Bjorn.LaSanche

Damn that’s pretty.  I just got done setting up the exact same model but in black.  Sweet guitar, but I’m a stickler for old Square Heel RGs. 

I play music where tremolo picking is a common technique in the rhythms. Example 16th notes at 190+ bpm. I know the path you are on quite intimately(my own personal research)with your thread. If I may, I would like to offer a few things I have found in my search.  

For sake of brevity, I’ll touch on pick geometry, or mechanics as you call it. 

Without a doubt, the jazz style pick design tends to be the “fastest”. Three reasons why: 

1. The sharpened point and slightly larger area where the pick is held compared to a teardrop design. 

2. Long edges that arc towards the tip instead of straight lines from base to tip of pick. 

3. The playing edges are not sharp chamfers, but rolled edges from pick flat face towards playing edge. 

The arc’ed long playing edges and rolled edges allow for the pick to slip past the string once contact is made while picking hand mechanics is going from downstroke to upstroke and back.  Hard edges will actually grab the strings and slow the picking down until normal use rounds out the hard edges. 

This is my own gathered data I have studied, observed, discussed with peers over the last 34 years of playing fast music. Most of the hardcore geeked out info was garnered within the past 10-12 years. It has always been a what can help play smoother and faster snipe hunt. 

Pick material (aside from at times only being able to use what is commercially available from pick companies) choice for the end user is largely determined by an individual’s picking style. Do you, pivot from the elbow with locked wrist?  Do you  relax the elbow and pivot at the wrist?  Do you only use thumb and index finger movement?  Do you roll your forearm back and forth in a twitch motion while relaxing your wrist while using the weight of your hand to provide the past the string contact rebound?  Every picking style has bonuses and limitations resulting in the need for different pick materials, stiffnesses, and mass. 

Rhythm tremolo picking requires a pick manufactured from a material that:

Maintains it’s shape while being used.(tip smear that changes the pick centerline)

Stiff enough to not allow the faces of the pick to mold itself along the dominant finger while it’s warming from the pick contact of the string friction, as well as the players body heat; while at the same time providing some material flex to allow relaxing of the fingers and hand to just hold the pick enough to maintain control  harder substances with no flex actually will make you hold the pick tighter as it will want to bounce out of your hand  resulting in speed decreases due to hand tension  

slippery enough of a material so it will easily glide against the strings being played without  disintegrating into dust as it’s used (celluloid is a decent example of a material not the best suited to tremolo rhythm tasks ( I don’t care what Slayer uses, they grew up playing before  newer plastics came to market and like all guitarists, creatures of habit  they make those rounded triangle celluloid picks work for them.  You don’t ever see them taking out faster bands on the road with them)).

Two materials I have found were the perfect materials for MY personal picking style  

1. Old formula Black “stiffo” nylon Dunlop used on the Jazz III picks. This was a matte black plastic and would not polish up to a shine.  Sadly Dunlop stopped using this material around the same time they released the Eric Johnson signature Jazz III’s.  

2. The Carbon Fiber impregnated nylon used in the Pickboy High Modulus picks with the Marijuana leaf imprinted on the pick.  The 1.14mm thickness of these picks has the stiffness of a 2mm+ pick while having the slight flex needed and these wear at about 1/4 as much as Black Stiffo,  Swiping these picks across a carpet once or twice before use will give you an almost perfect playing surface (use only enough pressure to knock off manufacture material flash).

Sadly the two materials have some downsides.  The Dunlop material is no longer used ( Dunlop will claim it’s the same, but the old stuff was impossible to polish into the shiny picks you can purchase now, it’s just whatever the red stuff is colored black)  The Pickboy High Modulus are hard to obtain and expensive. $9/ pk of 10 with zero chance of purchasing a refill pack/dealers pack/musicians pack. They also only have ONE dealer in the US in which to purchase them. All buy through them and tack on their costs, etc.  Paying $30+/month for a months worth of picks is not economically feasible for me   I can purchase a bag of 75 Jazz III XLs in Tortex direct for $21 from my local dealer.  I ended up compromising with the tortex picks of the Jazz III XL shape with the 1.5mm thickness. Absolute best material? Hardly, but material and thickness are in my personal required criteria. The trade off is weight and faster wear.  Plus the White Tortex has tendency to keep its matte finish.  

Here is a weblink for the Pickboy picks I mentioned above.  Cool picks, but damn they are expensive  

http://www.osiamo.com/PB33P114

@thaumgarrettit was the heavy figuring on the body + headstock, dark fretboard with ginormous inlays, dual humbuckers, and faux F-hole.  That was one of the more popular models Carvin made. The other a strat-like model. Both were advertised in their print catalogs as they were the Country Music go to guitars, like Ibanez and Jackson were marketed towards shredders. My guess was a shot in the dark, but i recognized the construction aesthetics.  

Carvin?

Anyone heard of this company and specifically this tremolo they sell?

http://www.killerguitarcomponents.com/store/bridges-tailpieces/tremolo-bridges/strat-style-tremolos/the-killer-trem-detail

t is good stuff man regardless if it isn't you on the recordings.  Would still like to be able to get a copy even if all digital. always enjoy good music of any genre that moves me.

Are you in this or any of the other De Tonal State online videos? 

https://youtu.be/UuqmYpuon94

On 11/2/2015 at 5:15 PM, Prostheta said:

An old one from a band I was in almost ten years ago....

Did you guys ever release anything officially?  I like this and if nothing else would like to get a dubbed copy unless the other two tracks you posted were the rest.

This is the guitar I was trying to find a work around for an action problem I had grown tired of dealing with.  After I had removed some wood from the neck pocket and tremolo route, I decided that I really did not like how the guitar looked.  Really I had just watched the Crimson Guitars video on Shou Sugi-Ban finish method and I thought it was an interesting method of finishing ( Read: Looks FUCKING Cool and fun ).  Being the methodical person I am went and looked at how it was really done, as Ben's videos on the subject aren't as serious as I would like.

I watched this video as well as reading what I could find over a couple days online.  On how to properly attempt the finish.  It is a modified Oil Finish and you must use your oil to build up past the charred wood that brushing did not remove.  I usually apply 3-4 coats oil to a guitar before applying wax and has been good for me in the past.  This finish took around 11-12 oil applications. before my wiping rag stopped picking up black residue.

I do like the finish method.  I would like to see if color can be applied after charring and add to the technique, or enhance what appears.  I have seen other builders sand the surface smooth prior to oiling, but in my opinion, the texture is important to the technique.  Otherwise, the Japanese would sand their cedar siding prior to oiling.

I took these photos this evening when I got home from work so framing and colors aren't perfect.  Mainly to give an idea of that the finish looks like up close as you can zoom fairly well into these. 

It didn't change the timbre much.  Just the initial pick is a bit more pronounced, compared to before. The body is basswood which is usually rather vanilla sounding being neither bright nor warm.  I would liken the pronounced pick attack now sounds more like something made from alder but retaining all the other tonal qualities of basswood.  Shou Sugi-Ban changes the molecular structure of the wood somewhat (at least that is what is claimed when I was researching how to do it) causing it to become more dense, or hardening at the molecular level perhaps?  Perhaps that is only to the cedar that is used in Japan for building siding.  All I can say is the guitar has always sounded good unplugged, just now is a little louder than before charring it. I did the entire guitar, not just the body, so the extra presence could also be coming off the neck resonance as that is maple? I only lightly charred the neck wood as I didn't want the fret board(not done) coming loose, or cause damage to the truss rod.

When I get home from work today I will post a couple photos of it.  I love the color it turned out as well as the texture it got from brushing off the charr.

Update on this topic.  Removing wood from the neck pocket worked some what.  The main problem was the tremolo anchor studs and posts.  As this tremolo was retrofitted to the guitar originally, The original cavity route on the high side was too close to the body face, so when drilling the studs deeper to set the posts further into the body, I blew through the high side and had to dowel and glue it back.  I attempted a second go as far as I dared due to the depth of the high side and left as is.  Will redo the body eventually so I can properly get decent action.  It will probably be better to just purchase a spare RG neck off the internet and make a new body from scratch.  Until then, the guitar is playable, but still goofy high action. 

While doing all this I redid the finish using the shou-sugi-ban technique and I actually liked the way it came out.  The only change I noticed using this finish was the pick attack is now really present.

If any of you will be in the area on October 28, 2017 We will be playing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fest II.  It will be at the White Swan down in the 5th Ward.  We go on second.  Unfortunately, Blood Storm had to cancel. (My band was to back the vocalist).

I hope someone will be able to attend as I would like to meet all of you eventually. 

Yeah this is indeed an old thread.  Necrothread away we go...

After many years trying the gamut of different brands and lines within the brands I have returned to D'addario XL's  Just the regular plain Jane type.  Not because of any perceived tonal variation they give, but the fact that they are the only ones that withstand the way I play leads.  I use the tremolo bar heavily as a good portion of my technique and XL's seem to be the only brand/line that will not die out quickly, nor break like others do.  Once they are properly stretched out and locked down, they just work.  I can tell when they are starting to go south as one of the wound strings will start to go flat after every song until said string breaks at the top of the locking block of the saddle.  I will get anywhere from 4-6 weeks a set.  With strings now going for over $6/pack on up,  this works out financially for me.

Thanks, I have only seen the D'Addario one before and that one is fairly proprietary.

Two years ago The drummer I was working with up and left while we were working on our debut album.  I had spent a few months trying to edit this guys drum tracks and unless I was prepared to completely program ALL his tracks from scratch there was no way to finish recording.  After a month of tossing the idea around, my drummer told me to program something easy and do a cover and go from there.

We both love Discharge, so I came up with 4 of their songs and let him decide.  He chose The Nightmare Continues.  I programmed the drums in about a day, went to his house the next and recorded the guitars and bass.  Told him to come over a day or two after we tracked rhythms to help run the DAW for vocals ( I was actually going to have him do them as he has a better voice for that style of music.)  Once he came over, I handed him the lyric sheet, sat him down with my iPod and told him he had 15 minutes. 

This is the result

LaSanche covering Discharge's The Nightmare Continues

Digital download of our demo from 2013 here

https://lasanche.bandcamp.com/releases

Was also released in pro pressed cassette form via Gruft Produktion if you prefer physical copy

Contact them here

gruft@interia.pl 

I believe the physical copy is roughly $7 US + shipping

Not to necrothread, but if anyone here runs into a tech problem regarding any Ibanez stuff that cannot be answered here, drop a line to Rich at ibanezrules.com.  He is probably the best resource online for modern era (from 1988 or so) Ibanez instruments. He has been able to provide me direction when I was in a jam on a couple of things regarding my guitars.  He won't hold your hand though as he is busy on his own work.

On 9/15/2017 at 10:07 PM, curtisa said:

The string tension for your nominal pitches over the 17" scale length seem quite low:

That's nearly the same gauges for a typical 13-56 acoustic set (ignoring the wound 3rd string), and over a scale length of 25", that's barely half the tension:

My gut feel is that you're not getting enough tension to get the string up to its optimum sweet spot for its intended pitch (look up String Inharmonicity), and the thicker plain 3rd is suffering the most due to its high mass and short scale length. I would have thought you'd have noticed other problems too, such as very poor intonation and extreme sensitivity to pitch variation when doing vibrato and bends.

What gauges and materials does the tenor uke normally get string with? Could you go back to your previous PL-NW-NW-NW string configuration but substitute flatwounds for the three wound strings to avoid the string noise problems you were experiencing before?

Curtisa, I haven't been on the forum in a while.  I noticed this calculator for string tension you posted.  Is that a new forum app, or your own design? Thanks for the info in advance Sir.

I am replacing the nut on my bassists abomination of a stringed instrument.  the previous one I think was made out of more dried CA, than bone.

I have the nut so it sits in the slot with a nice tight fit, made the fret board radius mark in pencil. Drew a second line above the first showing me the fret height off the fret board.  Now before I screw this up, I would like to draw a line that shows how far above the fret height, I should use as a stopping point of filing the string slot BEFORE I start the fine tuning filing of the slot.  Most places I have looked at give advice to measure the height of the fret wire and roughly .015"-.020" above the fret board radius line as a good starting point.  Meaning ok you can hog out nut material to here then stop, change mental focus to detail work and start finalizing shape, slot angle, etc..  These have been all for guitar and I have used them on several guitars I have replaced nuts on and works quite well for me.  This is the first bass I have done.  because this bass had the shitty nut from hell I really could not get a good reference of the distance between the top of the fret wire and the bottom of the strings to judge where to stop the main material removal and change to detailed working metal state.  Is it the same as on a guitar?  Seems that this is the elusive bit of information that no one discusses when trying to research this for bass guitars.  I would use a Tusq pre slotted, but this guitar's neck is wider than any pre slotted bass nuts available.  Thank you guys for any pointers.  I am just trying to get the nut into a rough finish from straight blank, but well before nearing finish

For your budget, if you have not purchased anything yet, Ampeg VH140C, Marshall 3210, Randall RH200 will all do exactly what you are looking for and unfortunately are all solid state.  That is not in any way a bad thing.  Listen to Dying Fetus up to the Reign Supreme album, as well as all old Suffocation (I am speaking first two albums specifically here) that is your Ampeg VH140C. For the Marshall 3210 check out Necrovore's first demo  Guitar coming out of the speakers on your left hand side as you face the speakers is all 3210 stock.  I know this because it was my personal amp(not me playing on that recording, I joined that band later).  When I used it I used an MXR 6 band graphic in the effects loop to take the amp over the top.  I have also owned the Randall I mentioned above.  It will get to the Ampeg levels of crunch, but the tone stack is more Marshall-like, less Randall/Pantera.  I originally bought it for a light-weight amplifier to keep in my vehicle when playing live in case my Mesa broke down (bad idea because that 200 watt amp weighed the same as the mesa).  I used it when I was sessioning for a local black metal band as I wanted a different tonal sound than my usual tone.  I mentioned these three amps because they will not get lost in a band mix or rehearsal.

One more suggestion is a Digitech 2101 Artist through a poweramp.  This is what Ron Jarzombek uses if you are familiar with his playing.

Reality on the wattage myth.  In this modern era of multi thousand watt public address systems that mandate a minimum of 16+ channels, a guitarist can easily get by with a 5-25 watt amp and the audience wouldnt know the difference.  Stage volume would be a different matter unless you had decent monitoring on stage, which is barely ever in a metal setting.  You would be fighting to hear each instrument over the drums.  The large 100 watt amps were needed back in the late 1960's into the mnid 1970's as Pa systems were usually used to amplify the singer, bass, keys, and occasionally drums.  Most large concerts held in arenas and larger would necessitate the guitarists to turn up to be heard.  Tradition carried forward until civic noise laws and lazy-assed FOH "sound engineers" started miking all instruments to create an overall band mix so the venue wouldn't get in trouble with the municipal blue gang shaking down the venue for additional revenue for the city coffers for noise violations.  Ever play a show where the soundman keeps asking you to turn down because the guitar is too loud at the same time you are looking at his stack of 10 Crown 1000 watt two channel amps sitting in a rack behind the PA columns, to the point where you cant even hear your cabinet?  Then gives you some great guitar in the monitor thats EQ'ed like high pass that starts at 200Hz, -6db@400-750Hz, and caps it off with a +20Db@2KHz and comes down and cranks the poweramp feeding that one monitor in front of you so you get the full 1000 watts off that pa amp right in your face?  Sorry I rambled a bit.... Too many way way way too many times.   Your 50-100 watt tube amps are good for one thing on a normal stage.  Air movement of your sound.  Learn to feel yourself playing by how the air is shaking the back of your pants when Stasi minded soundmen decide to be micro tyrants.   Or call them out on it.  Ask them if there is any reason why they cant just turn the guitars down at the board so you can keep your sound that makes you play well.  My personal level is just loud enough to hear myself, 2nd guitarist across the stage, and bassist over the drums.  When the idiot behind the piecr of gear that has all those knobs to turn forces his will, just turn down enough where you can feel your amp moving air.

@Curtisa You're saying that the high e saddle on a tremolo(or standard bridge) should be moved to it's furthest point towards the nut and compensate the rest of the bridge accordingly to the scale of the guitar in most instances?  What if the guitar is tuned down to say B standard and the player is using very heavy strings?  Wouldn't the builder need to worry about the distance of the low E string's break point across the saddle?  I ask because I have seen a couple videos where a guitarist of a certain popular death metal band had to resort to taking a dremel to the fine tuner riser on his floyd rose to get the low A&E strings to intonate.  Said band usually tunes to B or C standard.  When I watched the video all I could think of was why didn't the manufacture already take the guys low tuning and intonation of the bridge on the custom guitar he was hacking.

That Tele is just amazingly cool looking Ron.  Might I ask the name of the CA manufacturer?  I will be starting on a build soon wher I am using locally sourced pecan and while it has been aging the past few years, there are some cracks in a piece that is highly figured I was planning on using for the top I would like to attend to.

Pickups:  http://www.bestbassgear.com/nordstrand-4-string-p-bass-pickups-humbucking.htm

Alternate Pickup: Seymour Duncan Steve Harris Sig, or Quarter Pound P Bass

Preamp: http://www.bestbassgear.com/aguilar-obp1-preamp.htm

Tone Stack Pot: http://www.bestbassgear.com/noble-25k-eq-pot-for-aguilar-obp-1-stack-treble-bass.htm

I know you didn't want to include a tone pot, but if you do add one, you can really dial in your tone.  I am currently pickup shopping for my bass player as the pickup he has in his bass makes me want to start eating paint of the leaded variety.  Literally sounds like dry beer farts to my ears.  I tried the Till FET preamp to give it some kick, but nah, no dice.  General consensus on places such as Talk Bass as well as speaking to several of my bassist gear head friends suggest the Nordstrand/Aguilar preamp combo with the alternate being the Duncans above.  Unlike you his bass features a knockoff of a Musicman pickup so we have even less choices out there.

Just a question here, which Schaller bridge and what made your decision?  What about a Hipshot Kick Ass bridge?  I ask because while Schaller makes some choice kit, depending on what is in stock through your dealer, you can be waiting upwards of a year for your order.  I bought a set of Schaller  M6 non-locking machine heads in Ruthenium (Schaller's version of Cosmo Black) for an Ibanez clone I am building for myself, and the order took 14 months to arrive.

You are probably correct.  I was reading another website discussing the same.  I figured it was another species altogether, as they actually had padauk in stock which was more of an orange juice color when I was there.

It is probably something akin to pecan and hickory, where Padauk is the main phenotype, and the various shades of brand names are just alternate strains.

It isn't padauk. I cannot remember the common name the lumber yard had it as.  It was bright coca cola red when I bought it, Now after it has aged some it is a lovely oxblood color like the red doc Martin boots.

Bloodwood (I just went out and looked at the board.)  I knew nothing about it when I bought it, the guy said it was also called vermillion.  I was just very keen on the vibrant color of it. It has darkened now, but no where near how dingy purpleheart looks after aging and darkening.

It isnt a LP type.  More of a Telecaster.  Look around 1:35 in this video

https://youtu.be/7BIHyNMWAgw