GarethFlatlands

[quote name='skelf' timestamp='1349781989' post='1830354'] Just working on several new guitar designs a few now at the prototype stage. [/quote] Because this is such a friendly forum, I'd like to offer my services as a tester of those prototypes. No charge either

Just got back from the local guitar shop. I went in with a budget of about £300 for an all purpose workhorse guitar for any occasion and had my eye on the Squier Classic Vibe series. I spent about an hour trying various guitars and was pretty much sold on a Classic Vibe 50's strat. Excellent playability and build for the money if anyone's looking at one. Plugged it in and it was perfectly usable and then I made the fatal mistake of trying a MIM strat. The playability was better but not good enough to justify the extra £100 but the sound was a definate cut above. It was full and round where the Squier was a little quiet and brittle in comparison. I ended up with the MIM and went overbudget. I've somehow never owned a strat until now so I'm pretty excited even through it's just a bog standard guitar everyone's owned several of over their lifetimes.

£4.99 on Kindle, bargain. Just downloaded it.

What a nice guy. 3 cheers for all the Gareths on BC!

Chris Pennie is a genius. I watch this pretty regularly. [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRP3UqvIEIY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRP3UqvIEIY[/url]

I was toying with getting one a while ago so did some reading on the subject, admittedly with no testing. The major names are all good choices, Roland, Korg, Yamaha etc but have a look at Classenti as well. They're a lesser known brand but seem to be very well regarded and their base model is within your budget, with change. My ex had a Yamaha Clavinova (can't remember the model name) in her lounge and it was a very nice piece of kit, the keys were lighter than a real piano but the sound was really nice and there were a few other instrument sounds in there too which were very limited but usable. The double bass sounds was pretty good, I think she dumped me because I wouldn't stop coming over and playing 'Love Cats' on it. Try ukpianos.co.uk, they don't look a million miles away from Surrey and they might be able to give you some advice or let you run round testing whatever they've got in stock.

Yeah, I can't even get a sound out of the thing at the minute despite having some beginners luck making a pleasing 'parp' first time I took it out of the case. Not a bean since :-( A friend in a local band plays trumpet so I'm going to hit him up for a few short lessons to get me making noise and then take it from there.

That was far too useful for any 'fnar fnar' comments so thanks! Ordered some oil and grease (here we go again...) so I can at least maintain the instrument while I'm doing mainly mouthpiece practice.

Well it arrived today, looks pretty good apart from the fact I don't think it's seen any grease or oil in a few years as the valves stick. I know I said I was going to go for the mouthpiece alone for a bit but you've got to pretend you're an expert the first few times you take it out the case haven't you? Anyway, just practising getting a tone out of the thing at the moment. The guy on the youtube beginners vid gets a nice tone just from his lips but I can't do it without the mouthpiece. Practice time!

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1348639600' post='1816203'] Ironically I remembered last night that in a previous band a guitarist I worked with used a Marshall amp through a peavey 4x10 bass cab and it was the best sound I had ever had from a guitarist so I'm getting pretty excited now [/quote] Until he asks you to lift it. The Peavy 4 by 10 I used to use was heavier than my car.

I was thinking a few 5 minute spells a day with just the mouthpiece to really concentrate on building up stamina and getting a decent tone, not even worrying about installing it for a couple of months minimum. That should be a good start and hopefully keep the volume down so I can get more practice in without annoying the housemates.

Nope, looks good thanks. I forgot about the sax being woodwind, I tend to lump the horn section instruments together forgetting about the fairly massive difference. I got a reasonably priced Bach Bb trumpet off E-Bay so I'll see how I get on with that and hit you up for any advice if I need to. There's always my Korg synth if it turns out I can't get a tune out of the thing! Thanks again.

There's a smart harmony setting on the Line 6 M5, not tried it out in any great detail though.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1347739154' post='1804568'] how can you trademark a sound? You can patent the circuit that makes that sound if it's special enough - but a specfic tone? sure I can deconstruct that and remake it digitally to make a look-a-like, cos it's not the real thing- it's a digital copy. [/quote] This I'd imagine. You can trademark a fancy rectifier or any number of factors that make up your circuit and open up a competitors amp to see if they're using it, but you can't prove someone's making an digital amp model based on it. As long as they don't use the name directly, they can presumably get away with saying modelled on... amp name here.

A friend is getting married next year and she's a big ska fan. I thought it might be cool to learn a couple of songs on sax or trumpet but I've got zero experience with either. Does anyone know how hard they are to pick up and whether a year is realistic to learn a few tunes?

[quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1347385591' post='1800098'] There are loads of threads about this all over the forum already. [/quote] There's also an explanation in the original post....

Interparcel seems to be the winner so far but that's given me a few options and a couple to avoid.

I've had a guitar up for sale for a few months and may have a buyer but it would need to be couriered. I've not got much experience with this so can anyone tell me the most reliable and reasonably priced places to go to get quotes from and more importantly, who to avoid like six copies of the Nicki Minaj album with free airborne plague. He's said it needs to be this week hence the new thread rather than trawling through old forum threads. Thanks

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1343394352' post='1750093'] I grew up on the old Kenneth Baker books (I think...) [/quote] I'm not sure how that's going to help with the piano.

[quote name='BILL POSTERS' timestamp='1347126525' post='1797262'] Had a quick look on Google Earth, yep its called Swordfish. Assuming its still there of course. [/quote] I'm going to Brum on Wednesday, I'll have a looksie in. Diskery is the opposite direction and I don't have a record player so it doesn't seem worth the trek.

It's awesome isn't it? It's been linked here before, but I'm going to read it all again anyway. Edit:- I forgot he makes his own PIO capacitors. Crazy but brilliant.

Not usually a filter fan but that looks really flexible and very interesting. I wonder how the bend setting would cope with a fretless.....

[quote name='bobbytodd' timestamp='1345974671' post='1783625'] add summer of 69 and brown eyed girl im sick to death of them but our singer insists we do them [/quote] As a guitarist who had to play 'Summer of 69' at a wedding, I found it was really funny to leave a random pause after the drum fill at the start before coming in.

Wow, 6 pages and I can't see a mention of 'Schism' by Tool. Shame on you all!