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Awesome idea for a thread :)

Vaunt wait to share my ideas and hear from my fellow musicians, hopefully that can help me expand my musical knowledge you I can do the same for them.

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I play guitar only and sing I have an acoustic two electrics and one classical and a shirt little amp which I am looking to trade in for a better one that suits my needs a little more... I've written a few songs but im never truly happy with them. Any one able to share some song writing technics?

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nice topic :)

i have a cheap bass, modeled on fender p-bass, does the job for a cheapy, black/gold les paul custom, a cheap floyd rose super strat, a short scale semi acoustic and a full scale acoustic guitar. i did have a schecter 8 string, but had to (unfortunately) part ways as i needed a little money in recent times, as well as a big ugly sounding line 6 amp i had. i also have flutes, recorders, a keyboard / synth. for recording purposes, i use pre-vista audacity, i find other programs far too complicated, although i export .WAVs to acoustica mixcraft for mixing. i have a line6 poid studio ux2, with instrument, digital and microphone inputs (a few pre-amps available for microphone use) on one pc and a line 6 pod studio gx on the another a few meters away, both units allow decent live monitoring so i can record up to 3 instruments / 1 instrument 2 micropohones or any other combination so that i can do somewhat dodgy, garage quality live recordings of me and someone else over a drum machine or something for fun runken creation sessions.

i can't quite work out any of the fruity loops, reason, ableton type programs so i am really limited as to what i can do with electronic music, i can work out basic sounding shit, but there are so many things that confuse me about the program that i can never get anything anywhere near finished. i think i need to sit down week in the near future and thoroughly watch a few tutorial videos or something...

also iam far less busy at the moment than i have been the rest f the year psylo if you want to have another crack at a collab, maybe i can add something to something, between PC crashes i dont thing i now have the old projects i was doing a bit on of yours, but, we can work on something else if you want.

dio

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If I was recording a lot of live instruments I wouldn't waste time dicking around with Reason, get Ableton Live and you can still use Reason as a plug in or rewire.

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fine, do things the hard way lol

if you ever do upgrade, be sure to have a bash at the live demo before buying another version of reason

i would love to participate more in music making threads, but am not comfortable uploading tracks

Edited by chilli

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Maybe we should create a Sab band xD

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Not the hard way, for my intentions & interest. Reason 4.0 is my pimary 'instrument' of choice in this hobby. I prefer this approach, and it's rare for me to record live instruments. And for those occasions that I might want to do so, the DAW plugin serves me fine. Any keyboards/piano etc I can use my controller directly through Reason 4.0

But you are correct in that if others were recording live instruments, another software module would be appropriate than Reason 4.0. Of course this is all irrelevent because later versions of reason do have recording capabilities, so it would be an excellent choice.

I confused myself a little bit with this response. :wacko:

What do you play/use/do with music, Chilli ? Tell us your story.

 

I used Reason in a similar way, but then I found I could get better results quicker with other tools. I usually want to get an idea down quickly before I get distracted and it morphs into something else. I find everything comes out of reason sounding similar: mechanical, muddy and boxy. But it is great and fun program, it's just I use it more as a glorified plugin now (when I do music, which is rarely atm)

I just like the immediacy of Live, it allows me to get a sketch down and try out different ideas or swap elements in and out very quickly, but each to their own. All I am saying is if you haven't tried it, check it out because you don't really know what you prefer until you have tried something else.

I mostly use samples and soft synths to make tracks of various styles, haven't done much for a couple of years but want to get back into it... I just don't like the idea of uploading files with pii from my pc to internet forums, but maybe that is a screen for not wanting to subject my tracks to scrutiny lol.

Edited by chilli

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Very interesting thread.

I use a software tracker called Renoise, which is a bit hard to get into but offers great flexibility with minimal samples. I gathered some free-to-use sample sets from the net (303 hats, snares, and kicks) and some VSTs (virtual instruments) like basic synthesizers, and just recycle the same samples over and over using lots of filters so it doesn't sound too samey. I also use my phone to record any noises which are interesting when I'm out and about. You wouldn't believe what everyday sounds have made it into some of my tracks in a completely unrecognisable form (usually as percussion devices).

I have a keyboard controller with 88 keys. It's huge and heavy, and for the first three years I kept wondering why on Earth I bought this big monster when something half the size would have sufficed, but now I like having access to such a range of octaves at once.

For percussion I like to program a simple breakbeat note by note using my basic percussion samples and then render it into a static wave file, which I then cut up and play around with in Goldwave (a wave file editor). Then the bits go into my tracker and get tossed liked a noisy salad and filtered and layered and whatnot until it sounds interesting to me.

My biggest challenge is making good use of high/low pass filters to balance out the channels, because I tend to go for tracks with lots of low end and high range contrast, and the low end often drowns out the mid-range frequencies.

I try to make up for the low-end production values by keep tracks short and relatively melodious.

Here's one I prepared earlier :wink:

http://soundcloud.com/tepalom/dawn

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for recording purposes, i use pre-vista audacity, i find other programs far too complicated, although i export .WAVs to acoustica mixcraft for mixing.

 

can i ask why u export the .wavs for mixing?

audacity is the only cpu program i use for music, and i only use it occasionally to do fiddly editing jobs, but ioften find myself going back to the multitrack for final mixing. i like audacity's simpicity, but still i barey know how to use most of it's functions.

would love to learn to use a program like Live, but a) i dont have a good enoguh computer to handle it and B) i'd need a very patient teacher :P

my recording is done on a digital multitrack, which has served me quite well, but i have recently noticed some of the faders and knobs are making clicking noises that are making it into the recorded track :ana: and the battery power option isn't working which means no more portability.

it's a real pain in the ass going between computer and the multitrack via SD card, hopefully one day i can get a decent cpu setup and do all the work that way.

my instrument collection includes an old shitty acoustic, an old shitty ibanez electric, a friend's old shitty bass...a sitar, pipa, flute, didjeridoos, djembe, dan moi, singing bowls, korg monotribe, kaossilator, various noise making devices, and kids toys etc etc

a lot of my song writing starts with acoustic guitar improv, but just as often from sound experiments and attempts at representing ideas/feelings i can't express verbally. maybe it's just because i can't write lyrics that i'm happy with, but i tend to prefer to make and listen to instrumental music and find lyrics often get in the way. although i seem to spend many hours working on tracks i still kind of like a roughness to the end product, i often leave mistakes in or restrict myself to a single take just to try and capture a bit of in-the-moment-ness...

i had plans to have finished an EP by the end of the year, but as things are now i'm probably pushing it :P with a bit of luck, i could have 2 done next year.

i'm very keen to have a more serious crack at making electronic/sample based music in the near future

i also really miss playing in a band haha...that's all i can think of saying fro now

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Nice thread

I began collecting equipment as a "healthy hoby" some time ago. Some items are nothing more than a toy, others have some potential.

I currently own:

  • OHM64 midi controller (that i seldom use)
  • Korg Kaosillator Pro
  • Rolland TR-505 (1986)
  • Teac A2 mixer with MB-20 addon (1976)
  • Korg Monotribe (very amusing to play with)
  • Korb Microkey 37 midi controller
  • Cheap guitar ive had since i was young (always out of tune)
  • Assort guitar peddals
  • Korg SSD-1200 dual digital delay effects rack mount (80's)
  • An M-box of some description (hardley used)
  • Small cheap old amp with built in strangeish overdrive function

Currently i dont use a DAW. I intend to in corperate a DAW at some point. But for the moment im having too much fun with nob's, sliders, buttons and Annalog sounds.

Other future purchases i am looking at includes a KORG MS-20 mini or a signal processing unit that attempts to clone the MS-20's externall proccesing functions and a custom built tablet to use as a sequencer and such.

Edited by eatfoo

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x

Edited by Psylo

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hey psylo, i picked up a kaossilator off gumtree for pretty cheap

it's the little yellow one though, not the pro version. just from my exp. i think u got the 2 main problems pegged there already

- it's not impossible but somewhat difficult to play specific melodies, at least i think so

but on the counter, you can set it to certain scales so that it's impossible to play a note that's out of key (yes, it almost feels like cheating)

- and the onboard sounds are a bit limiting, but it is a good selection of 'trademark' synth sounds to experiment with

i think the PRO can be used to effect external sounds, but mine cant, that would be great if it does

the other prob i have with mine is that as u stack loops, they become fixed and u cant select to take this or that back out. again, the pro might give u more power here

i do think the x-y pad thing is very intuitive, seems to be visually more 'logical' in the way you manipulate the sounds so easier than a regular synth in that way, just lacks the precision of true keys.

i reckon they'd be great for your purposes, they certainly dont sound like a toy imo. if the price is right of coarse. i am a cheap ass, i dont know how much they are new but i'm almost certain i wouldnt pay it lol check on gumtree n stuff first.

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Edited by Psylo

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Do you consider the Kaossilator Pro a credible device, or in the 'toy' category ? I spend an hour looking at youtube vids after you posted in this thread, and thought intitally that I would be able to utilise something like this. But further thoughts lead me to think that with what looks to be an inaccuracy of that finger pad triggering, it's probably difficult if not impossible to play the same song repeatedly. And do you get sick of the onboard sounds.... I'm also wondering whether you can feed an external signal into it (such as guitar) then fuck around with that signal ? The few videos I am watching at this moment only show people feeding bars into it, and using it as a looping device to overlay more lines, but not actually modifying their sounds with the filters. I want to start recording guitar and creating some monster psychedelic tunes, but need some devices to help the 'trip' along.

It's a lot of money to drop on a toy, and a shame that there's no short term hire service available to road-test such devices before buying.

Good questions. It is SOMEWHAT in the toy category. Internal inputs work fine, its what ive found most usefull about the device. I like to feed things into it using the vocorder effects. The loop banks also work for external inputs, you cannot however use the filters on anything already inside the loop banks. The display/touch is very easy to use, its not sensative outside of the squares you can see on the display wich are more then large enough.

From what ive hearding both the Kaosilator and the Kaoss Pad range can do ALOT OF SHIT but arent great at any of it. If youve got the cash, get something better. By the sounds of it your mostly interested in the filters/looping, in wich case i would recomend a KP3 over this product, as that is whats its only purpose is. If you hunt around enough on ebay you can get a KP3 from $100 through $250.

I hope thats coherent enough, its been a long day and a tough election.

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The K Pro has 4 loop banks wich can be saved to a flash card and it is my understanding that they could be edited by a computor as the manual indicates that you can imput an audio file from your PC onto the flash card and then play that sample via the loop bank.

I dont do anything on the PC atm so cant give much advise about external use. The K Pro has a USB port wich i believe interfaces with some stock Korg software

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Great thread.

My background is in video and performance art, so I've always played around with sound, but not in any real "musical" way until about a year ago.

Just a few months ago I got one of the new Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar basses. The Squier factory screwed up big time and has started making exceptionally good instruments. It's incredible. All the bass forums are raving about it. I have a few bass friends who say that it plays and sounds nicer than their American custom Fender basses, at a quarter of the price. It also has both a P and a J pick up arrangement, which is nice and versatile.

I have a nice and big Roland 200w bass amp that sounds more like it has 500w to it. Lovely tone.

I have a little Korg microkeys 2 octave midi keyboard which has changed everything for me. I can plug it into my iPad too and have nearly everything I need with me when playing live.


Speaking of the iPad... Man, what an amazing tool! I thoroughly recommend the app Loopy. It's like a looping/phrase sampler pedal but WAAAY more versatile. And it only costs about $5! I use it with my bass guitar going into the ipad as well as the midi keyboard and have heaps of fun. There's an amp modelling app I use called JamUp which is phenomenal. And a nice Reason-ish app called NanoStudio, with lots of great synth sounds. There's even a Kaosilator app made by Korg which, by all accounts, is exactly the same as the real thing, for under $20.

Maybe you guys should start posting links to Soundcloud so that we can hear your stuff?

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The Squier factory screwed up big time and has started making exceptionally good instruments. It's incredible.

LOL! Classic!

Sorry. Got nothing to add to the conversation, but I loved this line :worship:

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Edited by Psylo

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Thanks for posting that, Psylo.

A few weeks back Psylo and I passed some bare bones tunes back and forward and tried collaborating a bit.

He was extremely patient in walking me through the basics of Reason 4.0 - a software package which is very different to the trackers that I've always used.

What started off as a fairly basic tune - a concept sketch, really - has turned into something pretty cool.

Psylo's the one who made it sound like it does now. He fleshed it out and added intricacies which almost makes it sound as if it's a piece being played by several musicians. It's not easy to get an organic sound from the confines of a limited DAW. I certainly learned a lot from the process.

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