***The Official Guitar Thread***

Nitefly

Nitefly

Nitefly

Man of Honour
Joined
24 Sep 2005
Posts
35,991
We used to have a pretty buzzing guitar community on here featuring some stunning musicians. These days it's all gone a bit quiet, so in attempt to kick-start that community feeling once again I've decided to start a thread for all things guitar (complete with mirrored asterixed title).

This thread coincides with my recent re-addiction to the instrument (conveniently saving me from from babbling away on this subject to anyone equally disinterested in real life). Having neglected guitar for the best part of 10 years I now find myself dashing home and completely losing my evenings noodling away, wearing an evil smile that could only be worn whilst furiously playing some half-speed Slayer. The ultimate aim is to *deep breath* start my own band, which I'm hoping will come to be within the next year or so once I've got the chops and the musical know how to back it up.

Unlike 10 years ago, I now have disposable income, so I have today spanked out some hard earned cash on a few treats that I thought I would share, namely:

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I tried the Boss equivalent of this at PMT in Bristol today - it made the single coil Squire Strat I was given sound like the ****ing apocalypse. I could not believe the difference an EQ pedal can make to tone (having previously dismissed it as an unnecessary addition to amp controls). How have I lived without one before! I look forward to perfecting my mad ...And Justice For All tonez.

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I rarely have a free house but when I do and get to turn my amp (a Blackstar HT5) up to 'I can just comfortably stand in the the room' levels, it gets rather noisy and unpleasant with amp hiss and squeaks. My intention is to put this in the effects loop and chop out all that nastiness.

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This is a Keeley modded Ibanez TS9DX. My intention was to find an overdrive pedal to play with and shape my amps tone and i thought an Ibanez TS9 was an obvious place to start. I found some info regarding a Keeley mod to the stock DS9 (recognizing the name from an awesome modded Keeley DS1 I played with years ago) which led me to two variants... a high gain mod and a higher gain mod. There was then a further available mod to make it true bypass. Whilst trying to find stock in the UK, I then realised I could just plump for this beast and get all the mods in one box. Mwahaha!

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This is a now discontinued pedal that I always wanted 10 years ago so managed to nab it for £35 on ebay. It had good reviews and I'm eager to test out its octave function for some Muse goodness.

So all in all, not quite Raymond Lin levels of excess, but I'm getting there!

I could go on endlessly but rather than bore you all to death - what's your latest news? Any gigs / new songs / practice woes / purchases / techniques / anecdotes / anything you want to share... please do so! :)
 
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I'm sorry.

Cool thread. Would be fun to go 'old school' and buy some pedals again. I'm much more interested in recordings over gear though - maybe people could post their guitar related material in this thread? Would be awesome to hear what you come up with Nitefly!
 
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Haha yes - I'm sure even a budget recording set-up would smoke the tones I'm coming out with :D

My only means of recording at the moment is via a dictaphone I use for work and it doesn't sound great (or at least a lot tinnier than it does to my ears). That's not even getting on to the subject of my actual playing, which is very amateur! I'd love to put some recording up here though for a bit of fun. My original idea for this thread was actually a 'shred-log' similar to the training logs we have in the sports forum, which I'd update once every 2 weeks with a new clip. It will take it years to get it up there I think.

Oh and yes, everyone feel free to post any recording compositions / youtube vids / anything broadly subject related :cool:
 
The MXR and the ISP have landed! First impressions:

ISP - being frank the first thing I realised is that I don't really run my amp loud enough in the bedroom to make best use of this pedal - my Blackstar amp is only 5 watts so hiss is already fairly low at reasonable volumes. I did a bit of experimentation though (sorry neighbours) and at 'annoying the crap out of your housemate level' it does what it says on the tin to the point where I nearly pulled a 'Back to the Future' :o All in all, it's clearly not essential for the bedroom maestro but perhaps more useful if running a beastly amp head at lower volumes. It would be useful for gigging, but yeah, let's see if I get that far!

MXR - OK now we're talking! All I know so far is that dropping those 1khz / 2 khz sliders fractionally, barely at all really (to my surprise), results in that 'scooped' sound I'm after :cool: It's amusing to me to have all of these sliders that go up and down this huge distance.. but it seems that only make very subtle movements of the sliders (as you view them on the pedal) makes such a pronounced difference to the entire 'feel' of the tone. My current experimentation is with raising with the mids on my amp then dropping them via the EQ and vice versa. It's difficult to decide where to start when there are so many options, which is kind of overwhelming - happy to receive any hints from the more experienced!
 
Boosting mids with a pedal is an old trick that lead guitarists use when soloing. You'll find it helps you cut through the band that little bit more, without any volume adjustment.

My days in a Van Halen cover band are long gone (circa 2006) but I've still got my 3 main pedals. Boss digital delay (DD-5), MXR phase 90 and a noise gate. I did have a line 6 POD for flange effects but I sold it years ago. Also had a Dunlop wah which died when my mate dropped it out the back of his car at 30mph :rolleyes:

Regardless, I've never had many effects. Almost always use the volume control as a gain knob.. You'd be surprised how a lead channel can clean up just by backing off the volume on the guitar. Try experimenting!

This video explains how you can diversify your sound by playing around with volume knobs in conjunction with the tone controls, which sort of addresses your point! Crazy to think most people run tone controls at 10 constantly!


I'd recommend an Ibanez tube screamer as one of the "must have" pedals. Used with the right amp it sounds amazing. Other ones which stand out that I've used are a Dunlop carbon copy clone (analog delay) and the big muff fuzz pedal.
 
I had a bit of an impulse moment on reverb.

One second I was browsing, next second this arrived in the post.

i still think aesthetic wise, the telecaster is a bit of a weird looking guitar but this one is pretty amazing. It is also stupidly light, the pick ups are articulate but also has some punch.

p.s. love the twang that it gives.

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Alder body, rosewood fretboard, Porter 9T pickups on bridge and neck, 3 saddle brass bridge.
 
Nitefly said:
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This is a Keeley modded Ibanez TS9DX.
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This pedal is the main stress I have on stage with my lead guitarist because it makes so much bloody noise in between his Strat and Marshal TSL602.
Every gig I must stick my foot on it at least 10 times to shut the bloody thing up.
Mind you, what an absolutely amazing sound it makes.
Listen to his solos at 2:30 and 4:15

 
Dimple - awesome :D

The modded tubescreamer has arrived and I'm genuinely shocked (and delighted) at the difference in tone it has made. I'm used to cranking up the gain with my amp which leads to lots of string noise (which I fight to keep under control) and chords can end up 'mushy'. With the tube screamer, everything sounds distorted but also super 'clean'. There is absolutely no mush to speak of. I'm having fun just playing one note and vibrato-ing away. It sounds that good.
 
Got my lad a Baby Taylor the other week and I've played it tons. It's such a great travelling guitar, great sound for the size, and a brilliant learner guitar for the younger player. Really recommended if someone is looking for something along those lines.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Did you get the Taylor Swift sig one? :D
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I didn't even know they did one! Well in a few years then yes I may for my daughter. My lad would kill me if I had got him that one though not sure it would match the Linkin Park t-shirts. However, if it plays as well as the normal one I'd be a happy owner - I don't care if it had Kajagoogoo written along the front it it played well. :D
 
The baby taylor is a VERY nice travel guitar and great for the sofa playing but arguable the best small size guitar is the GS Mini, it costs a bit more but it's literally a full size guitar shrunk, it has the same neck joint as the full size guitar with the relief rout, it sounds much bigger than it looks.
 
Yep, well if he keeps working hard we'll see about that kind of price range in a few years if he still needs a travel size guitar. But I've got him a Fender Mini, Baby Taylor and Raimundo classical in the past two years. Not being funny but if I had wanted to learn music as a kid my mum would have given me two spoons a few old knackers saucepans and told me to be a drummer ...
 
Dimple said:
It is hard to believe how one pedal makes all that difference.
Last week we were working on getting his pedal board down to basics and he chose the Ibanez, Boss delay and Boss tuner.
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Agreed, I stripped back my board a few years ago and due to the type of music I play I wasn't far off that (Keeley modded TS9, DD5, DD7 and TU2). Much more than that now but tempted to go back to basics as well.

There are some great pedals out there but so many I have come across that just have the unfortunate habit of sucking tone. I am a great believer in companies like Keeley and JHS that improve on something that is pretty darn good in the first place but just help to keep that vital tone.

I used to play around with building pedals but haven't done so for years. Had a nice little sideline in making tap tempo pedals (unbelievably easy to do).
 
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