The secret society of the six-string
I came across this TWANG! piece I wrote a couple years ago and giggled a bit, so I thought I'd post it here...
TWANG!
6-String cryptology
By DAVID REY
Ahh, the world of the guitar freak.
It’s a place populated by words such as PAF, Bigsby, tube rectifier, alnico, flatwounds, f-holes, Klusons, tune-o-matic, Telefunken and my favorite – humbucker.
In this world, everybody knows that point-to-point wiring is far superior to printed circuit boards – when it’s in your amp, not your televison.
While the rest of the world looks at technology as progress, guitar freaks lament the passage of 1959 – the magic year for Gibson guitars. They want everything to go back to the way it was in 1965, when the Fender Deluxe Reverb blackface configuration reached perfection.
Forget buying gadgets that use little computer chips to simulate rockabilly slap-back delay, the guitar freak wants a clunky tape delay machine – that actually uses tape to create slap-back delay.
While the rest of the world likes their new items shiny and new, there is an element of guitar freaks that actually like their new guitars to be beat up when they buy them. It’s called relic-ing. I call it madness -- though I secretly harbor a desire for one some day...
Whether I intended it or not, I’ve worked my way into this semi-secret society. The guitar player has always been a mysterious, mystical creature, coaxing the sound of the gods out of an 8-pound, stringed contraption.
It’s hard to be accepted into the brotherhood (I’ve found there aren’t many sisters). You have to pay your dues by showing you know what everybody is talking about and then, eventually, showing that you can actually play a bit.
It’s that second part that I’ve found a bit challenging. After spending the last two years immersing myself in the electric guitar sub-culture, I’m now fluent in guitar-speak. It would’ve never been possible without the Internet.
The Internet has enabled guitar freaks to organize and communicate. Everything I know about guitars – except how to play them – I learned from places like the Telecaster Discussion Page Re-Issue, The Gretsch Pages and The Clarence White Guitar Forum.
If you’re thinking you’ll just surf on over to one of these sites and get some guitar learnin’ on the cheap, better be ready to put in the work to decipher messages like this, from Stan at TDPRI.com.
“what about your filter caps?? also does this happen at load volumes only? if so you may have parasitic oscillation. a good tech could fix that by changing lead dress/routing of wires.”
To the thousands of TDPRI board members, that seems like a perfectly good explanation and fix for early breakup and cutting out on a Fender Deluxe amplifier. If that puzzles you, then you don’t even want to accidentally drop into a thread on the Gretsch Pages about the tonal differences between a FilterTron and a HiLoTron.
And you thought it was all about swinging your arm around like Pete Townshend and magically, Rock and Roll pours forth from the guitar. If only it was that easy.
Really, it can be, it’s just that being a guitar player wouldn’t be nearly as fun if all us freaks would just admit that, when it comes right down to it, compensated saddles, Sperzels and blade pickups aren’t nearly as important as exuberance, creativity and patience, when it comes to making music.
So join us freaks, learn some lingo, get a guitar – and plug in.
TWANG!
6-String cryptology
By DAVID REY
Ahh, the world of the guitar freak.
It’s a place populated by words such as PAF, Bigsby, tube rectifier, alnico, flatwounds, f-holes, Klusons, tune-o-matic, Telefunken and my favorite – humbucker.
In this world, everybody knows that point-to-point wiring is far superior to printed circuit boards – when it’s in your amp, not your televison.
While the rest of the world looks at technology as progress, guitar freaks lament the passage of 1959 – the magic year for Gibson guitars. They want everything to go back to the way it was in 1965, when the Fender Deluxe Reverb blackface configuration reached perfection.
Forget buying gadgets that use little computer chips to simulate rockabilly slap-back delay, the guitar freak wants a clunky tape delay machine – that actually uses tape to create slap-back delay.
While the rest of the world likes their new items shiny and new, there is an element of guitar freaks that actually like their new guitars to be beat up when they buy them. It’s called relic-ing. I call it madness -- though I secretly harbor a desire for one some day...
Whether I intended it or not, I’ve worked my way into this semi-secret society. The guitar player has always been a mysterious, mystical creature, coaxing the sound of the gods out of an 8-pound, stringed contraption.
It’s hard to be accepted into the brotherhood (I’ve found there aren’t many sisters). You have to pay your dues by showing you know what everybody is talking about and then, eventually, showing that you can actually play a bit.
It’s that second part that I’ve found a bit challenging. After spending the last two years immersing myself in the electric guitar sub-culture, I’m now fluent in guitar-speak. It would’ve never been possible without the Internet.
The Internet has enabled guitar freaks to organize and communicate. Everything I know about guitars – except how to play them – I learned from places like the Telecaster Discussion Page Re-Issue, The Gretsch Pages and The Clarence White Guitar Forum.
If you’re thinking you’ll just surf on over to one of these sites and get some guitar learnin’ on the cheap, better be ready to put in the work to decipher messages like this, from Stan at TDPRI.com.
“what about your filter caps?? also does this happen at load volumes only? if so you may have parasitic oscillation. a good tech could fix that by changing lead dress/routing of wires.”
To the thousands of TDPRI board members, that seems like a perfectly good explanation and fix for early breakup and cutting out on a Fender Deluxe amplifier. If that puzzles you, then you don’t even want to accidentally drop into a thread on the Gretsch Pages about the tonal differences between a FilterTron and a HiLoTron.
And you thought it was all about swinging your arm around like Pete Townshend and magically, Rock and Roll pours forth from the guitar. If only it was that easy.
Really, it can be, it’s just that being a guitar player wouldn’t be nearly as fun if all us freaks would just admit that, when it comes right down to it, compensated saddles, Sperzels and blade pickups aren’t nearly as important as exuberance, creativity and patience, when it comes to making music.
So join us freaks, learn some lingo, get a guitar – and plug in.
posted by D.Rey at 7:49 AM
1 Comments:
You know I left a nice drunken rant for you about questioning the Veep. I sure hope it was your voicemail box anyway. No message to great me, just a number. I just hit the missed call button on my phone, so again I say, I hope it went to you. It was brilliant, though, so whoever got it no doubt found it wonderful.
That's just how these things work.
Post a Comment
<< Home