The Telenator's Forum Page

Infinitoar, thank you for your kind words earlier and glad I could help. I like to see all of us completely free to create, which has plenty to keep us busy, instead of having to spend too much time worrying about wires and little boxes!

Regarding that “other issue” you brought up, let me just say that I am a strong believer in second chances. Also, still being relatively new here and unaware of most forum members’ histories, I treat these encounters as a learning experience and they can be very informative and helpful — to a point. I’ve noted this one for future reference.

Be glad to assist again if I can. I’ve seen that, aside from Zynewave, I’ve noticed there are a couple of others here on this forum who have lots of experience and really know their “stuff.” This is excellent — someone always has a solution.

I’m looking forward to hearing more new music from you this year. So, best wishes and cheers!

You want me to “proof” [sic] it for you, michi? Really? Okay.

The MIC IN is really no different than the imput of a guitar amp. It can be anywhere from 50 to, oh, about 80mV — that’s millivolts. Fortunately, PCs work at very low voltage, but you still need to alter the signal to whatever level the computer wants to see. Add a treble boost or other boost, such as a distortion box, into the chain and who knows what voltage we are then dealing with! So, aside from the PC having to deal with conversion of an analog signal into digital, there are now potentially heavy voltage issues for it to deal with. More work.

Now, in the case of a LINE IN, we are usually dealing with a -20dB jack or a similar animal. Guitar amps often have these in the form of a line in to send a preamp signal from another amp into the amp with line in, direct to the power amp stage and/or a send/return loop for effects or other uses. These are normally hotter, somewhat more balanced affairs. It’s not as heavily affected by some fuzz box added to the chain. This also explains why putting the common floor pedal effect into the send/returns loop without a “volume” adjustment or line level control as were common on earlier amps, will overload that device, creating bizarre results — unwanted distortion, popping sounds, and possibly even frying the effect pedal.

Again, the PC will have to deal with voltage issues from a line in, but ideally, since the line in’s value is set by the PC designer, it should be a value that the PC wants to “see.” No guarantees, of course, but theoretically this is supposed to be what happens. Therefore, by using line in, infinitoar should be bypassing at least one stage of signal modification. There’s simply no telling what is destined for a Mic In signal (volume mixer, voice or music enhancement, EQ, who knows?) without looking at his computer’s specs, but it is safe to assume that line is should be more direct. That’s why it’s called a “line in,” michi.

The whole point is that the more processing and signal shaping required, the more work a PC has to do — a real no brainer. Does it also mean lower latency for line in? Again, who knows, but, yes, maybe. Read my posts more carefully: That’s why I stated, “Line in may be better for lower latency,” as opposed to a mic in. Perhaps you missed that disclaimer in my post — I said, MAY — but all of this is worth explaining anyway. HILARIOUS? Yes, in the sense that I would have assumed you were already familiar with how all this stuff works. I normally only need to explain things like this to folks who are pretty new to digital recording. Weren’t you the user in that other thread that was getting Podium’s “Mix” metering numbers at the bottom right corner of Arranger view confused with the PC’s CPU rate?

Gee, glad I passed by and had a look around tonight: A guitar question.

I’ll have to answer this in parts, due to time constraint and the multi-faceted nature of your issue. First, lets clear away some things:

Worst comes to worst, you can record your guitar track plain and slap on plugins and render the track later. You can also record that one track only (mentioned in case you are/were recording other tracks simultaneously). Now, this would solve any RAM shortage you might have, but I don’t believe this is the real problem. I just want to get that out of the way. Theoretically, you can’t use more than 2gigs of RAM anyway, although there are a couple tricks to get around this, but unneeded in your case.

I’m not familiar at all with how you are running into Podium, but I’ll figure what I can. I run into Podium through one of my 24-bit Digitech systems. Their own ASIO is such a DAW choker that I’ve switched to ASIO4ALL exclusively now with much better results, so at least I’m familiar with your ASIO use with electric guitar.

The real issue here appears to be that demon named LATENCY. I have mine set on 256 samples and just now noticed that my “buffer offset” is at 4ms but can’t tell you how it got there. Don’t remember ever touching that! I don’t have anything else checked on the right of that control panel, for one because I don’t trust any of it, second because I’m not sure (as you mentioned) any of it will work.

It seems to me your sample setting is extremely high. I run in via USB 2.0 and only thing close to a line in on my laptop would be my mini mic jack, which has terrible latency. Wondering if you can run in via a USB jack?

Two things to think about right now (just in case you don’t know yet, and I find a lot of DAW users don’t understand anything about this): the more samples, the more work your RAM/CPU has to do, but the result should be lower latency. Vice Versa if you reverse all I just said. First thing I would do is take an entire day if needed to find the magic number — the right compromise. Must you run in at a 16-bit rate? Much higher-quality sound at 24, if you can do it. If you can, unclick that “force to 16” box, as it may in fact not work anyway — I don’t know. Ideally, we don’t want to mess with any of that junk on the right. With good ol’ ASIO4ALL we just ask for trouble that way. This is part of the deal with free stuff.

On another subject, don’t disparage Squire Strat. If that will take real Strat pickups, you can get a super pro-quality Strat pickup for as little as $30 and with a solder iron put it in your favorite, most used position and that will sound as good recorded as any $2000 Strat. No joke. Oldest trick in the book. Maybe you can find an experienced guitarist who would do a top-notch setup on the playability aspect, too? Or it is worth it to spend a little for a real tech to do it — but make sure he isn’t some fake tech who just happens to have a music store gig. Get references or trusted referrals. Not all techs are equal but a great setup makes a world of difference on especially cheaper guitars and can be done in minutes.

To say more, I’m not sure I fully understand. Are you running the electric guitar into some hardware gadget and then to line in? I’m familiar with all the top brands but did not recognize any of the names you mentioned. If so, does gadget only put out 16 bits? And are you coming in at 44.1kHz or what. Would be helpful maybe to know. Offhand, I don’t see any issues with your PC stats, so I’m thinking none of that should be a problem. Doing 16 bits, of course, is acceptable ’cause we can get it to 24 or 32-float after.

If you can say a bit more about the guitar routing it might help me a lot. All I got for the moment, but maybe try less samples with a buffer of 2 or so or none if possible, if you haven’t already. Give me the exact model of your guitar’s analog to digital converter and I can look it up.

adimatis:

Time Stretch — that’s one of the few things that’s missing. I’d like that, too. I still want an in-house keyboard, because it will be at least a year before I can afford a decent MIDI keyboard, and I’d rather see if I can pass on getting one totally, yet my son says I really will have to get one. Even so, I recently discovered how to record MIDI tracks with just an electric guitar, then slap the instrument of choice on the track any time after that. I really want a pre-count metronome click, too. All professional setups have that now, too.

Bitterness — it’s not. Probably not even a No More Mr. Nice Guy approach, either. I blab regularly about Podium’s blessings and virtues on my Facebook page, to my personal friends, and on this (limited readership) forum here. I’m also adding a page of gear and software links to my website later this year, and you can bet Podium will be featured on it! But I have clammed up a lot about a lot of things when it comes to most other websites. My best guess is that I’m often dealing with rather young people, and I was a little bit cocky when I was a very young musician, too, about a million years ago. But some of it is also that standard always-ready-to-flame rude attitude that seems to be all over the Net these days. Everybody is hiding behind anonymity and a tacky avatar, so they know they can usually get away with saying just about anything. It just isn’t worth my time or effort. I get too easily sidetracked already in the first place. Sometimes, though, I remind myself that I had to learn everything the hard way, so maybe they should go the same route. It’s got so there’s lots of stuff I won’t talk about.

I’m not as extreme as some. Guitarist extraordinaire Eric Johnson used to wrap part of a cardboard box with duct tape around his pedalboard and floor gadgets at shows, so other players couldn’t figure out what he was using to get his sound. I’ve seen others have their roadies throw blankets and stuff over gadget boxes right after gigs, ’cause a crowd always forms to gawk at the stage gear right after. So there is something to giving away knowledge. Just for example, I rarely explain to other guitarists how much better a Telecaster is than playing a Les Paul and why. I love having other players being stuck with those too-fat-sounding, lazy-playing 10-lb. overpriced pieces of furniture. And I think only cool groovy people should know about Podium.

Interesting . . . I guess these days you have to allow for a multi-million-dollar advertising budget to keep the buzz happening. And you have to bundle your product with whatever junk is hot at the moment. Meanwhile, you are supposed to release numerous updates (even if each new one is chuck full of bugs from inadequate time and testing), like certain other DAW makers.

I once commented that it was a tad quiet around these parts, meaning the lack of fresh daily posts by the dozens on this forum. But soon after writing that I realized how much I enjoyed the calmness here. It’s a breath of fresh air when I need a work break. It’s too much like a feeding frenzy on some of the other forums. You have all these know-it-alls posting constantly — even when they have nothing of any value to share. It makes me wonder how they find time to record any music or do any production. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion from the amount of time some of them spend on the forums that they actually aren’t doing any creating, rather spending hours each day yacking away in the Lounge or boasting in the gear and software threads about how many expensive toys they have (yet nothing to show for it, rarely if ever posting any stinking tunes).

Turning back to the OP’s assertion, I don’t see any indication of death, morbidity or even a grim prognosis for Zynewave Podium. As much as I also like using REAPER, my slave and backup DAW. I’ve learned to wait at least a couple of weeks and check the bug reports before installing any new releases from them. There have been some real issues with the last several, depending on one’s setup, needs and supposedly compatible software used with it. By comparison, Podium’s releases are much more seldom, but they contain about 1% of the bugs I find in REAPER releases, which is saying a lot. I’d much rather have fewer but much more reliable releases than have to fool with another shaky one every two or three weeks, and waste hour after hour, trying to rectify problems created by other people. I have enough of my own, even with things working perfectly as they finally are these days.

Naturally, I would want to see a talented software designer such as Frits do well with his business, but I want to say very bluntly that, personally, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if 95% of all recording musicians are totally oblivious to a wonderful system as is Podium. After years and years in the music business I have accumulated a sizable assortment of what can accurately only be called “trade secrets” — everything from little-known facts about guitar picks to knowledge about certain amp tubes and amps to major playing techniques. I really consider Podium to fall into the trade secrets category. In the short time I’ve started using it as my main, I’ve saved dozens of hours and lots of hassles I used to get on other systems. It also inspires me to produce, rather than cuss all during a session and end up with a splitting headache, like some others used to do.

Ever since first picking up a guitar in my teens, I started with zero knowledge and usually had to learn everything the hard way and mostly by myself. Unless it’s been in the context of teacher/student during paid lessons, I am pretty careful about sharing things I’ve learned while paying my dues. There’s just no good reason for me to share all I’ve learned and all I use with every jerk on the internet. Now and then I’ll come across some kid who seems truly deserving and unable to figure some issue out, and then I’ll open up and cover the topic well. But I have to tell you, some of the goons I’ve run into on forums are just so nasty that you couldn’t pay me to reveal anything to them. The attitude among musicians these days — in particular the younger ones — is the worst I think it’s ever been. Why explain the virtues of something like Podium to people like that? Heck, without a serious overhaul of attitude, none of them will ever go pro or be in the business in five years anyway.

I’m quite serious when I include Podium as yet another trade secret. It’s one more great addition to my arsenal. I could say about the same for the plugins I’ve boiled things down to — I’ve kept about 100, both effects and instruments all together, after tossing out another 200 or more for various reasons. Now, on a quiet and usually very civil forum like we have here, I may go into things about them and Podium itself. But there are forums — the guitar forums are a perfect example — where I won’t say a word anymore. I’ve had it where I took loads of time to carefully explain some playing technique or guitar tech solution, knowledge attained from decades of dealing with issues, only to have some snot 17-year-old kid who has been playing maybe 3 years, if that, chime in and tell me that everything I took that time to explain was BS. These days I say, let ’em hang. It just ain’t worth it.

You know, even if Frits decided to close up shop tomorrow, I’d simply save a few installs of Podium and Nucleum and just go on using them. I put in a short list of Feature Requests here, and I gotta tell you, it’s short because I only want to see perhaps a half dozen mostly small changes and then, that’s it! I think most DAW software has gone about as far as it needs to go. There just ISN’T that much more anyone can improve with these setups. No one can tell me that Podium, as it is right now, isn’t fully capable of producing a top-10, Grammy-winning album. (Easier said than done, I know, but there you have it.) In fact, any decent and current system out there has all you need. Sure, adding something like time-stretching would be great, but there are workarounds for all the finer features. I’m using several.

So, is Podium dead or dying? No . . . and far, far from it. I think the better question to ask is something more like: Will thousands and thousands of recording musicians ever stop being fooled and dazzled by the hype and inflated claims of the Big Three (or Four)? Many players buy based on name only and never look enough at the quality until they’ve had the item a while and started discovering shortcomings — missing features, terrible customer support and/or downright user-UN-friendliness of the thing.

Hey, try this: Tell Frits you have a serious problem with something and see how long he takes to hop on here and try to resolve or fix it. Okay, now try the same over at Steinberg Cubase. First of all, expect no response ever from anyone who actually works for Steinberg; second, in a few days you may get some user who will actually try to help, but first you have to put up with a few arrogant musician-star-wannabees who will run you in circles or insist you buy a MAC or $2k PC or, hey, just forget it, dude. They’re too important to help you (they’re all big shots, you know).

Of all people on this earth, I fully believe that we musicians are the goofiest, most fickle and most easily conned and fooled group. Add to that the fact that many of us have become convinced that it’s the gadgets and the software that are gonna save us somehow, make us play like Hendrix or sound like Led Zep or the Beatles . . . or even the whiny sound of Coldplay!

Nothing could be farther from the truth. People will prove you wrong time after time. Just give me any $50 guitar and a tube amp that won’t blow up, please. And give me about 3 minutes to prove my point.

So maybe let Podium be the unique sleeper that it has become. If Frits is happy with things the way they are, that’s fine with me too. Not everybody goes into music and music-related enterprises to make a zillion dollars or become as famous as Lady Ga Ga or Justin Beaver. I went into playing guitars simply ’cause I liked playing guitars. Then I discovered I liked singing. Then I discovered I liked entertaining people just as much or more. The money is fine, too, but that consideration came later — much later, as it turned out!

Angel Gone Bad

http://soundcloud.com/telenator/angel-gone-bad

I already recorded about a dozen, just playing acoustic guitar and doing vocals, but I don’t really consider them projects. They came out fine and I posted a couple on that Podium Poppets group on SoundCloud.

But it was time to start moving on to more interesting things. This new one’s not perfect. I’m still in the process of experimenting with a handful of mastering plugins I installed this week. Also, the bassist was sent a copy of the acoustic guitar and a scratch vocal track and he returned it with his bass part mixed in and too deeply embedded on the guitar, so if you hear what sounds like a rhino softly snorting in places that’s me trying to pull the bass guitar out without harming the guitar part. I had to employ his overtones to create the illusion of more bass, and the rhino is his strings clacking against the frets.

But enough excuses — this is a tune written and sung by an old bandmate by the name of Joe Harper. I thought the tune had a lot of potential; I really like it, and I had some time right now to give it a few hours before I get too busy with a current batch of my own. Aside from noodling around and running a few tests, this is the very first time I ever recorded any of my lead guitar playing. I close-mic’d an old Fender tweed Champ with a borrowed an original 808-model Tube Screamer in front of it, and that turned out to be the easiest part of the whole project.

I hope you like it. Joe’s a true up-and-coming kind of songwriter, and I’m hoping I’ll have time to do maybe one more of his best new ones soon.