Musical Geekiness!

[pacman]

i got it it's wonderful. The scale is only 30", but it's just perfect for me. I'm only 5'3" so the old 34" scale one is a little too big. This is fast, easy, and very enjoyable to play. Actually I have some pictures of my both basses and an acoustic guitar if you like to see them I think I'm in love the only odd thing is that the e string kind of buzzes. I've checked the nut, saddle, and neck not to be the reason and I just loosened the truss rod a bit. I think though that it's only the string, I'll get to a music store tomorrow and buy a new set of strings to eliminate it.

That was absolutely a good thing to pay 90 of. With shipping it's a cheapskate bass, yes, but I didn't think of getting anything this good for the price. I'm satisfied.

[Wade]

Pac Man, you TOTALLY have to post pics of your bass, here!

HEY, EVERYBODY!!! FINALLY found a group of musicians to jam with!

[RootedPhoenix]

Yayyyy for people to jam with! Now I have to find someone to jam with out here. *practices in anticipation*

I go through a nearly-full mind wipe when in front of other people. I really need to get over that one. >_<;;;

[pacman]

Here you go. I put the red one (my bigger one, 5-string, 34" scale) and the acoustic one there for comparison. The black one is Harley Benton and it's with a 30" scale. I like the smallness of it - it is practically the size of a Stratocaster

[pacman]

Has this thread become a monologue of sorts?

I played the new bass in our Sunday rehearsal. It sounded great! At least compared to the price - you can't get perfect sound for under €100, but it's reasonably good and an instrument I can even play gigs with. It's so good sized, too - I don't need to play it both hands stretched. It's almost like playing a guitar.

The only downside is that the neck is too heavy. The bass wants to slide neck down every time I lift my left hand off it. Overall, a pleasant surprise - it's not always the pricier, the better, or I've gotten an exceptionally good bass for that price.

[RootedPhoenix]

I went to pick up my electric guitar after a few months of not playing it, and discovered that it was a little sharp. How on earth is this possible? I guess I must have tuned it that way before I put it away or something.

Pacman, I'm glad that your bass is working out well for you. It tells me what sort of bass I'd need to get when I go to get one. I'm all of 5ft/1.5m tall, so a normal bass would dwarf me, I think.

[Wade]

RootedPhoenix - your strings were sharp because the change in seasons cause a slight adjustment in the neck's truss rod which resulted in the neck's bow shifting. Quite common for an instrument's tuning to alter a bit when in storage for some time.

[RootedPhoenix]

Wade - interesting. I knew how things could go flat, but not sharp. I'll have to remember that. I've been a nylon acoustic guitar owner for so long. Electrics have parts I don't think about, lol.

[Wade]

RootedPhoenix - they usually do go flat, though it's not completely unheard of for them to go sharp. The difference is usually not even enough to warrant a full-on adjustment unless you have noticeable buzzing, intonation, or action problems.

And.... it looks like the group of musicians I found to jam with turned out to be typical Arizona flakes after all. Argh.... !!!ELEVENTY!!!

[RootedPhoenix]

I'm almost done with writing a song. I'm now stuck with the pesky 3rd verse. Has anyone got any tips for getting through that?

[Wade]

RootedPhoenix - really depends on the style of song you're writing. Rock, alternative, country, etc. What do you have, so far? Standard verse/chorus/verse/chorus?

Email me directly for a faster answer.

[pacman]

Wooooooot!!! We had our gig yesterday evening and it went fabulously! The audience was thrilled, and we were the next to last band - like warming up for the main band - and we had a bigger audience than them! I'm so happy with our first gig that I just can't not be smiling. It was... Crazy! We went jumping and moshing and running and being crazy on the stage and the audience moshed with us and started singing the choruses and... It was just fantastic. I'm absolutely positively stunned of the outcome. The last rehearsal wasn't good and our drummer forgot things, couldn't keep the tempo consistent, wasn't motivated and such... But on the gig yesterday he did a great job! Happy happy happy!!! (Sorry, I'm a bit... euphoric of the gig... )

[Wade]

So, how's the band, Pac-Man?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

[QUOTE=RootedPhoenix;517236]:

I never thought of using a capo on a mandolin or ukulele. Although now that I looked them both up, capos would be nifty.

QUOTE]

I can be done. In fact, I was doing it about two hours ago on a mandolin. It makes the instrument hard to play because it gets in the way of your hand, and doens't always give great results. Your mileage may vary. Still, works well enough in a pinch.

Instruments I own and currently play:
A twelve string accoustic Fender guitar
A six string Oscar Schmidt guitar
A Johnson mandolin
A bodhran (actually, I have two of these)
A melodica
A tambourine
French Canadian spoons
A kazoo

Instruments I own and haven't played in years:
An alto recorder
A soprano recorder
An alto saxophone
An electric bass (Cort)
a psaltery
A six string classical accoustic guitar that I think one of my cousins has
A six string learner's guitar I think another cousin has

Instruments I've given to Ivar because I didn't like playing them:
A tin pennywhistle in the key of C
A jaw harp (in fact, I gave him the jaw harp about two hours ago)
A catspaw (kind of like spoons but I find this a pain to play)

Instruments in my possession that I have no clue how to play
A trumpet

The poster that called mandolin chords "upside down and backwards guitar chords" was dead on. Lot of times, I will look at the other guitar player's hands if I forget what I'm doing or am trying to learn a new song . Unfortunately, it kind of blows my mind if I'm playing mandolin and she's playing guitar and I try that. Gaaaah. But if you are interested in learning that instrument, go for it. I would say the learning curve for a guitar player is pretty gentle. You can learn with easy two finger chords and hit the ground running. Plus, learn mandolin and you get fiddle for free. The fingerings are the same.

[AdamAnt316]

Joining the thread late...

I consider myself to be somewhat of a keyboard geek, though I do own an electric guitar (Yamaha Pacifica). My keyboard arsenal consists of the following:
•Mattel Optigan (the poor man's Mellotron, as I've heard it called; utilizes celluloid disks with waveforms etched onto them, which it reads optically in order to play back various notes and accompaniment loops)
•Farfisa Compact (a classic instrument used by garage bands and punk rock outfits for decades)
•ARP Solus (an analog synthesizer from the late '70s, when they were going out-of-style)
•Casio SK-5 and SK-8 sampling keyboards (the really poor man's Mellotron; cheesy '80s keyboards able to store 0.8 second samples of sounds)
•Magnus chord reed organ (an electrified accordion on legs, to put it simply)



None of them are in perfect operating condition, but I usually can find ways to get them to produce interesting (and otherwise) sounds. I use this collection of half-working devices to create often-nonsensical-sounding pieces of music. If you live in the mid-Missouri area, you may have heard me on the community radio station KOPN, calling into the late-night program "Mystery Science Radio 3000" (The hosts of that program gave me the nickname "Dr. Optigan"), and jamming random-sounding music over the airwaves via the phone lines.

If you care to listen to some examples of my musical experiments, you can visit the Dr. Optigan MySpace page. Hope this fulfills the quota of musical geekiness for this thread.
-Adam