Curiosity crept into him and thoughts of composing retreated to the back of his brain. There was a new toy to play with. Wouldn’t this be a good time to check it out?
He diverted course and headed for the opposite wall instead, where one of his Les Paul guitars—a black and white one—was hanging. He took it down and carried it over to the couch, setting it down. He then walked over to the room’s storage closet and opened it. In here was a variety of musical equipment, most of which he rarely used. There was a small keyboard, a ukulele, a banjo he had once taught himself to play, a couple of amplifiers, a couple of speakers, a microphone stand and a microphone, and a large box filled with a variety of miscellaneous cords, effects pedals, and other gear.
He pulled out both of the amps, one of the speakers, and the microphone stand and carried them all over to the table and arranged them in a row. He then got the box of gear and carried it over to the couch. He spent the next fifteen minutes setting things up. First, he plugged the amplifiers and the speaker into the outlet strip near the wall to give them power. He attached the microphone to the smaller amp and the speaker and then sound checked it a few times until it was at a respectable volume that was loud enough to be heard well but not loud enough to penetrate through the cork sound-proofing.
Next, he plugged the guitar into a distortion effects pedal and then plugged that into the other amplifier. He played around with the instrument and the pedal for a few minutes, making sure the guitar was properly tuned and then dialing in a healthy level of rock and roll distortion for his coming experiment. After cranking off a few classic riffs—Crazy Train, Highway Star, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and his own Descent Into Nothing—and then cranking out an improvised solo, he plugged a heavy-duty speaker cable into the amp’s output jack and ran the other end into the talk box. He strummed the guitar a few times and confirmed that that distorted sound of it was now coming out of the end of the flexible plastic tube.
“Wild,” he said with a smile, playing a brief riff and listening to the sound. It did not sound all that impressive just falling into the air through a tiny hole like that. It sounded a little like a riff heard through a couple of walls.
Experimentally, he put the end of the tube in his mouth and strummed out the riff again. It turned out it was a bit louder than he’d thought once inserted into an enclosed place. Sound virtually exploded throughout his head, slamming through his skull bones and into his ears from the inside. His teeth vibrated uncomfortably, sending bursts of pain out anywhere he had a dental filling. With a shriek of surprise, he spit the tube out. It landed wetly in his lap, the fading power chord still weakly emitting from it.
“Wow,” he whispered, shaking his head a little to clear it. It seemed that an adjustment to the volume was in order.
He dialed down the primary volume and the bass level on the amplifier, leaving the treble and the distortion level on the pedal where it was at. Tentatively, carefully, he cranked out another power chord. The sound still seemed pathetic coming out of the tube, but that had fooled him before. Hesitantly, he picked up the tube and put it back in his mouth. Softly, wincing in advance, he touched his pick to the open low E string.
The sound filled his head again, but this time it was almost reasonable. He turned down the amp just a little more and then strummed again. Still loud, but tolerable. All right. It was time to check this thing out.
He had to leave the room and go hunt down a roll of duct tape from the kitchen drawer. Upon returning, he taped the tube to the microphone stand so that the final six inches protruded just beyond the microphone itself. He picked up the guitar again, positioned it, and then leaned forward to the microphone stand. He took the tube into his mouth and then turned his head so his mouth was close to the microphone.
Here goes nothing, he thought, and then struck the low E string once again.
This time the sound did not explode in his head, it exploded out of the speaker. A huge burst of distorted low E mixed with a nearly deafening whine of feedback reverberated throughout the room, sounding like something out of a nightmare. Pictures rattled on the wall. Jake could see the sound waves disturbing the liquid in his glass.
He silenced the instrument by grabbing the string. The feedback, however, continued until he pulled his mouth away from the talk box tube. Even then, it faded reluctantly, leaving only the hum of the speaker.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, his ears ringing, his head throbbing.
There was a pounding on the door and it creaked open, revealing Elsa’s face. “Jake!” she barked at him. “Whatever in the world are you doing in here?”
“Sorry, Elsa,” he said. “Just playing around with a new effects pedal.”
“It sounded like you were strangling a cat!” she said. “I heard it all the way through a soundproofed wall!”
“I’m still working on adjusting the sound for it,” he said.
“Obviously,” she said. “Did it occur to you to maybe start at the quiet end of the scale and then adjust up instead of the other way around?”
“Actually, that did not occur to me,” he admitted.
“Perhaps it should!” she told him, and the door shut once again.
He did as she suggested and turned the volume on the amp down to almost nothing. He put the tube in his mouth again and began to strike the low E string, softly at first and then with more force. Between strikes he slowly adjusted the amplifier output upward until the sound coming out of the speaker was loud enough to be heard well but not loud enough to penetrate outside the room. It seemed obvious in retrospect, but he found that the optimum volume of the guitar distortion being expelled from his mouth and into the microphone was about the same volume as what came out of his mouth when he was singing. That made sense.
He pulled his mouth back again and noticed he was a little out of breath, as if he’d been running. He realized that he had not really been breathing while adjusting the volume, so intent was he on keeping the sound directed into the microphone without interference. He would have to watch that.
“All right,” he said, settling the guitar in his lap again. “Let’s see what we can do with this thing.”
He began to play around, cranking out simple distorted chords using primarily the low E and the A string. The vibration of the strings was transformed into an analog signal by the dual Humbucker pickups in the body of the guitar, sent out through the guitar cord into the first effects pedal where it was boosted and distorted, then into the amplifier where the signal was boosted even more and tone was added, and then into the talk box, where it was run through a tube into Jake’s mouth. Jake then took that sound and began to shape it by using his lips, tongue, and variations to the dimensions of his oral cavity before it was expelled out into the microphone for its trip to the speaker.
He could tell right away that he was going to have to seriously work on the technique if he ever hoped to produce anything like music in this manner. But still, he was having a good time playing around with it.
And though he improved only marginally, he kept playing around with it until almost two o’clock in the morning.
Later that day, when he boarded the Lear for the flight back to Oregon, the talk box and all the equipment that went with it were packed away in the baggage compartment.
Sunday was the one day of the week that the members of Brainwash were regularly allowed to themselves, although, if it had been up to the Nerdlys, they would have been in the studio on the Lord’s Day from nine to six just like any other. The Sunday after Jake and Laura’s return from Los Angeles was no different. Still, it was not a complete day of rest for everyone. There were chores and missions vital to the progression and maintenance of the household to be done. And so, on Saturday night, Jake was informed that a run to Costco in Eugene needed to be made for supplies that were unavailable or hard to come by in the Bay area. This was something that happened about every two weeks on average. Jake didn’t mind. It meant he would get to fly his plane, even though the hop was short. He usually took Laura with him so they could get away by themselves for a bit, but she was unable to make the trip this week because she was still having difficulty walking thanks to her encounter with the native pinniped down in Malibu.