gronkyco - just because

I’ve been pondering buying a new guitar amp for a while now. I currently use this old Crate Guitar Combo Amplifier that I bought off a friend like six years ago. It’s good and all, but the clean channels crackle and the effects are only fair. I want to begin recording some tracks in my basement and the sound from the Crate just isn’t what I am looking for. I’ve had it for years, driven it hard, and it owes me nothing. I guess it’s time to move on.

Over the years I’ve developed what I consider to be a unique progressive funk-rock style of playing. When it comes to electric guitar, I primarily play my Gibson Les Paul Studio. For my sound, I like strong mid-range, a decent amount of gain, and rarely use any effects aside from reverb. I’m not sure why, but I’ve had this mental block about muddying up the guitar tone with needless effects. It’s strange, I’m a huge Joe Satriani fan and he uses a bunch of effects. I guess I’ve always thought that he just uses them with a certain level of “taste” that other guitar players, myself included, just can’t seem to be able to duplicate. For me, too much effect can ruin the sound. For example, in my opinion Steve Vai just seemed to pile up the effects layers as high as he could, like someone buying a big truck or fast car to make up for something. Needless to say, I was never a big Steve Vai fan. (Go ahead, start the hate mail… ;))

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If you think the 350Z NISMO is the Nissan’s production-car performance gem, think again. The far superior, but less well know Nissan GTR is about to stir things up a bit. The GTR has a huge cult following of diehard car enthusiasts, but aside from reading about it in magazines, gawking at it online, or driving it in video games, most people in this country have never had a chance to touch or even see one in person. The GTR is an all-wheel-drive, twin-turbo super car that pushes nearly 500 horsepower and 500lbs of torque right out of the factory. The one huge problem is that it’s not available in the US.

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I never saw this coming…

Gibson® is one of the biggest, most recognizable guitar manufactures ever. They paved the way for rock guitar in the 50’s and 60’s with the Gibson Les Paul and SG models. Now they are at it again, and I think it’s risky as hell.

Gibson is releasing a computer-driven guitar with an on-board CPU, led lights, and a self tuning mechanism offering multiple instant non-standard tunings. My first thought - if it aint broke. I realize that you never make any enormous leaps or bounds without taking risks, but I think this is a huge risk for Gibson. Gibson guitars have always been a benchmark for incredible tone playability in a solid, basic, time-tested instrument. In my opinion, it would be like Ferrari releasing a sport utility truck. It may be great, but it’s a pretty radical change.

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Noise Canceling Headphones

I’m a guitar player and have a basement full of antiquated gear. Most of the crap I play though has had beer spilled on it, been dropped, kicked, and generally abused. My guitars are beautiful, but the rest of my gear needs badly to be updated. This was brought home to me the other day when I went downstairs to play for a bit.

I don’t seem to get much time to play these days, and when I do it seems I spend most of the time trying to get a decent sound. Usually I aput both guitar and vocals through a mixer (Alesis MultiMix 8 USB Analog Mixer) plugged into a guitar amp (Crate Guitar Combo Amplifier), which is in turn plugged into a four-twelve speaker cabinet. It was great for jamming with people, but not the best sound quality.

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