TapperMike

Funny thing about transplants. Parker made one (adrian belew) it took years to make a reality and costed a small fortune. Line 6 refused to sell the parts so Parker had to buy complete guitars, (700 series) Gut them and then transplant the guts to the parker. Because the Belew model took so long for development many a wealthy parker guitar owner went out and had a transplant done. Before JTV several luthiers/ guitar techs and hobbyist's would do transplants. With Luthiers it would cost a small fortune just for the labor. I know a guy who makes 5K just for a paint job. Until I win the lottery I'll stay happy with my Yamaha Standard as it is. Re Sillouette There is something magical about the EB/MM necks. Every time I've played a Musicman neck I've been awestruck by it I have no problems buying used if/when I can play something prior to purchase.

Nope. The city decided to downgrade the event. They didn't want to pay for entertainment or other things (like security, cook off) Then it rained hard the weekend of the event. Only 70 ppl showed up.

Way back when I had a motel room sized apartment. It was very narrow I had all four walls lined with guitars and stacked amps on top of amps. I had just bought a Carvin Amp with a 4x12 cabinet and a 200 watt head. The deal was too good to pass up at a local pawn shop. Well I was trying it out and I didn't think it was up that loud. Neighbors called the cops. When the police arrived the Sheriff's deputy looked through the door and saw my lineup. Fortunately I had receipts for everything well organized. He spent about an hour going through the equipment and matching it up with the receipts. Finally all he said was keep it down. After that I found a storage place which offered rehearsal room @ $100 a month. I choose to keep most of the amps there. It was a half hour drive and limited my time to explore my amps (plural ) capabilities. I kept a practice pignose amp at the apt. Thank goodness for current music industry technologies. (amp sims etc) I do have to admit whenever I see someone's collection on the web like Scott Grove or Gregor Hilden who started off as a professional musician collector and now sells guitars as well https://www.youtube.com/user/GregsGuitars/featured and a few others. For a time I didn't play as much guitar in general when I first got the linnstrument. It was worse when I got a ztar. I played the ztar for the first 6 months without looking at a guitar. Having the chance to play guitar in front of other people again and acquiring the variax changed all that. I still rotate through my other guitars but the majority of my playing time is on the variax. It's just too much fun.

It never hurts to have another guitar around the house. Until you hit your head on the ceiling because there are too many guitar cases under your bed.

I know, when I was young I wanted a guitar like crazy. Couldn't afford it and my Dad didn't want one in the house (let alone popular music) It's was different over here then it was there. Sure there always was a rebellious nature to have a guitar but over here we had a long long history of guitars in a positive role culturally.

A funny thing about that..... Before I started teaching again (Which has now ended) I gave a great guitar away to my student. He'd stated he had to get rid of the one he previously owned. He was shocked that I'd do something as generous as that. Now, He's lost interest in playing guitar again. It's simply too much work. for him to practice more then once a week. When I was a kid and others were taking classes it was part of the commitment smart parents would put on their kids. Yes you can get a guitar but you have to take lessons and not give up on playing at least for 6 months. With the exception of me... this is what separated those who wished to play guitar and those who wanted. Lots of kids had guitars but few were willing to make the commitment to play them. It's funny looking back on those days now. My Bassist had a high school graduation party in the backyard. Relatives and friends came from all over. All of them came with at least one instrument. Steve played guitar, banjo, mandolin, electric and upright bass. His father, brother and sister also played. As well as cousins and cousins and cousins. Grandpa would call out a song and they'd all play along. A sea of stringed instrument players. Surprised you don't have a Salvation Army or Goodwill there. While I'm not a fan of Goodwill as it's a non-profit that does nothing but line the pockets of the CEO. Salvation Army uses the sale of items donated to a wide variety of social causes like homelessness, substance addiction, domestic abuse intervention and more.

Yikes. Regarding the Dillon that's the problem with inexpensive guitars They have no resell value. My Samick Fastback is a damn fine Les Paul Copy. It's got great tone and a great body design and finish. I was showing it off to my student and explaining that I was thinking of thinning the herd (my guitar collection) as my financial situation has changed. He said "You can't be considering selling This One. I said no simply because I knew it had no resell value.

@Tom I'm always thinking of my next guitar. I've had hundreds over the years, as well as a good assortment of Basses keyboards and other midi based instruments. After I got the linnstrument I'm pretty much set with midi controllers. (though sometimes I think about another ztar.) With guitars. I've promised myself I'll never own a guitar that I can't find or create with the variax. http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?board=138.0 I've told the story before but I'll tell it again. When I was growing up I wanted "That one guitar" which for me was a Gibson 335. I didn't own a guitar and when learning I'd always go over to a buddies house and borrow one of his. Most all the guitarists I knew had at least one electric and one acoustic. Or two electrics. It was common for guitarists to share their guitars hanging out at the parents house. Though the years guys I knew would sell or trade one guitar for another and then regret selling the old one. Not me, I'd keep the old ones when I got a new one. Getting a new guitar was always fun and cool and I'd think about how much I wanted to play like so and so when I got it. Not uncommon. Many a guitarist from the 50's, 60's 70's and beyond would get a guitar based on someone they admired. Then they might explore beyond that point and try different things. When I play a certain guitar I get into a "mood" for playing it. It takes me down a path. Afterwards I may play the same song on a different guitar but it won't feel the same. It doesn't conjure up the same sensory experience. But having that initial experience carries me on. This is the one thing I've noticed about the variax. The closer I am to the famous tone the more at ease I am with learning / playing the cover. The guitar is only part of the equation.

The scale length is same as a strat 25.5. The fretboard radius is flat with medium jumbos. The neck profile is a Slim "C" shape As far as width at the nut. Nut width: 41.9 mm https://www.thomann.de/gb/line6_variax_standard_sb.htm It's very near my 80's strat plus with the exception of the flat radius fretboard. The JTV 69 has a much "beefier" neck. Which to be frank I didn't like at all. I also didn't like the raised action on the JTV69 I've read from Line 6 Staff that while one shouldn't replace the neck on the JTV69 that the Yamaha Standard can be replaced with a standard strat neck so long as the tech doing the job has lots of experience.

My recent Fender CIC (crafted in china) telecaster is great. My MIM is crap. Which strikes me as odd as those are supposed to be the higher quality. The CIC is fine although I'd still like to replace the pups. I'm also not impressed with any of the squier line of strats. Honestly save your money for a Yamaha Variax Standard. If you don't like the neck swap it out for something else. I play my Variax everyday. And everyday I get more accustomed to the neck. It will never replace the feel of my Strat but it does what it needs to do. Having the ability to swap out the virtual pups is a godsend to me. As well being able to adjust the pups. Simply rotating, moving the pups swapping out the resistance of the tone pots allows for a great deal in variation of tone. Not to mention the pup sound is authentic

I agree I am working harder then he is. but also it's a great motivator for me. I haven't had an audience per say in many many years. So even an audience of one is a plus at this point. I've written out a very concise document for him in music theory. It explains keys and chords and how to read chord charts. It's about 8 pages long. None of it is guitar specific. I'm trying to cultivate his knowledge and make him work towards applying himself. When He first came to me he knew nothing about chords, could only read single note tablature and then hadn't developed any fingering techniques. There is a limit to what I'm willing to teach him if he is unwilling to commit further. Partly I blame his stupid app. It isolates things one string at a time then builds up things to add more strings. The other part I suffer as well as in these years. He won't practice without the app running, So it's become a crutch for him He has to see it and hear it to do anything and easily gets lost when he doesn't have a reference point.

Yes, I just wish he was a little more motivated. I've had to change my direction musically hoping to gain more of a connection interest. Which does to an extent. I'm pulling out some melodic metal (Joe Satriani, queensryche and some others) I'm also trying to expand his musical awareness with some jazz. If he would just practice scales for 15 minutes a day and then chords for another 15 he'd advance dramatically. Right now he practices one day a week and gets frustrated that he hasn't progressed. Partly I blame the app he's also using to learn guitar.

I'm not a fan of alnico 5's The humbuckers on my blacktop telecaster are,,,,"fair" at best. The magnetic single coils on my yamaha variax standard are way way to brash makes me feel like I'm in a punk band. We can't all have the same ears. Have you thought about changing the eq and adding a preamp to boost the signal before it hits your input. It's funny the more I have the more I want. As I dabble with the variax I'm constantly wanting a helix or a pod hd. So I can assign everything (including the variax to a single preset. I find myself constantly trying different settings on my thr amp to balance the output In other news I've yet to really start work on my website famous sounds Between the new kitten, doing things for users of SWiSHzone products (now that the company has shut down, taking on a student and more. I've just lost interest.

As rare as they are during winter. Our festivals etc pay more then most regular bar gigs across the board. Major sponsors contribute heavily as a form of advertising. About the only ones where musicians don't get paid is when they are performing as a school of music. With regards to venues and flyers....Small table tents are more effective then full size flyers It's smaller then a big piece of paper and less likely for someone to throw it out. It's bigger then a credit card. Rudi, Are you selling hats and t-shirts at your shows?

A buddy of mine was playing the one man band circuit for many years. I worked in a restaurant within a holiday inn at the time. He had it in writing and when he arrived for a gig, They double booked. Then sent him away because they got the other act for cheaper. He turned around and took the biz to small claims court. The most honest bar owner I ever met told me. I don't care if you are good or you are great or if you suck. I only care how much everyone is drinking. If you keep the crowd drinking you'll keep the gig. I used to play hard drinking music (the blues) but I was earning a quarter of what suburban pop bands were making.

Nice performance. Used to be on my set list back in the 70's and 80's

Oddly that's what I was with SZ as I was subcontracted. Never met my bosses in real life. With regards to other companies. I've tried, trust me I've tried. 8 years of trying to get into another company doing the same thing. Larger companies farm out to Indian network centers which handle several companies at the same time. Smaller companies rely on programmers to handle support when workload is light. As far as companies that make apps... Those are all subcontracted to one person per app who also must write the help files. It's funny years ago I was having a problem with my (music) software not working properly. It took two months to receive a single reply. The company has since gone out of business. We can all speculate on why. While there are still software techs that make house calls. Most all of that is in California and it's about the OS. There are "pay" versions of linux operating systems which some companies use that require constant maintenance. I haven't touched a linux system in over 15 years. It used to be a hobby of mine that I lost interest in.

A strange thing the music software field. Some companies are good, some great, the vast majority not so much. When they go out of business it's not only the biz (employees etc) that can suffer it's also the consumers. Sometimes they don't need to go out of biz sometimes they are simply acquired such as when Apple bought Camel Audio. CA left everyone who purchased their windows version holding the bag, While Garage Band and Logic got some new toys. If you've been following my story with SZ you know that it's now closed. What we did is set up a care package so that not only purchasers but everyone will get free tools to run the software as long as windows supports it. Granted there are some things that can't be covered in the care package we sent out. And there will be no one like me to follow up when if something goes wrong and people can't/don't follow directions.

I've thought about that. I've also thought about marking them as spam so I don't see them. Many thing I look back over through the years and want a second look at. As an example I belong to a band in a box user group. An old old style forum hosted by yahoo. The members are very old as well. Many I think of as friends. They helped me in understanding the capabilities of the program and I went on to help new users.. We also share our biab compositions. every once in a while I get notification of a new song being posted to the file area and I just have to look. As far as the forum it is so specific that we can only cover biab related material. The helpers outnumber the helped 4 to 1 as well PG music has their own forum now (had it for years) Part of me can't let it go. This is the predicament I see with many of the mailers. With regards to setting up a new email account. I've had the same email address since '96. I'll often get emails from long lost friends and relatives out of the blue. They may not think to access me via facebook but they store the email address and send me a line "Remembering When"

Someday it's a full time chore deleting unwanted email from my box. Sure long ago I did sign up with an interest for X product or political but that's faded. Seems like some companies want to give you the run around. You have to log into your account....wait you have to retrieve your password, then log into the account, then ask nicely and then they send you an email back asking if you are really sure you want to.

Television or Live Performance? Buddies of mine and I conceived and ran of this talent show which we purposely fixed not to win for ourselves. It was all about making a few bucks. We found this old dollar movie theater in a run down part of town that would run Dollar shows. Yep that's right $1.00 for third or fourth run bad movies. They even had a .50 night. We put together a "Battle of the Bands" as we were too young to get gigs in bars and too old for the high school party circuit. Got bands like us, Printed of thousands of flyers, paid for advertising in the two local "scene" papers and in the hometown paper. We worked our arses off to get the show launched. We performed to a packed house. We placed third out of three. When everyone was paid off we made 250 dollars split equally between our four man band. Of the band I'm the last one playing an instrument. We tried together, we tried apart. Jobs, families, life caught up with the rest of them. As far as the other bands.... Only one member of the two five piece bands still performs as far as I know. Nobody got PR out of it. Nonetheless it was nice playing in front of a big crowd. It was a great learning experience for me. With regards to open mic's. I love em. People think they are going to perform and enhance their following. Regardless of how well they perform they don't take a bigger crowd then they left with. Also they don't get paid. Maybe a bar will be nice and send you a free drink during the performance. Open Mic's / Blues / Jazz jams are more about networking with local musicians. You get to see what the competition is up to. You get to mingle with like minded performers. And if you haven't been on a stage performing before or you are rusty or you want to try out new ideas that's cool. Careers, broader audiences, no. As for TV what may make for a great 4 minutes of television viewing may also not make for a good career choice.

The Persuaders -Some Guys have All The Luck Welcome to the thread Erihael

I only have one 32 bit issue in my 64 bit world I got around to installing proteus VX on my windows 10 machine. I have jbridge so that's a non issue with 64bit Daws and 32 bit plugins. What kills is that I can only run PVX in standalone mode. It has endless issues with permission errors regardless of how the daw is installed / run and the plugin is installed /run. Then again PVX was only designed to run on Win98.

Thanks, I'm going through bluehost.com and I'll be running Joomla as my cms. It's been an interesting (frustrating) process setting things up . At first I just wanted a standard wiki such as wakka or tiki. They proved to be a pain to set up and I spent more time then I'd like debugging. It's funny, ages ago I used wordpress. During a routine update it sporked my whole system and I had to open MyPHP admin and copy/paste every thing from one set of tables to another. It was agonizing. While it may be stable now. I have no intention of using wordpress ever again. I've run IIS locally as well as Apache in the distant past and then just a few years ago I ran them again as a refresher. In other news. My schedule has changed dramatically. Due to recent changes at work (cooking) I'm working 7 days this week and next week I'll be on vacation. Big family reunion.

I'm in the same boat with Rudi, The only song that really struck me was "Money Guns and Lawyers"