Shavano Music Online

    Guitar/Bass/Amp/Mod Articles

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    I am using this section to cover information about guitars I have or things I have worked on that may be of interest. I don't accept advertising, so nothing here has been sponsored by any vendor or sales organization. These things are my experiances - Good or Bad.

    I also hope to share some thoughts and projects I have taken on. These tend to appeal to a narrower band of musicians, but might still be of interest.

    As a side note, my instrument preferences may not match yours - thats fine with me. It does, however, cause me to make some choices that may be quite different than you would do - that is also fine with me. Everything here will be things for me or things I've done for other people - I try to match the solutions with the end user. Please feel free to adapt these things to your needs.

    Some of my preferences are:

    • Very light gauge guitar strings. I personally prefer GHS .008 Boomers. Before I bought a Roland GR-20 Guitar Synth I read many places that the GK-3 really required fairly heavy strings (some people said .013's - To me those are like bridge cables). Happily, the GK-3 works great with my .008's.
    • No vibratos - for me these tend to make the guitar hard to stay in tune (especially if you break a string). There is nothing wrong with them, I just don't own any guitars that have them anymore and I don't miss having a vibrato.
    • Vintage P-90 or Humbucking Pickups. I find I also like the sound of Danelectro lipstick pickups.
    • Tube guitar amps.
    • Managed Volume levels in Clubs - I like the people running sound to be able to adjust the mix so its balenced and fits the rooms needs. This is hard to do if you don't provide a way for this to be controlled.
    • I like Classic Rock - 50's thru the 90's. I love the classic Motown sound (I also play Bass Guitar). I also like a lot of guitar picking in most types of music. I try to pick up a lot of Jazz styles - it can be applied to lots of different types of music (listen to old Motown recordings - there a lot going on there that had a major influence on commercial music).
    • I find that there is something to learn from all styles of music. I like learning new things.

    I've been playing Guitar since the mid 1960's and Bass since the early 1970's. As a result I have some hearing loss. I prefer things less loud as a result. I still want great tone, but not with ringing in my ears.


    Guitar / Bass Guitar information

    • (10/09) Review of the Dean 5 String Acoustic Bass Guitar
    • (06/12) 1 Humbucker + 1 Single Coil Pickup Wiring
    • (07/12) Using an Artec VTC to provide a tonal boost to a modified Danelectro U2

    Epiphone Valve Jr Stuff

    • (10/09) Epiphone Valve Jr - Part 1
    • (10/09) Epiphone Valve Jr - Part 2 - Isolation Cabinet Switch
    • (09/12) Epiphone Valve Jr - Part 3 - Update Output Transformer (Weber)

    • (11/09) Epiphone Valve Jr - Combo Speaker Test
    • (06/12) Epiphone Valve Jr Combo - put in a 10 inch Speaker

    Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

    NOTE: Any suggestions made becomes the property of Shavano Music Online to be used in future articles. These are not being sold for profit, so there is no money to be earned by making a suggestion, however if you help other musicians become more successful, everyone involved benefits.

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