BigBubbaBrown

I bought an electric guitar at an auction last night. I plugged it into my amp to try it and not a sound came out. After running my keyboard through it I ruled out problems with the amp itself and the cable, then I took the guitar apart and checked all of the wires. Everything's in place and the wires themselves seem to be in good condition. I was operating under the belief that guitar pickups are simple transducers then my friend's boyfriend told me that modern ones are a magnetic resonator coil system, which I know nothing about. Due to limited space in the cab of my truck and the unwillingness to carry either object in the bed of my truck I had to bring it home with the guitar leaned up against the amplifier (brought the guitar to my parents' from the auction, then picked up my uncle's old amp and carried them the last six miles), which I was told could have switched the polarity of the magnets. I can't really afford to buy a new pickup to install as I had to borrow money from my dad to buy the guitar so I was wondering if there was any way to salvage the existing one. I've read elsewhere that it's impossible, but then again those places are what gave me the impression that it was a simple transducer. Maybe using a set of four magnets to alter the polarities of the coils? EDIT: After posting this I took a magnet off of my fridge and ran it over the pickup. The top coils repelled the magnet while the bottom ones attracted it, leading me to believe that the polarities were not reversed by the magnet in my amp speaker. Given that, what are some other potential problems and is there absolutely any way to salvage it without spending $50 for a replacement? YET ANOTHER EDIT: At the suggestion of my friend's boyfriend I passed my cell phone over it while calling it. With amp distortion off and volume to full there was no sound. With distortion on it picked up. I put one of the strings back on to test, and I only get sound when distortion's on. The humbucker, if I've been given the proper name for it, isn't living up to its name. There's a constant buzz that gets louder if I take my finger off of the string. There are two knobs (they're not labeled, but I know one's the volume. Don't know what the other is) that act more like switches. The volume stays the same whether it's at 10 or 3, then cuts off completely at 2 or 1. I left the top knob to full and turned the bottom one to 0 and that got rid of the buzz, other than what the amp makes with distortion turned up and nothing plugged in, but it also got rid of the sound. I reversed it with the exact same result. It seems the knobs themselves don't really do anything in the 3 to 10 range. When I had it apart I checked all of the wires and they're all in place. None of them have come loose and each wire is firmly connected to a lead. However, I noticed in diagrams of dual humbuckers that there's one wire for each set of coils and in my setup there's only one wire coming off of the bottom set. Am I missing a wire? And is that contributing to the noise? Also, if I want to use the guitar without distortion will I need a preamp? My keyboard works fine without distortion, but it's a line out so I don't know if the problem is in the guitar or if there's a problem in the amp that can't be detected when testing with a powered instrument.

It depends on how the magazine sells. If it's outsold by the average small town newspaper then £125 would be like paying someone to set up a free website on one of those obscure web hosts and hoping people stumble across it. If it's a widely read magazine it might be worth it, assuming they don't just stick it on there and leave the listener wondering who recorded what.

I recall reading in another post that a web site with your own domain is the most important tool, but really there's no one size fits all solution. It depends on the individual musician/band. For example, my "band" wouldn't be able to get by without videos. The videos, I'm hoping, will make the songs stand out since pretty much everything I write is fairly generic. In that case youtube is more important than maintaining a web site. Youtube is what will get attention, then from there if they like what they hear you can send them to your site.

I gave it a try. I'll probably mess around with it a little more, but it's not really worth much from what I've seen. On the surface it seems like it could allow you to learn about various styles, such as bluegrass and zydeco if you've never really worked with them, but in practice it's not even suitable for that. It does swing pretty well and just fakes the rest. I created a new document, saw Irish jig was one of the styles, so I set the time signature to 6/8, the key signature to D, and entered a few chords. They were random so I knew it wasn't a proper progression, but it didn't sound anything like a jig. I'm talking about the aspects that you can't control like the rhythm and phrasing. Didn't even remotely sound like any type of jig I've heard. I might explore the other styles, but I'm not familiar with a lot of them (such as two step, zydeco, and the like) so I don't know if I'll even be getting an accurate interpretation to learn about them using this software based on my experiences with the jig.

Does anyone else think of the Versificator when they read this? I know it did other things, but the use that sticks out in my mind is to compose music to placate the proles. I admit to using Cakewalk's pattern brush tool for inspiration on drums, but computer generated music seems like a bad idea to me. Why learn music theory when you can whistle into a mic and let the computer take over? I know the same argument can be used against music sequencers, but you still have to have a decent grasp of music theory to make anything decent with it. And while I subscribe to the theory that everything that can be done in music has been done (i.e. the Sumerians could have had a song with the same melody as Wish You Were Here), it won't take nearly as long for something like this to start cranking out the same thing every five or ten songs. There may not be much variety in pop these days, but with a system like this if it manages to take off there will be even less. All in all a bad idea and in the end musical and compositional abilities won't matter nearly as much as having looks. It will make people who can't be made into sex symbols irrelevant and the day systems like this start producing songs that even chart we might as well put down our instruments and call it quits.

I've been trying to learn guitar off and on for the better part of ten years. I'll pick up my dad's old acoustic, look up a chord from one of his old books, then give it up when I end up dampening a string that shouldn't be dampened. I keep my nails cut pretty short (in fact, a friend keeps telling me not to cut them as short as I do), but I can't play anything short of a simplified G chord. If I try, for example, a D minor my middle fingernail will hit the D string and cause it to buzz. The pad of my ring finger will dampen the E string and the nail will cause the G string to buzz. If I move my fingers to where the pads and nails won't interfere with the other strings I can't keep sufficient pressure. I've tried different wrist positions, but none of those have worked. I initially ruled out problems with the bridge (it started coming loose and had to be glued down, but I didn't have the proper clamp and the books I put on to hold it down while it dried didn't do much good) because it didn't effect the spacing of the strings, but they do sit slightly higher now. I know the bulk of it is in my technique, but could the bridge also play a factor? And does anyone know of any sites where I can learn proper technique? I'm not quite sure how to hold my wrist and until I find gainful employment I can't afford to take lessons.

Just another question. When you bend notes do you slide your finger on the string or pull it to the side? I've seen both ways but I'm not sure which one to use in which case. Normally I wouldn't care since it's done in a MIDI sequencer but it bugs me when I watch movies, sitcoms, cartoons, etc. and the actor/animator obviously doesn't know anything about the instrument (for example, in the video for Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz where one of Russel's crash cymbals sounds like a high hat) so I'm going for the highest degree of accuracy possible in my animations.

The improvised hammer and manually pulling the damper back yielded the same result. I'll check the things you mentioned and try to get some pictures. This will give me a pretty good opportunity because so far the only repairs I've had to make have been changing broken strings, fixing sticking keys, and small stuff like that. I'm always worried a client will have a problem that I won't even be able to begin to diagnose, let alone fix. The problem is getting this one apart. I've taken apart several pianos and they were so easy they might as well have been made out of Lincoln logs. I've looked that thing over from top to bottom and can't find a single bolt or screw. I'm not sure how those panels are held on there. It wouldn't surprise me at all to pull a mummified chipmunk or rat out of there. It spent a few years on a back porch covered over with a tarp.

About two years back a family friend gave me an old piano. I don't know exactly how old, but there's a price tag from when it was in a flea market dated in the 1920's. It's an old player piano and it's been gutted out except for what you'd expect to find in a standard upright, but there are two dead keys. I've never encountered anything like this in my tuning business so I don't know what could be causing it. I've put up with it because I can fill the notes in with my mind, but lately I've been thinking I'd like to record with it. I've checked the strings from top to bottom, other than what I'd have to remove all of the hammers to see, and I can't find any obstructions. I've felt around in the areas I can't see and didn't feel anything and the keys work as expected (the dampers move out of the way and the hammers strike). The only sound those notes make is just a plinking noise, though. Sort of like when you pluck a guitar string right next to the tuning pegs.

I'll start off by saying that I'm not a guitarist (yet, if I ever do learn it). I am, however, trying to apply guitar principles to my MIDI guitar tracks. So far I've broken away from block chords. There are a few things I don't quite understand, though. I know you can bend notes on a guitar, but I'm not sure how far a note can be realistically bent. For example, in the song I'm working on now the lead guitar bends from an Eb to an F then again from an F# to a G#. That's two semitones and I don't know if a guitar can bend that far (I typically only hear one semitone bends). I'm also not sure on the decay time. On a keyboard and with most VSTs (DSK Electrik Guitarz, for example) you can set it to a distortion or overdrive guitar, put something on the key to weight it down, leave the house for a day, come back, and that note will still be sounding. Eventually that string is going to quit vibrating. I'm just not sure how long you can hold out a note or how fast it will decay.

Jim Steinman, anyone associated with Genesis, Ray Stevens (when it comes to his non-novelty songs), and Ok Go inspire me but when I start writing it sounds nothing like any of those people, so those guys are my inspiration but I have no real influences. I would love to be able to write like Steinman and Tony Banks, though. Just doesn't happen.

Linux for direct MIDI input since Vista won't support the MIDI port on my sound card anymore, but since I've started hosting my own site I have to use scoring software on Windows to keep the site running.

It's been my experience that with keyboards once you divorce them from virtual synths you get what you pay for. I have an Optimus MD-1200, which is basically a Casio re-branded for Radio Shack. Used on its own I would be embarrassed to use it to serenade my gal. On the other end I've messed with $6000 Rolands in the showrooms of music stores and fell in love with them. If you use a VST configuration you can get by with a cheap one. In fact, an expensive keyboard would be a waste if you're just going to run it through freeware or low cost VSTi plug-ins. If you want something to use out of the box in a live setting a good sounding one will cost a bit, though the cost can be reduced by buying second hand. A £75 Hammond is a great deal, even if it's just one of the small transistor organs, but they're difficult to move and even more difficult to set up. And if anything breaks in them they're very difficult to repair. The capacitors in my church's Hammond transistor organ went out and it had to be replaced because I couldn't get my hands on the right capacitors. I'm not sure how tone wheel organs work, but I recall reading that they have motors in them so that would be a more complicated (and expensive if you're not the DIY type) repair. Just something to think about if the keyboard instruments (synths, organs, pianos, etc.) aren't your primary instrument.

1. Do you sing, play an instrument or instruments? Yes. What instruments? Keyboards, drums, percussion, vocals (fortunately it goes into a virtual talk box so no one will have to endure my singing), and I'm currently fiddling around with my uncle's old fiddle, though I don't know if I'll pursue it. When did you start playing? Keyboards in 1990, drums in 1994, started messing with the fiddle about three weeks ago. Did you teach yourself? I learned the rudiments in my school band and as I was the only percussionist willing to play the bells it taught me the note locations on keyboard instruments (thus ending the chaos started when I took up keyboards four years earlier). As the most advanced thing taught was the double stroke roll I'm more self taught than trained. 2. Are you in a band or bands? If you count virtual bands then I am one. Or at least I will be when I put the finishing touches on the characters. What is the name of the band? Big Bubba Brown's Big Brass Band. What do you play? Keyboards and drums when I'm on my Linux partition, on Windows it's all just mouse clicks. What other instruments are in the band? Do you have a band website? Not yet. 3. Do you write songs? Yes. Do you write lyrics, music or both? Music Do you have a writing partner? No, but I'm looking for a lyricist. 4. Do you record your music? Everything at this point is just mouse clicks, though when I can get a preamp for my drum module I'll be recording the drum tracks. Do you use a home studio? If so what gear do you use? A Frankenstein PC (custom made by my brother for audio/video work and game development so there isn't really a brand) and the microphone that came with my sound card. Do you use a recording studio? No. Do you have music available on the web? if so where? Technically yes, but it's in a password protected folder and I only grant access to collaborators and a friend 5. What other roles do you perform in the music business? Management? Label owner? Publishing? Promotion? Other? 6. Are you a tech head? Tech head as in music - Nope. Just stick to basic music theory. Tech head as in technology - Yes, but only in the areas of graphics and audio. 7. What country do you live in? United States of America 8. What are your ambitions? Musically - to finish writing a song and have it heard by more than just my family, whoever I'm dating at the time, and a friend. Personally - to take a bride, start a family, and achieve financial stability in order to support that family. 9. Do you draw/paint/write stories/computer art/dance or other creative pursuit? Computer generated graphics and game development, though the two are intermarried so they might as well be considered one pursuit. What are your pastimes? In my free time I usually get up from my computer and put a TV dinner in the microwave. Three minutes later I take another break and stir the potatoes. Three minutes after that I get back up and bring the tray to my computer. In other words, I usually have just enough free time to microwave supper. The rest is spent trying to get my various ventures off the ground. 10. What would you like to get out of Songstuff? Critique, collaboration, and socialization in a place free from all of the headaches you usually find on social networking sites.

An old favorite of mine: "When you and a friend are being chased by a lion you only have to be able to outrun your friend." And one of the rare pieces of wisdom passed onto me by a stoner I use to work with: "Don't sweat the small stuff. By the way, it's all small stuff." (which I didn't notice was in TuneSmith's signature until after I hit post)

I've been using 4front bass for a while and in terms of sound it's the best one I've tried, but it doesn't allow bends. I've tried DSK Bass and you can bend it but only by one semitone. I haven't found any way to adjust the pitch bend sensitivity on it and I need to be able to bend at least two semitones. I tried one of the bass presets in Synth1 and was happy with it for a little but after a few days it stopped sounding like a bass guitar to me and started sounding more like square wave oscillators (which is basically all it is). I've checked my usual places (audio mastermind, VST planet) and hit Google pretty hard but the free bass plug-ins I can find either sound great but don't bend or bend but sound synthetic. Does anyone know of any I may have overlooked? As I currently have to borrow money for a postage stamp I can't go with any commercial plug-ins.

Cakewalk Music Creator 3 and until I can get a Vista compatible MIDI setup Melody Assistant for writing. I'm constantly downloading and trying out plug-ins, but the ones I use in just about everything are Synth1, Super Drum FX, Taurus, and the rare times I want a drum machine sound Cubix. While I don't use it frequently, MiniMouge is another one of my favorites. CMC 3 was a Christmas gift a few years ago and every VSTi I use is freeware so in 10 years I've only paid $20 for music software, which was the cost of Melody Assistant at the time.