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eddiebaby that’s really kind thank you.
No problem at all fella.
But just to be precise all this will do is give a level match so he can plug his guitar and bass into his laptop via an audio in port.
There is not fancy electronic trickery, anything will need to come in after that and the sound quality will depend on the analogue/digital converters in his laptop.
I suspect at some point you'll go down a separate audio interface route but this will let you play with a few free DAW trials and decide what you want to do and what you actually need. And then you can take advantage of the New Year Sales.
Send me your address via PM.
If your hands are big enough (and you haven’t dislocated your index finger falling off your mtb in a motel car park in Utah) then you can play a full F chord playing an E shape (like you would for a barre) moving it up a fret, two bottom strings with the index (as per chord diagram) and wrapping the thumb around the e- string on F...
Simples and great when you’ve slung the geetar waaaaay low like wot they did in the 80’s.... 😚
^ quite a good way to damage your tendons though, and a bad habit to start.
Quite a few guys I know are having to quit their bands once the injuries from that kind of thing start acting up too much.
Thumb flat on the back of the neck - HSE says so!
^ quite a good way to damage your tendons though, and a bad habit to start.
I have short, stumpy fingers so no chance of doing that anyway!
Billy Gibbons has been playing with his thumb over the top of the neck for roughly as long as I've been alive. I'm not sure how you'd play Tush or Sharp Dressed Man cleanly without. Thumb over the top holds down the E string and mutes the A, alternate ring on D and G and index on D and G and you have the basis of the riffs.
Grab the neck and you've got an F shape, move it up and you've got every other major chord, every punk knows that. 🙂
Hendrix used to wrap his thumb over the top of the fingerboard like that, and look what happened to him...
Yeah the thumb wrap is awkward at first until you get the hang of it (I use the side of my thumb against the string, not the flat bit). I don’t have biggest hands and prefer barre-ing (barring?) but there are a few Hendrix tunes that were played with thumb wrap and are pretty hard to play without (Little Wing springs to mind).
@simondbarnes I’d put money on everyone being able to get their thumb round. It’s easier standing than sitting. IMO It’s worth experimenting with just to give you more options and to get a (tiny) bit of insight into the mind of Hendrix.
But yeah, the ‘proper’ way (who decides what’s proper?) it to keep your thumb glued to the back of the neck.
I’ve injured myself badly biking and climbing.
That’s why I can’t do the grab F chord as my index tendon got ****ed under the knife during reseat surgery. **** the HSE 😂
Uncle Larry (Tommy Buk) was extolling the thumb technique on his home skoolin videos...
Forgot about Billy G right enough.
But I did qualify by saying ‘if your hands are big enough’...
Are we starting a yearly guitarist thread like the F1 threads?
That would be nice
Also love to see some pedals/boards and/or rigs
I'm in the middle of building a new guitar if anyone is interested in some pics?
Are we starting a yearly guitarist thread like the F1 threads?
It could get a bit unwieldy if it rolls over, so why not?
Anyone want to keep the ‘wisdom’ in one place or happy to see a split?
Yeah I'd never really thought about it much, but I guess the good advice does start to get buried a bit once you've got a thread as long as this one.
I'm happy either way Eddie.
Yes, Sammy.
My refret is waiting for another packet of frets. The 0.6m feeler guage drops into the slots easily and the old frets have a thick tang of around .63 so I ordered some Fender frets with that dimension. When the Fender frets arrived I made a few up but they were loose. My vernier calipers told me they are .51mm, the diagram on the sellers site is wrong. So I've ordered some Dunlops with a .6mm tang and I'm hoping they'll hold without glue.
I've spent a lot of time hunting down reliable tang specs and still haven't found them for some brands, Göldo for example.
Ok, going for a black burst tele with twin P90s and gold hardware:
Now that's what I call solid body. One lump of wood, where did it come from?
Looks interesting ^^^
Is it nitro?
Its the "classic" swamp ash from a guitar wood supplier. Obviously it could be any old rubbish for all I know but it seems to have been stable in the 6 months I've been working on it on and off.
Its stained black with Osmo Polyx Hardwax coating. I really really enjoyed doing the shaping and wood work, but the finishing has been really stressful and painful. The finish is ok, but I'm not doing it for a third time so its now "good enough"!
I think if I do one again I'll send it out for the final clear coating as I just don't think I can do it justice at home with no workshop facilities.
The neck I bought from Crimson guitars in the UK and is beautiful. I had stainless steel frets put on it (which were a pain to level and dress) but hopefully that's the last time I ever need to do that. I've got a pair of Tonerider vintage P90s for it and bling gold HW. 🙂
That's nice! My summer project of a proper nitro, gold base coat Candy Apple Red came undone with the red clear coat on top of the gold. It was (amazingly) too warm when I sprayed the gold, so the propellant evaporated before the paint hit the body, leaving it like sandpaper (after a diligently rubbed smooth grain filled and primered base). I tried a couple of coats of red, hoping it would all melt together, but it just made it worse, so I'm halfway through stripping it back (which does look cool in itself in a distressed kind of way) and I'm probably going for a less ambitious finish...
Did you use rattle cans or "proper" spray equipment? I get the impression that rattle can finishes are a lot harder to get the "dipped in glass" look people want to achieve.
A wee early Xmas present to myself 😁
A special run for Guitar Guitar. Player Series roasted maple neck and US made Custom Shop pickups.
It's absolutely fantastic. The neck is unbelievably smooth. Not usually a fan of maple necks but this might be the nicest I've ever played. The pickups sound gorgeous. No harsh mids, beautifully balanced. Sounds great clean or heavily distorted
Nice guitar, check intonation. I bet the G string is about 15 cents sharp at the 12th fret. If those are the original strings they'll probably all be a bit sharp at the 12th.
It wasn't too bad. High E needed an adjustment. The action is perfect. 1.5mm on the low E at the 12th which is bang on
My bad, that's a two point bridge which sit further back than the vintage bridge so the saddles sit further forwards. I hadn't realised they'd started putting two points on the Mexican Strats, I'm trying to think of a reason to buy an American over that and can't.
That Spider III is the Brootz
Anyway, someone asked about rigs:
Japanese Tokai Les Paul from about 2003. Owned form new. Has a P90 in the neck.
An early 1970s Orange OR120 that my tech says is putting out about 200W on full chat.
Through a Marshall 4x12 bass cab (VBC412).
Second head is a 15W modular head randall MTS in a cab I built for the amp chassis.
Pedaltrain is 3 fuzzes a drive and a tuner, going into a TC Nova System for all modulation/delay/pitch shifting and stereo effects.
Massive overkill for the house but sounds like God on Earth
That’s nice! My summer project of a proper nitro, gold base coat Candy Apple Red came undone with the red clear coat on top of the gold.
I was gonna suggest you check out my thread but I see you already have! I’ll reply on there momentarily.
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/my-lockdown-project-complete-guitar-content/
CAR is hard!
Any thoughts on this Ashdown Five 15 100 watt bass amp?
After starting lessons in a studio with proper big amps, I fancy something LOUD for the occasional blow out. This is local for £100. I'm not sure about the durability of the sliders, but anything else to consider?
TIA
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In my experience 100W isn't LOUD as bass amps go. It's virtually just above practice-amp level 🙂
If you're playing with big bass amps in a studio, they'll probably be 500-800W heads running a 4x10 and 1x15 or whatever. I'm sure the Ashdown will be fine, but due to the crazy way we perceive volume and low frequencies, you'd have to go a lot bigger to get to trouser-flapping levels...
(Caveat - I am not a bass player, but I find my 250W TC bass amp only just copes with a drummer...)
In my experience 100W isn’t LOUD as bass amps go. It’s virtually just above practice-amp level
I'm at the very inexperienced end of the spectrum and just bought my first ever bass amp. It's a 50w Orange Crush and I can only run the volume knob up to where it just kicks in. That's practicing in a biggish living room at a comfortable level.
If I turn it up over half way you can hear it down the street. According to some very friendly neighbours. It's brand new and not sure how it compares to older stuff.
I haven't been in a room with a drummer yet but I'll welcome a good excuse to buy something much bigger!
You don't need a bigger amp.
Just get a smaller drummer. Ideally with an electronic kit.
As a home amp it'll be fine....I actually quite like the sound of even the budget Ashdown stuff (apart from that hateful mini rig think that they did)
However, one of my former students had that amp and it is literally useless playing in a band (at least with a drummer). 100w is really low power for a bass amp, my rig when I played a lot of bass was 600w....the bassist in my wedding band and touring show is on a similar powered rig to that too.
Well here's my current 'rig'. Thanks to lockdown business disaster it has lost some weight but being honest I'd happily have a playdate down the pub with mates using it.
As long as I have enough volume and 25watt DT25 has enough for that, and reverb (DT25 has a choice of assorted modelled ones) or even better a delay (via the Pandora) and a switchable drive then I'm happy.
If I was expected to do accurate cover versions or played anything other than pub rock standards then it wouldn't work but all I need to do is find away to turn on and off the Pandora and I'm sure some Sugru and some carbon fibre rod I have will let me extend the Bypass switch enough for careful foot tapping.
The variety of guitars sounds available especially using the THR10 is more than enough to play with at home. It's not like I'm recording a masterwork.
Looking forward to changes next year when I plan to head back to Weymouth, maybe retire and play with my old guitars down there.
If we're doing rigs
Fender Duosonic
Fender Stratocaster
Line6 Variax
Simon & Patrick Woodland Cedar
Ibanez V72
Line 6 Spider II
Spark Positive Grid
Boss ME25
🤎 the duosonic
Are rigs the new sleds/weapons/steeds?
@BoardinBob I reckon the original Strat on your Variax is better sounding than the HD model on mine.
@BoardinBob, what do you think of the Spark Positive Grid? Looks promising from the marketing material.
Yay. I'm in holiday now, so more time for riding and music. I'm putting together a fingerstyle version of the foo fighters, My hero. Needs more work, but you get the idea. That's a Lakewood M1 guitar by the way. It's about 15 years old and is lovely.
@BoardinBob, what do you think of the Spark Positive Grid? Looks promising from the marketing material.
I love it. Its perfect for the type of player I am now. I just play myself at home and I play a huge range of stuff. Everything from mainly blues and classic rock but also loads of alternative, grunge & metal. The range of sounds from the Spark is immense and covers everything I like to play. I can jump from a classic Hendrix sound to a Pavement-style indie jangle instantly, then onto a ridiculously good BB King sound. It's so versatile. The only thing missing is some kind of foot controller to switch between patches but I have to think they're working on one.
@BoardinBob I reckon the original Strat on your Variax is better sounding than the HD model on mine.
Pretty much. It's crazy how accurate it sounds, particularly as it's almost 20 years old and really at the infancy of this kind of tech. The criticism levelled at it initially was that it didn't feel that great to play but I like it. I know a lot of people stuck upgraded necks on but I find it's ok. Somewhere between a strat and les paul neck. The Strat, Tele and Les Paul models are spot on to my ear. It's worth nothing on the 2nd hand market so I'll always have it and I've really enjoyed playing it recently.
I bought it. It looks nice in the flesh once the baby blue controls have been cleaned up. And it's loud enough for what I want and it's nice to have a piece of British engineering doing a job. For £100 it seemed rude not to.
My rig(s)
Live (remember that?)
Shure wireless system > Digitech Whammy DT (for fun and to save de-tuning for Eb songs) > Orange Rocker 15 Terror Head > Hughes & Kettner cab loaded with Celestion V30, usually via an SM57 to FOH and in-ear monitoring system.
Recording
Blackstar Artisan 15H > Boss Tube Amp Expander (Load box & Cab IR’s) > Apogee Element 24 AD convertor to Mac Mini. Have experimented with blending a SM57 on the cab recorded at the same time but TBH doesn’t add much and is hassle. Will sometimes have the cab in the room if I need to work the guitar for additional sustain but usually silent recording wins.
Practice
Until recently this used to be plinky plinky on unamplified electric but just bought an HX Stomp and enjoying using that. Getting some nice sounds out of it in my headphones and will seriously consider gigging with it in 2021 (feeling positive)
I've gone and done it again. New amp day soon, 65 amps Ventura Head....Nice
I will post a rig pic when its complete but
Tele, Strat
Gigrig atom and strymon
Stereo Ventruas 🙂
but just bought an HX Stomp and enjoying using that. Getting some nice sounds out of it in my headphones and will seriously consider gigging with it in 2021 (feeling positive)
I've used my stomp on quite a few gigs both guitar and bass and really apart from the power supply it has been excellent
What plumber says! Got mine powered via a truetone cs12, but did have one mysterious failure during a theatre gig.
My first post in this thread so be gentle!
My son lives with his girlfriend now and a month ago I took the acoustic guitar I bought him years ago off the wall and started trying to learn a bit... I am the most novice of novices but really enjoying trying to learn to play. I have no aspirations other than to be able to entertain myself and Mrs Surfer has treated me to a Yamaha Pacifica for my first electric jobby so I would appear to be hooked 🙂
I have been following Justinguitar on YouTube and I am amazed that so much excellent teaching is freely available. anyway I will read this thread from the start...
edit: I should say any recommendations for beginners would be appreciated
@surfer I would really recommend you learn some music theory to go with your "learning to play guitar" journey. Its the one thing I wish I had done when I was first learning guitar 30 odd years ago.
I've started back on guitar since the CV19 thing hit as a way of keeping myself amused and I can honestly say learning the theory behind the music has been the most enjoyable thing ever.
It has explained so much of what goes on in music but has also given me a greater appreciation of how complex and refined some seemingly mainstream classic guitar music was/is and how genius some guitarist are/were.