Happy New Year!

Another year is in the books!  Well, in my last post, I made a resolution to pick up my guitar and play something everyday in 2017.  I was able to do that...for about a month!  After about a month, I did play on and off (mostly off) throughout the year, but it mostly consisted of me picking up my little old nylon acoustic that I have by my recliner and playing a riff or two for a few minutes.  That's not what I had in mind when I made my resolution, but I guess it's better than nothing!

The good news is that I might have more of an incentive to play more in 2018...I might have a jamming partner!  My son started getting interested in playing his guitar a few months ago.  

Years ago, I bought him a Squier Strat through Craigslist, hoping that someday he would want to play guitar.  There is a post on here where I mentioned buying him a guitar, complete with the picture of the Squier, so look for the Squier and check it out if you are interested.

Anyway, he started picking up his guitar and trying to play, but he found the body sort of big and uncomfortable to play, especially sitting down.  I let him play my Gibson Melody Maker Flying V and he found that to be more comfortable.  So, we started looking for a guitar with a similar shape (without the curves of a Strat).  We found a Dean z in excellent condition on Craigslist, so I bought it for him.

The next step was to get him an amp. I had given him my first little amp that I got with my first electric guitar, but it was only really designed to play clean, and my son likes metal and alternative stuff. Luckily, I was able to get him a surprisingly good, inexpensive amp online.

Now that he was set up with a new guitar and amp, we went to get him a guitar strap for his Dean.  He saw the basses in the music store and decided to try out some of them (a lot of the music he listen to has some pretty cool bass runs). Well, that was all it took, he was hooked on the bass! I couldn't afford the basses at the music store, but I was able to get him an Ibanez bass from one of the online music stores.


So, the bass came in on the Saturday before Christmas, but we couldn't get it out of the Post Office until December 26th (no weekend service in our rural post office). Anyway, now my son has been playing all three guitars (he got used to the Squier) non-stop since he got his bass.  We've already started playing together (we've got a lot to learn about jamming!), so maybe by the time I post again, we'll have a little duo going!  We'll see!  In the meantime, I wish everyone a Happy 2018!

My 'Happy New Year' Post

Well, it seems that this has become tradition for me the last couple of years.  I've only been posting once a year lately; and this is my 2016 version.  I wish everybody that reads this a Happy 2017!

I almost didn't post anything.  Blogger changed since I posted last, and I was lost there for a moment on how to post a new entry!  Anyway, I'm posting now, so it's all good.

This post is devoted to my New Year's resolution.  I'm not big on resolutions, because I never end up keeping any of them!  This new year I resolve to pick up my guitar and play something daily.  I would be a pretty good player by now if I had done this from the time I started this blog!  I have all it takes to accomplish this resolution:  I have my guitars and amps, and I have plenty of lessons to learn from; but what I lack is the discipline to play daily!  By writing my resolution out here, I hope to accomplish my goal!

In my last post, I mentioned that I wanted an acoustic-electric guitar to round off my collection, but I couldn't buy the guitar I wanted at the time.  Well, this past summer I found an acoustic-electric online for a price so low, I couldn't pass it up.  It's not the one I wanted in my last post, but it's a very good guitar IMHO.  It's a Rogue RA-090 Dreadnought, and I really enjoy playing it.  It has nice electronics and a built in tuner.  It sounds great (to my ears, anyway) either plugged in or unplugged.

When I ordered it, I also ordered a nice strap for it and I ordered some strings for my first ever real guitar that I got when I was about six years old.  That little old guitar became unplayable over the years, but I decided to try to get it playing again.  It had fret buzz throughout most of the neck, but I fixed it by putting a tiny wood shim under the saddle, thus raising the action just enough to eliminate the fret buzz.  Now it's my practice guitar that I have leaning against the wall next to my favorite chair.  It's sort of small for my adult-size fingers to do any chord work on it, but I can still finger pick and do melody work on it.  So I'm using that little old guitar as a stepping stone to achieve my goal of playing daily.  Wish me luck!  Happy New Year!

Musical Stuff and Apps...

First of all, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!  This year went by too fast!  Nothing new to report as far as guitars go.  My guitar family is more or less complete, so no new guitars this year.  I did see a nice electric-acoustic Yamaha at my nearest music store (40+ miles away!), but that beauty will have to wait until more funds come my way (someday)!

In the meantime, I did manage to buy an inexpensive ukulele and harmonica to keep in the car with me and practice.  Pretty fun stuff!  Another fun purchase I made this year (my Father's Day/Birthday self-gift) was an LP Black Cajon.  It's great just to mess around with and create new drum patterns!

I'm an old guy, set in my ways, but this year I decided to jump onto the portable digital devices bandwagon.  I bought an inexpensive tablet a little over a month ago, and so far, I like it.  Within the last couple of weeks, I've found some apps for it that I really like. 

• The first app I found (that I liked) is called Chord! Free.  It is a free guitar chord library that includes guitar scales and tunings for different stringed instruments (all with audio). 

• I also found 96 Free Blues Guitar Licks.  This is a library of 96 guitar licks:  24 Classic Blues licks, 24 Chicago Blues licks, 24 Rockabilly Blues licks, and 24 Texas Blues licks.  Each lick can be transposed into any key, and includes the tab and audio (at regular and slow speeds).

• The last app I have (so far) is for harmonica.  It's called Harmonica Easy Tab.  This is also a free app that contains a library of songs.  The songs are listed alphabetically or by level of difficulty.  Each song or riff includes tab and audio.  The audio is only at one speed, but it is easy to follow along with the tab.  The tab consists of numbers corresponding with the harmonica holes, and denotes draws by showing the hole number in a white circle.  The tab also denotes chords and bends (all explained in a 'help' section).

These are all great apps and worth looking into!

May 2016 be great year for everyone out there!  Stay safe and stay tuned!

Ukes and Wildkats

I couldn't let the year go by without posting at least once.  My posting activity reflects my time devoted to the guitar this year - which is very little, sad to say.  I guess my best excuse is "Life gets in the way".  I've been busy with other things, so my playing time has suffered.

I did manage to get some musical gear this past year.  A few years ago, I bought my son a pineapple ukulele for Christmas.  Late last year, he had it out and I started messing around with it.  I liked it so much, that I bought one for myself as my 2013 Christmas gift.  I found tons of instructional videos on YouTube, and off I went, into the wonderful world of ukes!  I liked my little pineapple uke so much, that for Father's Day, I bought a larger, tenor acoustic/electric ukulele!  The ukulele is a great little instrument, and I highly recommend it  for anyone, especially if you already play guitar.  I have found that playing the ukulele really helps me with my strumming.  The chords on a uke are super easy, compared to the guitar.  As a result, I can concentrate on my strumming and timing more instead of worrying about my chord positions - uke chords are that easy!

I didn't forget about the guitar, though!  As evident in this blog, I have all sorts of guitars, but I didn't have a guitar with P-90 pickups in it.  So for my birthday, I got myself one.  I was able to find a slightly used Epiphone Wildkat.  It's a beautiful and wonderful guitar!  It's a semi-hollow guitar with P-90 pickups and a Bigsby vibrato on it.  It's really fun to play - I just wish I had (or made) more time to play it!

Well, that's my post for this year.  Maybe this coming year will find me playing (and posting) more.  I wish everybody reading this a Happy New Year!

Surprise!

After almost a year since my last post, I decided to post again.  I've been very busy with work, so I haven't made time to post here.  I haven't even made much time to play my guitars!  I'm trying to work on playing more and learning more.

As far as gear goes, I haven't been as active as

in the past, but I did manage to buy an older solid state amp late last year.  I had been wanting an old fashioned amp with all the knobs instead of the newer, computer interfaced stuff that is out there now.  I had also wanted some sort of external cab for my little Champ 600 tube amp.  I found both of those things in one package!  I bought an older, USA-made Crate G-120C stereo chorus amp.  I found it locally and at a very good price.  It is more amp than I need, really, but when I saw that the speaker connections were not hard-wired and that I could disconnect the speakers from the amp and connect them to something else, I had to buy it.  It turned out that each speaker was 4 ohms, just like the speaker in my Champ, so it was a perfect fit.  So now, I have a very nice (big and loud) solid state amp, plus I can use it as a cab for my Champ!  I've only used it with my Champ a few times, and it sounds great.  I mostly use it as is.  I grew really fond of the way it sounds and the versatility it provides.

As mentioned, it is a stereo chorus amp, but it also has reverb and a bright switch which work with both the clean and distortion channels.  The clean channel has a low, mid, and high EQ and the distortion channel has a "shape" control for adjusting the tone.  The amp also has an effects loop and a headphone jack.  The effects loop makes more noise than I like, so if I want to add an effect, I just add it between the guitar and the amp and it works great.  The headphone feature is very nice also.

It's funny, but now that I bought this amp, I feel my gear needs have been satisfied.  I have my different guitars, a good overdrive and a good distortion pedal, and some multi-effects units, and now I have one amp of each kind:  a tube amp, a modeling amp, and a basic solid state amp (plus I can use it as a cab for my tube amp).  So, I'm a happy camper!  Let's see if I can make more time to play more often now (and to post more often too).  Until next time!

Melody Maker

Well, now I've done it!  I went ahead and bought a Gibson!  No, not a $1,000 + guitar, but just the opposite.  I found the deal of the year as far as guitars go:

I had been thinking of getting a guitar with P90 pickups for Father's Day, and I had been visiting online vendors in search of an affordable guitar.  I had my sights set on an Epiphone WildKat (unless a better deal came along).  Well, that 'better' deal came in the form of a Gibson Melody Maker Flying V!  Although this particular Melody Maker is not a P90-equipped guitar, it was a deal too good to pass up. 

Last year, Gibson came up with a line of humbucker-equipped Melody Makers in all (or nearly all) of the iconic Gibson shapes.  The guitars initially sold for over $500, which at the time, was the lowest price I had ever seen on a new Gibson guitar.  The prices on these guitars started gradually going down, and now this past May, I saw them advertised at the same price as an Epiphone WildKat.  When I saw the Melody Maker Flying V, I just had to buy it!  I'm usually not into 'pointy' guitars, but I make an exception for the Flying V because it is my Son's favorite guitar shape.  He plays the Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games, and his 'guitar' for those games is a Flying V.  Whenever he draws a guitar, he draws a Flying V, so I couldn't pass up buying the Melody Maker Flying V (plus the price was fantastic).

I got the guitar almost a month ago, and I was very pleasantly surprised.  The guitar came in perfect condition and it was set up just right.  All I had to do was tune it and start having fun!  What I really like about the guitar is that it is very light weight.  I had read that it was light weight, and since I knew my Son would like it, I was hoping it would be light enough for him to hold comfortably.  It was just as I had wanted, so now he can hold the guitar while I try to teach him some guitar basics.  The guitar has only one bridge pickup and one volume control knob (no tone control), but with only that control, the guitar is very responsive.  The tone can be manipulated with an amp or a pedal, so the lack of more controls or pickups becomes a non-issue.  Overall, I am very happy with the Melody Maker.  It's a USA-made guitar for a great price that is hard to beat!

My Multi-Effects Pedals

It's been another three months since my last post, so I decided to do a post about my multi-effects pedals. Since my last post, I bought another DigiTech multi-effects pedal. This newest one is an RP155.

My first DigiTech multi-effects pedal was an RP50. I bought it in 2008, when I was first getting into electric guitar. It's a good pedal to start out with. I like it because it's small and compact, but after a while, I started wondering about the models that come with an expression pedal built in.

My RP200 has an expression pedal. I bought it for next to nothing off of Craigslist last year. It is an older, American made version and is made very well. I like it not only because of the expression pedal, but because it has an auxiliary input and a dedicated headphone jack. I can hook up an mp3 player with backing tracks, or the audio from a computer based training video to it and play along. The headphone jack comes in handy late at night too.

My new RP155 has a 20 second looper on it. I had never used a looper before, so I decided to give one a try. So far, I really like it. The looper on this model is very basic and easy to use (which is a good thing). Even though it's very basic compared to a dedicated looper, I can add as many overdubs as I want. The initial loop length dictates the length of each additional overdub. In other words, if the initial loop is 10 seconds, for example, the overdub loops can't be over 10 seconds each. So it's better to make the first loop as close to 20 seconds as possible. That gives me more time for the additional overdubs. What I like about the RP155 having a looper built in is that I can create a loop, stop it, and then change presets and play the loop again and play over it or overdub it using the new preset.

The only drawback that people have commented about is the fact that you cannot use the drum machine while using the looper. If I ever get fancy enough to want to use a drum machine and the looper at the same time, all I have to do is add the RP200 after the RP155 and use the RP200 drum machine.

Since the RP200 also has an AUX input, I could also place it in front of the RP155 and add additional sounds to loop through the RP155 using the PR200's AUX input. I tried doing just that shortly after I got it. I have a keyboard that allows me to record a limited sequence of notes on it, so I played some notes and recorded them and then hooked the keyboard up to the RP200 AUX input, with the RP200 in front of the RP155, and I was able to loop my recorded keyboard notes.

The RP155 also works with software called X-Edit that you can download from the DigiTech website via a USB port on the unit. I was checking out the software, and it is pretty cool. I can change presets and store them in different locations on the RP155 pretty easily (plus I can name them). I even found a preset that is set up to emulate a bass, so I relocated it closer to the presets I like so far. That way, I have a whole three or four piece band I can use with the looper function - guitar, bass, and drums (from the RP200)!

Needless to say, I've been having fun experimenting with my DigiTech family. Now, I just need to practice some actual new stuff on the guitar to put all of my 'one-man-band' ideas into action! I've been studying up on some music theory as it applies to the guitar, so that will help me expand my playing also. Oh yeah, I also re-strung my acoustic with 10s. These new strings are a lot easier on the fingers than what was on it before, so it makes me want to play it more often. Speaking of 'more often', I hope I can start posting more often also. Stay tuned and see if I really do it this time!