thcraymer's forum posts 106

My view on this is, get an expensive guitar if you can afford one and don't want to do too much work on it (setup, mods, etc.), or if you want to splash out on something top quality. At the same time, even the cheapest guitar can look, feel, and sound great with the right setup and mods. Many of us can't afford a Gibson, or even a Fender for that matter (my most expensive guitar was a custom microtonal Strat which was $600, or rather $800 after shipping and import taxes, most of my others I got around $200, granted, around half of those I got used).

That said, one of my main guitars, the real veteran among them, is my Cort Les Paul, which I got for around $200 already used, over 10 years ago (nowadays they go for $400-500 new I think, roughly the same as an Epiphone). Over the years I also spent a fair amount of cash on upgrades such as changing the pickups, wiring, and adding a whammy bar, as well as some cosmetic changes, the mods cost more than the guitar itself (I'd estimate them to be around $3-400), but well worth it, as now I have an instrument that cost a total of $5-600 and can compete with others at least twice the price (if not more), and is customised to all my needs.

What I will say though, is that rather than investing in an expensive guitar, if you have some money to spend on one or the other, invest in an amp. You can have the top quality Gibson, but through a crappy amp it'll either sound thin or muddy. However, if you're running a $200 guitar through a top quality amp, it'll sound better than ever! A guitar only ever sounds as good as the amp or sound system it's plugged into

Thanks so much, glad you liked it :D "Burning Star" was quite an emotional song for me, I wrote it at a difficult time in my life (in fact I went through a tough breakup and wrote "Burning Star" on the same day), in fact most of the album had similar kind of themes

I listened to your album "Aurora", and love it!!! Vocals and guitars are great throughout the album, it has a nice summery feel to it. My favourite tracks were "Trilhos" and "Nádia", great ways to start and finish an album, love that guitar solo near the end of "Nádia"!!!

Nice! I'll listen to your music later when I get the time

As a solo artist, well I mostly do psychedelic rock but occasionally cross over into shoegaze. Here's my most shoegaze-y album, "Tornado"!

https://open.spotify.com/album/3bf2iyLOcNO6aSpevnVH0N?si=tRo-JAHlTwiOZLbRTsggYQ

Yeah the Jolana Iris is a pretty amazing guitar, love it! I've just uploaded a couple of photos now to my page, one with my two Jolanas (I also have a Jolana Kolor bass), the other pic is of the Iris' soundhole which is pretty interesting. Mine is the same as the one illustrated, finish and everything, except that the selector switch has been changed (they were originally made with 8 way selector switches, the previous owner changed it to a regular 3 way telecaster switch... this is probably better, the bass still has the 8 way selector switch, I can get any sound I want on it, but it sometimes goes silent with a couple of the settings). I also painted the pickguard black (on sunburst finishes I prefer black pickguards over white ones). It's all in perfect condition, even the finish is perfect! (Whereas the Jolana bass needed a re-finish as the original paint had come off, but it looks much better in black now).

Oh nice, I'm curious about the Boss Waza FZ-1w, checking it out on YouTube now, wow it's certainly versatile :D Goes anywhere from clean to full on dirt, love that! The fuzz I have is a Cuvave fuzz, it cost something like $25 when I bought it, and that thing is insane! Even on the lowest setting it adds a huge amount of dirt to the signal (it's not for adding subtle fuzz though, only if you want full-on fuzz)

Yes it is!

My very first electric was some unknown brand (Crafter) Chinese-made strat, it cost $100 for the guitar, amp, cable, and gigbag as a set, and was decent as a first electric guitar (I'd already started playing on my mum's old acoustic so knew all the basic chords and stuff), but eventually when I started playing live I needed an upgrade. I upgraded to a Cort TS 250 Les Paul ($200 for a used one around 11-12 years ago, nowadays a new one costs around $4-500), the difference in quality was huge! So I'd say even if someone doesn't have $500 to spend on a guitar, they can always look in the used market. As for cheaper instruments, they can be great sometimes but it's a real lottery, I have two Harley Bentons for example, one was set up perfectly and feels amazing quality! But with the other I needed to do a lot of work on it to get it to a comfortable, playable level.

I'd add that for electric guitars and basses, a good quality amp is just as important as a good quality guitar, if not more so. You could have the best quality guitar, but if the amp is terrible then there's no way of making that guitar sound any good. On the other hand, if you have a cheap guitar but a great amp, it can still sound decent. So I'd say one should definitely invest in a good amp (even if it's a small one for playing at home). I have a 15W Marshall bass amp (I also use the bass amp for regular guitars as it gives quite a rich bassy tone), and even my cheapest guitars sound great on it!

Wow the mini humbucker sounds amazing :D Somewhere between a regular humbucker and a single coil, but also slightly different from a P90 (maybe closer to the filtertron pickups they have on Gretsch guitars?)

I had a similar lucky find with my own "Telecaster", the Jolana Iris! I first took interest in Telecasters because of Syd Barrett's mirrored Esquire which he often used (the guitar that eventually evolved into the Telecaster), but the one thing that made me hesitant was the fact it's not possible (or it's difficult) to add whammy bars to Teles in general (even for Les Pauls you have several types of tremolo/vibrato that can be added), and for me I tend to use the whammy bar a lot. Eventually I found a Jolana Iris going for sale very cheap locally! It's a Czechoslovakian brand from the '60s-'70s, and the Iris model is a Telecaster in almost every way (similar body shape, neck, pickups, etc.), except with a Jazzmaster vibrato bridge! And locally, as I live in Hungary, they tend to go for fairly cheap, mine was the equivalent of around $130 or so!

Oh nice! Big Beatles fan myself here, and pretty much self-taught on guitar, first song I learnt was "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (the acoustic anthology version).

I'd agree that Strats are probably the best electric to start with, because of how comfortable they are to play (my first was some dirt-cheap supermarket strat). Also the Vox Pathfinder 10 is a great amp, my brother has one and it sounds amazing, especially considering the price, I might get one myself too :D

Ok thanks :D actually with the Czech one they also included a pop filter, as well as the mic and mounting frame, so that was a great help with that problem. I tried the filter with both, and with the Czech one I was capable of going louder without it popping. At the time I tested them I used to go up close to the mic, but nowadays I do keep a larger distance from the mic when recording (for a different reason, to make the vocals sound more "distant", and have some natural reverb).

Yeah it's the Audio Technica 2020, and it was very good for the price, and could capture all the overtones in vocals and instruments very well! The thing the Czech one seems to do better is filter out the pops from the vocals without me having to keep it at a distance from me, or sing in a way where I need to drop certain letters. Also, for some reason it reacts better to compressors on the vocals. Though the Audio Technica may be better at capturing instrument sounds, I'm not sure as I haven't compared the two for instruments (only vocals)

Regarding electret losing charge and eventually output, does that mean its working life would be significantly shorter than the Audio Technica? (I bought the Czech one 1 and 1/2 years ago, I can't remember when we got the Audio Technica though)

I guess the Behringer ones would probably be fine, actually both the condenser mic and the dynamic mic I have are from budget brands and are fine, as is most of my gear.

Strangely enough, I only got my current condenser mic because it came with a frame for mounting it to my desk, and I bought it for the frame (the mic and the frame together were even cheaper than just buying a frame from any other brand locally). The brand was "Yenkee", after some research I've found it is a Czech-based electronics company. Anyway, my previous condenser mic was an Audio-Technica, but the dirt-cheap Yenkee one was actually better quality, especially for recording vocals! I have no idea if it was just a fluke or not though.

Also I'm checking out Oktava, looks good! Very few within my price range, but will consider that too

Oh yeah, I heard about this! In the past I would buy cheap no-brand cables, though a few years ago started to buy Fender ones. Decent quality, not too pricey, I could certainly notice a difference! There was still some hum, but significantly reduced

Thanks again! Well I'll consider trying this with one of my old cheap cables. I did learn some of the basics regarding electronics, and my job is loosely connected (I work as a civil engineer, designing/renovating electricity pylons), but that considered, I know little practical things about electronics, it would be interesting to learn though!

Edit: I think it's likely the grounding in my apartment though. I tried my amp in several outlets, and there was one where all my guitars were clean as a whistle, no hum whatsoever!

Thanks, I've been looking up about the pencil mics too... they're not too expensive either, I saw some Behringer ones going for quite cheap. Of course I'll try with the two mics I have first, but will definitely consider the pencil mics

Wow thanks for the tips :D well I'm still a bit hesitant about cutting open the cable, as I'm not sure I'd be able to identify which is the shield, so if I use that solution I'd rather use one of my older, cheaper cables, rather than the new pricier ones.

That said, it could be the grounding in the building! I never even considered that, but now you mention it, I have noticed the hum often occurs when either the amp or pedals are plugged into one specific outlet by my bed, which would explain why the hum sometimes occurs but not always (as it's a 15W combo amp it gets moved around the place quite a bit). I could test this when I get back home, and plug the amp into different outlets around the flat to see if it makes any difference, thanks again :D

Thanks so much for your reply :D I'll try that (angling my seat if I get hum), that could possibly have been the issue with the Les Paul, actually I haven't had issues with that guitar for weeks.

Wow that is pretty interesting, I never really knew the mechanism or history behind DI boxes, just that that they seem to clear up the guitar signal somehow, I always have mine for recording. Makes sense though, and that's pretty interesting knowing how DI boxes work now... I learnt a bit about transformers during my studies, but wasn't too good at that subject haha

I'll consider an iso box or hum eliminator if the problem persists, but for now those are quite expensive solutions, so cutting the shield loose from one end of the cable seems to be the best solution (though I'd be nervous to do that myself). Tonight when I get home I'll check all my guitars that have had hum issues again (both through an amp, and through a DI into my laptop), and decide on what to do

Oh ok thanks! Yeah that's what I have been doing so far (pointing the condenser at the neck joint, much in the same way as I would for an acoustic guitar). It captures the overtones, but not perfectly, if I want it to sound perfect I often need to double-track. However, I could try what you suggested, using both a dynamic and condenser. I could also try the stereo width VST you mentioned, I have a very basic free one that came with Ableton which I sometimes use.

Haha I love the sitar sound, but love the oud sound even more! It's pretty hard to play though, having string pairs (like a 12 string guitar) and being fretless at the same time

Thanks :D yeah that makes sense, for the oud what I do for the moment is double track it through a condenser mic... I don't have all the gear yet for what you suggested, I do have both condenser and dynamic mics of course, and a clip-on mic for acoustic guitars so will try out what you suggested using what I have!

Thanks :D yeah the DI almost always solves the issue, if I plug it into my Scarlett interface when recording (with the exception of my strat for some reason, but it could just be that the strat has an extremely strong single-coil hum and I'm getting the two confused). It's a simple Millenium DI box, and even has a useful diagram on the box itself explaining the wiring.

My amp doesn't have an input for a DI box though, so I'll need to solve that somehow. I still have no idea where the hum is coming from, my cables are all pretty new, and as for pedals, some of my other guitars are fine even if I have all my pedals lined up. It only ever happens with 3 of my guitars (one is the strat, the other two are a Les Paul and a Höfner style bass, both of which have humbuckers so it can't be single coil hum). That said, the bass will only do so with certain amps, and the Les Paul is very unpredictable (sometimes clean as a whistle but sometimes the hum is very noticeable)

And yeah that sounds great :D I'd definitely like to learn this stuff, I'm one of those who knows how to play, but knows very little about the actual wiring and mechanisms in the instruments and gear

Yeah I can imagine it is difficult to mic up, even with the oud I use a condenser mic and lose some of the overtones, with sitar it's likely more difficult to mic up... do you have one?

Too expensive lol, the pedal is far cheaper and takes less space, especially for an instrument I won't be using too much... I do have an Arabic oud which I use quite a bit though! But am low on both cash and space in my apartment for more instruments at the moment

Oh ok, the issue is most likely grounding, and only happens in 2-3 of my guitars. Another solution I've used when recording is a DI box, which doesn't completely get rid of but significantly reduces the hum (now in fact, I always use a DI box for recording any of my guitars, even the ones without this issue). What other solution(s) would you suggest?

Never tried soldering before (though I have tried welding metal plates together, I'd imagine the basic concept is similar?) I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to guitar electronics, I've only ever replaced pickups and wiring on one guitar (my Les Paul, and even for that I used a pre-soldered wiring harness), but certainly would like to try DIY work on guitars and pedals someday!

Oh I haven't tried the Zoom Noise Reduction yet, but have tried the gate, which does pretty much the same as the Behringer in gate mode. I'll probably keep the other noise reducer as well, for the reason that I sometimes have my distortion or fuzz after the Zoom in the chain, and the noise reducer always comes after the distortion/fuzz... really enjoying the Zoom and thanks for the suggestion :D I don't think I'll ever need to buy another reverb or delay pedal in my life, at least not for a long time

That also sounds amazing! I wouldn't know where to start with assembling a pedal... can understand what you mean by "less is more", just bought a bass with one pickup (a Cort Action Junior), and it's amazing even with its limitations! That said, my Les Paul is quite the opposite (I gave it a coil split option and whammy bar to make it extra versatile)

Well it's a noise reducer as well as a gate, I always have it in the reducer setting, which is pretty effective for any kind of gain (not just extreme high gain). Of course it also fixes the ground loop issues for 2-3 guitars of mine that have those (eventually I plan to shield those properly though, when I have time and learn how to). I think the most useful application I have for the noise reducer is for home recording (if I'm recording a song with many instruments) and for playing live with a band, just to get rid of the hum when I'm not playing

I don't have a sitar, but do have an Arabic oud :D love playing it! Although I'm still sort of a beginner

10-46 Ernie Ball regular slinky here. Keeps the tuning very well, and can handle bends from the whammy bar very well too!

I have numerous guitars and basses (9 in total, 11 if you also include my oud and ukelele), I use each of these for different things, different sounds and musical styles, etc, so it would be impossible to choose a favourite. So I will mention the veteran of my collection: the Cort TS-250 Les Paul, which I've had around 11 years. That guitar has seen many upgrades (in fact I recently switched the Bigsby for a Göldo/Duesenberg Les Trem, which is much more comfortable to use), I also upgraded the pickups and gave it a coil split option, so it is definitely the most versatile one I have, completely customised to my needs. Another favourite is the Jolana Kolor bass, a Czechoslovakian bass from the '60s, it's also pretty versatile with an 8 way selector switch, and can nail pretty much any vintage bass tone! And finally another worthy mention, my acoustic Cort SFX-MEM, a mahogany folk guitar that I often use for live acoustic performances as well as recording.

As for pedals, I have many of those, but my favourite is probably the Zoom MS-70CDR, which is pretty much the same as the one @mylittleeye mentioned, just a different model, it has pretty much every reverb, chorus, and delay effect you could possibly need! The pedal I use the most though is the Behringer noise gate, for obvious reasons, I think a noise gate is needed for any pedal chain.

Regarding amps, I use a Marshall MB15 bass amp (for guitars and basses alike), a fairly recent purchase in fact that I got second hand... you can get an interesting tone running a 6 string guitar through a bass amp. I also have a small battery-operated amp for live performances where there is no power supply.

Digitech seems to produce many unique pedals, then stop producing them for some reason. Anyway, I don't have a "Bad Monkey" for sale, but I do have Digitech's "The Weapon" for sale, a multi-effect pedal that is also out of production now. I bought it mostly for the sitar sound effect, but it's possible to get something resembling a sitar sound on the Zoom MS-70CDR I have, so am selling the Digitech... so far no potential buyers though.

Sure! Just checked out your page, pretty cool! Love the look of that thinline Telecaster! I've also added most of my gear to my page if you'd like to check it out, got a real mix of stuff here

You could also try Thomann, their house brand Harley Benton has some real cheap guitars which are surprisingly good quality for the price! The basic short scale strat is under 75 GBP for sure, and their shipping costs are pretty cheap too

I just recently bought the Zoom MS-70CDR, a multi-effect pedal that has numerous reverbs, delays, modulations, and other effects from EQ, compressors, and gates, to synth and organ simulators. Really enjoying this pedal! I haven't even tried out all the effects yet, but it's certainly a versatile pedal. It also allows you to line your effects up in a chain, you can have up to 6 effects at a time! (Of course some of these like shimmer reverb take up more space). Also if you're using it for recording purposes (which is my main use for the pedal), you have the option to use it in stereo, which is great for the reverb effects especially. And this pedal cost me a little over $100!

It does have a learning curve and takes a while to get used to though, but on the bright side you can save up to 50 presets, so you can easily find effect chains you've previously saved and stored. You also have the option to hook it up to your computer and download more effects online, I haven't tried this yet though as it already has so many effects as it is!

One slight word of warning though: it doesn't always work well with vintage instruments, as some of the effects can sound very digital. So if you're using a guitar/bass from the '60s or so, be prepared that it won't sound so vintage anymore.

Still, for what it's worth, this pedal gives you access to pretty much any delay/reverb/modulation effect you can think of, for a cheap price! My favourite pedal so far

Thanks! Yeah I've tried a variety of straps, from textiles to leather-like materials, though it doesn't seem to make a huge difference. I don't have a suede strap though, so that may be worth considering too! I don't want to spend too much just on a strap, but yeah I'm sure theere must be some cheap cloth straps similar to the one you mentioned (or suede straps) locally!

Oh haha, yeah I can imagine! My Les Paul is quite heavy, I'm pretty used to it by now though (I'm in my late '20s, and have had it for over 10 years, it's a Cort and I got it second hand for a pretty good price)... I am thinking of replacing the Bigsby (I installed a Bigsby on it a few years back) to a lighter Duesenberg les trem though

My Strat is so light in comparison though! And my Tele/Jazzmaster hybrid (which I use the most these days) is somewhere between the two

Thanks! I did get the Zoom MS-70CDR in the end, that was the best option both for my budget (especially as I could sell a couple of old pedals as well to save cash), and seems overall the best, as well as the shimmer and reverse reverb I'm making use of some of the other effects it has too :D no regrets with this pedal! I have yet to try it in stereo, and start recording with it too

And true, we all start somewhere! Most of my instruments were under $200 and I can't really afford any higher end instruments (the most expensive was probably my $600 custom strat), but still it's the music that really counts, most people listening to it don't even care what gear I'm using haha!

Oh thanks for the suggestion! I ended up buying the Zoom MS-70CDR in the end though, really enjoying it!

Oh yeah true! Well I tried '50s style, with the strap connecting to the headstock rather than the body, it works well on an acoustic guitars but just feels weird on a bass because of the longer neck length... I could try it again though, maybe I'll get used to it

Definitely :D apart from my acoustic bass (which needs rounds for the extra volume), they all have flats! I'm quite partial to the Höfner contemporary flats, and the Rotosound nylon tapes

Oh wow nice! Never played an SG, I wonder how they compare to Les Pauls? As far as I know the main difference is body weight (the SG is lighter, Les Paul is heavier, I'm guessing this also makes the SG have more attack, but the Les Paul have more sustain?)

Oh thanks! Yeah I won't do it then if it drastically changes the sound... I've resolved part of the issue by having it high up against my chest (like the Beatles did), somehow the neck dive is only half as bad as it used to be. A shame as it's possibly my most used instrument at the moment, especially for live performances, I can put up with the neck dive if there's no other solution.

I do have another short scale hollow bass (a Jolana Kolorbas) that can have a roughly similar sound with the right EQ, and it has very minimal neck dive (the body is shaped more like a 335), the difference being that it's not fretless. Though I am quite partial to the sort of "upright" sound of a fretless, the Jolana does quite a good job of that too since I added flats to it! I tend to alternate between the two really

Also I've heard that about SGs, my electric guitars are a Strat, a Tele, and a Les Paul, luckily none of those have this issue! Congrats on finding an SG that doesn't!

The instrument in question is a Höfner-style violin bass (the fretless Harley Benton version), one of my favourite instruments that I often use live. However, it has a severe case of neck dive (which is especially a problem during live performances). I've somewhat managed to reduce this by adjusting the strap so the guitar is higher up against my body, but there is still some neck dive.

The obvious solution seems to be to add more weight to the body, as none of my heavier guitars have this issue. However, I am not sure where I can buy heavier hardware for a Höfner style bass to weigh down the body. Any suggestions?

No idea, but following this post as I also need suggestions!

One thing I have been considering though is building a DIY pedalboard (I've seen people do that with Ikea furniture before). It seems a cool project, even though I know very little about woodworking, I'll have a completely custom board, at the fraction of the price of an actual guitar board! I have no idea about the power supply, have only used mains up till now.

Bit of both really! Of course, I do all the recording and production itself on a DAW (usually Ableton and a Focusrite Scarlett interface). I'll almost always use MIDI for the keyboard (but there are exceptions, my synth can be used as a regular or a MIDI one). For drums, I have a MIDI set (saves a lot of space and doesn't wake the neighbours), though I'll occasionally add extra percussion manually (eg. with a tambourine or bongo drum).

However, I record all the guitar and bass using real instruments, some of which are real relics over 50 years old! I feel a guitar VST could never replace a real guitar, and I'm especially drawn towards a more vintage sound. I also prefer using physical effect pedals over VSTs, not only do they sound much better, they are much easier to operate, and can be used for live instances too. For some simple effects like compressors, eq, or additional reverb/delay I'll use VSTs though. Obviously I record the vocals myself too, but add the effects with VSTs (most commonly, a compressor and a bit of reverb, occasionally a very subtle autotune if needed).

So I would say the optimal solution depends on what kind of music you're making, but as a rule of thumb, I'd say use modern gear to save money and space, and use vintage gear to get the sound you want without it sounding too robotic, best is to have a blend of both!

I also play bass and lead vocals in my band! It's a good question, as the options are endless if you want to stand out.

My own way is using short scale hollow basses with flatwound strings, giving a low sort of thumping sound (veering towards an upright bass sound). The main bass I use is fretless, and my playing style is sort of walking or melodic bass, so that adds more to the upright sound (which is unusual, considering we do mostly hard rock, but somehow it fits).

Not suggesting you do the same of course, it probably wouldn't fit as well in your music, but try and find your own unique style. The first step, before buying any new gear (if needed), is trying out different playing styles (at home, maybe have some chords loop in the background, and improvise bass lines over those). Also try different combinations with the volume/tone knobs, and if you like, pedals too.

Next is gear: this step only comes if you're looking for a specific sound in mind and can't get it with the gear you have. This can mean anything, even changing the strings can make a huge difference (of course, before you buy any gear, do research into it, as even bass strings tend to be pretty expensive).

Finally, keep practicing, you'll become more versatile with playing different styles!