Yeah, I've seen the hardware version. I'm all about plug-ins and VSTs these days.
I only have 2 physical boxes on my desk. My new Focusrite interface and my old Firebox that is dead, but I keep it sitting on top of my Focusrite to stick my guitar and mic chords in the jacks to keep them off the floor and for fast access while I'm recording and switching instrument chords in and out of my working interface.
Yeah, I've used a bunch of them. They're mostly rubbish. The only thing they help with is setting vocal levels when you're mixing in phones. And they don't help much with that. A much better solution if you're forced to mix in phones is to go to Radio shack and buy the cheapest pair of speakers you can, e.g. the marvellous $5 spongebob squarepants speakers which I use, and use these to set your vocal levels etc, using VERY low volume. Basically mix on the phones then check the balance on the shitty speakers.
How high do you set single coils to the strings till harmonics, then back off. they seem to get in my way. That bridge pic up is not as loud as the others, wires are good, think its part shorted or what?
No wonder pic ups in my way. have them way too high. Havent had a electric since 05. My last was a Tele, these knobs on this strat are in my way too. Dont know if i'm gonna like this.That ole acoustic hanging on the wall hasent been tuned in a month and dosent need to be. that what i like.
The Fender factory set-up is pretty nice. That's always my starting point. On a used guitar that's new to me I do the truss rod first, then check the height of the nut slots, then I do the bridge height, then I do the intonation, then figure out the tremolo if there is one. Sometimes I shim the neck if it's a jazzmaster or jaguar but the recent ones don't seem to need it.
Not to run something into the ground (which i will) that 5way pu switching is of no use to me. That lil knob and the volume are too close to my playing area. No better than i play dont guess it matters, just think i may have chosen the wrong guitar for me.
That Tremolo whammy thing is the biggest bunch off bull i have ever seen. Im gonna waste $40 and see if the local Guitar guru can keep this thing in tune for more than 5 minutes, bet he caint.
Couple things on the whammy - graphite in the nut slots is pretty much essential to get those things working properly. Plus any whammy short of one of those metalhead designs will go out of tune if you divebomb it.
I'm not a big fan of the Strat whammy overall. I like the one on the Jazzmaster a lot, and I put a bigsby on my Tele. They are both a lot more subtle and I don't have any tuning issues so long as I don't haul on it too hard.
I have a Floyd Rose on my Strat and the locking nut helps a lot. Generally after the new strings are broken in, it stays in tune longer. But I'm a Gibson guy and only play the Strat when I need that single coil clean sound, which is rare in my crappy wall of noise guitar sound I love.
It was my first guitar, bought ~20 years ago. I still have it and use it sometimes, but not very often (though I just used it on BSS's "Occupy My Heart"). I need to find somebody who understands Floyd Roses and give it a proper setup, plus maybe somebody who can do some repair on the finish and fretboard. Anyway, you can really go nuts with double-locking tremolos like the Floyd Rose, but I would be wary of using any other kind of tremolo very much.
Well sports, if you are going to just throw that on a pile of unclaimed quotes, I'll dust it off and give it a home.
Life's too short to play a guitar you don't love ~BLT 2011
But seriously, just two nights ago I had a dream with Johnny Cash and I think Captain Dan from Forest Gump and Captain Dan had a little shack where he made and repaired custom Fenders. Knowing I'm a Gibson guy, he handed me a custom Tele and told me to try it. It was amazing. Johnny kept telling me that life is too short not to do what makes me happy. It was very surreal. So when I saw this quote, I almost fell off my chair.
OH! And I almost forgot the strangest part. I don't really listen to Johnny Cash, nor know more than a few lines to his songs just from the radio through the years. But I woke up with folsom prison blues in my head and singing it as if I knew the lyrics. So I looked up the lyrics and I was singing it word for word.
Last edited by Billy's Little Trip on Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bill now if you want some good prison and Heroin withdraw stuff check out the latest by John Hiatt. Luv his stuff. saw him live. Brought down the house with (Thank you for asking me to love you again), and (fells like rain). It was allmost better than August jam 1972, maybe, maybe not. both are something i will never forget. That was one of the first showings of (dr hook ,cover of the rolling stones). On a rainy day on a muddy foot ball field bank, tore up. wasent pretty.
I'm going to take full advantage of this thread's existence to rant for a bit at length, instead of doing it 140 characters a time on Twitter, which amuses Yook but probably no one else reads it, except maybe Glenn Case.
While I will admit to having one shredder axe with a Floyd, I seldom use it, because I really do believe in the synchronized tremolo bridge having tone that kicks the Floyd's ass. And while the OFR is a great piece of equipment, hardened steel and all, a vintage trem with a good steel sustain block rings better, sustains like a mofo, gives you crystal clear harmonics and is generally a nicely complex tone with a good dose of fundamental. Almost every Floyd I've heard sounds thin and a little anemic in comparison.
Ever since I actually figured out how to set up a vintage or 2-point sync trem properly, I don't have much in the way of tuning problems. My tricks are: locking tuners--I like the Planet Waves Auto-Trim ones, and I buy them for everything, learning to cut a nut properly, graphite, straight string-pull and maintaining the knife-edge on the bridge itself. But mostly I find problems with badly cut nuts. You don't even really need the locking tuners, but they do make life a lot simpler.
I am a big modder and tweaker, and I have a list of things I believe that work for me on my different guitars and things that I've tried that are like, meh. For example, I did a modded Jimmy Page wiring mod on my Les Paul (an Epi, Jazz(covered)/JB (uncovered) pickups, Resomax bridge, Graphtech nut, wrap-over stringing), which gives out-of-phase, coil splits on both pickups with the ability to select which coil, and a blower switch for all coils on in series. But ultimately I found that I don't play a Les Paul for coil split sounds. I play it for humbucking raunch, and the out-of-phase and blower switches are most useful. The out-of-phase for Peter Green squawky tones and the blower switch for just MASSIVE hot lead tones.
I've also modded almost every pickup I play through except on my Strat, as last year I got an Am Deluxe that basically already has the kitchen sink in it. I don't need to mod that guitar because they've done almost everything I would want already. Those mods are mostly magnet or "air" mods, because I don't really want to rewind pickups.
But basically to get great tones from cheap guitars, the first most useful thing you can ever do is adjust the pickup heights and pole piece heights. Little adjustments really make huge differences at gig volume--at home practice volume, you'll hear differences too but gig volume is the real microscope. If it sounds good at gig volume, it'll sound good at home volume, but not necessarily vice-versa.
Eddie Van Halen once said that (paraphrase) if you don't have a concept of the tone you want in your head, you'll never find it. Regardless of what you think of VH, that's basically true. Like I don't play a Les Paul for Strat quack tones, it's much easier to start with a good Strat and adjust those tones. You have to know what your building blocks need to be. If you want Van Halen tones, don't play a regular Strat. And let's not even get started on amps, although the amp you have will absolutely have an enormous effect on your sound, everything does need to be considered in context. For example, last year I got myself a new amp, for a great deal I picked up a 35 watt Wharfedale 2 channel amp. The designer worked as Chief Designer for 25 years at Marshall and then 8 years at Vox, so he's responsible for both some really great amps and some horrific ones, honestly, but what I like about this amp is that it is super flexible for dialing in different types of overdrive and distortion sounds, is very detailed and articulate, takes pedals well and is a LOT of amp for the price. Anyway the reason I brought it up is that with a superstrat type guitar you can dial up a pretty convincing non-master Plexi feel and get some very decent VH1 and 2 type tones. You can get a lot of classic rock tones from this amp, plus some very acceptable clean tones.
I record with Guitar Rig but honestly, it doesn't sound great because it doesn't capture attack and note bloom the way that real tube amps do it. It's not really so physical-sounding, so visceral. I can't say there are no good tones in it, but I can say that I can get much better tones out of my amp.
My main guitars at the moment:
2011 American Deluxe Strat. This was a birthday present that I got to pick myself, 3T sunburst, has all the S-1 switching options, so it gets all the regular Strat tones plus the series switching for very dark humbucker-esque tones (neck+mid/bridge out-of-phase, neck+mid/bridge series in phase, Neck+mid series, Mid+bridge series, N+M+B series), a great 2-point trem with a high-mass block (I will probably change this out for cold-rolled steel at some point, getting parts here is hard. But a real steel block is really completely necessary for any trem bridge, or titanium or whatever, but real metal), locking tuners, 9.5-14 compound radius fingerboard and modern C carve neck which is frankly awesome. I use this on everything, she's my partner in crime. Noiseless pickups make the single coils useful for me. This is my blues/rock/fusion/funk guitar.
1980 BC Rico Eagle. Japanese, when Bernie Rico was just starting to work with high-quality Japanese manufacturers, before they sold out to mass produce total crap. Neck-thru maple with mahogany wings and all the BC Rich switching options. Bone nut, TonePros bridge. Will probably put on locking tuners at some point, or at least one of my spare sets of Grovers. The original tuners are a little loose for my liking. Pickups are Gotoh copies of DiMarzio PAF and Super Distortion, I have replaced the ceramic magnet for A5 in the bridge SD and a degaussed A5 in the neck PAF. Does everything humbuckery, on this guitar I can get tones from Tele to Les Paul to SG to its own unique sounds and it has natural sustain for DAYS.
2001 Greg Bennett Superstrat. This was a prototype guitar before GB's Samick production line started, so it has some unique elements that aren't on production line guitars. Maple neck/fingerboard, locking tuners, virtual 54 pros at neck and middle, tone zone in the bridge, bridge coil split, phase switch, neck always on switch, Wilkinson VSVG trem bridge with a steel block. This is my stunt guitar, my EVH squeally harmonic guitar (and for anyone who cares, was many moons ago used on some sonofsupercar tracks during that 2003 period when I was in that band, although unmodded back then) and I'll put it against any Floyd Rose machine--great single coil sounds but AWESOME high gain lead sounds and rock crunch rhythm. Ever since I put in that steel block, it had a huge leap in volume, power, clarity and detail to the upper mids and treble. Super comfortable D-carve neck. Lightest solidbody electric I own, at about 7.5 lbs.
My other guitars I love but they don't get nearly as much actual usage, except for specific needs. Like the Les Paul, got loaded up with heavy gauge strings and tuned down to C# for Bite Down; if you care, it's the all the metal rhythm riffs.
OK I'm getting a little tired but I will happily trade guitar tone and modding/maintenance thoughts here with y'all!
Some of the guitar tones I have at my disposal that really inspire me to write music:
1. Strat neck, clean. Percussive, meaty and spanky. Just makes me want to funk and groove. Slinky sexy.
2. Les Paul neck, dirty but not filthy (in my case with a Duncan Jazz pickup, tone rolled back a bit). Just when it starts to get liquid, it's such an awfully smooth sound that no 24 fret guitar will ever get. To me, it's the ultimate legato lead sound.
3. Strat bridge, humbucker, (a Tone Zone in my case). full gain. To me, the other ultimate lead sound. Brash, cocky, slightly vocal-sounding but also still a bit chimey.
4. Tele bridge. Not as full as an H in a Strat bridge, but lots of raw attitude. A lot rawer than any humbucker will be. Clean, dirty, whatever, this position is super sexy. Not slinky sexy, but manly sexy.
5. Gretsch hollowbody, both pickups, neck tone rolled back, bridge tone on near full, cleanish. This to me is the ultimate rhythm clean sound, so full and strong, but articulate. Les Pauls clean always sound a little too precious to me, they have a weird delicacy to the tone. Strats are great clean but this has a certain acousticness from the hollowbody that gives it a bit more depth.
6. Strat quack tones. Positions 2 and 4, low gain. When they are locked in on the sweet spot (so much time spent messing with pickup heights, at least for me....) these are magical sounds, very evocative, tamed, not raw.
Interestingly, I rarely write with the bridge pickup on either a LP or a Strat. Those tones just don't really squeeze melodies and progressions out of me. And of course nothing beats having a great acoustic guitar to mess around with. Mine's currently tuned to Open G as I've been screwing around with some blues slide guitar and the occasional Stones riff.
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