The drum machine for guitarists that hate drum machines
This is one of the very few drum machines that brings the rock.
Something that frustrates guitar players a lot when it comes to drum machines is finding something that has a decent rock drum sound to it.
With most drum machines you will find everything but genuinely good acoustic rock kits good for accompanying guitar riffs, but one that gets it right is the Alesis SR-18.
What about the SR-16?
The SR-16 is cheaper than the SR-18, but nowhere near as good where a proper rock kit sound is concerned.
This isn't to say the SR-16 is unusable. Some people love that thing because very little changes have been made to it since its introduction in 1990 (yes, the SR-16 has been around almost 30 years). But you can definitely hear a big difference when comparing the 16 to the 18. It's definitely worth the extra cash to get the SR-18 because yes, it does sound better.
Does the SR-18 sound good enough on its own?
I can answer that with a solid yes.
Most drum machines or beat makers have a sound to them where it makes it too obvious the sound is fake. The SR-18 on the other hand does sound fairly close to a live drummer.
What makes the SR-18 sound so realistic? Its built-in acoustic drum samples. They are amazing on their own, and you will not have any need to scour the internet looking for sampled kits.
The test of any good drum machine is whether or not it gets an open hi-hat slosh sound correct. That specific sound is a huge part what a proper rock kit is supposed to have. And you would be amazed at how many drum machines and beat makers get that sound totally wrong. But the SR-18 totally gets it right.
Another gigantic benefit to the SR-18 is that it can be plugged into a mixer totally dry, and the sound that comes out genuinely sounds professional just with flat EQ and nothing else. There is no need to add reverb or filters. It's good enough to record with straight out of the box and into a mixer.
Is the SR-18 easy?
No programmable drum machine is totally easy because they are basically workstation synthesizers without piano keys.
However, even if you never program it and only use the built-in patterns and presets, it is easy enough. With little effort, you could be recording with it the first day you get one.
Most important thing: It does bring the rock legally
The SR-18 can rock, but on a final note, I have to explain the legal thing.
"Free" drum machine apps for the phone use sampled beats, and for many of them, the provided beats are "for personal use only", meaning you can't use them if you decide to release your songs for sale to iTunes. The beats came from somewhere else, you don't own them, so you can't use them professionally (and when you publish songs to iTunes for sale, that counts as professional use).
Anything made with the SR-18 is your own, even if you use the stock drum patterns. You can, without worry, use anything the SR-18 generates as backing music for your guitar riffs 100% legally for pro use.
This is very nice because it's one thing less to worry about. All you're trying to do is generate drum backing tracks, and the last thing you should ever have to worry about is whether your drums are legal for use professionally or not. With the SR-18, you're legal, 100%. And that's good.
All atomic watches are saved... for now
There will come a time when buying a watch with atomic time sync functionality will be completely pointless.
A watch I've had my eye on for some time now is the Casio G-SHOCK GWM5610. My main reason for wanting it is because it synchronizes to the atomic clock once a day. What that does is not only make the watch ridiculously accurate to within a fraction of a second since it updates every night, but it also automatically recognizes DST. Also, once it starts synchronizing, you never have to set it. Every night, both the time and date are set...
...but it almost happened to where every single clock that syncs with the atomic time station in the US went obsolete overnight.
Back in 2018, President Trump proposed some 2019 funding cuts to the NIST which involved shutting down shortwave (a.k.a. HF) radio station WWV in Colorado. That is the station wristwatches with atomic time sync use in the USA mainland.
Miraculously - and don't ask me how because I don't know - the the 2019 fiscal budget for the NIST was somehow worked out in a way that keeps WWV in operation - for now.
I say "for now" because there will come a point when WWV goes off the air. It's not a matter of if it will occur but when.
This being true, I'm going to talk about what will happen when WWV is shut down.
As ancient as tech gets
WWV is old. Really old. It dates back to 1919 but didn't start doing time broadcasts until 1945, which literally means it's been broadcasting time since the end of World War II.
WWV is so friggin' old that it's the world's longest running continuously broadcasting radio station, and will be celebrating its centennial on October 1, 2019. Yes, that means a century in operation. When I said WWV was really old, I wasn't kidding.
Who uses WWV anymore?
Utility companies use it for electric grid sync, meteorologists track weather systems with it, broadcasters use it, and medical institutions use it.
Hobbyists who use WWV are watch nerds with wristwatches that have an atomic sync function, and ham radio guys.
Do smartphones use WWV? Nope. Smartphones sync time using everything but WWV. GPS time sync, internet time server sync (also synchronized via GPS), NITZ (Network Identity and Time Zone), internal software (depending on who made the phone) and probably several other ways I'm not even aware of - but not WWV.
What to do with existing watches that have atomic sync?
Sell them. All of them. I don't own any personally, but if I did, I would sell them off because of the uncertain future of WWV.
Once WWV goes off the air, any watch with atomic time sync is no better than standard quartz, and any value a watch with atomic sync had is gone the day WWV is shut down.
What options are there if there is no WWV?
Option 1: Manual sync with your phone
I use the Android app GPS Test Plus on my phone to get the time and use that to manually sync the time on my quartz watch whenever necessary, which is not often.
The Plus version adds on basic GPS navigation, similar to a handheld trail unit like the Garmin eTrex where you can save waypoints and such.
Option 2: Wristwatch with GPS time sync
One of best survivalist/prepper wristwatches in existence is the G-SHOCK Master of G GPRB1000 Rangeman. This thing has a ridiculous amount of features. GPS reception and navigation, solar, Bluetooth for connecting to a smartphone, activity log tracking, digital compass, barometer, altimeter, thermometer, and of course legendary G-SHOCK toughness.
This is the watch guys take out into snowy mountain terrain, deep woods, jungle, desert or any other extreme environment and must have a watch that handle extreme conditions and always work. This watch can.
It's huge and heavy. But it does everything.
Alternatively, there is the not-as-extreme but still ridiculously tough G-SHOCK GRAVITYMASTER with an analog style face and GPS.
Don't expect any of these to be cheap, because none of them are.
Option 3: Bulova Accutron II
This syncs to nothing - and it doesn't have to. The Accutron tech in this watch is far more accurate than regular quartz. The only time you ever have to adjust this watch is for DST. Otherwise, this thing barely loses time, to the point of being accurate to within a few seconds per year, and that's not a typo.
If you just want to skip the bother of time synchronization altogether and just want something that is ridiculously accurate on its own without the need to sync once set, you want the surprisingly affordable Accutron II.
Oh, and yes, Accutron watches are known for their perfectly smooth second hand sweep. It's mesmerizing when you look at it.
Option 4: Don't sync at all and use a Casio digital quartz watch
I have a Casio W213 that was bought for cheap. It shows time, weekday, month and day on the main screen, has 5 alarms, stopwatch, dual time and countdown timer with auto-repeat. You get a lot of watch for the money with one of these.
Concerning accuracy, this watch will lose half-a-second to one second per day, which translates to being 15 to 30 seconds off per month.
If I did not bother synchronizing this watch manually, I would only be setting the time twice a year for the Daylight Savings Time changes. A DST time change just happened on March 10, 2019. The next one will be on November 3, 2019. That's a total of 238 days.
Were I to not synchronize the watch for 238 days straight, it would be off by between 2 to 4 minutes. Bear in mind 238 days is almost 8 months. For a timepiece that syncs to absolutely nothing, that's pretty darned good timekeeping.
Best practice to stay on time for stuff
With quartz watches, synchronizing once monthly will ensure you're always within 15 to 30 seconds of the actual time.
Or if you're a real stickler about it, synchronizing once weekly will ensure you're always within 3.5 to 7 seconds of the actual time.
If for whatever reason you need better timekeeping, continue to use a watch with atomic sync for as long as it's available, or just get an Accutron II as noted above.
The reason for the skunk stripe on Fender necks with rosewood boards
In a video I made about a Squier Telecaster some months back, I said that an oddity about the guitar is that even though it has a separate piece of wood for the fingerboard, there is still what's known as a "skunk stripe" on the back of the neck.
For those of you not aware of how necks are constructed for Stratocaster, Telecaster and other Fender electric guitar models, here's a quick rundown:
A single piece maple neck requires the truss rod to be installed from the back of the neck. A channel is routed out, the rod is installed, then the channel is traditionally filled with walnut. Since the walnut has a much darker look compared to the maple, this results in a very pronounced stripe on the back of the neck and is commonly nicknamed a skunk stripe.
A two-piece maple neck however is a different story. Instead of the truss rod being installed from the back, it's installed from the front. A channel is routed out, the rod is installed, then the fingerboard (made of rosewood or pau ferro or other wood) is installed on top of it. No skunk stripe should ever appear on the back of the neck since there was never a channel routed through the back for it...
...but yet this stripe still happens on some modern Fender electrics.
Example #1: Fender American Original '60s Stratocaster
Strats labeled as '60s models have two-piece necks because that is how Fender was building them then. No skunk stripe exists for this two-piece neck, which is how it's supposed to be.
Example #2: Fender Classic Player '60s Stratocaster
While being a Fender Mexico build, once again this is how the back of a two-piece Fender neck is supposed to look.
Example #3: Fender Made in Japan Traditional 60s Stratocaster Midnight
This Fender Japan build also has the correct neck construction for a two-piece build. No stripe, just like it should be.
Example #4: Fender American Professional Stratocaster (with rosewood fingerboard)
Now we see a skunk stripe on a Fender guitar neck where there should be none.
All Fender American Professional Stratocaster guitars have this stripe as do the American Performer and Mexico made Deluxe models. It doesn't matter whether the neck is one-piece or two-piece with rosewood, ebony or pau ferro. That stripe will be there.
Does the skunk stripe existing on two-piece necks cheapen the guitar?
No. Fender has been making necks on the majority of their electric guitars this way since 1972.
So if you think to yourself, "I'm not buying a Fender that had cost cutting on the neck done to it!", consider the fact Fender has been doing that for almost half a century.
However, if you're a stickler for such things and really, really want the traditional construction for the two-piece neck that doesn't have the stripe, purposely seek out a "60s" model.
Alternatively, just look for Fender guitar models that have Original, Classic or Traditional somewhere in the name, and the back of the neck should be stripe-free.
Only one type of watch is the best daily wearer
This is the latest concerning my wristwatch journey.
I have a recently acquired Casio W96H, and an Orient Tristar model FAB00009B. The Orient was a watch gifted to me that I've had for some time now. Still works great, no issues. I should note that the Tristar has a bunch of different colors available, and that includes gold models.
At one point I did briefly own a Seiko SNK803 (also available in several different colors), which is very similar both in size and price to the Orient, but returned it because the dial was just too busy for me.
Every now and then I put on the Tristar because it looks cool and I dig the fact it's 100% mechanical. Typical to traditional automatics, it loses between 15 to 30 seconds a day, so it will never be as accurate as a quartz digital. But I still dig it just the same...
...however I've never been able to use it as my daily wearer.
This doesn't mean I don't like the Tristar because I absolutely do, but every time I put on an analog timepiece, I miss the functions I get with the digital. No alarm, no stopwatch, no hourly chime, no display of the month.
The do-it-all watch that gives you analog with all the features of digital is of course the ana-digi. I own one, the Casio AW80V-5BV. But I don't wear it that often for the same reason I got rid of the Seiko SNK. The dial is too busy for my liking. Great watch, but again, busy dial.
There are mostly (no alarm) do-it-all watches that are 100% mechanical. These are automatic day date chronograph timepieces. None of them are cheap. An example of this is the Junghans Chronoscope. Quartz versions can be had for under $400, but for mechanical it shoots right up to well over $1,000. And I'm not about to spend that kind of cash when I get the same functionality plus more out of a $20 Casio.
I always go back to a Casio
The Casio quartz digital is still the best thing going; it is the best daily wearer.
I own a bunch of a watches, but no matter what I will always end back up with a Casio digital on my wrist because it does the job so damned well.
However, there are a few things I've learned concerning other timepieces.
I can't get along with ana-digi... but there is one I might like
My favorite ana-digi is the Casio G-SHOCK Gulfmaster. While I really dig the look of it, I've never owned one nor even handled one, and won't because the dial is ridiculously busy.
Busy dials are present on almost every ana-digi made. One of the very few that isn't is the Casio AQ230. On that model, the digital part is only a small horizontal bar at the bottom of the dial, and the hands on top never cross the digital area. This is, without question, the cleanest, simplest ana-digi sold right now. And I might get one at some point.
The best analogs are just the clock and only the clock
I'm currently on the hunt for a cheap, quiet analog timepiece that is clock-only that fits my wrist and has a nice look to it.
Technically, I already have it. A Timex Weekender 38mm. But it has a loud tick and I can't stand that, so I don't wear it.
I may pick up a Casio MTP-V001. This is a watch I owned before, but not in steel bracelet version.
Whatever I decide to get next, I will be picky about it because I already own too many watches as it is.
I'm glad the hobby is cheap!
10 rock songs that turn 25 years old in 2019
Time to rewind the clock back to 1994. I was in my late teens then, and these are the rock songs that were popular that year.
Every single song on this list is 25 years old in 2019. Crazy to think about, but it's true. Life was way different then. Internet was still in its baby stages (I didn't get online until 2 years later in 1996), no smartphones, no GPS.
And even if you did have internet back then, the only online streaming available was audio-only with audio quality so bad that it even made AM radio sound good.
In '94, everyone was still getting their music by either listening to it on FM radio, watching MTV music videos or hearing about new songs by word-of-mouth.
I'm not one of those people that thinks every song from the '90s was amazing. There are a few on this list that were total stinkers, and oh yes, I will give my opinions on them.
1. Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
One of the best rock songs ever written, no question about it.
A friend of mine called me on the phone one day (back when people actually used phones to talk) and said that I had to come over to his house and listen to this new song because it sounded like Led Zeppelin. I said okay, sure, and went to his place to check it out.
And oh yeah, I liked it. Loved it, in fact. And still do.
Interstate Love Song is a perfectly crafted song beginning to end. Nothing about it is bad. All instruments are perfectly mixed. I love the fact that there is NO GUITAR SOLO in it. I also love the fact this song escapes being labeled as "grunge", because it's just that damned good.
Another thing I seriously dig is that the guitars are scaled back, the bass and drums have serious punch to them and the vocals recorded dry. It's like I said, absolutely nothing about the song is bad.
This is may very well be the best rock song the '90s ever produced.
2. Pearl Jam - Better Man
Before putting this list together, I'll be honest, I totally forgot about this song...
...because it's totally forgettable. This is not one of Pearl Jam's best. It's nowhere near as good as Alive or Even Flow.
The pacing is weird, the mix isn't the best, and overall this song just seems too happy to be a Pearl Jam song. It just doesn't work. At the tail you can even hear a mistimed drum hit. It's bad.
This was a time when the band was just slapping together songs quickly and without much thought, and it shows with Better Man.
3. Candlebox - Far Behind
I remember this song getting regular rock radio airplay, but what I remember about this song the most is the video. The lead singer is walking around a house holding this cheap-ass dinky microphone with one hand, and connected to it is a coily cord held with the other hand. The microphone goes nowhere.
Every time I saw this, I just couldn't help but think, "Why is this dude holding a cheap microphone while walking through a house?" Definitely one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in a music video.
Yeah, I know that music videos aren't required to make sense. But that microphone is just plain stupid.
Aside from that microphone crapola, I can't stand this song. It's boring, unimaginative, and the worst part is that the guitar solo has several notes that are off key. Very grating on the ears. The singer also goes off key several times - in a studio release.
This song sucks.
4. Collective Soul - Shine
I never liked this song. I don't hate it, but never liked it.
There is one thing in this song that absolutely drives me nuts. And once you hear it you cannot un-hear it.
The drums are fake.
I could tell the drums were fake from the first time I heard Shine. It's not that fake drums are bad. Lots of bands use drum machines. I use fake drums in my recordings. But in Shine, what it sounds like is that this song was a demo where the drum machine was used as a temporary filler track before a real acoustic kit could be put in later. But that never happened. Instead, what sounds like a demo was the actual studio release.
And oh, what a bad studio release it is. In addition to fake drums, everything just sounds muffled, almost like a blanket was put over the microphones when recording. And is there bass guitar there? I honestly can't tell!
There is one good thing about the song however. It's very catchy. That's why it works even though the recording is so bad.
5. All Apologies - Nirvana
This is one of the all slower songs from Nirvana, but it does have a good groove to it. And it also has one of those guitar riffs that sticks in your head for days.
Is this Nirvana's best? No. But it's not a bad song.
Nirvana had a way of songwriting that had real character to it. Whether they played slow, fast or anywhere in between, many of their songs worked well for what they were, and All Apologies is one of them.
The only bad I can say about this song is that it doesn't fit in anywhere. You can't bang your head to it, you can't dance to it, it doesn't have relatable lyrics, it's not happy nor sad. It's just... there. This is why it's not one of their best.
6. Cracker - Low
This is another one of those songs that got regular rock radio airplay. I never liked it.
I think the only reason anyone liked this song is because of the lyric "Hey, hey, hey, like being stoned". So of course, all the stoner potheads flocked to this song.
However, what happened because of that lyric is nothing short of hilarious.
David Lowery (lead singer) was pretty much ordered by Cracker's label to write a letter to hand out to radio stations that specifically said the lyric "being stoned" was actually "being stone", even though it was obviously stoned. And the only reason that ever happened is because if any overly sensitive listeners called a station and complained about the mention of stoned in the song, the station could just say they had a written letter from the band that said nope, you heard wrong even though you were right.
Yes, this means Lowery was told to write the letter as a cover-your-ass maneuver. Bands had to do that back in the day if there was anything lyrical that had the potential to ruffle the feathers of soccer moms.
7. Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
Soundgarden was labeled as grunge. They weren't. These guys were too good to be grunge, and Black Hole Sun is an example of why that is.
I always considered Soundgarden to be a very innovative rock band. These guys did things musically that absolutely nobody else was doing before or since. Sometimes metal, sometimes hard rock, sometimes experimental, even sometimes prog. Soundgarden was light years ahead of everyone else. The only reason the grunge label was slapped on them is so more records could be sold.
This is one of those songs where both the song and the video are masterpieces.
Sonically, Soundgarden pretty much never sounds bad. The audio mix is as good as it gets.
Lyrically, the song is dark. My take on it is that it's supposed to convey a sense of depression and insanity, but Cornell himself said the song didn't have any real idea to it. Words for the sake of words, more or less. But those words resonated with a lot of people.
Visually, the video tried to interpret the song as the all the fake plastic junk of the world being washed away by a dark mass in the sky, i.e. the black hole sun.
It's all very cool and done right.
8. Alice in Chains - No Excuses
This is without question my favorite Alice in Chains song.
Out of all the popular AIC songs, this is probably the one that's the least rock 'n' roll of the catalog. It's still a rock song but has soft edges to it.
No Excuses is the first AIC song to hit #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks. The song did well both with critics and fans. Nobody really had a bad thing to say about it, and neither do I.
Lyrically, the song is about friendship. The ups, downs and everything in between. This is a song a ton of people can relate to. If you've ever cared about a friend deeply, you will know what this song is talking about.
Sonically, No Excuses is really heavy on vocal harmonies. Almost too much. Almost. But it holds it together and works great for what it is.
9. Green Day - Basket Case
And this one is without question my favorite Green Day song.
This tune was obviously built as a pop song from the ground up, but even so it really works. It's almost exactly 3 minutes long, very catchy, very happy sound to it, very cool.
Sonically, this song was masterfully mixed. Everything is heard clear as a bell and nothing is too loud or too soft. Vox, drums, guitar, bass, all of it. The EQ is absolutely perfect. Even the stereo separation of the drum toms is perfect.
It's a damned shame more songs aren't mixed this way.
10. Meat Puppets - Backwater
I remember hearing this one a lot on WAAF 107.3 FM Boston back when I lived in New England. It got fairly heavy rotation there, and deservedly so because the song is just plain cool.
I'll admit the mix of this song isn't the best (the vocals are slightly too loud and bass too quiet), but it has a very cool groove to it.
Something unique to this song is that the vocals are smooth sounding. There isn't screaming or "belting" anywhere that just adds to the overall cool vibe of it.
The guitar tone totally uses the tried and true amp-to-mic technique. I can tell just from the sound that everything was recorded the old school way. No direct-to-mixer stuff here.
Great song overall.
Have these songs aged well?
As with all popular music, some stuff ages well while others are permanent fixtures of the time they were recorded in.
Almost everything that Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains did transcends the '90s, no question. You take just about any song any of those bands, release it today, and it would sound fresh. Their '94 releases have aged very well.
Everything that Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Green Day did back in the '90s stays there. That's classic rock now and not fresh. Whether they've aged well is debatable.
For the others (Candlebox, Collective Soul, Cracker, Meat Puppets), their '94 songs are also fixtures of the year they were released and have not aged well. Still groovy to some, but mostly just to people who grew up in the '90s.