Rivendale....gone but not forgotten

Rivendale started as a family home in Towsley canyon in the Santa Claerita Valley back in the mid seveties. At first just a home for a family looking to carve out a life for themselves it soon grew in to more than that.

 An equestrian center and stables which hosted many events over the course of many years were also built. First built to satisfy the desire for a little girl to have a horse it soon became a place where many could enjoy the beauty and serenity of the then quaint and quiet Santa Clarita Valley.

  While the equestrian center had laid abandoned for many years the house is still used by the park. I had long seen the abandoned Equestrian Center from The Old Road and finally, in 2013, I decided to visit this location. 

I'm glad I took that opportunity as well as my camera. Little did I know that I would document for myself a place that only a few years later would be torn down and gone forever, 

Below are the photographs I took on that December day in 2013.  Enjoy and share. 

If at first you don't succeed...walk away?

Have you ever had one of those days where you just couldn't get it right. You're trying to learn a part but you keep running into a wall. You try to get a track down, but you keep flubbing the take. So you keep trying. You don't quit right?...or do you.

Sometimes walking away is the best thing. Clear you head. Let your body relax. Give yourself time to rethink the process. I know it's hard when you are so focused on getting it right, but that focus may be misleading. You may not be focusing on the part but rather the need to get the part done.

It's amazing how the mind and body can come together when they need to, but sometimes you need to give them space.  Sometimes all you need is a reset button.  It's a hard thing to do when you have a deadline, a gig tomorrow night, or you are one track away from finishing the next big song.

Remember, music is made up of sounds and spaces where there is no sound. Allow yourself the spaces so that the sound that you make is spectacular.

Got gas?

America lives on fossil fuels.  While we are all leaning towards hybrids and fuel efficient cars, back in Detroit's heyday the gasoline was the the liquid that fueled our travels. 

Times have changed and gas stations now have multiples of pumps, mini marts, and even fast food restaurants built in. These one stop shops may service our needs but they lack the style that the gas stations of yesteryear had.

I am fortunate that I have been able to document some vintage gas stations that, while no longer in service,

still exist in one form or another.  These buildings remind us of the days of the family road trip, Route 66, roadside attractions, and in general, a simpler way of life. 

The Shtizu Fuzz

The fuzz pedal has been around for a long time. It has come and gone and come again in popularity. Sometimes you just get it until you get it.  But once you get it, it's magical.

I have been building my own pedals for 10 years.  I took all the readily available information from the interwebz and built the Shitzu fuzz.  It's small, hairy, and loud.

Essentially it's a Fuzz Face circuit with a few tweaks.  The first transistor is a lower gain transistor and the second is higher gain. Also, it has a potentiometer on the power supply so you can reduce the voltage starving it and creating those great sputtery fuzz sounds. It also has a poteniometer on the input

to reduce the signal to the first transistor to tailor the amount of signal hitting the first gain stage.  Lastly, I just omitted the fuzz control since I like it dimed anyways.  The volume control on your guitar or the control to limit the signal on the first gain stage more than give you enough control over the amount of fuzz

It's a simple build and a great sounding and versatile pedal.  Check out this demo below.

Fuzz, I just never got it, until I got it.

The below post is a re-post from one of my old blogs, enjoy.

Fuzz pedals have been around for more than 40 years now. They were the first attempt to get the sound of a cranked amplifier without having to crank the amplifier. They were/are crude, and dare I say, sometimes not very pleasant sounding. Now if you were a guitar player in the late 60's, this was all you had at your disposal. Technology has advanced, amplifiers are capable of ridiculous gain at moderate volumes, and there are a million other distortion devices. So why does the fuzz pedal still prevail.

I came up in the era of the shred guitarist. Van Halen, Randy Rhoades, Ygwie Malmsteen. The requirements for this type of playing was a high gain yet articulate and clear sound to allow all the fast picked notes to be heard. There was no room for the woolly, unpredictable sound of a fuzz pedal so I just never gave them much thought. They were yesterdays technology.

Fast forward 20 years. Shred is less prevalent. Grunge hit us all in the face. And the wall of sound was being driven by fuzz pedals. All of a sudden, the Big Muff, Fuzz Face, Tone Bender etc... were all over the place. I couldn't believe it. Why were these guys using old technology? Of course grunge has since passed but the fuzz pedal is still here. Holy crap.

I finally decided to look into this a little. As I was learning to build my own stompboxes I decided that I needed to dive head first into a fuzz pedal. I build a fuzz face variant. After i got it working, I plugged in and let it rip. What an experience (no pun intended). I realized that while crude and somewhat odd sounding at times, the overtones and singing qualities of the pedal made me take notice.

 There is a great range of sounds in a good fuzz pedal. Rolling back the volume yields a sweet overdrive with a hint of grit. Running it full out gets you a tone reminiscent of hell on a bad day. I finally got it.

If you have wondered about what all the fuss about fuzz is, go to your local music store and check one out. You may be surprised.

Scott