Gamers who play musical instruments

Looks good. I have mine hung up too but want to build display boxes so they don't collect so much dust and to give consistent humidity to my acoustic which developed a dry crack.

I've been prepping a bunch for my band's first big gig on February 8 at Olde Towne Tavern in Frederick, MD. I say first but we've played out a few times - private parties, charity events. This is the first time we'll pull out a full three hours of music for a bar, however. I'm really looking forward to it.

We are hoping to do this more but it's been a bit slow finding gigs to this point. We have to lock down a new bass player before we put too much on the books but I hope this is the start of something.

BTW, I play drums for a cover band called 39 North. Check us out if you like!

Congrats, and good luck! I might be able to get a night off from the baby and drive down there for a bit, driving back to NoVA afterward will be rough.

That's awesome! Good luck!

What would you recommend for an amp that can record short sections of music? I don't have anyone to play with so want to get an amp that I can record while I am playing open chords for a minute and then playback and practice soloing over that? I am an acoustic bluegrass player.

SallyNasty wrote:

What would you recommend for an amp that can record short sections of music? I don't have anyone to play with so want to get an amp that I can record while I am playing open chords for a minute and then playback and practice soloing over that? I am an acoustic bluegrass player.

You should consider a looping pedal. It does exactly what you’re describing. I like the one that has two pedal switches but I have friends that are happy with their one pedal versions.

I use the Boss Loop Station. I bought mine 15 years ago so it looks much simpler than these:

IMAGE(https://i.postimg.cc/rpn0XWfQ/4-C567-DA3-468-E-483-B-A662-70049323518-A.png)

I second the loop station. Get an amp to be and amp. Get pedals to be your mods.

SallyNasty wrote:

I am an acoustic bluegrass player.

Dude, that’s rad! How long have you been picking?

I went through a bluegrass phase quite a while ago. I had already been using the looping pedal to practice rock and blues leads, so I was already set up to practice my flat picking.

A few years ago I bought a cheap bass to play Rocksmith. $200.00. Once I got familiar with the size of the bass I started to get good. I was picking only, never finger style. At some point I realized that bass picking was pretty similar to bluegrass picking, and I was off to the races.

I have been playing about 25 years but only really seriously working on my flatpicking for about 5 months. Taking weekly lessons and playing about 10 hours a week, really working on my scales. Trying to make this my cathartic hobby rather than sipping whiskey:)

SallyNasty wrote:

I have been playing about 25 years but only really seriously working on my flatpicking for about 5 months. Taking weekly lessons and playing about 10 hours a week, really working on my scales. Trying to make this my cathartic hobby rather than sipping whiskey:)

Awesome! Which scales are you comfortable in now? Can you transpose easily?

Right now mostly the pentatonic, but some blues as well. I can move around a bit, but the hardest part for me is improvising, which is why I want to try the looper pedal and get myself a jam partner(myself) so I can practice more improvisation.

Mixolyde wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I have been playing about 25 years but only really seriously working on my flatpicking for about 5 months. Taking weekly lessons and playing about 10 hours a week, really working on my scales. Trying to make this my cathartic hobby rather than sipping whiskey:)

Awesome! Which scales are you comfortable in now? Can you transpose easily?

I could be wrong, and I apologize for answering for Sally, but with bluegrass it’s primarily the major scale, and an occasional minor scale. Bluegrass is a pretty diatonic style of music. Of course, some of the more interesting bluegrass songwriters do get a little more out. Dave Rawlings comes to mind as a genius bluegrass artist who crafts interesting melodies with plenty of planned dissonance.

Found it. Here’s Dave...

SallyNasty wrote:

Right now mostly the pentatonic, but some blues as well. I can move around a bit, but the hardest part for me is improvising, which is why I want to try the looper pedal and get myself a jam partner(myself) so I can practice more improvisation.

Good luck with the loop pedal. My buddy got amazing at throwing down layered riffs. I usually had fun playing improv with songs on the radio or back from our recording tracks. Once you get a good groove going it's fun to see where the music takes you.

With the whole Dark Hours thing I've been thinking about my performance rig a whole lot -- besides, who doesn't lust over gear? -- and was, of course, unsatisfied with my current Boss Katana 50. I could make noise with it but tone matching for our cover songs was challenging to say the least, and only having 4 live selectable "sounds" was really limiting when trying to cover multiple bands (and even multiple eras of the same band). I've had my eye on a Kemper Profiling amp for a long time, like prior to Dark Hours even. I really dug the tone and flexibility. But man is it pricy. Plus, I'd want a foot controller to make a good live rig which put the price even higher. Last year when they released the Stage I knew that was my solution. It went on my Christmas wish list (along with the Schecter 7 string... it's good to give people choices of gifts! :D) but was and has remained out of stock everywhere. Hence the Schecter under the Christmas tree.

I'd resigned myself to waiting until my birthday in May (it's a "big number" birthday, so I figure a big gift wouldn't be out of line). Yesterday I came into work and one of my coworkers who knew I was interested forwarded me a Craigslist ad. Roughly 4 hours later and with the blessing of my long-suffering missus...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/UQGUVpv.jpg)

I'm over the moon. Not just the Stage but a beautiful case/pedalboard, expression pedal, all the connections plus a whole load of paid profiles. I have my dream rig! I have the Katana and the Digitech Drop pedal both on Craigslist (I'll likely get an FRFR powered speaker and no longer need the Drop since the Kemper can transpose if needed).

Wow! That's quite the thing! Enjoy!

I am so jealous of you all that have friends to play with! So fun!

SallyNasty wrote:

I am so jealous of you all that have friends to play with! So fun!

It's honestly one of the high points of my week.

ColdForged wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

I am so jealous of you all that have friends to play with! So fun!

It's honestly one of the high points of my week.

I believe it! Wish there were more GWJammers in Kansas City!

Very excited. I picked up a pair of Fishman Fluence Tosin Abasi that I found for 1/3'rd off the new price over at Reverb.com, and that will replace my EMG 808x in my guitar. I was never a fan of the EMG's and the neck pickup was practically useless (to me). Way too muddy and dead sounding for my taste, so I am excited to have these installed and see what kind of difference they make.

Love this thread! I've been a longtime listener to the podcast (2008 during the Gorgeous Rob producing days) and lurker occasionally on the forums. Actually came to find out about GWJ from a buddy that used to play drums in an old band back during that time. I'm in a Progressive Metal band out of Fort Wayne Indiana (Cory Banks' hometown) called Thematic. Everyone in the band are nerds and gamers. If you like guitars, catchy melodies, anime, and video games you might like our tunes.

Here's the title track from our latest album Skyrunner:

I'm the bald guy with the 8-string Strandberg Boden and triforce necklace

-Nate

omg so good. Your music is right up my alley.

I bought myself a new guitar this week, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it. It's a G&L ASAT, and it's just lovely to play (as well as providing a nice tone contrast to my other electric).

CPTNaters wrote:

I'm in a Progressive Metal band out of Fort Wayne Indiana (Cory Banks' hometown) called Thematic.

Goddamn! You're doing what I aspire to do. Keep it up, man.

I've been learning the ins and outs of Studio One that I bought with the goal of doing some recording at home. Then all that gear sat unused for about a year while I was doing other things and kept talking myself into thinking I have better things to do with my time.

This year started and I got so disappointed that I hadn't recorded even one minute of music all year long, so I promised myself I would learn and start recording. I dug up an excellent youtube channel which teaches the basics of home recording with Studio One as well as the basics of mixing (link, no affiliation) and sat down and actually finished up a track in about a month doing a little here and a little there.

It's no great masterpiece by any measure, but I am immensely proud that I sat down and actually did it.

I only have a dropbox link at the moment to share the file, but I guess I should setup a soundcloud account one of these days as well.

Fredrik_S wrote:

I only have a dropbox link at the moment to share the file, but I guess I should setup a soundcloud account one of these days as well.

Nice work! You made something! I find it strangely compelling, and I use both terms in their best imaginable way. I thought I knew what you were doing but I didn't, time and again. How many "real" instruments are in there, btw? I'm not trying to impugn synths, these days I'm just not sure if there's anything but synths in mixes sometimes they've gotten so good at mimicking other things.

Fredrik_S wrote:

omg so good. Your music is right up my alley.

Agreed, just listened to the first 6 tracks on my commute and they are super good. You guys could make amazing movie soundtracks.

Have you posted these in the metal thread? Hearing someone sing in a normal register is a welcome change for me.

Mixolyde wrote:

just listened to the first 6 tracks on my commute and they are super good. You guys could make amazing movie soundtracks.

Have you posted these in the metal thread? Hearing someone sing in a normal register is a welcome change for me.

Thanks so much for all the kind words! Haven't posted these in the metal thread yet. It's funny you mention movie soundtracks...we have a 16 bit animated tie in film coming out soon portraying the story of Skyrunner

Fredrik_S wrote:

I've been learning the ins and outs of Studio One that I bought with the goal of doing some recording at home. Then all that gear sat unused for about a year while I was doing other things and kept talking myself into thinking I have better things to do with my time.

This year started and I got so disappointed that I hadn't recorded even one minute of music all year long, so I promised myself I would learn and start recording. I dug up an excellent youtube channel which teaches the basics of home recording with Studio One as well as the basics of mixing ...
It's no great masterpiece by any measure, but I am immensely proud that I sat down and actually did it

Dude this is fantastic! Great job!
That's exactly how we started with all of this. "Kaizen"; one day at a time. Skyrunner was all final recorded through Studio one. We did all the engineering and producing ourselves and sent it off to Forrester Savell in Australia to mix and master. I've used pro tools, sonar, digital performer, cubase, and studio one. They all have their quirks but once you learn the basics it translates well between them. Kudos on tackling a difficult thing. Getting started is the hardest part! I look forward to hearing more from you.

ColdForged wrote:
Fredrik_S wrote:

I only have a dropbox link at the moment to share the file, but I guess I should setup a soundcloud account one of these days as well.

Nice work! You made something! I find it strangely compelling, and I use both terms in their best imaginable way. I thought I knew what you were doing but I didn't, time and again. How many "real" instruments are in there, btw? I'm not trying to impugn synths, these days I'm just not sure if there's anything but synths in mixes sometimes they've gotten so good at mimicking other things.

Except for the drums, it's all guitar. I recorded the guitars and the drums (using EZ Drummer 2) first, then used my Godin Custom Session guitar with Tripleplay to record it as a bass, then added the violins using the Godin as well. Tripleplay is pretty damn amazing and the tracking is so good that it's like having all the instruments in the world available to you.

CPTNaters wrote:

Dude this is fantastic! Great job!
They all have their quirks but once you learn the basics it translates well between them. Kudos on tackling a difficult thing. Getting started is the hardest part! I look forward to hearing more from you.

Thank you so much! I definitely got the urge to make more after this.

CPTNaters wrote:

Love this thread! I've been a longtime listener to the podcast (2008 during the Gorgeous Rob producing days) and lurker occasionally on the forums. Actually came to find out about GWJ from a buddy that used to play drums in an old band back during that time. I'm in a Progressive Metal band out of Fort Wayne Indiana (Cory Banks' hometown) called Thematic. Everyone in the band are nerds and gamers. If you like guitars, catchy melodies, anime, and video games you might like our tunes.

Hey Nate, this is great! Thank you for sharing it! So few prog metal bands out there now that a) have good chops, good writing and good-sounding recordings, b) don't sound like crusty old guys who are bitter that the world doesn't love them more (*cough* Sons of Apollo *cough*) and c) are unapologetically melodic without leaning super hard on that whole post-hardcore/djent vibe. Your stuff has a real sense of joy and curiosity, which is frustratingly difficult to find in this often insular, backward-looking genre.

The mix sounds great - are you comfortable sharing how much it cost you guys to get Forrester to mix/master it? If not (if you have the time) I'd love to talk about in PM.

Podunk wrote:

Hey Nate, this is great! Thank you for sharing it! So few prog metal bands out there now that a) have good chops, good writing and good-sounding recordings, b) don't sound like crusty old guys who are bitter that the world doesn't love them more (*cough* Sons of Apollo *cough*) and c) are unapologetically melodic without leaning super hard on that whole post-hardcore/djent vibe. Your stuff has a real sense of joy and curiosity, which is frustratingly difficult to find in this often insular, backward-looking genre.

Thanks so much for the kind words! Coming from you that means a lot. BTW Podunk stomp is still the best blend of bluegrass and metal! I've loved whenever that comes on the podcast over the years. I'll PM you.