Hey all you crazy gear heads, you've got me stoked about diving into the world of proper gear, tone, and techniques. I've been rambling everywhere else on the net but then, bingo you guys are talking about some seriously great things. I'm a mechanical engineer in Akron, OH who always loved to improvise, listen to Trey, and work at getting "the tone". I'm super laid back and friendly and I love to network. If you need CAD drawing, 3D modeling, prototypes of anything let me know. I've modified my own pedals and designed a pcb for a wah. Oh I make my own beer and wine which really makes the jamming in my basement that much better:) Anyway, I look forward to getting to know you all; i feel I already do know some of you after reading about 100 threads this weekend.
welcome eric! just about everything you need to know is in older threads, but there is plenty of new things on the chopping block! cheers buddy!
Thanks poster, I'm so excited you are my first reply. Oh the BMGs are totally rocking man. I dig.
Very cool man, next time were up in your neighborhood, ill add you to the guest list :0)
LOL Poster, tell your mom to stop posting in the forum in an effort to make you look better :D ;)
j/k...(sorta)....welcome orangeguy. Welcome to the machine.
Quote from: Walker done done on September 13, 2010, 09:45:56 AM
LOL Poster, tell your mom to stop posting in the forum in an effort to make you look better :D ;)
j/k...(sorta)....welcome orangeguy. Welcome to the machine.
^ What went up your skirt. My moms been dead for 9 years.
I'm sorry to hear that poster (otherwise I was going to advise you to wear clean underwear before you left the house). Walker dude, thanks a bunch. You too are the man on this forum. Already learned a bunch from all your input. ;)
Quote from: posternutbag on September 13, 2010, 09:57:26 AM
Quote from: Walker done done on September 13, 2010, 09:45:56 AM
LOL Poster, tell your mom to stop posting in the forum in an effort to make you look better :D ;)
j/k...(sorta)....welcome orangeguy. Welcome to the machine.
^ What went up your skirt. My moms been dead for 9 years.
Dude, obviously I wasn't intending to pull a pun between the two. And obviously you know that I didn't know that, and had I, I would've gone with your sister, your girlfriend, your dog, etc. I hope you understand there was no malicious intention and that I was simply trying to make a joke. My apolgies if you feel it was inappropriate.
Lol. I always break peoples balls when they do momma jokes, so sorry if I made you feel :'(
But seriously, momma been dead for 9 years. Weird to think she never even saw me play a show? /end creepy thought.
Orange: I love your energy man. It reminds me, of, me. Keep playing. If your personality is any indicator you will become one hell of a guitar player.
Thanks poster, you must have checked me out on YouTube. I'm very high energy and love to engage the audience. There has to be that connection with them in order for both of us to get off if you will. After high school I had to decide to be a music major or an engineer...i went with the more stable route and it has served me well, but i would love to drop it all and go on tour.
I really appreciate your words.
you made the right call.
majoring in music is a waste of time. there is enough resources available online to get that education for free> see bit torrent.
(with that in mind you could say ive graduated from the berkley school of music. lol)
definitely would recommend tossing half you gear, but hey man, its your voice. if you can talk through that rig and it sounds like it does inside your head, youve
got the tone bone.
Thanks, I love to toss half of it too. Just need to strategically toss (sell) and replace (upgrade) as the budget allows. I'm sure from what I'm reading here I can do some quick bang for the buck on some simple things (like get a Ross clone and sell the CS-3)...simple stuff like that. It will be fun.
It seems nuts, but I would recommend you dump it ALL at once. Simply clean and list each and every thing on ebay at one time. Just keep an acoustic handy.
When you start with less you will learn more. Then as you add each component to the epic rig, you can see whats what. Really youve gotta free yourself of all that
stuff. Its just stuff. Just guitar, tuner, overdrive x1, comp, amp. Maybe a phrase sampler for practicing riffs. Then gradually add what you want
Master Yoda, it appears you are having Luke (me) put on the blindfold and rely on nothing but the fundamentals, using the "force". You want me to go cold turkey like an addict that must get that next junkie pedal. Well thank you for that philisophical advice.
Funny thing is that after I read your post while driving, some of my old acoustic only songs came on my ipod and it was almost a sign that it makes sense. Now to give me some credit, i started out only on acoustic for years, then got an amp, then a guitar, then a crappy pedal, and another crappy delay, etc. Hey i though Boss meant they were the best:)
Well if sold all my junk, it couldn't be more that $1500-2000. I'm not sure how to approach this. I'm sure noone has ever gone to such an extreme (or have they). To give you credit, i played an Artcore guitar straight into a Blues Junior amp at Guitar Center a couple weeks ago, and it was blissfull. I sat there for an hour just loving the "closer to Trey" sound that I've ever had coming out of my own playing. So indeed I know what you are getting at (and that was just low end stuff).
So I'm going to ponder your recommendation for a while. It funny how you get attached to "things" however. And if you look at my gear, it's not extensive, it's just not right. I know that my number one goal is good guitar and good amp. I'm digging the AO guitar stuff but want to learn more. I assume you would point me in that direction. (Actually i want to get some more details on your rig so i can get a better perspective from where you are coming from.)
Put it this way, you decide to take the plunge, Ill find you a guitar thatll make that artcore look like a burnt bigfoot turd. Same with the amp. All together you wont even spend 1500.
Trust me, at one point I had something like 15 tech maintained guitars at one time (this was years ago). Ive played out of dual full stacks, gone through the PRS line, blown money on gear in every way possible.
My only intent is to save you time, money, and get you really progressing. Its been my experience, that when you find the tone bone, there is no turning back.
Trust not the Jedi, but in the Force.
OK poster, I really appreciate it. I'm going to keep reading all your posts before i bug you too much on details because you probably answer the same questions all the time. But i'll be looking for your latest and greatest gear so i can basically start to aim high right off the bat. I'll also want to gather what this guitar and amp make and model might be. It's really hard to consider the plunge. I think I can keep the silver analogman screamer right? It's worthy.
I don't know man. I would really need some convincing that this can be done. I've grown to love my guitar. It plays very well and stays in tune, it's rugged, the neck is smooth, I've upgraded the pups and such...but oh well. The force Luke, the force.
I think I'll make a list of all my gear with approximate selling prices (realistic) and come up with a date to post on ebay, probably in the next month or so. I'd like to take the cash plus any Christmas cash to make the biggest impact. Oh by the way I still have a Takamine acoustic electric and and a very basic Samick acoustic (which i would sell). So in the downtime I would be able to play some guitar.
Let's keep pooling our thoughts here man. If this really happens, you can write a book about it:)
Quote from: Happyorange27 on September 14, 2010, 08:01:07 AM
I don't know man. I would really need some convincing that this can be done. I've grown to love my guitar. It plays very well and stays in tune, it's rugged, the neck is smooth, I've upgraded the pups and such...but oh well.
Eric, if you love that guitar, KEEP IT!! It doesn't matter what it says on the peghead or what anyone else says about it...if it feels good to you, sounds good to you, you're confident in it and you think you look bitchin when you're playing it, by all means don't get rid of it. While what we all do here is dig talking about playing guitar and gear and trading ideas/secrets/whatever, guitars still come down to a completely individual set of decisions. I know with me, if I've put time, money and effort into a guitar, then it has grown some sentimental value and I'll never part with it. I've only let one guitar go, and I've always regretted it. As far as I'm concerned, you can always get effects pedals back--guitars have soul. I say, if you want to try another direction, keep the guitar, sell other stuff/save up, and buy another axe.
Andrew, thanks for being the guy on my other shoulder, whispering wisdom as well. I'm not ready to make a complete purge of my gear. I think what will come of all this is that I will indeed sell all the junky stuff for better stuff. I consider myself to have a good ear and playing ablility. Also, I'm not super gullable so I'm not going to do anything rash.
Funny thing about my Wolfgang; they are selling for almost double what I paid for new back in 1999, so gee, they must not be too shitty right:) Van Halen doesn't fuck around with guitars with his name on it and like i said, this thing is super solid. I had it set up in 1999 and it's still good to go. Also it's beautiful and the profile isn't far from Trey's guitar. Anyway, if you are the dude making the AO guitars, they are amazing and i appreciate someone who could potentially give up a customer just to be genuine and share what's important about gear. Much gratitude.
Hey Happy Orange,
I do 3D too. We should talk shop talk some time, I would love to see your stuff. Email me if you want. patrickstefanski@gmail.com
(anyone else can email me too, don't feel left out).
Sweet Patrick, good to know! Well most of mine is work related so I am not at liberty to share. However, I did start my own guitar in Solidworks, like Trey's but with my own spin. See my ultimate would be for me to design most of the guitar in 3D and then get some realistic feedback with a luthier. They I could export or make prints in any format they wanted in order to make there lives easy. I bet if i did a lot of the design work i could save some cash. They could just set up the wood and let the CNC go to town off the data. If anyone want's to validate my therory here let me know. Could I potentially be saving myself several hundred dollars by doing the design?
welcome happy, i look forward to learning from you as i have learned from many others on this site!
Thank YEMReba, I'm loving it here. You guys are so cool. Finally among my kind. :D I'm addicted to reading posts after work until i go to bed. I'm trying to catch up.
You guys should call this forum PhaceBook (get it?) But the way at my job I sit and listen to streaming Phish on the net all day long and in the car. So nice.
Hi Orange/Eric.. Welcome and I'm sure you'll find and contribute much here.
I am indeed the one building the AO Guitars, and I thank you for your kind words. And I'm not here to trick anyone into buying one of my guitars, or anything, so I don't mind telling you that you don't need a new guitar--however, if you take or learn anything from anything I say on this site, you actually have to buy one as payment ;D. We're just dudes talking about gear and Phish...I just happen to be a recovering Phish addict and custom guitar builder at the same time.
And I agree, those Wolfgangs are solid guitars. I've only played one or two when they've come into the shop, and they're pretty cool.
Quote from: Happyorange27 on September 14, 2010, 01:00:56 PM
See my ultimate would be for me to design most of the guitar in 3D and then get some realistic feedback with a luthier. They I could export or make prints in any format they wanted in order to make there lives easy. I bet if i did a lot of the design work i could save some cash. They could just set up the wood and let the CNC go to town off the data. If anyone want's to validate my therory here let me know. Could I potentially be saving myself several hundred dollars by doing the design?
And to answer this theory: If you were to go to a small shop like mine (where it's only me, no CNC), I'm not really sure how much you'd actually save. Your AutoCAD/CNC progamming really wouldn't do me any good, besides the fact that I'd have really good drawings of exactly what you want to work from, which is always a huge help...so you'd same money on my drawing/design time. Even still, I'd have to make new templates, machining, etc. for your design, so there really wouldn't much of a savings. If you were to go to a bigger shop--or just one with CNC capabilities--you'd be much further along and would most likely bypass the cost of paying someone else to do the programming. However, finding a guy/shop who's willing to do that kind of completely custom job might prove difficult.
Andrew, thanks for being so helpful^^. I get a very good vibe from you. You obviously have a super talent and an eye for wonderful craftsmanship. You also have a level head.
I'm sure it won't be soon but when I do go custom on a guitar, you will be at the top of that list. Keep up the wonderful work. It's probably rewarding to hand of each and every guitar knowing that you are going to make someone super happy. That's just good karma all around.
Oh in the process of my self evaluation of gear, I think I've learned to appreciate what I have. Sheryl Crow said, "it's not having what you want; it's wanting what you've got."