Active Melody

I picked up a used strat copy yesterday. Threw some new strings on it and cleaned it up a little. Adjusted intonation (which I may have some questions about later), and adjusted pick up height. Sounds pretty clean. Neck seems to be a tad bit under bowed, so I’m going to look into that. So far all of what I have done is for the first time for me, that’s why I’ll be asking some questions about intonation holding where it’s set. Will try and ad some pics later. It’s a cherry sunburst color with two humbuckers bridge/neck and a single coil in the center.

another photo

another

Looks like a nice little guitar you found there.  I don’t know much about the Samick brand, but I always like trying a new guitar out.  If it plays good and sounds good, the rest is all irrelevant anyway

Brian - 28 January 2012 12:18 AM

Looks like a nice little guitar you found there.  I don’t know much about the Samick brand, but I always like trying a new guitar out.  If it plays good and sounds good, the rest is all irrelevant anyway

Thanks for the comments Brian. Very true about if it plays good and sounds good the rest being irrelevant. Not sure how true it is but I found on the web that this model of Samick is actually a Fender. The article saying Samick being the largest musical instrument manufacturer was asked by fender to turn out a certain number of these guitars for a set price. Samick came back at Fender with a lower price, provided Fender would allow them to make a certain quantity with the Samick name on it. I find that pretty interesting. I’m sure I will get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I’m playing it through a little beater Johnson 25w practice amp right now, but have found an Ibanez tbx150R at yet another consignment store for a reasonable price and if it is still there Thursday when I have the cash I will buy it. I’m really enjoying your video lessons, simply the best I have found.

Well, I was having a heck of a time getting the intonation set right so today I took the guitar into a fender dealer. The tech looked at it and started making adjustments and before long he had it sounding beautiful. Only cost me $20 too, so I was really happy. I picked up the Ibanez TBX 150 r amp today, so now I’m pretty set for a
While. Now I can follow along easier to the video.

This Ibanez amp has so many bells and whistles on it compared to the little practice amp I was using, I’m sure glad that I found a PDF file manual online and downloaded it to help me out. Does anyone else have any knowledge of this amp that could share some setings with me. I would appreciate it.
Terry

I don’t know that particular amp but I have the same basic concept for any amp I play through - and that is to make sure you have plenty of low end, just a little bit of over drive (not the death metal setting) but enough to start breaking up the sound a bit.  Then add about 30 / 40 % reverb.  Keep your guitar volume at around 75% for most of what you play, and then all the way up for a solo (for a little extra punch).  On that guitar of yours, I’d probably play through the neck pickups and get that nice bassy sound, and turn the guitar tone control (on the neck pickup) all the way to 10. 

That’s my typical setting…. obviously some songs require more overdrive.. but i’d say that’s the biggest mistake people make in their tone is they try for too much distortion

Thanks Brian for the heads up on the amp and guitar settings, you are so right. I set it up like you suggested and that’s exactly the sound I was looking for. I’ve been working on the blues rhythm /lead lesson for a couple of days now. I’ve got about half of it down now.
Terry