satrimaniac, excuse me? what did I do to deserve THAT? nevermind - no biggie, I'll let you know this - I am not furious about anything!

for your info, I can't stand Britney Spears or N'SYNC. It's not my kind of 'music'. No my girlfriend never met my best friend so no sex goin on between those 2. And I don't give a flying f*ck about football. If Zidane raped England in euro 2004 then good for Zidane, anything to make the football hooligans look stupid is a good thing, in my book.

If you want to further this discussion then feel free to do so in private, but i'm certainly not going to waste boardspace and community-members time by having a multi-page argument with you.

I haven't listened to Cool #9 for a while.....good suggestion, thanks!

update: What's all this "i'm not from Irak" business? It would be very easy for people to take that as a racist comment

dragonchild, regards Scott Henderson - I know very little about him i'm afraid! I have both of Gregg and Matt Bissonette's project albums, and on the first one, Scott plays 2 tracks. I once listened to some stuff on one of his solo records in a branch of Borders, but I don't remember any titles or names. That was when I couldn't appreciate how useful it would be to buy that album and listen to some Jazz-Fusion for a change! hehe.

He's certainly well practiced and plays some really interesting stuff. I haven't heard of Steve Henderson....maybe they're brothers?! hehe. I'll let you know when I finally find out more about Scott!

Master Yoda, spelling, overrated? damn right man! fcuk that siht indeed my frined! haha

It's a High-Pass Filter. It's basic function is that when you roll the volume back, you wont loose the higher frequencies. try it....keep it down and roll the volume back and you'll hear the tone loose clarity. Pull it up and the highers tonal frequencies will come back in about 80% of their former glory, it's pretty good.

he's just too good. I suggest everybody picks up a copy of "The Spoken And The Unspoken" as soon as possible, and get "That Was Then, This Is Now" too, if, for some crazy reason, you don't have it already.

Ethn, AvP is out already? Was it worth the long wait? I can't wait to see it, it's such a cool concept, and the Predator is just the daddy!

Music these days is nothing to do with playing stuff, learning stuff, being good at something - all that seems to matter is how many pre-teens you can hire to shake their ass at the front of a camera for the music video. God I detest Beynoce Knowles. I mean, apart from anything else, who looks at their new-born baby daughter and thinks "Beyonce. Yeah she looks like a Beyonce. I think we'll call her Beyonce"?!?

Anyway, back to my point - I think it's an unfortunate truth that the music industry and the general music-listening public don't give a shit about decent musicians. But, there's this whole rock era that's being revived (you know, the guys with the mandatory Fender Jaguars and obscure amps that nobodys heard of) who play stuff thinking it's never been done before, just because it actually happened the first time before they were born! So yeah, it'll probably swing back round to semi-hair-metal where people will start talking about this amazing new guy Eddie Van Halen, and this other amazing new guy David Lee Roth, and they'll be 2 of the richest OAP's on the planet.

bahduh, I dunno if beyonce has big breasts - all you ever see is her ass, she's constantly shakin it in yer face.

Astral Fishing, Duende, Farmer Sez, Groove Or Die, I Remember Stevie, Slips Away - if you listen to those 6 tracks one after the other, you'll see what I mean! These are all by the same guy?! Sh*t!!

Spaceresearcher, no, no Euro-G3 DVD. I can't blame em either - I wouldn't release a DVD where a 1/4 of the show comprises an ignorant bunch of f*ckwits for an audience, booing because the performer wasn't playing shred..

If Joe should happen to choose Andy Timmons for the next G3, that'd make an excellent DVD!

Master Yoda, hmm, if it's the standard sound card that came with the PC then the best it's going to be is Sound Blaster Audigy! nevermind. Do you know much about midi and audio-recording sound cards?

Check out M-Audio cards on GAK. They've got some of them - the best to go for is a firewire card cause firewire is the quickest data transfer speed, but that requires that you have a firewire connection on your PC. If not, they do some USB cards which ought to do the trick.

Master Yoda, sorry I was thinking in terms of external sound cards. yeah PCI is probably quicker since it's a direct circuit connection, but external sound cards seem to work better for some reason.

A mate of mine uses an M-Audio card. His PC is only an 800mhz AMD Duron or something low like that, SDRAM, not DDR, you know...nothing special. He has a MIDI keyboard plugged into the M-Audio card, and we recorded my guitar into it, all with 0 latency. I've used machines with internal cards at college and they were never that smooth and responsive.

My suggestion would be M-Audio Firewire card, 4 or 8 track mixer so you can mic guitars as well as using line-in with out the audio clipping, and like you said, a Korg Midi Keyboard cause they f*ck*n rock man!!

Trust me on this....I know, I know bugger-all about guitar playing and I sure as hell ain't a good guitarist, but i'm learning loads quickly, about recording setups!

Delfino, haha, I should be watching that...sounds fun. Yippee, TV is getting good again - last night was Without A Trace and The Sopranos, tonight it's Average Joe....it's the last one tho :-(

haha, have you seen it? it's hilarious!

Phrydom, the bit about PCI and firewire was meant for you!

In terms of pure speed, I think Optical is the quickest connection. That said, flash RAM is pretty f*ck*ng quick. But for the purposes of connecting a sound card, I rate firewire.

You can, of course, get external modules which have a card in, which connects to a PCI card on one of the motherboard slots, so it's effectively using 2 cards!

Delfino, as sad as that sounds....dude, I haven't missed one either! Haha...i'll get me coat!

I couldn't believe she took the pretty boy at the end! So unfair on adam. Nevermind, it is just a show. Adam was f*ck*n hilarious tho!

Cryptonite, Joe seems to use his Chrome JS's the most, although the new JS1200 is getting more exposure - I still sense the 'Chromeboy' has the edge tho!

The JS100 is a cut-down version of the JS1000. It uses the same basic body shape, but the neck finish and especially the fretboard, have a lot more attention paid to them on the JS1000, 1200 and 2000. Also, the higher-end models get DiMarzio pickups and altered electronics, giving the true tonal features that Joe wanted engineered into his guitars. On top of that, they also get the better hardware - a more stable bridge, which is key to maintaining the setup which Joe needs to be able to exploit all the functions of his guitar.

Of course, retail prices are hugely inflated over production costs - a shop pays about half as much for a guitar as what their customer pays, but that's just the way it works. It all works out that if you want the full-featured guitar the same as Joe uses, you gotta pay more!

Delfino, haha, yeah, and hoovering too. That and ironing - all mothers understand those, although I don't know where i'd draw the similarity between ironing and guitars.....hmm! hehe, bless my mother, I love her really, and yeah TASTEY, you're absolutely right, mothers are really important!

by the way, dude...your dad was grooving out to Champagne? fair play to him, that's what I say! It's cool when your dad rocks with your stuf....just goes to show how great Joe is!

Suzie2000, I have an Ibanez Jem for sale under £1200!

Yeah SG is good, but then so is a really decent Strat, like American Deluxe Strat (£1100) or 57 Re-issue Strat, (also £1100).

£1200 will get you a JS1000 from the right seller, a second-hand Jem (like mine) or a high-end non-signature Ibanez, like a Prestige S Series, or RG.

Check www.gak.co.uk for a comprehensive price list from a lot of companies. You need to have an idea of what kind of sound and feel you want from your guitar, cause Gibson, Fender and Ibanez all breed very different animals!

oops, I just read Austin's post - he has the explanation you're after! haha

rant over

Dynamodoug, I think the Ibanez JS's have 22 frets cause Joe only wanted them to have 22 frets. Jem build quality is just as good as the JS too, and it's more consistent, but the JS is a better designed guitar. I would guess Joe went for the 22-fret design cause he wanted to keep it more strat-esque, and maintain the openness you get in the upper register with a 21 or 22 fret neck. 24's can feel slightly more cramped, and this was the major difference I noticed between JS and Jem

In feel.....the JS is really comfortable. It's light, the body and neck fit so nicely and you feel relaxed playing it. It's got good tone and a nice electronic setup. The tone is really natural and smooth. It'll really adapt to the changes that you make, like volume selection and how hard you pick at the strings.

I can't give an experience-based opinion on an SG, but I know they they are heavy, yes, but sound great. They have equally good tone, although it's probably not quite as smooth. The 335 was the smooth-toned guitar for Gibson, while the SG was the more aggressive, natural distortion sound. if you want a really Joe-like sound, then tonally the JS would obvously be the better choice. If you want a dirtier, more ballsy sound then definitely the SG. You'll also notice the SG neck will feel different. You'd really benefit from spending a good half hour or 45 minutes playing all sorts of different things on both guitars, if the people selling will let you!

Suzie, no problem! Enjoy, and let us know how you get on, what conclusions you come to! By the way....you been playing classical guitar for years? damn you! haha, only kidding. I wish i'd learned something comprehensive like classical or flamenco before I tried playing electric, i'd be good if I had! hehe

Austin, some people have been here since the red album? crazy...that's 8 years! Do these people still post?

take it easy bro!

UF Dean, thanks, it's nice to know those exercises will be useful! using the same idea of putting down your fingers in really strange sequences, you can make up your own patterns too. Iworked out a couple of others the other day, but I didn't include them cause they're too hard, and you'd never find any use for them, when actually playing! hehe

The current project that me and my working partner are producing is generically completely different to anything guitar related. We didn't record any guitars in it, it's much more electronic, but it's cool and it all sounds fantastic. I'm hoping the complete break from anything guitar-related will refresh me and help me come up with some new ideas!