Ancient Mariner

Whatever you look at, there's a few things to remember: Tone comes from the wood & the strings. If it sounds bad or not what you want then new strings *might* help, but there's no guarantee. If looking at a new guitar, remember they will loosen up a little over time with playing. Beware of any strongly dominant tones/strings as they will likely become more dominant as it plays in. Check intonation carefully. If the guitar is out then it will require major surgery to make it intonate acceptably. Check it all over. Action is adjustable, but only conveniently in one direction - lower. If looking at an electro-acoustic with bridge pickup, check that the string volumes are even - a common piezo fault is for one crystal to mute a little and unbalance the string-string volume. HTH Yamaha APXs seem pretty good value for money, are tough and sound fine through a PA.

I have one of those Chinese plastic bowl backed guitars (£25 on the bay) and it's made about as badly as is possible but actually sounds OKish.

I think this sums it up well: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/177660-i-have-a-good-bass-and-i-have-a-good-amp-why-do-i-need-a-pedal/

Biyang have made some really excellent pedals, and having started cheap, ended up being quite expensive. A few years back they started making pedals for Guitarfetish/GFS and presumably are now OEMing for Akai. I recently discovered the Akai pro series, and it immediately reminded me of the Biyang pedals of a few years back (except the tone - the Akai was utterly horrid!). I do like the look & sound of the Joyo pedals though, and $30 direct!!!!

[quote name='Mark_Andertons' timestamp='1339108924' post='1684013'] Why shouldn't this be true of guitars too though and yet it works? The characteristics of my Fender Strat with vintage pups into a Fender Blues Junior are my main tone but when I kick in a Wampler Pinnacle I still get the sound of saturated Marshall JCM800. As I say that's exactly what Wampler have done fantastically for the guitar market. But maybe I'm alone in thinking it would be transferable to Bass. Just my opinion [/quote] As a guitarist who plays bass occasionally, it seems that *most* bass players have a very different approach to guitar players when it comes to tone. Many seem to have a 'fit and forget' approach to tone, using a single sound for a whole song or even a whole set - I asked a question once about switching between pickups on a Jazz instead of blending tones, and the main response was "why would you want to change tone?". Gear also seems to be selected to fit a particular sonic sweet spot for a band/musical style, and not mucked about with very much. While there are those who do step outside this, the *impression* I have is that bass players are nothing like guitar players in experimenting with and using different effects and sounds, and approach music as a technical exercise, rather than a sensory experience (other than feeling their trousers flap in the breeze). The holy grails of tone are all readily available and clearly identified, rather than to be sought in some pedal equipped with unobtainium transistors from a boutique maker. FWIW I remember when Brian first set his business up and was emailing us all about his mods and stuff - really wish I'd bought some of his early pedals, but had no money then.

Mine is still tucked away in the back of the cupboard under the stairs. Used that thing almost everywhere (bought in '79) and it's still on the original (Mullard?) valves. Needs a cap job and a speaker reconed now.

Thanks Mark - of course that's 20 SS watts, and not going to keep up with a single ended amp running a KT88 for about 20W.

Try Elixir coated strings for acoustic. There will still be a small amount of odour from the fretwire, but much less significant.

Bass amps and speakers naturally add colouration and sometimes compression to the sound of the instrument. The BD21 is designed to mimic the sound of the amp. Running bass direct to desk can sound OK, but doesn't sound much like bass run through an amp to my ears. This is why it's good for you to try them both out, best of all if you can actually run the bass through each of them in turn into the PA and see which you prefer. It may be you actually like the DI box tone better than the amp simulator.

I've used 15-20W amps through small speakers for years, and they work really well for containing excess volume while still working hard enough to sound good. My one concern with this is that it would be a dirt-only amp (Orange have tended toward this with some of their other tiny amps) and lack versatility, my preference these days being to play through a cleaner amp and then add dirt from other sources. But for a lower volume rock gig, I could imagine this doing a great job, just using the controls on the amp and guitar. The one thing I missed from the demo (I watched it all) was to see if it cleaned up rolling back the guitar volume. Looks like a lot of fun though.

I believe that the SS amps are often a bit underpowered, by reputation rather than direct experience. Some of the guitar amps do sound good by any standards, and not just for the money. The first release of amps were badly made (some caught fire!) but that's a thing of the past, however as with anything made cheaply, it's likely that QC will be a weakness.

[quote name='jay' timestamp='1338202047' post='1670651'] The last gig I played, during one of our songs our guitar player switches from acoustic to electric half way through. Everything sounded great, until it was time to rock out the electric which he had somehow tuned half a tone down from the rest of the band. Watching 100 or so people cover their ears when it kicked in was pretty embarrassing! [/quote] That sounds like the EVH tour a year or 2 back, where someone made a mistake with the synth intro part for JUMP and it started between pitch intervals, so that not only did Eddie play badly out of tune, but there was no recovery possible either.

Sorry - I can't help with this one.

for me it would be a strat - the other guitar types just aren't versatile enough - A strat can do acoustic style strumming, fat plunky Jazz, twangy country, jangly pop, hard rock, chewy funk and everything in between. It's not the *best* at all those, but it will do them all acceptably.

Been around a couple of years collecting abuse from all and sundry. Personally, of all Gibsons mistakes I'd like to own a Lawn Dart (reverse flying V).

If there were a group buy attempted then I'd be interested in a combo. Something as small and light as this would be great for me.

Complete except for power supply. It's pretty old (probably dates to '99) and slow thanks to running XP on 128Mb RAM, but was in regular use until last week in our lab. Free to a good home - collect from North Oxon, 3 miles from junction 10 of the M40.

Very nice - congrats.

No reason not to try and see how you get on - guitars aren't expensive these days, and you'll get something playable for £100 (try a squier or Yamaha pacifica). If you want to sound like the track you linked to then you'll need some carefully chosen effects too, plus a reasonable amp. I'd recommend a Vox 15watt modeller (VT15?) which should give you the effects built in, plus a reasonable modelled tone. No point in starting acoustic guitar unless you want to play acoustic-type songs - most people start with acoustic because it's a) cheap and to learn about music, which you already know.

A little - mine was an Avon EB0 type with flatwounds, lightweight and comfy to play, though with the wooliest, flubbiest tone possible (mud-bucker is a quite fair description of the PU sound). Sold it to help pay for another guitar and was quite happy at the time. Now I'd quite like to own it again, just to see if it could sound good with different gear.

[quote name='KingBollock' timestamp='1336776360' post='1651064'] How would a simple man like me (let's assume I'm an idiot and you won't be far wrong) know whether fretwork needs sorting, without taking it to a professional first? I'm not asking to be able to fix it myself, just get an idea if it might need fiddling with. [/quote] You need some basic knowledge first, like how to adjust relief, action and intonation. Fretwork is an issue if you can't set the instrument up with a reasonable action and get rattle & buzz free playing on every string everywhere on the neck. Of course the idea of what a reasonable action is will vary from player to player..... G&L have a good setup guide available in .pdf format, giving exact measurements.

I love Canada.

Bought a Zoom processor from Rob - great transaction, as described and no trouble at all. Thanks feller.

I used D'Addario for a long time too on guitar, but switched about 10-12 years ago when I was having a lot of breakages. I also found that they'd go dead in a month, and have intonation issues about 2 weeks after that. Tried Snake Oil Brand strings and DR side by side for alternatives after reading rave reviews. The SOBs were a little better, but a lot of hassle to buy since they were made & sold through 1 US based outlet only. DRs have (mostly) been excellent, with a set lasting a year if played just a little, and many months if played a lot. Re elixir - not very good on acoustic - tonally compromised and didn't last any longer than DRs.