Leaderboard

Wanted a battery amp for the porch, patio, etc, so read reviews and thought the Blackstar Fly was good for the price. Found it with the additional speaker and power adapter on Amazon for $90 in the limited edition green, I would've gone for the black, but they didn't offer the combo in black for that price. Decent sounding little amp, wouldn't play the Rose Bowl with it, but for a quiet setting and clean playing it works well. Has effects, and they work well, but not what I bought it for. Bass strings sound a little rough if you turn the gain up enough, but overall sounds better than my little 15 amp Fender Frontman, which hasn't been plugged in for a while. Thought a little cabinet would be nice, had some spare oak, so spent a few hours Saturday throwing it together. Could've made a few of the joints a little cleaner, but it will do the job. When the little amp and speaker sit, the face is slightly angled back, so as picture 4 shows, I routed a groove for the front hard plastic feet to sit in, sorta holds them in place. The back feet are rubber. This made the face sit fairly perpendicular. Anyway, not a bad little amp for the price, the amp alone runs around $60, and runs on 6 AA batteries, if you don't have the power adapter. Fun little project!

Heres a couple videos that are two types of ways to do it.

Jck - I am sure you will get lots of advice - here is what I would do. I would set my metronome at a painfully slow speed (mine speaks to me ('one and two and three and four', etc.) and try to work out your rhythm pattern very slowly. Once your fingers have mastered things at a slow pace, gradually speed things up. Whenever I am having trouble getting something down, it is almost always the case that I am trying to do it too quickly without having mastered the specific technique. Good luck!

For those interested in adding more chords and learning how to build them on the fretboard, there is a website where you can download and compile PDF files of Ted Greene’s revolutionary V-System for free. Steve has mentioned Ted’s Chord Chemistry book a few times. I don’t have the book, but as I recall Steve had said it was mostly page after page of chord diagrams. This on the other hand is a system that can be used to construct chords on the fretboard. Here’s the link to Ted Greene’s V-System. I hope you will find the methods helpful.

Since Steve didn't walk the huttlinger exercise up through the full metronome....here it is! From 8th notes at 100 BPM to 16th notes at 120 BPM. It takes only 10 minutes. So practice along every day until you get it. I was a bit sloppy at the end on this particular day. Mea Culpa. https://youtu.be/HfGr4zLoz3o

It’s not exactly theory, but I couldn’t think of a better section to put it in. I’ve been posting Griff’s stuff quite a bit lately, but it’s all good and certainly worth watching. This video is different though because it deals with note reading and rhythmic note reading in particular. Even solid music readers may want to spend the 40+ minutes absorbing the information. After all, music reading for guitar has its intricacies. Griff covers 4/4 straight, 4/4 triplet, and 12/8 time signatures. The first half of the video may seem very basic, but the second half covers more tricky stuff. And as Steve says: “Learn all you can!”

Thank you all for the encouragement! Still working on everything and will keep you updated on my progress.

This is where being both southern and from the hills pays off. Two first names is part of the culture and in this case, I'm clearly a "Ben-Bob". I spend half my time gas-ing for gear for great tone, and the other half wailing away, murdering all my favorite tunes. Best of both worlds I say.

Glad you like it Mike

I have had an occasional scratchy pot, before you do anything else, run the volume knob back and forth half a dozen times to try and clean and clear it. Detoxit is second step for me.

Beginner Ben here, not in search of the Holy Grail of tone, but for a variety in tones. There again, throw on some dirt, delay, reverb and flanger and everything probably sounds the same with my fingers. But clean.......ahhh , there are differences. Greg

I'm on the Advanced workout. I can get to sixteenth notes at 80 BPM but really struggle above that. The more I try at the higher speeds, the easier the lower speeds seem to be. Another one that I just need to stick with. Has anyone conquered the Advanced workout yet?