The Musicians Thread

[Ario]

I'm totally lost when it comes to plectrum techniques because I universally fingerpick, even for "rawk" guitar. It lacks attack but it means I can greatly vary the expression of every note because there are a bazillion ways to pluck with different fingers at different speeds in different locations at different angles and with different parts of the nails or fingers or both. And then there's rasguado (flamenco) on electric which is just nuts. Combined with slap and touch style.

It's pretty win to be honest but I can't really shred (although I can using almost entirely slurs), so some day I guess I'll have to learn to use a plec.

You can't use a pick I can't not use a pick!

[Green Gecko]

I can use a pick but nothing better than alternate picking.

To be frank, my style of playing just doesn't need me to use one.

All those crazy picking tehcniques where you use the plec as well as your fingers are just pointless for me because I am so used to picking with all of my fingers anyway.

I can play fast using tremelo technique (three fingers), alternate fingering (with index and middle finger) and I spent forever developing a reflex in my thumb that pretty much is alternate picking with a plec accept I burn the muscle in my thumb knucle to do it. I can play Stockholme Syndrome by Muse that way, for example. Combine that with a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, down-picks with the thumb and somem touch style, and I have no problem playing anything I want to play originally played with a pick.

But as I confessed earlier, it's extremely hard to shred fingerstyle. You make up for it with, well, fingerstyle, which in my opinion is more musically interesting because of the harmony possibilites of picking multiple notes, and on the left-hand side of things, actually holding any so you get some sustain and resonance in almost all of your notes.

Holding notes on the fretboard is sketchiest area I see usually. I never go amiss with a big rant about it. It's so important and something I've stuck to because you just can't get away with it on a classical guitar because it sounds crap. Drive on electric pretty much obliterates its obviousness on an acoustic instrument, though, so it's probably not as important on electric. But I do it anyway, because that doesn't mean it doesn't sound better.

For that reason I play clean about 90% of the time, which only makes me love my guitar more because the pick-ups are strawberry floating amazingly articulate. It really helps you focus on your technique. It sounds beautiful even through a crappy "Realistic X-12" 10 or 12" PA amplifier that looks like something out of an 80s toy store. Mahogany for the win.

[Red Yoshi]

My Telecaster kit blog

I'm very excited

[LewisD]

My Telecaster kit blog

I'm very excited

Excellent, I'm going to keep an eye on this.
Quite excited to see how it comes out.

[LewisD]

Might I direct thine musicians eyes hither!:

Line6 - Spider III 30w Amp for sale - Good as new, 2 months old

[Red Yoshi]

This is how far i've got with my Tele kit.

I've decided against trying a cherryburst finish on this one. It would be quite expensive, and the grain isn't particularly amazing anyway.

Going into halfords tomorrow to get some car paint for it, probably a nice deep shiny blue

[Pontius Pilate]

Remember to put Primer on first!

Any takers? http://glasgow.gumtree.com/glasgow/49/41213449.html

[Red Yoshi]

I'm at the primer stage with my guitar now

http://telekitbuild.blogspot.com/

I've decided on an Electric/Monza blue finish for this one, should be similar to a Lake Placid Blue, but smoother.


On a side note, there are some really cheap wahwah pedals on ebay, worth getting one to mess about with, or will the quality be terrible compared to a proper £60+ dunlop wah pedal?

[Red Yoshi]

And so, the colouring of the body has begun!





Read a full report of my progress Here

I really recommend anyone who fancies making a kit with the time and money to build one. It feels so rewarding when you overcome mistakes, and work things out!

[John Galt]

Just read your blog and that actually looks really cool! You seem to know a lot about what to do - I wouldn't have had a clue, and any of the wood work would have gone right down the shitter.

[SEP]

Wait, does that Telecaster have a contour on the back?

[Red Yoshi]

John, i had no idea what i was doing when i started. Must have spent tens of hours reading thousands of forum articles and websites as research first!

And MCN, yeah, that is a contour on the back of the Telecaster!

[Pontius Pilate]

Just bought myself a new distortion pedal. It's the best thing I've ever heard! Blackstar HT dual. All valve distortion, aw man it's just amazing. Makes my decent solid state amp sound like a bloody monster!! Can get very hendrix like sound from the clean/crunch channel, and screeching tones from the lead channel. Best pedal ever!

[smurphy]

I got a Bass Big Muff when I was seeing Kylesa in Glasgow last week. It's excellent. A bit disappointed it flat out doesn't work with guitar though.

Also, I'm very tempted to pick up one of those guitar kits. My current guitar is borrowed from a friend, so I'm going to have to get my own sometime.

[Mr Thropwimp]

I got a Bass Big Muff when I was seeing Kylesa in Glasgow last week. It's excellent. A bit disappointed it flat out doesn't work with guitar though.

You can get a fairly ok-ish muffled effect from an overdrive/distortion pedal. I have a Boss one and with the right mucking about you can get some strange sounds from it.

Need to get it back actually.

And I agree with Red Yoshi. DIY-ing your own guitar rocks. I rewired mine and put new pickups in, just guessing what goes where. Then put a new scratchplate on.

Still needs finishing off but I haven't the money Just new potentiometers and black knobs to go on and it would've been complete.

[smurphy]

You can get a fairly ok-ish muffled effect from an overdrive/distortion pedal. I have a Boss one and with the right mucking about you can get some strange sounds from it.

Don't play guitar with other instruments and I'm not really good enough to warrant spending money on dedicated guitar stuff just yet, just would have been fun if my bass one worked.

Make sure to post plenty of videos of you Tele once its finished Yoshi!

[Green Gecko]

Some pedals seem to be sensitive to specific frequencies for their designated instruments. My Russian Big Muff Pi (black re-issue) doesn't seem to do anything with certain signals, neither does my Crybaby wah.

If you guess the wiring off pick-ups, you might want to double check it.. There are things like coil tapping to cancel out noise from 2x single coil pick-ups, and different pots for different pick-ups.. I'm crap at electronics because of the maths so I have no idea but I'd read a guide somewhere to be sure I was doing it right to get the best sound and flexibility.

[Mr Thropwimp]

Some pedals seem to be sensitive to specific frequencies for their designated instruments. My Russian Big Muff Pi (black re-issue) doesn't seem to do anything with certain signals, neither does my Crybaby wah.

If you guess the wiring off pick-ups, you might want to double check it.. There are things like coil tapping to cancel out noise from 2x single coil pick-ups, and different pots for different pick-ups.. I'm crap at electronics because of the maths so I have no idea but I'd read a guide somewhere to be sure I was doing it right to get the best sound and flexibility.

It was very simple to do the rewiring. You just had to decide where you wanted your pots to go and where in the series they'd go (ie. go before or after the master volume and on what pickups) and how you'd wire up the selector switch.

I fitted two humbuckers into my strat in place of its three single coils, and managed to rewire the selector switch to kill the signal in one position (for awkward tremolo action). The only thing I did wrong was place the neck pup the wrong way round.

It was really just a case of knowing which wire was the ground (which would be grounded on the underside of the volume pot) and which was hot, which would go to the switch or the pot, or any custom electronics in between (I plan to fit a black ice distortion pot on a double control knob at some point for finer effect control).

As an aside, learning scales at the moment. Should hopefully get the old fingers going good for less rhythmic stuff. Hard work though, especially knowing where to start with them all.

[smurphy]

I've found this awesome site for teaching music theory and stuff. The guy who does it's a strawberry floating genius. It's for bass, so doesn't teach you chord fingerings, but it does teach chords. It's really making me regret not doing music in school though, now I've got such a late start. Learning about the stuff is fascinating though, so many patterns and things I've noticed coming together, learning the theory behind it all.

[Green Gecko]

Thanks Phantom; that cleared up some of it for me. At some point I'd like to try some Seymour Duncan pick-ups in my S2170SE as they are what I would have chosen if the EMGs I got with it didn't turn out to be so awesome when played clean.

If you want to improve your fingering I thoroughly recommend learning some Lessons and Studies from Matteo Carcassi, Mauro Giuliani, Ferdinando Carulli and a few others I could name if you are interested. I can scan in some really pro handwritten tab from my teacher - his tabs are awesome and so easy to read, including all the right symbols and rhythmic notation. They are classical/Spanish/Italian pieces but they really build up your fingering.

Remember that scales will not really teach you any harmony or how to drastically change chord shapes in a very short space of time and then make small movements on top of those so well. The single greatest weakness I observe in many amateur/hobby guitarists is their general lack of harmony ability, possibly due to relying too much on scales. And I see it a lot in professional guitarists as well. I respect that certain styles don't require a broad left hand technique to aid more harmonic/arpeggio-based melody but it is immensely satisfying and more interesting in my opinion.

I'll check out that site Smurphy.. if only you could provide the address.