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headrest posted:I noticed that when I tune my guitar, all the open strings sound perfect. But when I start to play up the neck, it sounds out of tune. In fact, just playing a string on say, the third fret, I can significantly bend the pitch just by pressing harder on the string. What could be causing this and how can I fix it? High frets, high action, and hard playing can all contribute to this. You CAN bend the pitch by pressing the string all the way down to the fretboard, but you shouldn't have to press that hard. First, try playing more gently, without mashing the strings all the way to the wood. You'll be able to play a lot longer without getting cramps in your hand this way. If that doesn't work... If that's only the case higher up on the neck, then the action at the bridge is high or you have too much relief on the next and should adjust the truss rod. The guitar could also be improperly intonated. Check to see if the 12th harmonic and the note at the 12th fret are in tune with each other. High action can play into this, too. Is the note at the 3rd fret already out of tune when you press just hard enough to get the note to sound? If so, the nut might be a bit high. You should only mess with the nut slots if you're sure nothing else will work. And, if you can't not play hard, you could try to bring all the frets down, but I don't know about that. I hope this helps.
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Jun 23, 2011 01:07
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headrest posted:I noticed that when I tune my guitar, all the open strings sound perfect. But when I start to play up the neck, it sounds out of tune. In fact, just playing a string on say, the third fret, I can significantly bend the pitch just by pressing harder on the string. What could be causing this and how can I fix it? Don't press as hard on the string. The distance between the fret and fretboard looks tiny, but its enough for a little bending. If you press lighty and it is still off, you need to check your intonation. edit: whoops, didn't see there was another page. The previous poster explains it all much better.
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Jun 23, 2011 01:29
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Two things: you shouldn't be digging in hard enough that when you fret a note it alters the pitch of it. Secondly, it's theoretically ~possible~ that your intonation is out of whack, but I think it's more likely to do with how hard you fret by the way you explain it. e; how the gently caress did i get beat too
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Jun 23, 2011 02:41
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Also note that a guitar will never be perfectly in tune across all frets. The fret set up has some compromises in it to make playing easier, which sacrifices perfect tuning. As an illustration, you'd need a fretboard like this to get perfect intonation: http://www.truetemperament.com/site/index.php As the others said, you can mitigate it a bit with fretting technique. But if you happen to have perfect pitch, maybe this is what's making things sound out of tune.
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Jun 23, 2011 04:22
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headrest posted:I noticed that when I tune my guitar, all the open strings sound perfect. But when I start to play up the neck, it sounds out of tune. In fact, just playing a string on say, the third fret, I can significantly bend the pitch just by pressing harder on the string. What could be causing this and how can I fix it? No fretted instrument can be perfectly in tune. Three different ways of tuning can produce different results for barré chords higher up the nexk than B/C, for example: - use a tuner; this makes the G string on all my guitars sound sharp to my ears. - use a tuner or tuningfork (or a dial tone if you're stuck somewhere) to get the A straight, then use harmonics over the 5th and 7th frets to tune up - for the B you use the harmonic on the low E as reference. The 2nd method is my preferred compromise. But everyone's ears are different. Leadbelly used to really flatten his G string, because it sounded better to him in open chords. If all else fails, the 3rd way is: - get the A reference, then tune in IVs (5th fret) actually fretting the notes - 4th fret for B of course. I tend to do that for bass guitars (even sort of adjust the strings by ear) with very heavy strings, because the low E always sounds sharp to me in mathematically correct tunings. Also use it on electric 12-string, which would sound horribly out of tune otherwise - like some of those non-welltempered tuning patterns you can dial up on synthesisers. And most important: play lightly. e: drat, beaten xzzy posted:As an illustration, you'd need a fretboard like this to get perfect intonation: Hey, that looks nice. Always been curious about the (discontinued) Rickenbacker models with slanted frets, which supposedly made for better intonation too, 'cause there was less risk of accidental pressure and bending. Underflow fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 12:55
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xzzy posted:Also note that a guitar will never be perfectly in tune across all frets. The fret set up has some compromises in it to make playing easier, which sacrifices perfect tuning. I think that's a pretty cool idea. I wonder what happens when you start bending strings, though.
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Jun 23, 2011 13:47
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Underflow posted:No fretted instrument can be perfectly in tune. Three different ways of tuning can produce different results for barré chords higher up the nexk than B/C, for example:
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Jun 23, 2011 20:08
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headrest posted:I noticed that when I tune my guitar, all the open strings sound perfect. But when I start to play up the neck, it sounds out of tune. In fact, just playing a string on say, the third fret, I can significantly bend the pitch just by pressing harder on the string. What could be causing this and how can I fix it? In my experience this can happen with low tension too - like I tuned my guitar down to D with .11s on there, it's a lot easier to sharpen a note by pressing a little harder (plus it's easier to accidentally bend the string slightly since there's less resistance). What gauge strings are on there? And uh, this might be a stupid question but you're not tuned an octave down are you?
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Jun 23, 2011 20:08
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How the hell do you get shows? We've left it to our bassist, since he knows a lot of people in other bands, but I want to take a more active role. Do you just go around to bars/venues and hand them a cd and contact info and hope for the best? I really don't know how to go about this.
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Jun 24, 2011 01:36
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I'm about to restring a 3/4 sized steel-string acoustic guitar. Are there such things as 3/4 sized steel strings, or should I just use the regular full size ones? :edit: some idiot on amazon posted:I am a beginner when it comes to playing the guitar. Right when I got it, my brother helped me tune it. It took a while, but sounded pretty good once it was tuned. After about a week or less, I had to tune it again. It is the type of cheap guitar that I have to keep tuning just about every other day. But that is what I get when I pay less than $100.00 for a guitar. 
Drunk Tomato fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jun 24, 2011 |
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Jun 24, 2011 01:48
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Rotten Cookies posted:How the hell do you get shows? We've left it to our bassist, since he knows a lot of people in other bands, but I want to take a more active role. Do you just go around to bars/venues and hand them a cd and contact info and hope for the best? I really don't know how to go about this. If you're starting out, try to find some quick talking enthusiast among your hangers-on to play manager/agent until you find/get an offer from someone more organised and better connected. If you're already past the beginner stage and well rehearsed, get a booking agent. Can still be a musical novice as long as s/he knows lots of people connected to venues - a (former) club owner or even a bartender, for example - and understands the basic elements in your rider; e.g. everything electricity-related, logistics, etc.
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Jun 24, 2011 08:26
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My question got lost on the last page, but I'd still like some advice!A shrubbery! posted:If I want to take a sample of say, the vocals from a song, how would I go about getting it without the instruments and the rest of the music with it? Can I gently caress with the levels in the mixer to filter out the stuff I don't want?
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Jun 24, 2011 12:31
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A shrubbery! posted:If I want to take a sample of say, the vocals from a song, how would I go about getting it without the instruments and the rest of the music with it? Can I gently caress with the levels in the mixer to filter out the stuff I don't want? You're never going to filter out the other sounds completely, but you can bring them down and accentuate the vocal's frequencies. Here's a chart that can give you an idea for what to look for: http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm
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Jun 24, 2011 14:40
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If you ever want to do the opposite (removing the vocals) you can often get reasonably close by playing with phase. Basically if you reverse the phase of the right channel and play them in mono it subtracts the right channel from the left so anything that is panned completely in the middle will disappear. Most of the time that's lead vocal, bass and some drums. It won't be perfect (there will often be some stereo reverb left, it affects the sound of the instruments) but it's a starting point. I thought you could do what you wanted by taking the phased audio (with the vocals removed) and play THAT out of phase with the original to take out everything except what's in the middle, but it doesn't work.
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Jun 24, 2011 15:11
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Is there any free music creation software (something along the lines of Fruity Loops I guess) that someone could recommend? I'm in Egypt right now, and while it's great I have no musical outlet and sometimes find myself bored as poo poo.
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Jun 24, 2011 22:17
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Monocular posted:Is there any free music creation software (something along the lines of Fruity Loops I guess) that someone could recommend? I'm in Egypt right now, and while it's great I have no musical outlet and sometimes find myself bored as poo poo. Audacity is pretty much the industry-standard basic, cross-platform freeware music creator. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
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Jun 24, 2011 22:47
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Drunk Tomato posted:Audacity is pretty much the industry-standard basic, cross-platform freeware music creator. I thought audacity only recorded and edited, but didn't actually create? Guitar pro 5 and 6 can 'make' music, also Finale Instruments.
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Jun 25, 2011 03:15
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REAPER isn't strictly speaking free, but has an unlimited time unrestricted usage trial.
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Jun 25, 2011 03:33
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Has anyone got a recommendation for electronic drum kits? I've only ever bought acoustic so I don't know what to go for. I was looking at the Alesis DM10 but I don't know if there's anything better around the price range of £400-£600.
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Jun 26, 2011 15:43
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What's the best jazz mouthpiece for tenor sax?
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Jun 26, 2011 20:46
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Colon Parenthesis posted:Has anyone got a recommendation for electronic drum kits? I've only ever bought acoustic so I don't know what to go for. I was looking at the Alesis DM10 but I don't know if there's anything better around the price range of £400-£600. On a similar note, I'm looking into getting something pretty cheap just for making drum tracks on recordings, and I'm not looking to get into learning drums seriously (yet), but would like something that's a bit more real than a pad midi controller. Is there something in the sub $200 range for that?
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Jun 27, 2011 23:01
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Is there anywhere on the internet with critical and professional reviews for equipment and instruments? I should be securing a new job soon so I'm looking to buy a fair mid range guitar to replace my cheapy sino-strat but all the reviews I'm finding are either "10/10 BEST GUITAR EVAR" or "0/10 WORST GUITAR EVAR"
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Jun 28, 2011 12:19
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I play in a cover band (mainly 60's-90's rock and pop, upbeat stuff to dance or sing to in a bar), and we usually do pretty long sets as the "house" act (somewhere on the order of 40-50 songs a night, spanning 3-4 hours). We often prepare for gigs by putting together a set list based on how we think the ebb of the evening will go. For example, we put the laid-back rockers up front for the earlier crowd; more dance-type stuff in the middle for after everybody has loosened up; and some weirder/darker/psychedelic stuff for the 1am crowd. Of course, not every evening goes according to these strategies, and we've been wasting a lot of time on stage lately bickering about what song to do next when the vibe in the bar unexpectedly changes. My question is whether it would be better to just scrap the whole set-list thing and go completely off-the-cuff, or whether we should just set the set list in stone so that we don't have those "What do we do now?" moments.
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Jun 28, 2011 23:33
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Drink-Mix Man posted:I play in a cover band (mainly 60's-90's rock and pop, upbeat stuff to dance or sing to in a bar), and we usually do pretty long sets as the "house" act (somewhere on the order of 40-50 songs a night, spanning 3-4 hours). If you have a few people who come to your shows regularly, you can do a "request" thing where they call out songs based on the mood of the crowd. As a cover band, I can guarantee that the more spontaneous you appear, the more people will like you. You can technically have a set-in-stone list, but do not give off that impression. Additionally, the band captain should have ultimate say. Pick someone to be in charge (someone who can tell the mood best) and have him chose what to play next. The other members can still suggest, but the bickering will stop (and no crowd wants to watch a band bicker) if you have one person to make the final decision. Just my two cents, of course. Also, hey still looking for the answer to this: Drunk Tomato posted:I'm about to restring a 3/4 sized steel-string acoustic guitar. Are there such things as 3/4 sized steel strings, or should I just use the regular full size ones?
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Jun 28, 2011 23:42
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Drunk Tomato posted:Also, hey still looking for the answer to this: I think you'll be fine using standard strings, for example the Baby Taylor just uses regular Elixers - http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/baby-taylor/ You may want to choose a different thickness to get the desired tension though
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Jun 29, 2011 00:44
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Yeah probably opt for the Light instead of Medium version of whatever strings you buy, I put medium on a 3/4 and it played OK but the low E string gets out of tune by the 3rd fret so even an open G sounds a bit off until you tune the string a few cents below centre. I haven't tested it yet but I am running off the theory that a thinner string will alleviate this problem.
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Jun 29, 2011 04:22
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I've never played live before, and I think I might in the upcoming weeks. Basically, uh, this is dumb I guess, but how do I set it up? I have a guitar and some pedals and a bass amp. Do I even bring the amp at all, and just hook into their PA system? I know bands bring their own cabs or whatever sometimes. The amp has a 'preamp out' output that I don't use. Hella noob question I know. I don't do this ever though.
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Jun 29, 2011 22:37
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I posted this in the Rivensbitch thread, but maybe it can go here as well: What is the best way to wire up my Apogee Duet to my Mackie 1202-VLZ3? I'd like to be able to hit a switch on the Mackie and cut out the speakers and output to just headphones during recording to avoid feedback. It seems like the Duet has only a single stereo out. Does this mean I would run out from the Duet to the Mackie, into a regular stereo line-in input and then have that feed into the main out, maybe inserting a headphone amp with a mute/toggle switch on the way out to the amp/monitors? Here's a little diagram of how I have it now: iMac Firewire input to Duet -> Duet stereo 1/4" out to line-in on track 4 of the Mackie -> track 4 summed up into Control Room out -> amp -> monitors. I get sound, but I'm wondering if there isn't a more elegant way to set this up without having to introduce a separate headphone mute/toggle box. Can I use one of these fancy buses to route and then toggle between speakers and headphones straight from the Mackie?
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Jun 29, 2011 22:57
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RandomCheese posted:Yeah probably opt for the Light instead of Medium version of whatever strings you buy, I put medium on a 3/4 and it played OK but the low E string gets out of tune by the 3rd fret so even an open G sounds a bit off until you tune the string a few cents below centre. I haven't tested it yet but I am running off the theory that a thinner string will alleviate this problem. You may want to go heavier instead of lighter. Lighter = less tension = easier to bend string just by fretting it.
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Jun 29, 2011 23:37
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big business sloth posted:I've never played live before, and I think I might in the upcoming weeks. Basically, uh, this is dumb I guess, but how do I set it up? I have a guitar and some pedals and a bass amp. Do I even bring the amp at all, and just hook into their PA system? I know bands bring their own cabs or whatever sometimes. The amp has a 'preamp out' output that I don't use. Hella noob question I know. I don't do this ever though. Are you a solo act? You should probably contact the venue(s) and ask them what they have. They might have an amp for you to use. If they have one, I would still bring my own, since I would want to work with something familiar to me. My bands have always brought their own poo poo, and if they need it, their amps are mic'd up. Anything else gets mic'd or goes into the PA (like my keyboard.) In summary, I'd just bring my own amp if I were you.
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Jun 29, 2011 23:54
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Wasn't sure if this should be posted in a gear thread so hopefully this is an acceptable place for my inquiries. A few months back, I purchased an EHX Hog from a good friend of mine, I used it for a few jams and loops for the first week I owned it. Suddenly, I'm not even able to get it to power on. Another friend of mine deals a fair bit with electrical engineering and such, so he borrowed it for a few days, got it to power on and work, and even asked if he could hold onto it for a bit longer to experiment with the sounds he could get out of it. Whatever, no problem. Eventually snagged my pedal, went home, plugged it into my effects loop, powered on. Now I've got no signal. It completely kills anything being sent to the amp, no matter where the HOG is in my chain. I tried with solely the amp, the pedal, and a guitar. Can't get it to produce a signal with any combination of equipment (different amps, cables, etc). I'm not sure what to do at this point, sorry if my post isn't informative enough to produce a solid diagnosis, but I am open to pretty much anything at this point. This guy offers so many different sounds and textures, and was quickly becoming one of my favorite pieces of gear to mess around with. I suggest checking one out if you've got a local friend/shop or friend shop. Also, I have an EHX Big Muff Pi (New York) that when plugged into my chain, produces a terrifyingly loud bass sounds, even when the pedal is not active. Would this require soldering to fix? Thanks in advance and sorry if I was a bit long-winded!
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Jun 30, 2011 20:35
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Small EQ question... A friend of mine recorded the guitar tracks to a song I composed and I'm running them through Guitar Rig to get distortion etc. Almost any preset I have, I get this small clicky sound which I'm guessing is coming from the pick hitting the strings. I haven't been able to EQ that sound out at all. At first I thought it was around the 4k area, I zoomed up with a high Q pretty much everywhere and really couldn't isolate the sound to eliminate it. Does anyone have any idea how to possibly take out this sound or at least minimize it within the mix? I've also tried the Waves Noise Reducer plug ins and didn't get any luck at all with those.
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Jun 30, 2011 22:13
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Skabanero pePPers posted:Another friend of mine deals a fair bit with electrical engineering and such, so he borrowed it for a few days, got it to power on and work, and even asked if he could hold onto it for a bit longer to experiment with the sounds he could get out of it. Whatever, no problem. It sounds like he hosed up the connection to the output. Ask him to look a little bit closer and figure out why he left one of the wires connecting to thin air.
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Jul 1, 2011 01:22
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I have a fender twin reverb, and I wanna get a power attenuator for it. Probably gonna get the THD Hot Plate. The problem is they come in a variety of 'ohms': 2, 2.7, 4, 8, and 16. How do I find out which one I need to buy? And also, are power attenuators difficult to setup and use? I have no experience with them.
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Jul 1, 2011 01:24
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codyclarke posted:I have a fender twin reverb, and I wanna get a power attenuator for it. Probably gonna get the THD Hot Plate. The problem is they come in a variety of 'ohms': 2, 2.7, 4, 8, and 16. How do I find out which one I need to buy? And also, are power attenuators difficult to setup and use? I have no experience with them. You need the one that matches the output of your amp. Look on the back of it it should say. They just plug in between the amp and the speakers and that's pretty much it. I do believe they get pretty hot while in use so might want to make sure it has plenty of airflow around it. Some people say the Hot Plates color the sound of the amp somewhat, so you might want to try and find a place you could try one out in person before you commit.
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Jul 1, 2011 01:50
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Wouldn't he want one that matches the impendance of the speaker(s) he plans on using? Amps can output at different power levels, so it makes sense to match up to the speakers instead. It looks like the internal speakers on a Twin Reverb are set up to be 4 ohms, so that's what he should get.
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Jul 1, 2011 02:14
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abske_fides posted:Small EQ question... A friend of mine recorded the guitar tracks to a song I composed and I'm running them through Guitar Rig to get distortion etc. Almost any preset I have, I get this small clicky sound which I'm guessing is coming from the pick hitting the strings. I haven't been able to EQ that sound out at all. At first I thought it was around the 4k area, I zoomed up with a high Q pretty much everywhere and really couldn't isolate the sound to eliminate it. Does anyone have any idea how to possibly take out this sound or at least minimize it within the mix? Could be too that the clicking you're hearing is actually "clicking" or when the sound file travels out of the amplitude range and actually makes the physical speakers click. I would take a zoomed in look at the waveform to make sure he didn't record too loud.
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Jul 1, 2011 09:03
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Crudus posted:Could be too that the clicking you're hearing is actually "clicking" or when the sound file travels out of the amplitude range and actually makes the physical speakers click. I would take a zoomed in look at the waveform to make sure he didn't record too loud. Is this an acoustic? If so he could be hitting the body with his pick. I've done that before and it drove me batty trying to figure out where the clicks were coming from.
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Jul 1, 2011 17:15
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Tesseraction posted:It sounds like he hosed up the connection to the output. Ask him to look a little bit closer and figure out why he left one of the wires connecting to thin air. I fiddled a bit with the output jack and when the cable is pulled out a ways but is still plugged in, it sounds like hope, like it wants to produce a signal, alas, I still can't get any joy sounds. My friend is gone until September, but as I mentioned, the guy played with the pedal for a solid week and discussed with me, very specifically, his experiences with said equipment. I plug it in and magically, it fails to serve its porpoise. If I were to take it apart, does it sound like I would be able to notice something...noticeable? Basically what I'm trying to figure out: is it something simple like a jack connection? Or is it something related to computer side of things? This drat thing has been puzzling me for quite a while, I just want to get it up and running. I think I may resort to taking off the Velcro again, downloading a diagram of the poo poo, and just going to town on it. Just a bit apprehensive due to the cost of replacing it if I gently caress it up, as I have minimal experience with such things. drat robots.
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Jul 1, 2011 17:52
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Crudus posted:Could be too that the clicking you're hearing is actually "clicking" or when the sound file travels out of the amplitude range and actually makes the physical speakers click. I would take a zoomed in look at the waveform to make sure he didn't record too loud. Well here is a picture of the zoomed in wave form:  And I uploaded a few seconds of just one guitar with a normal tone. You can hear a faint clicking in the background, I'm really pretty sure it's the pick hitting the chord or something, I'd just like to minimize that sound if possible. I left it in .wav so you can hear it exactly like I hear it. http://www.mediafire.com/file/398r60kv603255q/14.wav
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Jul 1, 2011 17:58
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