Getting a guitar

[VerbalPuke]

I've always wanted a big muff just for the fact of it being kind of an iconic pedal. I want the big ugly version though.

I had a metal muff but didn't like it. You ever see the bass big muff? Buddy of mine uses one, sounds good.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

The bassist in another band we get on well with leant his to me for a gig. It was decent, especially as the amp being used didn't have decent depth to it and mine washes out at that point. I thought the bass muff lacked something at the other end that fits in pretty well with distorted guitar. We're a three piece so in some tracks the guitar and the bass twist around each other somewhat.

Edited September 20, 2015 by ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster

[thatshortguy]

I feel the same way about the Soul Food pedals.  Love the guitar version, but the bass version just wants to muddy everything up even on its lower fuzz settings, even on 15" cabs.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

For distortion our guitarist will use a Big Muff or will hit overdrive on his Orange amp pedal. He also uses a Fuzz Factory which does all kinds of weird stuff and so I need to be careful about what I use.

 

[VerbalPuke]

Fuzz Factory's are pretty well regarded, I had checked them out when searching for a fuzz of my own but settled on the Cloven Hooz by Earthquaker Devices. I love that thing, it's a really hard sounding fuzz, gets nice and woolly, but can also get that tinny/raspy sort of Rolling Stones in the 60s (Satisfaction) sound. I'm looking to get their Rainbow Machine for Christmas, which I have been talking about for awhile now.

I'm coming up to two years on guitar playing now which is cool. I've gotten much better, though still feel like my technique is sloppy, switching with the open majors is still not that easy for me. I can go from E-A-D and back and forth easily enough, just getting to G from there is hard, or C from anything other than A. So I end up using barre chords often, I actually picked up the E shape barre chord pretty quickly.

But I have learned some songs that I can play with the help of power chords...White Minority, Sonic Reducer, We're Only Gonna Die, We Are the League, Communist Eyes...punk tunes mostly. I have riffs for a bunch of other stuff but don't play any of them all the way through.

Anyway, still dig my Les Paul more than anything, that's such a rad guitar. Probably not anytime soon, but I'd like to get a good Fender Reverb, probably the Deluxe Reverb, maybe a twin if I'm feeling froggy.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I play bass like a guitarist rather than a bassist, but I can't comprehend the difficulty of mastering the guitar. I feel for you and your two years of work. Apparently it DOES all start to come together over time.

For bass you can become relatively proficient quite quickly if you've got decent rhythm and timing. A load of guitarists give it a go to get into bands but struggle because of what the purpose of the bass actually is!

I still have to look at my left hand quite a lot when playing, especially our more complex songs (we're not 3 chord sadly!) but getting better there and trying out more stuff too which is good. Fortunately our genre doesn't require too much funkiness or moving too far up the fretboard and to the higher couple of strings too often, but there's enough to keep me interested.

 

Anyway, here are a couple of tracks from our upcoming EP.

 

(Our guitarist has probably been playing 30 years, the old fella).

 

That one was pre-mastering and sounds a bit punchier now.

 

 

 

https://youtu.be/BmC0y_6eb9k

[VerbalPuke]

I already have a bass, those are boring.

I want to apologize for that statement Hamster. They're not, they just offer a different approach. I think when I had my bass I was similar to you, that I approached it more like guitar and was looking for killer riffs rather than playing good rhythms and beats and shit. I'd like to get a bass again someday, nothing crazy though. Hell, I even played bass with a pick.

For those of you playing an instrument, what/who are some of your biggest influences? Do you pattern a sound after anybody? Why did you pick it up? Just curious, I like talking this stuff.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I actually started learning it because our church in Japan didn't have a bassist and needed one! It's easy to get to a Sunday morning standard quickly as songs are purposefully pretty straight forward.

One of the main guitarists there and one of the drummers and I all liked rock and alt music so we practiced together a few times to cover songs for any open mics / talent nights.

 

Then I came back to the UK and got into Tiny Ghost. Four hours band practice every Friday and 24 gigs in 10 months (20 in about the last 5 months) has helped.

 

Influences and bassists who I love include Jack Bruce, Alex James from Blur, Fumi from Polysics, Rika from Melt Banana and hugely Kim Deal from Pixies.

[VerbalPuke]

I know we discussed pedals a bit, but I don't know if you guys run a bunch of pedals or not? I run six right now, my fuzz is directly into my amp, and the rest of the effects go through my FX loop on my amp. So the reason I bring this up is just for a bit of gee wiz sort of information and such.

So I brought my amp and pedals into my living room because my wife is out of town, and if I jam I can keep an eye on my kids in the living room rather than in m bedroom. For the hell of I decided to put my pedals in a different order. My fuzz always goes directly to the amp so that doesn't count right now. Normally I go Delay, Flanger, Organ Pedal, Synth pedal, and Wah pedal. Today I tried Flanger, Organ, Synth, Delay, and Wah. Yeah...there's a reason that time based pedals should be in the front of the chain because I just wasn't digging my tone. I switched back to my original set up and my tone was back. Mind you, it wasn't an awful sound, but it felt...I don't know hollow? Something like that.

Also also, it's funny how different an amp can sound just by positioning it differently, or putting it in a different room.

Edit - Oh shit, forgot something else. www.reverb.com is selling clip on tuners today for .99 cents. Not sure if you guys need them or not, but it's one of those deals that is hard to pass up, it's a fucking dollar. No tax or shipping either.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Puke Day

[VerbalPuke]

I just made my Christmas purchase for me. I bought an acoustic guitar, which I never figured I'd want one, but I did.

I played around with a friend of mines Washburn and really enjoyed it. I've also been really listening to a lot of blue grass, folk, country sorta stuff (not that shit bro country stuff though), and I enjoy the type of sound you can get from an acoustic. On top  of that I need something I can play at night without waking the kid, and something portable so I can play outside or in the living room. So after a bunch of research I settled on a Yamaha FS720s because most people seemed to agree that this is a fantastic acoustic (the whole FS and FG series from Yamaha really) for the money. I want with the FS rather than FG because I'm a smaller dude and used to electrics, so I opted for a folk style as opposed to the dreadnought, which I understand I might be sacrificing some bass, but both styles sounded good to my ears. Plus the FS720s had a beautiful blue color.

Anyway, ordered it from amazon and it came in a bundle for the same price as just the guitar. So I'm getting a gig bag, tuner, string winder, extra strings, and picks for nothing.

Amazon rules for bundles if you guys ever buy online.

[MDK]

On 29/09/2015, 22:50:20, ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster said:

I play bass like a guitarist rather than a bassist, but I can't comprehend the difficulty of mastering the guitar. I feel for you and your two years of work. Apparently it DOES all start to come together over time.

For bass you can become relatively proficient quite quickly if you've got decent rhythm and timing. A load of guitarists give it a go to get into bands but struggle because of what the purpose of the bass actually is!

I still have to look at my left hand quite a lot when playing, especially our more complex songs (we're not 3 chord sadly!) but getting better there and trying out more stuff too which is good. Fortunately our genre doesn't require too much funkiness or moving too far up the fretboard and to the higher couple of strings too often, but there's enough to keep me interested.

I play bass because I have sausage fingers and I don't know how the hell people play anything other than four chord punk. Slap and Pop? I'd end up breaking my bass.

[VerbalPuke]

I used to play bass with a pick myself, and that was because it allowed me to strum faster. I never even got far enough into it to consider the slap and pop stuff.

so basically I played like you describe myke.

[MDK]

4 hours ago, Puke Day said:

I used to play bass with a pick myself, and that was because it allowed me to strum faster. I never even got far enough into it to consider the slap and pop stuff.

so basically I played like you describe myke.

The reason I took up bass was because I found a sweet, five string, see thru purple bass guitar. Which made me so cool that women got so wet they started to aquaplane around me. Plus I can knock out a few NOFX songs and I can absolutely kill Holiday in Cambodia.

[VerbalPuke]

Anybody have experience with replacing a 5 way pick up selector switch on a Fender? Mine is fucked and I would rather do it myself instead of pay somebody, but I've never really soldered and don't understand the videos/diagrams I have seen. @thatshortguy perhaps?

[thatshortguy]

Indeed, though pickup selectors are one of my least favorite things to replace because there are quite a few posts and wires you need to take care of.

Soldering's surprisingly easy, but just be mindful to not breathe on any of the freshly-soldered joints (causes oxidation which may lead to corrosion/static while you're playing.)  Just hold the trigger on the soldering gun until you see smoke coming from the tip, then take a 60/40 gauge wire and "tin the wire/post" (that's just where you melt down the solder to where it can cover the bare wire or the end of whatever post of the pickup selector you're working with).  Then, attach the two by heating up the post and touching the tinned wire to it while it's still soft.  Some "third hands" will come in handy for this.

The selector will have five posts:  one for the neck pickup, one that activates the neck and the middle, one for the middle pickup, one that activates the middle and bridge pickup, and finally one for the bridge pickup.  Each single coil pickup should have one ground wire (usually black) and one to two other wires (usually other colors; these are meant to be soldered to pickup selectors/etc.)  Humbuckers will have a ground wire and then four other wires.

That said, some pickup configurations require different wiring schemes.  What pickups are you wanting to throw in there?

 

[VerbalPuke]

I'm not actually changing the pick ups, my selector switch is jacked up beyond belief so I just need to replace the switch.

Though looking inside, part of me wants to tinker with this guitar, it's that Marauder I've mentioned before. I like both the pick ups, the jazzmaster pick up and the triple bucker, but I wonder how a good P90 or an actual humbucker would sound in place of that triple bucker.

[VerbalPuke]

I bought a bass for 150 dollars.

My wifes cousin was selling his Squire Jaguar P-Bass (short scale) for 100 dollars because he is in some financial trouble. I told him I'd give him 150 if he'd drive it to my house (he lives in Cali). Done deal.

I'm really excited to have it. I prefer guitar, but any instrument is fun and it will allow me to record bass tracks over guitar parts on my TASCAM (that thing is still a fucking confusing piece of machine though).

[thatshortguy]

If you ever decide to get rid of that bass, you message me immediately.  Matter of fact, I'll trade you an Ibanez mikro for it (I have two and finally came to my senses that I don't need two of the same damn bass, especially when this thing is staring me in the face for $180).

I'm a sucker for short scale basses because...well, duh  

[VerbalPuke]

That Ibanez looks like my first bass when I was 19, except mine was black. Was a really nice sounding bass, not sure if mine was a mikro or not. I didn't know shit back then so the salesman recommended it, said it was a used jazz bass, and I got it for 150. My friend was with me so he helped steer me in the right direction. Glad I never sold my bass amp!

BUT....I'm also not a big dude myself so the short scale is up my alley.

If I had millions of dollars I'd buy you two of those Jaguar basses....

[thatshortguy]

You're good people.  Know that if I ever draw you in Secret Santa, shit will get real.

Funnily enough, the Mikros are actually an even shorter scale.  A lot of makers are starting to play with scale length (parlor, concert, etc.)  We're talking 28.6" (most Mikros), 30" (actual short scale; your Jag or the Douglas violin bass I posted above), or even 24-25" (most shorter Yamaha acoustics or some concert-sized bodies.)

Quick capsule for anyone not familiar with scale length:  it's the measurement from the "nut" (the small, usually plastic, item just before the strings reach where they're turned to be tuned) to the 12th "fret" (the small steel bars that sit on the guitar's neck).  Double that, you have it's length.  The smaller the measurement, the easier it is for short folk like me to play it.