I haven’t had any previous experience with a baritone acoustic, and it’s an interesting breed. The longer scale neck and the lower darker voicing will definitely require a shift in my playing approach, but the tradeoff is an exciting new flexibility when singing with my limited bass vocal range.
MoreThis is the long-overdue followup to my previous Emergency Fret Repair project. In this project, I demonstrate how to level, crown and polish the frets. I also show how to adjust your action, adjust the truss rod for relief, and how to intonate the guitar. Also, I demonstrate a tip to improve playability with a glossy neck.
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The Line 6 Helix is built like a tank. Mostly. Unfortunately, it seems that the plastic used for the screens is fairly soft, and susceptible to scratching. Take a look at this picture of my Helix on stage – yes, it’s mostly dust but you can also see some fine scratches. The scratches seemed to have occurred not from carelessness or accidents, but rather from my occasional cleaning with a microfiber cloth. It would certainly be possible to improve these scratches with a light polishing (as I showed at the end of my polishing article). But if you have a brand new Helix, I definitely recommend applying some kind of screen protection before the scratches occur.More
Our Mackie DL32R is acting up again! I previously described this problem back in 2017, with mixer channels intermittently failing. Fortunately, we’ve managed the last couple years with minimal issues on the DL32R. But over the last couple months we’ve experienced an intermittent hum on channel 8, and yesterday channels 8,16,24,32 all died completely.
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My SG has been transitioning into a project guitar, so I’ve been wanting an alternative to use as my gigging guitar. After having been spoiled by the lightweight SG, my Les Pauls just aren’t appealing for extended gigs and rehearsals. More
Last year, my SG took a spill and ended up with a nasty dent at the 3rd fret, where the guitar neck had impacted my mic stand.More
It’s a bittersweet conclusion to the guitar that inspired me to start this blog back in 2009. I finally sold my Epiphone Riviera P-93. Let’s be honest, the idea of this guitar was always better than the reality of it. The reason for all of my experiments and tweaks was that I wasn’t satisfied with how it sounded. Turns out, a pair of nice humbuckers would have been a much better fit for me than three dogear P-90s.More
We’ve been using the ART HeadAmp6 6-channel Headphone Amp in my band for a few years, and it’s always worked like a champ. A while back however, the front panel lights began flickering disconcertingly and we were hearing some hum on a couple channels. I decided to crack open the case to see if it was something simple like a loose connector.More
When I received my Helix last year, my first order of business was to mimic the channels of my Blackstar Stage 60, so I wouldn’t have to lug the amp to rehearsals anymore. I didn’t need to pass a double-blind accuracy test- I just wanted to reproduce the sound to my (and the band’s) satisfaction. It was shocking how easily I was able to accomplish this. This was the first preset I created on the Helix. I’ve since created dozens of song-specific presets, but this “Stage 60 4ch” preset continues to live in slot 000 of my Helix to this day. More
I have loved playing through my Blackstar Stage 60, but it is time to let it go. I’m trying not to be sentimental about gear- if I’m not using it, it should go. More