Why is braided guitar cable so awesome?

Once you go braided, everything else seems inferior.

When it comes to braided guitar cable, you'll always pay more for it. But why?

Does it make your guitar sound any better? No.

Does it last longer than regular cable? Yes.

Why does it last longer? Simple answer. It tangles less. And in the event it does tangle as all guitar cable does from time to time, it's really easy to untangle it. Not only that, but it stays untangled. You really have to work at it to tangle a braided cable to begin with.

Cloth braid cable is nothing new and it used to be what everyone used until the cheaper stuff started appearing in guitar stores. Fortunately, the making of braided cable never stopped. It's just a little more difficult to come by, hence why you pretty much have to buy it online.

Yes, you could get your braided cable in a guitar store, but you'll spend even more for it. Better to just order it online so you can save a few bucks.

It also goes without saying that braided cable just looks cool, but it's more than just for looks, as its natural tendency to tangle less is something you will very much appreciate.

Cheap guitar of the week #20 - Ibanez GRX70QA

A guitar this good priced this low was only a dream just a few years ago.

Ibanez, even in a low-cost flavor, certainly gets things right. With GRX70QA in particular, you actually get more than what you pay for.

Quick specs: Poplar body, quilted maple art grain top, maple neck, rosewood fretboard, medium frets, "FAT 6" bridge, "infinity" ceramic magnet pickups for all three positions. The fretboard radius is 400mm (15.74-inch). Really flat. But that means almost no fretting out.

My favorite part of this guitar is the pickup switching.

Yes, it is a 5-way selector and not just 3. On an HSH pickup configuration, this is exactly how it should be because you get the most usable sounds.

Also, yes, it's all passive. There is no stupid battery box to be found in this guitar. That's a good thing.

Selections 2 and 4 are traditional Strat "quack" positions. That's a good thing because for clean tones, those are great to have.

While I personally am not a fan of the HSH configuration, I will admit that if I did want one, this is absolutely the way I would have the electronics set up. One master volume, one master tone, one pickup selector blade with 5 settings that would give me every tone I'd want to get.

Another thing I very, very much appreciate is that this guitar is NOT a 24-fret but rather a 22. This is ideal because it allows the pickups not to be squashed together, giving you more usable sounds from proper pickup spacing. Believe me, if this guitar were a 24-fret, it would sound terrible. Thankfully, it's a proper 22.

Even as little as 5 years ago, getting a guitar with this look for the seriously low price it sells for would have only been a dream. It's not a dream anymore. It's here.

Rich's nitpicks

I have three, however they're very minor complaints.

First is the HSH. I'm not a fan of this pickup configuration. It is required here to get those 3-pickup Strat "quack" tones, but I prefer two pickups instead of three.

Second is the fact this Ibanez has two string guides at the headstock. The look of it doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that this can lead to string kinking noises because of the downward pressure from the string to the nut. I do typically bend the G string quite a bit, and with a guide there on the headstock for the G, that can lead to the kinks. But then again, I could always switch out the guide with a taller one, as could anyone else.

Third is something nobody can avoid, and that's resale value. This guitar has none. Once the guitar is bought, you'll never get your money back for it. But then again, since you get so much for the money, that's an acceptable tradeoff.

Who would appreciate this guitar most?

Young players - especially first-time players - would appreciate this a lot because it has an expensive look to it with the quilt top. And, of course, since a lot of younger players are all about the distorted-extreme rock stuff, this guitar can keep up with it.

Older players will appreciate the flat fingerboard just to have something different that doesn't fret out like rounder Fender necks do. In addition, the fact you can get Strat-style "quack" from the 2 and 4 positions is a big plus, because it means the guitar is not a one-trick-pony, so to speak. And while I don't know the weight of the instrument, the poplar body should mean it's fairly light, probably at between 7 to 7.5 pounds.

Guys and gals who gig often will like this too, because it's put through the same QC inspection that the more expensive Ibanez models are put through. Yes, I am saying this can totally be a "workhorse guitar." Buy it, set it up, play your gigs and the guitar will keep up without a problem.

As I mentioned above, the best part of this guitar is the pickup switching. Stupidly simple to use while at the same time giving you almost every possible sound this guitar could possibly get. The only one you don't get is Telecaster front+rear because this is wired to be more Strat-like than Tele-like, but that's okay given its price.

Final verdict: If you like the flatter fingerboard (better for soloing,) HSH configuration and Strat-style switching, the Ibanez GRX70QA is cheap and good. Get one.

Guitar tabs are a bad way to learn guitar

If you rely on tabs to learn how to play guitar, you'll never learn it the right way.

There is no shortage of guitar tab books, that's for sure. There is also no shortage of guitar instruction books either. You want books? There are plenty out there...

...but I can't tell you how many times I've seen guitar players buy book after book after book and never get anywhere on the instrument.

Should you buy a book of tabs?

Yes, you should buy a few of them - HOWEVER - you should only need them for a short while just so you an figure out chords and fingerings.

Take books on Chet Atkins' playing style for example. That guy was, obviously, a monster guitar player that played some insanely intricate stuff. For that kind of musical knowledge, yes, you'll have to get a book or two.

After a while, you will figure out the chords and styles Atkins favored. From that point forward, you shouldn't need the books any longer and should be able to pick up things by ear.

I am not saying, "Play like Chet did". Not at all. I'm just using his style as an example of when you actually do need the guitar tab/notation book. Trying to figure out Chet's style without a book is tough, even when you have YouTube videos to help you. For some styles, you just need that book, and Chet's style is one of them. Another would be Django Reinhardt. You need a book or two to learn his styles as well.

If you continue to rely on tabs to learn anything new on the guitar, you will never advance as a guitar player

At some point, you have to put the book(s) down and start relying on your ears. I don't care if you play simple campfire acoustic songs, play speed metal soloing or anything in between. You must be able to figure out how to do things by ear eventually.

"I can't do that."

You can do that, and I can prove it.

Can you tune a guitar by ear without a tuner? If you answered with, "Sort of... I can get the notes mostly correct", then you already know how to recognize a note just by its sound and not by what a tuner states it is.

It's also probably true you can recognize E major, D major and G major guitar chords just by hearing them without seeing them being played.

Those two examples, while simple, prove easily that yes, you in fact can recognize a note by sound alone. What does that mean? It means that when learning new songs on the guitar, you don't need the tab books unless the song in question is something very complicated.

Your ears should be your guide to learning new things on the guitar. The tab books are the first step and absolutely not the last step.

True learning of the guitar happens when the ears take over

Tabs are about learning by sight. But playing guitar is about sound.

Learning by sight is required when you're just starting out on the instrument because you haven't learned the sound yet. Once you do learn how to recognize sound, everything you need to learn new styles and techniques is already in your mind.

"How will I know when I can recognize sound?"

It's like I said above, if you can tune a guitar somewhat without a tuner, and/or recognize chords just by sound without seeing them being played, you already know how to recognize sound on a basic level.

As you play more and more, you will be able to recognize more types of sounds. After a while, recognizing those sounds will come naturally where you won't have to even think about it.

Remember that most popular music uses ridiculously simple chord structures, so it's not a difficult thing to recognize chords that most popular music uses.

You can do it. Pick up a few books if you have to, but remember that at some point you need to train your ears more and not your eyes.

Vintage guitar of the week #3 - 1976 Gibson SG Standard

This week's feature vintage guitar is a nice woody SG from '76.

The '76 SG Standard is a bargain.

The best part about this particular SG is its weight at just a tick under 8 pounds. This makes the guitar a nice, lightweight easy player.

The body material is, of course, mahogany. The neck is also mahogany.

The finish on this particular SG is called walnut, and it takes to it well. Very nice grain lines throughout. I particularly like how the back of the neck looks as it has a very nice, deep, rich color to it. The back of the body also looks great too, but what you'll be looking at most of the time is the back of the neck.

My favorite type of SGs have the "half guard" at the bottom, which this one does have. I prefer these because Tony Iommi typically plays SGs that have this exact same pick guard type.

Incidentally, you can get the same half guard in an SG for cheap with the Epiphone G-400 model. So if you can't afford this '76 SG, Epiphone has you covered. There are even a few models that almost look identical to the '76, walnut style color finish and all.

Usable?

Yes, very usable. This kind of older guitar is what I call "practical vintage." You could play it regularly and even gig with it - not that you would gig with it, but you could.

Also, if you've never bought a vintage electric before, this SG would be a really good start. The purchase price is very reasonable for what it is, it's certain to appreciate in value, and you get a genuinely good, playable instrument you can actually use and enjoy. This is a complete guitar that needs nothing other than maybe a basic setup by you once you put your preferred strings on it.

So yes, usable, a safe buy and cheap as far as a vintage electric is concerned - especially for a Gibson...

...although it goes without saying that you get a much, much better build today with today's modern Epiphone SG Standard, arguably the best SG that exists for the right price.

Does your guitar cause you pain in your right leg?

If you get pain in your right leg, it might be your guitar that's causing the pain in the first place. Fortunately, there's an easy way to fix it.

Most guitar players are right-handed and play right-handed. Personally, I'm left-handed but play right-handed because that's just how things happened to work out.

It's probably true that when you play sitting, you don't use a guitar strap, and most if not all of the guitar's weight rests on your right leg.

You need to get the guitar weight off that leg. Fortunately, there are a few easy ways to do this.

Solution 1: Use a lightweight guitar

The easiest way to go lightweight with a guitar is either to use a semi-hollow body or an acoustic.

You have tons of choice with semi-hollow. If you want good and cheap for one of these, check out a Squier Telecaster Thinline or an Epiphone Dot.

If I were personally going to switch over to semi-hollow, I'd get the Epiphone ES-339, which is a semi-hollow in a Les Paul-sized body.

You also have tons of choice with acoustic, but I recommend a parlor acoustic guitar because they're small-but-not-too-small, usually very lightweight and really easy to play.

Solution 2: Play standing with strap

Self explanatory.

Solution 3: Play sitting using a strap

One of the best straps for comfort playing is a soft leather strap. Specifically, the type with one skinny end (which goes over your shoulder) and the other side thicker (which attaches to the rear of the guitar.)

When you play sitting with the strap on, the guitar either has to be lightly touching your leg or elevated so it's not touching your leg at all.

Yes, you may encounter some shoulder soreness at first when playing this way, but you should get used to it. If you don't and the shoulder soreness doesn't go away, you will need to switch over to a guitar that is lighter in weight. Either get the parlor acoustic or a semi-hollow.

Does a guitar cause restless legs syndrome?

I'm not a doctor, but the answer is no.

RLS is neurological disorder that typically affects the legs. Common symptoms are best described as feeling like you have an itch you can't scratch, "crawling" feelings and so on. These feelings occur usually when in a relaxed state, such as lying in bed waiting for sleep or just sitting and reading a book.

Where the guitar is concerned, if it's the case where your right leg felt fine before you started playing guitar, but then exhibited numbness afterward, chances are pretty good that the weight of the guitar resting on your leg was the cause of the numbness in the first place.

However, I'll say again that I'm not a doctor, so if you're getting pain in the right leg after playing guitar sitting, you can try the solutions above. If the solutions don't work, see a doctor.