jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

the DAW you choose will have little effect on your sound.... your sound comes from your instruments (synths, guitars whatever), your sample library, and most of all your skillset and aesthetic....

DAWs like FL come with a lot of plugins and synths that if used exclusively, especially if you are a preset junky, give them a sound. That said, adding 3rd party synths and effects as well as creating your own samples and recordings pretty well negates this 'soundalike' tendency.

This stuff you posted is VERY sample-based as well as having layers of 8 bit 'video game chip' timbres and while any DAW can handle those tasks, the big name for easily creating this kinda loop-based music these days is Ableton's software. When I was coming up it was Acid, but times change.... for the crappy TR808 sounds, Reason is probably a surefire bet, but at this stage of the game any DAW can work for this sort of music, really. It sounds like a lot of their samples are coming off of vinyl so you will need a good set of turntables if you don't already have the and you will wanna hit the record exchange in your hood and look for vintage, no-name-artist LPs in the dollar bins. You will need a solid stereo DI to sample from your turntables, Radial Engineering makes something with a built in phono pre, but any quality DI should do the trick if you don't care about signal to noise ratio OR you are willing to solder up a couple of FETS into your own preamp and line-matcher.... I noticed some very 'Philly International' DI guitar rhythms in one of their cuts, so a good DI will help to achieve that 70s soul sound too.

For your 8 bit fixation, download any number of 3rd party VSTi plugins that simulate the old SID chip-synth from the commodore 64 and also get yourself a good bit-reducing plugin to degrade your samples. I have a few of each and I promise you they were ALL FREE and sound great.

I suggest you try a number of different DAW demos and see which ones have an interface that sparks your creativity and makes the workflow efficient for you, you can tweak the sounds as you go. Just stay away from ProTools. Its great and all, but its not geared towards what you want to do.

FWIW, it was quite funny when it was just your thing.

now I feel like less of a dick

there's this thing on the internet that spawned the whole web meme phenomenon where people who aren't consistently witty pick up on a great joke from someone who is and they just run with it until it gets pounded into the dirt... it become traditional to just trot out the joke until it starts getting banned because no one has been laughing for a LONG time.... the whole thing reminds me of Wayne's World where he gets the strat out of the case and the music store clerk points at the 'no stairway' sign!

the joke I made is alright the first time when you read my version of it, but like stairway, if it ain't jimmy page trotting it out, well, lets just leave it lie... although if Ann and Nancy Wilson took over my joke I might be moved to tears like Pagey and Plant!

welcome! what instruments do you play or do you just compose 'in the box' so to speak?

I remember being a 14 year-old musician and it was such an exciting time in my life. My 1st piece of advice would be to try to enjoy and appreciate every moment of your musical journey. You may look back in a few decades and realize music was the one consistently rewarding thing in your life, so don't hesitate to stop and smell the roses.

My 2nd piece of advice is to collaborate with other people with more experience.

The cigarettes were big ones for me. If you were to use the EB to tell a kid how to sound like his guitar hero, would mentioning what brand of cigarettes make or break the kid's ability and tone? Of course not.

I would debate that, every time I switch brands my playing changes a little LOL

But seriously, I always forget there are kids on here and I probably say adult things I shouldn't... as a dad I feel a bit guilty now that you mention it. That said, hell if I will let me son join an internet gear forum! He won't need or want to after attending a decade worth of Settlement music school to get tracked as a composition/piano major at Julliard. If you think you can't start teaching a 1 year-old the piano I have got news for all of you, I have read up and I am having wonderful success sparking Lucian's interest and teaching him the absolute basics. Which is why I am mad as hell that my son Lu has been deleted as a piece of music gear! I loved having him on my equipboard. You have something that rare and unique you want to show it off!

PS: consider this thread hijacked

Always seemed like an attempt to try and gain submission counts without putting in any real info.

I don't think people were worried about submission counts, I don't even know what I've submitted anymore, I just threw in right hand and left hand as a gag. People seemed to be taking themselves a little too seriously when I added those. As far as the serious non-music products go? Like the Keurig machine? that's a piece of studio gear, trust me. Some of the stuff is not, but there's a whole category for things like sunglasses, cigarettes, jeans and liquor, so if you want to stop that sort of thing EB needs to nix that category. maybe some people were adding levis jeans and stuff just to get submission credits, but whatever. Take down the category and stop the problem.

I am still bummed out that so many people ran with my personal joke that now its going to disappear from EB. A little whimsy is great... I guess the mooches just took it too far.

The best solution is to find the Muff you love. I team mine with a Tube screamer live to add the extra push muffs require,

that will certainly tailor the midrange substantially, however you are talking about a lot of extra gain, clipping and negative feedback as well... I am not telling you not to do it, but its gotta play hell with your signal to noise ratio, plus unless you have a fancy true bypass looper of some kind it must be a pain in the cajones to switch both on. I happen to own 2 colorsound overdrivers/power boosters like Gilmour used to slap after his muff live and I can attest that if you want to go the 2 pedal route to help out your muff that the colorsound circuit is a really great way to do it. Its very low noise until you hit ridiculous gain levels and its on-board TB tonestack mates with the big muff exceptionally well. It didn't make me into a big muff man, but I got some really fun animals tones with assorted muffs (best results with a skreddy mayo), a colorsound, TC electronics delay, and a dual showman. Not me, but totally cool and all done with very readily available stuff. For me a silicon fuzz face was a lot more enjoyable in that chain in place of the big muff and even moreso with a marshall plexi in place of the showman.

Right Hand and similar "items" were submitted by members, in good fun, to their own Equipboards. These "items" are now starting to show up as submissions to artist Equipboards.

We'll be removing these "items" from the database and deleting any related submissions. The intent of Equipboard is to catalog the items artists use, not their body parts. Other items that aren't actual products will also be subject to removal.

what a bummer! I had no idea when I posted those gags that anyone would do anything but chuckle, sorry. The submission of hands was strictly meant for my own personal equipboard. I was actually a bit annoyed when some other people added them to their own personal boards since the joke was mine and got less funny every time it was borrowed.

Then the question is, which is the best guitar for metal for people who don't play metal?

I assume you're joking, but I will answer seriously that its an 80s Jackson or an early BC Rich. In the late 90s I failed to bond with a Jackson V, but it was more due to the uncomfortable shape that wouldn't sit well on my body standing up OR sitting down than to a lack of playability or tone. That USA-made Jackson did what it was designed to do VERY well (as well as being able to cover a few other genres with the right gear) and it was hard not to love it through the JCM900 SLX I owned at the time. In the end neither was for me, but with a Yamaha processor in the loop and a wah out front that set-up really conjured all of the quintessential metal sounds I grew up with, from NWOBM to Thrash.

http://digitech.com/en/products/supernatural As a user of this pedal, I highly recommend this pedal. However, It's pretty dramatic compared to most others.

I tried one of these and found it to be very hifi, but way over the top, its very application specific. If you are going to own only 1 reverb effect you should invest in something versatile like the TC Hall of Fame,that is unless you are trying to be Kevin Shields or Jonsi, then maybe the Supernatural is for you. Personally I would buy something that has a good hall, a spring patch that simulates that surfy bounce we all know from 60s Fender combos and at LEAST one plate setting, preferably a good simulation of an EMT plate reverb, they are the jam and I hate to mix at any studio that doesn't have an actual EMT. In this arena the Hall of Fame is untouchable. Nobody does a better spring simulation (just different), TC does a great hall as well as a cool bathroom verb AND I have never heard any plate simulation I prefer to TC's various plate sims, not even IR's of an actual EMT. Add in the toneprint feature and you cannot go wrong. I am usually a luddite with guitar effects, but TC electronic just keeps knocking my socks off to the point I am seriously considering purchasing a G system for when I want effects. And I have been really down on playing with effects other than boost or fuzz lately...

One of my best friends is filing in as the bassist for another mutual friend's power-pop band. The core members of this band are in their late 20s, but my friend is in his mid-to-late 30s like I am. They were playing across from Johnny Brenda's here in Philly last night so I rolled out to show some solidarity.

Fishtown is a pretty mixed bag of overbearing youngsters and middle-aged strange-o's, I am used to that, but last night I was chatting with my buddy and his social worker girlfriend about my ongoing divorce proceedings and this skinny, middle-aged blonde dressed like a she was at Woodstock just butted into my conversation to tell me to be positive and try to have good energy and all sorts of other banal pieces of 20th century hokum that masquerades as spirituality. She went on to kiss some dude who was out walking his dog, she said she knew him but the guy was shaking his head 'no' when her back was turned and he rapidly fobbed her off on someone else inside the bar and made his escape while she was distracted.

This woman was actually pretty damned attractive, so you KNOW she was scary if even horny male musicians were running way from her. At first I thought she was just nutty, but I began to suspect she was high as a kite as her behavior became stranger and stranger. You would really expect one or two of the young kids there to be wrecked like that, but they were hardly even hitting the bar! Instead you have some lady pushing 40 floating around high as a kite and getting upset as we all run away! So what the fuck is wrong with my generation when the kids at a show these days are better behaved than the grownups? And at what point are ageing hipsters so appalling that the city will send out guys in white with nets? God please keep me from becoming one of THOSE people.

Anyway, if you wanna drink to excess at a show just don't get mouthy or try to drive home afterwards.... if you want to load up on whatever this lady took, PLEASE STAY HOME! Maybe I am just getting old and boring, but I really coulda done without her antics.

I'd say it's neutral territory. Marvel and DC exist alongside Vertigo and feature crossovers. When you look at Death from Vertigo DC, she looks an awful lot like Marvel Death.

Wait wait! Gaiman's death is equal parts goth and 80s Madonna who probably likes to come to the mortal plane to buy sisters of mercy t-shirts and Doc Martins on South Street (my ex-wife or any number of my ex-girlfriends could play her in a film adaptation), but in the Marvel universe she's some kinda druid reject from a spinal tap video!

"Stonehenge where the demons dwell...."

Its not Nigel's fault he don't know his feet from inches.

that doesn't make ANY sense... a compressor just controls dynamics, imagine a little gremlin adjusting your volume, threshhold tells him how loud the signal has to get before he starts paying attention, ratio tells him how low to reduce the volume based on how far the input signal is above the threshold, the attack control tells him how long to wait from the point the signal exceeds threshhold before adjusting and release tells him when he can return to full volume.

If anything, compression will make a dirty guitar sound even dirtier as it will amplify distorted characteristics of an overdriven sound when its working, plus most circuits add their own subtle distortion.... this is why most recording engineers will (or should) tell you to back off the gain when recording. Even if you aren't going to compress the guitar track and you don't mix with bus compression, in the mastering phase the whole track will get some dynamics control and the guitars WILL sound more distorted by the time they reach the end listener. Even the nicest mastering equipment will add a little harmonic distortion (across a stereo master this should help act as 'glue', but its there) and as those guitar tracks get squashed the crunchy harmonics will be amplified and because they are square-ish waves already they will automatically sound louder than the 'clean' component of your tone. The ratio of harmonics will get skewed by the compressor and 'artificial' harmonic content from the compressor will be added. VCA designs are typically 'cleanest', while FET, sharp-cutoff-tube and opto designs will add more of their own distortion (though it will be more musical and probably more pleasing to your ear than distortion from a VCA-type unit). By the way, all those names of compressor formats refer to the detection circuit, though in the case of sharp-cutoff-tube and FET designs it also tells you something about the make-up gain amplifier (which will also add distortion).

I am thinking Gilbert didn't explain his signal path properly. Hes a great player, but maybe he's totally out to lunch when it comes to his gear! You feed a compressor a clean signal and you get a fatter, more harmonically rich signal with a lot of obvious detail but less dynamics, crush it hard enough and it will top being a clean tone... but if you feed it distortion you get more distortion (this CAN be a good thing, I am not making a value judgement).

Pretty much your rule of thumb is that every stage of processing, be it analog or digital, will degrade your signal-to-noise ratio, limit bandwidth and add (sometimes imperceptible) harmonic distortion to your raw signal. Just the extra wire involved will do this. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something!

Yeah, there are... a lot. LOL

As for my inspirations, I get them from Tycho, Hammock, and God Is An Astronaut.

I want to make music LIKE them, but I don't want to copy their direct sound, I think it'd be fun to experiment a bit just seeing what I could make with a guitar, drum machine, and synth, as well as mixing some completely electronic sounds on a different track.

good luck

It helps to play an instrument at an intermediate level or better, for electronic music I feel piano or drums are best depending on what you are trying to do... also, you will need something original to say through your compositions, that's a must. If you don't have inspiration other than a desire to imitate someone else whose work impressed you then you need to go get some inspiration before you take another step forward.

If it were me I would stick to the bare minimum to start gear-wise. In this esciting world of the future a MIDI controller is not even a must in my book, only quality monitors are important, especially if you don't have much prior studio experience (you can create good mixes on some mediocre speakers if your ears are well trained, but good luck with that if you're a novice). I would think about picking up a small sampler to collect a library of original sounds from the world to incorporate with whatever softsynths (do they still use that term?) come with your DAW. Also, scoop up all the freeware softsynths and effects you can and get to know them. There are lots of good ones these days that range from banal and rudimentary (but essential) to esoteric and insane.

I want to say that digitech makes something like that now... not sure since I am not a huge effects-head

but wait, Gaiman's endless are part of the vertigo universe, not DC proper?

its probably the foot switch... could be all manner of easy fixes though

I've owned a lot of old pedals, I am going to list off a ton of the old fuzzes, distortions and ODs I've owned and list what my objections to them were or if I liked them I'll tell you why. They all have faults, but some are pretty questionable and others are pretty cool. Please share your own experiences. Here goes the beginning of my fuzz list.

Maestro Fuzztone FZ1A - too bright, not enough gain AT ALL with single coils, low output (unity gain at 10) sputters out and sounds broken even with vintage output humbuckers.... still a very cool sound and not just for covering 'satisfaction'. I sold mine because it was way too valuable to keep when I only used it as a gimmick effect once in a while.

Solasound Tonebender, 2 transistors - this is the father of the fuzz face. It sounds pretty great. A little brighter than a germanium fuzz face, a little less output but a little more gain and hairiness to it. Capable of beautiful trashy overdrive sounds when you dial back your guitar's volume control. Real winner. Super rare. Think Yardbirds, 'heart fulla soul'!

Vox Tonebender, 2 transistors - similar to a germanium fuzz face in design, but it is way too bright and lacks output. It does an incredible can of bees fuzz effect that sounds amazing for certain things like playing mid-period beatles covers. I still own this.

Mosrite Fuzzrite - very compressed, tone/gain knob seems to be some kind of bias adjust for the transistors, capable of a wide variety of sounds including Iron Butterfly tones. Packs a goodly wallop of gain. Very hairy sound overall, totally 60s. None of its many tones were my cup of tea. I've owned 2 of these and they are very consistent unlike Maestro fuzzes and Brit varieties. Not for the feint hearted!

Arbiter Fuzz Face, Blue 70s silicon transistors- notes decayed in a weird sputter if fuzz knob was set below 8, but high gains ettigns were WAY over the top for most applications (though the 'exploding pick attack' noises this pedal makes are kinda spectacular in their own right). Low output. Cool 'Dark Side' voice for solos. Cleaned up well with guitar volume pot, but got too bright when used as an OD in this way. Overall not very useful.

Burns Buzzaround - this is reputedly the same circuit as a Tonebender mk3. TONS of gain, plenty of output... capable of buzzy bee tones as well as thick bottom heavy sludge courtesy of the tone control. Does NOT clean up with your guitar's volume control. Top lacks 60s style hairiness but its still a great do-all fuzz. I regret selling this pedal, I miss it sometimes for its early 70s snarl.

Sam Ash Fuzz Boxx - great humbucker fuzz that is capable of monster overdrives in the lower gain reaches. Very versatile. More gritty than hairy but not in a kodern tubescreamer way. Needs more output and bottom end, still awesome. Very cool enclosure. Sold it. Kinda miss it.

Univox Superfuzz - too much gain for its own good, great octave effect in middle gain ranges on neck pickup, scooped mids switch is awful unless you want to play bass in a Beastie Boys tribute band! VERY FINNICKY about guitars, amps and pickups. Clans up well with single coils to reveal more 60s flavored fuzz as well as some nice midrangey drive textures. Best with P90s and fender amps. Sold it.

EHX muff fuzz - enclosure is totally stupid but the sound is superlative. Tis circuit has nothing to do with a big muff. I read its 2 EHX LPB1's ins eries to generate a monster fuzz sound. it does that. No tweakability, but it really brings the mean in a perfectly balanced way. Reminds me of Ronson's guitar sounds on 'Aladdin Sane.'

EHX Big Muff Ram's Head - what a let down! Gets lost in the mix on stage, too much gain and bad taper to 'sustain' control. Lacks dynamics. Capable of Gilmour tones in the right situation. Sounds cool on its own.

Is it worth spending an extra 15 quid to get a bmtw as opposed to a regular big muff pi?

It depends how much you care about having midrange in your distortion.... disabling the tone circuit adds all the mids back in though you sacrifice any tweakability of lows and highs. It will help the muff cut the mix live, but it then sounds less muff-like.

The stock big muff has a notoriously scooped frequency response designed into its tone control. You think of the smashing pumpkins Siamese dream era as the ultimate big-muff sound with those classic IC based muffs they supposedly used, only live they didn't. That 'huge' big muff distortion got lost on stage and so (to the ebst of my knowledge) they found other ways to make their wall of guitar noise on tour. The tone wicker is supposed to be the solution. In the end a muff is a like it or lump it design that is really very situational. In a certain room with certain musicians and gear it will work its magic, but the next night you change one ingredient in the recipe and its not the same. Some of it is the sheer amount of clipping and compression applied to the signal and adding your midrange back in won't mitigate the extremes that the big muff takes your guitar to even at 1 on the gain dial. It all depends how you plan to use your big muff. I have owned several from various eras as well as some cool clones by skreddy and stomp underfoot. I can enver make it work for ME.

I once soundproofed a room for rehearsals in a duplex that my band rented to live in... getting it truly soundproofed to a level that was acceptable to the landlord (who was also my neighbor was very difficult. The drums and amplifiers wound up on risers covered with the kind of foam you can buy at home depot to reduce noise between offices in big buildings, the walls were covered in carpet and auralex and then we built gobos to act as 'inner-walls' and arranged them to create a room within a room.

It was a nightmare, rent a space.

The Hall of Fame is #1 on EquipBoard's list of best reverbs.

all the TC reverb effects on the rack units I have owned were absolutely stunning, the hall of fame packs some of the best ones into a convenient stomp... if you want to go a little cheaper and want a 60s spring sound the Malekko Spring Chicken pedal sounded pretty realistic to my ear when I tried one out. Personally, if I liked reverb I would build a Weber re-vibe kit. Look it up...

at any rate, I am not a big fan of reverb into the front end of a guitar amp, doesn't ever sound right to me but it has its uses.... generally if I want reverb I play louder and generate it, soundmen be damned!

Jim, you seem like a seasoned guitarist, and I love reading your posts. That said, I'm afraid the OP is not being helped at all by saying things like

• Don't practice the notes, practice new ways to approach every note.
• always try to be the worst player in the room so that you can learn just by listening.

I think OP nicely asked for guidance and something more actionable.

I think you're right, but maybe I just don't know what to say to guys coming out of the beginner stage and I don't know what resources are out there now. When I was learning it was lessons with a pro, the mel bay guitar book and things like that (I think I used to reference 'a modern method for guitar' but its been 20 years), the odd VHS instructional cassette or sussing it out for yourself! I was fortunate in that I come from a family of great guitar players and that I could read and write music from an early age. I really understood the mechanics of stringed isntruments and the fundamentals of theory from the get go and it was all a matter of building physical skills and deciding what I wanted to do with the instrument, then figuring out how I would go about it... lather, rinse repeat

I play a pile of abbreviated chord inversions no one else usually does because I worked them out myself to get through complicated jazz band charts without changing positions too frequently. I learned all my modes from the back of my complete chord encyclopedia (which was not all that complete). It didn't have fingering suggestions so I based everything on the hand positions I learned from my dad and then would cook up new ways to play them based on violin scales. I applied them by ear for the most part and usually it went pretty well.

I was a self starter and I always believed I could play the hell out of the guitar if I paid attention to better musicians and just applied all my intelligence and industry to it. Never even occurred to me there would be another way to play such an 'anything goes' instrument!

I am probably not the guy to ask even though I used to teach. I will admit I was a mediocre teacher at best... "here's the fundamentals I built my style on, just go home and practice all the time until you can play the damn thing and start to sound like yourself!"

If someone is wanting to just train in noodling/blues solo/rock solo, I would say to look for economical picking methods, tremolo picking, and learning a few different scales.

agreed, if you just want to be able to do some non-blues bar band riffin' then learning all 3 of the 7 tone minors and leanring to incorporate them with the pentatonics you already use regularly is a decent place to start.... work on your circular picking and using your fingers, tremolo picking will be helpful too, work on alternate string stuff like arpeggios and double stops/octaves that are played on strings that aren't next to eachother... practice breaking up your phrases in interesting ways too, slash doesn't do anything too interesting tonally, but if you listen to the order in which he plays those notes its pretty creative, plenty of 2 steps forward, 1 step back kinda walk-ups/downs.... work on taking what you already do and playing it less straight

you will sound more polished for sure, but will you be an effortless guitarist who can just pick the thing up and blow minds with your noodling? no

the world

• Bad contacts (cables, instruments, you name it)

does that include booking agents, management and A&R reps? I mean, you said I should name it.

That's when you know you have someone who doesn't know what they are talking about. They generalize everything.

ain't that the truth, my universal pet peeve as a human is the rest of my species

I HAD to take some Latin every year in jr high, it was part of the program I was in (just like I had to study logic, taxonomy, ontology, etc to stay in gifted class in primary school) so it barely crossed my mind at the time that it was a weird thing to do.

HA, our public schools don't even bother with such things as "taxonomy" or "logic". If they did, maybe our new workforce might have some better skills, eh?

Even so, would we have careers available for them?

right? my education is totally squandered in my career... well, not totally

Still, why learn Latin? Isn't that a dead language? I couldn't possibly get much out of a Latin book if the language is dead.

I HAD to take some Latin every year in jr high, it was part of the program I was in (just like I had to study logic, taxonomy, ontology, etc to stay in gifted class in primary school) so it barely crossed my mind at the time that it was a weird thing to do. I would not say I learned Latin, I can't speak it fluently (I am no mathematician and don't want to be, but as an adult I am glad I can solve some basic Calculus problems and learned the basics of higher math), but being able to slog my way through a Latin translation to English has served me well as it is the basis of all scientific language, a great deal of legalese and is the antecedent of Spanish, French, huge chunks of English, Portugese and of course Italian. If you have enough basic Latin and a year or 2 of highschool Spanish you can muddle your way through a lot with Spanish speakers at work if you can get them to slow the heck down! I can definitely follow Italian speakers, though the need to do so in my adult life is pretty infrequent.

So in a certain sense Latin isn't a dead language anymore than Sanskrit is (most Indian dialects were spawned from Sanskrit). No one speaks it day to day anymore, no modern culture relies on it as their primary mode of verbal communication, but we all use Latin a lot without even thinking about it. In a sense almost everyone speaks a little Latin sometimes.... quid pro quo, ergo, ipso facto....

I wish I could read a little ancient Greek so that I could get more out of Plato and Aristotle.... alas, who has the time to learn another 'dead' language?

oh hey, this is a neat thread on MLP

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/luthiers-corner/265043-ovation-ultra-gp-built-josh-homme-s-qotsa-kyuss-guitar.html

Hi Jim,

The Ovation Ultra GP story is certainly very interesting, it's this bit of history rather than Josh Homme that got me interested in the first place. Granted though that Josh Homme was the first person I ever heard play a GP well, but I'm not really a JH fan... In my opinion it's the history behind the product that makes it something collectors want (like the Leo Fender/Gretsch Broadcaster/Nocaster story) but I am in no shape or form a collector. I just love guitars.

After a year of looking for an Ultra GP one finally came up for sale and I managed to get my hands on it after borrowing one every now and again. I absolutely love it, it completely changed my perspective on what makes a good guitar. Sound is always a subjective thing and everyone likes different things, I just really like that the GP is something different and was built to take on the sound of a Les Paul and in my opinion it certainly achieves that. I've never been in to Gibson and for me the GP just has that unexplainable factor when you pick it up.

As to the craftsmanship that went into it, I would agree with you for the most part but I think that the Koreans did a pretty good job on the parts.

Here's a link to a really good article on the history of the Ultra GP for anyone that's interested. (The most comprehensive and well researched out there).

http://www.junkguitars.com/stories/ovation.html

I'm still looking for another Ultra GP. :)

I wish you luck! consider having a spare one made though

To discuss why Marcus Aurelius' father is described as having "manliness and integrity", even though he left his son at an early age?

well that's a translation and cultural problem! Manliness and integrity had completely different meanings in the classical world, particular amongst the Italianate aristocracy of the Roman empire... your confusion reflects the monumental, cultural sea-change that occurred between the battle of the Milvian bridge and the deposition of Romulus August in the west. Please read Gibbon's classic book on the subject.

Anyway, this profound difference in meaning and point of view carried over into Macchivalli's writing in which he uses the term 'virtue (ital. virtu)' incessantly in its classical sense (latin: virtus, direct ENGLISH translation manliness, though like the latin words auctoritas and dignitas, no single English word can convey the culturally alien meaning of any of these latin words), not its post-Christian sense and in doing so confused students reading English translations of the Prince for generations.... even though the big M was writing in the vernacular, given the minimal influence of Germanic languages on the development of modern italian from latin, some Italian words still carry a bit of the pre-Christian meaning of their latin roots, and in the case of virtu AKA manliness, Nicollo is still leaning heavily on the meaning of the words latin origin.

Because you are reading a translation of Marcus, you are having a pretty typical issue with the text. Without breaking out my latin copy (and struggling to find the page you are talking about with my VERY rusty latin) I want to say that I think the word Marcus selected was Virtus and it has been translated in your copy as 2 English words, manliness and integrity. I don't think I I would translate virtus that way, especially in this context and especially not for a modern American reader. Its easy to want to translate Virtus or Virtu as manliness given that the root of this adjective is the latin noun vir, or man. But even that noun has a deeper sense than our modern English noun. Rather than 'man', in most texts try looking at the word vir as "real man." However, while there is an element of what we would call machismo, there is an even stronger streak of civic duty....

I take it you're reading "meditiations" for the first time? If you can read ANY Latin I encourage you to get the version from the Loeb Classical liabrary that ahs Latin on one side and a solid English translation on the opposite page and try to muddle through that way. To take a page from Marcus himself, really reading the classics is more like wrestling than dancing ;-)

here's the quicky entrance into the wonderful world of the ancients: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/loeb/digital.html

Josh Homme fan? good luck, they are a collector's item now and were made in fairly small numbers to begin with.... expect to search and search, then pay through the nose these days... if you have one and like it then be happy with that

they are not the world's best guitars either, I would use one as a backup to one of my better doublecuts... the Kaman group that owned Ovation and later Hamer had them outsourced in the far east and then just did some assembly and finish work in the states. They are like a prototype for the cheap Hamer far-east guitars of the 90s that ruined the brand's reputation. I remember Ultra GPs were readily available in the 90s for a pittance at pawn shops, I was not impressed. I wish I had bought one then to resell now! These Ovations have (suffer from) pretty typical early Korean craftsmanship. With the prices they command now you could have a luthier make you a one-off copy using the one you already have and it will be much nicer, plus you can get any color you want and make small changes to improve the guitar to suit your needs, a great guy I know who will do this exact sort of thing for you at a good price can be found at www.bluefrogguitars.com .... then make THAT your #1 and use the one you already have as the backup... please tell me you don't also lug a VT40 around to gigs or play a 900 through an SVT cab, LOL

Better start clicking the hell out of that little arrow and get my favourite gear in the top three!

yeah, what a pain

Always gets my gruff though when people collectively make bad decisions and allow inflation like this. We as buyers have the power to hold back on purchases and force the price of gear to go down but there are far too many people who think selfishly or simply don't know any better and pay whatever is asked.

Fender has

I understand your pain! But iron curtain electric guitars were crap, so in order to have good instruments regularly produced for us we are stuck with this very questionable market economy....

Musicians who barre in unnecessary situations.

No, you do not barre an open D chord. Stop it.

You see that power chord? It requires three fingers. Stop barring the 5th and octave.

E inversion to high up the board? Practise. BUT DON'T BARRE THE BLOODY CHORD

you are kinda wrong about everything you are saying here, Narcy.... you very well may want to barre an open D to free 2 fingers for extensions or licks rather than have only that pinky free.... the people who barre their index finger in the 2nd fret to play a 1st position D are doing it the CLASSICAL way, versus the folk guitar way. I try to decide how to play 1st position D in whatever way feels most convenient for its use in the context of the part I am playing. Learn all the rules but then remember there are no rules and they are just tools.... or maybe I am a tool, but in this case I am also right and you should think this over.

I guess my next pet peeve is guys who have A, B and C down but try to take the whole alphabet...

Anyone know which guitar vst Robin Schuz use?

I couldn't even find a photo of him holding a guitar. I think he's just a DJ. Do you have a photo?

Does anyone know why we're all here?

But that Citizen Kane slow clap ...

It's all in his face. See this one just doesn't work

http://media.giphy.com/media/xTiTnC5cMmUx9bfWYU/giphy.gif

Yeah, there's only one Unicron, err, I mean Orson! Either way, he will sell no wine before its time.

http://i.imgur.com/cz34E2i.jpg

Finished product.

the trouble with this pedalboard is the buffer placement. You have 2 boss buffers towards the beginning of the signal chain which makes sense when the Metal Zone is engaged but when you are playing clean it would work better to have the Metal Zone last as the buffer is quite decent and would be great from an electrical standpoint as the last pedal in the chain with so many pedals in line sucking top-end and dynamics.... but the effect makes ZERO sense there....

I'm sure it sounds fine though. Just an experiment here, build a true bypass loop pedal and route your whole board through it so you can take all he pedals in and out of the chain on bypass and see if you hear a tonal difference. Is it an improvement to your ear? There's no rule that says the effect of all that extra cable and circuitry will make you sound bad despite the prevailing wisdom! Just a cool experiment.

Collectors who are willing to pay way more for an instrument than it's worth.

worth is a collective social construct, you can have an opinion, but in a market economy actual worth is a democratic proposition for better or for worse