Dr. Gonzo

I've just listened to 4 songs of that band @Inverted posted in the "Making Music" thread - Khruangbin. I like them, relaxing stuff.

@Inverted - just found this. I'm actually fairly proud of my ears for getting a lot right! So he's got a made in Mexico Stratocaster, the neck and bridge pickup he's swapped out for single-coil sized humbuckers. I nailed the fucking amp, Fender Deluxe Reverb! And I got most of the pedals right... well the types of the pedals: Wah pedal (didn't call that, but makes sense) Volume pedal (basically controls his signal's volume with his feet) Boss DS-1 (so he's got no overdrive pedal but just this distortion pedal, that light gain we're hearing in that track is most likely from this with the gain set very low) MXR Dynacomp (compression pedal - this is a very subtle effect, there's actually a lot of reasons someone might use one too. Kind of hard to explain tbh) EHX Holy Grain (reverb pedal) Strymon El Capistan (digital delay that's mimicking an old school tape delay sound, crazy fucking expensive pedal) Mooer Mod Factory (I've actually never heard of this pedal so I have no clue what it does. It says "mod" on it, so I imagine it's got stuff like a phaser, chorus, other time based effects) My guess would be all of his time based effects (delay, reverb, the mod factory) are in his effects loop (maybe with his volume pedal as well), and everything else is running before his amp input. But guessing his signal chain is going to be pretty impossible really, unless he's mentioned it anywhere. The cheapest way to get close to that sort of tone, unfortunately, is probably by going out and getting yourself one of those modeler MFX units that can also model the sound of a clean Fender amp. I've not heard the clean channel on a Marshall MG10 in over... 15 years, so I'm not sure how close you could get to the sound of that with just your amp's clean channel.

Sounds like a Fender amp's cleans. My guess would be a Twin Reverb or a Deluxe Reverb or something like that... It sounds like one of their "famous" amps - I just think it sounds a lot like a Fender clean tone. No idea what kind of guitar he's playing. I think I'm hearing a neck humbucker pickup - but I'm not the best at figuring out what pickups anyone is using. I can just definitively tell you when it's a neck or bridge singlecoil pickup. In terms of effects I'm hearing some light overdrive/distortion from a pedal before the amp, a pretty big amount of reverb (no clue if that's from the amp or a pedal), and some sort of delay... I can't tell if it's digital or analog delay ( @Mel81x might be able to know better, I can only really hear the difference between an analogue/digital delay when I use it). It's psychy and spaced out from the reverb and delay. It's very crisp and clear because... well that's just something Fender's valve amps do really well on their clean channel. Very nice tone. Nice song too, seems like shite I could listening to while working to stay calm while I work.

It ended 2-1. Now we know League One > Ligue Un

Clyne's goal was good. Featured a 40 yard run from Gomez as a centreback Curtis Joes got himself on the scoresheet as well. And Origi just now

Our starting XI for our friendly today against the other club on Merseyside to win something this year: Mignolet, Clyne (didn't realise we still had him lol), Phillips, Gomez, Larouci, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Milner, Lallana, Kent, Wilson, Brewster Subs: Jaros, Atherton, Hoever, Matip, Johnston, Lewis, Fabinho, Jones, Woodburn, Duncan, Glatzel, Origi

The Soggy Baguettes in charge of Iran doing their best to get Iranians killed by trying to stop a British tanker

I never have the gain that high! I keep it at about 3-3.5 most of the time for non-death-metal metal… and for death metal I have it around 4 or 5 tops. Try lowering the gain a bit and boosting the low end, perhaps. The "traditional" usage for a tubescreamer to tighten up our amp's low end is you bump the volume all the way up, keep the tone around the middle (I'd move it around a liiiiiitle depending on if you want a bit more low end or a bit less) and the gain either all the way down, or close to all the way down (like, if it all the way down was 0 and all the way up was 100, I'd put it at around 10-15). BUT once I got my guitar with active pickups, I sort of felt the tubescreamer wasn't necessary to tighten my low end (personally). Although I can get a lot heavier chugs with it. Then I started using my Boss AngryDriver pedal as a boost for solos and stopped using the tubescreamer… which I basically always kept on to tighten my rhythms. And yeah, kids have it easy as fuck these days. When we were kids learning guitar, modelers were fucking shite. Now there's modelers at pretty much every price point that sound pretty fucking good (remember that shit brand "Zoom" and they're multieffects units? Look at some demos of their shite now, it's still not the best... but at the price they're selling their gear, it sounds a hell of a lot better than what we would have gotten back then for the same amount) - so kids can mess about with various amps/effects/cabinets and figure out what sounds they like with a hell of a lot more accuracy than we ever did if we tried to do the same thing with a Line6 Spider or a Line6 Pod. And the reputation Line6 had back in the day was kind of "this is n00b equipment" - nowadays, it's hard to say that when the Helix is as good as it fucking is. And then recording stuff is so much easier to do at a much higher level than we ever could have attempted as kids - the hardest thing about it is probably figuring out how to use the fucking software in the first place. But after that initial learning curve, they've got so much available to them. Not that I mind, mind you... because I'm also getting to benefit from how technology has advanced in guitar/music too. And I've got more disposable income than those fucking kids (well probably, not including spoiled rich kids), so I probably get to benefit from it more

I think with the Bias stuff you should be able to mess around with IRs. I can also post some free amp sims if you'd like (and a TS808 plugin), so then you could just go straight from your focusrite to a DAW and run the amps/cabs/pedals as plugins in it. It's not too hard to figure out, although it seems pretty intimidating at first (especially figuring out how the fuck to use a particular DAW software lol, took me fucking ages). I remember recording "demos" onto cassettes via an 8 track, they sounded like shiiiiite - recording is so much easier nowadays with a computer. And yeah, I'm honestly a bit shocked they gave me my Mooer back for free. For as long as I'm living here, these guys have a customer in me for anything guitar related as a result. Even for the little shite that might be a bit cheaper to buy on Amazon, from now on I'm going to support them because it's: 1.) cool to support a local business that has great customer service; 2.) is genuinely one of the best music shops I've ever been to in my life.

https://fox5sandiego.com/2019/07/09/thieves-plow-truck-into-midway-district-walgreens-steal-atm/ This happened early in the morning here. Interesting bit from the article says the cars used in the heist were stolen from the same area where my friend's car was recently stolen. Wonder if it's in any way related?

Should be banned from attending matches for life tbh

Looks like we've got a few players extending their stays with us: https://www.espn.co.uk/football/soccer-transfers/story/3897181/sources-origi-set-to-extend-liverpool-contract So that's Divock sorted, but also from the article:

It's very rare that a player comes back as good as they were after a bad injury like that. And especially when they're in the form he was in, which is where he looked like he was finally clicking in the team and was making the case to be an important starter for us.

I hope so. While he was fit, he was one of our best players and really came into his own in that spell right when Coutinho left. But there's a lot of competition in our midfield - some of the positions will be won by players due to form, sometimes it'll be based on tactics, sometimes it'll be to rotate players. It's really hard to say who'll start in our midfield with 3 spots between Fabinho, Henderson, Gini, Keita, Milner, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lallana, and arguably Shaqiri could be forced in there (although usually it's a 4-2-3-1 when we've got Shaqiri in centrally, so a bit of a different system; and then the 2 behind him will be 2 of Fabinho, Henderson or Gini (if everyone's fit). But if he can hit the levels he was hitting before that bad injury, then he'll be getting plenty of time on the pitch.

I think of music theory as a language as well. Like a universal language among other musicians - one of the guys I jam is a keyboardist (well he plays other stuff too, but he's really really good at the piano and is a professional keyboardist) and he can tell me what sort of stuff he wants me to play based on that universal language - because the instruments aren't the same (although with stringed instruments, I sort of think of each string as a piano where each fret is a different key and they're all alongside each other), we've got a way of explaining what the fuck is going on in our heads while we play with each other. And to double quote you... I think that's a good way of "properly" learning the instrument, rather than just learning by the numbers. And like you say, if you want to be able to play what comes to mind it's much easier to do that when you actually know what you want to play and how to play it - rather than needing to look up a tab to feel able to play something. Trying to learn songs by ear helped me tremendously in being able to find my way around the fretboard and be able to play the melodies and/or riffs that I'd make up inside my brain.

The Katana Air is really cool. I like that you can edit the settings from your phone, but unfortunately you can't access all the stuff you'd get from plugging it into a computer through the Bluetooth phone app. Seems like the ultimate practice amp though. Pretty big pricetag for a tiny amp though... but you're paying for that wireless jack.

I contacted the guitar store where I traded in my Mooer before I bought the Helix to see if they still had it... and they did. And the guy emailing me back was the same guy who was helping me in the store (and the owner's son, which ends up being pretty handy for this story), wanting to know why I wanted it back after I'd just got the Helix. So I told him what happened. He emails back saying he's going to talk to his dad, the owner of the store about it. I get an email back about an hour later saying that I can come in today to pick up my old Mooer back for nothing and also that I'd be given some store credit for the next time I wanted to buy anything from them, and that they were sorry they couldn't give me a new Helix (lol, no shit they couldn't - but nice of them to suggest they would have if they could). Pretty great customer service, well pleased with that. So I'm gonna pop around on my lunch break and pick that back up. It's not ideal, because what would be ideal is getting my Helix back... but it's nice that they wanted to help me out like that. Apparently there's been a hardware update since I last traded it in, so that's cool. I liked the high gain amp models on it, some of the effects aren't as good as on the Helix - but fuck it, it'll do for just fucking around. Going to have to go through some IRs to figure out which ones I liked. There's some great free IR cabs out there (if you use that stuff @Mel81x @Happy Blue - I think the 6505 MH has USB/XLR outputs so you could put it straight into your computer/an interface and have your actual amp powering virtual cabinets). This video lists some good ones:

https://metro.co.uk/2019/07/08/120000-alien-hunters-planning-storm-area-51-discover-truth-10131273/

I am so fucking shite at drums it's unreal.

Not until I got that one for my dad, and that was only after hearing numerous positive things about it on the internet. And even then I was very skeptical... because what I'd had happen to my guitar was ridiculous. They're screwed into the pickguard, they're wired into the guitar... and they still fucking came out. I have no idea how it even happened. I never used the trem on that guitar though & after that I stuck with hardtail guitars, until fairly recently when I had a Floyd equipped superstrat (that I ended up selling to get my E-II). One day I'll have a superstrat again, with some sort of trem system on it. The Marshall MG series are one of the most common practice amps for a reason, especially the smaller ones. There aren't many ways to get a Marshall sound at that price point other than getting that amp, so it's definitely not a bad amp. Especially for the price they go for. There were thousands of worse options when I started - I'm sure that's the same nowadays. And yeah, leads go bad after a while for a bunch of different reasons - but the biggest one is probably when they're not folded up nicely and left tangled or bent when you aren't using them.

When I got mine, the first thing the kid who was teaching me guitar did was block the trem for me - so I never even touched the arm bar really. Pretty sure I lost it almost as soon as I got the guitar. But I was very annoyed about the pickups just... falling out. I'm not even really sure HOW it fucking happened. But it was an HSS strat model and the second pickup that fell out was my bridge humbucker... and you know the type of music I play. That was the IMPORTANT pickup, it wasn't like the middle single coil - which I never used because I'd always either use the neck or the bridge pickup. It was the one that could go CHUGGA CHUGGA. I fucking hated that guitar.

Does it have that AUX in for playing along with shite? Nothing wrong with having a super barebones practice amp, especially when you're just starting. When you're just starting you really just want anything that works, so that'll do.

My first guitar was a Squier bullet and two of the pickups fell out funny to see how far Fender's budget brand has gone After buying shit used and saving so much money that way, I think that's probably how I'll always get guitars from now on. Even the cheap shite, it makes it that much more of a bargain. The only thing that really limits you is the number of places around that sell particular used gear... but now there's also reverb.com to help a bit with that (although with used stuff, I like to be able to actually try it). Never bought a valve amp used though, even though I've seen plenty of tempting shite out there, not sure what my reasoning is there though.

@Mel81x I got my dad one of those Classic Vibe Teles a few Christmasses ago. His 70s era knockoff Tele's neck had warped so he couldn't use some frets properly. But the guitar I got him was the same finish and everything as that pic you just posted. It's honestly tough to believe it's a Squier, because I remember when I started playing Squier's were absolute dogshite instruments. I think the only thing I didn't like about it was the finish on the neck is really thick, but my dad spent a few hours sanding it down for that old school unfinished feel that he was used to. I think he's kept the pickups all the same, they are surprisingly good. And he replaced the tuning pegs with locking tuners after I recommended some. Great guitar for the amount of money spent. Seems like a lot of the things that were crap when I started playing have improved massively, multieffects, affordable guitars, affordable pedals. It's a bit unfair tbh.

Yeah the Het Set are actives. I think it’s the 81/60 set tweaked (not sure though). I think the 57/66 set is an 81/80 set that’s been tweaked but I’m not sure if that’s the case. And yeah that guitars about 2k new, I got it used though and the previous owner took some one of the volume and tone knobs off so I haggled with him and he was willing to sell it for a bit more than half price. Then I just ordered new knobs for a pittance and put them on Yeah it’s basically the 6505 lead and crunch, a bit tweaked but generally the same as when EVH was with Peavey, with a Fender clean. Ridiculous amp.