Branding your business is a lot like creating your signature sound as a musician. It resonates with the community that sees your efforts as unique and establishes you as a standout. At Live4guitar, community is key, and that’s why wanted to expand the nature of our brand to also help our community shape the way you get their signature sound.
Live4guitar is proud to present the Live4guitar overdrive pedal.
History shows us that great achievements can manifest from determined or creative people faced with a lack of resources while undertaking a critical task. In the field of professional audio, especially mixing and mastering, subjectivity becomes the variable that can determine everything from landing a commercial spot to developing a signature sound. Alloy 2 from iZotope neutralizes several variables by providing six key processing tools in a plug-in that can be used to enhance mixes on individual tracks, mix buses, or overall enhancement on a master bus.
One thing crossed my mind as I was determining how to write a detailed description of something that’s only 6kb in size. The answer actually came to me as I was having an X-Ray taken of my kidneys. How soon is it going to be before we’re able to take a digital imprint of something like a lead vocal? Not to get all existential, but can you imagine creating an impulse by mapping the inside of Devin Townsends skull, throat, torso, and muscular make up? Then inserting the impulse into the impulse loader that has a graphic interface resembling Data from Star Trek the Next Generation?
Some tribes of Native Americans used to believe that taking a picture of someone could possibly be stealing part or all of that persons soul. It’s also been said that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Ultimately if you can create a product that leaves an iconic imprint on those who use it, it will at some point be considered a “classic”. Once the product takes on the monikor of being a classic, it is then defined by the unique characteristics that make it often imitated, but never duplicated. To duplicate it, you need to steal its soul.
The best part about having unique interests or being a part of a passionate group of people is that you occasionally get the spoils of the subsequent growing base of product or service developers of that particular interest. Guitar amplification VSTs and cabinet simulators are nothing new, but there is a growing community of independent designers of software instruments that are offering their products for free. There are too many to cover here in one article, so I’ve collected and tested 17 of the best sounding, best looking, and most widely known free amp simulators and tested them through a static speaker simulation consisting of the KeFIR cabinet simulator with Catharsis cabinet impulses.
Riffstation, is a software guitar practice tool designed to eliminate much of the guess work of learning your favorite songs, riffs, and solos. Riffstation allows you to import the song you’re trying to learn, isolate the desired section, loop the section, adjust the tempo, and it even automatically gives you an accurate metronome click along with the section to improve timing. When learning a complicated solo, Riffstation can isolate the guitar in the mix and almost completely lift it out of the mix to concentrate completely on the guitar.
Escorting us confidently into that reality, weighing in at a fit 13 megabytes, sporting 18 virtual guitar cabinets, 2 bass cabinets, 8 virtual microphones, 2 internal British inspired console channels, and the ability to mix and match all of the above with 100% phase coherency is Recabinet from Kazrog LLC. Recabinet is a guitar speaker cabinet simulation plugin focused on accurately replicating the versatility and dynamics of classic and modern cabinets with a user-friendly and sleek looking user interface.
Have you ever experienced a truth so evident that you barely have to practice what you’ve learned from the experience to make it a profoundly effective tool in your life? The team at Brainworx have thoroughly applied this concept to the creation of their release, Rock Rack avaiable June 15th, 2012. Rock Rack puts into software format a workflow pattern that most professional studios practice. That is to have 3 or 4 GREAT amps and cabinets to get effective results quickly.
I believe as guitarists, we are living in one of the best times for tone accessibility and recording advancements. One piece of software that is pushing the boundaries of amplification simulation dynamics is Overloud’s TH2. TH2 is an intelligent and nuanced guitar amplification and effects suite that is also very accessible and user friendly. It’s very easy to jump right in and have inspirational tone in minutes no matter the style.
