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Post by scripsit on Dec 29, 2016 0:14:18 GMT
I play with a thumbpick and fingernails, so the bass on a dread is often a little too much and too boomy for fingerstyle from my point of view. I've found this to be the case with my own Martin, and various Yamahas, Guilds and Fenders (OK, I inherited the last one from my ex-bass player). I get shoulder pain after playing one for a while, too.
My 0000 is better balanced than the dreads I've tried, even though the box has the same volume, and the extra curve/indent allows it to sit lower on my knee and the drape of the right arm is relatively comfortable on top. Can still feel it in my shoulder after a couple of hours of playing.
My 000 is the most comfortable to play: long scale and 12 frets to the body. There's a cutaway, so capo up to seventh fret is no big deal.
I've got a cedar top parlour I bought as a travel guitar when I used to do long driving and motel trips. I find it really awkward to hold conventionally, and the only practical way to play it is using a strap.
I suspect I'd like good 00 guitars, as long as I could get one in long scale. I've always liked the look of the Joan Baez 0, too, the one that Dylan plays at the early Newport festivals.
No way I'd try to compete with pub noise with any unamplified guitar, except maybe with an all metal tricone which also comes in handy for beating back the punters.
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Dec 20, 2016 23:12:10 GMT
The guitar is a Greg Smallman, some of the most expensive guitars around! Smallman guitars have lattice bracing and incredibly thin tops with heavy sides/back. Smallman guitars have a reputation of being the most 'banjo' like of classical guitars, and their thin soundboards are supposed to be very prone to wear/holes forming. Yep, people say the 'banjo' thing on classical guitar forums all the time, but I haven't noticed it when hearing John Williams live. 'Loud' is probably a better description, although the last time I experienced this was some years ago. See what you think. Kym
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Post by scripsit on Dec 13, 2016 3:14:53 GMT
ps some quacky sounding guitar by Lindsey and Martin or is it me who thinks that? Yep, quack quack quack to me, too. My choice doesn't look difficult at all. There's a Tony McManus video which has been on here before which I wouldn't mind being able to emulate, too (One where he does a very long improv on several tunes glued together. Kym
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Post by scripsit on Dec 8, 2016 12:31:52 GMT
I don't think there is one perfect workflow, because so much depends on the room, the tracking, the performance, even before you get to fiddling with the sound files.
I'm still experimenting but ... in my experience, you leave volume tweaking until the end, and push up your computer speaker volume if you're having trouble hearing the finer points. Always save a new file as soon as you do any treatment at all (especially when using a program like Audacity as DAW which doesn't allow for easy undoing).
1. Get volume right for monitors, using speaker controls, without adjusting actual track volume. 2. Do EQ, which usually means rolling off most of the stuff under 50 Hz in a solo acoustic track because your room is crap. 3. Apply appropriate reverb. In most DAWs this means routing the unchanged recorded track to another track, applying reverb of your choice to the second track, then mixing the two tracks together with the reverb one turned down. In Audacity, I think you have to put the reverb plugin directly on your track, in which case turn down the mix of reverb and dry until you can just hear it and then turn it down a bit more (about 15% is usually a good starting point). 4. Bring the volume of the track up, making sure you leave about 1.0 db at least headroom in the loudest bit so it won't clip when you upload it as mp3.
You can do a lot more at the EQ stage to dial in the guitar sound you like. If you have automation (which I don't think Audacity has) you can muck about with varying amounts of reverb at different points of the track, or mix in an additional, different reverb.
If you're really into polishing the track after all of this you might start to experiment with compression and limiting, although you have to be careful not to end up with the slammed Scandinavian sound.
Performance is the biggy. If you're not relaxed and comfortable with the music it won't work no matter what you do to it.
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Nov 9, 2016 6:41:33 GMT
Lovely!
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Nov 2, 2016 0:21:49 GMT
That is a lot of quack for someone who normally takes special care with their live sound.
One of my favorite albums, 'Bootleg USA', is almost 20 year old, and I can't hear the piezo. On YouTube the Carlsbad concert in 2008, with Simpson using his Sobell, has a lovely sound.
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Oct 31, 2016 8:54:22 GMT
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Post by scripsit on Oct 22, 2016 8:59:28 GMT
That's great stuff, thanks!
The neck is certainly wide enough at the nut for comfortable fingerstyle playing.
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Oct 18, 2016 23:47:50 GMT
Gillinghamrover, can you tell us a bit more about your travel guitar?
What is the nut width, for instance? How does the neck attach/lift off?
I had a look at the Snapdragon site, but there wasn't a lot of detailed information.
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Oct 10, 2016 13:20:43 GMT
Presonus Studio One. Mainly because it didn't seem any more complicated that any of the others, it worked well on a PC (don't like Macs) and has a workflow which goes straight through from tracking to mastering/publishing all in the one package.
[Edit] and the stock plugins are logical and seem to be all one needs (I've reverted to using them after experimenting with lots of third party plugins which didn't seem to be any better or easier to use).
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Oct 9, 2016 3:18:01 GMT
So what does it do?
It looks like it automates some compression and EQ stuff, but without trying it I can't tell (don't have an Izotope account).
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Oct 4, 2016 22:24:22 GMT
I've not come across Godin guitars in the flesh, but in YouTube videos and the like they always have a sound similar to what you describe (and can hear in that sample), a sort of flatulent duck quacking.
I assumed this was a deliberate choice by makers and players, and have always associated the sound with some types of country music.
Whatever, it's an awful, awful thing.
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Sept 21, 2016 10:02:06 GMT
Another vote for the Zoom from me. Much simpler at the beginning to set up and use, easy to get files onto a computer for processing, and cheaper than an equivalent pair of microphones which would still need extra gear to operate if you chose condenser mics (which is what you need for acoustic guitar).
If you have a cheap mic stand or camera tripod you then have a very portable system to record anywhere (and it's easy to shift the unit/microphones around to experiment with best placement).
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Sept 15, 2016 23:19:36 GMT
I'd be interested to see the tension actually measured rather than quoted by the manufacturer (ie the string stretched over the appropriate scale length and weights added until the stretched string reaches the desired tuned note).
D'Addario quotes tensions on all of its string sets, and until recently this was my go to site for estimating the tension forces on guitar tops.
My luthier friend built himself such a jig (for other reasons to do with intonation experiments) and, using D'Addario strings, found variation of up to 20% from quoted figures (in both directions). He went through several sets of strings. It was the same when he experimented with a variety of classical strings.
The Newtones would seem to be lower in tension than equivalent brands from all of the anecdotal comment here, but I'd be interested in how they arrive at the actual numbers.
By the way, back in electric guitar days, when I only used acoustics to practice techniques when I couldn't have an amp, and didn't want to use proper thick strings, I found silk and steel strings to be the easiest on the fingers. I think these are still often recommended for use on lightly built vintage guitars originally built for gut strings.
Kym
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Post by scripsit on Aug 28, 2016 8:45:35 GMT
Jarrah is a bugger to work with saws and planes because it is so hard, but it doesn't smell bad. It grows only in WA, but there used to be a lot of it around here used for railway sleepers, wharves and big warehouse timbers, so chunks of it used to be common when I was a kid. Trying to hammer a normal nail into an old jarrah sleeper is interesting.
Kym
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