RI Guitar Club

[dada]

That Aria electric is a fantastic looking guitar. Cheers.

A Pignose is a great amp. Zappa recorded some amazing stuff putting a mic up close to a Pignose. Can't remember exactly which songs now, but it blew me away when I found out that's what he used for certain recordings.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I really regret selling my vintage pignose. I also really regret getting a lot of stuff stolen, but I feel like I had less agency than the case of the vintage pignose I sold for like, weed money. Such a waste. They're just gorgeous pieces of hardware. Some post-apocalypse gear.

[brainpanhandler]

Plugged in to Bob Dylan's guitar
July 12, 2012|By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times


On July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan stepped onstage at the Newport Folk Festival, plugged in an electric guitar and changed the course of pop music history.

The performance caused a furious reaction. The crowd booed loudly, and folk icon Pete Seeger tried to stop the show. Dylan and his band retreated after three songs, coming back to play an acoustic set. Still, Dylan's provocative move has long been pointed to as a key moment when electric rock music eclipsed folk as the sound of the '60s generation.

-snip-

But whatever became of the guitar itself, a 1964 sunburst Fender Stratocaster?

A new PBS television documentary contends that the instrument was left by Dylan in a private plane and has been stored in an East Coast attic for nearly 50 years.



cont...

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/12 ... r-20120712

[Elvis]

Okay so my ancient (1995?) laptop, which I hoped to dedicate to recording purposes with Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net/), is too wimpy (a 2nd track immediately gets out of synch with the first, and a third track shuts down the program); the problem is, presumably, the very minimum RAM and Windows 98. I'm a computer dummy but I can see I should start over with a "new" laptop. (I want to be able to take it to gigs etc. so a desktop is out).

I found this used one for about $100, and want to make sure it'll be okay for multitrack recording with Audacity:

GATEWAY GX Series 7510GX
AMD Athlon 64 M 3700+ - 2.40GHz
1GB of RAM
40GB - Hard Drive

WINDOWS XP Professional SP3 "w/ all the drivers"

General
System Type Notebook
Screen type Wide-screen
Processor / Chipset
Processor AMD Mobile Athlon 64 3700+ / 2.4 GHz
Cache L2 cache - 1.0 MB
64-bit Computing Yes
Front Side Bus 1600.0 MHz
Chipset VIA K8T800
Features HyperTransport technology
Memory
RAM 1.0 GB
Technology DDR SDRAM
Speed 333.0 MHz / PC2700
Form Factor SO DIMM 200-pin
Slots Qty 1
Storage
Hard Drive 40.0 GB HDD
Optical Drive CD-RW/DVD-Rom Combo
Read Speed 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD)
Write Speed 24x (CD)
Rewrite Speed 10x (CD)
Hard drive type Portable
Display
Type 15.4 in
Max Resolution 1280 x 800 ( WXGA )
Widescreen Yes
Image Aspect Ratio 16:10
Color Support 24-bit (16.7 million colors)
Features UltraBrite technology
Audio & Video
Graphics Processor ATI Mobility Radeon x600 - 256.0 MB
Sound Microphone
Compliant Standards AC '97
Input
Type Keyboard , EZ Pad
Communications
Network Interface 10/100 Ethernet
Modem
Protocols & Specifications ITU V.92
Max Transfer Rate 56.0 Kbps
Features Wake on Ring
Battery
Technology Lithium ion
Installed Qty 1.0
Connections & Expansion
Slots 1.0 x Memory ( 0.0 free ) , 1.0 x CardBus ( 1.0 free )
Interfaces 1.0 x Network - Output - RJ-11 , 1.0 x Display / video - Phone line - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm , 1.0 x Headphones - S-video output - Mini-phone 3.5 mm , 1.0 x Microphone - Input - RJ-45 , 1.0 x Modem - VGA - 4 pin USB Type A , 1.0 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire) - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15) , 1.0 x Hi-Speed USB , 4.0 x Display / video
Memory Card Reader 6 in 1 card reader ( Memory Stick PRO ) , ( CompactFlash ) , ( MultiMediaCard ) , ( Microdrive ) , ( Memory Stick ) , ( SD Memory Card )
Miscellaneous
Features Wake on LAN , Hard drive password , Security lock slot (cable lock sold separately)
Compliant Standards ACPI 2.0

Any red flags? Something that won't work with Audacity? I want XP because the system requirements for Audacity are much lower for XP. I figure any processor speed & RAM over the recommended parameters (1GHz and 512MB respectively) will go further than with, say Windows 7.

I don't care much about the onboard sound card, as I plan to use a USB sound card audio adapter doohicky thing to connect the output of my audio mixer to the laptop.

I see it has some kind of Firewire port? Would that be useful for stereo audio?

It comes with a 60-day warranty and it's a reputable seller. And it's only $100, man.

Thanks a brazillion for any advice!

[Elvis]

---

I want to buy that laptop like now but just want someone to tell me *it's okay* to proceed.

If I can get this setup going, I'll record a custom backing track of "Wichita Lineman" for Hammer of Los.

[Hammer of Los]

...

Hey, that laptop will be just fine, man!

Just don't take my word for it.

Don't take my word for anything!

Use your own reason and common sense!

An' I don't do tech support.

Where was I?

Yeah man I wanna be a famous weird rock star.

Or something like that.

I bin really enjoying singing along to joe bonamassa recently, as well as whitesnake and skynyrd.

My voice has gone down in pitch over the last year or two.

Nice bass tone these days.

I can do a nice bit of throat chanting too, or whatever its called.

On the other hand maybe I'll just stick with the preachin' an' prophesyin'.

And the laundry etc.

...

[Elvis]

---

I disregarded your advice about taking your advice, and took your advice.

The laptop will be here in about a week.

[Elvis]

---

Okay. The laptop and USB audio adapter arrived, I installed Audacity, and after some fussing I got it all going.

My first attempt is "Dancing in the Street" and it's getting interesting. I didn't know that I could make my guitar sound just like trumpets (double-tracked with my super-duper custom tube fuzz).

I haven't done multitrack recording for 20 years, and digital makes it so easy now. I'm having a blast. No tape rewinding!!!




yo Hammer of Los---are you able to sing along ok with the version of "Wichita Lineman" I sent you awhile back? Or does your vocal range want a higher or lower key? It would be good on my end to stay with that key ("C") as the chords work out very nicely.

[dada]

I would really like to hear the guruHammer sing Witchita Lineman.

---

I made a silly video for a song, it's my epic ode to classic gaming. I took Bob Dylan's Desolation Row and changed all the words around. The video is just a progression of images that follows the lyrics. Lots of horrible photoshopping was done, and I got used to syncing video to audio. I think of it as practice, for more serious projects. But it's funny what motivates sometimes.

You really need to have seen the documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" and know the classic gaming scene to get many of the references, although if you've ever put a quarter in a Pac-Man arcade machine, you can probably enjoy the spirit of it. I wanted to share it here anyway, since now this RI Guitar Club has become wrapped up in my creative process.

So here you go, "Donkey Kong-Off Row" (The second Kong-Off contest is coming up in November at an arcade in Denver, where the top Donkey Kong players will compete for top honors and some cash. I'll be there, going for the top score on the tournament settings track for my game, Q*Bert)

[Hammer of Los]

...

Shoulda bin called Monkey Kong.

Everyone know dat.

I am gonna get round to recording some poetry readings I think.

Should be a blast.

Maybe a video.

Maybe with me dancing etc.

Really diggin' your video, dada man.

Jacob's Ladder.

Mario the Plumber.

I'm turning Japanese.

Or Tibetan. I do recall Gyeltsen.

I definitely recall Gyeltsen. Quite clearly in fact.

Everything synchs.

I'm a plumber too, you know.

I got a dna upgrade.

I got four arms.

...

[brainpanhandler]

via: http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/

[Elvis]

[Elvis]

First let me apologize for cluttering this thread with my computer questions, etc.

It's all in service of the guitar. Bruce mentioned the guitar as a songwriting tool, and I totally understand that. I don't sing (I have a terrible singing voice), so for me the guitar is the end as well as the means. My first guitar lessons included solo 'chord melody' arrangements, an approach I developed over the years in order to play songs I can't sing.

I did get the Audacity program going, using it mostly to make band rehearsal tracks etc. Also recorded a raft of old songs in the solo guitar chord-melody style. Someone here mentioned that their favorite song is "If I Only Had a Brain"; this for you:

[FourthBase]

I know all these barre chords in all A, C, D, E forms unless noted:

Major
Minor
Major dominant 7 (usually A and E forms, but D form sounds best)
Minor dominant 7 (ditto)
Major sevenths (my favorite, A form usually, some D, some C)
Major 9 (B form, E form)
Minor 9 (ditto)

G form barre chords are a pain in the ass, so I don't bother.
Scattered others, but, that covers most songs I like, about half at least.

My barre skills diminished after 2005, breaking my finger against a dude's eye socket in a b-ball pickup game at The Cage in the Village, then not getting it set because I didn't realize it was broke. (Guy's eye was fine, amazingly. White dude named Paul, we were the only two white dudes, and even though a complete stranger almost poked his eye out, he was chill. Not to be racist, but any other person would've whooped my ass for erratically almost blinding them while rebounding. Some energetic, unforgiving dudes play there.) Then the muscle between left index and thumb atrophied, and I freaked, because barre chords are all I know and like, and I became useless at them. Now I'm back to being pretty good. Still need to learn some scales. Only chords gets boring. Any advice?

One thing helping me intuit scales is that whenever I break strings on my one guitar, I have stopped replacing them. First little E, then B, then G, then D, then (this sucked) A, now I'm down to one big E. But, it's still fun. If you were on a desert island for a year with a guitar with one E string, you'd very quickly learn how to have fun with it, appreciate it for what it is, which is, still a miracle of vibration and tension and intervals.

Oh, and I can sing like a motherfucker when I'm warmed up. A sensational mimic.

[Elvis]

the muscle between left index and thumb atrophied, and I freaked, because barre chords are all I know and like, and I became useless at them. Now I'm back to being pretty good. Still need to learn some scales. Only chords gets boring. Any advice?

FB, so glad to hear you got your fingers back...some years ago, my left hand went numb for several months, I couldn't play guitar at all, or do a lot of things. I was a little freaked. Eventually it recovered.

Let me attempt some advice about scales...

It sounds like you have a good understanding of those chords you know. May I ask, can you name the individual notes in those chords? That would probably help your study of scales, as you begin to see scales as the basis of chords.

You might know that chords are pretty much derived from scales, formed from certain notes in a scale---usually in "thirds," that is, every other note in the scale. As an example, let's spell out a C Major scale, and bold the notes that form a C major chord:

C D E F G A B C

You can play a C Major scale by finding the scale notes that fall in between the notes of the chord, in this case, the D, F, A and B.

You can probably 'discover' lots of scales that way.

To extend the example, let's spell a F Major scale, and bold the notes---every other note, in "thirds"---that form an F Major seventh chord:

F G A Bb C D E F

...this time we added the seventh note in the scale, the note E, which gives the chord that "major 7th" sound.

so again, to find the F scale on your fretboard, find those notes in between the chord notes.

I think this might be a good way for you to really learn & understand some scales, and also to discover how scales, like chords, inevitably form patterns on the fretboard. Some people call fretboard scale patterns "shapes" because they form an easy-to-remember shape.

After a bit of discovering and exploring scales in the context of some chords that you know, I suggest looking online for sites that have graphics of "scale shapes"...you might recognize some of them from your own experiments in finding the scales underlying chords. You might find one site that suits you best, and some have good explanations.

Maybe I should say that a given scale isn't always played over/against its derivative chord; context is key there, with many infinite possibilities.

Does that help any? or did I address the wrong angle?