Old Guy

Overview!

Thank you for your service, sir. We are indebted to you for the freedom we enjoy. God bless.

Thank you!!

One thing that's really hard to convey is the how the clips are recorded. I was not recording mine with the optimum set up. If you look at the Orangewood produced adverts, they are using a $2K condenser mic with pro audio recording equipment. That is truly the way to get the real sound out of an acoustic guitar to a DAW. As I mentioned in my vid, I used two dynamics mics, decent ones, but not nearly top of the line by any stretch. I mentioned that in the vid so people will consider that with my recording. It was also the first time I ever attempted to record an acoustic guitar, so I'm sure if I experiment more with mic placement, the sound would be better for those listening. There are also other factors involved when recording an acoustic guitar, like size and shape of the room, and acoustic treatments to minimize how the sound bounces around. Basically what I'm saying is to take my vid and the sound with a grain of salt, as it was hardly a "pro" caliber recording and mostly for fun. Thanks for watching!!

If you have owned and/or played a higher end guitar, up close and personal, you can totally tell the difference. The Taylor I had that I really never played definitely felt like a sturdier instrument and had much better tonal variation. I am hardly an acoustic guitar aficionado, so for me, the Orangewood is the perfect option. People who really love acoustic guitars should probably shy away from these. The will not scratch that itch of that full bodied, rich sound which the higher end makers like Martin, Taylor and GIbson are known for. And I totally get that. But for beginner players, and for those like me, that just like to crash around with an acoustic guitar here and there, I really don't think there is a better value on the market right now.

Really loving this guitar! Enjoy!

Generally, with acoustic guitars, the sound changes because the wood changes with time. Maybe we can get more of an expert to chime in on whether that's accurate or not, but that would make sense to me.

Congrats, man!! Pedals are a super fun way to expand your musical palette. So far, my favorite pedals are the Dunlop Classic Cry Baby Wah, The MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay and the Suhr Eclipse OD/Distortion pedal. I use the Suhr for more Texas Blues type stuff, and use the distortion in the Amp I have (Blackstar HT Club 40 MkII) for lead tones with the Delay. The Amp has two distortion voicings, one more for rhythm playing, and the other for lead tones. I am waiting on a Compression pedal, though, and am very much looking forward to hearing how it smooths out my clean tones. It's called the Chellee Compy, and I bought it based on a demo by Pete Thorn on YouTube. Cool pedals, brother! Enjoy!

This is the final segment of a 5 part series I did on my Temple Audio pedal board build. Links the the other segments are in the description of the video. Enjoy and any questions are welcomed!

There are many other things that effect tone much more than the thickness of the finish on your guitar. Most notably, as mention, your skill level. To quote Frank Zappa, I would tell anyone who is that obsessive to "Shut up and Play Yer Guitar!"

I totally hear you! Believe it or not, I had an Axe Fx II for almost a decade, and sold all of my digital gear recently exactly because of that. So much tweaking to do, so little time. I was spending a ton of time trying to get *that* sound, that I wasn't playing. You do have a couple of options. And I can maybe help you narrow things down a bit. Do you like a huge sounding reverb, or more subtle? Do you want to sound like you're playing in a huge hall, or more of a small room with just a little echo? For delay sounds, if you don't use a lot of gain, analog delay will give you a slightly darker tone, and digital will give you more of a brighter sound. I LOVE Eric Johnson's distorted tone, and he uses an analog delay pedal, which is what I eventually got and am happy with. For chorus sounds, do you like it kind of more subtle, or a really in your face chorus sound? Andy Summers of Police uses A LOT of in your face chorus. Believe it or not, Joe Bonamassa also uses a lot of chorus, but much more subtly to thicken his sound up. Which do you prefer? As far as Distortion, what sound do you like? Classic Rock tone? More of a Texas Blues sound? Heavy rock? Progressive Metal? Let me know and I can maybe narrow down the options of what pedals are in the magic box for you and how to set them up!

Congrats on a real cool piece of gear!! I've played with many of those types of modeling pedals, and at first they can be overwhelming. The first thing to do is decide what you want to do with it. You can spend hours tweaking it, and ultimately find that you got nowhere which is very frustrating. What will you be using the pedal for? Mostly for the effects? Are you interested in diving into the Amp and Cab sims? The most important thing is deciding what you want to tackle FIRST. For example, I know I don't like digital delays, so I would find an analog delay preset, plug it in and then tweak it like I had real pedal in front of me. The mistake people make is going through each preset in the device and trying to make it sound good without really knowing what to dial in to do that. This method eliminates that altogether. Once you have one pedal sounding the way you like it, then move on the the next pedal. Let's say a chorus pedal. Keep it simple. Then an OD or Distortion pedal. Treat these multi effects units like you would an individual effects pedal and go from there. As far as the Amp and Cab sims go, same thing. Treat them like a real amp. For example, you wouldn't pair a Marshall head with a Fender 4x10 cab. You'd do a 4x12 Marshall cab at first. Then dial the amp sim like you would a real amp. Start with all the knobs at 12 o'clock and tweak from there. Like a real amp! If you go about it in a systematic way, it is very intuitive. Your pedal has a way to link pedals together. Up to 6 at a time. Just imagine it like a pedal board. One thing I don't like about pedals like this is that modulation pedal effects tend to do better through an FX Loop and I don't think you can do that with that one. My biggest piece of advice is to take it slowly. Take one pedal and mess with it. Too many people try to tweak and create a whole preset the first time they sit down with these things and quickly want to chuck them out the window. They are extremely powerful, but do take time to get to know. The most important thing is, HAVE FUN!!!

Man that would be so cool. We are now getting BlueTooth enabled amps, as well. Wireless guitars out of the box would be amazing! I also wonder why pedal companies haven't moved over to USB power. No electrical noise and much easier to make power supplies for. So either plug them up to charge, or make a thin power strip to power all your pedals under a board. Then you wouldn't have to worry about mA coverage either.

Here's a backing track I put together and posted on my channel. I did not write the progression. It was off a Brett Papa segment on his channel. All info and links in the description of my video. My channel isn't monetized. Enjoy and play away!

Congrats on the new guitar!! Pics or it didn't happen! ?

Very cool and thanks for the nice review! I've always considered doing this. Where on the Jersey Shore are you Dan? I'm in Cherry Hill, so not far from you! I'm also curious what tavern near you has a blues jam? I've been looking for a place to check out since moving here a few years ago.

There is a vid on my channel where I show you how to do it using a free site online. Here you go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=739hmONorf4&t=13s

Nicely done!! Beautifully played.

The two single things I think will improve anyone's playing the most is a metronome and a Looper pedal. Not only can that help with your ear training, but also with your timing. Play one chord and loop it. Then play around on the fingerboard. Try to find every note on the fingerboard that sounds like it "fits" into that one chord. Rinse and repeat with all the chords you know. This will not only teach you the tones to listen for, but will also teach you to play over each chord, not just the key the tune you know is in.This will help in a jam situation as well. If you are more interested in learning scales and how they fit, there are plenty of resources to learn that off line. I don't know if these are still a thing, but the Guitar Grimoire series of books were amazing back in the day. Then learning a chord progression and laying it down within the Looper is a lot harder than it sounds. Especially if you do this with a metronome or a drum loop. Getting the timing right can get challenging. I was never one to sit and learn from actual lessons. I always have ants in my pants so I never had the patience. The only thing I ever had patience for was putting a rock on LPs to slow them down and cop licks back in the day, LOL.

Thanks for the kind words! The fit and finish issues were with the higher priced American Fenders. A couple of used G&Ls, but I can't fault those as they weren't new and could have been a result of the previous owner's abuse.

Thank you both for the kind words!! "Old Guy" is an inside family joke, LOL.

Thank you for the kind words!

Not sure I completely agree with this. Garageband is extremely powerful. It has very deep functionality once you dive into it. I find that that is its strength. It can be as basic or as complex as you need it to be. YMMV.

I just put this up on my channel. Enjoy!

You are correct, sir! I will amend my post. Sorry about that. Old Guy brain lapse. Apologies. I am personally not a fan of Ableton for someone just getting started. I personally found it not very intuitive when compared to something like Garageband.