Jump to content

$29 🎸 Guitar Pro 8


daveiv

Recommended Posts

17 hours ago, daveiv said:

What VIs do you use in Reaper to trigger from Guitar Pro MIDI?

I haven't tried exporting a GP file to MIDI. I just checked, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of control (type 0 vs type 1, individual MIDI channel assignments per instrument, etc).

I just found this video on YT, so I'll have to give it a watch after taking my niece out for her birthday lunch today.

 

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

4 hours ago, John Maar said:

640 KB seemed like a LOT back then. My first personal computer was a home-built S100-buss box with a Z80 CPU card and two (count them, 2) 8K by 8 RAM cards for a total of a whopping 16K. Each RAM card cost me about $500. I had a Tiny BASIC 3K ROM, but mostly I programmed in assembler. My external storage was on a cassette. No floppy. No hard drive. ADM3 TTY terminal. But I had a personal computer! I eventually upped the RAM and added twin double-density, double-sided 8" floppies (which I had to write the driver for myself). Ran CP/M great.

My first DOS computer had an 8088, ran CP/M and CP/M86 and DOS. It was a Heathkit that came with 192K of RAM. It had a great color display controller that DOS2 on an IBM PC couldn't match. Spent the bucks and maxed out the RAM to 640K. Twin floppies and a small hard drive. Used it for years.

My new phone, a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 (bought for my birthday last month) has 512 GB of storage and 8 GB of RAM, and cost way less than my first S100-buss computer. And that's not accounting for inflation!

My, oh my!

Happy birthday!

I love reading about old computer stories. Mine only go back to the late 90s... I could happily make songs with softsynths and samples on my Pentium.

What were your first computers you used to sequence MIDI, and do hard disk recording?

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, daveiv said:

Happy birthday!

I love reading about old computer stories. Mine only go back to the late 90s... I could happily make songs with softsynths and samples on my Pentium.

What were your first computers you used to sequence MIDI, and do hard disk recording?

@John Maar and I must be of similar vintage.  My first entry into "programming" was a Sinclair programmable calculator in college, and that got me hooked.  First real computer was an OSI Superboard (6502 based).  Only used cassette for data storage.  CPM and floppy drives were out of my price range :)Remember wire-wrapping?  I designed and built a RAM expansion and a simple  synth for the OSI.  Synth was based on a TI chip- don't recall the part#.  Sure wish I still had that.  Years later I bought one (sans customizations)  at a flea market as a keepsake.  My first foray into MIDI on a PC was the Amiga.  I started doing some simple programming to make use of it, but commercial products soon appeared and I didn't feel like reinventing the wheel.  I never got into sampling or non-oxide based recording in the early days.  I just could not justify the $$$$ for those huge cards full of RAM chips.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, daveiv said:

I love reading about old computer stories. Mine only go back to the late 90s... I could happily make songs with softsynths and samples on my Pentium.

What were your first computers you used to sequence MIDI, and do hard disk recording?

The first computer I used for sequencing was an Atari 520ST. I actually wrote a sequencer in Modula 2 to drive a DX21 via MIDI because no commercial sofware was available at the time. The 520ST had a whopping 512K of memory. I brought it up to 1M by soldering another 512K memory chip on top of the original 512K chip except for one pin which I had to route to the motherboard for a control line. 

Before the 520ST, I owned an Atari 400 with a total of 8K of memory. Those were the days.

It is surreal to hear that someone thinks 32GB is a modest amount of memory. Like others here, I have yet to come close to maximizing the use of my 32 GB of memory. 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, daveiv said:

Happy birthday!

I love reading about old computer stories. Mine only go back to the late 90s... I could happily make songs with softsynths and samples on my Pentium.

What were your first computers you used to sequence MIDI, and do hard disk recording?

My first computer programming experience was on an IBM mainframe that was housed in its own building at U.W.-Madison in 1974. There was a room full of keypunch machines. Each card was one line of code. We used Ditran (Diagnostic Fortran). You'd write your little program (e.g., a bubble sorter), submit the card deck to the computer gods on the other side of the glass room that housed the mainframe, and come back in an hour or three or the next morning to get your printout and card deck back, only to find out that you'd made a typo on one card, and had to go through the whole process again.

My first professional computer programming was on a DEC PDP 8e (the last model with a wire-wrapped motherboard instead of the newer PCB motherboards). It had 32K x 12 of core memory (non-volatile) on 4 8K x 12 cards. You had to load the bootup program via paddle switches on the front (12-bit octal (which suuuuuuucks)). Storage was on a 1 MB 14-inch unsealed platter. It used the TED line-based text editor for programming and had a 3-pass paper tape assembly language compiler. I used it to write control programs for the Neutrino beam line at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in '78-'79, before I went to work for Amoco Oil. It was my first job out of college.

I got so wrapped up in work and had a heavily progressive travel schedule, that my music life was relegated to listening. My last 15 years of work was at Motorola. I was laid off at 54 when the original Motorola dissolved, which probably saved my life. I spent the final 8 years in the consulting group in Motorola University, finishing with managing the consulting business in Asia and Europe. I was spending 200+ nights a year sleeping in hotels and another 40+ sleeping on airplanes. I spent my severance package playing golf 4+ days a week for 9 months in Scottsdale. I got completely bored with that, bought a master blaster Sony VIAO PC and got into music production. That was around 2006, so I'm a late-comer to the MIDI world, even though I've been programming since the mid '70s.

Edited by John Maar
  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, John Maar said:

I was spending 200+ nights a year sleeping in hotels and another 40+ sleeping on airplanes. I spent my severance package playing golf 4+ days a week for 9 months in ...

How do you view life now?

What advice would you give us?

I just watched a Short on YT about how Travolta's wise young 10 yo son told him if he felt he had 30 more years to live, he said yes, son says there you have it, enjoy it muthafkca 🤗

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@daveiv This may prove to be the best $29 I spent on a program in quite a long time. Thank you for posting this.

I am finally getting some time to dig into this gem. And after a few hours with it I realized that I should have done this a long long time ago. 

Working on a song I have already written, just to get myself familiar with the features and establish some kind of work flow, I am finding that it is a lot easier to do this than I thought it would be. Took me a little while to get going, and after one you tube video (importing a audio file (that's a killer feature!) ) I have got the strumming and picking down on the tabs just like I am playing it!!! All the little nuances and all!! That has me flipping out!! This is just a little three chord deal, but I got the tab playing in perfect sync with the audio file!! WHAT DA >>>!!!

What I did was put the chords in trk 1. On trk 2 I have the picking. Trk #2 is where I really started to see some of the potential of this program. This program makes it really easy to do a trial and error type workflow, which works really well for me. (I can see myself humming a idea and getting it down relatively easy.) I put the notes I know I play on the tab. But it was really stiff and not flowing. So I imported a audio file of the song I have, lined it up and got it in sync (it ain't hard at all!) and then was able to get the tab/notation exactly like I play it!! I was freaking out!! Really!! I never thought this would be possible. But it is, and it ain't that hard. 

There is a learning curve to be sure. But it's really not that steep. I still have a lot to learn, but I can only see this getting better. And better! I really can see that my whole work-flow for writing and recording just changed tonight.

At $29, if your a guitar player, and write your own stuff, this is no-brainer deal!!

  • Like 6
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Last Call said:

How do you view life now?

What advice would you give us?

I just watched a Short on YT about how Travolta's wise young 10 yo son told him if he felt he had 30 more years to live, he said yes, son says there you have it, enjoy it muthafkca 🤗

Not sure I'm one to give life advice. I suffered a TBI in September 1965. American football. Been living with PTSD-like symptoms ever since. 0 for 3 on wives. 0 for my adult life on relationships. I'm lucky my dogs love me. I managed a great career, which I feel proud of. If I can offer any advice at all, it's to not let your job consume you. When you leave work, leave the work behind. Forget about it. Really enjoy the time you've got with your friends and family. Once a moment has passed, it's gone for good. Be joyful. Smile. Be kind to those around you. Love your neighbor as you do yourself, regardless of their color, gender, who they sleep with or who they pray to.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Grem said:

@daveiv This may prove to be the best $29 I spent on a program in quite a long time. Thank you for posting this.

I am finally getting some time to dig into this gem. And after a few hours with it I realized that I should have done this a long long time ago. 

Working on a song I have already written, just to get myself familiar with the features and establish some kind of work flow, I am finding that it is a lot easier to do this than I thought it would be. Took me a little while to get going, and after one you tube video (importing a audio file (that's a killer feature!) ) I have got the strumming and picking down on the tabs just like I am playing it!!! All the little nuances and all!! That has me flipping out!! This is just a little three chord deal, but I got the tab playing in perfect sync with the audio file!! WHAT DA >>>!!!

What I did was put the chords in trk 1. On trk 2 I have the picking. Trk #2 is where I really started to see some of the potential of this program. This program makes it really easy to do a trial and error type workflow, which works really well for me. (I can see myself humming a idea and getting it down relatively easy.) I put the notes I know I play on the tab. But it was really stiff and not flowing. So I imported a audio file of the song I have, lined it up and got it in sync (it ain't hard at all!) and then was able to get the tab/notation exactly like I play it!! I was freaking out!! Really!! I never thought this would be possible. But it is, and it ain't that hard. 

There is a learning curve to be sure. But it's really not that steep. I still have a lot to learn, but I can only see this getting better. And better! I really can see that my whole work-flow for writing and recording just changed tonight.

At $29, if your a guitar player, and write your own stuff, this is no-brainer deal!!

Glad to hear it worked out well for you. I'm looking forward to the next sale to grab my copy. :D

How do you plan to use Guitar Pro for your next songwriting session? Like, coming up with a riff or something, and then write it down in Guitar Pro immediately.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, daveiv said:

How do you plan to use Guitar Pro for your next songwriting session? Like, coming up with a riff or something, and then write it down in Guitar Pro immediately.

That's still to be worked out. But I do see myself sitting there, (maybe even using the mobile app) to get an idea down fast. And as I do this the first few times I will fall into some kind of method to the madness! That's my hope anyway.

Still learning the UI. Working on the strumming of that song I was using. That's a little more difficult to do because of my playing style and my lack of knowledge at the moment. But as I said earlier, with this program it makes things much more simple than I have imagined it would be. The problem now is me getting enough time to get over this gentle learning curve.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/22/2022 at 12:32 AM, John Maar said:

Not sure I'm one to give life advice. I suffered a TBI in September 1965. American football. Been living with PTSD-like symptoms ever since. 0 for 3 on wives. 0 for my adult life on relationships. I'm lucky my dogs love me. I managed a great career, which I feel proud of. If I can offer any advice at all, it's to not let your job consume you. When you leave work, leave the work behind. Forget about it. Really enjoy the time you've got with your friends and family. Once a moment has passed, it's gone for good. Be joyful. Smile. Be kind to those around you. Love your neighbor as you do yourself, regardless of their color, gender, who they sleep with or who they pray to.

Thanks for opening up. Is always helpful to have insight of oldER people. And from not so young too (just watched a video of Paddy baddy or aomething like that, taught some marines some jujitsu, then opened up about he cried every day for an hour when he woke up for a very long time, until he started talking about how he felt, even if not related to what made him cry, he didn't know btw, and said one day he finally stopped crying).

Edited by Last Call
Typos omg
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/18/2022 at 3:33 AM, daveiv said:

Why you guys settled for only 32 GB of RAM, while everything else is maxed out?

I was doing a little test to see what my idle ram use was. After leaving the computer sit with nothing running (IOW, no programs opened) ram usage was around 7gb according to Task Manager.

So I started up Cakewalk and  loaded a song I am working on that's in the mixing stage. Ram use was around 11gb. Now the processor use went up as I have lots of plugins and some synths. But nothing with huge libs.

  • Like 1
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...