Crusoe

Does anyone have any advice on how to stop my fingers catching the adjacent string when bending? Eg, if I bend a note on the second string, my fingertip has a tendency to catch the third string, causing it to ring out when I release the bend.

I had never heard of Joe until I started playing electric guitar a few months ago. Now I see his name everywhere. The same goes for John Mayer.

The photos don't actually do it justice. As the name implies, the paint job is transparent, so there's lovely wood grain visible underneath.

Cheers Frank. It is very nice to play.

Your wish etc...

Your wish etc...

This was a real impulse buy. I was on Andertons site yesterday and saw one of these in flat black, second hand for £300. It looked gorgeous with gold machinery and pups. I thought about it for a while and eventually added it to the basket, then sat thinking some more. At that point our pizza was delivered. After a tasty pepperoni passion, I went back upstairs, got ready to pull the trigger and notice big red letters saying "out of stock". I was looking at other colours and saw that my local shop had the cherry red in stock. I took a run down, had a bit of a play and whipped out the credit card. It looks fantastic. It's a fairly inexpensive guitar, so there are one or two very minor cosmetic issues that you wouldn't really notice unless you look very hard, but it sounds great. It's going to take a while to get used to block inlays, rather than dots. Incidentally, in the shop I was playing through a Laney Super Cub, which sounded really good.

As a beginner I like Justin Sandercoe (justinguitar) and Marty's Music, but my favourite is Adrian on Anyone Can Play Guitar. He's quite self-deprecating, almost shy but with a very dry, funny sense of humour. He plays a wide range of stuff, including jazz and blues, but his main interest seems to be punk, post-punk and indie which ties in with my personal tastes.

I was in the aforementioned Matchetts this evening. They are having a pedal week and had Adam Ironside from D'Addario in to demonstrate their new XPND pedal board. I am an absolute beginner when it comes to electric guitar, so I went along to try and learn something (and because I was at a loose end). The pedal board looks like a really useful bit of kit. The one he showed holds about 4 pedals but has a section that slides out which can accommodate another 3 or 4. He encouraged us to ask questions, so I asked about powering the pedals (I did say I'm a beginner) and I ended up coming away with a D'Addario Pedal Tuner Plus for asking what Adam considered to be the best question of the night. Happy days! He also gave us some t-shirts. The moral of the story is, support your local bricks and mortar music shops, because you don't get this sort of thing from online retailers.

I came across some old clippings from the local newspaper a couple of weeks ago. I'll try and get them scanned in. I didn't recognise you from the profile pic (didn't look closely enough) and the moniker threw me.

Assuming there is no other, yes.

I've started watching Adrian on Anyone Can Play Guitar on YouTube. He plays a lot of the kind of bands that I listen too, as well as other stuff.

I got a Harley Benton bundle a couple of weeks ago. It came with the HB-20R amp, which I'm very happy with. It's more than loud enough for your bedroom, has clean and overdrive channels, aux in socket (so you can plug in an mp3 player, for example), a headphone and line out socket and a reverb knob. Harley Benton HB-20R – Thomann UK

I'm really enjoying it. I love the sound I get through the wee 20w amp that came with it. I'm sure it's probably nowhere near as good as a genuine Fender Telecaster, but for me, playing in my bedroom, it's spot on.

I bought my Harley Benton online, but only because I'm a beginner and didn't want to shell out a lot of money only to decide I didn't like it. If I do decide to upgrade, it will be from a physical shop. Funnily, like @EdwardMarlowe, Matchetts would be my local shop. There's also Bairds and Belfast Music Supplies. I'm sure Edward remembers Session Music, on the Dublin Road. There was also Marcus Music, which became Dawsons, but sadly they have now closed.

Hi there, I'm Gary. I have recently taken possession of a new Harley Benton TE-20 SB Standard, with amp, so I'm hoping to pick up some useful tips from you all. Oh, and I also found my way here from Basschat.