GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?

Fed up talking videogames? Why?
User avatar
Green Gecko
Treasurer
Joined in 2008

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Green Gecko » Thu Sep 26, 2019 5:26 pm

All in all it went pretty well and it felt good to do it again. Drank one too many Seasiders though.

I think I'll trade up some gear for an orange tiny terror or vox night train and use the speaker emulation out to go into DI or mixer. My pickups are very hot ceramic active EMGs so the signal is high, it responds 10x better to a valve pre and most transistor amps just clip which is mega annoying. So much less dynamic range. Ideally it needs a switchable lo/hi passive/active switch on the amp input.

It's nice having things like a simple tremolo on the amp modeller but I can always buy one. Probably an MXR. I had 4 patches set up with quite different sounds and was so ready to use them.

And should sort out effects board - I can build my own these days - so it's all ready to go and signal tested. I used to have one set up on a massive wooden breakfast in bed table with Velcro :lol:
And yes I will keep trying lol

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
_________________________________________

❤ btw GRcade costs money and depends on donations - please support one of the UK's oldest video gaming forums → HOW TO DONATE
User avatar
Pedz
Twitch Team
Joined in 2009
Contact:

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Pedz » Thu Sep 26, 2019 5:31 pm

Ad7 wrote:Bit early to be thinking about Christmas Pedz.


Oof.

Image
User avatar
Pedz
Twitch Team
Joined in 2009
Contact:

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Pedz » Thu Sep 26, 2019 5:33 pm

Anyone wanna do an intro tune and outro tune for the GRcade Twitch streams?

Image
User avatar
Victor Mildew
Member
Joined in 2009

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Victor Mildew » Thu Sep 26, 2019 5:37 pm

It's The strawberry floating Podcast

Hexx wrote:Ad7 is older and balder than I thought.
User avatar
Victor Mildew
Member
Joined in 2009

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Victor Mildew » Fri Sep 27, 2019 7:15 am

GG what killing do you use? I have a fender Princeton 112 plus amp, but I've not used it once in about 6 years now, I just stick to my pod X3.

Hexx wrote:Ad7 is older and balder than I thought.
User avatar
Green Gecko
Treasurer
Joined in 2008

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Green Gecko » Fri Sep 27, 2019 5:39 pm

Killing? Lol

It's an m-audio black box but virtual ampeg, BIAS Amp and the Amp device in ableton (which is made by ampeg anyway) are a bit better. I'd be better off with a pod also but there are a few useful and innovative features on the black box, including practice drumbeats, an xlr mic input and realtime effects synchronisation to midi clock. It's an audio device but I never use it as one as its USB 1.1. It does have a spdif out so I can use it if wanted through my focusrite saffire pro 40 FireWire interface (which is excellent despite being 8 years old).

Just nice to put your hands on some knobs while playing rather than vst etc modeller. It has some funny clicky rotary encodeds to adjust amp and effects parameters separately. It's still software technically but firmware, there's no lag at all but the digitisation does suck tone quiet a lot. It's ok and one of the earlier amp modellers. M audio did more to make it a recording interface than the others and it was my first interface. And it has some really weird arpeggiator effects and resonators etc which cane make some pretty unique sounds.

I don't have a cab, need to build one, my amp head is a 1971 sound city b120 120w all valve and I have an orange crush practice amp.

A few effects. Boss dd6, whammy iv, crybaby, big muff pi (Russian)

I also have a Roland GR-20 synth which is a lot of fun, you can use the midi out to control vst synths with guitar lol. But tbh I never use it because the pickup is on an old yahama Pacifica, a guitar I still like but don't really play because the Ibanez prestige is obviously better acoustically.

Ideally I'd have a small valve amp but I recently discovered if I plug the sound city into a dummy load (I have a 12 inch speaker I literally just soldered a jack socket directly to) I can use the effects loop to record, effectively making it a 120w valve pre which is ridiculous. It's an excellent clean amp however, it only dirties up with volume and harmonic valve distortion. But hardly practical dragging that around, and studios with cabs are going to have better amps anyway. Can't think of anything that will beat it for a clean sound however simply because the signal path is so simple. It actually dirties up by each eq knob being a subsequent gain stage, sometimes called an active ladder or something like that, which is very unusual. Most eqs are passive. This essentially gives you four gain stages, initial gain (pre) and then , bass, mid and treble (power amp).

There is no master volume :slol: so it has one setting which is LOUD

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
_________________________________________

❤ btw GRcade costs money and depends on donations - please support one of the UK's oldest video gaming forums → HOW TO DONATE
User avatar
Pedz
Twitch Team
Joined in 2009
Contact:

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Pedz » Fri Sep 27, 2019 6:52 pm

Ad7 wrote:It's The strawberry floating Podcast


We need it by Sunday. Thanks sweetie.

Image
User avatar
Gemini73
Member
Joined in 2019

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Gemini73 » Mon Sep 30, 2019 7:17 pm

So I've been practising scales and while it has helped good grief it's boring!

Decided to also start going through some guitar tabs like I used to in my youth. AC/DC, Metallica, Slayer and the like. Got my fingers working around the fretboard and it's a lot more fun. 8-)

User avatar
Squinty
Member
Joined in 2009
Location: Norn Oirland

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Squinty » Mon Sep 30, 2019 7:23 pm

I prefer just learning songs than sitting doing scales all day. I love picking things up by ear and figuring out how things work.

User avatar
Gemini73
Member
Joined in 2019

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Gemini73 » Mon Sep 30, 2019 7:26 pm

Squinty wrote:I prefer just learning songs than sitting doing scales all day. I love picking things up by ear and figuring out how things work.


Indeed. I've no aspirations of being in a band these days and am just jamming for fun, so why bog myself down in scales when I can teach myself Megadeth's "Holy Wars!" :nod:

User avatar
Squinty
Member
Joined in 2009
Location: Norn Oirland

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Squinty » Mon Sep 30, 2019 7:48 pm

Gemini73 wrote:
Squinty wrote:I prefer just learning songs than sitting doing scales all day. I love picking things up by ear and figuring out how things work.


Indeed. I've no aspirations of being in a band these days and am just jamming for fun, so why bog myself down in scales when I can teach myself Megadeth's "Holy Wars!" :nod:


I used to be able to play the rhythm parts to that. I probably couldn't play it now if you put a gun to my head.

I have a playlist of all the songs I learned to play and I'm pretty sure I can't play 40% of those songs now :lol: :lol: :lol:

User avatar
Green Gecko
Treasurer
Joined in 2008

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Green Gecko » Mon Sep 30, 2019 8:25 pm

I was kind of shocked after years playing classical/spanish stuff that I could download pretty much any tab and play it. I mean, it would take me a day or two of solid practice to "shred", whatever the strawberry float that means, but more to the point I rarely found things challenging from a frets or fingerstyle standpoint. So I'd recommend rehearsing pieces rather than scales personally. It made me a bit confused why I didn't do it more often with popular music I liked. Maybe because of playing "requests" like a jukebox strawberry floating pisses me off.

So basically go and play some Bach and then tell me you're bored of that.

I can't really pay with a pick, but I developed this technique doing almost the same thing with my thumb which is over 9000. It hurts though and can't sustain for long. I fake a lot of fast technique with slurs (which, tbh, 90% of super fast metal style stuff isn't picked anyway so that's, er, valid).

"It should be common sense to just accept the message Nintendo are sending out through their actions."
_________________________________________

❤ btw GRcade costs money and depends on donations - please support one of the UK's oldest video gaming forums → HOW TO DONATE
User avatar
Gemini73
Member
Joined in 2019

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Gemini73 » Mon Sep 30, 2019 8:29 pm

Squinty wrote:
Gemini73 wrote:
Squinty wrote:I prefer just learning songs than sitting doing scales all day. I love picking things up by ear and figuring out how things work.


Indeed. I've no aspirations of being in a band these days and am just jamming for fun, so why bog myself down in scales when I can teach myself Megadeth's "Holy Wars!" :nod:


I used to be able to play the rhythm parts to that. I probably couldn't play it now if you put a gun to my head.

I have a playlist of all the songs I learned to play and I'm pretty sure I can't play 40% of those songs now :lol: :lol: :lol:


Yeah it's a tricky one. I've nailed the intro so far. Megadeth are excellent for working ones fingers around the board. Just about the right complexity.

I'm only learning bits and pieces from different songs from different bands rather than whole tracks then applying learnt techniques to my own jams.

Still waiting on my pedal though. :x

User avatar
Lime
Member
Joined in 2008
AKA: Lime

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Lime » Wed Oct 02, 2019 3:52 pm

I posted a similar post in the Apple thread but it's possibly more relevant to this one.

I've been looking at using my Ipad Pro 3rd Gen as a sound module for my excellent (but ageing soundwise) Fantom X8 - it has a fantastic fully weighted keyboard so wanted to stick with it.

The Ipad pro has a USB C port and no headphone socket, so it's been a journey to find a suitable way to hook it all up.

Bluetooth Audio lags too much to be useful in the context of music making, and I was also concerned about lag if using Bluetooth via midi, so a cabled solution was the way to go.

I went with a Satechi Hub: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

Headphones sound great through this and I can run it through an amp.

I then went to hook up my Keyboard to use some synth modules on the iPad - disaster! Note on/off data being dropped all over the place, so played notes were being missed, and some notes were 'sticking'.

A quick google later and it turned out that the weak link was my unbranded, poor quality midi to USB cable that I bought for £3 odd years ago from ebay. It's one of those situations where 'just any old cable' won't do as there is some data processing going on, and I'm suspecting that there were some data buffer overflow issues that caused my issues.
Bought a 'proper' one for about £30 - now all is perfect.

Set up the free 'iGrand' app, and it's incredible. So inspiring that I'm composing again, I could play it all day. I will drop some cash on the paid version but this project got over £80 more expensive than I planned already!

Hope this info is useful for anyone that attempts to do something similar!

Any other recommendations for iOS synths?

Last edited by Lime on Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image< Click here to listen to my band, finally on Spotify (and all other streaming services!)
3ds - 0946-2364-6907
Wii U - Monkeylime
Switch Online - SW-0245-1766-8994
User avatar
Victor Mildew
Member
Joined in 2009

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Victor Mildew » Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:01 pm

Welcome Lime, I saw your post and was going to suggest you post in here.

GG - I will reply to you properly, but had sent do so yet as your posts have so much detail I feel they warrant more than my usual LOL LANDLORD M8 shite

Hexx wrote:Ad7 is older and balder than I thought.
User avatar
Lime
Member
Joined in 2008
AKA: Lime

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Lime » Thu Oct 03, 2019 5:27 pm

Ad7 wrote:Welcome Lime, I saw your post and was going to suggest you post in here.



Thanks Ad! I'm a bit of a mixed bag musically - in my 20's I was in a Funk/Rock band, and currently I'm writing a set of preludes for piano- i.e. classical music, with some more modern harmony ideas to keep it from sounding too much of a pastiche. I'm currently listening mainly to prog-metal (Tesseract is a current favourite).

I'm trying to modernise my approach to music making, hence the ipad piano app etc. I think I'll have a look a sample/loop based music making too.

So yes, all in all I'm a bit of a musical tart really, I'll go with anyone if I like it.

Image< Click here to listen to my band, finally on Spotify (and all other streaming services!)
3ds - 0946-2364-6907
Wii U - Monkeylime
Switch Online - SW-0245-1766-8994
User avatar
Gemini73
Member
Joined in 2019

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Gemini73 » Mon Oct 07, 2019 5:33 pm

My pedal arrived today. It's really good. Gives a clear, crunchy sound with a great bass behind it. Perfect for my metal needs. De-tuned to D. Lets strawberry floating 'av it! :nod:

Image

User avatar
Squinty
Member
Joined in 2009
Location: Norn Oirland

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Squinty » Sun Oct 20, 2019 11:08 am

I saved a bit of money over the year, ended up ordering a PRS SE Standard this morning. I'm seriously hoping I get something good out of the box. Been burnt before in the past about what state guitars turn up in.

My Schecter will probably need a bit of work done to it next year. I think the first few frets might need replaced, and it needs new tuners.

User avatar
Gemini73
Member
Joined in 2019

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Gemini73 » Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:43 pm

My nephew had an electronic drum kit for his birthday and needed an amp so I let him have my Fender. Going to pop to Soundhouse in Gloucester some time and buy myself a new amp. Might look at a new electric guitar as well.

User avatar
Victor Mildew
Member
Joined in 2009

PostRe: GRcade Musician's Club - Do You "Do" Music?
by Victor Mildew » Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:17 pm

Pics please from both of you.

Hexx wrote:Ad7 is older and balder than I thought.

Return to “Stuff”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: addsy087, Albert, Benzin, Dowbocop, Grumpy David, Kanbei, more heat than light, poshrule_uk, PuppetBoy and 336 guests