How often do you put away all the computer stuff and just play your instrument?

I looked over and saw how lonely my guitar was so I picked it up and just played it for a few hours. I try to do this every few nights but I find the computer stuff just ends up taking over more and more of my focus. How often do you guys keep in touch with your instruments?

You guys are a "touchy" bunch....

Very true Beepster......the PC does take a lot of my time......more than my instruments. 

@Mesh... I'd hate to forget why I bought all this crap for in this first place. lol

My computer IS my main instrument!

Beepster


I looked over and saw how lonely my guitar was so I picked it up and just played it for a few hours. I try to do this every few nights but I find the computer stuff just ends up taking over more and more of my focus. How often do you guys keep in touch with your instruments?

Beep, when you say computer stuff, do you mean the net and other computer related things, or do you mean computer as in Sonar and recording?
 
Whatever the case, in my situation, Sonar and other programs are up on various machines for 16 + hours per day. I never allow computer type stuff (internet, chats, email etc) to get in the way of my music or my client work that I do.
 
When doing my own material, I'm always experimenting inside of Sonar. It's rare for me to "just play" my guitar, drums, piano, bass or sing. When I DO though, it's because I'm either training myself to pull something off that is difficult, or I'm learning something for a client. Most times though, I have material playing in Sonar that I'm jamming to.
 
Sometimes I also jam to midi backing tracks that I've created inside of Sonar. But to really answer your question, I've been playing so long that I really don't practice or "just play" for the sake of anymore. I lost the desire for that unfortunately. I played so much when I was learning to play that one day I woke up and sort of decided to stop learning while "learning" to harness what it was that I had learned. I't s bit foolish on my part because it doesn't give me much growth time as a player, but I'm seriously content with what and how I play...so most of the playing I do is for my material or is business oriented more than for the pleasure side of things.
 
-Danny

I suppose the computer has to be on (unless I'm playing acoustic) 'cos all my sounds are in my Boss Br-8 hooked up to the interface (it's an amp-free zone here), and I usually like to play to 'something', even if it's just a basic drum loop. If I'm writing something I try not to record anything until I have the piece mapped out, otherwise I get trapped in Overdub Hell.

Never.  I only have a MIDI keyboard that connects to the sound card on the PC.  I haven't played with that very much lately, either.  

even more important them playing guitar, ive been spending more time with the family and less time in here.
its easy to get sidetracked on time and spend all day just posting away.

guitar can always wait,the fam?
they are the most important thing in life  :)

Beepster


I looked over and saw how lonely my guitar was so I picked it up and just played it for a few hours. I try to do this every few nights but I find the computer stuff just ends up taking over more and more of my focus. How often do you guys keep in touch with your instruments?

Since I've started playing in a band again I have the opposite problem.  I haven't touched Sonar in months.

Beepster


I looked over and saw how lonely my guitar was so I picked it up and just played it for a few hours. I try to do this every few nights but I find the computer stuff just ends up taking over more and more of my focus. How often do you guys keep in touch with your instruments?

I know just what you're saying Beepster. A DAW is an instrument, a much more complicated, visual, tactile, aural instrument. I can't even pick up  my acoustic guitar anymore without thinking about the entire DAW. I really should develop a seperate section of my intellect for base creation, one for development in the DAW, one for engineering a mix, and one for mastering my result and converting it to a salable file in todays market. It's really quite a bit more complicated than composing a song and practicing all the moves and techniques needed for the instrument and the vocals, which is quite complicated in itself.
The art-hobby-passion-science has gotten much bigger since learning the DAW instrument. I try to start with the idea for the poem-song, the music, the correct technique and articulation, the finished peice. And then move to the DAW with all of it's techniques.

I've been playing my Sheraton II a lot through my Mesa Dual Rectifier Tremoverb. Some of the tubes were a good 1/8" to 1/4" out of their sockets so I took them all out, polished them, and reseated them. Over time the metal tabs that hold them in had separated so I bent those back inward to grip the base of the tubes tight. Don't know if it's all in my head, but I think it sounds a lot better.

I touched my DAW for the first time in weeks the other day. Don't know if you saw the thread, but it was a bad experience. I'm pretty done with X1 until I can figure out some kind of way to trick my wife in to letting me get a new PC.

@Chuck: No I didn't tell him about it, but I wish I would have.

Beepster


I looked over and saw how lonely my guitar was so I picked it up and just played it for a few hours. I try to do this every few nights but I find the computer stuff just ends up taking over more and more of my focus. How often do you guys keep in touch with your instruments?

Easy...I play and then do other stuff. Playing my guitar is natural....messing with computers isn't.

Almost daily. I only belong to 2 forums, so I'm only online checking those out once or twice a day. Other than that, I'm only online for research or news. I only fire up Sonar when I'm ready to record something I've written, or working on a collab. I try and play at least one of my guitars, or my drums once a day. Even if only for a half hour or so.

My hidden fear is that "she who must be obeyed" might say something like "you don't even play that much anymore, why would you need a new guitar? Pffft...not gonna let that happen!

Randy

Whoa... lotso post. Sorry. Got caught up in my other threads.

@Danny Danzi... How are ya? I actually heard some of your work on a CHB track Bapu linked me to. You are quite good. Super clean like Vai. It's apparent you locked yourself in a room at some point to focus on your chops. I've gone through about 4 or 5 of those phases in my 20+ years of playing but always ended up getting pulled back out of my hidey hole for live gigging. Almost ten years ago I went through one of those periods and just sat down with my scale/chord books and started making charts of everything. I mapped out all the modes and chords for all the major keys then picked up a university level theory book to test out my work. It all fit perfectly. That shot my knowledge level through the roof but knowing it and being able to actually play it are obviously two different things. I ended up getting pulled away from those studies for work and band stuff again but implemented as much of that knowledge as possible into my day to day playing. Over the past two years I've delved back into the theory but this time hammered away at it physically on my guitar. Now I can play every mode of all 12 keys at every position on the neck as well as play all the first position triads to the second octave (rising up the high E when needed) and low E to high E chords (kind of like 6 string bar chords but actually using all the 1 3 5 steps in the arpeggio) rising up the neck for every key arpeggiated. I've got my time down for this routine to 12 minutes. I play all this following the circle of fifths and start each key's routine by playing it's Ionian root in first position. By doing this I have gained so much control over my playing it's sick. Now I can apply this method to all other diatonic scales as well as use it to map out pretty much anything with relative ease. Sadly my hands don't move as well as they used to due to abusing them at work and elsewhere over the years so unless I do like a 3 or 4 hour warm up I can't get the super clean style going like I used to. That's fine though because I like my playing a little raunchy anyway. As far as the computer stuff I was referring to learning all this modern DAW mayhem. I do however spend a little too much time poking around on the internet but if I go too crazy on real computer work or physically playing my pain levels go through the roof and I'm completely useless so I gotta keep my mind occupied in my down time. Right now I just want to get the backlog of albums I have stored in my brain recorded and see where that takes me. Cheers.

@jamesg... I'd say using the computer as your "amp" would still count as stepping away from the DAW stuff. It's pretty much the same as plugging into a fancy pedalboard and amp. Once I'm set up better I'd imagine most of my practice sessions will indeed be through the computer. And I do like the idea, as you said, of being able to jam along with something. At the very least through Guitar Rig I can start programming metronome files to work with my scale/chord practice routines which will hopefully result in a better meter. I've been playing free form for so long I'm kind of all over the place. I'm great at locking into any drummer or pre recorded track but that internal meter does need some work. For now though I still plug into my old combo amp to practice. It's just easier for me at the moment.