Metal Gear - the Musical Instrument Thread

[tuonelan]

Threatened to post one of these a while ago. In true Amo Forum form I expect this to drift between talk of the band's gear and talk of our own gear (and lusted after gear).

Still playing my Hagstrom Swede, though it may be nearing time to take it in to a luthier to have it set up again. Intonation has slipped and the pickups are getting noisy and uneven in signal. And, yes, I still suck at playing.

I've got a Vox DA-5 for practice and an old Line 6 Pod Studio GX that I use for tones, though lately I've been just plugging a Peavey AmpKit Link into an old iPhone and rockin' it Rockman style.

Have been thinking of getting either a short scale bass or an acoustic electric. Given how little I play, though, I'd probably be better served getting a Line 6 KB 37 and a decent vocal mic so that I could mess around with recording some ambient dark metal.

In the land of dreams I'd be playing a Strandberg Masvidalien guitar through a USB interface into Peavey's Revalver 3.5 software controlled through a decent pedalboard (or a Peavey 6505+ if I didn't have to worry about hearing loss or neighbors in my dreams). Throw in a OO 12-fret acoustic and an 8-string bass and we are good to go.

So what are you playing or dreaming of playing?

 

[papajohnny]

Not joking.

 

[tuonelan]

Not joking.

Sweet! Reminded me of a Mikael Åkerfeldt quote: "I bought my daughter a little toy guitar. I've written some evil shit with it."

Also, this...

 

[papajohnny]

^

It reminds me of that Amo moment, too.

In all honesty, however, I did know how to play metallophone. Not that there is some great philosophy behind it, but as a kid, I enjoyed and knew several folk songs on it. Nothing too complex, of course, but still fun. But I haven't played it in years.

As great as my wish to play some instrument may have been during a certain period of my life, I never actually played anything. Any "metal" instrument attracted me, of course, but I grew out of it, mostly because I have no actual music education, and the fact that my talent is...well, non-existent.

I tried learning to play a flute - that is, a Serbian/Balkan flute with six holes, but never learned it well, mostly due to time constraints. Heh, now that I'm reminded of it, maybe I'll start again.

 

[Eurynome]

Just built myself a new pedalboard to accommodate a couple more stompboxes than fit in the small case I have. Not the pinnacle of Finnish design, but as long as it serves its sole purpose of keeping my cats from chewing the cables, it's good enough for me. With some luck it'll remain intact until I have money for an upgrade.

 

[tuonelan]

That's a lot of loops and delays, (and, of course, a Vox wah).

Do you like to mess with your sound and explore or do you prefer to play and not mess about?

Do you have a particular tone that you find yourself drawn to? Lately I've been fascinated by the tone that Greg Mackintosh gets for his recent Paradise Lost albums -- that warm, scooped out, mournful quaver that comes from his heavy finger vibrato and wah. (The solo in Worth Fighting For is a good example.) It just nails me in the gut every time. Not that I own a wah...or have that heavy a vibrato.

On my own, though, running through Pod Farm or ReValver, I tend to play around with an overdriven amp that has a tube screamer or MT-2 clone adding some bite, but only about 30% mixed into the signal and some sort of lo-fi analog or tube delay wit some signal decay in it. It ends up sounding a bit shoegazer-y or Disintegration era Cure.

 

[Eurynome]

That's a lot of loops and delays, (and, of course, a Vox wah).

Guilty as charged. The looper I bought five years ago after seeing Danny Cavanagh solo for the first time. It's a pretty awesome companion for casual players like myself who don't have a band, although I admit that most of the time I'm lazy and just play along with records. (Predictable as I am, that has usually meant Circle this summer.) On the delay side, the DD20 basically covers all my needs, so in the small pedal case mentioned above I only had that one, but yesterday I found the other two when cleaning out my closet and figured they might as well make themselves useful, that's why I built that bigger box.

Do you like to mess with your sound and explore or do you prefer to play and not mess about?

The latter. At some time in the past I had a Line6 Pod and it was fun to try out stuff with it, but in the end I got rid of it because I didn't do a whole lot with it after all. My amp has three channels and gives me all the distortion I need, I've had it for 8 1/2 years (you might remember it from my old forum avatar) and never been anything but happy with it. Stompboxes of course are fun and I have a few more in that closet, but in practice I rarely need them.

Do you have a particular tone that you find yourself drawn to? Lately I've been fascinated by the tone that Greg Mackintosh gets for his recent Paradise Lost albums -- that warm, scooped out, mournful quaver that comes from his heavy finger vibrato and wah. (The solo in Worth Fighting For is a good example.) It just nails me in the gut every time. Not that I own a wah...or have that heavy a vibrato.

I have a couple of wahs that I wouldn't mind getting rid of, but I'm afraid shipping them to California would cost a fortune. Haven't played any PL stuff so far except Enchantment, but the new stuff would definitely be worth a try. Perhaps Mr. Mackintosh will provide me with a bit of homework in a couple of weeks, the mirror view shouldn't be too much of an obstacle. Actually the two guitarists that have influenced me most are both left-handers but have always played right-handed (the other being Jorma Kaukonen). I tried playing a leftie guitar - alas, not a Mayones - for fun a couple of times, but my brain completely refused to switch hand coordination.

On the subject of "signature songs", have you tried playing anything from Riitiir? I absolutely love this album but so far I've hardly even tried to figure anything off it out, it seems a pretty daunting task...

 

[tuonelan]

I have yet to try to figure anything out from Enslaved. My treble picking sux on the best of days and I've got bad wrists from poor computer habits. I suppose Thoughts Like Hammers would not be too taxing and I love that riff.

Truth be told, though, I'm more of a sound explorer than a play-along-with-the-record person. Lacking the patience to actually practice and learn the instrument, I just find a tone I like, steal a drumbeat from somewhere and put a couple bars of it on Garage Band and noodle about until my fingers get sore or I have to go back to doing something more productive. I aim for Ambient Blackened Doom mostly because it's the only thing slow and minimal enough that I can actually play it

 

[tuonelan]

Downloaded Hydrogen a few days ago. It's a freeware drum machine built for GNU/Linux, but it has Mac and Windows Betas. It's simple to use and it has a lot of really nice user created drumkits and sound files, including some built for death metal. Just the thing to spice up a loop library for practice.

 

[Eurynome]

Now either I'm blind or this is one pretty damn nice guitar:

Even from the back.

 

[orcslayr23]

For my music, I strictly use a Roland Juno GI. Also looking into investing in a new mic, the Shure SM7B.

 

[tuonelan]

Vaguely dissatisfied with my gear at the moment, but having a hard time justifying any changes given how little I've been playing it. My Hagstrom seems to need intonation and pickup work and I'd like an acoustic with a pickup so I could amp it. Probably be better off getting a digital interface with phantom power for a mic and amp the acoustic that way so I could also record vocals if I wanted.

Meanwhile, been listening to Sólstafir enough that it's got me thinking about a used and battered Flying V.

 

[tuonelan]

Just won a bid for a Yamaha RBX 760a bass guitar.

Won't get here for a while...seller has to get packing materials for shipping. Time to stop sucking at guitar all the time and start sucking at bass. :Smokedev:

 

[tuonelan]

La basse de la gloire est arrivée.

Needs some work on the wiring -- that, or I need new cables -- but it's in good shape and it's lighter than my guitar.

 

[tuonelan]

It's official: I need new cables. Most convenient possible answer. Now to figure out which type and brand of cable to go with.

And, holy fukkin hell, this thing sounds monstrous in headphones through my old Vox DA5 practice amp. I'm almost afraid to try it through the tiny 6.5" speaker for fear of overtaxing it, but on the headphones...Earvana. I especially like the combination of crunch or high gain amp setting with a bit of reverb and the rotary speaker effect on. Perfect for playing grungy postmetal like Solstafir.

So far, though, playing this thing has me grinning like an idiot. Big step up from guitar, which usually just had me playing like an idiot.

 

[papajohnny]

I missed that pic earlier.

Great news!

I'm kinda jealous. It's a beauty. Bass is my unfulfilled dream. Nothing is that good as when you feel that big fat sound crunching down your bones and vibrating your guts from here to Saturn. Eardrums are kinda against that tho

 

[tuonelan]

What I have learned while shopping for this bass. If you can do so, buy a used bass from a well respected brand with no glamour. My Yamaha was an upper mid-price bass when it was new 10 years ago and I picked it up on The Bay for less than a new entry level bass because Yamaha never had the sex appeal of a Fender or the rock 'n' roll vibe of a Gibson T-Bird. Don't know what you can find in your part of the EU for what sort of price, but I'm shocked at how great a bargain I got.

 

[papajohnny]

What I have learned while shopping for this bass. If you can do so, buy a used bass from a well respected brand with no glamour. My Yamaha was an upper mid-price bass when it was new 10 years ago and I picked it up on The Bay for less than a new entry level bass because Yamaha never had the sex appeal of a Fender or the rock 'n' roll vibe of a Gibson T-Bird. Don't know what you can find in your part of the EU for what sort of price, but I'm shocked at how great a bargain I got.

I remember when I was like 14 and asked my old man to buy me a guitar, some cheap sh*t, just to have one, and he said: "Son, if you want a guitar, buy Yamaha. But I ain't gonna buy you one so you could just have fun for one afternoon."
He was right, guitar (and music playing) isn't for me, really.

I'm afraid getting into the whole thing is a bit late now. My uni takes most of my time, and there's no space where to put the thing. Not to mention that, just like back then, I have 0 talent.

And yeah, I'm not sure where I could get a used one. Plenty of shops where I can get a new bass, but I'm not sure where I could/should start.
Serbia actually isn't EU, and the shipping cost for something as big as a bass would be nightmarish, to say at least. In reality, there's probably a place somewhere in the country, maybe even in this town, where I could get a used one, but I guess it's too late anyway.

 

[tuonelan]

Too late? I'm 46. Started learning martial arts when I was 41.

If you are not dead, it's not too late, and talent doesn't matters if you are doing it for the fun of it. I play most often to take a short break from grading and commenting on papers. It's relaxing and fun.

(And I wondered, as I typed it, if Serbia was EU or not but was too lazy to check.)

 

[papajohnny]

Too late? I'm 46. Started learning martial arts when I was 41.

If you are not dead, it's not too late, and talent doesn't matters if you are doing it for the fun of it. I play most often to take a short break from grading and commenting on papers. It's relaxing and fun.

(And I wondered, as I typed it, if Serbia was EU or not but was too lazy to check.)

I guess you got the point (I was expecting a reply like that haha). Nonetheless, at this particular time, it's a no-go, for various practical reasons. Maybe in a year or two, once my uni gets a bit easier. Who knows...

Maybe Serbia gets in EU in the meantime, so the shipping will be lover. Haha. ...no, that ain't gonna happen for sure.