I’ve been working on my music…. man.

Posted on by kylar

Over the last couple months I’ve become more interested in working on my guitar stuff. For the last 10 years or so I’ve been playing through the exact same stuff: an american standard strat, or a washburn electric (KC-40) straight into a multi-effects unit, a Boss GT-6 and direct into the PA. Very little mess, no fuss. And it was pretty good. That’s the problem. As I’ve come to realize recently, (slowly, actually, over the course of the last 6 months or so: “great is the enemy of good”). And so I decided that I didn’t want to have good tone anymore. I wanted *GREAT* tone. So I set out on my quest. I started using my tube amp again (Fender HotRod) – great clean tone. Great reverb. Horrible crunch. I looked at two people who had tone I liked. Dave Matsumura and a friend of mine, Steve garber. I talked to them about what they used. Dave pointed me to Fulltone pedals, and they were great. Steve talked to me about delays. I went to guitar showcase and tried different stuff. I read forums about what people liked. Then I tried stuff. And more stuff. Aaron loaned me some pedals. Andy Loaned me a crybaby. Try this. Try that. This guitar. That guitar. The fulltone stuff blew me away. The Crybaby wah didn’t. Andy says “Try a VOX.” Someone points me to H20 pedals. I got a bonus this fall and bought the ones I really liked. Then asked for one at christmas. Swapped some tubes on my Hot Rod to get more power tube saturation. Finally I’m getting to where I like my tone. I’m not satisfied yet, since I want to shape the sound a little more. Anyways, here’s where I ended up:

Pedal Board
Pedal Board

I’ll use these to show you what is what(B = Bottom, T = Top, number = from left, so T1 = top left, B5=Bottom right (Vox Wah).

  • T1: Canuck Custom A/B Box (Green)
  • T2: Boss DD-3 Digital Delay (white)
  • T3: Ibanez SoundTank Chorus (black)
  • T4: DOD/Digitech Stereo Flanger (GFX75) (green)
  • T5: DOD Compressor/Sustainer (FX80-B) (orange)
  • B1: Fender Amp Footswitch (Channel, Drive/More Drive)
  • B2: Fulltone Fulldrive-2 (blue)
  • B3: Fulltone OCD (white)
  • B4: Passive Volume Pedal (black)
  • B5: Vox 847 Wah (black/silver)

My signal flow goes as follows: Guitar->B5->B4->T5->B3->B2->T4->T3->T2->T1->Amp

Technical Books, Languages, and Project Euler

Posted on by kylar

First things first:
Hi. How have you been? Ok, Honestly, I don’t care.

Moving on.

I just got some new tech books: Programming Erlang (semi-work related), Programming Pearls (2nd edition) and Beautiful Code.

I started working on Programming Erlang but stopped a few chapters into it. For someone that has thought exclusively in OO for the last 10 years or so, trying to remember that = is a pattern matching operator is f’d up.

Anyways, a couple weeks ago I started to do Project Euler to learn a bit of python, and plowed my way through a bunch of the first problems (20-30) – they were mostly easy, even though my math stops at grade 12 – a few I ran into constraints issues where I actually had to think my way through the problem, or, even more rarely, find a mathematical explanation of the problem in order to write an algorithm. (the two triangle problems caused this. )

Python is a pretty cool language, very easy to learn.

Anyways, I had originally started this post with the desire to write a list of books I can’t do without, but I kinda got sidetracked. By Work.

Read some books..

Posted on by kylar

I went back to Ohio at the beginning of May, and since then I’ve read some more books. I thought I’d mark them down on my goal to read 52 ‘new’ books this year.

4/52: Smart & Gets Things Done
5/52: Going Postal
6, 7, 8/52: The Cat Who… Brought Down The House, Talked Turkey, Dropped a Bombshell
9/52: The Tangle Box

I just got my copy of Effective Java: 2nd edition, and I’m hoping to work my way through it by the end of the week. Time permitting, I may even review it on Slashdot.

Books: 1/52, 2/52, 3/52

Posted on by kylar

So this year, I’ve already read *3* books. That’s 3 out of the 52 I’m shooting for. So far:

#1) Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman
Interesting. Not as good as American Gods, which is what inspired me to buy it. It’s an interesting story about a man who finds out his father was Anansi, the god of trickery.

#2) Generation X – Douglas Coupland
Kept my interest well, but found it pretty disjoint, and certainly not a revolutionary novel. I much preferred Microserfs.

#3) Managing Humans – Micheal Lopp
I’ve read most of this on his blog. Some is very relevant, despite the fact that I’m not a manager. Managing others, and managing upwards can benefit from understanding, and by and large, Rands is trying to say: “Understand where they’re coming from, understand their motivations, and the managing will be much easier.” Well, maybe that’s not what he’s trying to say, but that’s what he said to me. (Note: He has never actually spoken to me.) Recommended to anyone who manages or is managed in Silicon Valley or in any type of tech job.

IM chats

Posted on by kylar

Carrie Conversation started Thu February 21 09:53:20 2008

Tom 09:53:52AM So I’ve had this thing about how I really don’t ‘hate’ – like, it’s such a strong emotion that I rarely if ever feel real hate. Except for whenever I hear Coldplay
They’re everything that’s wrong with music!
Carrie 09:54:12AM what’s up with that?
Tom 09:54:16AM Ahahaha
Carrie 09:54:17AM why you hate on the coldplay?
Tom 09:54:30AM I don’t know, they just tickle that part of my brain
> Must be like some weird dog-whistle thing
Carrie 09:54:38AM wow
> i really like them
> saw them in concert
> so good!
Tom 09:55:16AM See, that’s like my personal hell. “And now, appearing for the 19,000’th straight time, Coldplay, with their hit song, YELLOW
> *shiver*
Carrie 09:55:26AM omg
> funny
> yeah, they actually only play that ONCE in concert
Tom 09:55:36AM I need to blog this
Carrie 09:55:38AM their last album was seriously so good
Tom 09:55:50AM No, no it was horrific in every sense
Carrie 09:55:56AM okay
> well
> you certainly don’t have to like everything
> that’s for sure
Tom 09:56:04AM Ahahaha
>
Carrie 09:56:10AM i’m sure you like stuff i despise, so we’ll call it even
> for now