The Guitar and Other Machines

[slinger]

Ah, that's interesting. Been reading up on the Chorus pedal that I've had for donkeys years:

BOSS blurb: 'The CEB-3 Bass Chorus pedal offers a split-frequency chorus effect capable of applying warm, rich chorusing to the higher frequencies without muddying up the lows.'

In other words, it works perfectly for the higher frequency-range of a guitar. Yay!

[TheMarlin]

[TheMarlin]

Is it
The chambered tele?

[slinger]

Just a thought; do you play keyboards at all, and do you read music?

Keyboards - no. I can fumble with them but have never learnt properly, similar to guitar in that chords have always baffled me.

At school, I began on Clarinet, then Flute and then Cello - where I discovered that things with strings were what I really liked.

Also singing in choirs since age 8 has taught me to sight-read sheet music, a talent which is still very handy as I hardly ever practice choral pieces outside the rehearsals.

Now you've answered I'll tell you why I was asking. In the future, if you decide to go the "home recording" route, most DAWs come with various free instruments, including synths, strings, and all the basics to make music with (and possibly clarinets too) along with drumkits. They will all be playable with an add-on physical keyboard, or by some sort of musical notation, usually piano-roll or the more traditional tadpoles on telegraph wires. The beauty is, that you don't have to play keyboards with any real proficiency, you can add one chord at a time, then cut and paste to your heart's content.

Just something for you to aim towards in the quite distant future.

[TheMarlin]

A thing of beauty ....

[TheMarlin]

Sweet. Congrats

[Fretless]

There's a video where Bill Vencil (him again!) plays the same 1-minute section of ambient music on 15 different guitars: solid body, hollow body, baritone, etc.etc. The purpose of this was to display that the various guitars all displayed their own individual sonic character.

There were several I liked, a Les Paul (of course), a PRS baritone (lovely deep sonorities) and a semi-acoustic with an enchanting ' open' feel. Already getting an urge to explore possibilities, I started considering a second instrument, one as different as possible from what I had.

Then the guitar-maestro's here on HFS pointed me in the direction of Thomann and their affordable house-brand Harley Benton guitars. Paying a visit and checking out the semi-acoustic section, an odd-looking guitar struck me. A 'Thinline' Telecaster model, the TE-90QM (QM standing for Quilted Maple).



It's an unusual shape, a bit eccentric - which should suit me perfectly - and has P90 pickups that ought to sound very different to the humbuckers on my Donner LP. The price? €199, I can stretch to that.

A trawl through various video reviews, which is frustrating as most guitar reviewers these days are mainly interested in high-speed Metal-shredding. But, some of what I heard gave me the inkling that this was what I was after. Finally took the plunge and hit the 'Buy' button.

So, it's just arrived and it's GORGEOUS!!! On the headstock it says 'Deluxe Series' and you can see why. It looks and feels like something that ought to cost way, way more.

The hard truth will be in playing it and seeing how it sounds.

More later ....

[slinger]

It really is a lovely little beast, isn't it? I thought it was even better looking "in the flesh" than in the photos when mine arrived, which I've just realised, was almost 5 years ago.

[Fretless]

I vaguely remember you mentioning it at the time. Must be in a thread here somewhere.

[slinger]

This red guitar not only looks fantastic but it also sounds amazing!