The wonder that is guitar rig

Now im not talking about my guitar rig or guitar rigs in general, im talking about a software called Guitar Rig.

That one thing app alone has put a smile on my face. A smile so wide it threatens to reach the eyes :D.

I did mention about my not so awesome amp that i own. It sucked. period.

So i didnt get the zoom G2 like i wanted. And then a friend of mine suggested i try a computer based guitar effects processor. And im like oh sure why not my amp has an ear splitting sound anyways. Before i was under the impression that u need some kinda special hardware for the computer to process the input. Apparently not. But it does help to have a sound card..that improves performance, sound quality and this thing called latency...yea its like an online game where u give an input and the output takes a while to come. Now this happens as the processing itself doesn't occur fast enough. If you simply plug in your guitar cable (well ofcos u need a small microphone jack adapter thingy ) straight to ur microphone jack its gonna cause a lot of noise and not to mention the above said latency issues. Believe me its not a picnic to play guitar when u hit a note and u hear that note just a little later...its very, very, VERY irritating.

Me on the other hand was lucky enough to own a sound card. Creative XFi Xtreme Gamer. Yea i actually bought it cos i hate standard motherboard onboard sound quality. It is simply crap though most ppl only ever listen to that anyways amusingly enough. My sound card is actually a little bit more expensive compared to my 5.1 speaker system, so yea its at the very top end in its class. I loved it the moment i played the then new inflames album come clarity through it. And now its given me another reason to love it more. Its got this cool port thats kind of a combo jack. Its called a Flexi jack and its the same size as a microphone/speaker port but also has a red glowy light inside. So ive always assumed it was only for optical inputs or outputs. But actually i could use it as a line in port as well. A line in port is basically the same as the port u connect the guitar cable to the guitar amp. Just the size was a little smaller so you would need to attach a small adapter to the end of your cable (in my case i have a modified one for one end for guitar the other for the small port). As soon as i plugged it in. Woah, the sound quality just went from crap to almost the same level as what i heard on the albums (well i am not too good with setting up effects on the guitar rig software yet and my strings were dying :P ).

And apparently my sound card supports this thing called ASIO, so it kinda stopped the operating system getting in the way of the input-process-output sound chain. My latency went from super irritating 100ms to cant hear the difference 7 ms (im talking milli seconds btw).Any further and my processor gave way so it made some clicking sounds. Not really a bother, i was fine with 7 really. Apparently i could go as low as 2 ms if my pc was a bit more powerful but oh well dont care really, this is better than i could have ever wished for.

I thought maybe a multi effects pedal would be all i need to get the tone i want. This one software kicks the crap out of zoom's specs without even trying. I could set it up so that when in stereo I could have a different effects setup coming out of each speaker. Though all the effects like distortion pedal are based on real pedals the software gives even further options for adjustment on each effect. By far this is better than anything even near guitar rig's price range.

I could spend quite a while trying to say the many cool stuff i could do with it but well Id rather show it when i am able to record.

Right now there is still just a little bit of noise coming from the guitar input even when plugged to the flexi jack port. I asked my friend and he said its just a prob that u can ignore simply by adding noise gates and stuff (which by the way this software has intelligent noise remover modules that adjusts itself to cut off the bare minimum so that just the noise is gone and the guitar tone is not affected that much, its not perfect but well its a computer, its hard for it to understand the good from the bad :P )

I believe if i changed my rather crappy modded cable to a more professional one and added shieldings to the guitar it would remove the noise even further.

Well thats for another day i spose, this software is second to only perhaps the Axe Fx multi effects processor. But that one device costs like 3k dollars :P, and for me thats just too much to spend as of now really, id rather buy a better guitar or something :P. Not like im an effects maniac anyways, the basic idea for me is to drive the sound hard enough so that i can hear all the little nuances of my playing. I like adding bends, vibratos, freaky picking styles and what not. So basically all i want is a distortion pedal effect going into a max gain amp. XD. Delay, reverb and other fancies can wait for now, they are not exactly friends when you are learning or practicing yep.

Another thing i understood finally. I am a heavy palm muter. I love to remove all excess string vibrations yeap. But now with this software i can simulate having a real guitar rig equipped with quality amps and noise gates and noise reduction pedals so it cuts and maims the noise down to something that would be "ignorable". It becomes something like a background sound. Well, it still annoyed the crap out of me XD. So looks like im keeping my style.

Also a funny thing. The way you set up the sound u can have two ways to go about it, one way to have the effects and such hush out the excess string vibration noise or just overdrive the pure uncut sound all the way up! I prefer the latter. really i do. Ive noticed the good players have a tone that stands out and says "look at me i sound awesome" sorta vibe to it yea. Cos like it or not noise reduction effects eat tone,sustain and SENSITIVITY. i cant stress the last word enough. the more u bog down ur sound with gates the less of the really light touches u would hear.So it comes down to a simple formula really

Awesome hard to control super sensitive do what ever u want tone -inbetween- keyboard like guitar

I pick the awesome one ofcos but with some noise cutters to remove the hiss from the full drive distortion pedals (tube screamer is my fav yea xD ). Ive yet to dial in a tone that i remotely like. like each day im totally wiping the setup and dialing a fresh one only to hate that one the next day as well, kinda fun very distracting as well, havent practiced a thing all week, well nothing seriously anyways.

Oh btw checked my truss rod yesterday. looks like its nonadjustable....im grateful in a way..i have an urge to tweak everything that looks easily tweakable :P. In this case i have to leave it be the way it is, which might just be a good thing hehe :P

So its back to tweaking the guitar rig really. I am one pleased person today. Only thing better than this setup would be to get better speakers or perhaps headphones, my current set makes odd sounds when playing distortion. And perhaps the Rig Kontrol Floor control system, yea that would be cool. Go up on stage plug ur floor pedal to a frikking laptop...sounds techy and cool yea xD

Tweak tweak tweaaak

So was fiddling around with odd tunings yesterday. Like it just occurred to me that I should try seeing what the strings are like at even lower tunings compared to D, Im still using that .10 gauge string set from like a month ago. I can see why ppl talk about changing strings at least once three weeks, at distortion one single note sounds like I accidentally set of a fire alarm or something O_O. Makes this odd buzzing sound.

Anyways tuned it all the way down to C and tried playing my exercises ( I don't usually learn songs just practice certain things like scales or arpeggios or chords, and as days go by I evolve the exercises to more difficult ones as my own skill increases ) , now at this tuning the coiled strings behaved very oddly as they were too lose to make chords ring out nicely and not much good to pick on single notes either. It got just a lil bit more cumbersome, not really difficult. The thin strings on the other hand got a lil easier to play on O_O. My left hand needed less effort to move around faster and with just a lil adjustment of my picking style I could keep up with the increased speed.

Basically I like very slack spaghetti like string tension. It feels smoother to play on in general. Though it would seem i need to get a custom string set next time. Since i like the coiled strings to be tight and rigid to get a nice sound out of them. And somehow playing fast on coiled strings is really easy.Ill take a nod from yngwie's custom gauge set, 8 11 14 22 32 46. the thickest string is the same as my current 10 gauge set. While the rest are thinner than the 9 gauge set. This type of gauge set is apparently called Hybrid gauge. Where the thin strings are thinner and the coiled strings are thicker compared to the normal string sets.

Well its rather out of the ordinary. But well it suits my out of the ordinary style so i don't really mind as long as it works for me.

Ive also tried adjusting the string action even lower to the one i have right now. Sure it feels a lil easier to shred on....but it just feels weird too. I am one of those unfortunate ppl who cant stand the sound the guitar silently makes when the string even glances on more than one fret. It just annoys the crap out of me, if I turn up the volume even then my rather delicate fingers somehow pick it up, to me it feels like the sustain is going off somewhat, to me it feels like Im cheating a lil bit too :P. As mentioned before about metalheads do keep it low it just doesn't feel right for me.

Its also not only the feel that Im annoyed about. Since I have a TOM bridge (google it if u haven't already :P) I cannot adjust each string height individually. Meaning when I lower the thin strings to a nice amount the thick strings touch two frets at almost each position. Now Ive been told that its not a problem at all. Oh but it is. its a huge problem since it sorta cuts away the growling sound the guitar makes right after I hit a chord on high distortion, I really like that "roar" kinki has. And at lower settings the sound is very percussive and also has lesser sustain. Im afraid that is an absolute no no for me. I love playing heavy distortion rhythm guitar bits.And I love the ringing sound the strings make at high gain.Songs like Temptation- cradle of filth shows a really good example of a nice sounding rhythm guitar.

Ive also noticed many shredders (the ppl who play so fast u cant tell what they are doing) have really shitty rhythm tones. Well now it finally makes sense to me as why it is that way. Its no wonder some guitarists are hailed as heroes while others who play just as fast are known only as mediocre in sound. Its a very subtle difference perhaps to the average ear. But just try listening to someone like Steve Vai. He would sound so much smoother and clearer compared to most guitarists. Its easy to see how high string action really cuts out the weird ambient 'noise' that most electric guitars have, sometimes its the amp, sometimes its the guitar's own hardware noise,sometimes its sloppy playing but a lot of times its the slight double fretting sound you subconsciously hear even with distortion.

It looks like Ive come to a decision then. High enough string action so there is no double fretting from the areas i play on. And hybrid strings to accommodate my style of picking and of course my rather weak left hand : P.

This is going to hurt actually, high action always means my mistakes would be more pronounced and of course have to rely more on palm muting as well. But Im slowly getting better at it so I guess in good time Ill be fine. Besides, this is just another challenge really xD

To make things a little easier i dug the nut joint a lil bit, just for the thickest string so playing rhythm bits are now a lot lot easier than before xD. I dont see any need to to lower all the strings from the nut joint, adjust only when needed.

Back to practice.

Alice in pointy 1.0 mm

I took an advice from one of those free online lessons for arpeggios yea. recommended i use a hard pick no less than 1 mm with a pointy tip. Now before this i was using the dunlop delrin 0.4 mm as my main one. So this new Alice (yea they didn't have pointy dunlop brand picks >.> ) 1.0mm pointy tip pick was like completely different from any other Ive tried before. At first i bought the small sized one that was similar to the dunlop jazz 3, unfortunately i didn't like how it was hard to hold on to because i was used to big picks by then. So went back and bought the normal sized one. And Ive been saying this for a while now, but i have to say it again. This is the best pick Ive ever used O_O.

Suddenly I could glide from string to string almost effortlessly, the flexible pink one I used before also glided but had an unpredictability to it and thus made fast playing hard on it. This new one was rock solid but just as smooth.

I love this pick, perhaps the only thing better than this would be the dunlop ultex sharp 1mm, but well lets just wait and see, Id be getting that in like a week, its not available here after all.

Now lets see, a progress report, by now i can play chords and three string arpeggios and some other intermediate stuff perfectly at moderate speed. Define this "moderate" as...well say Yngwie malmsteen is super fast almost always, ppl like alexi and gus g are fast on most of their songs, kirk hammet usually plays moderately fast...below that is me. At fast speeds I usually bump extra strings either with the pick or my left hand or screw up the fingering pattern or melody, so too sloppy to actually play the faster or harder stuff.

Its all right I suppose, Ive changed my picking style like three times this month not to mention the pick and the string action. So I am always having to adjust to these changing factors.

Reason Ive been changing picking style is I am still having problems muting out all the strings without muting the string I am currently playing on, and this gets harder with harder pieces of music. Ive only begun mastering the right hand but at least the left hand isn't giving me so much trouble as before. As in I can play for longer without cramping and I can stretch around a lot more than before.

Anyways I am going to learn a couple more songs to play along to. Playing along is more demanding than just playing bits of music for practicing. And its easier to follow compared to a metronome. Obviously more fun to practice too. Most importantly I need to reduce my sloppiness and increase accuracy and this is the best thing I can do to improve that. Play note for note behind a good song xD

Thats it for now, back to practice

Adjusting kinki

So recently ive been told my guitar's string action is too high. What that means is the bridge on which the strings rest upon is set high. This would mean the strings are higher up from the fretboard and pressing down on the strings are harder plus when u let go the strings go up faster and make some vibrating noise (well i sure call it noise as it is unwanted). This noise was why i palm mute all the time. It irritates me personally though most ppl dont seem to notice while others thinks its a natural sound of the electric guitar and it adds to the sound.

Either way i notice it, i dont like it, so ive been trying hard to remove it completely. Yesterday i lowered the bridge and lo and behold, the "noise" went down quite a bit, almost to unnoticeable levels. Finally i was getting just the pure single note i was picking and not some "harmonics" or body along with it ._. .

Not only that picking the strings went from kinda resistive to sliding over a rubber mat sorta feel. It was such a drastic improvement and i lowered it just a little bit as i like to avoid strings hitting two frets at any point on the fretboard, though ive been advised that metal guitarists who play with distortion set it damn low as with distortion on u cannot hear the fret touching the adjacent strings when picked. That is true actually but i am not only a metal music player. So i lowered it just a little.

Still the difference was very big, it has become far easier to pick notes, legato and playing chords as well as the strings need less force applied to them to budge and in general more flexible.

Oh and on other things a friend finally told me how to intonate my guitar. Now what that means is....okay first google tune-o-matic bridge. okay see the metal pivots on which the strings rest on? okay it is possible to move them back and forth and thus effectively changes the strings maximum length. Now this is essential as the strings are of different thicknesses and does not vibrate at a uniform frequency ratio at different fret notes compared to each other. What this means in english is that all the strings behave differently. To compensate for this the different strings are set at slightly different lengths. (must remember that the fret positions are the same for all the strings ) .

So the method is simple. I first tune the open string. then i play the 12th fret of the string. If the note is higher in pitch than it should be move the pivot back. re tune from open and play the 12th, basically keep tweaking until both open and 12th string are dead on perfect note. Rinse and repeat on all the strings and you have a properly intoned instrument. The difference may seem slight but i notice some improvements in the notes when i play scales or arpeggios, it seems to sound the way its supposed to, if that makes any sense when i say that :P.

Anyways thats it for now, oh and considering to buy a seven string as of now. More details on that later.

Learn the theory

I am a bit of a nerd so even playing guitar involves me learning the scales and the musical theory behind...well....making good music!

Ive only had friends so far teach me a few things now and then and mostly its the internet free stuff that i look up to learn. So far its been working for me, lots of helpful ppl out there ready to share what they know on the matter.Here are a few of my favs

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/

Like one of the best one stop no strings attached totally free sites with all the info u would ever need literally dumped in a clear and simple format. I totally dig and even ive yet to read up everything on the site

http://www.insaneguitar.com/mc/sweeping.html

Since currently i am learning arpeggio technique this site is kinda useful for me, just one page but loaded with very helpful insight into mastering the sweep technique.

Metronome

Ever heard of the word? Well its a simple device used to produce a steady beat. Simple enough really, but apparently vital to music as the human mind cannot measure time on its own, and music is all about timing the notes.

Initially i was pretty bad at following the metronome due to the extremely slow beat rate of 44 beats per minute. Could barely time one note per beat properly. But today did a little searching around on the internet and found a proper online metronome. Now what i mean by proper is it produces a beat in a sound that my brain can unconsciously pickup and also it is possible to set the beat at any rate i chose.

http://www.seventhstring.com/metronome/metronome.html

Its from the same site as the online tuner. Seventh string.com is definitely a great place to find resources and information regarding guitars and playing them

Anyways this metronome makes a sound similar to the classic mechanical metronome used in the olden days, it doesn't sound irritating to the ears and is extremely easy to catch on to.And now i finally have an easier way to master those arpeggios Ive been having trouble with these past weeks. Now there are complex arpeggios and other sequences that does not follow a simple note per beat system obviously. But luckily the one i was having trouble with does not have a pattern as such, i tested it out playing a note per beat and it sounds just the way it should x]. Also this is by far the easiest metronome Ive ever used, could basically noodle all over the finger board while syncing to the beat, this one just feels comfortable to me. Maybe its just due to my own ability increasing over time but this time, the metronome is actually helping.

Practicing with the metronome really brought out some other flaws i had in my playing, my legato playing (hammer on and pull offs) were badly timed and most of the time i didn't let them ring for too long. By trying to follow the metronome beat my arpeggios finally sound the way they should, all there is left to do is to slowly increase the beat as i improve.

Out of topic it would seem my guitar pickups are not so well suited for legato playing. I have to pull off and hammer rather hard to get a decent sound out and even when i do the sound is quite different from picking the note, different is a good thing, but this, its too different, sounds more like squeaks and thunks with legato.

Oh and for the ppl who want a more advanced metronome shud definitely check out these two

http://bestmetronome.com/

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/metronome.php

Pretty fun to mess around with the metronomes available on these sites besides being a great help to practice sessions x]

Well thats it for now, more practice awaits