Any guitar players on TW?

I had this internal argument with myself about Epiphone VS Gibson when buying a Les Paul. I don't play professionally and every ounce of common sense I have was telling me that an Epi would be good enough for me but I just knew that it would bother me everytime I saw that Epi logo on the headstock.

 

I think if even if you play professionally, the primary goal is feel and playability to the individual. The tone created will be much more a sum of the components and the player. Guitar itself will be an important but limited factor if it has a quality build but every additional circuit in the chain will affect the tone. For Stage Sound the difference would be virtually indiscernible. If you are actually recording, the Gibson P/u's will likely be of a higher tonal quality vs the Epi. However, with the price difference between the 2, the Epi would offer a higher dollar to product quality ratio. the Gibson is the Ferrari here though, most Ferrari's spend the majority of their lives in the shop for maintenance and repairs. The Gibson will carry a better resale, but you could get one of those "special" Epi's that for whatever reason turn in to collector sought after models. Its all a crapshoot. Make yourself happy. the scales balance out for either choice eventually. figure what your end goal is and choose accordingly.

 

Resale value isn't a factor for me. Playablilty and tone are though. I just knew that if I bought an Epi I would always have that voice in the back of my head saying "It's not a REAL Les Paul" I know Epiphone has made and are making some great guitars but for me, it had to be a Gibson. Maybe I'm a victim of good marketing but I'm more than happy with what I ended up buying.

 

Sounds like you chose wisely

 

I see what you did.

 

Well, it pretty much ended up being a full clean out and rebuild from scratch, but all done and handed off back to it's owner today.

Essentially turned it into a modified 5e3 (though calling it a "5eZ" since it was built into an old Zenith chassis); one channel for guitar that's voiced a little hotter, one channel for mic using an XLR input, master volume, and adjustable negative feedback to help dial in some grit for guitar, but clean it up when just using mic (to help tame feedback). No cab, but didn't want to hand off an open chassis, especially with the construction style, so just a threw a plank of walnut underneath with some rubber feet.

 

Nice! I hope to one day get to the point with amps.

 

I have a peavey Classic30 (1x12) and a Classic 50 (212) that you can practice with if you're interested. the 50 was my mule back in the early 00's. the 30 replaced it for reduced weight and footprint. Both PCB I think. Both need work... The 50 hasn't been touched in a decade at least.

 

Anybody have any experience or input on the Positive Grid Spark amp? https://ca.positivegrid.com/products/spark

I used to be in the Line6 space years ago...seems a modern update to that stuff.

 

check Built2Ride at post #10304 in this thread

 

I played around with one for a bit; seemed like it would be great for solo practicing with the backing drum and rhythm loops. Sound wise, to me it was rather thin and anemic sounding, not something I'd want to use for entertaining myself or others. Didn't get a chance to try it with headphones, I'd bet it sounds a lot better through a good set of headphones (but again, more so practice related use).

Take my opinion with a grain of salt though. I didn't spend a ton of time with it, so my experience could have been lack of familiarity related.

 

Also, very sad news if you haven't heard yet. Jeff Beck passed away today

 

Twin 4" speakers makes me wonder about the fullness...but it would be for my personal basement gigs (just me noodling)...I liked the Line6 stuff, these eliminates pedals and such...


Might give it a go. It's not a harsh price

 

I enjoy it, I got one for $175 used. I linked it up to my studio monitors. For the money and what it does, it’s worth it to me. The sound isn’t bad at all, and works super nice with my acoustic.

 

(Sigh)

Some beautiful equipment in here. I'm trying very hard to get back into playing. I'm not good at all. My theory is garbage, technique is worse. In high school I could bang out the non-noodly parts of the average pop punk song and I always enjoyed it. I don't know how to get out of the rut of only playing what I know and not trying to learn new songs. I'll pickup one of my guitars and be like today I'm not going to play something I know and five minutes later the distortion is cranked and I'm banging out Dammit for the 1,000,000th time.

How do I get out of the "play the easy junk you know" mindset. It's like when I graduated college I got sick of being frustrated with anything and took the easy way out. Anytime I try to do a chord shape that isn't a typical power chord or try a new noodly part I get frustrated and quit.

I recently picked up a bunch of new equipment hoping that will help. My two guitars are an 80s Tokai Strat with a Duncan SH-8 Invader (Tom Delonge style) I fit in the early 2000s and an Agile Double cut I just ordered a Duncan SH-4 for. My loud amp is a new Marshall SC20H head with an 80s JCM800 4 x 12 cabinet (I've got a 10W Park for practice).

 

Some excellent gear you've got there; especially the SC20H and the half stack!

Of course theres some of the typical suggestions, like video guitar lessons (Justin Guitar and Marty Swartz are the first two that come to my mind; great resource for learning new songs when you're feeling stuck), and exercises like spider drills (which I still do daily, usually consider that my warm up)...

...but one possibly off the wall suggestion that really helped me grow a lot, was actually doing vocal warmups over scales. And I don't mean my own scale playing (at least not initially), like listening to vocal warm ups over piano tracks or you tube videos. Sure it's "vocal" training, but what it really did was train my ear. Once my ears knew what they wanted to hear, it started to translate over to my fingers being able to find what my ears wanted to hear on the fretboard. The only tricky part is getting over the silly feeling of singing things like "ah ah ah ah AH AH AH" and "oooooooooooooooooEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" out loud. Especially for me, coming from more of a punk and metal background; doing vocal warm ups doesn't feel particularly punk or metal, LOL.

The other thing that helps me... is just listening to music. A song comes on, and I start picking up on the main guitar, and wonder if it's something I could play or not. Sometimes I noodle around and try to find it, sometimes I you tube search for a lesson on it, and then slowly start piecing it together.

 

I've been exactly where you are and the thing that made the biggest difference for me was taking lessons. My teacher keeps asking me for song suggestions but I've deliberately left that up to him because he's exposing me to a lot of music that I never would have chosen for myself ( he plays in jazz and funk bands) but is at a degree of difficulty that is just far enough beyond what I can already do that I can learn it with enough practice. It also gives me a reason to pick up my guitar every day. I was hesitant to start lessons because of the old dog/new tricks thing but it was the best thing I ever did for my playing.

 

One of the main things to help improve yourself as a player is to have regular practice sessions. Even if you keep it short (say, 15 minutes a day) have time dedicated to working on a particular skill. Have a goal in mind that you are working towards, and spend those 15 minutes working on that skill and that skill alone. For example, if you're trying to improve your fingering techinques, find a scale that is meant for that, and work that scale. You can still spend time playing your favorites, or working on new songs, or whatever, but for that dedicated practice time, that is the only thing you should be doing.

 

spider walk exercises against a metronome are what I am attempting at present. less about ear, and more about picking and clean dexterity. Can be done while sitting watching TV or similar. I have realized just how sloppy my fingering really is... I almost feel like I am just starting to learn all over again. haha

 

Dedicate 10 minutes everyday to theory. Like say you learn the pentatonic scale one string at a time and learn your root notes per string while your at ti. Pick a chord and go right up the neck like say the D shape. Get away from doing cowboy chords and learn other ways to do the same note like G major or E minor. What crazy about guitars is there a multiple ways to do the same thing. Not many instruments can do that. There's a lot but it all adds up quicker than you think. Put the pick down and learn to finger pick it's changes the way you play notes.