Guitar Rig 3 retraction

Last month I posted a glowing review for Guitar Rig 3, and recommended it over Amplitube. Under more testing I can’t do that anymore. Guitar Rig 3 has more distortion emulations, controls, recognizeable characteristics, and presets than amplitube. However, while testing it today I realized that it sounds like crap. I A/Bed guitar presets against some realistic sampled drums, it just sounded too digital in comparison. Part of this was the cabinet emulations fakey room reverb, and also part of it is the grainy texture of the sound. While practicing, it is not as noticeable and is actually very pleasant to work with. Its also easier to use and way more fun. Under mixing conditions is just of more concern. Certain presets do fix the problem, but I found a majority of the distortions very thin. Everything that came out of Guitar Rig 3 sounded okay, and comparable to the real deal, It was just very digital. I can’t recommend it for musical use. I am still looking for a distortion holy grail on the mac platform.

LED Drumsticks

From THE FUTURE OF THINGS

illuminated drumsticks for Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Sets. When a player strikes them, the entire body of the drumstick lights up

Maybe they will work with regular drums too! I don’t see why not. Look, its Vader vs. Luke/Obi Wan.

Public Service: Palin Supports Animal Cruelty

Mcain’s fuck-faced running mate, Palin, supports aerial hunting of wolves and bears. She supported a bill that rewards persons to fly low and shoot animals from a plane. The bill gives a $150 reward for the sawed off legs of wolves. Screwed up!

Normally I don’t put anything political on Chip Collection, but this involves animals and its something that needs to go “out there.” Chip collection is against animal violence, especially in areas, like Alaska, that should be wildlife preserves. Wolves cannot defend themselves against these attacks, and in most cases, electric fences are a cheap protection against livestock. Hunting from planes is for pussies anyways. There is no reason to kill nature’s wolves.

Please view this video and show it to your friends. Warning it is a little graphic.

Thanks

Alesis Fusion Shortage

There is a crisis shortage of Alesis Fusions. They are no longer being manufactured, and websites like Musicians Friend and Zzounds is not carrying the keyboard. A search on ebay pulls up only one listing…..only a 6HD. Unfortunately, early on the reputation for this keyboard suffered, and so did demand, as the price started becoming liquidated a year after its release. In its final days you could get a weighted 88 key for only $999 new or $700 on ebay.

Is this the final death of the fusion? Will alesis ever make anymore!!???? They better!! I still use mine as an all in one studio without my computer. The 8-input hard drive recording, and many of its sounds are excellent, despite some technical glitches. I hope they bring back the best sounds of the board into a new product that has a better sequencer, while keeping the 8-input hard drive. It could also use a casio style sampler in its song mode.

On another note. Tascam’s FireOne, 2-channel audio interface, with jogwheel has dropped in price considerabley. For those of you with a mac, or a firewire interface, you can get this thing for only $115. It has headphone out, 2 mic pres, a guitar jack input, controllable buttons, MIDI!!! AND line ins. Thats a nutty deal! The jog wheel can even flash to the beat of your music and it comes with a version of ableton live. I would love to review one of these, as it looks like it has more function than Mackie’s more expensive satellite product ($199).

Anyone notice that Mackie is starting to cater to people with lower budgets? Hmmm…a bad music equipment economy means good deals for us!

People Like US / X-files Mashup

http://www.peoplelikeus.org/dnload.htm

Make Sure you check out the People LIke Us download page. It is worth it to buy their CDs or donate!!

OpenStomp Coyote-1 Effects Pedal Now Shipping!

The OpenStompTM Coyote-1 is an open source audio effects processor built for guitar players. With the Coyote-1 users can develop custom audio effects in software (like distortion, echo, chorus etc.), mix multiple effects to build “patches”, and exchange those effects and patches with the OpenStompTM community.

Also, It looks like it comes with some intuitive software that lets you build effects without programming knowlege!! Costs $349.00.

Link:
http://www.shop.openstomp.com/main.sc

A really cool idea turned into reality!

Alfajor Terrabusi (1994)

“Son, did you bang a gorilla?”
“Si”
“Wouldnt you rather have a banana?”
“No!”

Posted because the delicious treats play Soda Stereo in your cd player!!
Category: Addictive Video

Make Your Own Chord Wheel

Here is a link to a PDF that shows you how to make your own chord wheel. Instructions are included in the printout. You can use this to build compositions, chord progressions & songs in an easy way.

Link to the Downloadble Chord Wheel PDF

From ianchadwick.com

Guitar Rig Vs. Amplitube

Okay what we are going to have today is a shootout between the top amp modeling software. The only thing that matters when judging this software is ease of use, and also sound quality. These two things can be broken down and rated however in different categories. Keep in mind this is only my opinion. Highest total wins.

Guitar Rig 3
Sound Quality & Feel: 9
Gear Emulation: 9
Fatness: 7.5
Quality of Chords: 8
Expression: 10
Ease of Use: 8.5
Presets: 10
Knob Control & Feel: 8
Fun 9

Pros: The interface is nice. Drag & Drop eases creativity. There are many boxes that sound unique. Lots of presets. Country & Blues fans will be pleased I think. The metal section is also good. - Well the presets are just awesome! Better value for the money. Amps behave close enough to the real thing.
Cons: Doesn’t have the heavy “fatness” aspect without tweaking. Presets might be harder to mix with, but I think that can be fixed with EQ.

Amplitube 2
Sound Quality & Feel: 7
Gear Emulation: 8
Fatness: 8.5
Quality of Chords: 9
Expression: 7.5
Ease of Use: 8.5
Presets: 7.5
Knob Control & Feel: 7.5
Fun: 8

Pros: Heavy Sounding, Uses Graphical Stomp Boxes
Cons: Many presets have an audible “grating” digital distortion which is loud and “jacked up.” The presets for blues & country suck ass. No drag and drop stomp boxes.

Conclusion: Guitar Rig 3 Wins
I would say that both are very digital sounding in different ways. Amplitube is very upfront and has an audible digital tone to it if you listen close enough. Guitar Rig has a natural feel, and a “clean” cd-quality digital feel to it, and somehow retains the full expression of the amp emulations released by the guitar. If I had to compare the sound quality to keyboards, I would say that Amplitube is a Roland with the volume turned up too high and Guitar Rig is a Korg that finally got rid of the lame sounds.

If you absolutely need a totally overblown sound, that will work in your music, then get Amplitube. If you want to craft and create your own unique sounds, including metal, country, jazz, and get access to tons of different emulations/presets etc…then Guitar Rig is a better value and experience. Guitar Rig was more fun to play and I’m sure you can tweak it to work for your music - there are definitely enough different types of gear to do that inside! You will still be able to get that heavy metal sound in Guitar Rig 3.

Alesis Fusion: Ultimate Heavy Metal Guitar FX

Upon plugging my guitar into the Alesis Fusion, I always wondered how to use it as a guitar fx processor. The fusion includes 8 inputs, and a variety of FX. Unfortunately it only lets you use bus effects on the audio inputs, which gets rid of all of the amp modeling, and overdrives by themselves. To get a great heavy metal sound from your guitar and alesis fusion, you will have to stretch the use of the bus effects without clipping and overloading it (which is easy to do). Here is a great patch that lets you use the Alesis fusion as heavy metal guitar FX processor.

Step 1. Create an audio track
Step 2. The fx bus settings:

Bus Send 1 = Wah Distortion + Delay @ 99%
Dry Level 0%
Bus Return 10%
Time: 0.1ms
Feedback, Attack, Release, Sensotivity, all @ 0%
Drive: 100%

Bus Send 2 = Plate Reverb @ 71% (Optional)
Dry Level 0%
Bus Return 9%
Decay, Diffusion 100%
Density 35%
Damping 30%

Be careful when setting this up as you will likely clip the internal circuit or your speakers if all the settings aren’t in yet. Pay attention to bus return levels.

Step 4. Plug your guitar into the Alesis Fusion’s audio in OR through an external amp FIRST (recommended).

Here are the settings on my practice amp which leads into the Alesis Fusion via Headphone-Out:
Input Gain 100%
Treble 100%
Mids: variable (50%)
Bass: 100%
Overdrive: ON
Adjust the output volume accordingly

After all this setup you will get a live guitar FX processor out of the Alesis fusion, and a patch that sounds AWESOME.
Its like Overdrived Metal-Wah from hell. Great for solos and some chords.

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