Classic Rock model as well. It’s amazing how good it sounds, right?
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Have you got any handy hints and tips for this because I feel like I get absolutely NOWHERE in terms of improving my unplugged legato. I can do it reasonably fast and relaxed with very little volume, or I can do it extremely slowly and deliberately with a bit more volume but with a degree of tension/stiffness that means I’ll never get any speed with that approach.
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I guess just really listening critically to your articulation. I’ve found that if I focus on fretting with the very tips of my fingers, on the harder, more callused part rather than the fleshy pad, I tend to get clearer articulation and more “volume” from the guitar. That and just keep your touch light and fluid. You don’t have to make it especially loud, you just want to keep each note clearly defined and even from note to note.
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As far as I know, it is physically impossible to make the legato notes as loud as the picked ones with an unplugged instrument, any attempt to overcome this limitation can only result in ill-directed tension - @Tom_Gilroy may be able to confirm/deny 
I also recall from one of his posts that (">" means “louder than”):
picked > pull-off > hammer-on
EDIT: Tom, I know you are a mathematician, so I should be precise 
The correct inequality is
Max(picked) > Max(pull-off) > Max(hammer-on)
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I hesitate to use words like impossible… But, yeah, I’d agree with this, broadly. I’d worry more about clarity and evenness than I would about trying to match the output of your picking hand, unless you’re a VERY soft picker.
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right, I’ll focus on keeping it relaxed/even/clean and report back in…I don’t know, a year or so
I’ll be sure to practise with stupid amounts of gain as well so my muting doesn’t go out the window
Even just doing trills, focusing on using the tips of your fingers, and listening to the tone of your guitar, will go a long way. I think I started noticing results within a week or two, to be perfectly honest.
Ha, good thing you corrected yourself. Yes, I was specifically talking about the dynamic ceiling for each technique.
A firm hammer is required for clear articulation, but there is a point where increasing the force applied just results in the note bending sharp and sympathetic noise on the other strings. The maximum effective loudness of a hammered note is below that of a note that is pulled-off to, which is in turn below that of a picked note. If you want an even dynamic, you have no choice but to match the level of you pick strokes and pull-offs to the level of your hammers, which is the limiting factor.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with an uneven dynamic, and many players such as @Drew actually prefer this effect. It’s just not “legato” in the strictest sense.
@Prlgmnr, I believe that it’s much more important to practice legato plugged in with a range of gain settings than to practice unplugged. Unplugged practice is useful, and can help to target specific issues, but what’s most important is that you can actually play how you want with the sound you’d actually perform or record with. Certainly you shouldn’t be afraid of unplugged practice, but too much time unplugged will affect your ability to damp unwanted noise while playing with gain.
Incidentally, most of my legato practice these days is through my audio interface and S-Gear, with a Holdsworth-type preset sound, as I described earlier in this thread.
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What’s your budget?
There’s a wide range of options with the Axe FX III being at the top end.
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I went with a Vox amplug, but now I am using a Scarlett solo interface into bias fx. It is great!
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Yeah, I believe we’ve talked about this in the past, and I broadly agree with you - I remember years ago seeing a Marshall Harrison video where he gets pretty dogmatic about “legato” in the classical sense and is pretty dismissive on what he calls something like “John Petrucci style ‘rock legato’” or something - this was ages ago, I don’t remember exactly - because it’s not as smooth and flowing and loose and liquid as a legato notation is intended to be in the classical sense. And, I mean, I can’t really argue with him - what I’m describing above is’t really what you’d expect from a classical legato notation, where you probably DON’T want to work on bringing out the “attack” and clear articulation of every note in a legato phrase. If that’s an objective, then I’m giving bad advice and you should watch a bunch of Holdsworth videos, lol. But, I do still think its a great sounding and totally valid way of making music (and I’m not saying you disagree with me, I think we both agreed it’s just different the last time it came up), it’s just kind of a product of the fact that in rock guitar, “legato” has increasingly come to refer more to a technique/series of techniques than it has a sound.
I do think it’s easier to bring down your picking attack than it is to bring up your slurred techniques, though, and I guess to be fair when I’m playing a long, mostly legato line, the occasional picked notes I drop in, I probably am hitting a bit lighter than normal so they blend a little better. I guess it’s just the roots as a blues player in me, though, where I think there’s a lot of tonal color you can pull out of the guitar by varying your pick attack, and I think that sometimes those uneven dynamics should be embraced, or maybe more technically speaking (since I’d bet heavily neither you nor Holdsworth would disagree with that statement), in my own playing, I DO tend to like to embrace uneven dynamics, and it’s part of my personality as a guitarist in wats that an even, flowing dynamic is sometimes other people’s personality.
tl;dr - guitars are FUN.
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The old Rockman by Tom Scholz headphone amps had a great reputation. I don’t know about the new “Guitar Ace” models since Tom sold the company.
Quirky personalities in presenters and viewers aside, I was super appreciative of those videos. Lot of misinformation put out there confidently about Holdsworth’s playing, and while I may be wrong, I think the comments about rock legato were pretty much just in the context of the point he was making about the Holdsworthian approach and the classical definition of legato.
Congrats to @Sguitar in finding something much better than anything that was ever available to some of us while in college.
Yeah, I don’t want to undercut the content, and to be fair if Harrison’s comments were interpreted as in the context of “Holdworth-style legato” rather than “legato technique as is defined within the modern electric guitar canon,” then he’s right, of course, and there’s nothing even remotely eyebrow-raising about what he’s saying. And he is an insanely talented player, for sure.
It’s just that, personally, sounding like Holdsworth when I play legato isn’t a primary artistic objective of mine. Which is fine, because there’s room for a LOT of different sounds in the guitar world.
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How do you guys deal with latency with computer based audio interfaces, s-gear sounds killer with a good pedal too but man the would throw me off, using the smallest sampling size etc, it’s always been an issue, I notice cause I also have a tube amp setup that makes it apparent going back and forth.
Another vote for the amplug2’s, they’re very good though I’d rather not use them with headphones, a small blutooth speaker without any internal processing would be better. A pedal from your main rig into the Vox amp plug, even better.
I’ve loved the sound of the Kemper; even s-gear with pedals into a UA twin via an HD800 and Lehman BCL headphone amp but that setup is expensive and not always practical, bloody heavenly sounding though.
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I have one of the original Amplugs. Always liked it for its ability to take an aux for metronome/backing tracks/whatever. Didn’t love that it didn’t have reverb, but I think maybe the newer ones have ‘verb?
I did have good luck with plugging the Amplug into the last pedal in my chain though.
These days the tiny Vox MV50 is my actual amp and it lives on my PedalTrain Nano+, so I use the (excellent) cab-emulated output to practice in my hotel on the road or after the kids have gone to bed at home.
I have the V2 Classic Rock. It has reverb, delay, and chorus (individually only, not in combination) with 3 presets for each.
I highly recommend the Amplugs. I design and build my own pedals, but I bought this because to duplicate it would not be cost- or time-efficient. I wouldn’t want to gig with one, but I would do it if it was the only option.
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I can’t speak for others, but I don’t have issues with latency using S Gear with my Scarlett interfaces. I need to have my laptop power supply connected and use high performance mode for best results though.
I have small valve based amplifiers also, but they’re too loud too use in an apartment.
Hi Tom,
Yes I heard that, my concerns aren’t an issue on newer focusrite hardware. My current UA Apollo Twin Duo (thunderbolt I) has an usable latency. Definitely going to be dumping that for something else.
I’m using an oddball setup for my practice. YJM strat -> BEOD -> Vox AmpPlug2 -> Boss Katana’s AUX input. Quite happy for now, if I get much better I’ll treat myself to a high gain amp, I hear the newer Amps have great master volumes to make low SPL use a pleasure.
Cheers!
What about a Line 6 Sonic Port or Pod?