Actually Practising

[jumble jumble]

I've been playing for over 20 years, but I think I was only improving for about the first 5 of those. I just never seemed to put myself through the work. How silly.

I've been off work for a few months and I decided to try and see if I could get somewhere. Slash is a childhood hero of mine, and so I decided to see if I could get Sweet Child down. I know that's probably considered one of his easier songs but for me it seemed pretty insurmountable.

http://soundcloud.com/richard-irons/sweet-child-solo

There are a few mistakes, annoyingly - whenever I was recording myself I just seemed to get nervous which affected my playing. And sorry about the sound quality, I was recording my amp with the iPhone voice memo app!

The tone's not that close I know - hardly surprising when you consider Slash's rig vs. mine. Mine is an LP Trad with the 57 Classics, into a Line6 M13 emulating a CryBaby into a RAT, with a little reverb, and then into an Orange Tiny Terror and a 1x12 cab.

I've got the Slash pickups on the way, but I'm not going to be chasing the tone any further than that.

Anyway, I'm really happy that I managed to make a genuine improvement in my playing. It's given me a whole new drive, and also made me much less concerned with the acquisition of gear, and more concerned with just playing.

[P.A.Foholic]

Nice playing, dude! Well done.

Can you modify the wah settings? It pumps a bit IMO.

[Chris of Arabia]

Nice job indeed.

[jumble jumble]

Nice playing, dude! Well done.

Can you modify the wah settings? It pumps a bit IMO.

Thanks!

Yeah, you can set the position for toe and heel to limit the range. And there's a whole bunch of different wah models in there too for me to try.

What do you mean by "pumps"? To be honest it could well be a lack of decent human expression going into my leg because at the moment I'm still having to concentrate pretty hard on my hands when I'm playing it.

[P.A.Foholic]

Thanks!

Yeah, you can set the position for toe and heel to limit the range. And there's a whole bunch of different wah models in there too for me to try.

What do you mean by "pumps"? To be honest it could well be a lack of decent human expression going into my leg because at the moment I'm still having to concentrate pretty hard on my hands when I'm playing it.

By pumping I mean that when you get to the heel position the sound almost disappears.

[jumble jumble]

Ah. That's probably a recording thing - the iPhone was just on the floor a foot from the amp. I'll listen out for it though, as it's no trouble at all to just move that heel position up a bit. Thanks!

[jumble jumble]

I looked at the M13. Because of the way it works, backing off the pedal was dropping the output level slightly as well as tipping the wah. Sounds way better now, I actually gave it a little boost to counteract that natural drop in volume at the "w" end. Nice and even now.