Replying to my post of 22 days ago. Some of the free custom songs I downloaded were the complete Pink Floyd DSOTM tracks. I’ve been focusing on the bass parts of this album and it is fantastic. I pick up the bass occasionally, and typically used a pick, but I’ve been playing those tracks nearly every day. I’ve always had finger tip callouses on my left hand (my fretting hand), but I’ve never had them on my right hand. Well, I do now since I’ve been using my fingers instead of a pick.
At some point, I’ll plug in the guitar again and see how the guitar parts on this album work out.
A follow up in case anyone ever has this problem. The problem was the computer, a laptop, that I was using with the Beringer interface. Silly me never tried through another computer, thinking the Beringer did all the work. Just tried again on my desktop, and I am getting 12-6 levels in Audacity from 2 feet away.
How odd. The USB part is digital, it’s not like USB has a ‘level’. I’d update any audio-level thing (drivers, version of Windows, whatever) you can think of on that laptop. It’s a bug in whatever is driving the system mixer on that machine.
Well, I may have written a check my fingers can’t cash. A friend of mine came over to borrow another friend of mine’s head and cabinet to see if he wanted to buy it. He noticed the guitars I have around the place, and said he didn’t know I played guitar, he just thought I played bass and keyboards. Somehow I was asked to be a lead guitarist. First practice is tomorrow.
In the world of gear, I bought myself a Roland JC-40. Originally I was getting it to record with. It’s a great pedal platform, it’s got stereo inputs, stereo line outs, a great built-in chorus and vibrato and a distortion that is better than the one in the old JC-120. If I don’t get a “ehh, we’ll call you” response from the new band tomorrow night, it’ll probably be what I plan to use with this band.
Thankya! It actually couldn’t have gone better than it did, I think. It wasn’t the style I expected it to be, but that actually worked in my favor and what I know of lead playing seemed to fit in well - it was kinda somewhere between Doom Metal and New Wave. If nothing else, we seemed to gel really well.
Should I list on Reverb and Ebay at the same time?
I noticed Buy It Now is more commonly used. Should I expect most people to make a lower offer?
Getting older and dreadnoughts are hard on my shoulder. Haven’t injured myself yet. I going to downsize to a OM or Auditorium size.
I will keep my Martin D18. The Alvarez and Yamaha guitars need a new home.
I’m dreading the hassle of shipping. I know there are special boxes for Guitars. Does UPS or FedEx do a good job packing? They should have the special box. All my instruments are in cases or gig bags.
My goal is too downsize to 2 acoustics and 2 Electric. My PRS and Fender won’t be sold. I take my Fender Special Edition Telecaster FMT to play at church. It’s less expensive and a good travel guitar.
I also have a Mike Lull Custom bass that needs to go. I’ll try the bass forum first. MIike Lull basses are sought after.
I quit bass. It shreds my fingers and I can’t play guitar until they heal. I decided bass wasn’t for me.
Not that I buy a lot, but when I buy used it is either through Craigslist/FB marketplace, or Reverb. I’ve never bought off ebay.
When I buy new, always Sweetwater.
When I have sold, I’ve used Craigslist, but in the future, I’ll probably try Reverb. It’s nice selling locally so you don’t have to pack, but I’m guessing you can get more from someone looking for a specific item rather than “in the ballpark”. Specific is why I’ve used Reverb to buy. All my local buys have been “I’m looking for something and not too picky”. That’s how I got my first electric bass and now that I’m “decent”, I’ll probably buy new from SW or look for something specific on Reverb.
I don’t find bass is hard on my fretting fingers since they are already calloused to hell and back. What surprised me was my plucking fingers. They got sore as hell until they developed callouses. Never thought about that aspect.
I dunno, it kind of sounds like The Cure left their fuzz pedals on more often and just did variations on A Forest? A band raised on nothing but Sabbath, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Bauhaus?
Heh, writing the above sentence made me go look up metal covers of A Forest. We probably have more a lot more Bauhaus in us that this cover. But yeah, New Wave/Doom Metal:
I actually have phone recordings of the song we were working on last night, but I doubt anyone in the band wants me to post them. Once we have something actually finished, I will.
As far as selling stuff: I don’t normally sell anything. But if I’m going to buy something used, I’ll often head straight to Reverb. I know that you can restrict it to local pickup, if you’re not into the whole packing things to ship scene. I’ve seen that condition on lot of amps I’ve wanted to buy. You can also specify if you accept offers or not, you can even just tell Reverb to discard any offer that is below 64% of the asking price.
The JC40 arrived today, and I really like it. It will work wonderfully with this band. The distortion is actually pretty Doom-y if you combine it with the reverb and vibrato or chorus. Plus, it’s light, tiny and a hell of a lot louder than I’d normally expect from two 20W amps going into two 10" speakers.
The old Alvarez guitars are collectable. There’s a Yahoo group devoted to the brand.
I know old Yamaha guitars aren’t valuable. I have the FG300 with decorative pickguard. Very similar to a Gibson Hummingbird. It was the guitar I couldn’t afford in high school. So I bought it used 30 years later.
Dreadnoughts sound great but they’re so big. A OM is easier to hold and play.
A pick would help. I get callous from playing guitar. Bass bruises me under the callous. Slides on a bass are not pleasant. I haven’t heard about nylon coated bass strings. I’ll look into it.
I have thought about banjo. Then I could join bluegrass jams with guitar or banjo. There’s often too many people wanting to play guitar.
When I played roundwounds on bass, I could do a 10 fret or so slide on them every other bar with no problem all night long (think Nilsson’s “Jump Into the Fire”) . My callouses were built up enough from the dang roundwounds that it would just build up more callous. Now that I have gone to stringing most of my basses with flats, doing the same is likely to chew up my callouses (even on flats), because they haven’t been built up by the sawtooth roundwounds recently. I just don’t play the basses strung with rounds often enough to keep them rock hard and thick.
They were on one of my basses when I bought it ages ago. They basically sound like flats, I remember them being very easy on the fingers (even if that particular set was lacking a bit of stiffness I like in my bass strings) and the mention of them kind of has me wanting to get another set of them. The Thunderchicken is strung with rounds I’m not entirely fond of at the moment, anyway. Next time I buy something from a place that’s selling strings, I’m going to have to throw a set in the cart.
I am now kind of kicking myself for any guitar amp purchase I have made that wasn’t a JC-40 in the 7 or so years since it’s introduction. I still haven’t used it in a band setting, but I and my ex-roommate recorded all of this space rock extravaganza through it. The bass, guitars, organ, weird synth noise boxes, and IIRC even the drum machine (I’m not good about taking notes) are run through it’s preamp and then run through a DigItech CabDryVR speaker cabinet emulation pedal. Seriously, I’m going to start probing for things this amp can’t do.
Be nice to have a mobile solution, but sounds like you’re fine with not having one.