Theobscureart

I bought a Sheraton II a few years ago as a back up and they're really not too bad. There are a few things that you can do that would GREATLY improve the performance. You can/should replace all of the hardware. A Gibson bridge and tuners will keep you in tune better and get more of the string's vibes to the body. You can find any of the parts at the store from which you bought the guitar. Even if they're not a Gibson guitar dealer, an Epiphone dealer carries Gibson parts and accessorries. Its part of the deal. You can get 'em online pretty easily, too. Also, as noted previously, new el

Nice. I work at the PRS factory here in MD. I may have fretted or shaped your neck! Congrats. I honestly wasn't a big fan of PRS guitars for much of my playing career. I used to run an independant music store which sold them; and while I could attest to the beauty and quality, it just wasn't my bag. I'd much rather spend 2k on an old tele. Since I've been working there, my appreciation has only blossomed. All PRS employees are great people who put a lot into those guitars - from Paul (who's there every day - I was washing my hands in the bathroom today when he came in and gave me a "w

ROCKINTHROB

I'll give it the 'ol college try. Thanks for the info! One more question... I've never done the online ticket thing (save for straight up ordering them online.) Can you give me a quick walk-through as to what to expect and how to maximize my chances when I'm logged on at the presale? I'm getting a little hyper at the prospect of not getting tickets (at least at face value.) Thanks again!

I haven't been to a WILCO show at 9:30 in several years (since they've hit the "big-time") I also have never ordered tix through the presale of their official site... I'm familiar with the venue (small and loud, but awesome) but can anyone give me some clue as to the likelyhood of getting tix for this show? Do I need to be at my computer/phone as soon as the presale opens (or even hours beforehand) to have a chance? Any help would be greatly appreciated... I'm moving to Annapolis next week, so the show is so close both geographically and temporally, and I don't want it to slip away. I RE

I saw Metheny play this on TV. I think it was on Sessions at West 54th. Yeah, he played the fretless necks open (obviously) as sympathetic accompaniment. When someone of his caliber plays this thing, it is far from a gimick... The sound is virtuistic, haunting, and friggin' neato-torpedo.

The HANDS-DOWN-TOP-OF-THE-LIST-CRAP-YOUR-PANTS-BEST guitar magazine in the world is VINTAGE GUITAR MAGAZINE. Get it. Subscribe to it. Love it. Get pissed off if it doesn't come in the mail one day, then become elated when it arrives the next. Absolutely top-notch. Guitar player is excellent as well. Also check out Performing Musician and EQ (if your into recording/engineering.) I think those three are all from the same publisher. VG is the most important and informative guitar magazine of the past 30 years. Deal with it. Pick one up and you'll see why. There's not a Digitech ad on

You're right, but just to add another $.02, there were a lot of collectors in the asian market (mainly Japan) who started buying up vintage guitars like mad in the late 80s-early 90s. This is when you saw the price of a nice '57 strat shoot to a potential six-figures from 4-5 figurs in a matter of just a few years. If you dig the economic side of guitars (or if you just wanna get mad that you'll never be able to afford that 1936 D'Angelico New Yorker you've always wanted) check out some of the stuff that the big-yet-old-school guys have written - its all over the net - the likes of appraise

Candyfloss, please. (Can this please, please be the start of a 12-page thread about what the food and atmosphere would be like if one of us opened a Wilco-themed restaurant? i.e. there's a young mother and her 7 year-old son sitting in the corner booth he says, "I'll have a scoop of Candyfloss please, waitress." To which she replies, "no, Stephen! It took forever to get Reservations to this restaurant for Monday. Plus, you haven't finished your Pieholden Suite yet! One junkfood at a time!" "Aw, gee-willikers, Ma!" "You heard me, Stephen! Now drink your Blood of the Lamb so we can go

Thanks anyway. I guess its back to shoving banannas in my ear to try and lure him out. Se la vie.

I got a song stuck in my head... can anyone PLEASE tell me what song Jeff is playing on the DVD shortly after his "interview" with Fericito (I think... haven't watched it in a while, but its definately when he starts his solo performances, perhaps in San Fran?)-- the lyrics include something like "...its not even half as nice as you/set my sight on one whispery kiss..." I can't for the life of me recall it, and I keep playing it in my head over and over. Also, if anyone has lyrics (hence my post in this area) could you please post them as well? Thanks a TON. My therapist thanks you as we

"...including all known lanthanides and actinides? I'd like to see that!" "We are the knights who say ni!" Sorry, just had to call you out on that total geek alert. Just joshin'. You're alright.

The simplest thing to do is to place all of your time-based effects (reverb, delay, et al) AFTER the volume pedal. This allows the effected signal to trail off while the signal from your guitar is muted. This can give you some cool pedal steel sounding tones as well. Other than that, you'll have to get a bit more ambitious... Jeff's rig has something like 3 expression pedals (I'm going by both speculation and from what i can recall from earlier posts and in the Book) that are essentially wired into his delay/reverb/pitch shiter pedals (whatever its needed for- I don't recall) to control a

I think the passive and active models are about the same price, but I've never had any problem with my passive stereo Ernie Ball volume pedals. All a volume pedal does is take a potentiometer (or knob - to oversimplify ALOT) and put it on the floor. The difference between the 2 is that the active unit has a lower impedence pot in it (25k as opposed to 250k ohm I believe) which supposedly allows for the hotter signal of active pickups and gear to get through more cleanly. But like I said, I've had the same pedal for over 10 years and I go in out of a lot of pedals, guitars, and rack stuff as

Yeah. You can't even play Heroin by VU with this thing... I guess you'd need 2 of 'em. You could probably play a Yoko Ono song or something though.

I have one. I think I used it twice. Its much too finicky. Its probably quicker and easier to re-tune than to use this thing 'cause you have to line up the rubber pieces that push the strings down just so so that you don't get any buzzing or muted strings. If you can find someone who has one, steal it from them; or try to find one in a pawn shop for $.30. But don't pay $12.

Lance is correct.

I'm not sure if this'll help, but a couple of years ago while wasting time on Ebay, I saw a listing for a concert-used Dylan harmonica. It was a Marine Band. To me though, the Marine Band is much to bright sounding. It actually used to be played in the U.S. Marine Band so it had to cut through the loud horns. I'm sure Tweedy uses either a Hohner Special 20 or Lee Oskar harps. I personally like the Lee Oskar. The reeds hold their tone and intonation longer than anything else I've used - bear in mind, I'm not a harp player per se. I just use it for accompaniment and to jam along with othe

Digital multi FX in an analog rig?! Blasphemy! Just kidding. Looks good! I especially dig the homemade rack - very metal.

I'm not sure what Jeff is currently using, but in terms of your problems with feedback, the problem is typically cured by getting rid of (or slightly lowering) just the right frequencies... But since you probably don't have a rig which contains its own dedicated 31 band eq (which would be overkill anyway,) the solution is tweaking both the tone and gain settings on every piece of gear in your signal path until you get the right balance of tone and feedback supression. You can't expect to tweak your sound to just the way you want it and then crank it to stage volume and have the sound come ou

I strongly agree with whomever recomended getting sounds out of the guitar itself before going to boxes and knobs. Don't get me wrong- those things are cool as hell, but you can get a TON of sounds with your guitar and a few other fun things. Check out what nels does with electric toothbrushes and the like. Check out this book: Guitar FX Cookbook. It even comes with a companion CD. It's pretty elementary in its explanations but its a very good starting point. It contains tips and tricks for getting all kinds of musical and non-musical sounds out of your guitar with and without stompboxes

I used to manage a music store where we were an authorized Taylor dealer (among many other brands) and I can say, without a doubt, that Taylor makes the finest PRODUCTION model acoustic guitar in the world. Note I said PRODUCTION. There are tons of small luthiers who do wold class work, but as far as consistency and overall quality for the price, nothing beats a Taylor. There are some things to consider, though... some of their models (particularly in the 500 and 800 series models) tend to be brighter than your average guitar- sometimes that's good, sometimes it's bad. I personally want a

When I play with the band, my setup is pretty simple... old Epiphone Zephyr or '74 tele into Fulltone Fulldrive; Teese Wah; Red Witch Phaser; Danelectro DanEcho (or EchoPlex if it's working well that day) into a late model tweed Fender Blues Deluxe 410 or Vox AC 15 cranked up. For solo shows, I for some reason use a ton of stuff because I sing like I do, so I use a lot of textural things. Same as above, but with the additon of a Rickenbacker 360 Mapleglo or Gretsch Tennessee Rose (I use these 4 guitars and sometimes more for solo shows- hardly ever an acoustic even though I write and play a

Anyone have any interesting solo or interlude ideas for WHY WOULD YOU WANNA LIVE? I introduced a girl to the guys on the first date, and she loves this song, so I'm gonna play it for her on the third date this weekend. I've got the progression just fine. (I do a fingerstyle- almost bossa kinda thing with it that's quite pretty) I'm just looking for some cool things to do when I'm not singing poorly. I like what Jeff did in Learning. Anyone have anything close to that tabbed out (the bass note stuff I can get down, but I don't have the time to sit down and figure a lot of stuff out righ