The Pick is on Patreon!

The Pick is now on Patreon!

https://www.patreon.com/thepick

In order to continue to work on content for The Pick we have started a Patreon account. This enables anyone who wishes to sponsor this blog to get rewards from doing so. If you feel compelled to, please do follow the link above and check out the page!

What Am I Doing?

Some of you may have noticed the irregularity of posts on The Pick recently. Usually posts are uploaded on a weekly basis however over the last couple of months they have been more infrequent and this is due to the fact that I am coming up to the end of my degree, which is taking up a lot of my time. This post will be a little bit about what I'm currently doing and a bit about the future, but I thought I'd begin by talking a little bit about the new guitar gear I've been using recently.

As many of you will know I recently have been using Covenant Cables with my rig, which by the way was perfect timing as slowly one by one each of my Fender custom shop cables are dying and whilst they do offer lifetime guarantee so I could send them back to Fender for a replacement that is a lot of hassle. I really am loving my Remnant Pro cables from the guys over at Covenant Cables - if you haven't yet go check them out, their really nice guys with a great product design. These cables are super lightweight and thin, look great and sound totally transparent.

Also recently I've had a change of primary pick I use for electric guitar playing. For the last year I had been only using my signature V-Picks 5mm wine red colour pick and, whilst I still wouldn't go out without a couple in my pocket, I have been using the Iron Age Guitar Accessories' Blue Lace Agate plectrum. The look of this pick was what first enticed me to picking it up and playing with it again, however the tones available from this plectrum are so much more clearer with an audibly more present attack which means I keep coming back to it. I'd definitely recommend getting yourself one of these picks. And just another quick one, inspired by The Bros Landreth (mainly Joey Landreth & Ariel Posen's guitar playing) I got myself a Dunlop 215 glass slide which has been a lot of fun and sounds great with my Gretsch and some compression from the Boss CS-1.

Now on to the topic of what's pretty much been taking up my life at the moment: my degree. I thought I'd write a little bit about what I'm working on at the moment, should anyone be interested. Alongside my dissertation, which I'll get to in a minute, I am also doing projects in recording and production, sound applications and performing experimental music, and have recently finished a unit about British jazz in the 20th century. The recording and production module is quite self explanatory, record and produce a track and remix it. We are approaching the mastering stage of our recording, and a few of us are individually working on remixes which we will continue to develop until they're due in. For the sound application project I am designing a system whereby a user will put a temperature sensor, heart rate monitor and pace counter on their body whilst they exercise and this data will be used to generate music which aims to encourage the user to have the best possible workout experience. For the performance of experimental music I have designed a program which accepts incoming music from two other performers and, using probability, generates new melodies based on what has already been performed. I have also created the software instrument as well as incorporated some of the audio effects I designed for my raspberry pi guitar pedal.

As I'm sure I've mentioned on The Pick before, my dissertation is about computer generated music and it's successes in composition. As I am nearing the deadline for my dissertation I have pretty much finished my generative system which utilises two recognised compositional methods, algorithmically generation and Markov chain generation. Other than tidying up the user interface, the artefact is all but finished. The bulk of the writing is also complete, with the first draft of the evaluative chapter being completed last weekend. Once this dissertation is handed in it will be a massive weight off my shoulders and (I'm hoping) it will feel like I have so much more free time again.

As well as my uni work I am also working a part time job tutoring English and maths to both primary and secondary school children. I'm just working two days a week, however by the time my second shift is finished I'm pretty much drained for the next 24 hours at least. The work is, however, very rewarding and I really enjoy helping the children learn (but I especially enjoy all the banter with the older/naughtier kids!). I'm not sure if teaching will be something of a full time career path in my future, I tend to enjoy more project based jobs which involve problem solving and ideally something to do with music or audio, however I definitely think it could be something to fall back on.

Along side of the uni work and the part time job I'm also (fairly infrequently) working on my raspberry pi effects pedal. Having completed the prototyping I designed and ordered PCBs (plural, incase I make mistakes), an enclosure and have begun designing what the top will look like. I begun soldering together a basic ABY switch to form a section of the internals of the pedal however the Neutrik jack ends I have been using have not taken the solder very well and therefore there is an audible loss of tone when used (after googling the issue it turns out loads of people have the same problem with these jacks). Because of this I have been talking with Bright Onion Pedals about them sending me the internals from their mini looper pedal for me to use in my project.

I have also recently begun looking into the software of Adobe Premiere Pro, to edit the monthly videos I have been making about the things I get up to, and Adobe After Effects, which is an awesome program for creating visual effects. I am loving learning these bits of software as it's something which is new and satisfies my need to do creative things.

As I'm sure you can understand, alongside all of these things I have been doing it has become increasingly hard to proactively talk to new companies designing and releasing products which would be perfect for review on The Pick, which explains the lacking of content. Hopefully after graduation I will be able to continue to post a regular schedule of gear reviews and tutorials and maybe this blog could become a full time endeavour, which would just be epic. In the mean time please do check out my Youtube Channel to see some of the things I've explained in this post in video form. If you do enjoy reading The Pick and feel like you would be interested in supporting it financially, please do check out my Sponsorship Page. Any donations would be excellent and let me continue to work on The Pick.

Covenant Cables

For the last month or so I have been checking out Covenant cables. Made in Atlanta, Georgia, these cables are custom made without gimmicks but provide great quality cables for working musicians. I was sent a couple of types of cable to test out, a Remnant Pro instrument cable and two 'Pancake' style patch cables.

As soon as I received the package I installed the two patch cables in my pedalboard. These cables are clearly designed to last, with a cable thickness which is bendable and moveable without feeling like it will break after a couple of uses. The low profile flat right-angle jack enables the pedals to be a lot closer together than with a usual patch cable, especially one of this quality. I would be very interested in replacing all of my patch cables with Covenant cables to not only save space but to see if there is a noticeable tone change as I have quite a few pedals on my board at the moment.

The Remnant Pro cable has been my guitar-to-pedalboard cable for the last month. This cable has a rough mesh feel to the outside called "Black Tech Flex" which really helps to avoid tangles and on top of the dark red colour makes for a very sophisticated looking cable. It also eliminates the chance of developing kinks or breaks on the inside of the cable. One element of this cable which genuinely surprised me was the weight of it - it is so light weight! In the past I have used Fender Custom Shop cables which were both thicker and way heavier than this Covenant cable; the difference is huge. These cables are very clear sounding, very high build quality and have a brilliant unique design.

If you haven't yet, make sure you check out Covenant cables at their website and make sure to follow them on Instagram. They are great guys, so definitely head over there and say hi.