Wil

Here's a few pics for starters: My design (ruler? What's a ruler?) Rough card template: Nice bit of rosewood for the fingerboard: The project lead, Milo, assessing the materials:

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1348485287' post='1814063'] There are lots of woodworking places with a bandsaw about you could probably ask to borrow, or do the cuts for you. People get enthused about guitar stuff sometimes and are really helpful. [/quote] Do you know anywhere in particular? I thought about asking in somewhere like Waghorn, but thought they'd probably get a bit upset that I wasnt getting them to build me a guitar in the first place.

I've decided to build my first instrument from scratch, so thought I'd better start a build thread. I've boshed together a few instruments from parts before but never taken the plunge into woodworking and creating something from bare wood - what's the worst that can happen though eh? As I'm not really playing any bass currently, this will be a guitar build. I've decided on a through neck design and will be using American Black Walnut for the body wings, a Madagasgan Rosewood fretboard and a single piece of plain maple for the neck. As far as the design goes, I've sketched out a body shape which is somewhere between a Gibson Firebird, Fernandes Ravelle and a BC Rich Mockingbird (pics later). Headstock will be a reverse Firebird style. The guitar will be a hardtail, using a gotoh Strat bridge (scale length will also be based on a Fender) - once the bridge arrives I'll need to see if a neck angle will be required or not - if so I was thinking of cutting a wedge off the body side of the neck and gluing it underneath to create the necessary break angle. I've sourced the wood already (again, pics later) and have a few hardware bits on order (bridge, tuners, truss rod, fretwire etc). As I need to build up my tools before I begin I anticipate this thread might take a while... Toolwise (which I have yet to procure I might add) I anticipate that I will be carving most of the body by hand using a handplane, spokeshave, cabinet scraper, chisels and sandpaper after roughing it out with a jigsaw and coping saw. I dont have any real woodworking experience so I figure that using handtools and learning as I go will reduce the chances of any massive, quick and costly mistakes with powertools. I will however need to use a router for the truss rod and pickup/control cavities... terror. I'm also unsure how I'll be roughing the neck blank without a bandsaw. I could do it by hand but the prospect of sawing straight through that length of solid maple doesnt fill me with warm feelings. So yeah, watch this space, but bring a book in case nothing happens for a while.

[quote name='paul torch' timestamp='1348476252' post='1813904'] You should read Brian Wilson: Wouldn't It Be nice. It is an excellent but heart breaking book. [/quote] Interestingly though it was wholey written by Brian Wilson's "shrink" at the time, Dr Eugene Landy. Landy is now the subject of a restraining order I think, due to his apparently manipulative treatment of Brian, and Brian himself stood up in court and attested that not only had he not written the book, he never in fact read the manuscript. That's not to say the book wasnt an excellent read, however, I enjoyed it! I'm just not sure how much of it is really true.

Has anyone seen the Pet Sounds live performances Brian did with the Wondermints? If so, anyone else think the bassist's Lakland was just totally WRONG for the music, tonally? Way too much sustain and none of that lovely, tic tac character at all.

Remember there are far more options out there than Fender and Musicman. G&L, Ibanez, Yamaha, for instance. I had a Sterling but like you preferred the natural bottom end afforded by a precision pickup so went back to my mongrel P bass. Horses for courses, the Sterling would have been great for funk but didnt have the body I needed for rock.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1348388953' post='1812895'] They aren't looking down on you because you are 19, they are looking down on you because you dress stupid, and can't grow a beard, and are probably on their lawn, like all the other young people. [/quote] Brilliant!

Brian really was something else. I was listening to the recent SMiLE release last night - strange record and not quite as polished as pet sounds but oh so creative. His ear for harmony was just incredible.

[quote name='daz' timestamp='1348242558' post='1811353'] I can honestly say I have no idea what the big guy was talking about when he said this hearing it LOUD was better than hearing it soft ? ? Just seemed like chin stroking seminar nonsense to me. Where everybody nods their heads and pretends to understand while they have no idea whats going on. In these situations I always put my hand up and say "sorry but I don't understand" and find out most other people didn't either. So here goes [center][size=5]Sorry but I don't understand[/size][/center] [/quote] I interpreted it thus - When you hear a tune in your head that you want to play, you tend to "hear" it at a moderate volume. Of course, you're not actually hearing anything, you're imagining it. In my head I hear the notes like I hear my innner monologue, being sung fairly softly as if a scat singer was living in my brain. If you imagine that those notes are being sung LOUD, it sends a stronger signal to your hands, the notes will be more distinct and present in your conciousness and you will find it easier to get the ideas from your brain out via your instrument. I think the crux of it, like 51mon said, is to clear your mind of everything but the melody. Thinking of the melody louder is probably just a way of achieving that. I can relate to what he means (if he means what I think he means) because a lot of the time my melodic ideas are a bit muddled and unclear in my head. Since watching this I've been focusing on thinking louder and clearer, and I think it could be one of the most important things I've learned in ages!

The only practising I ever really do these days is on guitar, and I'll sit down and try and let whatever tunes that pop into my head flow out without thinking too much about it. I've developed my relative pitch and interval awareness to where it is currently (enough to get by with, but certainly lots of room for improvement!) by trial and error - hearing the note, leaping for it, and leaping for it again and again if I miss it. I do the same with keys sometimes too, I really enjoy that, as you can add in any harmony notes you want with the left hand without being limited by handspan as you are on guitar. I tend to find that the skill is transferable between any instrument to an extent, once you get a feel for where the intervals sit.

That Phil Collins is quite a drummer too, eh? Shame he made his kit sound like biscuit tins for most of his later career.

Genesis were well before my time but I love Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway very much. I watched the footage of this gig in it's entirety recently, great stuff indeed. Gabriel has so much character in his voice, and the music is just fantastic, all the prog twists and turns but melodically strong enough to carry it off. They really knew how to use dynamics to their full too, I think the Lamb might have the widest dynamic range of all the non classical music in my collection? Stuff like Hairless Heart makes the hairs on my neck stand up every time.

Oh, I think there's a definite Pet Sounds influence there. Reverb drenched percussion and those bittersweet harmonies... love it [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWP7x1oF9dA[/media]

Merriweather Post Pavillion was a great listen, loved the whole Beach Boys in space feel. I'm looking forward to picking up the new one.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1347637917' post='1803482'] Says the man with a dressed up performing David Bowie as his avatar... [/quote] David Bowie gets away with it, just about, because he's David Bowie! I'm not, and I'm under no illusions that I'm a rock star. I'd rather just be honest and present myself as I am on stage. I'm talking about me here, obviously.

Jeans and t shirt. What I'd wear if I were watching a band. I dont like the idea of dressing up to perform, I think it's a bit pretentious personally.

Zender was my first big bass influence. Amazing feel, to this day whenever I hear his playing on the first 3 Jamiroquai records he captures my full attention. I read that when he first started learning the instrument, he sat and worked out how to play all the bass lines from Black Market by Weather Report by ear. Beats Smoke on the Water as a starter for 10 I guess...

I own a VT bass and I've owned a DHA VT3 rackmount preamp. I didnt really like the DHA, even after trying various different preamp valves. Just wasnt the sound for me at the time. I think it would have been better suited to guitar, in hindsight. The VT sounds great and does a very good ampeg impression. I'd go VT every time if that's the tone you want.

Gibson QC and pricing aside, these look quite nice.

Silly moustache, too.

I've just replaced the stock saddles on my strat with string savers. I was breaking a string at the bridge every rehearsal without fail so I figured it had to be the saddles (which were pretty rough looking "vintage" style Fender items). Time will tell how it works out but I've spent a good few hours noodling and doing some big bends without a breakage yet.

Ok. Most analogue delays will do that if you adjust the delay time while it's feeding back, but that particular sound has Space Echo stamped all over it, IMO.

I think it did, yeah. I havent played with the morph function yet, sounds cool though, I'll check it out! I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what this thing can do at the moment. Certainly not wanting for a Rhodes just yet!

The pitch bend stick is brilliant, very responsive. I love how well made the whole thing feels, and having every control there on the front panel via the twist of a knob sealed the deal for me (apart from the fact it sounds great too)

Well, I tried out loads of stuff, but couldnt find anything that offered a really good blend of the two instruments with keyboard splitting, portability, a nice feeling keyboard and that also fell within my budget. I tried the Juno again but didnt like it as much the second time around. So I thought to myself, seeing as I cant find anything that does the two things really well, maybe I should focus on just one for now - in which case, which will be the more flexible instrument, a good electric piano or a good synth? Synth won for now, purely because it offers more options for use with my band - I took a risk and bought a Nord Lead 2 off ebay for less than a new microkorg. It's great, very expressive, intuitive and fun to use, and although it lacks a Rhodes sound I can synthesise some pretty great lead sounds for the right hand side of the board, so I'm happy for now. One day I might get myself a real Rhodes for home use, when I've got room. Here's a little tune I made during my first few hours of mucking about with it (as you can see, I suck at keys anyway!): [url="http://soundcloud.com/wil-miles/mola-mola"]http://soundcloud.co...miles/mola-mola[/url]