Levi Clay is great for that sort of stuff ?

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Been enjoying the new Polyphia album like mad:

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Who would have thought that mixing RnB/Hip-Hop with shred guitar would work so well ?

So as Nick said basically the arming adjuster or tremol-no set to drop only or fixed will be fine with going drop D, if you wanna tune a semitone down that becomes less likely to happen but your own individual action etc will play a big part there, you can do it on a fixed tremol-no though. Anything further than a semitone down and I rate that only the fixed tremol-no will really do the trick, I say this without really ever experimented with an arming adjuster, let alone 2, however I have messed with a single install Hipshot Tremsetter ?

Norio wrote: Way I figure it, it should be easiest to do this with a Tremol-no: Lock the tremolo, change tuning, unlock the tremolo.

That won't work, literally nothing on the market will do that for you, the springs need to balance. You can lock the trem and tune to your new tuning, but the moment you unlock it everything will get knocked out of whack. You can lock the trem, tune to your new tuning, then tune back to your original tuning and that'll be fine, but what you're asking for is literally unachievable.

Norio wrote: It also sounds like the Arming Adjusters will help with changing the tuning quickly? (Well quick for a floating bridge.)

Nick is dead on, but the arming adjusters unfortunately won't help you with changing tuning quickly, if you were to say put your low E down to D it still requires that the springs balance out, in that respect a locked down tremol-no would be best. The Tremol-no will only assist in keeping double stop bends in tune if it is fixed or in drop only mode.

In fairness the ESP Adjusters and the Tremol-no do two different things entirely, so they're not really alternatives to each other.

When I ordered mine I got them through the all parts agency which at that point was something Music Connection were doing.

I've had them in my 6 and 7 strings and getting the balance can be a bit tricky, if they're not correctly balanced they hinder the motion of the bridge a bit so you'll know if you don't have it right.

For Ibanez I believe you'd generally need the small claw variant as those are what my guitars used, but they were Prestiges so I'm not sure if the block dimensions would differ.

Also the little thumb screws are bastards and can sometimes work their way out of the chassis if left untightened, some people use little springs or pieces of tubing to put counter tension on them to relieve this issue, but for home use you should be okay ?

PbZepplin wrote: I think if you are talking about classical guitars, then country of manufacture definitely does matter. The best classical guitars are made in Spain, followed by Brazil. Japan has made some good classical guitars that are fine for everyday practice; however, most classical guitarists rely on Spanish- or Brazil-manufactured classical guitars for performances. I think for classical guitars, the quality of the acoustics of a guitar are of primary importance, and this depends heavily on the quality of woods used and the skill of the luthier. For steel string or electric guitar, the acoustics of the guitar and quality of the wood used are less important, which is why countries such as China have made inroads.

This is incorrect, there is nothing more complex about making a nylon string than there is about making a steel string, if anything it's easier cause there's no truss rod or radius on the fretboard to consider and the bracing is just bracing, it has a purpose and is arranged in such a way as to fulfill that purpose, there's no voodoo magic going on, or at least nothing that prohibits affordable nylon strings from being acceptable instruments or prevents mass manufacture of a reasonable quality standard.

I doubt that literally all top classical guitar players only play Spanish or Brazilian guitars, more that there's a propensity for it because that's what's always been used and therefore they've attained that mystical reputation. If anything the fact that they've stuck with that mindset or that the mindset is the dominant view in that genre just speaks to a disproportionate importance on tradition and an unwillingness to move with the times, even more so than the average electric player ?

Country of origin matters, and it matters a lot ?

When a guitar company is going to do a run of guitars coming out of a factory in China and one coming out of a warehouse in America who do you think they will allocate the higher quality of wood to? You'll probably see 3 or 4 piece bodies coming out of the Chinese run but 2 piece bodies out of America, which will probably be much lighter too? and the reason is that the guitar market is still very stubborn about country, so why risk the good stuff on the lower market perception item?

Now I personally believe a skilled luthier can exist anywhere in the world and make a good guitar, but when you're a company paying out thousands of dollars to make sure a factory churns out a thousand good guitars you know that market perception matters.

G-Man wrote: And it always happens that the songs speed up when performing live, I think drummers should drink chamomile tea and have rescue drops before a show so that the adrenaline doesn't boost up the BPM ?

Make your drummer play to a click, then this doesn't happen and all your delays and modulation effects can be tempo synced which will add much more coherency to your overall sound ?

Generally 10 - 46 + 60 + 80 depending on the guitar ?

RG1527 - 25.5" scale
RG2228 - 27" scale

If you're in Cape Town Foster from Foster's Guitarworks can do it, but honestly it'll cost more than half what your guitar is worth so it may not be the wisest financial decision.

Guitarstar wrote: Chad Adam Browne - hope you don't mind me asking, what does your boss do when he's not playing guitar ?

He's the manager at Feedback, which is a local distribution agency that handles the import of FMIC products ?

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He's a pretty reasonable guitar player too ?

My boss gets hired to do sessions a lot and it's basically because he's just really old friends with a guy who owns a big recording studio, you would have heard him on Outsurance adverts etc. It pays well when it's a big client like that but nowhere near enough or frequently enough to make a living, hence why he's my boss and not a session guitar player ?

Echoing the opening sentiments, session work is pretty much dead everywhere in the world, to get any foothold in the dying industry that it is would require an insane amount of work and the financial gain most likely won't justify it.

Howdy ya'll,

A local musician named Luke Otto has recently had his gear stolen, please be on the lookout for the following:

Warwick Pro Series 6 String Bass
- Ash body with dark stain
- wear around the pickups and input jack
- after market BRASS Just-A-NUT nut.
Serial No. available on request.

Darkglass Engineering B3k Bass Overdrive
- no box
- very rare in SA

Gallien-Krueger MB112 1x12 Combo Bass Amp
- Not the latest model, very lived in and scuffed.

Please share and spread the word. Stolen on 07/04/2017 in Observatory, Cape Town.

Send me a PM or email to: lkotto@gmail.com

Pics here:

To be brutally honest the market for instrumental jazz fusion, or at least the music that implies to me, is non existent in South Africa so if you release a single now or an album later the net effect will probably be underwhelming.

The question is, what's your goal? Do you want reach, or financial gain cause I think that changes the circumstances entirely.

I'm going to put out there that if it's something you are really passionate about rather put out the single now, then spend time learning about recording yourself and instead of wasting money at a studio create a sustainable and upgrade-able home recording scenario, it'll probably cost the same as the total studio time but you'll be much safer in future for it which will allow you to continue to create the music you wanna create without worrying about the financial drop you'll have to make to put it out, this will free up further funds for marketing rather which for this kind of music to start up you'll need to figure out and invest heavily in cause your market is basically not this country.

domhatch wrote: yeh. so the idea behind a 'modular' guitar - for me at any rate - would be more to emulate a range of different guitars. yes? you'd want something like a les paul, something like a strat, something like a tele, and so on, and you'd want something that can change from the one to the other quickly (so to speak, because you're using this thing in a gigging situation), all in one, neat package that's relatively aesthetically not vomitous.

can these do that? is that the intention?

Aesthetically I guess they can, but if we were to look at say two options 1 being a tele style and 2 being a les paul, that means that you'd have to buy two seperate pickup modules, 2 seperate bridge modules, 2 seperate body modules, 2 seperate fretboard modules and even then I would have questions like how exactly do they change scale length? How can you switch radius that easily without the action just being shit to start with? How have they attached the neck?

I mean I don't personally think that body wood has a huge influence on tone, or at least that the influence it has is greatly misplayed in the media and by guitar companies alike but I doubt that these "frame" style bodies will give us the transfer of energy we're looking for.

So after you've purchased all these extra modules that'll be proprietary to this product and given that the manufacturer is an upstart you'll probably have spent enough to just get a decent les paul and tele individually instead.

domhatch wrote: ps - what was that line 6 guitar emulator; the variax? did anyone ever play one of those? i heard those were pretty ok? what's the difference between that concept and this?

The Variax has come very close to achieving what it's set out to do, I don't think the technology will ever be common place because guitar players seem to shy away from technologically like it's the plague or something, but the biggest problem with the original Variax was that the tech was cool but the guitar to the majority of people, myself included, felt like shit. The newer Variax models were redesigned by James Tyler and they are much better playing and feeling guitars and the technology has improved so hopefully they're gaining more market traction with that ? and there's also this:

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Meron Rigas wrote: Maann, I love the look of the Micheal Spalt guitars. Wizard is also a fan, maybe this means he might try and incorporate some of the design cues into a build someday...

Dunno about the ego or birdfish - like the tech and the innovation. Not the look so much, but the somnium will be about 1/4 of the cost (or less) so apples and oranges to compare them to this three highend beauties.

I just think the three I posted are more modular in a purposeful and more useful way, like if you don't like the forearm contour on the Spalt or the Ego you can adjust it's location or get a new piece made to be deeper or shallower etc till you find exactly what you're looking for, I think given the inherent disparities in construction methods the Somniums will never really be anything more than a jack of all trades but master of none. If the Somnium is a 1/4 of the cost of the Birdfish it'll still probably be about $1800 and I'm pretty sure I can find a hell of a lot more guitar in that price range than it will be ?

Those are hideous ?

Here are some modular guitars that aren't gut wrenchingly ugly ?

Marconi Labs Ego Guitar



Michael Spalt Hybrid





Ulrich Teuffel Birdfish



These are not aesthetically modular, they're functional ?

Best thing about Namm to me so far:

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and

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Really keen on the Andromeda and the Powerstage 700, I think I'm gonna order both this year :3

Definitely the Mass Effect soundtracks (all of them really), this is the track Lu22 is talking about:

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I believe it was written by Clint Mansell (Requiem For a Dream/The Fountain)

Bioshock Infinite because of the querky ragtime re-imagined covers of pop music and the sense of early Americana.

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Doom (The newest one written by Mick Gordon)

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

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This might be a nostalgia thing but I loved this game growing up and really still like the soundtrack ?

Here's a cool Medley somebody did of all the Ocarina of Time tracks :3

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And Ben Levin using songs from Ocarina of Time to explain Modes ?

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Arcanum's soundtrack is also quite nice if you just want beautiful string music:

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Final Fantasy OSTs can be quite good too

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or covers of it

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As for the Elder Scrolls games, I think the predecessor to Skyrim, Oblivion, has a better soundtrack ?

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And it's predecessor Morrowind's is even better:

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(This may be pure nostalgia)