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#292065 - 21/01/12 11:31 PM
Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
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DJFrusciante
Be Nice (I'm New!)
Registered: 21/01/12
Posts: 5
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Hi
I've just registered for this forum in an attempt to learn more about guitar playing, recording and just more about music.
I'm 22 and I've been playing guitar properly for just over a year, although I had owned Guitars for a couple of years before that, without really having the motivation back then (mainly due to the awful equipment I had previously).
So I got a cheap Squire acoustic for Christmas 2010 and haven't looked back. Whilst it's not a top guitar, I've enjoyed playing it and had thoroughly started to properly learn chords.
Within a couple of months, I realised that I required an electric guitar if I wanted to replicate some of my favourite songs. So in February last year, I bought a lovely Yamaha Pacifica and went on apply my developing skills to my new axe.
I also practice scales regularly and have generally found myself learning so much more about the instrument and music in general.
Considering I'm self taught, I think I've done well in the last 12+ months to be where I am now with the guitar. It's got to the point where I am looking to start recording some of my own music as well as covers.
I've installed a few programs on my computer but it doesn't seem to be fast enough to cope with the demands I hoped so that will have to wait.
Can't really say too much about my technical abilities on the guitar, maybe I will have to post some basic microphone recordings if I get around to it.
Favorite bands include.... Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, The Strokes, Jane's Addiction, Warpaint and a lot lot more.
My favourite guitarist is John Frusciante, he's probably had the biggest influence on my playing style and the main reason I decided to start playing. If you haven't listened to his solo stuff, you should, it will blow your mind!
Also, other favourites include Carlos Santana, Jimmy Page, Tom Morello, Mark Knopfler, George Harrison and of course Jimi Hendrix.
Interesting fact about me is that I am related to Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris. He is my mother's second cousin. So I like to say that music is in my blood.
I live in Essex but work in NW London and try to get the odd concert in the capital.
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#292075 - 22/01/12 12:18 AM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: DJFrusciante]
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Ape09090
Old Timer
Registered: 01/12/11
Posts: 1197
Loc: South Wales
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Hi DJ,nice to meet you fella....
You have some quality choices in favorites there,why don't you record something onto youtube and post us the link in here for us to listen to it.
Tell us a bit more about what spec your PC has and what progs you're trying to run on it and maybe we'll be able to get you up and running with that recording software as well
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#292083 - 22/01/12 09:18 AM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: Ape09090]
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Megi
Old Timer
Registered: 08/07/11
Posts: 1281
Loc: Lincolnshire
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Hi and welcome to the forum DJ, I've always liked the Chillies and Frusciante too.
_________________________
Graham, jazz guitar nut!
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#292107 - 22/01/12 09:58 PM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: Megi]
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DJFrusciante
Be Nice (I'm New!)
Registered: 21/01/12
Posts: 5
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Hi Guys.
I have a soundcloud account but as mentioned, my recording ability is pretty limited, so this just what I recorded off a £1 mic with one shot.
http://soundcloud.com/djdearest
I'm a better electric player but obviously can't record anything through this method.
I installed Sony Acid Studio on my PC, but I get a lot of error messages which I'm sure is do with my computer being quite old. I plan on purchasing one soon though, hopefully with the ability to handle this sort of stuff well.
I guess it needs a good sound card, and seeing as I do a bit of design work, a good graphics card. I'm still running vista which has its faults so am hoping that windows 7 is better.
I'm not prepared to shell out for a mac, so if anyone can suggest a good future proof laptop which can be used for this sort of thing, I'd be thankful. I usually look in the £400-£500 for a new laptop.
I should point out that I recently got a piece of equipment which connects my guitar to the PC via USB but it wasn't working too well with the sony program.
I have Faith that SAS is the application I need, just not with this PC and this piece of equipment: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-UCG102...27269185&sr=8-1
I don't think the recordings truly reflect my playing ability as I tend to get things a bit wrong when I have only have one shot at it without being able to edit verses together etc, but I suppose its something to listen too.
Any feedback would be appreciated. Bare in mind, that a few of those recordings are just experimenting with no real idea of where I was going with it.
Cheers
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#292114 - 22/01/12 11:25 PM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: DJFrusciante]
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Ape09090
Old Timer
Registered: 01/12/11
Posts: 1197
Loc: South Wales
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http://www.reaper.fm/
that may be worth looking at but as you say you need a good processor to start with
guitar sounds just fine to me
I run FL Studio 10 on an Intel i5 sandybridge chip with 8 Gb RAM and have no issues running with multiple instances of some pretty heavy vst's open,if that means anything to you,lol
Edited by Ape09090 (22/01/12 11:31 PM)
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#292115 - 23/01/12 12:01 AM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: Ape09090]
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DJFrusciante
Be Nice (I'm New!)
Registered: 21/01/12
Posts: 5
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I guess VSTs are virtual effects that you can add to your music?
That's something that particularly affected the performance of my computer when I tried to apply them.
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#292116 - 23/01/12 12:41 AM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: DJFrusciante]
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Ape09090
Old Timer
Registered: 01/12/11
Posts: 1197
Loc: South Wales
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vst-virtual studio technology...
just googled it but yes.
A vst can be an effect or an instrument.
Some of them can be resource heavy especially the synths so having one open a few times in different parts of a track can be knackering for the PC/laptop.
I'll be honest,I've been into this for about 9 months so I'm on a steep learning curve but I have a half-decent set-up here now and it didn't cost a fortune either. If you do your research and know what you want before you buy then you can do ok but it's knowing what you need in the first place.
I went for a £200 interface straight off because I've been playing for a good few years and I figured I'd get the value out of that price eventually.
http://www.focusrite.com/products/audio_interfaces/saffire_pro_14/
that's the interface I went for,I paid £180 for the interface and a firewire card together so not too bad a deal.
There are plenty of guys in here happy to use a £50 interface as well so all depends what you want it to do really.
I was lucky as well because I built a Z68 i5 machine last year that eats this stuff up although I can still get a touch of lag opening a mega-production type thing.
Found the software I'm happy with so far in Fruity Loops Studio tho I have Ableton live 8 installed as well as it came with the interface but the software studio is an involved bit of kit and I just grew into using the FL one for some reason but you go for whatever works for you I guess.
I've come up with a few synthy type trance tracks but just lately I'm getting back into guitar stuff so I'm learning about layering guitar parts for tracking over and then trying to get some drums and bass on as well and it's all good stuff tbh if a bit involved to start with.When you don't know how anything works it takes a while to get things to happen but it soon speeds up if you stick at it.
Edited by Ape09090 (23/01/12 12:42 AM)
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#292117 - 23/01/12 12:51 AM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: Ape09090]
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DJFrusciante
Be Nice (I'm New!)
Registered: 21/01/12
Posts: 5
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I guess VSTs are virtual effects that you can add to your music?
That's something that particularly affected the performance of my computer when I tried to apply them.
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#292118 - 23/01/12 08:37 AM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: DJFrusciante]
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Mark P
Professional Forumite!
Registered: 21/10/09
Posts: 455
Loc: Scotland
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Welcome to the forum DJ.
Hmmm ... and welcome to the "joys" of getting a PC to behave itself on multi-track audio recording. I used to be able to use a good few bits of recording software on an old XP desktop machine and had very little trouble setting them up. When this PC ceased to work I made the mistake of "upgrading" to a more powerful spec machine - but a laptop (that was a mistake) and one running vista (another mistake).
That was the start of struggles to find a combination of software and hardware that would work. I had a version of Ableton that no matter what I did just refused to function. Eventually got Magix Samplitude 16 to work (similar price level / product to Sony Acid) in combination with an Alesis iO-2 interface. I had some problems too finding as ASIO driver that would work on my set up. And I do recall a lot of playing around with buffer settings within the program before it started to work, though even now it does tend to recording error messages if a lot is asked of it. As a result I try and do all the processing of the sound before it hits the PC. So all the software is doing is the basic multi-track recorder function and maybe just a tad of tweaking of reverb / delay.
The trouble is any combination of computer / interface / software with all the variable settings is so varied that two apparently similar set ups can behave very differently. Forums on the internet are full of puzzled people wondering why their software doesm't work and other people saying "well mine worked with no problem". You only need to look at Amazon reviews of interfaces and software - there's usually as many 1 star reviews as 5 star. I believe Windows 7 is more friendly to music based systems than #@#~@# Vista - though I have no experience with W7. It doesn't encourage me to try new software when there is no returns route if you can't get it to work - it certainly puts expensive software / interfaces right off the shopping list. The end result of PC recording software, if you can get it to work, is great - but getting there can just be one hell of a PITA.
Good luck with the guitar and the computer recording.
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#292120 - 23/01/12 11:21 AM
Re: Intermediate Guitarist from Essex / London
[Re: Mark P]
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Ape09090
Old Timer
Registered: 01/12/11
Posts: 1197
Loc: South Wales
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I've only ever run music stuff on windows 7 and,touch wood, it's not let me down so far.
I use a 4 core i5 2500k chip that I've not felt the need to overclock yet,8gb ram,I have the software set to use more ram than it normally does. With FL Studio it uses 1gb ram as standard but I have it set up to use 4gb ram in an extended memory mode and I also set it to 'send to disc' which means it now automatically records larger samples,pieces,riffs etc to disc and doesn't overtax your ram but I would recommend a minimum of 4gb ram for a music machine and as new and as powerful a processor as you can afford.
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