Category: 2. Live Band Equipment

What equipment do I need to play live concerts? What equipment should I use in my home studio? Find out here.

Propellerhead Reason 4 Music Production Software Review

Reason 4.0 Rack Front

When I started playing in live bands the hottest synthesizer on the market was the Yamaha DX7. Back then it was great to have a keyboard that could play lots of notes simultaneously and do a decent job of sounding like the instrument it was emulating. Most keyboard players brought multiple keyboards to the gigs and there was a lot of setup time involved. I remember spending hours working on the perfect soundpatches for my Roland keyboards. The thing about playing keyboards is you can never have too many sound options. It was an expensive proposition to be a keyboard player as it would cost the player thousands of dollars to get the necessary equipment to play in a live band. The dream was to have racks of synthesizer modules at your disposal to create the incredible soundscapes that you could hear in your head. But only the top paid musicians could afford to live that dream. The rest of us had to make do with whatever synthesizer equipment we could afford. It’s amazing how times have changed with the development of incredibly powerful, software based synthesizers like those found in Reason 4.0.

If you’ve never heard of Reason which is developed by Propellerhead it’s basically a virtual studio rack into which you can load mixers, effects and synthesizer modules. If the equipment that you have access to in Reason 4.0 was sitting in a rack in your studio it would cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. You can place multiple copies of the same equipment into the rack to work with for sound creation. So if you want 15 analog synthesizers to work with, you got it. The virtual rack is infinitely expandable as long as your computer is powerful enough to run all the devices you can load into it. What types of devices can you load? Reason 4.0 comes with synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, REX file loop player, mixers, vocoder, studio effects, mastering tools, pattern sequencers and more! It’s amazing how many devices come in this software package. If you have the urge to load 11 compressors and 10 samplers with 5 synthesizers, you can do it. You can chain as many mixers together as you wish to mix all of your devices. You can keep adding gear until your computer chokes but it will take a lot to do that as Reason 4.0 is quite conservative on your system.

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How Graph Tech String Saver Guitar Saddles Saved My Les Paul Custom

Gibson Les Paul Custom – Wine Red

I have a decent collection of guitars that I use with my live band. I use some of them regularly whenever my band plays and some I just keep to use in the studio. Today I’m going to talk a little bit about my Gibson Les Paul Custom. My Les Paul Custom has a beautiful Wine Red finish with gold hardware and it plays like butter. It’s a really great guitar and I have to say it’s almost as good as my Fender Stratocasters. I use the Les Paul Custom a lot when I play live and it has quite a bit of playing hours on it. I had been using it for about a year when it developed a severe problem with string breakage.

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Fender Cyber-Twin Full-Length Demonstration DVD

In my live band I use the Fender Cyber-Twin SE amplifier. It’s a really great amp and I’ve enjoyed playing it immensely the last couple years. I’ve programmed some great sound patch presets that you can check out on my Cyber-Twin SE Preset Download page. Today I’m going to post up a full length DVD video that was shipped with the original Fender Cyber-Twin amplifier. It’s a pretty good video to watch if you have questions about the Cyber-Twin amplifiers. (more…)
Levy’s Boot Leather Guitar Strap Review

Levy's Boot Leather Guitar Strap

I have quite a few guitar straps kicking around my practice room. My friends and family know I’m a guitar playing live musician so I get a lot of guitar accessories as gifts including guitar straps. I also get a free guitar strap every time I buy a guitar. It’s nice to have extra guitar straps because I keep several guitars out within easy reach so I can practice. That being said, I only use one guitar strap live and it’s the most comfortable strap I’ve ever used. That guitar strap is the Levy’s Boot Leather Guitar Strap.

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Download Free Fender Cyber-Twin SE Preset Patch – LMC Hi-Gain ’66

Fender Cyber-Twin SE Amplifier

Today on Live Musician Central I’m posting another of my custom programmed Fender Cyber-Twin SE preset patches. This patch is called LMC Hi-Gain ’66. Who doesn’t love the sound of a maxed out Fender Blackface amplifier? How about a maxed out Fender Blackface amplifier pushed even harder by a maxed out Overdrive? Well that’s what you get with this sound patch. It’s a fully cranked up Super Reverb ’66 pushed to the limit with the added overdrive.

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Fender Road Worn Guitar Review

Fender Road Worn Stratocaster

   Today on Live Musician Central I’m going to talk about an interesting new phenomenon in the electric guitar industry. It’s the new fad of paying big bucks for beat-to-crap looking instruments. This isn’t really a new thing as other companies have built replicas of famous guitars that include all the dings, scratches and missing pieces of the guitar they’re replicating. A really famous one is the Eddie Van Halen Frankenstein Replica Guitar that is just beat to hell right out of the box. I hear it’s exactly like Eddie’s and it can be yours for a mere $25,000. That’s right, twenty-five thousand dollars! Is that really worth it? I guess if you want to be “exactly like Eddie” then you’d shell out that kind of money. But today we’re talking about full factory production runs of “aged” brand new guitars.

    Fender has just released their much publicized line of Fender Road Worn electric guitars. These guitars are supposed to look and play like a vintage 40 to 50 year old instrument. I’m sure that this phenomenon has come about because of the insane prices that people are paying for actual forty to fifty year old guitars. I’m sure Fender is thinking “Why not cash in?”. Well I’m here to disagree with this fad of fake vintage instruments. Let me tell you why.

   First of all, let me say that I believe the best instrument is a brand new instrument that has never been handled by anyone but the final player. I personally feel like the new guitar technology is the best technology. Let’s take a look at my favorite guitar, the Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster as an example. The locking tuners are the easiest to string of all the tuners and hold their tuning the best. The Samarium Cobalt pickups are noiseless and produce single coil pickup tones without the 60Hz hum. The two-point synchronized tremolo is very low friction and holds it’s tuning extremely well. The bridge pieces are solid blocks of metal that transfer string vibration better than the bent steel pieces used on the Road Worn series. All of this technology is the latest and greatest and it performs the best for gigging.

   Now let’s take a look at the Road Worn series. As I said before they’re supposed to look like 40-50 year old instruments. I’d like to add that they look like 40-50 year old, poorly cared for instruments. I look at my guitars that are a mere 25 years old and they have some nicks and scratches but nowhere near the amount of road rash, scratches and dings the Road Worn series is adorned with. The true vintage instruments that are in this poor of shape lose a lot of their market value compared to “like new” vintage instruments. I’ve heard people make the argument “But a well played instrument plays better than a new one”. I’d like to know how rash and dings all over the beautiful nitrocellulose finish make these guitars play better? I can tell you from experience that what makes a guitar play better is freshly crowned frets and a perfectly intonated bridge. I’m not buying into this whole “if it’s beat up it plays better” rubbish.

   There are a few nice features on the Road Worn guitars. They have a nitrocellulose finish which is excellent for letting the wood breathe and nitrocellulose looks fabulous when brand new. On the Road Worn guitars, at least you’ll get the breatheability advantage for the wood but the finish is basically ruined with all the aging. Another nice feature is the soft “V” shape neck which does feel very comfy in your hands and having some of the finish rubbed off will make the neck feel a bit smoother. The single coils are the Tex-Mex Stratocaster pickups so you’ll have very good output along with the hum. Sadly, the guitars only come with a gig bag and not a case. Then again, why do you need to waste time putting a beater guitar into a case?

   My recommendation if you can’t afford the Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster is to buy a Fender American Standard Stratocaster instead of a Road Worn Stratocaster. You’ll pay the same price for an American Standard Stratocaster as you will a Road Worn Stratocaster and you’ll get a case, better bridge and staggered tuners in the bargain. Plus, you’ll know where every single ding, scratch and dent came from 15 years after you buy it.

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Beginner Electric Guitar Package – Fender Affinity Strat HSS With G-Dec Amp

Fender Affinity Strat HSS With G-DEC Junior Amplifier

Once people find out that I’m a guitar player in a live band they will often start asking questions about how to get started playing guitar themselves. I usually tell them “You just gotta want it!” and then of course the practical questions start such as “What kind of guitar should I buy?”. I get a lot of people asking me what kind of guitar they should buy for their kids to learn on as well. I often have people tell me they already play acoustic guitar but want to get into playing electric guitar. My opinion is you just need to fork out the money and buy a really good instrument. I always recommend the Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster since it’s the guitar I use and you will have an excellent instrument that you can grow into. The problem is, most people don’t want to shell out that kind of money when they’re just starting out. So today I’m going to recommend a beginner package that will give you an excellent start into the wonderful world of electric guitar playing. I highly recommend the Fender Affinity Strat HSS with G-DEC Junior Amp package. Let me tell you why. (more…)
Make Singing Practice Fun With SingStar The Video Game

SingStar PS3 Bundle

I’m always looking for good ways to practice my live performance. You can only sing along in the car for so long before you’re bored to death and there’s really no way to practice your stage moves while driving. It’s also not a lot of fun to do boring old Karaoke especially at home without an audience. That’s where SingStar the video game comes in extremely handy.

If you’re not familiar with SingStar it’s a singing game that you can play on your Playstation 2 or Playstation 3. It’s a step up from Karaoke and it will help you work on your live performance in several different ways. The game basically has a selection of songs along with the original artists music video for the song. SingStar is much better than Karaoke simply because it uses the original artists music rather than a cover band playing the music. To play you just plug in the microphones, select a song and start singing. The lyrics appear onscreen with a pitch indicator that shows you how well you’re singing in tune. The game will score your performance which gives you a good idea about where you need to improve your singing. (more…)
Current Promotion From Musician’s Friend

Musician’s Friend is really good about keeping their special offers and discounts current. Every live musician I know loves to save money anywhere they can. That’s why I try to keep all you readers of Live Musician Central updated on the best offerings from Musician’s Friend and other great online music stores. Today I’m going to link the latest great offer from Musician’s Friend which is currently the Earn Up To $150 In Bonus Bucks promotion. This promotion runs from 1-20-2009 to 2-3-2009 so make sure you get your orders in now! Click the banner below:

There’s another great ongoing promtion at Zzounds.com as well. Click on the banner below to see some of the fantastic deals at ZZounds.com:
Celemony Melodyne Studio 3 Video Demonstrations

Yesterday on Live Musician Central I wrote a post about the excellent software Celemony Melodyne Studio 3. The software is simply fantastic and it’s almost impossible to do it’s capabilities justice simply by writing about it. So today I’m posting up a couple of very informative YouTube videos discussing Celemony Melodyne Studio software. So if you have a few minutes, it’s really worth watching these videos just to see the amazing capabilites of Celemony Melodyne pitch correction software.

Melodyne – Direct Note Access
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