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• Some of the stuff I use....

  Friday, Oct 17, 2008 10:11AM / Standard Entry / Members only
  5 comments

  So... I thought I would post some of the instrumental devices I like to use for creating music. The photos were taken with a phone camera because I didn't feel like dealing with the real camera. With the phone all I have to do is take a few pictures and use bluetooth to copy them over to computer. Maybe the guitars will look a little funny because the pictures were taken at a slight angle...but you can get the idea.
  
  
  Top left: Rickenbacker 12 string. It only with the lower 6 strings on. This was my second guitar but I was still playing keyboards most of the time. I got tired of the 12 strings so I took the upper 6 off and it's been that way since. Maybe I will put them back on if I get another 6 string. I also put very heavy strings on it and keep them tuned a whole step lower than the usual E tuning because I like to have a guitar that can play lower than E.
  Top right: Fender Jazz bass. (It's very cool, but I like my Reason Bass refill better because I am better on keyboards and can play crazier lines and grooves). I mainly stick to playing keyboards and guitar for now until I get used to it.
  Bottom left: Martin acoustic. It is over 40 years old and still has a beautiful tone even though it has huge ass cracks in the side. A long time ago my brothers started brawling over something completely brainless and this guitar was sitting close by, so one of them decided to grab it and use it as a weapon. I was only about 7 years old so I could only watch them destroy it. I will try to have it fixed someday if it is even possible. Right now the cracks are covered with strange tape but it holds it together.
  Bottom right: Gibson Les Paul. The newest and the one that got me to finally stick with playing guitar every day (almost). The Les Paul is a massive contrast to the Rickenbacker and I like to blend them together. A lot of my newer music has way more guitar, some with a heavier sound, but I'm still in the writing and recording stages with all that. I actually have countless pieces of music in the works so unfortunately I'm having a little trouble getting a few things finished. The problem is that while I am working, I keep hearing new ideas and I feel like I have stop and get the new ideas into the computer before I forget them, which then means I have another new piece waiting for me. Sometimes I wish I had a hold button in the creative part of my mind that I could turn on to keep myself from hearing new ideas while I am working on the current stuff.
  
  
  Clavia Nord Electro. This is an emulator of classic keyboards with electric pianos, pianos, clav, and a basic B3 organ. I love jamming on this thing. It has a great sound. I can plug a volume pedal into it for a wah effect and it has built in distortion so it can get nice and ugly without much effort. There was a band project thing I was doing where I was improvising and writing keyboard music that I started to call Industrial Funk. It was some of my favorite jamming and groovin, a little classic sounding with a dirty edge. Snakebite was actually the vocalist and we had a blast. There were certain times when I think we could all feel the creative force flowing through our brains. Snakebite said he could even see the colors of music fusing together when he closed his eyes. We had something really cool going on for a little while but then the drummer had a power trip and flipped out on us. I wish we has a chance to record and get at least one CD out in that project. I still have the files of the jams so I may record a few of those songs with Snakebite. Man, I miss playing live in a band with people I can communicate with musically like that. Pretty soon I will get back to that, and hopefully with Snakebite on some stuff. We're still working on some songs together in a new project so maybe those will show up on here too.
  
  
  EMU E4XT (bottom in pic). Here's a huge dinosaur sampler. They don't seem to make these anymore. It's all software based now but I still use it and it kills as far as outboard samplers go. It was one of the best around 10 or so years ago. At some point it may go into a museum though. I had a lot of fun staying up many nights sampling all kinds of weird insanity.
  
  
  MOTU 828MK3. This is a newer audio interface I use for recording. I am still figuring out how to use parts of it because it is kind of new and has a huge amount of features and crap but I know how to get a decent recording out of it so far. The best thing about this is that it is what makes the studio portable. I can take my whole setup with me almost anywhere without too much trouble. I had to put my Mackie mixer in the closet after I got this because I have all the inputs I need in the back of the MK3 and it comes with a virtual software mixer I can use to control the inputs, outputs, fx, and more and more....
  
  
  STUDIO TO GO: Minus the LCD display and the active monitors this studio is pretty much portable. I just need to take the Mac, a small controller keyboard, the 828MK3 in the rack below, and I have smaller monitors for the road or can use headphones. The red synth in the center is another Clavia, a Nord Lead2. You can see I like Clavia keyboards. The is an awesome board except my only complaint is the keys on the keyboard are super fragile. I snapped one key off when I lightly brushed my hand up against the key the wrong way. But that was the same night when someone spilt tequila all over the left side of the keyboard around where the wooden modulation knob is, so I wasn't too upset about the one key breaking off. The tequila was a much worse situation. I had to take the keyboard completely apart and clean it out with electronic cleaning spray. Luckily it survived and still works ok. Anyway, the Macbookpro on the top right has Digital Performer 6 open and that is my main audio/midi software. Then straight ahead on the LCD (that is connected to the Macbook) is Reason 4. It is synced with Rewire to DP6 so they run together as one. I have many GBs of refills (sample packs) for Reason so the possibilities are almost endless, sometimes to the point where I get stuck for hours searching through all the sounds, while forgetting what I was looking for. Ultimately I record all the tracks into DP6 because that it where I have a lot more contol and FX.
  
  I also have an amazing handmade Yamaha grand piano but it's in storage because I don't have anywhere to put it right now. I wrote a lot of "modern" solo piano music that I want to record but I am waiting until I can get a place to handle a huge piano like that. The keyboard is still my main instrument but I am always getting better on the guitar. So now I better stop bloggin and get back to workin on something.