New member - long time player LONG intro

Hello ya all,

I'm Antti and come from Finland, but everybody calls me Dee in English, and Dee, D/A or DeeAa has been my nick for, uh, I dunno, two decades or so :-) So here's my intro. Hopefully it doesn't sound too commercial or so...the truth is, I never made a dime making music and while I'm an OK singer I'm hardly a pro in any level especially on guitar or bass.

I'm a hobbyist musician, been since late 80's, when I played guitar and sang rock and heavy metal etc. I have been in several bands and one of my hobbies is, besides making music, recording it. Actually just now about to finalize a 14-song live album by my current 'live' band Spookbox http://www.mikseri.net/artists/?id=129754 there you have some songs from us. I've registered a few hundred songs to ASCAP and released or engineered or produced a couple of dozen releases on CD or whatever media. I have a few older projects of mine on sale too on iTunes etc, and Spotify has some of my stuff...search for 'Crankenhaus' for instance for some Grunge style music etc....

http://www.mikseri.net/artists/?id=31986 < that would be one of my older 'solo' albums I did everything but the keys for.

http://www.mikseri.net/artists/?id=133782 < This also is a concurrent band, more pop music.

I also sing and sometimes play for a collab band 'Project-42'...we're working on our fourth full-lenght CD right now and been dabbling in making cover songs of 80's etc. 'metal'...you can see them easiest here: http://www.project-43.com/videos

http://deeaa.pp.fi/ < also has loads of my bands past and present but requires some navigation to get thru.

OK, enough of the shameless plugs...as I said, I may have done a gazillion projects, but never made a dime with music, never will. In fact, whenever a band or something of mine has started to show signs of success, I've shut it down.

Then my gear...currently I play thru a Marshall JVM410 with an old cab with Greenbacks...my guitars are all pretty much custom jobs I built myself. I used to play a Gibson LP for a decade or more, but lately I've just built or bastardized guitars.

I have built a guitar out of soapstone, and just a year back built an experimental one with a neck-thru from scratch.

BUT I mostly like to find some 20-30 year old guitars that still have great, straight necks, and rebuild them completely. Am just now finishing an old Yamaha that came with a floyd, but now I've completely reworked it and now it has an aluminum top and reshaped neck and a single EMG85 and PA-2 booster and converted to hardtail & gibson style bridge :-)

I also have a couple of frankenstrats, and a Prophecy SG I modded somewhat too...and my best guitar is likely this 'Davette' I reshaped and hardtailed...it's shown here with my setup:

I also use Amplitube 3 w/StealthPedal quite a lot, actually do most my recording with it...I record either with a Presonus Firepod 8-channel card or a Zoom R-16, and have Cubase 6-based DAW home 'studio' where I dabble.

Of amps, well, I've had a bunch from Ampeg to a whole lot of Marshalls from JCM800 to JMP to JMP-1 to several combos, and a Ceriatone Marshall copy, and several Fender 2x12" amps like Twins and DeVille, also some rack rigs from Peavey Rockmaster onwards to Tech 21-Sansamp 1.1...some floor based stuff, Pods, TEch-21 amps and gear, loads of 1-5W tube amps by H&K all the way to Valve Jr....lots of stuff. Also D/I guitar rigs and software etc. and even several el cheapo amps...actually just now also have one Behringer in my living room that actually sounds really great!

It's not that I do loads of music however; I have two small kids and work as a teacher, and besides I'm writing my second book (SciFi) at the moment...between all that and other stuff like rebuilding my house and whatnot, I actually don't do nearly as much music stuff as I'd like. But I squeeze in a training a week and a few hours of mixing or recording anyway, or post some YouTube gear demos or something while I get a chance. I guess you could say I'm a bit of an overactive fellow...always have to do everything by myself from music to renovations or fixing my car. I think, why pay an electrician, luthier, car mechanic or a plumber when you can learn how to do it yourself :-) ? (the only problem is, sometimes a pro would do a LOT better job, I know...but I can't resist doing everything myself. That's the only way I can get just what I want.) I have this habit of getting into a band as a bassist or something, and after a year or two I find I'm suddenly the singer/guitarist/songwriter/mixer/manager/van owner, LOL...it just happens that way, I swear!

OK...gotta jet for work now...but, looking forward to spending some time here!