My new TC Electronic PolyTune

I saw the new Tc Electronic PolyTune advertised during the 2010 NAMM show this year and was suitably impressed, I thought I would have to have one after relying on my ancient pitch pipes for so long.

Its main selling point is that you can strum all the strings on your guitar and it will instantly show the tuning of all six strings at once, plucking a single string will let you tune in either strobe mode or meter mode which has an accuracy of 0.5 cent.  The reference pitch can be shifted from 435-445 if you like slightly flat or sharp tuning.

The unit also supports dropped tunings too down to a B, it doesn't support alternative tuning like drop D or any open tunings which is a shame, although the user interface would of had to become more complex to support it.  There is a service port on the back which looks like a mini USB connector, it would be cool if it could be used to upgraded in the future to support new tuning but I'm guessing that this is used in the factory for calibration and set-up.

I received the unit last week and took a couple of photos of it in use.

On this photo you can see the unit in poly tune mode, you strum all the strings and it immediately shows you the tuning of all six strings at one, the only thing similar to this I found was in software plug-ins.














Heres the unit in single string mode, this is activated if you only play a single string.

Here's another photo in poly tune mode with a Boss OS-2 next to it so you get an idea of its size.

Its a really nice unit, it works ultra fast and you can get instant feed back on the tuning of your instrument, I would definitely recommend it!

A Bridge too far?

I bought a Graphtech nut a while ago and its been sitting in my bits box for ages. I decided to buy a Graphtech bridge to go with it and install in in my Deal ML79 as the bridge had a bit of a rattle and some of the chrome was wearing away where I rest my palm.

Here's a picture of the Resomax bridge

The idea behind it is that it is made out of a lightweight alloy that transmits the strings vibrations to the guitar body better, and the saddles are made of Teflon impregnated graphite that lubricates the string and help keep you in tune.

This is a picture of my existing bone nut compared to the new Graphtech one















Here's my guitar with the new bridge in place

Installation went pretty much to plan although the graphite nut was extremely wearing on my nut files, I think a couple of them are almost blunt now!!  I thought graphite was supposed to be soft?

I noticed a couple of things after installation, firstly I seem to have a pretty bad rattle on the E and A strings between the 1st and 4th frets, I could swear that it wasn't there before but I cant be sure.  I set my action up to my usual 1.35mm at the 12th fret thick E string and 1.14mm and the thin E string.  Another thing was as much as I tried I couldn't get the intonation of my A string closer than about 2 cents flat, its not much out but I know its there and its bugging me!

Tone wise chord work seemed to be clearer and more smoothed out, it reminded me a little bit of using flat wound strings except it didn't sound dull in treble.  

I will have to see how it goes and post on my progress, cant get past that rattle at the moment :(

I haven't been posting for a while I have been meaning to honest!

I've not really been sure what to put up here, my moaning on about guitar playing, Guitar set-ups, Guitar fx, Guitar Amps, Software ...


I though I would quit the moaning part for the time being and focus on all the others :)

Starting next time with my adventures installing the Graphtec Resomax bridge and nut...

Dragonforce @ Middlesbrough Empire 07/12/09 dual guitar solo

I went to see Dragonforce last Monday, here's a clip of one of their amazing dual guitar solos, this is off a song called Fields of Despair. Amazing stuff!!

Long time coming...

Well its been a while since I last posted here, I'm not playing as much guitar as usual maybe a couple of times a week at the moment.

To tell you the truth I'm probably not as disheartened as usual but I still haven't been playing much.  As I said before I prefer to play lead guitar but getting a decent backing track to play over can be tricky, especially with the sort of stuff that I like playing.  I'm into a lot of the neoclassical speed metal stuff, things like Jason Becker and Marty Friedman's early stuff in Cacophony and their solo albums, but the sort of rhythm I play is a different style so things just don't mesh so well.

I did find a nice preset from the Altaire studio in Super drummer 2 that sounded good, I think it was called black beauty, but getting a good solid rhythm track still eludes me though :).  I am enjoying playing lead though, I must admit I love playing lots of sweep picking stuff, I had a go at a couple of sections of Concerto from Speed Metal Symphony but its as hard as hell!!  I have no idea how those guys could ever play like that, even remembering it is difficult!  I can manage a few bars then I forget the beginning doh!

I have been listening to Alice in Chains new album "Black gives way to blue" a lot lately, its a really great album production production is spot on too.  Also on my play list has been Megadeth's new album "Endgame", some of the tracks are good but others are boring and are very reminiscent of tracks from their last album.  I think the albums production also sounds a bit thin too, there doesn't seem to be nearly enough bass.  I suppose that's Megadeth's sound though, I listened to some of the albums from the early 90's and they seem a little lacking in bass too...

I will have to see if I can scrape a few snippets of playing and post them up here so you can hear what I'm trying to do...

Who needs rhythm and bass anyway :)

Until next time...

Me and my noise!

I have been experimenting with my virtual guitar rig for the last few month and thought I would share my thoughts and findings.

First part of my setup is Softubes Acoustic feedback, this is as close to playing a loud over driven amp as you will get with a plugin, thanks to Jeff over at geareview for drawing my attention to this plug-in, fantastic squeals and feedback!

Next is a Tube Screamer set with level 100% tone on 50% to 100% gain set really low like 5-10 alternatively I sometimes use a Boss SD-1 with similar settings. I find that is has a nasally cocked wah quality that's hard to work with and the tube screamer sounds a pinch warmer, anyway I use BTE Audio's Tube screamers secret, the one skinned by requietus

After the booster I use one of these amp sims:

Nick Crows 8505

Poulin HyBrit

Poulin SoloC

Analog Sims JCM900

If the amp sim Im using doesn't have a cab simulator like Nicks 8505 then I use Poulin LeCab, normally with Mesa and Engl cabs, I use Alus decab impulse to remove the cab sim built into the JCM900 and use Poulins LeCab as usual.

Finally I use Overlouds Breverb to add a 'touch' of reverb to rhythm tracks and a big dollop for lead tracks, Im just sticking with presets from Breverb for now (Guitar room/lonely guitarist), I have the plugin 100% wet with only 20-25% applied to the signal.

If I want a thrash metal sound I will go for the 8515 or the SoloC, If I want a more natural tube type sound and also lead playing then lately I have been using the HyBrit with some success, still cant quite get the ultimate tone, guess I never will! getting closer though....