Every guitar player needs a cheap keyboard
Fun fact: I was a synth player before I was a guitar player.
Yes, really. I've literally spent thousands on synths over the years. Everything from the cheap stuff to the ritzy workstations. I was doing pattern sequencing back in the '90s before any guitar players had a clue what that is.
However, these days, I'm perfectly happy with a Casio SA-46 kid's keyboard. And no, I'm not kidding.
While I can get along with a little SA-46, most guitar players need something a little more substantial that has 61 keys on it and more sounds. For that, a Yamaha YPT series keyboard does the job in fine style. It's cheap, it works and it sounds good.
Why have a cheap keyboard?
While I know my way around the piano keys, even if you know next to nothing about synthesizers, there are several good reasons to own a cheap keyboard.
1. Bass sounds
Personally, I prefer the bass guitar (mine is a Yamaha RBX170EW) over synthesized bass on the keyboard. However, there are many, many guitar players who play the bass parts of songs on a synth when songwriting. Keyboard bass always sounds better compared to detuning your guitar or using an octave shifter.
2. String sounds
The string sound on a synth is orchestral strings and not guitar strings. This is a good sound to play along with guitar chords for a bigger, fuller sound.
3. Piano sounds
When a guitar player wants to write a more ballad-like song, having a piano in there is pretty much required, even if it's just simple soft-played chords. Take any piano sound, drench that in reverb and you've got "ballad sound."
To note, piano takes to reverb much better than guitar does. You can pile on the reverb and it sounds fine. Remember, people are used to hearing grand pianos in large rooms where a huge amount of natural reverberation is present by nature.
Remember that adding in effects makes any synth sound better
You can always route your synth through your guitar effects. So if you have delay and chorus pedals, don't be afraid to try those on the keyboard.
A great example of this is the Korg DW-6000. The DW-6000 is an old synth from 1985. But the add-in of a BOSS RV-5 reverb pedal makes this thing sound like a million bucks.
The DW-6000 sounds awful on its own, but reverb and delay do wonders for synth tones. And the RV-5 makes not only the DW-6000 but any other synth sound great.
Remember that you don't have to play using two hands at once
If you only play with one hand, that is OK. Play in whatever style is comfortable, and know that with a multitrack recorder, you can just add in other tracks for other keyboard parts, just like you would with other guitar parts.
If you suck at keyboards, so what? It's a great songwriting tool, it's fun to pluck around on, and it's cheap. Get one.
How long can you not play guitar before you forget how to play?
There are times when you have to put down the guitar to do other things, because life happens. How long would it take before you totally forget how to play? Let's find out.
Everyone's brain works differently, so these figures aren't exact. But generally speaking, what's listed below will be true for most guitar players regardless of how long you've been playing.
If you go without playing...
...for 1 week
After a week of not playing, you will be able to pick up the guitar again and play normally, but your fingers will feel "stiff" until you play for at least a good 15 minutes first.
...for 1 month
You'll probably have a lot of stiffness in the fingers and maybe forget a few chords, but they'll come back to you fairly quick and you'll be playing normally in about an hour.
...for 3 months
At this point both your fret hand and even your picking hand will be stiff to the point where strumming will feel weird. You'll still remember basic chords, but for solos and things of that kind, that will take a little while before you can do that again. You'll need to play for at least an hour a day for a few days before you start to feel truly comfortable with the instrument again.
...for 6 months
This is the point where you actually start forgetting how to play the guitar. It doesn't matter what your age is, because whether you're 15 or 55, anything you stop doing for 6 months will be largely forgotten when you go back to it later.
...for 1 year or more
If you haven't played so much as one note on a guitar for a year, you will more or less have to relearn the entire instrument again after putting the guitar down for this amount of time. A lot of what you learned will be forgotten and it will take at least a good solid week of play even to get basic strumming relearned again.
Is learning the guitar like "riding a bicycle?"
There's an old saying that learning to ride a bicycle is something you never forget once you learn it.
That's not true for guitar playing.
If you put down the guitar for an extended period of time, such as 1 year or more, then pick it up again, you will have forgotten pretty much everything about how to play it. In fact, the only thing you probably will remember is how to tune it, maybe a few chords and where notes are, but not much else.
Why does a guitar player forget so much after putting down a guitar for a while? Because there's a lot to remember. Many notes, many chords, many playing styles that require practice to keep the fingers nimble and the memory sharp.
However, one can always relearn the guitar. If you've not played in a while, yes your fingers will be very stiff and yes you will have forgotten much, but you can learn again. Once you start relearning, memories will trigger and things will come back to you.
But bear in mind that guitar playing is not like riding a bike. It will take time to get the fingers working like they should on the instrument. And again, this will happen regardless of age whether young, old or anywhere in between.
In other words, if you're playing now and like the guitar, keep playing. :)
How long does it take to break in a guitar pickup?
"Pickups can be broken in?" Yes.
There are a lot of guitar players out there who don't realize that the sound of a guitar pickup changes over time. Sometimes the change is good while other times it's bad.
I'll cover the bad first.
Bad break-in: High-output humbuckers
This happens mostly with, you guessed it, "metal" guitars.
High-output humbuckers do not break in well and never have. There are "metal" guitars aplenty out there with humbucker pickups that are useless after about 12 to 24 months, depending on how much the guitar was played.
The break-in period of a high-output humbucker is quick, and usually takes less than 6 months. After that, the pickup sounds perfect, but then starts to sound awful in another 6 to 12 months.
Specifically, what happens is that any treble response the pickup had is pretty much gone. The output decreases significantly, and the string output balance is all messed up because the 4, 5 and 6-string pole pieces are weaker than the 1, 2 and 3-string pole pieces (mainly due to power-chord-5th playing).
However, there is a solution.
Take a cheap guitar like the ESP LTD M10, install a proper pickup upgrade set that isn't "metal" but with plenty of balls, purposely use a standard gauge string set in 9-42, 10-46 or 11-52 size, and you'll get at least 3 solid years of play. Given the fact most "metal" guitars only last for about 2 years before they sound like total crap, that's pretty darned good.
Yes, the guitar has a thin U-shape neck, which metal players like. Buy it, upgrade the pickups and then beat the crap out of it, because that's what it's built for.
All your friends who overspent on their guitars will end up with awful-sounding pieces of junk in less than 2 years and probably still owe money on it because they financed the stupid thing. You, on the other hand, will have a guitar that was paid in full years ago, still plays great and still sounds great. That's money well spent.
Good break-in: Stratocaster (or Telecaster, Jazzmaster or Jaguar)
Proper-voiced Strat vs. every other Strat
An example of a proper-voiced Strat pickup is a brand new Mexico-made Fender Standard Stratocaster. That guitar has pickups that are labeled by Fender as "Standard Single-Coil Strat".
For other Strats both for Made-in-USA and Mexico, you will see some pickups labeled by Fender as "Custom Shop" this/that/the-other-thing. Some will be labeled as being "50s" sounding, some state "Vintage", some state "Hot", and so on.
The pickup that is the easiest to break in on the Strat is the Standard Single-Coil. It is a pickup that is predictable without any wacky voicing going on. In other words, a plain, honest-to-goodness Strat sound.
Are the Squier Strats the same way? For the most part, yes. Unless specifically stated otherwise, a Squier Strat is either stocked with plain Strat pickups or the Duncan Design, both of which break in easily just like the ones in the Mexico Strat do.
The main complaint about plain Strat pickups is that they don't have enough output, and/or that they're too "bright".
Concerning the output, the Strat single-coil by nature is low-output. As I've said many, many times, I can guarantee that you don't want a "hot" Strat. What you want is a cheap compressor pedal. Seriously, go get one. If you want your Strat to continue sounding like a Strat but with your notes heard better along with more prominent string ring, get the damned compressor.
As for the over-bright thing, that happens because the pickup is new. Strats with plain single-coil pickups that haven't been played before will always have a ton of treble to them. The cure for this? Play the thing.
How long will it take until a Strat's pickups are broken in?
Strats use "hard" pickup magnets that take longer to break in. I can personally begin to break in a Strat's pickups - assuming they're stock single-coils - in about 3 months because I will play the crap out of that thing. Note that I said begin to break in, meaning not fully broken-in.
As far as when I can fully break in a set of Strat pickups, that takes me about 6 to 8 months.
For other players that don't play as often, it can take up to a year.
What happens when the pickups are broken in on a Strat?
Over time as you play the guitar, certain pole pieces will have more vibration put over them compared others. Which poles, specifically? That all depends on how you play and what type of strings you use. Maybe you pick near the bridge. Maybe you pick in the middle. Maybe towards the neck. Maybe you use nickel-plated steel strings. Maybe you use "pure nickel" strings. Heck, maybe you use flatwound strings. All those things and more contribute to how a pickup breaks in.
What you're doing each time you play is "conditioning" those pole pieces to react a specific way when you play.
Do you have to play a specific way to break in pickups? Nope. Just play as you normally do.
You will know your Strat's pickups are broken in when you pick up the guitar one day, plug in, tune up, strike a chord and whoa... there it is... "that sound". You will ring out a chord and the guitar just sounds beautiful. And it will continue to sound beautiful for a good long time because now that Strat is, in a word, yours.
"I've never had that moment with my Strat."
If you've had your Strat over a year and have been playing it regularly but "that moment" hasn't happened, the reason why is probably because you've never been totally comfortable with the guitar. If you're not comfortable with it, you will never have that "that moment", and it's time to try a different guitar that's not a Strat.
Remember, Strats aren't for everyone.
Good break-in: Les Paul (or SG, Explorer, Flying V)
Like with the Strat, the best pickups for easy break-in that Les Pauls use are the plain kind without any special voicing. The Epiphone Les Paul Standard for example uses what are called AlNiCo Classic Humbuckers, and those are a-okay.
The break-in time for a plain humbucker is quicker compared to the plain Strat single-coil as it typically uses "soft" magnets. Complete break-in can happen in under 6 months with regular play.
However, there are a few things about the dual coil Les Paul pickup that are distinctively different compared to a Strat single-coil that affects break-in time.
1. Adjustable outer-coil pole pieces
Many Les Paul models by both Gibson and Epiphone allow individual pole piece height adjustment on the outer coils. Most players keep these screwed down flat, but you have the option of raising or lowering them depending on your string volume preference, and this does affect how the pickup breaks in over time.
If for example you raise the poles on strings 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the front (neck) pickup and leave it that way because you like more output on the unwound strings when soloing, you would probably hear a significant difference in sound if you lowered them after playing the guitar for a year.
If you want to play it safe, so to speak, leave the poles screwed down for a while until you've played the guitar for a few months. Let the magnets "get used" to the way you play and for what strings you use, then adjust later.
Also know that this is not the same as adjusting overall pickup height. When you raise/lower pole pieces, you're doing that to specifically adjust individual string volume and not the whole pickup itself. It is normal to raise/lower the entire pickup to your preference, but for individual poles, I would personally wait until playing the guitar for a few months before adjusting those.
2. Wound strings (usually) always ring louder on the dual coil
On Strats, the non-adjustable pole pieces are either set up to follow the curve of the fretboard, or use a vintage staggered pattern where the G string pole is the highest. In either pattern, the unwound strings are almost always the loudest when playing.
On the Gibson/Epiphone humbucker, the the exact opposite is true and the wound strings are the loudest because the poles are set flat (as in thicker string = louder vibration = wound strings heard loudest because poles are flat).
All you need to know here is that on a brand new set of plain humbuckers, the wound strings will by nature ring out louder. Give it time, play the guitar regularly, and the sound will even out as you break in the pickups.
3. Too much "honk" when both pickups used
Brand new plain humbuckers in a Les Paul usually result in a very "honky" sound when both pickups are used at the same time. This is because the pickups are brand new and have some trebly "bite" to them.
Again, give it time, play the thing, break in the pickups and the sound will even out.
There is however a quicker right-now solution even on new Les Pauls. Because the volume controls are 500K linear taper potentiometers, you can roll the rear (bridge) volume control from 10 to 9 or 8 and that will cut out just enough treble so the both-pickup setting sounds better until the pickups are broken in later on.
And no, this doesn't work on Strats because it uses an audio taper potentiometer for a master volume control. Linear taper gives you quick-access treble cutoff with a slight turn of the knob, but audio taper does not. On the Strat, use the tone controls instead.
"The tone control doesn't work for the bridge pickup on my Strat."
The traditional Stratocaster wiring setup has no tone control wired to the bridge-only pickup selector setting. Take it to a guitar tech to wire it in. Or wire it in yourself. It takes about 10 minutes to do and all you need is a 2-inch piece of wire.
Does breaking in pickups make a bad-sounding guitar sound good?
No, it doesn't.
If a new guitar you try out sounds bad to your ears from the start, then it sounds bad, and no amount of break-in time will fix that.
If on the other hand a new guitar "sounds generic", meaning a sound that's neither bad nor good, that's a guitar where break-in can make it sound better over time.
Every new Strat and Les Paul with regular, non-vintage-voiced, non-wacky-output-voiced pickups will sound generic. They will sound like every other generic Strat and Paul you've ever heard. Is this normal? Yes.
It is also normal that break-in time is required before the guitar really starts to sound good. And no matter what anyone says, there is no way to break in a guitar quickly.
Break-in requires you actually playing the guitar for a while, and the amount of break-in time depends how much you play the guitar. Since I play often, I can fully break in pickups in about 8 months. For others it takes a year or maybe slightly longer.
On a final note, the absolute fastest way to break in a guitar is to gig with it. If you gig regularly, any new guitar you take on stage should have fully-broken-in pickups in less than 6 months.
Playing funk on the Squier Jazzmaster and Yamaha RBX170EW bass
The Jazzmaster is not the first guitar that comes to mind when wanting to play funk. I did it anyway.
I decided to try an experiment to see if my Jazzmaster could actually get a funk sound out of it. This is a style of tone that's usually Strat-only territory, but I gave it a try anyway. The result is here. Not too bad, especially since I don't ordinarily play funk.
However, the real thing that makes funk work isn't the guitar. It's the bass. Without a good bass line, the funk just doesn't happen.
Ever since I put the GHS Round Core Bass Boomers on my Yamaha RBX170EW, that's allowed me to get more funky on the bass guitar. While true the strings are still new and have a bit of that "sounds like a piano" thing going on, I'm really liking the GHS set, and over time they will lose a bit of their brightness (desirable in this case) so they don't sound so "pingy" when playing them.
As for the Jazzmaster, yes I can play funk with it, but I'll have to experiment with some techniques and tone adjustment to make it sound better.
As for the bass, I've a little more to say about that.
My journey with bass guitar strings
Originally, I used generic roundwound stainless steel bass strings. These are strings you could literally put on a bass guitar and keep them there for 10 or even 20 years because they never rust. All you have to do is boil the strings in water every few months to clean off the finger grime and that's about it (yes, you can do that with stainless steel strings.)
The tradeoff for me is that bass strings typically wreck my fingers, so I needed something else.
I tried flatwound strings. It was a La Bella set. An example of a specific set that many players like is the "Jamerson size" 52-110 Original 1954 set. What I didn't know about flatwound then but do now is that they are really tight when tuned up to pitch. That, and I missed the feel of the grooves of the string, so that didn't work out for me. Yes, there is such a thing as "low tension" flats, but I really wanted to feel the actual grooves of the string winds again.
Next up I tried D'Addario Half Round, which is a set with a semi-compressed wind on it. You can still feel the grooves, but it has the feel of a flatwound, sort of. I didn't like these for a few reasons. First, it's a roundwound sound with a flatwound feel. Weird. Second, every set comes out of the box feeling sticky. They all do this. There's some kind of coating on the string. Eventually it wears off and feels normal, but again, weird. Third, I didn't like the tension of the string. Still a bit on the tight side, and the 1 string just felt really thin even though it's physically thicker than a normal stainless set.
After that, I went with the Dunlop DBN45105 set. I went back to regular roundwound steel strings, but this time used one with a slightly looser tension. This I liked. This felt right. It also sounded right. However, something was missing but I didn't know exactly what.
Then I went to NAMM, and while there went by the GHS booth. While there talking with the sales guy for GHS, he spoke about the round core set for bass. That sounded interesting, so he gave me a pack of them. After I got home, I put the strings on, and...
...that was the string I was looking for. It's a nickel plated roundwound string with a round core in the center, which to me has the right tension I was looking for, that being a bit bendy and loose. And it sounded correct.
How will they react once they stay on the bass a while? I don't know that yet. What I do know is that my fingers don't get nearly as wrecked on them as they do with regular stainless steel strings.
Hexagonal core a.k.a. hex-core strings are stiff by nature, and it's also used as a selling point because a stiffer string at pitch rings out longer. But it's the stiffness that turns me off from it on the bass guitar.
On 6-string electric, I use Dunlop DEN0942 exclusively, which I believe are hex-core. That set has a feel to it I like, a sound I like, and a very fast break-in time.
On the bass however, the round core from GHS is far better than any hex-core I've tried. For light plucking with fingers, it just has a way better feel to it.
Does this mean more funk/disco style tracks in the future from me? Maybe.
Do 3-pickup guitars suck?
Sometimes, yeah they do.
Take the "Black Beauty" Custom Les Paul Custom. Epiphone only makes this currently. If you want one in a Gibson flavor, prepare to shell out some serious cash. And in all honesty, the Epiphone version isn't exactly cheap either. But then again, it is a Black Beauty model and you don't see them very often.
The guitar that comes up when you ask players to name a 3-pickup solid-body electric guitar is of course the Fender Stratocaster.
When I used to play a Strat as my main guitar, what I would always do is set the middle pickup as low as I possibly could where the pickup pole pieces were just barely above the pick guard. Why? So I wouldn't keep whacking the middle pickup with my pick...
...and that is the reason why a 3-pickup guitar can suck.
For most players, the middle pickup area of a 3-pickup guitar is exactly where you pick the most. Going back to the Black Beauty above for a moment, while it looks great, the 2-pickup version Custom Pro is something most players would rather have (and is quite a bit less in price as a nice bonus) because it's just a better player's guitar since it doesn't have that annoying middle pickup that gets in the way.
What about the Strat?
Any Strat that does not have 3 skinny single-coil pickups in it looks weird to most people.
For example, the Fender Blacktop Stratocaster HSH, which is a fine guitar with fine electronics, just looks odd. It doesn't "look like a Fender Strat", even though it totally is.
No matter what, a Strat with 3 skinny single-coils is always the most desirable. Not only must it have 3 skinny single-coils, but also have exposed pickup pole pieces to complete the proper Strat look.
And yes, that means if you want the traditional Strat look, you will have to deal with that middle pickup by doing one of the following:
- Play around the pickup
- Lower it flush to the pick guard so it stays out of the way when you pick/strum.
- Lower only the top part of the pickup as that's where you would whack it with the pick.
Some players will do the "lower the top half" on both the middle and front (as in neck) pickup to avoid bashing into them when playing. You'll notice on a lot of vintage Strats that the pickups are set up exactly like that by the player. Now you know why.
Strat quack
For many Strat players, the two most-favorite pickup selector positions are 2 and 4, meaning rear + middle and front + middle. Not only are they the positions that cancel the hum since the middle pickup is reverse-wound, but they also create a sound that Strat players affectionately call "Strat quack".
If you give up playing Strats, you give up that quack sound that only Strats can do. So if that quack is a distinctive part of your sound, you'll need a Strat to get it.
I, however, was willing to give up that quack sound because I find 2-pickup solid-body electrics much easier to get along with.
Do I miss Strat quack?
While the Strat quack that the middle pickup provides is a very distinctive part of the Stratocaster sound, I found that it was something I didn't really miss at all when I switched over to the 2-pickup Jazzmaster. Once I went to the Jazz, I was just fine leaving the Strat behind.
I like the 2-pickup layout so much that for future electric guitar purchases, I'm only considering 2-pickup guitars like the Telecaster.
"Versatile" really isn't a selling point if that versatility gets in your way
Take the Ibanez JEM/UV Steve Vai Signature. While I'm sure the neck on it is wonderful, the electronics are perfect and the pickups are voiced correctly for what it is, this is also a guitar where you will constantly be bashing into the 3-pickup layout with your pick.
Most guitar players can't play this thing. It's not due to "lack of ability", but rather due to the fact there is absolutely no room to pick or strum without whacking a pickup. The neck has 24 frets, meaning the neck-side pickup had to be pushed back to accommodate that, pushing the HSH layout even closer together than usual. Were this guitar a 22-fret, there could be proper pickup spacing, but not here.
The JEM, in all honesty, would be better off as an H/S instead of an HSH because at least then you'd have some room to pick and strum.
In comparison...
The Music Man Axis is a far better, far superior design. It has a proper 22-fret neck, 2 pickups and plenty of space between the pickups for all the room you'd ever want so you don't whack them when playing.
In other words, while the JEM restricts, the Axis allows for more freedom of play.
Should you never buy a 3-pickup guitar?
You can buy any kind of guitar you want because I'm not the boss of you. If you like Strats, get a Strat. If you like Black Beauty Les Pauls, get one. If you like the JEM, get one...
...but just know you'll probably be whacking the middle pickup constantly in any of those guitars unless you move it out of the way by lowering it. Or if it's a guitar like the Black Beauty Les Paul where you literally cannot adjust the middle pickup out of the way, it will get all scuffed up by whacking it constantly while playing.
On a final note, you will notice that on many older 3-pickup Gibson solid-body electrics with gold covers that the middle pickup is all scuffed up and discolored. The reason for the scuffs and scratches is because of the player hitting it constantly with his pick. The discoloration comes from the fact the player cleaned the middle pickup cover twice as much in an attempt to smooth out the scratches on each string change. All that extra cleaning on just that cover caused the gold finish to wear off quicker compared to the other two pickups, which is why it's discolored in the first place. Gibson didn't use a different gold pickup cover for the middle pickup. The discoloration over time is due to player making it that way.