From Black Sabbath website:

“With the news that Black Sabbath´s Tony Iommi has been diagnosed with the early stages of lymphoma, his bandmates would like everyone to send positive vibes to the guitarist at this time. Iommi is currently working with his doctors to establish the best treatment plan–the “IRON MAN” of Rock & Roll remains upbeat and determined to make a full and successful recovery.

This comes as Black Sabbath–Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass) and Bill Ward (drums)–are writing and recording their first album in 33 years in Los Angeles (still set for release this fall) with producer Rick Rubin. They will now go to the UK to continue to work with Tony. Further information will be released as it becomes available.”

Fingering: Note that when I am playing this, the lowest note is always index finger (finger 1) and the highest is always pinkie (finger 4). Finger 2 or 3 is used depending. For a stretch such as frets 3 5 7, I always use fingers 1 2 4 (Paul Gilbert uses 1 3 4 in these instances, but he has giant Japanese Spider Crab hands).  For a grouping such as frets 4 5 7, I will use fingers 1 2 4. For a grouping such as 5 7 8, I will use fingers 1 3 4. Basically fingers 1 and 4 are always at the top or bottom in these particular kinds of atoms.

In this first idea (bar 1), we are introduced to the basic pattern – it’s the two atoms ascending then descending (A then D), followed by descending then ascending (D then A). Every example uses this series.

The second bar sees us splitting the series over two strings: the first string has A then D, the second higher string D then A (click for bigger version)

The next bar sees us continuing this idea onto strings 2 and 3. In bar four we split the series over two positions on the same string.

Now we have a couple more evolved examples of the prior bar – all working the series up one string. Note the position slides, observing correct fingering (1 for lowest note, 4 [pinkie] for highest):

Now we’re combining along string with across strings.

Finally, here’s a combination example which is descending overall in contour.

Feel free to substitute different atoms.

Click for bigger version.

Alas, my love, you do me wrong,

To cast me off discourteously.

For I have loved you well and long,

Delighting in your company.

 

Greensleeves was all my joy

Greensleeves was my delight,

Greensleeves was my heart of gold,

And who but my lady greensleeves.

I’ve always wanted a really good Marshall tube head having owned at least three solid state combos of theirs over the past 20 years and to be honest, looking back, they all never sounded very good.

This thing sounds fabulous though: while I have yet to discover the real rib-shaking low mid-range growl of the Lonestar’s dirty channel (hiding sadly at the back of the picture while New Kid On The Block is given its initiation rites) it has a singing sustaining lead sound that just drips – nay – *bleeds* raw valve tone. Coupled with the 4×12 and it’s just a monstrous setup. Turning the attenuator lower (i.e. clockwise to give less attenuation and let the amp be louder) has the walls shaking at only around 10 watts power (both channel masters fairly high) and I have no idea how someone would be able to even approach the amp to turn the thing all the way up to ‘10’ without being killed by the sheer volume of the thing – it’s insanely loud! Getting to halfway attenuation and my eardrums were seriously protesting – perhaps some kind of remote control would be useful so I could turn the volume up and down from like 500 feet away in a concrete shelter – I’d love to do this just to see how awesome it sounds at that level but I’m too friggin’ scared!

More on this amp and its gizmos next time, but I’m really happy with this buy. To help it all along, the price I got it for was stupidly low – lower than any US (expected cos of high shipping for heavy stuff) or UK (not expected since they are made there, but hey – ‘Rip Off Britain’) online retailer by like SGD $1000. With the cab, new, I got the whole lot for less than SGD $3000. This certainly helped prevent any post purchase dissonance and upon unboxing and plugging it in and hitting those first few chords – god – what an insanely good buy. Original Marshall Plexi sounds, mod cons (without stupid unnecessary juvenile shit that a lot of Marshalls have), pucker price. Sorted.

I tried out a bunch of guitars – a Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster HSS (amber w/RW) which was ‘ok’ but the humbucking pickup wasn’t high enough output and to be honest, the Amber finish doesn’t turn me on – it looks like a badly varnished wooden chair kind of finish. Still – price was fairly decent.  After that, I played a $15,000 Don Felder limited edition Gibson EDS-1275. It was quite fun – it was actually quite easy to play sitting down but there was no way I was gonna spend that kind of money on a relic’ed axe (I think relics are dumb). Plus, the necks were really fat – much fatter than I prefer, and finally, well, I want the heritage cherry one – like Jimmy Page has.

I played a bunch of other stuff and finally ended up buying a bunch of assorted picks:

Must have been some kind of special offer – since I bought so many picks, they also threw this little thing in for free ; )

From the Simpsons wiki (which I also stole this picture from) it includes all these useless accoutrements:

• The Homer has two bubble domes; one in the front, while the one in the back is for quarreling kids, and comes with optional restraints and muzzles.
• According to Homer, the engine sound causes people to think "the world’s coming to an end."
• There are three horns, as Homer claims that "you can never find a horn when you’re mad." The three horns play the song "La Cucaracha."
• The car also features gigantic cupholders, which actually became a feature on many cars in the 1990s onward.
• The car has various outdated features such as bubble domes, shag carpeting, and tailfins. It also has a metal bowler as a hood ornament.

Of course, nobody wants such a car and the costs to develop and produce it end up ruining the company which then folds.

Which leads me to this: what if Homer designed a guitar? What would a guitar designed by somebody with no aesthetic sensibilities look like? And if Homer said to himself ‘what if I could pack absolutely every little gadget and gizmo I could think of into the guitar’? 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Gibson Firebird X:

Engineer: “but Homer, this thing will suck and cost $5000 with all the crap you want to put in it.”

Homer: “Build it anyway.”

Engineer: “remember the Robot? The Dusk Tiger? The Zoot Suit? The Authentic Hendrix ‘Strat’? They made us the laughing stock of the guitar universe. This has all the hallmarks of following in the same suit.”

Homer: “Build it anyway.”

I installed Reaper x64 on an HP Notebook. It’s a pretty powerful machine – Core 2 Duo – not exactly a netbook. I use this machine for a bunch of things, so I won’t count the cost of it.  I bought Addictive Drums for laying down backing drum tracks which I gotta admit is some great sounding kit – that was $200. Then I splashed $300 on Amplitube 3. As an interface, I bought a Line6 GX thing for $150 that goes in via USB and comes with POD Farm software.

God the tones are horrible. And the sound is laggy. It doesn’t seem to pick up any of the natural sonics of the guitar. Everything sounds so trebly and compressed. The cab and mic sims don’t seem to do anything useful to give you that feeling of air moving. Maybe I just haven’t got the patience.

Then, I plugged in my guitar into my Mesa Mark V, pressed it onto channel two and I have instant gratification. It’s all about the air moving baby. The problem is, how do I get that sound into my computer? And why can’t the fricking computer make that sound?

I guess I just don’t have the patience for recording. And I hate wearing fricking headphones. Am I really gonna splash out on some monitors now? Oh no…

I’ve lusted after one of these guitars since I was 15 and finally, 25 years after I picked up the instrument decided that I was going to order one new as a 40th birthday present to myself.

To cut a long story short, they (the manufacturer) told my dealer that the guitar would arrive in a couple of weeks. This seemed reasonable and I was very happy.  The end of the month arrived and no guitar. The manufacturer eventually reverted saying the delivery was now set for October presumably (since they did not specify a reason) because since these were built by their Custom Shop they had to batch a few orders up to get economy of scale while building or something. Slightly annoying, but OK. I’d waited 25 years, what was 3 more months.

October came and went. No word from the manufacturer, sincere apologies from my dealer and many chasers on their side to the company.

*Eventually*, just prior to Christmas 2010, the manufacturer came back with a firm date of the first week of January. OK. Pissed as I was, I had already waited almost 6 months. A date was set and all I had to do was wait for my dealer to take delivery before paying my balance.

Nope. Come January, no guitar. A few back and forths with the dealer and eventually a response from the manufacturer resulted in a delivery date being set, with a half page excuse of ‘oh we are waiting on parts to be delivered from Memphis (did that give it away at all?) and yours is coming up soon – please wait, we’re sure you’ll be delighted.’

May became June, June became July, July became August (ooh – they did say ‘August definitely’ sometime in there). Well, it’s now September 2011. My dealer, who in fairness has tried their best to chase on my behalf is caught between me, the eager buyer, and the somewhat laggardy manufacturer who is letting the whole side down; they (the dealer) have been awesome throughout and have offered a couple of times to refund my deposit (against their normal policy) but I have so far declined reasoning that this might be my last chance to get one, and am secretly hoping a miracle email appears each day saying ‘FUCK – YOUR GUITAR IS FINALLY HERE!’, but I mean Jesus HENRY – this is one of the biGgest names in guitar making and they can’t get a guitar built to order within a year of taking it? It’s not as if it has two necks is it? Oh… wait… yeah – it does. Or at least it should have if it ever makes it to my house.