Jump to content

I need some advice and tips from fellow crap guitar players


synkrotron

Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, John Bradley said:

It's punishment for not playing better.

Thanks for confirming that, John, and yes, punishment is due I guess :D

2 minutes ago, John Bradley said:

Yeah, I'm talking splitting the signal path into two amp+speaker combos within a single instance of your guitar processing vst of choice. I assume Guitar Rig can do that. If not you can always do it afterwards by duping the track and using a different amp in the copy.

I can do that by having the recording on one track and then two additional tracks with the amp sims on. The recorded track can have its route to the master buss turned off. I can then create a send each to each of the amp sim busses. I think I'd rather do it that way instead of within Guitar Rig.

I used to have TH2 but I think I may have lost my license to that because I had to ditch an e-mail address which was linked to it because it was compromised. But I'm thinking I could use FabFilter Saturn instead.

More food for thought, so, thanks :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, bayoubill said:

IMHO

Know what you want play way before you go into your DAW

If playing what you want to play is not up to par take some time and practice just what you want to play. If it takes a few days, so what, have fun getting it under your fingers

my point is know what you want to play before you try recording anything  and spend some time playing it a lot first

Hiya Bill,

I missed your post... Apologies for that.

I get what you are saying, though, because I want to hear my guitar WITH the effects I need to play through my DAW anyway.

I also create in front of my DAW, sad though it is to say. I've not always done that because we've not always had a DAW, but once you get used to being able to record parts and quickly copy or move them around your kinda hooked. I've never been one for writing stuff down either.

So what I do is play over and over and over, that practice you are talking about, and at some point I think, "that's enough," and I hit record. Sometimes I nail it, but most often tweaking is required. I just ain't that good, so practising and practising can become very tedious. But not as tedious as learning guitar from scratch, of course.

Timing is a funny, at least to my mind, because you'd think that at sixty I'd have certainly developed that particular skill, either on guitar or keyboard, or tapping a cardboard box even. I'm wondering if it is somehow related to a nervous issue...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, synkrotron said:

OMG mate! You've mentioned the melodyne word again!

But, seriously, thanks for you're input.

And as you have responded to this topic you have now been noted as a crap guitarist :D

I have done what you suggested a few times and it does work, except it kinda detracts from "playing in the moment" if you know what I mean. But, at the end of the day, I may have to bite the bullet and do exactly that.

Thanks, Mark :)

cheers

andy

After 38 years of playing, I certainly should be a lot better than I am !

Keys are my main instrument tho, everything else I get by on....

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Practice and Preamps.

Those are my 2 T's. Sound wise though... Buy a pre amp, it will warm up your signal before it hits Guitar sim. Give it a tube like sound..a soaring sound.

I use a Focusrite ISA ONE. Ive had/used a couple but the ISA ONE has been the keeper for me.

This is guitar rig (Dual Riff through an ISA ONE)

Edited by chuckebaby
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hiya @chuckebaby :)

1 minute ago, chuckebaby said:

Buy a pre amp

Is that ISA One preamp better than the preamps that come with the Roland OCTA-CAPTURE?

And what about the Roland MMP-2?

I have an MMP-2 so I'm wondering if I should be using that instead of using the OCTA-CAPTURE preamp.

I just don't know enough about stuff like preamps, other than most audio devices come with a couple built in, usually.

6 minutes ago, chuckebaby said:

Practice

Yeah, that's a problem... Been playing on and off for over forty years. I'm obviously better, technically, than I was when I started but still far short of were I would like to be. I'm not a pure guitarist so I may not pick it up for months at a time. I realise that even if I'm not incorporating it into current projects I should still pick it up for an hour or so every couple of days. At least that way my finger tips do go all soft on me...

cheers

andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not even good enough to be considered a crap guitar player.

Not helpful in itself, but hopefully this will make you feel better about yourself. A bit like when you have to spend an hour in a sketchy neighbourhood.

  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, synkrotron said:

Hiya Bill,

I missed your post... Apologies for that.

I get what you are saying, though, because I want to hear my guitar WITH the effects I need to play through my DAW anyway.

I also create in front of my DAW, sad though it is to say. I've not always done that because we've not always had a DAW, but once you get used to being able to record parts and quickly copy or move them around your kinda hooked. I've never been one for writing stuff down either.

So what I do is play over and over and over, that practice you are talking about, and at some point I think, "that's enough," and I hit record. Sometimes I nail it, but most often tweaking is required. I just ain't that good, so practising and practising can become very tedious. But not as tedious as learning guitar from scratch, of course.

Timing is a funny, at least to my mind, because you'd think that at sixty I'd have certainly developed that particular skill, either on guitar or keyboard, or tapping a cardboard box even. I'm wondering if it is somehow related to a nervous issue...

you're doing the right thing. The best way is what works for you. 

I usually go with whatever I played after I hit the record button. For me at least the first run through is usually the best . 

Edited by bayoubill
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, msmcleod said:

After 53 years of playing, I certainly should be a lot better than I am !

Keys are Bazz Am my main instrument tho, everything else I barely get by on....

^^ THIS!! ^^

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, craigb said:

Set a playback loop for a section of the song.  Set this wider than the the area you want to record in.  Then do loop recordings inside this playback loop, but (here's the trick), keep ALL the takes!  Go ahead and record 10 or 30 times.  It's amazing how you'll really get into the groove after a few tries and, not only can you use the best result, but sometimes combining two of them sounds awesome!

I'll never admit it but I do this, though I've been known to comp many portions of takes together into the ultimate take. If you do it well you won't rob the riff of its groove and no one will ever know, aside from the common knowledge of course that everyone does this these days. With guitars though I go for a Sabbathy groovy kind of tight as opposed to what I always refer to as the Dream Theater kind of tight, which is ultra precise and not my thing. I do the comp thing with bass too, and you might even say bass especially because that needs to lock in right w/ the beat so we don't have amateur hour. I'll record 15 or so takes and I'll comp together the best phrases of the different takes into a "perfect" take. If you're up to it that'll be the best way to take care of your timing issues. You'll be doing a lot of splitting, snipping, dragging and nudging and overlapping of audio clips and playing the Frankenstein take back to listen for any clicks/continuity issues from bad edits, and fixing those by the same methods. It's pretty d@mn tedious honestly, depending on how particular you are but that's the deal, short of being a super tight player whose performances don't require much editing.

The most tedious comping/timing work to create the most "perfect" take I've done to date was this heavily chorused baritone guitar lead that I recorded with a small clone chorus pedal on the vibrato setting. I set the pedal so the vibrato would be as close to sync to the song as possible but it's an analog pedal so it'd drift and I really busted my @ss to get the throbbing "weoo weoo weoo" of the vibrato to groovily sync just how and where I wanted it, but there's nothing in the box that truly emulates the small clone so it had to be done and it was a nightmare. 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like @John BradleyI also do the dual amp sim rig and always have. For me that comes from having a real dual amp rig before I started w/ amp sims a couple years ago. It's a bit involved but I'm sure John and I can explain how it's done if you or anyone else wanted to run a dual amp sim rig. I actually take it further and I split my signal at the hardware level first so that I have two separate signals going into the daw, each getting its own dual amp sim rig. Yeah. If you do that it's import that you take care to split your signal properly at the hardware level (no y-cables). 

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you very much for your input here @Christian Jones :)

I got three takes done for the bass last night so I've been busy doing that and trying to get it tight to the MIDI drums, which are quantised.

So some of the things you mention like "tedious" is really resonating with me right now haha! And that was only with three takes.

No wonder pop songs are only three and a half minutes long!

Fortunately I think I was able to get one half decent (for me) bass line out of the three takes. I'm not familiar with "comp'ing," the way it is supposed to be done, so I did it the way which suited me.

All three takes were on one track.

I exploded those takes onto separate tracks and then deleted the original takes from the first track. So now I have one empty track, for the selected clips, and a track for each take.

I then listened to each track on its own making notes of where duff or missed notes or anything I didn't like. REAPER now has Take/Item Markers which happens to be great for this purpose. I'm no longer up to speed with CbB so not sure if you can do the same thing.

Once that was done I could see all those marks which helped me to decide which parts to use. I split each item, usually on the start of a bar so that I was moving large chunks of clips up to the main bass track.

Once that was done I then had to fix all the timing issues. For this task I manually placed stretch markers and dragged them, with snap on, to the beat. I have snap set to 1/8th notes.

That must have taken me well over four hours, from recording the takes to finishing the timing problems. So, yeah, tedious...

On to the guitar parts next... I'll probably be back here some time tomorrow :(

cheers

andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, craigb said:

It's worth it Andy!  Chin up!  😉

I hope so, Craig :)

I managed to fix the guitar timing issues much quicker than the bass guitar.

I think that is due, in part, to the bass part having more transients than strummed guitar parts. Makes sense.

So I've sent the project, as it stands, off to my lad and he is hopefully going to come up with some new drum parts.

In the meantime I suppose I should have a go at some guitar melody stuff, and probably some choir samples... Maybe...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wouldn't know,  since I don't have any truly crappy guitars.🤣

 

Seriously, though,  you ain't gonna want to hear this but the best solution to your timing (or any other skill) issues is practice.  Build your skills and they're YOURS. Forever.

 

True, you have to maintain them, or they diminish.  But once you've had them, they're much easier to get back.

Oh, but that's so much  WORK! And takes so much time! Yeah, but so is dicking around fixing stuff when it could have just been played right to begin with.

 

Tone? Two words: Dimebag Darrell. His tone sucked,  IMO, but his playing was Phenomenal.

 

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, bdickens said:

you ain't gonna want to hear this but the best solution to your timing (or any other skill) issues is practice

correct :)

I've been practising for over forty years.

As much as the experts think that anyone can do anything with practice they are plain wrong. Timing is something I have never been able to master. Might be a neurological thing.

Sorry.

But thanks for your input.

 

3 hours ago, bdickens said:

I wouldn't know,  since I don't have any truly crappy guitars.

This is my little guitar collection:-

myguitars.jpg

Way beyond my skill level, that's for sure, but they look real nice hanging on the wall bracket :)

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...