The Angels Want To Play My Red Strat

Well, not really. I don't have a red Strat.

What I do have is a set of Ernie Ball Extra Slinky strings on my top-loader Tele. That's .038 on the low end to .008 on the high end. Effortless playing, I have to say. I have no knowledge about how well they'll last, but right now, they're feeling great.

Ironically perhaps, I have Not Even Slinky strings ( .012-.056 ) on my Rondo. It is set for slide and I keep it tuned to Open D. It takes all kinds, and I love them.

How Low Can You Go? Pt II

That's a new set of strings from Dunlop. And before I get into it, I'll talk about my life of strings. I'm a hardtail guy, which has given me license to go as heavy as I dare. I once had White Bronze acoustic strings on my #1 Tele. I can do blues bends on heavier strings, but when I decided to try to pick up some more of the James Burton chicken-pickin' bend stuff, I went from Not Even Slinky to Super Slinky. And I asked "Where did my tone go?" Right now, I'm rocking Regular Slinky, which to remind you is .010. I think that's about as low as I can go, between the tone loss and the unintentional string bends.

But I'm not the Reverend Willie Gibbons.

He's dropped down to .007. And, as I said, Dunlop's selling 'em. I think I need to get a guitar with way powerful pickups to even make it worthwhile. But I think I'll have to give 'em a shot at some point.

Thanks to Wired for the pic.

Request For Comments: Floyd Rose

It is established that I, as Tele-Blogster, can be considered Mr. Hardtail. My son has a superstrat and has poked at his strings and Floyd Rose, popping a string. I have poked at this before, doing an initial poke and setup. I'm about to do it again, this time doing a full string swap, and I'm wondering about the process. This seems like a fairly full explanation of the process, but if there's anything else about the care and feeding of a Floyd Rose or Floyd Rose Licenced tremolo unit that I should know, any tips, tricks, hacks or mods to make it all work, please let me know.

String Me Along

I have two instruments I consider my "main" instruments. That's my Tele and my A/E. Someday I shall have to name them, but right now "my electric" and "my acoustic" uniquely identify them.

For instruments that are not my main instruments, I switch strings when they break. I changed strings on my fiddle once because, "Hey, I've never changed strings on a fiddle before", and once because "Hey, these Black Diamand fiddle strings just suck so much!" I once, several decades ago, put new strings on a bass, but never since, and I can't for the life of me recall if there was any breakage involved. Intellectually, I think that coated strings like Elixirs are a great idea for non-main instruments, since they'll last on instruments set aside for a while. Financially, I can't back that up.

I once saw that Nickel Creek were Elixir string endorsers. I noticed that Chris and Sean were named and interviewed, but Sara didn't. I wondered why. The I realized/remembered that the bow sticks to the strings, and that grabbing and letting go, we get vibrations. You gotta put a lot of rosin onto a new bow to make it work. The last things you want are slippery coated strings that won't grab the bow.

My Wednesday playing these days is all acoustic, being part of a worship band with two guitars, bass, grand piano and drums. Except, can you really call it "acoustic" playing when you're in a lead channel on your GT8? Anyway, the acoustic sound I dislike is the clanky, chimey new string sound and like it better when the strings settle in a bit. For the acoustic, I change all the strings when the G string breaks, because I figure that if I just swap out the G, it won't be too long before I've beaten the D string enough to break. If I had a bigger gear budget, I'd probably keep my acoustic string change regimen about the same.

For the Tele, things are different. When I had bridge cables on, I still bent, and now that I'm running with angel hair for strings, I just bend more, and the longer you keep strings on, the more elasticity they lose and the more they detune when you bend. I know that most heavy touring players swap guitar strings after every gig because the sweat and the gunk that builds up under the hot lights kills a string, and studio guys wanting to get a consistent bright tone have their strings changed every day or several times a day. I've never been that guy, but I could probably use changing strings more often than I do, which is "rarely". Certainly when it breaks. Mostly when they look grungy.

Looking at the pole to the right, I see that I am not alone in letting the strings stay on for a while. Is it an aesthetic choice or an economic choice? What strings do you like?

No Time For Fast Trains

Yesterday, I got a package from Fender. Three packs of .012 phosphor bronze strings. I haven't tried them out yet; I'm still rocking the Earthwood .013s, and as I got two packs, it'll be a while before I'm past them. But I will use them, I'm sure. I'll re-review when I do. It's funny that I used to have no spare packs and now I have four, five if I want to reuse the .011s that broke in the first place.

In my experience, the wound G is the first string to pop, and I figure that's the time to switch, since the D will come along eventually, and if you switch, you don't have to worry so much about your other strings popping on you. But that's me. When do you know you have to switch?

Dragging Bleachers Out In The Sun

I emailed Customer Service at Fender with my disappointment with the Phosphor Bronze strings. A representative emailed me back, apologizing and promising replacement strings. When they arrive, and the current set gets replaced, I will be certain to post. Thanks, Fender, for the good customer service. I will gladly give these strings a second chance.

But, in the mean time, I still need strings, so I pulled off the Phosphor Bronze and replaced them with Ernie Ball Earthwood 80/20 Bronze strings, running .013-.056. I've been happy with EB Slinkys, be they Super Slinkys or Not Even Slinkys, so I figure the acoustic sets should be OK. They still have the new string clang, but I've always been one for reasonably heavy acoustic strings. Without bridge cables, I tend to bend too much. They keep me in check.

Since we're revisiting old posts, I'll point out the start of my investigation of the "Allman Brothers lick" in "Bootleg Flyer" by Mudcrutch. There are precisely two things I missed on first pass.

First is a chromatic note, the major seventh after the dominant seventh at the end of each octave. In layman's terms, that means we throw in a G#. Second it the fact that it's in triplets. Here's the first octave.

E -----------------------------------
B -----------------------------------
G -----------------------------------
D ------------------------5---5-6-7--
A --------3---3-5-3-5-7-5---7--------
E --5-3-5---5------------------------


Do the same with the second and most of the third and you'll have it. I have it. I just don't have it to speed, nor without errors.

Also, it's a bit from the first song off the first album, called "Don't Want You No More". Look at about 1:28 and 2:00. But I'll post the audio bits tomorrow.

Gear Review: Strings

I wrote this in Stratocat's blog: There's only one review that means anything. "I took this to a gig, relied on it when it was all on the line, and it did not let me down.".

I changed strings on my acoustic guitar about two weeks ago. I bought a set of Fender Phosphor Bronze strings, .011-.050. I played on them last Wednesday. I put my guitar in the case. I brought it out again today, getting ready to play. I set up, tuned up, warmed up, ran through the set list, and five minutes before it was time to start, I popped my G string.

I'm kinda broke right now. I didn't buy two sets. I didn't have two sets. That is my bad. I know, intellectually, that if you're gonna be playing out, you bring a spare of anything that you need, and I didn't have spare strings. I tell the story of Madder Rose, who I saw twice. First time, the bass player popped his low E, and spent five minutes of set time trying to beg, borrow or steal a spare bass from the other acts. Next time I saw them, they had another bassist. So, for all you hoping to step up from basement picking to playing out, take that lesson. But that's not important right now.

I play a Telecaster, a DG20CE acoustic and a FM52E mandolin. I am a Fender guy. I hadn't bought a set of Fender strings in a while, but that's more because I have been exploring options. I used to pop G strings all the time, but that was because I was using Hot Licks copper picks and trying to make up with my right arm what I couldn't get with the amplification. Basically, I was cutting at the strings with a little knife and was surprised when I cut through. Not what happened here. I took it to the gig and it let me down. A wound G should last more than a week and a half.

I'll be dealing with Fender Customer Service tomorrow.

It's a Tone Lotion and a Turd Polish!

My good blog-friend and fellow Fender follower Stratoblogster posts a rant on the center of tone, inspired by this column in the September issue of Premier Guitar magazine.

Allow me to quote out of context. It's the silly season here in the US, so I'm allowed to do that.

If good tone comes from your hands, why hasn't somebody come up with a tone hand lotion product for guitar players? Ya know some of us would buy it! (Remember, you saw it here first.)

...

The WRONG thing to do is try to fix a poor, badly intonated instrument by adding more distortion and other effects. This is what is known as polishing a turd. Can't be done-- it's a universal law that even Tenacious D recognizes.

Strat, try new Shimmer. It's a tone lotion and a turd polish!

(INSERT SNL VIDEO FROM YOUTUBE HERE, IF FOUND)

He makes a long argument, and a good argument that I agree with.

Guitar teachers should help their students with developing pitch and harmony, and provide orientation on the structure and mechanics of tuning and maintaining guitars. Instrument retailers should sell playable guitars to kids and beginners, and provide proper instrument set-up. Many parents- not being musicians themselves- need to be educated about the importance of quality instruments. Many kids quit playing, thinking they just don't have what it takes, when all along a crappy instrument is actually to blame. Parents don't want to spend a lot of money on something that the kid may grow bored with next week. Still, the same amount of $$$ that the X-Box 360 and i-Pod cost WILL procure an acceptable instrument. So what, if the kid decides not to play guitar after all? You were also willing to spend the same $$$ to zombie-ize him with video games, so at least you can say you tried in the case of a musical instrument.

My first guitar was a Harmony POS plywood acoustic with a ToneSuckR^tm bridge and zero fret. My first electric was a 3/4 Harmony Superstrat (keep in mind that I was over 16 years old and over 6 feet when I received this). Eventually I got an Ibanez dreadnaught that has a rock-star headstock and skinny shredder neck. But it could play and sounded good, so I got better.

But that "good guitar" cost me $150, I think. When I say a good guitar, and I think Strat means when he says quality instrument, we're talking about instruments that sound good, will intonate, and won't hurt you when you play. It doesn't have to be a high-end instrument. Go to a large guitar store (let's say Guitar Center) with the goal to get the best sounding Telecaster (sorry, Stratoblogster, but this is my blog) in the store, and when you start pulling the instruments off the wall, you might find that the best sounding Tele isn't the most expensive Made in America Custom Shop guitar. You might even find that it isn't a Fender. Recently, the Korean- and Indonesian-made Squiers have been well-made instruments that sound good. I've heard very good things about Rondo and their Agile and SX lines. There are sometimes issues, and certainly most big-store guitars should have a setup before being given to a young musician.

Not that, with electrics, setups are all that hard. Fret MD is a video that Ig recommended a while ago.

But, if you bought a guitar for a new musician, and we'll go with electric for this post, you have not finished the gift without the following:

1. An Amplifier. It doesn't need to be a full-stack Marshall Plexi or a Fender Evil Twin, and in fact that's likely more amp than your giftee can handle. My amp is a Fender Frontman 25R, with a headphone out and dual RCA ins, so I can hook it up to an MP3 player and listen with headphones. We're talking electric guitar here, and at a certain point, the magic comes when you stop playing the guitar and start playing the electricity.
2. An Electronic Tuner. Not a pitch pipe. They suck. An electric tuner will allow your musician to keep that instrument in tune, which will then give him/her a solid base to work forward from. Make it a chromatic tuner and you will enable alternate tunings and be useful when you start to do your own setups.
3. A book on playing the guitar. I started with The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer. It's good, but I could probably name a few other starter books. From the quick look I gave it, it seems that the Guitar For Dummies book isn't as bad as you might think.
4. A book on guitar repair. Or a video, like Fret MD. Most everything you can do to a guitar with a screwdriver, you can undo just as easily, so don't be worried. Be careful, and keep track of everything, but don't be worried.
5. Cables, strings, a strap, picks Strings should be of the same type as are on the instrument, so you can replace strings without having to re-intonate the bridgge. Cables, because that's how you send signal to the amp. Picks, because that's how most of us play. And a strap, in case someone wants to play standing up.
6. Space and Encouragement My jam partner, Guitar, said that the two things you need to get good are practice and patience. Practice because it isn't easy, and patience because you'll suck for a good long time before it seems like you've improved. They call the process "woodshedding" because the musician is metaphorically off by himself in another building, poking at the strings where nobody would come in and yell "Turn that racket off!" That's where the space comes in. Now, imagine trying to walk across the United States, from Los Angeles to New York. Each day you can't see the Atlantic Ocean and the Empire State Building, you know you aren't there yet, and you can walk every day knowing that the delicious sandwiches of Carnegie Deli are still a long way away, enough so that you might not notice that you've left California and are now in Arizona, or Utah, or Nebraska. A guitarist can get pretty good without noticing the vast improvement, because she's still not as good as Jennifer Battin. Encouragement in this case is perspective, and it is important.

Any questions?

Fighting for the throne

Ig from IgBlog wrote a while ago about having to fight your guitar. I just hit a practical point for that at my guitar pusher.

I went for strings, a few single strings for the lap steel and a second set for the Tele. I play that and the acoustic most of all, and if I broke a string, I wouldn't have a replacement, so I figured I was due.

But you don't go to the guitar pusher and not pick up a guitar, so I tried a couple. I'm crazy about them Telecasters, so I pulled down a Fender Baja, a Squier Vintage Modified SSH and a Vintage Modified Thinline. All of which, the pusher says, are strung with Slinky lights. I play Not Even Slinkys. .052-.012, not the .042-.009 on all those guitars.

I had to fight not to fight these things! Freakin' rubber bands! And I was sorely tempted to get a set of lighter strings, but I decided to keep the Not Even Slinkys.

And I decided, again, that I need to get myself a second guitar so I can string it with lights. Well, maybe mediums.