Vai Time

p>Looks like Vai will be over in Europe this September for his Real Illusions tour.

Tres bien!

Old Entries imported

Have now imported the old entries from the Greymatter blog. Wasn’t as straight forward as the guide would lead you to believe. Had parsing problem with the generated export.html file which I manually had to edit to place carraige returns between the end of entry and the TITLE of the next.

The power of Movable Type was apparent when I mass deleted the 1074, , spam comments found in the old blog with ease. Nice.

Have also tweaked the font sizes in IE so they should be OK now.

Nearly there.

Tweak tweak tweak!

Notice anything different?

Yes, I have finally redesigned markmcguigan.com with some funkier CSS and moved my blog from Greymatter to Movable Type.

So far I’m very impressed with the power of Movable Type and the ease with which it can be configured. Though I’m still finalizing certain template files and getting to grips with the comment system most of it is up and running as you can see.

I’m also hoping to import all previous entries from the old Greymatter blog, thanks to this handy page on importing entries to Movable Type.

Content wise I’ve cut back on quite a few things on the site ( though some old links may be lurking away back to the old site ) aiming to keep the focus of markmcguigan.com on my recordings/videos and this blog.

So, here’s to a new era!

P.S If anyone spots any probs in their browers, I have noticed font and box probs in IE, then let me know through the comments system, cheers!

It lives!

Apologies for lack of updates recently, many things going on.

House move continues, stripping wallpaper etc. Amongst this chaos new ‘toys’ have been arriving for ‘The Studio’. A dedicated room which will be used for recording and eventually teaching .

First on the list was a decent acoustic. I have been playing my Aunt’s ‘borrowed’ Eko acoustic for a very long time now and it is now a bit worse for wear, possibly as a result of it being dropped onto a pavement once…

With this aim in mind I read reviews, checked websites, talked to other players and had a look around various music shops over a period of several months prior to the move. I had heard good things about Fylde guitars and the Alchemist model caught my eye. I recalled seeing a few in Scayles music in Edinburgh and ventured there one Saturday to try out a few to get an idea of their sound. Luckily they had the Alchemist’s bigger brother, the Magician, in stock which to my delight wasn’t as big as I had thought. Now at times when you pick up and play a guitar there is a kind of inner ‘oh yes baby’. On picking up this Magician and playing I can safely say this was one of these times .

It sounded truly wonderful, great balance across the strings from the tight bass to the chiming highs. Perfect for fingerstyle work but also perfectly capable of handling strumming work. I spent around half an hour noodling away, trying out tapped harmonics, slapping etc. and feeling my smile broaden with every resonant response . As an added bonus the I discovered the Magician was equipped with a Headway pickup system which I tried out through one of the shops acoustic amps and was greatly impressed by the faithful sound of the acoustic coming through.

As you’ve probably gathered I bought the guitar there and then , no messing, it was exactly what I was looking for. Fantastic response, clarity and beautifully hand crafted. Featuring a red Cedar top and walnut back and sides, a laminated mahogany, walnut and ash neck with ebony fingerboard and gotoh tuners.

Now to actually dig up some old acoustic ideas and get them recorded!

Flit!

Busy.

Have now moved house.

Much DIY and box moving.

For the moment, here’s a two hour show of Satch in Anaheim.