Having been admonished for mentioning guitars in one of the usual 'slag the manager.....go to home games, mean all.....get Lamy back' posts in the football section, I felt it appropriate to start a thread to share guitar stories, pictures and sounds in a thread on here. I didn't realise how many guitarists there were on here.
Anyway, I had a Washburn W165 pro, and I've lost it. It was a scruffy old plank but in a nice Gator case, and I'd fettled the action and it played great. From memory I only paid about £189 for it from Richtone when they were at Gleadless before they moved to Crookes, but it had a couple of Seymour Duncan humbuckers on it which were worth the purchase price alone. Add to that Buzz Feiten Tuning System and variable coil tap, called VCC contour control by Washburn, it was for nowt. I'm gutted. Guitars are personal, aren't they.
Anyway, this was on the day after I bought the Tokai ULS129. The first day I couldn't get on with the wide fat neck. Now I love it! I am totally self taught on guitar (I wouldn't have had the patience for anyone to teach me), and began playing when I was 11. My dad was a respected jazz pianist back in the day, both locally and nationally, and we had an upright piano at home that I used to tinkle on (ooh matron).
A few years ago after a gig a rather attractive **** walked up to me and said you can make that guitar cry, can't you. My other half, who I would also describe as a nice ****, was also there, and she wasn't happy
I've always been a tube amp man, from my first AC30 when I was 19. I've had various valve amps over the years including several flavours of Fender tweed amps, a couple of Fender Twins and for the last 10 years or so I've been using a Fender Deluxe. Never been a Marshall fan. The soundcloud clip was recorded using a Shure SM58 in front of a Hughes & Kettner 30. I helped value and sell all the gear that a keyboard player owned on Ebay (he also had a PA Hire business and had so much gear it was untrue), and my reward was the Hughes & Kettner, that he bought on Ebay for £12! What a great little amp. I love it. They were discontinued 10 or 15 years ago, and if you had £10000 you now couldn't buy one from anywhere in the world. I keep looking on Ebay, nothing. If you see one before I do, buy it. Up to £100, you'd have a bargain.
-- Edited by Top Cat on Wednesday 21st of October 2020 05:37:15 PM
-- Edited by Top Cat on Wednesday 21st of October 2020 05:39:09 PM
Lovely Gibson Top Cat. Similar look to the legendary Les Paul model use by the great man himself in his prime. Listening to Greeny playing from his early days gives me goose bumps and envious. His recording of The Stumble while with the Blues Breakers is astounding, and he was only 19 at the time. Sugar Mama live, breath taking. All I'll ever be is a bedroom player, even at 65! But I enjoy making a row.
I've been listening to Then Play On recently. Basically that was a Green Kirwan and Spencer jam. Listen to Fighting for Madge. The guitar is a Japanese Tokai, not a Gibson. Better build quality, better finish, better playability and tone for half the price of a Les Paul Standard IMO
In my student days I occasionally earned a few bob setting up and tuning guitars back stage at gigs. On one such occasion The Cult were the headline act and for the sound check I got to have half an hour on a Gretsch White Falcon that belonged to their guitarist Billy Duffy. If you'll forgive the pun, that was my Dreamtime. It was a thing of beauty.
Apologies Top Cat but can we broaden this out to musical things? As much as I love guitars, I'm really a keyboard player. I've played with bands since about 1985 and did my last gig in 2013 in Australia. Since returning to UK I've not really had the drive to get a new band together and the age thing is a bit of a drawback!
I had a recording studio in Canberra where I used to record new bands to help them get their first CDs out. I brought most of the gear back with me and my music room is a much slimmed down version of the studio. I recorded a female artist just prior to Covid and then spent the first months of Covid putting an album together in collaboration with a NZ backing track composer and a German master producer - all good fun!
My favourite instrument is my Kawai grand piano which I brought back from Aus. I had to take the window out of the music room to get it in the house!
I am gobsmacked that you can ship a Kawai Grand from Australia. I use VST's which are far more portable. I've just paid for Tone 2 Gladiator. It's awesome but i don't what to do with it. Luscious pads though. I don't know how i can use Gladiator and guitar together
Feeling way out of my league now chaps. The nearest I got to being in the public eye musically was when I played tuba in the school brass band. It didn't last long as I wanted the trumpet to be like Miles Davis. Top Cat.I also own a cheap copy of a Gibson 335 semi acoustic which is ok for chopping out a bit of rhythm; I usually keep the Tele tuned to open G a la Keith Richard to impress the neighbours with my renditions of Brown Sugar
PS. The Tokia is very convincing, rather tempted to look into one for myself. You also mention Danny Kirwan who was himself an outstanding bluesman, some would argue just as expressive and on a par with Green.
I was almost tempted to stick a pair of Bare Knuckle PG blues pups in the new guitar but it, upon reflection, feels wrong. A guitar that has been around the block a few times, maybe Google PG Blues Bare Knuckle
Evening all. Bit busy at the moment so getting time to contribute is challenging. First thing I'd say to Calypso is in music, there's a place for everyone - talent has very little to do with it. Davy Jones was a good mate of mine until his untimely death 8 years ago. He could bash out a decent rhythm on a tambourine and a few chords on a guitar but it didn't stop him having a reasonably successful career. The beauty in music for me is teaming up with a like-minded bunch of guys (& gals) and bringing your individual talents together to make something special. I've been really fortunate to belong to a couple of great bands - one in Hants and one in Australia - in which we all got on very well and had some fabulous times entertaining crowds, and when no-one turned up, ourselves.
TC - you'd be surprised how neatly a grand piano packs up. It was moved by a specialist company called Beethovens! All the legs and accessories come off and the body sits on its side in a bespoke wooden case. It arrived in UK 3 months after I'd left Aus and it was still in tune! The day we unpacked it at my home in Lincoln was 1 Mar 14 and all the Pickford's lads were Rotherham fans! We rushed the job so that we could all get over to NYS to watch the Millers beat Notts County 4-0! I've got a feeling Jack Grealish played for them that day!!
The studio I have is based around a Steinberg Cubase Pro Digital Audio Workstation. However, I have a Yamaha mixing desk which allows me to record up to 16 instruments/vocals simultaneously if needed. There's a whole raft of VST's with Cubase so I can combine true audio with digital sound production technology. I started in the 80s with an Atari STE computer (1Mb of RAM) doing MIDI recordings but the stuff I have now would dwarf many of the early recording studios such have been the advances in technology. The trouble is, as with all computer stuff, you have to be constantly at it to remain current and effective - something that I find difficult at the moment.
During the early stages of the Covid lockdown, when everyone started Zooming, my Friday night drinking mates devised a challenge where we would have to reproduce a classic rock song in 48 hours and distribute it for review and general abuse the following Friday. I was allocated Comfortably Numb by Floyd and Afterglow by Genesis. It was a great exercise in really listening to a track and trying to understand how it had been put together. However, after the first two weeks, it became quite obvious that it was taking over my life, so we stuck to on-line drinking instead. I'd attach the MP3 files to this post if I knew how, but I can't see an obvious way of doing it?
-- Edited by GlennMiller on Thursday 22nd of October 2020 08:14:12 PM
