Silent practicing for my Rivera KR-100 (suggestions please!)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeremy
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Jeremy

Jeremy

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Hey everyone,
I have two young ones at home (2 1/2 and the other is 1) and my Rivera KR-100 obviously is too much for my home. I'm not gigging/in a band currently so I can only practice extremely quietly (exception being if I can ever get the wife and kids out of the house!). I have the Rivera RockCrusher which honestly works great for really quiet but as my 'guitar area' is in the storage/utility room next to the TV/family room in the basement I need an alternative that involves headphones as I honestly get drowned out by the furnace or laundry machines! It's a horrible and frustrating situation but it is the way it is until we can get a bigger home.

I'm not looking @ recording just practicing silently with headphones. I've been looking really hard @ the Two Notes Torpedo C.A.B. but am wondering if there is not a cheaper alternative? I'm not at all familiar with IR's and the like so I need help & suggestions! I have a laptop to potentially use but when I try to make sense of these IR programs, it seems like they're only to use with a DAW (which I don't have nor want to learn right now) and not as a stand alone for playing through. Is that correct? Or are there speaker/cabinet simulator programs I'm missing?

I am not looking to buy an Axe or Kemper or some cheap headphone amp, I only want to use my Rivera KR-100. Ideally I wish to use the line out on my Rivera RockCrusher into something that will allow me to use cabinet IR's so I can practice with headphones.

Any suggestions and help is greatly appreciated!
 
If you don't want to hook up a computer then I would also suggest the two-notes cab using the line out of your rock crusher. I have a similar setup, I use a k-tre with a rock crusher and use the line out into my laptop with the two-notes plugin for silent practice since I already have it setup for recording. I also have the silent sister and while it's a great unit I don't think it's the right thing for this since you would also need a mic, pre, interface, computer, etc. I think the two-notes cab would be the better choice here, that plus headphones and you are ready to go. If you have some kind of headphone amp you could also look at the palmer pdi-09 junction which is just a speaker sim and doesn't have a headphone out.
 
I use a Rivera KR55 and a Rivera Duarte, each hooked up to their own Marshall SE100, which is similar to your setup. My question is why do you want to use your Rivera for that purpose? They really aren't for practicing silently. I mean I realize you know that already, but why are you so opposed to getting something cheap, that sounds good for that purpose and using your Rivera for what you already do? The SE 100 has a headphone out, but I never use it. It is the last way I want to hear my Rivera.

There are some really great sounding and inexpensive ways to practice silently these days. That is why I am curious. Hell, many can be done on Ipads and Iphones..without buying much. I like the other products mentioned, but they are very expensive in comparison and are overkill. I don't know how serious you are into recording, but if you are not that serious, a product like

http://us.focusrite.com/ipad-audio-inte ... track-solo

could get you started. It works with Mac, PC or Ipad. You can practice silently and then even have access to all of the programs available on all platforms, including the cheap apps on ipad such as Amplitube. It is worth checking out. I was seriously shocked to see what is going on in that direction and can't wait to try it myself. I am saving up for this unit myself.

Either way I am curious to see what you do. I will follow your thread.
 
Mr. Burton":2ddpfmfi said:
Why don't you just get a Silent Sister?
Click to expand...
I have thought about getting one in the past but the cost would be too great as mentioned (Silent Sister + Mic + cables + Interface or small Mixing board= $$$$).

mjtripper":2ddpfmfi said:
If you don't want to hook up a computer then I would also suggest the two-notes cab using the line out of your rock crusher. I have a similar setup, I use a k-tre with a rock crusher and use the line out into my laptop with the two-notes plugin for silent practice since I already have it setup for recording. I also have the silent sister and while it's a great unit I don't think it's the right thing for this since you would also need a mic, pre, interface, computer, etc. I think the two-notes cab would be the better choice here, that plus headphones and you are ready to go. If you have some kind of headphone amp you could also look at the palmer pdi-09 junction which is just a speaker sim and doesn't have a headphone out.
Click to expand...
I'm not entirely opposed to hooking up to my laptop if it means saving some serious $$. A small, decent interface is quite a bit cheaper than the Two Notes Torpedo C.A.B. My laptop is full of crap though as we use it for work occasionally, personal stuff (lots of pictures, etc.) so if I were to setup a DAW should I be concerned if it'll be able to run it? I've heard that DAW's utilize alot of CPU..... I should really look into clearing off the laptop maybe.

bigdaddyd":2ddpfmfi said:
I use a Rivera KR55 and a Rivera Duarte, each hooked up to their own Marshall SE100, which is similar to your setup. My question is why do you want to use your Rivera for that purpose? They really aren't for practicing silently. I mean I realize you know that already, but why are you so opposed to getting something cheap, that sounds good for that purpose and using your Rivera for what you already do? The SE 100 has a headphone out, but I never use it. It is the last way I want to hear my Rivera.

There are some really great sounding and inexpensive ways to practice silently these days. That is why I am curious. Hell, many can be done on Ipads and Iphones..without buying much. I like the other products mentioned, but they are very expensive in comparison and are overkill. I don't know how serious you are into recording, but if you are not that serious, a product like

http://us.focusrite.com/ipad-audio-inte ... track-solo

could get you started. It works with Mac, PC or Ipad. You can practice silently and then even have access to all of the programs available on all platforms, including the cheap apps on ipad such as Amplitube. It is worth checking out. I was seriously shocked to see what is going on in that direction and can't wait to try it myself. I am saving up for this unit myself.

Either way I am curious to see what you do. I will follow your thread.
Click to expand...
Oh believe me, I know it's not meant for Silent Practicing! I just love my sound from the Rivera and I just hate seeing it sit there not being utilized. That's the main drive to finding a way to practice with it silently. I had a MicroCube once upon a time and it was alright, but I guess I'm just too picky and can't handle using anything but my Rivera. I also had an Axe-FX Ultra too, but sold it as I couldn't handle all the tweaking. I spent more time tweaking than practicing and still couldn't get what I was after and it also seemed like an expensive piece of gear to have around that I was not enjoying.

I can't say that I am very serious about recording as I have no experience with it on a personal level. It is something I thought I should try and learn however as I'm always writing stuff. That's why I started this thread really to see if there are less expensive ways to do what I want to do. If getting a little interface and setting up a simple DAW on my laptop is the way to go, I should just learn how to do it now.

The Two Notes Torpedo C.A.B. seems like a simple and easy idea which is why it catches my attention. The idea that I could (with help from one of my buddies) profile my Rivera 'SEVEN' 4x12 to use with it is very interesting. And the idea of using it maybe live (instead of micing my cab) or for a 'portable' pedalboard rig is also pretty exciting. The only hold back is of course the price tag.......
 
DAWs can be pretty hard on the cpu but really only when you load them up. If you are just doing a guitar track with maybe some backing tracks almost anything will work. It gets bad when you start laying on the effects, instruments, and the track count goes way up. I have a couple projects with 30+ tracks that barely hit the cpu but a couple other with only a few that make heavy use of software synths that bring it to it's knees. Maybe check out reaper and the two-notes free version. guitar rig, amplitube, and pod farm all have free versions as well where you can turn off everything except the speaker sim. Plus there are all kinds of IR files you can use with a convolution client and almost every daw has some kind of client it might just take a little to set it up. Using a computer give you the most options but also takes the most work. The two notes cab is pretty much plug and play and the palmer pdi-09 with a headphone amp is even easier but you don't get to choose which speaker/mic to use. Because I have it for other things I do use the silent sister / rock crusher for quiet practicing sometimes as it's at the other end of the house and nobody can hear it. I have a couple mic and speaker cables running through the house and my amp for recording is right next to my computer so I can use the computer, interface, mic pre, silent sister and monitor with headphones. REALLY overkill though if I didn't already have it setup for recording - it sounds sweet though :)
 
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