drathbun

I've admired your SJ200 for a while now MG! I'm thrilled to be part of the club, and thanks so much! :)

Thanks nick. I recorded simultaneously with my iPhone and Sonar X1 through my Apex medium condenser microphone. In Sonar I added a slight bit of compression and a tiny bit of reverb. No EQ. Of course when I edited the video/audio, I dumped the iPhone's audio track.

Here is my first recording with my new SJ-200. It is a bit rough as I did the recording rather quickly between shifts at work. Doug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQnBavpgydk&feature=player_profilepage

Thanks so much Flight959! :) Doug

Just fired off this pretty little piece from Simon and Garfunkle of the late 60's. Easy to play, short and easy on the vocal chords. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocf5pWGXY2E&feature=player_profilepage

Thanks so much EA! The strings are Elixir PB Nanos 12's. The strings were about midlife at that point. I'd say about a month to two months old.

I got a note on my SoundClick site last week asking for an acoustic version of Staind's "Tangled Up In You". So I took the vocal track off my cover version and recorded the lead vocal as a lead guitar solo on my SWD. I thought people might light to hear it. Tangled Up In You The guitar is tuned one half step lower (Eb) and then the low E string dropped to Db.

You guys have to STOP posting those gorgeous J200's with the flamed maple and vintage burst!!! OMG I need one now... Damn....

Congratulations on your SJ100 and welcome to the forum! I played one today at my fav guitar shop and it is an amazing instrument. I like its understated appointments... much like on the SWD. I know how difficult it is to save for college and yet still really NEED a guitar. You will no doubt find yourself in tight financial situations while you're going through school but don't ever think of selling that guitar! It will be special for you for the rest of your life. I sold my first Gibson (Hummingbird) to pay the rent when times were tough. The next month the rent was due and it was paid ... somehow. But I was without that Gibson forever and without a guitar for a couple of years! It was a full 23 years before I had another Gibson acoustic. Some guitars are meant to stay in your hands forever.

On the contrary, I think you SHOULD get to know your truss rod Anne! It is part of how your guitar works. If you understand the dynamics between saddle, nut and neck relief, adjusting your own truss rod should be a simple process. Of course, leave the filing of nut slots and adjustment of the saddle to guitar techs (if you are no good with tools that is). But the truss rod adjustment (when needed to alter neck relief) should be something with which every guitarist should be comfortable. It should be like checking the pressure in your tires a couple times a year as the weather changes.

It looks like you are talking about double acting rods not double truss rods as previously mentioned. In addition to Guild 12 strings, all Rickenbacker guitars have double truss rods. The older versions were prone to misuse by users unfamiliar with how they worked. You would physically move the neck to the position you wanted it and then tighted the truss rod to hold that position (not an easy feat). If you tightened the rods to try to make the neck move on its own, you would invariably pop the fretboard off the neck. Since the Rickenbacker necks are completely finished in lacquer (conversion varnish actually), this made an expensive repair. The newer double rods work like normal rods where you turn them and the neck moves accordingly. Here is a photo of the double rods in my 1981 Rickenbacker 320 (old style rods):

Another week, another YouTube video! This time it is a song that is my wife's favourite. It is from the album "Aqualung" by Jethro Tull, written by Ian Anderson and called "Wond'ring Aloud". It is one of my favourite songs to play as it has some great flatpicking licks. My Songwriter, my Rick bass, midi keys and strings and all recorded and mixed in Sonar X1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZCM5qXhnQY

I just did another video with my recording of "Bad to Me" by Lennon and McCartney. The song was never recorded by The Beatles but was given to Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas to record. Apparently it wasn't good enough for The Beatles. I think it is superior to a number of their other early recorded songs. The SWD is only in on the first five chords. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfKm39ZsKGg

Thanks BK! :) I filmed the whole thing myself with my iPhone4. I have a small tripod mount for the iPhone and put it on my desk. Since you can't see the screen when you are taking a video of yourself, I put a small mirror behind the iPhone so I can see if I'm lined up. I used Cyberlink Power Director 9 to edit the pieces of video together. On this video as opposed to my others, I did NOT use the built in mic from the iPhone. The audio was recorded separately and mixed in Sonar Producer and I just dumped the audio from the iPhone and put the mixed audio from Sonar in place of it. So basically I am lip-synching to myself. I'm listening to my Sonar mix in my earphones and playing over it. I just did the same thing a number of times playing rhythm and singing, playing lead, bass and bopping on my Songwriter and cut the small segments in. I'm quite happy with the result and I'm going to try this with some of my other recordings too! Doug

Here is my latest youtube video of my cover of "I Will" by The Beatles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsCY8jes8cE&feature=player_profilepage

Wow that was fabulous BK! And that Blues King sounds terrific.

Thanks Larry! Jack of all trades, master of none! LOL! The editing is actually really simple with Cyberlink PowerDirector. Just drag and drop basically. Where I got a little bit "slick" is in grabbing the audio part of the video and processing it in my Sonar and then putting it back into the video. But even that was relatively simple. Again thanks for the kind words. I'm going to try to put my basic live set on video now that I've found a good method, although the upload to YouTube does take 1.5 hrs! <_<

Very nice of you to say Rob! Thanks. :) I'm lucky that I had the camera pointed to where I was actually somewhat centered in the frame. The drawback with the iPhone video, is that if you video yourself, you are bascially guessing. I have a tiny tripod and an iPhone tripod grip mount, but there is no way to see what you are capturing until you're done unless you have someone else operate the camera. I'm going to try out putting a mirror behind the tripod. :)

Here is the second video I did yesterday with my iPhone4. This is a cover of Keith Carradine's 1976 song "I'm Easy" that he wrote for the movie "Nashville". I decided the background showing my microphone stand with all my polish cloths on it was not aesthetically pleasing so I improvised. Again, the audio is from the iPhone and only enhanced through Sonar. I must say I'm impressed with the video and audio quality considering it is only going to YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO3JSHUq3Es

I finally got a day off to try out my new iPhone4's video capability. I did it in one take so please forgive the odd guitar flub and vocal hiccups! This is one of my favourite songs to play now. I stopped trying to get it "correct" as in how Taylor plays it. Everything Taylor does is so counter intuitive to how I play! So I play it the way I like it. My wife and I were at friends for drinks on Friday night and I brought my guitar. As soon as I started playing this song, my friend's wife sat up and tears filled her eyes! She started singing along with all the lyrics and told me that her Mother had taught her that song when she was four and the memory came flooding back to her. Amazing what music can do isn't it? I saved the video from my iPhone4 to my computer then used Cyberlink's PowerDirector 9.0 to edit the video. I stripped out the audio and ran it through Sonar Producer 8.5 to add a little compression and a touch of reverb/delay. The guitar is my Songwriter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oKA1GvbSxw

You might want to try the Gary Owens method of hearing your own voice too! It really works!

...and if my Grandma had wheels she'd be a wagon. Allen is male and the allen screw is female let's call her Alice!. The Socket Wrench is female... let's call her Betty' date=' and the thing it screws is male... let's call him Bolt!! Allen screws Alice and Betty screws Bolt. Sometimes Bolt gets a little too stiff and needs some lube. God I love lutherie! ~havin' a smoke~ Allen Wrench [img']http://thehackersparadise.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/allen-wrench-4112.jpg[/img] Socket Wrench

Run a straight-edge (on edge) down the center of your fretboard between the D and G strings and see where it runs up against the bridge (bridge not saddle). If the straight-edge just slides over the bridge surface then your neck angle is perfect. If the straight-edge runs into the thickness of the bridge wood at the bottom close to the surface of the top, the neck angle is poor. Some guitars are let out of the factory with poor neck angles. When setup, they play great, but there is little saddle left for the guitar to move over time. I bought a brand new Larrivee L03 that was a great player but the neck angle was so bad, there was hardly any saddle left and therefore the break angle to the pins was very shallow and the tone suffered. Not to mention the fact the guitar would not age without needing a neck reset. Needless to say I got rid of it.

If you keep your guitar in a controlled environment for its lifetime, the finish would probably never crack or craze. It is the constant movement of the wood, the guitar swelling and contracting, over years that cause the finish to craze. Put a stiff coat on a soft, moving object and the stiff material is going to snap rather than give. At least that's how I understand it. You could make your newer guitar crack and craze by leaving it out in the cold and then bringing it into a warm house over and over. In a week you might have some checking happening. I'm no expert on the nitro finish, but I also think the age of the nitro has something to do with it as well. I know that a newer nitro finish "feels" softer to me than one that has aged a few years, so age might have a lot more to do with it. Perhaps a newer finish will flex with the guitar movement more than an old brittle nitro finish. Anyone? KSDaddy?

Actually I think you have two guitars conflated. The 'radio' knobs you speak of were not on the J-160e but on his '58 Rickenbacker Capri. Here is a photo of John with the Capri in 1960 in its original condition. He removed the "oven" style knobs and replaced them with Hofner and then Burns "radio" style knobs. Here is a 325 Capri fitted with the Burns style: As to the artificial "opening" up of an acoustic guitar with sound waves, I'm very skeptical. I think the topic deserves the same amount of careful thought as the topic of the sonic differences between walrus tusk, ivory or bone bridge pins. Just play the guitar. It will open up.