Learn the Modes Fast and Easy (With Tabs)

Science Experiment idea - Tonewoods

This is a (long) comment I left on YouTube discussing a good idea I had regarding the everlasting debate about tonewoods on electric guitars.

Guitar Tuning Trick

     Here's a little tip I picked up along the way for how to keep your guitar in tune a little better, especially if it's a cheap one.

     Here we have the type of guitar tuner that this trick will work for (not all types work).  See the little screw at the top?  Most Fender or Schaller style tuners will have one of these.  If one of your tuners feels a little loose or wobbly, try tightening this screw.  It fixed the problem instantly on a few cheap tuners.

     In addition, tightening compresses the bushing just a little, causing friction.  This is not good when you are restringing and want it to turn smooth and quickly.  But when you want the tuner to hold a note, even with strains of bending and vibrato, the extra friction will help it hold it in tune.  "The more you know."

More Blank Tab Sheets

For some reason my blank guitar tab sheets are my most popular post.  Due to apparent popular demand, I released sequels!

Free blank bass guitar and violin/mandolin tabs for your tabbing convenience!

Bass

Violin and mandolin after the break.

List of FUSE Presets

Here's my arrangement of preset tones on my Fender Mustang amp.  Even if you don't have a Mustang amp you can still see the types of tones I have to cover pretty much any type of music.

Red: (Red presets are occasionally used, mostly one trick presets)

# Church Organ - Octaver and delay and stuff.
G Paradise Wah - Paradise City intro, or Dream Theater.
F Ambient Bliss - Tremolo and way too much reverb.
E 12 String - Octaver on a Twin Reverb to sound like a 12 string.
D Studio Rock - Similar to Classic Metal, more of a alt rock sound.
C Shredder's Delight - Metal lead tone.
B Eric Johnson - The master of tone himself.
A Hendrix Wah - Wah with some dirt kicked in.

Ultimate Guitar Design

    Now this is a little unusual for me, but I'm going to write a little something just to explain how great the designs of Schecter's guitars, specifically the Omen-6, are.  This isn't some fan's rave though; I'm going to go through, piece by piece, and analyze what parts are good, what are bad, and why that is so.

     This doesn't just apply to Schecter either - it encompasses Fenders, Gibsons, Jacksons, First Acts...

Free Guitar Backing Tracks

You can find a whole lot of seriously great material for free on Youtube, and nothing hones your musicality better than a nice backing track to improvise along to.  So here's links to a bunch of my favorite backing tracks that I like to play along to.  Enjoy!

More after the break.

Updated Links to FUSE Tones

Here I go again with my Fender FUSE tones for the Mustang series of amps.  But it's the best amp I've got, so I have plenty of time to get the sound just right, which is really convenient for everyone else who can now get awesome sounds without spending hours working on it.

Get ready:

Fender Mustang Amp Preset Demo

Adventures of a Strat part 3

A picture is supposedly worth a thousand words so I shouldn't have to say very much. 

Unfortunately I couldn't get a better pickguard and pickup, so I used what it had before, the stock pickups wired in series. 

Surprisingly though,  the combined output of all three checks in at 11k ohm, while just one of my Schecter Omen's humbuckers has near 15k ohms.

It's not all bad though.  The reason I couldn't get replacement parts is actually because I found a much better deal.  Musician's Friend is having a "July Shredfest", so I bagged a Rogue Rocketeer electric guitar  at just $60.  

The total for that with some picks, strings and cables was still no morethan I would have spent upgrading the pickguard, pickups, nut, saddles, string trees and what have you on this guitar.

Perhaps soon you will see a new series - the adventures of an even cheaper guitar, highlighting my efforts to make a professionalish guitar for under 100 bucks :)

Update on Strat build

Progress!

     My project Squier Strat has now progressed from a pile of pieces back into an almost complete guitar again.  Sounds sweet no?  Here are a few other modifications I made to it:

• The obvious one - put a block of wood in the neck pickup cavity.  Why?  Hopefully it'll help increase sustain.  Maybe it will help shield something.  Maybe it will keep bugs from living in the empty hole where there isn't a pickup.  Who knows!  There are no rules to guitar building!

• Also added a solid steel tube I found.  Why?  It fit perfectly.  Also see above.

• Blocked tremolo.  A really common mod and hopefully a very useful one.  I only used two of the rear springs, mostly to keep it all grounded, and also because the wood was so tightly fit that there was no way springs were necessary.  This should dramatically help the two biggest problems I found this guitar to have - sustain and tuning.

• Some other little stuff too.  Mostly making everything fit perfectly flush, a little sanding here and there, a touch of glue in some of the screw holes.  Also overtightened the input jack by removing one of the nuts and cranking it tight, since it kept coming unscrewed.

     The only thing left is getting a good pickguard and pickup, maybe a little bit of wiring, and intonation setup and it'll be all set to go!