The ugliest guitar in world?

No No No No No No No No

I just found this gruesome beast on e-bay marked 'unique electric guitar’; unique for very good reasons I would say. Having completed it, taken in the sheer ugliness of the mistake and after vomiting profusely. My guess is the (most definitely medicated luthier) would have declared, like oh so many hung-over binge drinkers before him.... Never again! If, like me, you would be fixated by a) would someone actually bid for this and b) how much hard earned cash would this taste bypassed individual actually pay for this monstrosity then get yourself over to the bidding wars now:
The ugliest guitar in the world

Mixcraft VS Garageband PC users choice for home recording

Abbey Road in your laptop
Back in the good old days, cutting a demo could cost you anything from 500 to a few thousand dollars. Add to that mastering, jewel cases and covers etc. and you would really need to WANT it really bad. Nowadays, of course we have the ability knock out good quality demos with a laptop and an audio interface. Even if it is just to get a new idea out to the guys in the band or to speed up the creative process, the ability to quickly lay down a track is IMHO really changing the way that bands work and create.

In some ways this is good, you don’t need to spend hours in a rehearsal studio coming up with ideas and parts for new songs, in some ways this is bad as essentially an individual is able to write a whole piece without the input of the other musicians. I like to think that the input of all the musicians in a band actually gives songs a signature that is unique to that group of musicians and that a good band is not necessarily full of virtuosos. Essentially the mix of creative inputs and the relationships within that band is reflected in the songs and that the sum of the parts is not mathematical and usually exceeds the individual talent involved.

That’s not to say that we cannot virtually continue the same process by emailing mp3 and bouncing ideas that way, but there are some things that can only be learned on a tour bus or in dark smelly rooms under railway lines, if nothing else it is an experience and adds to the legend of a band.

NASA Mission Control
Some of these software recording studios really do look like the flight deck of a 747 and I have tried a few of them and basically come to the conclusion that you would need a degree from MIT to fully grasp the potential of the software, not to mention the price attached which is usually the equivalent of making over a room in your house or a holiday. Then garage band came along, which IMHO revolutionised the home DAW set up, it does not have the bells and whistles of its older brothers and sisters (nor should it) but the learning curve is substantially smaller and even the biggest technophobes could (with a little RTFM) produce something reasonable. The main criticism I have of garage band is that it is for the MAC only and despite U2’s unflinching sell of the Apple cool aid, I have yet to be tempted into buying a product just because it looks nice. Having played with garage band and seeking to be unbound from my Mac Mini (which I essentially use as a region free dvd player and jukebox at which it excels), I was really looking for something which did the same job on my windows laptop, a GarageBand for windows pc if you like, which is when I found the Acoustica site.

Enter Acoustica Mixcraft
Mixcraft is very much like Garageband to use (get a trial download here), I bought my copy when it was at version 3 the latest version is 5, which I have since upgraded to. I opted for the Musicians Bundle 3
which includes their Beatcraft product (which is a drum sequencer and a good one at that). At under $100 this is really inexpensive compared to its older brothers and to my mind produces equivalent results and has a lot of similar functionality. Some notable omissions are midi controller compatibility (you cannot control Mixcraft with one) but you can use a midi keyboard to interface with the bundled virtual instruments and it has a really cool midi editor so you can fix your f$&%ups… err solos. For those of you with a VST fetish you can use your favourite ones with Mixcraft too. As with any home recording set up you need to have a decent audio interface, especially if you want to record guitars/vocals etc. and after trying a few I have come to the conclusion that for a guitarist/song writer you can't go too wrong with the line 6 pod studio range. I have a Pod Studio UX1 which basically has zero latency and can record a vocal and guitar at the same time. If I am looking for a quick zero roadie set up I actually do small gigs with mine (see here for a better explanation of what it does)



Now I am not a professional recording engineer, so I am ducking now as a bunch of professionals start throwing mic stands, amps and other bits and pieces at me, I am not saying you can record the white album on Mixcraft, but if Beck could do most of Mellow Gold on a three track then I am sure you can produce something pretty good on it. In fact I have on numerous occasions and have even got some great live gig recordings out of it.

What it does, is essentially help build a new entity in the music business….. The Bedroom Band! And more than that you don't need an MIT degree to operate it!

For a limited time only readers of the Guitar blog can get an exclusive 10% discount on the recommended retail price for Mixcraft (Thank you Acoustica!) just click on the image below to be taken to the Acoustica Checkout with the discount automatically applied.

Japanese Epiphone Les Paul Goldtop

I picked up a new (rather never sold) Epiphone Les Paul Goldtop (Made in Japan) a couple of weeks ago, I was wondering around in a dodgy area of Osaka in here in Japan and came accross the guitar shop that time forgot. The old guy in there was literally surrounded by piles of New (but never sold) guitars. Anyway I saw this and had to have it! Most of the new epiphones have that hideously large headstock which looks well just hideous! Epiphone Les Paul 1956 Goldtop Electric Guitar, Gold Top


This one looks the part and the color of the gold is delicious too.

I did the pepsi challenge with this and my Gibson Les Paul standard (I got my wife to hand me each one blindfolded) and I have to say I thought this sounded better than the real one. The weight is identical, the action is great and all the hardware is good quality. If I understood the guy correctly he had this in stock since 1998 which makes it at least 10 years old.

The fretboard is really well done as are the inlays, some might complain that the metal parts have oxidised slightly, but actually for me it makes it look vintage evan though it has never been played.

Anyway, I always wanted a Goldtop and could never really qualify the expense as I already had a Les Paul, so at $200 this was a bargain. One VERY happy guitar guy here with a new baby! I can't wait to get this down the studio and get it cranked up.

U2 boots!

Just a quick one today, U2's new single is available for listening at Get on your boots over at U2.com. The text is a bit misleading as it says audio to follow, but if you wait 30 seconds or so the embedded flash player starts playing the track in crystal clear stereo (you may want to turn your speakers slightly, it gave me one hell of a shock!).

Have to say, I am not sure yet. But that is usually a good thing. I don’t like the Mexican bit, sounds a bit like fast cars, which I am not that keen on either, aside from that there is a bunch of great stuff in there and being that it has the Lanois, Eno and Lilywhite influence I am sure it will be a bit like watching Fight Club in terms of the little bits that you find new every time you watch it. I just noticed the drum change at the end which is really cool.

Some reviews I have read have talked about a new revolutionary sound that is set to tantalize the ear buds like Achtung Baby did back in the 90's. Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if it is the case, I am all for the spine shivers and the goose bumps. It's just that for me Sir Bono’s voice is not quite as good as it used to be, and the songs of late (with the exception of original of the species and crumbs from you table on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb) have been a little subpar. They are still by far the best live band in the world and even on a bad day Bono's voice whips the slightly weedy Chris Martin Coldplay whinge every time. (Again I listen to Coldplay too and like them a lot, but I just don't quite see them as a U2 replacement just yet!).

According to their site, the album 'no line on the Horizon' will be out in March (2nd in the UK and 3rd in the US) in various formats (as is customary these days) . Despite the comments here, you will likely find me first in line for a copy and it will be on 24/7 in my house as soon as I have it!
'no line on the Horizon'

Star Wars Guitars Line 6 Pod Studio UX1

A long time ago….
I still get some eyebrow raising, mocking laughter and mouthfuls of beer reunited with their sibling molecules in the glass they have recently departed every time I talk about it. To be perfectly honest, if someone had told me 10 years ago that I would be playing my guitar live through a pc and directly into a PA system, they could have just as easily waved a light saber at me and said use the force and they would have got a similar reaction!

Even when I realized that the technology had become a reality, I still hung on to the analogue for dear life, putting up with broken fuses, old broken valves and replacing speakers. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t at all expect any of you to go forth after reading this and throw your Marshall stacks, Vox AC30's and Blues Deville’s out the window (although if you do feel so inclined perhaps you would be so kind as to send me your address and a rough idea of when it might happen :)).

The Rebellion
For those technophobic analogians amongst you, I would suggest that you avert your eyes now for fear of rashes and the like!

Let me introduce you to a little (depends on the model) gizmo called a Line 6 Tone Port UX1
(more recently renamed the Line 6 POD Studio UX1
. actually, this renaming offers a unique opportunity to those who jump on it quickly, as the older Toneports are now selling for cheaper and the only difference as far as I can gather is the color, the old ones have a red front and back panel the new pod studios are all black, the bundled software with the old models is Gearbox, but you can download the newer and better pod farm after). Now this box of toys is essentially for recording guitars into your favorite recording software and in that respect it excels, but because of the low latency (almost no delay between when you play the note and hear it) and ease of use it has an alternative unpublished usage (UX-1 and above, any smaller model has only one input and therefore cannot be used for vocals and guitar at the same time).

Recently I have been gigging with:
1 guitar,
1 laptop,
1 Toneport ux-1,
1 microphone
3 cables (1 guitar, 1 mic, 1 out to the PA or in some cases music system aux with some reasonably sized speakers, sometimes even unreasonably sized speakers … evil grin)

Yes that’s it! And it’s incredibly easy to set up and light. There is a small learning curve with the software but there are a bunch of presets built in, you can choose from a bunch of amps, preamps, bass amps etc and effects also. So basically I set up a patch for a song which includes the vocal and amp settings, select it from a list and play the song. I can arrive at the gig and be playing within 5 minutes and going home is even quicker, plus no hernias or other heavy combo/cab related injuries.

A New Hope

Sure, if you want to play Wembley or Madison Square Gardens it’s not going hack it, but for playing at the local (which is what most of us do anyway, having already had our 10 minutes of fame) it rocks.

The Empire Strikes Back
Other great uses are that after a hard day programming, I can almost silently, practice for a few hours and mess around with getting some authentic sounding cover sounds without risking divorce or waking up the neighbors. I had a real bunch of fun recreating some of the U2 Edges sound the other day using 2 AC 30's with offset delays (I will do a how to on that another time). That’s another thing I love about it, you can split the signal and run it through 2 different sets of amps and effects in much the same way as the big boys have been doing live for years, getting a good mix of different amps strong points to make fuller sounds.

For this price I don’t think you can do better, and it is currently the only bit of kit I wouldn’t want to give up.

Welcome to the Guitar Guy Blog

Dear All,
Welcome to the Guitar Guy blog! My name is Dave and I have been playing the Guitar since I was 15 years old, always for fun and sometimes for money.

I wanted to give back some of the knowledge I have learned over the years and honor an age old tradition of learning that is passed on from generation to generation.

I'd like to dedicate this blog to all those who have watched over me and taught me riffs and tricks (with the patience of saints), to those musicians alive and dead who inspired me to pick up a guitar in the first place, to all the musicians I have gigged and jammed with and lastly, but by no means least, to my wife, who puts up with the unfinished songs, pushes me to fulfil my dreams and is always there for me with a smile and a bacon sandwich.