One Man Band Performance Advice Needed

[Ron Vermillion]

I'm a over 50 year old guitar player. I used to do a one man band years ago with one of the first electronic drum machines I ever saw. I enjoyed playing and singing but wanted the "beat" that the drum machine provided. I do a lot of blues and not an acoustic folk guitar type show.

Now I'm planning to do it again, and I'm practicing and working up a song list of things I would like to do.

Originally I purchased a Boss JamStation JS-5 backing machine and had great success with the 12 bar blues but found it extremely difficult to program with styles and chords for anything that wasn't already there. About the only usable patterns on it for me are the 12 Bar blues patterns.

So I got Band-In-A-Box and after only a short time found that the sound of the MIDI Synth determines the quality of the band sound, and I am back into programming MIDI signals and considering a major expense for a MIDI Synth. And I know nothing, nada, squirt about all that.

Now I locate this website and I'm thinking that getting HOSTER and purchasing CDG songs that I want to perform would be much easier than all the other stuff that I'm working with. I'm about 90% of the way convinced that this is the way I should go.

In general, I'm spending WAY too much time on the complexities of getting the background music programmed and organized, and not enought time working on the performance.

Are there any Hoster experts out there that are doing solo performances using hoster.

Does the hoster music just play out of your regular sound card without a bunch of MIDI boxes etc.

I have a little USB -> HiFi Attachment that lets me play my sounds out of the computer into a PA system that works great on everything except MIDI.

Any words of wisdom out there from solo performers?

Thanks

Ron

[danny_g]

Originally Posted by Ron Vermillion

I'm a over 50 year old guitar player. I used to do a one man band years ago with one of the first electronic drum machines I ever saw. I enjoyed playing and singing but wanted the "beat" that the drum machine provided. I do a lot of blues and not an acoustic folk guitar type show.

Now I'm planning to do it again, and I'm practicing and working up a song list of things I would like to do.

Originally I purchased a Boss JamStation JS-5 backing machine and had great success with the 12 bar blues but found it extremely difficult to program with styles and chords for anything that wasn't already there. About the only usable patterns on it for me are the 12 Bar blues patterns.

So I got Band-In-A-Box and after only a short time found that the sound of the MIDI Synth determines the quality of the band sound, and I am back into programming MIDI signals and considering a major expense for a MIDI Synth. And I know nothing, nada, squirt about all that.

Now I locate this website and I'm thinking that getting HOSTER and purchasing CDG songs that I want to perform would be much easier than all the other stuff that I'm working with. I'm about 90% of the way convinced that this is the way I should go.

In general, I'm spending WAY too much time on the complexities of getting the background music programmed and organized, and not enought time working on the performance.

Are there any Hoster experts out there that are doing solo performances using hoster.

Does the hoster music just play out of your regular sound card without a bunch of MIDI boxes etc.

I have a little USB -> HiFi Attachment that lets me play my sounds out of the computer into a PA system that works great on everything except MIDI.

Any words of wisdom out there from solo performers?

Thanks

Ron

you might want to also check out guitaroke as it is designed with the guitarist in mind.

[Ron Vermillion]

Thanks Danny. I think those files include the chord changes with the lyrics. That would be neat.

Ron

[George]

RON,

If you want to use some midi files as karaoke background tracks, there's a program called Roland Virtual Sound Canvas that allows you to take any midi, change the instruments to your liking, enhance the sound quality of any instrument, remove any lead instruments to create a true Karaoke file, and save the finished product as a .wav file, enabling it to be played on any regular player.

You can then create a cdg out of it using MTU's Karaoke Home Producer if you desire to go that route.

[Ron Vermillion]

Oddly enough I got Roland VSC with the Band-In-The-Box Megapack. It is supposed to also take the place of an external MIDI Synth but I have not been able to get the settings to work correctly.

Thanks for this info.

Ron

[djmadmaxx]

Hoster will work great for you. It uses whatever soundcard that is set as your default sound device. I have all 7 of the guitaroke discs imported into hoster (being a lead guitarist myself) and it's great. I also found on ebay sets of discs pre ripped into mp3's with hundreds of jam tracks without the guitars on them. some have the vocals in them, most don't. good luck.

[George]

Originally Posted by Ron Vermillion

Oddly enough I got Roland VSC with the Band-In-The-Box Megapack. It is supposed to also take the place of an external MIDI Synth but I have not been able to get the settings to work correctly.
Thanks for this info. Ron

Ron,

To make any changes to the midi file, click on SETUP, then on the RECEIVE EVENTS page click ALL OFF, click OK, make your changes, then click AUDIO CONV to save as a .WAV file. This MUST be done before the track completes playing, or everything goes back to default settings, and the changes you made do not take effect.

After the track is saved, go back theough SETUP, and click RECEIVE ALL, or the next track you play will default to all pianos

Hope this helps.

George