More guitar

[Raph]

(For those few who care)... Posted another song on the blog. This one (horror!) has vocals.

http://www.raphkoster.com/?p=211

Enjoy. Or not.

[Sky]

I bow to your acoustic chops, man.

[stray]

Great stuff, Raph!


You know what you NEED though?



You'd sound great on one (not that you already don't sound great though :) ).

[Righ]

Pretty cool song, good performance.

[Raph]

Are those nylon-strung gypsy-style guitars? What maker are they?

I've never really messed with nylon much. You can't tell in that song, but I do slapping/tapping stuff a bit, as well as "snapping" sorts of things, so I've always gone for the steel-string.

I have been greatly enjoying the loose feel of the light strings I keep on my Baby Taylor, though. It leads to a different style of play, and one that I associate more with nylon.

BTW, once again I'll lay down the dare. No fingerpicking required this time -- the chord forms are on the website. I wanna hear a cover. ;)

[stray]

Are those nylon-strung gypsy-style guitars? What maker are they?

I've never really messed with nylon much. You can't tell in that song, but I do slapping/tapping stuff a bit, as well as "snapping" sorts of things, so I've always gone for the steel-string.

I have been greatly enjoying the loose feel of the light strings I keep on my Baby Taylor, though. It leads to a different style of play, and one that I associate more with nylon.

Yeah, those are Maccaferri/Selmer styled Gypsy/Django guitars (whew, what a mouthful). You can use nylon on them, but the real strings made for them are copper over a steel core (A steel string, but tonally different than typical nickel plated strings. The sound is kind of in between the nylon and steel sound.

As for me, I just have a cheap Takamine. I use .010 gauge silk and steels.

[Arnold]

Are those nylon-strung gypsy-style guitars? What maker are they?

I've never really messed with nylon much. You can't tell in that song, but I do slapping/tapping stuff a bit, as well as "snapping" sorts of things, so I've always gone for the steel-string.

I have been greatly enjoying the loose feel of the light strings I keep on my Baby Taylor, though. It leads to a different style of play, and one that I associate more with nylon.

BTW, once again I'll lay down the dare. No fingerpicking required this time -- the chord forms are on the website. I wanna hear a cover. ;)

Is the Baby your main acoustic?  I own one and love it, but the intonation drives me crazy. But it is the ULTIMATE backpacking/travel/campfire guitar.  Those Martin Backpackers and guits like them are just a waste of cash.

[Sky]

I so need a Baby Taylor. I agree on the Martin Backpacker, a girl over at the system hq has one and I used it to jam with her once...blah. I bought a decent Alvarez jumbo, because it's super loud and rich, but it's no travel guitar! My second guitar was a Martin with steels and I learned fingerpicking and theory on a classical gutstring in school (part of why I cry that Raph totally pwns my acoustic riffing :P...though to be fair to myself, that was over 15 years ago and I had quit for 5 years in the late 90s...).

Django...mmm. Just got a disc of him with Grappelli, they both blow me away. Great stuff.

[Raph]

I didn't know I was making you cry. At least this piece was moderately difficult, unlike the other one. :)

I use medium gauge, usually Elixirs, .013 bronze wound. What you heard there was on the mediums. I also don't like the sound of new strings, I like them after they've gotten a little depth to them, and are less jangly. I'll keep strings on for months, until they really sound dead.

The Baby is my guitar for leaving at the officem, and for travel. Mine has pretty good intonation, actually. I was lucky, the sotre I got it at had a bunch, so I played about a dozen of them before picking the one I bought.

My main acoustic is a Blueridge imported by Saga. They don't seem to show my model on their page but it looks like this one but with a solid dark pickguard:  It's years old at this point (I got it in... 94?), but it is a solid top, so it's mellowed out nicely.

I keep thinking about getting a fancy new guitar, maybe a Taylor or something. But I went to Buster Bros here in San Diego and tried literally every cutaway they had, and nothing spoke to me. I musta spent two hours trying to guitars, just to walk away going "enh."

Now, there was an amazing sounding Larrivee at a different store here, that I tried when I went to get a music stand for my mandolin -- and damn, that thing was hard to set down. I should have just gone for it. :( That was a year ago, I am sure it's sold by now... none of the Larrivee's I tried at Buster Bros had the same quality to the sound -- every stirng stood out, and yet they all blended perfectly, plus the guitar could sing, growl, snap, buzz, or chime on demand. They tried pushing a Breedlove on me, but it only spoke "quiet" and didn't do rock or funky. Funny how guitars will have personalities that way.

[stray]

Hey, I thought you weren't a guitar geek, Raph  . You sound like one. Or is it just electric guitar geeks that crack you up?

[Arnold]

The Baby is my guitar for leaving at the officem, and for travel. Mine has pretty good intonation, actually. I was lucky, the sotre I got it at had a bunch, so I played about a dozen of them before picking the one I bought.

Oh yeah, the store I got mine from had about 5 different woods.  I was set on one, but then I had the salesman play all the guitars for me, so I could hear them as a listener and I went with what was my second choice - bubinga.

I was travelling a lot then and literally bought it the day before I had to get on the plane again - you can fit them into the overhead compartment.  Taylor stopped offering hardshell cases for Babies, as an option, because they were too big for carry-on with that style case, and customers were getting burned.

It also fit into a lockable cabinet, when I was a desk jockey.  I used to eat lunch in 10-15 minutes and spend the rest of my lunch hour outside and practicing.  The Baby Taylor is just an awesome investment.

[Raph]

Stray, I count as a guitar geek, but not as a gearhead. It's the gearheads who crack me up. :)

 I have a Boss ME-50 pedal because it made lots of neat noises. I don't know what sort of pickup came standard in that Blueridge, I just know it sucks. I don't really know what to get in its place. I am moderately picky about strings. I bought my amp, my mandolin & my Baby by ear. I have an Alesis SR-16 drum machine because that's the first and only one I've ever used. I picked out my rackmount compressor/limiter the same way. I never use it. :)

Arnold, I have the Taylor cloth case, which is nice & fairly all-weather. But once on a plane trip, a stewardess shoved more bags into the compartment than really fit, and it inverted the back of the guitar. (Baby Taylors, as you know, have a bowl-shaped back with no bracing, to get more projection & tone). I had to take it to a luthier to get reglued, and it cost like $100. But I liked the little guitar so much that I was willing to pay it...