How To Sound Like Eric Clapton

Amp Settings
Gain - 7
Teble - 5
Mid - 7
Bass - 7
Presence - 8

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How To Sound Like Eddie Van Halen

Amp Settings
Gain - 6
Treble - 4
Mid - 3
Bass- 9
Reverb - 4


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How To Sound Like Dimebag (Pantera)

Amp Settings

Gain – 9

Bass/Low – 8.5

Mid – 2

Treble/High – 10

guitar lessons in south shields www.rock-licks.com

How To Sound Like Angus Young AC/DC

Amp Settings
Gain - 5
Treble - 10
Mid - 10
Bass - 5
Angus Young Uses a Gibson SG

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Buying Your First Guitar/Bass

Choosing you first instrument can be a bit difficult.

How do you know if it’s a good guitar when you can’t play? The guy in the shop could make a Mickey Mouse guitar/bass sound good.

Top Tip: Don’t spend too much on your first instrument until you learn enough to actually play a bit!

Don’t be fooled all that shines isn’t gold.

If you spray paint and lacquer a piece of chip board it will look good. Some of these really amazing offers of Guitar or Bass with stand, tuner, amp and learning DVD all for £100 are too good to be true.

Some are no more than compressed cardboard spray painted and lacquered. As for the electrics some have complained that they are so low quality they die after a few months.

There may be genuine deals out there but some are only good enough for someone who gives it a go and packs in after a month.

Don’t be frightened to buy second hand!

If you buy a brand new guitar for £120 it’ll be worth £50 or £60 selling it second hand on ebay. Keep that in mind. How many guitars are bought tried out once or twice and land on ebay with someone wanting a quick sale.

Top Guitar/Bass’ hold their value and will be worth more in the future.

From the age of 4 I knew I wanted to play guitar. At age 14 I saw Steve Vai in the film Crossroads (Not the Britney Spears Film Ggggrrrr) I wanted to be able to do that and nothing was going to stop me.

So if you know for definite that nothing is going to stop you achieving on guitar buying cheap may be false economy. If so buy a decent instrument.

Guitar lessons in south shields www.rock-licks.com

How To Sound Like Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix
Gain - 4
Treble - 5
Mid - 5
Bass - 8
Reverb - 5

For Purple Haze Drive 8, Treble 7, Mid 9, Bass 6, Reverb 3, with Overdrive

To get a really good Hendrix sound try Amplitube Jimi Hendrix software

south shields guitar lessons www.rock-licks.com

.

How To Sound Like Zakk Wylde

Zakk Wylde Amp Setup
treble 10, mid 3, bass 10, presence 2/3, vol 10, master vol 6/7

Another Set Up

gain 6/8, presence low, mid 4/6, treble 9/10, bass 9/10 

For a more in depth look at Zakk Wylde gear click

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How To Sound Like Joe Satriani

JOE SATRIANI - SURFING WITH THE ALIEN

drive 7, treble 6, mid 3, bass 6, reverb 0, with distortion 

Guitars

• Ibanez JS models

Pickups

• DiMarzio PAF Pro (until 1993)
• DiMarzio Fred (Bridge position from 1993 to 2005)
• DiMarzio Mo' Joe and the Paf Joe (bridge and neck positions, from 2005 to present day)
• Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates

Amps

• Marshall 6100 Anniversary Head
• Peavey JSX

Cabinet

• Marshall 1960B Straight Cabinet 4x12” Loaded Celestion 12" G12M Greenback Speakers

Effects

• Vox wah
• Dunlop Cry Baby
• RMC Wizard Wah
• Digitech Whammy
• Boss DS-1
• Boss CH-1
• Boss CE-2
• Boss DD-2
• Boss DD-3
• Boss BF-3
• B OC-2
• Barber Burn Drive Unit
• Fulltone Deja Vibe
• Fulltone Ultimate Octave
• Electro-Harmonix POG

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GuitarTrump: Creative Tuning's Spider Capo: The Creepy Crawler ...

GuitarTrump: Creative Tuning's Spider Capo: The Creepy Crawler ...: Review Today I am very excited to share my review of the spider capo (provided by Creative Tunings). When I first read about the spider...

I saw this capo today. Which enables you do hold down individual strings. Well worth checking out

Guitar Lessons South Shields www.rock-licks.com

How To Sound Like Brian May

There are lots of articles about this subject which all seem to involve reading loads of info and having a degree in electronics as well as having to spend lots of money.

Brain May Guitar/ Vox AC30 Amp/ Treble Booster/Overdrive/Chorus/Delay

Native Instruments Guitar Rig software is a much easier and affordable way to emulate the sound of Brian May.

AC Box modeled on the Vox AC30. Normal 9; Brilliant 10; Treble 10; Bass 4; Tone Cut 3; Speed 5; Tremolo 0.

You’ll have to make some changes in the cabinet, too. We are going to stay with the 2×12 AC Box model. The mic slider all the way over to “B” and the Dry/Air slider to about 55% Air.

The second amp to be added is also an AC Box with the following settings: Normal 6; Brilliant 10; Treble 6; Bass 4; Tone Cut 2; Speed 4; and Depth 0.

The settings that work best for Brian’s tone are: a 2×12 Custom cabinet, On Axis microphone and a Dynamic 57 mic, you should use Volume 6; Bass 4; Air 5; Pan 5; and Treble 7.

The settings on the Chorus are: Speed -5, Intensity 1 and Width 2.

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How To Successfully Learn A Piece of Music

So there’s you the guitar and 5 pages of sheet music/guitar tablature. You are about to plunge into the guitar tab to learn your favourite guitar piece.

Before the days of guitar tab a guitarist would sit with the record (MP3/CD for those who don’t know what records are) and work out how to play the piece. This meant he/she knew the piece of music inside out.

Guitar tab is instant. Trouble is many students don’t bother listening to the piece and use their memory of the music to work out what to play using the tab.

Always learn the piece of music with the MP3/CD at hand. This will mean when it come to playing with band or backing track your phrasing and timing will be accurate.

This may seem obvious but you’d be surprised the amount of students who ask ‘Am I playing this correctly’ I put the MP3 on and they immediately see their mistake and say ‘I really should get the MP3 to listen too’ !!!!!!!!!!!!

My Mother always used to say before wallpapering ‘It’s all in the preparation’

Do you know the structure of the song?  Intro Verse Verse Chorus etc

Do You Know The Chord Progression? 

If you don’t know the answer to these two vital questions you will be on forever trying memorize sheets of guitar tab/sheet music.

Example: The Chords for Sweet Child of Mine which is an epic song are:

Verse (D Cadd9 G D)x4 Chorus (A C D) x2

The main guitar intro follows that chord progression. Failing to see that will make your task hard.

Learn One Bar of Music at a Time

In the excitement of learning a piece of music you may charge like a bull through the pages of music only to find it sound a bit of a mess. With only patches of it sounding recognizable.

With your Record/MP3/CD at hand song structure worked out and written down. Take one bar at a time.  

Don’t move onto the next bar until you can play the first bar without looking. Very quickly you’ll find you can play the first page without looking at the transcription.

This is the desired result ‘playing without the use of sheet music in front of you’

After all you never watched a rock guitarist playing in front of a music stand with someone turning the pages for him!

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Biggest Mistakes the Beginner Guitarist Makes

Is Self Taught The Best Way?

Many guitarists wear the ‘Self Taught Badge’ with pride. Claiming to be self taught creates the illusion that you thought of everything all by yourself.

If you don’t have a guitar teacher you will no doubt have to look into guitar teach books which on your own can be quite difficult to understand. Knowing someone who already plays guitar is the next place to pick up information about how to play.

All of this is a bit random and a bit of trial and error approach. You wouldn’t go to a self taught heart surgeon who learned his craft through trial and error!!!

Getting lessons from a good teacher will help you progress much faster.

Example: I have a 12 year old student with no past experience on guitar. The student has had 5 lessons and can now play all Major, Minor and Seventh Chords in open and barre chord positions.

Would that be possible by self teaching?

Jimi Hendrix Didn’t Read Music He Just Had Natural Talent!

‘I don’t have the natural talent’ is often the excuse of the under achieving musician.

It’s a bit misleading to believe that just because someone doesn’t read music that their musical ability must  therefore be natural God given at birth.

Many rock musicians don’t read music but they learned chords and scales. They also know where the notes on their instrument are too.

Always Practice Sitting Down?

Last time I looked most guitarists perform standing up! BB King has earned the right to sit when playing. But would Slash at the end of the November Rain video looked as half as cool if he had of walked out of the church and took a seat before he played the outro solo!!!!!!!

We all fall into the trap of practicing sitting down then have difficulty playing our stuff when standing up.

Practice Without Plugging Into Amp?

These days luckily for my neighbour’s guitar amps come with headphone sockets.

Too many times we practice a solo unplugged only to find when we plug into our amp with Metal Insane setting and it all sounds like a horrible mess.

The Rock guitarist by definition wants to show off. To show off you need to be loud!!!!!

Identifying the Repeated Chord Progression

You have your song and chords sheet. But you can’t memorize the song. Only with the sheet of paper can you possibly perform it????

Will you memorize D C G D D C G D D C G D D C G D ??? Which is a 16 chord sequence.

Or will you read it as (D C G D) x4  A lot easier.

Too many beginners aren’t told that a song is a series of repeated chord patterns.

Many songs are Verse Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Chorus.

Each verse has the same chord progression. The Chorus is the same every time its played.

There’s So Many Chords To Remember!!

As a beginner guitarist you’ll be taught to memorize chord shapes. There are so many shapes in your chord dictionary it won’t be long before your brain has turned into scrambled egg.

Seriously take my advice check out the CAGED system. In simple terms all chords can be worked out from the simple shapes of the C Chord A Chord G Chord E Chord D Chord.

It’s well worth asking your guitar teacher about it. You can burn that chord dictionary.

Scales Are Boring!!

Scales are boring if you just run up and down them endlessly.

Start out with pentatonic and blues scale and learn how to make a blues solo. Suddenly scales are cool.

South Shields Guitar Lessons www.rock-licks.com

South Shields Guitar Lessons: The CAGED Guitar System Explained

South Shields Guitar Lessons: The CAGED Guitar System Explained: The CAGED Guitar System Explained The CAGED guitar system can be very useful to help you find your way around the fretboard. The idea is ba...

South Shields Guitar Lessons

rock-licks.com

My name is James Rundle a guitar player with 25 years playing experience. Based in South Shields

Having studied Grade 8 Rockschool, Music Theory, City & Guilds Teaching and Music Performance.

My aim to is to take the mystery out of playing guitar and simplify what seems complicated.

Styles range from Oasis to Metallica and Van Halen to Hendrix


5 Gillside Court South Shields Tyne & Wear NE34 9BY
Tel: 0191 455 2172
Email: rock-licks@live.com

south shields guitar lessons www.rock-licks.com

Are Line 6 Variax Guitars Any Good????

Variax guitars have received mixed reviews some hating them other people loving them.
Looking around Newcastle guitar shops I couldn't find any to try out and when asking about them got a 'We only sell proper guitars' response.

However I acquired a Variax 600 on ebay for £300 and bought the software Variax Workbench software and lead too for about £60.  Pretty good bargain!!!

A problem people have is understanding what the Variax guitar does. Basically it uses built software to model almost every major guitar of the past 50 years or so. This is done at the flick of the selector switch. See model types below

With the Workbench Software and lead you can plug guitar into your computer and build your own guitar sound from a wide selection of bodies, pickups as well as altering pickup position.

There is a wide variety of tunings to select from which enable the guitar player to change tunings at the flick of a switch.

The software is a must have. I manages to get a quite good Brian May sound using the software. Which can be stored on the guitar itself

There are those people who turn there noses up at these guitars. If I had a vast collection of Gibson Fender Gretch Martin and Rickenbacker worth 1000s of £s I suppose I would.

But if you want a guitar that produces a vast array of tones replicating classic sounds without remortgaging the house then this is ideal.

The down side of this guitar probably had to be the sustain or lack of it. But I felt the versatility for recording purposes made up for that.

Some dont like the fact it doesnt have pickups on it and therefore looks odd.

Line 6 have brought out a MKII with pickups and a selector dial for altered tuning. This is quite a bit more expensive and I havnt tried it out yet.

south shields guitar lessons www.rock-licks.com

  

I Want To Learn Guitar. Which is the best guitar to buy?

Knowing which guitar to buy when you want to learn to play is the million dollar question.

Heres a few pointers.

What music do I like?
If the answer is Eva Cassidy, then you want to be looking at acoustic guitars.
If the answer is Jimi Hendrix then you want to be looking at electric guitars.

This may seem a bit obvious but it's surprising the amount of people who dont consider this before buying.

How much do you want to spend?
If you can afford a £2000 Gibson guitar then great you'll have a great guitar. But most people wont want to spend serious money on their first guitar.
Most guitar shops sell starter packs for around the £200 price range maybe cheaper.
Top Tip
Look on Ebay at people selling unwanted guitars in your local area. There are loads of kids bought guitars by their parents. The kid plays it once or twice looses interest and it end up on ebay.
Just the other day I saw this Starter Kit go for £35. click

What Brand Guitar Should I Buy?
Most popular brands for beginner guitars are:
Acoustic guitars : Vintage V300 click  Yamaha F310 click

Electric Guitars: Epiphone Les Paul click  Fender Squire Stratocaster click

Guitar lessons in South Shields www.rock-licks.com

What is a good beginner guitar amp to buy?

As a guitar tutor Im always being asked which is a good practice amp to buy.
Quite a few people have bought Line 6 Spider IV 15 Guitar Amp Combo.

Product Features 4 stunning amp models 4 channels of user-created presets 6 Smart FX (up to 2 at once) Tap Tempo, Bass, Mid and Treble knobs Drive knob, Channel volume,Master volume

product view

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