adamg67

4 minutes ago, SH73 said:

I queried IK Multimedia why the upgrade  cost for Amp.5 for existing Amplitube 4 customers isn't lower etc. Also there seem to be issues with migration of presets as mentioned above. IK Multimedia reps were going round circles....I don't think 5 will make my performance any better.  I mean, Tri amping? Bit excessive, one amp is hard work. If it ain't broke why fix it. I'm not losing the presets  , years of work of iconic guitar sounds I managed to tweak in.

Amplitube 5 SE is free if you own Amplitube 4, and Amplitube 4 presets will work with Amplitube 5 (it's presets from 3 that aren't working for Dad). I just moved to 5 for free and all my gear works, and all the presets I've tried work, I just had to copy one folder across.

Whether there's any difference is a different question  

Amplitube 5 standard should have a lower upgrade price from Amplitube 4 though. Same with 4 Max -> 5 Max.

18 minutes ago, thodrik said:

I might do this but I have essentially migrated to Bias for my go to ‘laptop’ guitar sounds.

I like the Bias stuff, but had to pick one and already had some presets done for amplitube. 

23 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

I've found the preset (HiAmp_Dad_Clean...) in the Amplitube 3 presets, and copied it over to the A5 presets folder. It's not recognised, and the HiAmp amp is 'locked' in A5 Custom Shop folder. It's a pity, as I paid for that in A3, but it seems that I'd have to pay again to 'unlock' it in the A5 Custom Shop. I'll continue to use A4, where it all works as it should. Who was it said 'Less Is More'..? For me, A5 has brought nothing I didn't already have. Some new stuff, certainly, but at the expense of losing my 'old' stuff. Sod 'em, I say; sod 'em. 

Yeah, I did wonder when I was doing this if I'd get to do it again, or if it would be one version of backwards compatibility at a time. Sounds like that's the case.

Darkglass Vintage Microtubes Ultra V2

These don't need much introduction and there are plenty of reviews out there.

There is a minor issue with this pedal, it has an occasionally scratchy blend control, so when you're adjusting the blend there is sometimes a small scratching noise. It all works fine when playing, and it's not a loud noise, but I just wanted to call it out, and I've made an allowance for that in the price. It's not got any worse while I've had it. Funnily enough I saw one for sale (about the same price) with a scratchy master volume control, maybe it's a thing with some of the pots on these. I doubt you would even notice in normal use and I'm sure someone will be happy to get one a little bit cheaper with the price DG pedals go for second hand.

Features: 

• 4 band EQ with switchable frequency for low and high mids
• Distortion with drive control, blend, level and extra "attack" and "grunt" switches which really vary the way the distortion gets applied.
• Cab sim which can be switched on or off, any cab sim IR can be loaded via USB.
• Master volume
• Headphone out - great for practice.
• Direct out as well as a standard output, use it as a DI (works well with the cab sims)
• Ground lift

Full details here: https://www.darkglass.com/creations/vintage-ultra-v2/

Boxed with USB lead. Has velcro on the base but the self adhesive rubber feet are included (they've never been fitted).

Apart from the blend switch described above, it's all in excellent condition.

£195 including UK postage (RM 2nd class)

1 hour ago, Dad3353 said:

I did this 'upgrade', and have now lost my 'go-to' presets which I've had since Amplitube 3..! I've still to do a thorough search of my back-up files on another disk, but it's a bit annoying. It's done, now, but I'm not sure what the version 5 has added that I really want/need. Serves me right for being greedy, maybe. 

Are the presets still there in Amplitube 4?

This is pretty specific but I can't think of a better place to post it, so just dropping it here. For any Amplitube 4 users (I use it for, ahem, another stringed electric instrument a bit like a small fiddly bass), if you are confused about upgrading to Amplitube 5, and lots of people are because IK have made it confusing, it's actually pretty simple. If you own Amplitube 4, you get Amplitube 5 SE free, *and* you get upgraded versions of all the gear you already own and they all work with SE. SE is basically slightly knobbled to have the features of Amplitube 4, and if you just want to move to 5 to have the latest version of everything, that is free. Just install IK Product Manager and you will see 5 SE in there ready to activate and install. Once installed you should have all your normal gear.

Presets can be copied across, you just have to find the Amplitube 4 presets folder where they live now and copy them to the new Amplitube 5 folder. For me that meant copying from Documents\IK Multimedia\AmpliTube 4\Presets to  Documents\IK Multimedia\AmpliTube 5\Presets

There are a few new features in Amplitube 5 that don't work, but the equiavalents of all the things that 4 did will work in 5.

The only reason to buy any of the Amplitube 5 versions beyond the one you get free as a 4 user is to make extra features work (tri-amping, who knows what else, I havn't come across anything I need that doesn't work) or to get the extra bundled gear that they now have.

None of that was obvious to me from the IK site.

Ah, damn. I'm out. Just made a deal to part ex my Stringray 5HH stealth black for a Sandberg Forty Eight. I've been wanting one for ages, and even though it's one bass in and one out I'm still having to spend money. I can resisit pedals, happy with my amp and cab, but I couldn't resist that Forty Eight.

I didn't want to comment without knowing anything about it but given the laptop spec I was wondering if the giveaway version was "knobbled".

Does the AI version have the VST performance window: https://steinberg.help/cubase_pro_artist/v9/en/cubase_nuendo/topics/optimizing/vst_performance_window_r.html ?

On 01/03/2021 at 11:43, Nicko said:

Check the actual chip performance carefully - some i5s are slow and others aren't and multicore with turboboost makes things more complicated.  If it absolutely has to be a laptop spend more or be disappointed.

This is very true. "i5" on it's own is fairly meaningless, they've been around for 10 years or more now and at the same clock speed a new i5 will absolutely destory an old one. Check out the CPU benchmark comparison for a couple of different i5s @3.3GHz ish: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i5-10600-vs-Intel-i5-661/3750vs76 (yes, I know that just shows how they do at benchmark tests).

I ran a comparison between an old core-2 quad Q9650 and an i5 for some cpu intensive stuff a few years back, when i5s had been around a year or two, and the Q9650 won easily. That was almost certainly because it had more than double the L3 cache, which for many tasks makes more difference than the clock speed. Plus obviously some of the older ones were 2 cores not 4.

As @NickD says, don't buy an i5 laptop without knowing the CPU model and checking it out, and watch out for some of the mobile CPUs. My laptop has a desktop class CPU in it (but it is a bit of a chunky thing).

Also, PCIe SSD rocks.

I think using multiple tracks for different instruments within a "part" is pretty normal, not just for drums either. If you were doing it for real and you had a drum kit and then some other percussion for another section, you might still want them on different tracks anyway, so you can treat them differently. Sometimes I have different VSTs for left and right hand for a piano part, if the bottom end of the piano VST seems like it needs different settings.

Two copies of a virtual instrument with different settings is normal - loading presets isn't an instant thing and you don't want it happening during recording or playback. For a drum VST you're probably talking about loading samples etc. There are ways to make a single midi track play multiple VSTs but I would say it's easier to go with the flow and do it the way the software is expecting.

I always program all the midi parts in the DAW, never in the plugin.

I'm another who has gone mains free for my nano board, with a Palmer Batpack 8000. It lasts longer than I'll ever need and can be plugged in while in use for extra peace of mind. Fits nicely under the nano as well.

I bought a nass that had with TI flats on a 35" scale neck and really liked them,  so that's what I have on my 5 string Maruszczyk now. I've always assumed that the tension is just slightly higher because of the longer scale (about 1/34th higher if it's a linear thing), probably not enough to notice. I really like the feel and the tone, and that "clear-sounding" thing. 

I'm in, I've got to at least try after I failed spectacularly last year with 2 new basses (I did sell one as well) and about 10 pedals but that means I definitely have everything I need now. 

I did this, middle finger on my right hand, same thing with the finger in a splint thing for what seemed like a long time but I'm guessing was about the same. That was about 6 years ago. Mine was the tendon that pulls the finger straight rather than the one that pulls it curved, put my hand out for a minor stumble and that finger just got caught on something and folded round and under enough to do it.

Obviously it doesn't gaurantee anything because I'm just one other person but I had forgotten that it even happened until I saw your post. That finger does not extend quite as straight as the others by a tiny amount, but other than that I don't even notice. I wouldn't hold my plucking up as the greatest ever (I use a pick half the time anyway) but that's lack of talent and practice and nothing to do with the tendon.  Been learning piano recently and still didn't remember I'd even done it.

It does take a while, mine kept improving even after the splint was off, so you will definitely need your patient (in both senses of the word) head on. Make sure the splint fits properly.

Hope it heals well!

I looked up the difference between office and gaming chairs recently, apparently a lot of the gaming chairs have a lip to the front edge of the seat, or slope up towards the front edge, a bit like a bucket seat in a car. I don't know if there's some advantage to this for gamers, but it's a bad idea for a chair you might sit up to a desk in for any length of time.

I had an Ikea one which was fine but the gas lift leaked oil after not a great deal of use. 

I like folding arm rests as well, but they are hard to find. I just bought one of these: https://www.chairoffice.co.uk/alabama-mesh-office-chair/?gclid=CjwKCAiAoOz-BRBdEiwAyuvA66GO3cTUP14BFC_97X1hYB3_k3cOAvZh08M3SVWOmaLUAFBjKRNOaBoCVZ0QAvD_BwE and although it was fairly cheap you can see why when you get it. Also, it didn't quite go up high enough for my desk, so I ended up swapping the gas lift for a decent quality longer one with a gaurantee on it.

Just now, EBS_freak said:

But then you are bypassing the front end shaping of the (pre)amp.

Yeah, probably... my amp can do strange things (send / return is a slot in the DSP chain so can go anywhere) so I couldnt' remember where it normally is.

One more thought, does your amp have effect send/return? line level balanced out to effects return might also work.

When I was in a box room I went for the kind of solution @Dad3353 suggested and just built everything from readily (and cheaply) available desk legs, tops and shelves. I also used Amazon Basics monitor arms for my display monitors, which frees up desk space as they effectively "float", and can easily be repositioned. Using a shelf with audio monitors and my laptop on and then arms for display monitors means pretty much all the desk space is free for keyboard, controllers etc.

I've stuck to pretty much the same idea in the bigger room I have now.

I can't help with the dead cheap I'm afraid, I went for a Palmer Daccapo but they're just shy of £60. IMO worth getting a proper reamper with volume (rather than just using a DI backwards).

Reamping works really really well once you get the hang. One thing that helps is to record a track with the bass direct through the interface, then put that through the reamper and back in to another track (don't make a loop,. that's like crossing the streams in ghostbusters ). You can then tweak the volume on the reamper to match the original signal from the bass, which really helps as you'll be driving your gear at the right level. I have a song saved just for doing that, although you only really need to do it once. Oh, and also watch out for the levels on the output to your DI box, you need to keep those the same once you've got the level set, if your DAW lets you lock them then do it.

Impulse Responses aren't just EQ presets, they represent the response of a piece of gear over time. I mostly understand it, although I still need to learn about how convolution works, but there's plenty of info out there, just google something like "what's the difference between IR and EQ".

The end result is that an IR gives you a lot more than an EQ preset will. I've got an IR loader pedal and an IR plugin (which also lets you mix IRs, which is cool) that I use for bass cab sims and you could use that on it's own for tones that will sound like a real rig. My baby DI rig just has the IR loader + Darkglass harmonic booster (+ compression and tuner), no preamp pedal at all, and it sounds really good, probably better than my markbass multiamp. And I can set the IRs up in my DAW with the IR plugin (which also lets me mix IRs), then load them on to the pedal when I'm happy with them and they still sound the same. It's the best thing I've heard after a few years trying to find a good flyrig style setup (and it's tiny).

Also, having been down the road of having plugins for recording and separate gear for live / rehearsal / jam, you are doubling the amount of stuff you are dealing with. I've gone back, well, sort of back and the forward in a different direction now, and I use outboard gear for recording again but set up so I can change things after I've recorded (i just reamp everything). That way I'm always dealing with the same gear to get my tone. It does make things more complicated though, but I dont' mind that. Assuming your Shuttlemax is doing something for your tone, I don't think wanting to DI that and use it when recording is a bad idea.

I think what I'm trying to say is be careful of going down the rabbit hole of finding a load of plugins to replicate what you already have, and remember that whatever tone you get with the plugins you can't take it with you on a gig (well, unless youwant an ipad or latptop on stage yet, I'm not quite there yet although I do have an iRig).

Was just about to post this as well. Not good.

On 30/11/2020 at 13:15, PunkPonyPrincess said:

Aww I am pleased. Its a bit of work, but its worth knowing you have done the best you can when shipping delicate instruments internally or abroad.

I was tempted to do this for a Tele I sold a while back, first instrument I'd shipped ever as I'd managed to arrange meet ups for everything else. In the end, since it was not the most expensive guitar ever, I went for packing the guitar in the hard case with foam and bubble wrap, then wrapping the hard case in bubble wrap, then a sheet of ply top and boottom, all wrapped in cardboard. That was not international and I'd do at least that if I was sending anything again (I hoard useful material, the ply used to be the back of a wardrobe). I think the crates are spot on. 

One of the reasons I'm so fussy about packing is that I worked for a parcel company for a while (in IT, not mishandling parcels, still chaos though). Assume your parcel is going to be kicked from where it's picked up to it's desination.

Bought a Micro Thumpinator from Paul, all quick and easy and as described, perfect! Thanks!

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

I don't think so. If there is something you wanted (like I did) and now that same thing is now 10% cheaper, that is a worthwhile deal. As long as it was something you wanted in the first place.

That's true, but I think the point of the which article is that you have to be careful as they often aren't actually any cheaper, retailers just claim the RRP is more to make it look like a deal. Not music related but I was looking at something in the Amazon black friday sale (because I wanted it anyway), £14.99, 50% off from RRP of £29.99. Curry's have the same thing, £10, RRP guess how much? £14.99.

It's not new, I saw B&Q do it a few years ago for the january sales, I had bought a kitchen from them and needed an extra door or something, but the prices had mysteriously doubled. They stayed double for long enough for B&Q to say they were having a half price sale and then went back to normal price for the sale.

If you know what price something was before Black Friday and it's definitely cheaper then go for the deal. I got a Barefaced Big Baby last year in their Black Friday sale and it really was 20% off.