LOL!
I have that same problem too… Mainly because some solos are too hard for me…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Psychotik what head is that? And what 2x12 cab is that one?
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).
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
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
Which Marshall head did you sell? I’m looking around for something right now.
I had a Marshall JVM 205H. It was the 50w version. It was alright. I like the THD much more (think it sounds a lot better too).
What are you going to use the amp for? There are a lot of high quality single power tube amps out there if it’s for home playing. But if you’re going with solid state, it doesn’t matter as much if you buy a high wattage amp. For tube amps, the higher the wattage, the higher the “headroom” (which means the harder you’ll have to drive the signal to get “break up” - the over driven sound).
I need to fix the gain channel tube(s) on my Fender Hot Rod deluxe. Might need to ping you for advice.
I don’t know how the hell you guys play on those cabs inside. The hot rod is rated around 40 watts I believe, maybe a 12" speaker. Can’t imagine trying to push the clean channels to get that natural SRV distortion you hinted at (‘break up’). But my amp didn’t have balls to play outside unmic’d back when I was in some bands. If I was actually serious about things, would have invested in a head/cab setup at that time. But didn’t have any money while in school lol
it’s for playing at home, and it’s definitely going to be a tube amp. 100w is overkill…you can’t really play a 100w tube amp in your bedroom effectively without making your ears bleed. That’s unfortunate because that’s what’s mostly out there in heads. Combos you can get more appropriate power.
but I really like overkill lol
The THD UniValve has a built in HotPlate attenuator. 
If I play with the amp dimed, everything in my room starts rattling lol. Sounds awesome though.
For tubes, I buy them from a company in Portland, OR called Eurotubes. It might be a bit more than other places, but they test their tubes out and categorize them accordingly. They sell high quality stuff. I emailed them before ordering letting them know what i was trying to achieve sound wise and they’ll make recommendations.
lol!
I was considering the Orange AD30HTC head for the longest time before I bought the THD UniValve. I might still get one at some point (I kinda miss having a foot switchable channel). Was there any type of features that you were looking for?
After owning the Marshall JVM 205H, I decided that I didn’t want a buttload of effects or anything. In fact, I usually plug straight into the amp without a pedal (well, apart from a tuning pedal). Occasionally I’ll bust out my Jimi Hendrix fuzz face pedal.
Holy crap thanks Bro
And to contribute to shooting the shit about axes - oh yeah tube amps are a bit of a conundrum - such a great metal sound however I’ve found that they basically skip from “0” to “3” on volume setting. Meaning either it’s emitting no sound at all or it’s moderately blowing your head off. No smooth sound delivery of the solid state amps. But worth it.
My setup in that film was an LTD EXP200 with EMG 81/81 into a Digitech GSP2101 into a Peavey “Classic 60” tube power amp into a Marshall 1960A. I had the Digitech on a setting with loads of effects running so not very Metallica-ish. In fact it kind of masked the fact that it’s an all-tube setup. But sounded cool in person.
My current setup is pretty simple - ESP LTD Snakebyte with EMG JH set straight into a Mesa Engineering Rectoverb 50 watt tube combo. No stomp boxes whatsoever. And it sounds pretty darn Mettallica-ish. My gf filmed me on her phone here:
You have a $1500 guitar that you don’t really like, and you barely play it?
Sell it. Buy some drums lol. Or trade it/sell it and buy another guitar that’s more interesting.
In other news, I was checking out a few guitars at a local store. I just flat don’t like the Les Paul. I love the look of a cherry burst Les Paul, there’s probably no other more iconic image that says guitar than that. A couple of things were a bit annoying
- the body is so heavy that when you’re sitting down, it always wants to slide off your thigh. I’ve never noticed that with another guitar before. pretty neat. Maybe the weight reduction models are better.
- the rear of the body has that sharpish edge and no bevelling, and it just digs into your ribs if you’re leaned over the guitar, if you’re forced to look at the fretboard like I am when learning new stuff. After 10 minutes playing it, I reckon I’ve got a bruise there lol
Neither of these matter if you’re standing up, but at home I tend to sit.
The sound was awesome. It was neat measuring the sustain vs. other guitars. There is also a little more anger in the tone, so that’s obviously great.
Interestingly there were 1600 1959 cherry sunburst Les Pauls made, and only about 400 are accounted for. If you reckon there are a few hundred that were destroyed over 60 years, there are still 500-750 of them out there unaccounted for. Every year one or two turn up in estate sales and attic clearouts. Would be pretty amazing to find one (and the half million dollars they sell for)
It was a gift, and I guess that post was just emo about losing the G&L that I spent so much time with. I still love guitar and would hate selling something like that. You might have a point if I owned 10 guitars of varying value. But a single electric guitar is no biggie in my opinion. I could just add a drum kit if I could make it work (although I tried to do rock band on PS3 for this lol).