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Speaking of Chinese guitars and orange Telecasters... I’ve been mulling the idea lately of getting a cheap MIC Strat or something like that to keep in drop D or Eb tuning all the time (because retuning my main Strat is too much of a chore). I really like the look of the orange Squier Affinity Strats, but ~$200 seems a bit steep for something I’ll play once or twice every few weeks. Are there any other good options to fit my needs here?
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May 1, 2021 18:34
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Tune your guitar down and buy a capo instead.
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May 1, 2021 18:38
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Siivola posted:Tune your guitar down and buy a capo instead. But then I won’t have a pastel colored guitar!
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May 1, 2021 18:40
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Gin_Rummy posted:Speaking of Chinese guitars and orange Telecasters... Not trying to tell you how to handle your money but $200 for an instrument you play even once every 3-4 months is totally reasonable. Those moments of grabbing and playing a guitar in a different tuning is often enough to reignite your inspiration and get new ideas going. If you ask me that’s well worth it.
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May 1, 2021 18:41
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Gin_Rummy posted:Speaking of Chinese guitars and orange Telecasters... Super cheap guitars are hit or miss. Some have serious quality issues, and some come out great. I have a white Monoprice ("Indio") single cut that has very good fretwork, but the electronics were dog poo poo. I found it fun breaking out the soldering iron and dressing up the electronics, so it was a good deal for me. The fretwork would be much more intimidating to fix. If you're in spitting distance of Houston, I can give you an older Monoprice strat that you can play around with. It's basically this, but it's old enough to predate the "Indio" branding.
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May 1, 2021 18:50
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I'm about a week into this guitar thing and I'm having a blast, but when do my fingers stop feeling like they should be bleeding after practicing chords for like 5 minutes? It's kind of annoying because I feel like I could be learning faster if I didn't physically have to stop and take breaks so often.
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May 2, 2021 00:31
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Two to four weeks?
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May 2, 2021 00:34
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Yeah. Keep it up, you'll get there. It's super fun once it stops hurting because you can play for hours. Look forward to it, it's worth the work.
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May 2, 2021 00:47
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Sarrisan posted:I'm about a week into this guitar thing and I'm having a blast, but when do my fingers stop feeling like they should be bleeding after practicing chords for like 5 minutes? It's kind of annoying because I feel like I could be learning faster if I didn't physically have to stop and take breaks so often. Keep going as long as you can each day or at least every second day. It'll take about 3 weeks. Use all your fingers. It's annoying when you discover your ring or pinky isn't as developed as your first and second. If you're playing acoustic it'll probably hurt more because the strings generally require more force but it will make every electric you play later feel incredibly light.
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May 2, 2021 02:08
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Carth Dookie posted:Keep going as long as you can each day or at least every second day. It'll take about 3 weeks. Use all your fingers. It's annoying when you discover your ring or pinky isn't as developed as your first and second. Dang, this is a good point - I'm slowly working through Justin Guitar lesson plan, and none of the first 3 chords he teaches (Open D, A and E) use my pinky. I should probably make sure I'm practicing something that uses my pinky as well. edit: I'm playing electric (Squier affinity strat) for the sake of less noise for my roommates and neighbors but I'm interested in learning various styles of playing - my understanding is you can do stuff like fingerstyle on an electric just fine. My taste in music is varied, so I hope to eventually be able to play any way I like, rather than be limited to a single style or genre. Sarrisan fucked around with this message at 02:53 on May 2, 2021 |
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May 2, 2021 02:50
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Sarrisan posted:I'm about a week into this guitar thing and I'm having a blast, but when do my fingers stop feeling like they should be bleeding after practicing chords for like 5 minutes? It's kind of annoying because I feel like I could be learning faster if I didn't physically have to stop and take breaks so often. If you're feeling motivated but your fingers are tender, theres always practising strumming patterns and rhythm! All open strings and just choose a pattern to play and bonus points with a metronome.
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May 2, 2021 02:59
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Also there's the possibility of alternate fingerings of the Justin chords, D or G with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers instead are useful to know
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May 2, 2021 03:24
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Anyone have good book recommendations or any resource for bluegrass guitar? Just finished the semester and want to take a break from classical.
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May 2, 2021 04:11
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Use a slide till your hand meat regenerates
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May 2, 2021 04:30
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Sarrisan posted:I'm about a week into this guitar thing and I'm having a blast, but when do my fingers stop feeling like they should be bleeding after practicing chords for like 5 minutes? It's kind of annoying because I feel like I could be learning faster if I didn't physically have to stop and take breaks so often. Before you know it. A week is about the peak when it comes to finger pain. A week into my playing my fingers felt like ground meat but it seriously was the worst they ever got. https://twitter.com/Mak0rz/status/952782869138571264 Like you I was playing a Squier Strat and following the Justin program at the time. Now I play a steel acoustic daily and wonder how I ever found something as easy to fret as a Strat so hard on my fingers.
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May 2, 2021 05:21
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I started with a lovely $99 Carlo Robelli acoustic-electric (so the acoustic bits are even cheaper) and switching to a 1999 Squier strat that I bought from my teacher for $50, six months in, was like being handed the magical Olympic Lute of the Gods in terms of how it made my hands feel
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May 2, 2021 06:05
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New guitar guy are your strings old? Do you have any metal allergies? Some strings just feel different to play than others if you're just starting out it's worth it to try a few different brands/types of strings to see what you like the sound/feel of better. Don't go crazy and jump from 9's to 11's or vice-versa as a change in gauges would need a setup to be done also.
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May 2, 2021 11:30
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I did swap my original strings for some earnie ball ball 9s - and a good thing I bought them, since my high e string broke on its first tuning, lol. I doubt I have any allergies, I think it's just normal thin metal wires cutting into skin stuff. I didn't have the store set it up becsuse their tech wasnt in, but im not getting any fret buzz or intonation issues so I'm not sure how high a priority that should be.
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May 2, 2021 14:35
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Sarrisan posted:I did swap my original strings for some earnie ball ball 9s - and a good thing I bought them, since my high e string broke on its first tuning, lol. I doubt I have any allergies, I think it's just normal thin metal wires cutting into skin stuff. You could have super high action, which eliminates buzz but makes you work a lot harder pressing down. Low action makes playing much easier and more enjoyable. Last summer, I undid my truss rod tightening on my acoustic and accepted the dead frets above the 12th. It went from being almost unplayable to being enjoyable, despite buzzing a bit occasionally.
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May 2, 2021 16:30
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BonHair posted:You could have super high action, which eliminates buzz but makes you work a lot harder pressing down. Low action makes playing much easier and more enjoyable. Last summer, I undid my truss rod tightening on my acoustic and accepted the dead frets above the 12th. It went from being almost unplayable to being enjoyable, despite buzzing a bit occasionally. fret buzz on an acoustic can be cool though, like the guitar version of vocal fry you gotta learn how to make it part of your “sound” fret buzz on an electric just makes you sound like poo poo, or I suppose like you’re trying way too hard to affect a “punk” or “lo fi” aesthetic
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May 2, 2021 16:38
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I feel like unless I’ve got that awful sitar thing going I barely ever hear the buzz on my electrics? My Tele is my only guitar I’ve had set up by someone else in a very long time and I was surprised how low he put the strings when I played around with it at the shop but when I plugged it in after I got home none of the buzzing was bad enough to hear through the amp
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May 2, 2021 17:20
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I figure I might get a new guitar to celebrate vaccination/the last throes of covid. Mostly looking at the epiphone casino (https://www.zzounds.com/item--EPICAS) or the riviera (https://www.zzounds.com/item--EPIEOR?siid=281329), anyone played them/have thoughts? I've already got a Gretsch G5420T and a squier jazzmaster, and love 'em both. Are the Epiphones gonna live up to 'em? They have lots of good reviews all 'round, but that's true of a lot of guitars today. Plus, which one do I get? the casino has been a goal guitar for years tbh (it is THE john lennon guitar), but the riviera has that weirdo styling that's also so cool (the strokes, lou reed, jeff mangum, etc.)
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May 2, 2021 17:23
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Sarrisan posted:I'm about a week into this guitar thing and I'm having a blast, but when do my fingers stop feeling like they should be bleeding after practicing chords for like 5 minutes? It's kind of annoying because I feel like I could be learning faster if I didn't physically have to stop and take breaks so often. If your teacher/program isn't giving you finger exercises for strengthening and increasing your dexterity, you might want to find some. I always start a session by picking a starting fret (it doesn't matter which one) and playing 1234 (1 being your pointer finger and 4 being your pinky) with a metronome on each string across the fretboard and back, then 4321 on every string, then 1323, 1424, 1434, 2434, etc. It's not musical; it's just meant to strengthen your fingers and improve your dexterity. Those 1434 and 2434 are murder when you're starting out. You'll probably have to slow down the metronome to do them. But eventually you'll get them up to speed. There are lots of variations on this (here's something a little different from Justin Guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDt_4ha9Xjs), and it would probably be better to have a few different versions and rotate through them. The point is that just playing chords isn't enough to really develop your fingers. Robot Arms fucked around with this message at 17:53 on May 2, 2021 |
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May 2, 2021 17:48
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TheSoulian posted:I figure I might get a new guitar to celebrate vaccination/the last throes of covid. Mostly looking at the epiphone casino (https://www.zzounds.com/item--EPICAS) or the riviera (https://www.zzounds.com/item--EPIEOR?siid=281329), anyone played them/have thoughts? I have a 339 and it's fantastic and a little easier for me to handle than a 335/casino/etc... with the larger body.
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May 2, 2021 17:58
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Casinos are great guitars. Just know that they’re fully hollow as opposed to semi so they have more of a tendency to feedback. But that also means they sound a little louder and fuller when you play unplugged too
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May 2, 2021 18:40
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If anybody's looking for a cheap 335, there are a few of the "fancy" 338s with spalted tops up at Guitars Garden. https://guitarsgarden.com/
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May 2, 2021 19:01
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TheSoulian posted:I figure I might get a new guitar to celebrate vaccination/the last throes of covid. Mostly looking at the epiphone casino (https://www.zzounds.com/item--EPICAS) or the riviera (https://www.zzounds.com/item--EPIEOR?siid=281329), anyone played them/have thoughts? Have you checked out the “Worn” Casino too? It’s like $200 cheaper but the wood finish is much less fancy (tho I kinda prefer it that way)
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May 2, 2021 22:22
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Hello! I just finished reading through about the last 2/3 of the thread and am now finally caught up. Which means, it's time for participation and the best part of any internet forum, posting! I have been fully indoctrinated by the goon school of guitar. Please see below for the multi pack of weird telecaster, cheap guitars, and brand names!  That Tele has Boot Strap Palo Duros, which I put in myself with some help from my local guitar techs. Gutted all the electronics, new pots, wiring etc. It has a push pull pot for series wiring on the tone. I'm thinking about doing a reverse control face. LTD 256, that was my first guitar I bought for myself. Great guitar, love the binding, going to maybe put some new pick ups in there. Thinking black and crème zebras. Maybe Bootstrap as well, open to recommendations. By far my favorite neck despite being gloss. Fender T-bucket, which I dunno. its a cut away acoustic which is what I wanted, and it projects well and has that lovely Fender logo.  This here was my anniversary present to myself. Unknown model year American Special HSS strat. Sadly it has the worst fret buzz I have ever seen. Its driving my insane. For the money I paid for it, I'm pretty disappointed. My shop says it's do some uneven frets and it would be about 170 for a fret level and set up, For about $240 I can get it plecked which I'm debating doing. I tried to live with it, I think if I was playing in space as opposed to in the house with headphones I wouldn't mind it so much, but as it stands, it is killing me.  Obligatory Boss Katana MK2. If any goon wants it lmk I'm looking to get the Head Unit instead. Anyone else noisegate the poo poo out of all their dirt channels? I can't deal, am I just soft? TheTrend fucked around with this message at 04:17 on May 3, 2021 |
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May 3, 2021 04:14
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TheTrend posted:This here was my anniversary present to myself. Unknown model year American Special HSS strat. Sadly it has the worst fret buzz I have ever seen. Its driving my insane. For the money I paid for it, I'm pretty disappointed. My shop says it's do some uneven frets and it would be about 170 for a fret level and set up, For about $240 I can get it plecked which I'm debating doing. I tried to live with it, I think if I was playing in space as opposed to in the house with headphones I wouldn't mind it so much, but as it stands, it is killing me. next time get a Squier and have it plek’d (maybe upgrade the pickups), pretty much the same thing
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May 3, 2021 04:40
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I've been playing the guitar for a month and my fingertips hurt for about a week then i started playing the ukulele again (owned one since before last year or so, but stopped playing mostly in 2020) after 3+ weeks and my finger didn't hurt at all on the plasticy strings, and I went back to the metal strings afterwards and was like "hrm, a dull ache. okay." 
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May 3, 2021 04:42
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I've been playing the guitar for a month and my fingertips hurt for about a week yeah, giving yourself actual recovery days rather than trying to brute force your way through it all the time is actually really helpful, both in terms of learning/applying poo poo and just straight up healing your baby hands
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May 3, 2021 04:50
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Ok Comboomer posted:next time get a Squier and have it plek’d (maybe upgrade the pickups), pretty much the same thing cool that's helpful, thanks. As an aside, do Squier's have the compound radii necks?
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May 3, 2021 05:01
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Ok Comboomer posted:yeah, giving yourself actual recovery days rather than trying to brute force your way through it all the time is actually really helpful, both in terms of learning/applying poo poo and just straight up healing your baby hands I'm getting stuck on the GCD part of Fender Play's level 1 for rock guitar I blew through level 2 of Ukulele on Fender Play I really am grumpy with the C chord tonight lol
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May 3, 2021 05:05
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TheTrend posted:cool that's helpful, thanks. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that to come off as much of a dick comment as it did If I spent $1k+ on a guitar I’d expect it to not have those lovely issues
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May 3, 2021 05:38
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I started dipping back into Rocksmith, and got to thinking that it would be nice to take advantage of my nice new Katana and not to have to hear that awful Rocksmith tone. My plan was to get a DI box, run the dry channel through Rocksmith, mute the guitar tone (if that's an option, I'm not sure if it is), and then run that audio back through into the amp under the tone I actually want. Anyway, I see a really wide price disparity between DI boxes. If I'm just using it for this silly purpose, is there a problem with the cheap ones?
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May 3, 2021 16:27
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Ok Comboomer posted:I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that to come off as much of a dick comment as it did It's cool. Also, you and I feel the exact same way friendo.
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May 3, 2021 16:37
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Apropos of Gretsch-chat from a few days back- does anybody have a good sense on the differences between the Gretsch Streamliners and their equivalents in the Electromatic series, and the relative value between them? I’m seeing a lot of comments about build quality and construction differences (mainly putting blocks in Electromatics that are absent in their respective Streamliner siblings, Grover tuners, etc)- and possible differences in sound as a result (Streamliners seem to sound more hollow + resonant, but also possibly feedbacky, vs their pricier brethren), but I’m curious about impressions wrt longevity and durability. On avg it’s like a $200-400 difference between tiers on various models.
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May 3, 2021 16:58
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Flip Yr Wig posted:I started dipping back into Rocksmith, and got to thinking that it would be nice to take advantage of my nice new Katana and not to have to hear that awful Rocksmith tone. My plan was to get a DI box, run the dry channel through Rocksmith, mute the guitar tone (if that's an option, I'm not sure if it is), and then run that audio back through into the amp under the tone I actually want. I'm not great at the tech side of guitar playing, or the playing part of guitar playing...but why not just use a splitter and just turn down your pc speakers. Unless the added lag in rocksmith would throw you off
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May 3, 2021 17:20
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Cru Jones posted:I'm not great at the tech side of guitar playing, or the playing part of guitar playing...but why not just use a splitter and just turn down your pc speakers. Unless the added lag in rocksmith would throw you off Maybe I should add to my previous question: would a splitter or a DI box be more appropriate? As for turning down the PC speakers, I guess that's an option, but as long as the PC is already setup to output to the amp, I figured I would just take advantage of it.
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May 3, 2021 17:34
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i wrote all the below and then realized it was journaling. so here's some concerta'd out journaling/question asking about guitar. intermediate funk: when I was just starting out, I knew a little about theory, so I'd copy the roman numerals down in one of those grids, that's like I ii iii IV V vi vii along the X axis, and then the keys on the other axis. and I'd look at that little grid and play around on guitar, without knowing the functions of any of the chords, just jumping around, and I feel like I wrote a good amount of cool chord progressions this way. since then, I've learned more about harmony and voice leading, and it's much harder to build those progressions, since my mind is pulling me toward the first most obvious thing. I've never been one of those 'THEORY WILL DESTROY THE FEELING, MAN' types because I'm way more neurotic and careful in construction than that, but it's like, I still don't know enough or I'm not practiced enough to get past that. I always figured that's where that came from -- people learn intermediate theory, go "it took my feel!" and give up instead of learning to work above that. but I'm not really sure how I'd construct outside of those basic things at this point. like, my options are use the old way to the extent that I can -- randomly jump around within the key, hope something comes out of it. I don't like that option really. I like how I sort of have a mental idea of where to go from one chord, or where I can go, but I find it to be pretty basic at this moment -- I want to synthesize those two so I can know in my mind how the composition is working, AS I'm writing it, and chase the fleeting thing I'm trying to write. it's like, in the past, I felt like "why wouldn't you just read up on this poo poo, it makes everything feel faster" but this feels like a topic that's difficult to actually find analysis on. especially in the context of guitar. one thing that I think led me to accidentally write some really cool stuff was that I had a much more limited knowledge of voicings. like, now, I know all sorts of inversions and stuff, super logical shape movements. my spotty knowledge the last time kinda caused me to make some big jumps, and I feel like maybe that worked out, kind of expressed what I wanted in that moment by chance -- that's just the kinda poo poo I like. but I've never seen ANYTHING like that discussed in guitar centric theory (not that I've delved super far into it... there's not much I've seen that's guitar specific w/o being totally blues or jazz oriented (and I don't really get into either of those)) Sorry for the ranting but I do feel like maybe it's underdiscussed -- how do you learn your way back to the moments where when you first started, stuff seemed to come out so easily? and for what it's worth, I actually have gone back to some of my little scrap recordings from this era and thought it still sounded cool, so I don't think it's just my standards getting higher. it's all just so hard, man. scales: I quit drilling in basic shapes (and kinda never really did to begin with) but I realized I have a bajillion reference points all over the fretboard from playing, and I'm pretty familiar with all the keys at this point ('cept for Bmaj, but, you know. that one's weird cause it's almost all sharps). always feel like I have a surprising sense of fluidity moving around and expressing what I want, or improvising over the solo sections to songs I play often. however I completely fall apart whenever I try to learn a solo written by someone else. I haven't cracked a way to efficiently learn it for myself, which I hate, because I feel like practicing all those solos would actually drill the moves into my hands, like, build up the association between certain physical movements and certain intervals. but I haven't cracked it yet. or had enough focus. still having trouble necessarily writing phrases that sound good together. I've gotten better at it a little bit just due to trying so much, even absentmindedly, but I'm still not picking up the way I want to. physical technique: I'm still insanely horizontal while playing lead. I've learned not to feel as bad about it though, because even if it comes from laziness, it's still a little unique (I feel like more people are just really vertical in one spot on the fretboard. maybe not), and I think it partially comes just from tone. like, I'm insanely horizontal, but it's mostly on the G string. the B and especially high E strings sorta just sound too thin to really dig into (at least on my telecaster overdriven through a hot rod deville. you can get a high octave, high e string note to just sound like tinnitus through that setup). that's probably a measure of my ear more than anything else. so I'm fine with that. lately I'm frustrated with how much noise my hands seem to make on the strings when I slide my fingertips across them. not sure if I'm doing something wrong, or people in bands I like noise gate their poo poo, or if they just play around it. my lead technique feels pretty limited. it's mostly just fretted notes. I can hammer-on, I can trem-pick. I can't pull off worth a drat. writing songs: frustrated a lot lately because I can't help but rip off other songs I just really like. I can't get their lyrics or melodies out of my head and I end up copying them. not "oh this is the same key" or "this is the same chord progression" because all that stuff is finite, but, it's a lot harder to claim originality when you have the same key, really similar chords, and a similar melody. my ears are terrible at picking out other people's parts, until I try to write something different, in which case those parts come into my head, and I'm magically able to plot them out on the piano roll in ableton with minimal effort. having trouble specifically writing music and words that go together. I feel like I can write music that sounds alright, and I can write words over other songs (sort of a habit that started when I wanted to write songs before I knew how to really play any music) that I like. but I can never match them in a way that feels like what I want it to be, I guess. I don't know. maybe I'm just bottoming out inspirationally. school was great for writing songs, because someone would look at me and I'd fall in love because I was 16, and I could write the worst songs of all time about that constantly. now I'm inside all the time and it's much harder. but really I don't think that's quite it. I'm starting to feel kind of bad, though, because we're coming up on three years of me playing guitar, which I got because I wanted to write songs, and I've done so much study and analysis of the songs I love, and yet still I've never really finished one, and it's so hard to get stuff. I've been really dedicated this entire time, for the first time in my life I've stuck with something and I still love it three years later, but I've tried so much and all I've ended up with are a bunch of scraps (that are really hard to frankenstein together, I tried that too). learning and playing other people's songs ear can't pick out parts from studio recordings worth a drat. I felt so good at guitar when I was mostly listening to weezer and I had so much fun playing weezer more accurately than most people play weezer -- getting all the inversions right, and then picking up on super flowery major key solos from them. but now I want to play things that're a little bit more complicated -- even just a little -- and I kind of fall apart. stuff is all hard to learn, and write down on notebook paper for reference when even the rhythm parts are more difficult than "G, D, B, C x 4" and there aren't always (and by that I mean really there are rarely) great tabs for most bands I listen to that are kinda small -- modern baseball, snail mail, hum, that sorta BS. blah.
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May 3, 2021 18:33
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