Guitarists of Singletrack…

I can access on PC and phone, paid via Google Play on Android

I use it on my phone and my chromebook

Hello guitarists,

I wonder whether anyone has views to share on pickups?

My primary guitar is an “Inspired by Gibson” Epiphone Les Paul. It’s a nice guitar with reasonable components but of course nothing special.

Am I likely to notice much difference if I upgrade pickups to something fancier?

Usecase is fuzz-heavy doom type stuff.

I prefered the pickups in a recent Epiphone to 2010ish Gibson, Tom. The Epiphones were brighter/cleaner and IMO better as a source for pedals. You’ll notice a difference but whether you’ll like it is another matter. I had a frustrating time with “fancy” Telecaster pickups and learned that price was absolutely no guarantee of a sound that pleased me.

Ha, yes, I suppose “different” isn’t necessarily better. It’s hard to know without trying it out though!

Thinking of picking up my guitar again – haven’t “played” (very loosely used term….) in about 20 years.

Still have my 90’s Aria Pro Pro II Excel, Marshall Amp and other bits.

Obviously guitar will need re-stringing – are Ernie Ball Slinky still the go to strings?

Anything else I should get done to it before I plug it all in?

I’m actually thinking about having lessons too!!

Usecase is fuzz-heavy doom type stuff.

Caroline guitars make a pedal for that called crom. They had a video on Instagram of 10 different guitars through it and they all sounded the same ( to me). It was called something like crom doesn’t care.

So I’d get that pedal instead and keep your guitar as it is :, )

So, what is the general opinion on the Line 6 HX Stomp XL?

I have only a few pedals (that i rarely use): a Fender Shields Blender, RC-3 Loop station and, er, a Boss tremolo (which got retired when I bought a ‘68 Princeton Reverb…).

Due to volume of the Princeton I normal use a Vibro Champ Reverb (which I can crank to 7!). The sheep haven’t complained, well not so far.

I did get one of those Yam THR things but hated it as I couldn’t find a sound that I wanted (spent more time trying to find rather than actually playing).

The Champ is an excellent amp, but its a bit, how much trem and how much reverb (4/5 & 7 respectively) and how loud…

The HX Stomp is currently ~£560 ‘street’ price, and it doesn’t really ever get much lower.

It is just gonna be a massive learning curve, get bored and end up stacked in the cupboard next the Blender and Looper or it is going to ‘rock my world’?

neural dsp nano cortex has been released this week, which looks the biggest challenger for the hx stomp and isn’t 10 years old technology, that is probably the one I would go for (when my playing actually gets to the point that I can take advantage of pedals).

Managed to get my Jubilee sold, now I’m thinking of moving on my Gibson SG for something else. Fancy a fresh start I think, it doesn’t really inspire me to play. Still don’t love the ACDC/School of Rock association SGs have, silly I know but it always bugs me. If anyone’s interested give me a message! I’d be up for trades too, still looking to replace it with something 22 fret/hardtail/HH pickup config.

It is just gonna be a massive learning curve, get bored and end up stacked in the cupboard next the Blender and Looper or it is going to ‘rock my world’?

I’ve had 2 HX Stomps and ended up selling them both. They’re great at what they do but I found myself tweaking all the time and never being 100% happy with things. Captures (ToneX, NAM, Neural etc) seem to sound and feel a lot better than models to me, although it can take a lot of hunting to weed out all the crap captures. I’m primarily a high gain player so YMMV but I don’t find digital cleans particularly inspiring either. Again NAM seems to be the best I’ve found for this, found some awesome Matchless captures which do the edge of breakup thing better than anything else I’ve tried.

_tom, what flavour of SG is it, standard etc? What sort of price?

@lambchop it’s a 2008 Standard in cherry which seems to have oranged/browned over time. Chunky rounded neck profile, batwing guard, 490R/498T pickups. Not really sure on price, a quick look on marketplace shows anywhere from £800-1000 but I gather it’s not really a sellers market at the minute. No point selling if I can’t afford to replace with something decent I guess!

Re the HX Stomp, it was more from a pedal perspective. Whilst its expensive so are a half a to a dozen pedals (which I might not like/use…).

Fortunately I like my Fender clean/starting to break up sound. Just could do with a little variety (now and again) 😀

If it’s mostly as a multi-fx unit I think it’s pretty good. I did some gigs with mine as the only thing on my board apart from a tuner, set up 4CM and it worked really well even with just the 3 switches. It was great to be able to switch in a front end boost, delay and EQ/volume boost in the FX loop for leads all in one press.

Thanks Tom (even if I lost you after ‘it’s pretty good’… :D).
But yeah, the ability to ‘try out’ multiple effects (and together) is the main impetus.
I basically know nothing about individual pedals (or, barring the obvious chorus, flanger, phaser and fuzz, what they even sound like…)

New guitar day, ibanez aw417ce ops with a 48mm nut. I have been struggling so much since starting to learn a few months ago, I was contemplating giving up. My 2XL hands just meant I needed such accuracy fretting chords it was nearly impossible, just a few minutes on this and I can now see a path that I will be able to do this, so much so that as soon as I put the guitar down I went and ordered a warmoth neck with a 48mm nut for my electric guitar. It is a little weird, in many ways the extra width isn’t really noticeable, it is just I no longer need an insane amount of accuracy in fretting chords, it doesn’t feel bigger just easier.

Anyone want to buy a martin gpc x2e? Only kidding, I’m in Germany so won’t be sending it to the UK, although it is a bit of a shame I think the martin is a nicer guitar and it would be interesting to see if I could play it after 12 months on the ibanez, but I could do with recuperating some money by selling it.

Well this was nice, decided to downsize a bit (because I’m struggling to get back into playing since a couple of hand injuries and just not enjoying it that much) and in the meantime cleaned out my spares box, found a bunch of bits I don’t need, stuck em on ebay, sold most of em in a day and made about £250. Randomly had stored away a 90s floyd rose original I took out of my mij strat to do a colour swap, and a duncan dimebucker that I don’t think I ever even fitted.

Now the hard part, trying to convince myself to sell an actual guitar 🙂 Anyone want, uh a 1989 Squire Tele MIK (made by Samick) with upgraded electronics, or an Epiphone Genesis Pro from 2013? ie the one when they went “screw everyone else for copying our designs, turnabout’s fair play, we are going to make a Yamaha SG1000”

Think I’m going to keep my mutant MIJ fender HRR, if only because I hacked it about til its configuration makes no sense at all and no bugger’d want it 🙂 Just need to actually work out how to wire it up, I’ve carefully forgotten everything I knew about guitar electronics in the literal decades since I bought all the parts.

I’ve got couple of Warmoth necks and junior has one on his favourite Tele, MSP. Of mine one is 41.5 and the other is 43.5. Even 2mm means I don’t get so many unwanted mutes but I prefer the narrower one for chords with thumb fretting. You may have to learn to finish the fret ends as they generally deliver dressed but not rounded. That’s one of the reasons I like them, on some Fender necks the fret ends are rounded a bit to much which means the E/e string drops over the end with vibrato.

Just had notice that my UG sub is going up to £44.99 so that’s that cancelled.

HX Stomp is a great bit of kit and certainly not old tech. Keeps being updated and unless you’re a cork sniffer will match most of what’s out there. Only limitation is number of blocks at once, but plenty of presets available which work within these limitations.

Best to get it used for eBay or thefretboard.co.uk. You should pay less than £400.

Be warned, it’s a gateway drug to a bigger unit! I started with HX Stomp and now have a Helix Rack…

Has anyone taken the saddle height down on an acoustic guitar?

It doesn’t look that complicated, just be careful and do it bit by bit. But I don’t fancy having to unstring and restring it multiple times while getting down to the correct action. The local luthier wants me to leave it with him for a couple of weeks, I tried to get him to just book it in for a couple of days when he has the time but he isn’t having it (German customer service).

What are the chances of being able to slip it in and out with just loosening the strings rather that taking them off the tuner pegs?

I’ve never had to take the strings off completely to get the saddle out.

I used the Gibson recommened heights at the 12th as my objective, they’re on the Gibson site. Measure the current string height for each string at the 12th and work out how much too high each string is. Double these values and that’s what you need to take off the saddle. I then take the saddle out and measure its depth for each string, and calculate how deep the saddle needs to be for each string. If the intonation is OK I sand the amount that the string that requires the least removing from the bottom of the saddle with wet and dry on a glass plate. For the other strings I take additional material off the top of the saddle with a fine file then wet and dry – at this point you can make minor corrections to intonation by moving where the rounded top is to make the diapason shorter or longer (I use a non-wound G-string which requires a longer diapason than a wound one). If major intonation changes are needed I take every thing off the top of the saddle.

I’ll admit to having tried to go too low on a couple and bought bone blanks from Thomann to replace them. On a guitar I use plugged in I’ve gone nearly electric low but on guitares I use acoustic I’ve found that lower than Gibson height I can’t play hard enough for a good volume without something buzzing.

Be very careful not to damage the piezo pickup when removing/fitting the saddle.

And file the nut if it needs it first and make sure you’ve got the truss rod set right (the curve of the neck) before you start measuring.

Yep, loosen the strings and you can typically nudge it out.

Nudge suggests pushing it out from the side which could damage the piezo if you drag the saddle along it, I loosen till I can pull it straight up so there’s not risk to the piezo.

Just had notice that my UG sub is going up to £44.99 so that’s that cancelled.

I got mine last Christmas on one of their -80% or whatever super sales for about £20. I’m assuming that the same thing will happen at some point this year.

Daft question time……

When re-stringing a Floyd Rose, is there any reason I can feed the string from the tuner to the bridge and only have to cut the string once?

Seems easier (read lazier) than cutting the ball end off, then stringing and then cutting the excess off….

No reason why not. Even recommended on some guides.

Hoppy Jr has decided he wants to learn to play and has just bought himself an acoustic. Neither myself or Mrs Hoppy play so looking how best to help him learn. He’s thinking he’ll use YouTube and/or apps which is fine. I keep seeing adverts for more “families” apps like Yousician, seeing as he’s a goof it seems like it might be a good thing for him if it is any good. Has anyone tried them/got any real world feedback?

From my past few months experience, Justin guitar is better than the paid online recourses I tried (fender play, guitareo and guitar tricks). He at least explains how to practice with a purpose and structure rather than just showing you how to do something with bad explanations and then leaving you to it. There is a lot of online stuff who may be very good players but can’t teach for toffee.

Could there also be something available through his school? I think a few in person lessons especially at first are worthwhile just to iron out those basic mistakes before they become habits.

 I keep seeing adverts for more “families” apps like Yousician, seeing as he’s a goof it seems like it might be a good thing for him

Bloody phone “families” should say “gamified” and goof should say yoof (although either works there).

MSP, capo on the first fret. Loosen the strings and then pop the bridge pins and strings out. Then lift the saddle out.

As previously stated. It’s best to do after the guitar has been checked for level frets and correct nut slot depth. I do guitar set ups and put plenty of fall away on acoustics as most players don’t use the upper frets much. I also aim for little or no relief. I can get a really comfy buzz free easy action on most acoustics.

He’s thinking he’ll use YouTube and/or apps which is fine.

This dude is pretty good. It’s relaxing to have him in the background while I’m working. I haven’t watched all his videos, but he seems to be recommended a lot elsewhere—and probably here if I failed to notice. But in-person learning with a tutor he connects with will be a great start.

Another suggestion for JustinGuitar.Com, plays decent tunes, gives a full explanation of what is happening,  and free to boot…

I didn’t actually put in the link. What a numpty.

https://www.youtube.com/@GuitarLessons365/playlists

An entire Muse concert in five minutes:

If anybody wants a bunch of tabs and magazine copies here is a Dropbox full of the now defunct Guitar for the practising musician.

Enjoy.

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/12-UB9tcf4iIDPRZX6mWfKlcJr14TVBkc?pli=1

Any recommendations for budget steel string acoustic?

Looked at THIS from Gear4Music.

Hmmm. That’s not a lot of money, but I’ve bought a £200 PRS copy from Thomman that plays immaculately.

A bad acoustic guitar can put a beginner off for life. I would always recommend taking a reasonable guitarist to a shop with you to get their opinion on playability. And remember that the look of a guitar affects how often you want to pick it up and play it!

I’ve always found with online shops like Gear4Music you can give them a call and chat to a knowledgeable person who can give you an honest appraisal and point you to something that fits the bill.

DirkPitt74, can you get to a music store to get some advice?

Failing that a Yamaha FG310 will get you going. If you can go a bit higher money wise Sigma make good budget acoustics.

Thanks, will try and get to the local music shop tomorrow and see what they have.