Joining A Jazz Band

[TapperMike]

A funny thing about Les Paul guitars. They were intended as upscale jazz guitars when designed. Les Paul was the only famous jazz guitarist who ever used one. None of the big name jazz guitarists at the time switched to the LP even though Gibson gave them plenty of incentive to do so.

The Fender Jazzmaster (guitar) was another guitar intended for jazz players that never caught on with the jazz crowd either.

Edited September 10, 2015 by TapperMike

[Rudi]

Its probably why the guitar makers are so conservative now. Rarely taking a chance and sticking to the same old designs, woods & specs. 

 

The 2015 Les Pauls (& all Gibson solidbodies) have been heavily criticised by users for the G-Force Tuners and the nut & neck mods. Early 2016 models are appearing with complete reversion to the pre-2015 designs.

 

They'll still be making them this way in the 22nd Century unless a real guitar player takes over as CEO.

[TapperMike]

I've read that.

It's a strange thing regarding consumer needs/wants and corporate operations. Gibson does some stupid stuff. They didn't fully test the zero nut / tuning system before it was released. They didn't ask if anyone wanted it and they put Les Paul's name and face on everything. Les Paul hated the SG design. First released as the les paul special guitar (later abbreviated to SG) LP through a fit and demanded that Gibson take his name off the model. Not really honoring the man in that way.

All of Gibson's experiments over the last 20 years have been propogated in the board room which explains why they fail so miserably. Like the Gibson Dust Tiger which really didn't sound anything like the non tele tones it was trying to emulate and it used the same tuning system (sans the zero fret nut) Gibson's Firebird X also has been a disaster. They don't claim "virtual modeling" rather then "good old analog" to drive guitar sounds which are "interpretations" of tones. The effects while nice aren't virtualized either. When you can have something like a Line6 400 or other unit of being able to conjure up various different very realistic visualizations of famous effects and amps the question is why bother with a poor substitute of hard to find patches.

Line6 has led the way in effects/amps/guitar modeling. Other brands have either tried to keep up (kemper etc) or have been lost in the dust.

Gibson also pursued (imho) a bad strategy with Cakewalk. Cakewalk has had some rather good sound libraries but the daw has languished behind all the bigger (and some of the smaller) Brands in the market. I know I've been using Cakewalk since windows 3.1 Gibsons acquisition simply meant going to a subscription model for Cakewalk. which means Cakewalk doesn't have to keep up on advances they'll just charge you monthly and so long as a regular paycheck is coming in they don't have to advance their product to what it could be. That may be fine for fanboy's who can't get enough of cakewalk and don't want much more then they already have. Not me....

When I look at the advances in Mixcraft 7 over Mixcraft 6 I say good job well worth the upgrade price. They've earned my money. When I look at the advances of BIAB 2015 from 2013 I say... ehh I can still use my version and be quite happy without getting the upgrade. Although they did make some advances. The subscription model (like cakewalk) is based on "you'll pay us whether we do anything or not all the time" The traditional EULA states that you can use the program you paid for as long as the company is around and they still have to release updates (not upgrades) for free.

On the other hand I'm a big fan of the Gibson Custom Shop. Pretty price for a fine instrument with detail you won't get in a high production environment. No I don't have 5k+ to drop on a Peter Frampton Les Paul signature. If I did I could be assured that the highest paid most skilled luthiers were building it to a point of precision that is way beyond anything production made. Would it be worth the 5k? Tough call. They are selling like gangbusters and they are actually increasing in value in the collectors market.

Edited September 10, 2015 by TapperMike

[Rudi]

GIbson seem like some eccentric old uncle, well loved but he lost the plot somewhere a few years back.

 

The zero fret nut was a superb idea, but as you say, not thought through properly. Not sufficiently tested (if at all).

Quality wise, some of their guitars should never have passed inspection, but are hanging on dealers walls, ready for us to buy.

 

The Custom Shop stuff is very desirable yes, but I cant imagine taking a 10k L5 to a local gig. I'd be too nervous to take it off the wall let alone use it in a pub; and a guitar you never use is useless.

 

Jazz Band: I took the Casino Coupe to practice last Friday. I've been using it a lot for practice at home. It sounded better than the PRS I took last time. Well, it did for this music anyway. I've pretty much made up my mind to use it at the debut gig on the 20th. That is this Sunday.

 

I'd been using a medium pointed V-Pick with it, but swapped over to a V-Pick Screamer. 'Screamer' is a misnomer if I've ever heard one. Its not as fast as the Pointed, but it produced a subtle, warm, mellow and velvet tone. Even after I had worked through all the songs, I could not stop playing. I just played sequences of single notes very very slowly, just enjoying the sound acoustically.

 

Maybe I should take a back up guitar too?!

 

The Deuce is still at the luthiers. He's had it for over 3 months. Trouble is his wife is sick at the moment and all his work is stacking up. She's more important than a few lumps of wood after all.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Rudi

[Rudi]

OK the debut gig was last night.

 

There were some shakey moments but everyone gave a performance (as opposed to just 'playing'). It was enjoyable.

 

I

Personally:

I lost the guitar signal midway through Stone Cold Sober. It was an intermittent fault and I don’t know the cause! My Instrument leads are old. Maybe one of those?. I use 4 together though, and at £20 quid each it could prove expensive.

 

I have to improve my understanding of some of the jazz tunes. I’m still relying on intuition here & there.

 

The Casino Coupe did well overall. I was a little worried about tuning once or twice. It did great for all the jazz tunes. However, when I went to use a bluesier tone, I had to abandon that due to feedback.

 

I was surprised because

1/ that tone was not very gainy. -just a little more bite. Thats all.

2/ We were playing at quite low volume. The brass were playing without mics.

 

Just goes to confirm the limits of a hollowbody guitar. I suppose. I'll have to reconsider using that guitar. I am not going to stuff it full of foam for a couple of pop tunes.

[TapperMike]

Glad to read things went well.

Yeah with my bigger boxes I'd always have to stuff them with foam...

What George Benson and Howard Roberts used to do is seal the lower F-Hole with tape

Look at the F holes you'll see it all smudgy.

[Rudi]

I see. Nice performance by George too.

 

The Casino Coupe is a tiny hollowbody. We were all standing at the gig (unlike practices) and there is no way I would attempt to stand playing the Hofner J17.

 

As for the future, I may get the Deuce back in a couple of weeks. I spoke to the luthier yesterday. He has done the essential mods I wanted. Now he will attempt to reconfigure the 2 volume controls into 1 master volume, and then re-jig the remaining one as the coil tap control.

 

I hate the dual controls anyway (they use the Gibson wiring scheme). They never seem to blend & balance properly.

 

I have fond hopes that the Deuce will handle jazz & 'non-jazz' with equal aplomb.

 

However, the little Coupe did sound excellent on all the jazz tunes that night, especially on the slower mellower tunes like That's All & Girl From Ipanema when the sounds had more opportunity to decay naturally. I really enjoyed its sound.