gtone

Yep, I'm going to bring my Zoom out to the next session and maybe we can get some time to review the results afterwards over some beers. We've dashed off quickly afterwards before with everyone so damn busy it seems. I suspect the problem lies in his learning guitar at home playing alone. Guitar tones that "work" well at home routinely don't sound good in a full band mix. He's uploaded some demoes online with simple drum tracks/bass lines, so possibly that's why he thinks he needs such a thick stew of effects/gain. His stuff is all blues/blues-rock, so certainly doesn't warrant the tons of saturated gain he slathers on. I can't rule out that he might be compensating a bit for his playing with all the distortion, consciously or not.

Some great input here - many thanks guys. Can always count on the HFC for some no BS collective wisdom. This place rocks!!

Just starting up with a new band project with what seems to be cool bunch of guys I'm unfamiliar with. Don't know where it's going yet, but it definitely has promise although we're in very early stages of feeling each other out yet. Guy putting the project together is the de facto bandleader, chief songwriter, singer and second guitarist, seems nice but his agenda is clearly in advancing his material first/foremost. I don't have a problem with that and have told him so as songs are decent and somewhat enjoyable to play. The problem is that he's pretty new to guitar (long-time bassist for a local blues/rock outfit) and is making some classic rookie mistakes tone-wise. Dude uses far too much gain and effects for everything he plays resulting in a wall of sludge that just sounds shitty and gets buried in the mix and of course (sigh), reaches for more volume to compensate, which just multiplies the suck factor... Having brought me in as a more experienced guitar player to play lead and help him collaborate on the song-writing and arrangements (his stated objectives, not mine...), I'm left wondering how best to broach this subject, if at all. Maybe I should just play it cool for awhile and see if it resolves itself. If I seem a little lost here - I am. I only came across this once before and the situation resolved itself quite nicely over time. I'm grateful to be involved in something promising notwithstanding his dismal tone. After all, opportunities for playing out are getting scarcer locally. Other than doing rehearsals with a local trio's bassist/drummer to keep up their chops between gigs, about all I have going on these days is dragging my sorry butt down to sit in with jam sessions/open mic nights. So - what would you do under the circumstances?

Like really, Shawn??!! When have you ever NOT been GAS'ing for something (certainly not since I joined the HFC). Dude, face it - yer kinda like the poster boy for GAS if ya think about it...

Didn't you know that all Canada Customs workers are gearheads? They like to play everything that passes through, which is why it takes 8 days for shipments to clear Customs.

Leave it to the Canadians to be difficult???? That's the last time we send you any Traynors, pal!

^^^This, as I'm more a fan of DiMarzios than Duncans for the big-name pickup co's. The older Virtual PAF's that the 36th Anniversary's replaced were also very nice. DiMarzios have the double cream bobbins which look so effin' nice in a Standard also. Lots of boutique/custom winders out there that do great work too. I've had great luck with JS Moore pu's and he does double cream open-bobbin HB's also at very nice prices (<$100/pu, in most cases). No affiliation with JS Moore, btw...

This is the year to splurge and buy (or build, with a lotta help from Murkat/NTL and perhaps others...) a checkerboard Standard. Always wanted one and can now (finally!) afford one...

How well does it move that snow?

Haven't done this in a while, and most of have made a few changes since then. Almost hate to call it my #1, since that means different things to different people, but the guitar I'm playing the most is an '08 Firebird V I picked up from currypowder here on the forum. This is currypowder's pic, so I've made a few changes since then...

Holy feck Johnny - if those were the worst sounding amps you've owned, what in the heck were the best sounding ones???

Sears SilverTone tube amp my folks bought me for my 13th birthday. White noise generator that convinced me tube amps were the devil. After owning a couple of solid state amps that weren't any worse than the SilverTone, I bought an awesome sounding Garnet Rebel II that showed me what a tube amp was supposed to sound like.

Personally, I never had any luck stacking OD's, as things start to get sludgy or muddy sounding pretty quick. A boost (especially a treble boost type pedal) with an OD or a fuzz or a clean boost with a distortion pedal, on the other hand can be the cat's nads.

No way that girl could play a B flat...

I asked my wife Vickie if I could go see you at Hooker's Resort. She said no. Glad you had a good gig, though...

Happy Birthday to one cool dude and one cool chick - have a good one the pair of ya!

What's your process like? Lyrics first, music second, or t'other way round? Personally, I can come up with almost endless musical ideas - mostly simple riffs and/or chord progressions I can monkey around with, add on to, and can come up with many quality basic structures. When I go to apply the lyrical "meat" to my musical "bones", I get bogged down, lost or otherwise lose interest out of sheer boredom or frustration. As such, I pretty much have to resort to writing some lyrics first and then whipping something up to fit, which is much more likely to get me to my end goal. Early mornings seem to bring the freshest ideas for lyric writing to me, especially Sunday mornings for some strange reason...

Rob and Jay all happy and smug with their vintage A/DA flangers. Colour me jealous boys...

At least our post office has the decency to not issue Nickleback postage stamps (at least so far...). Ya Neil Young is overdue, maybe a few others too. KD Lang eating a beef burger would rock (diehard vegetesbian), maybe Leonard Cohen reading some poetry or whatever you call his schtick... Just saw some John Candy stamps the other day - they were great!

Well that just plain sucks in all kinds of ways, Kirk. Hopefully something better'll come your way...soon...

I screwed up! Put a Callaham steel ABR-1 conversion bridge on my Firebird V and now my Faber ABR-1 conversion bridge on my SG Special sounds like @$$ in comparison. Ignorance is bliss, I guess...