tkdunning

[tkdunning]

(75)

Progressed Pride and Joy to the end of the first solo. The remaining verse and solo have a few annoying sections in them, but there are a lot of loosely reused licks in this song so at this point it's not too hard to learn.

Now that my pickups are closer to the string, my OD pedal gets put to work much better. Since this pedal cleans up very well with the guitar volume knob, and it boosts when the level knob is past 12 o'clock, I can now have a pretty good clean > edge of breakup > distortion range all controllable from the guitar volume knob. The more I use this pedal the more I love it.

[tkdunning]

(74)

Forgot to post yesterday:

Re-adjusted my guitar setup. Made the neck relief straighter to a more accurate .010 measurement. It's kind of annoying to do this without a feeler guage since trying to match it via ruler/visual feels super inaccurate (it's too small).

Went off of "standard specs" for bridge height here and actually ended up with a nice result this time. Raised my pickups to a suggested height (5/64ths for highs, 6/64ths for lows) and uhhh.... let's just say my guitar sounds different now.

Obviously finished with intonation to fix everything. Things seem more stable with the lower neck relief.

Overall I'm getting less string buzz now. Before, with more neck curvature, I would get string buzz on the higher frets but not on the lows with the bridge height set as low as possible on both sides (but still measuring near standard specs). I think this makes sense - neck relief plays less of a role once the neck reaches the body. With the straighter neck, the bridge is the main thing actually affecting string buzz.

Also noodled/improv'd and loosely practiced Pride and Joy for a long stretch of time.

[tkdunning]

(73)

Long as hell practice session today.

Pride and Joy progressed through the first solo until the last (fairly easy) phrase. Hands are getting better at handling this song. Will be interesting to see what happens when I move up to 11 gauge strings - I'm using 10s right now but detuning them for this song makes them "lighter", so maybe the 11s will feel like 10s in standard tuning.

Saucy feels like full tempo is attainable. I haven't been practicing anything with a metronome in the past few days since I've been mostly focusing on trying to memorize Pride and Joy. The metronome would probably make it easier to memorize tbh.

G.O.A.T. is rusty, but not in the sense that my fingers can't do the motions anymore. I just forget where I am in the song sometimes.

Tried out a couple different picks today just to see. I went back to the one I was using already because it's just better. I did find .96mm to be a really nice thickness compromise for smoother strumming without sacrificing too much control given from heavy picks.

I've been using an ultex sharp 1.14. Really good pick. It has the precision of sharp picks without the downside of sometimes getting caught on strings. The only downside I found when I first started using them was that they would slip when my thumb got sweaty lol, but that hasn't been the case in a very long time. Dunno what happened. Maybe it corrected my picking form to be less slanted or something.

Stood up to practice once my ass got tired today and like... why ever practice sitting down? Playing form just goes to shit, at least for me. My left shoulder gets tired af from the weight of the guitar though. Wonder what it's like to play on a light one...

--

Watched this while eating breakfast; I'm glad I have recording and production knowledge in my back pocket:

[tkdunning]

(72)

Pride and Joy progression a bit into the first solo. Starting to clean up the playing everywhere. The song is much more technically tricky than one might think. A simultaneously nice and annoying thing about this song is that nothing ever gets played the exactly same between the parts.

In general, cranking the overdrive seems to be a good way of practicing muting since it accentuates every little thing.

Sometimes I play better when I'm pissed off. I learn worse though.

[tkdunning]

(71)

Forgot to post yesterday but I practiced Pride and Joy non-stop for hours while blazed out of my fucking mind because I had a terrible day.

Upon thinking about the pedal signal flow more, I think the end build should be something like:

Tuner > Compressor > Boost > OD > OD/Dist > (Delay) > Reverb > EQ > (Compressor) > (Strymon Deco)

The delay is optional, pretty useful for certain kinds of sounds but delay isn't an 'always on' effect like reverb is (unless you're using it as a slapback or a reverb-like sound, and even then that's niche). The first compressor feels useful since that is how my generic recording effect chain would go anyways: Compressor > (Effects) > EQ > Compressor. The second Compressor and the EQ are interchangeable depending on the situation. The second compressor really only makes sense in a studio recording setting; I feel like in a live setting the acoustics and general randomness of noise floor/sound dynamics makes this kind of pointless. I forgot about the Strymon Deco - it's supposed to be a really powerful studio tool. Some of it's functionality might be cool in a live setting too but overall not essential to the base sound imo.

That makes 7 for the base flow, and 10 for the expanded studio sound. There are of course other additions that could potentially be used such as a chorus or wah pedals but I feel like getting a strong base to build around is more important. Effects can always be added as needed.

[tkdunning]

(70)

Trudging along through Pride and Joy. Made it to the end of verse 3, right before the first solo starts. I think that more than anything else, this song is nuts for practicing muting. Also good for dead notes and upstroke picking.

Saucy feels way faster now. 'B' section is pretty clean and fast. Need to work on the fast lick in 'A' and 'C' sections plus some overall song cleanup as well.

I've stopped timing my practice sessions especially now that I am doing multiple sessions throughout the day. I mainly just aim for one in the early morning mostly for warm-up or focused work, a mid-day song grind, and as many other smaller sessions after that as I see fit.

The pedals make me want to play more especially since amped practice is nicer now. My idea for a powerful "vanilla" board is:

Sonic Research Turbo Tuner > (Keeley CATana Clean Boost) > Keeley Super Cat Mod > KingTone Duellist > Strymon Flint || Powered by Cioks SOL

I'm planning to trade in some old gear I know I will never use again for the Strymon Flint. The custom CATana is out of stock right now. I want the Duellist really bad but it would be stupid to try and get it right now. The Cioks SOL seems like a good fit - perfect amount of outputs for the number of pedals. The only other additions I can immediately think of potentially wanting would be an EQ pedal and a compressor, chorus and delay would be nice too.

[tkdunning]

(69)

Practiced basic guitar setup today and then changed strings. A few things I learned:

Bowing the neck relief makes the strings flat, making the neck straighter makes it sharp. Kind of obvious, but a good check in case you forget which way to turn the truss rod.

Low action is trash. Fret buzzing is trash. I'll never follow the "standard measurements" for guitar action height on my personal guitars ever again. Like... why sacrifice tone? Also these measurements depend somewhat on string gauge imo.

Wear gloves if you're going to clean and put strings on afterwards otherwise the guitar is going to get dirty during the string change process.

Winding strings does not need any knots or special over-under techniques. Crimping the string upwards with the loops stacking underneath having enough tension (after a few rotations) is enough to hold it all in place. It's faster and cleaner this way for both adding and removing strings.

Checking intonation is easier and faster by referencing the 12th harmonic against the fretted 12th since you can use your ears to do the big moves.

WD-40 goes crazy on tight screws. The high E adjustment screw was gritty and near impossible to move when first adjusting intonation. Applied some WD-40 after the string was off and the problem went away.

It's nicer to put nut/bridge contact point lube after the strings are on as opposed while they're off. It gets everywhere during the string change process. Better to loosen the strings and just move them out of the slot.

Did a lot of random practice as well. Tried using the headphone amp as a bootleg reverb pedal. It works but it's not a good sounding solution. I want to trade in some gear for a strymon flint pedal in the future. Basically the only other pedals I want are the kingtone duellist and 'maybe' the keeley katana. I'm not all that interested in highly modulated reverbs and effect chains, just a good solid base sound since I prefer a cleaner, traditional tone.

[tkdunning]

(68)

Pedals arrived today. Really fun stuff. The super phat mod overdrive sounds very similar to dialing up my orange amp, but more saturated and also having the option of a bass boost. It is (as many people have claimed) really good as a low drive boost. High drive settings also sound smooth. Would be really interested to see how this sounds on a strat and/or single coil guitar.

Learned some basic luthier guitar setup stuff. Most notably: setting neck relief, bridge height, and nut action height. Tomorrow I will change strings, clean, and adjust neck relief. Then I'll just perfect the intonation and lube the contact points. Not going to mess with filing the nut down without the proper tools since I won't be able to undo it.

[tkdunning]

(67)

Currently obsessed with the PRS S2 Vela. Was seriously considering trading in a bunch of my equipment including my current guitar for this thing, but my main hesitation is feeling like I'm not good enough for an expensive guitar like that yet...

I think the better idea is to trade in the gear I know that I will never use (my old audio interface, the dj controller, a jank/broken midi controller, 'maybe' the cheap epiphone acoustic) for something more immediately useful like a good reverb pedal. I could probably trade all those in for a brand new strymon bluesky...

Kind of annoyed because I've been waiting for my pedal to arrive. Was originally going to arrive yesterday but got pushed to today, but then there was no one to sign for it today so it needs to get redelivered, but it's also saturday so that won't happen until monday. Hard to not be disappointed, I was excited to show my music friends during the weekend while they have time but that's no longer an option and I can't do anything about it now. Sucks

[tkdunning]

(66)

Focused on Pride and Joy today. It's a really good muting and picking exercise - lot of upstrokes, finger mutes, palm mutes, and nonstandard alternate picking patterns. Good progress

[tkdunning]

(65) Lumping yesterday into today. Started learning "Pride And Joy" by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Simple arrangement note-wise, but very interesting technical nuances. It also feels really good to play, it has a very natural feel and fits the hand very well. It's also not too difficult or complex in terms of speed/quantity of notes (in that prog-rock-arp-hell sense) so I'm really enjoying it so far.

I have some equipment arriving in the next couple days that I'm excited for. Most notably a peg winder with string clipper, a special edition of a Keeley Super Phat Mod pedal (below, lmao),

and a sonic research ST-300 pedal tuner that people claim is very accurate, responsive, and fast. I'm gonna use the tuner to change strings and fix up my guitar intonation when it arrives.

I'm trying to get my parents to send me the first electric guitar I ever picked up - a squier strat. I could mod the bridge, nut, tuners, pickup, maybe the pick guard/knobs for aesthetics, and put some care into the neck to turn it into an absolute beast. There's also something incredibly badass about a dinky little beginner guitar getting outfitted with hardcore parts.

Also, obsessed with this:

[tkdunning]

(64)

Have some actionable plans for my career now.

Good developments today.

Good reminders. Splitting practice into small chunks to retain focus and avoid burnout is honestly a good idea. The hardest part of this strategy is being disciplined enough to jump back into practice multiple times. In theory, it should way easier to do so since the practice segments are smaller. Had excellent results doing it this way today. -- Was fucking around today and decided to try out this idea that I remembered from the first section of video I watched a few days ago:

At the time of watching I was like okay... but why is this important to me right now? Decided to try it out today and it's pretty cool and a useful map for improv. The lower half is super easy to remember since it's symmetrical, and the proximity to mode 6 makes it fun.

I've been obsessed with looking up and researching pedals (a guilty pleasure, since it makes me want to buy all of them). Decided maybe I should lean into it harder since it actually is useful from a music store/gear expertise standpoint. Something about the general sound design-y aspect of stacking pedals feels so natural and I think it's because it's similar to effect chains/processing synths.

Improv'd like a mf today. Tried doing it over different kinds of backing tracks, including "type beats" (lmao) which actually was cool with the more dynamic ones. The first like 10 mins or so that I improv go so hard, but then it loses steam as I get bored of soloing.

[tkdunning]

(63)

Sent my resume to a local music shop today. Praying for a miracle.

Playing feels crusty today.

Waiting on a new, super accurate tuner before I change my strings, raise the action, and clean up the intonation.

[tkdunning]

(62)

Loose game plan for guitar theory: triads > arps > melodic minor scale > caged > arps/scales/chord combination.

As much as I want to start writing music again I feel like I ought to learn more before I do so that I can put that extra technical sparkle into these songs dedicated to people I care about.

Making good progress on triads. The jazz improv book took a bit for me to really dive into, but it's turning out to be exactly what I need right now. The first real exercise literally maps out major and minor triads all over the fretboard. Have been able to loosely sprinkle these in during improv.

Triads have got me back into the swing of things. Something about the discovery and learning process brings magic back into the craft. Really excited to get familiar with triads, and then moving onto melodic minor will be really fun because I really enjoy the feel of that scale. Obviously I still have a long ways to go but I'm inching towards actual fretboard mastery

[tkdunning]

(61)

Long as hell practice session today (2h30m+). Did a good chunk of amped practice. I think that amped practice should be my default mode outside of quiet hours because the act of being observed/listened to does wonders for cleaning up sloppy playing. Also, the end goal is to play out loud anyways so I might as well start getting used to the feeling of being heard.

Learned the closed major triads. Pretty straightforward, just needs some time to commit to muscle memory.

Improv is going okay. Getting more expressive and clean, a lot of which is due to playing out loud on the amp. It's tough since I watched so many insane guitar players noodling on youtube videos today and the most notable ones just have insane knowledge. Did a little bit of the jazz improv method book. Will review tomorrow.

Saucy is going well. Cleaner overall and continuing to push the tempo closer to max.

[tkdunning]

(60)

Switched up the backing track to improv warmup today. Should do this more often. Totally different feel, resulting different improv lines.

Easily pushed Saucy to 75bpm. I think I can work on getting this up to full speed (96bpm I think?). G.O.A.T can take the backseat since I will need more time to get things clean in that song. I might need to attempt learning more songs before my "technical prowess" is enough to push full speed on that song.

[tkdunning]

(59)

More organized practice structure today

Saucy is honestly pretty decent - just needs to tempo push a bit but otherwise pretty clean

G.O.A.T. struggles in the faster passages and some of the more technically tricky spots.