Prepper tip: Know how to use Garmin intersection search
This is a feature of every Garmin nuvi and Drive model (DriveSmart, DriveAssist, etc.). You've probably never used it. But if the GPS signal cuts out and doesn't work, or the GPS grid ever fails, this will come in very handy and get you where you need to go.
What you will need to know are three things. How to put the GPS into simulation mode, knowing what state you are in, and how to perform an intersection search. (This should work in other countries but I'm in the USA.)
Before getting into that, a question answered:
What's the point of knowing this?
Example situation: You're driving around somewhere unfamiliar, and the GPS signal cuts out. You don't know why. It just stopped working. The Garmin itself still runs fine, but it's getting no signal whatsoever. Something happened and you can't get a signal back. You grab your phone to use its navigation. Same problem. No GPS signal. Uh-oh. Now you're lost...
...except you're not. With intersection search, all you need to do is find where two roads meet, read the street names, and that info is enough to get you directions from where you are.
If that doesn't make sense, it will in a moment.
Let's try this out
Putting a Garmin GPS into simulation mode is easy to do as it is just one checkbox. The menu option is called "GPS Simulator". You can locate where it is via Tools or Settings. From there, it will usually be located under the submenu System or Navigation. When checked, the GPS antenna is turned off. When unchecked, the GPS antenna is on. Simple enough to understand.
Intersections (which is the intersection search) will either be on the Where To? screen or from Categories on most Garmin models. If it's on the Categories screen, you may have to scroll down quite a bit to find it, but it's there.
If you have checked GPS Simulator and have found where Intersections is, you're ready for the next step.
Step 1: Touch Intersections and choose your state.
You may see more than one state listed. Choose the state you are in. If you do not see the state you are in, click the button at bottom to type out the state where you are and select it, then proceed to the next step.
Step 2: Enter street 1 and street 2 to find the intersection in the Garmin.
The way this works were it used in a real life situation is to drive until you find an intersection where you can read both street names. Find the nearest safe place next to that intersection and park.
Enter the first street into the Garmin, then enter the second street. Most of the time you don't even need the full street name. For example, within Florida I simply entered Calder for the first street and Busch for the second street, and the Garmin found it:
If the intersection is found, touch the information icon (you can see this above, it's either labeled as a letter i in a circle, or the word "info").
On the next screen, touch "Set Location" to instruct the Garmin that yes, this is the intersection where you are right now:
Once you do this, you can then go to your Favorites or Saved locations and get directions - BUT - when you choose a location you want to navigate to, there are still a few more steps to take. Don't worry, this is easy.
When you choose a location you want to navigate to, the Garmin will ask if you want to simulate driving the route. Choose NO. After that, on the map, touch the top bar on the map screen (it's usually green) and you will be presented with a list of directions. This will be a list you can scroll up and down...
...and that's what you use to get wherever you're going. The GPS won't give you turn-by-turn instructions since there is no GPS signal, but you will have a list of directions from the intersection where you are to the destination.
This is basically the same as if you printed out directions on paper, except it's on the Garmin's screen.
If when following the directions you get lost again, not a problem. Just find another intersection and repeat the instructions above.
A few more questions answered
"Wouldn't it just be easier to know the address of where you are and use that as the starting point instead?"
Yes, of course it would. But if you're in unfamiliar territory and need to stop somewhere to get the address of a place, getting the info isn't exactly easy. Stop at any gas station and ask the clerk what the address of the store is. He won't know.
With intersections, the info you need is printed directly on the signs. Much easier.
"What if I'm on the interstate? What then?"
There are obviously no intersections there, so you have to exit the interstate highway and find one so you can get the info you need and punch that into the Garmin.
"What if the intersection isn't found in the Garmin?"
This usually only happens with highway roads, as in roads that are highways but not interstates that go by name or highway number. In this instance, find an intersection in a residential area instead where the streets are names-only, and that should be found in the Garmin map database easily.
"Should I cross reference the Garmin directions with a road atlas?"
While you should always carry a road atlas in your car, cross referencing one wouldn't help much, if at all.
Let's say you have to go get a thing, and that thing is located in a place about a half-hour away. It's a place you've never been to before. You go there, get the thing, and on the way back home, that's when the navigation stops working. At that point, you figure you're only a half-hour away, so surely you can find your way back. Nope. All these roads are unfamiliar and you end up going the wrong way... which of course you won't realize until driving that wrong way for 20 minutes.
A road atlas won't help you here. What you need is a set of directions that says "Go that way". Find an intersection, get your directions, and then you're good.
Is a capo safe to use on an electric guitar?
Let's find out if this is true or not.
Many moons ago I was told by somebody (I honestly don't remember whom) that you should never put a capo on an electric guitar. Why? I wasn't told that part. But gosh darn it, you'd better not do it or bad things will happen.
Is this true? No. Or to be more specific, using a capo on an electric guitar neck is only bad (somewhat) in a very specific situation which I will explain in a moment.
Use the right capo
On the electric guitar, it is required to use a capo made for steel strings and not made for nylon strings.
Most capos can support both nylon and steel strings. But if the capo is specifically made for nylon strings, chances are the capo spring won't be strong enough to hold steel strings down to the fret. The reason for this is that since nylon strings hardly require any pressure to hold them down, only a lighter capo spring is required. With steel, more pressure is needed, hence the need for a stronger capo spring.
When shopping around for a capo, the product listing should state up front what type of strings it will support.
If you want something that will absolutely work on an electric, use what I use, the G7th Performance Capo. It will hold strings down on an electric without buzzing all over the place. I've had mine for years, and it still works just as good as the day I bought it.
Will a capo damage an electric guitar neck?
No.
Contrary to popular belief, it will not damage frets, not screw up the truss rod and not damage wood if you use one properly.
How to use one properly? Follow the same rules for capo use as you would on a steel string acoustic. Place the capo properly on the neck, don't squeeze it super-tight, avoid bending notes when the capo is in use, and always remove the capo when done playing.
The one instance where you shouldn't use a capo on an electric guitar is...
...when the neck is finished with nitro. More specifically, brand new nitrocellulose lacquer.
Guys that spend the extra cash on a nitro finished neck do want wear to happen, but only from the fret hand and not a capo. Use of a capo may result in premature undesirable marring of the nitro finish.
Yes, I am saying the entire reason to avoid capo use on an electric guitar with newly finished nitro is specifically to promote a more desirable look over time from fret hand wear only. Fret hand wear is the desirable wear, while wear from a capo is undesirable.
Acoustic guitar players that regularly use capos on new guitars with nitro necks will tell you capo use is 100% okay. True? Yes. But bear in mind they're all using necks with significantly darker woods. On electrics with light color necks (e.g. Fenders with maple necks), premature wear is a lot more obvious - especially on necks finished with nitro designed to wear quickly (e.g. Fenders with "thin skin" nitro).
In the end, it's all about appearance first. Use of a capo on a newly finished light color nitro neck may result in an undesirable look on the back of the neck over time.
If you really really care about the look (and let's face it, if you're dropping several thousand on a Fender "thin skin" nitro finish guitar, you do care), don't put a capo on it.
What neck finish handles the capo best on an electric?
Just about anything not nitro.
However, best-of-the-best would be gloss urethane just because it cleans up so easily and can take a ton of abuse.
Fortunately, most electric guitars do have gloss urethane finished necks, so chances are you already have the best neck finish for capo use.
My experience with capo use on an electric
I've never had a problem with it. My capo use has never resulted in wood damage, fret damage, finish damage or damage of any kind.
However, I do use a quality capo.
Ordinarily, it's true the word "quality" doesn't mean much where guitar stuff is concerned, but in this instance it actually does. Don't go cheap with your capo, because it won't hold the strings down properly, lose its position periodically and quickly become annoying to use.
It is worth it to spend extra on a better capo. Again, I've been using the same one for years. Originally, I thought I spent way too much when I originally purchased the one I did, but it's lasted the test of time and still works great, so I have no complaints.
Guitar and parts availability shortage predictions
Can you expect a shortage?
Yes, there will be a shortage. In fact, there is a shortage happening at the time I write this in early 2021. What will be difficult to acquire depends on what you're trying to buy.
I'm going to break this down into two categories, complete guitars and parts.
Complete guitars
What this means is the purchase of a fully assembled guitar, like the kind you buy in a guitar store.
In North America, guitars made in the USA, Canada and Mexico will actually still be plentiful. It's unlikely there will be any shortage of those.
However, for any guitar made outside of those territories, such as Korea, Indonesia and Japan, getting complete guitars may prove to be difficult.
Currently, there is existing stock. But once that stock runs out, getting new stock might not get back to normal until mid-2021.
Guitar parts
Necks and bodies will still be easy to acquire. Plastics (knobs, pick guards, nuts, etc.) will still be easy to acquire.
Metal hardware components and electronics however is a different story.
A whole bunch of things like potentiometers, tuners, bridges, pickups comes from outside North America.
Right now, these things aren't hard to get, but once again, that's because stock currently exists.
However, parts don't run out of stock like guitars do. Fully assembled guitars have a "shelf life" of sorts whereas parts really don't.
For example, if a completed guitar sits in storage for too long, it becomes unplayable and can't be sold. Parts on the other hand can sit in storage for several years and still be as good as the day they were made.
The only thing that really ruins metal hardware parts and electronics is corrosion/oxidation more than anything else. How soon that happens depends on metal type and whether it was treated with anti-corrosion solution or not.
Two more things to take into consideration is that it's rare there is ever a rush on guitar parts, and to the best of my knowledge, guitar parts are never manufactured using the just-in-time manufacturing method. (The car industry uses this method but it really doesn't work for guitar part manufacturing.)
What should you do?
If the guitar part is metal or if it's an electronic, manufactured outside North America and is still available for cheap, buy it now.
For everything else not metal or electronic, you don't have to buy now.
Pedals to make an electric guitar sound old timey
If you don't have the amp for this, pedals are available to help you out to get this sound.
What is old timey? In the world of music, any published song that is over 15 years old is considered an oldie. That technically means any song from 2006 at the time I write counts as oldie music.
However, when guitar players want an old timey sound, they're usually referring to decades much older than that. Specifically, the 1950s and 1960s.
It used to be all about the amp
In the 1950s, guitarists really didn't use pedals much, and instead used whatever effect the amp had installed in it. And yes, I said effect, as in single effect, because most amps didn't have multiple effects in them.
It wasn't really until the 1960s where pedals became a normal thing for guitarists.
Amp effects, generally speaking, were limited to four things. Reverb tank, tremolo, vibrato and rotary.
The reverb tank was just a spring in a box. Tremolo is in some respects was supposed to emulate the rotary effect, but ended up being it's own stutter-type sound (I talked about that recently). The rotary sound came from organs that had a rotating speaker for a wob-wob-wob-wob type of sound. Vibrato is a modulation effect that changes the pitch of the sound up, down, then back up again.
Then the '60s came...
The earliest effects as far as I'm aware were the fuzz box and the booster, but I believe those actually appeared before the '60s.
What absolutely did appear starting in the '60s was the envelope filter, as in the wah pedal.
Also during this era was the refinement of the delay effect. Now if you really want to get particular about this, technically the delay effect goes all the way back to the 1940s, as it came about shortly after magnetic tape players came into being.
However, what most guitarists agree is the "real" delay effect that really set the mark was the Echoplex from 1959. That was the unit that gave the guitarist fine control of delay speeds. And as the Echoplex was improved over time, it also introduced volume controls for dry signal and such. This effect was also one of the first that started as tube-type and then was later made as solid state.
The old timey effect checklist + one modern effect
I'll start with the modern effect first because this is kind of important.
Part of the old timey sound is a loud tube-type amp. The tubes when hot in combination with a loudspeaker that breaks up in a desirable way (like a Celestion) really brings together that nice old sound.
Obviously, you can't crank an amp up super loud all the time, so the next best thing for home recording is something I've mentioned many times before, compression. Get a compressor. No, it will not sound the same as an amp with white-hot tubes blaring a Celestion loudspeaker. But you can listen to it with headphones or your computer speakers.
After that, this is the old timey list:
- Booster
- Fuzz
- Rotary
- Vibrato
- Tremolo
- Tape Delay
- Wah
Let's go over each of these.
Booster can be emulated with a compressor and light overdrive/distortion. You probably already have an overdrive/distortion effect. All you need is the compressor.
Fuzz can't really be emulated with overdrive/distortion because it doesn't bring out the "fat" sound fuzz has. You'll have to buy one. Fortunately, fuzz can be had cheap.
Rotary is very difficult to get right, and not cheap at all. Some would say "Oh, just use a flanger, that works." No, it doesn't. A proper rotary effect needs active switching to emulate the speeding up and slowing down of the simulated rotating speaker, and has to do so in a way where it doesn't sound like a mess. Not easy. It is routine to see better rotary floor effects go for over $200 - especially for the ones that have stereo capability. Rotary is also something you can't just on/off. There's a process in learning how to use it right. It takes time. Nothing about rotary, even with modern pedals, is 100% automatic. There is a learning curve and that's just the way it is.
Vibrato is the effect you go for if you want that hippie-era '60s vibe. I'm not a fan of this effect, and most vibrato pedals sound like a warbly mess. And even on amps that had this effect originally, they didn't sound that great either.
I covered tremolo in detail here, and yes, get this. Very good effect to have, both for old timey and modern sounds.
Tape delay is weird because you can go cheap or super-expensive. There are many delays out there. For the old timey sound, all you need is something that has 300ms of delay time, which is all of them. You can go cheap with this.
Wah is an effect I both love and hate. Love the sound, love the control of the sound, hate the hardware. My favorite wah of all time is the VOX V847A, as it has notably more "growl" and "bite" compared to a Dunlop Crybaby. But I hate the maintenance involved. These pedals use lubricant for the pedal mechanism to work. That lubricant will dry up, so it's required to periodically take the pedal apart, clean it, and re-lube. I can't stand that.
There's only one solution to this: Use optical wah. The Morley PWO Power Optical Wah is such a pedal. No lube at all because it, obviously, uses optical tech to do what it does. No pots to wear out. No lubrication required. Great pedal. The only reason I've not bought one is because it's not cheap and never has been. But it is lower in price compared to the VOX V847A.
Can all this stuff be emulated with software?
With the rotary and wah effects, absolutely not.
For the other stuff, yes.
To get that absolute old timey vintage tone that covers all the bases, you really need that rotary and wah. The rotary has to be purpose-built to the task, and the wah has to be manual style with no software control.
Oh sure, there have been many attempts to emulate the rotary and wah in software, but they're all terrible.
The only question you have to ask yourself is if you need rotary and wah or not. If not, software may cover everything you need. But if it doesn't and you really want "the full set" of all the old timey sounds, spend some cash on that rotary and wah. Both are very nice to have.
Blue's Clues Learning Watch (it's kinda ridiculous)
Would I dare wear this thing in public?
The story behind this watch is that the special person this was given to didn't like it. I was then asked if I wanted it since I like watches. I said sure, why not. And of course I had to make a video above it, seen above.
Yes, this is a real watch. Expensive? Not at all. And surprisingly functional.
I'm going to mention a few things not covered in the video I made about it.
Let's talk about the manual. It is informative, but done somewhat backwards. What I mean by that is that I'm 100% certain none of the parents who buy this thing will know you can turn off "Try-Me" mode. The reason for this is because you have to dig into the manual just to find where that information is stated.
Why does this matter? No parent would think for one second that this thing can function as an actual watch. They'd just assume the Try-Me mode is the regular mode when in fact it isn't. Getting the watch out of Try-Me mode should be on the very first page. Instead, it's on page six.
When the watch is put to regular operating mode, then it can actually do watch things. It tells the time. It has a countdown timer. It has an hourly signal feature. It has an alarm. And it has other stuff.
Will the intended user (kids age 3 to 6) ever use these features? No. And this means none of the features will ever be used by anybody who ever gets this...
...which is kind of a shame, because I can tell whoever designed this thing really tried, succeeded, but also failed at the same time.
Where the wins happened: Correct volume (not too loud), button action is just right, display very legible, strap very comfortable and doesn't irritate the skin, very nice menu animations that are done right.
Where the fails happened: Everywhere else.
This watch is way too big for a 3-year-old. I have a 6.5" wrist and it fits me, a grown man. It shouldn't. This thing is gigantic. 42mm diameter and 30mm thickness with cover closed? This thing is a brick!
The menu system is cute and friendly, but way too complicated not only for kids but most adults. I'm positive that moms are never going to spend the time figuring out how to use this thing. It should be no more difficult to figure out than a Casio F-91W. That, or the menus need to be redesigned so that reading the manual is absolutely not required to figure it out.
I'll put it to you this way: This watch stumped me, and I know watches. When I first received it, I knew it had a watch function because of the right side clock button but could not figure out how to get it out of Try-Me mode. Only after getting the manual did I figure that out, which is why I put it in the video. Nobody would know how to do it otherwise.
No water resistance? For a kids watch? It says right in the manual that the watch can't handle being submerged in water at all. If you're going to make a product for child, it had better be able to handle water. This watch can't.
This needs to be repurposed as an adult watch
Even with all its flaws, I like this watch even though I'd never wear it in public.
If this were redesigned and repurposed, it would be a winner.
For example, if the case was black, buttons in gray, cover removed, external speaker removed, slimmed to a maximum 15mm height, had a straight strap (same material) that was slightly longer, front sticker removed, front OK button removed, games removed and had 30m water resistance...
...this would make for an excellent adult fashion watch. Quartz watches with matrix displays are cool, and I wish there were more of them around.
As a kid's watch, yeah I suppose it works only because kids don't care about watch functions at all. But all that function going to waste is such a shame.
Again, if it were redesigned and repurposed as a fashion watch, then it would be great.