The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I've been lurking for a quite a while. I've tried to make a few songs for Songfight but never contributed any of them due to being very unsatisfied with their quality. The dissatisfaction sort of breaks down to two things:

1) I only have my voice and my electric guitar with a relatively cheap amp with simple settings. Every song I've ever made seems incomplete without a drum track. The kind of music I most enjoy listening to relies heavily on drums.

2) As I said, the guitar+amp is very limited in the textures it can provide. You would always be able to recognize my songs as "the ones with the flat guitar sound."

For my birthday, my family basically told me to go to the music store and pick something out and they would buy it. Yes, I have an awesome family. My birthday has long passed and I still haven't decided whether I want a really nice guitar "system," something like http://www.roland.com/PRODUCTS/EN/VG-99/index.html , or a mid-range digital drum kit.

Since most of the people on this board compose songs all the time, I wanted to ask which of these options you guys thought would be more useful to a relative newbie. Maybe there's a cheaper yet just-as-good version of one of these things you could point me to. Maybe there's some third thing I haven't thought of that would be a better use of my "free toy" allocation.

Since I anticipate the question, no, I don't play drums at all, but I plan on living long enough to learn if I buy a set.

First, thanks for not submitting crappy songs to songfight.

Now, if you don't play the drums or have a decent way to record them, you won't be any happier than you are now. I fully support you in learning to play them, but learning to the point of being happy with them on a recording is a long road. Perhaps a cheap drum machine would make you happier? Easier to record and "play" provided you have a basic understanding of how to put drum beats together. Just get something cheap. Spend the rest on a cheap used drum kit. Something you can beat the hell out of for a few years while you learn. Use the drum machine as a metronome while you learn. Then, if you are still into it, upgrade to a mid-level kit.

I am personally not a fan of multi-effect pedals. If your amp is lackluster, perhaps you should look into one of those Line-6 amps. You would get a bunch of sounds and a decent solid state amp to boot!

Now, maybe what you have doesn't sound good because you don't know how to record well enough to get the best sound out of what you have. Feel free to add information about how you record and what you use to do it.

Be well,
Ken

I'm with Ken on the time it take to not only learn to play drums, but to know how to mic the kit and record it properly. I will say, if one is a drummer, they need to learn that stuff, but in your case, I'd put my energy into what I know best for now.
There are many great drum programs and machines out there. BFD is a great one, but there is a bit of a learning curve with it. There are also great drum samples out there. I think King Arthur mentioned that he exclusively uses one called band in a box, which is complete verse, chorus, bridge, etc etc, loops, so that he can spend more time writing and performing and less time programming and mixing. He makes awesome studio quality music.

You probably won't be impressed by the sounds a mid-range electric drum set will provide. I know I'm usually not. It'll probably give you the same sounds as a cheapish drum machine, but those tend to have a really mechanical feel to them. This isn't a problem easily solved, as if you buy an acoustic set, it'll take a long time to figure out how to get useable sounds from it, and the mics will cost you a pretty penny.

I've got a multi-effects pedal, and I only use about three of the 50 options. There are probably better choices for pedals, but I'm not the one to offer advice in this area. My guitar tone tends to be a bit flat too.

There was more helpful stuff in my brain a minute ago, but I totally forgot it.

Well hell, you've got a blank-ish check. From what you've said, your primary noise-maker is the guitar so...

Research time, yo.

Think of the guitarist(s) whose sound you not only dig, but would like to sound like (at least for now). Go to the websites of the guitar magazines and search for articles on these guys/gals. Guitar mags, when they do features on players, tend to go into obsessive detail about their hardware/pedal boards/influences/&c.

And there's a starting point for your consumer madness, heh.

Rabid Garfunkel wrote:Well hell, you've got a blank-ish check. From what you've said, your primary noise-maker is the guitar so...

Research time, yo.

Think of the guitarist(s) whose sound you not only dig, but would like to sound like (at least for now). Go to the websites of the guitar magazines and search for articles on these guys/gals. Guitar mags, when they do features on players, tend to go into obsessive detail about their hardware/pedal boards/influences/&c.

And there's a starting point for your consumer madness, heh.

http://guitargeek.com/

A database of what you need to get That Sound that That Guy from That Band has that Kicks Ass.

Well what you need other than the blank check.

irwin wrote: http://guitargeek.com/

A database of what you need to get That Sound that That Guy from That Band has that Kicks Ass.

That's pretty neat.

Although I doubt that this:

http://guitargeek.com/rigview/476/

..is what Tony Iommi was using in the 70s, which is probably what most people mean when they think "I want to sound like Sabbath".

Jeff Robertson wrote:Although I doubt that this:

http://guitargeek.com/rigview/476/

..is what Tony Iommi was using in the 70s, which is probably what most people mean when they think "I want to sound like Sabbath".

No, but this one is probably correct:
http://guitargeek.com/rigview/495/

Paco Del Stinko wrote:

Jeff Robertson wrote:Although I doubt that this:

http://guitargeek.com/rigview/476/

..is what Tony Iommi was using in the 70s, which is probably what most people mean when they think "I want to sound like Sabbath".

No, but this one is probably correct:
http://guitargeek.com/rigview/495/

Jesus. I think I went deaf just looking at it.

So here's my recommendation for a blank check in a music store: forget the guitar multi-effects and the drum kit and pick up a decent microphone or two.

Guitar multi-effects units are fun for practice and general wankery (and there's certainly a place for that), but it's often hard to get useful sounds that fit well in a mix out of them. At least that's my experience.

Drums, as others have said, are hard to play, and hard to mic well. I'd avoid the hardware drum machine as well. As someone else in the thread noted, it's easy to spend more time programming the damned thing than actually... making music. And who wants that?

No, I say get a couple of decent mics. Move them around on your amp until you get noises you like. Stick the mic in a length of PVC pipe. Or a shoebox. Put the mic in front of the amp. Put it in the back. Put the amp in the bathroom and put the mic in the tub, aiming at the tile. There are interesting noises to be had.

If you really want percussion, find something interesting to bang on and mic it. Tupperware. Pots and pans. Pie tins. Buckets. Garbage can lids. Whatever.

If you have any money left after buying microphones (probably a good idea), go on ebay and get some used pedals. Not mult-effects units, good old fashioned stomp boxes.

Every pedal - every distortion, every overdrive, every phaser, every chorus - is slightly different, so try them out in the store first to see which ones you like but don't buy them at the store. Your dollar will go a lot further on ebay.

Harmony Central has buttloads of reviews for pedals, and if you search for "gearwire" on youtube you'll find many videos of the luckiest bastard in the world being paid to mess with various stompboxes.

EDIT: ON THE OTHER HAND if your main goal is to record music on your computer rather than playing live, you'll probably get more immediate Songfight-winning benefit from investing in your computer and other recording equipment (ram, hard drive, interfaces, daw software, VSTs, etc) than from any guitars, amps, pedals, or drums.

Sweet Jesus, no wonder the guy is a lurker and not a poster / submitter. I did some research on what his family is willing to pony up and btw, do you need a big brother, cousin, or hanger-on of some sort? For the folks who didn't look it up, that Roland guitar unit he linked goes for about $1300. He also mentioned a mid level digital drum kit, not a drum machine, which I assume to mean something like this. The drum set would be great to have for lot's of reasons. You wouldn't have to worry about neighbors, or family, or both getting upset as you learn to play them. You don't have to worry about microphones to record them, or even how to tune them. You don't have to worry about how different they feel from real drums because you don't have any experience to base that on and you can get some pretty wild sounds and various percussive instruments out of one purchase.

On the other hand, the guitar unit you listed worries me on many fronts. You said you are a "relative newbie" and you have a cheap amp. I can only assume you probably have a cheap guitar as well and while a $1300 guitar effects unit will make that cheap guitar sound better, it won't sound as good as it would on a respectable guitar of at least the $500 region. Maybe you have that, but I'm guessing you don't because you have a cheap amp. The point is, I have a bunch of nice guitars and pedals and I still probably wouldn't plop down the money for that effects unit that you're looking at. It just seems, no offense intended, overly advanced for your stage. It seems overly advanced for my stage as well. Well, maybe just more than I need or want for that matter, but I would definitely use that money towards a better guitar before I even looked at guitar effects.

So here's what I suggest, get a bottom line idea of what the family is willing to spend. If it's $1300 bucks, then here's what I would do to address all of your concerns. Let's go shopping......

1) Guitar - A unit like this is both cheap, and very versatile. It has a bunch of presets that sound good and you can dial it in pretty easily in manual mode. I own one, I use it and if you need help let me know. As far as decent mid-level guitars go, think Epiphone or American made Fender, or you could get one of these.

2) How about guitar and drums in one unit? Sound impossible..... not so with this. Another unit I have personally used. Now on one hand, the programming of the drums is not very easy but on the other, it has pretty good and realistic guitar presets. The drum sounds to me are excellent as well and there are a ton of preset beats to choose from, but if you want to be able to change beats & tempos or have fills, it will get more time consuming and complicated. However if you can count in your head and make notes about which presets to switch to and from, you might be able to accomplish a more complicated song without programming. Again, I've used this unit and would endorse it if someone from Boss would send me some money........or not.

3) Microphone(s) - You will need a good overall microphone. Be it for an amp, an acoustic guitar or vocals, you cannot proceed in the world of recording music without a decent mic and it does get complicated from here on out. The industry standard is the Shure SM 57. This mic is so good that it produced this project. Sober Irishman (just Sober as we call him) will definitely argue the merits and veritable indestructibility of the Audix I5 vs. the SM57, but I think we're into semantics at that point. Either one is a good solid choice for overall use. A good entry level condenser mic is a must as well. There are a lot of decent entry level mics to choose from right around $300 and you can check the boards for lots of advice and personal experience, but I would stick to names I know and trust like AKG, Audio Technica, Rode, and of course Shure. Ribbon mics are all the rave right now as well and to be frank, I don't own one and have little experience with them. These get real technical like most can't be exposed to phantom power and shouldn't be exposed to heavy breathers and such and should be well researched before being purchased. Finally you have the issue of a preamp and whether to go tube or solid state. I have to be honest, I have yet to hear a preamp that knocked my socks off yet, but the ones I have heard about will eat up your $1300 and leave you owing more. As long as you aren't going direct into your computer by some sort of 1/4 to 1/8 adapter, you'll be fine. If you do need a pre-amp, let's move onto that.

4) Preamp - Again I'll make the assumption that you're young and don't have everything you need to make a decent recording, but are wanting to use your computer to do so. You could use that money and buy a Mac and have lot's of the aforementioned effects, drum samples and tools built right in with Garageband. Or you could buy an interface that will work with a PC, something like this is awfully popular around here, and they even make one for USB input if you don't have Firewire. Most also bundle some sort of watered down version of popular recording software with it, but I don't know jack about that.

Well, that should give you a lot to consider for now. If it were me, I would go for a lot of very useful items as opposed to one big ticket item. YMMV. My last bit of advice would be to record, as much as possible. Experiment with whatever you get, but record. I'm very much like you in that I don't submit a lot because I'm never very satisfied with the final product, at least not by the deadline. I've had a lot of people tell me to push beyond that, and it's good advice. I don't usually follow it, but there's no reason you shouldn't.

tamuic wrote: Since most of the people on this board compose songs all the time, I wanted to ask which of these options you guys thought would be more useful to a relative newbie.

As one of the people that composes songs all the time - I'd say just get whatever makes it easier for you to do that. Get the songs first - worry about the gear later.

Personally - I have a good acoustic guitar and an iMac. Add a cheap mic and a bass I use occasionally - and I have more than enough to keep myself continually amused. (although after 4 years of this now - I am now about to buy myself a better mic)