Yoda - the program I use is a sequencer call Cubase VST 32. It's pretty much an industry standard.

Yes, it can handle any time signature.. better still, you can change time sig and tempo within a song as often as you wish and at any position within a bar....

I've used this stuff many times with my old prog band Siberia... we often used signatures like 9/8, 5/4, 7/8, 17/8, 30/16, and the list goes on.... our music was vary rarely in 4/4 or 12/8....

The thing with some of the more unusual time signaures is that there are so many ways to mess with them.... They can be really great fun to play with but thay can also prove to be a bit of a handful at times too...

Like anything else, the more you mess with them, the more familiar they become and therefore they become less frightening to mess with...

If you're in a band and playing with unusual time sigs, you need a sriously good drummer....

This is because 'the one' is no longer intuative [at least at first] as it is in 4/4 or 12/8... The phrase length and accents are now all different so before attempting to write melodies or improvise you'll need to listen to the groove for a while so that your inner ear can aclimatise.... The next time we get together I can show you all kinds of screwy stuff I did with Siberia and David Cross [which is all very rich in this odd stuff]...

So what is it you would like me to program for you...?????

Mr Nick - ha ha.... 30 16ths to the bar..... very funky....

Ovation1 - where expecting to play Germany, Belgium and Holland.... there is a remote chance of a New York gig [although I can't really see it happening] and next March we may play in Mexico...

The new album that will be released pretty soon [3 to 6 months I guess] IMHO is the best thing he has ever done...

The album 'Tested to Destruction' is me playing all guitars.... [under strict supervision of the band - to prevent me from charging off into the land of shred]

The album 'Exiles' is mostly me and some of it is Robert Fripp.

The key thing to note is that this stuff is not me playing 'naturally' as I do on my IUMA site... On this stuff I am 'under orders' because I am their regular session guys...

However, on the new album, David let me off the leash... and it is a better representation of how I play...

As soon as I know the name of the album and it's availability I'll let y'all know...

Pete M - dude that is just so stupid.... maybe try a mail order place... there should be plenty of them in the UK and US....

Yoda - No probs... I've not recieived the chords yet.. when I get them I'll have a mess around.. none to the sigs listed are difficult to progarm.....

Ovation1 - I think David got to hear some of the stuff from my own CD and said "I want that on my album, why don't you plkay like that for me???" lol I reply "you didn't ask"... lol .. He pointed me that the studio and said "kill boy, kill" and let me off of the leash... lol The new album has quite a lot of 7 string parts.... nice and low...... yeah.......

Danny - thanks for the nice things you said on my IUMA site.. that was very cool indeed... spread the word bro....

Yoda - I'll see if I can get the backing track cut onto CD when I've done it.... I'm sure that I'll be able to find someone that can halp somewhere..

Yoda - I'll do all I can to help you out here... but you know this... # : )~

Ovation1 - you make sure you learn to use capital letters and full stops too.... lol ...lol

Yoda - I got news from the custom shop... they won't be shipping my new girlie until 2nd of Sept.... so I won't have it for the tour...... totally gutted.... because I have no 2nd 7-string I can't risk going on stage with only one... I've had to drop tune two of my guitars to B so that I can play the set... There are a few problems with this...

All the lead parts are in different positions so I have to relearn a whoe bunch of solos...

I lose some of the really high notes so I've have to rewrite some of my solos to accomodate this..

50% of the set requires a 'sub-E' guitar so I have to change guitars throughout the gig and pretty often.

I now have a pair of guitars tuned at concert and a pair in B.. this means different string guages, truss rod settings, bridge / spring settings... which is such a pain in the butt. I also now have to take four guitars and I only intended to take two 7's...

The strings are floppy even though I've up-guaged to Ernie Ball [skinny top / heavy bottoms] which are a 10 / 11 guage hybrid.

non-smoker and death cube - here's how the story with the 7 went...

A friend of mine sold a right handed RG7470 to me just over a year ago. I'm a left hooker which means that I had to re-string it / set it up and play it without the whammy bar fitted. This was all ok because it is essentially a 'toy' and I was using it for messing around with some real heavy ideas and playing Bach cello suites without having to move them up an octave... I didn't fit a strap lock to the bottom horn [which is now the top] because it looked a little thin at the point to fit a screw that will be taking the weight of the guitar - so I can't wear the guitar and play standing up. When David Cross asked me to record the new album and sent me all of the information and tapes I thought... "hmmm, there could be some nice 7-string parts lurking in there"... and I was right... there were... So I recorded the new album doing all of the riffs on a 7 and all of the solos on a 6 [because a wouldn't be seen dead shredding without a whammy ... lol]. Just before last Xmas, there were rumblings of a short tour which became more definate around March... so in April I ordered a custom left hand Universe [with a few personal additions] and I was told that it would take 4 months [which gives me plenty of time 'cos the tour is Sept]..... The only risk I was running was not having two stage worthy 7 strings... but I intend to get my RG7470 fully converted in the near future to solve that].... It now looks like the custom 7 won't make it for the first part of the tour.... However, I think that I'll manage with the 'drop-tuned' guitars until this gets sorted... I can now play the solos in the different neck positions.... when I get the new 7 I'll have to relearn them at concert pitch [pain in the rear but easily sorted - it just costs me time and effort]...

It'll all be ok I'm sure.....

Ya Yo - what a great shame dude.... and so much money too.. I don't blame you for fealing that way.....

PhrygDom - maybe the only thing that I can put it down to is that either my tastes are changing or I am a great deal harder to impress now... most likely a little of each....

I'll not write off Satch right away - as I pointed out, I've been a loyal fan for a long long time.... SBM and particularly the gig at the Bush did not 'do it for me'.... The band was loose and I've seen better performances before by far... However I am an experienced enough musician to know that it was early in the tour and that the band don't fire on all cylinders every night - a 'human thing'

There is something about SBM though that I can't put my finger on that is a little odd.... compared to the self titled album, Extremist etc it sounds and looks somehow 'quick and dirty'..

Before I reach for my kevlar body armour and fire resistant suit I point out that:

I may need to listen to it a few more times to see if it sticks or dies....

I hope I'm not p1ss1ng y'all off in here.. that is most definately not my intention....

I feal that I can be honest among friends and that anything less would be wrong and cheap to both y'all and Satch....

# : )

JSC1 - I can't recall the year or the tour but I saw Satch in the mid - to late 90's at the Royal Albert Hall in London... I had a 'box seat' [and therefore a superb view]...

That gig was absolutely breathtaking...

Although I'm not to fond of EOC, I saw Satch in Ghent, Belgium and London, UK last year. The Belgian gig was particularly good.. It looked like that whole band was really having a lot of fun.. the gig really kicked.. the band was real tight and solid - Satch's playing was very very nice icing on what was a very very nice cake - if you know what I mean.. the whole thing was tremendous.... I had an aftershow pass at that one - I only said a quick 'hi' to Satch ['cos he was busy signing stuff for some younger fans and I didn't want to get in the way] and I chatted to Stu and Eric for quite a while.. very nice guys indeed..

Death Cube - I think Beck is superb... folks don't really talk about him much these days... he's a tremendous 'ideas' man as well as a player..

MZ - very little of the new stuff was played live....

Ovation - I think that I will not listen to SBM for a few months.. just forget it.. listen to different stuff for a while and totally empty out my head.. I'll try again another time all fresh.. I know what you mean about some sections not exactly 'dove-tailing' together... It's almost like 'cut-n-paste' song writing.. When you write soley on software this happens.. when you write with a band [or very focused upon how a band would perform it] the songs are more flowing, natural... organic. I'm not critising or so that he should or should not have done something a specific way - it's not my place to do so... I just thought that some parts seemed a little odd - un-natural even. I'm not the type of fan that blinly follows a band, adoring everything they've done just because they did it... I'm a mental Vai fan but there is a great deal of his stuff that don't flick my switches too..

I don't think that 'getting older' is a reason for this [as someone pointed out in an ealier post]... Satch's playing from a mechanical point of view is top notch [you'd expect nothing less].. I think it's more the writing and overall vibes....

Wingnut - I developed an exercise called G major everywhere. It's good for learning the neck and I use it to repair and enhance my technique. Scales alone won't make you a better player though.. You still need to practice moving from one chord to another cleanly, arpeggios, tapping, harmonics, bending, muting, vibrato and the list goes on..... What, how and how often you practice is important too.. If there was only a single thing to make you a great player then we'd all be practicing it like fury ... lol.. If you spend all of your time playing scales you'll never learn to write songs / solos.. Your practice sessions should be varied, interesting, fun and with a specific objective so that you can measure your success... If you wish, we can try to work out something that is good for you....

Yoda - I checked out 'Crimson'..... much better stuff... the best I've heard from you so far.. the improvment is glaring not only in your playing but the writing too. Nice stuff with the wah too - does this mean that some of my trickery is rubbing off on you... lol... anyhow.. good stuff... you're moving from strength to strength and quickly too... I noticed that you are messing with orchestration to control the dynamics - i.e. thinning out the band to bass and drums during some sections.. whilst this is a good way of giving the more thickly orchestrated sections greater energy due to the great difference between them, I'd be concious of not thinning it too much [especially in a piece with such a high tempo].. It makes it sound a little 'bare' [because the lead guitar is not quite consuming the available space that is created]... I'd have been inclined to either:

Play a more melodic line with notes of greater length... you dont really need a high note rate but let them sound for long durations.... a great place therefore for nice long bends and sweet vibrato.....

or

Place a clean chorused / phased / flanged guitar part with plenty of reverb and delay below to provided some homophony to play against..nice chrods that unobtrusively fill the empty speace.. the bass and drums are maintaing the pace and the chords are soft so the difference in dynamic to the louder part is essencially unchanged. Alternatively, a nice gentle and swirly string pad with longish attack and release times from the keys would serve a similar purpose...

The vibe would be atmospheric but the drive from the bass and drums provide a 'latent energy'.. it wants to explode.. [remember the middle section from the Raft of the Medusa??]

On the whole... very very good.. this proves that you are thinking not only about your playing but about the compositional aspect too.. this is as important as the playing itself [and even determines your approach]..... It seems to me that our fruitful jam session my have contributed in some small way to this improvement.. this reminds me a little of the way I got you to solo from different angles to the same groove over and over... It got you thinking on your feet... playing more compositionally rather than mindlessly melting frets in Em... lol lol. I'll be looking forward to your next work..... maybe try something that contains modulation to change the mood in addition to orchestration..... always write and play to effect... song first.... shredz second

Wingnut - try to get some backing track CD's from guitar mags, and tecnique books like total accuracy for example. You can use these to mess with ideas and jam. It is possible to practice improvising but obviously you need somewhere to start... The first thing you'll need is a nice little vocabulary of licks.. little set piece lead breaks... This gives you a nice starting point from which to build... If you're stuck for licks, a nice easy place to collect a whole bunch of them is to learn the solo from Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd [as this contains a stack of nice blues-rock licks that can easily be reworked and reapplied]. Next, choose a lick and a backing track [note that you'll have to move the lick into the key of the backing track] and mess with it... This is cause and effect stuff - such as 'what happens if you start the lick one a different beat of the bar?' 'what does it sound like if you change a note here and there?' 'what does it sound like double or half the speed - or half speed for the fist few notes and then normal from then on?'.... The idea is that you learn to noodle with a single idea to find out how much music is hiding inside that lick... Your ears are noting the differences as well as your fingers. Then chose another lick and do the same... just pull it around [or appart] and see what happens... experiment to the full and explore ideas... Eventually your lick vocabulary contains the licks from the Floyd track plus a whole pile of new ideas.... When you improvise [especially at first] you solo from selections out of your lick vocabulary with little 'noodles' in between.. This is kind of like speaking a laguage from a phrase book... sometimes you'll sound a bit strange and others you'll sound great... over a period of time, your vocabulary grows larger and ultimately you become 'fluent'. In guitar terms this means that you'll be able to just tear up over anything and know what it will sound like as you play it.. Also try to pay great attention to how you are sounding with respect to the backing track... i.e. 'playing in context'... listen as you play...

Wingnut - no probs bro.... also, I'm a 7-string player... I jus' love 'em

Ovation - Satan Salad is all mine and was my first experiment with a drop tuned guitar... you'll notice that Satan Salad and Mutha of Mothers are both in D ['cos that's were I was tuned to].. I wrote it last summer and recorded the backing track at home. The solo was cut in a hotel room in Cambridge England shortly after.. If it sounds similar to something else then I guess that it is a coincidence....