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Guitar talk: acoustic, bass, classical, twelve string? You name it! Pt III

andyoz said:
They're meant to be lovely. Avalon was started by an ex Lowden guy right?

Where did you get it?
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Avalon effectively was the original Lowden, at the workshops in Newtownards, then George Lowden left and started what is now Lowden in Downpatrick and the Newtownards facility rebranded as Avalon AFAIK.
There’s some history on Wikipedia.
I bought it from the Avalon workshop, I live about 30miles away. They have about 10 different models on display for you to try and choose from or you can order a custom build.
My brother had bought a couple in the past, they have all been wonderful guitars and customer care is absolutely top notch.
The hard part is choosing just one.
 
It really looks great, just exactly as an acoustic should. I don’t know if its just the picture or colour, but it looks to be a nice size too, i.e. not too big. I find a lot of steel-strung acoustics uncomfortably huge, I think its one reason I get on with my Yam classical so well.
 
Tony L said:
It really looks great, just exactly as an acoustic should. I don’t know if its just the picture or colour, but it looks to be a nice size too, i.e. not too big. I find a lot of steel-strung acoustics uncomfortably huge, I think its one reason I get on with my Yam classical so well.
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Thanks Tony, you’re right, it’s a very comfortable size and responds so well to a gentle touch, there’s no need to attack it so sounds great at low volumes.
Something you notice is when you hold the final chord at the end of a song it just rings for ages, it’s like there’s a battery powered repeater in there or something. The main body of the chord dies out but there’s a ring that just keeps going for a seemingly impossible length of time.
My brother’s small bodied Avalon is the same.
 
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Ok so I have long known that because the the C major scale has no sharps and flats, you can play it on piano just by starting at any C and playing all the white keys. And I also knew that these mysterious modes were just the same pattern but starting on the various scale notes of the the C major scale. But I have only just realised that this means all the modes of C major are also all white notes so if I want to get a sense of, say, mixolydian, I can just play 8 white notes starting on the fifth note of C-major.

Or on a guitar just play the same major scale I already know but starting on the n'th note of the scale. Which means I can work them all out rather than thinking I had to do some mental learn a million scales if I want to ever understand modes type deal.
 
matthewr said:
Ok so I have long known that because the the C major scale has no sharps and flats, you can play it on piano just by starting at any C and playing all the white keys. And I also knew that these mysterious modes were just the same pattern but starting on the various scale notes of the the C major scale. But I have only just realised that this means all the modes of C major are also all white notes so if I want to get a sense of, say, mixolydian, I can just play 8 white notes starting on the fifth note of C-major.

Or on a guitar just play the same major scale I already know but starting on the n'th note of the scale. Which means I can work them all out rather than thinking I had to do some mental learn a million scales if I want to ever understand modes type deal.
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homer-simpson-doh.jpg
 
matthewr said:
Ok so I have long known that because the the C major scale has no sharps and flats, you can play it on piano just by starting at any C and playing all the white keys.
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So you also know A min (or C Aeolian).

The complexity is in remembering the names. For example, if you take the notes in the key of C.

Start on C = C Ionian
Start on D = D Dorian
Start on E = E Phrygian
Start on F = F Lydian
Start on G = G Mixolydian
Start on A = A Aeolian
Start on B = B Locrian


https://mikesoca.com/modes-major-scale-relative-minor-modes/
 
Just watched TPS. Pure comedy gold seeing Dan trying to play 8s after being so used to playing his egg-slicer 11s.
 
matthewr said:
Ok so I have long known that because the the C major scale has no sharps and flats, you can play it on piano just by starting at any C and playing all the white keys. And I also knew that these mysterious modes were just the same pattern but starting on the various scale notes of the the C major scale. But I have only just realised that this means all the modes of C major are also all white notes so if I want to get a sense of, say, mixolydian, I can just play 8 white notes starting on the fifth note of C-major.

Or on a guitar just play the same major scale I already know but starting on the n'th note of the scale. Which means I can work them all out rather than thinking I had to do some mental learn a million scales if I want to ever understand modes type deal.
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I've been exploring modes myself recently and it's as you say: the same notes of a scale but just with different starting and ending notes. The only challenge is learning new fingering due to the interval changes. As always, Sean Daniel has a great series of videos on this topic:

 
windhoek said:
I've been exploring modes myself recently and it's as you say: the same notes of a scale but just with different starting and ending notes. The only challenge is learning new fingering due to the interval changes. As always, Sean Daniel has a great series of videos on this topic:
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It's odd but just playing scales doesn't give a flavour of the modes to my ear. It's the important intervals that matter, or where the differences from major or minor fall. It's perhaps more meaningful to think of, say, G Dorian itself and how it differs from G major or G minor, rather than the major scale that it's derived from. Traditional tunes such as Drunken Sailor or Scarborough Fair (Dorian) don't seem to fall out naturally from playing the scales alone it's the defining intervals - does that make any sense?
 
gavreid said:
It's odd but just playing scales doesn't give a flavour of the modes to my ear. It's the important intervals that matter, or where the differences from major or minor fall. It's perhaps more meaningful to think of, say, G Dorian itself and how it differs from G major or G minor, rather than the major scale that it's derived from. Traditional tunes such as Drunken Sailor or Scarborough Fair (Dorian) don't seem to fall out naturally from playing the scales alone it's the defining intervals - does that make any sense?
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Yes and axiomatically so, for it's the half-step intervals and their whereabouts that flavours the scale. I experimented with this the other day by moving up the low E string in whole steps only. Without half steps, it sounds like a mode that's not quite right.
 
windhoek said:
Yes and axiomatically so, for it's the half-step intervals and their whereabouts that flavours the scale. I experimented with this the other day by moving up the low E string in whole steps only. Without half steps, it sounds like a mode that's not quite right.
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Yes, the modes are not quite major or not quite minor, just something in between. The whole tone scale is a bit different, there are only two of them and, of course, and it doesn't matter which is the starting note because the intervals are all the same
 
Neural DSP make the very best of plug ins, albeit for people into metal / djent. But now they have made one for people like me who like clean and edge of breakup, low to mid overdrive types tones. Lots of reviews appearing.


There is a 14 day free trial as well : https://neuraldsp.com/products/archetype-cory-wong

EDIT: I have no idea who Cory Wong is.
 
Rabea did a review of that VST thingy too. I only watched a bit of it, but it sounded pretty decent.

I’m still greatly enjoying/confusing myself with the new Reeves fuzz. It sounds great and certainly opens some new doors as it is very responsive (way more so than the Rat). I’m still having no joy with ‘gain stacking’, though I think that’s largely just down to my not really liking ‘gain stacked’ sounds, i.e. I don’t like them much when TPS or Wampler set them up either. I think I have very simplistic tastes (aside from all-out shoegaze, which I don’t have enough pedals to do right).

This fuzz sounds superb just into the amp with nothing else in the signal chain at all. That gets anything from a pretty dirty but very playable blues sound to Wire Chairs Missing sort of full-on fuzz textures. I can’t get my guitar to really ‘clean-up’ the way Mick on TPS does even dialling way down on ‘2’ on the vol knob, though there is a whole range of usable and different tones, especially if the amp tone controls are nudged a bit. The Strat does rather better being thinner sounding and lower-output than the Yam, but I think you‘d need a real ‘Mick style’ Strat with lovely twangy ‘60s pickups to do this right (IIRC the 82 Dan Smith has a reputation for being quite ‘hot’ for a Strat, but I’ve never compared it to another one). I’m very curious to see what TPS get out of the Reeves when they review it very shortly. It definitely sounds great and is fun to play as far as I’m concerned. I’ve currently just got it and the DM-2W plumbed in while I’m still learning what it does, though if one was aiming at Jack White, Seasick Steve or Wire just it and the amp gets you there.
 
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