Quote of the day: "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." --T. H. White, The Once and Future King
[07-16-2002]
Wow, I haven't been very good at keeping this page up to date. A lot has
happened in the last few months--mostly in regard to new instruments. First,
I bought a new guitar in March, a Guild
S-100 Polara:
The Polara is a solid-body electric guitar with two Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups, a JB model in the bridge position and a '59 model in the neck position. The body and neck are mahogany, and the fretboard is rosewood. Physically, the S-100 resembles a Gibson SG guitar but from the reviews I've read on Harmony Central the Polara blows the SG away! The S-100 is a very well built guitar which has unfortunately been discontinued by Guild--I probably bought the last one ever sold as new in a music store, since my guitar was sitting in the store (Marty's Music Store) for two years before I bought it! This guitar sounds great, especially as a lead instrument using the JB pickup! It also looks great--especially the model I got with the natural finish. The Polara also has a cool phase reverse switch which allows the pickups to be wired out of phase, resulting in a very different sound which I especially like for rhythm chords. The action is nice and low, but the Polara was not happy with the D'Addario EXL110 strings I put on right after I bought it. Apparently, the tension of the EXL110 strings is lower than the guitar was set up for, because by June the strings were buzzing quite a bit. However, before going away for two weeks in late June I tuned the Polara up 1/2 step and now the guitar sounds as good as it did when I bought it. As a result, I am going to try D'Addario EXL110+ strings which have a tension that is about the same as when the guitar is tuned up 1/2 step.
My next purchase was prompted by a trip to the ICRA 2002 Robotics Conference in May. I didn't want to be cut off from playing for the 4 days I would be at the conference so I decided to find an instrument I could easily pack in my luggage for the trip. I looked at many travel guitars, mini guitars, ukuleles, mandolins, etc. What I wanted was an electric ukulele which I could connect to my Zoom PS02 and which would be quiet (not disturb the people in the next room). However, there aren't too many steel-string electric ukuleles on the market and I heard some negative comments about the one I found. Eventually, I heard about a company in Germany called Risa Musical Instruments which makes several small instruments including a Guitarlele (a small 6-string guitar) and a Uke-Stick (a nylon-string ukulele with a piezo pickup and no sound chamber). I was intrigued by the Uke-Stick which appeared to be exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately, I couldn't get one in time for my trip so I bought a $30 Johnson ukulele:
Needless to say, the Johnson is not a quality instrument but I actually discovered it is fun to play. It easily fits in my suitcase and I don't have to worry too much about losing my luggage! It's fun to pick up while I'm watching TV and it's not so loud I have to worry about disturbing the neighbors.
However, I eventually decided that I really wanted a Uke-Stick so I could use my PS02 on the road, and maybe even do some recording in my hotel room. So after I got back from ICRA I emailed Rigk Sauer at Risa and ordered a Uke-Stick:
Luckily, my inability to get one in May actually worked to my advantage because an improved model was being introduced in July and I was able to order one for the old price--thanks Rigk! I just received it last night and it is a very nice instrument! The fit and finish are superb, the fretwork is very nice, and it sounds great through my PS02. It's amazing that I only paid $99 for this instrument plus $16 for the gig bag! (The price has now gone up to $125 for a Uke-Stick and gig bag--still a bargain!) By the way, Rigk Sauer is really great to deal with--he put up with a lot of my questions when I was trying to decide what instrument to get. It's almost impossible to get this kind of service from a "big" company like Fender or Gibson unless you are dealing with the custom shop and buying a $3000 instrument. My hat's off to Rigk and Risa!
So I've bought three new instruments in the last 5 months which seems amazing because I hadn't bought any instruments for many years. Unfortunately, I've been too busy to do any recording, but I have a few ideas for songs when I get the time...