Lunch report: 2011-06-17 (Friday) (Aussie lunch nomination!)

[Brock]

Business:
I hereby nominate Aussie for lunch reporter next week. Per GbL code, if you are not willing or able to perform duties, you most nominate someone else. It's "pass the buck" at its finest.

Fretless guitar:
Not bass guitar, a guitar! I have one. I'll even have a flock of them for sale in the next week. Anyone ever play one? Like or dislike?

I didn't groove with mine at first. Couldn't stand the string spacing, like with other guitars. Converted it over to a four string. Now, I so dig it! I'll have to post up some video of mine later today, or at least a picture. Until then, here's the base model, a "Smoothboard Classic (First Run)":



I have a nice and beautiful G&L El Toro fretless, but the Ashbory Bass ruthlessly takes the fretless bass time away from it. Not completely unlike the way my 1984 SB-2 was owning on the Martin EB-28 bass. The difference here being that I can't just slap some silicone rubber strings on the El Toro to even the playing field.

Questions:
Ever play a fretless guitar? What did you think?
Ever play a fretless bass guitar? What did you think?

G&L:
Any desire for a doubleneck G&L? They don't seem to get mentioned so often in G&L fanville. Just think, one neck could be "G" and the other "L"!

Karaoke and Video:
I have a weak spot for Karaoke. It's so ridiculous. You have people, typically drinking. Then you give them a mic and request they sing. Is this a good idea? Often, it isn't. That's why I love karaoke!

Where it gets worse is some places let you bring in a disc of your own. I haven't found a good, cheap way to make CD+G discs, but typically the player will play a DVD too. So, that's what I do sometimes more recently. Here's what happened when I combined Karaoke and TV Cycle:
[youtube]LijqtjyIv2w[/youtube]

That episode is a favorite. Bob and I are talking about an amp Bob shouldn't have bought (a Fender Satellite with SFX). We go by the state capitol building, and then there's the end where I sing the show theme song karaoke style on stage at the sandwich saloon. The Karaoke part starts at 11:15. I'm introduced in as Dev Null. That's a karaoke name I use. According to wikipedia, "In Unix-like operating systems, /dev/null or the null device is a special file that discards all data written to it (but reports that the write operation succeeded) and provides no data to any process that reads from it. The null device is typically used for disposing of unwanted output streams of a process, or as a convenient empty file for input streams."

Besides the show theme, I've also shown up with a hammer before and performed this song from some demos I did this earlier this year. Here's the song:
"I Have a Hammer"

I need to do a real take of that song. It needs a little reworking too, but not too much. I totally looked down deep into my soul on that one, and my inner child roared! Speaking of child, that's my son asking to get in on the demos. He actually did later, and I suppose also on "I Have a Hammer" unintentionally.

Questions:
What was the last largely worthless (to you) amp or effect you've ever bought?
Do you karaoke?
Do you hate karaoke?

It's been a fun week. Thanks for riding along.

[willross]

Great job this week! I'd like a fretless baritone...


Cheers,

Will

[sirmyghin]

Fretless long scale sounds like a fun ride. Not in the market right now though. I must say I find your seeming obsession with 4 string guitars extremely odd however.

[sickbutnottired]

Didn't get to play much this week. I hope to give your video's a look over a lazy Sat. breakfast. I have to say I have never heard of a 4 string guitar before this week. Guess I should get out more!

Fretless? Hmmm. I would like to mess with one. But it sounds suspiciously like a lot of work.

Cheers, jeremy

[Ahryn]

haven't had much experience with fretless but they look fun and would probably really improve your technique, only pedal I have is the green screamer which I am still in love with but a largely worthless amp?

Vox valvetronix vt-30 did not have any fun with that amp, some decent tones but it had a built in buzz (like a real tube amp! remember kids if you can't sound like a tube amp sound like one with bad buzzing tubes ) and as it was 30 watts I had to turn it up too loud just to hide the buzzing.

I took it back and grabbed a nice and quite 5 watt vibrochamp XD and haven't looked back, until Monday when I go looking for my first tube amp

I don't really like double neck guitars, I see a double neck SG and I can only think about how cool a 12 string SG would be.

Also wasn't there a G&L on ebay that was half guitar half bass?

[Brock]

I must say I find your seeming obsession with 4 string guitars extremely odd however.

If you saw me interact with a bass guitar and then a six string guitar, you wouldn't be confused. I need the spacing. It's all about the spacing.

[sirmyghin]

I must say I find your seeming obsession with 4 string guitars extremely odd however.

If you saw me interact with a bass guitar and then a six string guitar, you wouldn't be confused. I need the spacing. It's all about the spacing.

I am a bassist, however I go seemlessly between the instruments however so I would likely still be confused. I do have a pretty wide spaced 5 too, 19mm. I don't feel limitted by the range of a 4 string bass parsay, but I greatly enjoy having more range and more notes per position. Hence cutting down to 4 strings, especially as a lot of my chord voicings use 5 strings , seems very peculiar.

[zapcosongs]

Brock -

First I want to apologize for not responding more this week. I did read most, and watched some. Very busy with the kids' last week of school, parties, activities, last games and final celebrations for a number of sports, and trying to keep two old folks on their feet while cooking, doing laundry, practicing a little law and playing chauffeur among many other things...

Fretless: No experience whatsoever with any fretless instrument. I really do respect good fretless players though. One could argue that having frets is almost cheating, but the immediacy and clarity of the fretted note makes it kind of a different thing entirely for me, and my preference by and large. There are times though, I admit, that only a fretless sound will properly move the soul....

The Hammer song: Pretty g-ddam strange if you ask me. Which can be fine. But might not be in this particular case. ;+)

Worthless amp or effect: Here's half an answer: Channel two on my Superchamp XD. I'm a moron though. On the bright side, Channel 1 is really worth the price of admission. Also, what the hell is one supposed to do with a Flanger, really?

Karioke: Never done it. Kind of gives me a little thrill thinking about doing it though (preferably in Osaka with "happy ending."). - ed

[Aussie]

I hereby nominate Aussie for lunch reporter next week.

Man, I'm so under the hammer with work and family at the moment that I'm not sure I can do this justice ... but its been a couple of years or so since I've done LR duties and I've had to knock back a couple of offers in the meantime ... so yes ok I humblely accept the second highest honour for the coming week.
cheers, Robbie

[darwinohm]

Brock, great week and some interesting videos. it is Sunday night and I am back.

I have a fretless bass and really like it. It takes time to master and I have used it very little. The last time I used it practicing with the band, Steve (Lead Guitar) thought it was a bit zoomy. it is until you really find the groove. I would like a fretless regular guitar to try. Maybe if I have one that develops a bad neck that is what I could do. it would be an interesting experiment. As for a 4 string guitar, it was used by the Kingston Trio back in the late 50's and they had a cool sound.

A double neck G&L would be interesting especially with a bass on one neck. Music Man is now offering a Stuart Smith double neck with a 12 string. I would expect the demand to be low. I noticed the weight is about 12 Lbs.

Thanks for stepping up this week Brock and keep the TV Cycle rolling!---Darwin

[Brock]

I am a bassist, however I go seemlessly between the instruments however so I would likely still be confused.

I can see how that would be the case. I use my fingers (no pick) on guitar, and I dig in hard. I'm not Wes Montgomery. I need space between the strings, and I play hard.

I rarely play a chord with more than three strings, and I'm not super fond of the unwound string sound anyway. Getting rid of the top two strings and having more space really works for me. Standard spacing limits what I do, and I trip over the other strings too easily, leading to frustration.

I do have an L-5000 bass, and that narrow 5 configuration is apparently not a problem (I actually prefer it to an L-2500 spacing) but standard 6 string guitar is far too close for me.

-Brock

[Brock]

One could argue that having frets is almost cheating, but the immediacy and clarity of the fretted note makes it kind of a different thing entirely for me, and my preference by and large.

Frets are the auto-tune of stringed instruments. They bracket your notes automatically (unless you're doing bends). Folklore has it the the name "Precision" in Precision Bass came from the use of frets. I don't know if that's true or not, but it makes sense.

[bassman]

The name Precision bass was coined exactly because of the frets. That is not folklore.
I can vouch for frets. They are your friends if you want to play in tune. I have a fretless bass and it is challenging to play but I can play it in tune. I don't think a fretless guitar is as easy to play as some may think.
It would be interesting to play with one. I think I would rather have an Ashbory bass.

[sirmyghin]

I am a bassist, however I go seemlessly between the instruments however so I would likely still be confused.

I can see how that would be the case. I use my fingers (no pick) on guitar, and I dig in hard. I'm not Wes Montgomery. I need space between the strings, and I play hard.

There is the ticket, finger picking. I can see the issues now, I play claw style/ hybrid pick on guitar, but I keep some nails to facilitate (very short usually though). The finger style on my bass is obviously very different from on guitar too, which I use only occasionally (mostly pretending to be a classical musician). The L2500 spacing is comfy for me, my bass is a bit wider though.

On a guitar I spent a painstaking amount of time over the years teaching myself to use a pick effectively. The picks I do use have very small and sharp points, but learning to pick, coming from bass, was a HUGE hurdle. Interesting playing mostly just the triads, and their suspensions though. I suppose you could embellish on 3 strings, but the 3rd b7 and embellishment is all you get (albeit it is all you need).

My favourite 4 string chord, is a stacked 5ths (sus 2) with the 3rd including, giving an add9 chord. Voiced 1-5-9-3 for a major/minor second interval, relative to the chord.

[Brock]

I can vouch for frets. They are your friends if you want to play in tune. I have a fretless bass and it is challenging to play but I can play it in tune.

Yeah, I really have to pay attention, whereas with a guitar or bass I'm not even looking at it a lot of the time, depending on what I'm playing. With fretless, I look more, though when I'm in the zone, I'm not looking so much there either. The eyes can help, but ultimately the ears have to be the main guide.

[Brock]

The Hammer song: Pretty g-ddam strange if you ask me. Which can be fine. But might not be in this particular case. ;+)

Pardon me, but, IS THAT A NAIL?!?!?!?!

Something I neglected to note is that demo is just two "performances" on three tracks. The bass is a bass guitar through a Yorkville XM100 and a Line6 Spider I at the same time (yup, two amps), and then the vocal. The percussion is built into the Zoom MRS-1044. Not great, but convenient.

The reason everything is so scrappy is that I improvised the song. I'm basically writing it as I play it.

-Brock

P.S.> IS THAT A NAIL?!?!?!?!

[zapcosongs]

Yes, a nail it was!

I suppose what I was trying to say is it didn't move me like the first time I heard "Mondale." - ed

[Brock]

Jerry wrote all the lyrics to "Mondale". I can't take credit for such moving words.