errr..Hello :)

[esc4p3]

A quick Hi from me by way of an introduction. Having tried out loads of guitar/music forum's I ended up at Paul's (DragonDreams) forum where I immediately felt at home. Naturally he has remorselessly brow-beaten me to join this forum and get recording (joke!). So here I am.

Being well into my 40's I have only been playing for about 5-6 years and am very much a hobbyist guitar player, but I get massive enjoyment out of it. I have had some lessons early on, but got a bit bored with that. So have tried a different teacher, stuff from the web (justinguitar.com) books, DVD's etc. and all have their place. Then I decided I'd see if I could make my own music, and although my playing is fairly straight forward some of it doesn't come out too bad - but I have masses to learn - so it turns out I get a bit bored learning other people's stuff, but I will never get tired of creating my own. This process has been helped massively by the critiques over at DD's forum.

So that's me, if you wanted to get an idea of the kind of stuff I churn out, I am at http://soundcloud.com/esc4p3

Cheers, Carl

[Bernamica Gray]

WELCOME!

You've joined at a quiet time but no worries.
"Teacher" ...no sorry, that doesn't compute! (self taught egotist who consequently has taught himself lots of bad habits!).

Ease yourself in this month.

When you have 5 mins tell us what sort of recording set-up you have - we have quite a variety of approaches.

Anywayzzz enjoy

Graham

[Hont]

Welcome Carl - looking forward to hearing some of your stuff

so it turns out I get a bit bored learning other people's stuff, but I will never get tired of creating my own.

I've felt like that for 25 years.

[dawiba]

Hi Carl and welcome aboard

[esc4p3]

self taught egotist who consequently has taught himself lots of bad habits

Who, me? Bad habits present and correct

[Dragondreams]

I think Gray was being scathing about Justin and not you...

Welcome aboard, Carl!

Lovely to see you made the leap of faith. I'm looking forward to hearing your input and receiving your critiques in return.

Paul.

[esc4p3]

So my recording stuff....

I have 3 guitars, an Ibanez ART400 (my profile picture) an Ibanez SA260FM and a Tanglewood TW47b acoustic - favourite is the ART400, it's a keeper! My amp is a Line 6 Spider Jam. Partly because of space and partly because of mindset, I set out to achive as much as possible with the least amount of gear. The Spider Jam (SJ) has onboard drum loops and jam tracks as well as record/loop functions, so this was my weapon of choice to capture my ramblings. The main problem with this, as was pointed out to me, is that the SJ records in extreme mono.

So my next course of action was to download Reaper and connect the line out of the amp to my soundcard and start the long and bumpy road of computer recording. My PC has a basic X-Fi Extreme Audio card and is M$ Vista and is pretty high spec in every other area. All of the more recent tracks I have done have been done on Reaper as I learn my way around it - I really like it. I am a bit of a techie, but sometimes I do resent the time spent tweaking, because it is not time 'playing'. But it is a learning process. Something pointed out by David (Dawiba) and having reflected on it, it now realise is true, the SJ is an excellent tool for getting idea's recorded quickly. But for actually getting tracks down and messing with the resulting audio, the PC is much better.

In terms of my musical ideas, a lot of the time I will flick through some drum loops, or listen to some of my favourite music and I end up recording some rhythm guitar. Then just start playing around getting some lead guitar down and out comes a track of music, sometimes it feels a bit random as I never know what I will end up with when I start. So far I think 2 minutes or so is my average track time. My aim is to produce a 'full length' track soon. I can only read music to a basic level.

So that's me....reading it back it look more like a CV

[Dragondreams]

So far I think 2 minutes or so is my average track time...

That'll please Hont...

[Hont]

So far I think 2 minutes or so is my average track time...

That'll please Hont...

Average you say? Meaning that you have tracks longer than 2 minutes.

Hmmmm.

[Bernamica Gray]

the self taught egotist bit --- i woz referring to myself

and the other thing Hont dislikes is "tapping", though he sees me as a lost cause in that respect.

may I just hijack this thread for a minute (mainly coz I can't be arsed to open up another) to say what a gent young Paul is (he of D Dreams fame) - he endured an evening with me in the studio at Bernamica Towers and his good lady watched my TV in the other room whilst we drank coffee, played about with a variax (mine) and a loop station (mine) and a line 6 spyder amp (mine) and a GR20 (yawn, mine) and then Paul fiddled with my laptop - then a friend of mine popped in for ME to fix a strat copy but paul took the job on and will make an even better job of it!
So even though we might not ever get to know the "hidden meaning" of his July task entry, I think I was right in that he exudes "positive encouragement"
I thank you, sir

btw - those of you that were here 3 years ago will note that I still can't do the quote thing on here - remember that saga??? oh yeah and I remember NOT getting any help, but was obviously the subject of much collective merriment

ps - did I mention that I now OFFICIALLY HATE software???????? did I??????? well I do

pps - maybe turning 53 last week has affected me more than I thought?

[Dragondreams]

btw - those of you that were here 3 years ago will note that I still can't do the quote thing on here - remember that saga??? oh yeah and I remember NOT getting any help, but was obviously the subject of much collective merriment

Next time you come to Castle Dragondreams, I'll show you the way I do it... that might help.

Further apologies to Carl for the continued thread hijack...

Thank you for the kind words!

We had a lovely time at Bernamica Towers, Gray. Denise was telling me on the way home that she felt quite "comfortable" and "at home". I didn't "endure" your playing and demos of your gear. I found it fascinating, and it's led to some new ideas forming already. Repairing that Marlin Strat will be a pleasure too!

It's almost a new month, so I may reveal the hidden meaning when this task has closed...

[esc4p3]

Further apologies to Carl for the continued thread hijack

Naaa problem I am sure I will get the opportunity to return the favour at some point

[Hont]

....Marlin Strat...

I had one of those in the 80s. Given how it kind of disintegrated on me (despite replacing various parts) I'm amazed that any are still playable.

@Gray. Put a [ bracket in front of the following line to achieve the quote above

quote="Dragondreams"]....Marlin Strat...[/quote]

It's quite simple once you get the hang of it, you can even do things like....

I'm just too old to understand all this fancy computer lark.

[Bernamica Gray]

Having slept....I woke with the idea of looking again at software.... there are so many advantages.
So, without explaining what I am trying to achieve that my present set-up won't and despite the fact that i still need to get this blasted laptop to play simple wav's - note to dawiba - paul confirmed that the problem is the codecs, but we couldn't fix it last night coz the laptop UPGRADED automatically some software and as a consequence the wireless has decided not to work... lost me track, where was I?

ah yes, so despite all the above, i am now contemplating SEQUEL as that looks simple enough for me to understand and the way you can trigger loops and stuff seems to be the biz.

stay toooned, i think my enthusiasm is returning!