[Way Off-Topic] The Music Gear Thread

**Aragorn** · 13th February 2023, 18:39

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6nPazSXpUY

**Emil El Zapato** · 14th February 2023, 14:10

Sweet!

**Aragorn** · 15th February 2023, 13:44

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRc9yBFnBg8

**Emil El Zapato** · 15th February 2023, 16:11

I like the cleaner sound better but it would probably depend on the song being played.

**Aragorn** · 16th February 2023, 16:15

You do have to hand it to Gretsch; they regularly come up with some of the most beautiful finish choices and color combinations out there, and these limited-edition models are no exception to that rule.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdP1LjszMi4

**Aragorn** · 17th February 2023, 19:38

Lee's sound in the jam near the end of the video is pretty epic here.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yD1UJ50vew

**Emil El Zapato** · 17th February 2023, 20:53

Originally posted by Aragorn

Lee's sound in the jam near the end of the video is pretty epic here.

I really like that sound at 15:25 or so...

nice ... I generally think Lee is the better of the two and Pete dun like it.

**Aragorn** · 17th February 2023, 21:27

Originally posted by Chuckie

I really like that sound at 15:25 or so...

That's a type of flanging effect; it mimics the sound of a Leslie, which is a rotating speaker. It was quite popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was most often used with electric organs.

Originally posted by Chuckie

nice ... I generally think Lee is the better of the two and Pete dun like it.

Lee has his moments, and he does on occasion surprise me with his phrasing, but he's no match for Pete. Pete is a seasoned session musician who has toured with Tom Jones, Atomic Kitten, Aqua, and I think he even performed with Taylor Swift, among others. He's very much a blues guy at heart — just like Lee — but he knows how to play a lot more than just the blues. Lee on the other hand is ostensibly far less experienced at playing anything other than pentatonic scales, and most of the time, it shows. I even have the impression that he's holding back too much on purpose out of fear of playing an off-note somewhere.

Don't get me wrong; I have my criticisms of Pete's playing as well. He often makes fun of Lee's silly "signature lick" — a bluesy platitude riff that Lee tends to play ad nauseam — but he himself has a similarly idiosyncratic lick that he plays in every single video, regardless of what guitar he plays and what amp he's plugged into. Maybe you can spot it — I'll give you a hint: it's in the key of E, he plays it on the wound strings only, and it resolves into an E Major chord.

I will also add that I sometimes find Pete irritatingly hyperkinetic and aggressive in his playing — he's even more hyper than Rob Chapman — while Lee is a much more relaxed and poised guitarist. Also, Pete tends to talk over other people, while Lee is much more of a listener, which makes him a great interviewer.

But that all said, as for who the best guitarist is in Andertons' many videos, Pete and Lee both have to make way for Rabea Massaad and "Digital" John Connearn. Both of those guys are absolute virtuosos. Rob Chapman's no slouch either, but he's got his own idiosyncracies. And then there's Ben, the guy who usually does the acoustic guitar videos, even though by his own admission, he spends about an equal amount of time playing electric guitars as he does playing acoustic guitars. And let's not forget Dave Simpson, who does a great job of mimicking other (and famous) guitarists in the "Sound like..." videos.

**Emil El Zapato** · 18th February 2023, 12:40

Originally posted by Aragorn

That's a type of flanging effect; it mimics the sound of a Leslie, which is a rotating speaker. It was quite popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was most often used with electric organs.

But that all said, as for who the best guitarist is in Andertons' many videos, Pete and Lee both have to make way for Rabea Massaad and "Digital" John Connearn. Both of those guys are absolute virtuosos.

That's interesting, I wouldn't have associated that with an organ definitely guitar though.
John Connear's skill was obvious, but not sure who Rabea Masaad is.

**Aragorn** · 18th February 2023, 15:01

Originally posted by Chuckie

John Connear's skill was obvious, but not sure who Rabea Masaad is.

Rabea is the chubby guy with the Afro hair. He usually dresses in black. He was the lead guitarist in Rob Chapman's earlier band, and he has worked at Andertons in the past. He's very versatile, but he's primarily a prog-metal guy.

**Aragorn** · 19th February 2023, 19:26

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BVAfYpVsrk

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYKNd9p6uug

**modwiz** · 19th February 2023, 21:13

Originally posted by Aragorn

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BVAfYpVsrk

Epiphone bass looks good to me. Short scale necks are fun and useful in tight jamming circles.

**Aragorn** · 19th February 2023, 21:27

Originally posted by modwiz

Epiphone bass looks good to me. Short scale necks are fun and useful in tight jamming circles.

Well, I'm not a bass player, although I have on occasion played bass a couple of times, and those were all long-scale necks, so I don't really have an opinion there.

What I can say however is that the Newport model was historically the bass guitar companion to the Epiphone Coronet, Wilshire and Crestwood 6-string guitars — just as the Gibson Thunderbird was the bass companion to the Firebird 6-string guitars — and that it's good to see some of the genuinely historic Epiphone models return to the range after decades of Gibson having degraded Epiphone — once a reputed quality brand of the same standing as Gibson itself — to merely a producer of officially sanctioned Gibson knockoffs.