I have some guitar skills but at best I’m a part time noodler, haven’t played for a crowd (as in, a crowd of parents and students) since I was 16, and I haven’t played much at all the last bunch of years. Anyway, I want to start playing more and improving a bit.
What I have is a nice Mexican Strat I got for around 700 10 years ago. Ages ago I had some pedals (metal zone, dd5, some budget wah wah) and a slightly above lowest tier marshall amp but that’s all gone. I currently have a Line 6 POD UX 1 and Rocksmith/Rockband 2014.
What I want: some way to plug my guitar into the computer, have access to some fun effects, but I’d also like some way to record my shit and maybe analyze my shit (there’s like auto transcription software right like if I play something it can turn it tabs or whatever?). The Line 6 POD UX 1 basically suited my needs, I think it came with Ableton lite although I used something called Riffworks to record some basic shit. Anyway the UX1 doesn’t really work anymore, the computer I installed all the software on 10 years ago is caput, so I just want to figure out what to replace it with.
I haven’t used the Focusrite but I had fairly good experiences with a PreSonus Audiobox iTwo, which appears to be basically the same thing. I don’t use it much though. So I have no idea which brand you should get but something like that appears to be what you want.
I have Chord! app on my phone for, well, chords. I believe I tried yousician but I don’t recall liking it, although something that listens to me playing and grades for (in)accuracy may be nice.
I’m just going to keep using the Line 6 UX1 for guitar input, downloaded Cakewalk by Bandlab for recording, messing around, this is probably more than I will ever need
Tried Guitar Rig 5 whatever free tier, not bad either
Bumping this thread because I would like to do a little investigation around creating some “phat beatz” later this year. I’ll probably watch some youtube videos about Ableton Push and if it looks like something I might enjoy I will see if I can find some inexpensive way to dip my toes in the water.
I really don’t think I have the co-ordination/timing to take up any sort of instrument but have spent a lot of time listening to stuff in various Electronic genres in the last 5 years ago and have often thought “I’d love to be able to make something like this”.
Happy to hear any feedback from people who know about this stuff.
The thing for me is that I tried learning bass (way back in high school) and really didn’t enjoy it. I just enjoyed the idea a the time of being in a band because I love music. It was really taking me a while to pick it up because I am not a very co-ordinated person.
But it might also be something where if I play around with Ableton some I will feel more compelled to pick up an instrument as a compliment?
To be fair bass sucks. The old stand by of learning guitar is a good one for old dudes who can’t jam with friends multiple times per week. But yeah, Ableton sounds like a cool place to start.
