Musician's Thread

@Brixmis

I am pretty much the same - I play 95% standard, I use drop D for Another Brick in the Wall and Bodysnatchers and anything I have done in open or odd tuning has mostly been in the studio for overdub parts. Our guitar player has a couple of songs he has written in open tuning's that really sound awesome, but we will likely just end up recording them for our next album and then not playing them because we'd rather not have one guitar strictly setup for one style of tuning we only use on one or two songs.

Standard gets the job done for most of our songs - and we have some half-step guitars for numbers like Texas Flood (pretty much any of our Vaughan covers actually).

I do find them interesting though - and sometimes when I am writing over-dubs I will tune to odd tuning's and see if I can get parts to work that way (it really does tend to break you out of whatever box you are in if you find yourself getting stuck trying to come up with something).

Oh - I took a pic of my Ibanez with that Strat neck on. I think it looks rather smart, but as I've buggered my wrist yet again (from playing too much Elite) I can't test it just yet.

That looks awesome Brix!!! Why have the trem locked?

Something about an all black guitar with a maple neck that just does it for me (I have both my Peavey Raptor, and a Series A Strat knock off that are both this style). I love sunburst too (especially two-tone bursts), but a solid black guitar just looks menacing to me.

It's pure luck that I have two black guitars - alright, I bought the Peavey partly because I like how it looks with the Jack Daniels paint job, but the Ibanez could have been any colour and I'd have bought it at the price it was. Does look nice now, though.

I didn't choose to have the trem fixed, it's been that way since I bought it. I have a spare Strat wibble stick that will fit it, but up to now I've resisted unlocking it because it will mean drilling out the screws on the back plate, as they are, apparently, made of cheese! This thing was seriously abused and neglected for many years before I found it in the pawn shop.

So far all I've done with the tail is clean it and replace the saddles with custom jobs - really didn't like the original ones (and they were gunged up).

PS - forgot, it isn't black, either - it's dark blue. Just looks black from a distance or in the right light

I hate seeing a mistreated guitar - but am always happy when they end up in the hands of someone who cares :smiley:

Let me know when you do finally fix the trem - I hate drilling out screws. I was a Safety Technician for years and sometimes I'd see SRLs come in where they used the wrong loctite (superglue is not loctite, lol) and I'd have to tap into the screw and see if I could work it out that way - because once the housing threads were damaged it turned a couple hundred dollar repair into a couple thousand dollar repair which is never a fun call to make.

My Ibanez bass is a really dark blue too:



It was my first bass guitar - I love it so much, it is a beast to play though. Wider neck than most of the J-Bass necks I have but it has a low thumpin' sound that is perfect for the more rock orientated songs we do.

For shits and giggles here is the ukulele from Shift Change (now deceased and in a garbage dump somewhere :tongue: )

Was $5 at a dollar store - there are only 2 strings on it they looped at the bridge to make 4 strings. When I tried tuning it the fret board, head stock and top of the body came apart hence the electrical tape. It was the creepiest sounding thing ever - you can't really make it out in the song, but it is there in each verse.

@SimonSays28
What a cheap China way of saving on production. "Oh let's just use the same strings again. No one will notice" xD.
I've seen some really strange things in my days that were done with that mindset but this surely takes the cake.
Also I love the tape on it...thought before reading "Well EvHs Frankenstrat paint job was done in a similar poor fashion" ;-).

I've never touched a Ukelele - was tempted but I was worried I'd like it! :D

Yeah, that Ibanez bass looks nice. My first one was great - the Bass Collection one. Brilliant sound and very nice to play, with a short scale neck. I only got rid of it cos it weighed a ton. I went to a try-out and the band leader guy let me have a go with his Yamaha and it was so much lighter, I was really gobsmacked - so I p/x'd the Bass Collection for one.

My Yam bass (BB614) is pretty light - though not as light as that guy's was, probably cos mine is active and his wasn't.

You can get a serious amount of tones from it, but it took me over two years to get what I would call a proper, deep bass tone out of the thing. I only did it recently - that's without external influence. I bought a Digitech bass multi-effects pedal box and I have only really used it to hear what the different tones are like. Think I have only ever used it once to play a tune through (iirc it was Motörhead's Limb From Limb) where I needed some distortion.

I don't bother with any fancy techniques on bass, either - never had need of them and don't know if it would screw my hands up, so I don't even think about trying them.

Oh nice, the BB614s are great. My father has one of those, light in weight but heavy in tone. And its really nice to play.

We've used a Yamaha RBX 1000 (also my fathers...hes got around 40 - 50 stringed instruments xD ) for some recordings years back, if you ever get the chance to check one out you should absolutly try it out. It almost plays like a guitar (and is beautiful to look at with that translucent black finish).
https://img01-olxpt.akamaized.net/img-olxpt/929529340_2_644x461_baixo-yamaha-rbx-1000-imagens_rev001.jpg

I myself own only a Harley Benton (the house brand of german music dealer Thomann) bass. Amazing value for the money, neck through, active pick-ups (although they are the only not that great component in the instrument) and a good action
https://www.thomann.de/de/harley_benton_hbz2004.htm

Might be able to snap some pics of my brothers basses over the weekend if there is any interest. He's got some very special ones.

lord_of_shred said:

@SimonSays28
What a cheap China way of saving on production. "Oh let's just use the same strings again. No one will notice" xD.
I've seen some really strange things in my days that were done with that mindset but this surely takes the cake.
Also I love the tape on it...thought before reading "Well EvHs Frankenstrat paint job was done in a similar poor fashion" ;-).

I know right - I had a couple good belly laughs when I bought it. It was the most bizarre dollar store I have ever been in - there was a middle eastern fortune teller in the corner of the shop which was just whacked out strange. I wasn't even going to buy anything I was laughing so hard in the isles but then I saw that cheap uke and thought, yep I'm buying that. Was a struggle not to burst out into laughter at the register.

I share my birthday with Eddie Van Halen lol - and was totally going for his Frankenstrat style :smiley: 

Brixmis said:

I've never touched a Ukelele - was tempted but I was worried I'd like it! :D

Yeah, that Ibanez bass looks nice. My first one was great - the Bass Collection one. Brilliant sound and very nice to play, with a short scale neck. I only got rid of it cos it weighed a ton. I went to a try-out and the band leader guy let me have a go with his Yamaha and it was so much lighter, I was really gobsmacked - so I p/x'd the Bass Collection for one.

My Yam bass (BB614) is pretty light - though not as light as that guy's was, probably cos mine is active and his wasn't.

You can get a serious amount of tones from it, but it took me over two years to get what I would call a proper, deep bass tone out of the thing. I only did it recently - that's without external influence. I bought a Digitech bass multi-effects pedal box and I have only really used it to hear what the different tones are like. Think I have only ever used it once to play a tune through (iirc it was Motörhead's Limb From Limb) where I needed some distortion.

I don't bother with any fancy techniques on bass, either - never had need of them and don't know if it would screw my hands up, so I don't even think about trying them.

LOL - I pick up so many different instruments it isn't funny, I am looking at getting a banjo down the line - but will probably go for a cheater and get the 6 string variant that plays more like a guitar. I have played a few of them and just love the tone. I have played a few ukuleles but haven't bought a proper one yet. I also want to get a proper fiddle.

I love my Ibanez - I could never sell an instrument I have bought, the time we tried to sell our American strat it ended up saving the guitar players life from a pit bull attack the same day (luckily the store he tried to sell it at undervalued it and he ended up keeping it) - there are bite marks on the bottom of the guitar (through the gig bag) and a slight crack in the body at the head stock from the impact of the guitar hitting the dog. That guitar can be heard here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJm2D-xfoEQ

(I get in the way of him playing a couple of times with the camera - but it is a great camera, lol).

I have a short scale Squire Bronco bass that I got for a $100 that is awesome. It can be heard on the following cover of Come As You Are (we change the arrangement a little).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk6xwxjoMOs

Wow - I just tested my 'new' Ibanez set-up and it is awesome! B)

Played several of my fave Floyd tunes through my Line6 GuitarPort and the PA and it was great - best I've played in a long time (which is down to that neck) and sounds good, too. Didn't want to stop.

Yesterday I was thinking about film guitar music that I like - that was brought on by watching Midnight Run last weekend (for the umpteenth time). I just love the incidental music in that, it's so awesome. Simple technically, but God, does it sound fantastic.

The first 90 seconds of this vid are what I'm on about

https://youtu.be/D6tU2uKzRWM