Advantage Of Building Homemade Effect Pedals Part 1

It can be a tricky, even tedious process if you are a guitar player and is in the process of deciding on which guitar pedals or guitar effects to buy. With so many effect pedals out there to choose from, many times you will find yourself losing all your hard earned money only to own an effect pedal which you wouldn’t be proud of. This is even more so for the beginning guitar player.

Before you buy a pedal, you must first decide on your budget and what kind of music you intend to play. This is crucial as there are effect pedals which are more suited for certain genres of music, and some simply won’t do for a specific genre of music. Ask yourself, is it Blues, Rock, Thrash, Pop, Jazz, Classical, Electronic, Funk…

Guitar multi-effect processor are a great way to start for the beginning guitar player new to the world of guitar effects. They offers tons of effects, amp selections, recording capabilities, easy all in one solution…

However much I enjoy using guitar multi-effect processor, they are not my favourite selection when it comes to effect pedals. I really love the look, the knobs, the design, the difficulties in carrying them around, hooking them up, rearranging my effect chain manually…Most importantly, the sound. Given the sound any effect coming from both a multi-effect processor and an individual stand alone effect pedal, I’ll opt for the latter. More so if it’s homemade. A homemade pedal gives me the opportunity to create my own sound, endless possibilities, tuned to my personal satisfaction, unique even out of this world effects, and much much more!

Sometimes the sound we are looking for can cost us a fraction of the price with a simple homemade guitar effect pedal.

About the Author:

Andy Ng is a self taught guitar enthusiast. He have played guitar for the last 5 yrs and still going strong! He is also a leading expert on the art of building homemade effect pedals. Pick up tips, techniques and just plain guitar talk at his blog!

[http://www.guitareffectssecrets.andy-ng.com]

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Looking to find slide guitar lessons instead? How about some free lessons on electric guitar info? 

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Get Guitar Effects For Your Computer

Once you have learnt some chord progressions and riffs and you are beginning to sound like a guitar player it will be time to start getting yourself your own individual sound. These days guitar players can add effects to their playing in many ways. It used to be necessary to connect to an amplifier but now their are guitar plug ins and software to give you all kinds of effects. You can apply distortion, sustain, wah-wah, chorus, flanger, reverb, delay effects and listen to the results in your headphones without disturbing your family or neighbors. All you need is a sound card.

The effects software that many guitarists think is the top of the range is Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3. It is expensive but good. It provides guitar and bass effects by modeling many popular amplifiers, cabinets, microphones, and effect pedals. It has twelve guitar and bass amps, and a matched cabinet module gives you real classic sounds. The Guitar Rig software has faithfully modelled stomp boxes, distortion and volume pedals, eighteen guitar and six bass cabinets, four rotary speakers and nine microphones – all based on popular vintage gear. A great feature of this effects software is the drag and drop interface for mixing your sound. Just choose an amplifier from classic Fender, Marshall, and Mesa Boogie amps, select the size of your cabinet and play around with the forty-four effects.

The Line 6 Pocket Pod Guitar Multi Effects Processor has over three hundred onboard/portable tones and over 3000 presets. Battery-powered and about the size of a tuner, Pocket POD is a portable guitar effects solution. You can use it for effects in front of your amp, or just plug in headphones and practice.

Guitar FX 3 is a cool software that has not been updated for years but it is good and it is free. Just do not expect it to work if you are using Vista and you should make sure you have plenty of RAM. To get started you just plug your guitar into the microphone or line in. It offers a big range of presets plus you can the tabbed menus to create custom tones which can be saved as presets. You can apply distortion, wah-wah, noise gate, compressor, flanger, reverb, chorus, delay and some of other filters.

Another free effects program is Audacity. Audacity is a free, user-friendly audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. With Audacity you can record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files, cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together. You can record from a microphone, line input, or other sources and create multi-track recordings. You can change the pitch of your music without altering the tempo, or vice-versa plus Audacity lets you remove static, hiss, hum, or other background noises. The guitarist can alter frequencies with Equalization, FFT Filter, and Bass Boost effects. Other built-in effects include echo, phaser, wah-wah and reverse.

Just so you are not left looking for the guitar effects software using redundant URLs I have left it to you to search using the product names. Some of the software that you need to pay for is available on a trial basis or you might find it for less money on ebay.

Do you want to learn to play the guitar? Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free is a constantly updated blog which contains all the resources you need for: learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, and how to learn guitar scales.

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How does the slide guitar work on guitar hero world tour? Visit the link.

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Free Electric Guitar Lesson – Improve Your Playing in 10 Minutes

Students always ask me what I think is the most important part of learning to play the guitar. Usually when I tell them that it really has nothing to do with the guitar they don’t believe me and I’m sure many of you reading this right now probably are thinking the same thing. That is why I have decided to post this free electric guitar lesson. I would normally charge one of my students $30 an hour to go over the material in this free electric guitar lesson so consider yourself lucky.

What I’m about to reveal to you is very simple. The most important part of learning to play guitar is your ear. Without it there would be no music and therefore no guitar. Use the techniques in this free electric guitar lesson to develop your ear and you will see a dramatic change in your ability to learn and play new things.
There are three things you can do to help develop your ear.

Free Electric Guitar Lesson Part 1

Start by singing the notes of any scale, arpeggio or lick you are practicing. When you feel comfortable with a scale or lick try to sing it alone and then play the riff to see if you got it right. As begin to memorize the sounds of certain and riffs listen to the radio or your favorite recordings and see if you can recognize some of the licks and scales they are using.

Free Electric Guitar Lesson Part 2

Since scales aren’t always played one note after another it is important to develop your relative pitch to help you identify notes that you are listening to. Relative pitch is the interval distance between two notes. For example, if I play the open sixth string which is an E on my guitar and then play a B on the seventh fret the distance between these two notes is a perfect fifth. Sing the two notes and memorize how they sound when played after one another. You can do this with any two notes.

Free Electric Guitar Lesson Part 3

As you become more and more familiar with the sounds of your instrument test your self by simply taking 10 or 20 minutes of each practice session and dedicating it to playing by ear. Turn on the radio or a favorite C.D. and see how much you can pick out and play along to just hearing it for the first time. You might be surprised how easy it becomes when your ear is in tune.

The methods discussed in this free electric guitar lesson are not a secret, but rather common sense techniques that most people simply just overlook. Many guitarists and even other musicians for that matter have been told this, but just don’t put aside the time to practice it. Make the commitment. 10 to 20 minutes a day of solid ear training and I promise you will be ten times more confident with your instrument and your ability to learn new things than you are right now. I realize these exercises aren’t always fun but they are an essential part of your development as a guitarist and a musician.

About the Author:

John Robert has been playing guitar for longer than he can remember and teaching for the last three years. His innovative teaching methods have helped many aspiring guitar players maximize their playing potential. You can learn to play guitar using the same hidden secrets he teaches by visiting Jamorama.com

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There are games that is quite similar with playing guitars, one of them is guitar hero…Look here for some tips and instructions on Guitar Hero world tour.

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Guitar Hero World Tour Video Game Review

There has not been a single product that has taken the world by such a storm since the invention of the video game console itself. Now the makers of video games have done it again with the world famous Guitar Hero World Tour Video Game. With this awesome video game rock star wannabes everywhere can now rock out and play to their favorite songs using pressing buttons on a pretend guitar. Everyone from grandparents, soccer moms to teens can play their favorite songs such as Free Bird or Carry on My Wayward Son. And since parents, grandparents and kids alike love this awesome video game it is a great way for us parents to bond with our kids.

Well, if you and your kids loved Guitar Hero you have not seen anything yet. This holiday season get ready for the latest and greatest version of fun with the Guitar Hero World Tour Video Game. Guitar Hero World Tour Video Game is officially the fourth installment of the Guitar Hero series. The new version of this instant classic possesses even more rocking capability of any of the other three video games combined.

The new version of the Guitar Hero World Tour Video Game will include the following accessories for yours and your children’s playing pleasure:

•Famous plastic guitar
•Drums
•Microphone

These new accessories will allow players to add drumming and lyrics to their songs, creating a more vibrant rock star experience. And since up to four players can play the new version its perfect for families as well as friends. You can even create and record your own songs giving you the ability to show just how big of a rock star you really are.

The new Guitar hero World Tour Video Game also allows a player to customize their own rock star allowing players to customize their appearance as well including age and the number of tattoos they have. You also have the ability to play as your favorite rock star such as: Linkin Park, Ozzy Osbourne, Sting, etc. The game can even virtually represent real life music venues from around the world.

So what are you waiting for? Pick up your copy of Guitar Hero World Tour Video Game this holiday season and get rocking with your family. The game is available for all major video game consoles, including the Playstation III, Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii.

About the Author:

Want to learn even more about Guitar Hero? I have more info as well as additional toy reviews on my work at home mom blog. Just click on one of the links to join in all the fun.

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Five Tips to Achieving Guitar Hero 3 Guitar Mastery

If you are serious about mastering Guitar Hero guitar technique then you have got your work cut out for you. Achieving expert status is not going to be attained by occasionally picking up your Guitar Hero guitar and noodling. You are going to have to work at this and not get frustrated. The average person tends to be impatient and easily gives up. Like anything in life, if you are patient, steadfast and diligent you can accomplish most things.

Tip One – Go Slow

Mastering the Guitar Hero guitar is not that much different than learning how to play a real guitar (of course, learning to play a real guitar is much more complex – but the learning strategies are similar). The most important thing that you can do is slow down. You are training your reflexes and muscles to respond in a very refined and complex manner and you need to make sure that each move that you are learning is perfect.

Most of us learn to play guitar (or Guitar Hero) by playing too fast, making lots of mistakes and hoping the these mistakes will eventually just disappear. Well, they won’t!

If you are making mistakes while you are playing then that is what you are practicing and learning. You are just getting better at playing your mistakes. For most people, the only way to eliminate the mistakes and play as perfectly as possible is to play slow.

Once your muscles begin to memorize the patterns the speed naturally develops. For the most part, you don’t need to work on speed. Work on accuracy and the speed will come effortlessly. Take advantage of the slower tempos in Practice Mode.

Tip Two – Practice Short Sections

One of the worst things you can do is just play the song over and over. Most players will find that there is about seventy-five percent of the song that is not too hard and about twenty-five percent that trips them up.

So, work on the hard parts. Isolate the sections that are giving you problems and work them slowly. If you only have twenty minutes to play then why spend fifteen minutes playing the parts that are easy. That won’t help you improve.

Unfortunately, most of us like to do things that are fun. Working on the hard parts is usually frustrating and feels a bit like work. We’d rather just play the parts that we can do well.

I recommend that you take the middle way. Spend a bit of your time doing some serious work on the difficult sections then forget it and just have fun.

Tip Three – Practice Each Hand Separately

You might find it beneficial to try practicing each hand separately. In other words, work on the strumming hand and then work on the fret keys.

Tip Four – Practice Your Hammer-ons and Pull-offs

You may have noticed that the border around the notes changes color during fast tempos. This means that you can stop strumming and just play the fret keys (this would be the equivalent of hammer-ons and pull-offs on a real guitar). What you would do is hit the strum button on the first note and then play the rest of the notes only with the fret keys. Make sure your rhythm is accurate.

Tip 5 – Master the Whammy Bar

Every time you hit a long note you can begin to learn how to work the whammy bar. This will help bolster your Star Power. The faster that you move your whammy bar up and down the more points you will earn.

So get to work and I’ll look out for your Guitar Hero video posted on your favorite video site.

About the Author:

Douglas Reach writes on many subjects in the fields of music and guitar. If you are looking for the best deals on Guitar Hero guitars and games visit Guitar Hero Guitars Online.

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 Lessons on slide guitar may also be applied in this game… and for those starters, practicing some easy songs for guitar beginners also helps.

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Tuning Your Guitar is Easier Than You Think

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Learn more great lessons on guitar slides. Check it out to learn not only about playing the guitar but also some instructions to guitar repair too.

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JB Lenoir

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Guitar Amp Setup – Settings For Beginner Guitarists

Setting up the sound of a guitar amp, and finding the right setup is a hard process for beginner guitarists, who don’t really know what the knobs do. There is a certain setup that I recommend to most of my electric guitar students, it’ll be good if you’re looking for a bluesy-pop-rock sound. So you may need to adjust the settings some more to get the desired tone, but this should get a nice sound:

Guitar Amp Settings:

• Push the gain button, so its turned on
• Set the gain level to 4-5. If this results in too much overdrive (too much of a metal sound), play around with the gain level knob. The correct level of overdrive for the sound we’re trying to get is when you pluck just one string, you can hardly hear any crunch, but when you pluck 2 strings at the same time, you can hear it a bit stronger, but not too strong, and if you hold an entire chord and strum it, it sounds messed up, but you can still sort of make out the individual notes. As a side note, this setup is not good if you want to strum chords, since the overdrive will kill the individual notes. If you just want to practice chords or strumming on an electric guitar, just turn off the gain and use the clean sound.
• Set the treble tone to 7
• Set the middle tone to 5
• Set the bass tone to 3
• Set the reverb to 3-5

Settings on Your Guitar:

• set the pickup selector switch to use all of the pickups (middle position), or to treble
• set all of the knobs to max on the guitar

The above guitar amp setup should sound decent, but as I said, you’ll probably need to tweak these settings to suit your guitar and amplifier.

Finding the right tonal settings is a never ending process for all professional guitarists as well, I’ve found the tone that was perfect for me about 100 times as well. It depends on what you feel like at the moment, whats popular, what you’re listening to, etc. So really, just play around with your amp settings one-by-one, to get a feel for what each of them does and how it effects your tone.

The guitar tone you hear in songs are full of effects, that’s hard to replicate with a simple amp setup. I’m not suggesting you get a separate digital effects pedal yet, just know that you won’t be able to reproduce the exact sound you hear from the pros without it. You could think about getting one after you’ve been playing for a year or two and are at a solid intermediate level.

Tom Fontana has taught hundreds of students from across the globe to play the guitar through his website, TheGuitarLesson.com. You can find free beginner guitar lessons on the website, as well as lessons on easy guitar songs.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tom_Fontana

 Visit here for more infomation on slide guitars and lessons. Learn some basics including tuning a bass guitar.

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Guitar Fretboard Repair

Guitar care is of prime importance when you want to maintain your instrument and keep it playing the way you want for years to come. With any stringed instrument, the oil and dirt tend to build up on the string and fretboard, and in course of time, behave like an abrasive sand paper working on the fretboard surface, wearing it off and making pits on it. To avoid this sort of wear, it is necessary to clean the fretboard regularly and seal the surface as well as clean or replace the strings.

When it comes to fretboard repair, you need a lot of patience and caution to make sure that the fret’s tangs do not chip the fingerboard when removed. You can repair the abrasions between the strings caused by your fingers.

Removing The Fingerboard

To remove the fingerboard, use a special heating blanket to heat the board before you remove it. The neck and fingerboard are assembled before painting. So when you separate them, the finish line may need to be touched up. Plastic inlays and binding may have to be replaced as the heat applied to soften the glue joint between fingerboard and neck can damage vulnerable pieces. Preferably buy pre-slotted fingerboards since it is cheaper to buy a slotted fingerboard than to make it from scratch. Use removal pins to keep fingerboards in position while clamping. Drill a small hole through the fret slot and into the neck to keep the board in proper position with the pins.

Replacing Inlays

You can upgrade from plain white pearl dot markers to more colorful abalone pieces. Using a clean soldering iron to remove it can save a pearl inlay. When the old slot is clean the new inlay can be glued in. Tinting your adhesive to match the board can camouflage the gaps between the inlay and the slot. Use epoxy or superglue here. Once the adhesive is cured the inlay can be filed level with the board. Pearl inlay is harder than the wood, so if you use sandpaper you might end up removing more of the board than the inlay.

Polishing And Lubricating

Lemon oil, or any other vegetable based oil, could rot the wood as it decomposes while saturated into the wood cells and pores of a fingerboard. Do not use silicone-based lubricants on guitars. Use clarinet bore oil, a petroleum product available in most music stores. Scratches can be eliminated with a piece of 400-grit sandpaper to which a few drops of oil are added and then sanding the frets across the fretboard. Follow this up with a little piece of 500 or 600 grit papers, and finally a piece of 0000 steel wool, all with a bit of oil as a lubricant, to remove dirt and dust. With a soft cloth, clean the surrounding finish, and carefully wipe down the fingerboard, to wipe off excess oil. 0000 steel wool leaves the frets and the wood nicely polished.

A clean fretboard with polished frets always makes you play a lot better.

By: Werner Wichmann – ElectricGuitarz.com

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 Visit here for info about classical guitar lessons online.

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Bass Guitar Tuning – Is Learning How to Tune a Bass Guitar So Hard?

If you already play the guitar and know how to tune it, why do you need a special tutorial for learning how to tune a bass guitar? The answer is in the sound of the bass guitar. It is so low it is very difficult for some people to judge whether or not their guitar is in tune. So let us take a look at the bass guitar and some methods of tuning it.

Bass guitarists have proved themselves to be such innovators that there is now an astonishing range of bass guitars with different numbers of strings and a range of tuning options to widen the range of notes produced. For the purposes of this tutorial we will stick with the original four string bass guitar. It is tuned to one octave lower than the standard guitar.

Most guitar players seem to agree that the best way to begin tuning a guitar is to start with the guitar strings tuned lower than you want them to be and then tune them UP to the correct pitch. Actually it is a good idea to start with the strings a lot lower than they need to be so you do not over-tighten them and run the risk of a broken string.

Let us look at the basic tuning method first. Tuning the bass guitar to a piano or keyboard. Find Middle C and go down two octaves. Got that C note? Okay, find the E below that. This is your note to tune the fourth string of your bass guitar. Play the open fourth string and the E on your piano at the same time. If you hear a sound vaguely like the noise a helicopter makes, your guitar is out of tune. Turn the tuning peg on your bass guitar as you play the guitar and the keyboard together, and listen to the "helicopter" sound. It will slow down as your guitar becomes in tune with the keyboard, and will eventually vanish. Repeat this process for your A, D and G strings.

Another tuning method you need to learn is to get the E string as close to tuned as you can and tune the other strings accordingly. Play the note at the fifth fret of the E string together with the open A string. Once these two notes are the same, play the fifth fret of the A string at the same time as the open D string. When the D string sounds the same as the fifth fret of the A string, move onto playing the fifth fret of the D string and tune the open G string to that. Now your bass guitar is in tune.

You can also tune the bass guitar to itself using harmonics. Touch your finger lightly on the fifth fret of the E string without pressing down. You will hear a chiming note. Now play this harmonic again but at the same time playing the harmonic at the seventh fret of the A string. Tune the A string till it matches the harmonic on the E string. Now play the fifth fret harmonic on the A string and match the seventh fret harmonic on the D string to that. Next, match the seventh fret harmonic on the G string with the fifth fret harmonic on the D string.

Lastly, and most easily is the electronic tuning method. Electronic tuners have a visual guide to tell you when your guitar is sounding the right note. For the sake of your maturity as a guitar player you should first practice at tuning the bass guitar using one or all of the other methods, then check it with an electronic tuner. You can buy an electronic tuner at a music store or online. You can even do a search for online bass guitar tuners.

Author: Ricky Sharples

Do you want to learn to play the guitar? http://playaguitarforfree.com/ is my blog which shows you that there are many people like you who wish to learn how to play bass, acoustic or electric guitar. It is the ultimate resource if you are looking for the best way to learn how to play the guitar.

There are some common elements of guitar playing that I cover such as learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, how to learn guitar scales, how to play guitar fast.

As a learner guitarist you will find guitar lessons, videos, articles and reviews to answer your questions, calm your fears and help you play the guitar the way you want to play it. I have the resources you need to learn how to play the guitar for free.

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Visit here for some standard tuning for the guitar.

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Acoustic Guitars Review

This world’s favorite tuner started introducing excellent tuners in 1999. It came out with the DT-7 GUITAR/BASS chromatic tuner, the first guitar tuner to [...]

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