Jagori

I never got Vienna to work - it'd just close immediately after starting. Might have been a sound card compatibility thing, but I didn't need to solve it. Instead, I picked up Viena here. It's apparently modeled after Vienna (not that I'd know what Vienna is like). I haven't actually made a soundfont with it yet, but it looks functional enough that I could if I put in the time.

More than round-wound? How so? My guess would have been that round-wound strings are more abrasive, but I don't use flat-wounds myself so I have no experience either way.

It's more or less possible with solid-state amps too... I think it more depends on the particular amp and it's settings than whether it's tube or not. Start with relatively low gain on your amp, and then turn it up bit by bit while seeing how low you have to turn the guitar's volume knob to clean it up. Playing softly helps keep the sound cleaner, too. If you can't do it, you might just not have the gear for it, rather than be doing something wrong.

If the headphones' impedance is really low, then the amp could potentially run out of 'juice,' leading to a weak, thin sound if your amp isn't strong enough to put out the current needed. That alone won't wreck anything, but if you crank it to try to get more volume, it'll distort, and that's what wrecks the speakers. That being said, 64 ohms isn't really that low. My AKG K271s are 55 ohms, and they work just fine through a portable CD player or Edirol UA-25. Start quiet and slowly turn up the volume, and see if it distorts before it gets to the volume you want. If it does, then you'll probably want a dedicated headphone amp. If not, I think you're good to go. As for it leaning to the right, I don't really know what to suggest there. I've had strange audio issues at very low volumes before, but they were amp circuit issues like the left channel ramping up slightly before the right, which was significant at that volume.

Nice post. You swapped a couple strings at the end, though. A bass tuned down 5 semitones would be, high to low, D, A, E, B. D|----------------|----------------| A|--------6-5-----|------6-5-*-*---| E|8-5-7-8-------88|--5-7---------88| B|----------------|0---------------| C B D# C B B D C A C D C A D# C

I'm pretty sure Fishy's got it with the Sustainer suggestion, but it doesn't have to be feedback-based. They have a mode that fades into the 5th harmonic like that. I wanted to get a Fernandes guitar for the longest time just for that effect

I've got an Edirol UA-25 that I'm liking so far. Two XLR inputs that double as 1/4", phantom power, and it's a decent price. I'm not positive about this, but I think it won't provide phantom power to a 1/4" cable. That's not really an issue though, since you'll likely want to use XLR cables with your mics anyway. A potential downside is that it's USB, but I personally haven't had any issues at all with it being USB instead of Firewire. [edit] Just thought I'd mention that I haven't had it for that long yet - about six months - so I can't speak for durability or anything. Haven't had any problems yet, though.