mockingbird_franklin Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 Anyone got any experience in refretting acoustic guitars? My old tanglewood could do with a couple of new frets on it where they have worn down, I called fair deal music and was quoted £150 for the lot or £75 for a couple, I wasn't expecting it to be that expensive Try finding a Luthier who you can deal with direct and is local, unlikely fair deal will have an in house Luthier, I've heard good things about Bob Barrie in Birmingham, but have never used his services personally so don't take this as a personal recommendation. A Luthier will advise if a re-fret is really needed or if you can get away with a fretdress instead, All frets in Northampton advertise a partial re-fret from £30 + £5 per fret, and a complete re-fret from £95 no idea if this inclusive of Vat. Of course Fairdeal may be quoting you extra stuff like strings and set up which may not be included in the prices I have seen from Allfrets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mockingbird_franklin Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 Oh and the little guitar shop in the Jewelry Quarter has been mentioned positively to me before, again no personal experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Well I've been putting some serious time into my banjo over the last few weeks after not touching it for a fair few months, I actually feel like I'm making some good progress on it now, I can play the first half of cripple creek easily at 100bpm and can muddle through it at 120bpm. I still think it's amazing how much more difficult it is than the guitar, I remember when I got my first banjo (a bird bought it for me and it was so bottom end that you could barely call it a banjo) I thought I would be picking like Earle Scruggs within days, Jesus how wrong was I. It's just a lovely feeling when you can tell that you are progressing on an instrument. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chappy Posted March 4, 2014 Share Posted March 4, 2014 Well I've been putting some serious time into my banjo over the last few weeks after not touching it for a fair few months. Hee hee hee 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnbull Posted March 4, 2014 Share Posted March 4, 2014 Might give my Bassoon a blow later, if I can reach it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted March 4, 2014 Share Posted March 4, 2014 More guitar geekery. Martin acoustics: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob182 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 It was my birthday on Tuesday, and my girlfriend got me a mandolin! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Right. I know a fella who is willing to sell his Peavey bass amp with 15'' black widow speaker. He wants £300 but is willing to negotiate. I've heard some cracking things about these BW speakers, apparently they're the dogs...The seller has some top notch equipment, and was a semi pro musician for years but can't play any longer for age and health reasons. He's a really nice guy and I trust him when he raves about this amp. I'm going to see it tomorrow. I'll trust my ears and the seller before some random on the Internet, but I'm just trying to gather as much info about the amp before I go there. Has any muso in VT land ever heard, played through one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Had a ukulele bought for me as a belated birthday present yesterday, they are surprisingly good fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veloman Posted April 13, 2014 Share Posted April 13, 2014 Kingfisher ,, re. Black Widow. I think I may have mentioned this earlier in this thread but (as a drummer) this was the best bass sound I have ever heard. Our bass player had this rig with a Fender Precision. I have played with various set-ups including Fender Piggyback (or summat like that) and one bloke had a JD bass with Trace-Eliot(sp) - lots of green light on the amp head. No = Peavey was the best. Just an opinion of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfisher Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 (edited) Bought the Peavey for £300. It's a 300 watt monster. Very loud indeed. Indestructible but very heavy too. Interestingly I got an LP style Maya guitar made in Japan thrown in for free. It looks late 70's early 80's. I heard that Japan were knocking out instruments that beat the originals at that time. This particular guitar used to be owned by a guitarist called Adrian Legg. (I'd never heard of him but a bit of googling reveals him to be a mighty fine guitarist). He had the guitar modified with an extra middle pickup and a load of phase reversal switches which give the guitar a whole myriad of sounds. It's really quite an instrument! I put a new set of strings on it and it really rocks. Edited April 14, 2014 by Kingfisher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted April 17, 2014 Share Posted April 17, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-0UCV-g1xo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 http://youtu.be/etZ-JVFjQoo This was my band from 1972/73 Have you seen how many listens you've got? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veloman Posted April 20, 2014 Share Posted April 20, 2014 Yep - quite staggering. As I think I said before (somewhere) the keyboard player was the driving force behind Poliphony and he now lives in California. He emailed the rest of us recently to say that he had been approached with a view to using one of the tracks on a 'sampler ' of 70's prog rock. I immediately had visions of vast wealth and hoards of adoring groupies. However it seems the offer is £50 each plus royalties. As regards the groupies ..... my wife thinks this is fairly unlikely at my age and it took some time for her to stop laughing ! For those who know about these things, the keyboard player, Dave Bristow, was partly responsible for the Yamaha DX7 - a seminal instrument in my day. The bass player still lives in Harborne. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCU Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 (edited) Any drummers on VT? (most probably, just too lazy to flick back and find some) Been playing for about a year now and really enjoy it. I just don't seem to have a 'practice routine' as such. I just do a bit of jamming every day, sometimes to music but mostly without. I've had a couple of lessons with different teachers and they've shown me the basics. Can't really afford and don't particularly want to pay for anymore. I went and bought the cheapest kit I could get (which was still around £400-500!) a Yamaha DTX500K... (not my picture - got it off google) I just plug some headphones into it and away I go. It's not great and sometimes I wish I had a better kit but at the standard I'm at the moment I don't there's any need. As I say though, I'm struggling to find any sort of proper practice routine. I'm too scared to take on a song at the moment. I always read different things about rudiments too... some people go on without learning any and do just fine. I can manage a single stroke at a reasonable speed but not so much doubles and everything else. Edited May 26, 2014 by Warnock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted May 26, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted May 26, 2014 This my 'kit': Yes, I know proper drummers will sneer, but for what I want to (and can) do, and my budget and domestic arrangements, it was the best compromise. The toms, hi-hat, snare, and ride cymbals sound pretty good, the kick drum less so. The crash cymbal is terrible, no real decay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 Any drummers on VT? (most probably, just too lazy to flick back and find some) Been playing for about a year now and really enjoy it. I just don't seem to have a 'practice routine' as such. I just do a bit of jamming every day, sometimes to music but mostly without. I've had a couple of lessons with different teachers and they've shown me the basics. Can't really afford and don't particularly want to pay for anymore. I went and bought the cheapest kit I could get (which was still around £400-500!) a Yamaha DTX500K... (not my picture - got it off google) I just plug some headphones into it and away I go. It's not great and sometimes I wish I had a better kit but at the standard I'm at the moment I don't there's any need. As I say though, I'm struggling to find any sort of proper practice routine. I'm too scared to take on a song at the moment. I always read different things about rudiments too... some people go on without learning any and do just fine. I can manage a single stroke at a reasonable speed but not so much doubles and everything else. can you read the music at all? get yourself a couple of music books with CD's, one as a basic 'learn drums' book, one with some music you like even the basic 'official' grade 1 / 2 / 3 books will have enough stuff in there to keep you learning and keep you interested after that, a basic CD close enough to keep pressing replay and you'll get there in the end unfortunately, there's no substitute for hours on the chair (my kids are officially grade 3 on the grade books but in reality can bang along to most music once they've heard it a few times) Just bought a set of bongos and a stand - I had no concept how expensive they could be. I really really try and buy from local music shops (Cranes. Drum Depot), but I just couldn't this time. Cheapest full size decent bongos I could find in an actual shop were £70 plus another £52 for a stand. Amazon got me what appear to be decent full size bongos and a stand for £44. They haven't arrived yet, we'll see if it was the right thing to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCU Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 Can read very basic music notation. Any books you'd recommend? I thought the internet would be a suitable resource for all learning material. I understand this drum grading but I see alot of people, in particular this 1 guy on YouTube who is considered very good and he's in a band. He told me he literally just jammed along with stuff. That's it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 trinity the kids are using Trinity, grade 3 has some decent music to learn and the usual play along CD, but pick the book to suit where you're at as for other music, Coldplay et al issue sheet music that appears simple enough to play along to ('Clocks' being a regular in our house), but it's really down to what you like and yes, the kids are playing music together that they like that's well above their grades, it might not be technically spot on but if it teaches you timing and endurance and you enjoy it, fill yer boots Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted May 26, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted May 26, 2014 Blimey, drummers of today. They weren't like that when I was playing. If you had a kit you were in demand by bands, simple as. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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