Will Chen

Originally Posted by Moustache_Bash What's up with the old ones? http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/msg/3138890238.html Completely different amp I believe. Check it out and let us know... http://www.voxshowroom.com/us/amp/path.html

I used to be a very active member here. This used to be a cool place. Now I pop in once maybe twice a week just to see what's going on and its the same group of trolls dominating everything. Time to blow it up, tear it down, and rebuild...

While its certainly true that the more mass a string has the greater potential for a "thicker" tone, IMHO that should be that should be about the last thing you do to change your tone as a typical guitar rig has multiple points of EQ adjustment available. The only way to get comfortable on a larger string gauge is to practice. No shortcuts. You should choose string gauge primarily based on feel IMHO. I like to feel a certain tension, when I was younger and played all day and gigged all the time I played 11s, these days with less play time to get the same feel I used to get when my hands were much stringer, I use 10s. I imagine when I get even older, I'll use 9's.

There are a couple different stories. I believe he actually started on a cigar box guitar pretty young. I think it was in the liner notes to the Jimi Hendrix Blues Album...

Very cool guitar! Very uncool price!

Sorry for being so non specific guys....my bad. Just asking for a bang for the buck kinda thing. Super high gain isn't my style......heaviest being maybe some VH, AC/DC, Sabbath, 'Electric' -era Cult. Like a decent clean channel too.....I use the neck pickup exclusively when I play clean, and I pick mostly with my fingers. How do the cleans/od match up in my price range? Can the HT5 match the cleans on the VOX vt30? Can the VOX match up to the Blackstar on the gain side? Spiderjam? Is Line6 stuff really that bad? Might be my loss, but I just don't like Peavey. Jet City 20W 1/2 stack? How well does the HT5 take effects(just a cheap multi-unit)? I'll be heading out there in 2 hours, so any thing good or bad to say about amps in the $500 range, I'd love to hear them. Looking at just jamming at home and based on your tastes. If you gotta go tube, check out the Vox AC4TV and w/ a nice od pedal. HT5 sounds great overdriven but the clean tones left me wanting (though I haven't spent extensive time with it). If you're open to solid state look into one of the lower powered Peavey Transtube combos or the Tech 21 Trademark 60. If you need the versatility of a modeling amp, I like the Peavey Vypyr line and the older blue Vox modeling amps (the newer ones just don't sound the same to me). I specifically don't like the Line 6 Spider series, but the Spider valve sounds pretty darn good, but likely over kill in the volume department for home playing.

Bring it to a shop and have it set up correctly.

For all the glory of and simplicity of the guitar straight to Marshall goodness, Malcolm reported used Amplitube 2 on 2 tracks of Black Ice... http://www.ikmultimedia.com/amplitube/testimonials/NewsDisplay.php?Id=1994 That being said, can't wait to see them in all their glory on Nov 2 in Dallas!

I've been picking up some small pieces here and there taking advantage of sales, the Live.com cash back, and used bargains. If you've got the dough, great deals abound.

Texas seems to be less impacted than much of the rest of the country. Home values have shown a slight decline, but nothing like the horror stories I've heard on both coasts. Honestly, those hit hardest by this recession with regards to home foreclosures are those who bought way more house than they should have and put little to no money down. We refinanced out of a 30-year into an 5-1 ARM after a year in our house, but continued paying at the previous mortgage level with all the overage going to principal. We just recently refinanced into a new 30-year. We had enough equity that our payment only increased $20 a month and if we sell even for less than the market rate, we would still have enough for a down payment on another place. With regards to tickets to sporting events. The majority are priced towards the upper middle and upper income brackets where people can afford to spend even in a bad economy. I'm a huge basketball fan but can count the number of games I've bought tickets for on one hand. I just find it difficult to justify the expense. When the gas price sky-rocketed over the past few months, we definitely had to be a little more conservative with our spending to ensure we continued to save 10% of our income. Now that prices have fallen, I'm going to try to continue our thriftier mindset...

I've spent months messing with settings trying to get the tone and distortion to sound respectably similar to any current metal/rock band but can't seem to get it sounding great. It either sounds muddy or like I recorded it with a cheap mic in a garage. Are there any effects I should have on or any tips on messing with things to get a decent sound? I will take the contrarian view of most here. And here's why, current metal/rock is almost never a single guitar track miced with a single mic. Typically you're hearing at least a very tightly doubled guitar part panned hard left and right which is probably played on 2 different amps or different settings on the same amp. Additionally, you're hearing tracks fly in an out to accent different parts during different sections of the song. There is a ton of studio trickery used to get the guitar sounds you typically hear on the radio. You can get a great tone with a modeled/solid state preamp. Dimebag used a solid state Randall for years and was the envy of the metal world. For an example of what you can do metal wise recording direct with an RP350 when you know what you're doing, check out the the sound community on the digitech home page and look for the "MetalHead Patch demo" or "Going BIG and FAATTT with the distortion" in the RP350 forum by DragonLips...

Originally posted by pezguy Correction; many VST plugs can be run on PT with the use of FXpansions VST to RTAS wrapper. TDM and RTAS cannot be conversely run on native systems using VST. I stand corrected! Originally posted by Merc Zach ... in LA people expect to be able to bring a PT's session and open everything up. So in that respect PT's is the only DAW that's going to work. I believe OMF has done away with the inability of opening raw tracks between several DAW's...hopefully the future spec will be able to support some enhanced functionality as well...

Pro Tools is probably more overexposed than overrated: like how everybody in the south used to refer to all soft drinks as "Coke", or how digital video recording is generically called "TIVO". Due to an early market dominance, Pro Tools is synonymous to digital audio workstation in the layman's world therefore it is given value which has nothing to do with the quality of the product. There are some cool Protools TDM plugs which are not available to DirectX/VST users which some may find appealing, however the opposite situation is true as well. I would say the best for anyone starting out is the cheapest VST compatible app you can find due to the plethora of free plugs. From there, it's all about taste and the perceived value of each company's bundled packages...

Taste is subjective. Trust your ears.

Originally posted by wooden I wanted to like sonar when i saw the specs of the newest version, i wanted to seize the upgrade from the included sonar with my emu 1616m, but i didnt really like the interface, and that is the main factor for me... but speaking about features it is incredible. Just for the sake of discussion, what about the interface boithered you? Being a long time Cakewalk guy, I guess I'm used to where things are laid out. I played around with CUBASE prior to going the SONAR route and ended up going to SONAR because the interface is more or less the same but SONAR was more affordable, backwards compatible, with older projects I'd been working on, and had a better bundle.

Originally posted by gsHarmony I also love Sonar, but the native VST support is debatable. There are some really pissed off people over at the sonar forums. Their "Native support" really just means integrating the VST adapter into Sonar. I'e heard this but haven't run into any issues as of yet. Appears to funtion fine for me. I was a Pro Audio user and used the early versions of the wrapper and things run a ton more smooth now than then (such as preset integrity and interface continuity).

SONAR is great. Cakewalk has a long history of DAW development which shows in the flexibility of their products. The newest versions come with a 64 bit version making them forward compatible once that is the norm. Native VST support is great in the new version as well opening up some great free plugs as options. Based on their license, no selling used and installed on 1 PC at a time. One thing to consider if you decide to use it long term despite the license prohibition, you will not be eligible for customer support (which I've only used once over the course of around 8 years of use of their products, this speaks to the quality of their products) nor their loyalty upgrade discounts (which I've used 3 times saving a good deal of money).

Originally posted by Shangrila17 ...From looking at Rainrecording,Sweetwater,Carillion,ADKProAudio,PcAudioLabs, and many others. All of them jack the prices of the components up.And none of them offer many different choices in the first place. Here's an example and I've said it before. At PcAudioLabs unless you pick an AMD FX or Opteron they only give you a choice between two motherboards 1 Asus and 1 Soltek. and only the soltek has firewire.So if you want firewire you only have one to choose from.That's not a choice. All those damn companys act like their selling the only components that work good for music. I don't want to buy the components from them is basically what I'm saying. I'll pay them to build it.And to do all the tweaking,and for tech support and any other service they may offer warrentys and factory restore disks and sh#$. I love the services that music computer companys offer But I ain't gonna buy their components cause the prices and selection is bullsh#$. ...From looking at Fender, Gibson, PRS, Ibanez, and many others. All of them jack the prices of the wood and none of them offer many different choices in the first place. Here's an example and I've said it before. At Fender unless you pay for a higher price Tele they only give you a choice of Alder. And only the Thinline is ash. That's not a choice. All those damn companys act like their selling the only instruments that work good for music. I don't want to buy the wood from them is basically what I'm saying. I'll pay them to build it. And to do all the finishing, and for set up and any other service they may offer warrentys. I love the services that guitar companys offer But I ain't gonna buy their wood cause the prices and selection is bullsh#$. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by fuzzball I think he meant in general use, remember he is just learning how to use the compressor. I maybe in the minority in this view, but I think if you can't hear it at all when approaching on a track by track basis, you might be fooling yourself into thinking it is necessary. It is an effect, and like all effects should be used to get the sound you want. Infinity to 1 wouldn't be there if nobody had a use for it For example, a great many singers (even the good ones) require a fair amount of compression to even out the dynamics of a performance. Sure you could ride the fader, but on some singers(especially the raspier types) a little squash just sounds good. Same with snare, man I love the smack of a hot snare to tape and I try to recreate it by smashing with compression all the time. On a bass track with a few less than perfect attacks in an otherwise good take. You can hear the effects of compression in all of the above samples, which I would consider pretty run of the mill usage. The goal is for it not to be obvious to the audience (unless you want it to be). Lately there's been a lot of talk of preserving the dynamics of a mix, but honestly I don't hear much modern songwriting which incorporates any type of dynamic structure (other than 100% on) and you can't preserve something that's not there to begin with...

Originally posted by soundchaser59 Yes, individual tracks! One reason compression is so hard to learn is because if you can hear it, it's too much. Not always so...I love smashing the crap out of a snare sometimes to try and fake the sound of a super hot snare to tape. I've also found cases where compressing a bass or an entire kit to the point of pumping can be a very interesting effect...

Originally posted by seaneldon my advice is to learn what all the knobs mean, exactly what they do, and how one effects the other. then it'll come semi-naturally. +1 Highly recommend purchasing a book on general recording and mixing. I still occasionally refer back to one I bought nearly 10 years ago. There are many schools of thought that come into and out of vogue as tastes change. Once you learn the basics, you'll be able to make an educated decision on what works best for you...