Lisa, the Simpson!

Yeah, it was bound to happen eventually....   I just thought I'd open this one up as I know we've got several guitarists on here but feel free to expand it into the realms of other instruments!   I'm just showing off a little project I've been working on.   I've always liked the sound of Pete Townshend's P90 equipped Gibson SG that he used with The Who in the late 60's but I didn't fancy shelling out for an overpriced Gibson "vintage" reissue.   So I bought myself an Epiphone SG copy (actually a nice little instrument for the money), took a chisel to it and swapped the humbuckers for P90s.   I've just finished making a pickguard to hide the dodgy workmanship and the result is this (http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a65/alexwilliam/SGvox.jpg).   Not the neatest job in the world but considering this is me, it's a miracle it's on the right way up...

Finally someone started it! :D

That SG is looking mighty fine JW... maybe not the neatest job in the world, but still better than blowing all that money on one of the reissues. Bet it plays well too... I'm not much of a Gibson/Epiphone player, but the SGs are nice for a change in pace. Anyway, glad to hear your project finally ended in success!

Ironic that this thread should be created today... because I've just finished cutting and uploading a video I recorded of myself playing Comfortably Numb.

Here it is... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvdqPNnk1ag

Well now I've done it... hopefully I won't make too many people's ears bleed. :P

Hey, that's an awesome vid GH :) and glad you started this thread Janglewolf ^_^
Though out of all guitarist here I am sure, without a doubt, I'm probably the crappiest at playing a guitar :P But I just play it for fun when I don't feel like drawing, specially after Mat (Casper), got me into it (though he's a lot better than me with years more practice)...
If I don't get too lost under uni work I'd like to try and film myself at some point, or record at least, of some things I can do (even though they arn't that great and just a mish mash of riffs and random solos mostly...)

Heh!   I wouldn't worry about that, you're very good!   I've always thought that Gilmour plays with a lot of feeling and you've certainly captured that.   You've obviously got a good ear for music too, judging by the accuracy of those bends and the trem bar work.   You're getting a killer tone out of that Strat...it sounds fantastic!   Was this done with a mic on the amp, or did you DI it into the camera?

Well thank you all for your comments... I'm quite flattered. :)

janglewolf
I just pointed my amp straight into the mic on my camera and cranked up the volume... tried my best to eliminate the sound of the dry strings although you can still hear them at points. I used a high distortion setting on my amp, max reverb, and the bridge pickup... seems to work best for pinch harmonics.

Aww...I remember you mentioning this a few weeks back so I need to find a fast computer...well...fast!

Ouh! A new haven thread!

Janglewolf, that guitar looks so cool. I dont know an awful lot about guitars, I just pick strings till they make a noise, but I know that P90 pickups are the ones to get. Beautiful looking thing too.

G.H., awesome video, though I dont know the song, that was really well played and very clean. Also nice to get another glimpse at the Fender, looks magnificent.

Learning guitar is something I would possibly look at in future.

Any advice from anyone about equipment, things to look for, features ect.

I have a Behringer Mixing desk, can a guitar be plugged directly into a mixer or does something need to be in between?

Just be handy for some tips ect :)

I think you'd need something inbetween; I have a Boss ME-50 (http://www.panmusic.com.tr/content_files/prd_images/BOSS%20ME-50.jpg) which I can plug my guitar into, and then from that (using a jack plug thingie (http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:tgclQU0V3FUJ::http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Jack_plug_vlsdkjdsljfdslifewouerw_043.jpg)) into any standard microphone input which kinda makes a cheap amp. Its a bad example, because the Boss ME-50 is pretty expensive, and you can get a better sound for cheaper, unless you want the large choice of sound variations.
If your looking for just a cheap(ish) amp, then something like this (http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Marshall-MG10CD-Combo-Amp?sku=482798) is pretty good (its actualy the same one that Rachel has :P).
However, if your really going for gold... Line 6 amps are just awesome. How can anything with an 'Insane' setting not be awesome? :D

Guitars themselves, I still find it difficult to look at two different guitars and pick which is best and why.
I suppose some tell tail signs of a guitar that is difficult to play, is how high the strings are off the fretboard. Too high and you're efforts spent holding strings down, which is REALLY annoying when trying to play chords. Too low and you'll constantly get a buzz sound off the strings hitting frets you dont want to play. Obviously if you're new to guitaring, the first guitar isnt going to be perfect. Mine certainly wasnt, but I loved it to bits and still do. :P
Another good thing to do is before buying a guitar, if you can ask the seller whether the guitar keeps its tuning. While on the subject of tuning, I found that guitars with a whammy bar on the bridge lose their tuning easier to fixed bridge guitars. Electric tuners can cost about £20 though, so it might be worth buying one.
Lastly, pickups and stuff... I've no clue. :) They sound too similar for me to distiguish!

Don't know anything about guitar specifications, I just wanted to say that's an awesome cover you did there GH! I don't really like Pink Floyd, but a guitar solo is always welcome and I can truly feel that one. :O Giving alot of youself, cover or not! Hope you'll post a song of your own someday too! :) ((You posted one in the lyrics thread, whatever happened to that?))

Oh and Empethree, you can plug a guitar directly into your mixing table and feed it to your monitors, won't get much other than a clean sound at low volume though. And without proper amplification, if you try and raise the output you'll probably get some distortion. Actually works for playing, just not very handy. :p
I've tried plugging a guitar directly into my sound interface and used a program on my PC called Guitar Rig (great program, tons upon tons of amp models on your PC!) to add effects. It's just a bit difficult to get the right sound at the right volume. An amplifier in between to increase the signal will do you much good, and I'll second on those Line6 amps, you'll get alot of noise for your buck. :)

If you're looking for somewhere to find lessons on, you can check out www.guitartricks.com , they've got alot of handy stuff, downside is that it comes with a monthly subscription fee. Otherwise you can do like many others and find information here and there 'round the web and/or just practice playing from guitar tabs of songs that you already know.

As for the guitars themselves, I have no idea what's really good or bad. :p Seems like there are other people around with expertise in that area though.

Miles
Hehe thank you for the feedback... and as for my original songs, meh, they were shit. :P I know a whole lot more now than I did back then but I'm not guaranteeing any original material yet. I'm currently in the process of rehearsing a new cover solo, recording will begin today (I like saying that, sounds so official!) For those of you who are curious, it's the "dry" solo from "Dogs".

Well a couple days ago I went out to Guitar Center and picked up something I've been eager to buy ever since I got my Strat back in May... ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the Digitech Whammy pedal:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z221/GeorgeHarrison882/IMAG0096.jpg

I know those of you who aren't guitar nerds are probably thinking something like "...Guh?" :gigi: So I'll explain - the whammy pedal is basically a pedal that changes the octave of your guitar. You can set it to raise one or two octaves, or drop one or two octaves. It also has a feature called "dive bomb" which essentially gives the same effect as a Floyd Rose whammy bar pushed all the way to the body of the guitar.

In short, a real neat piece of equipment! To see it in action, go to 3:05 in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlK6GN4oJgU. Gilmour's used it on several songs, Pink Floyd's "Marooned" and on that song I just linked, "The Blue" from his 2006 solo album, "On an Island".

Three posts in a row by me... oh dear. :P

Well as I promised a couple of weeks ago, I've uploaded a new video - my cover of the solo from Pink Floyd's "Dogs" (third solo). Probably one of Gilmour's most underrated pieces of guitar work - this solo gives me chills every time I hear/play it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2lsY7B-ei8

Hope you all like it. :)

That is quite amazing, GH! I'm not a guitar techie or a player so i cant say on a technical level, but it's still nice to see that "someone i know" is able to do that.


.. now do classical gas! :D

Very nice, GH! Lots of whammy bar!
The only thing that video could have used is more cowbell.

I thought it was awesome, really good playing and it looked like a hard peice to learn. Congrats!

Here's something I found on YouTube that's pretty cool - it's a BBC documentary in six parts about the evolution of electric guitars and the music they led to through the last four or five decades to modern times.

It also features interviews with renowned guitarists such as Matt Bellamy of Muse, Pete Townshend of The Who, Steve Vai, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Slash of Guns n' Roses, The Edge of U2, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, and others.

If you are passionate about guitars, I highly recommend setting aside an hour of your time to watch this.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN4wxfJsp-I&NR=1
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ4RAozCF-c
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K43RvyuHikQ
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKsc_B2tQwM
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7u1yM6nNgs
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV0NqSJayTQ&feature=related

Wow...I can't thank you enough for uploading this!!
It's given me something worthwhile to do and watch this morning since I'm still unwell and can't go out really...
Plus it's rather interesting...

(and er....yeah.... the Muse clips had me feeling rather giddy like the Fangirl I am :gigi:)

Great links GH!   Unfortunately I missed most of the series when it was on over here so I think I'll be doing a bit of trawling through Youtube to catch up.  :)

Well I have quite the story to tell about something I've been working on for the past month and a half...

Most of you know I'm a HUGE David Gilmour fan. Such is his influence on me that I decided it'd be cool to rework my Strat to make it something of a replica of his. I went halfway back in August when I got the white pickguard replaced with a black one. However, after awhile I didn't like the look of the 3-ply black/white/black pickguard that I'd replaced my old white one with. It was a different look than Gilmour's (his is a 1-ply black) and the pickups were different too. Where his runs on three single coils like a typical Strat, mine is one of the newer "Fat Strat" models fitted with a stock humbucker at the bridge position.

For those of you know don't understand all of this guitar nerd gibberish, I'll show you some pictures:

My guitar as it was after I slapped the 3-ply black/white/black pickguard on it in August: http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z221/GeorgeHarrison882/IMG_5749.jpg

The David Gilmour replica Strat as released by Fender this year: http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z221/GeorgeHarrison882/Gilmour2.jpg

From a distance it's hard to tell the difference, but up close it's really easy to spot. Not to mention tone-wise, mine didn't have the traditional "bite" that a Strat should have - it sounded too much like humbuckers to me. Not saying that's a bad thing, but I'm partial to the classic Strat sound, which is why I bought the guitar.

So, at the beginning of November I decided I was going to modify it again. I went to Guitar Center and started talking to people about the best upgrades to get that Gilmourish sound (and seeing if they knew where I could get my hands on a 1-ply black pickguard). After talking to a few people I went online and ordered two DiMarzio Area 58's and a DiMarzio HS-3 from Guitar Center, and a 1-ply black pickguard from Warmoth Designs.

Well, this showed me just how much ordering online can suck...

It took the pickguard a week and a half to get here. Not bad considering the estimated time was 7-10 days. The pickups, on the other hand, didn't ship until several weeks AFTER I placed the order - and it still took them about a week to arrive. They finally got here at the beginning of December.

So by then I had all the equipment I needed, but I didn't have the know-how to do all I wanted to do - along with the new pickups, I also planned on adding the extra pickup selector that Gilmour added to his Strat (as seen here): http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z221/GeorgeHarrison882/blackstrat_switch.jpg

Rewiring all those electronics and such is beyond my technical knowledge of guitars. No big deal though, I know a guy named Paul who runs a guitar repair shop out of his house. So I call him after I got the pickups in the mail. And surprise! He's driving down to San Diego for the weekend (which is quite a drive from here) and won't be back until Monday.

So I wait through the weekend...

On Tuesday the 9th I dropped my guitar off at his place, and he tells me it'll be ready on Friday. I get a call on Thursday. "Hey Adam... uhh... the bridge on the pickguard doesn't match with the one on your Strat."

Apparently they had shipped me a pickguard with a Floyd Rose cutout at the bridge, when I actually needed one with a vintage tremolo system. Whether or not this is their fault or mine is irrelevant - the point is, now I had to order another pickguard. And wait for it to ship (before you ask, yes I tried calling around to see if any local stores carried it - no guitar/instrument shop in Southern California carries any 1-ply black pickguards). The best part is that my guitar was already in pieces, and is still in pieces (yes, by the time Tuesday rolls around it'll be two weeks since I've seen it). I ordered the pickguard a week ago - they couldn't guarantee me any soon arrival time because of the holidays.

I'm still waiting for the pickguard to arrive. I'll be lucky if I get this damned thing finished before New Year's. The worst part is that I got started on all of this before Christmas was a dot on the horizon, and now it's here and I'm still waiting, caught up in the hustle and bustle of the shipping season.

What a load of bullshit. :P

Agh....that's a pain, GH.   Still, you can console yourself with the fact that it'll be great when it's finished.   Presumably you're keeping a humbucker at the bridge?   If so, it might be worth asking your tech if he can do a coil tap on it (You can only do this on a humbucker with separate outputs for the two coils) as this would give you a single coil at the bridge at the flick of a switch (or a push-pull pot) and still leave you the option of a humbucker too.  :)

Actually no, the pickups I ordered are all single coils - another reason why I needed the new pickguard (a 3 single one instead of a 2 singles and a humbucker).

Ah!   So it'll look (and sound!) the part.  :)

Yup. Call it personal preference, but I just think humbuckers look ugly on a Strat.

Finished at last. :) I picked up the guitar on Saturday night, and it's everything I wanted it to be. Looks and sounds amazing - I'll be doing a video dedicated to the upgrades shortly, but until then here are some pictures.

Close-up of the modifications (http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z221/GeorgeHarrison882/IMAG0005-1.jpg) - Notice the new pickups, solid black pickguard (no white trim), and the mini-toggle switch added between the original pickup selector and the volume/tone knobs, which activates the bridge pickup at all times.

Indoor close-up (http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z221/GeorgeHarrison882/IMAG0010.jpg), I think it looks a bit clearer.

And lastly me, posing with the guitar (http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z221/GeorgeHarrison882/IMAG0002-1.jpg). Notice the guitar strap, which is a replica of the one David wears (http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z221/GeorgeHarrison882/blog_newstrat.jpg). The original was bought for him by his wife Polly as a 60th birthday present (March 2006). It was previously worn by Jimi Hendrix.

It looks great, GH, a very neat job!   That extra switch is a cool mod on a three pickup guitar, that'll give you any combination of the three pickups won't it?

janglewolf
Yep, the mini-toggle activates the bridge pickup, so that with the neck pickup selected and the switch activated I can have two active, or throw the main switch back to the bridge position for a single pickup (or vice versa, turn off the mini-toggle and have just the neck active). Or for all three, throw the main switch to the middle position and activate the mini-toggle.

In keeping the subject of the last two posts, I uploaded my third video to YouTube today, which is basically a verbal explanation of the modifications made to the Black Strat. Not a big deal usually but... as far as I can remember, none of you have heard my voice before... :eek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PakrD1v74KU&feature=channel_page