What was your starter gear? *How you first started*

MaverickStang

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Sep 18, 2014
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Simply bored and just wanted to start a discussion that's easy for anyone to answer. This forum thread is only your starter gear as a guitarist. You can list your first guitar pedal or effect processor and that's it! Also list how you progressed, but NOT BY YOUR GEAR! If you have got another amp, then got an effects pedal or effect processor, you can't list it. IT'S ONLY THE GEAR THAT YOU STARTED WITH! I DON'T WANT THIS THREAD TO BE A BRAGGING OF INSTRUMENTS AND EQUIPMENT! I'm sure most of us have expensive equipment and instruments to show, but really this isn't flashy show and tell. This thread is only for memories, what you learned over the years, and how you started. If we get flashy with our stuff, it gets off topic of discussion. Also this thread is for everyone to get to know everyone better a bit. Don't be embarrassed to share stories of how you started, we all have been there. Basically thinking on your starter gear, you will think upon the past times of how you started.

  • Indonesia 2000 Fender Squier Bullet (Somehow the nut was cut to hold Drop C tuning-pure luck 60-12 gauges)
  • Peavey Rage 158 Transtube

  • Digitech RP100
Digitech RP100 Artist (I'm listing this one because the B100K 9mm potentiometers wore out)
(Also I put a heat sink on one of the electrical components, because it got really hot)

I started as an E-Standard tuning guitarist, learned chords from the internet, and memorized most of them. I have almost every note imaginable printed out in a binder. I didn't know crap and learned everything by ear. Honestly, I think my guitar was not even in intonation during my first few years; how embarrassing. I simply moved from Standard-E to Drop D. For some reason it was just easier for me in drop tuning, once I actually knew about the drop tuning my freshman year of high school, and knew how to intonate a guitar LOL. I stayed in drop tuning, because it was what I was listening to by bands obviously. I got really decent in my junior year or senior year in High School. Drop D, Drop C#, Drop C is what I've played the most of my lifetime. Now these days, spreading my horizons of different guitar tunings, tunings have become much easier to play for me by learning. I've been playing since the year 2000 and I progressed from there. Now I create covers with ease, play with people, create my own music in different tunings, and I enjoy my guitar hobby. I stay away from Standard E tuning, unless it's messing with some pass time flash game called PunkOmatic2. What I mean is that I'm not really creative in Standard E when writing/composing songs. I use a note analyzer called chordino and it does wonders! It's about 89%-100% accurate of catching all the notes. Most of time I'm accurate by ear and I catch on really easy to new songs by tunings I'm used to. I do know music theory a bit, but I'm no scholar at reading music. Really for the most part, I know how music works by the relationship among the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys. I'm really great with triads and that's about it. I took some music courses in college, but really I wanted to be a graphic designer/3D animator. Just hand me guitar and I just get creative. Practice is key and Mom is always right, "You can set your mind to do anything".

http://isophonics.net/nnls-chroma
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/threads/flash-game-that-makes-music.1144904/

Mostly I'm more fluent in Drop C, I've been playing that tuning the longest.
 
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I had a long background of classical piano/organ and had been touring with a B3 and a Fender Rhodes 88. And I worked part time at a music store. Our guitar player offered to teach me guitar so that we'd have a second guitar player when we needed one. At one point I took classical guitar lessons from Candelas Delgado at his little shop on Sunset near downtown here in LA.
 
When I was 15 my sis bought a classical guitar for me at the local music store. I didn't really touch it until I was 17, when I realized that I wouldn't be able to afford an electric yet had really been wanting to play for so long.

Then when I turned 18, I got an OLP Petrucci for my birthday, together with a Roland Cube 15. The guitar would break on me every week, because the knobs were so loose the soldering got undone. I didn't know how to fix that yet back then, but the local guitar store claimed they did... anyway, that happened a bunch of time until my dad told me I can loan 400 euro's for a new guitar that won't break, and I ended up getting an Ibanez RG320DXFM. That one was incredible and I regret selling it. Now, 10 years further, I've sold way too many guitars that I actually loved out of impulse. I currently own a Jackson JS32 Gus G sig, a HB Strat, an Epiphone Les Paul and a Gibson Les Paul Classic. :)