99% of guitar players dont need more than 22 frets
More often than not it's true your very first electric guitar probably had a neck with 22 frets on it, which allows for three octaves of the key of D (low D, D and high D).
Personally, I prefer Fender vintage-style 21-fret necks. It took me a few years before I realized that's what I prefer, but I do.
My first 24-fret neck guitar was a cheesy copy of B.C. Rich Warlock made by a guitar company called Phantom. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of that guitar, but it was your standard Warlock shape that had the infamous neck dive when you wore it standing up. Back when I owned the Phantom (this was years ago) I didn't know anything about guitars, but even then I knew I didn't really care for 24-fret necks that much.
The current 24-fret guitar I own is a 2003 Schecter C-1 Classic, but I barely play it because I don't get nearly the enjoyment out of that guitar as I do out of my Squier guitars.
In the way I play guitar, I literally get confused if the neck has more than 21 frets. For example, whenever I play a modern American Strat with its standard 22-fret neck, that extra 22nd fret always messes with my head whenever I play up high on the fingerboard. For you fans of vintage Fender Strats out there, this is yet another reason why I say to try a "cheap" Squier, because most Squier electrics have 21-fret necks on them, and that's a HUGE part of what true Fender vintage feel is supposed to be like.
Anyway..
If you absolutely have to have an electric with a 24-fret neck on it, fortunately you don't have to spend a ton of money to get one. In fact, a guitar with a 24-fret neck these days is quite cheap. The Ibanez GRG120BDX is a good example, as that is a cheap guitar that's literally in Squier-price range. I have absolutely no idea how it plays or how it sounds, but like I said, cheap.
Do you really need that high E?
The truth about playing anywhere above the 20th fret (never mind the 24th) is that 99% of the time you won't be playing anywhere near there.
There are very few chords you could hold above the 20th fret, and chords above the 20th fret sound awful, so generally speaking you're in "solo-only" territory when you play that high on the fingerboard.
Do you solo all the time? Of course not. Most of the time you're playing chords, be they full-handed barre chords, power chords or whatever other chords you want to play.
The allure of having an electric guitar that can play 3 octaves of E is very tempting. I remember that when I had my first 24-fret guitar, I said to myself, "Cool! Now I can finally play those super-high notes!" But then I realized quickly there's really not much you can do on the high-fret range.
Have you ever noticed on older 24-fret guitars that the high frets are always tarnished? That's because they're almost never played. The guy who bought the 24-fret guitar originally probably thought he'd be using them all the time, only to find out he hardly ever used them, and that's why years later they're all mucked up.
As to answer the question of whether you actually need those 24 frets, no, you don't.
"24 fret blur" happens when playing on 24-fret neck electric guitars
This is a phenomenon that happens regardless of how good or bad your eyesight is.
Okay, so you've got this 24-fret guitar with nice shiny frets. Above the 20th fret, all the frets are very close together. The fret spacing is too short to "play by feel" (meaning not enough tactile discrimination exists where you could "play blind"), so you're staring right at that board when playing those high notes.
When looking down at the frets, they're obviously all vertical lines, but above the 20th fret those lines are really close together. Stare at those lines long enough, and the frets appear to blur together.
Is there anything that can be done to combat this? Yes. You have to go by the fret markers on the top of the neck and not the ones on the fingerboard. At first, this will be a very weird way of playing because your eyes will focus on the top-dot markers while your fingers will be out-of-focus, but you'll get used to it.
If you want a 24-fret neck where you will never lose your place when playing, you want a neck with a maple fingerboard and black fret markers.
The black is almost the direct opposite color of the maple, and it's very easy for your eyes to know exactly where you are on the high frets at any given time.
White/mother-of-pearl/etc. fret markets on a rosewood or ebony fingerboard don't work for vision improvement purposes, because the white/mother-of-pearl is too close of a color to the metal frets as far as your eyes are concerned. In other words, everything will still blur together if you stare at it for too long, and you'll have to go by the dot markers on top of the neck.
In fact, for you players out there with poor eyesight that frequently encounter eye-blurring even on the lower frets, an easy solution is to switch to an electric guitar with a maple fingerboard with black fret markers.
You will perform solos better on a 21 or 22-fret neck
There's this myth out there that one can solo better if he has more frets to play on. This is not true and never has been.
The best necks for soloing on are the kind that feel most comfortable to the fret hand, and that's obviously not the 24-fret neck. Your fret hand will "scrunch" when playing the upper notes on the 24-fret neck, it will not feel natural, and you may even enounter finger strain and wrist pain no matter what age you are.
If you're looking for faster soloing capability, you're probably looking for a short scale neck and not the extra frets.
Read this other blog post where I explain everything about scale.
In other words, you'll probably find you can solo way faster on a Squier Jagmaster than you would on an Ibanez with a 24-fret neck. The Jagmaster only has 21 frets on it, but believe me, with its short scale neck you will race up and down it like nobody's business.
A 24-fret neck is more a novelty than anything else
Sure, a guitar with a 24-fret neck is nice to have. It looks cool and you have that third octave E for screeching-high solos.
24-fret necks aren't bad, and if you like them, that's fine and I don't have a problem with that. But at the end of the day, 21 and 22-fret necks feel better, it's much easier to know where you are on the board at any given time, and even if you're the super-soloist type, there's really not much in the way of songwriting that fits anywhere above the 20th fret.
How to record "washy" reverb with an electric guitar the right way
I play some guitar (on my Squier Strat) using some very "washy" reverb.
There's are right and wrong ways to record reverb. I'm not saying my way is the absolute method you should use to record an electric guitar with washy reverb, but chances are it will work for you.
Rule #1: Use a digital reverb
Analog reverb (like spring reverb on Fender amps) won't work too well because every so often you'll hear a spring "clang" happen. For lower amounts of reverb, spring works, but for high amounts like in the demo above, spring will create undesirable clang noises just due to the nature of how it works.
Any digital reverb will do, such as DigiTech DigiVerb, BOSS RV-5, Alesis Nanoverb 2, or whatever you have currently as long as it's digital.
Rule #2: Play with mild overdrive, no compression and guitar volume at half or lower
What guitar players typically do is turn the guitar up to 10 and use compression but with no overdrive, and the end result is a "tinny" sound. Most would describe it a a sound that "has no body to it".
Instead, kill the compression, use a light overdrive, and turn the guitar volume down to 5 or lower (you'll figure out what works best for your guitar). It doesn't matter what guitar is being used, although you may find single-coils much better suited for this type of stuff compared to humbuckers due to the fact singles have more treble response. But if a humbucker-equipped guitar is all you have, just work with it.
In the demo recording above I purposely bang a chord hard at the end where you can hear the overdrive ring out to prove I was actually using it.
Rule #3: Try the middle pickup position on the guitar first
More often than not the middle position on the guitar will work best, as it will give the most "even balance" between treble and bass response. It doesn't matter whether your pickup configuration is SSS, HSS, HH or HSH. Use the middle first before going anywhere else, because chances are you'll want to be there anyway to get the desired sound.
Remember, this is for studio (or home studio) recorded stuff and not the stage
On the stage, it's too easy to get "lost" when using high amounts of reverb, so I don't recommend using it there. Instead, use delay (DigiTech DigiDelay, BOSS DD-3 or DD-7, MXR Carbon Copy, VOX Time Machine or whatever you prefer) as a substitute because in a live situation it's a whole lot easier to get control over.
And yeah, I know, you're saying to yourself, "But delay is totally different from reverb!" You're right. But on stage, delay actually sounds more like reverb because the effect is being used much more "in the open", so to speak. And believe me when I say your sound guy (as in the guy running the PA mixer) will much appreciate the fact you're using delay and not reverb out there because it's a whole lot easier on his end to hear what's actually going on.
When in the studio however, go ahead and wash out the reverb all you want, because you've got the controlled environment and it works out just fine there.
beverly hills cop
Beverly Hills Cop was a movie released December 1984 and it made a lot of money. Actually, that's not accurate. It made a ton of money. The budget was an estimated 14 million, and in the opening weekend in the US it made 15.2 million, and had gross worldwide sales of - get this - 316.3 million. Yeah, this movie made a ton of dough. In fact, it was the highest grossing movie of 1984.
I just re-watched this movie, and came to a realization.
This movie really isn't good at all.
The story was weak, the plot unrealistic and the comedy was poorly timed. The only reason this movie sold at all was because it was riding solely on Eddie Murphy's fame and nothing more.
In other words, without Eddie as the star of this movie, it would have completely tanked.
From what I've learned concerning the background of this movie, nobody wanted it. Several known stars of the time turned it down, and the script was this haphazardly put together piece of garbage that wasn't even complete. In several scenes of the movie, Eddie had to literally improvise to fill in the gaps, and this is why the movie harshly goes back and forth from between "Eddie standup comedy" to actual story and then back again. A few other characters also had to improvise lines during principal shooting as well.
For example, the whole "Super Cops" scene (which is without a doubt the funniest scene in the movie) is almost all improvised.
During the police station scenes where the cars are being tracked, if you thought, "Wait a second... the LAPD didn't have GPS in 1984!", you were right. GPS-like tracking was only added in the story to speed up the already-weak story.
I re-watched this movie thinking it would be really funny as I remembered it.. but it wasn't. It was just.. blah.
There have been a few movies I've watched that were riding on nothing but star power, and it can be said without a doubt that they don't age well. Beverly Hills Cop is definitely one of them.
One good thing did come from the movie however, the song Axel F from the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack.
But even with that song being as cool as it was, it's nothing compared to how cool the theme to Miami Vice is, available on the Miami Vice soundtrack.
To date, I've never watched a single episode of Miami Vice, but whenever the show came on I listened to the theme song intently, because it was (and still is) that good.
Now may be the time to buy your China-made Squier while it's still cheap
It's normally a really bad idea to bring politics into music because the two just don't mix. However, this time it matters and you'll understand why in just a moment.
In the most recent "town hall" US Presidential election debate, both candidates said without any reservation that China isn't playing fair when it comes the actual value of items, and that either would make China pay their fair share in the upcoming presidential term.
What this means to you, the guitar player, is that when 2013 rolls around, the price of Chinese-made guitars may suddenly spike in price across the board all over the world, because generally speaking, the rest of the world follows what the US does. (Note: It's just a common thing that other nations usually follow our lead whether it's the right or wrong thing to do.. that's just how it works.)
I'll use the Squier Bullet Strat - the lowest-priced standard-sized Strat guitar Fender makes, as the example here.
Over the past 5 years, the price of the guitar has only risen 10 dollars. It started at $119, then in 2012 was raised 10 dollars to a selling price of $129. That's an 8.4% price increase, which is in fact fairly significant. However, given the base price is so cheap to begin with, most budget-minded guitar players don't mind spending the extra 10 bucks.
After 2013 rolls around, it would not surprise me at all if the China-made Squier Bullet Strat had a 40% price increase from $129 to $180 due to new import tariffs that would be imposed no matter who is President.
Think it can't happen? You just watch.
If you've got your eye on a China-made guitar right now - any China-made guitar - I strongly suggest you buy now before the end of the US Presidential election. The message has been sent loud and clear that cheap Chinese stuff is going to come to an end very quickly once 2013 starts.
And yes, this extends beyond guitars into effects, electronics and literally anything else that's made in China right now. Get it while it's cheap, because after 2012, it's game over and the prices will go up sharply.
On a final note, yeah I could be wrong and the prices of China-made imported stuff may remain the same... but I seriously doubt it.
capricorn one
If you like conspiracy theory inspired movies, then this film is definitely one you should watch.
Capricorn One is a movie released in June 1978 that surprisingly holds up pretty well even now. Yeah, there are a few parts where you can totally see 1970s style, but fortunately the story is good enough where that doesn't bother you too much.
This movie is directly inspired from people who firmly believe the Apollo moon landings between 1969 and 1972 never happened. As said above, this flick was released in 1978, just a scant 6 years after the last moon mission (Apollo 17) in '72, so the idea of, "Were the moon landings fake?" was still a very fresh idea in the minds of many.
In Capricorn One, they're not going to the moon but rather to Mars, and the whole story of the film is about how the government faked the whole thing, and the astronaut's attempt to escape and not be killed by government agents. In an interview, the director openly admitted some of the lines were directly lifted from what the real astronauts actually said on their moon missions, and then changed them slightly to fit his movie. In effect, he was saying in so many words that the movie almost wrote itself.
But is it a good movie? For entertainment value, yeah it's great. But from a critical point of view, there are a lot of flaws.
And don't worry, what I'll say here doesn't give away the story.
Sort-of plot hole: The astronauts didn't understand sooner that no matter what, the government was going to eliminate them because they would have been too dangerous to keep alive. I call this a "sort-of" plot hole because it could have been they were just playing along until they figured out the best course of action to take, but then later on, one says "We're dead!" even though that was very obvious much earlier.
Plot hole: When Caulfield gets shot at, we never know who the gunman is, why he's there, why he only took one shot, purposely missed and didn't kill him, and then stole his car... big hole there.
Plot hole: You never have a good idea of how fast or slow time is passing in the desert scenes, nor do truly have any idea how far the men have traveled across it.
Weirdness: The Hollis Peaker character, while funny.. what's he doing there? What's his purpose?
Weirdness: What the hell is the relationship between Caulfield and Judy supposed to be? I think the only reason for Judy's character was just so that Karen Black could be written in the movie, because she is listed in the credits as a "special appearance". Didn't do anything for the movie. She was annoying.
Weirdness: Who is the main character? That's never really answered. It leans towards Caulfield a lot, however we don't meet him until almost 25 MINUTES into the movie.
Unrealistic: The air battle scene (which is all I can say about it without giving anything away) is just... there's no way that could happen in real life. But it's VERY entertaining. :)
Okay, that's the bad stuff. There's more but that would take forever to write out.
The good stuff is that from a conspiracy theorist's point of view, it's a good watch. From an entertainment perspective, it's also a good watch. There are several scenes where things get really tense and keeps things going along (even though the pacing is frickin' awful). Even with all the holes, it's still enjoyable.
My biggest complaint.. is the ending. I won't say what it is, but I will say that you totally want the story to continue. You want to see something happen after that. But you don't and never will. The way the movie ends leaves you dangling. I would have even accepted a few on-screen paragrahs after the fade the black, like "So-and-so arrived at so-and-so, stuff happened and the world was never the same... One year later, [this guy] was fired, [that guy] answered for his crimes..." etc., etc. You get the idea. How I wish that was put in there, but it didn't happen.
Here's are my the guesses as to why the movie ended like it did.
A) The director wanted to end the movie leaving the audience to speculate what happened afterward (which didn't work at all).
B) The production cost was way too high at that point and there wasn't enough money to complete the film properly.
C) The director simply didn't know how to end the movie.
I'm going with a combo of B and C.
Aside from the sloppy writing and bad ending, it's still good.
The most entertaining scene? The air battle, no question. And Telly Savalas is a RIOT during those scenes too. Laugh-out-loud funny stuff there mixed in with good action. Totally unrealistic action, but who cares? It's still great.
I liked the movie and it's a fun trip into escapism for a while, which after all are what movies are all about.