USB guitar

http://www.behringer.com/IAXE393/index.cfm?lang=ENG

Have at it...maybe do a solo for the company intranet. :D

$149.99 MSRP? Probably $119.99 street price. Yeah, this is gonna be a fine instrument.

I do like the picture of the twin speakers on the laptop screen, though. Bet those sound mighty fine. :rolleyes:

A good friend will warn you against buying Behringer products. A best friend will take your wallet and keys until the urge passes.

Behringer is well known for appropriating the technology of other older and more established manufacturers. That being said, I have bought several of their items over the years, and all of them are still functional, FWIW.

behringer = ass

cheap components, poor design.

Yeah. I know everybody says that. My experience is different, however. I bought a Behringer 300W head when I first started playing bass. It was kind of a whim at the time and we were going to play an outdoor venue, so I wanted something cheap and loud.

Since then, I've tried a number of other heads and amps. Now that I've been playing for a bit, I'm willing and able to pay a bit more for a better sound. So far I haven't found anything that sounds as good until you get above $1000.

I should say that I'm not playing rock, I'm playing jazz, so my needs are modest.

smoothmoniker wrote:

behringer = ass

cheap components, poor design.

No argument from me that it isn't pro gear, but I'm not a pro. Hell, I'm barely an amateur. SM, I'd guess that your gear requirements are much more stringent than mine. My livelihood doesn't depend on my Behringer gear.

You know what? You are absolutely right.

I tend to become an ass-hatted gear snob whenever talking about consumer level audio - not my most attractive feature (my ass is!). The reality is, this thing is probably really fun to play, and that's exactly what it's built for. So, rock on, and ignore my haughty stares of disdain. Shame on me for killing your joy.

Nah...I *do* know the value of a good guitar, even though I am a hack. I wouldn't buy this thing with someone else's money. I have had decent luck with several Behringer items that are not instruments, though.

Many years ago I recall seeing a guitar player who was sponsored by Ibanez. One day he had a new guitar. Instead of plugging in one of those quarter-inch plugs, he had a cable with an RS-232 connector on it. The other end patched through the high-tech keyboardy thing (honestly don't recall the brand, was either an Ensonics or a Korg) and did all kinds of amazing MIDI things with it.

This was in 1987 or so.

Guitar synths have come a long way since then. I have a Roland GR33, and even though it is now decade-old technology, it tracks perfectly and has a lovely sound set. I still lust for the older Roland analogue guitar synths, though. Someday...

The GR33 is indeed standing up to the Test of Time as they say, I had one (stolen!!) and loved it. Seeing this post makes me want to go out and get another but there's soooo much software now that can process whatever guitar sounds you make. I mess around with keyboards, too, and, cheesy as this may sound:

http://www.macmusic.org/software/view.php/lang/en/id/440/

you know, it really isn't bad at all! Plus you can do riffs and chords at speed that would be impossible for an non- Alan Holdsworth type player.

Which includes just about everyone on the planet.

Not really a usb-axe point...


Was recently exposed to GarageBand for the Macintosh systems. I don't have a Mac and I'm looking for something approximately equivalent for the Windows platform. Doesn't *have* to be free, but I'm not made of money. This will be for SonofV for his computer to compliment what they're doing in school on the Macs there.

TIA

There's not a lot of substitutes for Garageband given the price. Emagic was bought out by Apple several years back and Apple has used their technology to it's advantage. But since Garageband is basically a software synth and about 1,000 loops (much more with the expansion pack), you can get similar results using several Windows programs:

1. Band-in-a-Box is probably the cheapest...google "pgmusic"
2. Acid Loops is another good program very similar to Garageband with a better beatmapping tool.

right now 3. Reason by Propellerheads is about the best thing going and simple to use, unfortunately it's about $500 (a lot less if you are doing the bit torrent thing or .nfo files). http://www.propellerheads.se/index.cfm


also 4. FLS Studio is easy to use and not that expensive check it out here:

http://flstudio.com/

also, Ableton is good but expensive as hell--like most of them. Band in a Box is your cheapest out there now. Oh, yeah, you might check out Reaper http://www.reaper.fm/ wihich is Windows-based and only about $40 or so.

hope this helps.