By the way, that was the Epiphone Telecaster and my beater. I dropped it and cracked the neck mount so I glued it. Believe it or not, it sounded better. :eek:
This was my main rig. I quit playing years ago. :rolleyes:
Yes, this very much. When I first got the pedal I spent a lot of time trying to imitate Cream and so on, but then I realized I just like some of the tones in the middle and didn’t do so much “wah”.
Right. Wah Wah pedal is great for wah wah effects but also great for selecting a tone. Another great pedal for tone is an Octaver.
Nice clips Wordman! Just checked in and saw. Yup, I recall the riffs and tone was great, even out of my BluesJr and my Tele+11’s. It’s in the hands.
PS: I thought your go-to Tele was that ‘raw beef’ colored one from way back in the thread? I don’t recall a butterscotch one. What are we looking at? Straight-up ash + what pickups? I recall bridge was low-power Duncan, you’d mentioned that in person but I thought that was in the cherry Tele Special.
PPS: you seemed to enjoy my OCD the other day, what’s your review? I forgot to ask after, but you had asked to use that one of mine.
Hehee, when you described your style, I was assuming you’d be holding down the bass part with your thumb. Nope, I was projecting how I play on ya. You leave a lot of room for the bass in there. I like the funk the most.
Nice tone, but it needs more gain. Then again, I’ve heard very few guitar sounds that couldn’t benefit from a bit more gain, so don’t listen to me. I’m stupid for gain. 
My friend Larry taught me a lot about audio mixing when I first started working for him; he definitely improved my skills behind the console.
Anyway, the first and most important thing he taught me, and he told me it would be, was gain structure. Gain structure dictates the sound because it is how you get a foundation to work from. And one of the things he taught me was the initial gain stage is crucial to getting the right end result.
And in the case of guitar, as Neil Young taught me, that means lots of gain early.
When I play guitar, my pots on the guitar are wide open. My amp’s gain is also wide open. I don’t even need a lot of volume to achieve the most amazing overtones this way, which is crucial to the droning, repetitive style I favor.
And since people have been sharing their music lately, please allow me to share with y’all as well. This is my favorite song I’ve ever heard; I’ve listened to it easily more than a thousand times just since recording it, let alone how many times I played it while writing and rehearsing. In fact, I still listen to it nearly every day. For clarity, there are three tracks: rhythm guitar, lead guitar and klong yaw (it’s a drum). No editing on any of the tracks, each is a single take. The lead took me 2 tries but it was improvised so I think that’s okay. The rhythm took me 3 or 4 takes before I was satisfied and the klong yaw was first take.
Of course, I think it sounds better the louder it is, but YMMV.
Hope y’all like it too.
Hey guys, nice work! Love those tones.
Bo, that’s not just initial gain stage I’m hearing on the rhythm track - that’s like Insane Gain. Is that just a guitar and exploding amp, or is there a pedal in there, too?
And WordMan, that’s exactly what I expected. Well done.
First, thanks for listening.
Actually, there’s no amp in the recording; that was direct from my pedal to the computer (I record/mix everything digitally with Logic Pro; I master with iZotope Ozone software, if anyone cares).
So yeah, I have a Zoom G7.1 pedal board that I use to shape the sound and yes, on my preferred custom setting, the gain is wide open at every stage (which is pre-amp, EQ, etc.). Again, that gain is necessary to help propagate the overtones that I love so much. Plus, it just helps me achieve my main goal.
ETA: Here’s the thing. I don’t have band. So when I play, I want to fill as much sonic space as possible with just my one instrument. I think that’s why I like the droning, repetitive thing so much; it just fills all the space so nicely. Like, I find it a really pleasant sensation. Since I’ve always had a minimalist streak, this hasn’t bothered me; it’s just the way I play and write now.
I am on the road for word, and have to get to a breakfast meeting (at 6:30am Central - fun), but want to add m $02:
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Bo - yeah, you sound like I expected!! Very cool, Stoner-Droney rock - I hear a lot of QOTSA and that’s a good thing! And yes, I am totally into drone strings and filling in the sound, too, and have riffs that enable me to do that. Hmm, I will have to think about setting my iPhone on the bookshelf at some point to show that.
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Bo and scabby - you guys and your gain!!
Since, I am after my fingerstyle, touch-dynamic sorta approach, I want to drive the gain when I spank the strings - look at that clip for Bang a Gong; you can hear the strings, and then when I spank the first chorus chord, it gains up nicely. That’s my goal in a nutshell.
squeegee - yeah, I sound like me, regarding of what I play through!
The sequence for my Teles:
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Thought about building a guitar from parts for a while; didn’t quite know how to start
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Found someone’s orphaned parts-o-tele at a local shop. Had a few parts I would’ve picked (and some I didn’t know I would end up loving, like Seymour Duncan’s Jerry Donahue Signature Tele bridge pickup). Got, oh, $1200 worth of parts for $350. The neck pickup is one of those parts that attracted me; it is a Seymour Duncan Phat Cat, meant to be an overwound single coil, but more like a Jazzmaster pickup vs. a P-90.
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Swapped out the body (my current one is swamp ash; doper Crotalus got the original to start his own project), recontoured the neck, upgraded some of the electronics, etc.
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Based on that success, I built the Tele Special, e.g., the Tele with a short scale neck, raw beef Gibson SG finish and such, from scratch. It was my main gigging guitar for years. But as I have gotten more into that weird fingerstyle approach I have been using, I have been drawn to my first Blackguard Tele’s longer neck scale. Between that and the .12’s, I get the stiffer set up I am looking for. Also, for the type of just-gained-up tone I am after, the swamp ash is a bit brighter than the Korina (basically a form of mahogany) body on the Tele Special, so I have a bit more brightness to work with in the tone of it.
Your OCD overdrive pedal was fun! I would love to live with one for a bit and play with it at a higher volume and being able to dial it in more. In other words, a very usable dirtbox.
Must run! Yay, guitar geekery and hearing stuff!
Thanks for listening! I find it interesting that you hear QOTSA in that song only because I’ve only ever heard, I think, one song of theirs about 18 years ago. They’re not terrible, just not what I prefer.
I watched your videos and you’re a lot more disciplined than I am. I liked seeing that you do certain flourishes with your picking hand that seemed more designed to keep the rhythm/timing right than anything else; I do that too.
I thought your tone was great: clean but with a little crunch and yeah, your gain structure is just right to let you pull more out when you want/need it.
Prolly just me, but even when I play clean, I like the gain pots on my guitar wide open. I remember when I first started playing, I would just turn it up enough to get some sound, but I found I liked the nuances that come out with more gain: fingering, attack and release become orders of magnitude more important (and more noticeable) at higher gains, and for whatever reason, I like that, even when I hear flaws in my playing (which is near constant).
One of the musicians I follow on YouTube is a guitarist/drummer named Jared Dines.
Last fall he posted a video describing how a guy ripped him off by taking money to build an insane guitar and then never delivered.
Night before last he posted this new video that shows him getting an 18 string guitar from Australia’s Ormsby Guitars. It’s pretty phat!
For those that want the good stuff first and easy, here’s the specs:
Tasmanian blackwood body
Mahogany and Tasmanian blackwood neck
ebony pinstripes
ebony fretboard
Stone top(?) couldn’t quite understand him or the Ormsby guy but I think that’s what they said; sure looks like it too
An inlay of Jared Dines’ “stupid fucking face”
3 blade-style pickups(?)
Glow in the dark headstock plate
Carbon fiber headstock backing
Hipshot hardware
My son, the bass player, college student and avid youtuber sent me this. My reaction was, “oh, come ON”. Half in admiration, half in, like, oh c’mon, seriously?!?. It’s fun, it’s not a guitar, it’s pretty cool, but seriously? Extreme luthiery at its extremist (though I know there’s ever sillier acoustic examples)
I thought the stupid face looked like a MineCraft reference, which would have notched it up slightly in cool for me. 
Thanks! Just to get this straight in my head, can I ask:
Pups in the parts-o-butter-Tele? Phat cat in Neck, and J Donohue, yes?
Pups in the KorinaTele? I think bridge is low-power Duncan, and?
Also curious about what you thought of my Tele’s weirdo neck pickup (GFS Fatbody, which I’ve been pleased with, but sensed you were unimpressed).
Thanks!
Get It On was the first song I learned for guitar! It’s also really the only one that I’ve tried to put my own personal spin on, rather than just trying to recreate the sound of the original. I’m also noodling around with the bass line for the song—pretty straight forward!
Cool rendition! 
I like the tones you are getting out of that Tele WordMan and your finger-style strumming/plucking.
Thanks by-tor and DPJimbo, yeah, that random fingerstyle approach is just fun. I kept watching Jeff Beck with no pick, and even though I play nothing like him (ha.) I could see where it might be adaptable to my meat and potatoes. Please forgive the vulgarity, but it’s kinda like taking the condom off.
squeegee -
- Butterscotch = yes, you’re right
- Tele Special = yes, the same SD/JD bridge pickup was WAY to harsh in this guitar - really, really fascinating to experience the importance of body material and pickup interaction. So I went for this to swap in: Seymour Duncan Telecaster Pickups | Seymour Duncan basically a less-hot version of the JD. Works great.
Neck is a Duncan P-Rail, with a P-90 coupled with a blade coil to create a humbucker, while still being splittable. I couldn’t resist and kinda regret it. To be clear: having the different tones worked out well, and that’s why I put it in as part of this being my main band guitar, but I which I had kept it simple, just because.
As for your neck pickup, I don’t recall much. For what we were noodling on, I wasn’t using it as much, so I was just being practical. Sorry I didn’t try to check it out - hadn’t thought of it.
Bo - I am with squeegee’s son on this one. Not my cuppa. And 18 strings and no fretboard markers - I simply can’t fathom that. I literally couldn’t process that. Oh, and as for QOTSA, okay, what the heck do I know? I like what I heard and see how the gained-up sound fits with what you’ve been saying about your playing. Given the style I am going after, I have never really pursued learning how to work with that much gain.
Recommendation: I was on a flight and listened to another episode of No Guitar is Safe, featuring Jude Gold for Guitar Player magazine. Jude is a journeyman who has been a member of Starship’s touring band for a few years. He’s a very good player and podcast guy. Look for the episode featuring Mike Scott, the guitar player for Prince in the 90’s - what a monster player. As I indicated with one of the clips, I love a good funk groove and man, does he deliver. The podcast is a very cool conversation, punctuated by some fierce funk quick jams.
ETA: here’s a mashup of Mike Scott’s playing in that podcast, on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT21sLmSU3o (this is from my laptop; hope this link works for folks)
I was in Nashville for business and stopped by Carter Vintage guitars. Lots of great old and new guitars. Man, Nashville is Guitar Town. There’s this very weird immediate feeling of “My People!!” that keeps a good little feeling in the mix in my amygdala. I can see why pros of all stripe come there.
I think he meant Kyuss
Oh that thing’s just a joke, really. You’d have to watch Mr. Dines’ channel a bit to see the other videos from the summer and fall. It was a kind of a macho challenge thing for a video he wanted to do (his videos are big on humor): “Oh yeah??? You have a seven string? Oh, and you have an eight string? Well fuck you, motherfuckers, I got an EIGHTEEN string guitar!” kinda thing.
ETA: Here’s an article about it and Mr. Dines’ video about the scam is at the bottom of the page.
I just meant that I have no idea what they sound like, so any similarities you heard weren’t at all conscious on my part; couldn’t have been.
Well now that I would cop to; I loves me some Kyuss.
Ah. All good; thanks for ‘splaining.
Upthread, you mention gesturing to keep time. There was that thread where someone asked about a move a guitarist makes in the Black Betty video. I called it a “groove move” where you do it to stay in the groove when not playing. I got much pushback, that he was just being flashy. I am sure as heck not flashy, but I know groove moves.
Oh, and how about if I say your song feels like it belongs in a space similar to Dopesmoker?