Guitars, tips and great music discussions
I imagine that having an extra digit on your left hand must have it’s con’s, but the pro’s might just make it worth it!
Playing a 7 string guitar would come in quite handy with a hand configuration like this? When playing difficult chord progressions like the ones that Bruce Cockburn and John Mayer use, wouldn’t it be nice to have another finger just hanging around the old fret board?
Wow, keep on Jammin’
The other day I had to do a few errands like pick up some grocery’s and earth worms for our turtles. Oh BTW, we use to have lots of reptiles like, Chinese Water Dragons, and a HUGE Iguana named Napoleon that we called our son who I miss every day, and some turtles.
Before starting off I decided to go to the 12th Fret to finally start paying more attention to my electric guitar ambitions. I haven’t restrung my RD in years. Whenever I broke a string, I just put another one on from the pack that I bought ages ago.
Yes, I really do feel bad about not paying proper homage to this beauty but, I did not have any use for it for a long time.
While visiting the store, I ran into my favorite guitar technician Tim. This guitar master is very knowledgeable in his field. He’s the type of guy you can sit down with and ask for honest opinions about what direction you should take in any situation. Tim has the uncanny personal trait of making you feel relaxed and at home. He has that trustful older brother demeanor. He is also the proud papa of a 16 day old boy, whom I’m sure is a guitar prodigy to be.
So I told him what I was looking for and he started to ask me about what setting/intonation I was using. I felt a bit like a rookie when I told him I had no idea. So as not to directly acknowledge my stupidity, he started explaining my options to me. Ahhhh, finally dodging a big bullet. I was saying to myself, “thanx for not dwelling on that too long Tim!”
He asked what type of feel the guitar strings had in regards to malleability or flexibility and he directed my attention to the D’Addario XL EXL110’s. These electric strings are nickel wound and have a regular light gauge to them.
How you restring your guitar is the most important thing that you will ever do to your axe.
You have to make sure that the way you wind them around the tuning pegs are perfect in every way.
How you thread the string through the eyelet – or the little whole on the tuning head- is very important. The length at which you start winding it, the tension that you have on it, using your other hand, and how close they are placed together on the shaft of the tuning peg is paramount.
Imagine when you are measuring an angle. If you start a little bit off, as little as one degree, it will only get worst at the end of your project. Does that make sense to you?
The strings are on, and the windings look good. Now it’s time to start working them in! For further results, tune in next week!
Keep on Jammin’
I can’t believe what you can find out there online.
I was writing a post today and as usual, drifted into la la land. Or should I say down memory lane.
I came across this guys site and he had the same amp that I had when I was in grade 7, I think. It was called a Sears-Simpson 12-watt head .
This amp was purely for looks. It had a huge cabinet that was very impressive to look at for the uninitiated guitar player wanna be. I do believe it only had a 12 inch speaker but the big black box made it look like many more were hiding in there.
I just kept this thing around and used it to play through until I was given my HIWATT. After a while I had a great idea on what to do with this under utilized big black box. I just to put it underneath my HIWATT to make it look even bigger. Boy was I the cat’s meow back in the day.
The speaker box was very light but durable. I never tried to hook it to the HIWATT because I thought that the speaker cones (the little round things in the middle of speakers) would end up being shot out it to the other side of a room.
This is the amp that I had to use my BOSS Distortion DS-1 with because it had no distortion on it at all. Now I know why it didn’t, because it was a bass guitar amp! This was a true case of size over substance.
Keep on Jammin’
I honestly did not use this pedal much after obtaining my 50 watt, HIWATT 1/2 stack, but it was invaluable until I did. This was the first pedal that I got when I was like the kid that Jerry Doucette sang about in his greatest song ever, “Mamma let that boy, play some Rock & Roll”.
It was overpowering at first, for a young kid. That was in the pre-metal/experimental years.
Eventually I learned to tame it, or was it the other way around, interesting? I had dropped that thing so many times I can’t remember but as they say, “takes a beating”!
Some of my friends used the Over Drive pedal. I just thought that it was not what I wanted my music to sound like. It was too rough and not well defined, honest – that is what I said when I was a kid!
Which one do you like?
Keep on Jammin’
It was the Boss CE-2. Boy, those were simpler days.
This was my 2nd peddle that my great parents bought for me. I was the first in my direct and indirect circle of Brantford musicians to have this one.
I thought that it was a peddle that Alex Lifeson used. It was that good at reproducing the songs and effects that he used!
I almost died when the one of the knobs broke off this baby when I was going from a friend of mine to back home for the night. I thought that it was broken beyond repair. Yes, I very naive back then, electronically challenged you might say.
Here is The Illustrated History of Boss products that will make you become nostalgic or laugh your butt off! I was doing both.
In a Musician.com article, it says it all. A very simple pedal for a simple guitar player.
Keep on Jammin’
Has anyone ever tried these things? The last time I tried them was when I was trying to figure out the banjo! They are silver coloured picks that are used to pluck the strings from bottom of the string upwards. They can be sized to any finger. One size pretty much fits all I think.
They are fine for this finger style technique but my style has my fingers moving both upwards and downwards as well.
This is where the problem begins. The tip of the pick tends to go under the string when I move in an upwards motion on the strings. No matter how careful I am at a fast picking, I still run into this problem.
Does anyone have an idea to this problem?
Keep on jammin’
I was watching a copy of the Grammy Awards the other night. I’m honestly not into this stuff but when we found out that The Police were going to be playing, we taped it.
Halfway through the show we came across the memorial segment. In it, it showed that Roger (Syd) Barrett had passed away. My jaw hit the ground. My wife reminded me that we knew of it, but as usual I forgot.
So anyway, I went on a hunt for Roger(Syd) in cyberspace and found some of the equipment that he use and I learned about the Binson Echorec Box..
This thing reminds me of the Roland Space Echo that, Scott Merrit, a childhood guitar hero of mine from Brantford used. This Binson Box was the forefront of special effects pedals that has lost it way in todays crazy marketing world of guitar special effects.
So let’s pay some homage to the past and look for more blasts from the past and if your lucky, you’ll learn something that can be used today!
Keep on Jammin’
Well have you ever had a old pedal that you wish you had the SCHEMATICS for, so some electronic buddy of yours said that if he had it, he could fix or re-build it for you? Well look no further.
While surfing the other day I came across this site BUT I HAVE NOT TRIED IT YET. If by chance someone out there does contact this site can you please tell us about your response to the quality of the schematics that they send you.
Last night I went over to saw Rick and Steve at G-Force Media Productions and was re-acquainted with this little toy that Rick picked up at a Long and Mcquade year end sale.
Rick, the man with his eyes always open to new innovative electronic support equipment, had heard of this device called a Tone Port by line 6. He had done his research on line about this product and had heard from other people in the industry that had used this product with great results. With the event of last years “year end blow out sale on all in-store products” fast approaching, he went on their website to see if it was on the list of items on sale. He found that this product, along with other equipment that he had his eye on, was on sale and knew that he just had to have this in his arsenal, so he went and stood in line for 12 hrs before the doors had opened and was 3rd in line. And thank God he did!
He had came to work at the Hospital, where we work, the next day I think and, told me that he had snagged this for a steal at $130.00 (Can.) Weeks later after completing their reno on the studio, he finally installed this beast. I went over one day and he showed me just how it worked. I was totally amazed at the diversity that this thing had. I had so many sound tabs to chose from, that I didn’t know which one to target on first.
Rick then told me to just start jammin’ and that he was going to record whatever I was playing, just so he could get use his board again after a short hiatus from it. I know that ‘m far removed from my RUSH days but, I started off with Working Man(1st album called RUSH,1975). The sound was very fat as well as raw, with sustain that went on forever with this effect peddle! I was using this electric guitar that he had bought, can’t remember the name, that had a wammie bar on it and said that no one liked it because it’s too hard to play. Those guys must have been joking, the thing soared like a dragon, really. I’ve never owned a guitar that had a wammie bar so I just went nutz. I had the honour of breaking in his studio by being that first guitar player to play in his studio as well as the Tone Port, thanx Rick!
I truly hope that you jump to their(Line 6’s) site and check out for yourself the versatility that this item has. The site has a video of how it works and it’s an eye opener. Rick just has the 1st version but, still it’s nothing to sneeze at, trust me. If anyone picks this thing up, can you write to me about the pro’s and con’s of it? I want to see if there are any improvements to the first that would make it worth my will to pick it up, besides the price. But I’m really lucky cause, I’ve got Mr. Jones and his Tone Port on my side!
Keep on Jammin’
The F-1 guitar pick is something that seems very non-traditional to me but hey, nothing better than expanding the approach to guitar playing, I’m all for that!
In the little town of Brantford where I grew up, anything that was different was looked upon with one eye brow up.
When I was trying to play the guitar with a pick and my fingers at the same time, people thought that I was nutz. I wonder back then what we, as kidz, would have thought of this invention.
I plan on getting one of these cool picks soon but I’m stuck on which one to try out.
Has anyone ever bought this type of pick before? if so, can you let us know which one you picked (I know bad one) up and what you thought about it?
Keep on Jammin’