u/BombsGoBang

Modellers are getting better and better at replicating the real thing.

The best ones at mimicking the dynamics as well as the sound of amps and pedals, etc. now use files (.nam files) to create a tonal snapshot of equipment at particular settings. If you went for a modern multi FX and downloaded some of these to it, you’d likely get a great tone, or a number of them after after spending a long time searching for the ones you like, but you wouldn’t really be able to tweak the settings like you would with a physical amp or pedal. You just get the snapshot of the amp/ pedal with the settings that you like, and it recreates the sound and dynamics of that really well (depending on how well the person who made the file made it).

For some things, just regular pedal simulations that you get in modern multi FX units could be better (particularly if you want to tweak the settings). They might not track the dynamics quite as well, but they’ve gotten pretty good at replicating the sound.

For some things, I prefer to have some physical pedals that feed into a multi FX, or sit in the FX loop (because I use amp sims within the multi FX, but for your purposes if you have an amp you are using, either coming after the multi FX with the amp sim turned off, or in your amp’s FX loop with the amp sim turned off).

For me, I have a couple of overdrive sounds that I like, and haven’t been able to recreate them in my multi FX with the fairly low effort I’ve put into it, so I like to stick them up front. I use the Multi FX for modulation effects if I only need something fairly bog standard (like some reverb or delay that I put before the amp sim), or adding in effects that I rarely use like chorus, wah, or fuzz. However for more lush/ hi-fi reverb and delay, I use my reverb and delay pedal in the FX loop after the amp sim, because I don’t trust the multi FX to reproduce that sound (rightly or wrongly. I’ve played with the reverb and delay quite a bit and found them to be fairly bog standard, similar to what I have found in PC plug in ones [free ones within Garage Band]. I stumbled upon my reverb/ delay pedal when I first started guitar and just liked the sound, so I’ve never really known what I’m looking for when I try to recreate it).

You can get fairly cheap multi FX units (compared to the price of 2 or 3 mid range pedals) that will do what I’m describing (I’ve never tried the high end ones to understand if they perform much better).

Try slowing it down to a tempo where you can do it. Get comfortable with that, then gradually increase the tempo, getting comfortable with the new speed, until you are around the same tempo as the song.

Smoke on the water is a good starting point to try this with, as it’s relatively simple, so you can concentrate on your counting, but if you are struggling with that (no shame in it, you’ve only been playing for a year), you can try just holding one chord and playing different strumming patterns to the metronome.

You can even try just holding the first chord for smoke on the water, or any chord, and just strumming the rhythm, without moving your left hand.

Then when you get more used to it, you can start moving your left hand a bit more (maybe just move to the 2nd chord at first, then gradually include the rest).

And $1000

I mean tortoiseshell is a better option than white, but this is the only guitar I would question why you would go for tort and not black.

Yeah, I was doing some reading on active pickups before, so I must have read that into it.

Oh, I was assuming he meant using an active pickup preamp alongside normal passive pickups like a PAF style humbucker, or wide range humbucker that you might find in a Starcaster.

Those passive pickup preamps can be used for things like tonal shaping and buffering, but not quite the same as active pickups, which will have a very low noise floor (due to few windings in the coil of the pickup). If you use a preamp on a passive pickups, you will amplify the noise floor.

No worries

With your edited comment, it’s actually interesting and I’ve learnt from it. You could actually help people to understand this stuff better if you comment like that

No need for that. First of all, I was assuming he was muting the C at the base instead of playing it, because otherwise that would sound awful.

Secondly, B and Cb are sonically the same note (and the same position on the fretboard, which is where we are reading from here). There isn’t a note higher than B called Cb, or a note lower than Cb called B. Cbb is irrelevant, that’s just Bb.

Your correction depends on whether you call the note B or whether you call it Cb. OP didn’t specify (and when you put the notes in for each chord, you yourself said Fmaj7b5 would be right if you call it Cb).

If you really do have that advanced level of music theory knowledge to throw around terms like Cb, and Cbb, you already knew all that, so why not add to the conversation with “that’s one name for it, or it could also be…” instead of “it’s not my fault you’re ignorant”?

Bartholomew was one of the 12 disciples

Isn’t that just because of the EQ of PC monitors? Headphones should be the same signal level as an Aux port and should be ok, but unless you have flat response IEMs for headphones, or a flat response speaker, it will colour the sound a lot by harshly scooping the mids.

So to counter that muddiness, you want FRFR speakers or studio monitors, but since OP says they don’t have much money already, I would just say to try turning the mids way up on the amp (or if there is no mid setting like on a regular AC30, turn bass and treble down). FRFR speakers may be needed if you want a true reflection of what the guitar will sound like going into a PA, or recording.

Show me where Cb is on any instrument 😂 (not laughing at you, I didn’t know if you were joking about Cb or not because you already knew going down 1 from C got you to B by looking at where his fingers were/ weren’t)

You would defeat the main point of preamping the pickups. The reason active pickups are so quiet/ noiseless is that they have few coil winds, so they don’t pick up a lot of EMF noise like normal pickups. That’s why they need the preamp, otherwise they would be really quiet. So basically the preamp amplifies a quiet signal with basically no EMF noise.

If you used the preamp with normal pickups, you’d probably just overload the preamp and the sound probably wouldn’t be useable at all. Plus you’d still have the EMF noise and would be amplifying it.

I like Super Slinkies. The Classic rock and roll ones will feel the same on the higher strings, but they are a little thicker on the lower strings. (Super slinky will be easier to press and bend on the lower strings. Classic rock and roll might be a bit louder on the low end, so the low end will come through a little more on chords. For me the sound difference is negligible.

The other 3 are basically the same, maybe the last 2 are thicker or thinner, idk, I didn’t look. But the key thing with these ones are that they are more expensive. It doesn’t matter much if you only change the strings once a year, but if you change them monthly, and especially on multiple guitars, the price will add up.

C is good as it is. I’d go with C

To be fair, I planned for a long time to switch out the bridge pickup for a Tele pickup thinking the same. It took about 3 years (because I have a 3 year old) to actually make the change from when I bought the pickup.

I went through with it last month and as soon as I gave my guitar to the tech, I had some regret as I’d got used to what that pickup can do (try it with some reverb up front in front of an AC30 style amp on edge of break up. The jangly sound blooms really well. If you want a bit more gain, try a tube screamer just in front of or after the reverb).

Still, I can get almost the same thing from the tele pickup if I change the amp settings a bit, and it gives me so much more, so no regrets, but I keep thinking about putting that pickup into something else, because it does that blooming sound so well.

Try a chord that doesn’t have a 5 in it. You probably want to keep it relatively simple as the one you are playing in the picture is already quite complex, so it will be easy to clash with it.

If you are doing power chords on the electric over your other acoustic chords, try dropping the 5th in the chord to the 3rd. Basically, if you were trying to play 1st fret of the E string, 3rd fret of the A string and maybe (optional) 3rd fret of the D string, take your finger off the A string to let that one ring open.

If you are playing 3rd fret of the D string, 5th fret of the G string and optionally 6th fret of the B string, drop the G string down to 2nd fret. So your index finger would be on 2nd fret of G string, middle finger on 3rd fret of D string and pinky finger on 6th fret of the B string.

If you are doing triads, barre chords or open chords on electric over the acoustic chords, try working out which note in the triad is the 5th (C) and dropping it [either just mute it or replace it with a 3rd (A), major 7th (Eb) or root note (F)]. Dropping the C by one note to B might work too, so worth a try if you’re struggling with the others.

F7 flat 5 because maj7 would have a flat 7

Edit: my mistake. You were right

Fmaj7 flat 5 because he’s also lifting his finger off the e string

For mine, the tele pickup is almost touching the strings and Jazzmaster pickup is as low as it can go. So you might have to lower the strat pickup a bit too to get some balance

I like the look of maple, but my fingers tend to stick to it when they get sweaty, whereas they just glide across Rosewood.

There are ways round it, I’m just apprehensive about taking the sheen off my glossy looking fretboard.

Necks are all maple either way, so it is just the fretboard that is the difference (and the type and amount of lacquer used on the neck. That is what will make the neck sticky).

People say maple fretboards sound brighter and rosewood sound warmer, but it’s negligible if anything. The things that will make a difference to the sound are the pickups and your amp settings/ FX.

This surprised me as well. I put a tele bridge pickup in my Jazzmaster (and left the stock Jazzmaster neck pickup in). The Tele bridge pickup is much lower output (but it sounds way more aggressive than a Jazzmaster bridge, which is what I wanted).

Tele bridge pickups do seem to be surprisingly low output for how raw and aggressive they sound.

You also get wine in a communion, so you’d need to assess the wine to wafer ratio in the average communion first, then subtract that ratio from your 300,000 (since his body would be mostly liquid, so even if there is more wine than wafer, that shouldn’t matter too much until the wine to wafer ratio exceeds the blood to body ratio.

If that were the case, you would instead take away the average blood to body ratio from the 300,000 instead).

These were the very expensive ones with no pole piece holes that I saw at the time (not the ones I bought. I bought some £8 cream colour plastic ones)

I’ve seen quite a few third party ones when I was looking for pickup covers with no pole peice holes.

Chrome/ Gold covers on eBay (with holes).