Blog - The Guitar Learner

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

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.

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 zeppellinsong title, “stairway to heaven“. 😀 i just love this tele..

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 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!
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..

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?

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.

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 DIY attempt in making my own bone plectrums. 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 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.

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