TapperMike

It's not just the internet. That's what real life is in many areas. Much of "American Life" was whitewashed by the media for fear of prosecution from the censors.

See ya when we see ya, Or you'll see us first. Hope your back survives the transition.

There are quite a number of "operations" in China that sell forged Gibson guitars complete with forged Gibson USA hard shell cases. These fakes have naturally spawned quite a bit of controversy. http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/counterfeit-guitar-bust-708.aspx "Lawsuit" guitars are nothing new. Back in the 70's they actually spawned a rise in Asian guitar manufacturing. Ibanez grew out of it's imitations of Gibson and Fender brands. They also upped the ante for quality on both sides of the pacific. The one thing they didn't do is use the Trademark name on the instruments. I'm no stranger to people trying to pass off forgeries as the real thing. Some are just overtly zealous types trying to make fun of the brand and the unaware. Some are simply profiteers. I can recall one short lived local music store that was always displaying forgeries of famous brand instruments. I know this reads naive. If I were making guitars I would make them uniquely my own and then be proud enough to put my own name on it. Works for hundreds of guitar brands. Here's the catch. People want to buy these forgeries knowing full well that they are. When they sell the forgeries they try to pass off the guitars as the real deal and..There is a sucker born every minute. Buyers who may not know what to look for are an easy mark on Ebay. And sellers are happy to laugh at them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJtg8BARrMU Chibson purchasers are quite proud of their aquisitions What I find amusing is that one Chinese seller has stopped selling to the UK and Canada (but not the states) sue to the level of complaints by purchasers regarding the quality of the instrument.

Santana Hendrix Clapton Page Gilmour Kenny Burrell George Benson Ed Bickert Eddie Van Halen (yes as much as I complain about him) Satriani Eric Johnson Ed Bickert Johnny Smith Grant Green Wes Montgomery Al Dimeola SRV Jimmie Vaughan (extremely underrated)

I don't think one can put this on politics (even though I'd love to) Both parties have drank the RIAA Kool aid and no party has addressed the ugly underbelly of the music industry since Payola. Payola is alive and well even though it has switched sides from record labels offering to radio stations demanding. Speaking of payola http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2013/04/are-direct-royalty-deals-with-clear-channel-media-the-new-payola-.html This could be the perfect way to drown out what little new music does come to radio. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC collect royalties where ever, whenever but if it's not on the radio or television none of those royalties are directly returned to the artist. Instead they are just "held for processing" as much of the publishing and copyright generated royalties.

EVH at it again http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/1013/eddie-van-halen-the-brown-sound-wasnt-my-toneit-was-alexs/52686 changing his story on "brown tone" More mudslinging lies http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/1013/eddie-van-halen-the-brown-sound-wasnt-my-toneit-was-alexs/52686 Why Michael Anthony won't stand up for himself is beyond me. Both DLR and Sammy defend Michael Anthony on this one contradicting what EVH stated...And there is always the proof in the pudding as to Michael Anthony's ability to solo extremely long passages playing bass He'll pull any lie out of his hat to garnish attention. Shame really.

I'd consider youtube. It takes little to no time to drop an image on top of an audio file and make it a movie. On the other hand I've got plenty of issues with youtube that has stopped me cold from uploading any content. Daily Motion and Vimeo are better for monetizing your work. And less prone to arbitrary takedown notices which it seems any troll or wigged out algorithm can produce. Everything costs money including bandwidth. For a time my company was working on it's own universal media streaming server technology. It was like skype + Net go to meeting + youtube + hulu + webinar + radio / tv broadcast streaming. It was a great product that we could never monetize nor monitor fully. It drained all of our capital and we never fully recovered from investment costs.

I know I wrote a long reply for this...anyway. @Rudi. I'd never heard of the Les Paul Less (really should get out more) So I did some digging on youtube. May be the amp settings may be the mix but not a single video could I hear the ballsy mid-lows I associate with Les Pauls. I thought they sounded fine though a little on the SG side. @TC I remember working and saving and working and saving up for my Les Paul Custom. I thought it would change my life. It did sort of. Between all that working and saving my girlfriend left me and my playing went to hell in a handbasket because I was working too much cooking and not practicing or playing. I lost a lot of good gigging opportunities along the way. When I finally got it man that was something else. I finally got the clue that an expensive guitar no matter how nice wasn't all it took to get better (but it helped) Financially there is no way I can afford a Frampton Les Paul. If I had that kind of money to throw at a guitar there's lots of other stuff I'd rather get first. Like the new Variax Standard from Yamaha. Which has a helluva more comfortable neck for my hands then the JTV's Nonetheless After getting a the variax and going through everything a million times I'd still consider a Frampton les paul even though I think they've already discontinued it. Or it's special order only. I'd prolly butcher any collectors value right out of the thing. Sperzel tuners, Roller Nut, Stetsbar Trem, and last but not least individual coil taps for the pups.

That one hasn't been around since the 80's used to use a scsi cable. Yeah. I've long since given up on Roland stuff. I had the gk1,2,2a etc and the GR300, GR1, GR30, GR33, GR09 I had no interest in the GR55 when it came out. I also had all the axis stuff and the yamaha stuff. 13pin is all the same. No matter how well tuned and intonated your guitar is it still sounds out of tune when playing a midi instrument. I thought about the fishman stuff. And figured it would (blow up) simply because of the way it's designed. You don't fix a latency problem by adding more latency into the issue. I wish I could play the keys. I've tried and tried and tried with really bad results. The Linnstrument will be the next midi instrument I'll try and that could be a long way off.

This guy is extremely knowledgeable over a wide variety of styles.

I haven't played one or heard one to do a comparative analysis. The new Les Paul Supreme (florentine) is a semi hollow body and I think they sound like crap. On the other hand Les Paul Custom Peter Frampton signatures sound amazing to my ears. It's a chambered body but not in the traditional sense. They drill a bunch of precisely positioned holes into the mahogany slab to reduce the weight without reducing the tone/sustain. It's 7.4 pounds

I haven't been teaching in close to a decade but yeah. I remember quite a few students wanting to learn classic rock tunes as well. As far as the sax part was concerned. Well I waited till the mid 80's came along and picked up an ibanez x-ing IMG2010 As soon as I got my hands on it I wanted to transpose everything I couldn't do before. Eventually I went through about every guitar midi device dumped on the market. After playing a ztar it's hard to go back to guitars for midi. A week or two passes these days before I'll touch anything midi. I find if I go to far all of my regular guitar playing goes out the window.

I've always played with flesh before while fingerpicking. I like the fat tone it gives but many a guitar teacher and others cringe. Flesh is fine for folk-ish type playing but I lack speed when I use the flesh of my fingers and...it's hard to get that authentic anything finger/hybrid type sound. When I was younger I played with capo's and various non standard tunings. I could play covers well enough but I never felt like I was making it mine. I used to play the hell out of steely dan. I wouldn't just learn the guitar parts I'd learn the bass, horns, sax, and recorder parts as well. Heck if I thought I could do a fair interpretation of the keyboards I'd try to tackle it on guitar (i suck on keys) I'm by no measure a country guitarist but I'm trying to put some country licks under my belt for variety. When I was thinking of getting a tele it was for jazz. I was very much into Ted Greene (great music lousy audio) and Ed Bickert Along the way I became fascinated with all things tele including country playing.

Wow, didn't mean to drag down the thread to stop people posting. Anyway.... I like the truefire stuff especially the western swing, jazz and country licks. Rather then just playing a lick they give a nice little backstory of the artist when obscure and the licks usage. Truefire finds teachers who are very devoted to the genre. They cover only enough theory to get the idea across.

It's funny I love Steely Dan. Had everything in vinyl ever done by them and much of the later work in CD. Seen them twice since they started touring. I follow Elliot Randall on FB. Steely Dan was never really a band. "It wasn't like they played musical chairs with band members, They'd play musical bands. One day they are telling you that they love you and your friends and the next day a whole nother band comes in and completely redoes the song" https://youtu.be/waIBA6_0GQc?t=205 It's funny you see the old TV show performances of Steely Dan from the 70's and they are lip syncing a guitarist may start the solo right but then as you watch and listen further you can tell he's not playing the notes you are hearing.

Ain't that the killer. I've had a LP Deluxe Gold top and a '78 red wine Custom. Back in my professional days I'd go maybe...maybe 6 songs with a Les Paul before I switched to my tried and true strat. I never liked the Studio / Studio lite Les Pauls. The meat of the tone wasn't there and it felt "strange" to play. That being said I really like the new Les Paul Custom Shop Custom (especially the Peter Frampton Signature) Frampton's original LP custom was lighter then most all LP's of that era (1954) due to the quality of the old growth recycled honduran mahogany. The new LP customs have a special chambering process which lightens the weight without sacrificing the tone.

My playing has fallen off quite a bit since I stopped playing professionally as well. The other side is that I'm a more diversified player then when I was professionally. I usually find I have to work at it very hard for awhile and put my current playing styles aside to bring back the old flame. As soon as I get there and I don't have someone irl to show off to I lose interest and revert. It's a big juggling act. I've never been good at classical picking. I've tried and tried and tried I've got a great deal of respect for those who can properly classical pick. I've also never been able to grow a decent set of nails. Mostly it's hybrid picking for me. Flatpick and Middle/Ring fingers. I use alaska pik which one really has to go through a process for proper fit. I'm kind of interested in Fred Kelly Freedom Picks. Back in the 80's I was watching a news show with a story about Carlos Santana. He had this nice little two story house with not much of a front yard in SF. In the back yard there was no yard to speak of. It was a huge barn that dwarfed the house. In the barn was stall after stall of guitars. All neatly packed in cases on shelves. Each day when he's not touring he pulls out two or three guitars practices for a few hours with all of them. Then he switches to his tried and true PRS. It was the largest collection of guitars I'd ever seen. I think I'd need something to at least slow my purchase path to buying guitars. And that would come in the form of a Variax Standard by Yamaha. Yamaha bought Line6 and have been slowly integrating the product line as well as enhancing the quality of the generated sounds for the Variax and POD. I'd get the Variax first then promise myself not to ever buy a guitar that couldn't be created in workbench.

Nice, There's nothing like a well worn acoustic.

Yeah 95% of my ztar playing is tapped now. It's funny but a huge portion of my regular guitar playing was tapping when I conceived the name.(which predates songstuff) Once I got a ztar my regular guitar tapping faded. Regarding the collection. Re LP Custom. Keep it in a vault not to be opened until you've been dead for 20 years. I had a '78 custom weighed a tone sang beautifully.- I've also had a Deluxe. There is something "magical' in a custom. If I were to ever own a LP again it would be a custom. That 12 string reminds me of an ovation I once owned. I've never seen a Ramirez anywhere ever. I've read about them all the time they were the goto classical guitar in the 60's 70's and 80's for Television and Movie production.

I'll start with this rant. Granted I'm guilty of commitment issues these days. I start to learn a song and then get lazy and not finish learning it.

Yeah, I hated gigging while standing with a big jazz box. It's like slow dancing with a fat lady

The W7 laptop which is my "all hell breaks loose" machine needed some updating. Just updating the current win7 profile took about 4 hours./ Update then restart and configure and then update and restart configure again.

My main computer is...Vista. I have a business laptop running Win7 but it's a refurbished dell. Honestly business computers are crap. It's slow as molasses now. Not that there is anything important on the laptop but I just dont want to upgrade now and be stuck with a subscription computer I rarely to if ever use.

It came as a muse listening to Hot Club of Cowtown france A western swing band that's influenced by Django Reinhardt's Hot Club de France and Bob Wills and his Texas Cowboys (Big Balls in Cowtown)

I was going to suggest "Fishtown Fancy Pants"