headphone practice

[mwoeppel]

Guys,

What do you recommend to practice with? I'm using a guitar port, but it seems like the tones are pretty shallow - I'm jonesing for some tone on the road!

I want to record loops and play over them, jam with with some pre-recorded stuff, and of course, woodshed new things.

Pluto, I see you use Korg PX4 or Digitech RPX400.

What are the pros & cons?

Mark

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by mwoeppel
Guys,

What do you recommend to practice with? I'm using a guitar port, but it seems like the tones are pretty shallow - I'm jonesing for some tone on the road!

I want to record loops and play over them, jam with with some pre-recorded stuff, and of course, woodshed new things.

Pluto, I see you use Korg PX4 or Digitech RPX400.

What are the pros & cons?

Mark

Mark, if size isn't important, the BOSS BR1600 or BR1180CD are wonderful for practicing (COSM), recording, jamming w/ or w/o CD's, and recording. We use it for scatching out tunes, solos, vox, etc.. While at home, recording yourself for tempo and phrasing is also a neat option. The COSM modeling is extremely versatile as a practice tool (cab/guitar/EFX are all interchangable, and w/o the required Roland p/up ala VG8)

Then again, I've heard that size does matter, especially on the roadhttp://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/cheezysmile.gif so you may want to go with something smaller.;)

[dpeterson]

that new roland cube amp sounds awesome, only like 129 bux or something like that. battery operated as well.

dave

[pluto]

Originally posted by mwoeppel
Guys,

What do you recommend to practice with? I'm using a guitar port, but it seems like the tones are pretty shallow - I'm jonesing for some tone on the road!

I want to record loops and play over them, jam with with some pre-recorded stuff, and of course, woodshed new things.

Pluto, I see you use Korg PX4 or Digitech RPX400.

What are the pros & cons?

Mark

I like both units for different reasons. The PX4 is a great little tool for sticking in your pocket or hiding in your desk and for very simple practicing. You can record a guitar loop up to 32 seconds (there are three time cycles-8, 16 and 32 seconds, but if you're fast enough with your hands, you can stop recording at any time and hopefully the tempo (edit-I can't believe I originally wrote "temple"!!) will be in sync. It's great to record a little chord progression and jam with it. I don't know how many times I've tried to come up with solos for a D minor, B flat, F major, C major progression. With the aux. in, you can use an external cd player to play prerecorded stuff and jam with it. I have a bunch of jam trax cds for that. There's also about 15-20 drum beats with bass lines that you can plug in the key for along with a metronome. That's also a cool function. Tonewise-it's alright-some stuff is pretty good, others not so good. I didn't expect too much for 199 dollars anyway. IMO, the PX4 is a very handy practice tool that's a bargain and it's biggest bonus is the size. It's about the size of my wallet although it's thicker (but that's because I've got no money!). As for the Digitech-it doesn't have a loop function. It does have a metronome and a drum machine (has about 10 different patterns) with no bass lines. You can plug in a cd player to jam with like the Pandora. The rpx400 is bigger and clunkier and weighs a lot unlike the Pandora which has cheap plastic housing. It's more of a live floor processor with its stereo balanced outputs as well as handy footswitches and a built in expression pedal that can be used for recording with its USB port. I haven't used it for recording since my home computer doesn't have windows2000 or above (I have ME). It came with recording software (cakewalk). Tonewise-you can tweak a little bit more than the Pandora which is very limited (for fx on the Pandora, there's usually just one parameter that you can tweak). Generally speaking, almost all the presets are heavy metal presets and very bad. You gotta tweak a bit to get a nice tone. It also has one of the worst noise gates I've ever heard. I bought the rpx400 to use for church since it has the xlr outs which most processors don't have and also because I had 300 dollars left from a gift certificate my wife gave to me to use at a local music store. That store didn't have much other stuff to buy, so I figured, what the heck, I'll just buy the digitech. I don't regret buying either, but for practice purposes, I would get the Pandora, although it won't really help you "woodshed" new things. If you want to write/record stuff, there are other processors like Jamstation and the Korg PXR4 (which I believe will be soon obsolete) and I think Zoom has something. I've never used those machines although I did some research on the Jamstation, and thought it might be a little bit too complicated for a simpleton like myself. I've never heard of the two Boss units Michael Omiya mentioned. Hope this helped, Mark

[pluto]

Originally posted by dpeterson
that new roland cube amp sounds awesome, only like 129 bux or something like that. battery operated as well.

dave

I've heard some good things about the cube amp as well. Somebody told me it's a great practice amp with pretty decent tones.

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by pluto
I've never heard of the two Boss units Michael Omiya mentioned. Hope this helped, Mark

C'mon, you've never seen this Boss BR1180CD (http://www.bossus.com/index.asp?pg=1&tmp=125) or this Boss BR1600CD (http://www.bossus.com/index.asp?pg=1&tmp=132) ?

BTW, the Roland Micro Cube sounded great for an 8' spkr. And the COSM models were really neat for what you're paying.

Mr. Pluto, thanks for the indepth comparison, I had no idea that the Pandora was so versatile.

[michaelomiya]

make that a 5" speaker.

[pluto]

Originally posted by michaelomiya
C'mon, you've never seen this Boss BR1180CD (http://www.bossus.com/index.asp?pg=1&tmp=125) or this Boss BR1600CD (http://www.bossus.com/index.asp?pg=1&tmp=132) ?

BTW, the Roland Micro Cube sounded great for an 8' spkr. And the COSM models were really neat for what you're paying.

Mr. Pluto, thanks for the indepth comparison, I had no idea that the Pandora was so versatile.

I've never seen those boss units before-looks like a full on studio!! DAMMNNNNN-you Cal. guys really don't fool around!! BTW-check your pm.

[mwoeppel]

wow! thanks guys!

those boss units look great - I may try one for my home studio - but on the road, you're right - size matters!

http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/biggrin3.gif

What about tone? that's what I'm missing - big time!

[andersonguy]

To just play, when I am not near my amp. I use the Digitech genesis 3, its pretty cool, lots of decent sounds for what it is. Pretty portable. and Cheap.:p

AG

[Stan Malinowski]

How about the PODxt? I owned a Guitarport and also a POD V2. The PODxt is quite a bit better than either of its "siblings". The amps sims and the effect pedal sims are pretty good.

[pluto]

Originally posted by mwoeppel
wow! thanks guys!

those boss units look great - I may try one for my home studio - but on the road, you're right - size matters!

http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/biggrin3.gif

What about tone? that's what I'm missing - big time!

Don't get me wrong, the tone isn't that bad. It's not like those old Zoom 9002 units! It's just that I didn't buy the PX4 for tones as much as I bought it for its usefulness as a practice tool. The Digitech Genesis series processors and POD series were alright when I tried them out, but none of those can record riffs to solo over or have a built in metronome or drum machine.

[mwoeppel]

looks like the PX4! I'm gonna pick one up and give it a shot.

I'll let you know how it compares to the guitar port.

thanks guys!!

Mark

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tombo
And the Boss stuff.........is great. I had a BR-8, then replaced it with a BR-532. It's sitting under my desk here at work because.....the school music club bought it. Don't get me wrong, I love the Boss "all-in-one" recorders, but they put out new ones with new features every year. The features are sort of in tandem with what connections computers have (and we all know how fast computers change!). boy ain't that the truth. as soon as I got used to the BR1180, out comes the 1600. grrrrr!


Originally posted by tombo
Right now, I'm enjoying the "Garage Band" program that came with my iMac 17". Perfect for me.
At home, I work on an iMac 17" as well. Great machines! did you upgrade to Panther OS? did you have to pay extra for the garage band software? how are the patches? how are you plugging into the computer (analog/digital plug?)

thanks!

[michaelomiya]

Originally posted by tombo
Mike,

I bought my iMac in March over here. It came with OS X, 10.3. Garage Band came with a special "software campaign" called "iLife '04." I had to buy it, but was only like $25 after the discount. WORTH EVERY PENNY!.......uhhh.....yen.

For working with a real guitar, all you need is your guitar, a cord, and a "mini-plug" to fit over your std. guitar cord plug. You plug the guitar right into the back of the iMac. IT'S THAT SIMPLE!!!

The "amp simulator" isn't fancy, but it contains everything one needs to get started: 4 amps (British Clean, British Dirty, American Clean, American Dirty). To my ears, the British models are based on a Vox and the American ones a Deluxe or Twin. But oooooohhhh do they both sound nice when gain is added! There's only a handful (like 8 or so???) preset patches. They sound just as good as any POD (again, IMO). I like the gain you can add to them. Some of the presets that I thought FOR SURE were British......were American, and vice versa. There is now an additional pack you can buy called "Jam Band" that adds 15 extra guitar patches (I dunno if there are any extra amps though).

Also, when you practice, you can just drag in all kinds of instruments into your "song", then hit the "loop" button and it just goes over and over and over. You can make a song and record it......which is why I got rid of the Boss machines. I have the "super drive" in my iMac, so I'm sure I could make recordings, but I just haven't had time to figure it all out yet.

After playing with it, I thought "man, I wish there was a guitar tuner in here", but with only Andys, I doubt they'd put in the Buzz Feiten offsets:p

Here's the real kicker about Garage Band.........this stuff is only gonna get better AND easier. :cool:

oh boy, I can feel the $$$$$$ flying out of the wallet as I right this. "just" a 1/4" conversion mini plug? So that's what the mini plug next to the headphone jack's for....

Garage band and the jam band samples must've been what Apple was running at NAMM this year (can you tell I just ran past the booth - doh!). I purchased my iMac in Dec 2003, just after the Panther X 10.3 OS came out. So I've got the free OS upgrade. I checked on line and Garage Band software's $149. But it sounds well worth it! thanks tom!