Hi Muris!
Ok, I think I'm ready to start my recording experimentations
(I can't tell you how long it took me to figure out the basics of Cubase)
I've played around with Artist Drums and it's great fun! That's what you use, right?
I'm hopefully ready to put into practice what I'we learned in these few months of guitar studying.
Drums, a pad and a bass will be fine?
Btw, could you advise me a few cool chord progressions in both major and minor?
The ones I come up with are just a few and sound quite boring I guess.
That would be very kind of you.
Cheers, Eddie.

Yep,drums,pad and bass would be more than great for decent backing.
You could add some riffing stuff latter on too.
Chord progressions...
Ok,here/s major one,in Key of C
C,Dm,F G,C,Em,G,G
Minor one,key of Em
Em,Am,G,D,Bm,C,D,Em

Good thing is Help feature in Cubase.
I know many try to avoid it,
looks boring or som but I hope that's not the case with you.

Cheers Eddie

Cool! Thanks for the quick reply!
Muris, I LOVE help, eversince the Beatles did it!
Just kidding, I actually learned most of what I know (which is little) using the help feature.
Thank you for the chord progression.
I'll try adding riffing stuff with the guitar.
It might take some time though...
Hope nobody's going to laugh at me.
BTW, what is latency? Because I have a Direct Monitoring option on my audio interface
and the manual only says that it has to be used in case of high latency.
Thank you, Eddie

Help is cool,Beatles tune too.

Latency is sort of delay.easy to notice when you're using VSTs or any plug-in on the channel.
Let's say you put some efx like chorus on the channel made for recording.
And you want to hear chorus while recording,not only after.
Then you press Direct Monitoring to actually HEAR sound FROM the channel.
And that's when latency comes up.
If it's high,you'll have delayed sound from the channel(sound with chorus you added before).

P.S.: Direct Monitoring I'm talking about is the one on the audio channel in Cubase.

+1 As Muris says it's more or less the time taken between your playing the note and hearing it.

There is always latency but if it's low enough then we don't notice it. If it gets to big then it can be problematic. Just imagine Eddie trying to play something where you hear what you play but delayed by say 1 second - it will really start to mess up your timing.

Low latency is generally seen as the way to go but the lower you go the harder your pc and soundcard have to work. So there is a cut off/threshold at which the 'gain' equals the 'cost' - for me that's about 5msecs (unless I'm playing a keyboard then its about 3 minutes as I try and figure out where middle c is again ).

Some music sequencers now have a feature called delay compensation which helps with perceived latency. Cubase - which Muris mentioned and uses- is one.

Cheers,
Tony

Hi Tony! Good to hear (read) from you!
Thank you both for the info... I think I've got it sorted out somehow.
Did a lot of fumbling around! But there's one thing that I did notice:
If I open an audio track and "play" guitar through a VST, I get some delay.
If to that I add some compression (thank you Tony for your explanations) I get even more delay.
I guess that means that the more I add in cubase the more latency I get.
But if I play through my line 6 pod without effects (I mean cubase effects or VSTs')
of any sort, I get no delay at all!
So direct monitoring means that I hear what I'm doing in real time,
without the effects I've chosen because they cause the latency.
I hope this makes sense, sorry for explaining myself
like this but I'm new to guitar and recording.
Cheers, Eddie

You should only hear the delay when you are playing. On playback with effects in place cubase should compensate for the delay and it should be in time.

Hi Andrew.
Yes, I hear it only when I'm playing.
Once it's recorded everything is fine.

Yep,you'll hear it if Direct Monitoring is ON
I'm listening to my real-time playing through monitor out on audio card,
that's how I avoid all latency and stuff from Cubase.

Hi Muris!
I finally did my first recording of my improvements. It took me all day!
I used the chords in E min you gave me.
I hope you "like" it. I couldn't possibly do any better...
Comments are more than welcome, but please don't be too hard on me!!!
Ciao, EddieClick to view attachment

Ohh,why should I be hard on you Eddie,this is really fine take!!
Compact phrasing without too many notes,has lots of sense imo.
And now I do have a question.
Which scale/scales did you use?

Hi Muris, I'm very happy you liked it!

I used E min pentatonic, E min blues scale (I used the blue note)
and E Aeolian very shortly, in the ascending part.
I have a quetion for you now:
let's say the chords go E min, A min, G, D.
If I start my solo in E min, when the chord switches to Amin can I modulate playing let's say A min pentatonic
over my Amin chord? I've tried that, and it didn't sound too bad...

Cheers, Eddie

Apologies beforehand for jumping in, but just have to say real quickly : Nice job Eddie! It's very pleasing on the ear with the selection of notes and the recording sounds nice as well!

Thank you exorcyze!
Very appreciated!!!!! Wow!

Of course you can.
Am pentatonic is already in Em scale,same thing with Bm/D pentatonic scale.
Try that one over D chord.

And Muris, very soon I'm going to do the same thing in major with the chord progression in C you gave me.
I had lots of fun doing this recording and learnt even more. Cubase is so much fun, guitar studying even more!
Thank you for your teaching!






That's because B is D's relative minor, right?

That's right.
And each minor scale contains 3 minor pentatonic scales.
In Em those scales are E,A and B.
Or G C and D if we take relative major pentatonic scales.

Good to know, I'm going to work on this!

But overall are you satisfied with the result?
Do you think it's a good start?

Going back to scales...
See you soon!
Eddie

More than good Eddie.

For the second I forgot that this is thread about recording the backing track,
which you have done very,very good.
As the matter of fact,awesome first attempt.

Hi Muris. I told you i would try something in major, here it is.
As usual i used your chord progression and this time I focused on different scales.
I tried to use C Ionian/Penta, F penta , Emin/G penta, and G mixolydian.
I hope it's correct
I hope you like this effort, and PLEASE KEEP IN MIND that I started playing 3 months ago.
My speed sucks, really, but I'm trying to come up with some melodic ideas.
There's so much work to do there!!!
Cheers, Eddie
Click to view attachment

Once again fine take Eddie.
If we take the fact that you've played only 3 months it's awesome job.
But I just have to correct you in one matter,theory wise.
You mentioned using G mixolyidian.
I would say that cause the key is C major.
And since G is dominant chord it might look like G mixolydian
but our main/root chord decides that,and that's C chord.

I told you it's too soon for me to dive into modes!
Next thing I'll try your "In style of you"...
Have a nice evening, Eddie

Noo,you got it quite good,except of the main chord.
I'll try to explain it to you.
Let's say your friend plays C chord on guitar for an hour.
1 hour,only one chord,C chord(main).
And then you start to play notes of C scale,starting from G and up to G.
Is that G mixolydian?
No,you can hear it,it's still C major.
But if you start playing C mixoliydian(Bb note on 7th),now you can hear sound of mixolydian.
Hope this cleared it a bit.

Yes, I think so...
If my friend plays C for an hour and then changes to C7
THEN I can modulate from C Ionian to C mixolydian because in C7 there's a Bb, right?

Wasn't thinking of any modulation,
just straight chord and scale that you play,major or mixolydian.
But looks like you got the point

I'm doing my best to understand...
Fantastic!
So in my next backing track I'll stick to C major,
but I'll put a C7 somewhere,
and I'll play C Ionian all through the "song" and then shift to C mixolydian on C7. (Your lesson on mixo is great!)
Sorry for being such a bore!
Cheers, have a nice evening, Eddie

Glad I helped Eddie,you're welcome

Ok, NOW I understand it!!!!!

It can take some years to get it Eddie. Good explanation from Muris (as usual ) btw.

Recording a vamp - a static chord played for a long period - is a great way to get to understand the modes and a great way to learn to improvise.

Cheers,
Tony

I know Tony...
But know what?
I'M IN NO HURRY
And you are right, Muris is a great teacher!
Today I'll try recording something new... It's great fun!!!

Hi Muris!
As you told me yesterday, I tried to do something on your A BT.
This is my effort. I concentrated on the sound of mixolydian, but I also put Em pentatonic.
I'm very sorry for my timing, I can hear it sucks, but I'm keeping on practising to a metronome
so I hope it will get better in time.
Ok, that said, I hope it's ok...
Cheers, Eddie

Nice take Eddie,really nice!!

Now please post this track and the one without backing in collab thread,
that's it,you're in.

Wow, man!!!
I can't believe this!
Thank you so much Muris!
Now I want to see what my mommy is going to say!

OK

Hi Muris! Can't even begin to tell you how much you're being missed here!
I hope you're having a great time!
I've been studying your Bb minor lesson a lot, and I'm doing fine at 55 Bpms'...
At 72 there are quite a few ( ) problems, but I tried recording it nevertheless.
Btw, thank you so much for putting the chords you use in the lessons,
they are great for making one's own backing tracks.
I know the playing isn't fluid and the "sweeps" suck,
at 72 bpms' it's quite a challenge for me,
but I hope you can hear some improvement!
Cheers, Eddie Click to view attachment

Hey eddie,
Did I understand that correct that the backingtracks are made by you ?
May I ask you which VSTs you used for the piano/drums ?

Sounds great Eddie,thumb up!!

Also you added few extra notes at the beginning which is more than cool,
gives your mark to it as well.

Hy Chast!
Yes, I do my own backing tracks because we cant download our teachers' BTs
and because practicing to a metronome can get boring.
I use Cubase sequencer and a TASCAM US-122 midi/audio interface (cheap but works fine)
and a very cheap Roland master keyboard.
For Drums I used Best Service Artist Grooves.
It's very simple to use and it has some really nice loops recorded by 4 real drummers.
For piano, bass and pad I used Plugsound. It has different volumes you can choose from,
and if you ask your local music store owner, I'm sure he'll be happy
to give you some advises on what is best for you.
Now I'm waiting for Christmas to get a few more!
If you have any questions just ask,
I'll be happy to share my poor knowledge with you!
Cheers, Eddie

For Muris: yes, I tried to show off adding a few notes! But at 55 Bpms' it works much better!
Welcome back!

Fair enough,thanks Eddie

This is just something I found out recently
and I would like to share with who is working on BTs (Cubase):
if you have a lot of open VSTs and it looks like
your computer can't handle them,
transform them in audio tracks (export function)
and then close the corresponding VST and erase the midi track.
Your PC will be very thankful!

Cheers
Eddie

Or set latency bit higher,release the buffer size .

Didn't know that! Where's my manual? Great hint!
Gonna try it out on my backing for your contest today...
This means I'm going to have to add LOTS of VSTs!
Thanx...

You're welcome Eddie.

That's is fine trick actually.
When you need real time monitoring,for per example recording using VSTs,
then you use lower latency to get feeling while playing MIDI keyboard.
Once you're done with real time monitoring you set latency higher
and CPU works more easily.