This is yet another article I wrote for Gametabs.net,but I figured, Hey! what’s the harm in posting it here? this is mainly electric guitar oriented, but im certain many of these principles which have worked for me in the past apply to any instrument (even voices).

Often enough I hear comments such as “I’ve been playing for a while and I just don’t improve”, “I’m no good, i’ve been playing for 2 years and I can’t even play a solo…”,
“How the hell do people play stuff like this??

or…”Why is it that I can’t even play something like this consistently?”

Wellll  I decided to share with those who ignore it, a bunch of general tips everyone knows, but never really mention when it comes to this. This is mainly from an electric guitarist perspective.

1.-Realize you’re in for a lot of work.
For 95% of people,playing guitar at a reasonably good level is far from a casual hobby, if you want to get decent you’re gonna have to work hard,practice, learn,grind, and probably hate such routine too. It pretty much means taking guitar seriously, and devoting more time to it. if you don’t feel like making that sort of commitment, it is alright, I’m sure everyone has their own reasons to play guitar, but if you’re wondering why you just don’t seem to improve, and you want to take your skills to the next level, you know where to start.

2.-Quality over quantity.
<em>Do I need to be some sort of antisocial hikki to get really good? I heard Steve vai and the like used to spend up to 7 hours a day playing!</em>
nah, not necesarily. it’s all about investing the time you have into practicing significant things, and working in your weak areas (one by one). Of course if you’re a person with all the time of the world at your disposal, you will see results faster than those who play an average of 20-30 minutes a day, however just playing 20-30 minutes a day, practicing stuff to improve your weak areas will add up faster than you think. (read: <em>practicing</em>, not jamming, or playing along to your favorite riffs).

3.-“Talent” is subjective.
Narutal talent is only a variable in the grand scheme of things. “Talent” will help you grasp and learn stuff faster, but that’s all it will do for you, don’t be disocuraged even if you feel you have no talent whatsoever for guitar playing, it only means you’ll have to work a little bit harder, but nothing impossible.

4.-Learn songs by ear.
Probably, pretty weird advice in a tab forum, and probably something which should be number 2 in the list, priority wise. Learning by ear is difficult at first, but once you get into the habit of doing it, not only will you improve your ear for notes, you will also refine your technique. How? listen and start emulating what your favorite guitarists do, dissect their technique, note per note, pay special attention to how they vibrato, how they bend, how they use a certain technique instead of other alternatives, when and where, listen to all those small details and practice them, aim to play like him, your favorite player, guitar tablature won’t teach you this. when you get stuck in a section you can’t accurately play, practice it until you can before moving on. and this leads to number 5.

5.-Metronomes, the keys to success.
The title says it all. If you haven’t yet, get a metronome, it will be a vital tool for any meaningful practice, it will be your measuring stick, your marker, as to just how good you can actually play something, and when you have actually mastered it. you don’t even have to buy one! pretty easy to get one online these days. typically people start out slow, really slow if needed, and build from there towards faster speeds.

5.-Record constantly
Record your guitar playing, listen to how awful you sound the first time (technique wise at least). this will give you a better idea on how much you need to improve, and later on, how much you have improved. And it’s actually a pretty fun activity! feel free to share your audio recordings with us.

6.-Grind over and over.

It aint pretty, it will even most likely get boring, but it will get the job done. with just some sacrifice you’ll see results before you know it, remember the point is to grind <em>properly </em>, make sure you are practicing correctly, that is, slow down the metronome if you can’t really play the phrase/lick/riff at the speed you’re attempting, challenge yourself, step out of your comfort zone and don’t look back. participate in our riff challenges! they’re definetly the kind of exercises required to start improving. the only reason they’re hard is because you haven’t actually tried them properly yet! that and you can’t really rush things, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get them, just keep at it, even at super slow speeds. And don’t get burned out! remember, grinding over and over doesn’t mean making guitar into a korean mmo.

7.-Theory. Oh Theory.
Learn theory, one of the biggest favors you can do to your playing. Albeit not a critical priority when you want to refine your technique, don’t overlook theory for too long, at least the bare basics.

You can play something like this with bare theory basics.

8.-Seriously, Realize you’re in for a lot of work.
Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results right away (right away being anywhere from a few weeks to a month or two). Don’t get discouraged if you find it extremely boring to practice with a metronome. “Taking guitar seriously” isn’t the most fun activity to do at first for a lot of people, but think about it, isn’t it like that with nearly everything you do in your everyday life? if you have the ambition, you’ll have the drive to do it. Happy grinding~

So I’ve started recording stuff again and opened up a new channel.

Why did I close my old one anyways? ah yes i’ve been asked this by some people who have managed to get a hold of me through twitter or the irc channel I host (irc.rizon.net/#gametabs ,come say hi sometime, we’re a chill community of VG and anime guitarists lol).

There isn’t any fancy story to it really, at that time I felt as if I wanted to take a break from everything anime/guitar related, life got busy, I was tired of 2 years of nearly constant playing, and I had met some of the milestones I had set for myself when I started recording videos. these were, as a shallow as they might sound:

-1k+ Subs

-Over 500k video views, with over 100k in a single one

-Meet a bunch of cool people.

In the process of this I had a blast of fun, improved my technique a lot, and learnt quite a couple things I would otherwise have not even graced. Yeah, I don’t know if some people think it is a shallow reason to start recording vids to get a lot of subs, but that was definetly the initial reason lol, I wanted to improve my skills, share my playing,have a blast, and in the process get a lot of subs. getting 1k subs for me certainly wasn’t a fast process, in relation to 500k video views I should have probably obtained 1k subs faster than the time it took, but hey. it was all about the music after some point!

But yes. regardless, 6 months ago at that time of my life, combined with other stuff, I felt as if I were done with that first stage, those first few milestones had been met. now lets combine 2 copyright warnings with a 3rd one looming in the horizon, I just decided to end the show while that choice was still mine lol.but that aside I wanna thank everyone who subbed to me at some point! and everyone who was kind enough to drop a comment in my videos too, or even just hit the like, and even dislike button, I really read through every comment you guys ever posted, and it was always a nice activity. in retrospection I wanted to use that time to sharpen my technique and then make a grand come back some day when I felt my playing had reached the next level. in reality I barely touched my guitar for the next 5-6 months following the closure of my channel lol. it was a refreshing break. sometimes I think I perhaps should’ve left it open and dormant during that period, but well, it was bound to get closed by a 3rd copyright strike sooner or later, leaving it around for some more time wasn’t really much of a benefical option lol.

at any rate! I randomly decided to start recording videos again. Lets see what unfolds this year~ and walls of text aside, visit my new channel sometime at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/StrangeXJam

Sometimes I get asked as to how one can  begin digital recording, that is, basic guidelines such as what gear to get, how expensive it is, specific recommendations, tips, sotfware and generally stuff whithin that frame,well, while i’m no expert on the subject by any means, not too long ago I wrote a quick reference guide on how to get started, I figure there’s no harm in revamping that old guide here. 

There aren’t any great secrets to home recording, this will be just a rough guideline to help anyone new to it get started. I won’t go into mixing as I’m far from knowledgeable when it comes to it.

Let’s cover this quickly in 3 stages:
A)What you need.
B)Setup
C)Future considerations

A)What you need

To start recording you’re gonna need the following:
-A guitar/digital recording interface:

now you may be wondering, what exactly is that? well to make it short, it will allow you to record directly into your computer without having to deal with problems such as latency and quality. I personally recommend line 6 interfaces like the PODstudio GX,UX1, and UX2, since I own a UX1 and I know friends with the GX and we are all extremely satisfied with the results. they cost around 99-200 dollars, depending on the model, ideally if you’re not gonna record by mic’ing an amp, a podstudio GX should suffice. did I mention they come with a software called POD farm? this is a VST amp modelling software which achieves really good results, so if you’re also a bedroom guitarist looking to get a good sounding tone but don’t wanna dish 1200 bucks on a valve amp this might be what you’re looking for. not the best example since my guitar has pretty bad pickups and my mixing skills terrible but if you want a quick reference I recorded this using POD farm ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NvarBZ38R8&feature=channel_video_title ). if you think that sounds bad…you’re not wrong! but just look up vids using the UX1,GX,or UX2 tags for better samples.

More info on said interfaces:
http://line6.com/podstudioux1/
http://line6.com/podstudiogx/

“I’ll contribute one thing if you’re concerned about latency but don’t have money immediately available for a TonePort/PODStudio/et c.: ASIO4ALL is a great app that can reduce latency to tolerable levels in any Windows DAW/recording software with ASIO support on just about any consumer-level sound card.

I use a SBLive! external USB’s Line In and my total in-out latency into Ableton Live with ASIO4ALL is <30ms. Not ‘perfect’, but far better than >120ms or so without the ASIO4ALL interface.”

-A Digital Audio Workstation:

This is basically where the magic happens, where you record, edit, add effects, mix and master. It all comes down to personal preference here but here’s a quick list of all the trusted big names:
-Cubase
-Sonar
-Reaper
-Adobe Audition 3.0
-Pro Tools
-Garage Band/Logic

Personally I use Reaper and Adobe Audition 3.0. these 2 let you load up VSTi effects(which is what pod farm is)and give you great control over your audio. Among all these Pro Tools is considered the best, that is, if you take the time to learn how to use it.

What is a VST plugin?
I feel like I should go over this real quick just for reference,aken straight from wikipedia:
“Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an interface for integrating software audio synthesizer and effect plugins with audio editors and hard-disk recording systems. VST and similar technologies use Digital Signal Processing to simulate traditional recording studio hardware with software. Thousands of plugins exist, both commercial and freeware, and VST is supported by a large number of audio applications. The technology can be licensed from its creator, Steinberg.”

And my quick explanation: A vst will give you realistic sounding tones and effects for a variety of instruments from guitars and synths to drums and bass guitars, but it is not just limited to that, a lot of audio mastering plug-ins(if not all) are VSTs. popular guitar amp modelling vsts are Amplitube,Guitar Rig, Pod Farm(highly recommended) and…oh yeah! a bunch of free ones like Nick Crow’s 8085.

Randomly felt like making one of these today. seems like a blogging plataform isn’t it? I’ve never been one to have interesting things to blog about but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to post the stuff I cover and other random ramblings in here every now and then. so To anyone reading this. ‘sup