Steelers Fans who are musicians thread

Oh hell no. I'm an amateur/weekend warrior musician. I'm an IT geek/nerd by day.

Bass/music/recording is one of my 3 expensive hobbies... along with Skiing and Road Cycling/Mountain+Gravel biking. I used to play golf... but I quit. Thank the godz for that.

 

My folks still hate it. I couldn't impress them if I received a gold album, a Grammy, and a Rock in roll HOF. I'm serious. My Grandparents on the other hand (God rest their souls) were behind me.
I'm a serious disappointment to my Mother.

 

Finally bought something for my guitars.... Digitech Drop Tune pedal. I can tune all 3 of my guitars in standard or standard drop D.... and nail Alice In Chains, Roth-era Van Halen, Guns'n'Roses...all strings half step down. Plus... I can nail the Korn whole-step down, Low A tuning on my 7-string. I can turn my Fender Strat into a Baritone guitar.... Rock Lobster- B-52's, The Cure songs, James Bond Theme song, etc. Freakin' cool as hell.

 

Cost a lot?

 

Drop Tune pedal normally sells for $235.... I got mine from Amazon for $130, thanks to rebate I had for returning a Keurig coffee maker that broke a week after I got it.

 

Keurig's seem hit or miss. We also had a clunker and had to take the loss. There is an old nasty one at the golf course that gets abused daily and damn thing keeps working. Has to be 7-8 years old.

 

Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with Keurig coffee makers. I found one from Walmart that was better and cheaper than the "lemon" I bought from Amazon. The new ones have the stupid 5 hole needles on the top... and it's hard as hell to find POD coffee filters for ground coffee that will fit the "new wave" Keurigs. The old design (single needle) worked just fine... hate when good products change things up.

 

I may need one of these, does it sound natural?

I have a a pitch shifter, but it makes things sound very digital and compressed. It's a cool sound and a usable effect, but not for just wanting a different pitch.

I prefer to tune in Eb, but since I play pretty often, we are always in standard tuning, so having a pedal to drop me to Eb or D without having to retune all the time would be amazing.

 

I had a Digitech Whammy I bought in the late 90's... that would drop tune and it sounded like you described. Digital glitches and unnatural sound. This pedal retains the natural tone of the guitar, dynamics, etc... as long as you're going no lower than Low A. I can drop my Strat down 5 steps to Baritone (Low B) and it still sounds good. Octave effect is better than average for guitar. Alice in Chains songs in Drop D, one-half step down sound awesome... Them Bones, Dam that River, We Die Young. Only thing is... make sure the acoustic sound of the strings is drowned out and the amp is loud enough to cover it up. Also make sure it is the very first pedal you plug into in your pedalboard to get the most natural sounds... before wah, compressor, etc.

I love this pedal because I can use standard 10 gauge strings on all guitars while playing dropped tunings. 9's feel like dental floss and I don't like 11's thru '13's... thick SRV gauge strings. My 7-string's Low B is a 56 gauge.... and that's about as heavy as I like to go. Korn guitarists used 60 gauge strings on their Ibanez Universes for the Low A.

 

I played with one of those one day at the music store I worked at. Hell it's been out for awhile, because it has to be about 11 or so years ago that I'm talking about.
I never drop only one string, like a drop D, but I do keep one guitar regular tuning EADGBE(I use 11s on it) and one guitar one whole step down DGCFAD(I use 12 on it), and I like to play songs in both. I get a kick how some songs sound so different higher, or lower.
Although know matter how You tune the guitars, the notes, and chords are still there.

 

Why not just have one guitar in one tune, and another in a different one?
When I play out that's what I do. I keep two for each.

 

@HeinzMustard
You put anything to that yet??
If not go to my channel, and find something you rather, or give me something that you do that you would like another Guitar on.

 

I've done that before, too. But I'd still like to have a pedal like this for certain situations.

 

No... I still haven't set up my DAW. Maybe this weekend I'll get time. It's ski season, so most of my spare time is devoted to that... since I can only ski 3 months out of the year where I live. We are finally getting a good, cold winter with natural snow on the resorts... so I'm taking advantage.

From Renegade thread: I've seen Queensryche 4 times since 2000.... Raleigh NC, Winston-Salem NC, Myrtle Beach SC and Asheville NC. Favorite was the House of Blues show at Myrtle Beach.... played entire Mindcrime 1 and 2 albums from start to finish. For Asheville show, they did most of Rage for Order. Great times. Never did get to see them with DeGarmo on guitar... who I think was the greatest talent of an extremely talented band of musicians.

I remember driving back home from the Myrtle Beach, Queensryche show listening to sports radio on Sirius... and it was announced that Roethlisberger was gonna miss the opener vs Miami in '06 season due to appendectomy.

 

It's cool, and I get it. Just let me know.
I've seen Queensryche only twice. Once opening for Metallica like I said earlier, and then , get this ....Suicidal Tendencies opening for them many years later. LoL. They did the whole Operation Mindcrime that time.

 

"How Will I Laugh Tomorrow...When I Can't Even Smile Today" is definitely in top 10 metal albums of all time. It's like Master of Puppets and Rust in Peace... kicks ass from start to finish. I wore that CD out in late 80's/early 90's. Glad Metallica picked up Trujillo from ST on bass. He's perfect for Metallica... so was Newsted and Burton, all 3 have own distinct style. Also glad Lars and James let Trujillo and Hammet start writing songs more from Death Magnetic to present. You can tell.. the music is now much better than Load, Reload and St Anger.

 

I still love Load, and Reload. I thought it was a nice change of pace, Musical influences, and writing. I didn't like St. Anger. My two favorite Metallica albums are Master, and Justice. My 1st time seeing them was in 83 like I said during Kill them all.
See My favorite two Megadeth albums are Peace Sells, and The System has Failed.

 

Only song I liked during the Load-St Anger era was "Until it Sleeps" from Load.... Newsted on fretless is awesome. The rest of that era ('96-'03) was sub-par for Metallica, IMHO... lots of cheesy lyrics and the songs seemed plastic and overproduced like "Hysteria" Def Leppard album. Didn't appeal to me.

 

I didn't like any of St. Anger, but I played a lot of the Load, and Reload, and the whole style of guitar playing was different than their usual way, and they approached it differently. There are songs on load , and Reload that are way more difficult to play than many of their earlier, and later albums, where the only difficulty is just speed. I get bored playing just 5th chords/power chords, and chugging on a open muted string. It's like using one color on everything you paint. JMO
Just Like with Faith No More we disagree on their best album.
I think it's Angel Dust, and You like, I believe King for a Day better.

 

I liked the raw production of Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. Also prefer their more "progressive" song structures and writing.... featured on Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, Justice for All, Death Magnetic, Hardwired to Self-destuct and 72 Seasons. Always liked progressive rock like Yes (70's), Genesis (70's), Rush, Dream Theater, Queensryche..... and Metallica did a great job of "progressive metal." I think if Cliff had lived..... Metallica would have ended up being more like Dream Theater... with rougher vocals. They were definitely heading towards maximum progressive rock before Cliff died.

You're right about FNM.... King for a Day is my favorite. Also like Sol Invictus.

 

Yet the two most progressive albums, which are my two favorite are, Master, and Justice.
I also I'm a huge fan of prog of all kinds. It's how I got into Mastodon.

 

@HeinzMustard
Have You ever listened to Mastodon??
Crack the Skye is a prog/metal/rock concept album that should be listen to from beginning to end like Operation Mind Crime.
3 singers, and all great, and different at their instruments.
I like everyone of their albums, but that albums holds a special place I'm my heart/head

 

I like what I've heard from Mastodon on Sirius XM, Liquid Metal and Octane channels.

Need to check out some of their albums on my Apple Music account. Will check out Crack the Skye.

 

It must be listen to from track one on. Hell you listen to Operation Mind Crime so You know about concept albums.

 

You have to look at the producers Bob Rock St Anger Mutt Lange Hysteria