mcnach

I already waste enough time as it is, don't give me new ideas!

very good lesson

It's one of those songs that I found hard to sound *just right*. I came up with different passable ways to do it originally, and checked videos online... and was never really happy with it. I think I was only happy once I found a 'bass only' track from the original recording (with bum notes and all ) , and realised I was overcomplicating things. Just like with Tell Me Baby, some of the percussive notes are really the bass drum.

Yeah, I was never a fan of its effects. A bit of reverb but nothing else. However the amp/speaker simulations sounded pretty good, and still do.

In reality it should be your secret weapon, and wait for the guitar shredder... THEN you turn up and slap! God, I'd hate working in a music shop, I'd go insane...

Not exactly how I'd play it but a very adequate version. If you slow it down, it's not difficult. It just requires a bit of practice so that you can play it at speed. I am not a fan of Flea's first few albums with his almost gymnastic style of slap. Once I was slowing down... Get up and jump I think it was, or Blackeyed Blonde... and I thought they were pretty cool funky riffs *IF* you played them fingerstyle and a lot slower. a LOT slower Glad he gave up that fast slap in the end.

How do you know it's only for one song? There's something to be said for continuing learning and expanding your horizons. It is a very easy song, but with educational potential. The only difficulty for someone who doesn't slap is its speed, when you first look at it. I get that. But once you analyse it, there's not a lot to it: a simple pattern over three chords that shifts at one point or another a whole tone. If you play it slow it won't take too much effort to get it to sound right. The hardest parts on that song are actually the non-slapped bits! I'm sorry if I look like I'm insisting too much... I don't mean to tell the OP that he absolutely must slap Of course not... But I'd rather he made that decision based on... well, a choice, and not because he thinks he can't do the other style... when I'm pretty sure he would pick it up fast if he wanted to. I insist because of my own 'history'. I never cared for slap. There were a few things that I liked but they sounded too difficult for me to even try... some stuff by Larry Graham (POW), RHCP (Tell me baby), Louis Johnson (Michael Jackson - Get on the floor)... However, I joined a little covers band and we did a few RHCP tracks. Fortunately, only one had slap: "Can't stop". I learnt it. Badly at first, a bit better after a few weeks. Then the band folded. Drummer was a big fan of the RHCP and we decided to meet once a week to play RHCP tunes, and by now I was curious about slap. Higher Ground came up as a suggestion, and I laughed... No way. But I went home, sat with the song, and figured out what the bassline was... and it was not hard, it was just uncomfortable for me and I just could not do it at the right speed but it was not hard to get the notes to sound right. Every day I'd play 15-20 minutes, and by the end of the week I was still off target speedwise, but not too far and I surprised the drummer playing it... with a few mistakes, fumbles, and slower than it should... but merely a week earlier I thought that song was way out of my reach. It wasn't long until I could play that, and many others. I was not great. I am not great at it, I very rarely slap... but if there's a situation calling for a bit of slap, or there's a song that has slap, I don't need to say "no, I can't".... you know what I mean? And that feels good, knowing that you have expanded your set of skills. RHCP's Higher Ground sounds pretty cool if you don't slap. Nothing wrong with that. But that intro is classic, and doing it without slapping feels like you're diluting it too much. I used to hate it myself, because I never liked being the centre of attention, and being alone for the first 4 bars or whatever it is... ugh, nerves!

I don't know, it's up to you, really. I really don't get the "oooh, slap, won't do that" attitude I see sometimes (not saying you do, just a general observation) I learnt to slap because in a RHCP band you sort of have to... I could *copy* slap parts easily after a while, but it's a lot harder to come up with your own good slap lines, that's why I rarely use it in our original material, but there's a couple of things that contain a little slap. And when I'm playing with a band that wants to cover a song that happens to contain slap, I can do it. Why not? There's a lot of tasty slap out there, it doesn't have to all sound like the proverbial drummer falling down the stairs that you often hear in music shops Seriously, RHCP's Higher Ground is a pretty simple song to play, it's not like you need to commit teh next 8 months or something.

I prefer that version too. Last year my band supported The Dualers in Glasgow, this is their version of Monkey Man from the very same gig (my girlfriend filmed it on her mobile), I quite enjoyed it from the audience even if it was a rather long version. It doesn't seem like much, but the atmosphere was really good.

ugh, I despise that song Playing in a 50-50 originals-covers classic ska/reggae band, it was in our repertoire. We all hated it. But it was very popular. If the dancefloor was not very busy... here comes Monkey Man. WE didn't even announce it, just hit the first G-G-GGG notes... and we watched people rushing into the dance floor. That band is on a... hiatus, due to disagreements between two members. I miss the band, but I feel so happy I haven't played that song in 6 months now! A couple of months ago I was playing in town with another band. It was actually supposed to be the the classic ska band playing, I had booked that one and convinced everyone to do that one gig. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks before, the guitarist injured his back and we had to pull out. Instead I offered my other band. We do play some ska tunes but it's a bit more eclectic, mixing ska/funk/reggae and whatever else, it's all high energy good spirits bouncy dancey stuff. Crucially, it's all originals except a cover we do of Bad Boys (and occasionally "Beer" by Reel Big Fish). There was a group of "hardcore ska fans", you know the type... They were not amused. They expected the other band and tunes they knew, and got us. The bar was bouncing, but they stayed at the back looking whizzed off. Close to the end of our first set they started heckling. Ah well. We decided that was our last song before the break. As we finished, I looked at the guitarist, who had been in another ska band and he also knew the song, and I started the intro for Monkey Man. The group got excited for a second... and we stopped and went for a break. Oh they hated us. I wanted to do it again at the beginning of the second set but my bandmates thought it was not wise to taunt them too much...

Watch out for 'slap settings' that sound great alone but get you lost in the mix. Most scoop the mids far too much. You still need strong low mids or you'll lost a lot of the thump and presence.

Indeed, if you're not a RHCP tribute or anything, playing the RHCP version fingerstyle sounds pretty good too... but I'd still try slap, if nothing else so that you learn something new. It can open doors to other stuff. Slap does not need to be naff, you know?

I'd go with it. It's a pretty easy song to play. If you've never really slapped before, you'll pick it up in no time. It's a simple pattern, all you have to do is relax your arm, and start slowly, get the notes right and... speed up to the required speed (it's not even that fast). For some reason people seem to respond well to it and it's fun to play. You get to learn something a bit out of your comfort zone too.

It gets worse: I just ordered a new trem arm for the Floyd Rose, as I can't find the original. I know it's stored somewhere but can't find it). Next on the list: a proper hair-metal wig

I know! I mean... Guitars! Digital emulations! and the B word!!! (not that one, i meant BEHRINGER!!!) The triumvirate of evil to many After a few hours playing, I was able to remember how to play Sweet Child of Mine. Once I remove the cobwebs from my memory and I get Stairway to Heaven and Smoke on the Water, I'll be ready to go down to Guitar Guitar and torture them for a while. I won't leave until I get a discount on some DR strings 😛

Indeed, huge variety of sounds in the flatwound world.

Mine would be Prince - When doves cry

The J-Station had some really nice Fender-esque clean sounds. A JT-50 for £30? I'd have bought it too! Nice one!

Are you talking about the Tech21 sims? It was the Marshall one that I really liked on the Trademark combo. If you mean the V-Amp... it's also the Marshall sims that I liked best: - Brit Hi Gain, based on the JCM800, a great 'rawk' sim - Brit Classic, based on the 1959 'Plexi' 100W -Classic 50 W, another 'Plexi' The last two felt really well made for me. They are perhaps not an accurate representation of the real thing, but they are good sounds, and respond beautifully to the the guitar's volume. I like to have my volume (on a strat, with a humbucker at the bridge) backed off a little, and select a nice crunch sound that responds to both dynamics and the volume knob, giving me pretty clean or pretty dirty and fat sounds with small tweaks straight from the guitar.

Oh yeah! How could I forget them??? I just never had one. I remember looking at the PSA-1 in magazines but it was out of my price range at the time. I have played through one of their Trademark 30 or 60 combos, I forget which one it was. It had switches for 3 different types of amplifier, 3 gain models, and 3 cabinets I think... and it sounded really good.

These days, you have your Helices, Kempers and various others that give you a very very good sound, straight from guitar to desk. Recording guitars have never been easier. Kids today don't know how good they have it, even if the better units are definitely pricey. Today I was tidying up and found my old Behringer V-Amp2. I'm pretty sure I bought mine in 2001... it's nearly 20 years old! But it's not half bad. I was surprised to still like some of the amplifier simulations it's got as much as I remembered. There's a newer version out but I'm not sure how much better it'll be. I remember struggling a lot to get a half decent sound from electric guitars into my old multitrack recordings. I was either living in student dorms or in flats, sharing, and cranking up an electric guitar just wasn't something I could often do at home. Especially if you tend to get inspired at 2-3am like I did. My first attempt to address this was with a Zoom 2020. They cost £229 in 1994. I still remember that because it was a LOT of money for me in those days. The headphone out claimed to have speaker emulation. It was dire. Better than nothing, but dire. I then managed to get a Boss GX700. It was over £400, a little rack unit. This one actually didn't sound bad. It had all the effects I could ever want and then some, you could route them in different ways, combine them, do all kinds of stuff. It was a great orange box of wonders, especially in 1997. Still expensive, but there wasn't much that was any better that was affordable to little people like me. Then, over the next few years, something changed. First it was Line6, I think. The mighty POD. It made my GX700 sound pretty prehistorical, emulation-wise, although as an FX unit the GX700 remained much better and I would still be happy to use one as the effects were... well, typical Boss: most may never be the best of the best, but they do the job very adequately. Then came the Johnson J-Station, the Behringer V-Amp, a bit later Vox brought out the ToneLab... Zoom started including much improved emulations in any FX unit... and I lost track. I lost track because I found one unit that I was pretty happy with for my purposes. I tried everything that I could, and at one point I even owned simultaneously the J-Station, Vox ToneLab, V-Amp and a borrowed POD. The J-Station was pretty cool. It had a certain quality that the others didn't. It felt more realistic, but I also felt it was a bit muddy. So, realistic as in "real mic'd amps, just not mic'd very well". Still... it took me a while to sell it because I felt it was special and some of its models were very good. The ToneLab was not very good. Beautiful unit, many physical knobs, which were welcome, but... nah. I preferred the POD and the V-Amp. And after a bit of a-B comparisons, I settled on the V-Amp. The fact that it was the cheapest unit was a happy coincidence. Behringer has been criticised, rightfully, for copying other manufacturers' designs left and right, however, their V-Amp was a pretty cool unit that showed a degree of innovation. Soundwise they were as good or better than anything else you could buy those days. I actually liked them better. They also came up with a user interface that made a lot more sense and was friendlier than anything else anybody else was doing at the time. Lots of physical knobs,easy and intuitive to edit... and LEDS THAT ALLOWED YOU TO SEE WHAT EACH KNOB WAS SET AT. At last! Someone got it!!! That feature alone was enough to make me want to keep the V-Amp over its competitors. It was funny when Line6 brought out their "pocket POD" which also used LEDs in the same way, soon after. So Behringer being copied? I ended up with rack units for both the guitar and bass V-Amp2 which I used in my little home "studio". Pretty versatile, good sounding and cheap units. Then I stopped recording, sold most things, and kept the V-Amp2. It needed a little battery to make it work properly again [*] but here it is... and it sounds great. I'm about to move house and I was planning to set up something to do some recording in the new place, so I'm tidying up, getting rid off things I don't use anymore etc. But this little V-Amp is going to be back in business again [*] There is an internal battery, much like the ones in PCs, which is not described in the manual. When it gets old, it resets the unit, it loses the presets, and frankly it sounds pretty bad. I remember seeing comments about these things malfunctioning and sounding horrible and people just dumping them. Then I found out about the battery and I managed to tell about it at least to another two people who were about to dump theirs, and a battery change is all they needed. Crazy. How could they forget something like that in their manual?

All very good, but if the OP is like me, it means you never play anything but the one instrument that is out of the case, ever. I have forgotten I owned instruments simply because they were, very protected, in their hard cases. I like guitar racks. I use the Warwick 7-guitar ones. I bought the first one back in... 2000-2002 or so, and it's still in great condition. So are the guitars. Dust is a thing, that's true, but maybe you can use it as a gauge to measure which guitars are obvious candidates to be sold on

Brilliant!!! That guy's intensity... he doesn't need to do anything or say anything

Yup... That semi-grin at 25 seconds or so... I wouldn't like to be at the other end. It's the grin of the psychopath that knows is about to taste blood and he was hungry PS: not implying that JJ is/was a psychopath, just in case!