DAW Users With ADD

[dachay2tnr]

I must have been sleeping when they passed the threshold of CPUs not being a problem,or perhaps it never was.

No, there was a time when more power allowed you to do more things. Personal computers have always been driven by apps. Initially there was essentially word processing and a limited spreadsheet. However, then they starting introducing games, and Windows (versus DOS), and photo editing, and CD's, and writable CD's, and bigger, more powerful spreadsheets, and DAW's, etc. You might, at first, try and add more memory or get a bigger hard drive, but eventually your old computer couldn't keep up. If you wanted to use the new apps, you needed a new computer.

The difference today is that there hasn't really been any new killer apps that have been introduced in many years. The only new software I've purchased since I retired was Office 2007. And to be honest, most of my needs would probably have been met with Office '97. I haven't recorded in awhile, but if I do, my old version of Sonar will suit me just fine. The newer version "might" tax my computer, and I really don't "need" any of the new features. The main thing is simply the ability to plug mics into a computer and record the output to disc. My Version 6.0 does that just fine.

So if someone wants to drive computer sales, they need to come up with some type of must-have software, that won't run well on 7 year old computers. That probably won't happen since most developers are busy designing apps for the i-Phone.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Guitar
I'm betting this is the one,I'm just not betting a lot.

LATER!!!

You might want to increase that bet. Two thumbs up (so far ).

Intonation: Very strange. If I check the intonation using the 12th fret harmonic, it is slightly out. However, I don't hear any issues at all. It sounds in tune everywhere I've played so far. With the previous guitars, I could get the intonation technically set right, but they would still "sound" out of tune in certain positions. This one sounds right everywhere, right out of the box. In fact, I'm afraid to adjust it. I might just wait until I bring it in to be set-up.

It has some nice balls to it. Probably best sounding of all the ones I've brought home. The real test will be Friday with the group, but it's sounding pretty good to me so far.

Playability: It plays similar to my acoustic, so I was pretty comfortable with it right away. The strings don't bend as easily as the PRS, but that's fairly minor. In fact the only real negative I've found so far is that my hand doesn't slide easily up and down the neck. Not sure yet if it's the strings, the fretboard, or the finish on the back of the neck. I might try waxing the neck to see if that helps. I can live with it as is, but I'd like to see if I can do something to improve that aspect.

Stay tuned. Friday will determine if it's a keeper.

BTW, not too impressed with the coil splitting. It doesn't hurt anything having it, and maybe I'll find uses for it somewhere, but it certainly doesn't give it a strat sound.

 

[acidrock]

You might want to increase that bet. Two thumbs up (so far ).

Intonation: Very strange. If I check the intonation using the 12th fret harmonic, it is slightly out. However, I don't hear any issues at all. It sounds in tune everywhere I've played so far. With the previous guitars, I could get the intonation technically set right, but they would still "sound" out of tune in certain positions. This one sounds right everywhere, right out of the box. In fact, I'm afraid to adjust it. I might just wait until I bring it in to be set-up.

It has some nice balls to it. Probably best sounding of all the ones I've brought home. The real test will be Friday with the group, but it's sounding pretty good to me so far.

Playability: It plays similar to my acoustic, so I was pretty comfortable with it right away. The strings don't bend as easily as the PRS, but that's fairly minor. In fact the only real negative I've found so far is that my hand doesn't slide easily up and down the neck. Not sure yet if it's the strings, the fretboard, or the finish on the back of the neck. I might try waxing the neck to see if that helps. I can live with it as is, but I'd like to see if I can do something to improve that aspect.

Stay tuned. Friday will determine if it's a keeper.

Why Friday?Do your bandmates have the final say?

How does it look?

BTW, not too impressed with the coil splitting. It doesn't hurt anything having it, and maybe I'll find uses for it somewhere, but it certainly doesn't give it a strat sound.

It never will,and a humbucker on a Strat scale neck will never sound like an LP,it's just another tone.If you're only going to have one guitar it doesn't hurt.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Why Friday?Do your bandmates have the final say?

How does it look?

My bandmates have an influence, but certainly not the final say. However, more importantly I want to hear it within the "band mix." In other words, how it sounds with a drum, bass, and vocals all going on at the same time. If it works in that setting, I can probably throw away the return receipt.

As for looks, it looks fine. Personally I tend to favor wood grains on a guitar, but the tuxedo black is a classic and acceptable. On the other hand, it doesn't break any new ground. But looks weren't a major criteria for me anyway - so long as it looked okay. (There are some butt-ugly guitars out there.)

That's probably why I stayed away from Les Paul's until now. I wanted something that wasn't so run of the mill. However, I guess there is a good reason why everyone has one.

 

[dachay2tnr]

So, do you think Paul's been busy working?













Nah... he probably just died from contaminated Dubai chicken.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Guitars
Tow days of playing the Custom Pro, and the intonation is pretty much right on. If the first electric I bought had played like this, we would have had much less of an adventure.

I'm still not sure how much were the guitars and how much was me. Both the PRSs and the Hagstrom seemed to have had much thinner necks. So, as Paul suggested, some of the issue "could" have been me pulling the strings. Whatever... those issues aren't present on the Les Paul.

I even changed the strings and still had no problem.

 

[acidrock]

Guitars
Tow days of playing the Custom Pro, and the intonation is pretty much right on. If the first electric I bought had played like this, we would have had much less of an adventure.

I'm still not sure how much were the guitars and how much was me. Both the PRSs and the Hagstrom seemed to have had much thinner necks. So, as Paul suggested, some of the issue "could" have been me pulling the strings. Whatever... those issues aren't present on the Les Paul.

I even changed the strings and still had no problem.

It's commitment.you're afraid of it.You really haven't come out and said you really liked the guitar yet.

 

[dachay2tnr]

It's commitment.you're afraid of it.You really haven't come out and said you really liked the guitar yet.

I told you, the final test is Friday.

BTW, what pedals are you suggesting? I'm really not interested in any "modeling" stuff. Just want something to give me good tone into the PA. I currently have a low end Lexicon rack unit that I am using for reverb and chorus, and I also have the Bad Monkey pedal for overdrive. I like the Bad Monkey, but there's just smidge more distortion than I would like.

The tone I really like is Steuart Smith with the Eagles. But (of course) he plays a strat.
Check him out on this song:
Eagles - How Long - YouTube

 

[dachay2tnr]

Another duplicate post!!

 

[acidrock]

I told you, the final test is Friday.

I apologize if it seems like I'm giving you a hard time(I am),but most guys are a little more enthusiastic about a guitar purchase.If a guy I know buys a Corvette,he's more likely to say "check out my new baby" than something like "so far it still runs",if you get my drift.

 

[acidrock]

BTW, what pedals are you suggesting? I'm really not interested in any "modeling" stuff. Just want something to give me good tone into the PA. I currently have a low end Lexicon rack unit that I am using for reverb and chorus, and I also have the Bad Monkey pedal for overdrive. I like the Bad Monkey, but there's just smidge more distortion than I would like.
[/url]

First off you are interested in modeling,you just don't know it.Your emulated straight to PA output on the BM is modeling.When I say "modeling" or "simulation" I'm just referring to anything that's meant to give an amp like tone to a direct signal.The BM is a well known pedal,but OD pedals are mainly to put in front of an amp to push it into distortion and while it has a speaker emulated output,that's not really it's strength.You just bought a nice guitar,you're this close >< to getting that tone you want.

Secondly,and this is mostly a musical philosophy kind of thing,as the guitar player you are the guy with the 64 box of Crayolas.The bass and drums rarely change their tones if at all,you may change singers,but the tone stays about the same so it's usually up to the guitar or keyboard player to add some different tonal textures.OTOH,lots and lots of guys play with just one tone all night and do just fine.I think sometimes an effect at the appropriate time can prick everyones ears up and break the monotony.If you are listening in stereo over your headphones this will be even more pronounced.This is just something I would throw out as maybe a factor what you're looking for,it could be irrelavant.

Electric guitar tone unlike acoustics comes a lot from the amp,when you hear Hendrix play,yeah you're hearing a Strat,but you're also hearing a Marshall amp,so on and so forth.When it comes to amps there's the big three,Fender,Marshall and Vox,these cover a lot of ground.Most sims/mods cover this and more,if you plug into something like this and futz with it for a while you'll find tones that are familiar and it will make more sense.

The digital board that runs an effects pedal is probably one of the cheapest components,what you are really spending your money on are the knobs,pedals,display and housing.So the bottom of the Line Zoom Pedal will for the most part stand toe to toe with sonicly with the top of the line,just with a lot less accessibility and versatility.Lots and lots of advantages IF you are willing to program.If you don't like programing you can always just find something you like and just stick with that.Even the bottom of the barrel multieffects boxes come with everything these days.Buying a multieffect pedal would be my personal reccomendation just because they're category killers,kind of a sampler platter to give you a taste of everything for a very reasonable price.I have lots of pedals and four amps but I still have an el cheapo Korg pedal because it's just a fun toy,plus I can plug my headphones straight into it.

So many choices,lots and lots of options,you would need to narrow things down a bit.



If you have a fear of submenus and like one knob one function,there's a few of sim/mod pedals out there.On the low end you could try this,it has an XLR out and is basically a copy of this.I have a couple of Behringer pedals and I've found them to be consistant with their reviews in that they are clones in a cheaper housing.For a non touring hobbyist musician the casings are more than adequate.When I use stomp boxes I don't even set them on the floor they're either on top of the amp or a table so I can fiddle with them.

 

[dachay2tnr]

I apologize if it seems like I'm giving you a hard time(I am),but most guys are a little more enthusiastic about a guitar purchase.If a guy I know buys a Corvette,he's more likely to say "check out my new baby" than something like "so far it still runs",if you get my drift.

I do know what you mean, and you may be pleased to know that a smile is slowly starting to creep across my face. Part of my slowness to warm to the Epi has probably been the result of the frustration I went through with the first four guitars. It turned what should have been a happy event into another of life's annoyances. And to be honest, I wasn't expecting a lot more from the Les Paul. It was actually cheaper than the PRS's and the Hagstrom I bought (although I got a discount on those that I couldn't get on the Epi). But even after the discount, the Epi was still about $50 cheaper. And, if you read some of the guitar forums, a lot of guys tell you that there are much better guitars out there for the price than Epi's (including PRS's).

Secondly, with the earlier ones, I was spending more time trying to intonate them than I was playing them. No matter what I did, I would play for a little while, and eventually a sour chord would rear it's head. I'd retune to fix the sour chord, and then something else would sound sour. So it would be back to the screwdriver. Eventually I just assumed it was the nature of the beast for guitars in this price range. Even the last one, which I finally got close to acceptable, still felt to me like I was settling.

Long story longer, the Epi has been a dream intonation-wise. Every chord I hit sounds perfect. And, even better, I put it down one day and pick it up the next, and it doesn't even need to be retuned. Which now allows me to focus on playing and tone.

I played with the settings this morning on the BM pedal, and also cranked the volume a bit and this new toy was sounding pretty bad ass. It had great sustain, and a really nice raw tone. I'm just a little worried that the volume might be a bit too much with the rest of the band. I won't know for sure until we get together, but I'm hoping I can keep this same tone at a volume level that works with the vocals and other instruments.

However, as of right now, it's starting to get to the point where Guitar Center might have to come a pry this from my hands to get it back. Stay tuned, but I'm really starting to get where you want me to be.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Another friggin' duplicate post.

It annoys the hell out of me when you click a button and the page crashes, only to find out later it actually accepted the post anyway.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Day 4 Update
The smile gets a little broader each day. And tonight should be the final test. However, as of this point, I don't see anything that would result in this git going back.

Today I spent some time playing with the pedal settings. I humbly think, AR, you have way undersold the Bad Monkey pedal. It's taking me some time to figure it out (how hard can it be with 4 knobs ), but I'm really starting to get some great tones from this thing.

My initial plan was to find a setting I liked, and stick with. In fact, I thought I would play mostly clean guitar (pedal bypass), and only kick the pedal in for leads, or certain songs. Now my thinking is turning completely around. I'm now thinking of using it most of the time, and changing the settings to suit the song.

What I was finding was that I would find a setting I liked, but the next song I would play it would sound too distorted. The distortion worked great in some songs, but was hell in others. So first approach was to simply bypass the pedal for song 2. But then there wasn't enough balls.

The light finally went on when I started to appreciate how the knobs interact with each other (plus the fact that for the high and low knobs, twelve o'clock is neutral. I had thought fully left was the neutral setting, and didn't realize that left of 12 was actually subtracting frequencies). Anyway, to lessen the distortion, if found you couldn't simply dial back the level knob. You had to do that, plus dial up the gain knob at the same time (and possibly adjust the low and high knobs as well). In other words, each knob adjustment affects the other three knobs to some degree. This might very well sound elementary, but you're talking to a guy who has never used a pedal in his life. Even "back in the day" when I owned an electric, you simply plugged it into the amp. Other than maybe wah wahs, there really wasn't much in the the way of signal processors.

As of now, I have a good distortion tone, and a pretty good clean tone (processed clean, not bypassed - maybe crunchy is the right term). That might cover 70% or 80% of what I'm going to need.

BTW, all of this might have also worked on the other guitars I've had as well. Not sure, but the intonation issues never allowed me to get this far.

Bottom line, you're looking at a much happier guy these days. Or at least as happy as you can get at 64 and ugly.

 

[acidrock]

Day 4 Update


Today I spent some time playing with the pedal settings. I humbly think, AR, you have way undersold the Bad Monkey pedal. It's taking me some time to figure it out (how hard can it be with 4 knobs ), but I'm really starting to get some great tones from this thing.

My initial plan was to find a setting I liked, and stick with. In fact, I thought I would play mostly clean guitar (pedal bypass), and only kick the pedal in for leads, or certain songs. Now my thinking is turning completely around. I'm now thinking of using it most of the time, and changing the settings to suit the song.

What I was finding was that I would find a setting I liked, but the next song I would play it would sound too distorted. The distortion worked great in some songs, but was hell in others. So first approach was to simply bypass the pedal for song 2. But then there wasn't enough balls.

The light finally went on when I started to appreciate how the knobs interact with each other (plus the fact that for the high and low knobs, twelve o'clock is neutral. I had thought fully left was the neutral setting, and didn't realize that left of 12 was actually subtracting frequencies). Anyway, to lessen the distortion, if found you couldn't simply dial back the level knob. You had to do that, plus dial up the gain knob at the same time (and possibly adjust the low and high knobs as well). In other words, each knob adjustment affects the other three knobs to some degree. This might very well sound elementary, but you're talking to a guy who has never used a pedal in his life. Even "back in the day" when I owned an electric, you simply plugged it into the amp. Other than maybe wah wahs, there really wasn't much in the the way of signal processors.

The advantage of a digital pedal is that you can have a preset for every song,no need to twiddle with knobs,just click the footswitch.You can go from an acoustic simulation with compression,chorus and a room reverb to a Marshall stack with delay and spring reverb with on click of the switch,each song can have it's own virtual pedalboard.A lot of multieffects come with a footpedal that can control any parameter you choose in addition to wah and volume.

I'm not going to argue whether you like the tones that you're getting,I'm just saying in the big world of guitar tones you're living in a confined space.In 2012 you get a lot for the money in the digital realm,even the bottom of the line Digitech comes with everything and the kitchen sink,for a little more you get an expression pedal.

 

[Paul881]

Hey Mike, its great news that you have (finally) got the guitar you deserve. And the even better news is that its pretty much the same as mine and I took time to fully love and appreciate my Epi LP to. It never sounded as I had expected it to sound. And then I changed strings. Wow, what a difference that made. Then I had it professionally set up and that was the cherry on the cake. The only down side is the weight - its a damn heavy beast. But I love its warm, rich tones that can get especially when you drive it through a distortion box. Anyway, glad you got fixed up and that the boys in the band appreciate your shredding!

Back home in England for three weeks vacation for our eldest daughters wedding on the 26th May. Boy, is this an excercise in spending money or what? What struck me after being 8 weeks in the desert is how green everything looks.

Catch you later boyz!

 

[Paul881]

In 2012 you get a lot for the money in the digital realm,even the bottom of the line Digitech comes with everything and the kitchen sink,for a little more you get an expression pedal.

I agree.
At the other end of the scale is a dual rack of processors and floor boards that U2's The Edge demonstrates here in his Dublin sound factory. You can see his two racks and some of his out board gear in the background along with his Vintage Vox AC 30's. He also uses Fender combo amps on tour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXGWpcpv8mM

 

[Paul881]

Here's a video tour of his rack and outboard. Poor quality video but you can see the range of gear he uses.

Yahoo! Video Detail for u2 the edge guitar rack video tour

 

[acidrock]

I agree.
At the other end of the scale is a dual rack of processors and floor boards that U2's The Edge demonstrates here in his Dublin sound factory. You can see his two racks and some of his out board gear in the background along with his Vintage Vox AC 30's. He also uses Fender combo amps on tour.
The Edge - Guitar Rack - YouTube

I'm not sure the Edge even knows how to play guitar,he gets lambasted regularly on these boards for his dependence on effects.Forty five guitars on tour?I think it's more rock star excess than necessity.

I'm going to include an old picture of my pedals,I've gotten a few more since this picture was taken.A lot I bought used for $20 a pop or got discounted due to special deals,otherwise I wouldn't have so many.
Today
It's off to the vet,help my daughter with a school project,then cleaning and laundry.One week off and I barely touched my guitar.



New York
My son's band trip is to New York next year,my wife is going along as a chaperon.My wife has been there before I haven't,but there's no way I'm going with a bunch of kids ON A BUS for a fifteen hour trip.Plus the itinerary would have me gasping for air.We had the meeting this week so people could get a head start on raising funds.



LATER!!!

 

[dachay2tnr]

Back home in England for three weeks vacation for our eldest daughters wedding on the 26th May. Boy, is this an excercise in spending money or what? What struck me after being 8 weeks in the desert is how green everything looks.

Congratulations and best of luck to her.

There are a few times in life when people line up at your front door with their hands held out - selling a home is one, going into the hospital is another, but marrying off a daughter could be the absolute worst. Plus, with that new promotion, you have an image to keep up, so don't start cheaping out.