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There are allsorts of products for guitars, a common one for acoustics and fingerboards is lemon oil but I don't think this is any good on solid body electrics. I got a Fender polish which is simply 'petroleum distillates', this simply seems to clean off my finger muck and put a thin sheen on. Noticed the difference though, bass kept slipping away from me...
For strings and fingerboard 'Fast Fret' is a good combined cleaner, the mineral oils in it shift string muck yet soak into rosewood nice.
Everyone has their preferred products, your luthier probably has his.
Hi Phil, seminal R'n'B figure Bo Diddley regularly used a rectangular as part of his stage act in the late 50s and early 60s. It's iconic and also a Gretsch trademark as the Gretsch 'Big B' guitar. Sort of an obvious gimmick but Bo Diddley was ever teh showman.
There's also a Reversocaster about as well which looks awful.
All should prove rather uncomfortable to play but if you're after a live gig surprise go for it!
Hi SC, acoustic pickups of any variety will not sound like any kind of electric, they are built to give an acoustic feel. You could then add effects and sure you'll get a fuzzed up distorted tone, but you won't get the playing dynamics of electric. Semi-hollow players complain of unwanted feedback alot with a pu-ed acoustic it should be worse. Also and electric's sustain comes from it's mass and rigidity, an acoustic will be too light.
I'd recommend you look for a Squire Affinity strat and a Line6 Pocket Pod. The two together will give you a great electric experience for little outlay. Once you've played with the Pocket Pod amp simulations you'll know alot about the real amp you need.
You'll want a Marshall/Vox type sound so turn up the gain/overdrive, just look for a good rock tone really...
Fender, Gibson and PRS are the big names GF, you will find better value for money outside of them (although the great thing with Fenders is replacement parts). Have you narrowed down what sort of electric you want? The strat shape is the closest to an all-rounder. Pickups will make a big difference, single coil will give you screaming highs, humbuckers will give give you ballsy, growling mid/bass. Try a Squire Affinity or Yamaha Pacifica or more up the price scale a Tokai.
As a beginner you'll probably fat a wider neck and string spacing an advantage. Wide spacing will allow you to make chord shape with too much bunching and wide string spacing at the scratchplate end will make picking in and out easier. This sort of depends on hand and finger size though. Neck profile is also worth checking, some have quite big C or 'boat' shaped profiles but it does come down to preference.
As for jumbo frets here's an explanation;
http://www.guitarnoise.com/faq.php?id=108
Give it a good check out. Weak points on jazz box are neck body joint, internal wiring causing buzzing, intonation if the bridge is floating and pickup height. Changing pickups may be alot harder than on a solid-body.
1) I will practise more (ha ha ha).
2) I will gig.
3) I will maintain my instruments better.
4) I will jam casually more.
5) I will stop supporting the myth that American made guitars are always superior.
6) I will stop being so snobby about European made guitars.
7) I will keep an open mind on amps.
"then wut with the signature.lol :-)"
Hi Lil there's a big difference between the guitar you can afford and the guitar you can pick up and play. The guitars in my sig get regular daily use, in 2008 I hope they'll see some gigs. They can get knocked over, scratched, stolen etc. without me going insane. Now try doing the same with a £1300 guitar... :-)
Thanks Boot, I'm resolved to try a different brand of strings soon, the d'Addarios didn't seem as good as the last set I bought, even the string ball-end colouring seemed off, are there fakes about?
It's alot more than volume, acoustic has a sound chamber that adds resonance and resonance makes things sweet. For electrics the amp is the sound chamber, you play one just preamped and it's a dull wiry sound. Neither is better, they're very different beasts altogether. Wanna get up close and personal? acoustic is intimate. Wanna cut through the rest of the band? electric pushes out.
To disagree with SGinCYQX one of the joys of guitar is you can get a long way without theory. Many of the great American blues, folk and country players learnt it all from observation and experimentation. However there is a time for theory since the rest of us don't want to spend years hopping trains or selling our souls at crossroads!
Chords fit together into sequences, so although in theory you might change from one chord to any other at random, in real songs they tend to cluster together. Learn E A D, then G F C, then G C D, then G Em C D. Once you've learnt the majors look to the minors Em Am Dm etc. Then sevenths B7 is one of the few easy open B chords, G7 is a common way of heightening a G chord for dramatic effect. You can neglect full F and full B until later when you're fingers are hardening up. loosening up and getting stronger.
Just restrung the Brawley with D'Addario regular lights 0.010 - 0.046 and checked intonation. E B G D are now true but A is only just and E is still a bit sharp even with the bridge right back at maximum. Any ideas?
Can I compensate but getting a thicker string gauge in future? Time for a luthier? Learnt alot from this guitar and my pitch awareness has come on alot or am I getting oversensitive?
Intellitouch PT-2 works on nearly everything, electric, bass, acoustic... only a real thick classical headstock could wrongfoot it.
Gretsch and Rickenbacker because they have distinctive sounds and I'd have to be very rich to do anything more than hang them on the wall and admire them. Oh and a 3 coil nashville setup telecaster too, James Burton style without the paisley flame paint job.
AFAIK Wilkinson is an improvement on the Fender tremelo design and often standard on top Fender models, particularly the hot-rod models which try to combine vintage looks with todays hardware. You can buy and fit Wilkinson's after market as well but I wouldn't think they were so desirable that dealers would be adding them to boost standard Fenders.
Green isn't a common standard colour. If you're looking at the low to mid part of the market then concentrate on sound and playablity, for me colour is comes at the bottom of the list (hence my martini olive green bass, believe me it's not cool). If you're looking to splash out more then look to make a special order or even get a custom paint job.
Raising the action will certainly solve the problem but by giving you alot more to press down on. Real question is was it set too low to start with? (alot of new guitars have no proper setup) Or has the neck twisted, a fret risen etc? This is what your music store will do, good ones may do alot of it as part of restringing and then advise you to pay for a full setup when they find out what needs doing. Well worth it as a novice could sacrifice days tightening/loosening truss rods to little effect.
I guess we're all making assumptions about why VLXU was after that Marshall in the first place. Can you fill us in if you really were after a pure tube amp VLXU?
Used to be you had either transistor amps and or tube amps. Then there were modelling amps that simulated both. Now there are all sorts of hybrids including transistor amps that have tube sweeteners, tube amps with transistor stages for stability, modellers with tubes for reality, and pure tube amps where digital controls cooling fans and power type. It's an amp jungle out there!
Was reading old Guitar and Bass magazines today when I came across a Fender volume/tone pedal they've just reissued. Mag editor reckons they were used by old style country and western pedal steel players.
Plugged the electric in today and was immediately reminded of this great song. Anyone looking for an easy E A D song, this is it. Simply work from E to D and back with the A chord inbetween, the rhythm is a sorta baba-da-dangdang-da-ba. The rest is in the singing.
The Jazz Chorus is ultra-clean, will give you that dry, chiming 80s sound. The fender hotrod is a blues box like the marshall originally mentioned but there's plenty of competition. Most amps will give a range of voice settings that include blues and metal it's just a matter of how they are accessed.
Ok this is a tricky song to describe because there are many verions. Valerie was written by the Zutons but their original version is pretty straight forward rock. Now beware just downloading Amy Winehouse's Valerie, there are many different versions, particularly remixes that substitute whole different basslines, Amy's prefered live version is jazzier (chords sound more minor) and the beat is not a straight R'n'B 4/4.
What Mark Ronson (or his studio player) has given us is the driving bass of his version. This is a sixth fret beat on the A string followed by a quick flourish of 8th fret C and 6th fret on the E string. That's it for most of the song although I think there may be a bridge departure to the 4 fret for a bit of Ab Db Eb but that fill seems to be only early in the song. I'll let you know if I get any more certain, but after a dozen plays I've gotten just a tiny bit sick of Valerie!
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