Making Music

[Mel81x+]

9 minutes ago, Inverted said:

Anyone who's musical and got a decent grasp of theory can get to a passable level at guitar or piano or drums on their own, but without lessons I'd never have got near saxophone. I got to grips with piano a bit on my own, and now I'm trying to at least know my way around a guitar. 

I think instruments are like languages, every one that you have experience with teaches you something you can use on the next one. 

I agree that with instruments its all about learning your way around them and with some instruments like piano (for e.g.) knowing theory really plays a vital role in playing it better and understanding the nuances around how to make chords and progressions or melodic lines work as well. Knowing scales is one thing but also understanding intervals and how they play into music moods and how to use music theory to get a better understanding of instruments so that you can move beyond just wanting to pick something up and play it. 

One of the best instruments I learned over the course of the last two years is the Ukulele. Granted it comes off as a weird and tonally very sharp instrument but after spending years on a guitar and bass moving to that changed so much for me because its strung weirdly (thank you Hawaii) and for some reason they thought that having a high octave string above a very low one was a smarter way to make music. The biggest takeaway from that is learning to use intervals right because playing chords isn't always going to cut it and if you play any actual music from Hawaii you'll notice how different it is from what we hear commercially. 

My next goal is to actually put a lot of what I learned when I was younger (was formally trained) back into what I play in bands these days but considering most bands I play with want to do covers and shows its never really going to be something I do with a collective and more as a personal goal. 

You also mentioned bass so are we talking the classical bass or its more modern counterpart the electric bass. I spent three years from class 6 to 9 learning the classic bass and I'll be honest and say I hated it but these days its actually quite a good instrument to know and has become rather popular in some music circuits as well. 

[Inverted]

Just now, Mel81x said:

I agree that with instruments its all about learning your way around them and with some instruments like piano (for e.g.) knowing theory really plays a vital role in playing it better and understanding the nuances around how to make chords and progressions or melodic lines work as well. Knowing scales is one thing but also understanding intervals and how they play into music moods and how to use music theory to get a better understanding of instruments so that you can move beyond just wanting to pick something up and play it. 

One of the best instruments I learned over the course of the last two years is the Ukulele. Granted it comes off as a weird and tonally very sharp instrument but after spending years on a guitar and bass moving to that changed so much for me because its strung weirdly (thank you Hawaii) and for some reason they thought that having a high octave string above a very low one was a smarter way to make music. The biggest takeaway from that is learning to use intervals right because playing chords isn't always going to cut it and if you play any actual music from Hawaii you'll notice how different it is from what we hear commercially. 

My next goal is to actually put a lot of what I learned when I was younger (was formally trained) back into what I play in bands these days but considering most bands I play with want to do covers and shows its never really going to be something I do with a collective and more as a personal goal. 

Yeah, I think the reason I'm going more slowly with guitar is that I want to understand better what's going on. When I played a little bass a few years ago for some music club stuff at uni, I didn't really know what I was doing, but the plucking and all that came pretty easily and I figured I knew what I was doing. I could play relatively busy stuff so long as I could see a tab and have some time to get it under my fingers. 

But this time round I'd rather build a better foundation and knowledge as opposed to just learning lines, especially since with the guitar there's more scope to play something self-sufficient. I enjoy the freedom of being able to play what comes to my mind, more than just being able to memorise technically difficult stuff and repeat it. That's why I like the piano, because I can mess around with chords and play something on top and just make some music, even if my actual technical ability isn't that advanced.

I remember in high school I ended up playing piano to accompany some people's exams because there was no actual written piano part for them. There was only a chart of the chord progression, and even though there was a lot of people who were actually good at piano, I wound up being the only one who knew how to vamp over the chords. 

[Mel81x+]

7 minutes ago, Inverted said:

Yeah, I think the reason I'm going more slowly with guitar is that I want to understand better what's going on. When I played a little bass a few years ago for some music club stuff at uni, I didn't really know what I was doing, but the plucking and all that came pretty easily and I figured I knew what I was doing. I could play relatively busy stuff so long as I could see a tab and have some time to get it under my fingers. 

But this time round I'd rather build a better foundation and knowledge as opposed to just learning lines, especially since with the guitar there's more scope to play something self-sufficient. I enjoy the freedom of being able to play what comes to my mind, more than just being able to memorise technically difficult stuff and repeat it. That's why I like the piano, because I can mess around with chords and play something on top and just make some music, even if my actual technical ability isn't that advanced.

I remember in high school I ended up playing piano to accompany some people's exams because there was no actual written piano part for them. There was only a chart of the chord progression, and even though there was a lot of people who were actually good at piano, I wound up being the only one who knew how to vamp over the chords. 

 I think that's the right way to learn for people who have a grasp of music theory. Once you get past the basics around the guitar I'd recommend adding Paul Davids on YouTube for good practice/theory understanding. I shared the video of the CAGED system earlier but some of his practice warmup videos make a lots of sense as well. For bass I'd recommend Scott's Bass Lessons because his tutorial on walking bass is by far the best I have ever seen explained and the progressive style of learning it is coupled with enough theory to make complete sense so you can develop your own style as well.

As for memorizing technically difficult pieces I sometimes like to go the technical route where I want to understand what the musician is doing but then you have to sometimes also remember things if you're playing in a band so going with muscle memory can be helpful in those cases especially with more complex pieces. It's also why I like watching Paul Gilbert videos to see how he goes about playing the rock that he does because the guy is very theory oriented and has used it in some pretty incredible ways. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

32 minutes ago, Inverted said:

Yeah I'm quite glad that sax is the instrument I had a lot of proper methodical lessons in. It's in that group of instruments that you can't really just pick up. Like the classical string instruments and brass instruments. 

Anyone who's musical and got a decent grasp of theory can get to a passable level at guitar or piano or drums on their own, but without lessons I'd never have got near saxophone. I got to grips with piano a bit on my own, and now I'm trying to at least know my way around a guitar. 

I think instruments are like languages, every one that you have experience with teaches you something you can use on the next one. 

I think of music theory as a language as well. Like a universal language among other musicians - one of the guys I jam is a keyboardist (well he plays other stuff too, but he's really really good at the piano and is a professional keyboardist) and he can tell me what sort of stuff he wants me to play based on that universal language - because the instruments aren't the same (although with stringed instruments, I sort of think of each string as a piano where each fret is a different key and they're all alongside each other), we've got a way of explaining what the fuck is going on in our heads while we play with each other.

13 minutes ago, Inverted said:

Yeah, I think the reason I'm going more slowly with guitar is that I want to understand better what's going on. When I played a little bass a few years ago for some music club stuff at uni, I didn't really know what I was doing, but the plucking and all that came pretty easily and I figured I knew what I was doing. I could play relatively busy stuff so long as I could see a tab and have some time to get it under my fingers. 

But this time round I'd rather build a better foundation and knowledge as opposed to just learning lines, especially since with the guitar there's more scope to play something self-sufficient. I enjoy the freedom of being able to play what comes to my mind, more than just being able to memorise technically difficult stuff and repeat it. That's why I like the piano, because I can mess around with chords and play something on top and just make some music, even if my actual technical ability isn't that advanced.

I remember in high school I ended up playing piano to accompany some people's exams because there was no actual written piano part for them. There was only a chart of the chord progression, and even though there was a lot of people who were actually good at piano, I wound up being the only one who knew how to vamp over the chords. 

And to double quote you... I think that's a good way of "properly" learning the instrument, rather than just learning by the numbers. And like you say, if you want to be able to play what comes to mind it's much easier to do that when you actually know what you want to play and how to play it - rather than needing to look up a tab to feel able to play something. Trying to learn songs by ear helped me tremendously in being able to find my way around the fretboard and be able to play the melodies and/or riffs that I'd make up inside my brain.

[Happy Blue]

On 09/07/2019 at 18:49, Dr. Gonzo said:

I contacted the guitar store where I traded in my Mooer before I bought the Helix to see if they still had it... and they did. And the guy emailing me back was the same guy who was helping me in the store (and the owner's son, which ends up being pretty handy for this story), wanting to know why I wanted it back after I'd just got the Helix. So I told him what happened. He emails back saying he's going to talk to his dad, the owner of the store about it. I get an email back about an hour later saying that I can come in today to pick up my old Mooer back for nothing and also that I'd be given some store credit for the next time I wanted to buy anything from them, and that they were sorry they couldn't give me a new Helix (lol, no shit they couldn't - but nice of them to suggest they would have if they could). Pretty great customer service, well pleased with that.

So I'm gonna pop around on my lunch break and pick that back up. It's not ideal, because what would be ideal is getting my Helix back... but it's nice that they wanted to help me out like that. Apparently there's been a hardware update since I last traded it in, so that's cool. I liked the high gain amp models on it, some of the effects aren't as good as on the Helix - but fuck it, it'll do for just fucking around. Going to have to go through some IRs to figure out which ones I liked.

There's some great free IR cabs out there (if you use that stuff @Mel81x @Happy Blue - I think the 6505 MH has USB/XLR outputs so you could put it straight into your computer/an interface and have your actual amp powering virtual cabinets). This video lists some good ones:

 

I'm not too up on the this side of things, i'm kind of old school (or just old ) guitar, lead, amp, plug on, all the guitar nobs at max, begin!   ..i do have bias amp program which is cool, i have some ok computer speakers and a focusrite scarlett 2nd gen but thats about as much as ive messed with the digital stuff   ...i really should learn more about it, just finding the time. back in the day we used to record on to cassettes on an 8 track 

Great news about getting your amp back for free, not many people would do that these days! 

[Happy Blue]

On 09/07/2019 at 18:55, Mel81x said:

Woohoo. Firstly, its nice that they did what they did. Most stores would have call it shit out of luck and left you out in the cold but they were nice enough to help you out and I think that goes a long way to building customer relationships as well. I'm sure you'll go back there when the time is right to pick up another Helix LT or maybe ... a Helix.

https://www.gearnews.com/boss-katana-air-wireless-wonder-amp/

Spent some time today going over an amp I want to replace my old Fender and I am kind of sold on the Katana for now but then I saw this and thought to myself that in a smaller room this could be good enough and I never record from the amp out to the audio-interface anyways.

This crazy bastard also did a good review of it.

 

no cables. whats not to love.

Was just about to post about the Katana Air as a practice amp, not tried one but it looks great, thinking about getting one

[Dr. Gonzo]

10 minutes ago, Happy Blue said:

I'm not too up on the this side of things, i'm kind of old school (or just old ) guitar, lead, amp, plug on, all the guitar nobs at max, begin!   ..i do have bias amp program which is cool, i have some ok computer speakers and a focusrite scarlett 2nd gen but thats about as much as ive messed with the digital stuff   ...i really should learn more about it, just finding the time. back in the day we used to record on to cassettes on an 8 track 

Great news about getting your amp back for free, not many people would do that these days! 

I think with the Bias stuff you should be able to mess around with IRs. I can also post some free amp sims if you'd like (and a TS808 plugin), so then you could just go straight from your focusrite to a DAW and run the amps/cabs/pedals as plugins in it. It's not too hard to figure out, although it seems pretty intimidating at first (especially figuring out how the fuck to use a particular DAW software lol, took me fucking ages).

I remember recording "demos" onto cassettes via an 8 track, they sounded like shiiiiite - recording is so much easier nowadays with a computer.

And yeah, I'm honestly a bit shocked they gave me my Mooer back for free. For as long as I'm living here, these guys have a customer in me for anything guitar related as a result. Even for the little shite that might be a bit cheaper to buy on Amazon, from now on I'm going to support them because it's: 1.) cool to support a local business that has great customer service; 2.) is genuinely one of the best music shops I've ever been to in my life.

[Happy Blue]

27 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think with the Bias stuff you should be able to mess around with IRs. I can also post some free amp sims if you'd like (and a TS808 plugin), so then you could just go straight from your focusrite to a DAW and run the amps/cabs/pedals as plugins in it. It's not too hard to figure out, although it seems pretty intimidating at first (especially figuring out how the fuck to use a particular DAW software lol, took me fucking ages).

I remember recording "demos" onto cassettes via an 8 track, they sounded like shiiiiite - recording is so much easier nowadays with a computer.

I've  got a pedal pack plugin for the bias amp which has the tube screamer in it, my main problems with the digital stuff is sorting the  latency and my laptop jamming   ..it is a bit head scratching, probably why i've not messed about with it more, will have to find time to learn it  ..funny enough i was messing about with my TS808 knock off today ( Behringer TO800) as a boost for my Peavey red channel and even at low settings it just kind of smooths the sound out, kills the chunky tone and makes it more screechy ..i will continue to mess with it but think our amp just has too much gain to start with  i have it on about 7 and finding going any higher kills some of the low thump i love so much  ...but saying that, for old school Morbid Angel songs like Immortal Rites, it sounded not bad with the single string trem picking

 

Yeah!  then your car would eat the tape on the way home   ..kids got it easy these days (if they can work the stuff out lol)

[Dr. Gonzo]

33 minutes ago, Happy Blue said:

I've  got a pedal pack plugin for the bias amp which has the tube screamer in it, my main problems with the digital stuff is sorting the  latency and my laptop jamming   ..it is a bit head scratching, probably why i've not messed about with it more, will have to find time to learn it  ..funny enough i was messing about with my TS808 knock off today ( Behringer TO800) as a boost for my Peavey red channel and even at low settings it just kind of smooths the sound out, kills the chunky tone and makes it more screechy ..i will continue to mess with it but think our amp just has too much gain to start with  i have it on about 7 and finding going any higher kills some of the low thump i love so much  ...but saying that, for old school Morbid Angel songs like Immortal Rites, it sounded not bad with the single string trem picking

 

Yeah!  then your car would eat the tape on the way home   ..kids got it easy these days (if they can work the stuff out lol)

I never have the gain that high! I keep it at about 3-3.5 most of the time for non-death-metal metal… and for death metal I have it around 4 or 5 tops. Try lowering the gain a bit and boosting the low end, perhaps.

The "traditional" usage for a tubescreamer to tighten up our amp's low end is you bump the volume all the way up, keep the tone around the middle (I'd move it around a liiiiiitle depending on if you want a bit more low end or a bit less) and the gain either all the way down, or close to all the way down (like, if it all the way down was 0 and all the way up was 100, I'd put it at around 10-15).

BUT once I got my guitar with active pickups, I sort of felt the tubescreamer wasn't necessary to tighten my low end (personally). Although I can get a lot heavier chugs with it. Then I started using my Boss AngryDriver pedal as a boost for solos and stopped using the tubescreamer… which I basically always kept on to tighten my rhythms.

And yeah, kids have it easy as fuck these days. When we were kids learning guitar, modelers were fucking shite. Now there's modelers at pretty much every price point that sound pretty fucking good (remember that shit brand "Zoom" and they're multieffects units? Look at some demos of their shite now, it's still not the best... but at the price they're selling their gear, it sounds a hell of a lot better than what we would have gotten back then for the same amount) - so kids can mess about with various amps/effects/cabinets and figure out what sounds they like with a hell of a lot more accuracy than we ever did if we tried to do the same thing with a Line6 Spider or a Line6 Pod. And the reputation Line6 had back in the day was kind of "this is n00b equipment" - nowadays, it's hard to say that when the Helix is as good as it fucking is. And then recording stuff is so much easier to do at a much higher level than we ever could have attempted as kids - the hardest thing about it is probably figuring out how to use the fucking software in the first place. But after that initial learning curve, they've got so much available to them.

Not that I mind, mind you... because I'm also getting to benefit from how technology has advanced in guitar/music too. And I've got more disposable income than those fucking kids (well probably, not including spoiled rich kids), so I probably get to benefit from it more 

[Mel81x+]

10 hours ago, Happy Blue said:

Was just about to post about the Katana Air as a practice amp, not tried one but it looks great, thinking about getting one

 I was considering it just for the one feature of it being "always on" so you don't have the mess of wires and the fact that it has great reviews when it comes to latency, etc. Then I realized I want more power out of my playing so its not going to cut it for what I want to do and I'll stick with a traditional combo amp. I'd love to get a head/cabinet setup but then I'd have to get rid of some stuff from my work room and I don't really want to go through the hassle of doing that right now. 

As for recording stuff, what kind of software are you using with your Focusrite? There was a discussion in some section on this forum outlining the various pieces of software and hardware you can use to get the best out of recording stuff, I just can't remember where it is. The ideal setup involves a Mac, yeah i know the hate they get but honestly they have the best software/interfacing to make things easy. If you have an iPad there is also some great recording stuff for plugging a Focusrite directly into one. I am going to try that in a month or so and see how that works because if it works good then I think I'll leave the big setup for when I am ready to put something down and just use the iPad to do all the menial fiddling around and figuring stuff out.

 

[Mel81x+]

 

What a good lesson in understanding rhythm and melody mechanics. Don't know if anyone plays an acoustic on here but that switching during the rhythm sounds complicated but really isn't the more you practice it.

[Inverted]

Anyone here seen this band before? Been listening to them like mad this last week, their guitarist (Mark Speer he's called) has this amazing tone. Any idea what he would be doing to get this kind of sound? It just seems so psychy and spaced-out but also crisp and clear. 

The songs are so simple and would be repetitive for most bands, but the bass and drums are so tight, and this guy's playing is just so interesting, that I can't stop listening. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

5 minutes ago, Inverted said:

Anyone here seen this band before? Been listening to them like mad this last week, their guitarist (Mark Speer he's called) has this amazing tone. Any idea what he would be doing to get this kind of sound? It just seems so psychy and spaced-out but also crisp and clear. 

The songs are so simple and would be repetitive for most bands, but the bass and drums are so tight, and this guy's playing is just so interesting, that I can't stop listening. 

Sounds like a Fender amp's cleans. My guess would be a Twin Reverb or a Deluxe Reverb or something like that... It sounds like one of their "famous" amps - I just think it sounds a lot like a Fender clean tone. No idea what kind of guitar he's playing. I think I'm hearing a neck humbucker pickup - but I'm not the best at figuring out what pickups anyone is using. I can just definitively tell you when it's a neck or bridge singlecoil pickup. In terms of effects I'm hearing some light overdrive/distortion from a pedal before the amp, a pretty big amount of reverb (no clue if that's from the amp or a pedal), and some sort of delay... I can't tell if it's digital or analog delay ( @Mel81x might be able to know better, I can only really hear the difference between an analogue/digital delay when I use it).

It's psychy and spaced out from the reverb and delay. It's very crisp and clear because... well that's just something Fender's valve amps do really well on their clean channel. Very nice tone.

Nice song too, seems like shite I could listening to while working to stay calm while I work.

[Dr. Gonzo]

@Inverted - just found this. I'm actually fairly proud of my ears for getting a lot right!

So he's got a made in Mexico Stratocaster, the neck and bridge pickup he's swapped out for single-coil sized humbuckers. I nailed the fucking amp, Fender Deluxe Reverb! And I got most of the pedals right... well the types of the pedals:

• Wah pedal (didn't call that, but makes sense)
• Volume pedal (basically controls his signal's volume with his feet)
• Boss DS-1 (so he's got no overdrive pedal but just this distortion pedal, that light gain we're hearing in that track is most likely from this with the gain set very low)
• MXR Dynacomp (compression pedal - this is a very subtle effect, there's actually a lot of reasons someone might use one too. Kind of hard to explain tbh)
• EHX Holy Grain (reverb pedal)
• Strymon El Capistan (digital delay that's mimicking an old school tape delay sound, crazy fucking expensive pedal)
• Mooer Mod Factory (I've actually never heard of this pedal so I have no clue what it does. It says "mod" on it, so I imagine it's got stuff like a phaser, chorus, other time based effects)

My guess would be all of his time based effects (delay, reverb, the mod factory) are in his effects loop (maybe with his volume pedal as well), and everything else is running before his amp input. But guessing his signal chain is going to be pretty impossible really, unless he's mentioned it anywhere.

The cheapest way to get close to that sort of tone, unfortunately, is probably by going out and getting yourself one of those modeler MFX units that can also model the sound of a clean Fender amp. I've not heard the clean channel on a Marshall MG10 in over... 15 years, so I'm not sure how close you could get to the sound of that with just your amp's clean channel.

[Machado]

Reading this thread makes me want to invest on a better guitar and some nice gear.

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, Machado said:

Reading this thread makes me want to invest on a better guitar and some nice gear.

Haha sorry about making your money burn a hole in your pocket. One good thing is that I think now is the best time ever to buy guitar gear for cheap and get some pretty nice tones.

One bad thing about guitar gear nowadays is I always see something and think “oh cool, I want that.” That’s why I like modelers, because you get to fuck around and experiment with stuff based off that’d be worth shitloads if you bought the all the amps/cabs/pedals, but all in one nice tidy box. I miss my stolen Helix  that was a very nice little toy.

Ah well... now I’m off to go drink beer and play guitar for a few hours and that’ll be fun

[Mel81x+]

What's really odd about most good setups is that they all tend to have just one (maximum two) really expensive pedals and surely enough it will either be the delay or the reverb pedal. In the case about its the Strymon which is nothing short of a technical wonder but you can get the same sounds (not as good options) out of even software as well assuming you're willing to spend the time to learn and implement what you want. 

Figure this could turn out to be a fun little project to see if we can get the same sound from the least amount of money. @Inverted @Dr. Gonzo

This goes with the assumption that you have a decent guitar (basically anything that plugs into an amp and makes some noise). It also works on the assumption that you have an amp lol and even if you don't you have a decent pair of headphones/earphones.

So, this is what the gentleman has in his setup. copied from the reply above

• Wah pedal (didn't call that, but makes sense)
• Volume pedal (basically controls his signal's volume with his feet)
• Boss DS-1 (so he's got no overdrive pedal but just this distortion pedal, that light gain we're hearing in that track is most likely from this with the gain set very low)
• MXR Dynacomp (compression pedal - this is a very subtle effect, there's actually a lot of reasons someone might use one too. Kind of hard to explain tbh)
• EHX Holy Grain (reverb pedal)
• Strymon El Capistan (digital delay that's mimicking an old school tape delay sound, crazy fucking expensive pedal)
• Mooer Mod Factory (I've actually never heard of this pedal so I have no clue what it does. It says "mod" on it, so I imagine it's got stuff like a phaser, chorus, other time based effects)

Based on that set of criteria these are things I'd recommend

• Amplitube Software (Android/iOS) - Free 
• https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guitar-Effects-Interface-Adapter-Converter/dp/B07B28NVG6/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=irig&qid=1562911802&s=gateway&sr=8-5 - iRig interface for phone/tablet + guitar
• Wah Pedal -> You could technically use your phone or tablet for this but its hard to really get any kind of leverage so I am a little stumped here
• Boss DS-1 - You can find any distortion/overdrive pedal in Amplitube so its a no-brainer plus you can get a lot of good Boss patches as well
• MXR Dnyacomp - Get the compressor pedal from the app and put in the Post-FX to calibrate your attack, etc
• EHX Holy Grail (Reverb Pedal) - Just got with the standard reverb pedal they give in the app and change the type to your preference. Then fiddle around with it till it gives you the closest sound. Sounds like a room reverb or a hall reverb but you can get it with some work.
• Strymon El Capistan - This feels like the hardest one to eumulate but really you'd only be spending 1/8th of its cost because most good interfaces have a decent delay tape or otherwise
• Mooer Mod Factory - I doubt you won't get what can be done with this pedal in a regular software option (chorus, etc)
• Lastly, Amplitube comes with CAB simulation so you can get the Fender and change the speaker direction too.

All of this works out to less than 100 pounds which I think is a stellar deal if you want to play around and figure things out. This could even (and i use the word even mildly) run a small gig as well from your phone, iPad or device directly to the PA as well. 

 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

I looked the Mod Factory up and it’s literally just what I described, so you might not be able to emulate that pedal but you can emulate a phaser/flanger/chorus/all the other modulation effects that are within that pedal... which is just what you’ve said there. Also what you’ve said about the Strymon pedal was well.

By the way Strymon pedals are crazy. I could never justify spending that much on just one effect.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Anyone seen the YouTube series put out by an account (and person) called Ben Eller, with the series called "this is why you suck at guitar" - going over common flaws in peoples' technique... and then practice routines on how to fix them? Some of them not everyone is going to need - because not everyone is bad at the same things (obviously). But pretty helpful tips (I finally was able to figure out sweep picking thanks to him a few months back, and I'd been trying to learn that for the better part of a decade) - and while the things he'll suggest you practice are "the boring kind of practice" that stuff is important if you want to fix sloppy technique and play better. So I recommend checking those out, if anyone's looking to improve their technique.

Any other good YouTubers out there. I've heard good things about Steve Stine (Stein?... idk what his surname is exactly). But I've never checked out his videos.

[Happy Blue]

On 10/07/2019 at 23:54, Dr. Gonzo said:

I never have the gain that high! I keep it at about 3-3.5 most of the time for non-death-metal metal… and for death metal I have it around 4 or 5 tops. Try lowering the gain a bit and boosting the low end, perhaps.

The "traditional" usage for a tubescreamer to tighten up our amp's low end is you bump the volume all the way up, keep the tone around the middle (I'd move it around a liiiiiitle depending on if you want a bit more low end or a bit less) and the gain either all the way down, or close to all the way down (like, if it all the way down was 0 and all the way up was 100, I'd put it at around 10-15).

BUT once I got my guitar with active pickups, I sort of felt the tubescreamer wasn't necessary to tighten my low end (personally). Although I can get a lot heavier chugs with it. Then I started using my Boss AngryDriver pedal as a boost for solos and stopped using the tubescreamer… which I basically always kept on to tighten my rhythms.

And yeah, kids have it easy as fuck these days. When we were kids learning guitar, modelers were fucking shite. Now there's modelers at pretty much every price point that sound pretty fucking good (remember that shit brand "Zoom" and they're multieffects units? Look at some demos of their shite now, it's still not the best... but at the price they're selling their gear, it sounds a hell of a lot better than what we would have gotten back then for the same amount) - so kids can mess about with various amps/effects/cabinets and figure out what sounds they like with a hell of a lot more accuracy than we ever did if we tried to do the same thing with a Line6 Spider or a Line6 Pod. And the reputation Line6 had back in the day was kind of "this is n00b equipment" - nowadays, it's hard to say that when the Helix is as good as it fucking is. And then recording stuff is so much easier to do at a much higher level than we ever could have attempted as kids - the hardest thing about it is probably figuring out how to use the fucking software in the first place. But after that initial learning curve, they've got so much available to them.

Not that I mind, mind you... because I'm also getting to benefit from how technology has advanced in guitar/music too. And I've got more disposable income than those fucking kids (well probably, not including spoiled rich kids), so I probably get to benefit from it more 

Sorry for the late reply, thought id answered this the otherday  ..will try it on low gain with the OD pedal, see how that sounds ..a lot of death metal bands us an overdrive as a boost like cannibal corpse, think they use the maxon though

I had a shitty zoom rack effects processor thingy in the 90's   ..when i worked out it was shit i got a boss distortion (the orange one) that was ok for a while, line 6 changed the game for me with the spider 3, great tones with nothing else needed, the metallica setting is perfect  ..im going bring it down later and have a mess with it   

[Happy Blue]

On 11/07/2019 at 08:54, Mel81x said:

 I was considering it just for the one feature of it being "always on" so you don't have the mess of wires and the fact that it has great reviews when it comes to latency, etc. Then I realized I want more power out of my playing so its not going to cut it for what I want to do and I'll stick with a traditional combo amp. I'd love to get a head/cabinet setup but then I'd have to get rid of some stuff from my work room and I don't really want to go through the hassle of doing that right now. 

As for recording stuff, what kind of software are you using with your Focusrite? There was a discussion in some section on this forum outlining the various pieces of software and hardware you can use to get the best out of recording stuff, I just can't remember where it is. The ideal setup involves a Mac, yeah i know the hate they get but honestly they have the best software/interfacing to make things easy. If you have an iPad there is also some great recording stuff for plugging a Focusrite directly into one. I am going to try that in a month or so and see how that works because if it works good then I think I'll leave the big setup for when I am ready to put something down and just use the iPad to do all the menial fiddling around and figuring stuff out.

 

 

Being wireless is a great feature, the main reason why i'm interested in it along with the great tones and the ability to just chuck it in the car and play anywhere, play it on the toilet etc   ..but looking at it a bit more, it's a bit pricey for what it is

Yeah, i have focusrite, will have to learn more about the digital stuff, just not enough hours in the day at the minute

[Dr. Gonzo]

17 minutes ago, Happy Blue said:

Sorry for the late reply, thought id answered this the otherday  ..will try it on low gain with the OD pedal, see how that sounds ..a lot of death metal bands us an overdrive as a boost like cannibal corpse, think they use the maxon though

I had a shitty zoom rack effects processor thingy in the 90's   ..when i worked out it was shit i got a boss distortion (the orange one) that was ok for a while, line 6 changed the game for me with the spider 3, great tones with nothing else needed, the metallica setting is perfect  ..im going bring it down later and have a mess with it   

No worries mate, it's not like this is WhatsApp and I sent you something days ago. You can always respond whenever - the beauty of a forum . The Maxon's basically just the original manufacturer of the Ibanez TS (because I think Ibanez contracted Maxon out for them). So it'll be like your standard 808 circuit... just made in Japan, rather than China like your Behringer. The Behringer uses the same exact circuit with almost the same exact parts (if not the exact same parts). I don't think it's worth the additional cost of the Maxon based on what I've seen from that guy who runs JHS. It's probably the most common pedal type ever used on guitar and so many brands have their "own take" on that circuitry - but the standard tubescreamer circuitry is generally the same for all of them... and then you consider that Behringer actually makes parts for most pedal manufacturers, I'm fairly confident your Tubescreamer clone is just as good as pretty much every other standard tubescreamer based off those original Ibanez/Maxon TS808 pedals.

Some people say the Maxon and original Ibanez pedals are the only tubescreamers that sound like "real" tubescreamers. I think that's a load of bollocks tbh - I've seen so many people use various tubescreamers and their clones, they all sound substantially the same. There's a bit of variance between some of the pedals... but that's true even of the same model pedal from the same model manufacture. The only "clone" that I think sounds noticeably different is the Boss SD-1... and that's not even really a clone because it's got it's own unique circuitry (and has been cloned by other pedal companies itself).

But yeah, I think the most traditional use for OD pedals (especially tubescreamers) in metal is as a boost to tighten up their sound. So try it out, I think you'll be pretty pleased with the results.

On a side note, that orange Boss pedal - the Boss DS-1, was also my first standalone pedal. It's somewhere at my parents' house now, my dad and I modded the fuck out of it. He still uses it because he's just got an old Fender single channel amp. Good pedal, I love Boss stuff.

[Mel81x+]

Today, I borrowed something from a friend that I have spent a lot of time reading about but just never had the inclination to setup in Logic just because its god-damn painful and requires you to spend a lot of time understanding drums to really achieve well. 

If you're ever curious about MIDI jacking into a DAW I can say the following things.

• Spend more time reading than actually going out and buying one of these. The idea that someone who has played string instruments for most of his life is that you plug a MIDI in and the application should pick up the device and run you through a key-mapper for most of what you need to do with the instrument of choice. Wrong. You're going to have to spend a lot of time configuring these things to work right and creating blocks for most of what you want to do.
• You have to have good and solid music fundamentals to truly run this thing to any capacity of putting something together on a track and using again. My primary reason was to create drum loops for practicing and instead of going out and getting some off the internet I decided it might be smarter to club this with my learning of DAWs. Once again, great idea but you have to really understand what you're after and then learn the other fact that this is never going to play just like what you want it to so there's  deep learning curve if you want to master it. Can be done just takes a bit of time.
• If you know the piano or can get around it I think this offers some great melody accompaniments on tracks where you want them but this is not a digital piano in any shape or form as its not versatile enough to be one. That's not to say you couldn't just get one and plug it in and record but these aren't built for that
• Lastly, MIDI keys are great for people who do a lot of electronic music. This little thing that I have shown up there can do some crazy beat mixing because its not a true drum-kit it can be used to sample and run loops with the samples in parallel so you can really do some funky EDM mixing of your own if you'd like.

From the two hours I spent this morning with Logic and setting things up to now I think I'd be inclined to get one as they are dirt cheap and have a good reputation in the market as an entry-level. Plus, it adds to the other nice fact that I can simulate the sound signatures I want from it with a little work as well. If you're setting up a DAW consider one because it will be a life-saver when you want to simulate stuff that you just can't get off the internet.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Trying to figure out Logic has been like trying to figure out how to repair a space ship engine. No fucking clue what I'm doing  - I can't imagine spending hours configuring a MIDI with any DAW, let alone Logic

[Mel81x+]

36 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Trying to figure out Logic has been like trying to figure out how to repair a space ship engine. No fucking clue what I'm doing  - I can't imagine spending hours configuring a MIDI with any DAW, let alone Logic

Haha. It is rather complicated when you first start then it gets progressively easier. I remember a time when getting layers to work right was such a pain then I just went out and got a mouse and now I am sorted because doing it with a trackpad is a nightmare.