soapbarstrat

They don't solve much, if anything at all, if you're not using a very good tuner. I've heard over and over , guys who got one of those peterson virtual strobe tuners saying how just having that tuner made all the difference with finally getting their guitars playing in tune. I heard people rave about earvana, and I've heard people say they didn't like it, and took it off of their guitar. So Carvin actually said they make the distance between the nut slot and first fret shorter than normal ?

Gotoh locking tuners. Good that people who have trouble with them are saying something. Drak, how about those new Sperzels with the exposed gear ?

It doesn't take much applied heat to break down a super-glue bond. I'm starting to get sick of watching the stewmac fretting videos. I'm tempted to offer them for trade for other current stew-mac videos, but if I do, it will be near the end of the year.

My fret caul pushes the ends down first, then when thightened a bit more, it pushes down the middle, while still holding the ends down. I wish I could get as good as results with a hammer, because it is faster. I am still experimenting with hammering, but my caul method is so precise, I don't think I'll ever make the switch. When I do hammer, I have the frets a little over-bent by running it through the fret-bender machine, then with a plastic face hammer, I tap the fret almost all the way down. Then I get a brass rod, which I have smoothed the edge, so there's no sharp corner to make a mark on the fret-tops, I place that brass rod on the fret at one end, then hammer on the other end of the brass rod with a steel hammer, while working the rod along the fret, to the other side. I get really close to the press-caul method doing this. Dunlop wire will not dent at all from the brass being hammered onto it, but the brass rod gets slightly dented. I almost always modify the fret barbs too. Usually shave 'em down quite a bit. i like tight fitting frets, but not to where the neck back-bows from the compression any more than slightly. I also currently like putting the frets in dry, and then running water-thin super-glue in the ends. It's damn tedious tho.

I think they said it was cutting the high E string too soon, or something wasn't working right with the high E at the tuner. If you have a problem, make the company make it right. So, don't worry.

The gotoh 18:1 locking tuners seem like a good deal ,and have been given good reviews by some. Haven't heard anyone complain about them yet. They lock automatically. no knob to tighten for locking. Also makes 'em lighter than other locking tuners. Cheaper than Sperzels and planet waves. I've seen a couple people write that their planet waves tuners were not quite working right.

Rage Against the Machine had some cool lyrics, but most of the music just seemed to be missing something. I sort of heard something had happened to the singer several years ago, but never heard any details.

The current worst is that one 'No doubt' song where she sings "hey baby hey baby hey, boys say boys say" GOD DAMN !!!!, HOW DOES SOMETHING LIKE THAT EVEN GET TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY, MUCH LESS GET PLAYED ON THE DAMN RADIO EVERYDAY ???????? Best ? Not sure. I liked the lyrics of that one song called "tribute" , where they sing about running into a demon and having to play the greatest song in the world. I can't think of the bands name.

That is the best post I've ever seen on this forum. My sides hurt.

Yep, that's the kind of bass playing I like. I think he often uses a Rickenbacker too, like Chris Squire who's been a long time favorite of mine. I remember being a little kid and hearing 'roundabout' and thinking how interesting the "one sound" was (which was the bass). I like the one bass part of Rush's 'free will ' ?? I leaned how to play that . I'm actually a pretty good bass player and have had a few bands beg me to be their bass player. I took the offers a couple times, but then I'd get bored and ask the guitarist if I could just "play around" with his guitar for a few minutes. I would totally wipe them out, then there was trouble. I even did the same thing with singers all the time, when I'd say, " let me try it" Its damn hard when you can't find band members who are as good as you. Sounds like I have an ego problem, but you all know how bad most musicians suck.

Mostly standard because I don't like to change strings, and being tuned to standard E, keeps old strings sounding pretty good. I often tune to E flat. I can sing better like that too. I also like to tune to D flat, but I still haven't devoted a guitar to that, but plan to. My wife has an old classical guitar that sound great in D flat. I have 2 songs that I drop the 6th string down to B, with the other strings tuned standard. earlier this evening I pulled this super cheap , old 23" scale length acoustic off the wall. It's a "wall hanger" guitar. I started using a wrench socket as a slide, and it seems this crappy guitar has an awesome slide tone. Now I just need to find out how you tune a guitar for slide work. It should be tuned up higher than E, that's all I know, so far.

Eric Johnson, because when his name is mentioned, I immediately think of "cliffs of dover" But When I hear Vai's name, I think about that whitesnake crap he did. He should have stayed with using an old Carvin head and the exact tone he had on the 'flexible' records. THAT was his tone. He shouldn't have "metalized" it so much. He's an unreal player, but I don't think his ear for tone matches his technical abilities. And when I think of Satch, I think of his singing, which his great guitar playing just can't drown out enough in my mind. I think a whole band that makes a good song, is so much better than the shredder God with the simple power chord garbage playing behind his soloing ego explosion.

Yeah, I use razor blades too. I guess too much, because I kept one in my wallet, in case I needed it for something. Didn't think about taking it out before I went to the airport, and you can guess what happened

He's got fret-wire about the same exact size as Dunlop 6105, which is kinda hard to find. Next time, I think I'll order from him instead of Dunlop.

This is quite ironic. I was just negotiating a price for a re-fret with a customer and told him " I sometimes take trades, but I hate to even say that, because people expect me to take stuff I really don't want". So he says, " well I have this Washburn N2 neck that's been sitting around for 5 years, because I can't stand a rosewood board and had bought a maple board neck from Warmoth". So it looks like I'll take the neck. Not sure if I really want it, but it's not too bad of a trade, since he's giving me money too.

I read he uses twins because they give him a sound closest to the old Lab series. Interesting enough, a former Lab Series devotee, Ty Tabor from King's X. The Gibson Lab was his "secret amp" for 20 years before he spilled the beans. I seriously wonder how one of those would sound with my set-up Ty had an awesome tone, but I'm talking about the days of 'Gretchen goes to Nebraska'. He was using a Strat Elite model which had it's own unique active pickups. I think that was a huge factor in his tone. I think I saw them on tv about 5 years ago. He was using a Mesa Dual rect, and not a Strat Elite. His great tone was nowhere to be heard. Way back, I remember him being secret about the amp. he would only say " it's an old Gibson amp". So I totally assumed it was a tube amp, and even studied all the various old Gibson tube amps to try to come to some kind of conclusion as to which one he must have been using. What a surprise to find out it was a SS amp. I give solid state amps a second and third chance after finding that out.

No, there's nothing wrong with this topic. I think a wood type can have some kind of subliminal effect ( I probably spelled subliminal wrong). Could even create a certain tone that makes you play fast. I play faster when I use a crappy sounding solid state amp, just because I'm in a hurry to try to find a note or chord that sounds better than the one I just played. Or maybe if the maple is from your home-land and the rosewood is from another country, you feel some kind of "bond" with the maple. Ok, now you will all think I'm nuts for writing that. I guess what I just wrote would even go against some of what I wrote yesterday about it.

Well, open strings means you can pluck the strings and have one hand free to "try stuff" (don't get the wrong idea about that). I mean you could squeeze the tuner parts with your hand to see if the rattle stops I wouldn't plan on replacing them yet. If it's them, probably something could be done.

If someone says they're good, I can only believe they are lying. Don't Asian guitar electronics still suck ? Or did they get their act together on that, when I wasn't looking ?

maybe because you can see the fret-board easier on a maple board. My first guitar was a poly coated maple board with fenders crappy sideways fret-job, plus the frets were pretty small, and it has a 7.25" radius. Then I got a rosewood board strat with jumbo frets and 12" radius. My hands were suddenly like lightning. Made me fear maple boards. I associated them with being harder to play and associated rose with easier to play ( I was 16 years old). Now I can make any fret-board wood neck play super good. I think if you have really tall frets (.050" and higher) it can't make a difference, unless your eyes prefer one shade of wood color over the other, and you rely on looking at the board while playing.

I only voted for maple, because after years and years of totally prefering rosewood, I now prefer an oil finished maple board. I wouldn't say it makes you play faster unless you don't like the lighter color of the wood and think if you play faster you'll make it a little dirty quicker and it'll get darker. Some rosewood(brazillian, I guess) has a grain to it that can't be sanded out. the little crevises are too big to be sanded away. But maple, you can sand that very smooth, with 1500 grit if you want to. And the part about "your fingers never touch the wood" . Really ? on most necks your fingers do touch the wood. They will on any fret lower that .040", i think. man, I just got done with a fret-job and thought there would be something more fun going on here.

Worst : VanHagar, I guess around 1987 in St.Louis. They were there for 3 nights. On the night I was there, Sammy says " we're here for 3 nights, so tonight we're just going to have fun" . Turns out that 'fun' means SUCK in the hagar dictionary. Even getting to almost the front of the crowd didn't make it any better. Our tickets said 'row 21' but we were able to rub off the 2. Best: Iron Maiden in '85 at 'Cow Palace' in frisco. They really put effort into playing how they should (I can sing 'aces high' almost dead-on to how dickenson sings it, except the really high note) Middle ? : Legacy ??(later called Testament ?) at 'the farm' in Frisco around 87-88. That place was insane. An old house with a wood floor and a stage at one end. people constantly running up on stage and jumping off into the audience. Sometimes the audience would just move out of the way and the diver would go right to the floor. There seemed to be 3 skin-head "backup" singers all the time on stage. Well, there were a bunch of thrash bands that sounded like crap, but this one , legacy? , put effort into what they were doing. And since the lead guitarist was actually good, the thrash crowd shut him up fast by pulling the cord out of his guitar.

So if I pick my wife, that means I can only play her guitar ? Well ok, anybody know how to make a basswood body sound better .

All the best finishing guide books highly recommend an a$$-buffed finish

Tuning machines might be a bit loose. does it buzz only when the stings are played "open" or does it also, or instead, buzz when strings are fretted ? Try to press a little on the strings behind the nut and see if it goes away. or wrap something , like a cloth around the strings behind the nut to see if that makes it go away.