Guitar Gas (or any content related to guitars)

Sorry, anyway back to the B52s thread

I have one of these…

I love it but it was never really perfect for me, or practical. The case is ginormous and heavy. I like the feel of the neck and, although it is it’s nice and narrow, though it is a little bit too round. What is nice about the explorer is that, even though it’s heavy, it sits balanced. It also looks pretty metal. I wish it had a tremolo bar. I used to dream about putting a bigsby on it but I don’t really want to make it any heavier. 
If I were to trade it for something, I’m not sure what I’d want. Maybe a fender jaguar/mustang/jagstag/tele? If I got rid of it I’d probably miss it. It pairs well with my Marshall jcm900 tube combo 1x12. 
I also have one of these that I inherited from a family member…

it’s either from 1959 or 1960. It plays/sounds great and is oddly more of my main whip because it sounds good plugged in and unplugged. I worry about breaking it because it is old and actually semi-valuable. 
I also have a 93 Gibson thunderbird bass that a friend dropped in the 90s and basically destroyed it. After I graduated from college and made a little money, I brought it back from the dead and got the headstock repaired, along with some other things. Now it’s good as new except the sunburst has pink stains from it getting waterlogged when my mom’s basement flooded (the case had ugly pink plush lining and it bled into the body). 

Ooooh, sweet Explorer.

The white 84 Explorer that Lars Frederiksen is selling would be something, too...

I'm looking to get a tube combo amp for practice and jamming. Since I got back into guitar I've been using the UAD amp simulators that I got. Their Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe is quite impressive imo. The tone, breakup, mic options, and especially how responsive it is to dynamics makes it feel like a real amp, but it's super annoying having to use a computer to play instead of just switching on an amp and also having the real thing.

As far as combos go, the Tone King Imperial MK II looks like the holy grail for today's offerings, but it's a little too pricey for me right now. Will probably get a Fender Blues Jr.

Also been listening to a ton of Django Reinhardt. Insanely talented guitarist. His fret hand was badly burned at the beginning of his professional career, and after recovering, he could only use his ring and pinky fingers for chords, so all his soloing and lead lines are done with only his index and middle finger. Him and his violin player Stephane Grappelli had incredible musical chemistry together. Been going through his multiple volume album set Djangology. The arrangements are all really to my taste. A few acoustic guitars strumming chords in unison, upright bass, Django on lead, and Grappelli on fiddle. Danceable music too for its time. Some enchanting ass gypsy musics.

incredible rhythm guitar work on this track, both the tone and performance (also some sick vocoder on here):

I can't overstate how much this album (on acid initially) influenced my taste in (and approach) to the guitar in the very early 90s.  

Absolutely stellar line up with each artist providing a solo guitar piece.

Terrible sleeve though

https://www.discogs.com/release/374250-Various-Guitarrorists

A few highlights

Kirk Hammett shredding

No better way to play it than dat

Paul Leary is a God ^

  On 9/19/2024 at 11:30 AM, decibal cooper said:

I'm looking to get a tube combo amp for practice and jamming. Since I got back into guitar I've been using the UAD amp simulators that I got. Their Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe is quite impressive imo. The tone, breakup, mic options, and especially how responsive it is to dynamics makes it feel like a real amp, but it's super annoying having to use a computer to play instead of just switching on an amp and also having the real thing.

As far as combos go, the Tone King Imperial MK II looks like the holy grail for today's offerings, but it's a little too pricey for me right now. Will probably get a Fender Blues Jr.

Also been listening to a ton of Django Reinhardt. Insanely talented guitarist. His fret hand was badly burned at the beginning of his professional career, and after recovering, he could only use his ring and pinky fingers for chords, so all his soloing and lead lines are done with only his index and middle finger. Him and his violin player Stephane Grappelli had incredible musical chemistry together. Been going through his multiple volume album set Djangology. The arrangements are all really to my taste. A few acoustic guitars strumming chords in unison, upright bass, Django on lead, and Grappelli on fiddle. Danceable music too for its time. Some enchanting ass gypsy musics.

 

 

 

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Re: amps, the orange analogue solid state stuff is pretty good. I got a Crush Pro CR120 2x12 combo almost a decade ago and I figured it would be a stopgap until I could get a nice tube amp, but it sounds and feels good enough and is way easier to tame for apartment use.  It does a nice clean, nice breakup, gets sludgy/doomy as fuck, and with a tube screamer type of thing in front and a  “presence” eq in the effects loop it can do tight metal stuff as well. The speakers kind of suck but the same eq pedal overcomes it well enough. 

Don’t think they make the CR120 anymore, but they still have options. 

TK Imperial MK II is great, I have the neural dsp plugin version and you could record with it and nobody would know, but the real thing is kind of a grail amp for me. 

Les Paul, a true original. Love how he kind of invented multi-track recording and the delay effect, both showcased here, sounds like he having fun experimenting, exploring the full range of electric guitar, some great melodies also:

Hejira

  On 9/19/2024 at 11:30 AM, decibal cooper said:

I'm looking to get a tube combo amp for practice and jamming. Since I got back into guitar I've been using the UAD amp simulators that I got. Their Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe is quite impressive imo. The tone, breakup, mic options, and especially how responsive it is to dynamics makes it feel like a real amp, but it's super annoying having to use a computer to play instead of just switching on an amp and also having the real thing.

As far as combos go, the Tone King Imperial MK II looks like the holy grail for today's offerings, but it's a little too pricey for me right now. Will probably get a Fender Blues Jr.

Also been listening to a ton of Django Reinhardt. Insanely talented guitarist. His fret hand was badly burned at the beginning of his professional career, and after recovering, he could only use his ring and pinky fingers for chords, so all his soloing and lead lines are done with only his index and middle finger. Him and his violin player Stephane Grappelli had incredible musical chemistry together. Been going through his multiple volume album set Djangology. The arrangements are all really to my taste. A few acoustic guitars strumming chords in unison, upright bass, Django on lead, and Grappelli on fiddle. Danceable music too for its time. Some enchanting ass gypsy musics.

 

 

 

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Don’t waste your money on a tube amp for learning guitar - get a cheaper amp

Edit: focus on buying a nice guitar first

  On 11/26/2024 at 3:41 PM, DyeMyBlueBlack said:

Don’t waste your money on a tube amp for learning guitar - get a cheaper amp

too late! I already pulled the trigger on a fender blues jr combo, has 1x12 eminence speaker. Sounds really nice finger picked on the clean channel, also has separate master and volume knobs so you can dial in some breakup and then turn down the master and kinda preserve the tone and keep it at a manageable volume (good for apartment use imo). There are a bunch of different blues jr models. I ended up getting this one

  On 11/25/2024 at 11:06 PM, baph said:

TK Imperial MK II is great, I have the neural dsp plugin version and you could record with it and nobody would know, but the real thing is kind of a grail amp for me. 

finally got around to checking out the neural dsp stuff, demoed the tone king and really liked it, also demoed the morgan amp suite, and they have one of those old Fender princeton combos that sounds incredible for clean tones. Super convenient for recording and late night practice sessions with headphones.

All the same I kind of want to get an SM57 and try to learn how to mic my combo amp, one of my goals this year to record and mix some short guitar pieces. The acoustics in my untreated room are not ideal for this but I might could make it work.

Love this guy, doesn't get the props in Europe for sure, not sure he got them in America either

And this,never grow tired to magic guitar playing like that

thinking about getting this chorus/vibrato pedal - not too many parameters, standard fare for a basic chorus pedal, but it has a built in preamp to give some nice analog gain

  On 1/4/2025 at 11:27 PM, Mattthegoone said:

Love this guy, doesn't get the props in Europe for sure, not sure he got them in America either

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yeah!

Big fan of this album.

By yer man better known round here as Automatic Tasty.

  On 3/12/2025 at 9:23 PM, perunamuusi said:

Big fan of this album.

By yer man better known round here as Automatic Tasty.

 

 

 

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Think I saw him play at a party in Greystones once in a blokes back garden, great set, he was doing his Automatic Tasty stuff, a great night, then met some of his mates years later at the Aphex afterparty in Lost Horizon in Bristol