Saturday, October 31, 2009

Friday, October 30, 2009

Guitar Pickup Color Codes

Click to enlarge....




Special thanks to Boogieman @ The Guitar Matrix Forum for posting this link.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

XP Recording Optimization

Welcome to the Windows XP, PC Optimization Guide. Here you will find a comprehensive guide to optimization of any Windows XP Machine for use as a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)

It is important that you read through this documentation as it covers several crucial optimization steps recommended when setting up your DAW. Because Windows XP is meant for an entire spectrum of users, by default, the user interface is designed to have a nice GUI (Graphical User Interface). Many of these GUI settings are nice to look at, but every visual element comes at a price – CPU resources.

This guide is intended to step you through optimizing your machine in preparation for your new Hardware and Software to gain the most out of your system without experiencing the heavy processor loads of poorly optimized machines.

Source : rob @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Monday, October 26, 2009

Basic Home Recording - Part I

I'd like to talk about some recording basics. This is not intended to be some great technical guide.... just some basic info about recording at home.

Monitors

The first thing I'd like to talk about are monitors. You will find it difficult to make recordings that sound good using the typical consumer type systems (home stereo, car stereo, boom box, etc.) using standard hi-fi speakers. They are not designed to deliver a flat frequency response. Many enhance certain freq.s which is undesirable in a recording/mixing environment.

If you were to use standard hi-fi speakers you'd find that your mixes sound drastically different when played back on a variety of systems. Additionally, headphones can present many of the same problems. That's not to say headphones don't have a place in the home recording studio...they do. But to use them exclusively would be a mistake. IMO.

What you want to use are near field reference monitors. They are meant to deliver a flat freq. response and are positioned close to the listener. This allows you to monitor the recording with minimal room coloration. Most home studios are far from acoustically ideal rooms. By close monitoring the room dynamics play less of a role.

Both active and passive monitors are available starting at around $200. This is probably your most important initial investment.

Monitors - http://www.sweetwater.com/c405--Active_Monitors


Source : Prime @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com


Saturday, October 24, 2009

Guitar Pickup Guide

There are TONS of factors that will effect your sound before it reaches your speaker which may or may not be desirable. In this guide, I'm going to attempt to explain the major influences in your guitar's sound, and how to choose a pickup that will work with your guitar and rig to make a sound you want.

That being said, there are THREE major influences of your sound, those are:

-The Pickup (duh)
-Your Guitar
-Your Amp and Effects

[image] Of course, there are many minor things that have an effect on your sound, such as strings, picks, the way your play (picking strength etc), and other electronics (pots, piezo, gain boost, etc). But we will stick with the main ones. After we understand these influences, we will analyze how they all act on the signal, and how to make a decision based on these influences.

Source : Megatron @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Friday, October 23, 2009

BrokenSoul




Source : The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Sacred Disease

Check out the entire album....

BrokenSoul CD

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Ibanez Store


















New Ibanez Online Store .....https://store.ibanez.com/store/#

Music Player


Added a music player to the blog....






Here is a short clip I threw together real quick using EZ Drummer.

Took a few minutes

The player scans the blog for any music links and adds them to the playlist. 

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Ibanez - FGM - S series

[image] Jazz/Fusion Guitarist EXTRAORDINAIRE, Frank Gambale became intrigued with Ibanez when he discovered the S540LTD around 1986. He became an advocate for Ibanez and started to work with them on a custom Signature model. This Signature S premiered in 1991 The Frank Gambale Model or FGM series.
Frank’s Signature S series FGM remained with Ibanez up to 1998. The FGM series went through only four permutations, the FGM100/FGM200 then FGM300 and finally the FGM400 model. Seven short years. By 1999 all that appeared in the Ibanez USA Catalog was a picture of Frank playing one of his FGM400 models. There was no listing nor mention of the FGM series that year.


Source : fretrunr @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Cleaning Pots and Switches

To start off, we need to make sure we are using the correct products. Many folks believe WD-40 or general purpose contact cleaner is all you need. This is not so, In fact some of the “general purpose” contact cleaners can actually destroy an otherwise functional pot that only needed to be cleaned. I use Caig products myself, as do most other techs whether they work on guitars, audio equipment, computers or what ever. The solutions we will discus come in two or three forms:

The 5% spray solutions, DeoxIT, Pro-Gold and FaderLube.

[image]

Source : rustyohus @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Sweeping Guide

[image]

Greetings! I got one for you folks. I see a gazillion examples of sweeping major and minor triads, but not so many using 7th chords. Here is an example of a D Minor 7 Arpeggio using all 6 strings, beginning with the 5th of the chord on the bottom. The root of this chord here is the D note found on the 5th string, 5th fret, and one octave higher on the 3rd string, 7th fret. I chose this as an example
because it is easy to finger ( one finger covers one fret), and easy to remember.

Special Thanks to Ouija, for his fabulous graphic representations!

RED NOTES ARE PLUCKED. GREEN NOTES ARE HAMMERED ONTO OR PULLED OFF TO.

Source : SlippinG @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Monday, October 19, 2009

Guitar String Tension Charts

All calculations are based on D'Addario nickel wound [NW] and plain steel [PL] strings. Custom sets can be put together using single strings. D'Addario and Ernie Ball are two string manufacturers offering singles.

I put together my own set because I was tired of the sloppy B and low E strings in a regular 9-42 set (a common trend in all standard sets), as well as the sloppy B-string on a 7-string guitar. For the sake of good tone, consistency and feel, electric guitar strings should gradually rise in tension as the diameter increases. To some of us, this is known as an "optimized" or "progressive tension" set. Currently there are no string manufacturers offering optimized sets except for Alex at Zachary Custom Guitars. If you wish to experiment, these charts will hopefully be useful to you.

Source : Dee @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Shielding an Electric Guitar

Take the cavity covers off and we see what you might think is shielding paint in the control cavity but it isn’t. The black paint you see has no electrical conductivity what so ever. It’s just black paint. I suppose this would be a pretty easy mistake to make during the manufacturing process and is probably one of the reasons this guitar buzzes so badly.




Source : rustyohus @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Carvin Guitars Factory Tour


Thursday, October 15, 2009

A Guide to Guitar Chords


This a guide explaining how chords work and why knowing this can help you, not only when playing chords, but when sweeping and tapping too. Most beginners learn and memorize chords as finger shapes. That’s OK, to begin with, but will eventually become a major limitation. So a little musical theory will take you a long way. Don’t worry, It’s not hard, and will only take half an hour to pick up. Where possible, I’ll try to use simple terminology like “1 fret”, “2 frets” instead of “Semitone”, “Tone” (or “half step”, “full step” for the American forumites), so as not to confuse you. So no nitpicking from the more experienced forumites please. I’m also going to use a lot of easy to visualize diagrams (hopefully).


Source : Ouija @ The Guitar Matrix - http://guitarmatrix.proboards.com

Ibanez - S Series - MIK vs. MIJ

The first S Series guitars (Saber) had something to prove, as did all Ibanez guitars. Many vewied them as cheap "Jap" guitars (no offence). Ibanez proved them wrong and did quite well making quality instruments for many years after that. At some point, Ibanez rose to become a "respectable" guitar manufacturer... even above average. They continued this for several years. During this time they were starting to get into major mass production. Along with that became a need to minimize production cost etc. (long story short).

As more time passed they needed to start manufacturing guitars at different locations (read costs). They tried manufacturing some of their guitars in Korea and had been fairly successful selling those instruments. Most of them were lower/inexpensive models. After that success they started to add some of their higher end models to the Korean production lines. One thing worth mentioning is that Ibanez does not build their own guitars they contract the work out to manufacturers in different countries....

For your viewing pleasure...

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Floating Tremolo Guide

The Floating Tremolo -Basic Info

The purpose of the trem is simple: To raise or lower the pitch of a played note by lengthening or shortening the length of the string the note is played on. It's the same, simple concept as bending and pre-bending a string, but how it achieves this may not be so clear. It takes patience and diligence to master such a sensitive, intricate, and sometimes delicate system.

Truss Rod Adjustment Guide

The images below are exaggerated for Illustration purposes.

Neck Bow





Up-Bow indicates too much relief. The truss rod is too loose.

Back-Bow indicates not enough relief. The truss is too tight.


Relief




Relief can be measured by fretting the E string at the 1st and last fret simultaneously. I use a capo for the 1st fret and my finger for the last fret.

Then take a feeler gauge and measure the distance between the bottom of the E string and the top of the 9th fret.

A typical measurement is .3mm to .5mm at the ninth fret.