Gamers who play musical instruments

RawkGWJ wrote:
ColdForged wrote:

IBehold!

Excellent! Is the intro part an original composition or is it lifted from somewhere else?

If it’s an original you should think about adding vocals to it. I don’t know how much of a sense of humor you have about your music, but you could do a Spinal-Tap-ish thing like


We are Hellion
From the beyond
We have come to...
ROCK! YOU!!

That's awesome!

No, it isn't mine. I ain't good enough to come up with my own stuff yet. That's Judas Priest's "The Hellion". I was listening to it and thought it sounded like a decent pump-fake intro into Master of Puppets (which is the first song of our setlist). "Oh, they're an 80's hair metal cover band... oh wait...". It has a really easy drum part and itself is pretty easy so I decided to try to record it.

Sorry. I assumed the bands name was Hellion. Priest is rad though.

Writing original music isn’t as hard as you might think. In the Do Re Mi song, towards the end they repeat, ”If you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything.” I have coopted that and changed it to, “If you know the notes to sing, you can PLAY most anything.”

It’s my opinion that the hardest thing about creating original music is that it’s really easy to accidentally create something that you’ve already heard. But remember, all new music builds from previous music, so there is no such thing as a 100% original composition. When you start drilling down to specific genres of popular music it gets even more similar. For instance, take the opening riff to The Thing That Should Not Be. In just a few minutes, I could find at least 2 other metal songs that have a similar, if not identical chord and melody structure. It’s not that everyone is copying Metallica, it’s just that the metal genre has Some very common tropes.

So now applying the If you know the notes to sing concept, just sing out loud or in your head, the melody, riff, or chord progression that you would like your song to have. Now grab your musical instrument of choice and work out how to play it. Now grab your phone and make a rough scratch recording of it. Play the recording back and see what you think.

If you’ve accidentally created a song that already exists, then try to modify it so that it’s not exactly the same melody, rhythm, key, or chord progression. Remember, all music builds on music that came before. Hell, all art, no matter the medium, is built upon the art that has come before it.

SO GO FORTH GOOD GOODJERS AND CREATE SOME ART!!

Yeah, I always tell myself - there's only 12 notes in music, you're going to double up eventually. But it feels like it's been a lifetime since I wrote music, so my advice probably isn't worth too much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

In other news, I finally got around to modifying my telecaster tonight. I've been meaning to do it since I bought some 8 years or so ago, but always lacked the confidence. It's a 62 reissue, which is great in most ways except for the pickup configuration. Until 1968, telecasters had a different config, where the third position was bridge, middle was neck and first was neck with no tone control. With the reissues, they've chosen to stay faithful to the vintage style. But lately I've been really wanting that twin pickup sound

Fortunately, despite having very little experience with a soldering iron, I managed to pull it off successfully. It's not a big, complicated modification, but I'm pretty proud of my little accomplishment. Of course, it's had the side-effect of me wanting to modify/customise/build everything now.

halfwaywrong wrote:

Yeah, I always tell myself - there's only 12 notes in music, you're going to double up eventually. But it feels like it's been a lifetime since I wrote music, so my advice probably isn't worth too much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

In other news, I finally got around to modifying my telecaster tonight. I've been meaning to do it since I bought some 8 years or so ago, but always lacked the confidence. It's a 62 reissue, which is great in most ways except for the pickup configuration. Until 1968, telecasters had a different config, where the third position was bridge, middle was neck and first was neck with no tone control. With the reissues, they've chosen to stay faithful to the vintage style. But lately I've been really wanting that twin pickup sound

Fortunately, despite having very little experience with a soldering iron, I managed to pull it off successfully. It's not a big, complicated modification, but I'm pretty proud of my little accomplishment. Of course, it's had the side-effect of me wanting to modify/customise/build everything now.

You know you have to show photos now.

halfwaywrong wrote:

Fortunately, despite having very little experience with a soldering iron, I managed to pull it off successfully. It's not a big, complicated modification, but I'm pretty proud of my little accomplishment. Of course, it's had the side-effect of me wanting to modify/customise/build everything now.

That's awesome. I tried soldering once and it didn't turn out well and had to take the guitar to a repair place. One of those skills I'd love to learn.

ColdForged wrote:

You know you have to show photos now.

Haha that's true, here we go!

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

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

Oh yeah, that's the stuff. Nice work!

We bought a 21" soprano ukulele for my daughter and it is the cutest thing and actually sounds ok. It's red to match my guitar and my kid likes plucking on it. Looking forward to learning some stuff so I can teach her.

The tuning on it is so strange to me. Note-wise it is tuned like the top four strings of a guitar with a capo on the 5th fret, except what should be the lowest pitch string is between the first and second strings. Super weird, but fun. My wife wants one now, too.

Paleocon wrote:

My nephew picked up an antique resonator banjo on a trip to West Virginia. we're trying to figure out how to play it.

So sorry to hear this, Paleocon. My condolences.

Robear wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

My nephew picked up an antique resonator banjo on a trip to West Virginia. we're trying to figure out how to play it.

So sorry to hear this, Paleocon. My condolences.

I used to play the banjo for a small acoustic trio. Then one day I did something really dumb (at least I learned my lesson.) After a gig I left the banjo in the back seat of my car with the window down while we dipped back in for a drink. Sure enough, when I came back - four more banjos in the back seat.

Michael wrote:
Robear wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

My nephew picked up an antique resonator banjo on a trip to West Virginia. we're trying to figure out how to play it.

So sorry to hear this, Paleocon. My condolences.

I used to play the banjo for a small acoustic trio. Then one day I did something really dumb (at least I learned my lesson.) After a gig I left the banjo in the back seat of my car with the window down while we dipped back in for a drink. Sure enough, when I came back - four more banjos in the back seat.

That story had an unexpected twist. A++. Would read again.

It works equally as well with accordions.

I am super bummed I broke out my old amp that is a 1998 Peavey Transfex Pro 212 and the midi board is dead. I will do some disassembly but seems it's the end of the road for the rack. The 2 12 inch speakers are probably fine and I'll be able to turn it into something but it was my first amp. Sad to see it go but at least it got a lot of play the first 15 years.

This thing has priced dropped to free from $9.99 on iOS. It looks legit but I’m not very knowledgeable about DAWs and loop samplers.

BeatHawk

Well due to my dead amplifier I have fallen down the rabbit hole of what it would take to build a tube amp head and wow I forgot how much fun learning about that all is. Just watched 45 minutes of Uncle Doug's youtube explaining how a 6v6 amp works. Another great recommendation is Dlab's youtube channel if this is your jam.

I'll miss the old Peavey transfex tube pro midi that served me well 15 years and hope I can get it running again one day but I think I have my social isolation project on hand and I get to dive back into music to do it.

I did my duty and Stimulated the Economy by picking up a synth I've wanted for a long time, the enigmatic Lyra-8. They sell them in several colors, but I was all about the pink. It between that and mint green. The sounds that come out of this are beautiful and haunting.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/08Po7x8.jpg)

That's super cool. Had to look up a video of what it does, and it's indeed haunting and beautiful. Enjoy!

It's definitely a little out there. This is a really good video that goes through everything:

that looks bananas fun to play with.

The Spark guitar amp advertised in my Instagram feed and I've been looking into it and it seems really neat. It supposedly lists at $299 but can be preordered at only $225. It's an amp that connects to an app to let you use a zillion different audio profiles, but also does neat stuff like will play a backing track based on what you're playing, or can sync up with Spotify and automatically generate for you the chords of the song of your choosing. Those features in particular--which basically make it sound like Rocksmith in an amp--are really appealing to me. And they're almost out of their limited number of discount preorders!

But before I clicked buy, I looked into it more and a)although they have shipped review units to people, I have yet to see any reviewers actually demoing those two features that were of interest to me (and in one of the videos I saw, the youtuber commented that those functions were still in beta and not yet ready, unclear if that meant the features were embargoed for coverage or not even available to him through the amp/app), and b)apparently they have been selling pre-orders for a long time and were supposed to be shipping last year but have just delayed and delayed, and people are very mad. Both I think are clear signs that, even if the discount is enticing, I should wait until this is all the way released before I give them any money.

mrlogical wrote:

The Spark guitar amp advertised in my Instagram feed and I've been looking into it and it seems really neat...

Huh.. That's a super cool amp, I gotta say. A few things about Positive Grid in my experience that may help your decision. First is that their customer service is really, really, good. I bought Bias FX while I was looking for amp sims and later on changed my mind as I found the tones in Overloud's TH-U to be far superior. They were really cool with refunding my purchase and even left me the base version in my account in case I changed my mind again. They are also very active on the development side and keep pushing updates so more than likely, even if the features are not 100% there at the time of launch, I don't see Positive Grid as a company that would just leave things to die.
The bad thing is that I have found their tones to be lacking that oomph and realism, but in the spark I could totally see it work as it has a speaker to push air. The features of the spark are really compelling and especially at that price point. If you do decide to get it, let us know how it is!

Yeah, those features sound pretty damned cool. And it's a relatively compact unit that would be pretty great for practice.

In the same boat as far as the Spark amp. I already have a katana 100 so effects & modelling isn't really a need, it's more the play along stuff and other features that make the Spark appealing, but seeing how far behind they are filling pre-orders, I'm still in the "wait and see" camp.

Michael wrote:

It's definitely a little out there. This is a really good video that goes through everything:

This is what the Fez soundtrack sounded like.

Yeah, when I do play my electric, it's through a 180w Fender Princeton 65 that is just way louder and bigger than I need for noodling in the basement by myself...I never turn the volume on past 2. Yet plugging in to my PC for Rocksmith or Yousician isn't quite satisfying either. So the Spark seems perfect for my needs. My birthday is at the end of June so hopefully it's actually shipping by then and I can consider buying it if reviews are positive.

I made a new song and this time it's angry. I also setup a new soundcloud account so you don't have to use the weird dropbox thing I had earlier.

https://soundcloud.com/user-878230427

Fredrik_S wrote:

I made a new song and this time it's angry. I also setup a new soundcloud account so you don't have to use the weird dropbox thing I had earlier.

https://soundcloud.com/user-878230427

Yep, that's an angry one. Nice! Keep it going dude.

Fredrik_S wrote:

I made a new song and this time it's angry. I also setup a new soundcloud account so you don't have to use the weird dropbox thing I had earlier.

https://soundcloud.com/user-878230427

Did you remove it or delete your account? It’s telling me that they can’t find this user, meaning you.

My handle on SoundCloud is demian-snipes

Anyone with an account please add me. I’ll even make available the only thing that I’ve recorded in the past 20 years. I took it down because I had a throat infection when I recorded it. Everyone tells me that the vocals are good but it doesn’t sound like my normal singing voice and I hate it. Ok. The song is back up again.

Same error, look forward to hearing it

RawkGWJ wrote:
Fredrik_S wrote:

I made a new song and this time it's angry. I also setup a new soundcloud account so you don't have to use the weird dropbox thing I had earlier.

https://soundcloud.com/user-878230427

Did you remove it or delete your account? It’s telling me that they can’t find this user, meaning you.

My handle on SoundCloud is demian-snipes

Anyone with an account please add me. I’ll even make available the only thing that I’ve recorded in the past 20 years. I took it down because I had a throat infection when I recorded it. Everyone tells me that the vocals are good but it doesn’t sound like my normal singing voice and I hate it. Ok. The song is back up again.

Ah, sorry! I changed the default URL to a more personalized one. Here it is: https://soundcloud.com/fredrik_s