TomT

Ty! It'll get there

Hey guys. Just picked up a banged up old Frankenstein Strat and I'm having trouble with the tremolo. If I bend the notes or push the tremolo down more than a quarter step it goes out of tune. I'm going to replace the vintage saddles with American Standard saddles to help keep the strings nice and centered but I wonder if that'll be enough with this one. Whoever owned this thing before me did some weird stuff to it such as swapping the neck and a few other things. It's got no serial numbers so I have no idea how old it is but I'm guessing most of it is from a standard Tex-mex, Mexican Strat. I adjusted the action and intonation and everything else looks just fine. Can anyone think of anything else I might need to do? I would love to make this bashed up old thing a performer.

Reaper, huh? HmmMMmmmmm. I'll try it! Thanks.

Oh, I think my tutors from back when I was a kid are probably still recovering from this wayward student in a psyche ward somewhere

All of the above. When I started playing at Open Mics, it just plain sucked. I was in an awful place on stage but I wanted it and that was all there was to it. The more you need to overcome, the greater the reward awaits you. Now, I am positively thrilled that I stuck it out and that new energy and confidence has not only changed my outlook on life but when I'm on stage, I share it and make it look easy for anyone who wants to take a shot at it themselves.

Hey guys. I'm using Audacity for recording and I love it except for one crucial thing. I can't get the Gverb (reverb) to sound good whatsoever. It baffles me. It's a great program (and it's free online) but that one thing is just plain awful compared to the rest of it. What should I do? Find a way to make the settings work? Use some sort of app (I'm app-illiterate) or try another free program altogether? Definitely a bummer I can't get it to work properly. Tia.

iiiiiiinteresting! I have not seen one of those before. I'll check it out. Thanks!

I'm hoping to start going into gig/open mike host territory and I wanted to hear from you guys about portable PA systems you like. Out of all the open mics I go to, everyone seems to have their own preferred gear and I've pretty much never seen the same setup twice. Personally, I was thinking about the Fender Passport 300 or maybe even the 500. I tried the 150 version and it just didn't have the muscle I needed. I like Fishman and Bose towers but I don't love them, you know? Not enough Oomph. I like a lot of driving bass. Anyway, love to hear your thoughts! Tom

It's pretty weird. Acoustic, no pickup, new saddle, everything is nice and tight. The buzz makes the damned thing sound like a sitar. The worst culprits are the 11th E and 8th D. Last set of strings I had it was only the E that was a problem. The only thing I can think of is maybe the saddle grooves aren't deep enough because whatever is going on between it and the pegs affects the whole string. It's definitely behind the saddle. If I place my finger on the string back there the noise is gone. I pinched a little cotton in there again and it seems to work. At this point that's all I care about. I'm just wondering what all the mystery is.

Hey guys. I have a Yamaha 420 12 which has a few strings that always buzz behind the saddle. I try wadding cotton back there but then it mutes the string. Can't seem to find anything online about this; it's always about fret buzz. Any suggestions? Tia. Tom

Guys, come on now. If you really think Rock is dead then get out there and rock the house. In my opinion, a lull in the market is an opportunity. Tapper has a good point as far as it goes. These idiotic club owners want covers. Screw that. Covers are like a dead language to me. Covers are what keep Rock dead. I admit that there are plenty of owners who don't like my music and that's fine. All I know is that wherever I go, there is no shortage of positive feedback from patrons and why? Because original music is new music and people want to hear something fresh. It's a money maker. I have no problem with people who specialize in covers and I'm not above doing a few myself. Still, I want to help bring back the industry, make some money and do things my way without having to bow to anyone else. What we need to do is appeal to the younger audience, given that the old-school crowd wants to hear the oldies. Not good enough. Look at the big names such as the Stones, Steve Miller and so on. All anyone wants to do is hear the classics out of them and every time they try something new, the crowd gets up and hits the bathroom. Very rude. Were I they, I would create a brand new venue and make it clear that it's a new-material gig and nothing else. Anyway, I focus at the local level. I'm out so often that I barely listen to the radio, have little idea what's going on out there in the big leagues and don't care. I know I'm new but I also know if I get a band put together, we'll be in mosh pit territory in no time flat. Maybe someday I'll sign with a label and take off with this profession but not unless they do what they're told. If we collectively demand free licence with our work and non-binding contracts, this genre can be made into a new success story overnight. Rock can never die, guys. Bank on it.

Well, look. I understand totally where you are coming from given that I'm a Rock guy. Rock music as far as I can tell is semi-dead and unrecognisable at the moment, which gives me my "in". Any established form of music I would imagine needs to take a break every once in awhile before it can be brought back again brand-spanking new. Rock, Rap, hip hop and now country music doesn't seem to make a lot of sense nowadays, does it? It's over-produced in many cases and more than a little hard to follow the tempo. So do what I do. Redefine the roots of the music from a fresh perspective and go from there. The question for you however is if it's time yet? Rock music has been in limbo for a loooooooong time and due for a rebound. Country not so much from what I can tell. Still, if you're going to be the lone voice trying to bring it back to where it was, I would imagine it shouldn't be too hard to find a following in both new and old audiences. Going back to the basics when everyone else is trying to outdo one another is a call for oppertunity, not dispair.

Well, I'm new to all this and I think what I'm going to do for the time being is pretty old-school but effective. I'm going with word-of-mouth. I like people. I like to know what makes them tick. I'll play a gig but afterwards when people want to talk to me, I'll talk right back and find out who they are, ya know? It works with anyone. If you find yourself locked in a conversation with someone you don't care for....well....it's not as if you have to take `em home with you, right? I also make it a point to remember names in case I'm ever back again. It gets easier with practice. Anyway, the hell with depending on the web. I'll post my whereabouts on Facebook and Reverbnation (<shameless self-promotion and web usage:) and down the road I'll have a simple webpage and so on but the truest form of generating a fan base as an independent performer that I'm not totally allergic to is gig-by-gig. Take an interest in your audience, guys. It costs nothing.

I opened my mouth and simply starting making noise. It took me a year to find my limits and stabalize my voice but I'm very pleased with the result. My best advice when rehearsing in private is to sing as loud (within reason) as possible. At least sing louder than you would on stage. When you do that it's like shaking out the cobwebs so when you perform it'll be less of an effort to be heard.

Well, this Thursday (7/12/12) the training wheels come off. It will be six months and counting since I began playing at open mic venues in the Boston and Metrowest areas of Massachusetts all starting with Amazing Things Art Center in Framingham, MA. With the help of all the new friends I have made in this time, and again in particular those at Amazing Things (Who are affectionately known as "Hooligans" as dubbed by the venue's host and gifted musician Dan Cloutier), I have come full circle. It's really incredible how this community, without seeming to consciously do so, can be so utterly beneficial to a new performer such as myself. Although it's true that I have put an enormous amount of effort into re-learning how to perform, song-write and build a solid library of songs that I am proud of, it is still up to these people who share a gift and an interest to again share it with you. I will be conducting a reading at Amazing Things on Thursday with my good friend and supremely gifted musician Ilona Maki. Come Friday, I will post the evening's performance on my facebook page "Thomas Targett", my music webpage "TomTargettmusic" also at facebook and finally at my Reverbnation page. I encourage anyone to give it a listen. I know it's good and I know it's all because of people like you. I finally discovered the true secret to performing not only fearlessly but victoriously: Good friends.

I've got a new song in my teeth (YAY!) and I've tuned the fifth and sixth strings down into an A(6th) and E(5th) powerchord arrangement. It's the only performing guitar I have so I need to be able to play stuff in other tunings. It's a softly played song and I don't hit the strings hard enough to make the oscillations jump but it still sounds a little fluttery. I already thought of throwing the capo on somewhere but you know how it is. This song wants that A. Any suggestions about strings that'll go low but still be able to do EADGBE? tia

Ya know, that's a great idea with the picks. The other night I split my fingernail for the second time and very reluctantly admitted to myself that I need to use a pick. Because I constantly switch back and forth between strumming and picking, chucking the pick at the audience is a great idea (just as long as it doesn't wind up in anyone's dinner). As far as my earlier post, I decided that because I'm relatively new to performing again (been off stage since 1987), the song in question can be done perfectly well without the harmonics. Until I get my training wheels off, I've decided to lay off the showboating for the moment until I get things nice and tight (and develop a singing voice).

Yeah, when WBCN went off the air here in Boston, I was pretty depressed. They were the last holdout after WCOZ left town. To add insult to injury, the signal was taken up by one of those new, perky mix stations. Nothing against that type of music but it just felt as though we were being steamrolled by mediocrity. So there's still classic rock stations with their exhaustingly tight rotations and whatnot but you know, it's like anything else; seek and you shall find. It's not entirely out of the question that the new generation may pick up the torch sometime in the future. As far as the music scene itself I can't really say at the moment. I'm doing rock acoustic myself at open mics in Boston and thereabouts and now that I'm slowly getting geared back up again with electric guitar equipment , I'll be rocking the F%#* out of any gig I find down the road. LONG LIVE ROCK!! l..l_ _l..l lll lll

I'm trying to invent a pick that'll help me do some right handed hammer harmonics on this one song of mine. Basically, I'm going to wrap my index finger in foil and create a mold out of nail polish. No matter how hard I work it, the sound never comes out while performing so unless this idea works I might have to very reluctantly rewrite the song.

Well, this isn't much of a confession given that everyone can see it when I'm on stage but I never use my pinkie for scales. Maybe it's because I refused to listen to anyone while I was learning how to play when I was a kid. Others have scoffed at the idea of having a "weak" pinkie but I've always found it very difficult outside of doing chords. I'm glad this topic was started because I'm always looking for a new sub-project in my rehearsals. I'll have to fit it in between learning how to do a flamenco fan and right-handed hammer harmonics.

I have these excellent Marshall pedals for compression and distortion. Thing about them is right after I bought `em I never saw them on the market again. Still have an Ibanez "Super Metal" that I use with a Morley Wah/volume with the Wah activated midrange to fill out the sound. Very Old School. Let's see, A DOD Gate/loop, a POS Digitech XP 100 Whammy Wah (Don't buy one), and a Digitech 128 rackmount signal processor (DO BUY ONE!)

Thanks. Yeah, I suppose this might not be the best time to start experimenting with electronics if there's the possibility of being zapped like that. Still, it doesn't sound like majorly expensive surgery so I don't feel that badly about taking it to the shop.

I just got an electric guitar over the weekend. I'm on a tight budget so I found this banged up black and gold Epiphone Les Paul that just plain rocks. Long story short, I've been playing acoustic for the past twenty years and my old Peavy Renown amplifier has been sitting all that time. So I fired it up and rediscoved a problem I had with it back in the day and never resolved. Every time I adjust the gain knob, the amp crackles and spits very badly. Plus, I have to keep adjusting it just right because the signal loses power or cuts out almost completely. There's a pre and post gain so if I get the post just right, I can turn the volume up and down just fine with the pre gain. Down the road I have some serious equipment upgrades I need to do but the amp has an excellent sound when it's behaving and I wanted to take a solid crack at fixing it. I'm trying to do these repairs myself because again...budget, budget, budget. So I've been looking without a great deal of luck for some websites that might help or if anyone here could throw in their two cents that would be great too. I just want to get an idea of what i'm getting into before I start taking it apart.

Hey Bad MF, Wouldn't hurt to try it. I guess my best critique is that the callouses on the right hand aren't built up as on the left. I've been telling myself that the reason I'm not hitting the harmonic notes solidly is because the tips of those fingers don't have enough of a shell on them. I'll give your suggestion a try though. I'm at the point that I was going to try to mold a tapping pick by wrapping my finger in cling wrap and then slathering on nail polish up to my first knuckle until it hardened and I could then sand it into a usable tool. Sounds weird to describe it that way but screw it. I do my strumming with my fingernails anyway and I already use polish to keep them from splitting. I'll give it an honest shot and thanks for the idea but I think it might be a new way to run into the same problem. I'll let ya know though. Tom

Hey guys, I have a song I wrote which requires me to do a bit of hammered harmonics on both the 12th and 19th frets with my right hand. It's a hard enough trick to pull off during practice but last night I performed the song and I couldn't get it to work at all. I could always get a friend to sit in and help with the rhythm so I could free up my left hand but part of being a musician is entertaining people and showing `em what you've got. So I'm trying to think of a way to invent a pick that will go over my right index finger and tap the string without plucking it. Any ideas?? Thanks in advance Tom