Ditching guitar? One man band content.

[univalve]

Electro ilf solo stuff - 2016, here we come!

[Jwar]

I've been a one man band for years. It's depressing too. LOL!!! I miss jamming with people but at the same time, I'm glad I don't have to play what anyone else wants to play. UGH.

What I want to do, my ultimate goal.

Killer drum machine that is intuitive and doesn't take a shit ton of time to create beats.
Some synths or euro's for backing. Moog I'm looking at you, but I may go a different route.
A good mic for vocals.
And my bass.

Oh and something decent to record with. I don't want to use iPad anything though. I fucking hate that shit. I hate using it for my H9 already. It drives me nuts.

I don't need a guitar. I thought I wanted one, but I don't. I've played bass for far too long.

[drdoom]

Good thread. I have just started doing a solo thing just as a distraction from band stuff and have found it pretty stress free and relaxing.

Using a SS Squier Jag bass, various pedals, boss DR3 drum machine and recording to ableton live lite. Pretty simple, but that's the beauty of it

[ThurberMingus]

After playing my Bass VI for all of two weeks I would feel totally comfortable just playing a four-string bass. Bass is tight. Part of the reason I think samplers would be the way to go is the fact that: A) I can use headphones and not disturb bae when she's doing homework and B) I could get by with bringing a small pedalboard and have no shortage of sounds. Lugging around/hooking up all my pedals + different instruments + a computer seems like a disaster. I can barely deal with a simple pedalboard. I'm seriously always fucking that shit up.

I'm kind of fed up with being in a band too. Like how hard is it for you to get one Saturday off from your job at the liquor store? I mean sure it's a nice liquor store, but for fuck's sake. That and the fact that we constantly have endless jam sessions. It's fun but like, I have some serious ideas and it's hard to try and convey that to others without destroying the "group effort" that makes being in a band so fun. I don't want to be controlling but I don't want to make amateur music anymore either. If my solo act sucks I'm the only one to blame. I'd much rather hate myself than my friend.

I'm just depressed. I'm gonna go buy some cigarettes and deal with my musical frustration that way.

I'm loving this thread too. Really cool to hear everyones gear and methods. It's good to know I'm not alone when I'm playing music alone

[psychic vampire.]

Sounds like maybe get a second sampler with more sampling capabilities and a patchulator or other patch bay, you already have a handful of pedals, that should really be enough to make a go of it? Hell, fuck overdrives, get a mackie 1202 or Boss BX8 as yr mixer and just turn up the gain, it worked for literally the entire genres of techno and trance, it will work for us.

I feel you on band challenges, i dontnwant to be authoritative about ideas, and i loathe other people who act this way, but sometimes you just want to get something done without it being a "thing".

[neonblack]

I hope 2016 is the year of ILF collaboration to the max. I wanna play guitar for all you guys who are sick of playing guitar.

[codetocontra]

The last year I have been in the same boat: failing band, not fulfilled, wanting to do more, feeling depressed, etc.. Now I have a new band starting up and I find myself just being lazy, not putting enough time and energy into the band and leaving no time to devote to my solo noise project.

I fell in love with an idea for a simple setup: purchase a drum machine and a Drone Commander to run into my EP3 and RE501. Instead of buying a TR8 that I really desired I ended up with a TR707, still cool but different in approach. Drone Commander became unobtanium and my interest has since waned a bit. I considered a Bass Station 2 and a SP202/303, and to be honest, many other things, which is sort of just a crutch to buy new gear while not producing any music with what I have.

The biggest hurdle I have in my solo plan is that I want to play live, if only to validate myself and the project. But I really don't have the courage to do something weird all alone in front of a bunch of strangers in a town overflowing with more bands than music goers and even fewer stages. I can't imagine a scenario where people pay attention to what I do rather than going outside to smoke. In reality, I am sure I would go over well at an art gallery but I am far removed from that world.

Another issue I have is I dread the setup and tear down of a large and complicated setup. Makes me just want to take a large pedalboard and just make weird noises for a half hour.

[manymanyhaha]

Push 2 is the sampler of my dreams. It's so easy and simple.

[rfurtkamp]

All depends on what you want to make. I'm happy doing soundscapes and outside weird. I don't need percussion (only ever played with one drummer that didn't drive me batty in twenty-some years, and that unicorn has long sailed), vocals are a sometimes treat at best (and a textural thing).

With a few amps, parallel processing, and a master board of common effects, grand things happen.

I've always hated drum machines.

[MrNovember]

I wouldn't really call myself a one man band, but I haven't jammed with any one or been in a legit band for a long time. I have very few friends that share similar tastes in music, so the band thing has never been satisfying for me. I also came to the conclusion that strings just really aren't my thing. I was never happy with anything I wrote on guitar; it always just sounded so generic and boring. Also lyrics just aren't a thing I can do. And I can support a band on bass, but I'm never actually inspired to play it outside of a band setting. Because of all that my playing evolved into ambient drones and soundscapes, which eventually lead to synths and modular. Since starting with synth I've really come to terms with the fact that I'm not a guitar player and I never really was.

I have been somewhat subconsciously building a pretty cool one man band set up though. I never really intended to perform live, but the closer my modular plan comes to fruition, the more I realize I could put together a pretty awesome set. I have the modular, which can handle everything from generative rhythms and glitchy samples to massive drones and ambience to standard subtractive synth stuff. I also have a Microbrute, kept a few key pedals, and I plan on buying a Blippoo Box. Connect it all with a Patchulator and a mixer, and control a few things with the Koma Kommander, and I can easily patch up an interesting set.

Overall, I'm super happy with my music and don't find this depressing at all, but I'm also an introvert and would prefer jamming by myself than with other people anyway

[coldbrightsunlight]

So this thread has inspired me to sell some stuff and invest in more synthy gear.

What would people recommend for a fun and fairly cheap hardware drum machine/sampler? I want to be able to sequence drums directly on the hardware without diving into computers, and alter sequences on the fly, and maybe trigger samples as well. I'm a bit of a novice with this sort of thing so user friendly is important! Looking at up to maybe £300? Cheaper is better because I also want other stuff and I'm just dipping my toes into this world but I am willing to pay for something super cool. Soundwise, just want respectable sounding electronic drums, I will probably be processing them with fx for wilder noises.

/hijack

[D.o.S.]

I hope 2016 is the year of ILF collaboration to the max. I wanna play guitar for all you guys who are sick of playing guitar.

Backing this, hard. Most of the awesome part of being in a band is making music with other people, anyway.

[Invisible Man]

Don't ditch your guitar. Just buy some drums. For real. It's super fun.

I bought guitar, drums, and bass at roughly the same time (~15). I'm 29 now, so I've gotten pretty proficient with all of them, drums in particular. I record all of my own stuff, have no limits on creativity, and can fuck around endlessly with stuff that interests me. Seems like the big limitation for ILFers is always percussion/rhythm...we can figure bass out, but finding convincing drum samples or drum machine tracks is nigh impossible in my experience.

With a real kit, you can just buy shit you like. Buy two snares, tune 'em weird, go for it. Use busted cymbals. There's a whole contingent on this forum who would flip the eff out if they had access/interest in a real kit. And they're not crazy expensive these days--prices have gone waaaaay down since I was peddling kits for Guitar Center over a decade ago. I bought a killer Sonor Bop kit for like $420-something dollars last year.

I know it's impractical...maybe this post just amounts to me bragging. But it's super fun, and you should just dive in if you can. Record to two tracks (kick and overhead), then add guitar/bass/synth. If I had fewer babies I'd be on album seven by now.

Samplers are fun, but nothing beats aggressively produced tactile music on physical instruments. Nothing.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Long term plan is still 100% to find somewhere to live where I can have a drumkit and recording garage where I can be loud, it just won't be achievable for the next year or two so I'm going down some other avenues for satisfying solo recording.

[D.o.S.]

One of the benefits of living (relatively) in the woods is that until this most recent spot we always had space for a drum kit and neighbors who were relatively amenable.