randythoades

Probably like many on here, I echo @ezbass. I was taught a few basic chords and learned the pentatonic scale and a couple of riffs out of a book. The rest was just picking it up gradually over the years, asking questions of other players, watching live bands in pubs and seeing how the guitarist played. Nearly 40 years later I still don't know proper chord theory, or dozens of proper progressions or all the fancy scales. I know the major and minor chords, barre chords, major and minor pentatonics and I know the progressions that work in the music that I like. That is pretty much it. I can play almost everything that I want to play without too many problems, might not be the same as the record but where is the fun is that, it sounds like me! I learned the note pattern on the E and A strings and once you get the pattern of how those notes fall and relate to each other, you just repeat that knowledge onto the next string and so on, but starting from a different note. And everything below the 12th fret is just repeated above the 12th fret. As @Dad3353 says, just by going through things like that will just embed into your brain and you end up using it unconsciously. So to summarize. Don't get caught up in the 'you have to learn this, this and this...', just get to the point where you can play along to the songs you like and you will inevitably enjoy it more. Once you enjoy it, you want to play more, you gain experience, knowledge and muscle memory thus making something else a little easier when you want to learn something you can't currently do.

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Although I don't have one, I have played quite a few and several friends have them. From a personal choice I would say that the mid range (Electromatic) range are excellent and none of my friends have complained about the Bigsby affecting tuning, but it isn't there for dive bombs, just a subtle warble. I prefer one without, but they don't seem to have any issues. I have also played a few of the slightly lower Streamliner ones and they were a bit hit and miss. A couple were really fantastic, and a couple were a bit sloppy build wise. If I was going to get one I would want to go and try them first in order to get a good one. On the plus side I really preferred the different slant that they put on in comparison to the Electromatics which are much more traditional. But I am not sure I would want one as my only guitar. They sound good and will cover a lot from indie jangle to rockabilly but I think they are too much of a niche look these days (and actually quite heavy for a hollow guitar).

Not sure it would be my style, but great concept, particularly for practice and for covers band players. Looks like they do strat styles too, so might be worth checking out. Just like the Line 6 Variax range but one step further. Does it work just off the app? Would it still work after the app or device is no longer supported? As far as I know the Variax line will work happily using the standard sounds even if it hasn't been updated.

As @ezbass says, they are probably playing the same chord (a chord is just made up of a fixed group notes), just on a different place on the neck. Each chord can be played in several different ways, using the same actual notes, but just using different position on the neck, the same as bottom string and top string are both the note of E so can be interchanged even though they sound different. This is one of the benefits of the guitar, the notes are repeated multiple times on the fretboard so a player can choose in which order he plays the notes of a particular chord, or just in a position that he favours. It is common with 2 guitars to play different positions (inversions), usually one in the lower registers and one higher up so that the sound doesn't get too muddy.

Looks vaguely like the PRS S2 Vela. Not a fan. As @Dad3353 says, if there isn't any innovation, what else does it bring to the party? I am definitely in camp F as far as guitar design goes so prefer something not LP looking, but rather than bringing out a re-hash of a mediocre design, why not try something new? I appreciate it is a pretty saturated market and they must get incredibly frustrated with people just wanting 80 year old designs and there must be people who hanker after 40 year old designs from the 80s. There is a retro market for the Japanese designs that had it covered back then and you can get a great Matsumoku built 80s model for a quarter of that price. Although I am not old enough to remember, just imagine the astonishment when the Flying V came out in the late 50s... what a thing to re-capture...!!

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True

Cordoba do a range of 'modern' shaped stage nylons. I looked at these too as I like the idea of a nylon acoustic, but also don't like the traditional look. They get great reviews but I didn't get round to trying one. https://cordobaguitars.com/stage/ I did try one of the Ibanez FRH though and it was very nice actually but I didn't like the balance when seated. It is really thin, just like an electric and it was nice to play standing, I just wasn't convinced by the seated ergonomics for me personally and I would play it seated for a lot of the time. But the neck felt closer in width to my regular guitar than it did a wide flat classical board, so it depends what you want it for. I also have a Fender Highway Acoustic which is also really thin, and again, don't like the seated position, but I play that standing for the most part and it is really comfortable. So maybe I should give a thinline nylon another go.

As I said, I have tried different sized tremolo blocks of steel and brass and couldn't tell the difference (sorry if that was unclear on my post). I can't tell the difference either between a floating or fixed/blocked tremolo either, I only do it for convenience as I don't use the trem.

I don't use the tremolo much, but I do believe it adds an airy element to the tone, so I tend to fix it down it in Eric Clapton style. I have tried steel and brass blocks of various sizes but I haven't found it add or reduce tone in any big or meaningful way. The only difference I found was when swapping a really cheap cast trem from an import guitar for a 'proper' one. It added a little (and only a little) of body to the tone, but that could have been a combination of fit, quality, saddles, the trem itself as well as the trem block.

I could see a medieval Angus Young rocking one of these...!!

Notes? What are these 'notes' people talk about? All I hear is random white noise... Ahh, maybe that is my tinnitus and I need to turn the amp up

I will echo other responses. A lot of guitar tone is 'in the fingers' so an expensive guitar won't necessarily sound better to you. It might be slightly easier to play and the components nicer, or even just a different colour. If that makes you want to pick it up and play more often then it starts to become worth it, but overall not necessary. I have splashed out on custom made guitars as well as US made Fenders and Gibson that I didn't like for one reason or another until I found my perfect guitars in a Squier and a Vintage. Both of which wouldn't be considered to be expensive, but they feel perfect to me.

Help with what? Only you can decide what not to take with you. Just take a few photos of guitars you are willing to part with (which is the hardest part...!! ) and either post them in the For Sale section here on GC, or on other well known auction sites. If you put them at reasonable prices then they will sell quickly. Trouble with some auction sites is that people over price their items and they stay listed and unsold for months.

Nothing at all. This is the way that I do it myself. I was just adding a comment about your point about whether a headphone output would be required.

The Joyo series do work with headphones if necessary, but it is quite a low output as it isn't the right level for headphones. I use mine with my IEM headphone amp if I need to. But for purely practice I use a Vox amplug which could also use the headphone out to run into a DAW.

I would suggest using one of the Joyo or Tech 21 amp simulators (there are several flavours to choose from depending on your amp preferences). I use the Joyo American Sound version (Tweed) which I slightly preferred to the Tech 21 Blonde. Although you mention analog, I would be surprised if many of the amp simulators with IR are anything but digital anyway, but I agree that I like to have knobs to twist. You can add reverb etc in your DAW. The Joyo ones already have cab simulation built in and mine records very well. I have tried the VST route and was just too many options for my tiny mind, so went back to hardware. Mine was about £35 new, but you can get them for less on eBay. The upside is that it also doubles as a backup for gigs, or even the basis of an ampless setup.

It is often a good idea to replace the wiring at the same time, but not a necessity. Keeping the wiring installed shows you where to solder the connections, and to be honest, investing another £50 of wiring and pots into a budget guitar means you will have spent more than the guitar is worth. If you do go for it I would suggest getting a new scratchplate and just wire the new bits all onto a new plate. Then you can remove it and replace the original one when you sell the guitar and upgrade to a new one.

Yes, very sad. A good innings though. Saw the Bluesbreakers play once in Guildford. Cracking gig.

Just stick with it, follow your tutor and keep at it. I don't think many of us on here can claim to have 'done it all' on guitar, we all need help and we all have stuff we can't play. You generally only hear other people playing stuff they can actually play rather than the stuff they can't. You can already play a huge amount better than someone else just starting their journey and probably a huge amount better than some that have been playing for years. I had a massive issue with Mr Brightside by the Killers. The band wanted to play it, but I just can't get it. I have tried. The melodic intro section that repeats through the song is just beyond me and my fingers. So I got them to slow it down and change the key by a semitone and we did it acoustically like a country song with open chords. They got to play it and I managed to change it sufficiently enough for me to play it. Crowd still liked it and sang along so everyone was happy.

The best advice I got was from a guitar teacher (not mine). He told me to join a band. I said that I couldn't do that because I just couldn't play... He asked me to play for a few minutes and then asked why I was so frustrated. I said that I wanted to play like Clapton, Van Halen and Chuck Berry, but I just sounded like me. He agreed and pointed out that those players really only played in one style too (their own), and none of them could play like me either! I was about 18 months into playing at this point. I gained confidence in that, whatever I can do I do in my own style, shaped through experience, bad habits, physical restrictions etc and I realised that I didn't need to play everything in every style. I just needed to play the stuff I wanted in the style I play, both good and bad. Some songs work for me and some don't. In a band you pick up so much, you gain confidence and you push yourself to keep up with the best player there. You don't have to play live, it could just be a regular jam in someones living room. Once you have gotten over that initial hurdle of being able to play the main open chords, some barre chords, some major and minor pentatonics then the rest is window dressing, you can play along with a small group. A large proportion of the pop, rock and blues from the last 70 years have featured pretty much this. Some players never progress beyond that, some go on and on. As @Dad3353 says, pick a few songs that you like and play a simplified version of it (there are bound to be simple versions on YouTube), play for 15 mins at a time and then gradually add in bits as you learn them, it doesn't have to be note perfect, it is just an approximation. I used to jam with a guy who could play any scale you wanted at 100 miles an hour top to bottom, but couldn't play Knocking on Heavens Door.

Everything that @Dad3353 says above. It happens to everyone, whatever their skill level. Sometime, just taking a week off really helps. For some reason the brain digests everything when you aren't even playing and suddenly you make a jump forward without even realising it.

Definitely. But I suppose that the more you play with that much gain you end up doing it naturally. I would be horrendous at this, I find palm muting easy enough but I can't mute unwanted string well...!

My wife says the same and I know what she means. It isn't a nice full pleasant sound like a full acoustic, but it is much louder than the solid body electric. I am tending to play more acoustic than electric now in any case so try to bury myself in the furthest part of the house to prevent the banging on the ceiling/floor or walls to 'turn that bloody thing down'...