Guitar Talk

[ChattyKathy]

Sorta-----Because they lack the protective qualities that pigment provides, they are very prone to things like skin cancer and blindness due to the absence of a filtration mechanism to defer harmful wavelengths of light.

Of course, age has a tendency to make us want to rest more also. Like a lot of us here at GSC, the Winters ain't gettin' no younger if you catch my drift.

The winters seem to be getting longer though, but I bet I won't be saying that come next winter. :)

So you're going to be hittin' the road soon? Wow, moving. Florida, awaits! Best to you on the move Chatty!

We load the truck next Friday and head out Saturday morning. It's kind of unreal to me though but I know when we pull out it will hit me.

[socks]

Have a safe and happy pack and trip Chatty! I know you're gonna be happy. Found this series-bass with Jaco - interesting stuff...

Edited April 19, 2007 by socks

[ChattyKathy]

It is playing in another window and how delightful!

I wish I had been born with longer fingers though cause dang it looks sooooo much easier.

Thanks my friend.

When was the last time you visited Florida? Although it ain't like you have to go there to see the ocean and some of the glory of that type of geographic setting.

:B)

Edited April 19, 2007 by ChattyKathy

[dmiller]

Good morning Kathy (everyone else too!). Time for me to hit the sack!!

(someone hum a *waltz-time tempo* for me to drift off to sleep by).

[ChattyKathy]

You remind me of when I talk to my nephew when he is overseas. His time being different would be a matter of me saying goodnight and him saying I'm heading for breakfast now (almost anyway). :)

I could sing Mr. Sandman for you.......

[T-Bone]

Socks, thanks for the bass exercises with Jaco. Very inspiring – now I'm wanting to practice scales again. Interesting what he said about making them musical – which I interpret as having fun. I used to do that when I practiced scales and many times would come up with a bass line for a tune…More so than anything else I've heard Jaco play on – this clip has made me REALLY APPRECIATE his skill, dexterity, and creativity!!!

…Getting back to the bass player in the closet - this Tone Works Signal Processor is loads of fun and now I'm thinking about getting some kind of recording gear – worried about cost of a lot of hardware though and so I was wondering about software. I've done a GSC search on this thread – I've found some posts that mention recording gear – but hadn't found any mention of software for recording [may not have worded my search right]…Anyway – looking on the Internet I found The Musician's Bundle for $79.95

http://www.acoustica.com/musicians-bundle.asp

Is anyone familiar with the above or have another software program to recommend? I'm just doing some research for now. I'm still open to options like an all-in-one recording/mixing piece of hardware – but nothing very expensive [if that's even realistic].

Edited April 20, 2007 by T-Bone

[socks]

Yeah, he's a mastah killah of the bass, to be sure. Or was. That video looks like it could have been yesterday. Those YouTube videos are keepers.

I've always wished I'd had longer fingers too, Chatty. It would open up more neck styles and sizes, but I've watched both my daughter and son who have long fingers, and my son's quad-jointed or something, very similar thumbs and hands as Jaco's showing, thumbs do the same thing. They've both had to accomodate that in their playing as the wrist positions differently for them as they move around the neck.

Recording software - I'm not familiar with the bundle T-Bone. I used Digital Orchestrator Pro Pro for a few years, they've done some improvements to it. What I liked about it was that the interface is intuitive, if you've used a multi-track deck before it's easy to get used to right out of the box. On the other hand when I used it in the mid-90's, the first version just ate up resources and I started with - 4 megs of ram and a 66 mhz processor. It's impossible to process audio with that, I soon found out. But with a gig or better of RAM and a Pentium 4 or comparable you'd be cranking with it. It's not going to do anything close to pro level sound despite the name, unless you have a decent sound card, so there's the hardware side to look at too.

There's EMU sound cards for a couple hundred bucks, that would be where I'd start at. Or you can use a Soundblaster 24, and record at 24 bit, and that will do fine. You'll end up processing it down to a 16 bit digital master on a CD or mp3 file, so the higher quality you can record at, the better. Start high, mix low.

Cakewalk is another that's been around a long time, and I know people who swear by it. Worth checking out, it's seems to be a solid mult-track recording program.

I'm only using the PC for drum track creation and my keyboard, midi, which fires Native Instruments sofware. I take that out of my soundcard in stereo into a stereo channel on a Yamaha AW16G, 16 track deck. You can get them now for under a 1000. I like the Yamaha deck, although there's quite a few out now that are 4 and 8 track, that are around 500 bucks or less and that do a good job and lots of 16 track too.

The benefit of a standalone system is that - it never crashes. The Yamaha has an internal drive, it's own operating system and memory. Never glitches, pops or squeedles, nada. Just works and I like that. The only restriction is when the drive gets too full - you can backups of songs though. I try to keep about a 1/3 of the storage space open, and it runs fine.

On the other hand - if you're on a Mac, ProTools is the way to go. Very good program, and used industry wide, if you want to go that route. Also Garageband, is a cool program for simple recording.Very easy to use.

There's bound to be more input on this - wish I knew more about the recording software. I've got Acid and Sound Forge also, as well as Cubase, which runs the percussion program I've been using lately. Acid is good, for looping together sounds, and Sound Forge is a good program for mastering a final mix in stereo.

[ChattyKathy]

Well your fingers do a fine job of producing wonderful music fine man. :)

[polar bear]

TBone-

I've just seting up a recording studio. Here's my 2 cents.

There are some good forums out there to help you. Webrings- the home recording connection is good. Then there is the studio central community index which is good. And there is the band in the box forum.

As for hardware I have the emu which Socks mentioned. The M audio and Audigy are good also.

Software, band in the box is easy, cheap and very good. You also get Power Tracks which is their recording studio.

The the room setup-bookshelves with books separated by small spaces works well. There are also acoustic tiles you can buy on the net.

[T-Bone]

Thanks, Socks and Polar Bear for your input – think I may have to up my budget and may wait awhile until I understand the architecture of the different systems. And I want to thank everyone who has contributed on this thread – it has been inspirational in getting me back into the "business of having fun."

Socks, I looked at the Soundblaster 24 bit E-MU 0404 you mentioned – didn't see a PCI mini card adapter – needed for my Dell Laptop. But I did notice this bad boy below:

Creative Sound Labs E-MU 1616 and get the optional 02 Cardbus to connection to my Laptop

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=237&subcategory=239&product=15163

Looked at the Yamaha AW16G you mentioned at Musician's Friend [where I bought my effects pedal]

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Yamaha-AW1600-Audio-Workstation?sku=245013

I agree with you on a standalone system – not PC based for stability. Hmmmm…may have to up my budget quite a bit!...Well…right now I'm just gathering information – and to all I say keep it coming!

Polar Bear – the Band in a Box sounds interesting – I want the capability to record live/overdub bass, acoustic guitar and keyboard and then add drum tracks and other instrumentation via software – and eventually burn the final mix onto a CD…If I went with the Yamaha AW16G – I would still need an EMU right? And could I integrate software like Band in the Box with it?

…On the Jaco Pastorius front: I'm so enthralled by his technique on that You Tube clip – that even though I have his The Birthday Concert CD I've ordered his Anthology CD.

Edited April 22, 2007 by T-Bone

[socks]

Thanks, Socks and Polar Bear for your input – think I may have to up my budget and may wait awhile until I understand the architecture of the different systems. And I want to thank everyone who has contributed on this thread – it has been inspirational in getting me back into the "business of having fun."

Socks, I looked at the Soundblaster 24 bit E-MU 0404 you mentioned – didn't see a PCI mini card adapter – needed for my Dell Laptop. But I did notice this bad boy below:

Creative Sound Labs E-MU 1616 and get the optional 02 Cardbus to connection to my Laptop

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=237&subcategory=239&product=15163

Looked at the Yamaha AW16G you mentioned at Musician's Friend [where I bought my effects pedal]

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Yamaha-AW1600-Audio-Workstation?sku=245013

I agree with you on a standalone system – not PC based for stability. Hmmmm…may have to up my budget quite a bit!...Well…right now I'm just gathering information – and to all I say keep it coming!

---Great place to be, there's so much available at this point. Here's a thought - CHECK THIS PAGE OUT.

It's got a long list of free, shareware or demo-free multi-track and audio software. Guitar Tracks is on there, Audacity, several I recognised, lots I don't. You might just try downloading some from there, and trying them out, and test some stuff.

Recording software at this stage is pretty intuitive and leans towards "plug and play". Basic requirements of a good program would be to install, set itself up to it's default state, scan and recognize your drivers, cards, etc. and open up ready to go, with whatever user steps need to be done in it's tutorials. For recording mult-track guitar stuff, say a few guitar and bass parts, and the ability to create an easy drum track or import it into it, you shouldn't have to add 5 years of gray hair and become an audio engineer.

* There's some guitar to USB cable adapters out I've seen now that might be right for you to go direct into your laptop.

For testing it out and getting going, you can - "can" ... he said carefully - just take your 1/4 inch cable jack and plug it into an 1/8 inch adapter and go right into your mic input on your laptop, and use the MS Volume Control program that comes in Windows to control your input level, or whatever the program has in it (which usually controls the MS program too). YOU WILL definitely have to tweak the levels, down to a point where it won't sound distorted and frizzed out. TO DO THIS correctly you need one of the many "black box" "D.I." guitar-to-PC preamp attentuators that are out, (USB) or a sound card that's set up to accept analog audio input and handle it.

BUT - it will work going direct-in like that. You can then try the software out and get a feel for the software and the process of recording. You probably already know that, but thought I'd toss it in. If your laptop has a headphone out and a mic in, you can run with that, temporarily.

There's a lot of online sources for information on digital audio - Like THIS ONE

Just do a search, which you've probably already started. Just mentioning because, while you don't have to know a lot about digital audio to get going, I found it useful to learn some of the background and get up to speed. The Digital Orchestrator program came, at one time, with a book (the good ol' days!) about an inch thick that gave the program tut's and instructions as well as a chapter or two on digital audio. I read and re read it so much a guy at work that I knew said "I carried that thing around like a bible!". I guess I'm slow, but it took me going back again and again to stuff to get a handle on what was happening in the computer, and I got more books and stuff as I went along.

I'm still not close to being any pro-level in my understanding but - I dunno. I do kind of have a feel for it now, finally. But similarly, it took me forever to understand sequencers and the midi stuff, and when I finally did software had reached the point where I didn't need to hassel with the hardware end of it anymore!!! So, technology has actually become a friend to musicians. Go figure.

Polar Bear – the Band in a Box sounds interesting – I want the capability to record live/overdub bass, acoustic guitar and keyboard and then add drum tracks and other instrumentation via software – and eventually burn the final mix onto a CD…If I went with the Yamaha AW16G – I would still need an EMU right? And could I integrate software like Band in the Box with it?

…On the Jaco Pastorius front: I'm so enthralled by his technique on that You Tube clip – that even though I have his The Birthday Concert CD I've ordered his Anthology CD.

Ca-razee cool!!! :)

Edited April 22, 2007 by socks

[socks]

Here's another goodie from the Jaco P's Bass series on YouTube, T-Bone. He definitely goes off in this one, can't seem to find the dates of these, but he is clearly at "the height of his powers" as they say and sounds in complete control of the music and his instrument.

Something consistent amongst accomplished musicians like this is that they reach a point where they're open and free with sharing information and "secrets". Having done it for so long, they have to realize how much they've benefitted from and learned from the music of others and are willing to share exactly what they do and how they do it. Tommy Emmanuel is like that, on guitar. His site has several video clips where he goes into his stuff, showing what he does, lays some things right out in response to questions he gets. When I saw him in workshop, he was the same way, more than happy to explain in detail what he was doing.

Like with Jaco here, although it's been said he was extremely eccentric and the owner of a well fed ego, he's basically just being who he is and doing what he does. He can lay it all out like it's nothing because he knows - he can "give away" the knowledge, but not the right to own it. That only comes through practice, committment of self to the music and time. Anyone can have it, you just gotta pay the cost to be the boss.

Solo -

Edited April 23, 2007 by socks

[dmiller]

Itzhak on violin ----

Edited April 23, 2007 by dmiller

[T-Bone]

Thanks for the additional Jaco clip, Socks. He was amazingly versatile - could even make the bass sound like a piano . Dmiller, thanks for that Izthak clip. He hits me as being a wonderful and inspiring teacher - loved his story at the end - how one fellow learned to play a staccato...I was also amazed by the second student - NOT LOOKING at the violin while playing a very complicated passage! Wow!

[Bluzeman]

Actually -- that site has a lot of good interviews.

Douglas Noble Guitar Archive

Here's one done with Johnny Winter talking about Jimi.:

His hair looks just like mine. Only I'm not albino...just old.

Rick

[ChattyKathy]

You are not old...your hair is longer than his...you are handsome as hell......okay I'll stop there my friend. :P

[socks]

Bluzeman had to wait longer to get the grays and whites to balance? Us salt'n' peppers gotta bring the spice with us I guess!

Winter's a sassy one, that's for sure. I love the way he plays with all that abandon, just doing his thing, being bad to the bone.

Itzhak's great, what a wonderful video, thanks for that! He's clearly in love with what he's doing. And, while there are many violinists, I've found him identifiable by sound. He's got such a great tone.

I've been messin' with the 3000 here too of late, T-Bone. Saved a couple set ups. Love the Reverse echo. The guitar model has a pitch and octave setting too - you can get a great 12 string guitar sound, with a little vibrato it's "Here Comes the Sun" kind of sound is nice. I've messed with the Phaser setting and by lowering the octave effect way down it gets a very cool watery sound.

[polar bear]

TBone-I have the emu 0404. So far I like it.

Yes you will need some kind of a sound card. You can check out the video demos at pgmusic.com to check out the band in the box programs. I think they will do everything you need at a fraction of the cost.

[dmiller]

You are not old...your hair is longer than his...you are handsome as hell......okay I'll stop there my friend. :P

Rick has longer hair than that???

Does it get tangled up in the strings??? :P :P :P

(FYI -- I have to keep my beard trimmed,

so it doesn't get tangled up in the strings OR the bow!!)

[ChattyKathy]

Yup his hair pretty much hits his belt line and the last time I talked about him and hair and playing the guitar he got on me for it.

Be right back with a couple pictures of my nephews Harleys that he built once I remember how to do it.

[ChattyKathy]

Harleys my nephew built

My nephew is the one sitting on the bike and then standing next to the other one. Both he designed and built himself.

Socksman, I hope you didn't mind I posted them here but I had told David I would show him these some time ago.

I finally figured it out.

Edited April 25, 2007 by ChattyKathy

[dmiller]

[ChattyKathy]

Ain't they pretty? :)

[dmiller]

Gnarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrly Bikes!!!!!

[ChattyKathy]

I wish I had close up shots but the ones I have don't show any better than that. Once I get to Florida I'll get some better ones and send to you okeedokee.

Thanks for making the pictures bigger. I had a heck of a time remembering how to post links to Rick's server.