Live Musician Central

  
   From now until November 26 you can get 15% off your entire order at Music123. Music123 is an online music store that caters to every type of musician whether you play live or just like to record. I’ve always had good experiences ordering from Music123. Here’s an experience I had recently when I ordered a product. I had ordered several different types of guitar picks to experiment with including the Jellifish Chorus Guitar Pick. Somehow, the Jellifish got crushed during shipping and all the wires on it got bent. I called Music123 and they sent me out a brand new one, completely free without making me return the damaged one. Now that’s customer service! So make sure you check out the great sale and excellent products at Music123.

   Now is the perfect time to get your big ticket items for Christmas. These top items sell out regularly and can be hard to get closer the Christmas. I recommend these top selling products from Music123: Read more »

  

If you’ve been reading Live Musician Central for very long I’m sure you know I absolutely love Sony Acid Pro 6 Professional Music Workstation software. It’s extremely powerful and can be the heart of your own home recording studio. Sony Acid Pro 6 is a very capable and deep program which is easy to learn but can be a challenge to master. Today I want to turn you on to an excellent guide written by D. Erik Franks called “ACID Pro 6 Power!: The Official Guide“.

   Acid Pro 6 Power is a deep, detailed look at the capabilities of Sony Acid Pro 6. The users manual that comes with Sony Acid Pro 6 will tell you the basic features of Acid but it doesn’t take you very deep into how to get the full benefit of those features. That’s where “Acid Pro 6 Power!” comes in handy to fill all those missing details. There is something for every skill level in “Acid Pro 6 Power!” and it can take your music productions to the very highest quality possible with Sony Acid. Read more »

   I’m going to talk about a common problem that I hear quite often when I’m out listening to bands. It’s a problem I’ve encountered working with various musicians in my studio as well. The problem that I’m talking about is the use of several different electronic tuners while tuning the various instruments in a band. You would think that a tuner is a tuner and that they’re all properly calibrated but the truth is that any individual tuner can be slightly out of calibration. If you have two different tuners and they’re both a little bit out of calibration, let’s say one is slightly sharp and the other is slightly flat, you’ll hear a big difference in tuning between the different instruments that have been tuned on them. The audience will simply hear an out of tune band which isn’t good for any performance by a live musician.

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   I have a Peterson 490-ST AutoStrobe Tuner that is by far the most accurate and best tuner I have ever used. It is a strobe tuner so it has unparalleled accuracy when it comes to tuning your instrument. I use the Peterson 490-ST AutoStrobe Tuner to set the intonation on my guitars and it works flawlessly.

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   There’s a couple of really good deals going on at Music123 that I wanted to make you aware of. Right now all the accessories ship free on orders over $49. That’s half the usual amount to get free shipping. You usually have to order $99 to get free shipping but for the accessories you only have to order $49 worth of stuff to get free shipping.

   Second, there’s a great coupon code that you can use to get a 15% discount on all accessories. You can save a bunch of money by entering this coupon code during checkout when ordering accessories. Just click this link: 15% Off All Accessories with Coupon Code: B2S15 at Music123.com That’s a great deal and it’s not going to last forever. So if you’re a live musician, now is the perfect time to pick up some much needed accessories for you and your band.

   Here’s a list of links to accessories that you can buy using the 15% discount code.

Horizon Concert Series 24-Channel/4-Return Stage Snake Standard

Mogami Gold High-Definition Neutrik 1/4″ Straight Instrument Cable 18 Foot

Mogami Silver Series Microphone Cable 50 Foot

Nova 12-Pair Hickory Drumsticks Wood Rock

Roc-N-Soc NRX Nitro Rider Drum Throne Black

Furman PM-8 II Power Conditioner with Digital Volt And Current Meters Standard

Yamaha Portable Keyboard Survival Kit B Standard

Drum One Shield Two Drum Shield Standard

Fingerease Guitar String Lubricant Standard

Fender Instrument Care Kit by Meguiar’s Standard

Big Bends Nut Sauce Tuning Lubricant Standard

Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB Humbucker Pickup Black

EBow PlusEbow Electronic Bow for Guitar Standard

Clayton Acetal Standard Guitar Picks .80MM 1 Dozen

Dean Markley 2556 Blue Steel Regular Gauge Electric Guitar Strings Standard

M-Audio SP-2 Sustain Pedal Standard

   That’s just a small sampling of the types of accessories that you can get right now at Music123. With the combined discounts of 15% off the price of the accessory and free shipping on orders over $49.00 you can save a bundle. So make sure you get in on the sale while you still can!

   One of the most important aspects of mixing music in a live venue or in the studio is the use of equalization. The other day I wrote about how to tweak your guitar amplifier EQ settings. Today I’m going to write about the effect of equalization on other parts of the mix.

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   There are a lot of incredibly good audio recorders on the market right now. They are compact and handheld with built-in stereo microphones. Having one in your gear arsenal is very important for a number of reasons.

   I’ve written before about how important it is to record your live performances. You can learn so much from hearing your gigs back on a recording. Having a recorder like the
Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM Recorder can make recording your live shows as easy as setting the recorder up in the back of the room and letting it record. Since it’s all digital you can edit out dead spaces later. Making a back of the room recording is a good idea because it really lets you hear what the audience is hearing. You can also capture the audience reaction to your performance. If you get good at placing the recorder where it picks up well, you could end up with an excellent live recording that you could use as a demo in your bands marketing kit.      Read more »

   In an earlier article I mentioned how important it was to record your band live. Having live recordings of your band will help you learn where you need improvement. Club owners also prefer having a live demo of the band instead of a studio recording. While looking for collectible equipment I stumbled across and incredible deal at Musician’s Friend. Today I’m going to tell you about the
TASCAM DP-02CF Portastud (Mislabeled) Portastudio 1139.

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   Being a guitar player and using very voltage sensitive amplifiers, I have always struggled with getting good clean power to my equipment. Bad power can cause all sorts of problems from strange noises to complete equipment failure. Today I’m going to recommend the power conditioner I use on my guitar rig, the
Furman PL-Plus II Power Conditioner with Voltmeter.

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   One of the finest pieces of equipment I have ever owned is the
Line 6 TonePort KB37 Audio Interface and MIDI Controller.
This little device has the power to be your sole interface into your digital audio software workstation. I use this controller with my laptop and Sony Acid Pro 6. They work perfectly together with the KB37 providing MIDI keyboard control as well as 2 mic inputs with built in 48v phantom power, a guitar/bass input and stereo line inputs. It also has an S/PDIF out, TRS line outputs, TRS monitor input and an independent headphone jack. With that many inputs and outputs it’s your total solution to your audio interface needs when multi-tracking your projects on your computer.

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