Good guitar for a beginner?

[Winston]

A Star Caster? Is this a real thing? Like a knock-off strat?

I'm a big fan off humbuckers too. I've had 2 strats in my life and both have had bridge position humbuckers.

If it's a comparable price to the yamaha, I'd be very worried about this 'Star Caster' if it includes an amp and the yamaha doesn't. You can always get yourself a cheap amp plug-in.

good call Winston. it'd be -84 cool points to have a 'Star Caster', it's a Best Buy model FFS.

just make sure whatever you get makes you smile when you see it, guitars are just freaking cool, I still grin at mine, real purty, then we have rough sex all night. been playing lots of Juanas Addiction lately, guitar and bass, 'sex IS violent'.

careful about relying on VSTs for sound, if you've ever played through Live and felt latency and didn't like it, it'll be 100x more annoying with a guitar.

holy moley, Pod XTs are on sale on my local craigslist for $150-$350, I guess with the new one out people are upgrading.

Juanas Addiction? Is that like a mexican cover band of Janes?
Agree about the grin. I do the same whenever I see all four of mine. You'll know which one gives you that warm fuzzy feeling and you just like to hold it. My first guitar was called a marlin. wtf is a marlin? I've never seen or heard about on since. I even put acoustic guitar strings on it because I didn't have an amp for a long time. I think it was a good call for a 12 year old. Toughened up my fingers. A real piece of shit tough. But I was happy.

I think you can get low enough latency with VST though. Even at 256 buffer, it's not bad. That's on my mbp with a firewire interface though. But even with my stealth plug, it's not bad at 256. 128 and it's like playing with an amp, standing a little ways away.

[Tone Deft]

it's from the opening line to Ritual De Lo Habitual:
"senores y senoras. nosotras tenemos mas influencia con sus hijos que tu tienen. pero los queremos. creado y regado en Los Angeles, Juanas Addiccion."
translates to
"ladies and gentlemen, we have more influence on your children than you do, but WE love them. bread and spread in Los Angeles, Jane's Addiction."
fuck that was awesome to hear in high school when the album dropped.

then it jumps into Stop!, fun as hell to play. Navarro is a fiend, some of that album I'll never be able to play.



good point about the acoustic, I'd learn a song on acoustic then jump to electric and be able to rip it. acoustic for strength, electric for getting the details and rough spots.

probably for a beginner, a nice tone through a VST will overcome the latency, time will tell with smutek. it's a path we've all had to take and make our own decisions.

[smutek]

just make sure whatever you get makes you smile when you see it, guitars are just freaking cool

Weeelllll, I really like the way this one looks.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-PAC0 ... 1166881.gc


Christ man, I'm getting seriously excited about this. Can't wait!

[Tone Deft]

Weeelllll, I really like the way this one looks.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Yamaha-PAC0 ... 1166881.gc


Christ man, I'm getting seriously excited about this. Can't wait!

cool classic tobacco sunburst finish. $150, go for it!

[Jonny V]

Yeah Pacificas are great guitars for the price. Beat most modern Fenders hands down for what you pay for them. The only great Fender I ever played was a Mexican Powerhouse Strat that I bought about 10 years ago with Mid-boost circuitry. Not sure if they still make them but grab one if you can!

[Tone Deft]

continued from another thread cause I can rant about guitars, great toys.
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 186#673186

nice blonde!

ummm smu - the guitar strap on your right side goes behind your right shoulder. have fun man.

Told you I didn't know anything about them......

Thanks for my first lesson, whaada I owe ya?

beer.


at this point, I'd say learn these chords

A D E

then

G C D

try to go from chord to chord without breaking a steady beat, it'll take a while, it's nothing but muscle memory and building callouses on your fingertips, it will hurt, then it won't, someday you'll start peeling callouses off of your fingertips. while you're watching TV or whatever, just keep at it.

the A chord can be done with 1 finger, and don't play any strings you don't have fretted correctly, IOW you don't have to hit all 6 all the time. use your ear.

list some bands you like, I'm sure we can come up with SIMPLE youtubes to strum along to.

[smutek]

at this point, I'd say learn these chords

A D E

then

G C D

try to go from chord to chord without breaking a steady beat, it'll take a while, it's nothing but muscle memory and building callouses on your fingertips, it will hurt, then it won't, someday you'll start peeling callouses off of your fingertips. while you're watching TV or whatever, just keep at it.

the A chord can be done with 1 finger, and don't play any strings you don't have fretted correctly, IOW you don't have to hit all 6 all the time. use your ear.

Ok, will do. Thanks for that advice, it's definitely welcome and I'll work on learning those chords first.

list some bands you like, I'm sure we can come up with SIMPLE youtubes to strum along to.

Well, some of my favorite rock/guitar music bands would be Stereolab, The Feelies, Pixies, Flaming Lips (older stuff, transmissions and earlier), older Cure stuff, Psychedelic Furs, especially the older stuff, specially specially the first album.

I think "What difference does it make" by the Smiths would be a cool song to learn. it's one of my all time favs. Soap Commercial by The Furs is another cool one.




thanks a lot for your help bro, and everyone else as well, it's definitely appreciated.

Totally need to be doing homework, but think I am going to practice my A chord, at least until dinner.

[Tone Deft]

Well, some of my favorite rock/guitar music bands would be Stereolab, The Feelies, Pixies, Flaming Lips (older stuff, transmissions and earlier), older Cure stuff, Psychedelic Furs, especially the older stuff, specially specially the first album.

I think "What difference does it make" by the Smiths would be a cool song to learn. it's one of my all time favs. Soap Commercial by The Furs is another cool one.

smiths are rough, not even Johnny Marr can play like Johnny Marr, I've posted this 87 times now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HOMf127MAg <--- Noel Gallagher talks about The Smiths, he starts on about Morrissey but most of it is about Marr.

Back To The Old House is a fairly tame Smiths tune
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/s/s ... se_tab.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo_JsljzZyc <--- great version of that tune. Peel Sessions.
it's just a matter of learning it one measure at a time, muscle memory, relax, play and listen to yourself. not an easy tune, but a good challenge.


here's an easy fun song
Add It Up - Violent Femmes, 2 chords, one of them's an A
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/v/v ... up_tab.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDcY6CjdtuM
their whole first album is really simple but really fun, beat the shit out of those strings!


pixes are accessible but nothing real simple. Cactus is probably their easiest, just 12 bar blues in A palm muted. reference link
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/pixies_tabs.htm

I don't know any easy Cure songs, Boys Don't Cry is a bit much in the first week of playing. try to pick out the opening riff to Killing An Arab, we all did that back in the day.

the Nirvana and Alice In Chains Unplugged albums were outstanding to play as I learned. all that tab is online. again +1 on The Violent Femmes first album, easy and fun!

there have also been hundreds of songs written with just A D E and just G C D.

oh, you like the English Beat? 3 chords, D A G
Save It For Later
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/e/e ... er_crd.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bM0wVjU2-k

just keep the right hand moving, the left hand will catch up eventually. you don't have to fret all the notes or strum all the notes all the time, just the ones you want to sound out at that moment.

Totally need to be doing homework, but think I am going to practice my A chord, at least until dinner.

I've heard it said that after 20 minutes of practice your brain locks up. I've found that I'll try a new lick, play it, ad nauseum, fail repeatedly, put the guitar down for a bit, pick it up and nail the riff, no problem.

OK, gotta go play those old Femmes tunes, been a while.

[smutek]

word! thanks man, will look into all of that tonight when I get home from work

One problem I am having is that it seems like my fingers are just too damned big. Like, when I play an A major one of my fingers holding down a string always seems to touch another string it isn't supposed to touch and I get that "plunk" sound.... like I just can not fit three fingers in one fret....

Someone mentioned that I should play it using just one or two fingers, and I think you also mentioned something about this. I tried it last night and it worked a little better, but still kind of sketchy sounding.

So, I was worried that maybe I just had big fingers and it wasn't going to work, but it seems like it all comes down to finding the proper positioning and then practicing and getting comfortable with it.

[Warminstrel]

word! thanks man, will look into all of that tonight when I get home from work

One problem I am having is that it seems like my fingers are just too damned big. Like, when I play an A major one of my fingers holding down a string always seems to touch another string it isn't supposed to touch and I get that "plunk" sound.... like I just can not fit three fingers in one fret....

Someone mentioned that I should play it using just one or two fingers, and I think you also mentioned something about this. I tried it last night and it worked a little better, but still kind of sketchy sounding.

So, I was worried that maybe I just had big fingers and it wasn't going to work, but it seems like it all comes down to finding the proper positioning and then practicing and getting comfortable with it.

I always play an basic 'A' chord with 2 fingers....(middle and ring; ring finger sort of 'flattens' to the fret board after a couple of years)

You will also find that most of the best rock/blues chord riffs only play a couple of notes in a chord as playing all the notes don't sound as edgy.
Thats why the smoke on the water riff sounds so phat (Deep Purple Phat?), only two strings at the most being played there at any one time.

=======================================

I can remember starting to learn (back in 82') and finding all the chord mallarkey too much so tuned my axe to an open 'D' (Just drop the low E string two frets and tune the rest of the strings so that it sounds like a major chord, some Led Zepplin guitar tabs online should show this in detail) and just threw out some bar chords.

This gave me some satisfaction that I could get some music out of my new toy without learning real chords and kept my interest untill I took the plunge and tuned it in properly!

I even managed to learn a few riffs in this tuning before learing the guitar for real.

Since then I discovered that what I was doing all those years ago was nothing new and essential for playing slide/peddle blues.

I would higly recomend listening to Burt Jansch who had his own style of playing that was not so technical but had a sound of its own.

The secret is rhythm; The crappest licks can sound pukka when they're played in time.

[bosonHavoc]

word! thanks man, will look into all of that tonight when I get home from work

One problem I am having is that it seems like my fingers are just too damned big. Like, when I play an A major one of my fingers holding down a string always seems to touch another string it isn't supposed to touch and I get that "plunk" sound.... like I just can not fit three fingers in one fret....

.

i'm 6'5" and i have hands the size of baseball gloves.

it just takes a little time and you'll get it.

you can do what works but i've found the proper technique does help alot in the long run. but at the same time i've heard Jimmy Hendrix played using his thumb to fret the low E, so that worked best for him....

tone has got you on the right track.

i recommend some face time with a good teacher at some point.
but no need for any regular lessons cause they just overload your mind.

go in have them watch you play and check your technique have him show you some finger exercises and mainly talk about things that you may have questions about.

avoid paying someone to teach you a song
and if he starts to shred and show off before even asking what you want to learn ask for a refund and leave.

but remember that their are no rules for playing music, theory is only a guide.

[Tone Deft]

One problem I am having is that it seems like my fingers are just too damned big. Like, when I play an A major one of my fingers holding down a string always seems to touch another string it isn't supposed to touch and I get that "plunk" sound.... like I just can not fit three fingers in one fret....

the trick is for your right hand to not play the strings the left hand can't play.
for an A chord most all guitar players 'cheat' by just playing it with 1 finger. everyone's double jointed to an extent, push the strings down with the last bone on your pointy finger. this is hard to do and still let the e string (E means the bass E string, e means the high string) ring out, so don't play that e string. really, you can do this 'trick' and mute that e string. if you want that e string sound in the chord, use 3 fingers.

So, I was worried that maybe I just had big fingers and it wasn't going to work, but it seems like it all comes down to finding the proper positioning and then practicing and getting comfortable with it.

even Clapton complains that he's a lousy player, you'll probably never be satisfied with your played. many times I've made deals with the Devil, "if I can only play this one song..." DAMNIT!! years later I can play that song backwards but I'm staring down the next challenge.

stick with it, if you can do just 20 minutes a day (hour is preferable) in a year you'll be able to record yourself and have some real fun with Live.

btw don't forget Live is a GREAT jam tool. put on a drum beat, play for hours, speed it up, slow it down, loop a hard part of a song and slow it down to learn it, all kinds of ways to use it.

have fun!

[Tone Deft]

wanted to pass this deal on, maybe get more of you guys hooked on 6 strings.

this link is only good for April 20th 2008
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/stupid


Gibson SG Special Electric Guitar
$600 marked down from $1k

how's it going smutek? I got my first bad blister from bass last night, sucks, just when my pops and slaps were getting almost consistent. I guess I can make like Flea and pour crazy glu on it.

[mdk]

..was planning on running it through the set up that I have, most likely into a soundcard and out through ableton, or into my mixer and directly out to start (am I completely off base by thinking that will be ok?)

thats fine, although you'll want to make sure your latency is low when you want to do tight rhythmic stuff. anything over about 12ms i find really annoying (although i often play fast death metal type stuff so timing is quite important)...a buffer size of 128 samples at 44.1K works out alright for me (although i often run at 64 or 32 if i can)

as for amp sims, Revalver MK 3 is just coming out (the demo was out yesterday) and its amazing. MK2 was for me the best amp sim but MK3 is even better.

[leedsquietman]

Just keep at it, it will come with perserverance and avoid shortcuts like using one finger to do an A chord (you actually get A6 because you tend to hold down the F# on the top E string and A6 is quite a bit sweeter sounding than A and that is often not desirable). If you wanted a shortcut that was more usable, then learning powerchords is more paletable for fast results if you are doing harder rock sounds.

If your soundcard allows direct monitoring then that's a good choice for recording the guitar, latency is very negligible. I find it hard to run much at 128 samples in Live latency wise, if you have vstis and plugins in your mix it strains the system too much, and 256 if you are playing lead or even fast chords is noticeable.


I love that Pacifica of yours btw, I have a plain black w/ white scratchplate 112 which everyone thinks is a knocked off Squier (until they hear the sound or play it) my 412 is a natural sunburn finish which is nice.