Posts Tagged ‘guitar’

At the end of January, Dire Staits guitarist and front man Mark Knopfler auctioned off over 100 of his guitars.

It was announced months in advance and took place at the famous auction house Christie’s. The offer bidding in person, on the phones and via their online system in a hybrid style, as well as live streaming the event on YouTube. The sale proved to be much more popular than they had expected and was delayed by two hours as their online auction system was overwhelmed.

Everything in it went for big money. The Les Paul he used for Money For Nothing was expected to go for a large amount and predictably did: £470,000. But even the guitars he received as gifts and barely played went for £20,000-£30,000 and upwards. And thing like the Fender Strats he used on stage were around £100,000. Here are some of the “budget” lots:

Predictably then, I didn’t buy anything. But it was an exciting event to watch: all six hours of it, not including the two hour delay!

If you have ever wanted a real-world version of Guitar Hero, Rocksmith may be for you. However, learning guitar still takes a lot of practice.

Guitar Hero has proved to be a very popular game, and it was only a matter of time until people started asking “is there any way this could be done with a real guitar?”

The answer was yes, in the form of Ubisoft’s Rocksmith. You plug a guitar into your games console using a USB to 1/4” jack cable and then play a Guitar Hero-style game, with the idea of it teaching you to play a real guitar.

But does it actually work? I took Ubisoft up on their 60 day challenge: put in an hour per day and you will play guitar for life, or so they say.

Did it work? Sort of. On the positive side, I can indeed play guitar. Within a year or so of first picking it up I was good enough to join a band, if only to hold down some chords while the real guitarists played the fancy stuff.

On the flip side, it really takes practice. I played for two hours per day, instead of one. I also acquired a guitar teacher for one-to-one lessons and still it was really six months before I could play a simple song.

That ignores the fun I had using Rocksmith though. You are playing your favourite tunes, even if it is just the occasional note at first, and while the adaptive difficulty can be annoying at times, it does make it accessible to everyone. Even if it doesn’t turn you into a guitar player for life, you may find you have just as much fun playing it as any other video game.

The July event of Sunday Assembly Leeds was on the theme of Yorkshire (it being Yorkshire Day the following day). Our speaker for the month, Mary from City of Sanctuary, spoke about the efforts to make Leeds a more inclusive and more welcoming place. The cake selection was also excellent, having had much left overs from the Humanist picnic the day before.

The Assembly Line performed as usual, just as a three piece this month. This left me as the only guitarist, but it could have sounded a bit worse.

The Housemartins – Happy Hour

Kaiser Chiefs – I Predict A Riot

I was given some vouchers for Christmas and earlier this month I finally got round to spending them. My latest edition is a chorus pedal. I was originally looking at the Arion analogue chorus. However at around £200, I wasn’t that in love with it, so I gave the Boss Super Chorus and Boss Chorus Ensemble a go.

It was a tough choice between the two. In the end, I settled on the CE-5 because it seemed to have a slightly warmer sound than the CH-1. It could have between the way I had it set up, or it could have been pure placebo, but even after extensive fiddling with the knobs I got a better sound out of the Ensemble.

I am hoping that it will be useful in creating even more atmosphere for the band. It produces a similar effect to the delay. I already have a Carbon Caby on my board, so it doesn’t add a huge range of extra options. However, in time I think I will learn how to get a nice subtle effect out of it that bulks up our sound. Or, if not, at least my Smiths covers will sound better.

I also played around with a wah, which is the other pedal originally included in my pedal board master plan. It was fun, but I am not going to worry about that for now: the board is also getting pretty crowded!

When playing guitar, I am often confused Jimi Hendrix (I think). However, if anyone did not think that before they surely will now that my family bought me a Fuzz Face pedal for Christmas.

It is a fairly standard size for a stomp box and the audio jacks come out at 45 degree angles from the back. This I quite like because it keeps them out of the way of the boxes where the cables come straight out of the sides.

It has two controls, volume and fuzz. The fuzz boosts the signal so you need to balance this with the volume level, depending on how much higher you want to go.

At November’s Sunday Assembly Leeds we did two songs, Echo Beach and Stuck in the Middle With You. I also did a solo cover of Closing Time, but my camera died before we got to that. The camera was using a huge aperture, so half the band are out of focus.

Echo Beach

Stuck in the Middle With You

For the July 2015 Sunday Assembly Leeds we performed two songs. They sounds really good on the day though listening back, I’m less convinced.

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)

Weather With You

The Assembly Line is our new name for the in-house Sunday Assembly Leeds band. Our June event was on the theme of technology so we had some very vaguely related technology songs.

The Beatles – Drive My Car

This went pretty well, until the end, where I lost it. Listen out for Rich shredding the lead guitar.

Oasis – She’s Electric

Notable for my short guitar solo after the first chorus. It didn’t feel great at the time but on listening back it actually sounds pretty good.

R.E.M. – Man on the Moon

This also features a short guitar solo for myself. I also spent my Christmas vouchers on an analogue delay pedal which I used throughout the song, regardless of whether it was justifiable or not.

Mark Knopfler is an amazing guitarist and it was his work shredding the licks in Dire Straits that inspired me to pick up the guitar. So I was quite excited when he announced he would be touring with his band, including a stop in Sheffield.

We were in Nottingham in the morning, and I had training, so we had to drive all the way back to Leeds and then drive right back down the M1 to the gig that evening. We did get lucky though – I assumed there would be a support band on, so I didn’t set off until 6:40. Turns out he did start at 7:30, but due to sheer luck we got straight down the motorway and into the car park, ending up right next to the entrance and got in just as the lights went down.

Critics might say that the two hours and fifteen minutes they played for was fifteen minutes short of The Who. Lazy even. But I was pretty happy with the length!

He played Sultans of Wing, Romeo & Juliet, Telegraph Road and So Far Away, as well as a load of new stuff. He actually has more new stuff that I have actually listened to, as I only recognised one or two of his solo tunes even though I thought I had listened to most of it. His new stuff is so-so. It’s good, but it’s little guitar riffs, and doesn’t show off his skills as much as when he does a full song like Sultans or Telegraph Road.

I have never seen someone change guitars as much a Mark. It’s odd because in Guitar Stories he said he got the Pentair made because he didn’t want the hassle of switching between his Strat and his Les Paul. Yet in the gig he switched guitars every song, and in many songs, in the middle of the song as well!

Last month I launched a new responsive version of Lyrics Burger. However, the updates have not stopped there! It now has a tabs section, too. This includes entries for guitar, bass, drums and keyboard. It is a rather small collection currently, but who doesn’t want to play Phantom Planet over and over again?