IceCreamMan Hiya! Long time! Thanks for stoppin' as you pass by.

V8 I haven't given it much thought no, other than what I've picked up in passing from better minds than mine - the business side has never attracted my attention for long enough to really know what is going on in it. The conclusions I've given seem fairly self evident when the situation is viewed objectively though. I will say that music became a huge part of the counter-culture, and as such it was divided up, commoditised, controlled, homogonized and ultimately devalued. I could go all Chomsky on you along those lines...

I saw Thriller when it came out. Watched it with a bunch of rockers and we all raved about it. Fortunately it was a time when good music was recognised by all, regardless of genre. Pop, rock, soul, RnB, blues, avant garde, new wave, new romantic, ska, jazz, fusion, classical, whatever - we listened, watched and enjoyed it all and most of it could be heard on the radio.

Actually here's a clip with just one guitar and three delay lines that should also help illustrate the delay stuff. No guitar synth or drums - it's just the two guitar outputs of my Strat (piezo, magnetic), each split into two lines (piezo, Piezo pad, delayed mag, delayed mag -8ve). http://ratcliffe.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/A_Alan_The-Madding-Crowd.mp3

Dingleberry
1. Firstly, because they are both synched to the tempo. Different delay values, but both set to related note values. Secondly, they are single-shot delays, with no feedback, so each repeats only once (actually, the harpsichord sound uses a dual delay, panned hard left and right, so it actually seems to repeat once. Actually you can have lots of fun with this technique just by changing the relative levels of the guitar sound and each of the three delays - you can create interesting rhythms if one or more of the delayed sounds is louder than the others.

2. I approach it more as a recording mix - I have that luxury, because everything is DI'd and every element of every sound in every song is saved into patches on each respective unit. So I will compress, EQ, add ambience and set levels on each and every part separately and save the settings. So all the tricks of recording mixing apply: I can EQ and compress each part to fit with every other part - either as a masked composite (where different sounds blend together - like kick and bass) or as discrete "leading" elements of the mix; I can apply special FX or specific EQ or dynamics settings to any single part in any song and have completely different settings and mix for the next song.
   The downside to this approach is it takes quite a bit of work ahead of time and you have to be aware of how a mix changes at different listening levels (that's experience). It also makes moving patches around a chore. The upsides are many - Every instrument can change from song to song; I can flick a single switch on my guitar (set to program Up/Down) and have vocals, drums, guitar, bass and keys all change instantly and together - I can literally start the next song an instant after the preceding one has finished; I can monitor the entire mix in my in-ears and know exactly what the audience are hearing; when adding new songs to the repertoire, I can mix and match patches to suit as a quick starting point.

FYI: I'll be around to check in for more questions over the next week. Feel free to ask more.

guitarboy2828
Joe's Fender Vibrochamp. But I'd say for most of us who regularly need to play at low volumes or with headphones, a decent modelling amp is probably the best way to go.

Tuckstir
Yes, coil splitting is never a bad idea - it gives you extra tonal options. Even if you don't use them often. Many of the best/most popular basses come stock with single coils.

A bit of hum never hurt anyone and it's unlikely to be a major problem in most venues anyway. In those rare places where it is, you just stick with the humbucking sounds...

guitarboy2828
Focus. Plan your practising and work on one thing exclusively with each session. Spend just five minutes the next session recapping what you worked on the time before then move on. Plan at least one session a week just to play and have fun.

Yes, coil splitting is never a bad idea - it gives you extra tonal options. Even if you don't use them often. Many of the best/most popular basses come stock with single coils.

A bit of hum never hurt anyone and it's unlikely to be a major problem in most venues anyway. In those rare places where it is, you just stick with the humbucking sounds...

V8
I asked for it. :-) OK here goes.

1.a Any buffer circuit will have an effect, stopping cables from filtering some of the high frequencies. To me it sounds like you have guitar speakers that actually have a bit of an extended range or the amp is accentuating those frequencies, so you are hearing frequencies pop out that you wouldn't with another amp. The compression of drive circuits and some buffers will sometimes tame this. A lowpass filter at around 4 kHz (the usual dropoff frequency of a 12" speaker) would be a good next test. Ideally it would have to be as late in the chain as possible (the loop or even built into the amp), but up front might work to confirm.

1.b A boost pedal is best used as part of your FX/amp chain to kick an amp harder or to shape the sound, not to boost for recording levels. A decent interface's input will be quiet enough to rather boost the signal level there if needed. BUT rather leave lots of headroom and get into the habit of normalising your recorded tracks (like we had to do in the old days ?) to bring each to a max peak level so dynamic effects and drive sims operate in a fairly predictable and consistent manner.

2. D'Addario EJ46FF (carbon) on the nylon. I usually use normal EJ46 (composite basses) as the basses last really well, but found really liked the carbon third in that set - they tend to settle fast and stay very stable for the lifespan of the set, while the nylon 1st and 2nd are constantly stretching. I'll probably start using a mixed set next with the composite basses and carbon trebles.
   D'Addario .011 chromes on the Strat. I like high tension and hate changing strings. I've rediscovered the joy of sliding around the fingerboard with them as well as the horror of bending a wound 3rd.

3. Me. The guitars, the effects the amps are always what make me pick up and play, not other players. I'm too idiosyncratic a player to do a lot of what other players are doing anyway. I'm more likely to get fired up by other styles of music (including all the instruments and arrangement), like Latin, or Two-Tone, or Baltic Gypsy. But that's more to figure out what makes it sound the way it does than to try and cop every last note the guitarist is playing. Also, I have to say: one surefire way to get me to pick up a guitar is to pass me copious amounts of filthy lucre (I'm finding I'm becoming quite mercenary as I get older, mostly due to my addictions to luxuries like food, water and electricity) ...

4. Oh, I suffer GAS attacks all the time. I just rarely succumb to it. When I say to myself "Self, you want it, but do you need it?" Now I have most things I actually need, the answer is usually "no".

5. Lotsa stuff! A recent great memory was not even a performance per se. I was working as a guitar tech for Johnny Clegg and was asked to stand in for him during soundcheck (never mind I don't play steel strings or use a plectrum. "Play anything!" Vernie the sound guy shouts). So, after a moment of thought, start start bashing out 10CCs "Dreadlock Holiday". Next thing I know, the rest of the band decides to drop in behind me and I have a world class, rock solid rhythm section and accompaniment propelling the music up to great heights. "Thank you! Bass please!" yells Vernie 30 seconds later and all of us except Trevor grind to a halt. 'Twere a great 30 seconds though...

6. Wrong question. Ask not how the industry can change for you, but rather how you can change to fit into the industry as it stands (but still stand out). Change is inevitable and the onus is always on you to adapt.

7. Yes. But the situation is probably best viewed as a normalisation of an anomaly. With the advent of radio and then TV as mass entertainment devices, music became far more important than ever before in history, and that bubble lasted for a long while. But now things have shifted again and music has taken it's more usual place, as part of culture, rather than the dominant force within it. To see what direction you must go, see where the mass culture has moved and move along with it, attaching yourself to the new dominant forces.

NorioDS
Singing: Just start doing it. You'll soon be surprising yourself. First I worked with someone who was a singer for a year and eased myself in by doing backing vocals. Then I took a month off and practised the hell out it. Then started gigging again. When you are doing it every day, it's amazing how quickly you improve. I'm still not a really good singer and I still rely on my harmoniser to keep me on the straight and narrow, but I'm not embarrassing myself either.

Rack: It's whatever does the job really. But I try not to skimp on quality. I've tried to simplify down to as few devices to get the job done as possible. So there's an Eleven Rack for guitar (a bit underpowered, but sounds good and has the basics) with a Fishman Aura Spectrum DI in the loop, a TC Helicon Voicelive Rack for vox, a Focusrite Liquid 56 as a line mixer, a Mackie Quad EQ for room EQ, a Samson PB10 for power and then patch panels on the front and back to connect up everything else (Powercon in and out for power and XLRs for powered speakers on the back panel; Inputs for mic, guitar synth, drum brain and vocal footswitch, as well as MIDI in and out). It's quick and easy to set up (30 minutes loadout and setup time).

Guitars: It's mostly just the two now: Carvin NS-1 nylon (two voice) and the Strat I built myself (three voice). Those are the guitars I actually play. The other two are my bass (for recording and the occasional support role) and my Sanox (retired, but keep for sentimental reasons). I've tried and owned just about everything, but those are what I always actually use. There's no reason for me to keep a dozen on the wall if I'm not going to play them, and I'd rather not spend the time and money to feed them strings every month if I'm not using them. There is also the ecological angle - which weighs heavier on me every year as more and more species of the woods I love are CITES listed.

Dingleberry
Hi D
There are quite a few tricks I use.
Mostly I'm splitting the bass and the treble side of the guitar: Modelled bass on the lower two or three strings and then one or two synth sounds on the upper strings. Normal guitar out goes through its own processor and I treat it normally (if you can regard plugging a nylon string into amp, speaker sims and FX as "normal" that is).

A technique I use a lot (& I think the one that threw you) is to delay one or more of the sounds. What makes the difference is that I often use it as a delay instead of an echo - to delay the sound. This means the delayed sound will be all wet signal, with no original sound and no feedback. So basically you'll hear the non delayed sounds first (e.g. bass or guitar), then a moment later you hear the synth sound. You know when you play off a delay, synching in with the tempo, and it creates a rhythm all of it's own? This technique gets that, but with completely different sounds, such as guitar and Hammond organ playing against each other. Take a listen to this snippet for an example (recorded live), where the two synth sounds are delayed, so they lock in around the guitar: http://ratcliffe.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tyler.mp3

V8 Just so's you know... I'm expecting a couple of questions from you.

Wizard wrote: Now makes sense that the energy from one piezo pickup is being used to buzz the other piezos - thus less available to be amplified.

Also thought of putting a layer of epoxy over the top of the piezo to both protect the fragile solder connections, as well as protect the piezo layer.

Meron Rigas wrote: You are incredibly welcome! Would love to hear your setup in full swing... 8)

Bonus points for shooting a little video during the take, just to see you doing the one man band thing live?