“Only they who believeth in their guitar quest shall be granted passage”

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  • Is It That Great Gretsch Sound?

    Today is a cloudy day and i can’t get bright picture of silver sparkle of my new guitar (but it’s okay though, my old cellphone camera can handle this), oh yes it’s a Gretsch guitar. The Gretsch G5236electromatic pro jet 125th anniversary with silver sparkle finishing. It’s a beautiful pre-owned guitar with nice deal, no scratch and made in China. here are bunch of pictures about it:

    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar
    Gretsch G5236electromatic pro jet 125th anniversary
    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar
    Gretsch G5236electromatic pro jet 125th anniversary
    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar
    Gretsch G5236electromatic pro jet 125th anniversary

    And I like it!! this electromatic pro jet defines overdrive and distortion effects in wide range although it seems i’ll never get tele twang sound or strat glassy tone from it (of course, it’s a Gretsch!). it has unique sound, yes that great Gretsch sound does exist. Its pickups and chambered body deliver tones nicely through amps, even direct input to mixer.

    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar
    Gretsch G5236electromatic pro jet 125th anniversary
    gretsch mini humbucker pickups
    Gretsch mini humbuckers pickups
    gretsch mini humbucker pickups
    Gretsch mini humbucker pickups

    well, this series isn’t the perfect one actually. my first negative review is about the fretboard craftmanship. it has deadnote on 9th fret and it bothers a lot. i had to take it to my luthier shop to repair it. some say that the Gretsch quality decreases after they put their factory overseas and i think this is the prove. It’s made in China. but enough about it since that will be my only negative review.

    overall this Gretsch came with gorgeous looks. it’s Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar, you can see the logo on its headstocks:

    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar logo
    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar logo plate
    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar logo headstocks
    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar logo headstocks
    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar headstocks
    Gretsch 125th anniversary guitar headstocks

    beautiful vintage accessories in affordable price. i should put this guitar in “on budget guitars” list.
    can’t wait to take it on stage with me 🙂

  • Fender Stratocaster Highway One, is it the ONE?

    last week i got lucky. my friend lent me his Fender Stratocaster Highway One and it was my valuable moment of learning guitar characteristics. stratocaster has my respect because of its tone originality and how many songs made with this guitar, also how far the guitar players has become legends with this guitar existence. you can easily find names, let’s say yngwie malmsteen, richie sambora, eric clapton and many more use the stratocaster as their main guitar, or using stratocaster as their tool of exploration (see a Frankenstrat)you might be one of them. a stratocaster lover. i can’t say I’m in it, but actually right now I’m still trying to get which series that suits me. and i got a milestone to start with, a Fender Stratocaster Highway One USA made, year 2002 i guess. here are the pics (it’s relic!) :

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    what i got from this guitar so far? well, i can’t say i’m in love with this one. it was about againsts my guitar playing style. the volume knob is TOO close so everytime i pick the strings, i accidentally touched it and made the volume knob turned the level down often. it happened to the switch too. for me it’s just made my playing become so unnatural. i need sometimes to get used to this guitar, the neck radius, the super jumbo frets, yes.. i need more time to get the best of it.

    i read some articles on guitar blogs and find out that there isn’t so much love for Fender Stratocaster Highway One (this is the earlier products. the latest has big headstock and some users said that the new one is the upgraded one and it rocks with comfortable handling). one thing that doesn’t change is its tone, a glassy tone is stratocaster and i think Fender Stratocaster Highway One has a lot of it.

    surely some real stratocaster can define this guitar in big details and i had my time. now it’s the time to take this guitar back to its owner. 😀 it was a great time in exploring and learning though. still wondering which stratocaster is best for my playing.. what do you think?

  • Is this Frankenstrat bike bothering you?

    just few days ago i posted about EVH’s Frankenstrat and today i found that one of my friend is Eddie’s big fan (he’s not a guitarist, he’s a keyboardist). i never knew that until i saw him with his motorbike today. An EVH frankenstrat theme motorcycle and it’s cute!. here I share its pic:

    Frankenstrat motorcycle

    am I right or what?
    i saw a lot of people have similar ideas about getting inspired by their idols. Actually it’s the best idea so far in learning guitar. get inspired by your favorite guitarists. you can start with almost everything and every element of this “get inspired” idea will help you in finding your guitar playing identity. surely you know what I’m talking about now isn’t about being a copycat, while actually it is fun when we can do our guitar idol licks and show them off 😀

    well, since I’m a guitar learner, and i guess I’m a novice, so there’s nothing more i can talk about this getting inspired idea. all i can do is sharing more love about guitars. I love this Frankenstrat idea, have a good day and keep playing guitar!

    did you know?
    the Eddie Van Halen’s frankenstrat guitar paint and finish was inspired by a  red Schwinn bicycle paint. A quote from Eddie, he said “The Schwinn bicycle paint gives it pop.”

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    related post:

    The Guitar Learner: Still Halloween and even scarier, the Frankenstrat…: while famous frankentele is Steve Morse ‘s, the Frankenstrat is Eddie Van Halen’s creation. The name itself comes from the combina…

  • The standard Guitar tuning, EADGBE tuning

    The standard Guitar tunings assign the string pitches as E, A, D, G, B, and high E to the open strings of guitars. By convention, the notes are ordered from lowest to highest. These particular pitches are used by the majority of guitarists. why? Standard Guitar tuning made our left hand moves easily to play scales and chords with simple fingering logic.is there the best way of tuning your guitar in standard tuning? yes, and probably there are several ways in tuning your guitar. basically EADGBE tuning notes are from low-to-high note order, WHILE the guitar strings order starts from the thinnest string as first string, so we can see them like this:- 1st String is high E note(e), which its Scientific pitch notation is E4 and its frequency is 329.63 Hz
    – 2nd String  is  B note (B), which its Scientific pitch notation is B3 and its frequency is 246.94 Hz
    – 3rd String  is G note (G), which its Scientific pitch notation is G3 and its frequency is 196.00 Hz
    – 4th String  is D note (D), which its Scientific pitch notation is  D3 and its frequency is 146.83 Hz
    – 5th String  is A note (A), which its Scientific pitch notation is  A2 and its frequency is 110.00 Hz
    – 6th String is low E note (E), which its Scientific pitch notation is  E2 and its frequency is 82.41 Hznow you see that you can get chromatic note progression from the low E open string on the 6th string, move forward from first fret to fourth fret in linear order, then it goes to the A note on open 5th string, then move linearly along the frets, to the next strings. you will find on the 3rd string that the fourth fret represent the open 2nd string note and.. bla..(this will be a long one, so..)

    into conclusion!
    tuning your guitar in standard tuning can be achieved by:
    – the open 1st string note represents the fifth fret’s note on the 2nd string
    – the open 2nd string note represents the fourth fret’s note on the 3rd string
    – the open 3rd string note represents the fifth fret’s note on the 4th string
    – the open 4th string note represents the fifth fret’s note on the 5th string
    – the open 5th string note represents the fifth fret’s note on the 6th string

    so, all you have to do is getting at least one of the string in the right-tuned note, then you can refine the other strings notes.

    how to get the right note for tuning? first of all, our ears are the main tuning instrument. based on your hearing you can get the note references from almost any audible sources, such as mp3, keyboards, tuning forks, even from your friends’ tuned guitar. we might/may/must(?) need to get used to the notes sound since tuned guitar is the first step of any guitar learning. an online guitar tuner on this blog will be a big and fast help in tuning your guitar with audible notes. go to this page.

    what if there are no decent audible source for the references in tuning guitar? haha, that’s easy question. what works for me is a built-in tuner on my BOSS GT-8 digital effects pedal, and i bought BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3 for my analog pedals chain (i haven’t made any pedalboard yet, still figuring out about the best chain order for my analog pedals).

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    yep, this helps my tuning section before i start my gigs. well i didn’t exactly buy BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3. it was a good deal actually, i exchanged my guitar for some cash plus this BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3. here i share few pics of it.

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    so is there any special things for this boss Chromatic Tuner TU-3? well, let me put it in simple way. for me there are some needs, those are the need for accuracy, durability, and versatility. BOSS Chromatic Tuner TU-3 has them. you should have one.