Gswitz

I love using then with the ashtray on. If you have one, I recommend trying it.

Fat Freddy of the Fabulous Furry Freaks?

Once the gulf stream stops, I'm guessing the UK will cool right down.

I can record with a laptop or my desktop. It's not the same as the daw, but kinda a fun challenge. I'm sorry for your troubs, btw. Buying parts that may or may not do the job is a gamble I don't love taking. I also hate reinstalling everything. I'm surprised sometimes at how little I've come to care about many of the things that are part of my install routine. But it is nice to have a computer that has everything you might want... including that cool 32 bit plugin from way back when.

20,000 hertz is one I like.

I have people I care about with Dementia. I play lumosity with them. It's kinda just fun for me on my own, but a little fun for us together... something to talk about. Anyway, there is a game on there that gives you 2 finger rhythm patterns in 2 measures. Usually at about 90 BPM but it varies as you get to the harder levels. I don't know why I'm such a spaz, but some of them are really hard for me. I'm getting close to opening up all the levels. The patterns seem randomized but are level appropriate. You don't see the same exact pattern very often. It measures your accuracy on the beat and percentage of missed beats. It includes triplets etc, but not really flams. The durations are like 45 seconds maybe? You don't get a lot of time to get it right. So this brought me to a question... are there a lot of games like this? I really think it's cool practicing rhythms and getting rated on it. I enjoy it.

I've got 13 more years until retirement (unless it comes unexpectedly). I understand the years go faster and faster. Sometimes, I have trouble imagining making it.

Maybe. Good chefs do tend to have nicely stocked kitchens. No two the same.

I'm a total mess. I've been sick for a month. 6 Covid tests. All Negative. Chest XRay... not TB, Cancer, Pneumonia. I'm sick and can't get well!!

Planes aren't so much my thing. I'll take a flight when I have to, but it's not my fav. A few hours on a train with a friend is right up my alley. I love the feeling of it. Lots of happy memories. And NYC, car-less, when you start downtown, is a good time.

I'd take a train to NYC and go hear some local talent.

Just because you would do it for free doesn't mean you shouldn't charge. Charging gets lots of positive outcomes, like respect and people showing up on time. As a child, charging the neighbor to mow his grass seemed somehow wrong, but as an adult, I see he would have been fine with me charging anything appropriate and doing the work. You have a skill that is worthy of being compensated. At the same time, you have a hobby you love. Don't price out anyone you love working with. Maybe forgive charges. Be generous. But make it clear that your time has value too. I recently had a friend really shop working with me... like was it worth his time to come play guitar for an hour. He has since scheduled twice to come record and been a no-show both times. I'm pretty sure if I charged something appropriate I wouldn't have to deal with that, either b/c he'd show or wouldn't book. You deserve respect as an artist too. Your time is valuable too. I sound tough, but I'm a weeny. I don't normally charge anything and I get treated like a hero by some and crap by others. I have been mentioned in liner notes on a few records. That's my big claim to fame. And I have many hundreds of albums as examples of my work. Live field recordings. Home studio stuff. The gambit. Actually, the trick for me is finding people I want to hang with in my space. They tend to come and go like friends. The band you are working with displaces the others you might work with. And like friends, when they band moves on, a hole is left. It can take time to fill the hole with whomever is next, but that's part of the journey too.

Ain't got no house in Westchester No fresh ground cold brew No high plate of becan Ain't got Nothing but the blues No fresh strings to wind Play Am at 425 Covid vaccine made me pregnant Cant see outa my good eye My shoes are split My blue tubes crackle My stop lights don't matter Can't afford gas. And I'm a terrible poet.

Thanks folks!

I do the obvious and open the file explorer and re-name them. I'm just wondering why it is that way. There is probably some convenience I'm not understanding.

I know I'm probably way behind the times, I'm just curious.

I totally thought you were going to say 'I know it's in one of these bags somewhere!' and have us try to guess which bag of stuff you left it in. That's usually me looking for a midi cable.

So there could be lots of reasons, so it's a little hard to trouble shoot. Some synths don't make sounds in certain note ranges. Like a bass synth might only go so high and piccolo only go so low. Different synths sustain differently. Some slowly fade the tone and some keep it playing indefinitely until the note-off event. For your synth of choice, open piano roll view and click the notes on the piano to hear the ranges that make sounds. Then note the ranges of the notes in your piece.

Yeah, given that you have Melodyne et al and you are not interested in real-time music creation, there's no need for you to have the Roland. I like being able to hear the synths... play on them... play with them. Sometimes I run it through the computer and sometimes I just play with the roland into my amp. I tend to run 1 guitar cable into one amp input and the roland into the other. I use 2 cables to the guitar. I never liked the guitar sound going through the Roland myself.

James, I'm sorry man. I really love playing with the synths on. I find it a great experience although not the same as playing without them. For guitar freedom, there is nothing like a guitar plugged into a tube amp. Still, the sounds you can get from synths are just so cool. I love listening to them as I play.

It's not just slides, pull-offs, bends, hammer-ons that are chancy with midi. Guitars are just played differently. Like you can play the same E on 2 strings. Midi really doesn't handle well 2 Es of the same pitch played differently bending in and out of tune by a few cents. Also, Synths work around attack sustain decay... Guitars are rhythm instruments. As you repeatedly strum a chord or pick a string you keep resetting the attach sustain decay circle. The synth sound may be blocked from blooming over a chord because you keep re-hitting the chord. Playing a midi guitar improved my playing. It let me know when I lift a finger off the Low E-string F note and the E sounds. On the guitar, it's not enough to really notice, but the midi makes it stand out. So you get better at not hitting notes by accident. There are a lot of expressive things you can do on a guitar without midi that you cannot do with midi, but likewise, there are lots of expressive things you can do with mid that you cannot do without midi. 🙂

If you don't mind just converting afterwards, you can use tools like melodyne to convert any audio file and get a midi track. The track above was not done with Melodyne. It was done with a GK3 pickup and a GR-20 - Roland. I send the midi from the roland into my interface and feed it to Rapture and Z3ta. So this track has TH-U, bass from the GR20 and then Rapture and Zeta sounds. Slides and pull-offs are often missed by the midi conversion but are managed pretty well by the GR20. The GR20 does a much better job with the input from the GK3 than the midi it creates from the same data. HTH.

Congrats on the booking!

The recording made in space was made with Cakewalk. https://news.yahoo.com/news/space-guitar-hero-astronaut-record-cosmic-music-orbit-134801875.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

New computers are kinda fun but a bit of a distraction. If there are things you want to be able to do but cannot, or you have limited time to mix and waiting on bounces is eating into your time, then sure. As far as laptops are concerned, I use old cast-offs. If you jack up the buffer, they work fine for just using them as tape recorders. Even really old ones. I mix on a desktop b/c it's faster.