TapperMike

Live and let die .. Paul McCartney

Winter wonderland. Just because I love wersi organs.

Bill Tyers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU5cIS0KjsU

This Guy. He has the largest personal collection of jazz boxes I've ever seen.

Thirty Years. Wow. I'm sure it will be a challenging transition. All I have to say to you is thank goodness you play the guitar. So many people I know don't have any hobbies. Playing guitar will always give you a goal, something to achieve for that day. As well, something you can look forward to. My sister lives in a retirement home, I see her neighbors all the time. Those that are the happiest are those who maintain their interests.

The apartment complex I live in won't allow cable. It's ATT or nothing.

Man is that fast Tom

There is much contention over the 1.+ and the 2.+ variax tones. Some feel the 1.X is more faithful to the original instrument models... Not me. As far as working with the workbench software to modify the guitars.... I love it. I've built more then a few "custom" guitar tones from it. I'm not the only one... http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?board=138.0 I just wish I had a line6 effects processor to complete things. I'm saving my pennies for a firehawk FX. I figure by the time I can afford one the prices will drop on the used market. Firehawk is known for it's ease of use over pod floor/rack and helix as well as having "classic tones" in the presets so famous sounds are easy to just find. With regards to finding presets Line6 has a vast library of user created custom tones for most models - http://line6.com/customtone/ Oddly Firehawk is not listed among the devices. That being said, If you don't have the ear for building custom tones line 6 also has... Tone templates http://line6.com/tone-templates/ Granted the values aren't expressed so you would need to spend some time with that but it's a foot in the door. Another source I've found is..... GP5 and GPX (Guitar Pro) files. They have RSE virtual guitars, effects and amps. Depending on the arrangers skills you can just open up a guitar pro song and then select the Guitar and Effect icons and figure out the effects and settings of various songs. Before turning over a new leaf and heading away from my fingerstyle jazz I looked around at my collection and said.... My tone catalog is complete for jazz. I need not more then what I have. But part of me wanted to move away from what I'm doing because I'm so very bored with it all. Moving into a different style gives me something to challenge myself with.

I was thinking about stopping my broadband landline and simply using my phone carriers 4LGTE However It would be $10 cheaper for half the speed.

I'm sure most of you will beat this. http://www.speedtest.net/

I had to come back to this thread to state one thing.... Recently (last two days) I've gotten an itch to play melodic metal. While I wasn't a fan of the magnetic single coils that come with the variax I'm enjoying them quite a bit now. They have that punch and grit without the sweetness that I'm familiar with playing on Seymour Duncans or other pups.

That reads great Rudi, I've always had a fascination with flying but never pursued it as a pilot. I've been a passenger on military (transport, communications, helicopters but not fighter) planes as well as commercial and personal crafts Most of it I've rather enjoyed but I've never taken to the stick and throttle.

My sister gave me a regift hp laptop circa 2010 with Windows 8 installed. Apparently it had collected dust for so long it missed the free win10 upgrade. Now I know what everyone was complaining about. It only took me about four hours to get the os fully recovered. I'm going to install android on to it. Although I'm going to have to invest in a Bluetooth usb It's funny you get a new computer that has nothing on it and then you realize the implications of that. (spending all that time transferring your stuff)

Well I "rediscovered" something I'd already known about the firehawk. External editing can only be done via android or iOS. Not win and not any flavor of OSX. While I do have an android phone it's smaller. It would be cheaper for me to buy a chromebook to edit the thing then ipad. It also would be easier as my android phone isn't very large. My needs for a laptop/tablet have changed through the years after leaving support..... But that's a story for another day. Yeah, I've read countless things on issues with string gauge changing on older variax guitars. Not much on trying it with recent ones. I too would always play 10's on my solid bodies and 12's on my jazz boxes. It was oddly my gigging days playing the blues and advice from a friend that I try going to a lighter gauge. That was the tipping point for me when I could finally do some serious country bends all night long. Which even though I don't consider myself a country player converted me to playing with lighter gauges thereafter (it also helped to speed up my chops) Regarding performing with various guitars...... I'll never perform live with an acoustic ever again. Not only have I had issue after issue with acoustics through the years. But I've had not one but two "Belushi" moments playing acoustics live. My 30+ year old strat would need work before it saw the stage. The 9th fret is all out of whack. What's more the finish looks horrible. For the price of a refinishing job I could get two or even three new american made Strats. Actually I could prolly get a 920D custom shop replica of my Strat (as fender no longer makes em that way) for less then I paid for the original. As for carrying around picks it's just natural for me. If I'm playing with a pick, when I'm done it goes into my pocket and when I change pants the pick, coins, keys come out of one pair and into another.