Musician's Thread

@lord_of_shred

Sounds very similar to my setup for recording - only I am using stereo-outs as opposed to busses. Original copy was mixed differently - some songs up 177 individual tracks (overdubs, synths (vsts) and the bed tracks) mixed through a single stereo output. Mind you that was a learning album on demo equipment and in the remixing stage I have kept about 80-90% of the original tracks on each song and grouping them and mixing it in accordance with the style of my last two albums. It has given it much more depth and focus.

For the last two albums each song is about the same as yours about 40-60 tracks total. After I was finished Original Copy my goal for What Is Love was to cut back the layers.

When I record guitar I start by using between 3 to 5 mics on the guitar amp as well a direct in and then blend the mics until I have a sufficiently beefy sounding single guitar tone. If I want to stereo double that - I mostly do it was a smaller amp and one mic. 9 times out of 10 I play it a little differently so that there is some stereo play between the left and right channels.

For bass it is a direct in blended with the mic on the cab.

For drums currently I have top and bottom snare, bass drum, 5 toms, 3 over heads (left right and middle capturing the cymbals and the kit) and a hi-hat mic. As I move to the Midas board I am planning to mic top and bottom of all tom's and mic each individual cymbal in addition to a stereo overhead setup.

I use compression on pretty much each track - but not on the stereo outs, or on the master out. Once the track is bounced I then apply the final master chain to the two track wav file in a separate project. I am not sure if it really makes a difference in terms of the final output of the song.

My project files are absolute messes - I mean I know where everything is, but I'd hate to watch someone come in and try and make heads or tails of my tracking naming system, or the file structure. I have gotten better over the last two albums - but I recently read an MGMT article where they discussed their process and it sounds like they have the same tendencies I have.

@Brixmis

I know what you mean - I am not a huge Les Paul fan. I like the Les Paul Junior style and the SG - but for hollow body I have always wanted a Gretsch (and have played some really nice Ibanez models). I never even gave a thought to playing a Gibson hollow body - but that guitar was so well worn I had to play it. It felt so nice - if I was a multi-millionaire it would have been an instant buy, I didn't plug it in because I normally don't plug into open amps at guitar shops as I feel much the same playing solo guitar in public - I tend to play to myself. Which is funny - I don't really have any trouble playing on stage - I think because of the performance buffer between me and the audience.

This is that Ibanez - I can't remember what it was called - like I said, it was a limited edition one, which I bought from the local Roadhouse guitar shop:



I've been unable to find anything about it on the 'net, and when I recently went back to Roadhouse with a picture of it, they hadn't a clue what it was.

This is my Peavey - also forgot which model that is!



...and this is my current project, half modded:

man that is a nice finish on that Ibanez - it is funny I am not a fan of the standard Ibanez sort of strat body (like Steve Vai plays), I don't like the cut of horns or the way their neck's feel. But I love my Ibanez bass, and every one of their hollow body's have sounded great. I used to only ever like the Fender Strat headstock - but over the years I have come to appreciate the Ibanez style, and the Gibson style quite a bit too.

That Peavey looks ace - like a cross between a Les Paul Junior and a Tele - but I can't stand having the pickup switch on of the neck like that, I prefer it down low near the tone knobs. Not a deal breaker - but I miss the functionality.

Is that a proper tele body in the last pick? It looks great - even with the non-branded neck. Actually that neck looks great - is it unvarnished? My Fender bass has an unvarnished neck and I love the feel of it.

I agree on the pick-up switch. Not so easy to flip mid-tune, when it's up there.

I used to not be keen on the strat-style Ibanez, but I got an RG 470 cheap from Roadhouse, used, for £200 and it was pretty good. Some great sounds and comfy to play - but it couldn't touch my US Strat. I did like the neck in it's entirety, very nice feel to it for my style of playing. It was also my first experience with a locking nut and trem. Was a bit of a bugger to set up sometimes, but I did like it, once done. I did a lot of string bending and this set-up was perfect for it.

As for the tele mod. I bought the Telecaster from one of the other guys in Heinz Glass's band. In fact, I p/x'd a medium priced classical guitar for it. It was copy, but I'd never heard of the company that did it and couldn't find any info on them. It's the lightest electric I've come across - which was one of the main reasons I got it. I bought the Strat neck new, along with all the machinery and so-on, from an online guitar shop. I went through several nuts before settling on the one now fitted, trying to widen the string spacing. It's pretty good, now, but I would ideally like a little more, with my knackered fingers, as I keep catching the other strings now. The neck is unvarnished - feels great. *actually, I just remembered - I got RSI from the original neck - I remember the strings were very close together, and whilst I was in Germany I was learning the solo to Hotel California. I used to practise it morning, afternoon and evening, even though it wasn't comfy to play on that neck - and ended up with a buggered wrist. Stopped me playing for a couple of months and I never made that mistake again!

I bought a new bridge pick-up and end plate, too - but the one on the tele body has the strings through the end plate (horizontally - so they are fed through just behind the saddles) and the one I have bought is for through-body strings, so I'm undecided whether to drill some holes through the body or not.

I want to get a new neck pick-up, too. the original ones are okay - very sharp tele-twang to them, but I think they sound just a bit too rough. My local music shop buddy (he had to close his guitar shop due to the drastic drop in sales over the last 10 years - he's selling antiques now, but keeps his eye out for good music gear and gives his mates a ring for first dibs) advised me to try Entwistle for Tele pick-ups. They are very cheap, but he reckons they sound great, so I think I will try one on the neck, and if I like it I'll probably get a bridge one, too.

http://www.entwistlepickups.com/

My tele is strung through-body - my strats are all strung through the bridge. My fender bass is also through body - but the rest of my basses are through the bridge.

I find the through-body guitars rarely go out of tune - where as stringing through the bridge I normally have to tune the guitar if I don't use it very often.

I just read an article a few weeks ago that both Fender and Gibson are in trouble due to lack of sales (1 million new guitars were sold last year).

Anecdotally - it isn't just guitars that are not selling. I tried to trade my '94 Fender Custom Shop Dual Professional amp (SN 0018) for a '94 Fender Bass VI about two weeks ago - and while the value of my amp was more than the guitar. The shop wouldn't do the trade because amp sales are even lower than guitar sales. It was a shame - I really wanted that guitar, lol

I think it is partly due to the downturn of live local music and how far recording VSTs and amp modelling software have come along. Electronic music is the most dominant form of musical output currently - partly because it is easy to learn and affordable to make.

Unfortunately - there are still limitations to the electronic medium. It is unable to really account for tempo fluctuation in a natural way so the rhythms remain as grid-locked as they were at the earliest experimentation with drum machines. When it comes to VSTs - they are also still limited much the same way mellotron's were just by virtue of being controlled by keyboards or step based midi-programming.

It is not inherently bad - and as a producer of music I have used it myself. But at the same time - it is also very demoralizing that most of the hit music you hear playing on the radio today sounds programmed with very little true emotion behind the playing. Especially considering there was a time when real music was popular too - and not very long ago.

It is funny looking back - in the early 90s there was a reaction to the 80s that brought back more traditionally recorded music featuring less electronic production but by the end of the 90s and as we hit into the new millennium it really does feel like electronic music won. I mean there is lots of good music still being made both organically and inorganically - but it really does feel like Electronic music dominates pretty much all genre's now.

Am I the only one who hates the term Electronic music? It feels archaic - I'd call it software generated music but I don't think it'd catch on. LOL

Okay, I just ordered a set of Telecaster through body ferrules - just hope I don't mess it up.

@SimonSays28

Totally agree with you on the long slow painful death of Live Music by Electronic Music! Filling out blocks on a sequencer grid, cant match the nuances that can be expressed when playing/recording live (volume, tempo, pitch, energy of the band or crowd etc). When i grew up 80's(cough), you could see live band in every pub/club 5 nights week. Now software and XFactor means the churning out of same bland repetitive noise. Feel sorry for the new generation, who dont know what they missing.      ps i'd call it cheating (or taking v large shortcuts) :)

SimonSays28 said:

I am wondering if there are any other musicians on these forums - if so what do you play? Do you write / record music? What got you into playing music? What is your gear?

I play bass guitar, guitar,synth and function as the audio engineer for my band.

It was Nirvana and Much Music (Canadian MTV) that got me into music - though I moved on from that influence early on after starting to learn how to play. I started on bass guitar at 13 and playing guitar at around 22 (I am 31 now) - when we play live I function as the bass player and in the studio I remain multi-instrumental focusing on support parts.

My main gear is:

'97 Fender Precision Lyte Deluxe
Ampeg Micro-VR with DI
Ampeg V6B
Presonus Studiolive 16.4.2 running through Logic X

Voice, guitar, hand drums, and didgeridoo.

The violin was foisted on me by my parents around age 5, but after Suzuki book 4 or so I didn't continue.  I practiced piano off and on since age 12, but I don't really play.  Voice began when I joined a boy's choir; I was a boy soprano, then tenor once my voice dropped.  When I sing casually I like to think of myself as baritone, but who knows really.

I started guitar around age 17, when my dad handed down his 1975 Yairi acoustic to me.  I still have it, along with a Gibson Les Paul and a Martin Backpacker.

Hand drums and didgeridoo are more recent; I just like the way they sound.

My parents again saw to it I had lots of exposure to classical music as a child; Prokofiev, Debussy, Saint-Saens and others.  I used to be able to hear a piece of classical music and name the time period it was from if not the composer.  Beethoven's 9th symphony on CD-ROM.

When I began to learn guitar and branched out into my own musical tastes I found I enjoyed bands like Live, the Smashing Pumpkins, and U2.

Hey, I finally found which model that Ibanez was - an AFS-77T. Although I've seen it now referred to as an "Artcore" range guitar and it looks similar, I distinctly remember that it never said that on the guitar, in the ref info or the paperwork.

This is the only video I've been able to find of it in use:

https://youtu.be/h5lGYBr_BrE

also here:

https://reverb.com/uk/item/6504734-ibanez-artcore-afs77t-semi-hollow-electric-guitar-w-hardshell-case

even found a review:

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/reviews/electric_guitars/ibanez/artcore_afs77t/

I really miss that guitar and have been kicking myself regularly ever since I sold it (for £200 to a guy I was jamming with at the time - haven't seen him since he collected it!).

lukeskywatcher said:

Totally agree with you on the long slow painful death of Live Music by Electronic Music! Filling out blocks on a sequencer grid, cant match the nuances that can be expressed when playing/recording live (volume, tempo, pitch, energy of the band or crowd etc). When i grew up 80's(cough), you could see live band in every pub/club 5 nights week. Now software and XFactor means the churning out of same bland repetitive noise. Feel sorry for the new generation, who dont know what they missing.      ps i'd call it cheating (or taking v large shortcuts) :)

I agree - I mean I feel lucky to live in this day and age for the sheer access to music, and the cost affordability of studio equipment to be able to contribute to the art form. But I find it sad and funny that with all that access and ability - most kids my age or younger want to listen to and make music that is quantized to perfection without understanding the subtlety and nuances of organic playing. Not that it isn't out there - it is, it just isn't the mass marketed art form anymore.

LOL - as for cheating, I agree to a point. I mean I can't say that all electronic music is bad (Jeff Beck's experimentation with the genre yielded a few really great albums of Jeff Beck guitar parts) and I have used the form myself. Even though I 90% of the time replace the drums with real drums - and I record real instruments over top. I also avoid quantizing notes when I am using VSTs and a midi controller - I find that when I do quantize notes it sucks the life out of the take even if it is technically more on beat.

Phaserlight said:

Voice, guitar, hand drums, and didgeridoo.

The violin was foisted on me by my parents around age 5, but after Suzuki book 4 or so I didn't continue.  I practiced piano off and on since age 12, but I don't really play.  Voice began when I joined a boy's choir; I was a boy soprano, then tenor once my voice dropped.  When I sing casually I like to think of myself as baritone, but who knows really.

I started guitar around age 17, when my dad handed down his 1975 Yairi acoustic to me.  I still have it, along with a Gibson Les Paul and a Martin Backpacker.

Hand drums and didgeridoo are more recent; I just like the way they sound.

My parents again saw to it I had lots of exposure to classical music as a child; Prokofiev, Debussy, Saint-Saens and others.  I used to be able to hear a piece of classical music and name the time period it was from if not the composer.  Beethoven's 9th symphony on CD-ROM.

When I began to learn guitar and branched out into my own musical tastes I found I enjoyed bands like Live, the Smashing Pumpkins, and U2.

Awesome - I wouldn't have dropped the violin though, I've always wanted to be able to play it. I love the tone of a violin / fiddle in music and have almost bought a starter model 4 or 5 times. I also want to buy a proper Piano / Digital Keyboard - I don't really play I know enough to get around and to overdub parts in the studio but I'd love to have access to a really nice keyboard with the proper weighted keys.

Classical music is not my forte - I know it and enjoy it to an extent when I hear it. I had two years of band in school where it came down to - either going that route or following my influences and taste. I chose the latter - and my interest in music falls between about 1920 to Present Day in most genres.

I grew up with Nirvana and The Pumpkins, I loved Adore when it came out - I was 11 and it had a weirdness kind of like Marylin Manson without all the cheap horror. But I had been watching since 1979 and Tonight hit Much Music.

I love various hand percussion instruments - my friend as a didgeridoo, I have always been curious about miking it and adding some delay and distortion to the output.

Brixmis said:

Hey, I finally found which model that Ibanez was - an AFS-77T. Although I've seen it now referred to as an "Artcore" range guitar and it looks similar, I distinctly remember that it never said that on the guitar, in the ref info or the paperwork.

This is the only video I've been able to find of it in use:

https://youtu.be/h5lGYBr_BrE

also here:

https://reverb.com/uk/item/6504734-ibanez-artcore-afs77t-semi-hollow-electric-guitar-w-hardshell-case

even found a review:

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/reviews/electric_guitars/ibanez/artcore_afs77t/

I really miss that guitar and have been kicking myself regularly ever since I sold it (for £200 to a guy I was jamming with at the time - haven't seen him since he collected it!).

Man that sounds nice - really nice and round. I would have been hard pressed to sell that - but I have never sold a guitar so far. lol