A Highly Skilled Guitar Player

Splitpair · 2025-07-24T21:55:56+00:00

Who doesn’t need a board full of pedals to sound really good.

HooRU

I owned 2 pitch pedals and got rid of them because I wasn’t gelling with them, it’s still a tech that needs improvement, I’ve also rented 3 others.

Back in the early hard rock days they’d punch a hole in a speaker to get a sound. In recording, the amps would go in a different room from the player and be mic’d up in special ways. And there is a whole ’nother kettle of fish, MICs. Also MIC placement.

HooRU

The history of Distortion (pedals) goes back to the song Satisfaction by Keef. Now there are dozens of different distortion pedals. What works for one player is a total no go for another musician. Wilson, in Heart, used Epiphone guitars (now made much more cheaply than Gibson who owns the company), as well as Gibsons.

Then you have people like Andy Powel of Wishbone Ash. He used a flying V by Gibson and stuck with straight sound for much of his work, instead opting for a second lead guitar to work beside him.

HooRU

An example of a straight sound you could observe Neal Young. He did use Drive though. His performances are more consistently similar in sound, his signature.

egeezer

Sparkchaser can’t see Segovia picking bluegrass.

I could imagine Segovia playing bluegrass and Jazz. After all, Bela Fleck does classical among the rest.

egeezer

BTW It’s interesting to read the technical and historical stuff. My only experience was as an amateur with four mics and a mixer fed to a Sony 2 track tape recorder. It was live, acoustic (except for the bass which was usually accoustic or an Ampex walking base) in bars or nightclubs. No stage, justva space for the trio/quartet of piano, bass, drums and guitar. After gigs we would take the tape to after hours parties where other groups would bring their tapes to play until daylight.

Hard night, but lots of fun. Sometimes the after hours parties would include jam sessions. One night in Canton Ohio, Ray Brown showed up and his band jammed on the big veranda of the home of a local factory owner.

Lordy it was a blast. Lots of good memories and a life long love of jazz and big bands.

HooRU

Some of the best times of my life were performing for others. That and meeting my wife, getting into college and graduating are the best times. I loved performing, but I’m old and timid now and I have social phobia to boot. Maybe performing would help with that, I don’t know.

I have a number of professional friends.

What I dream of is to get lessons for my level from a serious player. Youtube is great and most I know about pedals and guitars and music theory is from it, but I’d like some regimented lessons where I have accountability.

egeezer

HooRU
There must be some local venues like bars, nightclubs, music shops or local music clubs or organizations where groups gather and play. You might go to there to see them and maybe meet them and get tips and leads. If people still do after-gig sessions, tap into that when you approach the people in the gigs. Contacts might even get you a sit-in at a jam. You might end up just doing rhythm, but what the heck, it’s a start, and you might make new friends.

digitalfutur

Splitpair Maybe not a board full, but that’s not a clean guitar sound. Rock guitar and dirt (distortion/overdrive) are joined at the hip, which is what Walsh is using in the video, as part of settings on his amp. There’s almost certainly some EQ in there as well, which is a form of effect since it can add clarity, warmth or bite, depending on it’s set on the amp.

Effects, whether on a pedal board or on the amp won’t make an unskilled guitar player sound better, but they will make a skilled guitar player sound better.

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