The TuneTown Blog
from South Florida
Welcome to TuneTown Studios. I will be using this forum for a variety of topics and articles such as; cool sites I’ve found, rants, reviews, music, videos, news and just about anything I find interesting or feel that you may find interesting. Feel free to leave your comments on anything from this forum or on Tunetown. In this way, I hope to make the site more interesting to you so feel free to share your ideas on how I can make the site better. I’ve spent most of my adult life around music in some capacity and have played live in South Florida for years. Much of my time lately has been spent building my website, my home studio and recording. The cover songs offered on Tunetown Studios were originally from a compilation of songs I did live to provide a way for other musicians to learn my repertoire as I put together bands to play tours or local gigs. Now, as I am no longer playing out very often, the songs are just provided as content for the website, hopefully for visitors to enjoy. I will be offering some of the techniques and information about how the recordings were done using midi sequences, sound modules, guitars and various other gear that I used to master the recordings.
Allman Brothers Band legend Gregg Allman has revealed that his autobiography, My Cross to Bear, will be available at bookstores and online retailers starting May 1. Allman, who wrote the book with Alan Light, unveiled the book on his Facebook page.
According to the post, the book will feature Allman’s “unflinching tale of his life on stage and off,” including his rock and roll lifestyle, his relationship with Cher and his struggles with drugs and alcohol. Of course, Gregg also will reflect on his brother Duane’s tragic death, as well as the many other trials and tribulations of his life so far.
Creative collaboration: James Weaver and Lucy Wilma, both of Seattle, get a close look at a Fender Stratocaster with artwork by Alan Aldridge during the launch of the Jimi Hendrix Signature Series Edition 29 merchandise including T-shirts and pins at the Hard Rock Cafe Seattle on Thursday. The artwork for the guitar began as a collaboration between artist Alan Aldridge and Jimi Hendrix in 1970. (more…)
The new family of banjos, mandolins, resonator guitars, ukuleles and Rancher acoustic guitars feature Gretsch designs from before the company’s 1950s entry into the electric guitar world.
The Gretsch Roots Collection’s five new banjo models evoke the company’s banjo models of the early 20th century. Models include the 5-string, mahogany-neck Broadkaster Deluxe and Broadkaster Special resonator models and Dixie open-back model to the Clarophone Banjo-Ukulele and the Dixie 6 Guitar-Banjo.
The Roots Collection also heralds the return of the Gretsch New Yorker mandolin. Styled after the 1950s classic, a trio of modern-day models—the New Yorker Standard, New Yorker Deluxe and New Yorker Supreme—offer features with vintage touches.
Three Gretsch Ampli-Sonic resonator guitars are designed to add tone to the Roots Collection. The mahogany-body Boxcar Standard and Bobtail Deluxe each come in round-neck and square-neck models, and the round-neck Honey Dipper has a nickel-plated brass body. (more…)
The HB17 is made with a mahogany top, back, sides and neck with rosewood fingerboard. The body is finished in matte black and features all black hardware including Grover 18:1 tuners. The HB17 features active humbucker pickups
Pricing & Availability: The HB17CB will be available for $890.90. (more…)
Fishman showcased its unique new Triple Play Wireless Guitar Controller technology at Winter NAMM, earning a Best In Show Award in the “Companies To Watch” category.
Hourly demonstrations by guitarist Burr Johnson drew large crowds of attendees, artists and media to the Fishman exhibit eager to see and hear the highly anticipated wireless composing, performance and recording system.
Fishman tells us that Triple Play’s exceptionally slim and intuitive form factor is designed to allow fast, easy setup so that guitarists can quickly have an unlimited palette of instruments and sounds at their fingertips, all with the freedom of wireless control. Here’s more details in the company’s own words…
Composing With Triple Play
Guitarists now have the flexibility to compose with a wide range of instruments while getting full, accurate notation from Triple Play to share music with other band members. Triple Play’s precise note-by-note transcriptions let beginners learn faster and more intuitively.
Performing With Triple Play
Performers can use Triple Play to combine their guitar with any virtual instrument or hardware synthesizer to access a wide range of instruments, samples and sounds on stage so they can expand the depth and impact of live performances. (more…)
For those of you who missed out on the original line of KISS action figures introduced in 1977 by the Mego toymakers, this is for you. Figures Toy Company has announced a line of KISS action figures made in the image of those collectibles, according to Blabbermouth.
In addition to recreating the original 12-inch toys that were popular in the late ’70s, Figures will produce the four original KISS members (Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss) in 8-inch versions.
“Our first release will have the retro look from the 1970s, but future releases will cover all time periods in KISS’s almost-40-year musical career from 1973 to 2012,” said Figures CFO Paul Balasco. The next editions in the works will feature the band in the Sonic Boom, Dressed to Kill and debut album eras.
Both editions, which feature the band’s Love Gun-era looks, will be available starting in March. The 8-inch figures each come with a mini Love Gun album cover. The 12-inchers come with one of four mini KISS concert T-shirts.
Classic albums from one of the great bands of the ’60s, the Small Faces, have been slated for reissue.
Music-News.com reports that Universal Music Catalogue will release deluxe editions of four albums: The Small Faces (1966), From the Beginning (1966), Small Faces (1967) and the psychedelic classic, Odgen’s Nut Gone Flake (1968).
The remastered albums will feature mono and stereo versions plus singles and alternate versions of tracks. Extensive liner notes include new interviews from surviving Small Faces Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones (Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane have passed away).
Oscar-nominated actress Vera Farmiga has signed on to play Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie in Randall Miller, Rad Rosenberger and Jody Savin’s upcoming feature film, The Drummer. The film follows the last six years of late Beach Boy drummer Dennis Wilson’s (played by Aaron Eckhart) life, including Wilson and McVie’s “passionate and tumultuous” six-year relationship before Wilson’s passing in 1983.
Miller and Savin are stoked to have both Farmiga and Eckhart onboard the musical project.
“Jody and I are thrilled to work with Vera,” Miller told Hollywood Today, “Her commitment to every nuance will illuminate the character and having Aaron and Vera on-screen singing together will be pure magic.” Rosenberger added that the filmmakers are “thrilled that Vera brings her special musical talents to our film. She is a superb actor and we can’t wait to see and hear her as Christine McVie.”
“Aaron is totally committed to getting the music right for the film,” Savin added. “He is putting in hours and hours a week in preparation for the roll of Dennis Wilson.”
The film is set to start shooting June in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Beach Boys and will be filmed in Southern California and Savannah, Georgia.
After The Drummer wraps, Miller and Savin are on target to shoot CBGB, a film about Hilly Kristal, his renowned underground rock joint and the genesis of punk.
Custom MIDI controllers are all the rage these days, but let’s face it: most of us wouldn’t know how to go about building one.
If you want a bit of insight, check out the video above, which features Dave Cross of 60 Works Controllers explaining how he went about creating a controller for a parametric EQ.
Obviously, this isn’t a long enough clip to give you all the details you’d need to build the controller yourself, but if you do want to give it a go, you can download an instruction manual here.
NAMM 2012 PRESS RELEASE: Audio-Technica introduces its ATH-M50WH Professional Studio Monitor Headphones, a stylish all-white version of A-T’s flagship ATH-M50 headphones. Based on input from end-users looking for an alternative to the ATH-M50′s standard all-black colour scheme, the ATH-M50WH headphones offer the exact same comfort and superior audio quality for professional monitoring and mixing as their standard counterparts. (more…)