Guitar Nerds Anonymous

Did you see Josh Scott

nope.

At the moment I use a Tone King Iron Man II Mini attenuator > Mooer Radar cab sim pedal for recording with a Deluxe Reverb, and it works well.

Had really good results in the past with an AC15 into a Koch Loadbox LB120-II, it had the cab sim built into it and sounded great.

Should say I didn’t arrive at either of those solutions just for recording, I mainly use(d) them as attenuators for playing in the house.

I have the very cheap Harley Benton one from Thomann - works well, though the power reduction and line out pots are linked, meaning that as you reduce the output, the line level also goes down. It's high enough to feed into my soundcard anyway.

I was playing into Logic's amp sims a lot before or my Vox AC4 all the way down and I have to say, being able to dial in the AC30 is a world away. You get the touch responsiveness and pure tone of it, all I need to do once I feed the line out to my Focusrite is load an IR (I got the Vox Celestion pack on the black friday sale for about £15 and both the Greenback and Blues sound great!) and that's it, it actually sounds VERY good and as I'd expect the Vox to sound.

You do lose the loudness in the room, which is great and of course makes a lot of difference to sustain, feedback etc, but for me what really makes playing through a tube amp dialled in is how it feels on the fingertips, and you get all of that. I don't know how good emulations have gotten, but I just don't feel like I need to know now! 🙃

Heh! nice. Guess it's something I need to try for myself.

I'm taking the Scrounge-O-Caster out for it's maiden voyage at rehearsal room volume tonight. It's the junky partscaster Strat that I build last summer from gumtree and and forum donation parts. The neck i bought turned out to have a non-functioning truss rod and so is "perfect for slide". Got it in open E and it's gonna get plugged into my '74 Vibrolux through a TS9 and a Klone.

I'll try and grab a couple of voice memo clips if I remember.

Despite being quoted a 6 month wait for a Staytrem collet and arm, it turned up this week, because they've not been sending international orders (due to the RM hack) and working their way through UK orders.

Been having some fun sorting the Squier JM a bit, the frets are a bit sharp and I need to file the nut for thicker wound strings, but it's getting there.

I thinl the same guy did one with amps.
Whilst this will go the same as "are clipless an advantage?" (No one will listen cos its all about feeling) it was very interesting and sobering.

You will notice a bad speaker.
You can tell a strat from an LP etc.
You cant hear rosewood finger boards and abolone dots on your car stereo.

oooh koch - havn't seen them before. Crushing hard on a jupiter - looks great for a home amp.

New guitar. Got a chance to buy this from the guy who built it at a very fair price. So far I feel it was definitely worth the punt.

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Wow - someone built it, not a Parker?

Really like it - I've been working up to building a Fly for a number of years, there's just so much work in it, and if you're just going to try to make a bolt on neck / shape copy then what's the point. Do you have the guys name - would love to see more, it's not something many attempt to copy.

Yup, it's a hobbyist/enthusiast build, build thread here. I think there should be bunch of threads on talkbass if you want to check out his other stuff.

Thanks - that's a really good reference! I'm gonig to put it next on the build list. I'm sure the step of 'build a 95% finished guitar then cover it in epoxy' is quite intimidating the first time...

The originals were so light, what does yours weigh?

2.5kg so pretty light. Like the build thread mentions, it's alder throughout, neck included. From what I can tell, the neck feels pretty stable -- not too bendy pushing from the back of the neck. Profile's not too skinny, though, which I like. So far I'm really liking the amplified tones too. For reference, I generally prefer single coils and fairly bright electric guitar tones (pickups are dimarzio "gen 2" parker fly model I think).

Here's a little noodle I recorded during a work webinar...

AC30>IR

Ooh Big Star! Can’t get it to work on crappy 4g on my phone where I am… will try again later. Thanks tho!

Parents with guitar-playing kids, when did they start? Got a 5yr old that's already a big Heart & Pat Benatar fan, but I'd say a bit too young for a guitar. She's currently got some keyboards that she uses (as well as some of my synths) but obviously they're a bit easier in terms of pick-up-and-playability.

Naturally it'll differ between kids, but just wanted to see if anyone here had any experience. I'm guessing around 7-10 probably makes most sense so likely not much point in picking one up now.

9 in our case. Kids do start earlier but it seemed like about the right age for a full size electric (Squier Mustang).

8-9 for my daughter. She can just about handle a Squier Mini JM now, and she gets lessons at school on a 3/4-size classical.

She had a small 3-string kid’s guitar before that, but it wasn’t much use.

Decided to enter mid-life crisis by picking up a guitar again for the first time in 15+yrs. Honestly I’m starting from rock bottom beginner standard as I was a 3-chord punk with no timing as a yute.
What’s peoples thoughts on the app based teaching platforms like fender play/yousician? Anyone had experience of them? Not in a position to go for lessons tbh.
Also- boring questions- what headphone amp and/or mini practice amp should I buy? Budget tight so if any gear hoarders have anything tucked away then I’m all ears. Don’t want to upset partner/neighbours so volume absolutely not a priority at this stage.

I found a combo of Justin Guitar (https://www.justinguitar.com/classes/beginner-guitar-course-grade-one) and YourGuitarAcademy (https://www.youtube.com/@yga/playlists) pretty good (and free!).

I tend to forgo amps in favour of multi-effects pedals. Got a Zoom G1X Four that stays by the sofa (perfect for doing some more boring technical practice while watching something unrelated on the laptop) and a bigger G3Xn in the office with the rest of the music gear.

My OH has recently started learning with the Fender program - aside from the annoying personalities of the tutors it seems to be pretty good so far.

Can recommend the Yamaha THR5 for practice amp stuff, sounds good at low volume and is aesthetically pleasing enough to stay out in the living room etc

Another one for Justin (Sandercoe) Guitar. Either use the website or pay for the app.
For the amp I use a Fender champion 20. It’s a little modelling amp and cost around £40 on marketplace. Lots of different tones to make it more interesting. It has a headphone Jack too.
I also have this which I don’t use that I’d let go for £40 posted. It’s had very little use and is boxed.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NUX-Mighty-Headphone-Amplifier-Bluetooth/dp/B08HR3XBZ2/ref=asc_df_B08HR3XBZ2/

I'm going to make an old school recommendation: get an actual teacher. It was the best money I ever spent on guitar.

I have a Yamaha THR5 in the living room which is great for practice either with headphones or out loud. And I have an Old Blood Noise headphone amp pedal, which is pretty cool to have on a pedalboard if you end up making one (or just kicking around on the floor anyway) but it's distorted at anything above lowest volume (in a nice way, but still).

I would love to organise some sort of jam session.

Forgot to say, thanks @regal & @rodan for the input, much appreciated!

I understand the benefit of a flesh and bones teacher(years of music lessons as a child) so will make a start for myself and go from there.

The headphone amp/mini amp debate is raging in my head. The little 3W Orange for £45 looks like it has potential and have seen some other smaller used options as well. Just lost out on a Marshall MG10CD for £25 on fleabay.

If I can achieve something along the lines of this through headphones I’ll be happy.

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I've got a Blackstar Fly 3 https://blackstaramps.com/fly/with the extension speaker that means it becomes 6 Watts stereo and you can pretend it's kind of a Marshall stack (plus a power cable) that I never use and am looking to sell. Lemme know if you're interested.