Guitar thread

[jefhatfield]

every now and then i put up a sports, car, music thread up and see all the responses

so any guitar players out there? bass? drums? keyboards? etc.

what is your favorite style(s) of music? favorite bands?

and what kind of instrument do you play?

i will start it off...i mostly play guitar and have since 1976 and the beatles are my favorite all time band

...i like jazz (bebop) at this point in my life

...i have one guitar/no amp and it's a poor man's esp (ltd viper 301) and i am thinking about a small tube amp around 15 watts for practice...i don't like noise so much these days but i used to have a dual emg (81 & 89) equipped bc rich platinum warlock, a fender american standard stratocaster, and a 100 watt marshall half stack in my kitchen and i would jam before i went out for the day:p

[howard]

i play guitar. and i play flute, and a little keys too. think i might be getting a qs6 keyboard soon. otherwise i got a godin electric, and a martin acoustic.

[dstorey]

I'm a left handed bass player...yeah I know, we are rarer than mac owners... i have a cheap hofner violin bass copy (a la paul McCartney), though it was still 300 pound due to lefties getting ripped off. I've played since i got it for my 18th in 98'.

My fav music is indie music , and a lot of underground bands. My fav bands are probably the stone roses or the beatles. I'm also into a lot of 60's guitar bands such as the who, small faces etc, and I've started to like more classic rock such as led zep through a friend. I also like folk and punk bands. I used to only like british bands but through said friend and also hearing Jeff Buckley (amazingly talented singer/song writer and son of tim) I started getting into american bands from the strokes to the ramones via iggy and the stooges and the velvet underground. I like a lot of guitar based music really as long as its not too heavy, like threash metal.

[pilotgi]

I play a little guitar. I have a sunburst Hamer Special FM and a tube amp with 4x12 cab.

I love the blues, especially the black masters like Muddy Waters, B.B.King, Howlin' Wolf. If I had to pick a favorite band , it would be the Allman Brothers.

[trebblekicked]

i play guitar and bass, i have an SG and a mexi-strat. i play on a mid-80's hair metal Peavy 2x12 combo, and i use line6 mods.


Originally posted by dstorey
My fav music is indie music , and a lot of underground bands.

sweet god, there's another. i'm a big indie rock fan (pavement, sebadoh, spoon, built to spill) and i like some brit/isles stuff (belle & sebastian, radiohead, arab strap, mogwai). my fave right now is psychadelic (especially from the elephant 6 collective: neutral milk hotel, olivia tremor control, circulatory system, etc). as far as classic rock goes, i only listen to three: the beatles, the kinks and steely dan.

[Spock]

I play a '58 Fender Strat & Fender Squire Bass. Not at the same time of course.:D

[3rdpath]

not quite sure how i ended up being a touring/session bass player since i'm a classically trained pianist...life is strange. of course, now that i'm a dad my roadwork days are done.

i have a pair of custom-made musicman stingrays..one fretted, one fretless...both sound amazing. i also have an acoustic washburn eb20 that has a nice wood tone for the folksy sound...play it muted with a pick and it sounds like a hofner. also, an older jazz bass that i had customized into a fretless with a hipshot detuner...its been retired...now my daughter bangs on it when she visits the studio. my main guitar is a '72 tele deluxe that was a short-lived fender experiment to compete with the les paul. it has 2 humbuckers and a strat neck/headstock. its pretty cool...it can sound like a tele or a strat( but not a les paul...). go figure. rarely use any of my amps anymore, just the pod or sansamp..or both.

thru the years i've had many fenders, gibsons, ricks, voxs, danelectros/ silvertones and the occassional teisco del ray:D but most i sold when i moved to california. i miss the dano's the most.:(

[dstorey]

Originally posted by trebblekicked
i play guitar and bass, i have an SG and a mexi-strat. i play on a mid-80's hair metal Peavy 2x12 combo, and i use line6 mods.

sweet god, there's another. i'm a big indie rock fan (pavement, sebadoh, spoon, built to spill) and i like some brit/isles stuff (belle & sebastian, radiohead, arab strap, mogwai). my fave right now is psychadelic (especially from the elephant 6 collective: neutral milk hotel, olivia tremor control, circulatory system, etc). as far as classic rock goes, i only listen to three: the beatles, the kinks and steely dan.

the indie i like i guess is mostly british - b&s, snow patrol, Ocean Colour Scene, Cast, Stone Roses, Smiths, Joy Division, etc etc, i could be on al day. Though I'm starting to discover american indie. I found spoon though a link on amazon from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The only real indish bands i know of from the us are the pretty obvious ones like the strokes, white stripes, BRMC, jsbx, pavement, yeah yeah yeah's..and a few less obvious like Ours and Remy Zero. Australia and NZ are getting a few alright bands coming through like the Vines, Datsons, D4 etc.

Classic rock I'm into mostly now are the Doors (I love that band) and velvet underground. Though that'll no doubt change when i discover my next love for the next how ever many months.

While people seem to support getting music free through p2p cause artists have a lot of money, i see that it hurts the indie kinda bands i like as their audience are usually the more technically literate types that can get on p2p and steal music while the big acts that are already rich still have the little kids buying the records. The small bands arn't rich already and even a few less sales effects them and their small labels
. i dunno if its just be but a lot of bands recently that have had a lot of airplay on indie type shows have had poor sales while a few years a go they woud get in top 20/10 in the album charts and do well. i can only think of really coldplays thats broke through and they already had momentum (and importantly a major lable to push them)

[WinterMute]

Bass player for 20 years or more, currently with an '87 Warwick Thumb 5-string fretted and a Musicman Stingray 5-string fretless running through an Ampeg SVT3 head and an 8x10 cab (my wife hates the damn thing).

Don't play much these days, but I just can't bear to let the guitars go, I might pick up an Ampeg portaflex combo if I can find a good one and lose the monster rig.

I'm a music tech lecturer, so my office is full of kit going in and out on apro, but I dismantled the home studio a while back and just use the Tibook into a pair of Dynaudio BM6a monitors.

I'd love to get back to a band, but kids and mortgages sort of get in the way;)

[beez7777]

i sort of play the guitar. i have an electric ibanez with a small crappy amp that's older than i am. i used to be pretty decent with it, but i haven't picked it up in quite a while. i'm probably gonna get back into it sometime soon. as far as music goes, i like classic rock, beatles, zeppelin, etc. i have my favorite bands posted in the "with what do you assault your ears" thread.

[Mal]

I play guitar along with piano. I listen to all kinds of stuff, and I wish I could play stuff like ska and some rock music, but I have to stick to acoustic music, because I have what used to be a Fender Acoustic/Electric, but it's now just an acoustic. :rolleyes: Oh well.

JW

[vniow]

I have an old out of tune Yamaha acousitc that I fiddle around with from time to time.

Though about picking up a bass awhile back but my lack of money and skill sorta killed that little fantasy......

Playing an intrument is not where my musical talent lies anywayz....http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=257466

[losfp]

I used to play guitar, in another life... Had a band and everything, we played about 30 gigs in Sydney, had great laughs.. Then fulltime work and all that hit in and I've barely touched the guitar since :( My life is over and I'm only 25!!! sob!

anyway! I should drag a guitar out and play it.. but since my 12" PB is arriving today, I don't see that happening in the next few days :) I have 2 Fenders, an '88 Strat Plus and a '98 Am Std Tele. Have thought about selling one since I don't play much, but the anguish of trying to decide which I could possibly bear to lose proved to great....

As for what music I like.. All sorts really! IMHO every genre has good music and utter rubbish - you just have to pick and choose.. I have Metallica, Slayer, Pearl Jam, Barenaked Ladies, Jewel, Spice Girls and Pantera all in the same collection :D

[dstorey]

Originally posted by losfp
I used to play guitar, in another life... Had a band and everything, we played about 30 gigs in Sydney, had great laughs.. Then fulltime work and all that hit in and I've barely touched the guitar since :( My life is over and I'm only 25!!! sob!



I thought that was gonna be : "I used to play guitar, in another life... Had a band and everything, I was called Jimi Hendrix and we were great man, got all them foxy ladies..' but i was wrong...

[guitargeek]

I play guitar and drums. My main axe is a Aria Mac-50 7 string, but I also have a Fender Roadhouse Strat, Hamer Diablo, and old Fender Bronco that someone slapped a PAF Pro into, and my gem: an Ovation Ultra GP. It's pretty rare; only about 300 or so were made, and mine has a flamed top, of which only about 100 were made. NOTHING can make me get rid of this guitar. It just SINGS! I call it my "Carlos" guitar because of the beautiful sustain.

For other goodies, I play through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with an extra 1x12 cab loaded with a Greenback. For effects I've got a Crybaby535Q, Akai Shred-O-Matic, Akai Headrush Digital Delay, Tubeworks Real Tube, Boss DS-1, MXR Dyna-Comp, MXR Phase 90, and finally a Behringer UltraFex Sonic Enhancer.

I play mostly Prog-Rock, but I started out only playing blues and classic rock, so I still play quite a bit of that as well.

My drumset is pretty crappy, but I've done what I can with it. It's a Peace kit, with two added Pearl toms (8" and 10"). I have a double pedal by Pacific, and for cymbals I have the following:

Sabian AAX 16" Stage Crash
Zildjian A Custom 16" Crash
Zildjian A Custom 6" splash
Zildjian A Custom 8" splash
Zildjian A Custom 10" splash
Sabian HH Regular hats
Sabian AA Medium ride
Sabian AA 12" splash, stacked with a 12" Wuhan china.


*phew*
Hope I didn't bore you all!

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by guitargeek


Sabian AAX 16" Stage Crash
Zildjian A Custom 16" Crash
Zildjian A Custom 6" splash
Zildjian A Custom 8" splash
Zildjian A Custom 10" splash
Sabian HH Regular hats
Sabian AA Medium ride
Sabian AA 12" splash, stacked with a 12" Wuhan china.


*phew*
Hope I didn't bore you all!

that's right, drums...i should have mentioned them in the thread more

i used to have a black five piece pearl mx-100 with added extras

14" zildjian hi-hat
14" zildjian crash
16" pearl heavy metal ride/crash
14" unknown german crash
and regular mx 14" crash which came with kit along with hit-hats which i used for crash cymbals

i never added a wuhan or a 20" ride, but that would have been nice

my ex-wife and i shared this set and she also used a natural wood 6 piece rodgers with 3 zildjians but i don't know the dimensions

if money were no object, i would have got a yamaha recording set with half a dozen zildjians...she turned me onto yamahas since she liked the fact that larry mullen jr. of U2 uses them:p

[guitargeek]

If I had the money, I'd be playing this (http://www.mikeportnoy.com/monster/?menu=interact) kit. But, remember, I'm a prog rocker, so I do everything to excess ;)

Yamaha make a great kit, a friend of mine has a maple absolute custom set, 7 piece. It sounds great! My personal favorite is still Mapex, though. They're just so warm and full sounding.

[bonehead]

I've played guitar for 23 years and I'm still hoping to play it well someday. My favorite guitar is my late 60's Gibson ES-345. I also have a 70's Fender Tele Custom, an early 80's Strat, a 60's Rickenbacker 360-12, a Starfield, an Oahu lapsteel, a P-Bass, and a Santa Cruz Model F acoustic. I have a Boogie Mark IIB combo and a Matchless DC-30. I like all different types of music. My current obsessions are Clarence White and Johnny Marr.

[cr2sh]

I used to own an '82 Strat Plus (lace sensors), but I didn't care for it. Most guitarists will flame me for it... hands down, I'll take a nice Schecter over anything on the market. I like the sound, the styles, the action.. they're the guitar that's an extension of myself.

I currently own a Schecter Scorpion (tuned in C) and a Schecter A1 (tuned in dropped D). I am not a guitarist, but I enjoy writing and producing.. and schecter just fits what I write and enjoy. :)

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by cr2sh
I used to own an '82 Strat Plus (lace sensors), but I didn't care for it. Most guitarists will flame me for it... hands down, I'll take a nice Schecter over anything on the market. I like the sound, the styles, the action.. they're the guitar that's an extension of myself.

I currently own a Schecter Scorpion (tuned in C) and a Schecter A1 (tuned in dropped D). I am not a guitarist, but I enjoy writing and producing.. and schecter just fits what I write and enjoy. :)

it's quite ok to like something over a stratocaster

the fender strat is my favorite behind the telecaster, but if i was a working musician and had to have one guitar, the strat would give me the most possible tones in one guitar that i would feel comfortable with

i live in an area with a lot of rich, spoiled kids who can't play a lick but have the best guitars, but the best local rock guitarist in the area was a working musician, making a living on it, with a squier strat with stock pickups and he got the best sound

there are some ibanez or other heavy metal guitars out there with a humbucker(splitable)-single coil-humbucker(splitable) three pickup combinations with floyd rose, but that's too much for me to handle

to get a heavier/darker tone on a fender strat, i just back off from the tone knob

and for a heavy treble pickup tone, i just play the strat on the bridge pickup and set my amp's tone to treble on 10 and bass on 10 with the midrange turned down and i get a almost humbucker like tone that way while i strum closer to the bridge

stevie ray vaughn had this way of playing with his strat on the second or fourth switch positions with the tone backed off just right and the proper amount of distortion and he got this amazingly gibson-like tone...it also helped that he used 12 gauge string on his guitar for more sustain

and when keith richards of the stones picks up any gibsons, it is uncanny that he makes them sound just like his fender telecasters:D

[jefhatfield]

though i like the more classic and conservative teles and strats, there is a side of me who longs for emg and floyd rose

the esp kirk hammet signature model with dual emg 81s and a floyd rose bridge would be my dream guitar for the excessive stuff...but at nearly 3k, it's too expensive, *maybe a used one will come along...he he

the joe satriani js-1000 model at around $1600 *street price - list price is more... with dual dimarzio humbuckers and a floyd is more my speed for a speed demon guitar that is not too expensive yet top of the line

but for those who like fender and/or squier, there are those strat and tele models with the floyd rose bridge and humbuckers and one of the nicer ones was the fender richie sambora signature model statocaster which could take on any heavy metal guitar out there...that thing had balls

[guitargeek]

I used to own an '82 Strat Plus (lace sensors), but I didn't care for it. Most guitarists will flame me for it... hands down, I'll take a nice Schecter over anything on the market. I like the sound, the styles, the action.. they're the guitar that's an extension of myself.

I would too! I don't play my Strat too much anymore, it's just too thin sounding and it's not versatile enough. When I want a single coil sound, I just flip the coil tap switch on my 7 string and I'm good to go.

When I play blues, though, that's the only guitar I can play. The Texas Specials on my guitar give it that extra grind that is so neccesary :)

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by guitargeek
I would too! I don't play my Strat too much anymore, it's just too thin sounding and it's not versatile enough. When I want a single coil sound, I just flip the coil tap switch on my 7 string and I'm good to go.

When I play blues, though, that's the only guitar I can play. The Texas Specials on my guitar give it that extra grind that is so neccesary :)

i have experimented with 7 string guitars ever since i heard korn

steve vai made the 7 string popular with lead guitarists but i had never heard the possibilities with rhythm and the numetal that is out today until i heard korn a few years ago

though korn is not what i am into, their sound is amazing as is the sound of other bands who either use 7 string guitars or baritone long scale guitars

there is a limit to how low one can tune the low e string on a 6 string guitar and that extra low string of a 7 string sure fits the bill

but for my 6 string electric, i tuned down to low b to high b by using strings gauged 13-17-26-36-46-56 and i got some great rhythm tones...but without that 10 gauge string for the high e, i was lost when it came to solos...so i can see the use for a 7 string to get the whole range of sound

the other day, i checked out an ibanez 7 string acoustic and the sounds it produced, especially in alternate tunings, gave it a really big sound

[cr2sh]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
there is a limit to how low one can tune the low e string on a 6 string guitar and that extra low string of a 7 string sure fits the bill

There's a better solution out there...

http://www.schecterguitars.com/Dproducts/subsonic_index.htm

The SCORPION [introduced Jan. 2000; a year prior to all the wanna-be copies out now] gives the player needing the heavy drop-tuned sound a real viable option to the ultra-wide neck of a 7-String. While featuring the width (42mm) of a standard 6-string, the Scorpion is tuned B/E/A/D/F#/B. The Scorpion's 26 1/2" scale (not the 27" or longer scale of a ‘baritone’) gives incredible sonic-definition at high gains, while [VERY IMPORTANTLY] still feeling like a guitar! Neck/Tuning stability is insured by the SCORPION's set-in neck construction and dual graphite reinforcement rods running parallel to the double action truss rod.


I have to buy special strings from schecter for my Scorpion but oh god.. its heavy as hell. For the record, I'm not a korn fan, nor am I into that whole 7string thing... too big of neck.

They just introduced the Scorpion Tribal... damnit it is sexy. Add that to my list of wants.

http://www.schecterguitars.com/Dproducts/guitars/scorpion_tribal/scorpion_tribal_blk_pop.jpg

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by cr2sh
There's a better solution out there...

http://www.schecterguitars.com/Dproducts/subsonic_index.htm



I have to buy special strings from schecter for my Scorpion but oh god.. its heavy as hell. For the record, I'm not a korn fan, nor am I into that whole 7string thing... too big of neck.

They just introduced the Scorpion Tribal... damnit it is sexy. Add that to my list of wants.

the slightly longer 26.50" neck will give the right tension to the strings

that lower tuning, with the same gauge strings, was a little loose on my guitar's 24.75" inch scale

i remember schecter when the who used them on their 1980-81 tour and they used the telecaster like ones with the humbuckers

at the time, they were a little pricey but now they seem to be more reasonably priced and i see a lot of good deals on online catalogs for schecter guitars

[Les Kern]

Guitarist 25 years.

Practice with Yamaha dreadnaught, otherwise Ovation ac/el cutaway. Used to play metal/thrash, used year-one G+L, Peavey Bass assorted gear that HAD to affect my hearing!. (Can you say "Blitzkreig Bop on 11?) Had lots of guitars over the years, one favorite was a Takemine acoustic. Desire: Steinberger.
Influences: Steve Howe (http://www.stevehowe.com/bio.html) mostly, but it's frustrating to play sometimes since, well, I'm not even in the same universe as him. Going more and more classical because of it?

[jefhatfield]

i lost some hearing but since i interspersed my hard rock music over the years with lighter pop and acoustic music, i stayed away from hard core damage to my ears

when i worked part time at the hospital 7 years ago, i got a thorough physical and they said my hearing was perfect...and at the time, i had 20 guitar playing years years under my belt and was to embark on being a singer of a punk band for 3 long years...but i quit just short of my 36th birthday since i didn't want to be as old as the ramones and doing punk rock and not get paid for it:p

[Les Kern]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
i didn't want to be as old as the ramones and doing punk rock and not get paid for it.

Ah RIP my hero Joey. You know, I actually had hair JUST like his back when I was younger. Now? Bald, bald bald! Hey, Read Dee Dee's book "Lobotomy - Surviving the Ramones". Oh my god it's a wonder he lived as long as he did.

[alex_ant]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the Philson Stratoblaster (http://mirrorimage.com/air/) yet! (Click the "Rock On!" button on the page for more info)

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Les Kern
Ah RIP my hero Joey. You know, I actually had hair JUST like his back when I was younger. Now? Bald, bald bald! Hey, Read Dee Dee's book "Lobotomy - Surviving the Ramones". Oh my god it's a wonder he lived as long as he did.

definitely the downside to rock and roll is how some young people use rock stars as life role models

we all know famous rock stars who met a very early end, but among the local musicians i knew, cocaine overdose, homicide, heroin addiction, jail, prison, and lots of alcoholism was tolerated as normal music scene behavior

...and it wasn't until i was out of the music scene that i realized how insane it was

i never got involved with the hard core drug use or illegal activities, but just knowing many musicians who were dragged you down also

i still don't know how rock and roll got mixed up with stupidity, but the image is not likely to change soon

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by alex_ant
I can't believe nobody has mentioned the Philson Stratoblaster (http://mirrorimage.com/air/) yet! (Click the "Rock On!" button on the page for more info)

oh, air guitar!

before i was able to play much, i used to darken the den, put up spotlights from my dad's photography equipment, and jam air guitar riffs to kiss alive II or something similar

instead of an air guitar, i used a tennis racket

but for some reason, once i got good enough to play along competently with the records with a real electric guitar, the thrill of playing was on the wane

and by the time i got into playing nightclubs, it started to get boring

nothing is like those air guitar days:p

[guitargeek]

i have experimented with 7 string guitars ever since i heard korn

I can't stand Korn, actually. I used to be a big Steve Vai fan as well, but the real reason I got one is because of my former guitar teacher, Fred Fried. He's a jazz guitarist that studied with George Van Eps (who is usually credited with inventing the 7 string). Fred is hands down one of the best players out there today. He blows my mind everytime I listen to him.

If you can find any of his albums, and you like jazz, GET THEM. Most are out of print, except his latest one, Infantry of Leaves.

Listen To Him (http://home.attbi.com/~kstew/FredFried-LateBloomer.mp3)

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by guitargeek
I can't stand Korn, actually. I used to be a big Steve Vai fan as well, but the real reason I got one is because of my former guitar teacher, Fred Fried. He's a jazz guitarist that studied with George Van Eps (who is usually credited with inventing the 7 string). Fred is hands down one of the best players out there today. He blows my mind everytime I listen to him.

If you can find any of his albums, and you like jazz, GET THEM. Most are out of print, except his latest one, Infantry of Leaves.

Listen To Him (http://home.attbi.com/~kstew/FredFried-LateBloomer.mp3)

i know of george van eps...he sometimes used an epiphone which had 7 strings and he came way before korn and steve vai ;)

there is a book on nylon and steel 7 string jazz guitar at the local music store and i am sure they will have van eps in it

[Cheese]

I have tried to play guitar since I was 7 yrs old, and I'm 42! I have an Ibanez JEM555, and have played with a lot of non famous folks. I am told that I am a great player, but I know that I am still learning, and have only begun to scratch the surface. I have even built my own solid body electric from scratch, which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the guitar lifestyle. As you my have guessed I am a huge fan of Mr. Vai, and also Joe Satriani, and many other "Shred" instrumental players. I once had a guitar signed by Joe, but it was stolen from my house by someone whom is most likely a windows encumbered dingleberry muncher. I have seen Joe and Steve in concert in Atlanta, and hope to see them again someday. I enjoy most any type of guitar playing, but I cut my teeth on Zappa, Kiss, Prince, ZZ Top, Ozzy and all of his henchmen, and Alice Cooper. I have played in church bands also, so no flaming that I will rot in hades for it. I already know this! I have had many nice guitars over the years and IMHO Ibanez makes a very fine instrument, certainly the finest I have had the priviledge of playing, at least as far as solid bodies go, since I haven't been playing much acoustic guitar, except on my JEM.

[thabridawg]

I have a Ibanez RG120 guitar, Tama Rockstar drumset and a generic bass guitar....

[vollspacken]

hola,

here's my setup:
:) ;) :D

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by vollspacken
hola,

here's my setup:
:) ;) :D

wow, now that's a cool setup

do you have parents or neighbors on the other sides of those walls;)