Jounal #1

Jounal #1

Update

It sure has been a while since I’ve posted anything.

I’ve been busy getting back into the guitar more now than ever before in my 24 years of playing.

This has me digging into a ton of content around tone and just overall improving as a player, and I wanted to share what I’m finding to be most interesting.

I’ll shoot you an email about once a week to keep you posted with the latest.

Feel free to unsubscribe if you could care less. However, if you’re still playing the guitar, you’ll wanna stick around.

Check out week’s journal entry.

Quarantine life

This quarantine has me buying more gear than ever. It’s cool because I’m learning a ton, playing better than ever, and have a ton of tone to play with. But it’s fucking expensive and I gotta stop before I run outta money lol.

Looks like I’m not the only one buying up tons of shit to keep from being bored out of my fucking mind though.

New York Times recently wrote an article stating, “guitars are back baby”. In it, a dude from Sweetwater was quoted saying “Every day is Black Friday”.

Check it out: Click here.

Here’s just some of the stuff I’ve recently “invested in”.

• Gibson Les Paul Standard
• Vox AC15
• Wilson’s Effects Haze (Univibe/ Chorus)
• Fulltone tone-bender
• JDM 292 Fuzz
• Fulltone Octafuzz (octave fuzz)
• MXR Octavio (octave fuzz)
• Walrus Slo (reverb)
• Oceans 11 (reverb)

Most of this stuff I buy used at a good deal unless it’s from boutique manufactures and it’s hard to come by used. So, I’m “saving” some money. But still, as I’m writing this out, I can clearly see that I have a problem lol.

Anyway, at least I have some cool stuff to do reviews and shootouts with. Coming up.

What guitar gear have you bought so far since Covid?

Joe Walsh Guitar Set Up Lesson

I was adjusting the intonation on my guitar the other day. Essentially adjusting the saddles on the bridge while tuning your guitar so the open strings are in tune with the 12th frets.

If the open note is in tune but the 12th fret is Flat = Move the saddle forward towards the nut. If the 12th is Sharp = Move the saddle back, away from the nut.

If you don’t do this your guitar sound in tune when up the neck around the 1st fret and out of tune around the 12th fret onward.

This led me to a video of Joe Walsh (former Eagles guitar player and the dude who made this badass song up: “Life’s been good") breaking down how he sets up a guitar. This dude is such a character making it more entertaining.

Check it out: https://youtu.be/D7gMwE7phoM

Gary Clark Jr.

After hearing Joe Rogan mention Gary Clark Jr. in countless podcasts, I finally checked out his music and have been blown away. If you’re not familiar with him, he a monster of a guitar player with sick tone.

Don’t take as long as I did. Here’s his take on Voodoo Child. It’s really fucking good: https://youtu.be/cHaQzVqUbCY

This video led me down the rabbit hole of his work and tone which I’ll go into more in next week’s edition. In the meantime check it out:

Here’s a link to my favorite original of his: Click here.
Link to Gary on the Rogan podcast: Click here.
His second appearance on the Rogan podcast: Click here.

Dopest Trick Ever. And it’s on a Banjo 🪕.

Playing behind the back, using your teeth to pluck the strings is old school. You gotta see what this hillbilly (respectfully of course), Leroy Troy can do with a banjo. This shit had me befuddled.

The whole interview is cool but to see what I mean take note between 1:33-1:40 and at 2 minutes:

https://youtu.be/sb-iVghR3D4

The Riff Tool ⚙️

Last BUT NOT LEAST. I just created a dope YouTube Loop tool for guitar players (really musicians) that you can use for free. I’ve been using it a ton for figuring out new riffs.

You can slow down and loop specific parts of a YouTube video.

The idea came about because I always had to slow down the track and rewind it. I just wanted something I could set and forget.

Check it out. Would love to know what you think:

https://therifftool.com/