These last few days I tried to get to know my new toy, the TonePort interface, to learn it, to play with it, etc. In order to test it, I also took the bass guitar at home, to see how it sounds recorded through my new toy. I have found one great bass tone, a rock tone, full and sharp and I had the time of my life playing the bass in front of my computer.

But! Cause there is always a but, isn’t it? I am a guitar player, used to press light strings against small frets, my guitar is kind of a juwelry, small and nice, easy to use and easy to play (with). Now, the bass guitar isn’t anything close to this, isn’t it? Large frets, heavy strings, larger and heavier than a regular electric guitar!

I have always had fun playing the other instruments in the room, don’t you dare tell me you have never played drumms while at the rehearsal studio to everybody’s dispair! Or bass! I know we had a lot of jam sessions where we switched instruments and this is always a great moment! But when trying to record something, this is not always the easiest thing to do, since you need to be accurate and play every single note as clear as possible. While with the guitar this should not be a problem, while playing the bass, it suddenly becomes one because sooner or later something goes wrong! For example, I have observed that my pinky doesn’t quite want to behave when playing bass, after all, the low E string is almost half of my pinky so I guess it has it’s reasons to missbehave! 

The fact is that after trying and after a bit of rehearsal, my small home recording session went fine but really made me think about my buddy and bass player in my band and man, and all I can say is…

…RESPECT! 

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I have this audio CD in the car with Bon Jovi and Hammerfall that I listen quite a lot, I think it is one of the best “music for driving” CD that I’ve ever had.

Well, there is this cover on the CD that Bon Jovi did after Mrs Robinson, on acoustic guitars; I think it is one of the best covers they have made. Actually, I think that beside Knocking on heavens door that I have on the same CD, I don’t know other covers they played, but I really like how Mrs Robinson sounds played by Bon Jovi. OK, if you want, I could make a joke and say that the best song they have ever covered is Living on a prayer, the unplugged version, cause sounds nothing like the original version, has a life of it’s own and can be put on the same CD with the original version without thinking you listen to the same song again!

What really got my attention at one point is the bass guitar which is kind of loud, in my opinion (or the EQ settings on my car CD player boost the bass a bit too much, but I haven’t notice that on other songs). That bass line makes all the money!

Listen the song and share your thoughts here!

Later edit: after embedding the video here I have seen other covers of Bon Jovi. Still, Mrs Robinson rules!

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I just wonder, beside English “speaking” bands (and here I include every band singing in English, including bands such as Scorpions, Gamma Ray, Helloween, which are not native English speakers) and also beside bands singing in your mother tongue, in case you are not native English speakers, what other bands have come to your attention during all those years?

To me, at this point, the band that comes to my mind is Heroes del Silencio. I used to listen them a few good years ago. Ah,and also Ramstein! Yes, Ramstein rules even I don’t understand a damn word from what they say there!

What other non-English speaking bands do you listen to?

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After receiving my new toy, the USB recording interface, I can tell you that I spent a good deal of time playing with it, searching for the right tone, also playing with Ableton Live software and I am quite happy with the result so far.

My intention is to record at home my musical ideas in the best possible way, without spending too much money on gear and I think that this little toy is the best solution I have come up with, so far.

The fact is that when learning how to use the software, I have tried to record a few tracks that are familiar to me, pieces from one of our own songs, that we (aka Tentatii, the band) recorded about 6-7(?) years ago here in a local studio in Pitesti so today I just felt the desire to listen that song again and I said to share it with you here.

I remember there was a period where we were looking for our own style, we came after a period when we tried to follow the trend with summer songs (well, don’t blame me, OK? We tried…). We had 2 songs with very crowded drums at that moment, and when this song came to being, I remember we practically constrained the drummer to keep a steady beat, without any moment of “creation”, if you know what I mean. He complained about this a lot but in the end we did it like this, even if he kept complaining about this for the whole recording session. He still reminded us once in a while about this song for a few years after that day…

So, the song is called Poate ca maine (Maybe tomorrow) and because it is in Romanian, I will give you a translation, as close as I can, even if it may not sound too “English”. It goes like this:

1) You’ve never even told me that you intend to leave
I didn’t know I will be alone during too cold nights 

You left and never even looked back for a moment
You left me all alone, me and my sadness 

2) Sometimes I stare to nothing/emptiness, I dream of blue nights with you
 We used to walk hand in hand, we used to have a single meaning (direction?)

I wish we could be in the past and maybe we could change something
Sad moments to smiles, but maybe it is better this way

Chorus: Maybe tomorrow, something will change
Maybe tomorrow,  I’ll belong to someone else
Maybe tomorrow I won’t regret a thing,
But today I’m lall alone, me and my sadness 

The fact that we decided to simplify things reflected on my guitar playing as well: no solo! Period! So instead of a solo, there are a couple of notes that are more part of the rhythmic section than of a solo section, but in my opinion they work well with the song.

I remember how this song came to being, the bass player came with it as a ballad, on piano and sounded lovely, …too lovely, if I may say so. I think the whole “catch” belongs to the drummer who instead of playing it as a ballad, played a fast rhythm. Then the lead singer came with a different chorus that the original one and voila!

Poate ca maine
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I think I will start a new page on this site, called My music, or something similar, since this is the 3rd song I upload here already.

What do you think?

PS: That’s a song just made for Fender, I wish I had a Strat at the moment we recorded the song, but I didn’t. By the way, the picture is taken at one of our gigs in a local pub, but I’m not in it. Also, even today, this is the “opening song” on our gigs, since it has a good rhythm and gives you a good start, and people can actually sing it.

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Well, my dear friends, yesterday I have received my little toy, TonePort UX1, the USB recording interface from Line 6. I ordered it on Wendsday and I received it yesterday…That caused a lot of frustration, to be honest,but OK, it is here…

So, when I’ve got home with it, I was already impatient and I couldn’t wait to install it. I could tell you right from the start the same thing I have observed when I purchased the guitar, the guys from Line 6 give a very big importance to marketing. Everything is packed up nicely, beautiful packages, it gives you that special thrill, like you are a kid waiting for the toy that Santa is going to bring you this Christmas! Well, this is how I’ve felt, anyway…

The package brings one USB recording interface (Line 6 TonePort UX1), 1 USB cable, 2 CDs and a lot of papers for registering, if you want. Speaking about marketing and support, I don’t think they left something out, I felt that when installing the software and the hardware. On the 2 CDs it was written very large, to not miss it, which CD to install first, which the second, they were very careful to inform you to not connect the hardware before the installer reaches a particular point, etc. I was impressed by the fact that they put a lot of weight on explaning to the customer how to do things right. I liked that a lot, because, even if I am a computer professional, I realize not everybody spends his days around computers.

I installed the Ableton Live software also, plugged my guitar and wheee…or not!?!!! WTF? Play, damn it! 

If there is anything that I hate in this software world, is to read the documentation of a product. I am impatient and I expect everything to work from the start and I have the conviction I can usually learn any software without too much reading…Well, in this case the damn thing didn’t wanna start!

Back to school, then. Of course, the device is not connected in anyway to the sound card of the computer, so in order to make it work, to hear it using your sound card you need to take the line out from the recording device and plug it to the line in of the sound card. Pretty obvious, but I expected it to know about the sound card, one way or the other.

After overcoming the fact that everything on the recording device uses large jacks(1/4) while on the computer everything works on small ones, I still haven’t been able to play it using my computer. My mic line has a problem and i can not record a mic, seems my line in also has the same problem!

Head phones maybe? Yes! It work, finally! Let’s roll!

And the adventure begins

Man, I knew from the start that this toy is loaded with a lot of amps, but come on! After playing like 10-15 tones there I’ve got really dizzy! The software comes with 3 predefined tone sets: clean tone, cruch and heavy, each of these folders containing around 25(?) tones. Now think of the fact that you can adapt any of these tones and save them as your own, in another set, user defined. Man…

I can tell you that I played them all until the end of the evening, but I couldn’t find “my tone” among all those tones there. The same as with my Variax modeling guitar, which has it’s models based on famous electric and acoustic guitar models, tones there are based on famous tones that somebody once used. Like for example I could find a tone named Achtung, based on The Edge tone, or another one called “Aint talkin bout love” or something similar, based on Eddie Van Halen’s tone. What really made my day from this point of view was the tone named Hell’s Bells. Now you do the math and tell me the original band! I had a lot of fun with this tone since I couldn’t make a tone on my BOSS processor for You shook me all night, because I am not very good at cutting gain on my distortion. I can not feel it, seems something is missing, so I need to turn the gain on, losing ACDC’s spirit. But when the tone was already created, played using the Gibson Les Paul model, sounds nice! Yeah!

I was able to find a couple of tones there to get somehow closer to what I want, it was a tone called “80’s rhythm guitar”, pretty self describing, I guess, pure distortion, a bit too open in my opinion, but OK, it’s a preset. Also, the tone that I found to be the closest to what I want is called Blizzard and is based on Randy Rhoads’s tone. I will probably start working on it from there. I will see…

The next thing I tried was to create a tone from scratch. Damn, system overload!!! Let’s look at it this way. Suppose you are a very experienced, professional guitar players, with a lot of money. How many amplifiers would you be able to gather in order to really find the tone? More than 18 in one single room? And if you manage to put them together in one single room, how many cabinet sets do you think you would be able to gather? More than 18-20?! Well, and if you managed to do this: NOW COMBINE THEM, EACH AND EVERYONE OF THEM! Damn it!

Now add the line of stompboxes, a few on every position, like 2-3 types of delays, 2-3 types of wah, etc. And when you think it can not get any worse than this, think of how the sound is taken from those cabinets. With a mic. Aaaa…which kind of mic? There are 4 types, changing them changes the sound that much that you can not even compare. Ah, yes, now that you have chosen a mic, start moving it closer to the cabinet or very far away, on the other side of the room…get it?

…now multiply this by the number of available guitar models on my Variax guitar!

I reached a conlusion that I could virtually create any tone I want, combining the guitars with the amps I have there. This thing is a great learning tool, gives you the feeling of different types of amps. Very interesting to observe, when you play a particular tone, sounds lousy, then you look at the tone description and you see it is built for a humbucker and you play it using a Tele. Change the guitar to a Les Paul, and everything rocks! Really! I had the impression that my Stratocaster model on my Variax guitar does not have personality! Man, I played it using SRV tone!!!Yes!

At about 1.30 AM I went to bed. System overload!! Too many guitar tones available!!

By the way, all these tones are updatable, I mean you can buy upgrades from the internet, the software is integrated with the web site. 

Another interesting thing, even if does not add any value to the device itself, but makes your life easier, you have a player where you can play an mp3 from the harddisk or from the internet in order to jam along.

Want more? There is a digital, chromatic guitar tuner, there is a metronome, that can be adapted to play clicks or drums.

Nothing about Ableton Live for the moment cause I couldn’t make it to record anything, but I will try again this evening. By the way, today I spent at least 1 hour in the morning playing the damn thing before leaving to the office! The cool thing is that the TonePort is always connected to the computer, it does not need power, it takes everything it needs from USB, so I let the cables connected also, all I need to do is to plug my guitar and start the software! Now we’re talking!

Also nothing about the preamp models, about voice and bass models. Not yet.

Still want more? I know I don’t!

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Just a short one, since English is not my mother tongue and you, as native English speakers may identify here and there one or two mistakes on this site…So, next time you will see something that doesn’t sound quite right please think of this video and laugh! With me, not at me…

Not guitar related, but funny to watch and listen…

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…when I feel like being mean!

And for that, my dear friends, I propose you another website strongly related to our musical education as guitar players and musicians in general, a site where you will experience great sensations, where you will have a lot of fun and a lot of pain! You’ll see what I mean in a minute…

This is a site that I like to visit once in a while when I feel like testing my limits. And limits is the word here…

Without other words, I give you Good-Ear.com, a site dedicated to ear training (www.good-ear.com).

No much to say there, beside the fact that you need to recognize intervals, major/minor/7th chords, scales, perfect pitch notes, a lot of things to make your day…

And by the way, after testing your ear, come back and let me know how you find it!

Isn’t it great, or what?

Buy from Amazon:

Mel Bay Country Electric Guitar Ear Training Course
Mel Bay Rock Guitar Ear Training Course
Mel Bay Blues Guitar Ear Training Course

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This morning, GuitarMX blog features a video about how to play Pantera’s song Walk. While the video is great and you can actually learn the riffs there, the subject of this post is about what Dennis Hodges, the instructor teaching the song, said about the tuning Dimebag Darrell used for that song and for the whole album actually.

As Dennis Hodges says, Dimebag Darrell and the bass player started at one moment to tune the guitars down a quarter of a step! However, for this very song they are also tuned down a full step so in order to correctly play the song along with the tape, you need to tune your guitar down 1 step and a quarter! Damn!

While tuning it down one full step does not intrigue me, there are various reasons for which they would do it, from heavier sounds to putting less pressure on the lead singer, I am intrigued by that quarter of a step! Imagine you need to tune your guitar so your low E string is right between D# and E! Now, why would they do such thing?

What could be the reason for this? Somebody put some light on this for me, please!

By the way, I dare you tune your guitar this way without using an electronic guitar tuner! Ha!

Also, if you watch the video on GuitarMx site, pay attention at the end of it how the guy in the video uses his fingers to go from a G to a G#. I just noticed it because I didn’t understand at first why is he playing that way…He uses fingers 1 and 3 for the G chord and right next to it 2 and 4 for the G# chord. I would have gone forward half a step but his chords make an interesting moment to watch and talk about!

Buy from Amazon:
Razorback Dimebag Classic Black w/case
Cowboys from Hell
Vulgar Display of Power

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I am kind of excited, I have just ordered one of those small USB recording interfaces from Line 6, TonePort UX1.

I have conducted a small research about it since 2-3 weeks in order to purchase one.

The fact is that my target was TonePort KN37, but under any circumstance I wouldn’t have paid around $450 for it. I found one on Amazon for $199 and I was thrilled, but I’ve got mad at them very quickly when I’ve discussed about delivering it. They don’t deliver to Romania such gadgets, only books, CDs and some other things that don’t really interest me. Oh, well, no musical instruments, damn!

So without too much thinking I called the guys that sold me the guitar, they had it on stock, so I ordered the UX1 interface. I know, I dropped 2 things that really interested me, the main one being the keyboard, KB 37 featuring a 37 keys keyboard.

The idea is to use it as a MIDI controller for the recording software. Think Ableton Live, think Reason, think whatever would need a MIDI controller. Personally I would have wanted it for controlling the drums software, to create drum loops, but OK, I am not going to pay for this $450, UX 1 will do.

The second thing that I missed by buying TonePort UX1 and not TonePort UX2 or TonePort KB37 is the phantom power feature which is available for the other 2 but not for this one. Oh, well, I’ll manage…

I said a lot about what I have missed, but I realize I didn’t say anything about what I will receive, so here it is, why did I buy that toy? What is it that makes the value?

Well, these TonePort USB interfaces act as a small, desktop, integrated recording machines. Period. You are supposed to just plug them and start recording. They bring the power of POD, bring effects, bring amplifier emulators, etc. You can record guitars, bass guitars and microphones. Or, as they say it on Line 6 site:

• USB studio recording interface
• Sample rate conversion: 16 and 24 bit at 44.1, 48 and 96 kHz
• Gearbox amp and effects modeling software for Guitar, Bass and Vocals
• 23 guitar/bass amp models with 29 cabinet models
• 6 vocal mic preamps for amazing, studio-quality tracks
• 29 stompbox and studio effect models, including Overdrive, Delay, Reverb, Wah, Flanger, Chorus, and more
• Single XLR input with mic preamp
• Single instrument input
• Line 6’s exclusive low-latency ToneDirect monitoring
• Works with leading recording software on Mac® and Windows®
• Includes Ableton Live Lite - Line 6 Edition recording software

I am quite excited, as I said, to receive it, I paid it online but unfortunately the payment will be processed tomorrow so they haven’t yet sent it to me, they will send it tomorrow. I will wait another day, I guess, not a big problem.

After receiving it, you should expect a review of the TonePort UX1 and a review of the Line 6 Variax 600 guitar, which I said I will write but, as you can see for yourself, I haven’t yet writen.

By the way, you can find more about them on Line 6 website here.

Also watch this YouTube video about it, should keep you busy for the next few minutes!

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A few days ago, my blogging buddy Jack Pribek of pribek.net released his most recent song, Market Street for download on his site. I like his new idea of releasing one song at a time, since it gives you the thrills waiting for a new song.

Dr J quickly put up a picture video for it and published it on YouTube and his site and challenged everybody to make a new video for Jack’s new song. How about it? I support this also, so people, if you have any skills in this area related to making videos, let’s see your work! The theme is Market Street and the mp3 you can take it from Jack’s site! It may be, as Dr J’s says, the next viral thing on the internet, who knows!?

Well? Do you have any video for this new song?

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