Blog and News!
A Bass in Waiting
Oh What a Night
Oso Strong
Highway 530 opened last week through the area devastated by the Oso landslide. We took a drive through the Oso area and on up to the town of Darrington and took a number of pictures. The pictures don’t come close to capturing what the devastation looks like in person. There is still on victim whose body has not been recovered buried somewhere in the landslide and it was with mixed feelings that we drove past the area. We stopped in Darrington and spent some money at an antique shop. As we talked with the shop owner about the landslide and its effect on the community his eyes began to well up with tears.
Here are the photos of the Oso landslide area.
How to Build a Cigar Box Ukulele – Part 2
OK, here are some pictures of progress I have made so far on my cigar box ukulele. (Click here for the completion, Part 3.)
In this photo I have removed the top cover of the cigar box. I removed it so that I can have full access to the inside of the box for additional work such as reinforcement by adding braces to the perimeter on the top and bottom. Also the lid will be easier to work with separated from the main body of the box for such things as cutting out the sound hole and adding the bridge plate and top braces.
And this shot shows the gluing in of the perimeter braces. Thank God for clothes pins.
And finally, here I am installing end blocks for both the tail and neck ends.
How to Build a Cigar Box Ukulele – Part 1
I’ve been collecting parts for quite a while now and the Cigar Box ‘ukulele project is just about set to kick off. Below is my parts list that I created after reading some books on DIY cigar box projects and reviewing way too many articles at the cool site, www.cigarboxnation.com. Anyway, stay tuned as I post some pictures of my progress on this in coming days/weeks.
The “XX” in the list are for those items that I have already obtained. Just a couple things left to get!
XX Cigar box
XX Neck and fretboard, concert length
XX Tuning posts
XX Braces, Soundboard, Pine or Spruce, 1/4 x 1/2″ x 4′
XX Braces, Box, Pine or Spruce, 1/4 x 1/4″ x 8′
XX Bridge Plate, Maple, 1/8 x 2 x 6″
XX Thin wood – balsa for pickup sandwich
XX Bridge, Concert
XX Nut and saddle, Bone
XX Piezo pickup, wire and jack
XX Quarter (drill for washer for jack). Use Canada 2$ piece.
Brass bathtub drain strainer for resonator
XX Wood glue
XX Hole saw, 2.0 inches
XX Clamps
XX Strings (Aquila high g Concert)
XX Large rubber bands–Office Depot
XX TiteBond glue
XX Tung oil
XX Fine grit sandpaper
XX Steel wool
Clear Satin spray lacquer
Please Click here to check out my music! Thanks! 🙂
Logic Pro X
Several months ago I installed GarageBand 10. I created several arrangements in GB 10 and discovered that there were some features that I need/want are not available in GB, such as the ability to mute individual audio regions within a track, or to mute individual notes within an audio region. So, I thought, “Fine. I will just deal with it in Logic. Wrong. I only had Logic Pro 9 on my Mac. But guess, what, GB 10 files are not compatible with Logic 9 or lower. Crap! So, I bit the bullet (wallet) and upgraded to Logic X.
Finally, and again my GarageBand and Logic apps will talk and play nice with each other. Apple certainly has it planned well in how to force its customers to spend more money even if they really don’t want to. I can now move on with life with Apple’s audio software Logic Pro X, version 10.0.7.
Logic Pro X, launched in July, represents the first major update to the software since 2009. Logic Pro X introduced “Drummer” which is a customizable virtual session player that automatically plays along to recorded tracks. Drummer made its way to Apple’s consumer-level GarageBand’s launch, with one drummer included free of charge and a set of 14 additional drummers with various styles available for $4.99 as an in-app purchase.
Logic Pro X is available for $199.99 in the Mac App Store.
