Fade to Black by Metallica

Short excerpt from Fade to Black by Metallica.  I thought I played pretty well considering I had bandages on both index fingers :P

Pillars of Creation by Keith Merrow

Abridged cover of "Pillars of Creation" by Keith Merrow.  Not quite up to my usual standards of clean playing, but it's a hard song  :)

Another video - "Battery" by Metallica

Me playing all four parts to an excerpt from Metallica's "Battery".  It took forever to sync up, so you all better appreciate it! ;)

Videos made with Windows Movie Maker, Microsoft Expression Encoder, and Audacity.

First recording attempts

          Practice makes perfect, huh?   Well, I'm getting my practice making "music videos" now, and they turned out half decent, so here it is folks:

Crate GT212 pawn shop find

Side by side with a Fender Mustang I

          Pawn shops are pretty hit-and-miss with guitar stuff.  It seems like usually the people selling the guitars have no idea what they are really worth, and then proceed to sell heavily used guitars at full price to people who don't know better.

          Today was a lucky find though - a Crate GT212 solid-state amp.  On its own it isn't really special; it's a pretty good 2 x 12" amp combo with three channels and an open back.

Rogue Rocketeer Review

          When I saw the Rocketeer by Rogue on sale as the "Stupid Deal of the Day" at Musician's Friend, I knew I just had to have it.  Seriously, a full size electric guitar for $60.  It couldn't be that bad, right?

Aroma AMT-530 Tuner/Metronome Review

          Staying in tune is important to sounding good - fortunately, there are a plethora of tuners out there to help with that.  One of these is by Aroma and additionally has a metronome to keep time.

          Build quality - overall pretty good.  It's almost entirely plastic, but sturdy and the rubber grip is good quality.  For 10 bucks its plenty good durability wise.

          Usability - This is one area the Aroma AMT-530 doesn't do so hot in.  Mainly, it tries to do too much in too small a package and is pretty damn complicated.  Usually you can guess well enough to get it to what you want, and just using it as a chromatic tuner is simple enough for me.

          Other - Battery life is surprisingly good, as my brother takes it from time to time and it hasn't shown any signs of running down after around 2 years of running.  Tuning accuracy seems good too, as it's within a few cents of the tuner built into my Mustang amp and does the job well.

Overall I give it a 4 out of 5 stars because it's good for the price, if a bit difficult to use.

Printable Graphing Paper Sheet

So maybe it's not about guitars.  Not even a little.  But someone will find this on Google Images and it will help their life, so it's going up.  Because I do what I want.

Printable Graphing Paper Sheet

The lines (from top to bottom) label:

Name
Date
Title
Dependent Variable
Independent Variable

Basically everything you need in a ~high school level graph.  Made extra nice looking for bonus points!

More Great Backing Tracks

Some more good tracks for you to jam out on, all conveniently in one place.

Five more after the break.

Learn the Modes Fast and Easy (With Tabs)