Guitar Stuff

Ted Calver

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
8,433
Location
Yorktown, Virginia
I'm out in Oklahoma visiting my daughter and her family. Her son is very musical and I was looking for something to buy him that would encourage continued enthusiasm. Stopped into a Guitar Center store to buy an amp and was blown away by the variety of instruments and accompanying gear that are available today. A whole nother world from when I last got interested in guitar playing back in the sixties. In addition to the amp (Line 6 Spider IV), I got lured by all the cool stuff and in true back a$$ward fashion, and thanks to Brent, ended up buying a Komplete Audio 6 controller that came with a free Guitar Rig 5 pro download (register before Sept 2).....I don't even own a guitar, but it sounded good with the CBG :). Then, thanks to Vaughn, I gave a real close look to the six Variax guitars they had on the rack, from $999 to $1,499. One of the guitars had a finish blemish on it but the store would only discount $65 for it. So far have resisted, but the trip isn't over yet. All I need now is one of those Line 6 PODs....and some lessons:)
 
Was just playing with My guitar rig software the other day. So many features to that piece of software it's not even funny.

But it's very, very fun stuff.

Good for you encouraging her son to keep it up!
 
How fun! I was being chastised just the other day for letting my keyboard skill drop to near zero. I have made a commitment to try to sit down at the piano for a half hour or so a few days a week. That's about all I can do right now. Hard to believe we used to do 3 sets a night.
 
Good for you, Ted. The Line 6 Spider IV is a cool little amp. :thumb: Guitar Center is as dangerous as Woodcraft or Rockler. ;) Another one to look out for is Music-Go-Round, a chain of stores specializing in (mostly) used equipment. And I'm all for used gear. My good Variax (the 700) was $400, with another $70 or $80 for the case. I bought a used Fender Strat (made in Mexico) for $179 a couple of weeks ago. (That was a killer price...most used MIM Strats are running in the $350 to $400 range. This one has some dings in the finish, but it plays and sounds great.)

...Then, thanks to Vaughn, I gave a real close look to the six Variax guitars they had on the rack, from $999 to $1,499...

I'm having sort of a love/hate relationship with my Variax right now. The piezo pickup under the low E string on my newer one (the 700) died, effectively turning it into a 5-string guitar. It resisted my efforts to fix it (and I used to be the guitar repairman at a music store), so it's going back to a Line 6 authorized repair place. (Fortunately there's one here in town.) In the meantime, I've started bringing an assortment of guitars - 3 electrics and two acoustics - to gigs. It's a lot more cases to carry around, but in a way it's fun having a whole stable of guitars onstage to play with. I need to get a photo of my multi-guitar stand (aka the "Guitarapalooza") next time I have a chance. (Next gig is Sunday, so I'll try to remember to snag a photo.)

And Glenn...get on with it, man! The longer you wait the harder it becomes to get the chops back. (But I'm living proof that they can come back.)
 
I'm gonna have to get Brent to show me this Guitar Rig software ... it sounds like you guys really like it...

Very cool Ted! Congrats on the gearing up :D
 
Amp simulation software. You can pick just about any amp/cabinet/effect gizmo out there and put them together 'virtually'.

Not as good as the real thing, but way, way cheaper. And you won't disturb the neighbors.
 
Amp simulation software. You can pick just about any amp/cabinet/effect gizmo out there and put them together 'virtually'.

Not as good as the real thing, but way, way cheaper. And you won't disturb the neighbors.

Interesting - sounds like "ReValver" - a package i played with about 10 years ago... i'll have to give it a listen..
 
The Guitar rig stuff is basically just software you install on the computer. I don't play live, and just record by plugging my guitar directly into the audio interface, and use guitar rig to simulate an amplifier/cabinet/gizmo.

The Line 6 POD HD500 Multi-Effects Processor is more of a live performance tool, in that you put that on the floor, plug your guitar into that, then into the amp.

Kind of apples and oranges. Both have their place.
 
The Guitar rig stuff is basically just software you install on the computer. I don't play live, and just record by plugging my guitar directly into the audio interface, and use guitar rig to simulate an amplifier/cabinet/gizmo.

The Line 6 POD HD500 Multi-Effects Processor is more of a live performance tool, in that you put that on the floor, plug your guitar into that, then into the amp.

Kind of apples and oranges. Both have their place.

To add to this, you can use the HD500 (which is the newer version of my POD XT Live) into headphones or a computer (for recording), but it really shines for live performances. One advantage that the HD500 also offers (even for playing at home) is that you can use your feet to change your sound in the middle of a song. With computer-based modeling, you typically have to use a mouse to change patches. For some people, this is a big deal, and for others it isn't.

I suspect that the Guitar Rig software has at least as many amp, speaker, and effect models as the POD, but I'd also suspect that the POD patches are a bit more authentic-sounding. (Line 6 has been on the leading edge of modeling since the beginning. They're sunk a ton of money into research.) But keep in mind McMillan's Theorem: Anything with more than three knobs on it has more bad settings than good ones. Sometimes simple is better. Creating a good sound with so many choices (with either platform) can be a challenge.

One thing I appreciate about the Line 6 stuff is that they have a large user base and a lot of people are sharing different patches. (All the settings can be saved on a computer and shared with others.) For example, I needed a good set of patches for "Blue on Black" by Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and it took me all of about 3 minutes to find several, download them, and try them on my POD. Same thing with patches for "Comfortably Numb" and several other songs we play. Instead of spending hours dialing in the right sound, I just find one that some 14 year old kid with too much time on his hands has posted on the Line 6 forums. :D I'm not familiar with Guitar Rig, so I don't know if there's a similar user community.

I have also learned that the POD (and its brethren) sounds best running into a full-range amp like a keyboard amp or PA system (or headphones, if you're just playing at home). It can be run into a regular guitar amp, but since a guitar amp typically adds its own coloring to the guitar's tone, it ends up defeating some of the coloration that the POD is providing. Up until our last gig, I was running the POD onstage into a Behringer keyboard amp as a guitar monitor pointed at me, and running a line out to the PA system. We found that my guitar was too loud on stage (making it hard for Mike to hear his acoustic guitar, which is also running through the PA) and not loud enough in the audience. So the last gig I did away with the keyboard amp completely and ran the POD directly into the PA. Then we increased the volume of my channel on the PA compared to what we'd been running before. The end result was much, much better. Since I typically have a PA speaker directly behind my head, I had no trouble hearing myself. Mike could also hear his acoustic guitar clearly through his wedge monitor, and because of the increase in my channel volume, the audience could hear me better than ever. As a bonus, it's one less heavy thing for me to carry to and from the car. ;)
 
The cool thing About guitar Rig, is that it's very visual. So you get a picture of of the stack of gizmos you build, and you can change their order in the stack by drag and drop.

If you put a 'marshall' type amp in the stack, you get the marshall knobs. If you put an echo thingy in there, you get the echo thingy knobs and can control them with a mouse.

so I makes it easy to futz with, especially if all you are doing is sitting at a computer.

I'd be willing to bet their modeling and effects are pretty darn authentic sounding, but I'd hate to use it on a laptop at a live performance.

for a live performance, you'd what something baked in to the hardware that is foot controllable. The guitar rig has controllers you can hook into it, but I'd just be very leary of using a pc or mac in a live performance. Imagine getting hung up and having to reboot, versus just flicking a switch.
 
The cool thing About guitar Rig, is that it's very visual. So you get a picture of of the stack of gizmos you build, and you can change their order in the stack by drag and drop...

Although you can edit patches on the POD itself, they also have something similar the Guitar Rig with their Line 6 Edit software (free, but useless without a POD device). It gives a similar visual representation of all the amps and effects on your computer. You can do all your tweaking on the PC, then send and save the results to the POD hardware. I don't recall if you can drag the effects around to change their order in the chain, but it's pretty much how I do all my patch tweaking.

I can also copy a patch from one bank to another. I believe there are 32 banks, and each has four patches. So I can copy the patch that's at 16A over to 21C with a simple cut and paste operation. This is handy for cases where I'm setting up a series of consecutive patches for a particular song, and one of those patches is something I'm already using on another song. Or, you can use a copy of an existing patch as the starting point for a new one. For example, I can have a clean patch on 17A, then copy it to 17B and add chorus and echo for a new, but similar patch. Or set up the same patch at two adjacent addresses with different volume levels...makes it easy to switch from one volume to another with the push of a footswitch.

That stuff's handy and all, but if you're strictly using it to record, it's generally not necessary, since you're not very likely to need to change settings in real time on a recording. My buddy Tim Pierce (a very prolific studio guitarist in LA) has pretty much every effect box known to man, but he seldom (if ever) switches a stomp box on or off with his foot as he's recording. Instead, he'll record multiple tracks, each with the appropriate effects turned on, then sort it all out in the mixdown.

Oh, and regarding playing live with a laptop...a lot of keyboard players are doing it these days. For that matter, a lot of sound guys are running the FOH (Front of House) mix on an iPad via wireless these days. I know of two clubs in town here that have iPad interfaces for the FOH mix, and when I saw Toad the Wet Sprocket a few weeks ago, their soundman was mixed the whole show while wandering around the crowd with his iPad. Another friend of mine is the head audio engineer for Harrah's in Las Vegas, and although he has a monster control booth in all of his showrooms, he can also mix FOH on either a laptop or iPad from anywhere in the room. And all the performers are wearing in-ear monitors and they can each dial in whatever personal monitor mix they want via an iPad or laptop offstage, and then save it for future performances. (Actually, the whole show, from sound to lights to pyrotechnics to stage cues is programmed these days. No need for a crew of high-priced union sound and light guys anymore. They get a few pros to initially program the show, then hire a $15/hour monkey as a computer operator to run subsequent shows.)
 
I use Guitar Rig 2 {older version} and enjoy that it has endless configurations, I also use it's metronome & tuner on a frequent basis. I use Adobe Audition as my DAW {Digital audio work-station} and can import VST {Virtual Studio Technology} Dll files {Dynamic link Library} from GR into AA to have them available for fine tuning during editing, or to overlay another effect onto an individual track or even just a portion there-of. Though I don't have skills enough to perform live on stage, Guitar Rig has a few of my neighbors thinking I'm an axe God :rofl:

I've never used a POD, does that make me a PUD...Never-mind, don't answer that :doh:

Add another congrats on the encouragement gesture Ted, nicely done! :thumb::thumb:
 
Top