Casually Abandoned: Recent Episodes
casuallyabandoned
Weekly meditative ambient guitar soundscapes, improvised in one consciously streamed take. No overdubbing, multitracking, or preliminary composing unless otherwise noted.
Ringing out a new signal chain.
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https://casuallyabandoned.bandcamp.com/
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkXqmcCoypkUDlKEWTaF0IA
Messing around with a few pedals on a small board made from the same coffee table as my coffee table partscaster, as seen here and here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9dZYU1BwfB/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9fmb-oBU--/
Guitar: purple telepartscaster
condor>pog2>genloss>dark star>blooper>dig>immerse.
The long awaited final part. Slow burn at first, but droney great stuff in the back half.
New stuff soon.
Part III! See the previous two entries for more information. :)
More:
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https://casuallyabandoned.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/casuallyabandoned
Part two of the near two-hour soundscape I came across recently while archiving old projects. Spooky and rumbly, with some unexpected soloing.
Was sorting thru and archiving old Logic projects from the past year, and found a near two hour long soundscape that I have no real recollection of recording.
It neatly split into four sections, so here's part one.
Recent live performance. Pretty much complete, with some clunks cleaned up here and there.
Videos of excerpts here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip2dUvDRLvY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu4LDL42aq0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoY8xgGOYXU
It's been a while. Been recording nightly in prep for playing live next week. This is where my head is at these days.
Gear highlights:
Parts Telecaster
POG2
Superego+
Mood
Afterneath
Ditto X4
Dig
Big Sky
24 minutes of a lovely drone with lots of random twiddling of knobs between wide oases of nothing much going on. Unexpect the expected.
Short video here.
No musical or conceptual thru line here. Just dismantled my old effects pedal board and reworked everything on a new board, and here's around 20 minutes of me ringing out the system with ambient glory.
The idea here was to practice serenity, let things breath. So of course I started by playing everything all at once. I edited out some busyness at the start but it still starts kinda busy. Serenity wanders in around the halfway point.
This was played on the new guitar I built out of wood and parts and stuff. Gear:
Fender The Bends compressor
Sonicake Fritz preamp, Shark distortion, 5th Dimension (for tremolo)
EHX Pog2
TC Ditto X4 Looper
EHX Superego+
Strymon El Capistan, Dig, and Big Sky
Simple. Short.
Reminder:
More Music: https://casuallyabandoned.bandcamp.com/
Random Ideas: https://soundcloud.com/casuallyabandoned
Back after some idle time. Coming back slowly. Very slowly. Slow, relaxing, meditative drones. Long reverb tails and long delay trails. Letting things ring out and being deliberate about the next note or phrase.
Pardon the clicks and clacks. Baritone Strat, delay, reverb, nothing much else.
After some time away for the holidays and work travel, I'm starting the new year a little slowly, creatively. Thought it was a good time to break this one out. This was the test run for this whole ambient podcast concept. Pure Frippertronics. Never intended for public display, but listening back, so much wonderful stuff happens. Good to start the new year with a reminder of how magnificent the basics can be. Guitar, distortion pedal, looper, a little reverb in logic. Maybe some delay and reverb from the Ocean Machine; don't remember at this point.
Mellow, relaxing, no weird stuff this week.
Some gear involved: Baritone Strat, Big Muff Distortion, EHX pog2, Ditto X4 Looper, Strymon Dig delay, Big Sky reverb
More Music: https://casuallyabandoned.bandcamp.com/
Random Ideas: https://soundcloud.com/casuallyabandoned
Hypnotic tremolo via the EHX Superego+. Weird chattering from the Grazer.
Featured gear: Baritone Strat, Ditto X4 Looper, EHX Superego+, EHX pog2, Dwarfcraft Grazer, Strymon Dig delay, Big Sky reverb
A few months ago I debuted my baritone strat. This weekend I came across this meditation from the same day. I can understand why I set it aside (and forgot about it) at the time - I was trying for something with a consistent tone throughout, and this one, while it starts on the same few notes, goes in a different direction, and has some unexpected mood shifts along the way. But as always, with fresh ears I can appreciate what I played on its own merits, removed from the expectations of my intent at the time I played it. Also, some cool sounds at 7:15.
Gear:
Baritone strat
Fender The Bends compressor
Roland volume pedal
Ditto X4 Looper
Strymon Dig delay
Big Sky reverb
Logic
Rushed thru this before going out on Monday night. Thought I'd left a jangly mess behind, but listening with fresh ears yesterday it turned out to be a hypnotically jangly mess, which is a totally different thing. Some magic in there, amid the jangles.
Gear:
Fernandes Burny
Fender The Bends compressor
Roland Volume Pedal
Ditto X4 Looper
Strymon Dig delay
Strymon Big Sky Reverb
Logic
Something short and soothingly weird for the weekend. Playing around with the Dwarfcraft Grazer, granular delay.
Gear:
Squier Strat (tuned for droning)
Dwarfcraft Grazer
Roland Volume Pedal
Ditto X4 Looper
Strymon Dig delay
Strymon Big Sky reverb
Came across this over the weekend. This was my first test run of the Strymon Big Sky reverb, the day I brought it home. I think I had written it off because of some static around 7:10, but with fresh ears, that static gets looped and is part of the ambiance. I like it.
Don't remember what guitar I was playing but gear I can be confident was used:
Fender The Bends compressor
Roland Volume Pedal
Ditto X4 Looper
Ocean Machine (for delay)
Strymon Big Sky Reverb
Logic
After several weeks of relaxing, meditative sounds, here's a more frenetic guitar synth experiment from the archives. Recorded last December and forgotten about until last week. Droney and searching at the top, it coalesces into something pretty cool around 4 or 5 minutes in. Big fun the rest of the way.
Don't exactly remember the signal flow, but it sounds like Burny > SY-300 Guitar Synth > Roland Volume Pedal > Logic.
Returned from Ireland this weekend. Picked up an EHX pog2. Recorded this while jetlagged and fighting a head cold.
It's very mellow and relaxing, as I was very sleepy at the time.
Signal flow:
Fernandes Burny > The Bends > EHX pog2 > Ditto X4 > Strymon Dig > Logic
Last week it was the new baritone, this week I unveil the new Telecaster, built and subsequently upgraded from a do-it-yourself Telecaster kit.
Pleasantly busy, dreamy. If your dreams are pleasantly busy, that is.
Signal:
Homemade Telecaster > The Bends > Volume Pedal > Ditto X4 > Dig > Big Sky > Logic
Public unveiling of my new baritone guitar - an old mexican Strat that I've converted with a Warmoth 28.5 scale baritone neck.
Quiet, introspecitve, relaxing.
Baritone strat > Fender The Bends compressor > Roland volume pedal> Ditto X4 Looper > Strymon Dig delay > Big Sky reverb > Logic
Testing out the Strymon Big Sky reverb with the drone guitar - an old Squier strat that I have tuned CCCCCC. Or rather usually have the strings all tuned to C (across three octaves); when I picked it up last night they were all tuned to C#, so I just went with it.
This starts in media res as I was about to shut down for the night when I grabbed the drone guitar to see how it would sound thru the Big Sky. I liked the initial loop so I rolled tape and went with it.
Signal Flow:
Squier Strat > Fender The Bends compressor > Roland volume pedal > Ditto X4 Looper > Strymon Big Sky reverb > Logic
In the tradition of Fripp and Eno's early Frippertronic works. Les Paul with beautiful grinding Big Muff distorion swells, and no other fancy gimmickry:
Les Paul > Big Muff Distortion > Roland Volume Pedal > TC Ditto X4 Looper > Ocean Machine > Logic
Experimenting with the EHX Mel9 Mellotron emulator pedal.
Gear and signal flow:
Fernandes Burny sustainter guitar > EHX Mel9 > Bug Muff Distortion > Roland Volume Pedal > TC Ditto X4 Looper > Mooer Ocean Machine > Logic
Something simple to start. Short (relatively speaking), quiet, and meditative.
Gear and signal flow:
Epiphone LP > TC Crescendo > TC Ditto X4 Looper > Mooer Ocean Machine > Logic