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 -
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
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