theshaggyfreak

Using a VST amp simulator can give any amount of noise depend on the amp it's simulating and what it's gain is set at. You can always use a gate to lessen the amount of noise. I tend to send that sort of thing up in Pod Farm all the time.

It's possible there could be some bad wiring in the cavity of the guitar...or a short. It's not uncommon to get some floor noise but you shouldn't be getting that much. Unfortunately, I'd have to have the guitar in front of me to really know if something is amiss.

LCD monitors shouldn't cause too much interference. It's really the giant tube that's in a CRT that causes a lot of electromagnetic interference. From what I see, that guitar looks to have humbuckers. It shouldn't be all that noisy unless there's faulty wiring or a bad pickup. Can you post a recording of the guitar clean without any plugins? I'm curious to see how much noise we're talking about.

Questions... 1. Are you plugging your guitar straight into your interface? IE, there are no effects in between the guitar and your computer. 2. What kind of guitar is it? 3. Is your guitar close to anything like a CRT monitor or TV? Anything like that will cause a lot of interference. 4. Have you tried another cable? The one your using could have a short. If you're adjusting your input gain to max levels, you are going to get some ground floor noise. That's pretty normal. I typically record guitar with it maxing out at around -12dB to -10dB. It's good to leave yourself some head room.

A lot of what you want to learn will come from years of trial and error as well as studying. Unless you have the time and money to go to school for composition and recording, that's what it's going to take. There is way too much to learn with respect to what you want to do and it's not something that's going to happen by reading a few tutorials and watching some Youtube videos. How did I get started in all this? A LOT of experimentation. You are going to be your own best help. Since there isn't one single way to do things, it will take you some time to learn your own methods. FL can do a lot of things and there's many ways to accomplish the goals you set out. Now if you tells us more about your music and recording background, we can probably steer you into a direction as to what sort of subjects you need to bone up on. You have very ambitious goals, and that's a good thing. Just don't expect yourself to reach those goals very quickly. The journey is where the fun is at anyway! I'm 35 years old and I've been involved in music most of my life. I'm still learning!

Near fields will have bass but it won't be thumping. Again, these speakers are designed for recording and mixing. Speakers that you use for recreational listening will give you a different experience. I personally enjoy listening to music on my monitors but I'm not really concerned with a lot of bass.

One thing that I'd stress, though, is that you try and get something that has drivers bigger than 5". From what I've found, unless you spend a good bit of money, using a monitor with speakers of that size can make it difficult to mix with with concerns to lower frequencies. I'm using a set of M-audio's (granted they're several years old now) that have 5" speakers and it took me a while to learn to mix on them. It's very easy to mix in too much bass until you're used to what they're supposed to sound like. I suppose you could always get a sub woofer later on. Oh, I apologize on the link. I'm just so used to going to wither Sweetwater or Musiciansfriend for stuff since I have accounts with them.

It really depends on your budget but KRK makes some of the best monitors for the money you pay. I do suggest getting some near field reference monitors for a recording rig. I'd go for something like this: http://www.zzounds.com/a--925434/item--KRKRP6G2 Really, consumer type speakers and audiophile speakers aren't really made for recording/mixing since they'll color the sound. You're better off getting something built for the job. *BGC EDIT* Not using the Zzounds affiliate link? For shame!

I'm not sure if it's better than our Zelda Punk Polka...

http://www.spl.info/software/download/attacker4free.php They're giving away one of their plugins to celebrate their anniversary. Not bad since it's about a $100 plugin.

An impluse is a wav file that contains a sample of the reverb decay of a particular room. Usually they'll record some sort of sound akin to a loud snap. The convolution reverb can then look at that file and mimic the natural reverb in that room. As far as Orchestra samples go, I've mostly just been sticking with the ones that come with Reason. While they're not great, you can still make them sound pretty decent if you know what you're doing.

Pre-congratz!

Just got my serial number. So, hopefully they should be on the way for everyone else.

Probably because it's $75. Sounds good, though, at least form the samples.

Just read somewhere that it can take up to 4 days! Egads! I did find my download link sitting in my spam folder, though.

Ended up getting it to...just waiting for my serial number.

It can be programmed to do a small handful of things. It's most useful function, though, is to test a patch. So, if you press it, it will often just play a note that it's programmed to play. The 'push it' button can also be used to start up the sequencer that's in the Mopho. Stuff like that.

Depends on the synth. Modern analog synths can be connected via USB or MIDI. With USB, you can have it controlled by your computer sequencer. With MIDI you can control it with a MIDI controller keyboard or a computer MIDI interface. Back in the day before MIDI, analog synths had to be controlled with CV (control voltage) keyboards. There are still plenty of modular synths out there that are controlled with CV and there are MIDI to CV converters out there as well. For example, check out the systems at http://www.synthesizers.com . Some modern day analog synths can also send the audio output over USB but you can always just send the direct audio out from the analog synth into your computer audio interface. I have the Mopho working in the latter since it doesn't have a USB connection.

Nothing wrong with a casio! There are some mighty cool ones out there! I have 2:

Haven't the right desk is essential IMHO. If you have rack gear, getting something like I have works out really well if you have just a handful of pieces. Otherwise, I'd say just get a nice big flat table like I use for my graphics work station. Those can be had at Ikea for cheap. ...and yes, the Mopho is quite sexy. Now that I have a real analog synth, I know what I've been missing all these years of using soft synths.

Got a new addition to the studio rig:

While I don't play rock band except over a friends house, I'd be up for it.

Depending on the time/day, I'm down for this altough I don't have an XBL gold account. I do have a computer hooked up to my TV to watch Netflix stuff, though, and I do sometimes watch stuff down in the studio. You should probably put Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter on the list.

Not all of the over compressed crap that you hear is a the Mastering Engineers fault. I often read a lot of articles that blame the mixing engineer for over compressing it before it even gets to mastering. Tape Op has put out a number of articles talking about such things over the past several years. The music industry falling apart at the seams because the big wigs refuse to let go of the old paradigms. This scares a lot of people into the loudness wars. On the other side of things, though, changes are happening since more and more bands are able to produce their own stuff. Unfortunately a lot of them aren't educated on the art of compression. It really is an art of it's own and it's often abused and over used. The other issue is that a lot of people track way too hot. I could really go on about such things but I'm sure everyone doesn't want to read my long rants.

Sega CDs can be difficult to find in decent condition AND at a good price. I've yet to acquire one myself. Almost got a JVC X`eye for really cheap but I found out that it didn't work.