Free Guitar Backing Tracks
As every guitar teacher will tell you, one of the best ways to learn how to solo on guitar is to put plenty of time into practicing either with a fellow player or to guitar backing tracks (or jam tracks, as they are sometimes called). What are guitar backing tracks? For those unfamiliar, a guitar backing track is usually a recorded rhythm section, often times based on 12 bar progressions, in a particular key, which is designed to allow a musician to freely solo over in order to improve solo technique.
Not all backing tracks are suitable for soloing, however. The internet is filled with many poor examples of backing tracks which are often times cluttered with too many instruments, sound poorly, include wrong chord changes, and are just too fast.
Good guitar backing tracks will sound clear, do not present too many instruments, and offer a good range of keys (major and minor) which will allow you to properly work your solo technique.
Tips for good practicing over guitar backing tracks:
1.) Learn Your Pentatonic Scales-
Mastering the Pentatonic scales (in both major and minor) is the best way for a new guitarist to learn how to properly solo. By simply learning 5 (five) patterns which correlate to different root notes, you can travel the entire length of the fretboard and never hit an incorrect note. Mastering the Pentatonic scales is the backbone of your soloing skills, as more complex scales will then add or subtract various notes which will allow you to tailor your sound to various styles.
2.) Spend Equal Time Playing over Major AND Minor Progressions-
Far too many guitarists just focus soloing over minor pentatonic chord progressions. You need to release early that the same five patterns used in the minor pentatonic scales can be shifted to easily allow for major progression playing. Do a simple search for major and minor scales on Google and print out each form. You should, over time, commit these to memory in order to help yourself master the guitar.
3.) Listen to yourself-
Hopefully you have some way to record your solos while practicing over guitar jam tracks. Good guitarists know how to solo; great guitarists listen to their own playing and figure out ways to improve. When listening to your solos, try to find ways to improve your playing and avoid bad habits.
4.) Proper Fingering-
It is critical that you practice all of your guitar scales using proper fingering. If you start getting into bad habits where the wrong fingers are being used, you will start to transition slowly between scale forms, be unable to utilize advance soloing techniques, and will slow down the overall speed of your solos. Proper form is critical.
5.) Do Not Over-Solo-
Anyone who has been to a live local rock show has seen this phenomenon: A local guitar gets his opportunity to solo and instead kills the audience with a blasting of notes and speed that bores a listener after a few bars. Basically, it can take years to master the phrasing of your solos. Keep in mind that white space (or rests) are just as important to your solos as the notes you hit. A player who spaces out their solos will be able to build intensity and focus instead on rhythm changes to keep things interesting.
6.) Listen (and copy) Your Favorite Players-
There is absolutely no shame in dissecting the solos of your favorite guitar gods (Slash, Jimmy Page, Hendrix, Mayer, etc.). By slowly learning licks and phrases you will learn what constitutes a great solo and some of it will bleed into your overall sound over time. It is important to listen to a wide range of players and styles (blues, jazz, rock) while keeping your own voice original.
7). Practice!-
Below is a list of the best free sites we have found that offer good quality Guitar Jam Backing Tracks. Print out your scale charts and spend as much time as you can working on your solo skills. Remember to have fun and the rest will fall into place!
www.guitarbt.com
www.guitarbackingtracks.com
TASCAM M-164UF 16-Input Mixer with Effects and USB 2.0 Interface
The Tascam M-164UF 16-Input Mixer is a fantastic mixing board that is quite capable of good results in a live setting as well as home project studio environment. Let's take a quick look at some of the features of this hot selling M-164UF 16-Input Mixer.
First, the TASCAM M-164UF 16-Input Mixer with Effects and USB 2.0 Interface retails for under $300 (pretty affordable, considering what it does). It features 6 mic inputs with XLR ins and phantom power. While we would have liked to see 8 inputs, as some other mixers have, at 6 inputs this is a decent amount and should allow for basic miking of live bands and/or drum recording as well. The phantom power works well and the mics sound great through the M-164UF.
Each mic input also has 3 band filtering passes which allow for fine tuning of your overall sound in the early stages. There are an additional 5 stereo line inputs on the Tascam bringing the total number of inputs closer to 16 globally speaking. What is most impressive about the Tascam M-164UF 16-Input Mixer are the onboard digital effects, which sound great and offer a level of flexibility in live settings that really make those performances stand out. It is often difficult or clunky to carry around racks of equipment and the digital effects that come standard on the Tascam M-164UF 16-Input Mixer more than do the trick in a variety of settings.
Includes Cubase LE4 48-track recording workstation for connecting to your Mac or PC.
Overall, the Tascam M-164UF 16 Input Mixer is a great product which has the power to improve your sound tremendously.
 |
TASCAM M 164UF 16 Input Mixer with Effects and USB 20 |  |
 |
US $449.00 | 15m |
 |
Tascam M 164UF 16Ch USB Mixer w Effects M164UF M164 UF | |
|
US $499.99 | 6h 5m |
 |
Tascam M 164UF 16CH USB 20 Audio Mixer w Effects NEW | |
|
US $499.99 | 20d 9h 3m |
 |
Tascam M 164UF Analog Mixer 16 Channels 16 in 2 out | |
|
US $499.99 | 21d 3h 38m |
TASCAM 2488neo 24-Track Digital Recording Portastudio Review
Tascam has a long history of providing great all-in-one recording solutions for musicians since early 4 track cassette recorders hit the scene. Since then, Tascam has been busy pumping out many different types of recording hardware that still follows the all-in-one approach. The Tascam 2488neo 24-Track Digiital Recorder is a cost effective machine that, while it tries to do everything, still manages quite well to record good demos. That being said, it is not as easy as recording with your PC and some audio software, such as Cubase or ProTools. However, the Tascam 2488 Neo is much more cost effective and portable (relatively speaking).
The Tascam 2488neo retails for around $699 and has a large and attractive mixing board combined with a generally pretty tiny screen (monchromatic colors), and even a CD burner (perhaps the most handy feature). The number of inputs that the Tascam 2488 Neo has is quite good, at 8 mic inputs, making this quite capable at recording and miking a full drum set, or for live performances using the Tascam 2488neo. Built in mastering effects such as reverb, compression, amp emulations, and EQ processing still do not match that of software offerings on a PC, but still manage to sound quite good in the Tascam 2488neo. The EQ is 3-band EQ on 24 channels, which makes this machine quite a flexible digital multi track recorder.
The Tascam 2488neo also has three(3) Aux sends, which will allow a person to have a bunch of digital rack equipment pumped into the Tascam recorder. Specifically regarding the 8 inputs, you get 4 XLR phantom power doublers as 1/4" mic/line inputs, plus four more 1/4" mic/line inputs. This is a great variety.
In the age of iPod Touches, iPads, and even high resolution cell phones, the colorless LCD display is pretty much the worst thing about the Tascam 2488neo. It is hard to view from side angles and is quite bright when working in low light conditions. Worse still, fixing and scrubbing audio waveforms is quite cumbersome and thus you should probably export your recorded tracks to a digital PC recorder such as Cubase or ProTools LE in order to properly fix your tracks. The Tascam 2488neo does thankfully have a high speed USB 2.0 plug for easily connecting to your computer. This small screen and the lack of the ability to plug in a monitor or mouse makes it very hard to use. That being said, the actual mixing board with physical knobs are made very well and make adjustments very easy and pleasurable.
All in all, the great debate in the DAW workstation world is whether or not these standalone multitrack recorders still have a place in our hearts now that the home PC or Apple Macbook has much more power than these little devices could ever dream of. Basically, it may be a wiser investment to but some digital mixing board that interfaces with your home computer and building your studio from there. Tascam will have a hard time selling these things as the years progress, unless they improve the displays and make them easier to work with. Again, Tascam has been wise and is now marketing these boxes to those who will be recording live music and need a portable DAW (digital workstation). That being said, even a notebook computer has more power than the Tascam 2488neo and is vastly more portable.
Weight the pros and cons of owning this machine. The Tascam 2488neo is a solid machine for the price, just keep in mind what your overall goal for recording are before purchasing this thing. DO NOT buy the Tascam 2488neo because you think it will convince people who visit your basement that you have a legit home studio just because this thing has a bunch of nice looking knobs and faders, the device is much less powerful than your computer!
 |
Tascam 2488NEO 24 Bit 24 Track Multitrack Recorder NEW | |
|
US $799.99 | 1d 7h 42m |
 |
TASCAM 2488neo Recording Package | |
|
US $999.99 | 1d 21h 49m |
 |
Tascam 2488neo Hard Disk Recorder 2488 Neo Brand New | |
|
US $584.00 | 4d 3h 8m |
 |
Tascam 2488neo 24 Track Mixer Recorder Workstation NEW | |
|
US $619.00 | 9d 4h 14m |
 |
Tascam 2488neo 24 Track Digital Recorder w CD Burner | |
|
US $799.99 | 10d 6h 19m |
 |
Tascam 2488NEO 24 Track digital Recording Station | |
|
US $799.00 | 12d 2h 52m |
 |
TASCAM 2488neo MIXER $50 INSTANT COUPON LIVE STUDIO DJ | |
|
US $699.99 | 12d 21h 1m |
 |
TASCAM 2488neo Multitrack Recorder 2488 neo Digital NEW | |
|
US $584.95 | 19d 2h 33m |
 |
TASCAM 2488NEO 24 BIT 24TRK HARD DISK RECORDER 80GB | |
|
US $799.00 | 20d 1h 23m |
 |
TASCAM 2488NEO 2488 NEO Digital 24 Track CD Recorder | |
|
US $599.00 | 21d 1h 16m |
Why Amazon Kindle Sucks
The Amazon Kindle, for a while the prominent way to read e-books, it looking more and more archaic as the months pass. With Apple's release of the iPad, which has already sold well over 1 million units in a few short weeks, the Amazon Kindle, with it's colorless e-ink display, looks less and less like attractive in the age of tablet computers.
We now have reports that Google is working on an android powered tablet device with shall be released in the 3rd quarter of 2010. Basically, the Amazon Kindle is a one trick pony. Yes, the power sipping e-ink display has dual benefits of last a long time throughout heavy use and also being easy on the eyes, it costs nearly 60% of that of an iPad, thus Apple should definitely take market share away from those interested in the Kindle or other e-ink one trick ponies.
Amazon is surely aware of these problems, however, as they have a popular Amazon Kindle iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch application, which is designed to sell their books on a multitude of mediums.
In other words, just as we have seen with other technology (think the stand alone MP3 player), the Kindle is a stand alone book reader that does one think only. Apple's stand alone MP3 players do not exist anymore (other than the shuffle) with even the iPod classic model able to play video content. Therefore, Apple has even evolved.
Amazon is probably betting on the newest versions of improved e-ink displays which offer color screens and some web functionality, but again, these screens are slow, have poor viewing angles, and are NOT backlit.
We predict that Amazon's Kindle will not stand the test of time with the age of tablet computers here to stay.
 |
Amazon Kindle 2 with Free US Wireless Perfect | |
15 Bids | US $168.00 | 18m |
 |
BRAND NEW AMAZON KINDLE 3 3GWIFI 6 IN WHITE INSTOCK | |
28 Bids | US $209.81 | 34m |
 |
Amazon KINDLE 3 6 Wi Fi Graphite ★NEW Sealed★ InStock | |
15 Bids | US $165.00 | 45m |
 |
Micro USB Data Charging Cable for Amazon Kindle 1 2 DX | |
|
US $4.49 | 50m |
 |
Amazon Kindle First Generation | |
4 Bids | US $76.01 | 1h |
 |
5V 2A Fast TRAVEL CHARGER FOR APPLE IPAD 16 32 64GB NEW | |
|
US $9.23 | 19m |
 |
iOS 32 Apple iPad 32GB WiFi Good i pad 32 GB wi fi box | |
3 Bids | US $455.00 | 2h 52m |
 |
LCD SCREEN PROTECTOR SHEET FOR APPLE iPAD 16 32 64GB | |
|
US $4.49 | 6h 7m |
 |
EU 5V 2A White TRAVEL CHARGER FOR APPLE IPAD 16 32 64GB | |
|
US $8.46 | 6h 56m |
 |
Apple iPad Brand New Factory Sealed 32 Gb 3G | |
3 Bids | US $610.00 | 7h 36m |
Martin Steel-String Backpacker Acoustic Guitar
One of the most famous martin guitars of all time is a sub-$200 travel friendly guitar that looks like a regular acoustic went through a sausage grinder. The Martin Steel-String Backpacker acoustic retails for only $170 bucks but has some fantastic features which maintain the high quality that Martin is quite well known for.
The Martin Backpacker's most unique feature is the carefully designed body, which is only as thick as the neck for the majority of it. Basically, after the sound hole the end of the guitar gets much wider to allow for good sound amplification.
Don't let the small size trick you though- this guitar is built of fine materials such as braced, solid tone wood top with a solid mahogany neck, back, and sides. Additionally, the guitar was built to withstand some serious abuse. The internal construction and design was meant to last years of serious abuse.
As for hardware, the guitar features classic chrome Martin tuners that hold the guitar in tune even after jamming out to campfire songs all night! The guitar itself weights less than 2.5 lbs. Includes a strap and gig bag as well.
Awesome guitar that at first, looks a bit strange but grows on you. This is the perfect guitar for someone who doesn't want to lug around a heavy guitar but still can practice with a full sized instrument. The Martin Backpacker does a great job of this and will provide years of good service.
 |
Martin Classical Backpacker Nylon string travel guitar | |
|
US $229.95 | 13h 16m |
 |
Martin Backpacker Acoustic Guitar EXCELLENT CONDITION | |
19 Bids | US $113.49 | 23h 13m |
 |
Martin Backpacker Steel String Acoustic Guitar Flawless | |
|
US $169.99 | 1d 1h 37m |
 |
Martin backpacker guitar MINT | |
5 Bids | US $120.01 | 1d 13h 6m |
 |
Martin Backpacker Guitar | |
0 Bid | US $139.99 | 2d 3h 3m |
 |
Martin Backpacker Steel String Acoustic Guitar MINT | |
3 Bids | US $132.50 | 2d 5h 53m |
 |
Martin Backpacker Steel string Acoustic travel guitar | |
|
US $229.95 | 2d 9h 59m |
 |
2010 Martin Steelstring Backpacker Travel Guitar w Bag | |
|
US $205.00 | 2d 22h 47m |
 |
martin backpacker guitar with case strap and paperwork | |
|
US $169.00 | 3d 7h 4m |
 |
Martin Backpacker Acoustic Guitar steel strings | |
2 Bids | US $85.05 | 3d 7h 22m |
