it’s so shiny and I love the yellow and purple flames and the streamers!!
wow!! 
2 Likes
Hmmm, “Diddley-Bow” ! My friend, one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time, Buddy Guy, started out as a youth plucking on stretched rubber bands and (IIRC) window-screen wire. I can say (as a witnessed fact) that he can make (virtually) anything sound amazing. I played electric guitar for around 20 years a while back (Fender Mustang, then two different Stratocasters, the latter and present one with a Seymor Duncan JB Humbucker installed in bridge position, and with custom internal wiring). Designed, developed, and built my own signal processing device, and a tube amplifier (in a Fender Princeton amplifier cabinet). Buddy loved my “magic box”, and played through it in several local performances together with Junior Wells in the late 1980’s (along with jazz guitar greats Herb Ellis and Larry Coryell, and blues guitarists Elvin Bishop and John Cipollina). Never made a dime of money out of it all, but those were truly priceless experiences, contributing something useful as an “electronic luthier” for legendary musical talents. Money can’t buy those memories.
4 Likes
You are exactly right… the many friends I have made even in vaping… but with my funky projects…
yeah… not much at all can give that good feeling 
3 Likes
Power (money, fame, influence, etc) is bestowed (as well as removed) from without (entirely dependent upon the whims of external audiences), whereas strength arises from within. Original creative thinking and dedication to play (in general) can reward the spirit - independent of external recognition. Doing what one loves - irrespective of concerns surrounding power - seems (to me) to be key. The great musical talents who I have known and interacted with were largely self-taught geniuses who played for their own ears first and foremost. While some of them saw some monetary rewards later in life, they never would have led the lives that they did were it not for a fundamental love of music. They graciously “gave me their time”. It was a thrill to be able to contribute something of useful creative value in the form of my signal processing device.
When involved in an iterative developmental process of attempting to please the “mind’s ear” (and “mind’s eye” in photography processing that I do) via modifications/settings in (generalized) hardware/software, the best that one can hope for is to (perhaps eventually) reasonably please their very own aesthetic druthers (tastes/preferences, often mysterious even to ourselves, outside of our own direct ineffable experiences).
The whole concept of one’s personal druthers aligning closely with others’ tastes and preferences in matters of perceptual aesthetics (sounds, sights, tastes) is merely a possibility. Rather than “play to an audience” in terms of what one feels that (they) might possibly like, pleasing/suiting oneself is often challenging enough.
(If and when) an audience(s) may themselves “find their own aesthetic poetry” within one’s sounds, images, or flavors, all the better - but since such events are largely not “script-able” events, genuine aesthetic magic evolves mysteriously from within, rather than from without. No moment(s) reported by our senses repeats.
Man makes holy what he believes as he makes beautiful what he loves.
-Ernest Renan
The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.
The believing man is the original man;
whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not for another.
-Thomas Carlyle
Fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences
which distil from fruit and flower grew and thrived in that land.
With such blessings the earth freely furnished them.
-Plato, Critias
4 Likes
Those are the drums I see in my dreams. I only have a 6 pc Pearl Export but they have been good to me. I can’t even imagine owning a set of Masters.
4 Likes
I’ll jump on the bandwagon (pun intended). Here’s half of my practice room. The other half is computers and DIY…
-Group shot
-Can you spot my DNA mod?
-Some of my “sound enhancers”
8 Likes
Found your mod!! 
but that pedal board is missing this pedal 
btw… when you get tired of the guitar on my left, on the floor, send it my way!!
4 Likes
I had that pedal but ended up trading it for this one…
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/so-much-gear-so-little-time/220573-best-piece-gear-ever-guitar-pedal.jpg
8 Likes
Good one Tz…
I’m off to play with my tenor… finally got a tabs book… but my bone and titanium slide <3
5 Likes
Smallest Banjo I have ever seen 
5 Likes
Thank you @badmoon1. Fear not, I still have my old 1980’s Exports !!! They didn’t have the best shells, and they were wrapped, but good heads, and good tuning they recorded VERY good.
The Masters do have a better finish, and all birch, blah, blah, blah. I found (yeah lots of drums make it harder) the tuning to be a real PITA. The birch seemed to have a much narrower band that each drum wanted to tune into. With that many drums, it became impossible to tune to 5th’s like I normally due with Maple. Struggled for quite a while to fit them all into the range, find their sweet spots, and get a good pitch bend. Sometimes less IS more. Lot’s is still fun though !!!
3 Likes
Aww… banjos are fun, but tenor guitars are totally classic 
2 Likes
Well a long time ago, had a close friend who had a thousand acre property out in (you guessed it) West Virginia. Now this was a big shock for me coming from DC, but after going out there a few times, started to like it more and more. Actually heard one of the best bangoists (word ?) I’ve ever heard, compliments of Renick WV.
3 Likes
That’s a '02 Les Paul Studio. It was originally Alpine White, as seen in my little profile pic, but it started to turn yellowish from age (and smoke filled bars) so I had custom graphics applied to the top.
The OCD is the Obsessive Compulsive Drive. I use it to push the Marshall’s power tubes. Gives it a very distinctive ‘snarl’. Think Billy Gibbons. 
3 Likes
Wonder what “OD” is/was(?), and can’t decipher the meaning of the following text (near the end):
“… as sell as the same sensitivity and response to your playing style.” (?) 
I guess: “… as [w]ell as the same sensitivity and response to your playing style.”
Is it all really true what people are saying about those … “spanky cleans” ?
How does it do on those “scintillating snaky slides”, “staccatos of steel”, and “glissandos of doom” ?
50 Watt or 100 Watt (or something else) Marshall heads ? How old the design(s) ?
3 Likes
Strats are spanky by their very nature, especially middle position single-coils.
The OCD simply raises the spank factor while still retaining a clean-ish tone, depending on how you dial it in. Transparency with grit!
But at the end of the day one realizes tone is all in the fingers!
3 Likes
My Strats have proven to be very whip-able, the latter with bridge-position humbucker. The art of punishment resides in the bones/joints, like tacit bodily memory. When it eventually fades, the body forgets the tactile, visceral gestures. Yes, “spank factor”, indeed. It’s all about letting that little axe know just who’s boss, while those legendary beam power pentodes pile a veritable hot beef injection armada into those poor little drivers.
Lots of great subtleties possible with fingers. Jeff Beck excels at right-hand finger playing, among others. The great Shuggie Otis (age 13) could fly with astounding multi-finger picking blues (no picks were involved). The great Roy Buchanan was another absolute master of right-hand control (including the Volume Control). The latter two turned down offers to be the lead guitarist in the Rolling Stones after Mick Taylor parted ways.
Have you ever noticed that almost none of the descriptive terms relating to the nature of perceived sound are unique to the hearing of sounds ? “Loud” is. “Soft” is not. They (mostly) seem to be borrowed terms from either tactile (ie: soft, warm, smooth, fuzzy, thick, full, fat, bouncy, crisp, sharp, dull, etc) or visual (ie: bright, brilliant, dark, colorful, glowing, etc) sensory experiences. A few borrowed from Taste (“sweet”, “syrupy”, “rich”). A few other terms unique to hearing are: “talk”, “sing”, “scream”, “screech”, “muffled”, and “muted”.
4 Likes
Mmmmm tubes
5 Likes