You see what guitars can do for you?

Slayer’s Reign In Blood – the cure for Hippies

Gary Kramer Guitars

Kudos to Gary Kramer guitars for jumping on the hot-chick-sex-sells advertising bandwagon ala Dean guitars. They got my  attention anyway for their *ahem* smooth curves, radiant complexion finishes and uh, see-through tops that reveal a bit of nipple, and I was typing in the URL within seconds to see if there were more pics at their website (the above is the only one disappointingly).

Can’t help but guffaw a little at the names of the models though – The Crusader. The Conquest. The Venom. Come on Gary; these names are just a little bit like those – “I’ve got a small one, so I need to overcompensate with this huge overpowered motorcycle which is named The Dominator, or The Ninja, or The Ninja Dominator”. Is this really the market you want to capture and brand you want to build?

Gary Kramer yesterday:

VOX Big Bad Wah – uh, it’s big and it’s, uh, bad. Wah.

Went down to City Music yesterday with my buddy to check out the VOX Big Bad Wah. As always, the City Music staff were helpful and accommodating and within seconds of entering the store I’d been nicely set up with a decent guitar, a VOX VT50 amp (I think) and the BBW itself nestling in-between them.

The first thing to note is that the unit itself doesn’t feel all that sturdy. Looking at the thing in a magazine or on the Web you’d expect it to be quite heavy like a Morley Bah Horsie – but it isn’t; it’s much lighter than it appears which I interpreted as ‘doesn’t feel quite as high quality as I’d hoped’. It has a plasticky feel to it that I think detracts from it a little.  Second, the treadle itself (the bit where you put your foot) is quite narrow. Maybe Joe Satch has tiny thin little feet; maybe it was an optical illusion, but it doesn’t quite feel big enough for a wah of its type.

While we’re on the subject of look and feel, it seems rather an odd design decision that all the controls on the right side of the pedal are different. There’s a chicken-head knob to set the drive. Then there’s a two-position flick switch to set the voicing beneath it. Then there’s a push-in button to select the inductor. And finally, there’s a stomp switch to select the wah type. It just seems a mish-mash of stylistic components and I betcha the folks at VOX had some losing discussions over some artsy whim of Satriani’s to make it just so amid their objections of ‘well, it’s gonna look kinda disjointed and a little dumb’ – and well, they were right it does, but hey – Joe’s name is on it.

Not being a fan of those gotta-push-down-really-hard-in-the-toe-position type wah pedals myself, the BBW didn’t win back any points in this respect either due to the fact that the bypass switch seemed too hard to press in, but I’ll let that go as that’s more down to my preference for those tread-on-to-turn-on-spring-loaded types such as my Crybaby 95Q or the Bad Horsie.  People who like the other old-fashioned type won’t mind this.

Soundwise, the BBW didn’t really cut the mustard. It didn’t seem to go high enough into the treble range for my liking and no combination of the different knobs, buttons or switches seemed to rectify this. Further, no combination of the different knobs buttons or switches seemed to make that much difference in sound either, with the exception of the 1/2 Wah stomp switch that made the overall sound a little brighter or darker and the drive knob, which is hard to screw up. I could not tell the difference between the voices or the inductors whatsoever except that one of those selections made a little green light come on.  But hey – I’m not one of those cork-sniffers who can tell the difference in tone when the break angle from the nut to the string post is 8 degrees and not 9 degrees, so perhaps my aural opinion is rendered invalid.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Value for money (SGD $235 after discount): 5 out of 10.

Overall: For Satch diehards or poseur rich kids only. For everyone else, get a Crybaby or a Morley BH2.

DANGER: Unexploded Guitar World 2010 Buyer’s Guide

Picked up the Guitar World 2010 Buyer’s Guide from the newsstand today, which doesn’t bode well for my bank account.

Clearly, the Global Economic Downturn is in effect here though: Gibson only has two guitars on display in the magazine;  I think in previous years they paid to place as many as 13-15 in there. Fender still going strong though with 12 models on show including three very nice signature models – the Dave Murray, EJ and Ritchie Blackmore Strats. Uh-oh – one of those looks to be gravitating towards me (or me towards it) but do I really need another Strat? Hmm… what have ‘needs’ got to do with the price of fish? Another area where the magazine has been hit by the recession is in the ‘hot’ models which used to be one of the highlights. In the past we’ve had serious hotties such as Tera Patrick, Bridget Marquadt, Carmen Electra, etc. Ok – I wouldn’t exactly classify the latest ones as dogs, but come on – the one on the left looks like Kira the Gelfling from the movie Dark Crystal. Surely Tolinkski and friends could have paid a bit more than that… a tad disappointing.

Some unknown (and presumably cheaper) models:

Kira (left), the guy Gelfling and Fizzgig.

Oh, and guys, the mag has had the same design and layout for the past (what seems like) 10 years. Maybe time to engage a new DP vendor?

Michael Jackson is dead. What to do? Learn Van Halen licks!

This is not my tribute to MJ. My real tribute will to be to realize one of my lifelong ambitions which is to learn how to do a proper Moonwalk.

I did feel suddenly inspired though, to learn how to play Beat It, which does of course feature one Mr Edward Van Halen playing the solo on it. The equally iconic rhythm parts I believe were laid down by Steve Lukather, so all cool in the guitar pedigree department: now to get to the licks.  I had a copy of Guitar World which had the transcription in it and had no problem locating a video on YouTube to play along to.

I say ‘play along to’ but what I actually mean is to ‘fumble, flub and stumble along to’ – particularly the solo. The rhythm part, while interesting and catchy is quite straightforward. There are some coolio overdubs which might challenge the right hand a bit, but it’s reproducing VH’s feel in the lead which is hardest. Sure I could probably get the actual notes down after a couple of days, but man – listening to EVH’s squealing ‘wanky’ (and I mean that in a good way) feel, his grip of the strings, vibrato, use of the bar, his sense of pitch and ‘falling down the stairs’ is one thing that might take me a lifetime to replicate.

Which then of course begs the question – is it worth copying an artist note-for-note and banging out a replica? I think there’s some kudos in being able to do this and then YouTubing it, but it also depends how much time you have to devote to your instrument and what ‘musical tasks’ you must spread over that time (I have a long, backed-up list of stuff I want to learn).   I’d love to be able to play the Beat It solo as per the record but in reality this will take too much of an investment in time (I guess it means I’m not that good) for the sake of a party piece (I won’t be playing this song live any time soon either).  Better then, IMHO to learn the spirit of the solo and some key licks to get a feel for it and take away something that can be integrated back as an influence.  I spent about half an hour doing this. Some great tapping licks in there, and a nice stretchy (12-15-19) lick.

A bit of DIY neck adjustment

I’ve always been a bit scared of doing truss rod adjustments myself thinking that this was one thing best left to the professionals with their fancy tools and straight edges. I’d always figured that this was something that could easily go pear-shaped and throw a lot of other things out of kilter such as the action and intonation.

Anyway – my Kirk Hammett Junior was starting to buzz a bit in the first fret position and up most of the B string (I think the boys had been kicking it repeatedly while trying to climb into a little playhouse they had built beneath my study table) so I decided to give it a bit of a tweak myself. Sighting from the bridge end I could see that the neck was much too flat.

With trepidation I located the Allen key, removed the truss rod cover and started turning, going the wrong way at first. I went in the opposite direction and for a while, got a bit worried, since there was a point for a few turns where the rod offered no resistance which made me wonder whether it had run out of thread or something. Luckily I felt the key reengage and it started pulling the neck into relief after a couple of turns. A quick tweak of the bridge height and now the guitar plays nicely again – I can pluck quite hard and get decent volume, but it still has a fast slinky feel to it.

Have Lapstick will travel – Australia

On the road again, and jolly happy to have my portable six-string companion with me. In conjunction with my new VOX Amplug Lead it’s a fairly formidable setup with a quite tasty sound and really helps me hone my chops.

I decided to take a different approach to normal in warming up and started banging out some melodies and trying to play them by ear, without trying to visualize them on the fretboard as part of a scale form.  Instead I tried to rely purely on my sense of relative pitch and melodic intervals. Sure there were plenty of screw ups but this is something I am gradually getting better at.  I also focused on making each note loud and clear and with a nice tasty vibrato. Before long I was really getting a good grip on the strings and was improvising freely while using my ears more.

I played a whole bunch of tunes from the movie The Sound Of Music which I can remember how they go very well (My Favourite Things, 16 going on 17, Lonely Goatherd etc.). I also played some well known theme songs from TV shows such as Eastenders, and of course, being Down Under bashed out some renditions of the themes from Neighbours and Home and Away.

Tiny man plays Flying V

He looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mini Me. Oh wait – it’s a giant guitar…

World’s largest guitar collection?

This made me laugh. While doing a search to see what I could come up with as the World’s Largest Guitar Collection, I came across this Internet denizen who has a stunning *nine* guitars and a 10 minute video talking about this enormous stockpile of instruments. Click the pic to hit the link.

What makes it even better is that it’s called the World’s largest personal rare guitar collection. Check out how many of them are rare – a Les Paul Standard; a Fender Strat; a P-Bass?

I have 15 guitars – must write in to Guinness World Records…

But seriously – the largest I have heard of is the Paul Day collection at around 300 instruments, but I’m sure there must be some gargantuan ones out there that can dwarf even this.