Yes, the Ace Frehley album, Anomaly, comes out on Sept. 15. You know you’re excited, kids, so here’s a song off the album to tide you over.
A few days ago, I wrote all about the joy that is the Behringer Guitar Link.
I’m having more fun than should be allowed with that thing as I’ve been learning how to use it. All you need to use it is a free USB port on your computer and an ASIO compatible soundcard (for best results).
You can hear my pitiful rendition of Moon Over Marin by the Dead Kennedys by scrolling to the end of this post and streaming it.
The best thing about this guitar link is that I paid about $40 and have been finding plenty of free software to model amps and mix tracks on the Internet (I mentioned a lot of that in the post I just referenced). Yes, you can spend a lot of cash using commercial products set up for recording, but how many of us are professionals? My guitar playing stinks and I’m just having fun – the free stuff is more than good enough for me.
For the record, I recorded my guitar and bass parts on the aforementioned song through Kristal Audio Engine. The lead and rhythm guitar parts were recorded through the D.I.G. 2.0 amp modeler from AcmeBarGig VST plug-in and I ran my bass through FreeAmp3 from Fretted Synth. The mixdown in Kristal was in that weird Ogg Vorbis format so I converted the song to MP3 through Audacity.
While it’s obvious I need a better sound card and learning how to play worth a damn would be nice, I was able to lay down some tracks that sound good enough for me through a bunch of absolutely free programs. That’s great stuff.
Now all I need to do is finish my country song that’s sure to be a big hit one day -- “I’m Wearing a Hawaiian Shirt (But there’s no Luau in my Heart).” Go ahead and laugh but that song will be huge one day. Yes, there will come a day when my song will establish a fad – a bunch of people will be wearing Hawaiian shirts and acting sad. Count on it.
Here’s my awful attempt at covering a Dead Kennedys song. Enjoy!
One of the things I miss about my college days is that I used to play a lot of golf.
In addition to being a dandy way to kill off an afternoon, golf inspires its fans to travel to golf courses all over the place and enjoy the heck out of themselves. It seems some that Myrtle Beach golf courses are some of the most scenic to be found in the United States.
For that reason it appears that Myrtle Beach golf vacations are popular. Not only do golfers love to buy them, but bear in mind that Christmas is closer than we think and what golfer wouldn’t want to receive Myrtle Beach golf packages as a gift?
If you’re looking to book a golf vacation in Myrtle Beach, don't mess around with banging in weird phrases like "Golf Myrtle Beach" into a search engine. Do yourself a favor and head on over to MyrtleBeachGolf.net. That little site has all the information you need and will safe you a lot of time hunting around on the Internet.
Yes, football season is upon us once again and we Arkansans are hoping our beloved Razorbacks do something this year.
My dad tells me that he was in a restaurant last year when the Hogs were in the midst of their 5-7 season and two fellow (who had obviously been drinking a lot) boldly predicted the Razorbacks wouldn’t lose a game this season.
Most of us haven’t lost our heads and are hoping for the team to have a decent season. And we’ve got some reasons to be excited. First and foremost, there’s Ryan Mallett – the Batesville, Ark., native who went to Michigan and then came back home to Arkansas. He was a heavily recruited quarterback in 2006 and we’re hoping the fellow follows through on his promise this season at Arkansas.
Hey, we’re not used to having top-notch quarterbacks at the University of Arkansas, so seeing one on the field will be a bit of a novelty for us. Our former head coach, that damned Houston Nutt, didn’t go out of his way to recruit quarterbacks and managed to ruin some good ones when they fell in his lap. Let’s see what Arkansas Coach Bobby Petrino can do with a talented passer, huh?
Let’s not forget that Michael Smith – the running back who was one of the few highlights on the offense last year – will be back this season. He’ll be joined by Dennis Johnson in the backfield and here’s hoping the running game will be solid.
Yes, Michael Smith was pretty much the running game last year and the offense was just plain dreadful. It appears that the passing game will be solid, too, provided Mallett can find some targets. Last year, those quarterbacking brothers Casey and Nathan Dick had trouble finding receivers. We’re not sure if the receivers were just terrible or if the Dick brothers were just lousy quarterbacks.
The receivers are improved this year and perhaps the most impressive of all is tight end D.J. Williams. Of course, the question remains – will the offensive line hold up long enough to protect Mallett so he can throw to a receiver or two? That was a problem last year as that offensive line folded faster than Superman on laundry day. Here’s hoping Petrino has beaten the line into shape.
The defense was terribly weak last year, but I always wondered – was it really just bad or were the players worn out because the pitiful offense never gave them a chance to rest? Again, that’s a question that will have to be answered throughout the season.
Having said all of that, here are my predictions for the season. These, I’m sure, will hold up pretty well.
Sept. 5 – Missouri State. Arkansas will whip the socks off of Missouri State. That’s why teams like Missouri State are on the schedule. That one will be an easy win.
Sept. 19 – Georgia. It’s rarely good when Georgia comes to town. They dominated the Hogs during the Nutt years and there’s no reason to think that will change this season. There’s a loss.
Sept. 26 – at Alabama. It’s no fluke that Alabama is ranked #5 in the preseason polls. Playing Alabama this season will be bad enough for almost anyone and you can double the misery when a team faces the Crimson Tide at home. There’s a loss.
Oct. 3 – at Texas A&M. Ah, the Aggies are rebuilding, too. Still, considering the weak showing by the Hogs last year in almost every game, I’ll have to call that one a loss.
Oct. 10 – Auburn. Yes, another team that’s rebuilding. Fortunately, they’re coming to Arkansas. Home field advantage will be a big factor here. And, we’ll have a win.
Oct. 17 – at Florida. Arkansas beat Florida once upon a time. Honest! The losing streak will continue this season against the preseason No. 1. That’s a loss.
Oct. 24 – at Ole Miss. Yes, the Rebels are ranked No. 8 in the country right now. However, that ranking doesn’t take the team’s biggest liability into account – head coach Houston “Boxcar” Nut. Nutt frustrated Arkansas fans for years while he goofed off in this state and he’ll annoy Ole Miss fans before long. There’s a win for the Hogs because that’s the kind of game that Nutt has fumbled with inept coaching for years. By the way, I chose the “Boxcar” nickname for Nutt around 2002 because the man is a straight up bum.
Oct. 31 – Eastern Michigan. Another rent-a-win.
Nov. 7 – South Carolina. Poor old South Carolina. That team never can get it together. The Hogs will win this one.
Nov. 14 – Troy. The third – and final – rent-a-win of the year.
Nov. 21 – Mississippi State. Remember when Mississippi State fielded great teams? I can’t recall when exactly that was, either. There’s nothing impressive about them this year, so the Hogs will win that one.
Nov. 29 – at LSU. The preseason No. 11 will clobber the Hogs unless half the team comes down with swine flu. There’s a loss for the Razorbacks.
So, we’re looking at a 7-5 season with three wins against nonconference opponents, meaning the Razorbacks should rack up a 4-5 SEC record this year. Ugly but true. Bank on it. Hey, they’ll get better.
I’m telling you – some folks don’t know how lucky they’ve got it in this dandy 21st century.
Yes, I turned 40-years-old a few months ago, so I can engage in that “back in my day” talk. The Internet has, indeed, made life quite a bit more convenient. One of the things that I love about the Internet is that shoppers in more rural areas like my beloved Arkansas can enjoy the same wide selection as anyone else.
The Internet, see, makes specialty stores possible and that’s a great thing. A store specializing in products like wine glass racks might make out OK in areas like Boston, Dallas or New York City, but it wouldn’t last five minutes in a town like scenic Benton, Ark. Thanks to the Internet, however, that’s fine – if we wine enthusiasts in Arkansans are looking for stemware racks, a hanging wine glass rack, bar glass racks, etc., we can find it all over at GlassStemwareRacks.com.
You’ve got a massive selection of products over there (such is the way specialty stores run things), great prices, fast shipping and great customer service. Great stuff, huh?
“Gee, The Hawg,” a lot of people have asked me. “I want to hook my guitar up to my computer and record some tracks. How, how – oh, how – is that to be done?”
Actually, no one has asked me that question, but I thought I’d be helpful and answer it just the same. Last week, I got a brand new Behringer Guitar Link off of eBay for the low, low price of about $40. The Guitar Link is a nifty little device that lets me plug my guitar into my computer through a USB port.
The Guitar Link is a wonderful thing, to be sure, but the software that comes with it – the stuff that can actually make it useful – is complete garbage. First of all, there’s a scaled back package of guitar amp models from Native Instruments (the people who brought us the formidable Guitar Rig 3 package that will honestly allow you to pull about any sound you want out of your guitar.
The “Behringer edition” of that software gives you but three models and no “pedal effects” at all. To make matters worse, you can demo the models for 30 days and can only keep one. Want more? You’ve got to pay for it, folks.
The mixer – EnergyXT2 – is just about to bad. In addition to being hard as hell to use, you’ve got to send in some cash if you want to unlock some of the better features of the software (that includes plugging in drum tracks and other things). Seeing how terrible the scaled back version of the software is, I don’t think I’m going to send them any money.
In fact, I decided that spending a lot to be able to record tracks on my computer is ridiculous. Once you drop about $300 for Guitar Rig and a decent mixing/recording package, spend some more cash on monitors and do something about the crummy stock soundcard in your computer, you’re starting to talk about some real money. Oh, and plan on spending some more if you want a pedal to easily control those effects in Guitar Rig.
For that kind of cash, you could get a heck of a good modeling amp, a four-track recorder and a microphone. You could record and mix all day long the old fashioned way (and the way I prefer, frankly).
No, what I want to do is just bang out some ideas, loop some guitar tracks I can practice against and generally mess around with my beloved Fender Deluxe Stratocaster. I’m not going to spend a lot of money to do that. Besides, it just plain irritates me when I buy a piece of hardware and a lot of crippled software comes with it. Bah!
So I looked around and found some free recording solutions. First of all, you’ve got have a good mixer and the best free one out there for my purposes is Kristal Audio Engine. It doesn’t cost a dime unless you’re going to use it commercially and it supports both ASIO and VST.
ASIO a great sound driver for instruments that features wonderfully low latency – high latency means you’ll hit a note and wait a bit for the computer to process it. That’s a pain to deal with if you’re recording multiple tracks (and, yes, Kristal is great at handling multiple tracks). VST is a standard plug-in format and it’s a wonderful thing. There are a lot of great, free amp packages and effects for guitar and bass in that VST format.
The amp package I picked up is FreeAmp 2.5 – it’s got seven amplifier models to choose from and plenty of effects – compressors, wah pedals, overdrive, chorus, delay, reverb, flanger and phaser. It’s a very solid package that is more than good enough for fleshing out ideas and making your guitar sound like everything from a fine instrument to a piece of trash with a couple of strings missing and a short in the electronics.
Thanks to Kristal’s ability to easily handle VST effects, there are plenty of free amp models and effects. Yeah, most of them suck, but there are some really great ones if you’re willing to dig around for them.
There are a couple of major drawbacks to Kristal. First of all, you can’t record what the VST plug-in is processing. You record clean and then slap effects on later. That’s not that much of an issue for me, really, as I’ve spent so much time practicing with my guitar unplugged that I’m used to it. Besides, you can run the VST-processed tone through your headphones after you’ve stopped recording it – great for multitracking purposes as you can lay down a basic track, process the right hell out of it and then play along with it on additional tracks.
Second, you can't output a track to MP3. Fortunately, Audacity is free and I can output tracks in Kristal to Ogg Vorbis (or WAV) and convert them to MP3 in Audacity (that requires the LAME MP3 encoder, but that's also free).
Also, Kristal is very easy to use and that’s a great thing. Back when my roommate had a four-track recorder, it was an easy to matter to mic up my guitar and play some tracks. Kristal makes things just about that easy.
I’ll admit I was very tempted by all the guitar models available in Guitar Rig after fooling with the scaled down version of it. Then I remembered something – back when I was actually halfway decent at playing guitar, I got by with a simple amp with reverb on it and a Boss HM-2 distortion pedal. What am I really going to do with a ton of effects, anyway? I’ve got more sounds available through my FreeAmp than I’ve ever had and that’s more than good enough.
So, there it is. Save that money and grab a copy of Kristal and some VST effects/amps that cost you absolutely nothing. You’ll be glad you did.
If you'd like an awful example of my lame guitar skills, just click the player below. We've got three tracks in there (main pitiful riff, terrible lead and some jangly thing at the end) that I processed through Kristal and FreeAmp then converted in Audacity. Yeah, I know I need to practice and learn how to use Kristal, but I hope to be able to brag about being competent or reasonably decent on guitar one of these days.
One thing that people have been talking about a lot these days is credit repair.
No, this isn’t like 2005 when all you had to do to get a loan was have a job and a pulse. If you want to get a loan for a house, car or just about anything else, a clean credit history is helpful – lenders, it seems, have adopted the attitude that they want to loan money to people who are likely to pay it back.
That’s probably better for the economy in the long run, but what about those folks who just ran into a little bad luck and need to find a way to improve credit scores? That’s where DSI Solutions can help.
The site is free to visit and you’ll find plenty of testimonies from people the company has helped and the business offers a money back guarantee. It’s worth a look.
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