"Don't believe anything any musician tells you until you've done your own research because musicians are all all idiots and I hate guitar players" As someone with several decades of experience as a professional musician, I have to say: yes. 100%. Liked and subscribed.
I'm very happy that I haven't got a brother to play with, but more than that, that I don't have to share my weirder cabinet with. And, by the way, my grandmother was Twins, she loved to visit Saint Quentin, that way she could hired cheaper workers and make more money out of her mining compound, such a compromised reality, and then call it fresh air, since the Twin Towers collapsed, not simply a resting hourglass. Namastè.
I agree, beginners shouldn't start with just any cheap pieces of gear they can get their hands on. Go into a store(if possible) and find something that is comfortable to play. Seems every person has a different preference to guitar shape so people should find the one that fits them.
100% agree on the cheap gear chapter. I started off on cheap second-hand guitars & while it was nice to be able to play/learn, I always felt limited just from all the problems they would have and/or generate over time. I eventually traded in a Peavey rock master towards a new Epiphone G400 pro and not only was I blown away by the obvious change in quality but it reignited my love of playing guitar. I eventually saved up for a 2011 Gibson Explorer and it's the same thing all over again. Cheap is okay but if you can afford it, get that mid-range instrument
Here's my take on each of the myths. Myth #1 - Partially true. I do use a locking/tying method for restringing without locking tuners that definitely works really well for me, I do prefer locking tuners for convenience but my method serves me well. However from my experience tuning stability for bending is better with locking tuners, but when it comes to whammy bar action I don't hear any difference in stability. Myth #2 - Definitely false. For bedroom playing I don't even play with an amp at all, I play with headphones and amp sims at home. For jamming at a party with a song in the background and a bunch of friends singing a Boss Katana Mini battery amp is perfect. For keeping up with a band a 15W tube amp or a 50W solid state/digital amp definitely works, and for live performance front of house systems are much more advanced nowadays that I just use my amp sims live. and the last time I used an amp live it was a mic'd Fender tube combo that wasn't even turned up to 4 lol Myth #3 - As far as lemons go, it's funny as fuck. As far as damaging fretboards go, it depends on the fretboard and if it's finished or not. Lemon oil destroys the finish on a maple fretboard more than damaging the fretboard itself, plus finished maple fretboards on Fenders for example don't even need hydrating/conditioning. To clean them you just need a credit card :D Myth #4 - Partially true. Big hands are definitely benificial but not needed. I have average hands and I can play pretty fast, Stevie T has small hands and he's an insane shredder, and Django Reinhardt only had 2 working fingers and he could easily shred these Gypsy Jazz licks :D Myth #5 - Definitely false. I personally don't really hear the difference between true bypass and buffered bypass. I've heard some people who say that having a bunch of true bypass pedals sucks your tone but I don't think the difference is as big as people say it is. My favorite solution is to have a mixture of buffered and true bypass pedals. On my 9 pedal board I have a TC Polytune 3 with a buffer and an 82' Boss CE3 chorus with a buffer, the rest of my pedals are true bypass and my rig is even going through a Kaoss pad on my desk that goes right between my preamp pedal and my chorus. Myth #6 - Definitely false. Beginners should buy whatever they want and whatever they can. If they're willing to invest a lot of money into it who am I to stop them?
For the last point I absolutely agree with you. I've been playing for around 6 years now and haven't owned a guitar worth more than 500 dollars until just recently when I bought a Strandberg. It's the best guitar I've ever played and revitalized my enjoyment of the instrument. Starting on cheaper gear makes sense if you want an easy way into the hobby, but eventually I think buying a guitar in the $700-1000 range will get rid of a lot of frustrations with cheaper guitars and make the playing experience way more fun. Edit: Just to compare costs with other hobbies, a decent combo amp like a Boss Katana 50 paired with a guitar ~$750 would only be around 1000 total, maybe less if you get them secondhand or used. That's a super good deal considering other hobbies have 1000 as a BASELINE entry point if it's not higher than that, for instance a decent entry-level camera setup for hobbyist photography might run you close to $1000.
Great point, too many people think music is an extremely expensive hobby, when in reality other hobbies cost way more to get into. Even something as generic as biking. You need a bike first, and bikes are expensive.
I totally agree with you on the lemon oil. But just for info, the zest of the lemon (or any citrus fruit) contains oil, and it is actually too sour. I am aware that this is not in dunlop oil because the real stuff actually smells and tastes great
Locking tuners definitely don't improve tuning stability, but I love them because I love being able to change strings in just a few minutes. Plus, I don't really like the look of the excess string wrapped around the tuning post which is obviously just an aesthetic preference.
I'm sure someone already made this comment, but its recommended for your first guitar to be a cheap one is because investing a lot of money into a hobby you never had before isn't ideal, since if you play the guitar for a while and decided it wasn't for you, you won't regret spending a lot of money on it. Of course, if you KNOW you will love playing guitar without playing it, then you can spend the money.
But you're much more likely to think playing guitar just isn't for you if you start on some piece of junk. Luckily affordable gear has been getting better and better, making this less of an issue.
Tbh a good Mexican strat is a keeper. You can defo get a really good squier too but the chances of that happening are very rare. I have heavily modded my bullet strat and i plan on getting it refretted but that's only because of the sentimental value of having played it for hours on end and learning some of my first riffs and solos. The amount of time and money I've spent on making it play like it does today would probably be much better spent on a more expensive instrument. But hey I got to learn how to set up and mod guitars by myself so it's not that bad lol.
I have 3 guitars, 2 with floyds, 0 with locking tuners. Floyds stay in "tune" cause of the locking nut, they're double locking, at the nut and the bridge, that's what double locking tremolo means. Just make sure you get the string right on the peg and it'll lock itself anyway (for guitars with a normal nut)
The guy who taught me everything I've forgotten has smaller hands than Donald Trump, and he's up there with the greats. I was the roadie for Metalworks in London 90s-02-3 when we had Richie Faulkner, Pete Friesen, Les Binks and all the other guys, but our best player was Steve Forward. You'll find him here on YT.
Well about the cheap gear thing I would agree with you until a few years ago. Now there are great cheap instruments. Harley Benton, for example. Shit, even Squier has improved their quality to amazing levels.
@@sixstringtv1 they go up to that, but I'm talking about the 200 area, especially HB. My CsT24HB cost me 250 and it's a fucking machine for the price. Before that I had a Tele style that cost me 160 and was also sooooo amazing (for the price) v
I'd always suggest new players to save and get good advice from people without a stake, get a total setup with fret-dressing, edge-rolling, bringing whatever guitar up to gigging standards, and with modern technology, something like the NuX mighty plug pro. I wish I'd had such things available in the 90s, you've got everything at your fingertips these days, it's almost daunting for me!
Actually a real lemon oil does not contain citric acid at all, so all those tests with litmus papers are complete bullshit. I think Dunlop use some mineral oil with some lemon fragrances. It could have easily been some another fragrance. Why they do that is a good question comparable with that one why the deodorants smell like pomegranates or "water lilies" (never smelled one of those) whereas their main task is to prevent you from sweating.
The small hands thing always gets me. The amount of times ive had people say they can't play guitar because their hands are too small, and then held my hand up to theirs for them to discover we have the same size hands...
You dont need true bypass nor do you need buffered bypass. That may seem a bit counter productive, it all comes down to how much cable you use. The longer the cable the more capacitance, meaning the guitar signal gets degraded. A buffer is essentially a signal booster, like a booster for cable tv, so you have to ask yourself how much cable am I using? If youre only playing at home with a small amount of pedals, a buffered bypass isnt necessary. If youre in a band having to use like 60 feet of cable, yep, youre going to want a buffer.
On the cheep guitars for beginners topic i can attest to the fact that if you want someone to not play guitar buy a cheap one. When I was in 7th grade my dad both me the rocksmith bundle for ps3 with a Epiphone LP Junior (game + pc adaptor + guitar = 800ron = 200 euro - 75 euro (game + cable) => 125 euro rough estimate for the guitar) and I can attest to the fact that i started learning to play about 8 times since then but could not play for more then 1-2 weeks then take a break for 1 year. About a month ago I both a Jackson Pro Soloist, that has been in my local guitar shop since 2016 apparently :) and it is amazing and now I practice every day on it. Next up i'll w8 for my wage to buy a good practice amp, to replace my small Bugera BC15 (i think is called). Been thinking on a BOSS Katana Mk2 100w coz it sounded good when I had a friend demo the guitar on that amp in the shop.
Hi, My name is sixstring and I'm going to help you get better at guitar playing,.. First, let's sit down with no strap and play, "life is hard you know, strike a pose on a Cadillac." You are a poor example of a teacher, give bad advise, and if standing or sitting in front of me with that tone of language, I'd put you in that little red square on the top amp. Science says I can't, but I know I can.
Don’t agree with the locking tuners cause my PRS was shit until I got locking tuners which helped tremendously but I do agree with everything else especially the beginner cheap gear. I started with a beginner Ibanez package and was thinking of quitting a few months later until I got a new amp and a Mexican strat and it changed everything.
Im halfway through the video and commenting now. The hand size thing is a real excuse. Every single guitar player i have ever taught has told me that their hands are too small, or don't bend that way. Absolutely every single guitar player says that at first. That is hilarious.
a beginner should buy a decent 170$ and above guitar and have it set up by a luthier, not a 700 dollar guitar, it is stupid that you pulled that guitar out as an example,in my op.
This comment is probably in here already but I'm not going to look, fun fact, Lemon essential oil (which comes from the zest not the fruit) has no acidity.
Just found your channel by way of KDH & really like your content! The Kramer guitar vid is really cool too. But what I found genius level and thoroughly indulgent is the “superfan” tribute to that Ingo Momsting fella. KDH has the excerpt and truly, it’s fantastic, hilarious and relevant. Your channel is gonna be huge, I’ve subbed, and look forward to more awesomeness. #censorshipsucks too 😉🎸🤘
I’ll start by saying that’s a very respectable pedal board. But anyway to my real comment, i gigged with an orange dark micro heads one night because my head started acting crazy and wasn’t usable at all and i had the orange micro in my bag. So i said fuck it and went with it. It actually did good. I was very surprised. Nobody knew the difference really. I could tell for damn sure but the crowd didn’t know the difference.
Can confirm. The Micro Dark is dangerously loud. Also, I would be SO much better at guitar if I hadn’t attempted to play with utterly awful gear for years thinking I needed to earn the right to play well.
Myth #7...you should always start out on an acoustic guitar and move to electric when you have some experience...WHAT? If your whole reason to play is to shred, or play Angus riffs or whatever, playing an acoustic will just disappoint you... Very cool channel, sir...
I dunno man, cheap gear has come a long way. My contemporary telecaster actually feels better (to me, and for my hands) than my old Charvel pro mod. Sounds almost as good, obviously the switch and knobs and pickups are a bit worse. The neck pickup actually sounds better for clean stuff, when I'm playing at church. $300 vs $800. Mostly though, I love hardtail guitars and I didn't need the floyd rose 1000 on the san dimas.
I'm not saying affordable gear is bad at all, but more expensive gear is better (to a point of diminishing returns). If you can afford more expensive gear to begin with then go for it and use what you can afford!
Even if you can afford expensive gear, why not get bang-for-your-buck? I've been playing the same $170 used LTD for 7 years and it's problems haven't ruined my enjoyment of guitar. My $400 Kramer V is slightly worse but still fun to play.
I have always preached the same as you about beginners and cheap guitars... Go watch these prodigy asian kids on RU-vid, none of them have shitty guitars. Is it really needed? No, but it will definitely gives you an ace.
Lemon oil is pressed from the lemon peel and should not contain lemon juice. How so called lemon oils are made for cleaning or fretboards I don't know. Then there are essential oils which use the essence or scent of lemon added to oil, alcohol and other chemicals. Since products are made specifically to condition fretboards I would probably stick with those since they are made for that exact reason and are very inexpensive. I doubt Dunlop's "lemon oil" has anything that will harm it and probably is just an essence. I saw a channel where a guy had to clean a fret board because the owner had used olive oil. Don't use olive oil or any cooking oil for that matter.
The True Bypass myth I find particularly annoying. If you have a Boss pedal, any Boss pedal, it's a buffered pedal and that's a good thing, they buffer your signal whether they are on or off. Buffers keep the signal from your guitar strong. If you have a long cable from your guitar to your board and another long cable from your board to your amp, you will get signal degradation. Some idiot somewhere along the line convinced people that buffered pedals cause tone suck when it's exactly the opposite. Also, many early pedals did not have true bypass, some didn't even have an off switch so, back then true bypass was an innovation, but now literally all well made non-buffered pedals are true bypass in the sense that when you turn it off it doesn't affect the signal at all and lets the signal pass through to the next pedal in the chain.
@@Tomislav_B. I think I have a solution to that, it may sound crazy, but maybe don’t put 8 to 10 Boss pedals on your board? This is far less of a problem than having 8 to 10 pedals on your board with no buffering at all.
@@Tomislav_B. It doesn’t have the affect on tone that signal degradation does and it would take 8 to 10 buffered pedals before you started noticing an effect on your tone. It’s a non-issue for 99.9% of players but signal degradation is very common.
Gripe 1. Maybe not everyone wants to put in the time in a mundane task like restringing. This is from someone who started with gotoh and eventually switched over to a guitar that has "vintage" tuners. I will say in every conceivable way that the vintage tuners suck way more. iF YoU OnLy PuT in mORe tImE!!!! 😂 It's an obvious defense of the fact companies like Fender and Gibson refuse to spend the extra couple dollars to upgrade the tuners. They also know that the majority of their target audience uses comebacks like you just suck at stringing. Or they want the old look/feel. It's not a myth that locking the string in place with 3 seconds of work is far superior to expertly wrapping your string and properly stuffing it in the poorly designed non sensical hole or peg. I guess it's your channel, and you can say what you want. Usually, these kinds of things are opinions, but in every conceivable way, locking tuners are better. Also, most decent companies will include them even on low/mid-mid range guitars. Only with fender can I spend $1600 to get a crummy thin gig bag and vintage tuners. With pickups that are an abomination to man. What can you play? Blues. Anything else? I said blues!!!! 😂 Jkjk Sorry. That was my only gripe. I really enjoy your channel. I still enjoy my guitar. It's probably the blues jr amp.
@sixstringtv1 You did say that. I'm sorry. I guess I just had flashbacks of the first time I looked at a vintage tuner and nearly pooped my pants in frustration. It's honestly way easier than it appears. I am sorry for sounding like a jerk. I was honestly jk, but now reading it, the comment sounds semi aggressive. I do not actually have a vendetta against Fender. Also, your channel is really entertaining.
I started playing in 1987. My first guitar was a 1960'2's Hagstrom (which ai wish I still had right now) that was sold to me by Johnny Carlton (Bamboo Baby) for $75. It was so cantankerous to play and tune. A year later I traded it for a used Ibanez Raodstar II strat. It took me another year to save up and buy a real players guitar, a black Ibanez PL2550 which I still have. I payed $475 for the 2550. I wish I had started with the Roadstar. It would have saved me a eff ton of aggravation. But that Hagstrom would be worth more that the 2550 today.
Big pedal head. Big time. Actually pretty knowledgeable with them. True Bypass and Buffered Bypass are only important if you have a really big board. Like his board... he needs like 5 more pedals before you really start noticing the Tone Suck. And Tone Suck is easy to remedy if you don't have a dedicated buffer pedal. Just turn your treble up. And besides... Tone Suck happens because of the amount of cable that adds up to connect the board. If the bypass is buffered on a couple pedals (like a Boss pedal, ALL Boss pedals) then you're good. Now if you got a big ass board of Boss pedals... I'm not typing anymore. So yeah. Myths are dumb. Also watch Jim Lill about myth stuff. He is doing some awesome stuff to myths. Bad awesome stuff. Lol
@@sixstringtv1 That can help to an extent. Every foot of cable adds capacitance. So even if it is really good the physics can only be escaped for so long. But still, it's a BIG board problem.
Lemon oil is the oil extracted from lemon skins. It's an oil. It has no pH. The concept of pH only applies to aqueous solutions. Oils don't have a pH as they have no free H+ ions. Lemon juice is the aqueous extract of lemons. Mainly citric acid and therefore has an acidic pH. The lemon scent is actually due to an organic solvent called limonene that's present in high abundance citrus peel oils. Dunlop Lemon Oil doesn't have any lemon juice in it - it's mainly mineral oil solvents with maybe a bit of limonene added for good measure. My luthier friend (he's a trained violin maker) recommends olive oil (the cheap non-virgin variety) for the fingerboards of string instruments and guitar fretboards. Also, your figure of multiplying amplifier output by 10 to get double the perceived loudness is not quite right - the factor is nearer 4 or 5. And finally, locking tuners can improve tuning stability as there's no slippage of string windings round the posts.
@@sixstringtv1 Worse - it'll go rancid and stink after a few days. Ask me how I know. But that's if you use posh virgin olive oil. The cheapo stuff (I use olive oil spray), it doesn't smell and doesn't go rancid. Apply very lightly every 6 months.
I love locking tuners I barely have time to play so when I restring my guitar I'm sacrificing playing time. And I find them satisfying to use it just lights up my dumb caveman brain when I use them.
@@sixstringtv1 yeah I saw those being discussed in the thread I'm very curious about that! I wonder if 4 or 5 years down the road if they they still cut the low e with ease?
To add to the Buy the Best Guitar You Can Afford discussion. It's also worth making sure you've bought the guitar (regardless of price) from someone who would have set it up properly. For example big "Box Shipper" companies (Guitar Centre, GAK, Andertons etc) usually send them out like they came from the factory. While a private seller that's inexperienced with guitars is unlikely to know the difference between a good and bad set up. Although, if you have bought one from the above, and you're not comfortable adjusting the guitar. Make sure you take it to someone who can set it up properly. Like you said, you don't want to "fight" a guitar while you're learning as it makes everything 10 times harder than it should be.
Lee Marcelo shreds like a beast yet was told by his guitar teacher he would never play fast due to having small hands. Nuno Bettencourt is another shred king who has small hands. You don’t need to be Eddie Van Halen - and stretch from the 5th fret to the 12th - to be able to widdle.
I love this channel but I'm tired of people with large hands telling those with smaller hands to just practice. Of course everyone needs to practice to get better but the fact is, it's just a lot easier to play the guitar with large hands. There's a reason why the vast majority of the great players have larger hands. If you want to see what it's like for a player with smaller hands to play a guitar get yourself an eight string with the fattest neck you can find. Is it impossible to play? No of course not. But it is a lot harder. Given that I hope you can understand why it's kind of annoying for someone to whom the guitar is more like a ukulele to tell you that the only problem that exists is that you don't practice enough.
@@sixstringtv1 Michael Romeo and his lightning fast little baby hands are an inspiration to us all. But, he's still the exception to the rule. Basketball players tend to be tall for the same reason guitarists tend to have large hands -- it's a decided physical advantage for a specific task. Once again, love the channel. It's truly one of the best guitar channels on youtube.
number 6 i agree with so much and i feel like especially for young people starting out playing with their parents cheaping out on terrible sounding gear, it's like the worst experience to try keep you playing, almost like they dont want you to have hobbies that involve loud noise.
@@sixstringtv1 You see i feel he's actually quite tall, and as you say he was a portly fellow. And although I think he had average sized hands, his other size issues made them seem small. During the performances when he still stood, they look odd to say the least. As you say he was an amazing guitar player, it seems like he taught Eric Johnson a trick or two to me.
But does Micheal Romeo get as much tail as the tall and thin pretty boy or the average hight but totally jacked six string slinger with a badass beard?
Lemon oil has a drying agent in it so it dries out specially rosewood and ebony. Use linseed oil or nothing but not lemon oil, I wouldn’t even use it on my axe handles!
Do people think Lemon Oil contains lemon juice or the oil from the lemon peel? Because one of those at least sounds more reasonable than the other, at least superficially.
@@sixstringtv1 i can see where it comes from, at least on some level. The oil from lemon zest does smell like straight up lemon candy. But lemon juice? That's just dumb.
"He's a short, little stubby fat fuck" man that had my spitting my drink a little. Love him to death though, but from now on I wanna describe other guitar gods in a similar fashion
Great video, keep it up! I have some perspectives :) 1. Locking Tuners = agree. It's all about the nut and letting the string glide as frictionfree as possible. Unless locking nut. However, I LOVE the Planet Waves Autotrim tuners. They cut the string excess automatically when you wind up so its a nice time saver. 2. Can't comment, as I'm almost completely oblivious to this. I stopped using amps+speakers years ago. I use almost exclusively lined digital amps straight to FOH and In-Ears live. So can't comment =) 3. Dunlop lemon oil = it works. It's that simply. xD 4. My hands are "not big" and... I suck at shred. So... That's my own fault for not practicing enough. xD 5. Another thing I personally know/care very little about since I don't like tinkering with physical pedals. Since all my effects are in the box of whatever digital modeler I'm using at the time :) 6. I see your point, but one I dont fully agree... Some people just loose interest and then it's not a big deal if they bought something cheap. I actually used my starter pack Epiphone Les Paul Special for lots of years, including touring throughout Europe with it, until I finally lost it when I was drunk and left behind in Germany when the rest of my band flight back to Sweden. I managed to also lose my Epiphone and then when I got home, I finally realized that ok, I need to buy a guitar. THEN I got addicted to "buying gear". I think it was healthy to "struggle" with that piece of shit guitar for so long because it makes mevery humble towards anybody using "crap gear" and I have sometimes even encouraged people who have been insecure about their cheap guitars that "dude, it's ok, you can do a lot more with that than you think". But yeah, that first guitar was not good, but I still managed to use it and make it work to the best of my abitilies, haha! Cheap guitars aren't hellbound to have shitty necks causing bad tuning stability: I've played plenty of "beginner pack" guitars that holds up seriously well if the nut is well lubed. And yeah, I'm an EVERTUNE bridge guy, I'm obsessive about tuning stability =) I say most Squiers (maple neck) are a LOT safer and reliable purchase than cheap Epiphones (mahogny neck) because maple in general is just much stronger, even on cheap guitars.
The cheap gear myth is absolutely true let me explain.When I was 10 I told my dad I wanted to play guitar and he had a friend with a pawn shop and got me a imitation Les Paul(can't remember the brand it was 40 years ago)about a year later he asked why I don't play guitar much.I told him the guitar he got me is way to heavy and big.He then went out and got a brand new 1983 USA made Peavey Mystic and I liked it and have been playing ever since.I sold the guitar a year later to get a Fender because of course I did but I really regret selling the Peavey it was such a good sounding guitar.
@@sixstringtv1 That's funny you say that because I let one get away about 3 years ago for like $350.That was a fair price they were selling for between $300-$500 and after I wrote that post I looked and there was one for $1000 and one for $800.I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for one at a reasonable price.
