colder

Last fall at the Fingerstyle retreat, a number of folks went to Artisan Guitars and they spoke very highly of the place. Never been there myself but they seemed to have had a great time. Gruhn's goes without saying, it's a must visit if you've never been there. It was wonderful last year when we got the upstairs tour, if that happens again this year it's well worth going.

I'm guessing it will be soon, gotto. I looked through my emails and last year it was about 2 weeks in advance of the event.

Glad you are coming, Joel! Last year was my first Gathering and I had a great time. See you there.

Thank you, Steve! I have often wondered about this myself! I am going to try this on some favorite hymns. It seems like they are often not written in guitar-friendly keys but this gives me some tools to practice with!

Great ideas, all. Thanks! I live in a loft in a high-rise building, downtown in a major city. We've got about 1400 square feet but it still feels like a small place, and the possibility of disturbing my better half's sleeping, reading, whatever, is always there. I can practice with an electric using headphones, but I don't really want to have my headphones on all the time when I'm at home, I want to be present when I'm home, since we're a family and all. :) One thing that's helping is working on fingerstyle a lot - for some reason this background noise she likes, it's a peaceful sound - but the sound of me practicing electric (silently or not) or playing non-fingerstyle acoustic guitar is more of a disturbance. And I just heard Joe Robinson remind us all last night that he used to get up at 4:00 AM to play. Maybe I will just begin setting my alarm earlier!

I've noticed that as time passes and I get older and busier professionally, and at home too - it's hard sometimes to get the amount of guitar in that I need! (Which of course is always "more!") For those of you with busy lives, children, and lots of outside commitments beyond your practice room, how do you structure things so that you keep advancing in your playing as much as possible?

Paul, sorry to hear that you won't be there this year. I enjoyed meeting you and talking with you very much. Hope you will make it next year!

I think the east river drive is a direct clone of the tube screamer circuit. I spent some time DIYing some pedals this winter, and while my understanding of them is rudimentary, I did find that many are the same circuit almost exactly. The tube screamers, the yellow Boss overdrive pedal, the East River, and numerous others. (Even the TS9 and TS808 are very similar and it’s easy to covert one into the other.) There seem to be two main types, the tube screamers which cut bass and have a variable treble cut and boost the rest while adding some color, and the more transparent ones which go for a flatter boost with just a bit of color. (That’s before you get into distortion where a lot of them seem to be based on the RAT or the Voodoo Labs Pedal, like the OCD is) For me, I didn’t like the tube screamers for a long time. They seem to work best with single coils and I felt like they added gain but made the tone seem flatter. Where they really shine I think is when you put a tube screamer type after a pedal of the other type and run them both at once. Some people like the reverse arrangement too. I have a Klon KTR which is the same as a Centaur, just the modern version, and I leave that on all the time and put the tube screamer after it as a further boost. They sound great! Sorry for the long winded post. I need to type less and play the things more 😁

I’ve spent some time with one of the largest 100 ones and it was really nice! It’s cool to have a solid state amp that doesn’t have a thousand things to fiddle with. The katana amps just GO!

My only other thoughts about the dorms were that they were very basic, pretty much exactly as you remember dorm rooms being, including a basic twin bed. They provide sheets/blankets and a pillow and a couple of towels, but I made a note to bring my own this year. The bathroom is shared between two adjoining rooms, the same situation as when I was in college anyway, where you go into the bathroom and lock the other door, and unlock it when you're done. The sink and mirror are in each room though, so you can get in and out and do the rest of your morning stuff in your own room. I'm going to bring some snacks for the room/breakfast and a kettle so I can make coffee in the morning. There's a little coffee shop there on campus that has pastries and such, but if you want to save a few bucks this would be one way. For dinner it seemed that most folks split up in groups to do things around town. A few of us went to Hattie B's Hot Chicken one night, I went to Gruhn's one night where they let us walk around the second floor and see (and play!) instruments that cost more than my education, etc. But this is just for the dinner hour, really, there's a concert every night in the main hall at Trevecca with Steve, instructors and friends tearing the roof off the place. Frankly at the end of each day I wanted to go get some practice in and conk out. A few people hung out int he dorm lounge socializing and jamming I think, and you see some of that in the sitting areas around the conference too. Great days, full days, sleeping hard 👍

Does anyone remember the answer to this? I am 95% sure they are air conditioned. I was comfortable in the room and I wouldn't do well in the summer heat in Nashville if there weren't air conditioning. 😬

Last year I attended the Songwriting session, and if you're at all interested in songwriting I found it to be a really good introduction to some of the "how" soft that. Plus Kim is a really fun and interesting lady. Mel Deal's jazz sessions were great too if you want to learn more about jazz or just take music theory further. (which are kind of one and the same) And I learned from Collin at the fall finger style retreat, he's a great guy and an amazing player too. His music on Spotify is definitely worth a listen. The big session on Improvisation that Steve did with Dino Pastin last year was one of my favorite parts of the conference, that really helped me understand some new things. The only person there I didn't see was Mike Pachelli, not sure if he was there last year, but I didn't take any blues sessions. Greg's guitar care and maintenance was great, he did a really good job on both my guitars, but seeing how to care for and set up your guitars well is really valuable if you don't have any experience with that.

Yeah, that is how I found it to be last year, @Curtis - wonderful time with some very nice people, and a lot of learning going on. I think a semi-hollow or a jazz box might work well. I guess it all just depends on how much you need to hear your amplified tone in the larger sessions. If you're cool with hearing the acoustic tone only in the big room when we're doing drills and such, it'd be fine. In the smaller sessions, where we break up into whatever courses we've individually chosen, those are more like a classroom size. so you'd be fine there. I'm thinking of bringing my Strat since it's my best friend, but we'll see 😎

Crossroads Guitar Festival 2019 Lineup Alan Darby Albert Lee Andy Fairweather Low Billy Gibbons Bonnie Raitt Bradley Walker Buddy Guy Band Daniel Santiago Derek Trucks Doyle Bramhall II Eric Clapton Gary Clark Jr. Gustavo Santaolalla James Bay Jeff Beck Jerry Douglas Jimmie Vaughan Joe Walsh Jonny Lang Keb Mo Kurt Rosenwinkel Los Lobos Pedro Martins Peter Frampton Robert Cray Robert Randolph Sheryl Crow Sonny Landreth Susan Tedeschi Tom Misch Vince Gill That's pretty much a who's who list! What a great bill!

Slightly off-topic: @William Nelson , when I was starting out with music theory I bought a book called "Music Theory for Guitarists" by Tom Kolb. Those books are inexpensive and it gives a good introduction to theory. 😎

I'm curious as to what owning a Dumble is really like, not that I will ever own one, or that I could probably even realize it if I did. On the live lesson Ford said it was the only thing he really used (or something to that effect) and that nothing really compared to it. I also noticed on Joe Bonamassa's instagram page that he had a popular Dumble clone in one of his photos, and someone asked him how that amp compared to a real Dumble and he said "It doesn't 🤷‍♂️". Must be something pretty special!

Great! I am looking forward to seeing and learning from him! I just saw Molly Tuttle here a few nights ago, she is so sweet and engaging and a brilliant brilliant player too. I know she's got an album coming out now and will probably be on the road, but would love to see her at a future Gathering. Also, someone give me Will MacFarlane's phone number so I can pressure him to come back

When Robben Ford was here last fall, there were people taking pictures with him, but also taking pictures with his Dumble 😆

Hah! Well, basically, it was my first big-boy amp, a Fender Princeton Reverb reissue. I really liked the amp, I got it used, and I think it was 10 years old or more. Pretty beaten up, never had an issue with it though. Then one day I was showing it to someone, and I turn the amp on. The red light comes on, but then 1-2 seconds later, a BANG sound comes out of the speaker, and according to the witness there was a flash or a spark or something in the back. A strong burning smell follows, like something oily or a plastic melting kind of smell. No smoke but it smells bad - Yikes, better unplug it! Later I see that the fuse is good, but one of the power tubes is clearly blown up inside. I subbed a new tube in for the bad tube, still no sound. Subbed all the power tubes for new ones, still nothing. The red light comes on, but no sound of any kind. He's dead, Jim. Luckily no people or animals were harmed! I'm not sure it's worth repairing, maybe I just have a spare 1x12 cabinet now.

Nice playing and great tones too! Ever play humbuckers through it? I tried one at a shop, admittedly just for a few minutes, but it didn't seem to like them as well, it got pretty dark. Are you able to wring all the tones you want from it? Thanks for posting!

Looks awesome! Now I want one!!

So, with a milestone birthday coming up, and having killed my first real tube amp the previous day (sometime I'll tell the story of the exploding Princeton... ANYWAY...) I decided that I would get myself a present, and yesterday one of these followed me home: This is a Fender '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb, and it is GREAT!!! It sounds incredible. Just plugging my Strat straight into it, half an hour flies by in seconds. I am mostly a clean player (and my neighbors prefer it that way) and this thing has the most beautiful cleans. If you haven't tried the silver face amps that Fender is putting out these days, definitely check them out. These are not direct reissues, if you want exactly what the blackface amps were like back in the 60s, they do still make those with the same circuits and speakers and such. The Customs that are in the silverface cabinets are meant to be updated a bit from the old designs. On this amp (vs the normal Deluxe Reverb), the reverb and tremolo are available to both channels of the amp. It still has the Vibrato channel (now called "Vintage") with the classic sound, but the Normal channel is gone and replaced by a channel called "Custom", which has the 'Bassman tone stack'. I have never played a real Bassman, but I actually like the Custom channel even more than the Vintage one! It's similar but fatter and fuller sounding. These amps also break up a little earlier than the blackface reissues do. I almost got the Princeton version of this amp (it's 12 watts instead of 22), it sounded really, really great - but the cleans on the Deluxe were so enthralling that I just wanted to play it until the store closed 😎 Go ahead, leave me in here with it guys, I'll lock up when I'm done... or see you in the morning maybe So if you're looking for a great Fender amp that is a step up from your starter amp like I was, check these out, they're awesome!

Hey all! Been a busy couple of weeks for me! Glad to be back! Regarding the questions above, from Gathering experiences - @Deviazione, the dorm housing consists of very basic dorm room accommodations, with a bathroom shared between two rooms. But for what hotels generally cost in Nashville, it is indeed a great deal, plus you get to hang out with your Gathering friends It's also convenient because the dorm is right across the street from the building where the Gathering happens. There's no television or any furniture really beyond the bed, a chair, a desk, etc., but there is free Wifi that worked well. I would also mention that we all got lunch together on campus every day, it's a short walk across campus, but for dinner you're on your own. Generally people went to visit local spots in groups, or we walked down to the Subway at the edge of campus! @Curtis, almost everyone there brought an acoustic. I actually brought two acoustics, because I wanted to have them both set up by Greg Voros! I am toying with the idea of bringing an electric this year because I'm mostly an electric player. I'd feel better about traveling with an electric in general, too, since they can take more abuse! The only issue with that is the matter of the amp. You could certainly carry a small amp around with you during the day, but it would need to be battery powered, since some of the rooms are larger and finding a power outlet might be an issue. You wouldn't need much volume, just enough to hear yourself. For the student showcase, I'm sure there will be something righteous up on stage As far as what else to bring - definitely bring a guitar stand, no need to bring a music stand, Trevecca had plenty. Sometimes you might share with the person next to you, but music stands were no issue.

Steve's capo chart was really helpful to me in learning how capos work, and getting the idea of how I can support my wife's singing. When we play at a Sunday school class at church, often times the most guitar friendly key is not comfortable for her to sing in. The capo allows us to quickly and easily find something we can both work with easily when we're rehearsing. It's a lifesaver at times!

There are tricks you can learn like the octave method people mentioned, but the best way I found was to say the notes aloud as you're practicing scales. This has the benefit, obviously, of helping you learn scales too. :)