Blog – Page 11 – The Guitar Learner

My Fender Special Edition Custom Telecaster Spalted Maple Top HH

YES! now is a great time to bring stuff that made my ass work hard lately and forgot to blog. A new guitar for my playing. it’s Fender Special Edition Custom Telecaster Spalted Maple Top tele® HH and she’s gorgeous! I’d been read about this stuff and its reviews several years ago and luckily i met this Fender last year. actually, it took me a year later to take this to my house but i have no complain at all about this spalted maple tele.here i share some pictures i made for this guitar and i think you’ll like it. The guitar itself is a Set Neck Tele and it has beautiful finish well-crafted by Korean manufacturer. this fender special edition custom spalted maple tele is using rosewood fretboard. It has fine playability, the design is natural and very beautiful, i got mine with fire-like spalted maple design.

Fender Special Edition Custom Telecaster Spalted Maple Top HH

a brief fender spalted maple telecaster review about the playability that some owners of this guitar said is, Fender Telecaster spalted maple top has a les paul feel. hmm, at first in playing it I couldn’t find this, but after couple minutes, yes, for seconds i felt like i’m holding a les paul guitar. It might be the neck size and color and similar pickups it used those cause this. but the two Seymour Duncan humbuckers operated by push-pull tone knob and three-tone switch are good ideas in changing sound characters on live performances. it’s quite convenient. there’s no complain about the neck, but I’ve been holding the 24-frets neck for years and i guess i need more practices to feel this guitar neck. the guitar neck is great, while me-gotta practice more and more. this two pictures i made here somehow reminds me the led zeppellin song title, “stairway to heaven“. 😀 i just love this tele..

the guitar learner blog properties

“stairway to heaven”

this spalted maple tele is on 2007 year made, i am the next owner and currently i couldn’t find the new one for this. probably Fender switches this product to Custom Telecaster FMT HH (see detailed product here) which it has great reviews, too. but i couldn’t make any negative reviews about my Fender Spalted Maple Top Tele® since it has been so great, and the more i couldn’t wait to make video reviews about stuff i use 😀 still making experiments for my own videoblog and sound recording for blogs, wish me luck!

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update: i add video about this @ http://youtu.be/I2t3ut6WT7M enjoy!

July 8, 2013
Distortion pedals come first. really?
What is the first time you think about guitar sound? well, that will be a question with so many various answers. you may think about combo amps like roland jazz chorus and PEAVEY bandit 112, or pickups and guitar wood, but this time, I’ll take the most popular one, DISTORTION… haha..from what i learned, there are SO many types of distortion pedals, and i was really confused about this. what i can do more in colorizing my guitar sound? what exactly the distortion type when i do soloing parts? why my rhythm and riffs is too old-fashioned for my own ears?.. and there will be more questions when it comes to guitar sound. then i decided to choose one analog distortion pedal to begin with. so i choose Empress Effects Multidrive Effects Pedal (all these years I’d been using digital effects because of their easy and ready-to-use features. yes, using the presets and modify everything blindly). from this Empress Effects Multidrive simplicity(compared to digital effects, YES) i can see that i have 3 types of distorted sound, the fuzz face, overdrive and distortion. and i think these are the main types of distortion effects. put them on Google search and i found some great articles which define each of it in great ways. (this stuff made me read a lot and refine my knowledge about effects pedal and guitar sounds) :

fuzz face: The “fuzz” sound is similar to damaged speaker sound. Actually, first time this type of sound is invented by ripping or poking holes in guitar amplifier speaker. It is defined as classic sound, and well used by famous guitarists. For me, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Johnson are best in fuzz experiences.

overdrive: it’s a soft clipping of the distorted wave sound. you can check many of blues guitar players use overdrive pedals as their main sound enhancements. it’s just beautiful!

distortion: this is the hard clipping version of distortion sound. the wave sound is nearly square and this sound is used widely in range of music genres. you will love the way how Steve Vai uses this.
Empress Effects Multidrive Effects Pedal has them in one analog pedal. it’s very interesting, it is Canadian hand-made and i can combine 3 types of distortion on my guitar sound. one thing that i love most from this pedal is that my guitar tone is safely delivered to amps. it won’t disturb your tone pitches, or making chords sounds blurry. it just suits on my need. (I’ve tried satchurator and ice 9 overdrive from vox, but i was really unhappy about the sound, so i sold them. i learned that Mr. Satchafunkilus is a virtuoso of his playing, his gears suit his needs, not mine)

Empress Effects Multidrive

here i share my Empress Effects Multidrive Effects Pedal pics. so far I’m satisfied with this stuff and you can find empress multidrive detailed review here, but for my profession purposes, i still use Boss GT 8 digital effects unit. more interesting this is, i can combine them and i think i will save this topic for later. (still looking the best video recorder for my blog purposes).
i hope everyone is enjoying my review. see you soon
July 3, 2013
Plectrum Spectrum, Pick Your Favorite Picks

One thing that we keep loosing it, yes the guitar picks/Plectrum. this cute little stuff is somehow annoying. We choose picks more carefully than guitar strings, but we lost them more often than we break our guitar strings. this stuff is too small for for anyone to keep and here I’m not going to talk about how to keep this stuff since i can’t keep my own picks from loosing them, hahaha..

guitar picks/plectrum

but, actually which one is our favorite? all we can do is trying them one by one to decide which one fits to our playing. it can’t be decided just by reading articles and recommendations. but here I share some thoughts about guitar picks/plectrums those affect our guitar playing.

Your picking technique affects all reason in choosing guitar picks/plectrum. here i share video of Steve Morse’s essential idea in picking technique. He has quite unique picking grip which enhances his guitar skills. (at least that’s what he told us on the video, ^_^ )

next,
Thickness. there are various thickness, start from 0.05 mm (or even smaller) to 2.00 millimeters. some people buy all these in order to practice picking lesson and somehow it works to enhance the picking power and accuracy for some people. who knows, wanna try?

guitar picks thickness

Size. the picks width is one thing for your consideration. for me, i like the small one like dunlop jazz III because it touches the string perfectly without adding annoying picks’ space like the usual one.

guitar picks Sizes

Grip. some picks have grip texture that helps us to grab(pinch?) it in convenient way. here i share some guitar picks images, you can see here how manufacturers modify this grip stuff.

what suits me? Dunlop Nylon Jazz Pick Pack, Sharp/Red is fine for my playing. it suits best on my grip. but who knows? if you want some more, here i share my pick recommendations on amazon. happy picking!

June 3, 2013
how many times i met Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 ?

Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 is my favorite. i met few combos on stages and this combo amp impressed me. in a week, i play on at least minimum 2 stages those use Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 and i see no reason to explain why. almost all know that Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus has a great tone enhancements. some metal users might not like it because it is not big enough or any other reasons, but for me Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 helps me a lot on my playing and sound options.

here i shared some pics about Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120.

Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus
Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 has a great way to modify guitar tone. it has overdrive and reverb effect, vibe and chorus switch-knob effects. try them, those effects will changes our guitar tone significantly. you can find some good reviews on YouTube and see what i meant here.

some might think i never met other one 🙂 but i made some comparisons while playing combos on stage, some might like PEAVEY bandit 112 on my previous post about combo amp, but we should explore stuff and being open-minded about these things right? i love learning and finding new things, especially anything about my love, guitar.

May 23, 2013
making slideshow of major chords for guitar

Yes, I’m trying to take benefit on all the facilities i have, and i made a slide show for my earlier post; The Guitar Learner: Fun in basic, Major Chords:

and here it is on youtube:

major chord guide on YouTube

it was fun after all. i was enjoying the latest self-blogging technologies well-suited into my music interests. using Picasa 3 and the help of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software, i made a slideshow of major chords for guitar, along with tuned-up audio guitar sounds and speech synthesizer. it is great! to make this slideshow, i only used my mouse, and pc keyboard (to type words only!).

yea yea yea, i know, for some of professionals and a lot of people out there, this is an obsolete information. almost everyone using hi-tech stuff in producing their music these days and they are good at it. my aim here is, that the fact “Learning one thing is a door that leads to another Learning”. when i learn to blog my interest, both blogging and guitar are improving, while other things those support them, is evolving and developing, too. there’s nothing to loose in learning something that is good for you.

so why don’t we start something sooner? and my favorite life soundtrack is “make yourself”- incubus

FYI:
all stuff like VST plugins, DAW, synth are things those supports music nowadays. they are necessary for some reason. see, you can get speech synthesizer like on my video/slideshow above in an instance by having Image Line FL Studio Fruity Edition V10 on your machines. it’s one of great tool in music production and i recommend you to take a look at it (or, get it) and made a review about it. it’s a fun stuff.

Image Line FL Studio Fruity Edition V10

May 18, 2013
Fun in basic, Major Chords

Actually, first guitar playing is my friend’s, singing accompanied by guitar rhythm and chords. Earlier, what i saw on TV was Kurt Cobain playing “About a Girl” song on MTV unplugged, left-handed guitar playing with drunk-whatever-style. That was my first love on guitar. It wasn’t anything like long-haired Joe Satriani “always with me, always with you” video-clip. As everyone see, i see a guitar as a companion, a friend.What I’m trying to say is, the chords had met me earlier than scales or modes, those chords inspire every kids to learn and love guitar, from ancient until now and for the next future. what a amazing thing… now i guess it’s time to continue the tradition, sharing things which can keep us stay in rhythmic life. THE CHORDS !this post brings the major chords, as they are easy to listen and to learn. Major chords consist of the root, the third and the fifth notes. what we have on C major chord are C (root note), E(third note) and G (fifth note).. here i share some chords those come in handy to learn for the first time.

C (root note), E(third note) and G (fifth note)

since this is basic, there will be no complicated stuff here. all we have to do is memorizing the notes those build the Major chords : do(1st) – mi(3rd) – sol(5th)

on D major chord, it will be : D(1st) – F#(3rd) – A(5th)

D(1st) – F#(3rd) – A(5th)

E(1st) – F#(3rd) – G#(5th)

next;

F(1st) – A(3rd) – Bb(5th)

G(1st) – B(3rd) – D(5th)

A(1st) – C#(3rd) – E(5th)

B(1st) – D#(3rd) – F#(5th)

hope everyone likes my coloring 🙂

May 13, 2013
(Part 2) May the 4th be with you, The Circle of Fourths
on Part 1, we already had C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db as the major key. Circle of fourths diagram, the last note will be F# or Gb. here I prefer using Gb, since our topic is circle of fourths which is related with flat-notes. Yes, the Circle Of fourths is about Flat-notes.here is the notes:

Gb – Abm – Bbm – Cb/B – Db – Ebm – Fm7b5 – Gb

at the picture, you see Cb is red, while Cb is B note. so why bother?
- first: it is to avoid the two same note written on one line. you can see there is B flat(Bb), and if i wrote Cb as B, there will be two same notes (Bb and B).
- second. it is a useful chord writing in understanding scales and modes. it is in the different section of learning. we keep notes like Cb and B#, E# and Fb stay written as is, in order to understand the note degrees and analyze the intervals.
- third is, well, that’s all i know for this. i will add this sections as soon as i find out more about this.
Circle of Fourths and Fifths twitter.com/theguitarlearn…
— The Guitar Learner (@theguitarlearn) May 10, 2013

i put the diagram in various places so anybody can access them, while i may need more to add in this section, so responses and critics are my most welcome.

i had promised there are three circles in this topic and the next one will be the GooglePlus circles. I made this blog with a huge vision of learning and sharing, and i try to make decent connections between all the guitar learnerd around the world. so i made this blog :
- a profile on GooglePlus +The Guitar Learner , just follow the link and you will find the page.
- a community on G+ the guitar learning community to share thoughts, or maybe just to hangout singing and playing guitar together.
the continuation of this post would be The Circle of fifths, but I’m still thinking about it, since it has the same ideas in learning the circle of fourth and i have to present it in different approaching method. but for now, all i can say about the circle of fifths is, following the red guy on the diagram will get you the circle of fifths notes. the one with sharp-notes, counter clock-wise direction, using the fifth notes as the point.

respond please.it is highly appreciated. thanks
May 12, 2013