ipod touch, amp, blues tracks interfaced!

Here's a cool thing I finally (duh!) figured out...

I use my ipod touch to get a blues backing track on youtube. i connect it to my amp (with that little 6 dollar cable from guitar center -- gotta have it!) and voila --- i've got tons of blues backing tracks to play along with.

i've gotten tired of the ONE blues loop on my fender g-dec jr. amp -- and now i have many to choose from, in all sorts of keys and styles.

I was gonna figure out garageband on the mac and make my own tracks, but now I don't have to. the ones are youtube are really nice! and in the future I can record this way, too.

playing the yamaha again

ok, i stopped playing the yamaha pacifica because the high tone of the single coil pickups got my ears ringing. i think i've found a solution. i drop the tone to zero on the guitar and the amp, and use the bridge humbucker pickup. that seems to help. so i have the tone at zero on both, and the gain at zero. the amp is still at tweed 2 and reverb 3. i will play it with this setup and see how it goes.

i'm still working on the You Shook Me song. it's an accurate transcription of the jimmy page part of the led zep song. in a sense it's kind of fragmentary, and not meant as a stand alone piece. it moves in and out of the melody --sometimes playing it, and sometimes not. it's a good technical exercise in various playing techniques, but it doesn't really stand by itself as a blues piece. i will learn it for the techniques.

this is part of the question of -- what is my goal? blues is mostly an ensemble form, or maybe a guy singing and playing guitar. i'm interested in solo instrumental stuff, and there's not much of that. This is where backing tracks come in for a lot of people. it's instrumental soloing -- useful if you're not in a band and don't sing.

airline guitar contest

just entered to win an airline guitar from Eastwood signed by david bowie. contest ends feb. 28. at guitar world. com

you shook me

the first song tom and i are working on is 'you shook me' from led zeppelin's first album. it's a willie dixon song, but we're doing the led version. it's a slow blues in E.

the tone i found

OK, so here's my tone:

guitar: volume on 10, tone on 10, neck pickup only

amp: gain 0

tone 10

Tweed 2 (mimics a fender tweed amp, a 2 out of 2)

effects: reverb 3 (0ut of 4)

volume controlled at the amp, around 2 or so.

it makes a nice rich sound, full and bluesy. no overdrive required!

one idea of blues tones

here's something from the Gibson forum discussing the es 339 and blues tone:

" I may be a one trick blues pony, but a good classic blues sound requires a good axe and amp (reverb, trem & speaker(s) to get the SOUL! ES-339 has that tone! Listen to Big Jack Johnson, Larry Garner, Eugene Hideaway Bridges, etc. to get the idea. All clean, no gain, and sustain. Solid bass, intense mids, and sweet highs. Alnico speakers with later breakup help. Soul blues is fat tone like Gospel."

so, like I'm thinking... no gain, but use of reverb instead. this guy from the forum says he is an old chicago blues player since the 60s.

my current search, since I've found my guitar, the 339, is the search for a good blues tone that doesn't set my ears ringing.

3 more guitar contests

2 contests at ultimate guitar.com:

1: an aristides 010 guitar; contest ends feb. 1

2: a Schechter guitar (Seek Irony band and ulti.com); contest ends Feb. 6

another contest for a daisy rock guitar from Allison Iraheta website; contest ends feb. 3; jfk dob.

tone and hearing

OK, 2 things:

I'm searching for a new tone for my epiphone dot. you know, the "sound" you want to produce from your guitar/amp rig. What motivates this for me is that during the break I got a nice slightly overdriven sound from the yamaha using the neck pickup. It sounded great. But also, it touched a sensitive spot in my hearing, in my tinnitus. That scared me, so I dialed back on the overdrive -- it's the high tones that bother my ears. So, not having overdrive as an option got me to search for a replacement tone. I have to get a good sound playing the blues, with no overdrive.

One change that helps is the neck pickup -- I use it only and not the bridge. That cuts back on high tones. But to replace the nice crunch of overdrive I've gotta find something else. I'm messing with reverb, adding as much as I can to thicken up the tone.

Today I put the amp on the "hot rod" setting that mimics fender blues amps. it sounded great, but once again my ears are ringing a little. And a little is just too much for me -- I"m very touchy about worsening the ringing in my ears.

I'm sure I'll never play in a band -- too risky! Or maybe with ear plugs.

So now I gotta go back to my previous amp setting, tweed (which mimics another line of fender amps). I can increase the reverb to fatten up the sound, but it's still not to my liking. my other effects are chorus, delay, flange, tremelo, and nothing. the other amp settings range from acoustic to heavy metal, and generally are in a scale of least to most overdrive, but with other subtle differences too.

my tinnitus is moderate, and usually doesn't bother me in the daytime. At night I use a little white noise beside the bed and that's all I need. But I gotta protect my hearing so it won't get worse.

Today was a disappointment -- I got some ringing even with no overdrive. I've got the gain at zero, effects at reverb, and amp at hot rod. But somehow it touched a sensitive spot.

I hope that with the es-339 I"ll get a better sound than with my dot -- otherwise what's the point?

Should I go acoustic? Frankly, acoustic guitars seem boring to me. At most I'd play a hollowbody electric -- something with pickups and electric guitar strings! I remember acoustic steel strings -- they hurt! With a full hollowbody I could keep the amp low.

Should I see an audiologist?

One thing I"m gonna try is a suggestion from an online article -- try different picks. It said that jazz guitarists typically use heavier picks for a mellower sound. I'm gonna try that. Now I use Fender medium picks. I"m gonna try the heavy gauge.

bc rich shredder git contest

just entered a contest at ultimate guitar.com to win a b.c. rich shredder guitar signed by the slayer band. contest ends feb. 6. jfk dob, if it asked for it.

strat contest from ulti git and etc.

entered a contest to win a standard strat hss from ultimate guitar and full sail university. contest ends feb. 8. jfk dob.

new strat is 800 bucks

the new american special strat is 800 bucks, putting it between the highway one and the american standard. so sometime in the future i'll aim for the highway one.

i'm still getting an es 339. the strat will be a secondary guitar. why not have both??? !!

hardshell case arrived today!

finally, the hardshell case for the epiphone dot arrived. it's perfect! I got it from same day music dot com. they shipped it monday and it arrived today, wednesday. in perfect shape, except for one minor scuff. it's also the new version of the case. the dot fits quite well, and the case is well constructed. now i can take the guitar places -- take it to school and elsewhere.

hooray!

also in the news, fender is coming out with a line called "american special" -- supposed to be a budget line of strats and teles made in america. don't know the prices, but my guess is that they'll be cheaper than the 700 dollar highway ones. the mexican strats are 500 bucks, so maybe their price will go down and the new line will be around 500. the mexi strats might be in the 350-500 line. gotta wait and see!

john mayer stratocaster contest

a contest from guitar world.com to win an autographed john mayer strat and a fender princeton amp. contest ends feb. 12. office phone.

epiphone bass contest

oh yeah, today i entered a contest to win an epiphone firebird bass; contest ends jan. 31. just email given. i don't care much for basses, but what the heck!

yamaha is sounding good

I've got a great tone on my yamaha pacifica..... I use only the neck pickup, with a little reverb in the fender amp.... plus the right gain and tone. It has that necky sound I like... hard to describe... I guess more of a jazzy bluesy sound with a little overdrive roughness. I tend toward the neck pickup. The bridge pickup puts out a lot of high piercing tones that hurt my ears, so I gotta stay away from it.

I'm trying to get a good sound with the Epi Dot, but I'm not satisfied yet. Oh yeah, the crucial part of the Yamaha sound is that I raised up the neck pickup, got it closer to the strings. That helped a great deal. So I gotta try that with the epi dot.

also, yesterday i ordered the epi dot hardshell case from same day music. it might arrive by friday. I've been waiting since october for a case! It should be the new design, but even if it's the old one I don't care. just gotta have a case so that I can take it to school for guitar lesson.

jan. 1 contest

entered a contest at epiphone to win one of 10 wilshire guitars. contest ends march 10. jfk dob and office phone.