http://www.mtv.com/news/2090491/2015-brit-awards-winners-full-list/

Royal Blood & Sheeran

Thanks for the kind words and great ideas, everyone. Keep them coming. We're always reading the forums, it's a great way for us to see what you all are liking/disliking.

spacem8 - agree with you m8 (sorry couldn't resist), we need to do a better job of showcasing what members are doing. We recently launched the Recent Activity feed, and plan on expanding it. Right now user reviews and gear submissions to artists are showcased, but we plan on showing when members submit brand new artists, new gear, photos of their gear setup, and more. We also wanna do more with the Gearporn gallery - don't worry, it's totally safe for work ;)

andychannelle - you nailed our mission - to pull everything together in one place. If you like the Pixies gear, we want you to find a particular delay pedal they used, then perhaps dive into researching what the most used delay pedals are in the community, and how other people are using them, and ultimately perhaps help you make a purchasing decision. That's the type of exploration we want to foster.

horse_to_water - Completely agree with you here. As much as I love people's enthusiasm, a review that says "I have this" or "Great plugin!" is simply not as useful to the rest of the community. A minimum review length is definitely something we're going to talk about within the team.

Keep the advice coming guys, we also thrive on constructive criticism - if enough people yell at us about something, we'll make it right!

You guys in the UK have all the best musicians! I'm biased though, the majority of the bands that have moved me the most hail from there - Depeche Mode, Editors, Franz Ferdinand, The Kooks, Oasis, Kasabian, and the list goes on.

I'm curious, how is Ed Sheeran perceived in the UK, in terms of being a talented guitarist? Here in the US, in typical fashion, he's seen as a top 40 folk/pop artist. I think people love his lyrics and his energy and his "nice guy" persona, but I don't hear many people commenting on his musicianship (which I personally think is impressive).

This gentleman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqv1WqRpqtI

That's really nice. His fingers are dancing on that massive fretboard, it's kinda mesmerizing to watch.

Hey picklestudios, welcome! I hope you can help us fill out the gear lists of drummers on Equipboard :) I saw you already made some great submissions!

How long have you been drumming?

I think it's very standard practice to record bass DI through an interface. Once you get the sound recorded, it's gonna be up to how you process it if you get good results or not. You're gonna want an amp simulator plugin of some kind, and likely EQ and compressor plugins to start.

I have an Apogee Duet, and it's pretty great. I can answer specific questions about it for you if you want. I've recorded electric guitar, acoustic, vox, and synths through it. It is however out of your original price range, as you said.

Have you looked into Focusrite audio interfaces? I see nothing but excellent reviews for them all around, and they are a fantastic value for the money.

Have a look at the Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 and the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB Audio Interface to start with.

Ok, I'll bite. I'd want Matthew Bellamy's skills. Frusciante is a close second.

Dat piano to dat guitar. I know I know, not the most earth shatteringly difficult thing to play, but his swagger... I mean, c'mon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvqMTxpxsN4

I'd love to weigh in, I've had a fair amount of experience with both audio interfaces and recording electric guitar.

A little clarification please -- you mentioned "PERHAPS a microphone", but yet you say that you don't want an amp in the middle. In my mind, the way you would generally record electric guitar is one of two ways:

1. Directly input the guitar into the audio interface, and use a guitar amp simulator plugin/VST on the signal, or
2. Mic your guitar amp live, meaning the sound would be coming out of your amp, going into the mic, and the mic is what would be plugged into the interface.

Which scenario is yours? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding altogether 😛

Bien amigo, y tu? 😄

Where are all you guys from? Are you music producers, guitarists, bass players, all of the above?

Hey, welcome to the Equipboard community 😄

What brings you here? Music production? Guitars? Bass? Synths? Plugins?

I say it'll be a Les Paul 😄

Nice! This is a fun thread. Good idea to post pics and videos of the new NAMM 2015 gear you find.

Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2 - coming April 30, 2015. The thing looks sick!

http://vimeo.com/117503596

Those are great recommendations kellen2. I feel like those are both pretty boutique. Man I love anything from JHS, such a cool company! It's hard to get excited about a demo video of a compressor since it isn't an in-your-face effect, but this is pretty cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBILEfFKJ4s

Oh and congrats on the 1st post, welcome to Equipboard! Nice gear collection 😄

Yes that's exactly what you would use it for - you can use the keys to play notes from any VST plugin instrument - Nexus, Sylenth, you name it 😄

The M-Audio Keystation 49es MIDI Controller is a pretty popular choice with producers. If you want something smaller and more compact, or don't need several octaves then you could go with the M-Audio Oxygen 25 or Akai MPK25.

I can help you out more if you have a budget in mind, and/or how much room you have on your desk for a keyboard.

For bass or electric guitar? And do you have a budget in mind?

Happy New Year jameskelly!!

Thanks so much for the kind words, and most of all thanks to YOU and the rest of the moderators and community for being so great. You all make the hard work worthwhile. We love working on this and watching it grow.

Here's to health, happiness, creativity, an abundance of music gear, and Equipboard continuing to get bigger and better! 😄

And since we have such an international community...

Gelukkig nieuwjaar! Bonne année! Ein glückliches neues Jahr! Buon anno! Feliz año nuevo! Gott Nytt År!

🍻

Hey Phil/Fedele, welcome! 😄

You're very lucky to have a good $500-600 to spend on building out your setup. That's a good amount of money to get started!

thejameskellymusic gave a great response. I will echo his questions:

1. What do you already have?
2. What type of music do you want to make/produce?

Going with the assumption that you have a computer or laptop, I think you should invest in a good pair of headphones, a midi keyboard controller, and audio interface, and software (DAW and synths).

I'll get right to the point with my recommendations:

Headphones

ESSENTIAL? Yes.

WHY? Because if you can't hear an accurate, detailed representation of what you're making, you're gonna have a bad time. Also, with good headphones you can produce on-the-go at coffee shops, while you travel, late at night, etc. If music production takes off for you and you have more money to spend, I would then graduate to monitors.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Audio-Technica ATH-M50 $120 on Amazon
• Sennheiser HD280 PRO $95 on Amazon
• AKG K240 MKII $120 on Amazon

MIDI Keyboard Controller

ESSENTIAL? No. Unless you have a piano background or hate inputting notes with your mouse.

WHY? You can always just input notes using the mouse and computer keyboard, but that's a pain in the ass IMHO. That and I have a classical piano background, so I HAVE to have a keyboard to input my musical ideas into the DAW.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Akai LPK25 $69 on Amazon
• M-Audio Keystation Mini 32 $78 on Amazon
• Novation Launchkey 25 $150 on Amazon

Audio Interface

ESSENTIAL? No. But recommended.

WHY? To start with you can just use your computer's built in sound card. Eventually, you're going to want something with higher fidelity and with more headroom. Also, if you want to record anything like hardware synths, guitars, etc. you are going to need external inputs.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 $150 on Amazon

DAW and Synths

ESSENTIAL? Yup.

WHY? You can't make sounds or record anything without them.

RECOMMENDATIONS I will defer to thejameskellymusic's recommendations for these. Remember you can always use trial versions at first, or starter versions like Ableton Live 9 Intro.

You're in for an exciting adventure. Feel free to ask more questions and keep us posted on what you get! ✌️

ps. get some inspiration here

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to you too, and the whole Equipboard community :) Congrats on the Launchpad Mini, looks like such a fun toy - post a pic of it!

I got an iPhone 6! I know that's not quite music related, but I guess it can be. I'm interested in messing around with some synth apps for iOS...

Actually, rather than receiving something music related I've decided to take something away and sell my 2004 Gibson SG Standard in Vintage Burst finish. She's beautiful and plays like butter, but I want to make room in the studio for another guitar eventually :D

http://i.imgur.com/5MZvx7e.jpg

Sure, yeah! I'm assuming, in addition to your Epiphone Thunderbird bass guitar, that you also have a bass amp. If you don't, you might want to look into getting a bass amp 😁

Basically, whichever pedal you get would typically go in between your guitar and amp. Use an instrument cable to hook the bass guitar up to the INPUT of your pedal, and use another instrument cable to hook the OUTPUT of the pedal to your amp. Here is what your setup is going to look like:

http://images.equipboard.com/bass-pedal-amp-flow.png

Ah ok cool! I assume you're a Jared Followill fan then. 😄

If you want his same reverb pedal you can try the TC Electronic Hall Of Fame Reverb.

A delay pedal would make an interesting first pedal too, the one he uses is the TC Electronic Flashback Delay.

These are both around your price range. I still think a compressor is a good first buy for a bass pedal, and have heard the MXR M-132 Super Comp Compressor Pedal works very well for bass.

Hey and welcome to Equipboard! 👊

I assume you don't already have any pedals. In that case, with bass players it is generally recommended that your first pedal be a compressor pedal. A compressor isn't so much something that you can hear (like a delay or distortion effect), but you can feel it - it kind of evens out your dynamics so it sounds like you're playing every note at a much more even volume (I'm probably not explaining it super well haha). Basically it "compresses" notes you play louder to make them sound nice and even with the softer ones.

The MXR M87 Bass Compressor Bass Effects Pedal is a good one!

If you want something more, um, exciting than that, then talk more about what and how you play - who are your favorite artists? Do you try and emulate anyone's sound? Are you open to multi-effects pedals, or prefer a single purpose one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA_qxkrpM0M

Cool video. Here's his Equipboard page.

that puke green color 😆

I don't know much about him or his personality - why would he not be up for it?

Oh I just thought of another - totally biased here but I think Kelly Jones (Stereophonics) is the epitome of cool. Would buy his signature SG in a heartbeat.

http://i.imgur.com/xm825jA.jpg

Yeah, agree! His 1976 Explorer would be great:

http://www.ultraviolet-u2.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/edge-guitar-explorer-1.jpg

Are you saying that these are people that use custom guitars, and you'd like to see them made into an official signature guitar?

I think it would be cool if U2's The Edge had one! Although he has so many in his rotation, I have no idea which one would even be considered more "signature" than the rest 😄

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE2tFWe6ulM

Voice is a bit quiet, but aside from that it's a nice tutorial :)

Looks like he's using Image Line Biohazard and some stock FL effects.

Have you heard the demo version of 9 Crimes? Sooo good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di0RVeUQ8i4

At 1:56 you can hear a more distorted guitar, maybe electric? Could also just be distortion applied to his acoustic.

Can't believe we didn't have Damien Rice on Equipboard. That has been remedied, very curious to see what gear he uses 😄

http://equipboard.com/pros/damien-rice

You bring up questions and concerns that I've seen many budding producers ask. Before starting to work on Equipboard, I was in the same situation - I was honing my skills, working on several tracks, and wanted to break into the industry by building a bigger following, and getting noticed by someone with influence. I actually was able to achieve my small break, and got signed to a label that released my music and allowed me to reach a significantly larger audience.

For what it's worth, here are some things that worked for me:

NEVER STOP WORKING ON TRACKS

This isn't so much of a technique to grow your audience, as it is an underlying fundamental, but I still feel like it needs to be said. It's amazing how working on newer tracks makes your older ones feel shitty very quickly! You're never finished learning and improving in music production. From writing hooks and melodies, to sound selection, to arrangement, to learning how to use your synths/instruments, to mixing, to mastering - always be improving. Also, always be finishing tracks. No half-baked ideas. Especially at first, force yourself to finish a production, even if it doesn't feel like it's gonna be the one. It's such a good learning experience and mental strength exercise.

The reason this is so important is while you "shop around" a given track, you might quickly realize it's not as good as you imagined it to be. This brings me to my next point...

YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ARE NOT GOOD JUDGES

Limiting your feedback sources to friends and family shields you from the harsh reality that is audience feedback. In my experience, friends always thought my tracks were amazing because they were simply happy that I was pursuing an artistic dream of mine. They mean well, and I love them for it, but the praise is artificial. IRL people make snap judgements, which are often mean and harsh, and you need to expose yourself to that (who knows, they might be right). So how do you expose your music to the cruel and honest outside world? Read on...

GIVE FEEDBACK TO RECEIVE FEEDBACK

When you are not a "somebody" in the music production world, it's hard to get heard from a bunch of strangers at once. Take advantage of communities that have feedback threads. The Listening Booth in the IDMforums was a great resource for me. They have a nice system set up where you have to give a certain amount of feedback before you can get it on your own stuff. I'm not sure if they changed the rules since I've been there, but it worked out great and helped me build a small audience. I spent significant time giving people feedback on their tracks in genres that I know a bit about - progressive & electro house for instance. I would give good, honest, detailed feedback, and some of those same people started remembering my name and would then give me feedback. What happened was as my music got better over the course of months, people's feedback got more nitpicky and I got a lot more of, "holy shit dude, this is good! you should try to get it signed!" That's how I knew I was doing something right.

Reddit's edmproduction community also has weekly feedback threads, but those were more hit or miss since things that get upvoted rise to the top, which leaves a lot of people at the bottom with no feedback. Persistence and timing is key!

PARTICIPATE IN REMIX COMPETITIONS

This might be a controversial one, but it's something I did which had mixed results. It was a Beatport remix competition. There was a popular vote, and a vote by the artist/manager/label. I don't think this a fantastic way to get noticed. Yes, some artists have gotten their big break by winning one or more notable remix competitions - but I don't think thats a typical route to the top. The popular vote is often won by people who master the art of the spam, with little regard of how good or bad or trite their remix sounds 😁 I didn't spam the world super aggressively with my own remix (which I actually was semi-happy with and thought had a decent shot at winning), but it did teach me to hustle. Self promotion skills are important, and perhaps a necessary "evil." One day when you're huge and have support of several labels, managers, etc. the promotion of your tracks will be well taken care of. Until that day comes, it's all about the hustle. You need to go after putting your track in front of people with the same spirit as, say, applying for your dream job. Treat it like business - don't be spammy or abusive with anyone, but be persistent, charming, and open to criticism.

For what it's worth, promoting myself in the remix competition honed some of those skills for me (I did not win the competition, but the track became a solid part of my portfolio).

SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES

This goes along with my previous point of having hustle. You never know when an opportunity will present itself, particularly in the communities you are part of. When it does present itself, be ready. Also, make your own opportunities. Producers that have "made it" are always asked, "how did you get noticed?" and they answer in a very cliche way: "Oh you know it was hard work and a little bit of luck." Luck just means they were prepared when the opportunity prepared itself, because they had put in so much hard work.

For instance, you've supported Equipboard almost since the start - if you want more listens, you should ask me to post your track or SoundCloud page to our Facebook page. Hint: I'd be happy to 😁

Hopefully you can extract some learnings from what I went through. Happy to answer more questions!

TL;DR

• Your next track will be better than your current one. Keep producing.

• Family & friends are too nice. Largely ignore their feedback.

• Make friends with strangers. Give feedback to get feedback.

• Remix competitions - yeah they're hit or miss, but can teach you about deadlines and to promote yourself.

• Be bold and go after it. If you work hard at it and you hustle, that's usually a good combination.

Nice find! Man, what a great pic of him playing it too. Do you know the exact model? You should submit it to Ed Sheeran's page.

The brand name on the headstock looks a lot like a Larrivee... what do you think?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/72/LarriveeHeadstock.JPG/275px-LarriveeHeadstock.JPG

What do you do to feel creative and inspired? Any routines? Any times of day or places you like to produce? Thanks :)

In terms of time and day, I don't care. Inspiration hits me randomly. As far as places go, I am very affected by my environment, so I need to be somewhere with a cool vibe. The vibe doesn't have to be that specific, it just has to feel right for me. It could even be a cool coffee shop, a spacious living room, who knows. The best is a music studio that is completely personalized, with awesome lighting (I'm a sucker for good lighting) and acoustically treated... but that's a luxury 😄

To get inspiration, I just play piano or guitar. I'll just mess around for a good 30 minutes, see if I land on anything that resonates or that I get excited about. If not, like chillproductions said, no use in forcing it.

Help! What guitar is this? I can't quite make out the name on the headstock. Starts with a "D"? Pic from Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sleepydoll3/5867417862/

Oh man I've heard nothing but great things about vintage Music Man amps. I haven't played one myself, but have read a bit about them. I just submitted a pretty sweet clip from an article I found where Joe Strummer of The Clash talks about his Music Man HD-150 212 amp. He says, "I don’t have time to search for those old Fender tube amps. The Music Man is the closest thing to that sound I’ve found…that plastic motif on the front is repulsive. Those little guys in bell-bottoms. Ugh!" I thought that was pretty great 😆 Here's my actual submission: http://equipboard.com/pros/joe-strummer/1970-s-music-man-hd-212-150

Where did you get yours? About how much did you pay for it?

Is you bachelors and masters in sound design? If so, I assume you'll have a fairly solid portfolio even if it's school projects for now.

Which area interests you more? Film? TV? Gaming? It seems like they are pretty different!

Hi! And welcome 😄

You've got some sweet gear... and a lot of it. What's your favorite vst/plugin and why?

For final mixdowns and mastering we use Presonus Studio One exclusively. It has a very robust set of mastering tools and the sound quality is second only to Pro Tools.

That's interesting, I think you're the 1st person I've heard of that uses Presonus Studio One exclusively for mastering.

Looks so much like a Gibson ES-XXX, but don't recognize the logo on the headstock.

http://i.imgur.com/Ztm9e8f.jpg