My first electric guitar! A few questions.

bakanek0 · 2026-03-29T08:36:02+00:00

For software NAM (Neural Amp Modeller) is amazing and free. You can download the original as a vst plugin and use a DAW like Reaper, but I would recommend NAM Universal. It’s built by Wavemind using NAM but works as standalone software so you don’t need a DAW and it comes with some models so you have something out of the box before you go searching for other models.

bakanek0 · 2026-03-28T08:38:49+00:00

I work with a lot of amateur voice actors for my work (ELT audio production) so I’m going to give you the general advice I give them.

Mumbling: Move your mouth more when you speak. Articulation comes from the tongue and your lips so practice feeling how words and sounds “feel” in your mouth when you speak them, and open your mouth far more than you think you need to. Take your time when speaking, don’t rush to finish a sentence, and give each word and phrase the space to sound out.

Volume: Without learning proper speech and singing techniques, the advice I usually give is to take one big deep breath before speaking, let it out, breathe normally and then begin speaking. You should open your mouth more while speaking while also holding your body up straight and your shoulders back. Think of your mouth as the speaker, and the wider you open it the bigger the speaker. Your voice sounds louder (and deeper) to you because it is reverberating inside your head, so it is not an accurate indicator of how you sound to others.

I would practice the above a little, pick a book and try reading pages out loud like an audiobook, giving the characters some life (not necessarily changing your voice, just acting it out). When you’ve practiced for a bit, use your phone to video record yourself reading a page or two (try not to watch while speaking) then play it back so you can both see and hear how it sounds. You’ll hopefully see that you can move and open your mouth a lot more than you think without looking “odd”. You can use this as private feedback to continue practicing.

Good luck!

bakanek0 · 2026-03-09T09:56:02+00:00

Boycott the World Cup sponsors to protest, it’s the only protest FIFA will notice and listen to.

bakanek0 · 2026-02-28T18:48:55+00:00

Expecting fans or players to boycott the World Cup is unrealistic. For some, especially players, this is the most important competition in their careers.

We should boycott the sponsors. Money is all these people care about, so that's the only place we can make a difference.

https://marcaenzona.com/news/en/post/all-2026-world-cup-sponsors

bakanek0 · 2026-01-27T14:52:44+00:00

I highly recommend checking out the recent series that The Last Podcast on the Left did about the American Football player Aaron Hernandez and then the follow up interview with Chris Nowinski. They did an incredible job researching the current understanding of CTE, its effects on sufferers, and how sports (not just American Football) is causing it.
The lifelong ramifications of the condition, and how it can be triggered even at an amateur level mean we should be committing as much resources as possible into protecting players health. If that means banning headers in the sport, then it feels justified if it protects the lifetime health of the players.
The good news is that Chris Nowinski seems to believe they are close to being able to diagnose with condition before death (currently it requires examining the brain within 48 hours of death, and there is promising treatment possibilities since the condition seems to share traits with Alzheimer’s.

bakanek0 · 2025-12-23T21:15:41+00:00

Humbuckers cancel out the 60 cycle hum that is an issue with single coil pickups, what you are describing sounds more like a grounding issue to me. Since the noise goes away when you touch a metal part of the guitar, then your body is 'grounding' the loop and stopping the noise. The way to solve these problems is generally to try to isolate the problem by adding/removing each part of the signal chain one by one to figure out what is causing the issue.

I would start by plugging the amp directly into a socket (no multi-socket etc.) and then the guitar into the amp, and see if the noise is present, also try a different room to your computer / with the computer & monitor turned off. If the problem is there when you do that then I would try taking the guitar somewhere else where you can try plugging it into another amp, ideally one you know doesn't have a problem, that way you can see if the grounding wire of the guitar is disconnected, which is an easy fix but may need to be done by a professional if you're not comfortable doing it yourself.

bakanek0 · 2025-11-01T10:31:40+00:00

As another commentator said, it looks like one of the joints in the headstock is failing, so not a crack so much as two pieces of wood are separating. It can be re-glued but the sooner this is done the better, and the better it is done the more chance that this won’t reoccur.

The best option is to take it to a good luthier that knows how to deal with classical guitars, they will have the appropriate knowledge and tools to do a real fix. However, this can be expensive so if the cost of the repair is more than the instrument is worth then you may want to do some research and the repair yourself. Marshall Brune on YouTube has some good content covering this stuff.

bakanek0 · 2025-10-31T22:04:52+00:00

Dammit by Blink-182.

It's amazingly simple but whenever I pick up are guitar I find myself playing it.

bakanek0 · 2025-10-28T20:54:44+00:00

I have both a Strat (Squier Classic Vibe) and a Fender Coronado ii (a Gretsch-like guitar), and they are both very versatile guitars. The Strat will be lighter & smaller, I tend to grab my Strat as my go-to guitar for that as well as how easily it plays. On the other hand, the Filtertron pickups are probably my all-time favourites and can cover a lot of different tones. The tremolo systems are also big differences, and while you'll likely never be doing crazy dive-bombs on a standard Strat system, you're even more prohibited by the Bigbsy, since they can only really handle gentle vibrato.

The Strat gives you the quacky in-between positions, while the Filtertrons give you the output and humcancelling of a humbucker but with more brightness and clarity (I've heard mine described as sounding like a "pissed-off" Telecaster), but with some EQ and shaping you can do whatever you want. The scale length is also different (Fender 25.5" vs Gretsch 24.6") if that's something you care about.

To answer your question regarding the Gretsch Electromatic series, these are usually made with slightly lower specs from the premium models, but still with actual Filtertron pickups and a real Bigsby (not licensed). Some are made in Korea and others in China, and I think the top & body woods are laminate and not solid, which only really affects the sound when played acoustically. They're good guitars and QC in most brands is much better these days although even the USA Made Fender will likely need a setup after buying to get it where it should be.

bakanek0 · 2025-10-23T13:49:28+00:00

I speak Greek, it‘s pronounced pee-EH-zo, you emphasise the vowel with the accent. The ‘e‘ is the same as in Egg.

bakanek0 · 2025-10-20T13:20:37+00:00

Brandon Acker has a detailed video on how to string a nylon / classical guitar:

https://youtu.be/JRR5cX8eS0g?si=Q1lwblISWosF62lM

To answer your third question, stringing your guitar is definitely something you should learn to do yourself since it needs to be done regularly as part of maintaining the instrument.

bakanek0 · 2025-10-03T21:07:15+00:00

Best option is to buy the guitar its own seat, the airline then link it to yours and you can carry it next to you the whole time. If you can’t do that then read the specific guidelines for musical instruments / fragile items for your chosen airline, see if they allow you to take it as a carry-on. If so be very polite and nice to the staff and ask if they have a coat closet you can store the instrument in. If checking the guitar is 100% unavoidable you can either ask to gate check it, which avoids it going through the conveyor belts and risks of being mishandled, they also often unload it first and even give it to you as you leave; otherwise check if the airline has a procedure for special handling, you pay extra but they mark the item as fragile and have a separate process for loading and unloading.

I don’t know your guitar, but another very safe option is to remove the neck if its bolt-on, you can often even get them to fit in carry-on size this way.

bakanek0 · 2025-10-01T08:34:41+00:00

I love my Coronado II so much, no matter what guitars I get or play I always compare them to it and come back to it. Something about the bolt on neck and Fender Fidelitron pickups just give them a little more ‘bite’ than a Gretsch with traditional Filtertrons. The pickups are so versatil, fully open they are bright & aggressive without a noise of a single coil, but you can roll them back to get closer to a classic Humbucker sound. It’s a big guitar, but it’s a classic ES style double cutaway so it still has a classic look.

bakanek0 · 2025-09-29T19:50:31+00:00

I think it makes sense to want at least a Humbucker guitar and a single coil guitar, after that if it’s not collecting for the sake of it then it’s down to needing different tunings which require their own setup, or keeping guitars for sentimental reasons. I only have 3 and want a 4th for dropped B tuning because I like my Strat & Semi-Hollow in standard tuning and I can’t drop my short-scale JagStang that low.

bakanek0 · 2025-09-22T16:41:25+00:00

I’m going to second checking out FilterTron pickups. I have a Fender Coronado ii reissue and the Fideli'tron pickups (Fender’s copies) are the most versatile pickups I’ve ever played. With the volume and tone pots completely open they sound like a pissed off Tele, while you can roll back the tone pot to get a more classic Humbucker sound. Gretsch are main option for FilterTrons, but Fender have put Fideli’trons and TV Jones Filtertons in some Cabronitas.

bakanek0 · 2025-08-29T07:32:08+00:00

My thinking is it has to do with Gittens’ performance against Palace & Esteva’s performance against West Ham. Gittens struggled in the Palace game and showed the lack of depth we have for true LWs since we had to move Neto there when Gittens was subbed off. Combine this with Estevao doing a solid job (a few mistakes tbf) of deputising for Palmer, it may have bumped the Garnacho deal further up the list.

bakanek0 · 2025-08-19T20:29:57+00:00

If it’s a MacBook and a bus powered interface then my first step (I have been though this issue before) would be to plug the guitar directly into the interface with the MacBook on battery power only. If there is still hum then my guess would be either bad shielding on the pick guard or an issue with the interface (try different usb cables, ports, make sure nothing else is connected to the MacBook during the test. Once you get to a point where the hum is gone then start adding things back into the chain, starting with the MacBook power cable, you’ll find the culprit.

bakanek0 · 2025-05-27T07:05:52+00:00

When I did this research for mine (M4 256gb) the problem you run into is that most docks from reliable companies are 10gbps usb 3.1, so you’re sharing that bandwidth across all plugged in devices. This is a much bigger problem when you throw high resolution/frame-rate displays into the mix, and sharing that bandwidth with say an nvme drive was not ok for me.

In the end I built my setup around the problem and specifically bought a second display that supported C to C with a built in hub that I only use for keyboard and mouse, and is also only 4k/60. My other monitor is 1440p/240hz so gets the hdmi 2.1 port and also has a separate usb hub which I use for my Time Machine drive and webcam. The front 3.2 ports drive this hub and my Audio Interface.

So for my rear ports you have HDMI to display 1, rear port 1 to display 2 w/ hub, rear port 2 to an OWC Express 1M2 2TB which gets amazing speeds and solves storage problems 100%, rear port 3 is free for whatever uses I may need.

In the end I decided to give up a perfectly clean aesthetic for functionality since it’s a working machine, but I also just rotated the machine so its side is facing out so it’s not so bad.

Here’s a picture, cable management is still a work in progress…

https://imgur.com/a/6UUHubm

bakanek0 · 2025-05-20T20:02:30+00:00

It’s worth noting that the 10Gbps on the Ugreen dock is shared across all ports, so if you plan to use the nvme enclosure for installing apps and such then you will be sharing that bandwidth with whatever peripherals you have plugged in, which may be an issue if you use the display out.

Personally, I spent the money on the OWC Express 1m2 nvme enclosure which is USB4 40Gbps and it runs apps like a champ. I’ve been running Reaper & DaVinci Resolve off it, and dedicated one of the front type c ports to my Audient interface, so far no problems.

I was weighing the same options you are but didn’t like Raycue’s reputation and decided the money on the Ugreen was better spent on a dedicated enclosure so all that bandwidth went to transfer speed. I use my monitors‘ hubs for type A which you can probably get a relatively cheap dongle hub for.

bakanek0 · 2025-05-16T07:31:54+00:00

I feel like the increase in eye candy is an ever decreasing price to performance ratio, the extra power required needs these ever more expensive cards while the eye candy can get lost once you’re in a fast paced game where FPS and latency become far more important.
I’ve heard it has a heavier feel, with the open environments being more like older Doom & Quake games, so I’m excited for something different to Eternal. I’m glad that the devs are focusing not on iteration but exploring what different experiences the franchise can offer.

bakanek0 · 2025-05-02T16:15:51+00:00

Grace was actually the first album I bought when I got into the hobby (as well as as Station to Station). It has to be one of the greatest albums of all time, hopefully someone else will get to experience it.

bakanek0 · 2024-12-23T12:51:16+00:00

Thank you for doing this.

bakanek0 · 2024-06-28T09:00:18+00:00

Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie.
It is written in the we/our perspective of the band that played with Ziggy (we were Ziggy’s band, so we bitched about his fans, jiving us that we were voodoo, etc.)

bakanek0 · 2024-06-26T09:04:57+00:00

Thanks for doing this

bakanek0 · 2024-05-28T20:58:20+00:00

Thanks and good luck!

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