It was a straight up swap. I actually had a guy at the local music shop down the street do it for me as I didn’t know how involved it would be and it took him like five minutes. He just popped the old ones out and the new ones in and they fit perfectly. It ended up being worth it because it turns out that the nut on my guitar had come loose so he glued it down for me.
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Alt tunings!
AADDGG
First jam last night since January. Was playing some power chord rhythm section on the Bass (this tone is too heavy), played them on the 6 string (this tone is too light), tuning to AADDGG 
just right.
Okay, the GG was crap as, so restringing with a heavier gauge.
Raison d’être, love playing power chords on my Bass, everyone else cries. Especially when reverb and chorus is involved.
Just picked up one of these today for a pretty major discount. Really liking it so far, came with what I think are flats which I’ve never used before.
Excited to get back into poorly imitating Derek Bailey.
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A couple of other things to think about: string gauge and action.
I’ve experimented with loads of gauges over the years and got caught up in the heavier gauges are better hype, and even tried ups to 13s on a Jazzmaster I used to own. I’ve gone the opposite direction now and have 8s on both my tele and strat and I’ve come to love this gauge.
If your guitar has high action, settle on a string gauge you like (or think you’d like) and then have somebody lower the action for you as low as it will go without fret buzz.
With lighter strings and low action you’ll be cranking out barre chords in no time, with no buzz or dead notes.
The other thing that I wish I had thought about properly when I was just starting out was how hard I was hitting the strings and where I was hitting the strings.
Dynamics are super important so learning to play with a light touch is good to practice (and you won’t be busting strings).
Also, some instruction video I watched years ago for funky rhythmic playing had a great line about thinking about the different strings as different parts of a drum kit (or I suppose you could even think about them as different parts of an orchestra). Rather than having all parts of the kit or orchestra play at once (playing all six strings), you can often get better results bouncing between the lower and higher registers, for instance thinking of your lower strings as like a bass drum and higher strings as the snare or cymbals, and coming up with different patterns.
Anyway, I thought that was a cool way to think about chords, and by doing so you can get a ton of different tones out of just one chord (which a lot of funk guitarists do).
It’s like the old James Brown band interview joke: Can you play an E9 chord? OK, how long?
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alt tuning are the saving grace of my playing, some of my favs are:
CGDGBE, this ones been used by pavement, sonic youth, and joan of arc
D#A#DGBE or D#A#DGA#D#
EAC#G#BC#
EG#BF#BbEb, one of my own design
DADABE, also a pavement one
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Just an note on fret buzz, it’s through an amp that it counts.
My guitars have buzz acoustically but not through an amp. Might be an important distinction for someone starting out.
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Yeah, definitely. I think if you are a beginner and are trying to get the action as low as possible, bringing the guitar in and having a professional set it up for you is probably the way to go (and telling them that you want the action low). If you switch string gauges at the same time, you have the added advantage of letting them do any necessary truss rod or intonation adjustments at the same time.
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If I wanted to get into electric guitar (never played before besides messing around with a friends acoustic), what would you do with $1k?
@0mega Do you have any favorite genres or artists? Do you like heavy distorted guitar or clean stuff?
I would be playing mostly alternative stuff. Distorted would be primary but some flexibility would be cool.
I think a lot of people will have different advice, so all I can say is the advice I would give to myself.
- See if there is a specific body shape/style that looks good to you (maybe something a certain artist plays) and pick the one that inspires you. For instance, Stratocaster, Telecaster, Jazzmaster, Les Paul, etc.
For the genre you mentioned, a Jazzmaster or Telecaster would seem like a really good versatile option. The higher-end Squiers ($400-500 range, such as Classic Vibe or new Paranormal series) are often considered to be great value for the money. I personally would try to find a good guitar shop and see if they have a used Fender Made in Mexico or Made in Japan that is in the $500 price range. The only reason is that those might hold their value a bit better if you later want to sell it. If there isn’t anything used that looks good, the Squier is a good choice I’d say.
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If you aren’t going to be playing in a band right away, the Yamaha THR10 is my favorite small practice amp. It sounds terrific and you can use headphones. It has lots of different amp models and some nice effects so you can get a lot of different tones without buying a lot of pedals right away.
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If I was going to add one pedal to the THR for heavy, alternative stuff, I would get a fuzz pedal. Big Muffs are popular, but I would actually get a FuzzFace pedal (like the Dunlop mini germanium fuzz). The reason is that while Big Muffs sound massive and distorted, the Fuzz Face gets most of the way there, but also has some nice lower gain tones (that you can get by adjusting the volume knob on your guitar). This would go from say Black Keys bluesy fuzzy stuff to heavy fuzz tones.
I think you could get a nice Squier, THR10, and a fuzz pedal for under $1,000.
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Probably check out the Fender Squiers, since those tend to get good reviews, found in a lot of stories, and at their low prices deliver high value for the money.
Maybe also look at the Eastwood guitars too although those are harder to find in stores to try in person - they do cool reproductions of unusual vintage designs as well as some interesting newer ones that appeal to peps who want something a bit unique yet also have a retro touch:
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I’ve never owned one, but have eyed them for years (Mercury and H44). They do look cool, and would probably be a great first guitar with a bit of character.
Another more non-traditional choice would be the G&L Tribute Fallout guitars. I have a G&L bass and it’s great quality. I see these Fallout guitars all the time in music shops here in Japan and they look like a lot of fun. P-90 and a splittable humbucker seems like a great combination, and I like the smaller body size. The black one looks great to me.
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Making some progress towards duplicating Asuka’s solo here - specifically the control over volume swells and vibrato.
My American Elite Tele with ebony fingerboard has excellent sustain on its own but adding in the compressor - in this case a Walrus Audio Deep Six - is helping a lot with reproducing the note swell/bloom that goes before the vibrato on some notes. It’s also interesting to find that the same note blooms/sustains different depending on which string/fret it’s played on.
This started when someone questioned my ability to play vibrato with different styles - the normal rock-and-roll style with string bend or the classical guitar style, and also whether I can bend a note then vibrato off the bent note. I don’t think any of these techniques are as challenging as holding a note for a few seconds, then adding vibrato to it before it fades away. I’ve also played with increasing gain on my drive pedal but more gain seems to reduce control over dynamics - tricky yet interesting balancing act.
I could also dig out my E-Bow but I’m kinda forcing myself to learn how to use my pedals more effectively, as well as improve my understanding of manipulating gain stages.
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I’d go for a Squier of some sort as well…any of the models above $300 provide a lot of quality for the price.
I’d also throw the Boss Katana 50 MK2 into the ring as an amp option.
Squier guitar + Katana MK2 = approximately $600 US brand new.
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The Boss Katana 50 is super popular for good reason.
I just had a sniff around a few of the Blackstar valve combos and I had to highlight this excellent deal (UK but maybe you can find one in the States):
It’s 10W (but loud enough for a small gig) and £349 for a single-ended KT88 combo with a ton of features (switchable overdrive, effects loop, cab sim, headphone out etc) is a pretty great deal. Really, really good sounding amp for heavy / high gain stuff - IMO the overdriven sound you’ll get from this is better than any distortion pedal (though driving into it with something like a Klon clone or treble booster is never a bad idea). I have the later green non-limited edition version (exactly the same amp, just cosmetic differences) that I bought with a decent discount and I think I still paid more for it than that.
Edit: review of these amps here.
A Classic Vibe or Paranormal Squier + a good sounding small valve combo + a boost/drive pedal (like a Klon clone - eg Way Huge Conspiracy Theory - or a Blues Driver) + an analogue delay pedal (eg boss DM-2w or MXR Carbon Copy) would be a pretty nice setup. But a Katana with a decent fuzz and a cheaper digital delay (Boss DD-3T is great but you can go even cheaper) - also very nice.
I love g&l! I have an hss Strat type guitar from them, it is so good!
@omega, if you like Strat bodies then an hss is probably the most versatile guitar out there imo. Especially if you can coil tap the humbucker.
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so i had been neglecting guitar recently due to … synths. just picked up an line6 hx stomp (for various reasons, but mainly … synths) and now i find i can’t put my guitar down. once you get the eq right … wow. digital modelling has come a long way since my stint with the pod xt in 2002. physical modelling seems to be just the ticket. and the midi implementation seems exhaustive.
been reading interviews with pete celi dsp god at strymon, how he talks about modelling artifacts eg tube saturation on delay repeats, aged tape warble, etc, and i’m just thinking yeah yeah i wish the stomp were strymon instead of line6 but what if i plock the fuck out of the parameters. there are a lot. or one-shot lfo the tube bias, bitcrusher for a start. then of course cascade plocked fx into one another. that kind of thing. it’s really blowing up in terms of sophistication, at least in my eye.
i think i’m gonna send pete an email…
and i also think i need a midi guitar.
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I tuned to EBEABE when I first joined a band in which the other guitarist had this super weird alt tuning that I can’t even remeber. But I practically never tuned back and used it in all of my subsequent projects. It’s a great tuning for anything from moody indie stuff to jazzy chords to gnarly black-metal. Love it. Cheating my way all the way through haha
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Love it. Very easy to find sounds I like.
I tried many things before, best Sansamp things, all first Torpedos (cab, live, vb101), with good Mesa Studio and VHT Black Beauty.
No regrets!
Yes but it was buggy using a very few control changes and midi clock. Had to disable midi clock. Have to report this. Maybe nobody cares…
Me too! I still have my Yamaha G50 but without the GK captor. Hence mono midi.
Works great with digitone even with mono in.
Need to buy a captor again, I stupidly sold mine separately.