The Steel Guitar Forum

We ran this up the pole @ Dallas and I haven't gotten much response on the subject so I guess I am gunna run with this one and do the Research & Development .

Later

Tuck

I have not used an ipod, but i have used an mp3 cd, and audio cd. My next move will be an ipod. Just make sure it is a good one, and I will keep a cheaper on along for backup. Some in the output jacks on those are pretty flimsy, and the tiny cables can get tweaked easily.

One of my guitarist friends uses an ipod all the time for his backing tracks when he is doing the solo stints! Not sure whether it's a nano or the bigger one that takes videos clips as well, but he just sits it up on his music stand and controls everything from there !! very compact and sounds brilliant.

I use the iPod for practice trax.
I also use it to sort songs by set, by band.
I listen to these to get ready for a job.

I download the Praise and Worship music from our music minister. I use it to practice or jog my memory. Great tool.

R2

I'm beginning to use it alot. BIAB tracks will convert to mp3, so they load right into my ipod. Compact and portable. I'm still learning how to make it all work like I want it to, but I am heading down that path. As a learning tool for a beginner, it's great! If I can ever figure out how to have the cord chart load into the Ipod with the track.....I guess you get the picture there..

i have used it as a practicing tool. i have played along with songs and also used instructional cd's imported to the ipod. the one nice thing is that it is extremely easy to
'rewind" to the spot you want. and play it over and over.

with fingerpicks on.

laid right on the guitar.

I have used my Iphone for a single gig and it worked great.

I use the Ipod for backing tracks. I got the Classic 120gb because it will play WAV files and has lots of room to store them. I use WAV because they sound better to me than Mp3.

I prefer not to use an iPod or MP3 as they greatly degrade the sound, so I have used a Sony MiniDisc to backup audio tracks, Sony's ATRAC format is the nearest audio format to the original CD quality. Now I'm fully aware that most people cannot hear the "High End" distortion caused by MP3's or iPods so called "Compression" but it's very audible, and once you hear it, you'll notice it on the radio and other well known music sources today.... Sorry but I'm from the old school, and I believe if you pay good money for good sound, you should be able to tell the difference, I'd rather have 20 good quality songs to choose from, then 200 of degraded quality. Some portable devices do allow you to save your "Wave" files directly, and then can be played with no loss of audio quality...But IMHO Most Steelers with their keen ears will notice MP3 and iPod distortion...and a "Backup" should be the same quality as the original.

The iPod is a fabulous practice tool! I use it heavily, in the same ways mentioned by Ron Randall.

Curtis there are many options when you import songs: WAV, AIFF, AAC (a high quality Apple format I think, Apple Lossless, and lastly MP3 at various bit depths. So if you have a roomy iPod that can store the higher quality formats, it's easily done.

I import mostly as MP3 at 192 kbps; compared to standard 128, the songs sound much better, I could hear the distortion and lo-fi in 128 MP3's.

Any of those can be set as the default import setting, so iTunes is really a great formatting app, in fact.

The convenience of the iPod outweighs the slightly better sound quality of CD's, especially when on the road, imho.

I haven't used my iPod for backup tracks, but I can see where it would be very useful for that, especially the ease of organizing songs into playlists. I do use it constantly for other music related stuff.

There are a few good chromatic tuners for the iPod touch (2nd generation) or iPhone. The two I really like are Cleartune (under $4.00) and Peterson's iStrobosoft (under $10.00). The Peterson strobe tuner is easiest to read, and the display is stable. It's fairly basic, and doesn't have all the features of the dedicated hardware tuners, or the full computer version of Strobosoft (it's less than ten bucks, remember), but it's easy to use and works very well. Cleartune has many more features, including pitch pipe tone generator, and at least 22 temperament settings. You can easily customize it for your own temperaments. A steal at $3.99. It's almost worth buying an iPod touch just for these. I can even browse the Steel Guitar Forum on the iPod when I'm away from home and can find a Wifi hotspot.

There are also cool apps for metronomes, guitar chord finders (somebody please make one for steel guitar...), and lots of other useful stuff for dirt cheap or free. There's even a bubble level app, so you can make sure the drummer's platform is level..

As far as MP3 sound quality, iTunes can rip MP3's at a bitrate of up to 320K (Songs downloaded from the iTunes store are still at a lower bitrate). I doubt that my aging ears can hear the difference between uncompressed audio and a 320K MP3 even in a critical listening environment, let alone a backup track with an instrument playing over it. I can still hear the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit audio, but that's another thread, and not an option for the iPod anyway.

Edited to add: I should mention that these tuner apps require purchasing an external mic for the iPod touch. Apple has one for about $30 that is basically the standard iPod earbuds with a simple remote control and mic on the cord. There are other third-party solutions as well, and a few work-arounds (hacks) exist for the 1st generation iPod touch that does not have the integrated mic / earphone jack. I can't say whether they would work with either of the aforementioned tuners.

I have used them for years now. It beats carting 2 x minidisc players in a flight case. 4 x iPods in my packa-seat. There's not a great deal of loss. Especially EQ'd a bit and through a quality PA. There's certainly NO distortion.

Very occasionally, they lock-up, and thats why I carry spares, and occasionally, I forget to charge one so another reason for the spares. Drop one of these and they still work, drop a mini-disc player, in or out of a flight case, and its broke!

I still use mini-disc in the studio occasionally.

David Hartley

I now use one for solo gigs still struggle with Itunes and its problems for stuffing MP3`s into it..
Never thought about carrying a spare....Great Idea David!! I have had the battery run down at one time

John Davis wrote:I now use one for solo gigs still struggle with Itunes and its problems for stuffing MP3`s into it..
Never thought about carrying a spare....Great Idea David!! I have had the battery run down at one time

John, how do you let the bettery run down, they last for 30 hours.
Heard you did a boot fair playing steel, sold a lot of cd's, well done, and with an audience to boot,and your daughter did well on the stand, well the steel will bring them in.
Just fitted mine, sounds great, gonna do me a boot fair, just bought a gazeebo in case of rain, takes a little practise using the little finger to find the track but it sounds great.Slim.

Making iTunes playlists makes finding tracks easy.

For band songs, I'll typically first sort all their tunes alphabetically in one playlist, just to learn songs and make them easier to find. I often put the key in the song name, too--when I'm driving to gigs and reviewing material, I can glance at the iPod, see the key, and then visualize playing the song in the correct positions on the pedal steel.

Then for actual shows, I'll make a playlist of each set's song order, so I can practice the show sequence.

If you arrange your backing tracks in sets, but take requests or otherwise change things in mid-stream, if you just go back to your alphabetized playlist it's simple to find the song you need on the fly.

That make sense to everyone? iTunes and iPod are fabulous tools!

There's a slick new dock out now that was made for musicians to practice with an iPod. Probably a bit pricey, but slick nonetheless.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001T9 ... 390_snp_dp

some of you guys and gals are going to have to educate me about these things ,
how do you get a CD into them ? can you play them thru an amp ? why are they better than a CD player ?

Your convert the audio files with your computer from a cd into an mp3 and load them onto your ipod. They're an improvement over a cd player in that a regular audio cd can only hold maybe a max of 25 songs, where an iPod can hold thousands, depending on the amount of space, and it organizes your songs nicely. You can buy cd players that read cd's with songs in mp3 format, but it's considerably less convenient, and the cd's still don't hold as many songs as most mp3 players.

For people that are concerned about sacrificing sound quality with mp3s, you can also rip your cd's into FLAC format, where there is essentially zero loss of quality from the cd. But I've found that ripping mp3s at 320 kbps doesn't make for any noticeable loss of quality.

Calvin, Ipods come with a computer program called ITUNES. You play your cd's on the CD drive and let ITUNES put the in the ITUNES library. When you plug your IPOD into the computer it syncs with ITUNES and tranfers them in to the IPOD. Its pretty simple, way easier than playing steel.

o ok i though you had to get all your music for them online , can you plug them into an amp ?

I plug mine into the media input of my NV112. it works fine.

Bo

thanks for explaining them for me ..guess i'm behind the times

Thanks everybody for contributing it helped a lot

Tuck

Does ITunes have the ability to output songs at an even volume or does that have to be done beforehand?

The volume output is going to depend on the source. For instance all of the songs you buy off of Itunes should be consistent. If you buy stuff elsewhere, it may not, and if you make your own it is going to play at the level you recorded it at.