Shane_B.

Open strum vibrato using the bending strings above the nut method?

Never heard of that person before. Never seen a post or anything by them. Kinda weird.

Food was hard to come by here. Not starvation level but it was a real eye opener. There was even rationing beyond the toilet paper which I will never get if I live to be 1,000. We buy the large packs at Sams. We bought one long before the shut down and it lasted long after. I remember seeing pickup trucks with their beds loaded with it. Suddenly me wanting to keep up my mothers tradition of canning food didn't seem all that crazy to my younger wife. There was plenty of booze though. They will even deliver your booze for you now because of the shut down. Weed dispensaries the size of mini malls are popping up here all over. 3 within 20 minutes and they are opening an enormous warehouse the size of a large walmart that grows it indoors. So everyone will be all set for the next round coming ... oh I'd say around mid Oct. 2024.

If you play the Queen studio version backward he sings, "It's fun to smoke marijuana. Ooh let's break out. Get high.". I'm sure it was just coincidence.

I popped in to see my neighbor last night. He owns his own business selling and installing IT stuff and maintaining it and deals with businesses and individuals all the time. We talked for almost 5 hours and this subject came up. I asked him about this and told him about a lot of other stuff that's non-music related that I've been bombarded with lately that I can't talk about here. He said absolutely people have changed. He told me a whole string of stories similar to this one I told here and more. He said absolutely things have gotten far worse than he's ever seen in the last year. People are at a boiling point. Made me feel better to hear it from someone else and know I'm not the only one experiencing this. This wasn't the only run in I've been blindsided by lately. Anyway I've pretty much given up on that guitar. I'll just stick with the few junk guitars I have that have served me well over the years. It ain't like I'm planning on putting out Dark Side Of The Moon II anytime soon so I'm good. ?

Glad you found one but I'm sorry you had to go through all that though.

Hey Ed. I was sitting here thinking about your instrument. Did the bass ever show up?

It's all I gots. I drag my finger on the touch screen to draw the words out. Makes it easier. Then I spend more time spell checking than if I would have just tapped each letter out. ? So it's 6 one way bakers dozen the other.

That's funny. Reminds me if a joke book a buddy if mine from school and I were going to write called The Power Of Negative Thinking. ? What got me scrunched about this was I was standing there telling her I wanted to buy it from them. I didn't care that I had to wait or that I would pay more through them. I was immediately hit with being called a liar. And I don't think it's that far out there to wonder why some dealers can get gear while others can't. I even said to her that I wonder if the ones online were counterfeit like the made in Japan stuff. I immediately got slapped with "We're the biggest dealer. You don't know what your talking about. You're lying.". I think that would piss anyone off regardless of age. She's normally really nice. Maybe something else going on that day triggered her and I got the brunt of it.

I got tired of tapping through so many menu's on my cell to get to what I needed so I got lazy.

Never ask questions when you are talking to the worlds foremost authority on musical instruments. You know ... the ones that work at music stores but don't actually play any instrument or sing. Stopped at a guitar store today. Same one by my house I talk about. Great store. Stopped in to ask about ordering a left handed Fender Acoustisonic since they are "the largest Fender dealer in a 150 mile radius.". Considering it's mostly farm land here, well, moving on ... Before she fully asked her manager how long it would take to get one he blurted out nobody is making or shipping anything. Best you can hope for is April 2022. Haven't been able to get anything since the pandemic started. After 19 years of marriage (23 total together) you would think I would have learned by now (Shane you *****ing moron) to shut the ***** up and say thank you and quietly go in my truck and die a little more inside quietly by myself. But noooooooo. Not me. I said to her but I can get them online. They keep going out of stock and then back in stock again. I wonder where they are getting them. I immediately got called a liar. BP bounced to 200/100. I nicely replied that I didn't want to order them online and I wasn't trying to beat them up on price or anything. I wanted to play it before buying and wanted to get it from them. She checked Sweetwater, GC, Sam Ash. None to be had and she called me out. I told her I know they don't have them but there are 3 people 2 of which are dealers on Amazon selling them. Pound pound pound on the keyboard. "I can't find any on amazon. I have no idea what you are talking about. Our manager is not a liar and if you want one pre order it.". Me, did you search for lefty?. Her, yes. Me, may I look ive been monitoring them for months now. Her, see nothing comes up. Me, please scroll to the top again where your search results start. Oh look ... right at the top, where your search results start. The very first thing that came up in your search is a left handed acoustisonic ... Her, well these people aren't a dealer. I doubt they have them they are trying to scam people. Me, but they sell them on ebay too. 55000 sales 99.5 % positive feedback. Plus there are 2 actual dealers selling them besides them if you click on more buying options. I can have one here by wednesday pay no tax and no shipping but I want to buy from you a local business and dealer. I don't even mind paying tax. Her, you'll have to preorder it and we don't know if you'll ever get it because they stopped making them. As I said after 23 years I should have know better than to prove her wrong and question the #1 Fender dealer in a 150 mile corn field radius. I swear to God. At this point I just want to take my guitars amp and daw and burn them on my brush pile out back. Remember when it used to be fun going to the music store? It was like going to see family. You didn't get called a liar. Nobody said you had no idea what you are talking about. Nobody cocked off to you. I walked out of my mom and pop place many times with thousands of dollars of equipment to test at a job to see if we wanted to buy it. They didn't even blink an eye. Man are those days gone. I am so sick and tired of cocky people and it seems to have gotten worse since the pandemic. People are almost unbearable to deal with. Had to vent. Sorry for the long read.

My wife got one of these for Christmas at work. It completely blew me away. Feel it in your chest bass. Crystal clear highs. It's a tiny bluetooth speaker about the size of a travel coffee mug. I use it all the time. It's technically mono but it sounds great. I listen to XM classic vinyl on my cell and send the audio via bluetooth to the Bose. Blows my mind how good it sounds. https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/speakers/portable_speakers/soundlink-revolve-plus-ii.html

I was in with all older guys with families and jobs. All in there mid 30s and 40s. My mother never in a million years would have let me play in bars and clubs at that age with more "traditional" musician types. She knew them all because my brother was an officer in town too and she trusted them. He still is 39 years later. In my first band two were police officers one was a plumber and the other drove a dump truck and snow plow for the county. I don't know what the 3rd guitar player did but I know he was always too busy to come to practice and barely made it to the shows on time. Played a Tele through a little Mesa Boogie. The one with the EQ built in the front panel. My God could that guy play. We were bad. No idea what he was doing with us. The VHS recorder was borrowed from the police station. It was to be used for interrogations and confessions but we lived in a tiny town and it was still new in the box. Never used except for our band recordings. Lol. The drummer ran the PA and he used to take the line out on the Peavey 600 head and use a Realistic tape deck to record. Same with my second band. The drummer was a different officer in my home town. Same make and model PA and same cheap cassette deck recordings and the exact same VHS recorder. Between the 2 bands I played out almost 16 years straight. All through high school and up until I left NJ. I found out the hard way after working with those more stable even keeled guys that the vast majority of musicians of the weekend warrior ilk are pretty shitty to work with. I've never been able to find anyone reliable since and that's why I got in to recording and gave up on the whole band thing. If I ever did it again it would be a solo gig with my own backing tracks. My wife left for Hawaii again this morning for work. I'm getting the itch to record now after talking about this but have so much to do here. I upgraded to the latest S1 5 and Melodyne Studio when they were on sale. Haven't even had a chance to plug my daw in to download them. I cancelled Sphere.

That's awesome. The first song I learned to play was Misery by The Beatles. I remember having this little red paperback book called The Pocket Beatles. It was really hard to keep open and I used to wedge it under the front edge of our TV to hold it open. My mom would yell at me for sitting so close to the TV but I didn't even have it on. Eventually it fell apart and I still have some of the pages but most are lost. I was 13 when I did my first gig. Private Halloween party at a local dance hall. 150 people there and I was terrified. And of all things I played keyboard. We already had a drummer, 3 guitars, and a bass. It was messed up. When we practiced I played guitar because the lead player would never come. Live I played keyboard. It was really odd. There was a recording of that night but the guy who had all the tapes died and it's all gone now or at a good will in TN somewhere. He recorded everything and video taped a bunch. I was lucky to get copies of 5 of the videos but the rest are gone.

I'm sorry to hear they were stolen. I'd be out of my mind. My old friend/drummer has our old band practice tapes. He recorded every practice. We were together 9 years and practiced 2 to 3 times a month. They are in boxes in his attic. Hasn't touched them in 23 years and he won't give them to me. I despise shit like that. I'm obsessive compulsive with personal recordings. I have hours of tapes of my early high school buddies and me singing dumb/vulgar teenage stuff. I'd die if anyone ever heard them. But the crème de la crème of them all is the very first recording I did when I was 12. I did Bungalow Bill by The Beatles. The "zap" and all. Hah. It's just on regular cassette. I should transfer it before tragedy strikes.

Wait. Darn it. This is good too. I'm not very good at this game am I. ?

You're killing me. Lol. That's a great song and an awesome sounding recording. I have the Rhino Records CD remastered country hits set from the 60s with this and dozens of other. Direct from the original recordings before the cd loudness wars. Great sounding stuff.

To clarify, I'm not putting Gibsons down. The main difference that I've noticed is the necks are thinner on Epi's. I have big hands and they fit better on the smaller necks. It's the same reason it's getting harder to play my Martin and I want to replace it with that Fender Acoustisonic modelling guitar with the slim Tele neck. I've always wanted to try one of those new style necks that are tapered I think? Thinner to thicker at the top or something like that. Never seen one lefty though.

By luck I've come across more lefty Gibsons and Epi than anything else. Every time I've always preferred the Epi. I played a stripped down lefty Epi LP Studio one time. Probably the best feeling and best sounding guitar I've ever played. Love my Epi Sheraton II. Last I checked they don't even make them lefty anymore. IIRC correctly it was $250 with Epi branded hardshell case. They just wanted to dump it. Used like new. In fact it was the last thing I kept that I bought at G.C. in Overland Park Kansas 10 years ago just before I was forced to move here due to work. Have I mentioned in this thread how much I miss IA? ?

There must be something wrong with me because I could never warm up to anything Gibson. SG's, LP's, Acoustics. I had a Deluxe Black Beauty Lefty. It felt great but I could never get a good sound. I bought it sight unseen from my local guitar shop back home in NJ. They called me and said it would move fast so I said I'd take it over the telephone. That was a thing we used to have hanging on the wall. Had a loud bell that went off when you had a call coming in. Anyway .... How often do you see an 83 lefty deluxe. Everyone who looked at it said it sounded great and was 100% original and wished it was a righty and they would buy it. I sold it online through a big place in Lawrence KS for $1200 iirc? To someone here actually. Can't remember who. On the old forum. The one I still regret to this day passing up was a lefty John Lennon Signature Rickenbacker. Very very rare guitar. Couldn't afford it at the time.

Thanks! But to be brutally honest I'd be too embarrassed to let you hear most of it. It's all pretty bad. One of these days I'll run across somebody local that has one.

I'd be more inclined to go with Paul McGowan's new studio. It's quite a story they have with the equipment and brain power/people behind the scene's. https://www.psaudio.com/octave-records/

? RIP

I still have mine too but it won't work with the old 4 track tapes. My 488 (iirc) is still like new. I took very good care of it. Demagnetized the heads before and after I used it. Cleaned the heads and metal with alcohol and the rollers with distilled water. Learned real fast working on printers and copiers to never use alcohol on rubber. Cleans it really great and dries it out and makes it smooth and slick. If you use Studio One you can transfer the tracks and line them up. I did that with quite a few of my masters. On my 8 track it only has 4 outputs so I had to do them in groups and line them up in S1. It only works if you have drums on 1 track. Transfer in small groups using the drum track as a timing anchor in each group and align the groups using the drum tracks as the alignment references. Works like a charm.