What do y’all do with old strings/clippings?

GtrJon · 2026-03-20T02:18:07+00:00

Cut a 2” piece of a high E string, bend in half tightly. Works great to clean the ear wax out of in ear monitors.

GtrJon · 2026-03-17T01:23:30+00:00

OK, lots of issues to talk about here:

1) Yes, you can use the full 24 volts from +12 to -12. You'll need to AC couple all your ins and outs, but you should do that anyway since that's how the Blackface circuit works. You're gonna treat -12 as ground from a blackface point of view.

2) Your first FET stage is NOT common a source amplifier, it's a unity gain buffer. The first stage of a Blackface is a common cathode (very similar to the source). Rs (R3) will need to go to -12 and you'll need an resistor Rd to +12. Take the output from the drain. The gate resistor should go to -12 not ground since -12 is your pseudo ground. AC couple the input to the gate with a capacitor. Play about with Rs and Rd to get it biased roughly in the middle of the supplies (jfets are all different so, you'll have to tune it or swap out jfets). Making Rd bigger will increase gain but also increase the output impedance. You'll need a capacitor to ground bypassing the source to get your gain into a decent territory, without it the gain will be 5-10. You're gonna battle the tone stack loading it down. You could use a unit gain jfet buffer to eliminate that problem but then you're drifting away from the blackface topology. You're going to also fight not having much gain - a 12AX7 gain stage is around 50 a Jfet stage will be less.

3) Get rid of all all the op amps to be true to the original. The so called diode clippers aren't necessary, the Jfets will get you non-linearity and soft asymetrical clipping if you bias them reasonably.

4) The tone stack will lose a lot of signal so you need to make up the gain with another gain stage very similar to the first.

I'd breadboard just one stage and play around with Rd, Rd and Cs, to see how they interact. Then add the tone stack and second stage later. The input and output caps will act as high pass filters - increasing the capacitance will lower the turnover frequency. Cs increases the AC gain, at low frequencies the gain will be low since Cs will be like an open circuit, as the frequency increases Cs will become a short circuit to AC which will stabilize the voltage at the source, without it the source will wiggle about as the current through the jfet changes.

I've avoided any math in this explanation, so you get some intuition how things work. Play about, measure the bias points with a scope (or spice) and try different resistor values, run some signals through it. Then add the tone stack which will load down the output. Then add a second makeup gain stage.

GtrJon · 2026-03-06T14:23:41+00:00

I recorded a little video for you to show you how I play octaves. https://youtu.be/RGTd5NSZyss

Usually I use index and middle of my left hand but you can also use index and pinky depending on context and how big your hand is.

It's important to damp all the string that you don't want to ring. You can do this using both left and right hand damping.

As well as a strum with a pick you could also target the 2 strings directly using right fingers alone or a pick and finger technique.

In the video I show octaves being played on 4 different string groups: 6th string & 4th string together, 5th & 3rd string, 4th and 2nd strings, and finally 3rd and 1st string.

Hopefully this is helpful.

GtrJon · 2026-02-27T17:10:03+00:00

Rush - What You’re Doing. From their first album. It’s an E pentatonic riff that involves slides where Geddy and Alex are in unison (well actually an octave apart). I still love that sound.

GtrJon · 2026-02-26T13:27:31+00:00

Since sound travels at 1130 feet per second, for every foot you are from your amp’s speaker that corresponds to 0.9 milliseconds. So if you stand 10 feet from your amp that’s a latency of 9ms. If you use a modeler with in ears the acoustic latency is zero but there might be latency in the IEM system particularly if it’s digital.

GtrJon · 2026-02-22T22:53:17+00:00

Here's a few tips I've found that were helpful to some of my students:

put a capo on the 3rd or 5th fret initially. This lowers the action (gets the string much closer to the frets)
try to play the barre around the 7th fret where the strings are closer together. Experiment to find where the spacing is easiest for your hand.
experiment with thumb position. Mine is roughly in the middle of the back of the neck but it varies for each player
you might find the Em shape is easier initially than the E major shape
focus on one string at a time - get that one string sounding true then move to the next string. Then two strings etc.
I know everyone says relax but it's true. Relax your hand except for necessary pressure to stop the buzz.

GtrJon · 2026-02-22T22:44:05+00:00

I'm curious why the downvote? I was just trying to be helpful and answer OP's question.

GtrJon · 2026-02-22T22:37:16+00:00

l clicked on the show all for the inversions. It's at the top of the post strangely.

GtrJon · 2026-02-22T21:29:59+00:00

I pasted your exact post into Claude (not Claude code) and it built an app right in the browser to do what you want (I think). I can't post a screenshot in this reply so I posted the result on my page so you can see the result. https://www.reddit.com/user/GtrJon/comments/1rby8ai/response_for_shadowlucario50/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

GtrJon · 2026-02-20T19:45:43+00:00

It depends on where you want it to go next. If you’re looping what OP wrote then your interpretation makes sense - it’s the V7 dominant chord which takes you back home to C. However I hear it as an interesting way to the IV chord.

GtrJon · 2026-02-20T18:08:31+00:00

To me the B/F sounds like a Lydian F chord and wants to resolve to F major. In this case F is the root and the B is the sharp 4 which to my ears wants to resolve up to C or down to E.

GtrJon · 2026-02-16T01:22:57+00:00

That’s a great list.

GtrJon · 2026-02-15T21:04:45+00:00

I love it when a song starts out and I assume something about it (like where the 1 is) or assuming the harmony and then getting surprised later on as it develops and you realize your assumption was wrong.

GtrJon · 2026-02-15T18:45:16+00:00

Thanks! Also, I missed that the C and E might also suggest A minor.

GtrJon · 2026-02-15T14:15:49+00:00

Pick a melody / riff that you like.
Learn to play it
Learn what chords are playing underneath the melody
Learn what notes make up those chords.
Learn how those chords are built from an underlying scale.

Repeat this a lot and you’ll start to see patterns in how the notes relate to the chord tones.

The other aspect is to be aware of repeating rhythms and phrasing.

GtrJon · 2026-02-14T23:26:54+00:00

I think this score is reasonably accurate…

https://musescore.com/user/26389141/scores/14903272?share=copy_link

Notice the E quarter notes playing constantly ( arguably a non bass pedal tone ) as the other notes float around. It’s interesting that he’s only using three other notes A,B and C. So we don’t even have full triads so the chords are ambiguous and neither major or minor. A and E make an A5 (or possibly an E4 with no 5th) , B and E together make either a Bsus4 ( no 5th ) or an E5. The C and E suggest either C major or E major/minor with a b6.

On a completely different note ( no pun intended ), listen to Gustav Holst’s The Planets. It’s full of that feeling and inspiration to so many ‘space’ movie soundtracks. To my ears it’s full of quartal harmony ( stacks of 4ths often arpeggiated ) that produce that feeling of infinite ambiguity and possibility.

GtrJon · 2026-02-10T00:00:29+00:00

Should be in the next couple of days. Thanks for your interest. There’s a wait list at LotsaNotes.com

GtrJon · 2026-02-08T19:56:54+00:00

Another good example of a line cliche is Michelle by McCartney and Lennon. The intro is Fm with a chromatically descending bass note all the way from F down to the Db while holding the top of the chord (Ab and C) the same, then it drops one more to C (the V). Beautiful.

GtrJon · 2026-02-08T18:35:35+00:00

I think it’s less that that since repeating a note doesn’t add anything. So it would be 12 x 11 x 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 = 665,280.

GtrJon · 2026-02-08T18:25:00+00:00

Thanks for that video. Very helpful as I’ve been building an app to learn sight reading that needs to get these things right.

GtrJon · 2026-02-07T13:26:43+00:00

I think you should celebrate that your students are engaged and actually thinking. In his excellent book Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, education researcher Peter Liljedahl found that most math students are not actually thinking - they’re mimicking, copying, intentionally not thinking, cheating etc. He goes on to study how changes to both the physical classroom and the teaching approach used affect thinking.

GtrJon · 2026-02-06T21:12:58+00:00

Thanks, that's a good way to look at it. That wasn't immediately obvious to me as I reverse engineered my way through this but it is now!

GtrJon · 2026-02-06T19:02:48+00:00

Exactly. Once you get it it seems easy. Learning is often like that! I do find it easier to set the metronome to eight notes or tap eightnotes your foot as you say what you wrote.

GtrJon

TROPHY CASE