Donovan Banks

Yes, it has been a loooong time since this blog has been updated. I left it on a bit of a sour note. I've since had my second son and he is 22 months. I can't play guitar if he's awake and I cant if he's asleep.

So whats up yo?
I'm glad you asked. I'm still playing with Bevan Lynch as we werechanges. We are going under the name Lynch now. I'll fill you in early next year about it as we are develpoing some stuff for you.

I'm expecting to get back into it big time this year. Some hopefuls include a short lesson with Rowan Stuart and his new project Light in Cages.  Check out the music page and hear the track "Sorry it didn't work out." I love it.

I've gotten rid of  a bunch of gear.  No more BR600. No Cube 80X and no more MIM Delxue Power strat. The latter was silly sale but I'm getting over it. Maybe if we're lucky I'll get my hands on a BR800 (if someone's keen to send me one in lieu of some video lessons...)

What else caught my ear was an interesting band from Durban, Gangs of Ballet. Somewhat interesting as they are a normal band, but what stands out to me is the production of their songs I won't say much more, you can listen for yourselves...



oh, and just for fun....
 


Cheers,
D

I read many blog or forum posts from people who own studios, teach music or are in some way involved in the music industry where they claim to know and profess all truth.

It seems to me that there are far too many experts who have done nothing further with their involvement that writing about it online. How do you now who to trust?

I always like to look at it this way, has the person done enough with their knowledge to be considered known for it? meaning is the person at least semi-famous as an engineer, producer, musician, teacher etc. Have they written for any publications that matter or are they doing a buddy a favour?

If the answer for that is no, then I consider how honest the person is. Do they say they are still learning but this is what I know so far? Are they humble about what they know? One can only despise the guy who says, "I teach people how to sing therefore I AM the authoritae on song writing." I've come across someone like that before. He tried to tarnish the good name of my band because we didn't agree with him.

I maintain one thought though, listen, take what you need and can work with . But ALWAYS follow your own thoughts. Nobody knows your plans better than you.

I'm not a big fan of HSS Stratocasters. I've never liked the sound that you get from the humbucker. Maybe I don't use enough gain when I play a strat but it doesn't sound right. In fact it doesn't sound like it's matched to the others. It feels like such an afterthought. "Oh, Ibanez can do it, why don't we?"

The Fender Stratocaster is awesome with 3 single coil pickups. They work well together, when matched correctly, and give you a sound and tone that only a strat could. They have made major improvements for noise reduction and their tone is only getting better.

I put the Fender Hot Noiseless pickup in the bridge. I left the Tex Mex pups in the middle and neck position even though I feel they are not 100% suited to the sound I am after. I am keen for a set of Toneriders or maybe Kinmans if anyone wants to send me a set to demo... hint hint.

Here's the video comparison for my now, better sounding, strat. Enjoy

A while back I acquired a Fender Hot Noiseless pickup which I immediately chucked into a 1990 MIJ Squier Stratocaster.

Well, I recently got my hands on a set of Fender pickups from an American Stratocaster. Of course the first thing I would do is apply them to my Squier and make a video of it. Wouldn't you?

I do get the odd question from the videos I upload to YouTube. I thought I'd answer them publicly to make myself feel important. ha ha


The first mail comes from Neil. 

Hi Donovan Firstly, I would like to thank you for your youtube vids for boss br600. Really helpful. I wonder if you could send me a copy of the drum track list that you mentioned as I had trouble locating it on your blog page. Keep up the good work. Thanks Neil

Thanks Neil and I apologise for taking so long to reply. I might have moved it or misplaced it when I changed servers. So I have loaded it here for your benefit. Enjoy. I certainly found keeping a record of what I had done very helpful when arranging.


The second mail comes from Steve,

Hi there...I can export my ttrack 1 through 4 and 5/6 to my computer but when I try to export 7/8 it says card full...now I'm exporting so I don't understand why it says card full as I have plenty of memory left on the computer external card... Any help is appreciated and thanks for your other videos, I wouldn't be able to do this without your posts :) steve

What the BR600 does when you export a track is copy the .wav file to the USB folder on the card. Which means that if you have recorded 8 tracks, then export 8 tracks there are effectively 16 .wav files on your card taking up storage space.
What I found to be more effective is the Boss WAV converter which can be downloaded here. Basically it is more visual when downloading WAV files from the BR600. I will try get a video done for that soon.

Have fun recording guys.

That's the question I hear all 65 of you ask about the recording of my last gig.

Not so great, is the answer.

There was a lot wrong with the way the whole event was executed to begin with and there are some things we can all learn from here.

Planning
There were 13 bands, each playing 2 songs with no sound check in between. The stage was nicely laid out with enough gear and we as the band knew what was expected of us. We were prepared. So we thought.
I got on stage and made use of a Laney Cub amp. I chose that over the other 2 Fender amps because I knew it had good tone and figured since it was mic'ed up, I could have the mix in the monitors and not hear it too much from the source. Unfortunately when I should have told the sound engineer which amp I was using I didn't because I was rushing to set up. I will NEVER forsake quality of sound for time. The result of this was that when I broke into my solo, and it was a great one, it was inaudible. You could hear nothing at all. I tried in between sections to crank the amp but it was at 10 and still nothing.

Execution
I just carried on playing and by the second song I was definitely hearing guitar. My moment had passed. Nobody heard me. I checked with the engineer recording the audio and he had recorded the stereo mix and not each instrument on separate tracks. Recording stereo can work out awesome when the live sound is up to the right standard. Unfortunately, now there is a recording with absolutely no guitar, not even a track that can be compressed and amplified to rescue it. I can probably try dubbing some guitar over it after the fact but I am not sure how usable that track, or the recording will be.

We played our two songs with gusto and pizazz. The audience enjoyed us and we had fun. Hopefully the end product is usable, or at least YouTubable (c) so you can see it. Maybe I can also get my hands on the audio and add what guitar I can but we will see.

Frankly I can't blame anyone for the shortcomings but myself. We knew what we were getting into and we prepared for it. I just disregarded lessons and experience that I have had from this same venue. I knew something was going to fail and didn't look hard enough at what could go wrong.

I still had an awesome jam though....

We're playing a 2 song set along with some other great bands. The event is being recorded to be released on DVD with the Zack's compilation album. Stay tuned for more details.

I got my hands on the Snap Jack, which is a guitar lead with a difference. The folks at Zzyxz have created a cable that you can separate at the Jack making the connection faster and a lot quieter.
Take a look at my video


I like it. I'm glad I have one and I want more...

Last night I played a short acoustic set with the singer of Stereo in Flight, Bevan Lynch at Zack's in Windermere rd. It was a simple affair, hosted by Steve Fataar and was very laid back. It is a lovely, intimate environment to play, especially if you want to interact closely with your audience.

Before I get into our little set, I must mention that there was a duo that played before us. They go by the name(s) Matt and Mike, or was it Mike and Matt? Thats aside, they were very good. I enjoyed their set and was very surprised to see talent like this floating around. Great voice, great guitar playing, excellent songs and a very personable interaction with the audience. I am hoping to see them a lot more often.

Our set was planned to be only two songs. Bevan played his Yamaha steel string, I don't know the model number, I played my Aria Nylon String. We played well and executed the songs well enough, but in the video that our drummer, Brett Robertson kindly took I noticed something about my guitar, well, the guitars in general.
There was a major lack of bass presence in the out going sound. Which resulted in us sounding very thin and like half an ensemble. Sure, we were only half the band but plenty people play unplugged with no bass and get a good, balanced sound.

I can only guess what the problem was out of a number of possibilities.

1. My Battery is a little flat. Any adjustments I make to the preamp above or below zero suck so much power out of the already dead batter rendering the guitar a lot quieter. I think it's time to invest in rechargeable's. We'll see how that turns out...
2. My guitar isn't the greatest sounding instrument. I have played guitars with a much better bass response. One of them being Brett's Ibanez that I pinched borrowed, another being a Martin that  I played in store. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to start  looking at a higher end Nylon String. For now I think I'm going to try the stolen  borrowed Ibanez and see what comes of it.
3. We didn't do any sort of sound check. There was no EQ'ing done before we started. We merely tuned and played. It may have been a contributor to the lack of bass response as I don't recall any other performer's sounding very bassy either. 
4. There were only 2 small speakers for the PA. I'm sure my guitar doesn't get down to the frequencies that require bass bins but it could have also contributed with the other, above-mentioned points. 

Yesterday I went to mass at my old Parish on the Bluff. I spent many years playing guitar in a small folk choir there. In fact I started out playing there.
In my confirmation years we were told to do something for the parish and seeing as I just started playing, I tried my hand and joined this group. I had only just started playing and could barely hold a barre chord but I joined anyway. I sat at the back with my trusty old Nylon String and strummed away.
I learned many things in that group. I was forced to play in front of people every week. I learned that mistakes don't count, you must just carry on playing. I learned about song structure and some very strange chord progressions. I made some good friends as well.
I must have been part of that group for over 12 years. I only ever wrote one piece of music I consider a hymn. I taught this choir the song, never letting them know where it came from. they all fancied it and we played it a few times.
I left that parish when I got married (just over a year ago) and haven't been back much. Last night was the second time I have returned in 18 months. I was listening to them play one of my favorite songs and it reminded me how grateful I am to be able to make music. It reminded me of my start, when I couldn't play Bm and I was so nervous. For all my dreams and hopes about music, the foundation was laid there.
they finished the song and I felt humbled.
Then they started to play their next song and a wave of goosebumps came over me. I had completely forgotten about the hymn I had written and they were singing it. They still have no idea who wrote it and I like it that way. It was so surreal. I just sat there, closed my eyes and listened to this small group perform a song that I penned. They sang it with heart and I could feel their belief in the words.
What a humbling experience to know that not only have  I written a song that is a spiritual connection for people, but that they sing it because they like it.

When playing small gigs one encounters a variety of very strange people. It’s not always drunk people either. I will try list those I have come across and how to handle them professionally.

I recently won a challenge on Guitarforum.co.za wherein we had to record a version of the SA National Anthem. The Prize was a year’s supply of strings, 12 sets of my normal strings. I am very chuffed and grateful to the guys from Guitarforum and it posed quite an interesting question for me, one I haven’t asked myself in ages.

I was once accused of hiding behind my effects. It hurt me a little because I like to think that I don't. Then one day my GT8 broke and I had to play without it.

I thought I could get away with it, after all, I only need a clean sound and a lead tone. My amp at the time had 2 lead channels which was more than I needed. That gig was a mess. I had no tuner to reference from, so my guitar was out despite my best efforts (I blame the wind. Thats my story and I am sticking to it)

That played on me a lot. What if it were to happen again? So I went and bought an amp with effects built in. I went for the Vox VT50, but could have easily gone for any of the Roland Cubes or the Line6 amps. Even so I reckon I had better learn to do without any effects at all.

I pitched up at a band practice without my amp or my pedal last week. I had to use my band mates Crate amp. It has a lead channel and a clean channel and I made do. Everything sounded fine, even though I use quite a few volume based effects I had to fiddle with the pickup switch and the volume control a lot more than usual but it happened.

Than yesterday, I carried my amp and all my effects but I think I hit new lows in life when I realised I didn't bring a guitar. It was too late to drive all the way back home and I knew nobody nearby with a guitar I could borrow. So I had to make do with playing on an acoustic guitar. It was an Ibanez MASA commemorative acoustic guitar. There isn't much info on this particular guitar but I can say that this one needs a slight neck adjustment, but all round it's a very nice guitar that belongs to our drummer.

So there I played. I changed a few gain and eq settings to try avoid feedback and I played what is normally electric guitar lines on an acoustic guitar. Soloing was a little tough because it has one less fret than I am used to and the cutaway is hard to get into. Add to that an action that you can park under and there you have it.

Why I write about this is that as an amateur musician, trying to get to the higher ranks, it can be good to be fussy about your gear, but if you are rushed into a studio, you might not have tome to go searching for your perfect guitar or to try find the best feel or tone. You could be in the right place at the right time and the right band will be in the studio. You wouldn't want to tell your favourite band, sorry I can't help you out, I don't have my lucky underpants guitar.

Try playing well on anything, that way you can do it at any time when asked.

I played on Saturday evening with Swell band at a birthday party. Lately with Swell we have been focusing on getting the on stage sound right. This weekend we seem to have nailed it.

The truth be told though, it seems we solved the problem by throwing money at it. Each of us had our own monitor, and we were mixing on a fairly advanced desk.
I had my trusty Vox rather close to me but thanks to the variable wattage I turned the amp down to about 30W and miked it for the Front of House sound.

I had to adjust the gain settings on my favourite lead patch on the Boss GT8 to prevent feedback and then the angels were singing.
Sometimes this is necessary. Much like EQ and reverb gain needs to be set for the venue. Too much will cause headaches and too little will sound weaker than you want it to. The tone you get in the rehearsal room is tough to mimic elsewhere.

I also decided that I was going to hold back a bit on my playing. Too often I try and be too flashy or fast and end up losing the plot. I played simple lines and kept with what I was 100% sure of. As a result my confidence was high and I left feeling like a king.

In my experience there are a lot of things that can go wrong with a gig. if there is a possibility if it going wrong, it probably will at some point in your career. Here are 10 things I like to check before I gig, big or small.

1. Strings. Check your strings a few days before, after your last practice and the day before. If you need to change for whatever reason do it as early as possible so your strings are at least slightly stretched in before you play. Tuning between songs is fine, but if your guitar can't stay in tune for a whole song it's not good enough. Also make sure you have spare strings or a spare guitar. If you do have a spare guitar you need to check that as well.

2. Leads. There is nothing worse than the noise a faulty cable makes on a loud guitar amp. It can make you look unprofessional and stupid to not have working leads. check them, carry spares and check those. Make sure you have more than enough to rig your gear.

3. Power. Never rely on the venue to have enough extension cables or multiple adapters to supply your rig. Even if they do, they may be in an unsafe condition and could possibly kill you mid-gig. Bringing your won makes sure they are there, and that they work.

4. Batteries. Does your guitar or pedal need batteries? Get new ones. or if you use rechargeable batteries, make sure they are charged and carry spares with you.

5. Stands. Microphone stands, guitar stands and amp stands. Make sure you have packed all you need. Venues always seem to be one stand short and to save time or to prevent having to string a mic up from the rafters, just carry that one in your car in case.

6. Toolkit. A basic toolkit in case quick repairs are needed should at least have screwdrivers, hex keys and spare parts for amps and guitars. I carry around a soldering iron as well but I've never needed it to date. The further you are away from home, or a quick place to get something fixed, the more prepared you need to be.

7. Spare Clothes. You are a performer and unless your stage presence relies on you looking a mess it is advisable to have a change of clothes with you. All you need is to be waiting to go on stage, and some drunk bumbling buffoon (because they are there) will stumble and spill his drink and/or food on you.

8. Effects. I like to double check that all my effects are working as planned. I have had my pedal fail on me once and I now have backup effects which I also check are working. I try have contingency plans for my contingency plans...

9. Rest. Try get plenty of rest before hand. You don't want to perform while yawning, that sends a very bad message to your audience. If your energy levels are up you can give that to your fans and they will appreciate it.

10. Be Prepared to Rock. Get yourself into the right frame of mind. Nothing can compare to finishing a gig, having been in the right head-space. Just a short meditation or psyche up and you can get on stage pumped and full of the right energy to put on a great show and soak up some really good energy from a crowd who enjoy watching the performance. I like to stretch before I play, I don't listen to any music and I run through what I need to do in my head before I get on stage.

It's always a great idea to be prepared, you may not be the best musician playing the most technical songs, but you definitely don't want to look unprofessional.
Thanks Arjun for the topic.

I once interviewed a band for a small magazine. They had just recorded an album and were about to sign a distribution contract. They were kind enough to give me a copy of their album and it was extremely well produced, the songs were amazing and the arrangement incredible. I would go so far as saying that it was the best album released in South Africa this millenium. Yet I know few people have heard of them.
So what went wrong? I guess we'll never know. Maybe it just wasn't their time? Maybe the country wasn't ready for this calibre of artist? Maybe there is a conspiracy against SA rock music?

This story has been bugging me for some time. As a musician, especially a rock musician it plays on me. How good do you have to be to be popular in this country?

If I think about the bands that were popular in SA in the last 10 years and what made them stand out for me I see a tale of very fickle South African tastes.I don't want to look at specific bands because some of them irk me to Hellengone, but the general rule is that a band comes out that was different from the norm at the time.
How on earth is one supposed to read the market? Maybe the best bet is to watch the charts and when there is nothing that sounds even remotely like you, and you believe you are good enough, then release your stuff.

Whatever it is, there doesn't seem to be a clear formula. Maybe some sort of trend info would help decipher it and help us understand the culture better. It's either that or constant market surveilance which, I guess, is another area for record labels to handle....

Following my last blog about amp placement I feel it necessary to speak more about stage preparation. 

I used to always have my amp standing on the floor when I played. I battled to get my sound right for ages.
What was happening was that the majority of the sound was hanging out on the floor, and what was coming to my ears was only certain frequencies, mainly higher tones.
So I got an amp stand and now I aim the amp at me, much like a monitor.