Garage Band, Guitars, and more Guitars

So last week in sheer desperation of trying to complete an impossible wiring task I brought on a third guy to our wiring crew to be a gopher. He was the guitar player for T-RAV’s rock band, and turned out to be a really cool guy. On the last day before everything went to hell, and the day looked easy we took lunch (read beer and munchies) at Wild Wings. The conversation of course turned to music.

See the problem working with T-RAV is that I’m really really really starting to miss being in a band for the first time since my first son was born over six years ago. Lunch with two musicians didn’t help things. Nor does my stress relief at night which basically involves listening to music and scanning in old guitar mags before I toss them.

See my other issue is that despite being a fairly computer savy guy, I don’t get Guitar Band as well as the rest of the world. When I first started taping myself for practice reasons and composing shit I used a Miranz. Nice little tape player, but it was just a tape player. I eventually got a four track and really enjoyed it, but for some odd reason I don’t seem to be able to move those skills into Garage Band.

Maybe my other issue is that I keep thinking of Garage Band’s limitations and not it’s capabilities. Although not a pro by any stretch of the imagination I have a good workingman’s knowledge and familiarity with Apple’s Final Cut Pro. I keep thinking of Garage Band like final cut. I keep ignoring the pre-sets in Garage Band and just want to tweak a track or a cut just a scintilla and would really love some nice fader controls and many many many more effects options.

Add in the fact that I seem to have gone really white and lost some of my sense of rhythm and things get nasty. Just for added fun drop in the fact that I have no room in my house for any amps, so I have no choice but to run straight into the compy, and that I am limited to just three guitars (yeah I know, I was spoiled by being dumb and having too many credit cards in my early twenties and got used to having lots more choices – I need to retrieve my Kelly Pro from Lundo).

Somewhere add in this mix that I spent a few hours in Guitar Center the other day with a Parker Fly and… lord only knows. I haven’t even been interested in a new guitar in at least ten years.

Yeah, dunno it’s all un-important and I have neither the time, money or the talent for any of this. But hey, isn’t this what blogs are for? Posting momentary frustrations?

Ahh, just for the record and good ‘ol nostolgia’s sake my gear is something like this.

Guitars: Simple Alverez Acoustic – The only guitar I ever got as a gift. I was in a speech competition in high school, and to say the least my parents weren’t excited about me trying to learn to play guitar. We had time to kill so my dad and I went in a guitar shop. I picked up this guitar and played the acoustic bit from Metallica’s To Live is to Die. My Dad was amazed I knew anything more than Iron Man and bought it for me. It was really cool of him.

Alverez Acoustic with cut away and electronic pickup. – I love this guitar. It’s basically my main guitar. I picked it up at a music-go-round years ago.

Series 10 POS electric – My first guitar. I think I paid $75 for it. In my 20′s I replaced the stock pickups with some Fender Lace pickups, and in a fit of learning basically tore out all the electronics and replaced them with new ones. It sounds surprisingly good.

POS. Some pawnshop jagstang ripoff that we paid $25 for at a pawnshop and bought just to destroy and a gig. The entire band jumped on it and it survived. Sounds just as bad now as it did then.

Jackson Kelly Standard. At $500 the most expensive thing I’d bought in my life up until that point. I loved this guitar. It’s actually signed by Marty Friedman from Megadeth (which is a whole other story). Honestly it’s not that awesome, but I beat the living shit out of it, and it was the guitar I used the most when I was still in a band.

Jackson Kelly Pro – Marty Friedman Signature Edition. Love this one. I think I paid something like $1200 for it. Probably too much, but DAMN is it metal. Wish I’d had it way earlier.

Mid 90′s Fender Strat (American) – This is my main guitar. I was really into the Police and R.E.M. at the time, it’s not a guitar either of them used, nor does it sound much like their tone, but it was reflective of the tone I was looking for. Frankly, it’s just plain impossible to go wrong with a nice strat.

1976 Yamaha 12 String. This was awesome for about a year, then somehow humidity took it’s toll and it warped. It’s now basically only usable as a bible song guitar. Anything further down than the fifth fret will cause your fingers to bleed and your arm to cramp.