Mr.Grumpy

"All generalizations are false, including this one."

My avatar.

For audio, a Mackie "Big Knob" interface; for MIDI, I just bought a Roland/Edirol "UM-1" , a typical USB dongle type with a the two MIDI plugs on the end of skinny wires. I was previously using a Roland UM-3, which has 3 sets of MIDI ins and outs, but it was very finicky to use with Reaper. It's not that I'm a big user of virtual synths or anything like that, but even a little control surface interface like the Korg NanoKontrol that I somethimes use to control Reaper is actually a USB/MIDI device. My SoundCanvas also uses USB to support two MIDI streams, so I suppose that counts as two MIDI devices. I've read that Windows 7 still has "MIDI mapper" buried in the system but it's parameters are not viewable or adjustable, so I had to download and install some "MIDI configurator" freeware. There seems to be a hard limit on the number or MIDI streams/connections that Reaper will support. I've been using Reaper for at least 3 years, and there's still TONS of stuff left for me to learn.

Relax, "random perma-bans" are only a figment of my over-active imagination. A sarcastic joke about this forum, similar to the old "Will the last person leaving Seattle please turn out the lights" type thing. I need want to buy a MIDI controller keyboard now so I can use my SoundCanvas module to make my own music instead of just listening to MIDI files recreationally. I have an old cheapo MIDI controller, I'm pretty sure I bought it at a computer store and not a music store. It's a Quickshot (brand) MIDI Composer, I think it's 49 keys with modulation and pitch bend wheels, 3 digit LED display, and some buttons that are supposed to do stuff. I've discovered that I can record MIDI data to my DAW (Reaper), but can't play the SoundCanvas in real time. And I can't figure out how to call up different patches via the MIDI controller. I've long since lost the manual for the MIDI Composer so I'm just completely lost. The only copies of the manual I can find are on one of those creepy "file sharing" sites. Looking at buying a 49 key controller from one of the big companies, it's about $230 and comes with a bunch of bundled software.

Yeah, I'm late to this party, but...remember these mini-strats are short scale, 10-46 strings will be very loose in my opinion. I bought my daughter one and put 11's on it. I haven't really noticed any issues with my daughter's mini, action is decent and the little thing is comfortable and fun to play. The short scale means bends and heavy hand vibrato is really easy compared to a standard-scale guitar.

It all depends on what speaker cabinet(s) you connect to this pedal-amp. It's a safe bet that the poweramp in the SuperBlock is a Class-D, they work fine, they're efficient and reliable and it's really the only way to get any kind of power into a pedal-sized amplifier. However, unlike a tube amp, a class-D amp has a hard limit on the amount of power they can put out, when you get to the 25 watt output, it will either clip (distort) in a very un-musical way, or the amp may have a limiter, or some amps go into "protect mode" and shut off until the power is cycled. Having said that, 25 watts can be loud enough for a band setting with an efficient speaker cabinet, like a 12" or even 2 x 12" open back cab. If you connect this thing to a tiny 8" closed back cab, you'll be disappointed. A twenty-five watt tube amp can be overdriven beyond it's rated power, but of course with power amp distortion which may or may not be desirable depending on the kind of music you're playing.

Who uses those anymore? I bought a later model Roland Sound Canvas module, an SC-8820. I've had a long "love affair" with the Sound Canvas 'cause way back in ancient times (the nineties) I bought a Sound Canvas "daughter board" that mated with a mulit-pin connector on my computer's sound card. This upgraded the MIDI sounds over the built in cheesy FM chipset the SoundBlaster cards used. This mattered back then because a lot of games used MIDI music. Over the years, Windows has been upgraded numerous times so that my soundcard is no longer supported, so no lovely SoundCanvas MIDI music unless I boot my computer into Windows XP. Stumbled across a Sound Canvas module for sale on my local Craigslist, took a while before I got around to purchasing due to a cash-flow problem, but I figure no one else would buy it, and I was right. The seller's emails were short and abrupt, and it seemed he wasn't experienced selling things on Craigslist. Once we agreed on a price, he just gave his home address and told me to come by (!). I showed up at his house, an old woman with a thick Russian accent in a housecoat answered and beckoned her husband. I asked him to demo the unit for me, which I then regretted because the old man moved slow and seemed to struggle with simple stuff like plugging in a USB cable. Turns out the old guy had a "mild stroke" an isn't able to play guitar anymore. I paid, thanked the man and left. I tested the unit out with it's MIDI input jack and my USB to MIDI interface. Then I was able to get the unit's USB interface to work on Windows 7 with a Windows Vista driver. I'm planning on getting a MIDI controller keyboard and using the Sound Canvas for drum and "standard" synth sounds for my home recording setup. I have to post pointless "content" like this to get my post/credibility rating to improve before I'm subject to a random perma-ban.

Did you confirm this with a volt meter? Is your polarity correct?

I got a notification that I'm a "posting machine" after making one post. Whee!

It's because this one is done tastefully, and is NOT "overdone" like 99% of "relic" jobs. It looks like natural wear vs. an instrument that's been assaulted by a belt sander.

More work was done than that...the midrange control was allegedly open and was replaced, as were several of the preamp tubes. It was in the dude's shop about six weeks, I wasn't in a hurry to get it back. Once I touched base with him again, he got my amp fixed within the week. Waaay back when, I posted pictures of the charred PCB, but I can't find my old post.

A typical issue with foreign-made budget guitars is that although they may look identical to the name brand guitar, often there are subtle differences in size and layout for stuff like pickguards. So your old MIM pickguard may or may not be a "drop in" installation. Very possible that the holes in the new pickguard won't line up with the old ones. You'll just have to try it and see.

I have some electronics skills, but decided this time I was better taking my amp to a pro. I'm glad I did. I believe I started a thread about it about a year or two ago. The amp in question was a Mesa Studio .22 caliber, a non-EQ model in ugly-ass dirty cream tolex. These amps have a known design issue because they use a 2 watt resistor for some kind of voltage step-down, and the resistor runs hot, so that given enough time it starts to cook & char the printed circuit board itself. I called Mesa and they were friendly, aware of the issue, and assured me "their guy" (the local Mesa Authorized tech for Dallas) would be able to fix my amp. Dropped my amp off at his shop near downtown in January I had to call the guy about a month later and ask where my amp was, but he was cool about it, and said he'd fix my amp and get it to the next week, and he did. Costs for his services was around two-hundred fifty ( I bought the amp for $400), but it works and sounds better than it did when I bought it. Very pleased I spent the money, it was well worth it.

NO.

I used part of my first stimulus check to buy a "cheap" fretless bass. A local mom & pop store had a Squier Jazz bass for the same price ($400) the big box music store sells it! Mine is a lined fretless with sunburst body and some kind of brown wood for the fingerboard. The build quality is excellent, I can't find any flaws in the fit or finish. Contrary to my expectations, the bass came with roundwounds, I played it that way for a week or so but then went and bought a set of flatwound strings - D'addario Chromes. My fretted basses have roundwounds, I wanted something different for this bass. First fretless, first Jazz Bass, first bass with flatwound strings. I LOVE playing it! The flatwound strings have a nice feel, my intonation seems reasonable if not perfect, and I dig blending the two single coil pickups, I finally get why these basses are so popular and well-loved.

Ah, the ol' "Marshall in a box" question. OD pedals alleged to have "Marshall-ish toanz" include: Zvex "Box of Rock" Catlainbread "Dirty Little Secret" Joyo "British Sound" Tech21/Sansamp "British" (out of production, apparently. The Joyo is thought to be a clone or close copy of the SansAmp) ...and probably any pedal with "British" or "Plexi" in it's name. I have no experience with any of these pedals, sooooo....good luck and happy toan chasing.

Cakewalk (now Sonar Cakewalk by BandLab or somthing....) used to have "instrument definition files" that would you could download from the internet and install them in Calkewalk, where your various hardware synths and their patches would be installed and integrated into the DAW's workflow.... I used to use Sonar and you could select instruments and patches from a drop down list in the MIDI tracks. I don't know if any other DAWs support instrument definition files, but I suspect not. Everything I read about them references Cakewalk, so they're the only one. It looks like you'll have to enter the data manually.

Traded my Squier Stagemaster for a S-U-B Axis, and now I regret it. The 'licensed by' Floyd trem on my Squier was pretty solid and reliable as I recall. The locking trem on the S-U-B seems to be a lot more finicky, and I've broken strings a few times. And the overall build quality and wood quality seems to be lacking in the S-U-B.

Here's mine, this has been my #1 guitar since January when I bought it. I got a couple of Guitar Center gift cards for Christmas and my birthday (my birthday's 10 days after Christmas), and saw this on GCs used inventory. I've wanted a guitar with a locking trem for a long time, and this was a cheap way to get one, only $120. Yes, it's a more recent made-in-China one, but it plays nicely. I really love the 'licensed by' Floyd trem, it's nice to be able to USE the trem and not have it knock the guitar out of tune. My only complaints are the volume pot is scratchy (I'll replace it someday), and the single coil pickups don't sound so great. I really prefer H-H guitars, with an S-S-H setup, the neck pickups are lower output (of course) but don't sound very "stratty" to me, I suppose they're ceramic pickups. No big deal, I play on the bridge humbucker 90% of the time anyway.

I'll post some pictures of the instrument in question when I figure out how to resize them... I guess my instrument does fit the formal definition of a sitar, but it's a shorter scale than other sitars I've seen, either in person or in photos. I think it only has 5 fretted strings, not six. And the gourd is cracked in the back, bummer. I'll get a tape measure so I can get a better idea of the scale and length too, but I'm guessing it's close to guitar scale, somewhere around 24 to 27 inches, and the total length of the instrument is about 3 feet long. This is the age of the internet and international shipping, I'm sure it's possible to get one shipped from India. Whether or not it arrives intact is a different question.

I was recently given an instrument that's basically a short-neck sitar. The person who gave it to me called it an 'Ourd' but goole doesn't know what that is. Like a sitar, it has a wide, hollow neck, a gourd body, and movable arched frets. I think it has 6 fretted strings and 12 drone strings. Sadly, the bridge is missing so it's a wall-hanger decoration. I would really like to have it playable again, but that means finding a new bridge and I don't think that will be easy.

I remember the Gibson TV commercial...it was kind of weird and campy. "Only a Gibson is good enough!" [video=youtube;0Jai7H_95As]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jai7H_95As

I've owned all three, but I keep gravitating back to the Strat. For me it's the most comfortable guitar to play. Exactly this.

I'm 'engineering' a home recording project for a friend of mine. We're using an ART firetube interface and recording on Sonar 7, but our PC is kind of low-end by today's standards: a 2 GHz Celeron () with 512 MB of RAM. Even so, we haven't had any substantial trouble or issues. I started out the recording projects at 88.2 kHz sample rate (16 bits), mostly as a "stress test" to make sure it wouldn't overload the bandwidth of the harddrive.... Things are working well so far, but we have only recorded 4 tracks at a time. I'm starting to think that the 88.2 sample rate is overkill. I do have a large-diaphragm condenser mic (don't ask what kind ) and some other decent stuff, but it's prosumer level at best. No sound treatment in the room either. And I had to buy an outboard audio interface just to mix the 88.2 stuff at home - most soundcards don't support the 88.2 samplerate. Of course, it also makes the sound files TWICE as large, which takes up more room on the HD, takes longer to load or transfer, and I'm sure it's more work for plugins to process on mixdown. Please share your thoughts on whether I should keep recording at 88.2 kHz or go to 44.2/16 bit for future projects. These recordings are intended to be released on LP, if that makes a difference. Thanks in advance...