burningyen

Interesting, I always assumed it was Roland, but a quick google search reveals it was Neil Taylor:

I did this back in high school on violin. It was a great experience. There's no good reason why I haven't done it again since.

So apparently the latest is Prince has apologized and will pay for repairs. Some are arguing that this incident might actually increase the value of the guitar, and they have a point. Not that that excuses any of it, of course.

See my earlier post. While it's plausible that a company might want to arrange something like this as a publicity stunt, I find it highly unlikely that Prince would play along if it were suggested to him.

I can still enjoy his music, but yeah, he has serious issues:

The hint of orange in Arnie's pic looks closer to what I recall AG looking like in person than what I see in the Willcutt's pics. I love the color, but why shell out big $$$ for a guitar that doesn't 100% do it for you? If you wait a couple months I'm sure something in a burst will pop up.

Sounds great to me. Everyone has their own style, but I like to mix so that the cymbals sound farther away.

After a show by Andy Summers at the Birdland (with Dennis Chambers and Darryl Jones, yikes!) I went up to shake his hand. I was pretty damn nervous. I managed to mumble something about him being the reason I became a guitarist (which is true), he looked really uncomfortable, said thanks, shook my hand, and then turned to chat with the next person in line. I felt like Chris Farley berating himself for saying something stupid to one of his interview guests.

Happy birthday, Greg!

I read over on TGP that some of them had intermittent power issues.

Yes, the necks are awesome. The only niggle I have is that fret sprout seems to be a common complaint, more than with other guitars.

IMHO the imports are about as good as Asian guitars get (I haven't tried the Suhr Rasmus line yet). Every import Rev I've picked up has been great.

Shit. I guess some things are too good to last. I'm glad most of the folks behind the brand are still doing their thing in their new capacities. And there are other guitar makers out there providing instruments at Hamer's level, albeit not necessarily at the quality-for-the-price ratio that Hamer used to offer in its heyday.

I strongly suggest that your backup method should use the same speaker (or at least a similar speaker type) as your primary gig rig. So if you're a tube amp user, bring a backup head/Power Block/44 Magnum to run into your speaker. I would only recommend a backup modeler if you bring your own monitor, which probably means your primary rig is a modeling rig too. I used to keep a POD in my gigbag to back up my Bruno amps, but the one time I had to rely on it (the Bruno was DOA during soundcheck), the house PA and monitors sounded SO horrible I couldn't bring myself to do it. I had to hightail it to my bandmate's apartment, grab his BFDR and bring it back to the club. That was not a fun moment.

Any non-custom Hamer after 1999 should have a fairly meaty neck carve. I'm not a fan of Bigsbies, but if you can get used to how they change the string tension they can be made to work decently. I found the Newport to have quite a bit more twang than a 335. I'm not familiar with the HBii, though, so I can't compare against that.

I have 4 electric guitars, and they're all single-coil.

Not sure what you mean. When I used an amp and pedals, I didn't have to supply a mic and a monitor. I left the miking to the venue and preferred not to have my guitar in my monitor anyway. With my current rig, I bring my own dedicated monitor (QSC K10) and plug my modeler directly into it. A lot more time than I did with my old discrete pedals. As I mentioned, the modeler gives me more choices, more FX and parameters to tweak. It also lets me practice through headphones late at night, so I have a bit more time to play, which inevitably leads to more time messing with settings. But at rehearsals and gigs, since I have everything set up as patches I don't have to bend down and twiddle knobs from song to song like I used to. My RP355 has 32 amp sims, 18 cabs, and 74 FX. That's more variety than I will ever use. And for my particular playing situation (Pink Floyd tribute), it gets me much closer to the tones I'm aiming for than my old very well-stocked pedalboard (Retro-Sonic, D*A*M, Hartman, Skreddy, Voodoo Lab, etc.) and Bruno CT45. I can't fit a Hiwatt stack, a rotating speaker cab, an EMT 240 plate reverb and a pedalboard with a Dyna-Comp, Phase 90, Big Muff, Univibe, Electric Mistress, and 3 different delays into the trunk of a taxi. But the RP355 emulates each one of those things, and even though it doesn't 100% nail them, it gets close enough that the net effect is much better than what I used to get with my old rig.

My modeler gives me a ton more options than my old amp and pedals rig, so in that sense more choice has created more complexity. But my physical rig is simpler, lighter and more compact than it used to be: guitar->tuner->modeler->monitor vs. guitar->tuner->compressor->phaser->fuzz->OD->flanger->tremolo->volume pedal->delay->reverb->amp

I saw Psy in concert a few years ago when I was visiting my parents in Seoul. There was always more substance to his music than what you typically see in K-pop, but never in a million years would I have guessed he would get this big. BTW, there's more to the song if you want to read more into it: Gangnam Style, Dissected: The Subversive Message Within South Korea's Music Video Sensation.

Oh man, chills just reading that. Get well soon, Bill.

I was actually more making a reference to our ever-shortening collective cultural memory, but mortality works just as well.

No one will remember anyone in 50 years.

Sucks being born in '71. I guess there are some great Teles from that year.

The issue was intonation.