***The Official Guitar Thread***

Soldato
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Here and There...
There is a guitar thread you could ask in in this forum!

What is it you are looking for in this purchase? What about the Baton Rouge guitars do you like? I’ve never touched one but someone might be able to suggest some more mainstream options!
 
Soldato
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Oh, I looked but admittedly didn't search for a thread!

I'm looking for a better guitar to for fingerpicking, playing around the house.
I currently play a Stagg guitar I got for 10 quid haha

I've just seen them on a number of youtubers videos and they seem to sound really nice and they're a really reasonable pricepoint (200-400) four their sound.

Also I'm quite partial to the open pore finish and simple aesthetic they have
 
Soldato
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Baton Rouge; Anyone tried one?
I've seen them about in youtube videos,
They seem reasonable, good for fingerpicking (which I mostly do)

No where seems to have stock of them near me, and the one place that could get me one want me to commit to buying :/

I was wondering if anyone had any hands on time with one?
They seem pretty good for their price point. But I'm hesitant to get one if I cant play first.
 
Associate
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Why is it so hard to choose what pedals go on your board! i have a pedaltrain novo 32 which is pretty big and still im trying to ram more pedals on there :p
 

Deleted member 651465

D

Deleted member 651465

The problem with pedals is that you’re effectively trying to hit an ever moving target.

I don’t bother with drive pedals because my amp can nail the tone that I love but I could spend an unlimited amount of money trying to get a good delay or chorus. When you think you’re happy you’ll find that you get bored or see the next shiny and convince yourself that you need it.

Sooner or later you’ll either build up a collection of 100 pedals and find that you can’t power a chain without some extra power boost or you double down and before you know it you’re only happy playing through a rack mounted plethora of processors and you’ll wonder why people bother with traditional amps when ProTools and unlimited plugins can turn a clean guitar in to any sound you can imagine.

My advice is to find a core set of pedals that cover 90% of the music you want to play and experiment with the odd pedal that you can rotate in and out. Get a drive, delay, reverb and chorus then keep the 5th slot as your revolving door ... be strict with yourself and you’ll soon find that most effects are just fluff and don’t really add anything beyond something to arse about with.
 
Associate
Joined
28 May 2017
Posts
550
The problem with pedals is that you’re effectively trying to hit an ever moving target.

I don’t bother with drive pedals because my amp can nail the tone that I love but I could spend an unlimited amount of money trying to get a good delay or chorus. When you think you’re happy you’ll find that you get bored or see the next shiny and convince yourself that you need it.

Sooner or later you’ll either build up a collection of 100 pedals and find that you can’t power a chain without some extra power boost or you double down and before you know it you’re only happy playing through a rack mounted plethora of processors and you’ll wonder why people bother with traditional amps when ProTools and unlimited plugins can turn a clean guitar in to any sound you can imagine.

My advice is to find a core set of pedals that cover 90% of the music you want to play and experiment with the odd pedal that you can rotate in and out. Get a drive, delay, reverb and chorus then keep the 5th slot as your revolving door ... be strict with yourself and you’ll soon find that most effects are just fluff and don’t really add anything beyond something to arse about with.

ive got around 40 pedals atm, ive always just used one or two when i fancied a go, this is the first time im building a proper set up (ive always used rack effects) i've got a 8 loop switcher with midi and trigger outs so i can program amp changes. the ones ive got laid on the board so far are Digitech Drop, TC Sub n up,hall of fame 2,flashback 2,spark, Line 6 M5, Zoom ms100-BT, Digitech jam man solo xt, MXR EQ108, Digitech istomp, BBE sonic stomp , Maxon OD808, Fulltone OCD, Suhr Riot and TC force field compressor, i have recently been getting into ambiance and messing around with sounds.
 
Soldato
Joined
8 Dec 2008
Posts
5,917
The problem with pedals is that you’re effectively trying to hit an ever moving target.

I don’t bother with drive pedals because my amp can nail the tone that I love but I could spend an unlimited amount of money trying to get a good delay or chorus. When you think you’re happy you’ll find that you get bored or see the next shiny and convince yourself that you need it.

Sooner or later you’ll either build up a collection of 100 pedals and find that you can’t power a chain without some extra power boost or you double down and before you know it you’re only happy playing through a rack mounted plethora of processors and you’ll wonder why people bother with traditional amps when ProTools and unlimited plugins can turn a clean guitar in to any sound you can imagine.

My advice is to find a core set of pedals that cover 90% of the music you want to play and experiment with the odd pedal that you can rotate in and out. Get a drive, delay, reverb and chorus then keep the 5th slot as your revolving door ... be strict with yourself and you’ll soon find that most effects are just fluff and don’t really add anything beyond something to arse about with.

100% this.

It's something I've come to realise over time. The last practice I had I took just drive and delay.
 
Caporegime
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20 Oct 2002
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Wish i was in a Ramen Shop Counter
lCBebrE.jpg

Jackson RR24 limited edition ive owned since 2008! Hardly ever gets played just sits in the wall hanger.. thinking about selling it at the moment but im sure i woud regret it if i did!

more pics here https://imgur.com/a/4omgmf6

Keep it, when you retire you will think back what you'd like when you were younger and wished you had kept it and at that time if you want to buy one made in the same era it will cost a bomb.
 
Man of Honour
OP
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24 Sep 2005
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35,492
I have been absolute beasting guitar recently and after a couple of days off resting it’s disheartening to feel so stiff. A few random bits:

With my wrists hurting, I cannot believe how good the following exercises were for relieving tension and pain. This is an absolutely essential watch!


Separately, I have long been frustrated that I rarely seem to be able to beat my speed threshold and a light switch has gone off in my head as to why - I literally cannot be any faster! It’s not how fast I am... it’s how far my fingers are moving. Now I am really paying attention to how much my fingers jump off the fret board. It’s not terrible but it’s not great. And darn, really, really slowing things down and trying to play them with minimal movement of fingers is hard as nails!

Also fun... trying to play and sing. God my singing is crap but it is really empowering when you do it.

Finally, I’ve been trying to improvise. It’s so horrible. The obvious place to start is pentatonics and they are so naff and generic sounding - so it’s really pleasing to learn, by ear, how to spice things up with other scales. My current favourite ‘sound musical’ cheat is to emphasise the third of whatever the chord is playing underneath. Dropping that note in makes the boring licks seem suddenly musical. I’m going to keep plugging at it. I find simple melodies quite easy to piece together but making phrases and kicks sound natural... man, that sorts the men from and boys and I am definitely a boy :)

Nitefly’s songs of the week:

Tenacious D - the metal. Such a fantastic riff! The live version from the ‘tenacious d live album’ is so cool. Oh no... it’s the enemy squid! :eek: :D

Megadeth - Rust in Peace... Polaris. I actually find the very first riff to be the hardest but other than the chorus “spread my disease...” but they are all mega tough at speed. What a fun, goofy and rocking song!
 
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Soldato
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5,421
Nice :) I will give that a try as I do sometimes get sore wrists

I'm still going with Master of Puppets, at this point I can blast through the whole thing properly at full speed all apart from that 2nd solo, which I can play at about 75% speed... That beginning lick I was asking about before I've eventually settled on picking 4 out of the 6 notes of each pattern, which gives it almost a slight sweep-like style and as soon as I did that, as well as concentrating on landing the 1st note of each pair of sixteenth-note triplets in the right timing and with the right emphasis it suddenly started to sound right and I can play it a lot faster...

The other part of the solo that I'm still not quite getting right at full speed is the ascending run of repeated descending triplets (if that makes sense) as you head towards the last part on the higher frets. Playing it mostly legato doesn't sound right but I can't quite pick every note fast enough either so still trying to work out what to do there
 
Man of Honour
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Nice :) I will give that a try as I do sometimes get sore wrists

I'm still going with Master of Puppets, at this point I can blast through the whole thing properly at full speed all apart from that 2nd solo, which I can play at about 75% speed... That beginning lick I was asking about before I've eventually settled on picking 4 out of the 6 notes of each pattern, which gives it almost a slight sweep-like style and as soon as I did that, as well as concentrating on landing the 1st note of each pair of sixteenth-note triplets in the right timing and with the right emphasis it suddenly started to sound right and I can play it a lot faster...

The other part of the solo that I'm still not quite getting right at full speed is the ascending run of repeated descending triplets (if that makes sense) as you head towards the last part on the higher frets. Playing it mostly legato doesn't sound right but I can't quite pick every note fast enough either so still trying to work out what to do there
The bit where it alternates between the two shapes at the end of that run is definitely a bit of a confusing finger twister! It’s deffo picked every note. I couldn’t do that at full speed. That said, I’ll try and offer some tips... even though you’re clearly better than I :o

You may want to see if it’s your right hand or your left hand letting you down. Can you pick the triplets without moving your left hand? If not, it’s just a case of picking one note mega slow and working up with the metronome. The angle of the pick is key, as is plectrum type. Anything but 0.60 tortex is a waste of time IMO I have no idea how people use those mega heavy ones :p I have no doubt you know this but pick angle should be tilted in both axis... like this.

jWHLSKQ.jpg

As for the left hand, slow it right down and see how far that pinky is flying away from the fretboard. If it’s going way up, you’ll never get it down.. so focus on controlling him. This is what I’ve been up to... except that I’ve been doing runs on the low E string and A string - my picking is flying all over the place. I want to get that tornado of souls riff down and it’ll never happen at speed with this dreaded pinky; arrrgh :p

That initial run you’ve been practicing is also on my list of exercises where I’m trying to move my fingers as little as possible. God, really makes you realise how poopy you are when you’re fingers fly off all over the place when you slow it down. I appreciate that they do have to move a bit but for the purpose of getting more control in the long run I’m being really strict with myself.
 
Soldato
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Appreciate the tips - everyone is learning and I'm far from a great player! I've been playing for a loooong time (probably almost 20 years) but I've never had lessons, and for about the first 5-8 years I just didn't bother to try and learn any sort of lead playing (I just kind of assume that without proper lessons it would be out of my reach)... Have made okay progress since Youtube etc. made lesson content so much easier to access

So I'm not too bad but nowhere near as good as you'd expect of someone with this amount of time under their belt! I think my rhythm playing is pretty strong though.

Your point about pick angle, not sure from the picture but in my experience for fast playing, especially on the heavy strings, you often want the pick angled the other way to what you're showing there - i.e. slanted backwards... the idea being that the pick doesn't connect with the strings below the one/s you're trying to play (requiring extra movement to pull it up before you can move it back into position for the next downstroke)... Master of Puppets rhythm parts are an absolute masterclass in playing that way... all downstrokes and very fast
 
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