How do you jam?

NorioDS

How do you jam at home?

I love putting on a backing track and letting rip. Sometimes I find that I can come up with some really amazing and unique stuff depending on which track I'm playing along to. Other times I end up with the same old same old!

Any hoo -- I'm used to connecting my laptop to my creative labs 3.1 speakers. Decent sound but I find it irritating having to lug the laptop around.

I recently connected my SanDisk MP3 player to the speakers and it was pretty decent but not loud enough.

What other decent options are there out there? How do you do it?

AlanRatcliffe

These days, I usually just load a drum loop into one of the "tape" decks in Guitar Rig and let it loop.

Occasionally I'll build backing tracks in Sonar, laying down a whole song's worth of drums, bass and rhythm, and play along.

Everything goes through a mixer and into my pair of KRK V8 monitors, so there's plenty volume and I don't have to do much to balance the levels as everything is more-or-less preset.

NorioDS

Sounds cool! I'm looking forward to getting a Boss recording pedal so I can do the drum track thing. Should add a new dimension to my jamming.

AlanRatcliffe

I've had a few different Boss drum boxes over the years, and they are (almost) always easy to use - mostly very intuitive (one area Boss/Roland always seem good at is user interface). I'm guessing that if anything they have refined this in the newer models and the stuff like the BR series. I'd be interested in hearing how easy you find it to use when you get yours.

Garth-S

There is a cool new rhythm interface for your pc for the boss br series coming out in mid feb. It looks great and should make it very easy to lay down a good drum track quickly, and its going to be a free download. Check out the thread -> http://microrecorders.org/community/rhythm-and-drums/boss-br-rhythm-editor/0 and the screenshot -> http://www.roland.com/products/en/BR-900CD_Version_2/images/info_03R_L.jpg . I'm stoked because it will work with the br600 ?

NorioDS

Will definitely post a recording or 2 here once I get my recorder and let you know how it went.

I'm so excited!

Spyke

I really need to get into the backing track thing.

Since playing in my little group / band, i've found it tough to jam on my own and make it enjoyable. We're 3 electrics and a bass so all our pieces are simple as to not muddy the sound when we layer our parts.

nowadays i just rip out on my own, no backing.

LMinnie

When Spyke and myself get together we usually whip out the 'ol tab and chord file that we play and just let rip...no drum loops or anything like that.

We have quite a repetoire of early 90's rock and alternative that we go through and every now and again we bust out a random made up piece which we tend to forget when were done :-[

We have a serious logistical problem tho....He's in Jozi ,I'am in Cape Town so our sessions are usually played during business trips and holidays. ☹