What made you a good guitar player?

[HamishR]

Buy?

ARE WE NOT DIYers?


BUILD a Matchless, in fact build a BETTER MATCHLESS.

I've done this! Matchless amps are not bad but they do have their faults. I have always found them to be too bright. I suspect that Mark Sampson had been listening to loud amps for too long and the top end of his hearing had gone by the time he got to designing the DC30. They're also over-filtered and run the power tubes way too hot.

A DC30 is basically an AC30 with too much filtering and bigger transformers. You can swap out the bias resistors to cool down the bias to 100% (Matchless often have the bias at 120-130%!) and your power tubes will run cooler, last longer and sound less brittle. You can reduce the amount of filtering and get a more tactile feel to the amp - you might be surprised at how much more fun it is with less filtering. Look at the Vox filtering to see how. Vox AC30s are possibly slightly under-filtered but the DC30 has so many filter caps it's not that much fun to play.

The bigger transformers are a good idea though. Not good for your back, but great for the guitar's sound.

I recently built a Matchless Lightning style amp for a friend. As I was playing it I started to remove filter caps until it stopped sounding so bright and hard. I had built an AC15 sort of amp not long before and to me it sounded much richer and warmer.

Anyway, back to your regular program...

 

[Fizz]

Bump.. I recently got the Truefire All Access membership for $99/year. It is still on sale. I am very impressed with these lessons. They have a ton of lessons by a ton of deferent instructors in many genres. These are the best lessons I've ever had and look forward to improving my playing this year.

 

[Cybercow]

I think 55 years of playing (a LOT) has made me a good guitar player. Been in and out of dozens of bands, in recording studios, and playing some nearly every day since getting my first guitar. Starting with a '61 electric Gibson Melody Maker, a cheap little 50's Kay tube amp and teaching myself with a few Mel Bay books on chords, I've migrated mostly to acoustic these days. I still practice because I'm beginning to make progress.

IMO, absolutely nothing can improve playing/performance as well as practice.

 

[owlexifry]

im not very good, but to echo the sentiments about metronomes, here's a much more enjoyable method i've found:
practicing to drum tracks.

this guy makes excellent drum tracks to play to, completely free, and a massive range of tempos, mostly metal/rock oriented.
i just go to the video list and put whatever tempo im after into the search bar, and off ya go.

ive heard people say that improvisational practice isn't really practice, but whatever, i practised to these fairly consistently for a while when i wasn't in a band a couple years back, and it made the biggest difference, to accuracy, speed, and just chops in general.

having all the different tempos available really helps.
can warm up on a slower tempo track and then move onto the faster ones as you progress.

 

[DeadAirMD]

100% without any hesitation, a looping pedal.

I have the boss RC300. Use Track 1 for a drum track that I make using Toontracks, Track 2 is always a bass line I play on my guitar using a Roland GR midi pedal, Track 3 is guitar chords or layered chords/notes/sounds. Then I solo over the top of all that.

I record absolutely everything I do and it always sounds like a completed album of an entire band playing. I would be SO far behind where I am now if I didn't go this direction starting with my 1st looper (DL4) 20+ years ago.

 

[Ale_jellybelly]

I think I have a good sense of rhythm and a good ear it I absolutely lack in technique and especially theory... Is it too late to start studying something in my late 30s? I have always played by ear but it is starting to feel restricting
I just want to learn some basics of theory to understand the foundation of scales and navigate the fretboard