I don't know if I'll ever be in a band - other guitarists...

[devideva]

I'm like 50 years old. I started playing at 47. I went on mid life crisis and gave up dopes and smokins and partiez. I needed a new study. I always loved guiter so I adopted the study. In those days (wayyy back (three years) there was still Demonoid. I had bought a new external hardrive and filled it up with audio software and bootleg lps.

People think file sharing is just about ripping people off and fucking over others but that's not it at all. The best file sharing sites are about people and collecting discrete files from the only ostensible library that there is. P2P really helped that and DC++ is such a fun app. But Demonoid was the best torrent board ever and the people there were so awesome. One guy had live video bootlegs of all the most classic famous punk shows. Demonoid was his home. Where has he got to now? Demonoid is now called d2, but just in testing FYI. It's the backup into a dif administration.

But the point was I did a crash course in music production, and am ongoing playing guitar and keyboards. I guess my main point in this is that I doubt I'll ever tour. Did my partying already, tired, body aches. I'm not going on the road. If I did I would go back to the same painkillers and pot regimen that kept me going as a chef for 20 years. I play music to relax and learn something really difficult and yet accomodating. I don't know why I posted this.

But I guess I am wondering if any of youse ever started your playing like this and then it became something else entirely, like commercial, or it got you entrace into some whacky cult. What gives yo?

[spacefuzz]

I'm a chef as well. It's a hard life. Luckily I never gave in to substance abuse. I was straight edge until 25 then smoked some pot and drink a beer after work. Still do. I'm 37 and have been playing guitar for 22 years. Grew up in punk bands so never tried to learn anything but power chords until a few years ago. Now I'm over the guitar and trying to "unlearn" it. Diving deep into drone and free improvisation. Music for me now is a type of meditation. Keep doing it if its fun, stop when the fun stops.

[ryan summit]

i started late too at 33
well i started at 12
stopped till i was 21 then 33
all those years wishin i was onstage
never thought it would happen
especially not high
as far as culty shit
i almost became a full blown scientologist in my 20s
up until they had me auditing a stufffed bunny, i was in
started obsessing and following tony robbins instead
had a couple years clean back then
crammed it full of self help
wasnt really much internet to speak of

[devideva]

I'm a chef as well. It's a hard life. Luckily I never gave in to substance abuse. I was straight edge until 25 then smoked some pot and drink a beer after work. Still do. I'm 37 and have been playing guitar for 22 years. Grew up in punk bands so never tried to learn anything but power chords until a few years ago. Now I'm over the guitar and trying to "unlearn" it. Diving deep into drone and free improvisation. Music for me now is a type of meditation. Keep doing it if its fun, stop when the fun stops.

I love the old Native Instruments Electronic Instruments 2XT. It is a number of software DI/O sound processors for using live including resochord and alot of ambient stuff. I can't describe them. Here's the description from KVR from 2005:

Native Instruments has announced Electronic Instruments 2 XT - the extended version of their Reaktor instrument collection. The new version contains all the unique synthesizers, drum machines and effects from the collection as individual self-contained software instruments. Each of the eight instruments in Electronic Instruments 2 XT can be run both standalone as well as in all major plugin formats, without relying on a Reaktor or Reaktor Session installation.

The eight instruments included in Electronic Instruments 2 XT are:

Photone - hybrid master synthesizer
Limelite - advanced beat composer
Metaphysical Function - soundscape synthesizer
Krypt - granular drum machine
Akkord - sequenced chord generator
Fast FX - advanced performance effects
Resochord - programmable polyphonic resonator
Cyan - extended vintage chorus

The original ensemble versions are also included on the disc for optional editing in Reaktor, along with a printed manual covering all included instruments.
Electronic Instruments 2 XT will be available in February 2005 for a suggested retail price of US$169 / EU€149.

Demonoid price was much cheaper

[devideva]

i started late too at 33
well i started at 12
stopped till i was 21 then 33
all those years wishin i was onstage
never thought it would happen
especially not high
as far as culty shit
i almost became a full blown scientologist in my 20s
up until they had me auditing a stufffed bunny, i was in
started obsessing and following tony robbins instead
had a couple years clean back then
crammed it full of self help
wasnt really much internet to speak of

Scientology had their main office on Hollywood Blvd, and when I was a young kid and pounk rooker they were always trying to get us to take their test. What freaks! We knew we were fucked up. We didn't need more people telling us

[Warpsmasher]

I also started at 33, on software (Cakewalk, Acid 3.0 and Soundforge XP). Been finding my own way for 10 years now. After a year or so on software I started getting into instruments. Still have never learned anything traditional about guitar, I just play it and record, it's more of a noise instrument in my music. Played my first show last October opening for My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, DJ style, ipod/mixer straight to PA. I was also raised in a cultish religion that could be described as new age pentecostal islam (Susila Buddhi Dharma, aka Subud). Lived on a commune as a preschool aged child, where I'm told Rosanna Arquette was my babysitter (her parents were members and also lived on the commune, in Skymont, WV). School years were spent in rural Vermont and we moved to Santa Cruz shortly after I graduated high school. I needed lots of drugs, as one could imagine, and just happened to be in the best place on earth for it, so yeah. Met the girl who is now my wife of 21 years there. She still smokes a little bit and has a prescription for xanax. I'll still smoke occasionally when I'm on vacation, but for the most part I quit pot & alcohol at age 37, then decided to enter the fitness way ov life. Crom is my god now...

Soulseek is a great community for sharing samples, software and other resources. D2 sucks, kickass.to is the new demonoid.

[dubkitty]

i'm 56; i started when i was 14, but haven't played in a band since 1987. at this point i'm looking to satisfy that urge by dubbing in GarageBand...i learned how to program drums back in the 90s, and am capable of playing and/or simulating stuff in recording software. i miss playing with other people because they always do something different than i expect, but then again it's a lot easier for me to deal with only my personality quirks. the computer's always there when i feel like playing, and always takes breaks along with me. GarageBand is Macintosh native, but it's also as easy as falling off a log. i have a backing track in the can for a reggae version of "Novelty" by Joy Division with drums, bass, organ, e-piano, and a three-piece horn section all of which was typed into the computer or played with a keyboard controller. at some point i'm going to do the rest of the tracks for a four-song EP of reggae JD covers with dub versions of each track as b-sides.

[colin]

i'm 56; i started when i was 14, but haven't played in a band since 1987. at this point i'm looking to satisfy that urge by dubbing in GarageBand...i learned how to program drums back in the 90s, and am capable of playing and/or simulating stuff in recording software. i miss playing with other people because they always do something different than i expect, but then again it's a lot easier for me to deal with only my personality quirks. the computer's always there when i feel like playing, and always takes breaks along with me. GarageBand is Macintosh native, but it's also as easy as falling off a log. i have a backing track in the can for a reggae version of "Novelty" by Joy Division with drums, bass, organ, e-piano, and a three-piece horn section all of which was typed into the computer or played with a keyboard controller. at some point i'm going to do the rest of the tracks for a four-song EP of reggae JD covers with dub versions of each track as b-sides.

Do it! I'd love to hear your reggae/dub Joy Division covers ep!

[kbit]

Man, Demonoid was the shit.

[devideva]

i'm 56; i started when i was 14, but haven't played in a band since 1987. at this point i'm looking to satisfy that urge by dubbing in GarageBand...i learned how to program drums back in the 90s, and am capable of playing and/or simulating stuff in recording software. i miss playing with other people because they always do something different than i expect, but then again it's a lot easier for me to deal with only my personality quirks. the computer's always there when i feel like playing, and always takes breaks along with me. GarageBand is Macintosh native, but it's also as easy as falling off a log. i have a backing track in the can for a reggae version of "Novelty" by Joy Division with drums, bass, organ, e-piano, and a three-piece horn section all of which was typed into the computer or played with a keyboard controller. at some point i'm going to do the rest of the tracks for a four-song EP of reggae JD covers with dub versions of each track as b-sides.

Hey that's a great story and right on topic. I love how you went from serious to love interest then to a product. That's sort of what I was asking. I'm in a position with music where I'm arfraid to overload myself and stress out because the whole bodyof information is like unto overload. So I really have to narrow my focus to guitar and I love keeping up with VSTi. By keeping up I just mean playing around with them, not mastering them. I like buying MusicTechFocus mags and doing their walk-throughs.

[pigmaker]

i started a band when i was 14. we played power pop stuff. the old green sovtek muff was my "sound."

the bass player started being a cunt and only showed up to like 30% of practices at some point.

so i fingered his girlfriend.

i've been a solo artist since. i dont need the fucking drah-mah of dumb ass ego driven bassists.

i've been producing forever tho. doing shit myself was not a hurdle. plus i like to control *everything* and telling a drummer what to play is...uh...AWKWARD!

[01010111]

X

[01010111]

i started a band when i was 14. we played power pop stuff. the old green sovtek muff was my "sound."

the bass player started being a cunt and only showed up to like 30% of practices at some point.

so i fingered his girlfriend.

i've been a solo artist since. i dont need the fucking drah-mah of dumb ass ego driven bassists.

i've been producing forever tho. doing shit myself was not a hurdle. plus i like to control *everything* and telling a drummer what to play is...uh...AWKWARD!

I agree. I like to have too much control over the sound to have too many people working with me. At most one other person

I started when I was 11 in orchestra playing the violin. Did that for a few more years then moved on to playing bass in a few different bands. After a while it seemed like there weren't any bands to play bass in anymore so I switched to guitar. I'm 25 now, so I've been playing guitar in one for or another for 10 years and bass for 12.

[dubkitty]

i've been producing forever tho. doing shit myself was not a hurdle. plus i like to control *everything* and telling a drummer what to play is...uh...AWKWARD!

my policy: i'll be happy to hear your ideas after you learn to play it exactly as i wrote it. that's the blessing of drum programming...it allows you to say "like THIS."

[coldbrightsunlight]

It's funny all the people with different ideas here, but I love being in bands. I do the playing every instrument thing because I couldn't just not write and record, but the best times in my life have been playing in bands. Not knowing what someone else in gonna play next is wonderful, and having every member's personality shine through sounds way better to me than my personality x5.

It's real interesting to read about you guys starting playing later in life though, I think that's awesome! I started aged 12 or 13 and I dunno what I would have done in my life if I didn't play music.