Project Roam

Here’s a list of posts documenting my attempt at recreating Metallica’s Wherever I May Roam at home. That already rhymes. I’ll be using free and open source software, a potato laptop, a guitar and a MIDI controller.

Muselog #5 - Guitar Sound - 2

Aug 9, 2021 - Muselog; project-roam linux-audio ardour

Staying motivated is hard.

I made a relatively acceptable sound of the rhythm guitars in Guitarix before, but I wanted to keep all the work inside of the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). The DAW is where the recording and mixing is going to happen, so I wanted the guitar effects to be there as well. I’m glad that all the Guitarix effects are also available as plugins for DAWs. The one I’m using/trying to learn is Ardour.

Muselog #4 - Guitar Sound - 1

Jul 29, 2021 - Muselog; project-roam linux-audio guitarix

I started working on the sound of the rhythm guitars in Wherever I May Roam using Guitarix (a free and open-source virtual amplifier). Here’s what I got for now (put on some headphones and watch out for the volume)

Now let’s see how I got that sound.

The big picture

Watch this from 12:13s to 12:56s (already set)

Muselog #3 - Linux audio

Jul 27, 2021 - Muselog; project-roam linux-audio

Recording and processing music on a computer in real time require some preparation. This is a Linux specific post, I haven’t done this on Windows.

Probably the easiest way is to just install a Linux distribution that is prepared for audio production, like KXStudio, AV Linux, Ubuntu Studio or others. I have only tried Ubuntu Studio. That said, any Linux distribution can be set up for audio production, I installed Manjaro (Linux distro) on my old(er) potato and will use it for the music things. These are the resources I more or less followed:

Muselog #2 - Gear

Jul 26, 2021 - Muselog; project-roam linux-audio

I wanna recreate the song Wherever I May Roam by Metallica at home from scratch. Well, maybe not from scratch, I do have a few things:

Guitar

I have a used Epiphone SG G-400 that I got for a good price. The previous owner put a Seymour Duncan bridge pickup, so that’s good. The bad is that some strings make a choked buzz kinda sound on some frets. I suspect that the truss rod needs some adjustment. I have no experience with that whatsoever and I don’t feel like paying to get it fixed right now, so I’ll use it as it is and blame the crappy solos I play on those frets.

Muselog #1 - Project Roam

Jul 25, 2021 - Muselog; project-roam

I recently acquired an audio interface so I can connect my guitar to the computer in a decent way. I also have a MIDI controller which I bought a while back but haven’t really used much. Finally, I can unleash my music on the world.

Or I can procrastinate. The secret to guiltless procrastination is to do it in the name of preparing. For example, if you wanna learn something, don’t actually learn it you silly person. Instead, learn about learning it. Watch YouTube videos about the gear you need, or read useless articles about the top 5 best resources to learn from. I’ve been doing this for quite a while.