David

anyone know if thaey have anything in the way of effects? aberdeen has bugger all guitar stuff apart from the guitar shops (none of which sell much apart form the mass produced stuff anyway) David

which pawnshop did you get that at? David

my Fender CIJ Jerry Donahue telecaster, modded with a humbucker in the bridge (formerly owned by jeid (or whatever his name is now)) i also have BC Rich NJ neck thru Assassin Marshall strat copy Fender FB-55 Banjo amps Marshall JCM2000 DSL401 (with footswitches for channels and reverb) i also have a vamp2 which i finally got round to making leads to connect it to my stereo with, so i shall see how that sounds compared to the marshall soon effects Dunlop Crybaby Dunlop tremolo/volume ProCo RatII MXR 6 band EQ these are the ones i use regularly, i also have Marshall BB-2 bluesbreaker Marshall VT-1 vibratrem Zoom tri-metal David

bach sebastian bach David

to get equal volume levels, i think the bridge needs to be wound a bit hotter, due to the fact teh strings move less when vibrating nearer the bridge there is quite a volume difference in the two pickups on my tele, and i actually like it that way, it gives me a difference in dirt from my amp, so with the gain channel set lowish i can go from clean - dirt by flicking the selecter, and there is quite a difference in sound on the clean channel too, i prefer this to two samey sounding pickups... as for pickups, mixing and matching brands is fine, the only problem would be mixing active (like emg pickups) and passive (basically most pickups) as the output and impedances are completely different between the two, mixing dimarzio and sds should be fine think of all the guitars that have just had one pickup replaced not a full set... they still sound fine David

i used to have my stray wired with three volume controls (one of reahc pickup) and the switch wired as a kill switch i got bored of it and went back to a stockish setup... but minus the tone controls, and with a kill switch in the hole for the top knob i need a new plan for what i can do with the guitar though, but it needs some new pickups first, anyone got any old pickups they dont need? i am basically after any spare pickups ripped from semi decent guitar when upgrading you dont want and would give me, basically anythign thats an upgrade of the pickups in a 100 strat copy... David

its a switch to enable you to get some extra combinations of pickups that you couldnt get with just a 5 way, but i cant remember exactly what they are... David

i was once trying this with a programme called goldwave (its free, check google for the site) it didnt work too well though, sometimes it cut part of te vocals and left strage effects in the background, i tried it on a track with a female singer and it made her sound like a pensioner somehow i dont think an rq qould work too well, since vocals share a lot of frequencys with guitars so you endup cutting both or noeither a lot fo the time David

barbies grandma gone wrong... David

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair. Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn't necessarily happen in chronological order though. - Douglas Adams (taken from teh hitchhikers guide to the galaxy) David

you do all realise yuou missed the pillowfight in london... from someone i know who was there, it was excellent, a lot of strangers collecting in one place all carrying concealed pillows (as much as you can conceal a pillow) then when the time comes, pulling out a pillow and attacking the nearest person also holding a pillow (ie not randoms not involved) sounded like a laugh David

David

steve vai does indeed use a keeley modded ds-1 quite a few otehr big artists have some of his pedals, but i cant remember any names offhand if you already have a DS-1, then you could still send it off and get the mods done to it, the prices are on the site for mods only i want to hear the modded rat against a stock one, i have a stock one and it sounds absolutely excellent as it is, i would love to hear how much better it sounds David

how are you doing that? is that importing mp3 files into sonicstage to load onto the player, or using something like the programme inteh first link you posted? i think those ways would be converting the mp3 to atrac before putting it on the player but i am pretty sure that you cant use mp3 on a NW HD1 straight from the box, otherwise sony wouldnt now be offering an upgrade to add mp3 playback to them (unless they have started shipping new ones like this either way i am happy sticking to atrac, i cant hear a noticable difference between it and mp3, and it takes up half the space, which is always nice (but dosent make a difference, i have all the music i need loaded on my player and have used 1.7 gig... thats 75ish albums) David

the floyd on my guitar has never really been a hassle, they are pretty simple really once you know how they work (i can explain further if anyone wants) paul, i am quite surprised that your floyd slips out of tune really easily, that makes me think there is a problem somewhere on your guitar, as floyds tend to be very stable once they are set up and tuned properly... most of the complaints i hear about floyds are from people who havent taken the time to work out how to use it properly, or people who want to use different tunings, if yuou want an excellent tremolo system for one main tuning, floyds are excellent the one thing i have noticed since getting a new guitar is the lack of sustain and resonacne that my floyded guitar has, it sounds fine plugged in, but acoustically, sounds very weedy and thing compared to a hardtailed tele David

he is a top bloke, and makes some excellent pedals, everyone i know who has tried the compressor has said it is amazing. i would love to get a couple of his pedals, mainly a java boost and fuzz head. a while ago i emailed him to ask about getting some mods on my rat, basically upgrading all the parts, but not adding the three way switch and the extra modes, at the time i didnt have the cash to send off my pedal though David

put me down for the echo pedal if the guys above me happen to dissapear or anything... David

try this one http://www.pressanykey.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/pak/jquiz.cgi David

for changing tunings at a jam or something a floyd would be rather annoying, for switching tungins you will also need to adjust the springs in the back of the guitar so the bridge balances level, which isnt a hard job, but takes time one way i found to get by it, have the floyd set up in your normal tuning, then when you want to change tuning, i used two small blocks of wood, which i stuck in the back of the guitar to stop the trem moving, so i could retune to drop d or whatever and the bridge would be level and in tune, then when i wanted to go back, i just tuned it back to normal and popped out the blocks and everythign is back to normal, this means you can get the use of the floyd in one tuning, and can still use the guitar for other tunings relatively quickly (though without the use of the floyd) its easiest to have it set up in the highest tuning, then when you want to drop tune it at all, you need to stick a block of wood or something inbetween the body of the trem sticking through from the front, and the body (on the side nearest to the neck) if you want to go from a standard tuning up, you will need to have a block on the other side of the trem as well David

this sounds like a very cool idea for anyone who has the NW HD1 and wants mp3' date=' from the sony site it says you have to send it off to sonys service center for upgrading, and it costs 15 which dosent sound too bad personally it makes no difference to me, all my music i am taking from cds i already own, so it makes no different whether i rip to mp3 or atrac3+ [url']http://www.sonydigital-link.com/DNA/Hotnews/NWHD1_Upgrd.asp?l=en is the link to the info from the sony site the NW HD2 seems rather odd, its technically exactly the same as the NW HD1, but with a blue blacklight and it comes in a few colours... it does explain why i hadnt heard of it though David

i got the NW HD1 a couple of months ago and i absolutely love it, the only problem for some people would be the lack of mp3 support, which has been fixed for the NW HD3 (ie the newer version of it) i am actually quite surprised that sony have a new version out so quickly, i bought mine in november, and it was pretty new then, and they already have the next version out already and a big plus for it is the battery life, the battery will last about 30 hours, compared to an ipods 12... David

for using a trem a graphtech nut would probably be the best permanent way about it, as it would be a permanent method, whereas lube or putting pencil lead (ie graphite) in the nut grooves arent permanent methods, so you would need to redo it with every string change to keep the nut smooth if you are having trouble with the strings sticking in the nut, it might be because the slots arent cut as well as they should be, so maybe getting the nut recut could help alleviate any problems. a badly cut nut can be a pretty common source of tuning problems, especially with trems David

if you fancy attempting to build one www.bigtonemusic.com comes highly recommended, they do a kit with everything you need (apart from tools like the soldering irons and screwdrivers and whatnot) and all the parts used are top notch stuff not to expensive either David

that is basically a quick cheap way of doing the same job as the graphtec saddles, you are just adding a bit of graphite to where the strings move to lubricate it all, teh graphtec stuff is just a more permanent way to do it... it shouldnt look any different from normal, unless you are useless at colouring in and end up doodling all over the rest of your guitar... you only need to put graphite where the strings touch remember as for the graphtech stuff, i have no idea how good/bad it really is as i have never used it personally, seems to get good reviews though David

thats the newest sony mp3 player, i have the slightly older version (the NW-HD1) and it is brilliant, one of hte only problems for some people was that it didnt work with mp3 (which made no difference to me) only sonys atrac3, the newer version fixes that problem i am actually quite surprised there is the newer version out already, i only bought mine a month ago and it was pretty new then... to me the atrac3 seems to be fine, recording at half the bitrate of mp3 (64kbs against 128kbs) and it sounds good enough to me (especially considering i mostly use it in noisey places, like on the bus or wherever) and it fixes the biggest problem i had with the ipod, the battery life, i was looking at an ipod mini, and my only worry was the 8 hour battery life, the sony has 30 hours... David