I bought my gee-tar! Yee ha! (with picts) (1 Viewer)

[Francois Caron]

I was able to purchase my guitar this evening, a Godin Exit-22 S with mahogany body, rock maple neck and 22 fret maple fingerboard. Along with the guitar, I also bought a Fender Frontman amp model 15R, a Digiflex CPP-15 cable, a spare set of Godin guitar strings, a neck strap, a guitar stand (a model commonly used by the store), and a few assorted picks. I still need to purchase a tuning fork.

Here's a picture of the main elements.



A close-up of the pick-ups. Two single coils and one humbucker. The bridge is fixed.



An image of the cable (sorry, slightly fuzzy). I bought this one because the cable itself is a Canare GS-6 guitar cable. And I use Canare cables for my home theater's interconnects.



This is the back of the gig bag. There's a second pocket behind the fishnet pocket at the bottom, and there's a second pocket behind the front top pocket.



This is the front of the gig bag with the shoulder straps. There's yet another pocket behind it.



The gig bag is truly impressive. There are plenty of pockets, there are handles all over the place, and it even includes a shoulder strap for carrying it on your side. This is NOT a cheap throwaway bag they're giving you here! This bag has a lot of value in it!

The guitar came pre-tuned from the store and sounded great when one of the clerks demoed it for me last night. There's enough sonic flexibility in the guitar to play pretty much anything that may interest me.

The guitar with the gig bag cost me $450 CDN plus tax. The amp cost me $170 CDN plus tax. All in all, an excellent deal.

But now I have to learn how to play this guitar. Time to practice my scales! My neighbours are going to HATE me!

Again, thanks for all your help.

 

[Mike Brogan]

Looks nice, good luck.

I'd recommend getting an electric tuner instead of a tuning fork. You can get one for under $10 (US) and it plugs right into your guitar.

 

[Francois Caron]

Mike, any brands you would recommend? I'll be heading back to the store probably today.

A follow-up on the amp, they didn't have any Roland or Crate models on hand. They did have a small Marshall amp, but they steered me towards the Fender models instead. We tried one with reverb and one without. It sounded reasonable. The price difference between the two was only thirty bucks.

Also, I didn't find the Flip-It On Stage stand as was recommended by Jeff. But the no-name brand they use themselves is of reasonable quality and does have a locking strap around the neck.

 

[Philip_G]

Cool!
keep us posted on how the lessons go.

 

[Philip Hamm]

That guitar is goregeous!!! Congratulations.

My advice is to spend less time on scales and more time on chords. What would you rather play, solos or songs? Knowing chords is much more useful for a playing guitarrist, and using chord tones can be really effective in soloing, moreso than ramping up and down scales.

The best tuner I've ever used (including very expensive rack mount ones) is a $14.99 Korg. Picks up the low "B" on my 5 and 6 string basses instantly. AVOID "Quick Tune" tuners, just about anything else is perfect. Forks work great for acoustic guitars, but not really for electric.

You can't go wrong with a Fender practice amp IMO.

Practice practice practice!!!!!

 

[Mike Brogan]

Francois,
I use a Korg GA30 for my acoustic, electric and bass guitars and have had no problems. Like I said, it's cheap (I think I paid $9.95 for it) and beats tuning by ear. And if you do want to do it audibly it also gives you a tone for each sting. There are more expensive Chromatic tuners out there, Korg also makes these. I'm not an expert on them so you might want to search the net for a good guitar gear review site. Anyway, here's a link to what I have.

Korg GA30

 

[Philip_G]

these two threads make me want to buy a guitar

 

[Philip_T]

Sweet!
Nice looking guitar Francois. Of course, you know, Smoke on the Water has to be the 1st song you learn.
I can still remember my 1st guitar. What a POS. I think the strings were actually from a power line. The thing was homemade, never stayed in tune and had no paint. I much prefer my current guitar.


Good luck with your new toy!

Edit: found a better picture, but mines red.

 

[Zen Butler]

Very cool Francois. Looks very nice. My main electric is a 1985 Carvin v220, it's extremely heavy. Ebony fretboard. I replaced that lame Kahler Tremelo system years ago with a Badass fixed bridge. Mine is very similar to the one below, minus the "whammy bar" set-up. Should post a pic.

 

[Evan M.]

Looks GREAT!! Congratulations!! You must be psyched!

I agree that starting out learning the basic open major and minor chords is the way to go at first. Once you get them down....and it won't be long if you practice....then you can move up to the dreaded bar chords and then scales. Scales ARE very important to learn for electric guitar......but should stay on the back burner for the first few weeks. I think I remember you saying you have a background in music so I am sure you know how to read music....or at least understand it. If you do not know than LEARN!! I regret not doing it right off. I am blessed with a great ear but a great ear will only get you so far. Once I learned how to read (basic learning) things went to a new level.

And yes...Smoke on the Water or Peter Gun will probably come first LOL . Ironicaly though with Smoke on the Water people learn it (basic) on the E string by doing open, 3rd fret 5th fret....open 3rd, 6th, 5th....open 3rd, 5th, 3rd, open. But the REAL way to play it is on 2 totaly different strings. Once you llearn that than peter gun is really the same notes. You'll have a blast.....no matter how frustrating it gets though....STICK WITH IT!!!!

In looking at everything you have I might make one small recommendation. That looks like a great case but when you start bringing the guitar places more often get a hard shell case. Nothing is more painful than walking down a hallway with a softshell case, turning a corner and basing the neck on a door or wall!! Best of luck to you!!

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Congratulations on getting your guitar.

I agree about getting a hard case if you plan on moving the intrument around much. The soft cases have no support for the neck or headstock.

The Flip-it stands seem to be hard to find in Canada now. I cleaned out Long & McQuade's west coast stock a couple of years ago when they told me they couldn't get them anymore.

Smoke on the Water is played in G.

 

[Zen Butler]

Yeah that is always funny. Everyone "knows how to play it," but few do it correctly. It's actually in F#. Hey, but when your just starting, everything starts in the key of E.

 

[Randy Tennison]

May we have a moment's silence in memory of my acoustic guitar.

I hadn't played in a long time, so I pulled out my Applause 12 string out of the case. It is not just a prop.

It has about 8 cracks in the top, and the foam rubber in the case had disentigrated, and stuck to the guitar. The strings that were left were basically rusticals.

We were joking that if I tried to put 12 strings back on it, it would probably collapse under the tension.

SIGH. :frowning: It did me well during my college years.

 

[Francois Caron]

Man this thing is hard to photograph! You can't use a flash head-on because of the finish. Even at an angle or without a flash, it's still a bit of a problem. At least if I'm ever marooned on a deserted island, I can use this thing to signal planes!



Got the Korg CA-30 tuner as suggested (the recommendation was for a GA-30, but I forgot to bring the paper ii was written on). Found out the entire guitar was off by half a note. I guess when a guitar is on display at a store, people tend to "retune" it to their liking. Once I retuned it properly, the Korg tuner still showed each string was perfectly tuned even when played one octave higher. So the store did properly adjust the bridge assembly.

I won't need a hard case for now since I won't be traveling with it any time soon. It's good enough for short trips but that's about it. If I do travel long distances, I will get a better case.

"Smoke in the Water"... Reminds me of that Kids in the Hall sketch where Billy is challenged by the devil. He plays "Smoke in the Water" and spells out the notes out loud! "E, A, B..."

Told the staff at work I was going to be "plucking" all weekend long. One person thought I was talking about a turkey!

 

[ChuckSolo]

Guys, ANY song can be played in ANY key. You just need to transpose it. The reason to change keys is so that you can play it in a key that you can sing in. Or, you can get a capo. Although I wouldn't recommend a capo on a solid body electric guitar.

 

[Tim Hoover]

Francois, the CA-30 is the exact same tuner as the GA-30, only it is completely chromatic and thusly can be used for any pitch. I have 3 of them myself - a very good tuner...

 

[Keith Paynter]

Sorry Zen, but SOTW is actually in the key of "G"

I prefer the Korg GA-30, not the CA-30. A Chromatic tuner is fine if you know what you're doing, but giving a beginner a chromatic tuner (which only operates in semi-tones within one octave when it plays back the tone for reference) versus giving someone a dedicated guitar tuner (where each string tone is correct in pitch and 3 octaves - very important -) is kind of like asking a child who has never known color before to paint something red. I'm not kidding - I've had customers come in and can't for the life of them figure out a chromatic tuner someone sold them and they say they keep breaking strings.

Besides the GA-30 can be dropped to up to 5 semi-tones, so if you want to play all those classic KISS songs properly in open chords, you just drop the tuner a semitone and your entire guitar tuning appears as E,B,G,D,A,E, but sounds correct as Eb, Bb, Gb, Db, Ab and Eb. BTW, did you know that Paul McCartney wrote 'Yesterday' in 'G' but transposed the guitar down a whole tone (F) when recording it?

BTW, excellent choice, Francois, and good luck!

 

[Evan M.]

"Guys, ANY song can be played in ANY key. You just need to transpose it. The reason to change keys is so that you can play it in a key that you can sing in. Or, you can get a capo. Although I wouldn't recommend a capo on a solid body electric guitar. "


EXACTLY!!!! Thank you for beating me to the punch. When my band does some classic hits like "Old Time Rock and Roll"... we play it in a MUCH lower key as the singer can't hit the notes that Segar does it in. Heck, just about every cover tune we do we transpose. It is almost amusing when people debate the key of a song......you notice singers NEVER debate the key. They just say..."sorry, can't hit it, play it downa key."

 

[Keith Paynter]

Bands still play that song??? :b (I gave that one up 10 years ago, and I played that one in 'A', nearly a full octave lower, but we merged it with "Back In The USSR, which made it more tolerable)

Let me qualify:

The original SOTW is actually in the key of "G". Most people learn how to play songs in their original keys, either from books or by ear (neither is 100% accurate). Performance is sometimes another matter - I've heard young kids in beginner rock bands try to perform hard rock songs in their original keys and the singer doesn't have the same vocal range, power - or talent - but the musicians just don't have the ability to play these songs in keys that the singer can actually handle because they haven't learned proper musicianship.

 

[Evan M.]

"Bands still play that song??? "


LOL!! Yeah, I know what you mean...but honestly I do like the song simply because if nobody is into the music we are playing....we'll rip into that song and everybody is up and dancing. I guess a lot of what we play depends on where and who we are playing for.