Shoot-the-Shit Thread

General Discussion
#486

Any guitarists or musicians on AR?

I’ve been playing guitar on and off for the past few years. Finally busted out my treasured Les Paul tonight for some much needed TLC.

I tricked it out a few years ago. Custom hand wound pickups, US made 500k pots and NOS Soviet paper in oil tone capacitors. Bone nut and plek’d frets with locking bridge and tail piece.

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/11/383f6aa3a9f7c7ffd561f6c7abb11d47.jpg

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/11/be951c233bdfc312224cd8e064173098.jpg

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/11/049c411a46e0121aa53a2e7a3cdb3d98.jpg

I’ve downsized my guitar collection over the years but I don’t think I’ll ever part with this guitar willingly.

#487

If you haven’t read the book, I’d highly recommend it. The movie just touches on the depravity, but the book… wow. A modern classic.

Anyone here read it?

#488

Looks beautiful, love having a guitar setup the way you like it. Can tell from your description that is exactly how you feel :wink: I had a G&L strat that I babied, saw through a refret and custom pick ups…only to have it stolen in college. Got an American deluxe strat, but it’s not the same…

I always tried to play scales and chords like hendrix (which probably did more eventual harm than good, since his hands were massive), so I have problems playing on wider gibson necks, there’s nothing like a sanded down maple fender neck ;D

As far as music I love all the strat gods: hendrix, srv, gilmour, clapton…other stuff too, but those were my first real influences. Wish I could play the psuedo jazz like Trey Anastasio, and John Scofield is probably my favorite guitarist to listen to now.

I ended up playing less and less after finishing undergrad. Now I’m lucky to keep her in tune. Kind of sad I guess. Maybe I should look for a local blues band or something.

#489

Thanks, man!

Dude, that really sucks about the G&L strat! That kind of passion is like the passion on cars. It’s an big part of a person.

LOL! Yeah, I looked up some of his his songs on tabs and when I saw the chord progression, I essentially said “Ok, screw that” LOL! I’m not very fast with chord progressions, but I do a lot of picking and power chords (though no finger picking). More of the classic hard rock stuff (though I do enjoy a bit of the older heavy metal like AC/DC, Judas Priest, etc).

It’s awesome that you got the the guitar that your guitar gods use. For me, it’s Jimmy Paige (I’m a huge Led Zeppelin fan) and Slash. Both which are famous Les Paul players.

I actually don’t like the “baseball” bat neck profiles of some Gibsons. The neck that I have is the “60’s slim taper” neck. I hardly played at all last year. But I’m very much in the mood to play right now haha!

#490

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Page, he is probably the best song writer of that classic rock era (for the record, I’m not a beatles fan lol). The compositions are just so epic from a guitar point of view. Love how much he experimented with alternate tunings. It’s pretty incredible to see how he progressed from a heavy blues player (zeppelin 1 & 2) to creating such epic songs (Achilles last stand is a favorite). Also, love his acoustic work.

One of my favorite metrics on a player is how much they can augment their songs and solos in live performance. Hendrix sets the bar (he wrote voodoo child slight return live on the spot), but page is right there. But I think that comes from having a solid foundation in the blues. Even Metallica will change songs around, though they are definitely more musically structured.

My general rule towards more technical stuff is I like it up to point, but most of the Steve Vai/Joe Satriani/Eric Johnson stuff doesn’t really appeal to me. I’m just not musical enough to appreciate it. I love Jazz because it seems more like controlled chaos, but those technical metal bands don’t really do it for me. Same with Dream Theater.

I’m not really the strong creative type (ie I don’t write my own songs), so for me, the best way to get back into guitar is to learn songs from a new player. I grabbed a songbook from Rush, so maybe I’ll learn some of his stuff (though they are a little 80’s for me, so we’ll see lol).

#491

I have a few guitars and amps. A bass too. Don’t play much anymore.

member ‘newbruno’ is very solid. He has a good video on his youtube channel of him playing a medley of metallica riffs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoH-gKS-CAA

#492

that was awesome!

#493

That is awesome playing!

Glad to know there are a few guitarists here!

#494

Love me some Metallica…I remember one of my first guitar books being a riff by riff metallica book. I could never play a whole song, just lots of random riffs lol I remember my college roommate bitching about me never finishing any songs ;D

#495

I used to buy tabulature books for my favourite bands and learn all their songs and then play along with them. When I was single and first had my own place I got pretty fast. It’s amazing how quickly you lose it. I’m a big metallica fan too, and used to play along with the black album like it was my second job. And I loved playing van halen stuff too (not van hagar).

The other music I absolutely love is Alice in chains, but its not as fun to play with. Not very guitar driven even though the guitarist wrote all of the songs. Helps to have a second guitar in drop d tuning too so you’re not going back and forth.

Just learned State of Love and Trust the other night, which is probably the best Pearl Jam song that most people haven’t heard. It is AWESOME live too.

https://youtu.be/ZdMEON3iY2M

#496

LOL!

I have that same problem too… Mainly because some solos are too hard for me…

#497

I love Seattle grunge bands of the 90s. My favorite is Soundgarden (they play weird tunings though). I finally got to see them live last year and it was amazing. I have mad respect for bands that sound just like their albums when playing live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crILNt7-kj8

#498

Really dig the old pearl Jam. Mccreedy does a lot of hendrix stuff, obviously yellow led better being his tribute. I also dig some of his solos. I know he’s also a big SRV fan.

Never heard of this song, I’ll check it out. I stopped listening to PJ when they started releasing the seemingly all acoustic ballad albums.

The most recent band I was trying to learn some style from is Tool. For whatever reason, I didn’t listen to them seriously until after 10,000 days was released. Really wish I could see them live. Their albums remind me of Pink Floyd concept albums. Anyways, the guitar playing is always in drop D, and they all seem to be similar riffs in that key, but man…that’s some cool heavy stuff. Really good palm muting stuff. Although it doesn’t really sound the same through my strat/fender hot rod/fuzz face setup lol I think tool is probably such a good band because of the solid rhythm section, the drumming is crazy.

This guy does it perfectly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvg8eafj04Y

Crazy to think how much easier it would be to learn guitar by using youtube also.

#499

Yea I decided at some point that I was never going to be good enough to do all the finger tapping and arpeggio type lead stuff. LOL at trying to play the intro of cliffs of dover. Hammit is pretty legit, was taught by Satriani back in the day I believe, so he definitely has the chops for all the insane soloing.

#500

Tool is one of those ‘Rush’ type bands. Not entirely popular, but musically awesome and lots of crazy time signature changes. I think they’re under-rated.

If you like McCreedy, check out the 2nd song on the Temple of the Dog album. Has a monster solo. Almost comical. Chris Cornell told a great story about writing that song and including it on his Andy Wood dedication album (Temple of the Dog was a dedication to Andrew Wood, the singer of Mother Love Bone. Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament from Pearl Jam were in MLB, and formed Pearl Jam after he died). Andrew and Cornell were roommates, and would write songs and of course record companies would shoot anything down that was out of the ordinary. Well Reach Down was that type of song that they deemed a ‘fuck you’ to the record companies…11 minutes long with like a 6 minute long guitar solo lol. With the success of Soundgarden early on, they were able to put Reach Down on the Temple of the Dog album. They wanted it to be the first song, but settled for song 2.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJru0g3e9iI

#501

Haha that’s a funny story. It’s interesting how the music industry plays such a role in what gets written, at least pre-mp3 era. I always think of ‘Have a Cigar’ by pink floyd. I’m dating myself, but I remember in middle school when grunge came out in the mainstream, pearl jam, soundgarden, STP, Nirvana. At the time I didn’t really care much about guitar playing in terms of solos and musical content, but more loved the “fuck this” barre chords and nasty solid state amp distortion. Good times learning smells like teen spirit ;D

Around that time I actually had a guitar teacher who tried to teach me using the same kind of method books you get in band class (hot cross buns and yankee doodle). I hated it, never practiced and pretty much locked the guitar in a closet. Wasn’t till late high school that I picked it back up, finally came around when I tried to learn purple haze and the solo to nothing else matters :o

#502

Psychotik what head is that? And what 2x12 cab is that one?

#503

The head is a THD UniValve “Lefty”:
http://www.thdelectronics.com/product_page_UniValve.html

It’s a “Lefty” because the text on the face plate is backwards (like a “lefty” guitar) - which I thought was hilarious.

It’s a great amp. THD is a company based in Seattle, WA and the amps are hand made here. I wanted a Class A amp that I could experiment with various vacuum tubes (to get the sound I want). This amp allows you to mix and match all three tubes. And this amp is LOUD! It was louder than my buddy’s 30w tube Orange head via a Marshall 4x10 cab. Only gripe I have is that it’s two channels but based on which jack you plug in (there’s a “Rock” input, and a “Roll” input). I think it’s also louder than the 50w Marshall tube head I had as well (when cranked).

The cab is a Marshall 1936 Lead 2x12 cab (made in UK). I’ve swapped out the speakers for UK-made Celestion G12H speakers (was chasing the classic hard rock sound).

#504

Here’s some pics.

Face plate:

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/31/f23cc5d6aa6c6253f742536e3db63108.jpg

Cover off:

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/31/6367d7735cc39623f1bfd07e7166715b.jpg

Tubes:

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/31/7ffdec5482daea9c5b30900253b8bd77.jpg

#505

Back panel:

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/31/5efbc544f26a43dd89e6d2bcbf571373.jpg

Wiring and boards:

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/31/baff00d7b81b86908a0e4341fb15b0e6.jpg

Tube glow:

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/31/5e653c6e6de21566fa551dda2352ead8.jpg

My stash of tubes (the good stuff are in boxes lol):

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15/03/31/3f4af2ed35ad0d2926e4a4b5e9687302.jpg