duncann

Here's a preset that's for the HD500 that might be something of what you're looking for. DBack-1-7-4-39.zip

The pitch glide would be the best effect.

Ahh. It makes a more sense now. I was thinking of each part as separate, but when the last part is taken in context with the other two, well, I don't really know how that would make a person feel. Some sort of meditative state? Like your song? Yea, it could be. Yikes! Just thinking about that... You must have one hell of a mental toughness to you.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear Olympia is a song I've never heard before...by Joe Satriani. That may or may not be a compliment depending if that was what you were trying to do, but I definitely like the song and to my ears it is exceptionally well done. Great guitar tone as well. I also liked The Odyssey. I don't bike or swim, but I run five to seven miles daily and I couldn't quite picture the third part attached to the theme of running. It seems a little too meditative and calming, especially at the beginning. That might work later in that part though, when you reach the part of a run where you feel as if you have endless amounts of energy and could keep going and going and going, your senses and mind open up to higher degree of clarity. The beginning of the third part should express a little more uncertainty and struggle.

More excellent advice. Awesome! I really do have to learn some restraint, which may not be that easy for me. Part of it might be my personality type, which is when I look at ideas that are abstract in nature (I think music falls in this category), I want to rip that idea apart to see the entire composition of that idea, including the many varied and dynamic connections underlying it. So when I encounter an idea that's seemingly absent of these traits or contains hardly anything more than what you see at its face value, I become confused and/or frustrated when I think, that's all there is? Maybe some of that franticness came across in this composition. But that's not to say that a seemingly simple idea can't also be complex. Thus, at least for me, the idea of less is more is probably easier said than done. I also realize that the advice I'm getting is from other musicians, which probably has an influence on the nature of the advice given. You most likely hear something completely different than someone who is ambivalent/a casual listener about music, resulting in an avoidance of information overload? Or maybe not? It would be impossible for you to hear the music as that other person does. Just like I haven't the slightest idea how other people hear this song because I've heard it so many times, and know each and every part of it, and the connection of those part to each other, intimately. In other words, it's impossible for me to hear the song for the 'first time'. The theme of the song, the force of gravity, also has influence on the shape of the song. Anyway, I think I'm babbling a bit here... I agree about the tremolo arm use. I've lost count of the number of strings I broke because of that. But that's this song and it was a conscious choice on my part. The next song won't have nearly as much. Thanks again for the wonderful advice, gives me a lot to think about.

I think you've conveyed this very well. Exactly the kind of honest criticism I'm looking for. The type that helps improve a person's musical creativity at a fundamental level. It also exposes a person's (namely me) inexperience at this. This is my first real attempt at this after a two decade hiatus from anything musically creative. I know what you mean by 'normal' people. In fact I've played this piece for some 'normal' people, family members who I'm not really close to and some who I am, and both had the odd reaction of it sounding like background music for a movie. I'm sure you can guess how trying to get honest opinions from family members goes though. Certainly nothing close to as what you've given me. I will absolutely take your advice to heart going forward and perhaps even come back to this song in the near future. I'm slowly learning that setting aside something for an extended period reveals things that otherwise would have been invisible.

After pointing this out to me and trying to hear what you might hear, I have an idea of what you mean. I think it's improved at least slightly, thanks to you. Part of it was the stereo separation, way too much, made it sound thin (not fat, not well enough defined). Added a little eq also. At first I tried changing the HD500 preset but quickly got frustrated, so just did it in the DAW. Let me know if you think it's improved at all, if you have time. If anyone viewing this thread wants a copy of this song, just send me an email ( duncann @ petml . com ), or use the email on the website, and I'll give you a download code. And if it's useful to anyone, the download also comes with the backing track.

What version of the Editor are you using? Is it a version prior to the HD500 2.0 firmware? If so, that could be why because that's when that amp was made available in the HD500. I don't own a Variax so I totally ignore those settings. I think I get what you're saying about the song structure. Not every part of the song has to be an intense, hard to play passage? Increase the contrast a little, or maybe even a lot? If that's close, I guess I have a serious decision to make about this song because that would be a major revision. At the least, I'm going to take your advice (thanks so much, exactly what I was looking for!) moving forward.

I think you're right. After working a little on the second song, I ended up boosting the mids, added a little more high end, and increased the bias excursion. All this made it sound fatter, like you said. It also added a bit more hard edged definition. Thanks for that. I used One Small Clue's Poise with the samples that were free from many places on the internet.

I appreciate the criticism, it's exactly what I'm looking for. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't influenced by Steve Vai, but having said that, I'm not trying to emulate him either as far as song structure goes. That part comes more from (unconsciously, I think) years of listening to Bach, Vivaldi, Albinoni, etc. There should be an amp model for all the patches. The solo in particular should use the Solo-100 Overdrive. Which HD do you have? The other three songs aren't written yet. I'm currently working on Radiative Embrace.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm getting a little ahead of myself as only the one track is finished. I'm currently working on Radiative Embrace. Thanks. You would have to mention the bass track. :lol: I had a damn hard time with that. The HD500 doesn't really seem to like a bass guitar very much. By fatter, do you mean more mids, bass, or both? When I made the preset (in fact all the presets), I did it on a pair of Sony MDR-V6's. Then I listened to it within the mix on some Polk Audio studio monitor 30 series II hooked to a Yamaha receiver with the tone circuitry bypassed. Then tweaked, listened, tweaked, etc. Kind of inefficient, but it's what I have to work with. What kind of speakers/system did you use to listen?

Hiya all, I'm not much of a poster here (I spend too much time tweaking and composing), but I do read this forum quite frequently. I've picked up quite a lot of useful info from a lot of people here so I have to thank everyone for that. I've been working on a four song EP, Existence, and recently finished the first song, Gravidity. I'd be grateful to anyone who cares to take a listen and offer some words of wisdom, damnation, praise, it sucks, it doesn't suck, words that make me think 'uh oh, that was stupid', or anything else that might have fleeted past my measly brain. http://mikestack.bandcamp.com/ The song was done entirely on an HD500 (well, the guitar parts anyway), with an Ibanez JEM 7vwh and an Ibanez SR305. This song no longer exists. I've trashed it. Tried multiple times to do something with it and failed. Oh well. It was a learning experience in a lot of ways. I did save the intro to it which eventually became Ekpyrosis. Here are the HD500 presets I've made. gravidity.zip

I guess I'm not sure what you'd be looking for either. Most of the options in reaper have a short explanation when you move the cursor over the option. The manual might provide some more info. Before changing anything in the computer bios, I would write down what the options are and try to find out more about what they might do. As far as what the problem might be, assuming there is nothing physically wrong, could be a plethora of things; something with the usb controller, the drivers controlling the usb in the operating system, or maybe even a unique combination of things? It sounds like there's some buffers somewhere in the chain that are getting corrupted or just stop functioning for whatever (unknown) reason. If you'd want to rule out anything with the pod itself, try it on a completely different computer, not necessarily even a laptop.

I wouldn't worry about the usb hub thing because all usb ports have to go through a hub. In your case, it's the motherboard of your laptop. Any other usb devices connected while using the pod, perhaps interferring somehow? Maybe look at some of the options for the audio device within Reaper. You could also look to see on your laptop if there is a way to get in the bios during boot and look if there any options pertaining to usb.

You might want to look at the usb connection on the pod itself. I've noticed it can lose it's physical connection quite easliy. When recording or using the pod are you using the footswitches and/or expression pedal? If so, you might be jarring the pod just enough to mess with the connection. Or maybe it's the actual cable? If that doesn't help, you could try enabling 'don't tell me about usb errors' in windows device manager/universal serial bus controllers/(whaterever your usb controller is called). Double click that and look under the advanced tab to see this option. Although I doubt very much if this would solve the problem.