Monday, November 24th, 2008
Dave’s earlier post on Peter Frampton and his classic Frampton Comes Alive album sparked a discussion around the guitar effect that is now very closely associated with Frampton - the Talkbox. Frampton employed the Talkbox on his biggest hits - Show Me The Way and Do You Feel Like We Do.
So what exactly is a talkbox?
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
The Zoom H2 is a small, hand held digital recorder made for a variety of different applications. From recording live music, to doing podcasts or recording lectures, even recording band rehearsals, the Zoom H2 is designed to handle many different kinds of field recording.
I’m going to focus on one particular need - recording the band rehearsal. I play in a group (Tebucky Jones) and each week we get together to rehearse for upcoming gigs, trade new songs and work on our next CD. We bought the Zoom H2 to help us record our rehearsals and distribute the songs to the band the next day.
If you’re not recording your band rehearsals, you should. Lots of good ideas can be found in spontaneous jams and it’s always good to hear yourself the next day - as a listener - to see if what you’re playing really holds up. So onto the H2…
Monday, October 6th, 2008
A new market is springing up around Rock Band and Guitar Hero - premium instruments. Not satisfied with the small plastic guitar that comes with Rock Band? Now you can upgrade to a semi-real looking guitar from folks like MadCatz or Starpex.
However, the price of moving one step closer to playing a real instrument can be steep. The Starpex Fender Strat goes for $180.00. At that price you could actually buy yourself the “Stop Dreaming, Start Playing” guitar and amp pack from Musiciansfriend.com.
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
Every year representatives of 100 music magazines from around the globe vote on and present awards at the Musikmesse International Press Awards (MIPA). These are big awards and would be even bigger if more people knew how to pronounce Musikmesse. The winners were recently announced in each key guitar category. Click on for the list of winners.
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there is nothing like putting on a new set of strings to really make your guitar sing. However, unless you have a roady, you don’t really want to spend the time to do this on a daily basis. Accordingly, do the next best thing: clean ‘em.
A Brooklyn-based company called ToneGear has recently released a product called “The String Cleaner,” which makes it a lot easier to clean your strings. The product has a portion that slides between the fingerboard and strings to enable a thorough cleaning from the top and bottom of the strings. Bottom line: your strings sound better and you get to re-string less. The product one a “Best in Show” award during NAMM ‘08 in Nashville and will be distributed by D’Addario to music stores everywhere.
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Monday, July 28th, 2008
In many ways, owning an automobile is very different than owning a guitar. For starters, I’m not putting $75 into my guitar every week. More to the point, if my carburetor wears out I just have the mechanic decide on the right carburetor to replace it with. I don’t have to do a lot of shopping around. A carburetor is a carburetor. (I use this as an example even though I’m not 100% sure my car has a carburetor.) Guitar strings, however, are a different story. With guitar strings, the right choice is more subjective and some trial and error is required.
Usually costing less than $10 for a set of six, the strings have an enormous impact on the sound of a guitar. You really appreciate this after replacing a set of strings that have become worn out.
The last time I needed to replace the strings on my Martin D-35, I decided to try to find the perfect set. I tried quite a few - two different types by D’Addario, one set of Martins, one set of the house strings from my local guitar store, light gauge, medium gauge, etc. Nothing seemed to match the sound I was looking for and I started to wonder if the problem was my guitar rather than the strings.
Monday, July 14th, 2008
I recently added a few more pedals to my regular rig. I used use one or two pedals max, preferring a more pure sound straight out of my amp. But recently I’ve started playing with a new band and it’s requiring me to expand my sonic dimensions to fit the new style of music. However, once you start chaining guitar pedals together, you need to be aware of your pedal order to maximize the interaction and the sound of your guitar.
“Standard” Pedal Ordering
The usual rule of thumb is to order your pedals starting from the guitar to the amp:
This order allows you to first filter and EQ the raw signal from the guitar and then increase it’s volume and distortion. From there you can modulate the full, overdriven signal before sending it to be echoed or reverberated.
But as with any rule there are exceptions…
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
When I first decided to learn to play the guitar, I bought a guitar for $99 at Guitar Center. The next step was trying to tune it. I had a book which told me to first get the E string to match the sound of an E played on piano and then match the tone on that string to the tone of another fretted string.
Wait a second. I need a piano to tune my guitar? Uh oh.
When I tried to play the guitar again as a real adult, I found a guitar teacher. In our first lesson, he pulled out a tuner, spent about a minute tuning up and we were on our way. No piano needed (lucky too because our lessons were in a room about the size of a small closet).
Now that you know which metronome to get and which capo to get, it is time to get a tuner. Read on to find out why you want the beautiful item pictured above.
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
I recently purchased a Fulltone OCD overdrive pedal. I had been doing some research and had read some positive reviews online and was recommended the pedal from a guy I know at Guitar Showcase in San Jose, CA. My main driver (no pun intended) was to boost my volume and add a little more overdrive to my signal when doing lead work with Tebucky Jones.
This little guy does all of that and more. It’s now my main pedal (and currently my only pedal) that runs between my Gibson Les Paul and my new Marshall Vintage Modern 2266C.
Monday, June 16th, 2008
When you start practicing regularly, a few things are essential: (a) your instrument, (b) a comfortable chair, (c) a tuner (I’ll tackle that in a future post) and (d) a metronome. For those of you that don’t know, a metronome does nothing more than help you keep the tempo consistent by providing a steady beat for you to play to.
Rik Elswit, who runs the acoustic department at Bananas at Large and is also a guitar teacher, recommends using a metronome as part of every practice session.
The classic way to use the metronome is to set it to the fastest setting on which you can play the piece you’re working on without making a mistake and then gradually increase the speed as your pace increases.
Read on to see which one we’d pick.
