The DD6 is the only pedal in the Boss Digital Delay Compact pedal range which offers the Warp Function.
To engage the Warp Function you need to press on the pedal while the DD6 is switched on. The result is extended feedback, which sounds like infinite repeats from the last idea you played.

To get Pedal Steel sounds out of this function you need to develop a feel for how to work the pedal in this mode.
The result of the sound will depend greatly on your playing style, how much you understand what you are after and the setting of the pedal.

The settings I use for this sound are as follows:
Using a clock where 12.00 is half way up for the controls my settings are:
Level: 11.00     Feedback: 9.00  and Time: 9.00

Level is not that important, Feedback and Time are, but it all depends on how you play.

           Watch out for the following:  Press pedal too early and you get repeats, which is not what we are after.

          How Do You Get Pedal Steel Sounds?:

Play a phrase, press pedal while the sound decays, the result will be extended echo without repeats of the note (or chord) You will get a glassy echo which almost sounds like a Pedal Steel.

You can try this with chords, bends or even a Slide.

One drawback is: when you keep the pedal pressed down for too long you will hear a digital afternoise, which does not sound pleasing to the ear. Develop a good technique for how to work with this sound and you will not hear any digital afternoise.

Using a compressor does help to sustain the sound, overal the compressor makes the sound fuller, but also a bit noisier.

For anyone who knows the Boss compact pedal range, the sound as described before reminds me somewhat of the Feedback sound from the DF2. The DD6 does have a similar feel when you use the Warp mode, the sound result is sustain rather than feedback.

At some point I hope to make a video where I will demonstrate this particular sound of the DD6, in the meantime keep on playing.

Hope to catch you soon again,
Eddie

Playing with a capo may be fun, you can easily transpose your songs while still using the same open chord shapes as you played before.

What about using two capos at the same time? The advantages of this are:

        ~ Creating Slash Chords with any Bassnote you need

        ~ No need to retune guitar to get open chordshapes

        ~ You  are able to play chordshapes which are not possible in standard tuning without use of any capo

         ~ Almost any Capo can be used.

In short, the idea of using two capos is as follows:

First capo is used in lower postion over all 6 strings. This capo mainly frets the low E String. This will become the note where we pitch our chord against which is fretted by the second capo.

Second capo is used to hold down only four strings. Watch out, not all capos will do this, the Kysler type (the big clamp ones) seem to be ideal for this. Another thing to watch out for is not to scratch your neck too much. You can use a cloth on the part where the metal is touching the back of your guitar neck.—The Capo is no longer touching the whole of the guitar neck since we only get the capo to hold down four strings!!—- All Capos are different, you need to experiment to see what works, it also depend on neck of guitar. The shape of all guitarnecks is different, but most guitarnecks will let you capo only four strings. It may be easier to use the scond capo further up the fretboard, in lower postitions capo may come off the fretobard if it only holds down four strings. Again, find out for yourself what works to get a feel for things.

Here is one example to get you going:

Capo first capo on first Fret, this capo holds down all six strings, next capo is at fifth fret, and covers only the first four strings. The second capo creates an A-shape C barre chord with the added 6th on the high E string. First Capo hold down a F note on the Low E and a Bb on the A string.
You can ignore the Bb on the A string. The A string can still be used for fretting notes. You can still play a C at the 3nd fret  The C can be used to give the Rootnote of the chord. The low E string creates the fourth of the chord. In a way you are playing:  C/F

Experiment what kind of melodic ideas you can play now while the two capos hold down the notes as mentioned before.

Ones you start to see what the two capos can do you will love it.
Remember this is not a short cut to get better sounding chords, it is just a different method to get some ideas going for another way of playing the guitar. In a way using the two capos is limiting as a lot of your fretboard is taken up by the use of the two capos. Do not use this idea if you want to play through a lot of different keys. It may be better to treat this idea as another way to play with open tunings with the advantage of not having to retune your strings to another pitch.

Enjoy and hope to catch you soon again,
Eddie

Most guitar players who start out with songwriting will start out with chords, logical as most guitar players start out with playing chords in the first place when learning to play the guitar.
After people have written their fist few songs they may start to feel: “I need use more complex chords, chords such as extended chords which contain 9ths, 11ths and 13ths”. 
Learning about chords, their basic construction and what to do how to extend them is not wrong but most of the songs you like have been written with basic chords. Chords can be played in various ways and how you put those chords together is another matter. Too many “pretty chords” in a song may be a bit too much. Select them carefully for them to make a contrast against the rest of the harmonic landscape of your songstructure.

A useful approach to songwriting is to use all what you know and to use it at its best: Once you have a chordsequence experiment with the strums: Does each chord need to be played for one bar or should I try playing two beats for a few chords? Experiment with the arrangement of your song: It is a common feeling to be happy once you have your order of chords, there is this feeling of accomplishment. Great, but maybe the songstructure could do with some extra work? Record the song for yourself and listen back to how it sounds like. When you listen to your song keep the listener in mind. Is the song fun to listen to?

if you have only written a handful of songs do not worry so much about what I mentioned before, as your songs will start to get better the more you write.

Over the next few articles I will give a few pointers as in what may be a good approach to writing, giving you a few more, extra techiniques you may want to try out for your own writing.

Keep on reading and hope to catch you soon again,
Eddie

Last article was about Slash chords, this article will deal again with the subject of Slash Chords.
Slash Chords are great for playing first inversions of your chords.

What are inversions? an inversion of a chord is where the notes have been grouped in a different order compared to the Rootpostion of the chord. Each three chord note does have two inversions.
Here is a example of C major and its two inversions:   

Roootposition; C        First Inversion: E    Second Inversion:     G
                        E                                  G                                      C
                        G                                  C                                      E

If you play these chords in a linear way you will discover that the Rootposition of the chord appears again after you have played the Second Inversion. 

Here an example of Aminor (relative minor for C major) and its two inversions:

Rootposition:   A       First Inversion:   C          Second Inversion:    E
                        C                                   E                                           A
                        E                                   A                                           C

Okay let us now create a first inversion on the fretboard of D major.
The notes in D major are     D
                                         F#
                                         A

To create a Slash chord which uses first inversion of D we need to use the F# in the bass.
Here is one way to finger this chord:

          D/F#

     E——2——

     B——3——

    G ——2—–

    D——-0—-

    A————-

    E——-2—-

F# is on the low E, the open A is not used, Root is on the D, but not longer the lowest note. Rest of the chord is similar to how most of you will play an open D chord. Using the low open A string whilst not playing the F# on the low E string will give you a Second inversion.

Here the same Fist Inversion of D as Slash Chord but fingered higher on the fretboard:

                        
              
                         D/F#

  E—————————————–

  B—————-7————————

  G—————-7———————–

  D —————7———————–

  A —————9———————–

  E —————————————

This fingering of the D chord uses the A-shape and does have the F# in the bass on the low A string, another F# can be found on the fret 7 on the B string. The Root of the chord can be found in the middle: fret 7 on the G string. The fifth of the chord, the A, is on the 7th fret of the D string.

For all your own experimentation, it does help if youi know the notes of basic triad (Root, Third and Fifth) chords such as C, G, D, A, E and F because these chords will appear often in your own playing.

Try creating some Slash chords for yourself to get different sounds from your chords, try them along the whole fretboard instead of only sticking to first postion chords. Most of the first inversions can be fingered in a fairly easy way.

Good luck,
Eddie 

Slash Chords are chords where the bassnote changes. You may have seen something like this: C   C/b  Am    For this example you play a chord of C for one bar, then lower the C bassnote to a B while keeping the rest of the previous C chord in your fingers. For the last chord you play a Am.  If you obseve the movement of the bassnotes you will notice they fall down step by step, they form a little melody or movement on their own.

Slash chords are great for adding some spice to your chords.
The opposite of using Slash chords is using pedal notes: Keep one note (bassnote) the same while you change the rest of the chord. Take this idea a bit further and you get to drones: One note (or a few) which serve as harmony for the rest of your melody (or improvisation). Drones are used often in Indian Music. Some African music also uses this kind of idea.

Happy Playing
Eddie

A lot of people learn to play the guitar on their, or at least they make a start with playing the guitar on their own. It helps if you are disciplined and have will power. For this short article a few tips for those who like to do it on their own.

                           Use of Fingers:

Most people will dive in straight away with learning to play chords. Chords, because they have found them in their favourite songs, and most people like to play what they know. Playing chords is fine, and they will take time to sound good simply because you are fretting more than one string.
In the beginning you need to work on your fingers to get them to work for you. To get your fingers to work play simple single string ideas over just one string. You can play anything on the high E string. Just play a few notes with your index finger. Once you can press the string down with your index finger progress to using your middle finger. Play similar ideas as what you did before. Progress with this kind of approach until you have covered all four fingers of your fretting hand, including your little finger. Do not forget this finger as it is an important one and a lot of intermediate players of the guitar need to work on this as they have ignored using it right from the beginning.

                       Chords and Wrist of Strum Hand:

Once you can play a few single string ideas try your hand at open string chords. They are called open string chords because they are a mix of fretted notes and open strings. All the open string chords can be found in the first position of the guitar. Try to fret a G and Em and then move from one to the other one. In the beginning it will take time to move from one to the next chord. Strum each chord with a down stroke. You can use a pick or just use your thumb.
Once you can hold down your down strums try upstrums, look at your wrist of your strumming hand, try to get it relaxed and nice and easy. This will take time as the wrist of the strumming hand is stiff with most beginners. The movement of the wrist is quite specific for playing the guitar, hence your wrist not being used to the movement it needs to make. You can even use a mirror to see how your wirst looks like. Look at the wrist of experienced guitar players to get and idea how to use your wrist. Remember everyone does have a different body, so looking at other guitar player’s hands should only be used as a guide. There is no such thing as wrong body or hand, anyone can learn to play and use their hands accordingly, but you will need to work on getting your hands (and fingers) to work for you.

                     Chords: Picking and Strumming:

One you can hold down a few chords and strum these chords, try to pick those chords. Picking is where you play one string at a time. It is with picking that you will start to notice how important it is to play all those strings clearly. Your strings need to sound clear and not muffled. Againg you need to play and play to get your chords to sound clear.
A good song to learn for picking chords is “House of the Rising Sun”.  The song contains five open chords, once you can play this song you are on your way with using those chords to how you would like them to sound like.

                    Beyond Picking and Stumming:

The guitar can be played to fullfil many different tasks within the field of playing music. Most people will only cover the basics of playing, It may give them enough satisfacion. For those who are really keen there is a world of knowledge to digest: Look at as many guitar hand books as you can, read about your favourite guitar players, see what they used to learn how to play the guitar. Start reading books about guitars, find out why certain guitars play, and sound, they way they do. If you are interested in electric guitar, there is of course the amplifier and various effects you can use to make the guitar sound different. Playing with effects is a skill on its own, and again, it will take time and effort to master the use of it.
If you stick with it playing the guitar is for the rest of your life and as long as you keep yourself occupied there is plenty to be learned. Those who will claim “I know it all” may need to look, and listen, again at what it is they really know.

Happy exploring.
Eddie

Since the Stratocaster does have three pick-ups you may like the idea of swapping any of those single coils for one single coil size humbuck pick-up.
Single coil size humbuckers do have the advantage of having the same size as your single coil, no need for extra routing in the body of the guitar to make the humbuck fit.
Companies like Dimarzio and Seymour Duncan do a large range of single size humbuck pick ups. I mention those two names as they seem to be popular and therefor easy to get hold of.

Once you have installed your humbuck (either neck or bridge) you will notice the difference straight away between the humbuck sound and the single coil sound: The humbucker will sound a tad duller but also fuller when used with a clean guitarsound. Switching between the humbuck and single coil will let you experience the difference between the two different sounds. You will be amazed how bright single coils sound. They can still cut through in the mix, but their sound is sharp and bright.

Using distortion (or gain) on your amp you will find that the humbucker will be smoother and softer in sound. Yes it will give you that singing sustain, even on a bolted on neck Stratocaster.  This may be a fun experience if you are used to Les Paul type of guitars to get you that kind of sound.

Once you have installed one humbucker you may even like the idea of installing another one, either in bridge or neck postion, depending on where you did put your first humbucker.

Happy Playing,
Eddie

For this short article a few insights about what kind of acoustic tone your electric guitar produces.

Acoustic tone from an electric guitar you may wonder. “Does the sound not come out of my amp?” Yes it does, hopefully, but the guitar which produces the sound coming out of the amp does have an acoustic tone as well, and this tone also controbutes to the overal sound of the electric guitar.

If you have a few electric guitars around try the following: Tune all the guitars up and play the same musical ideas on all of them, play without using the amp and just listen to the tone, go with your ear near the body, even put your ear on the body and listen, put your  ear to the neck of the guitar and listen.

Good, quality guitars will produce and even tone, not matter where you listen, you will hear a similar sound. Lesser quality guitars may not sound even in all places: The neck may produce a different tone compared to some parts of the body.
There is no difference in fixed bridge guitars and guitars equipped with tremolo units, even Floyd Rose guitars will give you these results.

Try using a slide: This will give you the most natural sound of string and wood combined: The string will be amplified by the wood and will produce an overal tone. When you play using a pick, or fingers, there is the attack of the strike of the string with the pick or finger, this will also contribute to the sound. Listen through this and see if the sound is similar to the sound when using a slide.
Quality guitars will produce a somewhat similar sound when using slide or fingers or pick.

The tone we just looked at get amplified by the pick-ups and amp. Lesser quality guitars the acoustic tone may not be that great, may lack a bit in bass or body, may be too light or whatever you feel is lacking. The pick-ups may make up for whatever was lacking in acoustic tone. They may add more brightness, bass and spark to the overal sound coming out of the amp.

The amplifier is the final part in the overal sound of the electric guitar: A quality amp you will be able to compensate for whatever weaknesses the acoustic tone of your guitar had and you may be able to get a happening tone.

Once you know what is lacking acoustically from your electric guitar you may be able to cure this matter without any additional help of amplifier: You could change the neck of the guitar (depending on what type of guitar your have) You may be able to change the body of the guitar (again depending on the type of guitar you have)

Modifying an electric guitar to your own needs is all fine and well: It takes time and effort and money, it may be better to find a guitar which is fine from the start, and produces a happening tone without any worries.
If you have never altered any of your guitars, any custom work you may undertake may open your eyes and mind to whatever is responsible for the tone of your electric guitar, It cetainly is a interesting and satisfying process.

Happy Tone Hunting
Eddie

When you are new to playing slide guitar there are a matter of issues to look at. You may have questions like: “Do I need to use open tunings?” What kind of slide should I be using?” How should I set up my guitar for playing slide?”

 

Before we go into any of the issues above let me go more into detail about why to play slide? There are some guitarists who have turned playing slide guitar into a career. For those playing slide is all they do. Then theres are the guitarists who are good at using a slide, they use the slide as a variety in their sound, just like an effect or a different technique. Playing slide is just a part of what they can play.

When you are new to playing slide you may want to spend some extra time with the slide to get some chops under your belt, to develop a clean technique ect. Once you get the hang of it, it is like any technique, you will be able to use it at will.

                  Technique:

You can use the slide on your ring finger or little finger. Personally I like the idea of using pink because it keeps your other three fingers free for fretting ideas. Using your pink will give you the ability to play melodic ideas with your fingers and to use to slide next to those ideas.

When starting out, playing ideas on the high E string first, try to play as clean as you can: Use the slide only on one string: This may be a bit tricky when you only play over the high E, because all the other five strings will get in the way. Use the top end of the slide. Once you can play in this manner, playing over more strings will be a lot easier. Try to control the sound as much as you can.

Slide with the slide right above the fret to get the right note, listen carefully and learn to play in tune all the time. Start slowly, once you get the hang of it speed up your ideas.

Learn to play with vibrato, this will make the note sustain and is a natural part of playing slide guitar, the better your vibrato technique the better your silde playing will sound like.

Keep your other fingers of your fretting hand curved while you use the slide, this will mute all the unwanted noice you create. Keeping your fretting fingers curved over the strings will mute any unwanted noise. Again, this may feel unfamiliar and strange at first, keep at it, once mastered you will have a great sounding clean slide techinque.

                 Finger Stlye or Pick?:

Try using both your fingers and a pick. Ideally develop a technique where you can hold the pick while not using it and use the rest of your fingers for fingerstyle ideas. Once you can do this you can flick between using a pick and using your fingers. If you have not used your fingers much for playing fingerstyle you will find at some stage your fingertips may start to hurt because your fingertips may be a little soft, Keep at it and your fingers will accustom themselves to your needs.

                Glass or Brass Slide?:

The kind of slide you use is a simple as your choice of pick: Try various types of slides, find the once you like the sound-and feel of. Brass slides sound softer than Glass ones. You can make your own as well, just experiment with what works. I would not try too much of the Zippoo Ligher idea, as it takes a few fingers to hold the lighter, also the microphone stand may give you less desired effects compared to a dedicated slide.

               Guitar and Set-up:

Ideally your guitar should be set up with the action a little higher than how you would normally like it. This is one of the resaons why I have all my guitars set up like this. It means any guitar is ready for playing slide and none of them will give that sound of hitting the slide on the  metal frets. A higher action will give your guitar a better sound, you may want to try this idea as well. Once you can play, a higher action will not have any impact on your playing ability. Try it.

Another way is to keep a guitar set-up for slide playing, You may also want to keep this guitar in a different tuning compared to its standard norm of  Low E, A, D, G, B and high E

The string gauge to use runs along similar lines of the action: Thicker strings will give you a better and fuller sound regardless whether you use a slide or not. It may be an idea to go up a gauge to explore your sound a bit more. Thinner strings may make it harder to keep your slide playing in tunne: You need to put a slight bit of pressure on the slide and this may sometimes be enough for the string to bend ouf of tune a bit, the thicker your strings are the less issues you will have with this.

                Tuning:

There is the idea that for playing slide you need to use different tuning. Just because Ry Cooder does this for most of his songs, does not mean you need to do this as well. If you have never explored any other tunings you should try some different tunings anyway, even if you do not want to explore slide playing.
Personally I like the idea of using the slide as a different sound, and a different mode to your playing.  Alternative tunings limit your options, once you have explored some of them you will find out how you can use them. Slide playing can be done with any tuning, it may be better to incorporate the slide into your exhisting style of playing.

Enjoy and hope to catch you soon again,
Eddie

As most of you will know, most guitars do come either with Humbuck- or Single Coil Pick-ups. Some type of guitars mix both pick-ups but most of the time it is either one or the other.
When it comes to changing pick-ups, you can actually do this yourself. What about putting single coils on a Les Paul, would it sound good? You need to try to see what it sounds like!

The big differences between Humbuck-and Sinlge Coils is: A Humbucker is darker and thicker sound, Single Coil is much brighter and tinner in sound. Some people may perceive a Humbucker as louder in output. Personally I think this depends on what you are accustumed to: Some Single Coils may also give you a high output. Once you put a Humbuck pick-up in a guitar with Single Coils you can actually test this theory for yourself.

Using Humbuckers and Single Coils with a distorted amp will give you different results: The Humbucker is smoother in sound because of its thicker and somewhat softer sound. A Single Coil is brighter and tinner. A Single coil put through a distorted amp may still cut through a mix of bass and drums when it comes to playing single notes. It all depends on how you play and use your pick-up settings: The Bridge pick-up is usually quite bright and will certainly cut through the mix regardless.

                  Getting the Balance of your Pick-Ups Right:

To check the level and balance of the output of your pick-ups you can check by doing the following: Play a chord and switch between pick-up settings: You want the hear the sound changing, you do not want one pick-up to be much louder than the other one. Be careful with the height of the bridge pick-up: This pick-up is naturally higher in output, because of its location–The Strings do not vibrate much because they are close to the bridge, therefore the pick-up needs to be a tad higher in output to pick up the sound of the string. If your bridge pick-up is set too high it will overpower the other pick-ups. To overcome this you can lower the bridge pick-up a bit.

When you check for output level and balance of sound use a clean sound, once the balance is right you will get similar results when using distortion.

Happy Playing and hope to catch you soon again,
Eddie