Guitarists of Singletrack…

Stop fussing and Learn to play a damn guitar! All that upgrade stuff will suck yr drive to learn and the guitar will be another step closer to being an expensive ornament/monument to underachieving.

Good point. If I’m practicing or learning something new I plug into my little Yamaha amp because if I plug into the pedalboard or the Dream Rig I spend time faffing when I could be playng.

I sometimes wonder if I play too much, not had a day off in 8 months, currently practice between 4 and 6 hrs a day, totally obsessed.

Stop fussing and Learn To Play a damn guitar! All that upgrade stuff will suck yr drive to learn and the guitar will be another step closer to being an expensive ornament/monument to underachieving.

I agree with the sentiment while at the same time suggesting that you are one of those dads at U12 cyclocross races who shout at their children that they should stop crying about falling off and just pedal the damn thing! 😁

It’s easy to forget how much your fingers hurt when you first start playing (or return after a period of not playing). Also, it can take time to pick up the most basic things. When you start you just can’t spend hours playing. Initially it’s more like minutes a day! And, one more thing, most of us can’t spend hours and hours a day playing – we have to work, try to keep our kids alive, etc. Flicking through guitar related websites seems a fairly natural thing to do when you’ve got a new hobby and spare time away from that hobby. And there’s a massive amount of stuff to learn about the subject, which an old hand will have forgotten that they didn’t know at one point. My planned, but unachievable, upgrades today are that I need a guitar in every size, just because.. (Because of 20 minutes watching an Anderton’s video, earlier. 😄 )

@RustySpanner

So how is the new Strat then? As good as it looks?

My planned, but unachievable, upgrades today are that I need a guitar in every size, just because.. (Because of 20 minutes watching an Anderton’s video, earlier. 😄 )

Andertons vids are just the gateway drug. Wait until you are so hooked on toys that you’ll watch Dan and Mick spend an hour discussing tuners on That Pedal Show. 😳

I borrowed a Fender Mustang amp and gave it back because it had too many distractions. Now I use a Vox Amplug into a Minirig speaker because it just makes one nice sound. Now I spend my time playing tunes not twiddling knobs.
What’s the point of getting upset that my Harley Benton with P90s doesn’t sound exactly like Jimi on Little Wing when I can’t reliably play a F shape without muffling the B string?
Remember the guy carrying a guitar case and lost in New York? “Excuse me Mr Policeman, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practise, son, practise”.

I agree with the sentiment while at the same time suggesting that you are one of those dads at U12 cyclocross races who shout at their children that they should stop crying about falling off and just pedal the damn thing! 😁

Nah, I’m soft as shite 🤣. But advising random strangers on the internets to practice an hour a day is well within my capabilities.

For me it’s important time. 2 x 30 mins, I session lunch and 1 session evening. It’s working well. Except I wasted 30 mins on an STW music thread yesterday and so missed my practise. Case again in point.

Anyone can do 2 x 30 mins a day. Blend your lunch and suck it though a Camelback.

If you say you ‘can’t’, then go cry somewhere else. And stay off browsing the vajazzles until you’re a big enough girl to rock one. OK?

It’s easy to forget how much your fingers hurt when you first start playing (or return after a period of not playing). Also, it can take time to pick up the most basic things. When you start you just can’t spend hours playing. Initially it’s more like minutes a day!

So learn to read music better while your poor little fingers are recovering in the cuticle-bath. Pay someone to turn the pages for you! Gottit? Good 😉

And stay off browsing the vajazzles until you’re a big enough girl to rock one.

Case in point! I have no idea what means but assume it’s guitarist lingo, so must spend valuable practice time googling it!
😁
(I’ve owned guitars for over 30 years but have no talent. My fingers are tough enough to play for hours, but, as mentioned, no talent. The internet provides valuable pointers to my lack of talent. I must need a better guitar to hide my lack of talent. 😂 )

😉

Just done my halfhour of scale practice with the metronome followed by ten minutes of looper and backing track stupidity.
But now I’ve finished my coffee and need to check over the garden to see if any of the sheds leaked last night and then clean the singlespeed after a few days of rainy riding.
More guitar later after the F1.

I must need a better guitar to hide my lack of talent.

A huge wash of fuzz, reverb and delay does that for me.

I have no talent

5 minute read

so must spend valuable practice time googling it!

Devil finds work for IdleJon’s hands 😑

Just done my halfhour of scale practice with the metronome

You mean you have found a metronome that does not speed up and slow down randomly?

Your five minute read is bollocks, Malvern. Any teacher will tell you that some people learn to do things more easily than others. There are whole load of mental and physical aptitudes at play when you learn to do things. Hand to eye coordination, hand to ear coordiantion, feel, sensitivity, mental agility, ability to recognise and remember complex patterns. Some people are simply better at these things than others and for a given level of time effort and enthusiasm invested will always be better than someone less gifted/naturally talented.

You can practice all you like but you’ll never be Steve Vai or Tommy Emmanuel, or even come close.

Recognising your own limits and making the most of what have are a couple of steps to becoming a happy guitar player. Set the bar at a height you have some chance of jumping over, not the same level as the world record holder, and admit that even if you devote your life to it you’re not going to get close to the world record.

You mean you have found a metronome that does not speed up and slow down randomly?

What, like this one?

Actually I use the Soundbrenner app.

How about a bit of Tina S, she was 17 when recorded this. Think her ability, time put forward, and her teacher is a bit of a rarity.

I agree that there is such a thing as ‘natural talent’…. however, the massive massive part of it all is practice.

I’ve had some incredibly naturally gifted students over the years that never achieved any actual musical accomplishment as they did very little practice.

Best bet if you have any ambition of being ‘good’, is to put your 10000 hours in and see where you end up. Not that you need to do that of course, plenty of people find enjoyment in a multitude of other ways playing music.
One thing to note….it DOES get harder as you get older! Much harder!

Recognising your own limits and making the most of what have are a couple of steps to becoming a happy guitar player.

Very much this and it can be applied to most things you have a go at. I’m happy jangling me way through 80s and 90s indie stuff on guitar in the same way I’m happy daubing acrylic paints on bits of cardboard or bimbling about on me bike 😄

I enjoy practice even if it’s just the transition between two or three notes that I have spent hours working on, my father however is a noodler and often gets frustrated by his limitations, because he gets no pleasure from “tedious practice”.

When mad woodworking woman meets a cigar box Explorer meets practice for the 2020 guitar build challenge with bit of Crimson Guitars cross over. What can go wrong? Answer: a truly awful plug for wine for the first minute or so.
I like the resulting guitar.

I agree that there is such a thing as ‘natural talent’…. however, the massive massive part of it all is practice.

I’ve had some incredibly naturally gifted students over the years that never achieved any actual musical accomplishment as they did very little practice.

Yup. Check out Steve Vai’s 10 hour guitar workout (that’s 10 hours per day BTW). Tommy Emmanuel told us at a concert Q&A he even practices in the back of the van driving between gigs. Chas Chandler said the first thing Jimi Hendrix did when he woke up was to turn his amp on.

Best bet if you have any ambition of being ‘good’, is to put your 10000 hours in and see where you end up.

It also helps to start very young. Both Martin Taylor and Tommy Emmanuel started playing when they were 5 so they probably had their 10000 hours in before they were 15

Tom mentioned it getting harder as you get older. You also forget stuff. I met a mate to play on the esplanade in Cauterets recently. We used to play regularly together till he moved so we went throught our old repetoir. Then he said “Eddy and the Hot Rods”, it took me several seconds to add “Do anything you Wanna do” and then blank. I looked at the fretboard,
“what’s it in?”
“E”
“yeah with some open chords but I can’t remember”
“You taught me and now you can’t remember” (he’s now finding this very funny)
“no, show me”
“I can’t, you do the intro”
“well after the intro then or sing it”
“der d der d d – der d der… didly didly didly”
After a minute of messing I’d got intro and off we went, with a few strums of muted strings from me when I wasn’t sure..

My point is you get to a point where you’re forgetting almost as fast as you’re learning and at some point practice is just to stand still, beyond that despite practice you’re going backwards.

I’m flogging a couple of overdrive and distortion pedals in the classifieds. They’re under the Randoms category if anyone is interested. If you need any info please PM rather clogging up this thread. Ta.

Almost everything I have learnt I have forgotten

Exceptions being theory because I drilled it into myself from 22-25 and any songs I learnt in that period (mostly cod classical)

But I don’t worry because I can pick this up with a quick listen at any point

What I wouldn’t want to so is be stuck with a load of cover song dross in my head

Been playing a lot over the last week and finally got around to trying a wet/dry rig set up.
I bought an A/B/Y switcher from GigRig and set it up with the DT25 25W valve nmp and an 800W Stagesource FRFR speaker.

Signal path is Polytune into Sunset 2 stage OD/Distortion into MojoMojo (the MojoMojo is on 90% of the time). Then into the splitter/switcher. Output a goes to the DT25 for the main dry tone, usually set up to be lightly breaking up and sounding a lot Fender Twin ish.
The second path goes into the Iridium set up as either a Fender Deluxe Reverb or an AC30, then into the Plethora effects board and then into the Satagesource.
All the reverb/chorus/tremolo/delay etc is heard from the Stagesource but the DT25 seems to add a definition that lets you run more effect without swamping the sound. The tremolo for example is still there but you don’t lose any attack on the note.
Seems to be a lot fuller sound than stereo and way more practical in a small gig space.
Anyway, its a nice sound that encourages me to play so that’s not bad.

I still prefer stereo over anything else

This weekends rig is hx stomp into 2 srm150s – I would have been ecstatic to sound this good even 5 years ago

effects is all you need

Hiya!

Just a quick post about the Strat.

It’s delightful and is still surprising me.

Well happy with the quality, it’s pretty much flawless – one small flaw in the nitro at the neck pocket, but you’d need a magnifying glass to see it.
It’s two piece, the top half is very plain, but under the right light you can see the grain of the bottom half. I like that.

The trem feels a bit delicate compared to the Edge in my Ibanez, but it stays in tune and has zero play. Impressed.

The pickups are just fantastic. I love the cleans on my RG (I know….) but these are something else. Deep, full, harmonic, just spot on. With the volume down a bit it’s quite vintagey, but turned up full it’s very Rory.
The bridge is strong but not too harsh, even through my mate’s Twin. Does the inbetween sounds very well and frankly I can’t fault the tone.

The neck is a nice compromise between the 7.25, vintage fretted Jap Tele/Indonesian Squier and my ultra flat Ibanez. The fretwork is flawless. Not much flame or figuring on the back, but a nice bit of rosewood on top – dry as a bone atm, but it’ll get some lemon oil soon.

Neck relief is fine but the nut slots and bridge could come down a bit. It’s going in for a setup tomorrow.
Intonation was all over the place, but fine now.

I’m so glad I found it – the specs are pretty much perfect for me, vintage looks and sounds but modern playability.

It’s also reinforced my belief that the Japanese make the best guitars. I’ve played so many Gibsons over the past few years and I’m yet to find one without flaws.
American Fenders are nice, but soooo expensive.
My Squire is a keeper, but every screw is skew-whiff and it looks like it’s been put together by Helen Keller.

As a returnee who started learning from scratch again with my wife a couple of years ago, it’s probably too much.
But I’m experienced enough to know what I like and this is a spot on.

Cheers all, pics later. 🙂

RIP Julien Bream. The greatest guitarist.

Damn. Agreed!

My guitar teacher has told me not to use a metronome, I do trust his judgement, but realise it’s not the majority opinion.

I do a bit of recording on Logic Pro, generally play guitar and then use electronic drums and I use a synth for the bass line.

I fancy a cheapish bass to record bass lines rather than the synth, what would guitar track world suggest.

Cheers

https://www.guitarrepairbench.com/best-cheap-bass-guitars-under-200/

My guitar teacher has told me not to use a metronome, I do trust his judgement, but realise it’s not the majority opinion.

I use mine as a training tool. If there is something I can’t play I go super slow with the metronome and gradually speed it up. I’d never play with one otherwise unless I’m creating a longish loop, Id rather find a backing track or just get a Garageband loop going.

effects is all you need

Well I’m not going to disagree am I? 🙂
I’ve never played a gig with a PA for anything other than vocals so stereo doesn’t seems to work in my head. Great for recording but personally speaking I’ve never heard a live band in a small pub sized venue do anything worthwhile with stereo in the backline.

Cheers for that @theotherjonv any tips for what would make a good second hand buy in the £200-£300 range ?

I don’t know if this is peak lazy or awesome.
Roadie3 guitar tuner.

Most bar/small club PAs are dual mono anyway

“Perfect tune”, but that Gibson sounds out of tune after she’s tuned it. I think a couple of her strings are a tad flat. And even if you don’t think it’s out it will be the first time she does a bend. Tune your guitar and see how it compares to hers.

I tried an SG with auto tuning, it just didn’t work, you needed to finish manually with another tuner.

Fair dos, there is a ‘tune up’ mode that detunes first then tunes up.

Totally nicked from The Fretboard

Well I’m not going to disagree am I? 🙂
I’ve never played a gig with a PA for anything other than vocals so stereo doesn’t seems to work in my head. Great for recording but personally speaking I’ve never heard a live band in a small pub sized venue do anything worthwhile with stereo in the backline

Most bar/small club PAs are dual mono anyway

Yes understood, my point is this is not for the punters its for me. I can get glorious stereo with tiny speakers and take a feed from that to the larger FRFR that people would take for a guitar amp

Years ago I found an alex lifeson stage recording of what he heard and it was a mile away from what comes out of the PA – If we ever get to play live again it all stereo for me