This is a Guitar Thread

[amish rob]

Humbucker, single, single, which refers to the pickup configuration. “Normal” Strats come with all single coil pickups.

I’m blown away by the fit and finish on this guitar. It is head and shoulders above my Les Paul in every way; especially weight.

Some time ago I traded/donated my Dean heavy metal guitar to an up and coming musician who needed a nice guitar, and I was down to the old Les Paul hand-me-down, which I like just fine, but just wasn’t “right”.

Of course, I have a gnarly hole in my left index finger from an errant impact driver, so I haven’t been able to play this thing to it’s potential, yet, but Quad and I have a date to rock out Wednesday evening. We’re getting out the big amps, and we’re going to rattle the windows.

[garland reese]

Nice, Rob! HSS is a humbucker bridge pickup with a single coil in the middle and neck positions, I think. I have a Mexico made Fender ‘72 Telecaster Thinline re-issue. Those had the wide range humbucker pickups neck and bridge. These days even the Squier models are pretty darn good.


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[lupussonic]

Of course, I have a gnarly hole in my left index finger from an errant impact driver

Ouch,

[Hallam]

Nice one Rob.

[amish rob]

Ouch,

Yar. Bit slipped and just savaged my finger open. It isn’t even a cut, it’s just busted open. And, I thought it was horrible because fingers are such bleeders. Luckily, I didn’t need stitches.

And, it’s feeling MUCH better. If I wrap it with tape, I can slide it on strings, now.

[Breakaway]

Rock it!

[amish rob]

Put the new fiddle through its paces a bit, today, with the small amp. Holy cuss word! This thing is a tone monster. The bridge pickup is so hot and brash, it just sounds mean; like 100,000 angry bees. Adding the middle pickup adds so much thunderous depth, so much chuffa-chuffa, it’s unreal.

Without changing any other settings, it sounds like several different guitars, just by switching pickups; not even any knob twiddling. The clean tones are as lovely as those muddled by distortion; which, I generally lay in the distortion thickly.

The jumbo frets will require a bit of time to get used to, yet, but I’m already in love. Such a joy to use fine tools, no matter what the task at hand.

Which means, of course, that I’ll like as not be passing the old Les Paul on to some up and coming young person in need of a nicer fiddle. Because that’s the way we do.

[Nicholas Carey]

Nice Rob. What does H.S.S. mean? I have had the most smiley grin making fun on Mexican Fenders / Squires. Once a shop assistant put a USA Fender ultra slick expensive fandango guitar in my hands, smile gone. Just not for me. I need an instrument that fights me a little, makes me work, then I'm good and the tunes flow.

I found this place in Wilhelmshaven. Freaky stylee. All aluminium.

Eternal sustain.

Wonder how much if Dobro sound it's got, what with a hollow aluminum body and an aluminum neck?

[amish rob]

How in the hell did I let Quad talk me into learning Limelight by Rush so we can play it together?!

Good gods…

[TomF]

How in the hell did I let Quad talk me into learning Limelight by Rush so we can play it together?!

Good gods…

To say nothing of needing a (local) drummer with chops ... ( ) Start at 3 minutes in for the drum lesson ... 3:45 for a bit of Rush's performance

[amish rob]

The ease with which Quad plays Rush (and he sings along) is proof to me that he has legit chops. He has developed such a feel for the instrument, and a real knowledge of how to play it; not just which notes to pluck, but how to lay down a groove and rhythm.

The drummer in his current band is my age, and has been in bands since the late 80s, including a few fairly successful touring bands. He insists Quad is his favorite bass player to play with.

I am not nearly as accomplished nor intuitive as a guitar player. I can make a guitar sound like it’s not falling down stairs; mostly.

[Breakaway]

The ease with which Quad plays Rush (and he sings along) is proof to me that he has legit chops. He has developed such a feel for the instrument, and a real knowledge of how to play it; not just which notes to pluck, but how to lay down a groove and rhythm.

The drummer in his current band is my age, and has been in bands since the late 80s, including a few fairly successful touring bands. He insists Quad is his favorite bass player to play with.

I am not nearly as accomplished nor intuitive as a guitar player. I can make a guitar sound like it’s not falling down stairs; mostly.

Just feel it. Practice musically. A person as creative with you will pull it off.

[Hallam]

[Hallam]

[Breakaway]

^That's a great song!

Kevin

[Hallam]

A great and timeless live performance by Joni Mitchell featuring songs from her 1995 Album Turbulent Indigo. Great alternate tunings!

[Hallam]

.....and while we are with alternate tunings this man was a breackthrough in guitar style. It was never the same after first hearing his playing on his early recordings with Windham Hill

[JayInOz]

Chris Smither. Really good American acoustic guitar player that not many seem to have heard of. Has a bunch of albums, some most excellent songs and I like his voice- https://www.google.com/search?q=chri...id:qGU4a63M-gY JayInOz

[Hallam]

……before Clapton, John Mayall etc etc:

Elizabeth Cotton

[Jimmy W]

Mississippi John Hurt - You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley

[Jimmy W]

T-Bone Walker w/ Jazz At The Philharmonic - Live in UK 1966

[Breakaway]

The ease with which Quad plays Rush (and he sings along) is proof to me that he has legit chops. He has developed such a feel for the instrument, and a real knowledge of how to play it; not just which notes to pluck, but how to lay down a groove and rhythm.

The drummer in his current band is my age, and has been in bands since the late 80s, including a few fairly successful touring bands. He insists Quad is his favorite bass player to play with.

I am not nearly as accomplished nor intuitive as a guitar player. I can make a guitar sound like it’s not falling down stairs; mostly.

Rob, how did the gig go?


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[Jimmy W]

Lonnie Johnson pioneered the guitar solo on the 1927 track "6/88 Glide". According to the blues historian Gérard Herzhaft, Johnson was "undeniably the creator of the guitar solo played note by note with a pick, which has become the standard in jazz, blues, country, and rock".

Lonnie Johnson - 6/88 Glide

[Ponder]

separate-reality-in-the-sky cropped.jpg Still making guitars up in Maine featuring my marquetry art. I've been reading the Bilge as an alternate newspaper for the last few months after a long hiatus. I've got a 3" thick Honduras mahogany plank 16" wide and my 2023 goal is to set loose the six guitar bodies/necks that I can get from it.

Keep playing that Rock and Roll!

[Jimmy W]

^ Beautiful work.

[Hallam]

^ Fantastic !

[amish rob]

Rob, how did the gig go?


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Postponed due to an outbreak of Covid. Gave me a few more weeks to get more comfortable.

[Breakaway]

Postponed due to an outbreak of Covid. Gave me a few more weeks to get more comfortable.

Keep rocking!


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[Breakaway]

Ponder: Wow!

Kevin


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[Breakaway]

Lonnie Johnson pioneered the guitar solo on the 1927 track "6/88 Glide". According to the blues historian Gérard Herzhaft, Johnson was "undeniably the creator of the guitar solo played note by note with a pick, which has become the standard in jazz, blues, country, and rock".



Lonnie Johnson - 6/88 Glide

Jimmy, great post!

A few hours later and this comes across my Facebook feed.

Hubert Sumlin



Actually, when I was a kid I wanted to be a jazz player like Charlie Christian more than anything, but I also loved and heard the blues. [Those players] were all around me, and at a certain point, I realized how great all these dudes I listened to were: Charley Patton, Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson…all those guys. Peetie Wheatstraw, the devils son-in-law Jesus, man, he was something! Then when I got with Wolf and Muddy I realized that they actually played with these guys, and that blew my mind. I will never forget my old 78 of Charlie Patton. He was a wizard, man, a genius. I tried to ask Wolf about him, and he said, Aw, you young punk, you are too young to understand.

It always hurt me that I missed out on seeing and playing with those old guys, because they wrote the book that Wolf and Muddy electrified and expanded. If Wolf and Muddy were the fathers of rock and roll, then those acoustic guys were the granddaddies. - Hubert Sumlin

Kevin


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[Jimmy W]

Hubert Sumlin was one of my favorites. Wolf took Hubert from Mississippi to Chicago. At one point, Muddy offered Sumlin more money and he left Wolf for Muddy's band but didn't like the constant touring and went back to Wolf.

I like this with Hubert on guitar and the great Willie Dixon on bass. Willie wrote many hits for both Muddy and Wolf and played on their studio albums. Sugar Pie Desanto was a cousin of and childhood friend of Etta James.

Rock Me Baby - Sugar Pie Desanto

[lupussonic]

I just re-cabbed my bass amp.

It was full of worm and rot.

Acoustic Control 126 (Californian mid 70's... Jaco played almost exclusively through them). 100W, transistor with a Cap the size of a coke can, 15" cone.

18mm ply. I'm wondering what to cover it with, right now I'm leaning towards lime green crocodile skin. What say ye?
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[Todd Bradshaw]

Well, that would certainly get one's attention.

I opted for the traditional black tolex for mine, which is copied after the original Ampeg double-baffle type with a single JBL fifteen in it. Fun with Baltic Birch plywood and contact cement.

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[lupussonic]

Wow, nice work Todd, way more pro than I can manage with mine. Superb!

I was busy over Christmas making a pedal board. My family used to have a jigsaw puzzle going over that time when I was a kid.. something you could drop into and do an hour, then drop out of. revisit another time.. so this was my jigsaw.

I used ply ends cut into a wedge shape with 40mm aluminium square bars let into them.

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The loop switcher is from Buzz Electronics (UK). This one is 12 channel and can either be used as 1 button / 1 pedal, or it can be programmed to assign any number of channels with the press of 1 button. Saves tap dancing around it mid track. I chose it because I can't handle banks and digital readouts etc.. I have a hard enough time playing guitar without all that shizzle.

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I then added some old and some new pedals.. the planning took around 2 months. I'll happily describe my signal path if anyone is interested.. could save a lot of time discerning the good advice from the BS online. The pedals bottom right are volume and expression (presently connected to reverb and delay). It took me around 20 hours to solder everything up and route all power and signal cables reasonably tidily.

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Three buffers, 1 in, 2 out. 12 channel power supply, and even then one or two are double or triple wired. The EQ and noise suppressor for example.

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In, send, return, left out, right out.

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The central idea was for studio versatility.. so basically almost any sound can be generated from one pedalboard. My amps are not distortion amps, so I went heavy on overdrive and distortion pedals. Then delay, chorus, tremolo, more delay and reverb constitute the modulation effects. One EQ for the overall guitar sound tuning, and the programmable for different tracks or parts of tracks.. it is also a tuner.

All in all it was a really fun but demanding project, now I have to learn how to use the damn thing!

[lupussonic]

I hate wah pedals.. I mean the way they colour the sound. A crybaby sounds like a crybaby.. etc. The wah I added was an afterthought really.. I hope to be able to change the pot to a linear (not logarithmic) neutral tone pot, because at the moment it sounds like crap to my ears. The log pots give you a tiny fulcrum of tone sweep where it all happens.. that change from bass to treble, with not much change either side of it. 20 degrees bass.. 2 degrees wah.. 20 degrees treble.

I modded an old Roland keyboard pedal years ago with such.. just a straight tone pot.. a bit like when an EDM drum track is way in the background, and then comes forward to the front. That is what I am hoping to achieve. No colour or flavouring of the sound other than straight bass to treble. I do not want to hear a cybaby or any other wah more than once a month let alone more than once an album.

Any thoughts on this subject anyone?