For the anniversary of my 60th orbit around the sun, I bought a lap steel guitar. I play drums/percussion, sing-I do both of those live. I have a rudimentary understanding of bass guitar and keyboards. I just play those here at home. I just always liked the sound of guitars, just wasn't my thing to make my hands make chords. Although I won't be able to play like a pro, I can still make some cool sounds with a bar on strings.
(I bought an Ebow also). Grandma Moses didn't take up painting until her 70's I bought a book of tunings, effects are in my presonus, somebody left me a distortion pedal somewhere along the line, sounds cool through my SVT bass amp. It really is harder to learn/retain new things as I get older. But "one of these days" is starting to be a phrase I stop to think about when it comes out of my mouth. Better get on with it or find some other wishful thinking to waste time on. Now if I could just get a gig in the southern hemisphere. I want to see the southern cross instead of the big dipper.

 

Congratulations!!!

Have fun playing it

 

If you're planning to go electric, and/or if you need a transition instrument, I can sell you my ol' Tele
she helped me a lot .... Am - G - F and then .....

 

Congrats on the new music adventure. It may be hard to learn the new skillset, but your background and experience will come forward to help you achieve your goal. It's not the virtuoso but the team player the one that gets the gig. Besides, you must feel like a dog with two tails. Musicians are basically grown-up kids playing around with toys.

 

Congratulations!
Maybe not so in to new instrument but I do hiphop/rap tracks for the young ones to make noises on ;)

Cheers

 

Noice! I just bought one as well. It's not anything particularly special, but a definite step up from what I'm used to

 

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PwrSlideIvry So far this thing seems to have pretty decent intonation and it stays in tune. I have tried several tunings. I think I would need heavier strings to drop it down to a D tuning, but it loves E and A tunings. I tried a C6 but I don't understand my way around that one yet. I like the coil tap instead of traditional tone control. Better tuning machines would be nice (something geared lower), but for the price, I'm satisfied so far.

 

Last edited: May 30, 2016

Can you explain this word to me please? I've seen it used a few times and I don't know much about the technical side of guitars

 

intonation? it s the tuning

 

Just because a guitar is in tune when not pressing any frets, doesn't mean that is is when fretting. Tune the guitar sting open, then try different frets. The pitch should still be in tune on every fret, and the strings with each other when playing chords, depending on how hard you are pressing the strings, etc. http://www.wikihow.com/Set-Your-Guitar's-Intonation----

This old dog also has a pretty good handle on search engines.....clamp on style tuners make this an easier job.

 

Example: even if Kirk Hammet's guitar is in perfect tune and his guitar tech has (frustratingly) intonated the guitar to perfection, Kirk still plays with shitty intonation.

The length (intonation) and tension (tuning) of a string can be perfect when playing open, but the length and tension might differ once you start playing the frets. You usually hear bad intonation the closer to the bridge (or higher up on the neck) you play. Usually, if you have very high action (much distance from fretboard to strings) you get worse intonation.
Also, very old strings lose intonation naturally.

 

forgive me if this wasn't your intention, but I always felt that the 'hint-hint search engine' remark when someone asks a question is kind of a nasty, passive aggressive thing to do. We're all here for conversation. I don't think it's such a bad thing to ask for guidance from a bunch of dudes who know me before getting bogged down in the dry world of instruction manual-esque wiki pages.

That said, I appreciate the explanation. I recently started taking guitar lessons and my teacher did a bit of testing and tweaking, so I'm guessing there was some of that involved. I've played very casually for over a decade but never really learned any of the important stuff

@Baxter Very helpful info. Much appreciated, buddy. As well to you @plomerus

Cheers, fellas

 

Sorry Cav. Wasn't trying to be snarky. I'm used to having to go to the library to look things up, so for me a computer, internet and search engines still amaze me. My post wasn't intended to have that tone. Sorry if it came out like that.

 

Cool, cool. Makes sense

About eighty percent of the time, if a search engine is brought up, that's what the context is - hence my misunderstanding. But I was feeling like it didn't match your character to be making any kind of potshot, and I guess I was right. Sorry about that.

You see those jokes all the time here and it drives me nuts. IMO just help people out. I even spent a while in PM sessions with Steve Faoki before I realized he just wanted someone to force feed him ALL the info instead of just asking a few specific questions.

Plus I see you, Baxter and Sunshine as the most knowledgeable/reliable guys for various audio-related stuff. So it would have been really a bummer if you started going all 'look it up yourself' on me, hahaha. Take it easy buddy

 

Wow, that's awesome. I was just being born in 89. What a resume.

Much appreciated. I'm sure I will have questions sooner or later. As I start getting more into guitar I realize how little I know compared to how much there is to know. It's good to have a place like AudioSex where there are still some cool people on the internet