The new love of my life

[Garp]

It finally turned up, having ordered it back on the 16th of Feb, all £740 (RRP £1000) worth of it.

It is gorgeous, plays like a dream and has an amazing tone to it. Sounds good plugged in too. That silver panel on the side of the guitar is the pre-amp, with integrated tuner, which is actually modular, so at a later stage I could consider replacing that module if a much better version is released.

 

[Garp]

Personally, I prefer wood

The photographs don't show it up that well but the top is a wood grain, just in a gorgeous autumn burst colour.

 

[Garp]

Hows it work then?
Like, where's the pickups?

Same as on most electro/acoustic guitars, it uses a piezo electric pickup that sits under the bridge.
Vibrations from the strings transmit down through the bridge onto the pickup, which is (IIRC) in vague terms two magnets of opposite polarity, seperated slightly with a wire running between them. When the magnets move it induces a small current in the wire, that is the same as the vibrations.

wow, is that the same guitar Al Di Maeola plays?

Same brand, but mine is a few models down the line, so not quite as high quality components as his. His signature model would have cost me around £1500~£1800!

Each to their own i guess, but what does it sound like, thats the only important question.

Gorgeous, very distinctive. Little more mid than treble or bass, but not an unbalanced sound. Plugged in sounds very good too, almost identical to when unplugged. I'll still run it through my 504 acoustic pedal but only for its ambience 'air' effect than for any form of EQ/Modelling.

 

[Garp]

quick little recording, needs normalising and stuff, but I might tackle that later:

New Guitar

 

[Garp]

Nice sound, sounds very leccycoustic

Thats factory set EQ (flat) and with none of the three frequency shift buttons pressed, plenty of mileage for fiddling

Is that Street Spirit I hear?

Yup, in and amongst the mix. Wanted to have three different playing styles so it goes from:
Brand New Start - Paul Weller (strummed)
Street Spirit - Radiohead (fingerpicked)
You're Beautiful - James Blunt (picked using a pick)

 

[Garp]

id love to be able to play the guitar

/looks over at acoustic that set me back over 200 notes
and is just a feature of my lounge

Andy

Rhythm guitar (strumming) is in my opinion one of the easiest musical things to learn to do. All you've got to teach yourself is a handful of chord positions (just shoving fingers down on the right strings), and then move your right hand up and down. Dead simple You don't even have to understand any musical theory to do it, nor even basic musical stuff like sharps (#) and flats (b). I reckon I could teach almost anyone to strum along to "Feel it in my fingers" or "When you say nothing at all"

 

[Garp]

Record some samples with it, would like to hear what it sounds like (You sound like)

I've not got the best vocal mic in the world. On my next shopping list is an SM57 or 58 to enable me to do better recordings

small sample

I'm working on polishing that first song, "Better Together" ready for playing it in the pub in a week or so's time.

 

[Garp]

Garp how was those two recordings made (the guitar)? Line in?

and what soundcard do you have?

First recording was my guitar plugged directly in to the breakout box from my Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. Second one had it fed through my 504II pedal but with flat EQ, and just a little 'air' added.

I used Audacity to make both recordings, two takes on guitar one for each song, then sang the vocals using my Plantronics headset.