My now-vintage Squier Stratocaster
I own a 1989 Squier II Stratocaster. It's my first guitar and now 25 years old. That's vintage. Today, you don't need vintage to get vintage tone as Squier makes brand new guitars like these that totally capture what vintage Strats are supposed to sound like.
Being that cars over 25 years old in most parts of America qualify for "historic" license tags (meaning vintage), the same can be applied to guitars as well. If what you have is over 25 years old and still works properly, then yes, it's vintage.
And yeah, that means I have been playing guitar for 25 years.
What have I learned in 25 years of playing?
It would take a very long time to state everything I've learned, so instead I'll make a few points. It's still long but worth the read. Or at least I think so.
Single-coil pickup guitars have the best "personality"
I play nothing but guitars with single-coil pickups in them. I've tried many from skinny Strat coils to P90s to Jazzmaster big-and-beefy. All are great in their own way.
Humbuckers for me have a personality I just don't agree with. Every guitar I've owned with humbuckers in it was nothing I ever got particularly excited about. No, I'm not saying humbuckers are bad. I'm saying I find much more enjoyment out of the single-coil.
Fender design is my favorite
I've bounced around different brands of guitars over the years, but always go back to Squier. And of course, Squier is part of Fender Musical and the only company permitted to copy Fender designs. So in essence, if you play Squier, you're a "Fender guy" because they are Fender designs.
But that doesn't mean I like all Fender designs...
I don't like the Telecaster
Strats I can get along with. The Jazzmaster I totally love, and love that offset-waist body so much I might even pick up a short-scale Jaguar later.
As for the Telecaster, nope. I owned one very briefly (the Thinline model). Played great, looked great, sounded great, but I enjoy the Jazzmaster so much more.
Telecasters have their place. But they do nothing for me.
Playing nothing but metal is stupid
I used to play nothing but metal. Metal, metal, metal all day long. I played metal so much that I bought a Schecter C-1, put away the Strat and didn't touch it for years.
Then I broke out the Strat again and started playing things other than metal. And I liked it. A lot.
I sold the Schecter, went through a bunch of Squier guitars and ended up with the Jazzmaster as mentioned a moment ago. I do not regret selling that Schecter one bit.
Want to advance as a guitar player? Stop playing metal because it's limiting what you can learn.
Playing nothing but cover songs is stupid
There was a time when I wasn't playing anything of my own. Most guitar players are the same way where they will play everyone else's stuff and nothing else.
It's fine to play other people's stuff to learn, but eventually you have to start coming up with your own riffs and songs.
There are some guitar guys on YouTube who play cover songs (of course) and brag about getting every single note correct by stating it in the title of the video. What a total waste of time that is. They basically treat the song they're covering like a game, where if they hit every note exactly perfect, they "win". Sorry, but you're not a winner when you do that, you're a copier. All you're showing anyone is that you know how to copy things well. That's not impressive at all, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just fooling themselves.
It's cool to learn other people's songs. But if that's all you do, it's time to start writing your own stuff.
When I started coming up with my own stuff, I really started advancing as a player.
It is 100% OK to drown your guitar in effects if you think it sounds better
One of the funniest things I've read in internet comments is how guitar guys say that anyone who uses any guitar effects of any kind is "cheating".
There are no rules to how your guitar should sound. None at all. If you want to add in delay, do it. If you want to add in reverb, do it. If you want to add in phaser, flanger, octave, wah or whatever else you have, DO IT without apologizing for it. And if anyone gives you any crap about using effects, ignore them.
Guitar snobs believe that an electric guitar should be nothing but the guitar itself and the amp. To hell with those idiots.
The fact the electric guitar can have so many different effects applied to it is what makes it FUN. Yeah, fun. Remember that? Remember how the fun factor is the reason you play guitar to BEGIN WITH?
On certain songs I write, I will purposely drown the guitar in effects and not think twice about it. Why? Because it sounds cool, that's why.
Every guitar purist snob I've ever known who complains about how other players use guitar effects is a crappy player himself; that's why I pay no attention to what the snobs say, because they're all 100% wrong.
Use effects because they're great. Get a Pandora Mini or a Pandora Stomp. Both are loaded with TONS of effects for hours of experimenting with - and you will. Or if you want to go really dirt cheap, get the DigiTech RP55. The RP55 has a built-in drum machine by the way and 27 effects. Wah, compressor, noise gate, chorus, flanger, phaser, pitch shift, vibrato/rotary, delay, reverb, etc. It's all in there. If you want one with a rocker pedal for wah/volume-rocking, get the RP255 instead.
Need something really, really cheap? Get the Behringer VD400 Delay pedal. The delay effect is probably what you'll find useful more than anything else, and that pedal is as cheap as you can get if you're really strapped for cash but want a cool effect.
Whatever you get for multi-effects, get it and have fun with it. Don't do that guitar snob crapola. Not worth it. And boring.
Record in the cheapest, fastest, least-hassle way and just get it done
If you read my blog at all, you know I use a ZOOM R8. It has everything. Yes, everything. You don't even need separate effects because it's all built-in to the unit, along with a drum machine and built-in microphones for quick vocal tracks. The R8 is so loaded with so much awesomeness that I can't say enough good things about it.
I made my personal goal to record things very, very fast while still sounding pretty good. And for the most part I think I pull that off nicely.
When I have an idea for a song, all I do is set a tempo, arm a track and hit record. That's it, and the idea is put into the R8. I don't even plug into an amp because what's in the R8 is good enough. I also have my DigiTech GSP1101 plugged directly into it as well. And yeah, that's an expensive unit, but in all honesty the RP255 can do almost everything the GSP1101 can (and had I known that before buying the GSP1101, I would have bought the RP255 instead and saved a bunch of money).
But anyway, I have my recording rig set up in such a way where all I have to do is dial in the guitar sound I want, set a tempo and record. Done and done - and fast.
Rarely do I ever encounter the "What was that riff I played yesterday...?" thing. When I'm just noodling around on my guitar, when I come up with something I think is cool, I put the riff down right then and there because it's all set up and ready-to-go.
Am I done learning?
No. I'm still learning new things on guitar. Recently I've been messing around with Dorian scales, and that's something I haven't used before.
The way I see it, when you stop learning, you stop playing. So I never intend to stop learning.
I'm not saying I learn something new every time I pick up the guitar. Not at all. But I do try different things often because it's interesting.
I still have fun playing guitar, and I'm glad I still have my first electric. I don't play it often (mainly to preserve it), but that guitar has been with me for 25 years.
Will it still be playable in another 25? I've no idea. Hopefully it will be. :-)
ZOOM R8 review
Back in October 2013 I bought a ZOOM R8, have been recording with it for the past few months, and this is the update on how it's fared out so far.
The bad stuff
Failure rate?
Nothing has failed on the unit at all. Everything works just like it's supposed to.
Feels cheap?
The only time the R8's plastics feel cheap is specifically with the four small toggle switches at top left of the unit, which you can see in the above photo. That is literally the only part of the R8 that feels subpar. Otherwise, every hard button has a nice resounding click to it, every pad button feels fine, every slider works properly and the scroll wheel jogs properly without issue.
If the four toggles were made the same was as the power switch on the back (which does feel correct), it would be perfect.
Fortunately, those four toggle switches are what you use the least on the R8, so it's not like you use them often. But I can definitely tell that as the unit ages, it will be one of those toggle switches that will fail first.
Hidden features either not found in the manual or buried so deep you would never find them
There are a few things about the R8 which are in fact very cool but aren't mentioned in the manual or barely mentioned.
An example of this is setting a guitar delay effect repeat rate to the tempo and not to the millisecond.
This sounds confusing, but once you start using this feature it is amazing what you can do with it.
Let's say you set a tempo of 120 beats per minute. Then you arm a track for guitar recording. You press EFFECT, enable effects, go to MOD/DELAY, select a delay and enable that.
I wanted to see how much delay time the R8 was capable of, and I found it supports up to 2 seconds, which the R8 reports as 2000ms.
But then I found something else after I went past 2000ms.
You can set the delay to follow the tempo, as in follow the metronome in whole notes, eighth notes, quarter notes and so on.
VERY, VERY USEFUL. This means you can set the delay to exactly what the tempo of the song is for exact-match slap-back style or "dreamy" style delay effects. This also means you DO NOT have to do any math to look up what the millisecond delay time should be for exact-match to a tempo because the R8 can totally do it for you, and does it well.
Oh, and guess what else? You can exact-match the same thing for the tremolo effect. HOW COOL IS THAT?
I list this as "bad" because it is barely mentioned in the manual. I found this totally by accident. Glad I did.
The good stuff
I'm very surprised anyone who records at home doesn't own an R8. Actually, I'm not surprised because the R8 is marketed totally wrong. If more musicians knew what this thing could do, they'd go buy one in a second.
The R8 is without question the best budget multi-track recording unit that exists. Nothing out there even comes close to what it can do for the price it sells for. It's also a million times more convenient than dragging around a laptop - especially since it can run on AA batteries.
Here's an example scenario of how good the R8 is:
You're at home and come up with an idea for a song. You insert a drum track (the R8 has its own drum machine built-in), follow along and record two guitar tracks. One rhythm and one lead. Did you need any external effects or amps? No. The R8 has all that built-in.
After than you pop in batteries and take the R8 to the singer's house. Can that singer plug right in? Yep, because the R8 has two ports that accept 1/4-inch or XLR. Record the vocal tracks, done. Did the singer forget or break his mic? No problem. Use the R8's internal microphones instead for a quick fix.
After that, run over to the bass player's house, have him plug in, same thing. Record and done, done, done.
After that, mix, master, record and you've got THE WHOLE THING ready-to-go. Export a master WAV, convert to MP3 on the computer and that's it.
And yeah, the R8 remembers where you set the faders for each project saved. It's also a can't-go-wrong environment, because the moment you turn if off, even if accidentally, it auto-saves what you were doing.
If the batteries run low, no problem. The R8 detects when the batteries are low, will auto-save, then power off (with a warning of course).
When I say the R8 is a can't-go-wrong thing, I'm not kidding.
A lot of thought and effort went into the R8's design.
The only real problem with it other than the "bad" stuff I mentioned above is that yes, you will have to dig through menus to get certain things done (usually with setting effects). But other than that, the R8 is as good as it gets for what it is.
Recently I tried my first punch-in/punch-out with the R8. Super-easy. Every time I try something new with the R8 I'm just amazed at what it can do in such a small size.
Could you record a whole band with just the R8?
Yes, but only if the tracks were recorded separately. And that's only because the R8 has just two inputs, so it can only record 2 simultaneous tracks at a time.
If you want a unit that can record up to 8 simultaneous tracks, you get an R16. That thing can absolutely record a full band live with no problem at all.
But like I said, if the band doesn't mind recording their tracks individually, yes the R8 can definitely record a whole band, and easily.
Better than a DAW?
This is actually were the R8 shines the most.
The R8 is primarily marketed as an interface rather than a multi-track recording unit. Yes, the R8 easily connects via USB and easily acts as a proper DAW controller. But it can also totally hold its own as a standalone multi-track recording unit as well.
Put simply, you get the best of both worlds. The R8 acts as a proper controller for DAW use, and as a proper standalone recorder.
For DAW use, it's great because of the easy access to 1/4-inch/XLR ports and manually adjustable faders.
For standalone use, it's great because it is so much easier than lugging around a laptop.
DAWs are meant to be used in controlled environment and have a tough time being used portable-style. The R8 on the other hand can easily flip-flop between being used in a controlled environment or in any other location.
I'll say it like this:
In the band rehearsal spot, using a DAW would totally suck, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. You take a DAW out of its controlled environment and into the rehearsal spot, and the idiot trying to get a good recording out of the thing simply won't be able to do it. WAY too complicated for something that should be simple.
Using an R8 in the rehearsal spot on the other hand is ridiculously easy. You can place it right on the floor and not worry about it getting damaged. Plug in the instruments direct, or just output the mixing board to the unit, mash record and go.
Can you "fix" files later from the R8? Sure can. Every audio file is stored as a standard uncompressed WAV. So if you're the type that likes to edit raw audio files in post-production later, you can with the R8 because the WAVs will be there.
Better than a Tascam?
Without question, yes - except for one thing. The DP-008 is physically smaller than the R8 is because it doesn't have faders on it (just knobs). And it's also true that the "smallest usable multi-track" award definitely goes to the DP-004. You simply can't beat that for size. Yeah, there are smaller units, but the Tascam offerings are much more usable and have a very small learning curve to them.
If you are really tight on space and need super-small but super-usable, you get a Tascam DP, as you can chuck a DP-008 in a backpack easily and not worry about it. As for the DP-004's size, that thing is almost small enough to fit in your pocket. Crazy-small, but very convenient.
Could you chuck an R8 in a backpack and would it fit? Yes, but you'd have to wrap it in a towel first to avoid the faders from getting damaged.
There are several things that make an R8 better than a Tascam DP. The R8 has real faders, has a built-in drum machine, has both 1/4-inch and XLR input, many more effects, writes data to proper WAV files and not the proprietary crapola that Tascam uses, uses the full capacity of any SD card instead of that partitioning nonsense the Tascam does, and so on.
I owned a DP-008 before the R8, and can say with 100% confidence that I should have bought the R8 first. I had no problems with the DP-008, but it doesn't have anywhere near as many features as the R8 does.
Best budget multi-track recorder?
As I said above, yes it is.
The only thing that would make the R8 better - and bear in mind this is really splitting hairs here - is if the R8 had some way to connect wirelessly to a phone or a laptop via Bluetooth. With the wireless feature, you could transfer projects to and from a phone or a laptop without having to mess around with any wires.
True, project files are big as they are raw WAVs, and it would take a while to transfer them. Bluetooth would still be a nice-to-have thing. But not necessary.
Go get an R8 here. You can't do any better for this size. If you need more features and the ability to record up to 8 things simultaneously at once, get the R16 instead.
Squier 60th Anniversary Classic Vibe '50s Stratocaster
The new model in the barn from the Squier camp for early 2014 is the Squier 60th Anniversary Classic Vibe Stratocaster.
Now to note, Squier in my experience does not have any sort of regular release dates when it comes to new guitar models. The 60th anniversary Strat is the only new model in 2014 for now, as we could see several new models sprout up later this year.
Anyway, on to the nitty gritty of the guitar.
Yes, it has the same Aztec Gold finish seen on the ritzy Fender American Vintage '65 Jazzmaster offered in the same color. I recognized the color the moment I saw it, because if I ever were to buy a '65 Jazz reissue, it would be in the gold color.
If you're wondering why this particular Strat has a maple and not a rosewood fingerboard, it's because it's a 50s model. Anything labeled as a "50s" always uses maple board since rosewood board wasn't a standard feature until the 1960s.
Unlike a 50s model however, even for Squier, it has a 3-ply white/black/white pick guard. This is actually a good thing because a solid white pick guard would look ugly on the Aztec Gold finish.
Body is alder, the neck has 21 medium jumbo frets, a modern C shape with a gloss polyester finish on the back, and a 9.5-inch radius fingerboard on the front.
Pickups are described as "Custom Vintage-Style Single-Coil Strat" with no mention of what magnet type. Indeterminate whether ceramic or AlNiCo (aluminum/nickel/cobalt). However, it is assumed the set has AlNiCo III magnets in them, which basically means a "spanky" and bright tone.
Bridge is 6-screw style with what appear to be bent steel saddles, arguably the most custom part of the guitar - more on that in a moment.
It does have the laser-engraved "1954-2014, 60 Years" wording on the neck plate.
White plastic parts are aged white, which works well with the gold.
And speaking of gold, all exposed metal parts are gold-colored. Tuners, bridge, output jack and even the pick guard screws are all colored gold.
Out of everything that makes this Strat worth something, the gold bridge with gold tremolo arm, and gold saddles with black saddle height adjustment screws are worth the most.
To get all that gold stuff is not cheap if you were to do it yourself, and in fact would be next to impossible to find Squier replacement parts for once this guitar goes out of production. It's not the quality of the parts that makes them valuable, it's their rarity.
At some point a few years later (maybe even less than 5 years), someone is going to buy one of these where some of the gold stuff has been removed as an "upgrade", and that's when the gold-colored 60th anniversary parts will skyrocket in price. Remember, Fender bridge parts usually never fit Squier bodies, so it's "Squier or nothing" when it comes to replacements. And it's not like you can call Fender for the replacements, because they won't have them since it's a foreign-built guitar.
Ever see a Squier bridge sell for $200? You will in just a few years for this specific guitar because gold-colored-anything for Squier guitars is next to impossible to find.
If you buy this guitar and decide to switch out anything, keep all the original hardware, because that's what makes this guitar valuable more than anything else.
Yeah, it is a bit on the high side for a Squier axe, but then again, it is a 60th anniversary model.
cartoons then vs. cartoons now
When you use Netflix with a web browser, there's a lot more ability to sort through what you want, and part of that includes the ability not only to sort by genre, but also by subgenre, and then year released from newest to oldest.
For the heck of it I went to the "Children & Family > TV Cartoons" category. While true Netflix is missing a ton of stuff (no Smurfs?), you can really see how things have changed.
When I viewed the very last row of titles, the oldest in the Netflix database, I knew every one of those. Or rather, I knew of them.
Of what was in that row, the three I remember watching as a kid were Transformers, Voltron and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
The others, Jem, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and Star Trek: The Animated Series were not shows I watched regularly as a kid (especially since 'Trek was before I was born). I did watch the 'Trek toon later as an adult. But to date I've never watched a full episode of Jem or G.I. Joe. As for why I didn't watch Jem, that should be obvious. As for why I didn't watch G.I. Joe, I was just never interested in it.
Then there are the cartoons today. Some of them were My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Adventure Time, Scooby-Doo!: Mystery Incorporated, Wild Kratts and Transformers Prime.
Before continuing, yes I am aware of the whole brony thing with the My Little Pony crapola. And no, I have never watched a single episode of MLP:FIM and never intend to because it's a children's television cartoon for little girls. 'Nuff said there.
The first thing I notice with today's cartoons is that there has been a night-and-day difference in animation style, primarily due to computer technology. Today, cartoons which feature computer animation use a hybrid of both hand-drawn and digital, whereas before everything was hand drawn.
The second thing I notice is that today's animations are a lot faster and jerkier. This is again due to computer technology. It is possible - and easy - for animators now to get very precise movements even from the smallest on-screen thing. That, and kids today all watch cartoons in crystal-clear HD, whereas when I was a kid we were all watching tube-type television sets.
The third thing I noticed, which is a surprise to me, is how long certain franchises have lasted.
Just about every popular cartoon from when I was a kid is still running today. Scooby-Doo in particular is one that's just weird because that's even before my time, as it spans all the way back to 1969. The original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! did start that year. That's crazy, but true. This means Scooby-Doo is literally over 45 years old.
Many cartoon franchises today are reboots. A few are done right, but most are done horribly wrong. An example of one done so wrong it literally wasn't funny whatsoever was Garfield: The Movie from 2004. I never saw that movie because even the preview of it creeped me out. Garfield was not meant to look real. Ever. He is also not meant to talk. Ever. But yep, that turd of a movie exists. The horror. Oh, the horror.
Oh, and guess what else is getting ruined? Peanuts. The world's favorite comic strip will be destroyed forever. It's happening next year. And I know it will be awful. I will not watch it. No way. Not happening. I will not have Peanuts ruined for the rest of my life. It's bad enough that The Smurfs movies exist (which are just as bad as the Garfield movie if not worse for their creepy factor). It's bad enough that The Transformers were ruined...
...but now they're going after Charlie Brown himself.
Good Grief.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before it happened. If you were to think of the one thing... the one thing that should not be touched no matter what, it's Peanuts. You simply do not mess with that. But not only will it be messed with, it will be totally destroyed. In 3D, of course.
Well, after it happens, one thing will be true. The bottom will have been hit, because there is no lower to go after that.
It should be no wonder why adults hate reboots of old franchises.
Anyway, like I said, there are good reboots and bad reboots with most being bad.
From what I can see on Netflix, yeah there are a lot of new 'toons for kids to watch, and that's good. But it's also polluted by a crapload of reboots.
There are enough new ideas out there to sweep away the old and bring in the new. How many frickin' times must something be rebooted before it's put out to pasture? I guess the answer to that is, "If there's even a chance that rehashing an old, tired idea will make money, we're doing it no matter how bad we mess it up."
Kinda sad.
The lower end 2014 Gibson USA Les Paul line - which to get?
While I'm not a Les Paul player, I was happy to see Gibson dropping their prices for several USA models for 2014. In this article I'm concentrating on the first 6 of them from lowest-to-highest in price.
Yes, there are more than 6 models, but I'm sticking with the first 6 because that's what most people can afford. With that said, here we go.
Gibson Melody Maker - this guitar is the perfect upgrade to anyone who owns an Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90 now, because it's the same guitar with more features. Same wraparound bridge, same color, but with the addition of more controls and a proper pickup selector on top instead of the bottom.
When you want a guitar that is the same type of P90 setup as the Epiphone with the same style bridge in a Gibson version, you literally cannot do any better than the '14 Melody Maker.
Gibson LPJ - the best part about this Gibson is that it has both right and left-handed versions available. For lefty players, this is your 'Paul.
Several colors are available, but the best one is the gold top because it matches the black-covered pickups best. And yes, all LPJ models to the best of my knowledge all have those black pickup covers. If you're wondering if the pickup set is "hot", yes it is. The pair is a 490R and a 498T.
Gibson LPM - the pickup set in this one is new for '14, and it's called the '61 Zebra Humbucker. I have no idea what it sounds like, but I assume since "61" is in it, it's supposed to lean more towards classic rock "growl" of sorts, and that's not a bad thing.
The "M" is for Min-ETune, meaning yes, this guitar has the robot tuners on it. I consider this a novelty at best. Nice to have, but in the end it's annoying because it's a part of the guitar where you have to periodically recharge the battery. For those wondering, yes, you can tune the guitar manually without wrecking the Min-ETune gears. The guitar wouldn't be worth much if you couldn't do that.
Gibson Futura - without question, my favorite 'Paul for 2014. The Inverness Green color option is damned gorgeous, the neck is correct with the 60s slim profile, and the pickup combo is killer, with a Burstbucker Pro in the bridge and a Sidewinder P90H humbucker in the neck. Yes, the neck pickup is a humbucker, although it doesn't look like it. It's called the Sidewinder because there are two coils non-stacked side-by-side inside the pickup casing.
This guitar also features a 15db boost and push/pull for tap when needed. All the awesome goods are in this particular axe. Not good for metal, but good for everything, and I mean everything else. Doesn't get much better than this.
And yes, the Inverness Green is both on the front and back, which is exactly how it should be. Gibson nailed this one right.
Gibson Les Paul Studio - this would be the best USA 'Paul for metal players because it has the 490R and 490T pickup combo along with orange drop capacitors in it.
Everything about this guitar is right except for one really, really annoying thing. The plastics.
The pick guard, pickup rings and poker chip (the plastic around the pickup selector switch) are what I describe as mustard-colored. If those plastics were proper aged white, this guitar would be perfect for most people. But that mustard-colored nonsense is an instant turnoff.
If you buy the '14 Studio, plan on spending a few extra bucks for replacement plastics, because believe me, you will hate that mustard color. And no, this is not one of those things where the photos make the guitar look bad. That plastic really does look that bad. Don't know what Gibson was thinking with that nonsense...
Gibson Les Paul Studio Pro - this is another one where Gibson got so close to getting this right but messed it up with the look, again with the plastics. If the pick guard, pickup rings and poker chip were aged white and the knobs gold, they could have nailed this one. But again, all that stuff can be replaced easily and for cheap.
With this one, the pickup set is a '57 Classic and a Burstbucker Pro, which is not as "hot" as the non-Pro Studio model above, but genuinely more usable for those who don't play metal all the time. The push/pull for coil split is on this one as well for when you want to get a Telecaster-like (sort of) sound out of it.
Rich's picks
My two picks are the Melody Maker and the Futura.
As for which I would go with, that's a tough call.
The Melody Maker has true real-deal P90s in it. Yes, that means they buzz (as in 60-cycle hum), but the spank you get out of those is amazing.
The Futura on the other hand has a look to die for, plus the slim 60s profile neck. I'd also find the 15db boost useful as well.
I'd probably go with the Futura because for me it has the most stuff I would find useful on a Les Paul. Definitely not as comfortable as the Melody Maker (it has a wraparound bridge while the Futura doesn't), but I'm pretty sure I'd like the neck better, and that's what would sell me on it more than anything else. That and the gloss Inverness Green (yes, it is a gloss). Supremely good looker.