The Guitar/Amp/Gear Thread

@greengrocer LOL nice one good for the nephew get them started young, did it take you back too ? I remember going up for my 1st Bass then my 1st Guitar a long, long time ago. To be honest I still feel much the same when I buy any musical thing must be my GAS I reckon. Good luck with the nephew.

 

@bhoy_wonder Excellent a good few lesson will always help with the fundamentals as regards Youtube tutorials there are millions of them for all music genres from very basic to very advanced stuff just do a few google searches you'll find shed loads.

 

Thanks man

 

sure, no worries

 

I was given Amplitube code a while back,not installed it yet,so will give it a try.

Guitar Rig 6 is fantastic though. Downloading User Created patches on youtube is great.

The Pink Floyd Presets are amazing along with U2 etc,people do a great job and can save you time.

 

I always refer people to Justin Guitar on YouTube for lessons, as stated there's loads but I know this dude is excellent.

 

Also been learning Keyboard/Piano,playing a lot of movie soundtracks like Interstellar/Inception etc....Also some classic Rock songs like Sympathy for the Devil/Baba O Reilly....and my favourite the Piano Exit to LAYLA (Goodfellas soundtrack).


Its been fun and picked it up pretty quickly tbh.

 

@Bonobhoy yeah some of the user created patches are really good, there's a site I went to used to have hundreds of user patches can't recall what is name is now but it had genres and artist patches for bands and songs too.
As regards keyboards I have a master keyboards no sounds built in but I use it like you would with guitar rig for guitar sounds there are loads of keyboard/synth sounds in them for all types of keyboard/piano/synth stuff.

 

It did aye.
I've no played in years now but was brilliant to see. He made his first wage and immediately was....guitar.

 

LOL nice one poor kid gonna be skint all his life now if that GAS kicks in lol

 

@scuzzy @Bonobhoy I got a licence for Two Notes Wall Of Sound recently, came with my Audient iD14 mkii (outstanding interface). I know Two Notes are highly regarded but haven't had the chance to properly get into it yet.

My laptop is a snider so your guitar rig's etc are prob too much for it in terms of processing power. But there are workarounds (freezing tracks in Reaper for eg), so hopefully can get good use out of the Two Notes program.

 

@Double Dutch Nice one I use wall of sound too as well as a few others, I have it for my Two Notes Reload which allows me to plug my 50 watt Marshall into it and it cuts out the 4x 12 so I don't deafen the street, means you can crank the amp up to good levels and record it with no sound whatsoever real handy.
That's a bit of a bummer with yer Lappy not being powerful enough tho Reaper is very lightweight I use Reaper myself mostly. That's why I hate laptops no real way to upgrade them, I built a PC just for music recording nothing mental just an i5 3+ gig chip, 32 gig RAM, 2 x 2TB hard drives.

 

That reload sounds immense man, didn't know about that. Am just going straight DI into the audient, which is a jfet input and why I chose it over some other cheaper AI's. Is Wall Of Sound a high quality program then?

Aye that's why I switched to Reaper from Cubase. I've not built a PC in many a year but will do again when I can afford it. Your 32gb ram will give you more than enough scope to load good size projects I'd imagine, good stuff.

 

Yeah I got the reload about 2 years ago I think it was, I was using a few amp sims and I just couldn't get satisfied with some of the sounds I was getting so I thought there must be a way to get the real amp sound without all the mad volume I knew about the two notes stuff and decided to look closer, out of the few devices they had I decided this was best for what I needed.
Wall of Sound (WOS) is a decent program it's a little bit cpu/RAM intensive tho there are a few products that are less greedy with resources. But it does the job just fine.
Yeah the 32 gig loads and runs everything I've had no issues even running intensive plug-ins like Omnisphere etc.

 

I had a Hagstrom Viking bass, which was pretty good and well built, but that was quite a while ago now. The only thing I really didn't like about it was the bridge, but I had similiar issues with the Hofner 500/2.

Recently decided to get a new semi-acoustic bass, and went for a Warwick Starbass, for when want/require that different type of tone and still a little getting used to - in a perfect world would've taken the neck from the Hagstrom (from what I remember of it) on this body, but as they both are set in necks that is impossible. If had the money would've gone for a Lee Sklar signature, but can't justify £3500 for a secondary bass, lol.

First time hearing about the Fender p/ups though, and if that's true but I would be surprised if it was.

Unless they are on a custombuilt Fender with Seymour Duncans or EMGs or something.

TBH, if I were gigging and recording and actually trying to make a living off of music I might be tempted to put those instead of the MEC's that Warwick comes with (not that I'm complaining, lol), and in fact I think my first ever Corvette, back in the 90's did have EMGs.

But yeah, gotta love a slim neck, which is more what all J basses have. To me, it has just been much more confortable feel of the more slender neck - was one of the reasons why first fell in love with Warwick basses (and the tone, the allround feel and comfort, the look and everything else, lol) and still am to this day.

Although interestingly on the Starbass, still trying to get used to it's mid-scale length and thicker D shape of the neck is a little more pronounced feel in the hand, even if the actual width of the fretboard at the nut is the same as my other Warwick (and those had in the past). Ideally would've liked it with a little faster (& less lacquer from the finish), after a while but I get that is the pay off for the tone of being a semi-ac bass. And besides, actually able to get a little slap out of that, which the Hagstrom Viking struggled with, but then again not really much call for slap on a semi-ac. Not that I ever relied that much on slap anyhow.

Still, the Thumb is my go-to weapon of choice, lol.

 

@Taz LOL that's a * of a price £3500 my car didn't even cost me that paid £500 quid that'll do me big ole Volvo Estate mind you they are built like tanks so no complaints here.

Well apparently it's true about those pups hence why that model is so popular, as far as pups are concerned I've only put in a DiMarzio once, most of my others are all Seymours never actually tried EMG's I know I can rely on the Seymours so just never think about EMG's at all, mind you this is all for guitar of course I just run what ye brung as far as Bass pups go, it's only for recording purposes for me anyway and I deffi wouldn't call myself a Bass player.

Yeah i'm just not a chunky neck guy at all I know sometimes the fatter cricket/baseball necks can have a more sustained creamier tone sometimes but I just feel really uncomfortable with fat necks. I deffi love the compound radius ones.

Love i'm not in the least surprised you went for the Warwick semi, as far as I'm concerned you are the Warwick guy

 

There's still time!

 

haha, yeah, nevermind the Masterbuild Sklarbass wouldn't leave much change from €10,000 - and that is before adding shipping costs!

https://shop.warwick.de/en/detail/index/sArticle/18505

TBH there is plenty of sustain without the going for a fatter neck - IMO it comes down more to the build, especially if it is a NT build compared to most Bolt-Ons, than it is if it is the width, when have had a shot on comparing say, a RIC 4003 (which does have a wider neck - and nevermind having to deal with that P/up cover) or a Fender P-Bass that has been BO (and again has a slightly wider neck than the J/J bass) there is a notable difference, but maybe that's just me.

In saying all that there is no shortage of growl and sustain on my Thumb BO, so no complaints there either, lol. Would I go a NT if had the bread, definitely, but again, who has the better part of £5,000 for one of those? I've learned to live with what I have, haha.

 

@Taz LOL yup I hear ya, the guitars I play most often are all Neck Through's but I do have a few bolt on's too generally it's the pups that do most of the work and the woods used, unfortunately I've not really learned to live with what I've got, there's always just one more thing I'd like....i'm sure you know exactly what I mean LOL.

 

Absolutely. There is always something, as evidence the recent acquisition I previously mentioned, haha.