another huge challenge.  I really didn't have the right equipment to do this. My room was too small, I was using a green cloth curtain that had a lot of folds and was picking up a lot of shadows, my lights were not the right kind for this and my camera was just not picking up the green correctly. I ended up using an iPhone to record the green screen footage because the green was coming out better on the phone than my lousy camera. My cousin, Phil, helped me with the green screen camera angles. I tried to stay as still as I could while playing along with the track.  If you're a stickler for details and you check all my positions on the orchestral instruments, it should all be correct because I was actually playing along.  (Before anyone jumps down my throat, I know my technique is probably miserable.)

            At first I thought having some HD video from the iPhone would have been a good thing, but I had a hell of a time incorporating this HD footage into my SD session.  I think from now on, I'm going to try to shoot in 100% HD if I can. Once I keyed and masked out all of the green I had to downgrade the quality of the file so I could retain the transparency in my SD session.  By the time I composited all of the musicians over the stage backdrop, the quality was pretty bad.  It also didn't help that my limited skills as a cameraman and light designer produced some very uneven and washy shots. My friend Steve Corn helped me make this footage look as good as possible considering the source material.

            Another big problem I had was that violin 2 kept going out of the frame at it looked like the violin kept disappearing.  I decided to add the conductor to cover up this invisible border.  It covers up the problem spot and I think it's pretty funny too.  I could have just re-shot the violin 2 part, but at that point it was much easier to just stand there and wave my arms around.

            Overall, the lighting was a big problem in this video. In my last videos there wasn't enough light. This one was too bright so I painstakingly tried to match all of the videos in color and brightness as best as I can.  I used Sony Vegas Pro for the video editing.  I really love this program.  It's well laid out and has a lot of powerful tools included.

            All in, the video took about 2 weeks. Although this is much simpler song than Bohemian Rhapsody, this was a much more difficult project. The loose nature of the band tracks actually made it harder to cover.  Plus all of the orchestral stuff was very challenging from a playing and producing perspective. 

            My favorite part of this video was getting to play with instruments I've never tried. I recommend it to all musicians. Especially if you write and arrange music. It gives you a new respect for the people who are great players and it gives you a better understanding when it comes to writing for those instruments.

            My least favorite part was dealing with all of the technical problems that kept happening with the video. Usually the video editing is my favorite part, but because my source material was so inconsistent, it made things really difficult. Next time, I'll spend more time prepping shots. It also wouldn't hurt to learn more about cameras and lighting before my next project.

            In closing, I have to give a huge thanks to my fiancé, Ann Marie. She's had to endure two weeks of horrible violin, trumpet and trombone noises. She's had to hear me listen to this song and watch this video over and over again. She's also been a very good sport about my being completely obsessive over trying to get this thing done. During the scrolling credits at the end, that's her sitting next me.  Thank you Ann Marie!

            I'd also like to thank all of the people who have watched my videos and subscribed to my channel. I am overwhelmed by the positive response I've gotten and I can't say thank you enough.

            Finally, thank you to the Beatles for writing great music and providing a lifetime of inspiration.

-Richie Castellano

MorningStarlett

I've been mentioning MorningStarlett a lot recently.  MorningStarlett is my original band. If I had to describe our style, I'd probably use movies instead of musical terms.  We're like "The Fifth Element" meets "Lord Of The Rings" but in metal band form.  One of our most unique traits is our singer.  Ann Marie Nacchio is our frontwoman, and her range is astounding.  Not only does her pitch range seem endless, but she effortlessly shifts in and out of metal and operatic vocal styles.  It's pretty crazy.

Our album drops on 11/21 and will be available in digital format in most online music stores.  We'll also have physical discs on sale at morningstarlett.com.

We're doing something I've never tried before at our CD release party.  We're playing our whole album live while synced up to a video screen.  It's going to be awesome if it works!

Our CD release party will take place at the Full Cup in Staten Island, NY on 11/21 at 8 PM.

I hope you can make it down there and witness this epic event!

-Richie

Stuff Music Students Should Know

A couple months back I put up a facebook post intended for my private students about what I expected them all to know.  From time to time I would quiz them on some of the things we'd gone over in the past and a few of them put some of those fundamentals out of their brains for good.  So I made a short list of what they should know at all times.

Since I posted this, a lot of musicians have been asking me to post the list again.  I'll re-post it, but I just want everyone to understand a few things.  This is a list I made for some of my students at this particular phase in their development.  For your own musical development, you may need more than this, or you may not need any of this.  There are plenty of very successful musicians who know none of this and have done wonderfully without it.

Here goes:

Chords:  Know all 12...
Major
Minor
Augmented
Diminished
Half Diminished
Dominant 7th (plain ol' 7th)
Minor 7th
Major 7th
Minor/maj 7

By all 12 I mean C, C#, D, D#, E  etc....

The more shapes you know, the better.  At the very least, be able to play one type of closed shape for each.

Of course it helps if you know the neck.  Make a chart of the neck and write all the notes on it.  This will be a good reference.  Don't download this chart.  Make it yourself.  Make a bunch of them by hand.  Each time you make one, you'll learn the fretboard better.

Scales: in all 12 keys (easy on guitar)

Pentatonic Minor and Major in all 5 positions.  Let's be honest. We're gonna spend a whole lot of time playing this scale so it would be really helpful to know it all over the neck.

Blues
Major
Minor
Harmonic Minor
Dorian
Mixolydian

I know I left out some really good scales.  But with these, you'll be able to cover a lot of bases.  It also helps to know these in multiple positions.  I also find it helpful to figure out how to play these scales where they sit on top of the pentatonic position 1.  This way if you panic mid-solo, you can always go back to the comfort zone.

A lot of guys like the 3 note per string scales.  I do too.  Those are great for sequences, but I do find that when first learning a scale a lot of students have trouble improvising with 3 notes per string.

Of course I'm leaving out a whole bunch of important stuff in this list.  Again, please don't take this to be the end-all be-all of lists.  At the very least I hope this is helpful.

Thanks,
-Richie

The Unwritten Rules Of Air Travel

A lot of people have jobs that require them to fly a lot. I realize the last thing anyone wants to hear is someone complain about work, but after a particularly atrocious travel experience, I feel that it's my duty to write about this subject. There are unwritten rules of air travel.  Some would consider these rules to be common sense, but when you put New Yorkers in a confined space for 5+ hours, common sense goes out the window.  If we can't sit in seats for an extended period of time and be civil to each other, how are going to survive the big EMP or the zombie apocalypse? The answer to that question is: We wouldn't. We would eat each other first.

Here are the unwritten (now written) rules of air travel.

1. Middle seat wins.  No matter what.

Nobody likes sitting in the middle seat. If you're unlucky enough to draw the short straw of seating assignments and get stuck in the middle, then the good news is: You get both arm rests.  No matter what.  Window guy has the wall to rest on and Aisle guy can hang over his seat into the aisle as well as come and go as he pleases.  The only small bit of comfort the Middle guy gets is the arm rests.  Don't fight the middle seat person for the arm rests.  That's a total jerk move.

The next set of rules go under the heading: This is a plane seat, not your living room couch.

2.  Your elbows belong at your side, not mine.  (That goes for other body parts as well)

This is a self-explanatory rule.  If you're going to sit in coach, then figure out a way to not jam any of your limbs into your neighbor. I understand that there are also larger people who have to fly, but I'm not talking about that.  In fact all of the larger people I've shared rows with have been very courteous and conscious about the personal space issue.  This rule is addressed to the rude people who just don't care.  Fold your hands on the tray table, cross your arms, sleep like a vampire...do what you have to do keep your body in your space.

3.  Bring a small pillow and blanket, not your entire bed set.

This is something I've been seeing more frequently.  People bring giant pillows, comforters and even stuffed animals on planes.  I'm not talking about children either.  These are teens and adults doing this.  The problem with this is that there's no way for you to keep all that stuff contained to your seat.  Yes, we would all love to be able to snuggle up all cozy on a plane, but there's simply not enough room for that in coach.  If you must bring all that stuff on with you, then you need to spend the extra money and sit in first class.

3a.  Take your winter coat off.

Just like the previous rule, there's not enough room in coach for a giant bubble jacket or similarly large winter coat.  You need to stow that coat overhead, or even better, leave it in your checked bag.  Jackets are OK, as long as it can stay in your seat and not spill over to your neighbor.

4. Shoes + Socks.  Keep them on.  At all times....please!

If someone is sitting close enough to you to be able to smell your feet, then you need to keep them covered. This is going to be controversial, but I'm going to say it.  Sandals and flip flops should be outlawed at the airport. If you just can't stand the thought of having your feet confined for hours, then bring a pair of slippers and put them on before you get on the plane.  DON'T TAKE YOUR SHOES AND SOCKS OFF ON THE PLANE.  That's gross.  I don't care how nice you think your feet are. 

4a. Feet go on the floor.

I'm glad there are some very flexible people in the world, but this doesn't mean you get to cross your legs on the flight or keep your feet up on the seat.  Keep them on the floor. If you're neighbor is in danger of being poked by your little piggies, then you need to adjust your position.  Keep them on the floor and out of sight if possible.

5.  If you can't keep an activity confined to your space, then that is not something you should do on a plane.

a) Newspaper guys are a big culprit here.  This is not the breakfast table.  There's no room to spread out and have both sides of the paper open.  If you're sleeping, these are the guys who wake you up with every single page turn.  It's completely obnoxious.  I saw one guy who had it down.  He had the paper folded so just the article he was reading was visible.  That is a travel pro right there.  

b) If you have a gigantic laptop that requires your elbows to move back and forth, then leave that in the overhead.

c) Certain video games require large motions.  I'm a gamer. I love video games, but I know not to play motion-based games on a plane.  I'm not talking about Wii or Kinect, but certain iOS games where you have to shake stuff over and over again, should not be played on the plane.

Basically anything that forces you to go out of your space should be saved for after the flight.

6. Food: Do's and Dont's

Ask yourself these questions before purchasing food to bring on board:

a) Does it have a strong smell?

b) Is it messy?

c) Does it require more space than the tray table?

d) Will it be disastrous if I spill or drop this? 

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then you should not bring that food on the plane. I had a couple sitting next to me bring a giant plate of buffalo wings on the plane once.  They spent most of the flight with their hands covered in sauce as they sucked the wings down to the bones.  Oh yeah, the bones....  They went in a pile on the tray table next to me.  It was disgusting.  So no buffalo wings.  Tuna is probably not the best choice.  Neither is a pizza pie.  Basically, a sandwich or a wrap is ideal.  Something self contained and easy to clean.  Salads can work too, as long as they don't stink.

7.  Meal time = seat up.

If through some miracle, you get a meal on the plane, bring your seat back all the way up.  If you're reclined all the way, the person behind you will not be able to eat.

8. Your kids....not as cute as you think.

Travelling with children is incredibly difficult.  Most seasoned travelers cut parents a lot of slack. Especially when travelling with infants. If a baby is going to cry, then there's nothing you can do about it.  Most seasoned travelers have noise cancelling headphones to combat this, so it's not a big deal.  However, this doesn't refer to babies.  This is about your little 3 to 10 year old brats who you can't control. If you see the kid kicking the seat in front of him/her or constantly messing with the tray table, then please make an attempt to stop the kid.  I understand that kids get restless, but what irritates me is that most parents to don't even try to control their kids on planes anymore.  I was on a flight recently where there were 3 kids running up and down the aisles for the entire flight. How is this ok?  Have parents given up?  Actually, there was one parent who had an inventive way of settling her child.  They sang songs the whole time!  Everyone on the plane was thrilled with that bright idea.  (this is sarcasm, just in case you weren't sure.)  Everyone understands that kids will be kids, but that doesn't mean the parents shouldn't attempt to keep their kids from kicking, screaming and running around for the entire flight.

8a.  Infant in arms = infant in YOUR arms.

Self-explanatory.  This happened to me only once on a flight.  Usually people are pretty good about this.  There was only one couple who wasn't.  Would you believe that it was the same couple who brought the buffalo wings on board?

9.  Let people sleep.

If your neighbor is sleeping, don't wake them. If a person is sleeping then they're less likely to aggravate you.  Unless their sleeping on your shoulder or you have to use the restroom, I would advise you to let people sleep.  I had a woman sitting next to me, wake me out of a deep sleep to inform me the drink cart was coming.  I know she meant well, but I really wished she hadn't.

10.  Use your inside voice.

Although the plane noise can be pretty loud, the person sitting next to you can still hear you whisper. There's no need to shout your conversation.  If a person is too far from you to hear you whisper, then you can't converse with them.  I've seen couples who both like aisle seats sit across from each other, and then carry on loud conversations across the aisle.  This is pretty rude.  This also applies to pre-takeoff phone conversations.  Everybody has text messaging nowadays.  Use that instead of screaming details about your business into a phone surrounded by strangers who want to put a foot in your mouth.

11.  Standing in the aisles.

Yes, some people start getting cramps and back problems if they sit in one uncomfortable spot for too long.  So they get up for a stretch.  No harm in that.  If you are prone to these kinds of back and joint problems I would suggest that you walk to the back of the plane and hang out in the galley by the restrooms for a bit.  Don't just stand up by your seat.  Aside from blocking traffic, you are doing something far worse.  You are basically sticking your backside in someone's face for an extended period of time.  If you need to stretch, that's fine.  Just be conscious of your surroundings.

12.  Baggage.

They say "one small carry on and one small personal item that fits under the seat in front of you."  Since storage space is so precious on a plane, I've become overly conscious of what other people are bring on board.  In this rare case, I actually agree with the flight attendants.  One of your items should be able to fit under the seat.  I see people bringing on 2 big rolling suitcases, or deciding that they don't want to put their small bag under the seats in front of them.  I understand the benefits of legroom, but if you must have that space under the seat in front of you for your legs, then you need to figure out how to bring one less bag onto the plane.

I'm sure there are more rules if I sit here all day and try to recall every miserable plane experience, but these are the big ones.  Basically, it comes down to personal space, common sense and courtesy.  A plane (especially coach class) is shared space.  Try to stay in your assigned space and avoid doing things that disturb others.  Try to cut parents and middle seat passengers some slack...as long as their not being completely inconsiderate of everyone else.  If you find that you can't follow the basic rules of air travel, then you need to spend the extra bucks and either sit in first class, or buy an extra empty seat next to you.

MorningStarlett and a chart full of X's

I know I'm not the only guy to do this, but when you make an album (cd, record...whatever) it's helpful to have a checklist.  First on the left column, you list all the songs on your album.  Then on top you list each element of the songs.  So for us it's Drums, Rhythm Guitar, Bass, Richie Lead Guitar, Walter Lead Guitar, Synth/FX, Ann Marie Vocals, Background Vocals, and Mix. Then you draw boxes, and you put an X in the box when you finished that particular part.  Well, I've got a chart full of X's.  Except for the Mix column that is. Right now, in terms of tracking, this album is done.  Now I've made rough mixes of everything so we can obsess over minuscule details that no one will hear except us. This is part of our process. Once everyone gives me the OK, I'll start mixing.  Luckily, we recorded a lot of the instruments in the same session.  That means that we did all of the drums for the album in one day on the same drum set.  So now, when we mix, we only have to get a good drum sound once, and then we can make a template and apply that to all the songs.  This saves a massive amount of time.  It doesn't mean every song will have the same drum sound.  It means that we will have a much better starting point as we approach each mix.

I've been gearing up for this by watching a bunch of Pensado's Place episodes.  It's a free podcast on iTunes about mixing.  I highly recommend it if you're an engineer.  Some of the stuff I've learned from there has made my mixes instantly better.

Also, while I'm on the subject of podcasts.  Last week I did a podcast called the Glory Hole.  It's usually a pretty raunchy show in the same genre as Howard Stern or Opie and Anthony.  They decided to do a musical episode and called me to do it.  It was a lot of fun, and you should check it out.  It's Free!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-089-blue-oyster-cults/id378753355?i=115669025

If you listen to this show, there is a sneak preview of the MorningStarlett song, "No One Needs To Know" at the end.  It's a quick mix that I did, but I think it sounds really good.

-Richie

Bohemian Rhapsody

I'm pleased to announce that my Bohemian Rhapsody video has passed 50,000 views.  That's insane!  I think today I will write about my obsession with that song.  Here's where it began....

FLASHBACK

In 1992 (I think)  I went to the movies with my dad to see "Wayne's World."  When it got to the famous car scene and Bohemian Rhapsody came on, I asked my dad, "What is this?"  He said, "This is Queen."  I remember listening as the song just kept adding more and more layers of awesomeness until it just erupted at the famous headbanging climax.  I was sold. This was officially the best song I'd ever heard and it only took one listen of only half of it to realize that.  After the song was done and 12 year old me's mind had been thoroughly blown, I turned to my father and said in a very serious tone, "Why wasn't I told about this song?!?" He was a bit alarmed by my reaction. I was actually incredibly irritated that I had to go through the first 12 years of my life without hearing the greatest song ever written. My dad and I played music together, he introduced me to Motown and The Beatles. In my very under-developed opinion he was clearly negligent in his responsibilities to me as a musical mentor and a parent by omitting this song from my listening diet. He gave me a slightly puzzled look and said "I don't know. I don't listen to this kind of music." I was flabbergasted! How could you not listen to this?!? This is the only thing I wanted to listen to from that point on.  Bohemian Rhapsody was in first place and everything else started at 4th place. My dad saw that I was not satisfied by his answer. If he knew the song and he knew the band who did it, then why didn't he think to tell me about it sooner?  To shut me up he said, "Ask your uncle, he likes that stuff."

I got home from the movies and called my Uncle Phil.  

"Hi Uncle Phil. Do you have Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen?"  

"I think so."  

"Ok, I'll be right over."

I remember seeing the CD in his wall unit. Queen greatest hits. There it was on the back; "Bohemian Rhapsody."  I went home and put it on my CD player.  Holy shit!  There's a guitar solo in this song!!!  In the movie, they start the song from after the solo.  To my amazement, this song was even better in it's entirety!  If this was the best song I ever heard, then this was clearly the best guitar solo I ever heard.  It had everything.  Beautiful melody, fast runs, perfect tone! I couldn't handle how awesome it was.  I listened to the song non stop.  I didn't even bother to listen to any of the other songs on the CD.  Then something horrible happened.  I realized I was going to have to leave my house at some point and I wouldn't be able to listen to it!  I got fresh batteries and put them in my cassette walkman.  Then I took a 60 minute cassette tape and recorded Bohemian Rhapsody 10 times in a row on each side. I did this so I could keep listening to it without having to rewind.

I remember just walking around my block several times while listening to the song over and over picking out something new every time.  The layers seemed to be endless. I never heard that many vocal tracks.  I never heard that guitar sound. I never heard those chord changes. And that voice!

When I wasn't listening to Bohemian Rhapsody I was trying to play it. MTV began playing the Queen video due to Wayne's World's popularity.  I remember seeing Freddie crossing his hands to grab the high notes in the piano part.  I saw that and went to our upright piano and tried to imitate it.  If I remember correctly I was way off.  But over then next few years I kept refining it.  Changing a voicing here and there.

Fast forward to high school.  I think it might have been senior year.  My music teacher, Lou Mannarino played us a tape of a session that he did.  He was hired as a singer to record a spoof version of Bohemian Rhapsody for some commercial.  All the words were changed to promote some company, but I remember hearing it and feeling like someone hit me over the side of the head with a frying pan.  This is possible?!?!?!?  This can be recreated?!?!?   Holy shit!!!  It was like he gave me the key piece of information I had been missing.  And right then I realized that I would be able to do this song live....with A LOT of help.

I don't remember exactly how I did it, but I went home and began to record the opera section on my analog 16 track.  If I do some digging I may be able to find the mixdown tape somewhere, but I'm pretty sure that I had a lot of wrong harmonies and I can only imagine what the piano part was like.  I probably sequenced it a painstaking pace.  I mixed it down to a DAT tape because CD-R technology was still incredibly cost prohibitive in those days.  There was a school rock concert coming up (I'm pretty sure that Curtis High School in Staten Island was one of the first to do official school rock concerts.)  I told my friends, we're going to do Bohemian Rhapsody at the concert. I got it all planned out. Andy Ascolese will play keyboard.  Chris Kuffner will play bass.  Brendan Pezzoli from the Jazz band will play drums, and that freshman Matt Lindauer will do the guitar parts with me. Our teacher, Lou will sing it.  I've heard him do it on that commercial.  He's great!  When the middle part comes up, we're gonna play to this track that I recorded at home.  So, at the school rock concert, we did Bohemian Rhapsody live, and I remember it felt fucking awesome!

Fast forward to college.  I started a rock cover band called Hit Me With It. Right from day 1, our big song was going to be Bohemian Rhapsody.  We had a great singer named Jason Spoor.  We played the song with my track for a little while but it wasn't really working out.  It was time to re-do it.  I remember Jason coming to my dorm room at Purchase College, and he and I recording that opera section right in the room onto my computer.  People on my floor thought we were nuts. Eventually they realized what we were doing and a few of the music majors passing by would stop in to check it out.

Over the next few years I played that song a lot.  It ALWAYS went over.  When you were losing the crowd, whip out Bohemian Rhapsody and you could save your gig.  I kept toying around with the piano part here and there. It was my favorite thing to play on piano even though I only knew bits and pieces of it. A few years later, Ann Marie decided to do that song for her college recital, and we re-recorded that section yet again, this time with her singing everything.

No matter how many times I heard that song since Wayne's World, I never ever got tired of it.

Back to the present.

By this point I could play all of the piano part with the exception of the opera section.  The B Bb A Bb bit was incredibly difficult for me.  I realized that if I couldn't get that, I couldn't do this project.  I just sat there building up the muscle memory to play that over and over.  Ann Marie was ready to murder me because if you play those three chords over and over again, it's really really obnoxious.  After I felt comfortable enough with the piano part, I decided to start the project.  I set up a tempo map in Pro Tools. This was a pain in the ass.  Queen didn't play to a click on this song.  There are many parts that are Rubato. Pro Tools and Rubato don't mix well. Regardless, I had to tempo map the song out.  I wouldn't be able to do it without a click.  

Recording the piano took the longest by far. I did so many takes. I could have just programmed it in, but it was important to me that I actually play it this time.  After the piano was done, I breathed a sigh of relief.  In my mind the project was mostly done already because the thing I was dreading the most was over and done with.  Luckily for me, the drum part isn't too crazy.  I'm not a good drummer by any stretch of the imagination.  I can play very basic things. I knew I wasn't going to be able to remember every fill like I had done with the other parts so I notated the entire drum part.  Having the music right there in front of me made it a lot easier to deal with, although I think it was less about actually reading it and more about the actual act of transcribing it.  That's the best way to memorize something...write it down.

The bass and guitars were a breeze.  I loved doing the guitars.  It was so much fun trying to get those sounds.  I borrowed my friend, Chris Segalini's Vox AC-30 amp and used my little Brian May amp as a preamp and that got me really close.  I even miked up that little amp for a couple of tracks.

When I got to the lead vocal I kind of hit a wall.  Wait a minute...I can't sing this song.  In every band I've ever been in, I've never sung this song.  Sure, in the car, but not on stage. I didn't even know it I'd be able to do it at all. I hit record and did a rough take just to see if I could. I sang through the whole song and at the end of the take, my voice was completely fried.  I was hoarse and in pain.  I listened back, and to my surprise, I sang the whole thing!  I hit all of the notes.  It didn't sound great, but it was a functional take.  I was satisfied with that.  In my mind, I wouldn't be able to do it again without severely damaging my voice.  I was very proud of the way it sounded as it was.

I showed it to Ann Marie and she told me that it could be a lot better.  She said, "If you going to go crazy re-creating every single articulation in every part, then why wouldn't you treat the vocal the same way?"  She had a point, but I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to sing like this much more. I took a break from the song at this point. I had no choice. I couldn't sing anymore for the rest of the day anyway.  I listened back to what I did and thought, "she's right.  If I can hit these notes at all, then I should go the extra step and try to match Freddie as closely as my own voice will allow."  I really zeroed in on Freddie's lead vocal.  It was an amazing experience.  With each track that I recorded, I was peeling back the layers of this masterpiece.  I was seeing the wizard behind the curtain but at no point was I ever disappointed it.  Every new detail that I picked up was inspiring.  Examining Freddie's lead vocal was like taking a master class in breath control and how to manage the break between chest voice and head voice. 

In the end, Ann Marie was definitely right.  Doing the vocal over with more attention to detail really made a huge difference. Unfortunately that also killed my voice again so I had to take another break. After that, I started to tackle the background vocals.  This is another area where Freddie kicked my ass.  I believe that the Queen harmony sound comes from the fact that he was able to flawlessly match his performances from take to take.  Every nuance and articulation would be nearly identical from track to track.  The harmonies sounded so lush and smooth as a result of his unique ability to do that.  I did not have this unique ability and instead opted to keep doing it over and over until it matched.   : )

By this time, my computer was ready to explode.  Not only did I have a full band on there with nearly 16 guitar tracks, but I had 28 vocal tracks. I had to do pre-mix bounces of the background vocals. This was pretty cool because that's how Queen did the original.  The only had 24 tracks to work with so they had to bounce.  In the end it made the final mix much much easier.

The final mix was another opportunity to peel back another layer of this song.  Getting the panning and effects as close as I could was an audio-geek's dream come true.

The video part was also challenging.  I had Sony Vegas, which is great, but anytime you do a project with up to 12 separate videos on the screen at the same time, it can really chew up system resources on your computer.  It was really hard to see what was going on while my computer was chugging along trying to keep up with everything.  Although it was tough, doing the video was probably the most fun part.  Video editing is a hobby of mine and it didn't feel like work.

Overall, I'm very happy with the way it came out.  Oh, if you haven't checked it out, here it is:

http://youtu.be/2Iiy_YfpVn0

There are few things I wish I could change, but nothing major.  My video camera has an auto focus that constantly blurs out on me and I was forced to use some of those blurry shots at points.  Also, some of the sync is slightly off as a result of my computer not being able to keep up during the video editing.  Other than those minor issues, I'm very happy with it.  It was a fun project that I was considering for a long time and it made me remember why I fell in love with this band in the first place.

-Richie