Neck Shaping Photo: Spokeshave Work

I altered the contrast and saturation to make the shape and figuring of the wood more visible. Between that and the odd lighting in this room you are NOT seeing the actual color of the woods.

Jello Biafra, Joey Ramone, Punk Rock and Guitar Hacking

Jello Biafra has said some pretty interesting things over the years, much of it political. The one thing that keeps ringing in my head, and has since I first heard it on his spoken word album, Machine Gun In The Clowns Hands, happens to not be political. It's something he said about hearing The Ramones for the first time, at the confusingly named club, Ebbets Field, in Denver, CO. He didn't just enjoy the show. He made a very important realization.

"This is something I would actually like to do. I don't have to listen to Black Sabbath and kill myself after all! This is something to look forward to!"

Punk rock is a gas to listen to, but so is a lot of other music. Unlike some other musics, punk has a consistent subtext. Punk says to all of its listeners "Come do this with us. You can, you know."

Actually, it doesn't say it so much as it yells it, with a lot of spit flying around.

The point is that punk rock isn't just something to listen to. It is something to do.

What does this have to do with guitar hacking? Guitar mods are something you can do. Guitars aren't just there to be bought and played. They can be extended, shrunken, altered, circuit bent, built from scratch, their parts mixed and matched.

Don't just consume. Create. Do. Be.

My Mother-In-Law Gave Me C-Clamps For Shristmas

You see, my mother-in-law understands me. She saw the trouble I was having getting enough clamping force on my neck blanks. Ya, she knows me. Thanks, Marge!

C-Clamp Hack-I Love C-Clamps

Have I mentioned that I love C-clamps?


http://hackaday.com/2009/12/21/c-clamp-current-monitoring/

Bands You Have Heard Of Who Tune Down

Obviously this isn't exhaustive, and maybe not even accurate, but I find it validating. Clearly, if you find standard guitars in standard tuning don't do it all for you, you are in good company.

http://everything2.com/title/Down+tuning

Digidesign 11 Rack--Clarification

When I originally wrote about the Digidesign 11 Rack I complained about the dearth of inputs.

"[T]his unit's cost is in line with 003 line of LE interfaces, although it has only two line inputs and one mic pre-amp."

"If [guitarists] do want ProTools will the be happy with 11R's rather narrow set of inputs?"

"[I]f I am going to drop the required change for an LE interface, even if it comes with professional quality modeling, I want to be able to plug in more than one mic."

Taking another look at the specs on Digidesign's web site, I find this.

"Supports up to 8 simultaneous channels of high-resolution recording up to 24-bit/96 kHz"

In addition to the line and mic inputs it also has digital I/O, which I previously ignored. While this does not bring it into competition with the 003R+ Factory, the separate AES/EBU and SPDIF inputs do mean you can connect other interfaces, A/D converters or mic pre's with on-board converters to expand the number of analog sources into the 11 Rack. The reason I am comparing the 11R to the 003R+ is that while the 11R can work with other gear to bring eight analog sources into Pro Tools the 003R+ has eight of it's own mic pre's and is up to that task (and more) on its own.

So, I sold the 11 Rack a little short. You are not limited to its analog inputs. If you thought you might want to use non-Digidesign mic pre's anyway, this is truly good news.