PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Other PG Music Programs Essential Blues Guitar 101 Riffs Vol 1 Tips

Greetings all,

I've been using the above mentioned program available from PG Music, and my only complaint is that I can't figure out to to set loops at 1/2 speed. Makes learning the trickier pieces a bit harder. Even if I can't see the video at whatever tempo I'd like to practice at, I find it helpful to be able to slow the audio down in increments other than just 1/2 but there doesn't seem to be that option. This is what I have done to make this workable for me. (Please note: the program works as it was designed to on my machine so this is not an issue with the program, rather tips on what I do to make it more user friendly for me.)

First, I purchased Cakewalk Music Creator 5, suggested by many on this site for the soft synth it contains (Roland TTS-1). Available for purchase here, and many other places. I do like the soft synth though I've not been using it much as I rewire Reason through my DAW and use the sound banks there. For general BB messing around it's ok. Music Creator 5 also comes with Amplitube XGear which has a function that allows you to load a wav file and play it back at whatever tempo you like. Problem is, the video with the riffs is just that, a video. I use AoA Audio Extractor (freeware, search for it on Google) to pull the music part out into a wave file, from the .WMV file in the directory containing the files from the Essential Blues Riffs folder. Now I've got an audio file (.WAV) to work with. I use XGear to load the wave file, set loop points where I want them, and adjust the tempo down to snail speed which is what it takes sometimes to learn a piece, at least for me. The pitch is maintained, however, the slower you go the worse the recording sounds, which is to be expected. I then have XGear open in one window and the Blues Riffs program in another. That way I can see the tab, or play along at full speed, and get XGear to do the looping at slow speeds for training. I actually use this more than the soft synth from Music Creator. Great deal for $39 or so. The only thing I had to do, with my particular setup, was to set my samples on my usb audio interface to 2048 or 4096. Otherwise the playback quality in XGear was terrible. Now I've got a really good teaching setup and it's been a blast.

Perhaps someone will find this useful as the Riffs program is a bit dated and doesn't have all the functionality I'd like. Still worth every penny though

Kind Regards,
Fleet

I had a lot of problems with running this one, but the material is so good I kept it and have learned a lot anyway.

I ended up picking up a copy of Bome's Midi Translator. He has a postcard ware version that does quite a bit and is free. It allows converting midi command strings to keystrokes. Makes it much easier to start and stop loops by stomping on a pedal The pro version has the ability to map all kinds of stuff like mouse presses and window messages which is nice for when you want to use the 1/2 time video. It allows you to keep backing it up a bit as you try to figure out the loops. The free version doesn't have that but just the ability to switch back and forth between X-Gear and the trainer, as well as start and stop loops with a foot press is pretty nice.

Bomes product also lets you control any other windows program that only accepts keystrokes and no midi. I'd suggest checking it out.....

Kind Regards,
Fleet

Well, I certainly took the long way around, I've since found a much better, simpler solution: For those of you that use Reaper as a DAW you can just import the .wmv file into a track (Reaper does video and audio). Adjust the rate of playback to whatever you'd like and it changes the audio and video to match. Using the midi foot controller is still a big help.....

Kind Regards,
Fleet