Be Excellent To Each Other

Seeing the posts in the "Things I've bought thread" made me think we could do with a thread for playing music.

I bought this goober on Gumtree the other day. Yet to try it but am excited by its impending arrival.

I played guitar as a teenager, in a highly ignored prog-rock band, then ditched it when I went to uni. However, this xmas my parents bought my old Danelectro down and it's been a real pleasure noodling away in the evening. Finding it's an excellent way to unwind.

Am using the trial of Yousician to relearn the basics, though at around 17 quid a month, the premium version is too big an expense to justify at the moment.

That looks pretty cool. Multieffects?

I've gone down the more flexible but more expensive route of single pedals these days. I used to use a Line6 POD v2 which was pretty decent.

Now I run tuner, wah and overdrive pedals through my four-channel Marshall amp. On my list of pedals to get are: Boss RC-3 loop pedal, TC Harmonix SYNTH9 and Pitch Fork (synth simulation and pitch shifter, respectively), Xotic EP boost and a TC Electronic Hypergravity compressor pedal.

I have a Gibson Les Paul Menace and a Jackson Pro Misha Mansoor Signature Juggernaut HT 7. I also have a US Fender Precision Bass in arctic white and a green Yamaha electro-acoustic.

Like Mop there, I much prefer single effects (although put into simple valve amps. I dare say I'm generally trying to get a much cleaner sound than he is judging by his setup). Pedals include Ernie Ball Volume Pedal (A must, really), Dunlop bass wah, Mooer Blues Mood, Big Muff Pi, Bonamassa Fuzz Face, Boss DD5, Electroharmonix Small Stone, Boss BF3(I think) flanger, MXR Carbon Copy, Electroharmonix Worm, Boss bass chorus. Some other pedals that I have forgotten.

Although I do have a POD HD400 for flexibility too.

Guitarwise, I have a 2003 Fender Stratocaster (for typical single coil tones), 2013 Gibson Les Paul (For excessively dirty driven tones), Breedlove Acoustic (For acousticness), Farida something (With some PAF 57' style pickups, for that 60/70s sound) , PRS SE 22 semiacoustic (Generally very flexible. Probably overall the nicest guitar I own), PRS SE 277 Baritone Semiacoustic (For baritone sections, natch), Recording king slide guitar (For really grimy p90 slide tones). Missing guitars that I would like: Nylon stringed acousric and a 12 string
Basswise, a 2000 Schecter custom 4 (My first "good" instrument. fantastic neck to play on), Ibanez SR605 5 String, Schecter Studio 8 (For chimey 8 string goodness), Crafter acoutic Bass, 1985 Westone Fretless bass. Probably the only thinkg I'd add to that would be a p/j bass mix (P bass with a bridge j pickup and a j neck. Never liked p-bass necks, even when I owned one)

In addition to that, a Pearl Export Drum kit with a mixture of Zildjain K's and A cymbals and a tama snare of some kind, a Roland TD-17KVX, a set of flat drums, a yahama arius digital piano of some form. And enough studio equipment to record it all.

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Despite this, I have never told anyone what name I go under on soundcloud/youtube...

Dave has so many drum kits he offloaded one to me.

I forgot about that one.

I wouldn't call myself a musician, more "rubbish bedroom noodler". But I have a G&L Fullerton Deluxe ASAT Special, a PRS SE Torero, an Epiphone Sheraton 2 and a Jackson Minion at work. (And a couple of shitty acoustics).

Pedal wise, I have a Dunlop Cry Baby Wah, a EHX Nano POG, a Tone City Golden Plexi, a Mooer Microdrummer and a Ditto Looper. Oh and a Boss TU-3 tuner. Amp wise Boss Katana 100.

A bedroom noodler with a PRS!

I think this is how my wife feels when I talk about computers with other computer folk.

Or how I feel when I venture into the car thread.

I do have one musical instrument - the guitar that came with Rocksmith, an Epiphone Les Paul Jr, but I only know that because I've just gone and read that off the box. I tried to learn to play it via the Rocksmith game, but when it got to the lesson on slides, I couldn't get the hang of them and gave up.

I have a couple of Mapex drum kits with some kind of cymbals. I used to break them quite regularly so I never liked spending much on them. I do have a nifty double pedal on it though... I think that was more expensive than the kit.

It looks like this.



I also have a Roland TD9 which has been upgraded to a TD9KX with an extra tom and cymbal.

And, since my dad passed away... I guess I now own half of a 60+ strong guitar collection.

I had a cheapo multi-effect pedal (a DOD something or other) when I was at college but I blew that up when I accidentally plugged in an NES PSU. Somehow I'd forgotten the time I'd done the same to my sister's friend's brother's Speccy...

Bought a big chunky used Boss thing in my early 20s which was great for a while, some really nice ethereal pitch-shift effects including one that made individual notes sound like crystal glass, plus a hard-wired power cable so no more expensive incidents. Only problem was at a certain point after not having used it for a while it developed a strange regular static click, every seven seconds, which would then be applied to every effect in the chain, completely ruining the pedal. Boss/Roland no longer supports or repairs this model so I've given up on it, as it looks a nightmare to re-cap it and that might not even fix it. (I am not an electrical engineer)

In lieu of anything I actually wanted or needed though an ex got me a couple of cheap Behringer stomp boxes for my birthday a few years back, tremolo and delay, and they're reasonably good so I've been slowly accruing a selection of them; overdrive, chorus, fuzz, plus a multi-function thing with pitch-shifting and tone-bending. I also got Behringer's "Hellbabe" wah-wah pedal but that turned out to be a bit shit so I flogged it after a friend bequeathed/long-term-loaned me a few of his old pedals including a proper Hendrix model.

Also, when I was in a band on bass a few years ago we were doing open mic nights a lot and I could never hear my bass through the PA so I got a neat little Vox multi effect pedal which has a few nice crunchy effects but also a load of weird 8-bit synthy sounding sounds. (plus a volume knob so if I was being mixed down by the guy controlling the PA I could nudge myself up again )

Isn't that who usually buy PRS guitars, according to their rep? Okay I'm not a dentist or lawyer...

Anyway, you should be having a pop at me for the £180 pedal.

I have nothing these days, as I've either sold or given it all away due to never using any of it. Regretting that obviously, and I often find myself wandering round a guitar shop, almost buying something...

I used to have a Washburn KC40V, a pignose travel guitar, and a few nylons strung classical acoustics.

In continuing adventures of "Shit MaliA doesn't Think Through" a piano now joins the tin whistle, electric piano, cymbals (fuck you, Uncle Kern) and kazoos

Do you live in a church?

Astounds me how heavy a proper piano is. I had one for a brief period at my previous house and it was a nightmare getting it in, and it was a nightmare getting rid of it too.

How is the smell?

This is a different one!

Excellent work, Uncle Kern.

Even a decent digital one weighs more than you'd think. Bastard thing killed my back putting it together.

I once painted the floor for a client who had a baby grand piano. Floor paint properly stinks, takes 24hrs to dry, needs 3 coats AND takes about a week to cure properly, lead to much mirth

I have a hankering for a half decent bass (once I get the ASAT paid off) Any recommendations?

When we rented a house, the previous tenant (a filthy pig of a person, it has to be said) left a piano, with one wheel broken, in the garage. It was not easy for the poor saps that the rental agency found to get rid of it.

What style are you after?

A fender p-bass is typically "the sound" when it comes to rock. Although I find the necks of them a bit chunky for my tastes. If/when I buy another bass I'd go for a p/j hybrid. (p bass with a thinner neck and a j bass Pickup on the bridge for a bit more tonal variety).

My usual workhorse, however, is an ibanez Sr 605. Sounds good, a bit more modern than fenders offerings, and I just like the feel of it, and ibanez tend to offer the best value/money.

I’ve been thinking about selling my 2004 US-made Fender Precision Bass in Arctic White as I no longer use it. It’s a great instrument—I played it in a rock and roll covers band for a few years.

It’s worth somewhere in the region of £500-£800 so I’d be happy to let you have it at the bottom end of that range as it’s been gigged so has some very slight wear and tear.

Wow, that's a beauty. To be honest, that's too much instrument for my inexpert fumbling, but if you can't get rid before I actually have money again, I'll take it. Don't hold it for me though.

Talking of selling gear, anyone had experience selling through Reverb?

I’m in no rush to sell (re: lazy) so if you’re still interested at a later date, I’ll probably still have it.

I have ordered a load of electronics (new pots, orange drop capacitors, and a 4 way switch (bridge, bridge and neck parallel, bridge and neck series, and neck; which looks interesting) to upgrade my squier telecaster.

Next on list are new pick ups and I am having a think on these

https://www.creamery-pickups.co.uk/clas ... ickup.html

I have always suspected that 'handwound' pickups are a con. They are still wound on a powered machine, just one that is slightly less automated than used in mass manufacturing. I have no idea how an expensive pickup can be 3 or more times better than a cheap pickup. There's only so much you can do with a coil of wire and a magnet. Like a lot of other things, much of it is snake oil I think.

Why hand wound be a good thing anyway? If you've designed something that's really good and want to produce it then surely you'd want them all to be as similar as possible and machines tend to be better at that.

Not really. Old guitars didn't have a particularly homogenous tone. Everything sounding the same is generally not wanted.

My dad used to make pickups and they were hand wound... Well, hand wound with the help of a drill and various other bits. I remember his equations working out how fast the drill would go so to work out how long it would run for to get the right amount of copper wire on the pickup. It really was quite something.

I'm sorry to hear about your Dad's hand wound. I hope it's healed by now.

I'd quite like a bass. Haven't had one since about 1970. But I probably wouldn't play it if I had one. I haven't played my other guitars in years.

I spent £35 on some (alnico V) pickups as a placeholder.

The hand wound thing goes back to the an idealised view of 50's guitar production when pickups were wound on machines that rotated but the wire was fed by hand. Pickups were usually made by low paid, low skilled workers. Quality control was poor and the winding pattern on pickups varied a lot. As a result, different pickups sounded slightly different. Some better than others. For companies like Fender and Gibson, this became unacceptable and they moved over to completely automated machines that would wind the wire perfectly evenly. Every pickup was identical.

People who advertise hand wound pickups claim they have found winding patterns that sound better than a completely even one. However, their aim is to make every pickup with the same winding pattern and identical sound. It would be equally unacceptable for them (as they are charging a premium) for their pickups to sound different to each other. Whatever winding pattern they use could still be perfectly replicated by a machine though.

I am sure this will go swimmingly.

Forgot to get new strings...

Yeah pick-ups, funny old things. I find the idea of pick-ups kinda weird, outside of "I have this guitar, love the feel of it, it plays really well but I hate the sound it makes" which makes sense. If you already like the way the guitar sounds, but want more/less (like the pick-ups sound great, but are way too hot or not hot enough) then you'd be better off getting an EQ pedal or clean boost. If you like the sound of the guitar but want a completely different sound, I suppose it's fair enough, but seems to me you bought the wrong model to begin with.

Interestingly, you don't see Fender putting Seymour Duncans, Lace Sensors, EMGs etc. in guitars nowadays (outside signature guitars) because name branded pickups cost way more than the stuff they can wind themselves (by an amazing amount) and they don't need the bump to sell the guitar. And if they're like "this would sound amazing with Dimarzio Tone Zone and Air Norton" or whatever, they can easily get pickups wound that sound exactly the same.It's all just a bit of wire and magnets.

The task of upgrading the Squier Affinity Telecaster began last night (maybe this might help someone searching for this sort of thing). Everything came out and I put the new pick ups in the holes to check wire runs. The neck pick up cover needs grounding.

Issue 1: turns out there are different types of potentiometers. I have 2 of type B. I need one of type A and one of type B. This is to do with how much it changes stuff when you turn it and there were loads more words that I didn't read. New potentiometer ordered £9.

For reference: The pots in there are 500k. 500knpots sound brighter, 250k sound warmer. There's two capacitors on the old pots which must be the bleed circuits bits.

Issues 2: the control plate holes are too small to fix the 4 way switch in with the screws. Also the CTS potentiometers are too large for the holes on the plate. New plate ordered. in gold. proper bling. £9.

Might get a gold pickguard for mad bling. And gold tuning heads.

I have found the wiring to put the tone control after the volume, which is better, apparently.

Gold frets too.

Might as well get gold strings

You going to keep the control plate as normal or flip it?

That bridge pickup seems a bit small to be a tele bridge pickup. You have checked it fits okay into the bridge plate?

Also:Gold pickguard on butterscotch tele? REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Going to flip the control plate. The pick up fits.

cool.

I'm genuinely interested how it goes, by the way. I've always wondered about upgrading a guitar, but I lack the courage to do so.

ETA: How about some locking tuners?

Right, this was fairly straightforward if you are pretty competent at soldering and knowing how long wires should be. Which I am not. Forgot to flip the controls.the control plate doesn't for with the pickguard too well, so I might have to fix that when I take it all apart again.

Everything is in and all i need to do is string it and try it.

Bridge pick up works, neck doesn't. Probably just need to raise the pick up a bit, tbh.