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

I've been composing over a song for my partner over the last few days using my Digitech Trio+ band creator and I've just been hit with an annoying bug: I changed strings yesterday on my guitar and now the Trio+ won't give me the same bass and drum part it was giving me before when I was playing the exact same - very simple - chords previously. The beat I was getting had a nice groove to it and I've got it down for some parts of the song but for this part it just won't give me the same backing track. I've just spent the last hour trying to get it back but nada. The annoying thing is it's close, but there's just a minor accent change on the drums and the bass takes a slightly different path back to the start of the loop. I liked what it gave me before but screw me if I just can't get it to give me it again. The only thing that's changed is that I put new strings on my guitar and now it won't play ball. I need to go out and get some fresh air to release some of the frustration...
 
I've been playing with the free trial Neural's new DSP -- which is basically a sim of the Tone King Imperial plus compressor, two low/med gain pedals, delay and reverb. It's very good like the other Neural products but much more in my ballpark tone wise as the previous products have been a bit too progressive metal. Also I love that the Neural stuff has a proper standalone mode so you don't have to start a DAW and use it as a plug in and you get amps and pedal UI. This combined with the fact that my interface has a DI socket for a guitar makes it all kind of awesome in a plug and play sort of way.

Although also pointless given I have an actual amp and similar pedals anyway :)

https://neuraldsp.com/plugins/tone-king-imperial-mkii
 
Presets suffer from "lets turn ALL THE EFFECTS ON" a bit though as is the way with these things.
 
Somewhat bizarrely, the Neural Tone King Imperial has a built in Iron Man III Attenuator. So I can crank my digital amp sim all the way up and then digitally simulate it being turned down by an analogue attenuator if it threatens to wake my Dad up from his afternoon nap?
 
I've been sporadically enjoying the somewhat awkwardly named Professional Musicians React channel. It depends who they have on and you have to put up with Jack Conte but some of them are great. For example this one where they have two bass players on and I learnt an awful lot about bass.


Fun Fact: As a young man, Jaco Pastorius lost his upgright bass and had no money to replace it. So he ripped the frets out of his P bass and patched it up with some filler so he could have a fretless bass. There is also an episode on Bon Iver which contains the best French Horn joke ever.
 
matthewr said:
I've been sporadically enjoying the somewhat awkwardly named Professional Musicians React channel. It depends who they have on and you have to put up with Jack Conte but some of them are great. For example this one where they have two bass players on and I learnt an awful lot about bass.


Fun Fact: As a young man, Jaco Pastorius lost his upgright bass and had no money to replace it. So he ripped the frets out of his P bass and patched it up with some filler so he could have a fretless bass. There is also an episode on Bon Iver which contains the best French Horn joke ever.
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I really enjoyed that, thanks, such knowledgeable guys and players, phew!
 
Dug out the old Les Paul yesterday for the first time in years (starting to feel better after the motherlode of of all heavy colds for the past 10 days)

Toggle switch was playing up so decided to replace it. Couldn't get a short switchcraft so went with an Amazon el cheapo replacement. Arrived today and Hey it works. Blobby soldering skills aside.


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This experiment unfortunately confirmed that my neck Pup is totally dead (sad face)

So I just ordered a Seymour Duncan 59 replacement (Love the Gibbo 498T in the bridge - the 490 in the neck always sounded a bit wooly and dull TBH)

Have to practice those soldering skills now. Learning curve. But fun. Kind of. There's a first time for everything they say, right?
 
Last few weeks I have been upping my practice and have got really into Tomo Fujita's lessons. He's a famous Berklee guitar teacher so expect a very technical, music school like approach and lots of jazz and blues fundamentals. But what I really like is he completely deconstructs your technique so you are forced to play everything really cleanly and slowly which seems pointless until you realise how hard it is to do it properly and by extension how badly you have been playing. Also strong emphasis on ear training and singing what you play (audiation and all that)

Not for everyone, but it suits me as I want to get both better and more musical. This lesson on Triads will give you the idea.

 
matthewr said:
I've been sporadically enjoying the somewhat awkwardly named Professional Musicians React channel. It depends who they have on and you have to put up with Jack Conte but some of them are great. For example this one where they have two bass players on and I learnt an awful lot about bass.


Fun Fact: As a young man, Jaco Pastorius lost his upgright bass and had no money to replace it. So he ripped the frets out of his P bass and patched it up with some filler so he could have a fretless bass. There is also an episode on Bon Iver which contains the best French Horn joke ever.
Click to expand...

I think that video connects to one where they compare "Teen Town" with "Dean Town", in a reasonably forensic way - rather than that increasingly tired language of "influences", et cetera.

Also, not just pedantry to point out that Jaco ripped the frets out of his J, not his P. Otherwise life would sound slightly different.
 
Tim Jones said:
Also, not just pedantry to point out that Jaco ripped the frets out of his J, not his P. Otherwise life would sound slightly different.
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Indeed. He may as well have ripped the neck pickup out too as I don’t think he ever used it!
 
Found it: (1) How Vulfpeck TRANSFORMED This Legend's Iconic Bassline with Adam Neely - YouTube

I like Adam Neely more than a lot of these other YT muso hipsters. There are also some interesting technical points here - like the way that bands are now trying to mimic the kind of compression that, when we were bouncing down in the 80s on 4-tracks, we just assumed was a price to be paid.

For the record, I figured out Teen Town by ear in the late eighties, and Dean Town by sheer cheating and using tabs about six months ago. I think Teen Town is a much more interesting piece of music, but Dean is helluva lot of fun.
 
Yes I enjoyed the Dean / Teen Town one very much.

And as I said in my original post, I do find the ones with bass players to be generally more interesting. This might be just down to the guests although I wonder if a bass players perspective on music just makes for more interesting chat? Or possibly that I just know very little about bass and need to mind my p's and j's :)
 
Still on a search for replacements. Seymour Duncans 59? Hmm. Not good. Went back.

Started looking at Bareknuckles. Found this comparison.

 
Been suffering a severe case of GAS lately, surfing Reverb way too much and watching way too many guitar videos on youtube. Vacillated between getting an entirely known quantity like a Tele (but which one? it's a minefield...) or even an Esquire, or going completely off the grid with yet another oddball guitar. A few random clicks on Sunday morning, and a few hours later I was picking this up at the home of Sean Steen, the maker, in Seaside, Oregon:
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Keen observers will have noticed that's not a Fender. It's a Steen, designed and made by a local guy who has made 100 or so of them in different styles (mostly hardbody). He's getting out of the guitar business and selling off remaining stock; this demo was essentially half price and essentially new - still has the plastic on the pickups and rear access panel.

So, what is it? Online opinions are divided on the aesthetics (and not evenly). Top half mimics a flying V. Lace Alumitone pickups, Grover tuners, alder body, satin finish maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, graphite nut, roller bridge, 25" scale, 12" radius.

That all boils down to the most comfortable guitar I've ever played. It's very light. It's balanced. Being semi-hollow, it makes enough noise unplugged that I can hear myself. So far it has me playing differently, paying more attention to really articulating things instead of just slopping my way around. Later today I'll finally get a chance to run it through some pedals and have fun. It's crying out for chorus, micro vibe, delay.

There's an interesting discussion somewhere about these pickups being the "hifi" approach to guitar tone, i.e., get the best frequency response you can from the pickup, then tailor it downstream to sound how you want. I'm still getting my head around that part.

Anyway, it is the first modern guitar I've ever owned, and it feels modern, but not in a weird sterile way like a Parker Fly. Honestly, it feels similar to my old Gibson Marauder, just better. And it has me loosening my grip a little on what the 70s and 80s taught me a guitar "should" be.
 
Interesting. I assume it is illegal to play it standing up on a strap? That wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, but it is an unusual design choice. How well does it balance on the knee? Looks like it would be fine.

PS I rather like the subtle dot markers. If I was custom-ordering a guitar I don’t think I’d have them on the board at all, only on the side. I’d actually love to custom order a guitar. It would be a very light wrap-bar LPJ type affair but with the P90 shifted towards the neck about 1-1.5cm from standard and less headstock break angle. If I ever get round to selling the Jazz Bass and Dan Smith Strat I’ll be tempted to talk to the new incarnation of Gordon Smith and see if they’d make me one.
 
Plays great sitting or standing. His website stresses things like "ergonomic, weight balanced guitars", "designed for comfort", "balanced to prevent neck dive in sitting position or standing with a strap", stuff like that. And it really gives me a lot of tactile feedback through the neck and body – it talks to me, which I like.
 
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