Ask any live musician and we’ll all tell you we love a good bargain. Some of the best savings on music equipment can be found on eBay. There’s almost always a good deal to be found on eBay if you just take the time to search for it. There are tons of guitars for sale on eBay and if you search through them you can find some real bargains. Here are some basic tips for buying a guitar on eBay: (more…)
Here’s another one of my custom Fender Cyber-Twin SE patch presets that I programmed for my Fender Cyber-Twin SE Amplifier. If you do any 80’s Hard Rock or Metal in your live band I programmed this patch specifically for that genre. It has some chorusing and some fairly heavy delay and reverb. As always I have the gain control on the continuous controller so you can easily crank it for the Metal stuff. I also put Chorus Depth control on the Expression Pedal so you can take the chorus all the way out or crank it up if you want to. It does sound nice and 80’s! I hope you like it.
I used my ‘98 Jeff Beck Signature Stratocaster on this sound clip. It has a dual single coil in the bridge position and I have one Gold Lace Sensor and one Red Lace Sensor in those positions. I have both those pickups turned on together on this clip but the bulk of the guitar sound is coming from the Red Lace Sensor. It sounds like a bright humbucker. My Gibson Les Paul Custom sounds very similar to this clip. My 2005 American Deluxe Stratocaster sounds fantastic with this preset when I use the bridge pickup alone or the bridge and middle pickups running in series configuration using the S-1 switch.
LMC 80’s Rock
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Click the link-> Download LMC 80’s Rock MIDI Sysex
Click the link-> Download LMC 80’s Rock Text Format
I have added this to the main Fender Cyber-Twin SE Preset Download page as well. If you don’t know how to use MIDI Sysex data I have written a tutorial here: How To Load and Save Presets On Your Fender Cyber-Twin SE.
This is one of my favorite clips from South Park. Eric Cartman can never seem to remember the lyrics to O Holy Night so Mr. Garrison resorts to a little shock therapy with a cattle prod wielded by Kyle. I especially like the part where Cartman’s voice changes and they all say “Wow!” this is classic South Park! Enjoy it because these videos don’t last long on YouTube.
(more…)Every week at Live Musician Central I pick some of the top new releases available for you to download from both iTunes and Amazon.com music service. These new release choices reflect the heaviest music industry marketing. There are two reasons I post up the most heavily music industry marketed albums. First, by checking out these releases you’ll be able to keep a finger on the pulse of the mainstream music industry. It’s still a very powerful business that heavily influences peoples buying choices. The second reason is that a large number of people are going to know these albums. So if your band is looking for new music to put in your bands setlist these would be good choices simply because your chance of people knowing the songs at your shows will be very high. You’ll also look very on top of things and current with your knowledge of music. So these albums are a great resource for your song selection. I will also post up links to top selling albums of all time for the reason of song selection as well.
I use links to both iTunes and Amazon.com. iTunes is now the top music retailer in the U.S. so it goes without saying that people are going to be downloading their recommended new releases. I put links up from Amazon.com because their music service is an incredible bargain and their MP3’s are DRM free. You can save a bundle downloading entire albums from Amazon.com over iTunes. Amazon.com MP3’s are also ripped at an excellent sounding 256kbps and since they’re DRM free you can play them on multiple MP3 players including iPods and iPhones.
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One of the tricks of the trade when it comes to mixing down recordings is synchronizing the delay settings with the beat of the song. It gives your recorded tracks a very smooth and even feel when the delays are hitting on the beat or on divisions of the beat. These days, so many live bands are using sequenced tracks or recorded backing tracks that it’s an essential skill as a live musician to be able to set your delay effects to hit with the beat of the song that you’re playing. With all of the excellent digital delays and digitally controlled analog delays it’s easier than ever to get your delay effect units set to the beat of the song you’re playing.
I thought this was a fascinating video looking at some of the physics of drumming. It features drummer Mike Mangini who has played drums for Extreme and Steve Vai. He is currently a faculty member at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston. Mike Mangini is an extremely fast drummer and has held 3 world records for speed drumming.
In this video clip from Discovery Channel’s Time Warp series they discuss the physics of drumming on the drummers body as well as the drumset. They take a super slow motion look at the effects of a drum hit on a snare head and cymbal. What really amazed me is how the cymbal flowed like liquid when it was hit. It’s really incredible to watch. I hope you enjoy the clip! (more…)
The Gift Certificates Offer is over but you can always take advantage of the 45 day low price guarantee!
I use the Fender Cyber-Twin SE Amplifier as my main amplifier and have programmed many custom patches for it. It would be catastrophic to say the least if I lost all my presets before or during a show. That’s why I have backed up all my presets in MIDI System Exclusive format and I keep a copy on our computer that we use at all shows. The best and easiest way to load patch presets onto your Fender Cyber-Twin SE Amplifier is by using MIDI System Exclusive data. The Cyber-Twin SE creates and communicates this type of MIDI data natively and it works flawlessly for backing up, sharing and loading your patches. It’s much easier than tediously entering in all the parameters by hand which would be very difficult at a gig. The beauty of using MIDI Sysex data is that it will save all your front panel EQ settings as well as all expression pedal settings and assignments for each preset as well.
A good band logo can be a very powerful marketing tool for your live band. A good logo will be an image that people will associate with your band every time they see it. After choosing a band name you should create a memorable logo to use on all of your band documents, websites and merchandise.
Qualities of a good logo are:
A trademark protects a word, phrase, symbol, design or a combination of these, that identifies and distinguishes the goods or services of one person or company from those of others. A copyright on the other hand is a form of protection for Authors of literary, musical, dramatic, artistic and certain other intellectual works. (more…)
Being a big fan of South Park I often enjoy Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics around the holidays. I always get a chuckle out of Satan singing Christmas Time In Hell. I couldn’t find the actual South Park clip on YouTube but I did find a very fine video\audio mashup of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Christmas Time In Hell. The creator of this video did a great job cutting in relevant video clips from Nightmare Before Christmas to the song. It’s surprisingly funny to watch it. I hope you enjoy a little Christmas humor today. (more…)