I still haven't got my guitars back from my luthier - which resulted in my deciding to bring this one out of my basement to play with in the interim. This is the first guitar that I've owned.
I bought it for $50 from someone in highschool, and used it with an old Traynor solid-state amp that I was given by a friend of my dad's.
This isn't my specific old Traynor amp, but is a picture from the internet that looks the same as the one I had, and I think it's the same model. I gave mine to away when I bought myself a better amp (that I didn't really like and ended up selling to buy another amp).
One slight issue that I'm encountering with the guitar since taking it out of its hibernation, is that it doesn't pass any sound to an amp. I'm guessing it still worked when I last played it, but that was many years ago. I guess something of the electronics might have corroded away, or maybe it's just a simple dust issue preventing the pickup selector switch from making proper contact.
Let's check out some of its sweet features.
Just a bit more than half of a pickup selector switch-cover.
Rusted pickups that I couldn't adjust the height of because I just couldn't get the screws to turn. Don't know what's holding them in so strongly. This is authentic vintage rust, and none of that artificial "relic'd" stuff.
Well-aged tape to protect the player's shirt from being torn by the screws' jagged metal.
Guitar strap-holder that slides out for easy replacement, and usually constantly while trying to play the guitar. For a bit, if I just kept tightening it up every 5 or so minutes, it would stay in there for all the other minutes. But now it's just sliding right out any time the guitar headstock is tilted a bit upwards.
Also, I'm pretty sure the guitar's fretboard was covered with green-grey mold when I brought it up, but it seems to have died off in the drier, brighter, warmer upstairs. Oh well, better for playing this way, anyway.
Here are some tracks I made many years ago, while still learning to play the guitar, played using both the silver guitar and Traynor amp - and they're among my first attempts at coming up with music and recording it. I recorded them into my computer with some cheap plastic microphone that I had found lying around.
Well I guess it's not fully here, although its sort-of version is, and I apologize for that - and also for not saying something about its absence before now. Why? Well, reasons, and I don't think it's coming in the next few weeks, either.
Instead of talking about the full reasons for why it hasn't shown up, I'm going to do something that I really do not want to do, and provide a link to the track as it is, which is basically how it was the last time I posted about it, which is to say I haven't done any further recording for it. I could have posted it a while ago, but if I did that, and people listened to it, then what would be the point of working on it further, once I'm again able to? And it's a great track that will only become more awesome by working on it further. Since it's been so long, and since I still don't know when I can get back to it, I'm posting it, anyway.
So, with a recommendation to not listen to it (unless you really want to, which I guess is what I should hope for... actually, I think you should listen to it), here's that that track as it is, and as it will be until I get back to working on it...
... Which might not be for another month, or more, but I really don't know right now. What I do know is that I don't have either of my electric guitars with me right now, and when I have them back, then I likely will not have the power amp for my main guitar rig with me for 3 weeks to a month.
The guitar that I've written about modifying and having bought a custom replacement neck for has been with a local luthier I know for over 1/3rd of a year now, because they agreed with me to shave the back of that guitar's original neck down, apply a finish, and refret the guitar in exchange for the custom replacement neck I'd ordered for that guitar, and which was just too bright sounding for my tastes (its brightness didn't work with any of my guitar rig's presets, which all work with both the original neck's sound, and with my other electric guitar).
Having spent my money on that guitar neck, I needed a way to recoup on the neck, while also still doing something about that guitar to either fix up the existing neck (worn frets, neck too thick for my hand to play comfortably) . So, I bartered this deal, which has seen me go without having that guitar to play for many months now. The luthier is busy with lots of business and says they aren't going to put a non-paid job ahead of their paid work, but has assured me they'll have it done by the end of this month.
I've been playing my other electric, so that hasn't been a total problem, though I have missed playing that guitar. But now, I've also brought my other guitar to the same luthier to install an Earvana compensated nut, and so now I'm without either guitar. I should also have that guitar back by end of this month.
That's the guitar stuff.
I also need to take my Strategy 500 power amp to a tech for a capacitor replacement job, because it's doing some humming out of one channel right now, which I think is a capacitor going bad. The amp's 25 or so years old, and hasn't had any caps replaced, so it's about time for that.
I expect the amp to be gone for at least a few weeks, as I said above, because there's always a backlog for this stuff - and there aren't a lot of options for getting it done here in Vancouver, either. Some popular local techs simply didn't want to do the job, saying it's too big, or they've got too much other stuff.
So I'll get the job done at the service centre that I usually go to, which already has some equipment of mine right now, and has had it for over 2 months. But I won't take the amp there until I get my previous equipment back from them. They say they're really busy, too. I guess Vancouver needs some more techs.
And I'm not saying this current lack of access to my gear is why I haven't already finished the music track I previously was working on (it isn't), but not having my stuff is definitely going to ensure I won't be recording with it until I have it back. Clearly, there is an issue with audio tech service efficiency in Vancouver, BC (sort of like with me).
Even though I haven't worked on recording anything (other than many new tracks with my phone just for archiving), my tone configuration has grown, and come into greater clarity and refined. So, here's what my pedal board looks like, right now.
Other than the BOSS CS-3 (blue) compressor and the MXR DII clone that I built (lower-left, teal), those pedals aren't used in the new track I've posted while sort-of recommending you don't listen to it (but also sort-of recommending you do), so that when it is finished, whenever that is, it will be amaze and new.
I apologize for my slowness with this track. I'm trying to come back to where I last left it before Christmas, which is with the rhythm guitar finished as well as some of the bassline, but I'm feeling awful right now, to the point that I don't feel I can work on it right away. I'll get back to it as soon as I'm able, finishing up the bassline, and any lead work that it needs, and then having someone put drums to it.
Something completely different, though, is this collection of photos that I took of the snow around my place.
But snow is not the only thing I've taken photographs of. There are a couple pedals I've recently added to my collection: a '76 DOD 250 clone, made by a hobbyist in Russia, bought by me (cheaper than making one, myself), and a 90's reissue Micro Synthesizer. Both of these may feature in the upcoming track, or they may not - I don't know right now, but both of those pedals work excellently for producing a great lead guitar sound.
Also, my guitar amp rack is almost completed. There are a couple of items not in this photo, because they're getting some work done on them, but this is pretty much my dream amp setup,
I'm not going to have any money to pay for someone to play drums for this next track until right before Christmas, and so I probably won't get drums added to the track until a bit after Christmas. So, I'm putting up this older acoustic demo track of mine for listening to in the meanwhile.
It's just a little bit more than a basic track, with a mid-section solo, and a couple of brief bass-idea lines popping in and out in a couple of places.
I'm sure that I'll make a complete production of this song at a later time.
I finished up the rhythm guitar for the next track, today. When I previously said I was going to go easier on the layering with this track, I guess I wasn't properly coordinating my plans with my future-self, because there's now a lot of layering in this track:
Also, the track overview looks like a sine wave. That's gotta mean something, right?
This represents guitar work for a new track's intro:
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what time-signature the track was in, so that I could play to a click, since that keeps things organized while editing, and easier for someone else to lay drums down to (if I end up getting someone to play drums for this), but I discovered that this doesn't really fit to a time-signature that I know how to easily put in... it seems that a half-beat in a 4/4 signature is dropped every third bar, and so the actual music sections keep receding away from a time-signature of 4/4. The music sounds right, though. So, I'm just recording it without any click, and relying on my own internal rhythm, which isn't a problem.
Each take is recorded with 3 tracks, one for each mic that I'm using. I could set things up so that all 3 mics feed into one track, and reduce the overall track usage, but I like to change the mic levels independently, and sometimes edit takes from the different mics distinctly from each other. Overall, though, I'm expecting to be more lax with how I record this track than I have been with some others that I've recorded, in both planning and editing, and I think I can do that and still have a great sound, because the sound of my actual guitar rig has improved substantially since my previous recordings, and so I don't feel that I'll need as much layering, plugins, and mixing to try to make it sound great.
We'll find out, but I'm already confident the result will be good.
