It's a Strav-II Signature!

Sophomore year of High School, I decided I wanted to learn guitar. So, I took the one hundred dollars I had saved up, had my mom take me to guitar center, and started browsing. Considering how much money I had to spend, I inevitably ended up in the 'used gear' section of the store. I walked over to the used guitars and saw only one there. The blue, fender-looking monstrocity that was within my price range. I took it down and played around with what I knew at the time on the guitar. I loved it. The action was perfect for me (though others seem to disapprove of it), and it was a solid, light guitar. All the tuners, knobs, switches, and everything were intact. I asked the guitar center rep about the guitar, and he seemed annoyed that I was asking questions and that he didn't have any of the answers. He didn't know a single thing about the guitar. Sad day, right? Well, I got it anyway. Turns out it was a good decision. Jump ahead to Sophomore year college (now), and I've really taken to playing guitar seriously. I have an acoustic now and I've started to really get into my electric playing, but I was still frustrated that I knew NOTHING about this guitar. I didn't even know the model! I just kind of assumed based on the other models what it would be called. But today, after a year or two of searching, I found out the specs of my guitar. Let me tell you, I couldn't be happier. I bought the guitar for $100, it's worth $349, and scored higher ratings on several venues then the $700 Fender Strats of the same year. Suddenly my interest in Fender has diminished and my interest in a new Gibson has risen. Any Gibson will do, too. Gibson Studio guitar (the faux Les Pauls), a Les Paul, an SG. My only real problem now is that I saw a Strav-II Signature...in a green sunburst rather then my blue. Wouldn't it be great if I had BOTH guitars? The green one was just so pretty! Okay, I'm done. I'm signing off. Peace!

The shortest blog post ever

THIS SETUP IS BLOWING MY FREAKING MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON OR WHY I'M YELLING!

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The whole gang

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Okay, so this is my whole pedal board to date, with the 1-spot plugged into to seven of the eight pedals it can power. My newest adventure has been seeting the dials on these pedals and getting them to sound good. This can be difficult, considering my amp isn't able to take all of them going at once. And if my digitech is on, you can forget about using anything else. I somewhat get a good sound out of my TS-9 and DS-1 together, but my digitech creates way too much noise to consider having a second distortion or overdrive going at the same time.

And I have a new project for my Chorus. It's actually a stereo chorus, meaning I plug the pedal into two seperate amps at the same time. You see, this pedal splits the sound and bends one of the streams it creates slightly out of pitch. Not enough to be considered out of tune, but enough to sound like a second guitar. Having the second amp lets me have each of the split streams through a seperate amp. Other then being really legit, this serves no purpose.

Oh, and I had my electric checked out today. I felt like there's something weird occuring in the upper register of my electric, and rather then telling me there was something wrong, the guitar tech guy told me the guitar sounds fantastic. I'm beginning to wonder what the value of my Vibracell really is...

Posters. Grungy Posters.

A new pawn shop rule has been added to my list of rules. If you see a woman behind the counter, work with her specifically. As sexist as it sounds, she probably won't know anything about guitar pedals and will most likely bend on the prices. Why would I say such a thing? Because my past experiences have shown me that this is true. There are female guitarists in the world, true, but most of them would not be found working in a pawn shop. Just sayin.

Today, I walked into a pawn shop and saw a Digitech Grunge pedal for $40. I walked out of there with my pockets $10 lighter. How? I spoke to the woman, and even struck up conversation with her. The men at pawn shops, if they are younger, tend to avoid conversation at all cost. Most likely because they know what you are up to when you converse with them. They know you want to haggle the price. Somehow it's ingrained in men to go on the defensive when it comes to money. Again, another generalization that is not always true.

I now have a sixth pedal to my board, but I'll only put it on when I play certain songs and if that happens I'll be taking off my DS-1. No need for three distortions, is there? I mean, not unless you're Jack White, anyways. I haven't tried it out really, but I know it works and that's good enough for now. The pedal isn't the prize so much as the savings in this case. It's the German in me, I guess.

But buying pedals always puts me in a guitar playing mood (crazy, right?). My roommates were sleeping so I busted out Juliana (my acoustic) and started playing through some scales, crazy chord changes, and then tried out a new song...POSTERS! I have the opening riff and the verses down, and the chorus is similar enough so it won't be to long to figure that one out. This week I plan on learning the whole thing, bridge, chorus, verses, opening and final riffs, and all. By 'all' I mean lyrics, because I listed everything else you could learn of a song, and even then I practically already know those.

To finish up the post, here's the songs I intend to learn by the end of this semester. They are really different from each other, but diversity is what I'm looking for while I'm still getting the hang of this instrument.

First, Posters

Second, Enter Sandman (I swear it's gonna happen)

Third, Daughters

Fourth, Smells like Teen Spirit (I know, it's a cliche', but what else am I supposed to do with a Grunge pedal?)

Fifth, 21 Guns (I mostly know this one now, actually)

Okay, so that's my thoughts for today. Peace!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for tube scream...ers

From left to right I have a NS-2 (Ol' Turn-Off-That-Racket!), A DeepBlue Rocktron Chorus (Ol' WTF), a TS-9 (Patrick), a DS-1 (Old and Disturbed), a Danelectro Tuner (Ol' Faithful), and my Weeping Demon (Ol' El Diablo), and my amp (old and crochety. Not a name but a description). This all will be played on my Switch '88 Custom Vibracell II (Ol' Blue).

Well, today is the big day. I finally got the TS-9 tube screamer for my pedal board! This is my dream pedal, y'all. I've wanted this pedal for a long time, and it's finally mine! I can't believe I'm saying it, either. Oh, and I finally figured out how to post pictures so you can actually kinda see it above. My camera sucks so it's practically like I never showed you at all, but at least you get somewhat of an idea of what my pedal board looks like.

The TS-9, by itself, gives you that classic rock feel that I've been after for my dirty sound from my electric. Suddenly I have the urge to practice Led-Zepplin more then I ever, which I probably will. But, here's the fun part. If I use my TS-9 with my DS-1, I get a very metal sound, and even more so if I use the distortion built into my amp (Enter Sandman, anybody?).

Songs like "Santa Monica" by Everclear and "21 Guns" by Green Day suddenly become a reality for me, and my Weeping Demon (Ol' El Diablo) continues to blow my mind. It's amazing how certain pedals work better together then others. Go figure that the Weeping Demon and the TS-9 are both made by Ibanez. Kind of supports my idea that even if one pedal sounds better then another two or more pedals from the same brand will sound better then mixing and matching. I really don't have enough evidence to support it fully, and I guess I never will, given my pedals.

Just throwing this out there, it I ever get an MXR Metal distortion or a Rat, I'm taking off my DS-1 and learning the Fray's "Little House" for sure!

Led on our way to victory.

Okay, so I have been freaking out (No I haven't) about this chord test we were going to have in guitar class (never happened). So I studied my tush off (not true) all week in hopes of getting a good grade (I could slap the teacher in the face and still be able to secure an A) and then I finally show up to class today (this is truth) and I find out that my teacher has forgotten to print the test for us so now we all are getting free one-hundreds on the test. As you can imagine, I was deeply upset (another lie).

In other news, we had a great lesson about a Led-Zepplin piece called Over the Hills and Far Away. It. Was. Fun! When he pulled out that little number I can honestly say I enjoyed myself (that's what she said?). This piece had all sorts of fun runs going on in it and fast paced chord changes and I really really like playing this one. Considering I've never NOT liked a Led-Zepplin song, I just went out and bought one of their albums. I happened to find one, too, that had every song from Led-Zepplin I've ever jammed out too and more. Clearly, this was the album for me. And so now, as I type this, I am listening to "Mothership".

If I were to summarize this blog in two sentences it would be; Good buy. Goodbye.

Picks. A beautiful thing. Oh, and a guitar show.

Okay, so it's been a long while since I've updated. Basically, I've done a lot of guitar stuff, then not much guitar stuff, and then more guitar stuff. So...here we go.

First, the end of Spring Break. On the very last day (a Saturday, for me), I went to South by Southwest, but more specifically the Guitar Trade Show and to see Neon Trees (twice). At said Guitar Trade Show, I salivated so much I was dehydrated for three days. There were plenty of electrics, acoustics, eletric and acoustic pickups, amps, picks, ukeleles, banjos, ukelele banjos (it's a thing), and guitar pedals of all sorts. I took too many pictures to post (but admittedly at some point I should really get around to posting some), nearly bought stuff I could not afford (mad props to my friend for pulling me away from that electric), and even entered into a few guitar winning contests, so fingers crossed on that. I'm pretty sure they would have already found the winners and contacted them by now, but still a guy can dream.

I also saw Neon Trees twice and got some autographs, but that's just too legit for this blog. My computer would implode at the effort of describing that. And that's my excuse for not typing out what would admittedly be the longest blog post ever written.

...*ahem*. So the picks! Today, I decided that I was going to experiment with a few different types of picks. I was curious to see which ones sounded best, which ones I could use best, and what sounded best in what styles.

I usually just use a medium pick, but I decided to branch out and try something different. I haven't tried anything out on my electric yet, but for my acoustic, here are my preferences.

.50mm pick = decent tone but too much give for how much I "muscle" the pick into the sound I want, and comparitively very little resonance to the others.

1mm pick "cool" = almost consistently one of my two favorites in terms of tone. Shaped just right for my massive hands to hold as well.

1mm pick Fender = same as the 1mm pick "cool" in terms of thickness, but seemed to provide a variance in resonance while similarity in tone. Playing solo, I would prefer this pick, but playing rhythm for someone else to play over, I would most definitely prefer the 1mm "cool"

Then I had a few different Dava picks of various sizes = Consistently, strumming was awkward because the picks were too small for my hands to grip properly (piano hands), there was not enough plastic and too much rubber showing wich gave me an inconsistent sound with how much pick I like to use, and all gauges seemed to have too much give to even dream of picking with.

Then I got the Pick of Destiny = this has no musical value whatsoever, but it looks freaking legit!

And finally the Agate stone pick = this pick was $12 so I was going to be ticked off if it didn't sound good. Thank God it sounded good. I would never dream of strumming with this pick on a guitar without a pick guard. Honestly, I don't like the sound of it whilst strumming at all, but the tone I get out of it when I pick is amazingly warm compared to the sound I get out of a normal plastic 1mm. Not only does this warm up my tone, my upper register (past the 10th fret, especially) actually sounds worth listening too! It's priced really high but the warm tone and the resonance is greatly improved making this pick well worth the money.

That's my nerdy self, in a nutshell. Thanks!

What's the buzz?

I've discoveered that the more instruments you learn, the more frustrated you get. Allow me to explain. When I first learned piano, I was introduced to the art of practicing (oh yes, it's an art in itself). It's also how I began developing my ear way back when. Then I learned trumpet. All my piano ear training from piano applied to trumpet, but with trumpet it was taken to the next level. What I'm trying to say here is that a musician has an ear for things that non musicians don't. Why am I ranting on about this? Because it's a problem. Why is it a problem? Because now I'm aware of sounds coming from my guitar that drive me utterly insane because my technique is still developing.

When you play the guitar, there are two causes of buzz that can be traced back to the musician: One is because the guitarist isn't pressing down hard enough (something that gets fixed over time as finger strength grows), and the other one is because the fingers aren't placed right on the fretboard (not being close enough to the fret). My fingers are still developing so every so often I get annoyed with myself. The reason I'm posting this? Because I want everyone to know why my headed exploded before it happened. I blame it on the buzz.

Too. Many. Pedals. And a guitar test.

It's Wednesday, March 9th and I'm going broke. Because my pedal board now has five pedals! I got a Weeping Demon Wah and a Boss NS-2 Noise supressor. I almost have all the pedals I could want. The only problem is, I don't think I'll be able to use all of them at once. My amp, which is just a Fender Frontman 25r, is a practice amp. Too many pedals equals an angry amp. But, I'm having way too much fun to notice. I just don't plug them all in at once...Okay, so sometimes I do. But I turn all the effects down (especially my distortion) and I am able to get it to work.

Also, I had a guitar test today. I forgot about it and didn't study, but I actually feel like I passed the test. Not just passed it but got an A, too. Yay knowledge I learned previously from piano and trumpet!

Btw, I would just like to apologize for all I said about those two dentists earlier, Steve and Dan. Your kids aren't ashamed of you and you aren't a Green Day loving, MTV watching jerk. I went way too far. Again, I'm sorry.

IT'S LENT AND I'M STARVING LIKE THOSE RANDOM KIDS IN CHINA YOU ALWAYS HEAR ABOUT!!! OH. MY. GOSH. FEED ME!!!

And all the angel's joined the Chorus. The Rocktron DeepBlue Chorus, that is.

It's been a couple of days since I posted, and I still haven't posted any pictures yet. I have had a hard time finding a suitcase for my make-shift pedal board, and I accidentally slept through guitar class. In other news, I now have three pedals... :)

The pedal I added today is a Roctron DeepBlue Chorus. It's pretty, and it sounds pretty. In fact, 4 out of 5 dentists approve of this pedal, which is saying someting, because only 3 of them know anything about guitar. The other 2 are MTV watching corporate sell-outs with no souls and who listen to Green Day and think they are such musically intelligent people but don't know their children regret their upbringing because of all the horrible music they've had to listen to growing up...

Anyways, I haven't added the pedal to the others yet because I am at a location in which they are not present. I won't be able to get home till about 4:00 or 5:00 because I already made commitments to do things for a friend. This is why I miss being a loner... So I'm going to plug everything in today and choose one song I really want to learn that encorporates this pedal (or all of them) and just practice until I get it down, or my fingers bleed. Whichever comes first.

I know there are other, better chorus pedals out there, but I chose this one specifically because it had the sound I wanted. Period. I've tried others, listened to others via Youtube, and when it was all said and done this pedal just hit the sound I've been looking for out of a Chorus pedal. It fills out my tone a little bit more but it stills keeps a really tight guitar sound. I haven't tried it in conjunction with the other pedals, but it definitely adds to what I hope I achieve with my sound. My only concern is that my guitar doesn't play clean very well. It only plays the heavier, dirty stuff. It may be a while until I get a guitar that can really utilize this pedal in the way I'd like, I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out to get a unique sound out of my current set-up with just a little bit of creativity and patience.

No warm-up. The pedal board.

Here we are! My third blog to date! I plan on deleting one of my other ones, but so far I'm pumped about this one. An entire blog journaling my growth as a guitar player, and some of the fun gear I get a hold of or make myself.

There's really no warm-up into this blog. No introduction, really, or fanfare. I'm just getting started with our topic today, which is a pedal board. I will cover what guitars I have when I get there, and I'll talk about my experience/skill likewise. Just remember that this whole journal is talking about someone who's relatively new to this whole thing.

So...the pedalboard! I don't have many pedals yet. I only have a DS-1 and a Danelectric Tuner pedal. I'm currently trying to find a good Metal Overdrive, Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer, and I'm looking to replace my Danelectric with a Boss TU-2 eventually, and maybe even find a good digital delay before I die. But for now, it's just these two pedals.This list clearly excludes a Noise Suprression Pedal, volume, and Wah pedal, but I'm too early on to get a hold of these, I think.

I plan on making my own pedal board. A ghetto rig requires a ghetto pedalboard, right? I really want to put the board inside a suitcase, for some reason. I can't explain why, but I just kept coming back to this idea so I'm giving in. I want to have the board itself suspended in the case some so I can get some sort of general power source running underneath whatever platform I find to get the pedals running. I got my Danelectric pedal today. Tomorrow, I'm buying an old suitcase, velcro, and Dr. Pepper. By the end of Spring Break next week, I will have a pedal board!

Sorry it was a super simple blog today, but in the next two days I'm going to try and get the actual pictures posted of my gear and the materials I'm using to make the future gear happen.