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Music Technology

This month’s featured band is the group called Koinonia.

Back in the 80’s, I was totally blown away when I first heard this band. Their funk-rock-jazz style is truly amazing. The band is comprised of one of the best seasoned musicians at that time and had only produced so few albums that their CDs and used vinyl records today are considered collectibles.

Koinonia is led by their energetic bass player Abraham Laboriel, and the core members of the band are: Hadley Hockensmith on guitars, Harlan Rogers on keyboards, Justo Almario on saxophone and flute, Bill Maxwell on drums, and Alex Acuna on percussions. Click on their albums for a sample of their music. Enjoy!

KOINONIA - ALL THE BEST

Now Available At Amazon, starting at US$150.00

Chord Guide

I was 10 years old when my father bought me a junior sized six string custom built guitar made by a local luthier. It was during that time I started to learn playing it. I credit my father on showing me the ways to play it even though most of it are Latino/Spanish style. He did gave me an idea of the open chords which at that time I wasn’t too interested because his music is so un-cool. I turned to learn by myself which I started with the Beatles music and later on diversified onto James Taylor and Jim Croce music. That is when it dawned on me that open chords and slash chords are amazingly melodic on a finger style. Through the years of playing, I think I had come to develop a good listening ear where I could now interpret chords from music that I hear from the radio or a CD. With this skill, I came out with my own chord guide for most of the songs that I think are worthwhile of playing. I also had incorporated some songs that my son loves.

All chords are my own interpretations and I try to make it playable for a beginner with a few exceptions on certain songs that had slash chords. I have also added some of our ukulele favorite songs. In the future, I will include some videos to demonstrate how to play the song.

For a list of finger position of basic guitar chord, you may check chordguide.com.

 My Music Rig ……

I had the longest years playing bass in my involvement in a band. I guess there’s just too many guitar players out there that there were only few who are interested to play the role of a bass player. It has been a trend that there is a shortage of such skill. I started to fill-in that role temporarily which I had noticed that over the years I had spent more time playing it than as a guitarist.

The role of a bass player is important in a band since it sets the groove and also brings the fullness of the music. It matters much that majority of those who upgrade their car stereos would want to install a sub-woofer speaker system. It’s the boom-boom aspect that made the people to enjoy the beat.

I prefer to play a 5-string electric bass as I find it easier to play the bass lines compared to 4 stringers. Plus, a 5-string bass has more depth because of the low-B 5th string. Although there are 6-string bass out there, I still prefer the 5 stringer since I don’t have much use of that high-C in most of my play.

The picture on the right is my humble bass rig. I’ve got a Yamaha TRB-1005 5-string bass and an Ibanez SR XXV Limited Edition (seen on the picture below) as my current electric basses. I have an Eden E-12 as my bass amplifier which I use for practice and as my monitor for small venue live sessions. I use SansAmp Para Driver DI as my bass preamp. The rest are my bass effects pedals - MXR Bass Octave, MXR Bass Envelope, and EBS UniChorus.

Today’s electric bass are certainly much more sophisticated compared to the 60’s and 70’s that are mostly dominated by Fender Jazz and Precision series bass. The Fender’s electronics is a simple passive circuit that has 3 knobs - volume, tone and pickup balance. Starting on the later part of 80’s and onwards are the era of modern electric bass which employs a battery powered active circuits and it comes with an EQ (2-band or 3-band) and some cases a switch or a pot for the mid-frequency selector, a switch for active or passive pickup, then a volume and balance control.

Bass players sometimes would want to add some character to their tone on certain parts of the music for which they would use bass effects stomp boxes (pedals). A pre-amp plays a big role to shape the raw tone of the bass as it feeds the sound signals into the amplifier. As for the bass amplifier, one would need something that is louder than the rest of the band’s amplifiers since the low frequency sound of the bass can hardly be heard. Thus, for live venues, you need at least 100 watts of power.

Below are my brief description of my gears which I also included a link to its manual in case you need more technical details of the product.

EDEN E12 BASS COMBO AMPLIFIER

The Eden Bass Amplification is one of the respected brands in the bass community and is now part of the Marshall group of companies. This is a solid state bass amplifier and simple to operate. The E12 model was designed for rehearsal and small venue live sessions. The enclosure provides both upright and 2-level tilt back speaker position to give the bass player options on how he would want to hear himself at play time. It comes with a single 12” coaxial speaker with a weezer on its cone to project the high frequency. The controls are simple given the fact that this was only meant as a monitor amp. But that doesn’t mean the quality of sound and its tonal options has degraded. Eden is known for the warmest tone and clarity among solid state bass amp in the market. It has 3-band EQ controls, an Enhance control knob which is a proprietary tone shape EQ scooping of the mid-low and mid-high frequency that Eden is known for, a Gain control which is hooked on a built-in mild compression circuitry, and lastly of course a Master Volume knob. The system is rated by its manufacturer at 80 watts @4-ohms of power although the amp circuit itself is labeled 110-watts as seen in the back. You also have the option to disconnect the built-in speaker at the back panel and plug-in your own preferred speaker cab. Because of the coaxial properties of the built-in speaker, it requires a break-in time for about 30-minutes of playing time to allow the coils to settle to avoid that slightly harsh tone in the high frequency sound. But that amount of time is good enough to go through a warmup session prior to the live gig. Nonetheless, among all bass combo tilt back monitor I have tried, this one is by far stands out in its tonal range among other popular brands as it is capable of generating 42hz to 12khz of sound that rumbles the floor despite its size.

Need more technical details of this amp? Check out the manual - Eden E12/15/28 PDF

YAMAHA TRB-1005

The iconic 5-string and 6-string bass of the late 80s. Offered in 3 color combinations, mine came with a beautiful quilted maple top in natural finish. It has an alder body and maple neck and rosewood fret board with mother of pearl oval inlays. Among all basses I had played, this one is the most balanced in tone. No wonder why famous bassists use this in their live performances. Check out the youtube video of Abe Laboriel’s solo with famous jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour to give you an idea of how it sounds.

The Yamaha TRB-1005 comes with an onboard active electronics that provides a 3-band EQ, a pickup panning control and a volume control. The bolt-on neck gives this bass a tight and punchy tone. Most of the 5-string bass out in the market had narrow string spacing; but this bass is different.

Yamaha G/B Manual PDF

The spacing of the string at the nut is narrow similar to a Fender Jazz bass but with an increasing spacing towards the body giving plenty of room for slap bass playing style. Thus, this bass is versatile enough to be played on any kind of music despite the 5-string configuration. But it requires some getting used-to because of the way the string was implemented.

Yamaha no longer manufactures this model since they focused more on producing the affordable consumer model called TRBX. Thus, the market resale of the used top-end TRB 1000 series had its value went up high that the ones in pristine condition (no scratches) are now priced to what has been of a brand new bass. So, this bass is a keeper to me.

SANSAMP PARA DRIVER DI

Made in the USA by Tech21 NYC. A DI is an important tool for every musician since it allows your instrument to have multiple output to various receivers (amps, mixer board, recording audio interface) without loss of signal. The Sansamp series of DI pedals has been known by almost all professional bass players. Their famous Sansamp Bass Driver DI pedal is the most widely used bass Preamp/DI. Then came the enhanced version PARA Driver DI which now has a mid-range EQ. And not only that, the 3-band EQ has a 4th knob that gives you a selection of mid frequency (170 hz to 3kHz) for the mid EQ control. Thus, this pedal has a parametric mid frequency that allows you to set your EQ scoop according to your type of instrument or tone preferences. In addition to the unique EQ controls, Tech 21 has carried-over the tube emulation tone control as found in the classic Bass Driver DI. The tube emulation brings a warmer tone to your instrument in a small package which is something that the bass players are looking for without lugging the heavy real vacuum tube pre-amplifier heads.  This little pedal certainly rumbles the floor regardless whether your bass is active or passive.

Para Driver DI Manual PDF

ANALOG BASS EFFECTS CHAIN

Since at the moment, I don’t have a noise gate component on my signal chain, I opted to use effects pedals that are based on analog circuits to avoid that dreaded hissing sound commonly produced by digital electronics. Analog circuits tend to be bulky and has limited function and features vs. digital integrated circuits where you can pack as many features and function in a tiny package. Thus, you would rarely find an analog pedal with multiple effect functions since one has to be really creative to design a circuit board to pack all the discrete components in such a small space. But my preference to have a reduced noise signal while maintaining the natural tone has made me to consider analog-based pedals for my effects chain.

EBS UNICHORUS

The chorus effect produces a sound of a “double string”. Thus, if used on a 6-string guitar, it would sound like a 12-stringer. The one thing that is a plus in the EBS Unichorus is - it doesn’t only come as a chorus effect but through the 3-way toggle switch, you’ll have Pitch Modulator and Flanger Effects in addition to the main Chorus effect. Three effects in a small package of an analog circuit board is an engineering feat. This device only has two controls; and so my options to tweak the effects in a much granular way is limited compared to the a digital effects pedal which had more options. But that’s fine for me since its the analog tone that matters to me. This is a Swedish brand but made in China, so, don’t know how long it would last with my Doc Martens stomping on it. But it’s the 3 analog effects in one package that attracts me, and so I bought it.

EBS UniChorus Manual PDF

MXR BASS ENVELOPE FILTER

This bass effect produces an exaggerated phase modulation giving it a funky sound. It has more controls to articulate the sound than the other pedals in the market. The one thing that is a plus is the ability to control the level of effects applied to the natural bass tone, so, it's not really all funky sound that you'll hear.

This is one fun FX for my rig and it's a Jim Dunlop product made in the USA.

Since it's hard to describe into words what a funky sound mean, check out the youtube video below.

M82 Bass Envelope Filter Manual PDF

MXR BASS OCTAVE DELUXE

This one produces a trailing sound in the lower octave and is good for slow moving bass lines in the upperscale.

This MXR Series of pedals once again beat its competitors with more knobs to tweak your sound. It also comes with a mid feq boost switch which can be adjusted from 400Hz to 800 Hz.

This is another made in the USA that is built like a tank.

Check out the demo video below to discover what exactly an Octave effects mean.

M288 Bass Octave Deluxe Manual PDF

Photo above features the Ibanez SR XXV Limited Edition 5-string bass, Eden E12 Amp, Roland TD-11KV Drum Kit, Simmons DA50 Drum Amp, and an Aria Pro II Viper Super Strat electric guitar.  

ROLAND TD-11KV Drum Kit

This is probably one of the most exciting things I have in my musical arsenal. This electronic drum kit gave me a lot of flexibility to explore and use various tones of drums from jazz, rock, down to ballad tones and percussions without buying those instruments. The electronically generated drum tones is realistic enough in sound. But using it can require some adjustment especially when leveraging the hi-hat as it has a tiny bit of reaction lag. Other than that, this drum module includes 25 preset drum tones and another 25 memory banks to store your custom mods. The drum V-pads are awesome that it gives you that natural feel as your stick bounces off the pads and you can adjust the tightness too. One thing I do note when playing this drums is - the triggers are so sensitive that you need to hit your shots accurately as it does give an unwanted noise if you miss your mark. On the positive side, it does encourage you to play better.

This is one fun drum system for family, recording and live settings.

User Manual: Roland TD11-15 OM

My 2017 New Year drum roll. It is just fun to play!

Cyndi Lauper

One of the popular pop artist in the 80’s. Known for colorful funky hairstyle and high energy concerts.

She had songs that can be rendered in acoustic version that I find it melodic and is fun to play with a guitar.

True Colors - Chord Guide  

Time After Time   

Bread

Ah… the late seventies.. When the radio are filled with mellow music, certainly one can’t miss the music of Bread.

Songs back then were written with stories behind it and are meaningful which sadly is the total opposite of today’s music.

Some of their songs are good for those who wanted to understand and play slash chords with a mixture of plucking and a mild upward strumming techniques.

Diary - Chord Guide

If   

Aubrey  

Dan Seals

Seals and Crofts band had quite a few songs that lingered in my mind… back in the 80’s their Summer Breeze and My Fair Share was most popular in the radio then nothing else… then came the late 90’s, Dan Seals wrote probably one of the most meaningful songs I’ve heard from him and it is rendered in a graceful finger style on his Martin guitar.

One Friend - Chord Guide

Keith Urban

Who would have thought that an Australian musician would become popular in country music in the U.S.? I view his music more of a country-pop, but nevertheless there’s one song that caught my ear… it mostly was rendered in light strumming and is pleasing to hear.

Only You Can Love Me This Way - Chord Guide

 Chord Guide in the works …

Phillips, Craig & Dean

This trio of Pastors wrote one of the most inspirational song of a father and son. And I would like to post it here with my guitar chord interpretation; perhaps someone would take this and make it a song for their son.

I Want To Be Just Like You - Chord Guide