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Old 01-15-2019, 04:11 PM
MileHighJC MileHighJC is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2019
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Wow! Thanks for the input so far all! Lots of good ideas... and ways to spend money (as if I needed any other excuses).


Quote:
Originally Posted by beninma View Post
You could do a lot worse than purchasing the following:

- An amp (You already have this)
- A looper (TC Ditto is the one for me, dead simple so less to learn)
- Something like a Beat Buddy Mini

You don't have to plug your guitar into the Amp necessarily if you just want to have something to play drums/metronome for you, but the looper with an acoustic will let you lay down a part to play with.

An amazing practice tool setup. My setup is with the Beat Buddy before the looper, I typically record the Beatbuddy + rhythm track into the looper and then turn off the beat buddy.

I have a ton of iOS apps that can do rhythm stuff but I kind of feel like they all suck compared to the Beat Buddy. The Beatbuddy is super no-nonsense and works really well. The majority of the iOS rhythm apps don't do any time signatures except 4/4 without swing which is highly annoying. (I think the target market is probably EDM) Another thing that drives me nuts is a lot of iOS apps will just stop playing when power saving kicks in.

The only thing I wish the Ditto had was a line in to pump backing tracks through the amp. But my AMP doesn't have that. If your amp has a line-in you're set, although I still think it's better when the looper has it, as you can then loop any music as a backing track. I previously had a Digitech Jamman that did have a line in but that looper was stupendously overcomplicated and so I traded it for the ditto.
I really had not thought of a dedicated drum backer... I was thinking that I might try to feed a drum track in from my MIDI keyboard, but the beat buddy sounds like a WHOLE lot easier.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Osage View Post
Although not always easy or even possible, the single best thing you can do to improve your playing is to play with others. Maybe find someone whose been playing about as long as you have and get together to jam or show each other things. Playing with someone else really pushes you to both play your best and to take it to the next level.
Im a "social" kind of guy, so I am hoping to get good enough to not outright embarass myself when I try that. I do have one neighbor who is at at similar point in the journey, and another one that I think had gigged a little bit. I also have a reasonably close friend who is an EXCEPTIONAL blues guitar guy. With a little work, I might be able to play along with the first two. I would love to be able to play along with the last guy, but that is going to take a lot more work.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy4 View Post
Here's a recent topic where I posted my looper recommendations:

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=534400

There are lots of different things you can do to encourage "practicing", and my barebones looper setup has been a lot of fun. Investigate exactly what you want to accomplish with a looper; it's very easy to pick out something that might not mesh well with how you intend on using one.

Do note my recommendation for a dedicated stop switch. The single button loopers are difficult for most folks to use well.

I initially put a toe in the water by purchasing a Zoom G1on multi-effects pedal. This $60 multi-effects unit has a built-in headphone amp, nice built-in drums, and a rudimentary looper, but only good for 30 seconds. If the G1on had a decent loop length it would be an IDEAL practice aid. I loved using it, but the 30 second loop time was too restrictive, so I opted for the dedicated looper shown in the photo on the linked topic.
You have my attention on the dedicated stop switch. I am naturally a klutz, already struggling trying to sing while playing (Grumble, generally doesnt work for me), so getting the double tap sounds like another source of frustration.

Based upon what I am reading here, I am pretty close to picking up a beat buddy mini 2, and a Ditto X2 (to get the dedicated button). Looks like the beat buddy has an optional external double switch (looks a lot like what you built). Im handy enough I might try building one... doesnt look hard, but I definitely dont understand the operating principle behind it yet, but Im sure a little google research would yield that answer.

If I were to go for this it sounds like the set up is guitar into the beat buddy, fed into the looper, then to the PA on one input, a mike on the other input, and perhaps the iPhone music feed over the aux to the PA. Does that sound right?
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