daveq

I really just wanted to poll people who have listened to their music to get their opinions but thanks anyway Goreki.

Well, he may be using it for things other than harmonizing. I have yet to use mine in that mode actually. I have found a setting that I really like and it doesn't use the diatonic shifting at all. After we move, I plan to get into at a deeper level and create some effects of my own but for now, I'm really happy with what I've got.

Funny how a little bit of sarcasm can be taken in such an unintended direction.

@daveg: Don't take my comment too serious. You just sounded like you generally only like bands that have flashy gear....lol

BTW, the flashing LEDs remark was sarcasm. The harmonizer was not - I really love those things.

I think El Dangerouso understood what I was talking about. He certainly understood where I'm at with Dream Theater. I'm still keeping the door open and giving them a shot though.

I've used sterling silver on a couple of fretboards. I buy them pre-cut to 1/4" diameter. I've also used sheet silver and cut it as described above. The only tricky thing about using that stuff is that you really have to be careful with the coarse grit sanding. You need to start using the finer grades before you get close to being flush with the board. If you continue to use the coarse grits until flush, you probably won't be able to get the scratches out of the silver/metal inlay.

You like bands because of the gear they use????

When I saw the pics of his gear, I thought - hey that's my kind of guy. Since I had seen his name all over the place, I thought maybe I should give it a listen.

I don't know if you were being serious or not but no, I generally have no idea what gear any band uses and could never possibly use that as a way to determine if I like them or not. I think it was actually another thread here on PG that linked to his live gear pics which started me on this whole path.

Well, it's not unusual for me to dislike a CD when I first listen to it. After a few times around, I can change from really hating it to falling in love with it. Maybe this will be one of those.

I remember I had the same thing happen with Marillion's "Misplaced Childhood". I was so dissapointed the first time I heard it. After a few spins, I began to realize that it was a friggin masterpiece! I wish I still had it. It was so long ago that it was a vinyl album and it's been gone for quite a while. I've been looking for it on CD in my local music stores but can't find it.

I thought I would like petruci since he seems to be really into effects as I am. I've seen the pics of his live rig and that's the kind of stuff that I love! Walls of equipment and flashing LEDs!!! Yeah!!! He's even got my most beloved piece of gear ever - the Eventide harmonizer and seems to use it quite a bit.

I'll keep giving it a chance then I guess. Thanks for the replies.

There's a great setup guide over on jemsite.com - give that a look. If the strings buzz with open strings, the nut may have needed to be raised but the truss rod could also have been the issue. Sometimes people forget that the nut height only affects open strings - just wanted to give a reminder just in case.

Do you have a notched straight edge? I have found those to be extremely helpful when doing this type of work. If you don't know for sure if your neck is straight (or has that slight forward bow), it's difficult to know what needs to be done.

The guide over on jemsite would be the first thing to try - it's got some great info.

I just wish I could get past the look of Gibson guitars. It's my problem - I know. To me, most Gibsons look old fashioned and make me want to yawn and grab a pillow for a nice long nap. This is, of course, no way to judge an instrument. If I were given the opportunity to be given (as a gift) a LP or Strat, I would pick the LP just because I know I would likely never buy one on my own.

I did try a LP once in a music shop. It was an older "vintage" LP from 62 or 63 I think? Please correct me if this doesn't sound right. I remember a year marked on the pick guard and I think it was early 60's. I didn't come away feeling the need to play one again but that's probably not the best test either. I was looking for a good distortion pedal at the time (back before I put together my current rack). I tried playing clean vs. distortion to judge the pedal so I did hear both.

I have messed around with some American Strats in music shops also. The smaller fret wire doesn't do it for me. I like just about everything else about them though.

I guess I'm still stuck in the 80's and feel the need to have something that looks "cool". I blame it all on my parent's renting me a 2 ton Peavey beastly ugly monster of a guitar when I started out. I went from that to another rather boring looking guitar and finally to my RG550.

I don't want to offend anyone but those are my feelings on the subject. Both LP's and Strats are valuable instruments in the history/future of rock - no doubt about that.

So, I have never listened to them before. I have heard Petruci's name all over but don't know squat about him. I decide to buy their 3 CD live from Bokuda (whatever the damn place is) and popped it in over the weekend.

I really thought that I'd be totally into them since I'm really big on effects, instrumentals,... After 2 CD's, I'm still searching for a reason to continue listening. The guys are obviously talented and there's no way in hell I could come close to what they do. It's just not for me I guess. The way the tempo/riffs keep changing every few seconds, the singers voice, .... all of that just doesn't agree with me. Maybe I should try a different CD from them? Are all of their songs "Structured" like that - where it's almost like a jazz band with distortion? Nothing against jazz, it's just when I want to rock, I don't want jazz thrown in, at least not to that degree.

I have the "A Night with Petruci and <the other guy>" also. I've only listened to the first two songs. That one does seem promising and I do intend to check it out in more detail soon.

The Eclipse is priced around $1700.00. It sounds like it's a great processor and I was very close to buying one (actually, I did - then I had to cancel the order since they - all of a sudden - didn't have one in stock and would take them 2 weeks to find one). It's a long story but the place I ordered the Eclipse from had "Circus" in their name - I should have known better.

The Eclipse doesn't allow you to create new effects from scratch like the other Eventide's do. Since I write software for a living and have a background in electrical engineering, the ability to create these things from software really appealed to me.

The place I got mine from - Riks Music (Tennesee, I think?) - had good prices and was able to get a hold of a DSP7500 pretty quickly for me. I took a deep breath and made the call. I'm glad I did.

The closest I came was with the Soldano emulator. Maxed the boost/gain and threw in the presence and it actually sounds good. I was extremely skeptical since I had NEVER heard decent digital distortion before. I don't mean non-tube - I mean DSP created distortion. This unit does it far better than any other I have heard.

I use the POD all the time now that I'm no longer using an amp (I'm using my headphones and the PC for now). Once we are in the new house, I hope to get a nice amp and then the POD will probably become a recording toy only. It's a sweet machine though - definitely worth more than the $300 I spent on it.

The DSP7500 was a painful hit - 3.3K. From what I have heard so far, I'm glad I did it.

After many, many years of wanting to obtain one of these beauties, I finally did it! I almost got an Eclipse instead but to make a long story short, I ended up with the DSP7500. I'm pretty excited to get into customizing it but I'm going to have to wait a few more days until we've completed our move.

Here's the rack as it stands now:

My first "real" guitar was an RG550. I bought it somewhere around 1989/1990 I think. I've always loved it but I do remember a music store guy bad mouthing Ibanez at that point due to some rusting he found on a new Ibanez he bought. I have no clue if his claims were true or not but the RG treated me very well. I wish I could say that I did the same for it.

So, who's signing this book?

I'll let this go now but I'm still amazed at this. At first I thought maybe it's because you began playing guitars that didn't have them and switching to using a locking nut was just hard to do. Then I remembered that's exactly what I did but never had these problems.

Oh well.

So, just curious, why do you want to use one given that you have this issue and you aren't using a trem? Why not use locking tuners?

What????!!!

How are you guys doing this? What part of your hand hits the nut and what about the nut actually catches on your hand?

Curtis - how in the heck do you manage to get stuck or cut on a locking nut? I have never heard of this before.

That's funny - I remember doing a presentation (more like show and tell) in 6th grade on how electric current can be generated by a wire and magnet. I was really into those race car sets back then - the ones with the two power rails and a center groove to help keep the cars on the track.

I think if you just dump the 1.5V thought completely, that might help. Just forget it was ever in your head.

In a very basic system, the signal created by the strings moving in the magnetic field gets amplified and sent to a speaker. The speaker cone moves (again with the help of magnets and wires) in synch with the signal and moves the air. The movement of the air is what ends up creating the sound. It's more complicated of course but that's a simple description.

Try to think of it as the magnetic field forcing electrons in the wire to move. The movement of the electrons (electronics guru's will complain about hole vs. electron movement but lets not go there) is what ends up creating the current / voltage. It's like converting one force into another. Kinetic energy being converted into electrical energy.

Maybe that's just confusing but in my twisted mind, it makes sense.

Has anyone used the FA-101 or the Edirol DA2496?

I can't tell if the FA-101 is supposed to be the replacement for the 2496 or if they are just intended for different users.

Wow!! That's exactly what I was looking for. The article by Cakewalk is a little out-dated but still is a great place to start reading to understand the various API's / drivers and why they exist. Thank you very much!

Very, very nice work. I love it and I'm not usually a fan of SG's. Enter it in the GOTM - it's certainly more than worthy.

There seems to be a lot of questions about the finish and I'd like to know more also. I know you said it was Polyester but can you explain a little further? For example, how was it applied (what equipment did you use), what brand of polyester was it, ...? Thanks!

I didn't even know Gibson made amps?

Thank you very much! That's great info.

I had the same idea with the screen - I've noticed mine giving me quite a bit of noise with my current setup.

Does anyone know what the best RAM speed is currently? I see a lot of 400MHz advertised but I don't know if that's the best you can get?

When did the term "scratch disk" come along? I've been used to terms such as "virtual memory" and "swap files" but have not heard the scratch disk term before.

OK, I've done some checking around and see that it's not really a Windows thing but exists more in the Linux (and others) world.

So, how do you set a scratch disk up then in Windows? I'm assuming it requires a separate partition or does it actually have to be on a separate physical drive?

You definitely want to keep your OS scratch disk separate from where you want to write your audio.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure what you mean by OS scratch disk.

I used to use apples a long, long time ago. Back when the Apple IIe was the big dog. I loved it. Now, I use PC's mostly out of fear of not being able to find software for the apples. Maybe it's just paranoia.

I also write software for a living and use PC's all day long - it's just what I'm used to. I'm not into the whole Apple/PC or Windows/Linux bashing thing - I think each has it's place in the world. I'm not saying that you are - I'm just anticipating the next several replies that may feed on this. In my line of work - I see it all too often.