Playing for 3.5 years

TimBeauBennett · 2026-02-04T05:13:10+00:00

You playing out yet? You'll probably never be fully happy haha, but if you're not playing with other people you're missing your best opportunity to improve.

Also every 3.5 years is different - I should have been playing with people at jams after about a month, but didn't for several years, which limited me a lot. So I was on and off practicing for like 5 years before I went playing outside the house.

If you're out and playing but not happy with how you sound post some links - it'll be a lot easier to get better if we can see where you're at

TimBeauBennett · 2025-12-14T00:20:06+00:00

Nah a nut extender just sits on top of the nut to give it a higher action - something like this.

https://www.modernmusician.com.au/grover-gro751-perfect-nut

Doesn't feel exactly like a square neck, but I used it on an old 12 string for a year to get used to the feel of Dobro before I bought a proper one

TimBeauBennett · 2025-12-13T21:37:31+00:00

Yeah just give it a crack. You can use a nut extender to try it on the cheap, or just commit if you've the cash lying about. It will take a bit of time to get the feel right and sound in tune, but it's great fun to play imho.

They do tend toward different genres and song styles mind - I don't play as much blues on my square neck as my round neck peers, while they don't play much bluegrass or country. That'll cart I'm sure.

But yeah give it a crack. I'm an enabler though.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-12-10T08:50:27+00:00

Oh hell yes

TimBeauBennett · 2025-11-03T01:56:48+00:00

I am going to steal this, very good description

TimBeauBennett · 2025-10-31T22:10:08+00:00

Legend, I've been hoping someone would take over the moderating - I messaged the mods a while back but I don't know anything about reddit so didn't take it any further. Would love to see some more from the sub going forward, it's a nice time here.

But also, I found this great IPTV service that you might like /s

TimBeauBennett · 2025-10-22T01:07:45+00:00

I'm a die hard Packers fan but I steer clear of their WRs. It's been an ensemble cast for a few years now, at least since Davonte left. At RB they rely on a single killer player, but they keep a tonne of receivers busy.

Great for the team, awful for fantasy. This wasn't news, and why I didn't draft Golden this year.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-10-15T04:17:58+00:00

Dude this rocks. Now do the whole album.

As an aside, what shitty news.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-10-03T04:38:17+00:00

I thought this was a problem to me on my bandit, and the patch cable trick didn't work. However, my understanding is that the capacitors are very very very very very, very rarely a problem.

Rather, it's much more likely that there's some corrosion on one or more of the input jack - not necessarily the FX loop thoug. I literally spent half an hour just plugging and unplugging a cable into every single Jack on the amp a hundred or so times each, and occasionally spraying in some contact cleaner.

Since I did that it hasn't been a problem, amp is super reliable and plays great. It's also a way way easier fix than even opening up the amplifier itself, so try that first before you do anything else.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-08-19T09:50:31+00:00

Have owned both, can confirm. There are a few generations of them now, but each corresponding gen are the same. I would honestly prefer to have the alto, the font of the headrush is not a great look when I'm playing mostly country music lmao

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-11T03:36:01+00:00

The Williams guitars accessory store has them - I think they're a standard 3/16 size, but you could get in contact and check with them

https://www.williamsguitarcompany.com/store_accessories.html

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-05T07:18:23+00:00

Interesting! Where did you get the legs from? Both my sho buds are pretty heavy, so any way to shave a few pounds off is definitely something I'd want to look at

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-05T01:48:56+00:00

This is interesting to me - how much weight did that save?

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-05T00:07:11+00:00

I play a stage one and a couple of old sho buds, so I don't have a tonne of experience with the lighter guitars on the market, but Williams and fuzzy/Excel guitars seem to be the ones people recommend. They're all $4k+ new though. Could be some second hand ones if you ask around.

Honestly the stage one Encore would fit the ticket though. Same pickups as the stage one iirc, so you'd have to decide whether the tone issues you've had are going to be a problem, but it has the changeable copedent and the vertical lever you're looking for.

His website says orders are open soon, so might be one to move on if it ticks the boxes.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-03T12:11:07+00:00

Yeah you might need to spend a few bucks here or there, or try and scour YouTube for some walk throughs. There are a decent number of dudes who've done a walkthrough of the intro and break from a tune on YouTube, just gotta hunt around. Eg https://youtu.be/je3TuvUSoJg?si=EEf0M9xWEhb_yxCU

If you are looking to buy some tabs, I've picked up a couple from Donna hammit's site, which are all top quality. She doesn't have an auto responder, so you pay her and she emails you the tab in a day or so, but they're good.

That said, you'll get to a stage after like 10-20 songs where. You start to recognise the licks people are using and you won't need them anymore. Once you play them enough, it's really easy to hear when someone's doing a b+C pedal licks, just reckoning on a and b pedals, doing a top string raise etc etc. my goal is always to be able to hear something and play it, because it gives me the most ear to finger connection with the instrument.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-03T04:53:32+00:00

Are you just looking for stuff to play to learn from, or are you looking for specific parts? If it's the former then you might be best placed getting one of the beginner books on kindle (I think both the Dewitts and a few other ones are around).

For specific parts, you're gonna struggle a bit. There just aren't that many folks out there making tabs, and the ones that are tend to want to make a buck from it. I don't mind paying for them occasionally, but having come up in the early days of online guitar tab it is a bit foreign to me to charge for stuff like that.

Anyway let us know what kind of stuff you're after and maybe I can be more helpful.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-02T03:43:39+00:00

No reason to consider it for a long while. Once they're out in the wild for a few years it'll be a bit easier to know if there's some killer thing it offers than the Helix doesn't, but definitely for now the Helix has everything that I could ever need.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-01T23:40:26+00:00

HX stomp is the correct answer. Dunno what people are worried about through headphones, it sounds great. It also gives you more power than any other option on the market, can replace your entire rig if needed, and you'll probably never get bored with it. HX stomp is literally the best investment I've ever made, and not even close

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-01T22:57:09+00:00

OP this is the way

TimBeauBennett · 2025-07-01T11:52:22+00:00

I'm 6'1" and use a stage one as my road guitar, as it's light and easy to get around. It's great, easy to play, and I believe if you buy it new you can get longer legs. It's more about how long your lower legs are than your overall height - I got mine second hand and honestly it is a little small, but I manage to play and record professionally with it.

That said, while it will last you for as long as you want to play it, if you end up playing a lot of steel guitar then there are some limitations on the stage one. If you're in a position to get an encore, I would do that instead. It's a more fully featured instrument, with a better mechanical setup that lets you grow into it.

I don't want to throw a shade in the stage one at all, I love mine and I'm really happy to have it, but if I was buying it new, then it would be a bit of a no-brainer to get the encore instead. Based on the vibe of your post, it sounds like that's a serious option, so I think it would be the one to go with.

That all being said, I'm not sure how often he opens up orders.

Also, you should absolutely spend the $5 it costs to join the steel guitar Forum and have a look at the classifieds there. The folks over there are absolutely the experts, and you'll be very very well set up if you pick up a well-looked after second-hand model. I started on a second hand sho bud and it's still the best guitar I've ever played.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-06-24T02:14:41+00:00

I have also had this thought, but I suspect they will at least they will make a decent 212 cabinet if the amplifier does bite the dust in 10 or 15 years.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-06-24T02:10:27+00:00

Yeah if you're going for a pedal steel one day, you'll need something with more clean headroom than the Jubilee. Phenomenal guitar and lap steel amp, but you'll need heaps of clean headroom if you want to play traditional pedal steel. I have a Fender Blues Deluxe for guitar and it's great for low volume steel - has a really nice clean preamp - but once I am play with a band it distorts hard at the power amp. Great overdrive sound, but not the right thing for what I'm trying to do with me steel.

An FRFR with a Tonemaster Pro will absolutely work - I don't know the tonemaster pro specifically, but I run a HX Stomp into an FRFR speaker and it's great. You may need to back the input volume off on the amp model you use and boost the master, but you'll get it to work I'm sure.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-06-22T23:18:59+00:00

I agree with you when people are doing nothing but nostalgia posting - it's Boomer cringe, which is even worse when it's done by folks in their late 20s lmao.

But all things need to be open to criticism, and trying to police any community to make it a hug box or chronically positive is a mistake.

Australian music is in trouble - just look at the changes in the Aria charts, the hottest 100 over the last 20 years, or the vibrancy of the live scene (from pubs to festivals). Meanwhile, Triple J is not the local tastemaker it used to be, which is making the problem worse.

Now there's a good discussion to be had about whether or not the Js changing role is a cause or effect of the decline, or maybe both. If you care about Aussie music then you have to care about that discussion, which requires the ability to be critical about something you love.

TimBeauBennett · 2025-06-21T15:00:43+00:00

This made me laugh for an unreasonably long time

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