JMA-1 First timer..

[Sonic Mountain]

Honestly, Garageband has you covered with virtual amps and pedals. There is a massive selection that are all totally adjustable and customisable. It is the best substitute to actually having a band to play with. Setup some drums, lay down bass and rhythm then just solo like an asshole for hours. GB never gets bored or drops a beat. For the price of the interface its an amazing piece of software. Plus you can spend and extra $5 and get extra virtual drummers or more loops or whatever. I've been using music making software since the Amiga 2000 and GB is hands down the best IMO. Sure Pro Tools might be industry standard, pro level, but it simply doesn't do half of what GB does for free. Its actually the main reason I still use a mac as a work station.

EDIT: This is what I have - its plug and play, little bit of fiddling to get multitrack to work

https://www.jbhifi.com.au/m-audio/m-...erface/330033/

A mate I collaborate with in Sydney has one of these - its pretty much idiot proof

https://www.storedj.com.au//apogee-j...QaAi7eEALw_wcB

And here is a track I whipped up in it. 15-20mins work largely improvised, its great as you can loop back over sections and do a bunch of takes until you are happy.

https://soundcloud.com/magicbullets/drive

[dave.king1]

Nice build Grubsta, minimalist and very tidy

I use Reaper on the PC and have a couple of small/cheap USB connected mixers, Peavey PV6 and Behringer Xenyx Q502 USB, the Behringer has a much smaller footprint than the Peavey and also includes a pretty reasonable compressor.

I also use Kuassa Vermillion as my amp sim when not micing a real amp

More than happy with both. ( the electric guitar in both is my Pitbull Tele )

Road To Forbes was recorded using the Peavey
https://soundcloud.com/suthol/road-to-forbes

Lost Love was recorded using the Behringer
https://soundcloud.com/suthol/lost-l...e-pain-goes-on

The Lost Love link plays on with one of my mates songs, not sure what interface he uses but he has a heavy duty Mac and uses Logic Pro

[Simon Barden]

The Boss Katana seems to be the favourite modelling amp at the moment. Been to a couple of guitar shows where they were using them as the performance stage amps. I know the Andertons demos use them quite a lot as well.

There really isn't an 'industry standard' DAW any more. Pro Tools isn't as popular as it once was, but a lot of studios have it just because it's expected. But they normally have Logic as well, (or whatever a producer brings with them on their own computer) and quite often often the tracking is done in Pro Tools, then transferred over to say Logic for mixing. There is still a lot of love for Cubase, especially if there's a lot of MIDI work involved, and a lot of pros are now using the very cost effective Reaper. Ableton is also very popular in the EDM scene, but generally all the DAWs have the same level of features, but some make it easier than others to do certain things. One of my producer acquaintances, Jack Ruston, travels round several studios to work, and works on any DAW the studio has or the band bring with them (as often these days they have bits they've recorded themselves at home).

[tommycarlos]

Ok ill have a look. I have looked at the iRig a few times and had considered buying one. I only have a small 10w Marshall amp and its not bad but you really can't do a lot with it either i don't really have the pennies to buy something more versatile at the moment so getting an interface that i could plug into the Mac seems like a reasonable option. Marshall have their range of small modelling amps i would love to try one of those but ill have to save some cash first.

I'll give a +1 for iRig. I have an iRig Pro that I adore. I got the pro as it can be used with XLR mic leads as well for vocals. I do all my songwriting in GarageBand (those drummers!), and it even works with iOS so I can use GB on my iPad or iPhone in a pinch.

The iRig into my iPhone makes a great headphone practice solution as well. I can get sounds similar to my real main sound (RAT -> Muff Fuzz blended at about 50% -> delays and reverbs, etc -> Vox AC30) without annoying the neighbours .

[Sonic Mountain]

Yeah its handy having GB on the phone. One of the guys I do stuff with records vocals on his phone in the car and then we just port it through to the Desktop project.

For quick demos it sounds surprisingly good - for what is pretty terrible music. Except when he does it while driving and you can hear the indicator etc going lol. Its very much a s**ts and giggles band so doesn't matter to much.

[Grubsta]

Thanks for all the feedback and info guys. Seeing as I already have garage band on my Mac i think ill just buy an interface and have a play around with that.

[churchie]

I was at JB Hi Fi today and noticed they stock the Focusrite Scarlett range of audio interfaces. Particularly the Solo and the 2i2.

https://www.jbhifi.com.au/focusrite/...erface/997701/
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/focusrite/...erface/997705/


I have the 6i6 and can recommend their products

[king casey]

I was at JB Hi Fi today and noticed they stock the Focusrite Scarlett range of audio interfaces. Particularly the Solo and the 2i2.

I've been using the Focusrite Scarlett Solo for quite a while on my main computer.
I prefer it over the Presonus Audiobox slightly....and not just because it's red.

cheers, Mark.

[Grubsta]

Thanks again for the info guys i ended up going with the iRig2 i haven't really played around with it too much but had a quick test with the amplitube app on my phone and it seemed to work pretty well. I tried using it with Garageband but have some issues there i think i might need a 1/4" to usb adaptor to get it to work properly.

[Grubsta]

Well i can finally say that i'm at the finish line on this one now overall build time has been about 6 weeks. I thought it might take longer but i'm happy with the final result. Being my first build i wanted to just keep it simple and learn the basics first before i try more complex ideas. Its been a great experience building this guitar and i now know that feeling of satisfaction you get from finishing a kit but also being able to plug it in and hear it. It has a few little flaws that would probably be mostly only apparent to me but i'm still happy with it. Its comfortable to play and has a nice sound probably not a GOTM winner but its perfect for me.
My next kit was going to be a JK-1 but my 7 year old daughter is keen for me to build a guitar for her so the plan has changed to a STR-1JR i don't know what I've got myself into on that one because she wants it either pink or purple with a unicorn on it. It will also be painted obviously which is a new challenge for me so ill order that in the next few weeks and see how we go.

Heres some better photos of the JMA cheers and a big shoutout to everyone that has helped me along the way with this kit (you folks know who you are) your advice and help has been invaluable along the way and has also got me out of a few issues as well.
Cheers
Russell