Moving toward almost zero plugins

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Hi folks

In a move to remove most plugins from my arsenal, I bought a real electric guitar that will be delivered today

This does not mean that I’ll delete all plugins because I cannot have bass, drums, some pianos and a Hammond in my small flat, and even if I was able to do that, I cannot certainly learn to play all instruments, but it’s certainly a move towards the real stuff, and I am very thrilled

The accompaniment stuff will be made automatically with ChordPulse and jjazzlab, but for solos I want to put my hand on the hardware as much as possible

[sekim]

And now you get to go down the rabbit hole of finding out which amp sims to get… Many will tell you that is a life long pursuit in and of itself, lol.

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LOL, a friend asked me “transistor or valve amp?” thinking to the hardware

I replied that using a hardware amp, my wife and the neighborhood could have killed me

Well, maybe one can use amps with headphones, but my wife is stressed already by the guitar footprint and its possible support, so I cannot buy anything else that clutters up the room

About amp sims, I have S-GEAR that is more than enough at the moment

[Derek]

I am guilty of having too much hardware and plugins, and have no intent to change, but I will challenge myself to do something with a specific device / plugin

And I need to get back to my guitars, but so little time….

[Clap]

Hi folks

my shift towards zero plugins goes on, happily

My Ibanex axe is a joy to use, way more than any plugins

But, why using MIDI bases when I have a large MP3 library?

So the audio player in Cantabile is perfect

I just added a chord & scale detector after the player

And I also removed S-Gear; it has many sounds and effects, but they are just too many so overwhelming, and I prefer more effects in the clean area, while it has a few, so at the moment I prefer EZmix

In the future, maybe a Boss Katana amplifier with built-in effects and a foot-switch will come

I don’t think I’ll buy a Hammond and a Yamaha grand piano anyway, so a couple of plugins must remain, unfortunately

The only problem with my MP3 is that many songs have solos already, so how removing them from a stereo MP3?

The alternative is buying MP3 bases that are used nowadays for karaoke, but they are expensive; do you have some tips?

[Derek]

Hi

Try this website: https://www.karaoke-version.com/

Don’t be put off by the naff name!

Basically they have a huge range of backing tracks, that you can transpose, mute tracks you don’t want, change the mix, and then download a final version.

Or you can download all individual tracks in a song

I have used this a lot in Welsh Floyd to get Pink Floyd backing tracks. Sometimes I just use what they have, sometimes I will add to backing we have already done, sometimes I will re-record certain tracks as I can get better sounds (especially synth and Hammond), but because you have the individual tracks it is a lot easier to pick out what is going on.rather than trying to pick a specific track out of a dense mix, and I find they are pretty accurate.

So, highly recommended, and I think the value for money factor is very good as well.

[Clap]

Thanks Derek, very interesting

I also revalorized jjazzlab

Most songs are in the jazzy and blues area, but used with loopMIDI and BassMidi VSTi works very well in Cantabile

cheers

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After a lot of tests, I found 3 sets to exercise my poor axe skills

ChordPulse + Cantabile if I want to start very quickly; good sounds even without plugins

VanBasko + Cantabile if I want to play over some famous song; sounds are bad, so plugins are needed; I can remove any instrument, but the MIDI channels vary, so boring time wasted to find channels for each song

Cantabile + my MP3 if I want to start quite quickly, and I want to play over some famous song; no plugins needed, sounds are good, but removing the guitar (if present) is tricky

And I am thinking to ask to Santa the Boss eBand, so removing all accompaniment plugins for my guitar

[Clap]

Nevertheless, my never-ending saga is not ended

I found that jamming over a song made by others is boring, so why not following the other way?

Instead of using a preset or using a famous song, I started finding chords on my guitar by ear, then I used Scaler Audio to get the name of those chords, and I set the chords in my Chordpulse

Yesterday I found the following chords on my axe

but some weren’t in Chordpulse, so I simplified and edited some of them: the final result is easier, but the sound is very close to the first series

Then I sent the Chordpulse output to loopMIDI and to Cantabile and did some first arpeggios

Today or tomorrow I’ll try to do other arpeggios, strummings and solos on those progressions: so far I feel that this workflow is more rewarding, and I have a query for axe players: what is your workaround?

Do you find chords on the guitar, and then you build a song over it, or anything else?

P.S: the more I use Bitwig and Cantabile, the more I realize they are not competitors, but rather good friends

Bitwig makes routings and transpositions faster and easier, and its sand-boxing allows me to use many plugins with peace of mind
Cantabile is less stable when stuffed with many plugins, but it allows me recording multiple recordings automatically, a task that is less easy and fast to do with Bitwig

The next move is an OpenMove headset got today: it conveys the sound through the temporal bone, so no stress into and outside my ears, the sound is amazing and it’s light and cableless

Tonight I set 2 simple chords in Chordpulse, then I found other chords that were apparently unmatched, but sounded very well, and I used those “alien” chords and their notes to make arpeggios and simple solos having a lot of fun: I will never use a virtual plugin for the guitar, for sure

[dsteinschneider]

I practice playing organ trio style (left hand bass with right hand comping/leads) just with Jamstix 4. I don’t think Ray is going to update it further. It works well as is. Once you spend the time learning it, you can pick a style and “drummer” and then dial in how much the drummer should do fills in the intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro etc. The “drummer” plays slightly differently each time. You can lock in a part to stay the way it just played which I do sometimes.

The defaults result in a drummer that gets a little wild during fills. My learning curve was figuring out how to restrain it.

Bottom line - less boring than a static drum part.

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Yes, it’s a shame that Ray stopped updating it, notably the percussion part that is quite basic
But the drums part is amazing both in AI and no-AI settings

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My move towards zero plugins keeps going: Today I bought an used Boss GT-1

With it I will be able to forget the PC for my strumming an soloing exercises

I only hope that it works well, because I am too much accustomed to immaterial plugins that can be easily returned, when unsatisfactory

and I also bought a couple of books to study chords and scales:
Guitar Chords in Context: The Practical Guide to Chord Theory and Application
and
Guitar Scales in Context: A practical encyclopaedia and playing guide to musically learn scales on guitar
both by Joseph Alexander

they seem not easy for a wannabe axe player, but I hope I can learn something with them

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Just returned the books above to the vendor: it is a fake that they are good for beginners also

well, I think I found what I was searching for, to understand the chords I find by ear
Guitar Chords. 3400 positions at first sight
It is very close to a book I used in the eighties, so it should be OK

And yesterday I started to understand the association between simplified chords and solo notes: interesting, enticing, and funny

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I installed Cantabile on my old Samsung notebook

its remarkable routing capabilities, in addition to the ease of recording and looping, allows recording my ideas

Or I can use it together with ChordPulse, loopMIDI, and bassMIDI to practice over backing tracks

It’s a simple setup, easy to configure, and it is lightweight on my old notebook.

Now I’m just waiting for the Boss power supply so I can go to create music in the garden

Cantabile handles the Boss pedalboard very well, and even a MIDI tool like Chordpulse, so for now I’ll stick with it. Later, I’ll get a Boss recorder so I can play without the notebook.

A computer is still indispensable for mixing, but it can be used later if necessary, once the creative act is finished,

And I must say that as soon as I put my hands on the axe fretboard, and my feet on my Boss pedalboard… “I see things you people wouldn’t believe”
(cit. from Blade Runner)

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The move is completed, eventually!

Now I use my old notebook as as digital recorder with Cantabile Solo and ZERO plugins

I moved my Komplete Audio 1 sound card to this set, and in case I need some Mix & Max job my PC with WASAPI should be enough

Komplete Audio 1 has 2 inputs, and I found I can use the mic input for my smartphone output, so I can use the Backtrackit app for the accompaniment, while the other input is for the Boss GT-1 that receives the input from my axe

The set is small and easy to carry around, and now I just have to buy a pedal-board case with all those tools pre-cabled