Guitar Shred Show

I found this while surffing the www. It's a really cool guitar shredding lesson created and preformed by finnish animator/composer Mika Tyyskä. This was formerly a thesis project for the Lahti Polytechnic Institute of Design. Here I leave you Mika and Mr. Fastfingers shredding. Mika bears a nice sunburst stratocaster with shell pickguard, incredible how versatile Strats can be. The animation's finger techniques and fretboard animations are very accurate to real life. And now ladies and gentlemen, enjoy Mr. Fastfinger's Shred Show!

Digit-All 6

Line 6 began to be famous among musicians for their very useful POD, an effect processor and amp simulator, for guitars introduced in year 2000, later they produced a version for bass, being this even more useful, handy and reliable. Then they began to manufacture the Variax, a guitar so revolutionary that people did not know what to believe, it did not have no pickups ahoy! Instead it had a piezo pickup in the bridge and its own circuitry for guitar simulation, you could get from a nylon acoustic to a resonator, a jazz box or even a Fender Tele, in a few words, you could have a bunch of guitars, the ones you have always dreamed having, but have not been able to afford. And well, off course, where is the production line for the most important musician in a band (I mean the bass player)? Line 6 tought of this and they manufactured the beautiful Line 6 Variax Bass 700 and 705 (five strings). With this baby you can get up to 24 diferent basses and that's beside the tone knob. I particularly like the thumb rest and heastock design. Maple neck with rosewood fretboard. Alder body. Digital I/O RJ45 jack and regular guitar cable jack. The Variax Bass Tone control is split into two separate knobs. The smaller knob on top controls Treble and the large one on the bottom controls Bass, and it is contextual of the bass selected. There is a blend, mic position, pickup position. The master volumne knob is also a push-pull selector for the bass model you want. You can get virtually any sound you want. Check out the Line 6 Variax Bass you'll be surprised of the miracle of math, yeah, I forgot to tell you, the developers of these instruments spent quiet a long time getting the sound waves and patters and developing mathematical models of the sound and character of the different basses to simulate their respective sounds.

Now, to the bottom line. The opinion on this bass is, well, divided. I've read comments saying it's the greatest human achievement, and others saying it's the doom of mankind made instrument. I've heard people praising its simulation quality, and others cursing it. I've written people about it and some say its construction will last longer than Stonehenge and others saying it breaks within hours of getting out of the box. So there is only one true way to find out. But until I get me one of those, kudos go to Line 6 Variax Bass 700 developing team for trying.

Rocking Penguin

Badtz Maru (born 1 April 1993, according to my contacts) has a dream of greatness and a badass attitude. And to honor that attitude Fender came up with an instrument for rude bassists. Though it may look girlish (probably because it is for rocking girls) this is a very macho bass, inspired in the Fender Squier Bronco bass construction the Squier Badtz Maru Bronco bass features a nice c-shape one piece maple neck (with skunk stripe) and fretboard, it has one special design single coil pickup, also found in the regular Bronco Bass but this one has a black cover instead. Amongst the special features we can find a Badtz Maru pickguard, rear routed control cavity, knurled chrome dome control knobs, Badtz Maru artwork in the back of the body and an engraved Squier neckplate. This is a short-scale 30in bass, which makes it just right for small people or for musicians that want to explore a not as ballsy sound as a long 34in scale. The single pickup gives this bass a brighter character and sound, in addition to the maple neck and shorter scale. This is a very nice well crafted little instrument. Let's get real, I won't be playing this at a biker's bar but heck yeah those bikers will think the bass is cute and will blow me a kiss. Go ahead and kick some butts with this penguin.

Apple's Desire

About a year ago I had my first glance at the Mac World with the infamous iPod, it was new, radical and portable, 10GB of musical bliss; I lost my first iPod in a flood. Now I have a new one, 20GB and clickwheel thingy and can see many of my guitar pics in it (and also of my girlfriend). I have this friend who has guided me through the way of learning the mac world. Four months ago I bought my first Mac computer, a rough and hardworking iBook G4. The first thing I used in it was, off course, Garage Band, a software so powerful and easy to use that you'll find yourself making songs in less than you can take your guitar out of the case.

I got me an iControl, a device crafted by M-Audio, it is a piece of hardware that works as an interface for Garage Band, exclusively. It has all of the controls you see in the Garage Band display and the response is quick and efficient. If you know how to use Band, you already know how to use iControl. Most important, I order this product from Music-123 in Indiana and I had it in my hands and plugged to the computer in 5 days, cool, eh? The iControl is built with thought bend to the musicians alredy using or going to use Band in a live setup, and also at home, it makes things so much more simple, and allows you to do things that you would not be able to do with a mouse. It is class compliant, MIDI accesible and stuff. It is very light, you won't notice you are carrying the thing. I'm glad i bought it and I'm lookinf forward to buy some more devices and software from M-Audio. In a few words, it was designed by some serious geek out there who digs Garage Band. I thank such a geek!

The Gambler

The Gibson company is known for making some of the best instuments in the market, yet they are pricy and unfortunately, here in MTY, very hard to find. Their trademark guitar, a solid body maple top over mahogany back has defined the sound of rock deities and of whole generations, they called it, The Les Paul in honor of musician Lester William Polfuss (born 1915). Back in 1958 the Gibson company introduced the ES-335, a double-cutaway, semi-hollow, thin-bodied electric guitar, the same year that they released the Flying V and Explorer. Though the V and Explorer attracted attention for their unusual body shapes, the ES-335 was actually a more radical innovation because it was the first commercially produced solid/hollowbody hybrid, featuring a solid block of wood inside of the body flanked by two hollow body wings. This Semihollow construction has been faved by many musicians, from B.B. King, John Lee Hooker and Blink 182's Tom DeLonge (sounding grotesque to pronounce these names together in the same blog, even in the same year). Here are B.B. King's Lucille, whom I will post more about in the future, and Tom DeLonge's signature model.

Anyway, after a little historic background I give you the new Gibson Vegas Standard, a new semihollow body that well resembles the really hard to find and very expensive Triny Lopez model (played by Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl). Unlike most semihollows it features a tuning machines six-in-a-side headstock profile, more likely to be found on Strats and Teles. This is a mahogany back and sides axe with a maple top. '57 classic pickups. And a heavy mahogany neck, ebony fretboard with beautiful dimond shaped inlays. I show you the standard version with chrome hardware (which I like a lot more than gold), also available in a more fancy version the Vegas Roller, with gold hardware. I hope you like it. I Do.

Something Borrowed, Something New

Congratulations to Fender on their 6oth Anniversary. I send my best wishes to Leo Fender, thank you for your guitars in Fender and other companies. I was looking for wiring diagrams for a Precission Bass and found this brand new stuff from Fender. The Fender's unique Jaguar Bass. There have been several kinds of basses from these makers throughout the years but this one is special. Resembling the long loved guitar of many greats in music, the elusive Jaguar, from which we can hear such tunes from Nirvana's Milk It to Blur's Coffee and TV. The alder body comes in cool Black or Hot Rod Red finishes, with a thin, fast one-piece C-shaped maple neck (matching headstock on Hot Rod Red model). The rosewood fingerboard has aged block position markets, and the roar pours forth from two Jazz Bass pickups with an active/passive pickup system and series/parallel switching, just the Jaguar way. So incredibly cool—Fender should’ve thought of this years ago! Way too cool!

Behold, el Dano!

This beauty is a Danelectro Rumor Bass. It was made in the year 2001 by its serial number authentication. It's a four string solid beauty that rocks and rocks. It's black sparkle and features and off waiste body shape with a double cutaway. It's a very very light instrument with a solid maple neck and rosewood fretboard with jumbo frets. It has a split pbass pickup style, a passive circuitry and it has a beautiful built in chorus effect. Tone and volume knobs. It has those big ol' elephant ear tunning machines. I fixed it some Schaller straplocks. I've played this beauty and it has been ever reliable. I've beaten some badass gangsters with it, and they liked it and asked for more. It rumbles on, the sound is clear and sparky, like it's finish. Pure '60s made guitar. Danelectro stopped making them in 2004 if I well remember, I can't sleep well at nights yet, but you can still find'em in those internet pages where you buy used or weird stuff. And now I show it to you in red burst (tiny). Greetings to Wicked Child.

Beware!

Well this is a mysterious pic. That's what will happen to you if you don't take care of your axes. I'll grab you from behind and destroy and kick you as you kicked your guitar (ya oistes Manuel?).

Welcome to Guitar Shire

Welcome be thou to me own personal Guitar Shire. I would be a hobbit who loves guitars, basses and music itself, playing and catalyzing music is my life. You know? Music is not something that is created, I believe music is something as energy in the Universe, can't be created nor destroyed, only transformed; and for music I belive it can only be found, but people tend to say: "Ooooh!, Ahhhh! I 'composed' this or that". Furthermore, Music is just Math, PERFECT. My main focus here is to praise the means of creating music, mainly guitars and basses, which I find sexy, powerful and awe inspiring. As artist, musician and poet Thom Yorke once said: "sometimes the best thing to do with a guitar is just look at it". And that is just what I like to do...