Guitar talk.

[blue]

that sounds like the 100% Song Fight Sound (TM) Brand guitar sound. you might not like the big muff unless you're into really fuzzed out tone - the Rat is a little more versatile but doesn't get quite into the same extremes. the 57 will also make a fine percussion and vocal mic, so it's a can't miss.

Champ is revered both for its tone and its recordability (tone at low volume). You can surely get better or as good sounds out of larger amps, but you have to get them up into the ear-bleed volumes to do it. (Or buy a needlessly expensive power soak.)

If you can find a vibrochamp or whatever the champ with the reverb on it is, snatch it. Fender amp reverb also sounds great on vocals (get a $3 adaptor or a $5 radio shack mic and sing thru the amp. It sounds awesome.)

[catch]

That sounds like the 100% Song Fight Sound (TM) Brand guitar sound.

Haha, excellent.

I am leaning towards the Rat, honestly. Just gotta find one.

Now, the Vibro Champ showed up in the Ebay search as well, but I wasn't sure what it was. Is it Champ + effects, basically? If so, I'll try to go for it.

Thanks again.

[Dan-O from Five-O]

Now, the Vibro Champ showed up in the Ebay search as well, but I wasn't sure what it was. Is it Champ + effects, basically?

It's a Champ with Tremelo. Blackface Fender's are usually considered "better" sounding, but it gets real subjective.

[bz£]

I am leaning towards the Rat, honestly. Just gotta find one.

Most decent music stores will have piles of pedals and they'll let you try 'em out all you want. See if you can use your own guitar, they probably won't care.

There's almost as much variety in distortion pedals as there is in amps, so try out as many as you can. Heck, you might not need one at all.

[Sober]

Marshall JCM heads are fricking great. The combos suck.

[jack]

the rat pedal is a classic tone machine and an excellent dirty pedal. i played one on japantown 3's "Rattle"

[Märk]

Hey Sobes:

I just picked up this at the pawn shop, including hardshell case, for $200CAD. Since you work at a guitar shop and all, would you say I got a good deal? Also, I tried to decode the serial number, and as far as I can tell, it was the 2nd guitar made on Jan 2, 2001, at Gibson's Nashville plant... semantics, really, but this thing is a frikkin' beauty, and sounds great.

Anyway, your opinion?

[Kill Me Sarah]

Ok, I tried to see if there was a thread on this already, but couldn't find one ( and no, i didn't read thru all bazillion pages of this thread). You should still be proud of me for not starting a new thread...

SO...I decided that maybe I should actually take a semi-structured approach to playing guitar instead of the just learning through writing approach. So I blew the dust off a my old "Gig Bag Book of Scales" and started at C Major. My question is this, I understand on the fretboard the whole note/half note sequences (eg. E and F always together, B and C always together, the rest always have a half note in between). What I'm wondering is if there's a pattern as you move up and down the strings. For example, if I play using my second finger and my fourth finger on one string, is there a way to know whether the next whole note on the next string down will be played with my first or second finger?
I read an article in a guitar magazine that tried to explain it saying it was like the way a pencil seems to shift if you look at it through a glass of water, but I couldn't really understand it at the time. Anyway, IS there a pattern or is it something you just have to memorize?

[ken]

Huh? Are you asking which fingers to use when playing a scale? I think you plant your four fingers on the first four frets and use whichever finger goes with that fret. You shift up and down the next depending on the scale.

Ken

[Kill Me Sarah]

Huh? Are you asking which fingers to use when playing a scale? I think you plant your four fingers on the first four frets and use whichever finger goes with that fret. You shift up and down the next depending on the scale.

Ken

The fingers are just an example, my question is about positioning. For example, let's say I'm playing a C Major scale starting with my second finger on the 8th fret of the top string. I know there is always a half step between C and D so I know I'll play the 10th fret next (with my pinky). Then the next note will be E with my index finger on the 5th string and E and F are always together so I know my middle finger will go next, and then my pinky again (skipping my ring finger due to the half note). What I'm wondering is if there's a constant pattern going down the strings like there is going from fret to fret. Is that just more convoluted? I'm sorry, I don't know how to verbalize (or textualize) this very well.

[WeaselSlayer]

My beloved Strat disappeared after a gig and I've been hurting for a new electric. Unfortunately, my poor ass has become obsessed with getting a Fender Jaguar. And I can't find an affordable one. Oh sweet lamentation. But honestly, is this guitar as awesome as my bones tell me it is?

[pegor]

Keyboard are in the key of C. If all the buttons where the same size and color (not skinny recessed black and fat white) you would play the whole notes 1,skip one,2,skip one,3,4,skip one,5,skip one,6, skip one,7,8. to play the same whole notes in the key of C# you just start the same pattern on the C# button.

Guitars are the same deal as far as pattern relationship of whole and half notes right? Thats just key stuff.

A pattern that might help is that the C on the bass E string then its 4th is right under that finger on the A string. The 5th is skip one fret higher on the A string. the Octive is under that on the D string.

I could be wrong and I could just not get your question... moving along now....

[blue]

What I'm wondering is if there's a constant pattern going down the strings like there is going from fret to fret. Is that just more convoluted? I'm sorry, I don't know how to verbalize (or textualize) this very well.

most people play major guitar scales with the middle three fingers. i think you'd go

E 8 10 12
A 8 10 12
D 8 10

isn't that why the guitar is tuned to 4ths in the first place?

[LMNOP]

What I'm wondering is if there's a constant pattern going down the strings like there is going from fret to fret.

If I understand you, then the answer is "almost". The interval between neighboring strings on a guitar is a fourth except for the interval between the second (B) and third (G) strings, which is a major third. So if you're playing a scale starting on the sixth string and ending on the fourth string, the pattern is exactly the same as if you would start on the fifth string and end on the third string. So, yes, there are patterns that you can apply in every direction up and down the neck but you have to make a half-step shift between the second and third strings.

Now, let's talk terminology.

Half notes and whole notes refer to note duration relative to the tempo. They have nothing to do with the interval between notes. You mean half steps and whole steps and you're cheating all of your descriptions by a half-step. There is a whole step (not a half step) between C and D, and there is a half step (not nothing) between E and F. Just sayin'. These are real terms and they have pretty specific meanings so let's be careful out there.

Oh, and keyboards are not in the key of C.

[pegor]

Oh, and keyboards are not in the key of C.

So how am I wrong? Isn't a keyboard setup so the white keys are the whole steps in the key of C major.

expaining how Im wrong would be appreciated more then just calling it out as wrong <sfsf>

[ken]

BOING!!!

So how am I wrong? Isn't a keyboard setup so the white keys are the whole steps in the key of C major.

Scales are made up of both whole and half steps. The white notes on the piano are a C Major scale, but it is not made up exclusively of whole steps.

Actually, that isn't right, the white keys from C to C make a major scale. D to D is D Dorian, A to A is A Minor, etc.

I think a scale made of only whole steps is called a whole tone scale. http://www.teoria.com/reference/scales/14.htm

Ken

[blue]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_(music)

Instruments in a key

Certain musical instruments are sometimes said to play in a certain key, or have their music written in a certain key. Instruments which do not play in the key of C are known as transposing instruments. The most common kind of clarinet, for example, is said to play in the key of B flat. This means that a scale written in C major in sheet music will actually sound as a B flat major scale when played; that is, notes sound a whole tone lower than written. Likewise, the horn, normally in the key of F, sounds notes a perfect fifth lower than written.

Similarly, some instruments may be said to be built in a certain key. For example, a brass instrument built in B flat will play a fundamental note of B flat, and will be able to play notes in the harmonic series starting on B flat without using valves, fingerholes, slides or otherwise altering the length of the vibrating column of air. An instrument built in a certain key will often, but not always, have its music written in the same key (see trombone for an exception). However, some instruments, such as the diatonic harmonica, are in fact designed to play only one key at a time.

[a bebop a rebop]

Oh, and keyboards are not in the key of C.

Aren't they? The way I understand it, they are in the key of C because when you push the button down on a piano that we call a C, the note which history has agreed to be the frequency corresponding to C comes out.

In the same way, an alto sax is in the key of E flat, because when you read the note E flat on a sax part and push down the keys for an E flat and blow, what you get is the frequency which would be a C on the piano.

[edit: blue beat me to it]

[pegor]

BOING!!!

So how am I wrong? Isn't a keyboard setup so the white keys are the whole steps in the key of C major.

Scales are made up of both whole and half steps. The white notes on the piano are a C Major scale, but it is not made up exclusively of whole steps.

Yeah I shouldn't have said whole steps that was wrong. But I was trying to show that the white buttons are C major. If the White and black butons where the same color and size then you would have a chromatic piano and the 1,skip etc pattern is way to transpose scales to diff keys. Just as skipping the black buttons on a real keyboard is C major

1,skip one,2,skip one,3,4,skip one,5,skip one,6, skip one,7,8.

and EDIT 2 => a gtr fretboard is chromatic (you know I mean semitones - no black frets) so the pattern deal applies to a guitar neck.

mkay im so done

[blue]

But I was trying to show that the white buttons are C major.

logically, you are correct. pedantically, you are not.

this is turning into a Colbert Report thread. "But it FEELS true!"

[LMNOP]

"But it FEELS true!"

Well put.

Oh, and a piano doesn't have buttons.

[Kill Me Sarah]

I found the old article I was mentioning. It's about the "warp refraction threshold" located between the 3rd and 2nd strings. If anyone's curious I'll try to explain it more in depth (to the best of my understanding) though maybe someone else here could explain it better than I could.