Musos - Share your tips and hacks -

[Stilgar of Troon]

Share your top "X" tips for playing, practicing, gigging, recording, whatever. There seems to be quite a few musos on here, be cool if we could all learn something or be reminded of something. Guess I should probably start.

Be on time - Lateness is rude as fuck, beyond truly unavoidable circumstances.

Be prepared- No one is more unpopular than the one person who's constantly bumming leads, picks, etc.

Be in tune - Tuners are so cheap and available in so many formats, there is never an excuse for being out of tune for more than a moment.

What you got, Kiwi musos? @Reynard , I'm sure you'll have something.

 

[Reynard]

Despite what @Troon Draugur says, I probably don't know all that much. Most of my knowledge comes from what I know about old gear.

However, what I will say is that if you want a good guitar tone I suggest accentuating the midrange. I might go a bit far with it, given that I crank the mids to 10 first thing when I plug into an amp, but I definitely think scooping the mids is usually a bad idea. I actually like a good scooped tone from time to time (I love the sound of a Univox Super Fuzz/Boss FZ-2 or a Big Muff), but they have to be done right. Dimebag is a person people use to say why they can scoop their mids, but the thing is that he had an EQ and an amp where one midrange was boosted and the other was scooped. I do that with my Muffs and my other scooped fuzzes. You get this interesting sound that's scooped yet not, and I don't know how to describe it any other way. However, that's how you make a scooped sound stand in a mix. It's not as simple as turning your amp's volume up and scooping the mids on it. If you want a scoop to stand out in a mix it's a lot more complicated than having just your amp.

 

[Chad Nasty]

Herman Li is the greatest guitarist ever
Proof:

 

[Stilgar of Troon]

Herman Li is the greatest guitarist ever
Proof:

Not seen that in forever. Quality.

 

[Nyet Molotoff]

Avoid washburns, almost all of the steel string acoustics I've played on by them have their bridge lifted. String cleaner is a joke you should be replacing your string at the very least once every 6 months. Tone knobs are basically useless unless you have active pickups. Oh and if you're in the market for a sub $500 acoustic check out yamaha and takamine, some of the best for the price.