cheddatom

Well i'll bring my stuff and if anyone's interested I will demonstrate, but i'm the shy quiet type so wouldn't offer it if you know what I mean? I would certainly enjoy a demo of your board(s)!

I don't want to do any showing off really. I just want to hear other people's pedals! I'll bring my 6 string though.

If you're going to keep playing with it try a tad more early reflections on the acoustic guitar!

I like the black one best!

I really liked the reverb on the vocals - it added character to the mix and seemed to set the whole band in a room - which I like. To be fair if you're going for radio play maybe it's a bit too much on the weird side?

Why don't one of you run some white noise through a PD-7 and screen shot a frequency analyser? That would settle it.

Lol! I use the B2.1U in combination with about 20 other pedals to get my tones! To be fair though, if I spent some time with it i'm sure i'd be satisfied with just that and my Barge Concepts VBF.

Look at the pedals and they should have a current rating (Ma) add them all up, and you need a PSU that can supply that current. I would get a PSU specific to pedals as they tend to be less noisy and supply more current. I know laods of people have the Diago one, I have a Godlyke, the rest get quite expensive I think so I would get one of those.

Yeh no problem, sorry I couldn't come up with any criticism, but it does sound really good.

I PM'd for an mp3 to listen to in the car and......... The mix is perfect in my opinion. If I was doing it personally, I would do things a little differently, but it wouldn't be any better. I think the mix really is spot on, you wouldn't want the bass to cut through any more than it does, the guitar sound is nice, the vocals sound REALLY good, overall it gels really well. As far as the music goes - you have a really good singer there. I would have had a full drum kit come in half way through and turned it into a rock-power balled type of thingy - it could make a good single! The chord progressions are really strong, and the bassline fits to it really well. Nice one!

Cool, I can't bring a decent amp set up so that would be useful!

Don't worry - I get the same feelings every time I do a demo. The best thing to do is just keep on comparing to a proffessional disc to reassure yourself. If you want any help you could post up some examples for opinions, or if you're not that into mixing it, upload the data and i'll have a crack at it. Dr Dave - i've done similar things. I got a great sound recording a DI, an SM58 on my cabs about 2 feet away, and a condensor about 6 feet away. I think it only works when the room sounds good though.

Yeh no problem, I really love that plug-in but sometimes I worry that I don't actually know anything and constantly spout bollocks, which is why I asked how you got on.

[quote name='mcgraham' post='280980' date='Sep 10 2008, 11:20 AM']Science is supposedly derived from the word [i]sciencio[/i], meaning truth (I think?). So arguably music is more true than any science we [i]think[/i] we know about. But I digress. Mark[/quote] Indeed. I was either not reading your posts properly yesterday, or just not thinking straight. Of course music theory can be a science! I'd never thought of it like that before. Thanks for changing my perceptions. That's two music-theory related revelations i've had on BC. I wish people would stop saying "same old boring topic" - there's always a chance to learn. Personally, I can't remember any theory, although I did know a lot. When i'm writing music, I try to listen for the right sounds, that give me the right feelings at the right times. When i'm playing with a band though, I know it's all my "internalised theory" coming out, along with years of sitting in the living room messing around and deviating from what I was taught.

[quote name='mcgraham' post='280971' date='Sep 10 2008, 11:10 AM']Is that making sense? Mark[/quote] Yeh, deffinitely, I agree with all of that. I was just saying that music theory is not a science - although it could be described as a collection of absolute facts - so i'm probably wrong? Nevermind!

I think that's more "life theory" than "music theory" and occurs to me as common sense, but every time I think that, I find a new idiot who just takes everything at face value or the like.

Let me know how you get on, i'm interested!

I would use one or two 15"s and a for the marshall 2 x 12". It should sound feckin huge!!!

[quote name='mcgraham' post='280566' date='Sep 9 2008, 05:38 PM']Cheddatom, I appreciate you clarifying your point, however I feel you may have skipped over part of mine. Whether this is first hand, second hand, from your teacher, or from Hanon via your teacher, theory is inevitably going to be coloured in some way by those teaching it, and the people they were taught by... a point I feel you've actually supported by your response. If your teacher told you it was [i]theoretically wrong[/i] to play anything outside of C major, they are (IMO) wrong. They are speaking in absolutes, which (as we have established in the course of this thread) aren't that helpful, at least in the pursuit of art. What they perhaps [i]should[/i] be saying is that it is unconventional to do so, in both a historical and experiential context (i.e. I do not dispute that there are rules associated with classical music and the like, but I put it to you that this is but a historical interpretation of music theory). Therefore, when you learn something, try to read between the lines as it is likely to be highly subjective. Try apply it to more than one context. Otherwise you're not reeeally internalising it, and you will be merely regurgitating it next time you come to play, taking the information at face value and not developing it nor making it your own. Again, I feel this example only serves to illustrate my point. Perhaps that's my own personal filter on the world making itself known Mark[/quote] I deffinitely agree with that, but when "theory is inevitably going to be coloured in some way by those teaching it" - and arguably that covers the entirety of music theory, you see why I refer to music theory as the "coloured science" and make a distinction between music theory and science, and why I think that music theory is in a way a set of rules. If the theory is always going to have this "colouration" then it is never going to be absolutely "theoretical" if you know what I mean? Like I say, what you do with theory is your business, and after our last long discussion I changed my opinion on the matter in that I don't think that it could be a bad thing to learn theory in any situation - although I do think it would be a very bad thing if every single musician in the world had a grade 8 (or whatever the highest qualification is) in music theory.

Very cool, I really like the contoured top. I assume that hole will have the electonics and have a covered top?

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='280454' date='Sep 9 2008, 04:13 PM']Ok I can see what your saying, but I can’t agree with you that you will “quite clearly know what you’re missing”, because you won’t. If you just look at your example about the rollercoaster in that you think what you will be missing will be the extreme speed or G force, what experience have you got to qualify that statement? How do you know that that’s what you will be missing and not something else, or how do you even know that you won’t like it? It’s like the argument for keeping battery chickens in tiny cages; they don’t know any different so it’s not cruel. When it comes to music theory you don’t know anything different than what you already know or you’ve already experienced, so you quite clearly don’t know what you’re missing.[/quote] I am aware of the laws of physics. The rollercoaster analogy is not a good one. The jazz performance is a good one though. If I watch a 3 piece, a guitarist is playing some chords like i've never heard before, and he keeps changing chords at seemingly random points in time, but the bassist is constantly playing notes that sound nice with the guitar, and he always keeps rythm, with him even though it sounds like the rythm is random. Watching that, I can tell that these people know their way around the fretboard to such an extent that they can create a chaotic sounding peice of music, and yet make it sound "musical" or "nice", and stay together time-wise. I would put that down to music theory whether I know any or not. They would have to have a theory of some sort in order to keep this "random" rythm and for them both to be able to play in the same time (unless they're psychic). If I am a musician in this situation, I would be able to watch them and compare their skills with my own. If I think "I could never keep up with those random timings, I could never come up with that many notes to fit with those chords" etc, then I quite clearly know what i'm missing - that knowledge. Doesn't that make sense? [quote name='mcgraham' post='280457' date='Sep 9 2008, 04:15 PM']I'm referring primarily to music theory, I am in no way confused about which theory I am talking about. The theory I have read suggests routes you can take, and provides experiential guidance on what may work and what may not, but it is by no means an absolute set of rules, merely definitions, ala a dictionary, rather than a manual. When people teach theory in such absolutes, they are likely to be colouring it with their own experience, with varying levels of severeness. AND! On top of this, our interpretation of what sounds good and what doesn't is based in part on the science of sound. It is our 'personal colouration' of these sounds that persuade us to choose one sound over another. Mark[/quote] I'm not saying you're confused about what theory you're talking about. All I was saying is that "the harmonics and interference produced by a given interval/set of intervals" can be defined using the laws of physics etc, where as "this is C major, if the song is in the key of C major, playing notes from C major will sound good" would be an example of music theory at work. Am I wrong? When I was at school I learned a lot of music theory from teachers and books etc. Most of what I learned was about key signiatures, scales, timing/rhythm, transposition etc. When put into practice, we would have examples like the one above "OK tom, i'm going to play in C major, you keep up" and if I played a note outside of the C major scale I was wrong. Quite obviously what you do with your theory knowledge is your own business, i'm not saying that people should or do stick to music theory as though it's a rule book. I think though, in and of it's self, the majority of music theory text implies musical opinion such as "this is a good idea" (another example would be all of the ways to end a peice, I can't remember the proper name, but they teach you around 10 different ways to finish a piece, and then get you to identify them by listening to them, and you have to name them etc. It implies to me that these are the ways that a peice of music SHOULD be finished). I'm not sure if i'm making sense. My only point to you Mark was that I have studied the science of sound waves - how they interact and how we hear them and why, and I have studied music theory and they seem like wildly different topics to me.

[quote name='mcgraham' post='280444' date='Sep 9 2008, 03:53 PM']In and of itself it does not say whether something sounds pleasing/good/right or not, any such comments are usually a colouring of the information by those [i]teaching[/i] the theory (please note I'm not saying all notes are equal, that's something else).[/quote] I think this is where the debate falls down a bit. Theory means different things to different people. IMHO The theory you're talking about is the science of sound. Music theory is different, and DOES say whether something sounds pleasing/good/right or not. That is why our opinions differ.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='280391' date='Sep 9 2008, 02:34 PM']OK - your point is completely valid - you don't need to understand 'grammar' to speak a language (a French friend of mine doesn't get this 'masculine'/'feminine', le/la stuff any more than I do) and there are many people who don't understand theory who can 'hear' the more complex and 'advanced' elements of some jazz. I have no argument with that but I think that any player who wants 'be the best that they can be', the study of theory opens doors that may be otherwise difficult to access.[/quote] I would agree apart from the "be the best they can be" - I think it should be "be the best that they can within the context of modern standardised music". There may be musicians who feel the need to abandon convention, and I would liken them to writers who understand spoken English, but enjoy deviating from the "standardised" written form, abandoning grammar, making up words or even whole dialects etc. It's not necessary to have a doctorate in English to be able to make up a new form of it, and I fail to see how it would help. I think this only makes sense in the context of a composer rather than a musician - like I said it depends what you want to do. If I want to be an original and unconventional composer, I would try to avoid listening to other people's music, and avoid reading music theory. If I wanted to go and play in a jazz band, I would learn music theory. Obviously there's a world of possibilities in between. I don't think we disagree, I think i'm just being pedantic.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='280362' date='Sep 9 2008, 02:01 PM']I understand everyone's 'live and let live' attitude. Its all very pro-social and positive and is fundamentally where I stand also. Unlike a lot of people, however, I make sense of the world by talking and arguing and debating and pondering and re-visiting issues and arguing some more. It helps me keep enthusiastic and interested. Agreeing to disagree before you have disagreed with me gives me nothing to deliberate on! You can disagree without being disagreeable! So, kindly rant on and feel good about it!![/quote] I totally agree there Bilbo - why not respond to my response to your response to my post? Regarding theory - I think it can be important to learn, or it can be not important to learn, depending on what you want to do as a musician. It can never be important to not learn.

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='280265' date='Sep 9 2008, 12:18 PM']I respectfully totally disagree. I think you’re way off the mark with this one. How can you have practical knowledge of something you have no experience or understanding of? You could end up living a very small and narrow minded life if you go around believing that you understand everything despite having no experience of it – no offence meant (and I’m in no way saying you “live a very small and narrow minded life, because from your other posts on the forum I know that’s just not true ), I’m just trying to make a point.[/quote] I think you misunderstood my post. I never said that I would have a practical knowledge of complicated jazz music - I said that I could watch it, listen to it, compare it to what I already know on the bass, and quite easily realise that it would take a lot of technical musical theoretical knowledgetical knowledge to accomplish what I am seeing and hearing. I don't have to have that knowledge to know that. [quote name='bilbo230763' post='280266' date='Sep 9 2008, 12:18 PM']Not really. If you try read a book in a language you don't understand but you can't make sense of it, you will not know what you are missing. If you can hear those 'weird' changes, they are subjectively more beautiful than the simple little diatonic major harmonies in most poular music. If you can't, you wouldn't know.[/quote] Like I have said before, music is not comparable to language in that way. Music could be reffered to as a language if you like, but everyone all over the world can understand it. It's like saying you have to have an expansive knowledge of music theory to enjoy listening to jazz music, and to be able to think about what goes into that music you have to know all of the technical terms that the musicians use. I'm sure there are loads of jazz proficianados (critics, DJs, producers etc) who know no music theory. I can hear weird changes without knowing what they're called and/or how to do it. I am using jazz as an example here because it generally requires a greater knowledge of (how notes works together and where and when to find them) music theory than say... Pop-Rock.