Installing and using Guitar Rig 5 Player in Reaper and Actually Recording Great-Sounding Music

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Some time ago, I got interested in modeling different amps and effects when recording guitar. I already used Reaper for recording for the last 10+ years, so I finally paid for the full license (only like $60). Reaper’s free version doesn’t have limitation in functionality, but does have a nag screen that pops up for 10 seconds when you start and you can’t use it commercially. Reaper is a full-featured DAW (Digital Audio Workspace) complete with pitch correction, MIDI and tons of other great features and plugins. On its own, you can record some nice quality music. The issue is external equipment… When you are cheap or broke, you likely don’t have one of every amp or pedal ever made to use when recording guitar. That’s where VST plugins come into play.

There are a lot of good VST plugins that allow you to make your guitar sound like it is going through any amp head, cabinet, effects pedal, etc. TH3 is one I played with for a while that I likes a lot, however the one I settled on that fit my needs best was Guitar Rig 5 Player. There’s a pro version as well, but the PLayer version is free. You could set it up on your computer as a stand-alone application, or as a VST plugin inside Reaper, Audacity, Ableton, etc. to record with. It is kind of complicated if you are unfamiliar with VST plugins or just getting started, so I made a how-to video to show step-by-step how to install and actually use Guitar Rig 5 player.



While it comes with a lot of patches to make you sound like different artists, or different songs, or even different styles, you can also google around and find patches online to download that other people have made for free. Note that if someone has the paid version of Guitar Rig 5 Pro, you might not be able to use their patch if it utilized amp and pedal models not available in the free version.

Plugging your guitar into the computer can be a bit of a challenge. You need some kind of interface. I’ve used a lot of things over the years. Up until recently, I used a lot of cheaper Behringer mixers and USB interfaces. I stopped because the drivers became an issue for my Windows 10 setup and Reaper. A friend of mine really like his Yamaha MG10XU mixer that has built-in effects. I’ve switched to what I see a lot of recording folks on youtube using, the Focusrite Scarlet 2i2. Its drivers play nice with everything (except OBS for some reason as you can see in the video above. This is not actually Focusrite’s fault, it’s all OBS’s fault since they don’t support ASIO audio drivers without a plugin and couple of workarounds). These options allow you to connect multiple channels at once so you can get mics and instruments at the same time.

Another option is to get a guitar pedal with a USB interface built in. There’s more on this option below.

Guitar Rig 5 Pro used to be sold with an awesome little MIDI pedal with multiple buttons and an expression pedal you could use to trigger different effects chains in the software or plugin, however it seems hard to find nowadays. Literally any MIDI controller would work, even something you can build yourself for cheap like the Mini UNTZtrument. If you build your own, I recommend forgoing the keypad and instead opt for some actual pedal pushbuttons, and maybe hack an old broken expression pedal from ebay or reverb nation as one of the pots. I’ll have another custom designed post within the next year or so from a project I’ve been working on (or rather which has been sitting on my desk) for a year or so now that is a guitar direct input/pedal/looper using a Teensy microcontroller. I’ve seen a lot of people using the SoftStep 2 and I nearly bought one of these myself (and still might actually…)

Eventually I wanted a bit more… A friend of mine had a Fractal AX8 which has a lot of this functionality built directly into a pedal (including a USB interface). Fractal makes really quality equipment.
A Perfect Circle and lots of other bands tour with Fractal modelers exclusively, then just run their audio out the venue’s monitors.

I can’t afford one of those. I looked for a lower cost solution. I wanted to be able to play without having to bring my laptop everywhere. I opted for a POD HD500x. The HD500X is a bit older, but it has a lot of these same capabilities built into a pedal form. In fact, in comparing to the AX8, there are a (very) few things in which the HD500x sounds a little better.

You can setup your own custom amp, pedal, and effect chains you want (within reason) using Line 6’s HD Pro software. Lots of other peoples’ patches are available for free download on Line 6’s website, but there are lots of people on youtube and online forums either sells or give away patches. This guy’s channel shows you how to set the patches up directly on the pedal itself.Check out the video below showing how that works. It looks quite similar to Guitar Rig Player 5 to some extent which made the switch to using it easy. You can also edit these presets and create new ones directly on the pedal itself if you want to. It is a ridiculously flexible piece of kit! It has a built-in tuner and even a 40 second looper which I love! You can run it as a pedal into an amp like normal (for live shows), or as a USB audio interface to just record awesome riffs, or as a pedal into another audio interface (this is what I typically do), or as a MIDI controller. You can use this as a complete replacement for the Focusrite Scarlet I mentioned above because it has a separate Mic input as well by using this patch. The only difference is that the HD500x doesn’t supply Phantom Power, so you’ll need a driver for that if you use a condenser mic, which is why I have the Scarlet. TIP: Don’t update the firmware to 2.6.2 because it’ll make a lot of the older patches sound horrible. Flash Firmware 2.6.1 is where it’s at. Luckily if you are dumb and updated it like I did, the Line6 Monkey program allows you to rollback the firmware.

I hope this article was helpful for you. Please comment to ask about other things in this area. I haven’t posted much about my music ever even though I’ve been playing and singing for like 20+ years at this point. I’ve only recently gotten more into recording more and digital tools.

Items to Make Your Life with a Toddler Easier

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These products will help you make life with a toddler easier. A quick search about having a toddler will come up with comparisons of being in prison or a dysfunctional relationship. Although I prefer to focus on the best things about having a toddler, it is no surprise that parents of toddlers can use a little help.

*FTC disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through my links. All opinions remain my own

Here are the products you need to make toddler life a bit easier:

must buy products to make life with toddler easier

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

So 1 and 2 are potties, but they each serve different purposes. Right now we use 1 as a toilet seat on our regular toilet (it bends flat), but it is also used in travel situations as needed (like vacations, long car rides, etc.). 2 is used full time in the bathroom. We actually have the Summer Infant Lil’ Loo (which is cheaper), but for some reason seems to have been discontinued. It it hadn’t been an option, 2 would have been my choice as friends have recommended it. I’m all for less pieces (less to clean!) and a streamlined design.

Toddler-proofing can be really frustrating. Install is about as easy as it can get with 3 but I still used these in minimal places. In the kitchen I used these on our junk drawer and on the cabinets underneath the kitchen sink (which houses all our cleaning supplies. I also used these on the cabinets in both bathrooms. That’s it. I hate being locked out of my own stuff. I use a metal nail stud in both the kitchen and bathroom as the place where I keep the unlocking key (it’s magnetic!).

4 – Car seats can be pretty personal, I needed a seat that can fit rear facing in a really small car (Honda Fit!) . This was among the cheaper options that had good user and safety ratings. Pro tip: Keep an eye on pricing for different color options. I managed to get mine for about $80 cheaper by purchasing a close out color!

5 – This should actually be on my must have baby items that’ll last until toddler years post because we’ve used this since our little started on solid foods. I love that it is easy to clean. In fact, I have put this entire seat in our dishwasher!

6 – I couldn’t find simple metal silverware for children cheaper any where else than Ikea. This isn’t there children’s set (which were bigger in size, strangely enough. Their Dragon dessert/salad forks, and Dragon coffee/tea spoons have been perfect. Our two year old seemed excited to use “big kid” silverware.

7 – These knit doorcovers from Etsy are the best! If you know a knitters, they can probably make these for you. Those “other” doorknob protectors (of which I will not name) don’t even come close in awesomeness.

8 – This stool is used both to get on the big potty and to brush teeth. It is lightweight and my toddler can easily move it without scuffing the floor.

9 – We have a sliding patio door and this is perfect. Easy to install and use! It can also be used on windows or sliding bathroom shower doors.

10 – So we actually made our own learning tower and other easy Ikea hacks are out there. If you aren’t into DIY, you can always buy your own kitchen helper. Most of the time our toddler is using this to play in the sink, but it often occupies for the entire time it takes me to make dinners, so it’s worth it.

What Didn’t Make The List: We contemplated adding our baby gates. We have this gate at the top of the stairs and this one at the bottom. But honestly, we’ve stubbed our toe with the bottom gate too many times. I wish we had purchased two of the top stair gate.

We all have our own sanity saving tips, so what is making your life with a toddler easier. Seriously, we need to know. Share now!

 

 

 

 

Quick and Easy Method to Spice up the Builder Mirror in the Bathrooms

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Like most cookie-cutter plaster-of-paris houses in America, our bathroom mirrors had no frills. Just a reflective piece of glass on the wall to provide basic functionality and that’s it.  To make your bathroom look a bit fancier on the cheap and really easily, you’ll need the following:

  1. Low temp hot glue gun and glue
  2. Bathroom caulk
  3. Primed polystyrene (foam) Window/Door Casing (Enough to cover the perimeter of each mirror )
  4. Four Primed Rosettes
  5. Fine toothed saw of some kind (I highly recommend a miter box and a pull saw) The material is really easy to cut, but you want a nice clean straight edge that might be tough to achieve with a razor.

We’re getting primed moulding and rosettes because white works well with our bathroom colors and I’m lazy and don’t want to have to paint anything.

The first step is to measure out your cuts for the casing or moulding. This is actually kind of hard to do because we are going to have a rosette in each corner of the mirror. I tried an elaborate method of calculating this at first but ended up just having to go with the flow as things didn’t turn out how I expected at first.  Start with the rosettes. These will be in the corners of the mirror and what we want is to maximize mirror space. We don’t want to cover the mirror any more than we need to, so let’s say 1/2 of the casing thickness will cover the mirror. The casing and rosettes are the same thickness, so if we do 1/2 the thickness from the side, and 1/2 the thickness from the bottom, only 1/4 of the area of the rosette will actually be covering the mirror.  Pretty complicated to read but easy to see.

Now to attach these pieces we will have to use a two-step solution. We’ll apply both silicone caulk and low temp hot glue. The reason for this is that the hot glue by itself falls off after about a day or two (ask me how I know). The caulk will hold it great, however it doesn’t have enough tack force to hold the pieces in place long enough to dry when you apply it. So we’ll use the silicone caulk for long term stickitude, and the low-temp hot glue just to hold it on the glass until the caulk can set. Voila’.

Warning:  I used hot glue with no problem, and I used low temp hot glue. I don’t know what kind of hot glue gun you are using, or how your glass will react. If you shatter your bathroom mirror due to thermal stress it can be dangerous and will be totally your own fault. Do this at your own (slight) risk. If you are worried about how hot the glue is, then just apply it to the rosette and let it cool for a bit before applying it to the glass.

Put the rosette in the corner, and make sure to align it straight. You really only get one shot to stick it to the glass with the hot glue. If you get it wrong you’ll just have to pull it off, clean the glass and back of the rosette and try again. Once the hot glue touches the cools glass it nearly instantly sticks. After doing this a couple of times we got the hang of it. Again, use caution pulling this off the mirror if you need to because doing it wrong could break the corner of the mirror. It isn’t a huge worry, but just be careful.

Once you have the rosettes in the corners you can cut your moulding pieces to length. In our case I measured roughly and cut the casing, then wedged it in place and tweaked the cuts if I needed to. This was also a time when I realized that some of the rosettes were misaligned and I redid them yet again.

 

When applying the casing, you have to make one long line of hot glue and make it as straight as possible. This is on the back side of the moulding, however due to the thickness of the glass it can be seen. Also, once this foam material is on the mirror, you won’t easily get it off immediately without snapping it in half.

Once you get all the pieces on the mirror, caulk the connections between the casing the rosettes to complete the look.

I’m really overcomplicating the project. It was super easy and looks great with no painting required.

Midway and After shots of Mirror 1. You can see the transformation even in the first pic.

A simpler method is to find an old frame and paint it white and hang it. Check out what Jess did here:

Kid Consignment Sale Haul (aka fun toys and games for your toddler)

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Kid consignment sales are a favorite of mine. Being a first time mom, I didn’t even know these existed until a friend, also a mom, keyed me into their awesomeness. Now I go to at least one for spring/summer and another for fall/winter.

So, why are they so great? Let me give you an example. Here are all the items I purchased recently at one consignment sale:

*FTC disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission for purchases made through my links. All opinions remain my own.

Raccoon Rumpus Game by Educational Insights

There was instant love for this game by my little. It has been played with several times each day since we bought it.

Where’s That Chipmunk Game by Haywire Group

We haven’t played this yet because the instructions were missing. It proved to be a bit more challenging to find the rules since the company has changed ownership, but I was able to enter a broken link that seemed to have the rules (which it did) into the Way Back Machine and open an old version of the page (Hooray!).

Goodnight Moon Matching Game by Briarpatch

This game has lots of different ways to play and is appropriate for my toddler but will also grow with her as well!

Micro Mini Original Kick Scooter by Micro Kickboard

I almost bought one of these during Christmas and I’m glad I waited!

Lauri Deluxe Tall-Stackers – Pegs & Pegboard Set by PlayMonster

I actually did buy a pegboard set at Christmas but gave it to a nephew as a gift. This has also been played with a couple of times every day since purchased.

Going to the Doctor (Usborne First Experiences) Book by Anne Civardi

Creepy Crawlies Hardcover Book by Igloo

The magnifying glass in this book occupied my little during most of the time I was shopping at the sale and that alone made it worth its price!

Okay, self admittedly I usually buy a LOT more at consignment stores, but I was on mission and had a short time frame at this one. It was closing in less than an hour AND I was specifically looking to add to our game collection.

Okay, now for why there is such hype for consignment stores. If I bought these six items new I would have spent well over $185. INSTEAD I only spent $34! On average, I paid about 20% of the regular price for items I purchased. This is pretty on par with most things I buy at sales like this, but on some occasions I have paid for up to 50% of the regular price for items I really wanted.

Now, another good (yet time consuming) part of consignment sales is YOU can sell your stuff in them too. It’s pretty easy to make us much as you spend in a consignment sale, so it is kind of like swapping out your old unneeded kid stuff for new to you needed/wanted kid stuff.

If you don’t know where consignment sales might be in your area, check out Consignment Mommies!

For anyone that sells/shops consignment sales, any tips?

Brighten Up Old Grout

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In our house, the kitchen had tile in it for some time. I’m not sure if the previous owner sealed the grout, but we thought it was supposed to be dark. Honestly, it just looked bad but I wasn’t about to regrout the whole thing. Instead, Jess brought home some grout paint.  I’ll say it still wasn’t easy to do, but with about 15ish hours of painting we finally got the floor looking good. It’s pretty uncomfortable sitting on tile floor for that long, so sitting on a pillow or using a kneeling cushion is helpful.

After this grout project, we installed hardwood floors everywhere else downstairs and in the master bedroom and both bathrooms upstairs.

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