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Lester Shy posted:Legally, what's the difference between an "original" guitar design and a counterfeit? I.e., why can every company in the world sell a guitar that's visually identical to a Telecaster or a Les Paul, as long as the headstock is slightly different? Fender and Gibson didn't really bother pursuing companies making copies of their body shapes for the longest time. Rickenbacker did and that's why you don't really see copys of their designs for sale. Even if one pops up on eBay they contact ebay and make them take the auction down.
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Apr 22, 2018 00:58
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I'm looking for help regarding music theory and rhythm guitar: in short I don't know how to make my boring playing more interesting. Say I'm playing rhythm guitar to a basic chord progression like G, C, D. I can strum the open chords, I can strum the bar chords, I can strum a whole different host of chord triads all up and down the fretboard, but they are all largely boring as I am still just playing G, C, D. I guess I'm just asking how to spice things up. I don't even know what I need to learn to make my rhythm interesting. I adore the rhythm of people like Bob Weir, but I have no clue how to do what he is doing. I feel like in a basic chord progression like G, C, D I should be throwing more chords in there on top to make it sound cool but I have no idea what chords those would even be. I've been working so hard on my lead playing that I've ignored my rhythm entirely and I get frustrated because I only know how to play simple, basic rhythm and I can't even figure out what I need to learn to get better. Sorry if this is very broad, doesn't make a lot of sense, or doesn't belong in this thread. The people in this thread have been very kind and extraordinarily helpful to me before and have offered some excellent advice, so I figured I'd ask here.
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May 7, 2018 05:30
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I think you're conflating two things: rhythmic variety and harmonic variety. The harmonic variety part is pretty complex; you can try adding 7ths or 6ths or 9ths to your chords to give them more complexity, or you can yeah add more chords in your progression but that gets hard to explain. The rhythmic variety you're talking about is either called strumming patterns or comping rhythms, depending on what style of music you're into (comping rhythms are a jazz thing). Googling "Bob Weir strumming pattern" got me a few hits like this one: https://www.rukind.com/viewtopic.php?t=10321
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May 7, 2018 05:36
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Weir really liked inversions too, to the point where he had a rep for them. Might be worth considering for the harmonic side.
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May 7, 2018 08:09
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thank you for the advice everyone! i feel i've got some places to start now. as always this thread is awesome.
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May 7, 2018 16:22
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EDIT: Getting answered in the synth thread
Sweet_Joke_Nectar fucked around with this message at 20:00 on May 9, 2018 |
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May 9, 2018 03:03
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here's something i'm scratching my head about: why are early '90s demos so lovely and reverby? in particular i'm thinking of rage against the machine's demo and a bunch of nirvana's stuff that they put on their box set, but there's some others i can't quite remember off the top of my head (tool, i'm pretty sure, and also i think pearl jam and maybe smashing pumpkins). the balance is off, they sound very roomy, there's way too much reverb and slapback delay (especially on vocals, but also usually on the drums), and it's like someone just went to loving town with the eq on every channel. i know some of the eq weirdness (esp. the nirvana stuff) is from it being pulled from cassette tapes later on, but i just read an interview with tom morello about how bullet in the head is the same take on both the demo and the album, so i'm curious about the mixing aspect now that i know it's not something inherent to the recording itself. is it just a matter of not bothering to mix them because they're demos, or just handing them to the new guy to take care of because they're demos, or what? i've only really been a musician in the digital home studio era, so i feel like i must be just totally unaware of some part of the decision-making process back when you had to pay for studio time to do demos. i've heard demos from more recent years that definitely don't have these issues—unpolished and in need of mastering, for sure, but the mix is usually relatively "normal" sounding, for lack of a better term.
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May 25, 2018 16:32
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Like some demos from that era I've heard are literally dynamic vocal mics hung from a rafter in a practice room into a boombox tapedeck so it's kind of nebulous to say for sure what a given demo is. Sometimes it's mixing being done in a very light way to streamline it (not processed through compressors and better reverb units) just to get it out as opposed to selective mixing certain parts (applying a reverb in this part of a song on this clip and not others). That is usually the biggest thing, taking the time to apply eq and compression and reverb in places and at levels that are specific to the parts of the song is more expensive and a great take on good mics with good phasing can be salvaged by a good engineer/mixer pretty easily. The reverb and slapback could be from poor phasing issues and the room leaking or from different decisions (snare drum mixing tendencies shifted from gated reverb ala the 80s to more dry but compressed in the 90s as people got sick of it). There is probably a lot of other things I'm missing too.
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May 25, 2018 18:33
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oh, yeah, i guess i should have clarified that i definitely mean studio demos and not the home ones. nirvana was probably a bad example since most of those were the boombox type. this one by ratm and this one by tool are pretty indicative of the specific sound i'm talking about. i kinda figured it was along the time/money line of thought, although i definitely didn't think to consider that there would have been backlash against gated verb around that time. i just thought maybe there was more to the story since it seemed to me like the mixing on those demos are more similar to each other than to what the bands sound like on their respective albums. thanks!
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May 26, 2018 04:15
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I was making music/recording during that period and both of the examples you posted sound fine to me so it might be generational or my ears are just destroyed. Mixing stuff with a lot of reverb to cover up your fuckups was really common, though. A lot of the stuff I listened to and still listen to from that era was recorded on 4-tracks in basements so I might not be the best person to comment.
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May 27, 2018 18:34
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I think its mostly time/money. Those demos were both their respective first demos, so max budget was probably a grand and 2 days. I personally think they sound pretty drat good. I've never done a demo that nice straight out of the gate with a band, and I have access to a device that fits in my pocket, is 1000 times more powerful than the equipment they had access to for about $400.
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May 29, 2018 00:47
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Okay probably a hard question to answer but: I've been playing music for years, played bass in bands, etc. but I've never really written my own songs. Sometimes I get little bits of melodies stuck in my head but they go away quick, and also I have a really hard time coming up with any lyrics. How can I get over the initial hump and start writing stuff. Does anyone have any tips for writing or getting inspiration or anything like that
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May 31, 2018 22:39
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Pablo Nergigante posted:Okay probably a hard question to answer but: I've been playing music for years, played bass in bands, etc. but I've never really written my own songs. Sometimes I get little bits of melodies stuck in my head but they go away quick, and also I have a really hard time coming up with any lyrics. How can I get over the initial hump and start writing stuff. Does anyone have any tips for writing or getting inspiration or anything like that For me, I have to carry a pocket recorder to hum or sing fleeting ideas on the fly into it. Keep it by my bed sometimes to capture those early morning ideas. Also I set up a jam recording space that I can get good, quick takes in easily (without wasting a lot of time turning stuff on and plugging stuff in). I record all my noodling so that I have a good recording (or sometimes useable take) of stuff that comes up when I just sit down randomly to goof off.
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May 31, 2018 22:51
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Recording snippets is probably a good idea. What I used to do a lot is hit record if I had an idea I wanted to get down, and then I'd jam on it a bit like it was a full song with other sections, just see what happens. If it's bad at least you recorded the original idea, and if something good comes out - you're recording it and won't forget any of it! Another thing you can do is hit record without an idea - just go for it. Play 'a song' with an intro, versey bits, chorusy bits. It probably won't be very good, but the next step is to rework it - listen back and trim it down to the good ideas, expand on them a little, record it again. Sort of sculpting a song from the raw noise you first came up with. If you keep doing this you'll probably come up with some serviceable riffs and parts. Maybe not the best song, but the more you write the better you'll get Learning a bit of music theory can help too, mostly to give you some ideas to try - recipes, if you like. Then you can take those basic parts (some chords, a scale) and see what you can come up with Lyrics are harder for me, and I think it helps to have a melody first personally - I reckon this is more down to personal style though. I've heard a few bands doing basically finished versions of songs, but with "early" lyrics - simple stuff, lots of repetition or even nonsense, but it nails everything down including the vocal melody. Then later you can rework them, and you have a rigid structure to fit to - you know how your words have to work, where they fall in the melody etc, so you can write something that really fits the song Also: joke songs. Pick a style and really lean into its stereotypes, make a metal song about Pikachu, whatever's fun and gets your creativity going. You can change it later and nobody needs to know the horrible truth
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May 31, 2018 22:54
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Thanks for the suggestions - I actually took music theory in college so I do have some background. I think lyrics are the thing I have the hardest trouble with honestly
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May 31, 2018 23:06
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Pablo Nergigante posted:Okay probably a hard question to answer but: I've been playing music for years, played bass in bands, etc. but I've never really written my own songs. Sometimes I get little bits of melodies stuck in my head but they go away quick, and also I have a really hard time coming up with any lyrics. How can I get over the initial hump and start writing stuff. Does anyone have any tips for writing or getting inspiration or anything like that As someone who started out as a bass player (and I suppose it's my main instrument still, even though I play guitar and drums as well) I can tell you that getting a guitar and start writing songs with that helped me a LOT, even though it is in theory the same stuff you can play on guitar. As for writing lyrics and melodies, I personally write a song first, then melody comes and then lyrics ; That way, I have something to just jam over, humming whatever comes to mind and after the melody is written I can figure out just what it sounds like it could work with. Just singing stupid lyrics to get a feel for the flow 
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May 31, 2018 23:09
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Pablo Nergigante posted:Thanks for the suggestions - I actually took music theory in college so I do have some background. I think lyrics are the thing I have the hardest trouble with honestly I'm not the biggest lyrics guy either, but something that's been helping me out lately is something I learned about David Byrne's writing style. He does rough takes where he just sounds out the vowel sounds and/or consonants he thinks sounds right with the music. Maybe he makes up nonsense words or phrases, sort of like scatting but it can be even less defined. Then he goes back and figures out actual lyrics that fit those sounds. This lends itself to coming up with those phrases that are open to a lot of interpretation, because he'll come up with stuff he never would have if he were taking a more literal approach.
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May 31, 2018 23:14
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Drink-Mix Man posted:I'm not the biggest lyrics guy either, but something that's been helping me out lately is something I learned about David Byrne's writing style. He does rough takes where he just sounds out the vowel sounds and/or consonants he thinks sounds right with the music. Maybe he makes up nonsense words or phrases, sort of like scatting but it can be even less defined. Then he goes back and figures out actual lyrics that fit those sounds. This lends itself to coming up with those phrases that are open to a lot of interpretation, because he'll come up with stuff he never would have if he were taking a more literal approach. This is fascinating. Thanks!
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May 31, 2018 23:21
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Drink-Mix Man posted:I'm not the biggest lyrics guy either, but something that's been helping me out lately is something I learned about David Byrne's writing style. He does rough takes where he just sounds out the vowel sounds and/or consonants he thinks sounds right with the music. Maybe he makes up nonsense words or phrases, sort of like scatting but it can be even less defined. Then he goes back and figures out actual lyrics that fit those sounds. This lends itself to coming up with those phrases that are open to a lot of interpretation, because he'll come up with stuff he never would have if he were taking a more literal approach. Love me some Talking Heads, that’s definitely a cool idea to try out, thank you
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May 31, 2018 23:22
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Install a daw on your phone and write 4 bar loops whenever, you can expand on them later when you sit down to actually develop them into songs. I recommend Caustic 3, it's free and easy to use. As to lyrics, keep a notebook with you (or use your phone) and write down anything at all that comes to mind whenever it does, then pick from it when you have a melody. There's an interview somewhere where Rivers Cuomo describes how he keeps a huge spreadsheet with song and lyric fragments which he then puts together when he sits down to finish up songs, that's why some Weezer lyrics seem like unconnected nonsense. Simone Poodoin fucked around with this message at 23:31 on May 31, 2018 |
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May 31, 2018 23:26
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Drink-Mix Man posted:I'm not the biggest lyrics guy either, but something that's been helping me out lately is something I learned about David Byrne's writing style. He does rough takes where he just sounds out the vowel sounds and/or consonants he thinks sounds right with the music. Maybe he makes up nonsense words or phrases, sort of like scatting but it can be even less defined. Then the song is done fa fa fa fa, ayiyiyiyi!
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Jun 1, 2018 00:11
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Drink-Mix Man posted:I'm not the biggest lyrics guy either, but something that's been helping me out lately is something I learned about David Byrne's writing style. He does rough takes where he just sounds out the vowel sounds and/or consonants he thinks sounds right with the music. Maybe he makes up nonsense words or phrases, sort of like scatting but it can be even less defined. Then he goes back and figures out actual lyrics that fit those sounds. This lends itself to coming up with those phrases that are open to a lot of interpretation, because he'll come up with stuff he never would have if he were taking a more literal approach. I’ve heard a number of artists saying they do this on Song Exploder. Apparently it’s called a mumble track.
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Jun 1, 2018 07:02
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I remember Andrew Huang talking about it too but don't remember on which of his millions of videos
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Jun 1, 2018 16:44
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There's Nirvana demos like that, apparently the lyrics just got grabbed from different journals to fit with the sounds.
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Jun 1, 2018 23:18
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Drink-Mix Man posted:I'm not the biggest lyrics guy either, but something that's been helping me out lately is something I learned about David Byrne's writing style. He does rough takes where he just sounds out the vowel sounds and/or consonants he thinks sounds right with the music. Maybe he makes up nonsense words or phrases, sort of like scatting but it can be even less defined. Then he goes back and figures out actual lyrics that fit those sounds. This lends itself to coming up with those phrases that are open to a lot of interpretation, because he'll come up with stuff he never would have if he were taking a more literal approach.
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Jun 1, 2018 23:36
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Music goons, help. I am a total noob when it comes to digital music creation and am trying to learn, since I am making a podcast and want to compose theme music and backing stuff for it. I understand traditional notation and basic music theory so I have had a blast writing short midis and experimenting with MuseScore. My problems start when I try to go up from there since I don't know jack about DAWs and VSTs and ASIO and all the rest of the alphabet soup. I have a copy of Cakewalk SONAR I picked up cheap during a steam sale a few years back, and I just bought Native Instruments Komplete 11 since it's half off and I figured between those two things that'd be all I'd ever need. SONAR is melting my brain though. I'm trying to import my midis into it and then replace the tracks with Kontakt soft synths but I'm having no end of problems with that. I can get one or two tracks to play, but then the others won't, and I can't figure out why. I even tried just copying and pasting the notes from the Midi track straight into the Kontakt tracks and still can't get it to play more than one or two tracks at a time. I don't have this problem if I just make the Kontakt tracks from scratch and add notes on their Piano Roll, things only break when I involve midi imports. I'm thinking there is some problem assigning tracks from one midi file to multiple different synths? I know I could just write the music in the Piano Roll itself but that is completely foreign to me, and the SONAR Piano Roll seems annoying to use based on my experience with it. I do own a cheap MIDI keyboard but my piano skills are lacking so getting the music in that way is hardly ideal. I downloaded the demos for FL Studio and Reaper as well, but there's so much going on in all these programs I don't even know where to start. Should I dump SONAR and go with one of those? Dump Musescore and learn this Piano roll DAW thing? All advice is appreciated!
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Jun 4, 2018 05:42
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Like most of us here, I've used quite a number of DAWs in the past, my main two being Logic and Reaper. That being said, I absolutely hated Sonar, at least the last time I used it, which was Sonar X1. I fully recommend Reaper, though, as it's cross-platform and cheap (free to demo, too!). It's solid, extremely flexible (literally customize every key command, make your own buttons and shortcut keys, route anything anywhere, change the look and feel of it with custom skins, etc) and is all-round wonderful.
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Jun 4, 2018 06:05
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Miles McCloud posted:I have a copy of Cakewalk SONAR I picked up cheap during a steam sale a few years back, and I just bought Native Instruments Komplete 11 since it's half off and I figured between those two things that'd be all I'd ever need. quote:SONAR is melting my brain though. I'm trying to import my midis into it and then replace the tracks with Kontakt soft synths but I'm having no end of problems with that. I can get one or two tracks to play, but then the others won't, and I can't figure out why. Does the MIDI file play properly when you play it with VLC or something like that? Another option: open your MIDI file in MuseScore. Export it track by track. See if Sonar will eat it up if you import it track by track. Kontakt can be set up to work in a multitimbral way (which is close to how hardware synthesizers work), or it can work on a per-instance way, where you just have one Kontakt instance per track. If it's a multitimbral setup, then you have all MIDI tracks sending data to one instance, but as you can see in the Kontakt, each instrument can receive on its own MIDI channel.  While I don't have Sonar, I assume you're doing this: https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X2&language=3&help=Recording.37.html
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Jun 4, 2018 07:59
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Laserjet 4P posted:
I just tried it multitimbral with a single Kontakt track and that fixed my problem! Not sure why it choked on multiple Kontakt instances but this method is easier anyway, thanks for the tip! Rupert Buttermilk posted:I fully recommend Reaper, though, as it's cross-platform and cheap (free to demo, too!). It's solid, extremely flexible (literally customize every key command, make your own buttons and shortcut keys, route anything anywhere, change the look and feel of it with custom skins, etc) and is all-round wonderful. I'll have to mess around with it a bit, I do like that the demo is fully functional. Thanks for the recommendation!
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Jun 4, 2018 09:45
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Miles McCloud posted:I just tried it multitimbral with a single Kontakt track and that fixed my problem! Not sure why it choked on multiple Kontakt instances but this method is easier anyway, thanks for the tip! It was probably choking on it because the midi files send the notes to specific channels and Kontakt needs to be told what channel to listen on, it won't get it right by default. If you're doing it all with Kontakt then one instance is probably a better solution anyway though.
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Jun 4, 2018 14:18
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Yeah if you add multiple instruments to a single Kontakt instance it will automatically set them to listen for input on different MIDI channels. OTOH most DAWs will automatically send each MIDI track to the first channel. So if you have multiple tracks sending MIDI to a single Kontakt instance, they'll often all try to send to the first instrument you loaded in, which obviously isn't what you want.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:34
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I've known about the loudness war for quite some time, but am I alone in thinking it's especially out of control on services like Soundcloud? I feel like I'm constantly reaching for the volume knob in annoyance whenever I click on peoples' stuff there, especially amateur hip hop producers.
Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Jun 10, 2018 |
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Jun 10, 2018 21:24
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Where else are you listening to amateur hip-hop producers that doesn't have that issue? Soundcloud has a few things at play that make the loudness war worse, people being new to mixing and a wide variety of styles of mixing means that there isn't a lot of consistency in the PEAK level of tracks. Having said that, it's even more likely that people are unable to monitor the Root Mean Square (RMS) or LUFF of a given track. People have a tendency to over compress leading to these values being closer to the peak value of a track than you want increasing the perceived loudness by a ton. On top of that is that a lot of people are educated for the mixing stage and how to have it ready for mastering, which leads to a lot of people outputting their tracks at pre-master levels (-6db for example) while some people are mastering or demoing themselves or had their tracks professionally done (0 or -0.1db). The biggest thing is that amateurs aren't monitoring PEAK and RMS/LUFFs for music. A peak of -0.1db and a RMS of -20db is reasonable (a larger value meaning more dynamics and a smaller value meaning less dynamics) for a lot of music though classical music might be in the -30db area due to the dynamic range. Mind a lot of this varies as in mastering the dynamic range is sometimes squashed even more. Soundcloud just makes it more apparent because you can go from the producer who outputted their analog equipment into audacity at a really low volume (which may sound great when you turn up your speakers to compensate) and then to someone who threw a compressor on everything.
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Jun 10, 2018 22:18
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Some people have also gone full Stockholm syndrome for the crunchy sound of digital distortion. I absolutely hate it. It makes the instrument pull through the mix, so obviously put it on everything!
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Jun 10, 2018 22:36
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When I was a teenager I bought a sick looking flying V from my local guitar shop secondhand (I was very much into Randy Rhoads at the time). It's a black Washburn RR model with wonderbar tremolo, and I think it might very well be an RR-2 from the 80s. Apparently these are quite rare, but the only listing online I've seen anywhere is this one for $375: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1985-87-Washburn-RR-2-Randy-Rhoads-Flying-V-Brian-May-Rare-Wonderbar-/173327827459 Any chance these might go for more in the UK or is it silly to even try offloading it?
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Jun 11, 2018 03:58
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Why do a lot of "premium" basses have huge chunks of wood where the horn would be? Like this: Is it purely for aesthetics, or does it serve a purpose? Doesn't this limit the mobility of your left hand? I've never actually played one, so maybe it's not a big deal. I'm even starting to see it in regular six string guitar designs, so it's not limited to basses.
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Jun 13, 2018 16:22
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I don’t know but I think it’s ugly as hell
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Jun 13, 2018 18:22
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I did some cursory googling and found some blargling about "sustain", but since guitarists/bassist will always blargle about "sustain" when they've just spent too much money on something goofy and functionally dubious I think it's mostly just a signifier of "this is an expensive boutique instrument."
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Jun 13, 2018 23:00
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I personally really like single cut basses for no reason other than aesthetics. But I also really like coffee table basses and basses with too many strings so take that with a grain of salt
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Jun 13, 2018 23:29
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| # ? May 10, 2024 19:31 |
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Thorpe posted:I personally really like single cut basses for no reason other than aesthetics. But I also really like coffee table basses and basses with too many strings so take that with a grain of salt Given those qualifiers, I will take it with a Pacific Ocean of salt.
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Jun 13, 2018 23:32
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