The Official Guitar Thread

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Melvin

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,399
1,168
I've had an Eleven Rack for a few years. The best use I've found for it is in my pedal board filling in as a midi controllable reverb and delay and distortion pedal. It has a huge variety of pedals that it emulates, and a lot of them sound great. One of the "distortion pedal" settings (the DC Distortion) is actually 100% an original creation that doesn't exist anywhere other than the Eleven Rack and as a software plug-in, and I use it side by side with half a dozen boutique and vintage distortion pedals, and it holds its own. I really like having a midi controlled spring and plate reverb and tape delay; having a bunch of different settings that are perfectly dialed in for the sound you need is a million times more convenient than using the real thing.

The biggest down side: there's something fundamentally incorrect with the way this thing is grounded. There's background noise that shouldn't exist. It's not a deal breaker by any means, it's about as noisy as you'd expect a high gain distortion pedal to be, you know? But it's not the same kind of noise, it's like a "digital machine going a little bit off the rails very quietly" kind of noise. The design has been updated a number of times in its lifespan, and I haven't ever heard any boxes other than mine, so maybe they got it cleared up eventually? Idk, I can only guess.

The other downside worth mentioning is that the amp emulation is crap imo. I don't use it at all. The speaker cab emulation is crap too. Turn that shit off. The built in noise gate that exists in every patch is garbage. It's honestly a bit annoying when I set up a new patch and I have to disable a million settings just to turn off all of the bullshit so I can use that one single pedal all by itself. But then it's super easy to copy that one patch and make a million variations with slightly different settings. So the learning curve at first is exactly what you expect from a piece of gear this complicated.
 

jooka

marco esquandolas
<Bronze Donator>
14,368
6,087
Thanks for the review, went ahead and ordered one. If I don't like it after a couple days will return it. Was using a Roland Pod MD500X for awhile but had to give it back to my buddy so looking for something else to play with now.


EDIT should add I don't have any amps or anything like that, just use headphones to goof around.
 

jooka

marco esquandolas
<Bronze Donator>
14,368
6,087
Alex Alex picked this up recently, remind you of a particular persons guitar?

IMG_20180425_190434.jpg
 
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mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,350
37,374
Why not just get an ipad and bias FX? Seems like a way to go if youre sound tweaker. Can run it through your amp or any powered speaker or PA. I guess they even have bluetooth pedal controls.


 

jooka

marco esquandolas
<Bronze Donator>
14,368
6,087
I used to edit sound(voice overs mostly) for a company a long time ago, they used pro tools and the eleven rack comes with Pro Tools first. So I will be sorta familiar with the program.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,350
37,374
You can get pro tools first for free. The 16 channel version and it allows you, I think, 3 cloud saves. You dont need to buy anything to get the pro tools "first" version. Bias FX is a standalone or plug in for DAW like pro tools or others which gives you a virtual amp and effects.

If you want to run pro tools on PC to fuck with tracks and whatever, you dont need eleven rack. You need an I/O device like focusrite Scarlett ( solo version is $99, which also comes with pro tools first) and then an effects plug ins for your guitar, like virtual amps, etc... Pro tools first comes with a rudimentary virtual amp, but bias and bias FX is 200% better virtual amp and effectsplug in for pro tools, which can also be used standalone if you just want to jam out without recording tracks or whatever.

But thats the problem with pro tools. they want you to use their cloud save feature and only allow the free version 3 saves. Which is not bad for someone like me or you that might work on 1 song or 2 maybe. Anything above that you have to pay yearly $99 fee to expand that service.
 
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mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,350
37,374
You can get garage band for your ipad which I guess is awesome for just yourself fucking around, and its freeware i think. Note I dont have it, just passing on what I heard. Also the other good one is Reaper which is $60 but you get the full version and its full featured like pro tools.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
37,961
14,508
I have all the stuff - mics, interfaces, 5150 because I'm not a fag. But with two young kids there's not time, space, or desire to get back in yet.

It's weird because leading up to Halloween I play a fuckton of guitar and have gotten a lot better.
 

jooka

marco esquandolas
<Bronze Donator>
14,368
6,087
You can get pro tools first for free. The 16 channel version and it allows you, I think, 3 cloud saves. You dont need to buy anything to get the pro tools "first" version. Bias FX is a standalone or plug in for DAW like pro tools or others which gives you a virtual amp and effects.

If you want to run pro tools on PC to fuck with tracks and whatever, you dont need eleven rack. You need an I/O device like focusrite Scarlett ( solo version is $99, which also comes with pro tools first) and then an effects plug ins for your guitar, like virtual amps, etc... Pro tools first comes with a rudimentary virtual amp, but bias and bias FX is 200% better virtual amp and effectsplug in for pro tools, which can also be used standalone if you just want to jam out without recording tracks or whatever.

But thats the problem with pro tools. they want you to use their cloud save feature and only allow the free version 3 saves. Which is not bad for someone like me or you that might work on 1 song or 2 maybe. Anything above that you have to pay yearly $99 fee to expand that service.


I was thinking I could use usb from the eleven rack to record to pro tools, not a big deal I won't be able to w/o other equipment. The eleven rack already shipped so I'll see if I like it or not.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,350
37,374
I have all the stuff - mics, interfaces, 5150 because I'm not a fag. But with two young kids there's not time, space, or desire to get back in yet.

It's weird because leading up to Halloween I play a fuckton of guitar and have gotten a lot better.

Get back in doing what? Were you in a band or just fucking around solo? The problem with all that amp shit is that its non portable, and loud as fuck if you want good tone. Im thinking PC/interface is the future of guitar. Plug in and listen through headphones? Fuck, Im in. Take your ipad and PA speaker to buds house to jam with? fuck, im in.

I have been out of the loop for a while, but I wish we had shit like the above when we were jamming together for the past 20 yrs. All you need is Ipad a few apps and PA speaker? Instead we had marshall and peavy 1/2 stacks plus huge ass ampeg bass rig blowing out your ear drums, and you couldnt even change the tone that much, unless you bought another $1k in pedals and shit. Now you can listen to guitar through headphones to practice, whatever, or PA speaker, with limitless tones you can change on the fly.

My guitar buddies would of given their left nuts to have tones like this on the fly....

 
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Neranja

<Bronze Donator>
2,605
4,143
My thought, I was going to take my old i5 2500K box I have lying around in the basement 1/2 scrapped and make a digital amp/studio out of it using focuserite for a interface for now. Maybe get a tascam+mikes later for drums.

Anyway would that 2500K be enough processor for that kind of shit?

That depends on what you want to do. For recording a few inputs it's more than enough. 2 inputs at 24bit/44.1kHz need around 0.25 MB/sec. Old 90 MHz Pentiums can shuffle that amount of data to RAM and disk.

However, if you want to push the inputs through processing (filters) and/or generate one or more sendback mixes for headphones with low latency, then shit gets hairy really quick. You either need onboard mixing and/or processing in your audio interface (like the Universal Audio ones), or a really fast computer with good ASIO drivers. The Focusrite interfaces have mediocre ones, but the better ones are of course more expensive.
 
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Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
37,961
14,508
Solo recordings is what I meant. I have all the tools but haven't been into it for awhile.

I understand that it's a great solution for a lot of people, but I will never lose the love for a tube amp and the sound it produces.
 

Lunis

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,247
1,470
I just started playing for a about 2 months now and there's one thing I keep fucking up. When I lift off a string and I don't use/mute the string for the next chord I always play the lift-off note no matter how hard I try not to. help.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
37,961
14,508
The art of muting strings is often understated to beginner. It's something you'll want to, like anything with guitar, practice slowly. Ideally what you want to be able to do is lift up enough to quickly mute the string while not forcing it to ring out. It's a finer touch you'll need for it.



It's the same thing when people learn to sweep pick. Play slowly, with lots of gain to hear every mistake.
 

pharmakos

soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
<Bronze Donator>
16,306
-2,239
I just started playing for a about 2 months now and there's one thing I keep fucking up. When I lift off a string and I don't use/mute the string for the next chord I always play the lift-off note no matter how hard I try not to. help.

have you tried using different gauges of string to see what feels better for you? i often see newbies playing with strings that are overly large size for a beginner. i always tell new guitar players they should start with just about the lightest strings that will fit on their guitar, even tho lighter gauges often sound worse. the thicker the string, the more tension is on it to get it in tune, the harder it is to push down enough to make solid contact with the fret. can work your way up to bigger gauges as your grip strength increases.

or maybe i'm guessing incorrectly about what part you're having a hard time with :)
 

Lunis

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,247
1,470
Maybe I'm pressing down too hard then? What I mean is when you take your finger off the string it plays the open note once.
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,350
37,374
What is your action like on this guitar, is it comfortably low, or is it hard to play high? It should be like .5mm on the first fret (heel side) and around d 1.5mm-2mm on the last.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
37,961
14,508
I wouldn't really measure action like that, typically when I do a setup I just check the high where it meets the body on the baritone side (with first and last free depressed )

It's a good idea to get it setup though. I'd assume it hasnt been
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
25,350
37,374
Its all about that setup. You can take the shittiest playing guitar in the world, and with proper setup make it play like a dream. this is why most people get rid of their guitars. 1. They think it does not stay in tune so they blame their tuners and bridges which is absolutely ridiculous (99% of the time its their strings not being properly stretched or nut binding problems) and 2. high and shitty action which makes guitar hard and shitty to play.

Action should be measured exactly like that. 1st fret is 0.3-0.5mm, last fret is 1.5-2mm and neck relief (press first and last fret and measure relief in the middle of neck is ~ .5mm This is what a proper set up does. then frets need to be leveled if you get any buzzing using the string on "katana" method for best results.

Gibson standard factory setting is .8mm first fret and ~2.5mm last fret. Which is good out of the factory for sure compared to others, but still can be taken down some more with tweaks to make them even better playing.But the cheaper the guitar, obviously they are not spending the 30 min to a hour setting up the guitar properly at the factory.