Posted By A.G.C. on 17 Oct 2009 07:29 AM
Thanks for the kind words gentlemen...

Good point Fisha, as usual. It's funny though, I've been doing something "different" for so long now it's almost more natural for me to reach for a vst than play guitar or bass. The other day I did this collabo with Mr. Whitfield where I played live guitar versions of some midi files he wanted me to play and then he did this rough mix here:

-=Rate My Beat=-

Funny thing is that it took me longer to change my strings before recording this than to do it and honestly, it sounds much better than any of the hack keyboard guitar vst crap I been turning out lately (spending way more time than I would if I just did it on Bass or Guitar). I been thinking, why am I spending all this time doing things the "hard way"? Just for the sake of it? My point is sometimes it takes somebody else to point out what you do well for you to realize that instead of trying to "fix" yourself, maybee "do what you do" is the way to go.

Anyway I just wanted an excuse to post Whitfield's song that I came out of "guitar retirement" on by playing his parts. He's been helping me out with an idea I had for recording some guitar and bass loops to post up in the kits section (I don't know if anybody here uses loops, but...) thought I'd give him some love here. He did a good job IMO.

Posted By GrandPhantom on 27 Oct 2009 08:06 AM
I agree with what Sabotage said on the first page, and with AGC, you guys have so much knowledge lol.

SPE, I had the exact same thing when I was playing guitar (still had lessons I mean). It became so much of a routine that I lost the joy of playing. Now I haven't played for 3 or 4 months, and I cant wait till im able to play again, Im even learning musictheory, eventhough I hated that part when I still had lessons. I think, like Sab and AGC said, the most important thing is that you stay creative, not make it a routine and don't get into the whole 'I gotta be pro so this is what I have to do to sound like it' thing, Ive been there too, it sucks.

Btw AGC, that guitar track is tight. How did you record your guitarplaying on your pc/mac? I heard you need some sort of thing inbetween it.

Well the old track up there and the callabo is a Line 6  UX-1.  Lately I been using a Edirol UA-4FX.  The line 6 has a guitar input and a XLR mic input as well as outputs for my mixer and such. 

Same thing with the UA-4FX except it also has midi in and outs.  The timing when I record midi data is better with the Edirol cause the ASIO drivers are better (in Vista) so that's why I replaced the UX-1. 

Thing is the software for the Line 6 has a lot of effects that are really nice so I been using some free ones to emulate that stuff on my latest recordings. 

I'm using "guitar suite" (availible as a free download from KVR Audio) lately, the Marshall Amp emulation is pretty awesome as well as the Univibe and distortions.  Good freebies for making your guitar stuff more "real".  Even if your using samples.

I'm trying out guitar rig right now, don't have a final opinion yet but it looks like I'm gonna settle on Guitar Rig for guitar and Amplitube for bass with a Guitar Rig interface to control the effects like wah and such.  In other words I think I'm about to go completely digital in which case I will probably get the Sansamp bass pre-amp / D.I. cause it's the ish...  works for guitar too.  Gets rid of "grainy" digital tone.  At least where most non-guitarists can discern.  In fact I could probably plug one of those strait into a laptop mic input and fool most people with the "guitar suite".

So long story short I would get some type of audio interface that has 1/4 inch inputs and you'll probably be fine.  I never had any problem with any of them until Vista and now the UX-4FX is gonna work out until I can buy a copy of XP Pro and make my new laptop usable.  Might as well get something with XLR inputs in case you need to go mobile at some point and I like having the midi inputs on there too.  I like the Edirol pretty good but I have the Line 6 Gold bundle interface and the UX-1 and as far as guitar and bass... pretty good.