Yeah, she loves the sound of a steel (as do I), and is really liking the current lessons for slide blues. Speaking of which, I’m finding that I have much more control with slide work if the guitar is in my lap. Anybody else find that to be so?
In my experience, slide control is all about the meaty part of your palm - however you find it comfortable to use it as a mute as you pick the specific strings you want to sound, life is good. 
I saw a YT video about using the thumb base to mute the lower strings, and using fingers for the upper three. The guy also recommended not using a pick, as it makes muting more difficult. The same technique works when the guitar is flat on your lap, but seems more natural to me both for working the slide and for muting/picking/strumming.
Listen, whatever works for you, as a player, to manage how you use the meaty part of your palm and fingers (and thumb over the top) to “manage the sound” is okay by me. As I have said countless times on this board, guitarists understand that 50% of their time is spent getting the right notes to sound and 50% of their time getting everything else NOT to sound ;).
Just wanted to share a little with folks who might care. 
A few years ago I got a totally sweet custom tele build by SDMBer Big Shot. I’ve loved it and had a lot of living room fun with it, and even gigged with it on a few occasions.
As a keyboard player mainly, I typically would just play through the amps of band members in our rehearsal space, but eventually decided to get an amp of my own; settled on an Egnater Rebel 20 + cab that I got at a good price. I loved it, but the lack of any reverb, along with low-volume practicing was just . . . uninspiring.
This Christmas I decided to treat myself to a pedal board (with a budget of $500) to a) give myself a long-missed reverb, and b) just put some spice into my relationship with my guitar.
Thanks to some great deals on the local craigslist and reverb.com (and the TU-3 I already owned), here’s what I ended up with:
[ul]
[li]Just the board[/li][li]The board with my amp and guitar[/ul][/li]
… and, all of it including the actual board and power supply for a bit under my budget.
I’ve spent the last few days building up my callouses again; these pedals are a ton of fun, and the delay is substituting for the reverb quite nicely, though I still have my eye out for a reverb pedal to add to the mix.
Sweet!! You mean Big Shooter?
ETA: What is that - spalted maple?
Holy carp. I just want to say that that is the handsomest Telecaster I’ve seen in a long, long time. If not ever.
And those Egnater amps sure are cute.
I love the idea of a tele playing through a phaser with the VH colors!
I’m still loving the uke but still can’t find any easy version of an E chord but I am getting better at the “real” form of it. Slow transition but I’ll keep at it.
As I related about a year ago, I picked guitar back up after a 15+ year hiatus. It was inspired by buying Rocksmith so I’ve been using my 80’s Hondo flying-V. My wife took interest in the uke so I’ve been teaching her some simple chord progressions (mainly based around the easy uke chords of C-G-Am-F). Today she asked me to play with her so I busted out my 73 Guild F30 that I haven’t played in a decade. Why haven’t I gotten it out before since I started again? Anyway, we had a great time playing. I’m on the lookout for a used uke (baritone would be cool or a bass sting tenor) or classical guitar. She is now more understanding of me sinking a couple hours into playing.
I remember that guitar. Here’s the thread where BigShooter made it. Some of the pic links near the top seem broken now, but the ones further down the thread still work.
I see an overdrive, a fuzz, a phase shifter, and a digital delay. So, um, where’s the reverb? Or did you mean the Roland amp? 
Dang, yes, Big Shooter, my bad.
It’s Korina.
(Also, I kept all the photos and construction details of the guitar; if anyone is interested I just uploaded them again here).
No, I ended up skipping the reverb. I hit my $ limit with what you see before you, so the reverb pedal will have to wait for another time (I’m kind of eyeing a Strymon Flint. Pricey, but I could use it for my synths too . . . maybe next year). Putting the Carbon Copy on with all the knobs dialed into around 9 o’clock gives me enough presence that I can do without the reverb for now . . . and I can do fun things with the delay, so there’s that bonus.
Thanks! I love it; a great feel and sound, and yeah, looks awesome. The pick guard has lost a bit of its luster from general wear and tear, but still pretty cool.
And yeah, the Egnater is sweet; I’d recommend it to anyone. It’s tiny, super-light, and has a really warm full sound. I had been thinking about a Peavey Classic 30 before I had a chance to get my hands on this, and I’m very happy I pulled the trigger on it.
Thanks, that’s a good read. And the results are awesome.
And Eonwe, back to the subject of your post: that’s a lot of pedalboard for $500. Looking at the online reviews, it seems like everybody’s in love with the Carbon Copy. Would you say it’s the best-sounding delay pedal you’ve heard? 'Cause I might have to find one of these…
They have a classic analog delay sound at a decent price. I’ve played with other pricier ones with much more flexibility but I am never going to be that guy, so a CC was a good choice for me.
Yeah, each of those pedals came in at under $100 a piece (the Chrysalis was more because of shipping), so I really made out.
I don’t have a lot of delay experience, and I am not a “tweaker,” so having a zillion bells and whistles is probably not worth it to me. I will say that there are demos of delay pedals I’ve heard online that I liked more than the CC (love the sounds out of the Lunar Echo, but the CC sounds clean and warm, does what it’s supposed to do, and cost me less than a third of some of the fancier delays I might be interested in.
So, I would definitely recommend the Carbon Copy. The only feature it doesn’t have that might have been useful to me is tap tempo.
Hey, I don’t think I’ve shared any of my tunes (or tones) in this thread. Allow me to toss out one or two, for those interested.
Rig Rundown:
1999 Gibson Les Paul Custom (Seymour Duncan JB/Jazz)
2013 Fender American Standard Telecaster, stock
1986 Mesa/Boogie Mark III head –> Mesa Recto Traditional 4x12 cab
all effects are from a TC Electronic Nova System
Decibel Trust, “The Longest Hallway”
- Rhythm guitar is one track of my Les Paul and one of my Tele, lead guitar is all the Tele, all through various settings of my Mesa/Boogie Mark III.
- I love the fuzzy tube-y bass tone my bass player got on this one. You can really hear it on the verses, where the guitar drops out. He plays a fleet of G&Ls through a 1960s Ampeg flip-top bass rig. 50 tube watts + one 15" speaker = warmth to spare.
Decibel Trust, “Hookers Give Lousy Backrubs”
- Guitar is 100% the Telecaster here.
- The solo is my poor man’s David Gilmour. (OK, maybe the homeless man’s Dave.)
- What sounds kind of like a synth under the verses is actually guitar. I’m using my volume pedal to do swells of heavily effected chords. I think it sounds cool.
Any thoughts or reactions are most welcome. I’ve been at this long enough that I think I have a pretty thick skin.
Well, I got my bass ordered. I looked at several. Even bid on a really nice vintage Yamaha MB-1 (the Motion Bass). Its a medium scale (32 inches). Dropped out after the bids went over $400. Seriously considered a newYamaha TRBX504 (34" scale).
Finally decided theFender Pawn Shop Mustang bass was the one. A very simple design. One pickup, strings go through the body, and a simple hard tail bridge. Its a short scale (30"). I got mine ordered in red.
I did some research on La Bella’s web site. Standard and short scale strings are pretty common. Medium scale are special order. That made the Yamaha basses less desirable too me. I like them, and if the opportunity comes up I might buy a vintage MB-1 Yamaha. They were very popular in the 80’s.
Looking forward to getting my Mustang. A friend has offered to give me lessons to get started.
OneCentStamp nice job. I really like The Longest Hallway. Guitar and bass parts are solid. Is this your own composition? I checked out all the songs and they are quite good. The abrupt ending on Hookers caught me by surprise. Thats an reaction you were going for?
You have any problems getting the same sound live? What kind of reaction do you get when you play? Are the crowds into it?
Thanks so much, aceplace. Those songs are indeed all my compositions - my music and words, and arrangements hammered out by the three of us in rehearsal. (I’m the one singing lead as well, with my bass player doing the harmony bits.) As far as the abrupt ending on “Hookers” goes, I think that’s just a case of me going, “Agggggh, this song has been going for five minutes already! No time to fade out!”
Live sound is no problem. I recorded using my live rig, with a bare minimum of in-studio processing, so what you hear there is really how I sound live. The only real difference is that I’m the only guitarist in the band, so my rhythm parts disappear when I play a solo. Live, sometimes Bass Dude will step on a light fuzz or play chords during those parts to fill up more space in the mix.
I think we go over pretty well. Other musicians seem to dig us, which is what I care most about. We have a small but appreciative following, and we play out pretty much exclusively with other bands that play all original material. (It’s no fun to write stuff from the heart, then try to play it to a bar crowd that just wants to hear three hours of ZZ Top covers.) We also have a bit of range - if we’re playing with punk bands, “Hookers” and other slow ones get dropped from the set list for the evening.
Awesome bass, by the way! I love that pickup. I’m a fan of those Yamahas you were considering as well, but that Fender is gorgeous. Can’t go wrong with Fenders in red.
OneCentStamp, solid! I really liked Hookers…
Chefguy, if you have basic woodworking skills I would say kits are probably about the best way to introduce yourself into it. My first instrument was a soprano mahogany ukelele kit from Stew Mac and it was a lot of fun. I gave it to my dad for his 70th birthday, and it turned out very well, although I did spring for Grover tuners instead of the friction fit ones in the kit, and french Polished the whole uke. I’ll probably do a tenor uke with a wiped poly finish someday.
Also, That Tele is frickin gorgeous!