Heck - turn your back for a few hours and there's a landslide of posts - my sincere thanks to you all.
This was all a strange combination of fortune - finding the Gilmourish.com BTs (which was I'm sure a recommendation from someone here - I wish I could remember who) - the "Strat" finishing up the way she did and kicking my playing into another gear - the help and encouragement at 12bar.de (hence my dedication on the video) - the sun coming out the way it did for the video - managing to play for nearly 9 minutes without too many wrong notes (a few I managed to sort of cover up) - being able to paper over and disguise a major flaw in the audio recording - managing to eventually find a setting that allowed moviemaker to "publish" a video that worked.
I've enjoyed the end result - but there were times a day or two ago I was seething with all the equipment problems.
Thanks oneyedslide - I found this video easier to post than I thought I would - I think the wig helped - I loved Spoonfuls comment about the dog and laughed out loud when I read it. Theo (the hound in question) is as sweet as the "Strat", so I'm happy to be compared to him. I'm afraid if I was to send you hair clippings Bluesmole you'd find black and rather too much grey rather than red!
Hair on top of the head is still black but the beard, as you see, is mostly white and I'm now getting white around the ears and it's moving up. Odd that, my beard is youngerthan my hair but is going white first?
I love playing with the Floyd / Gilmour type BTs Blindboy and have played along with these two tracks in particular quite a lot over the last couple of weeks, so I think that translates into some extra creativity and stronger musical ideas - though the playing style I have evolved has probably more Knopfler in it than Gilmour - but I maybe should just call it VB style I suppose. Thanks Blindboy and Vancouveris - the tone that's coming from the "Strat" / AC4TV combination feels so "right" to me - also the Artec Blues Overdrive pedal I've had for quite a while just works perfectly in the equipment chain. Another one of those happy coincidences. I feel I've done the guitar some justice with this video - thanks HBL. I guess the "hair" length is about the same as the real hair was in my teens. I don't think the video idea will be a frequent thing - the extra time to set it all up and the time to arrange and edit it makes me feel it's best kept for "special" projects.
12bar - I've always in the previous various strat type of guitars I've had had the feeling I've been losing tone by using 9s. I think that what this one has shown me is that it was probably just the shortcomings of those guitars, or my inexperience as a player, rather than the strings. Or maybe now I use finger style it's less violent impact on the strings allows the lighter guage to sing sweetly. I noticed recently Kirk Hammett has gone back to lighter strings due to the damage he was doing to his hands / fingers - he said that with the right equipment / EQ adjustment he was getting close to the tone he had with the heavier strings. Not that I listen to Metallica.
I can get away with some classical vibrato on the strat with the 9s, though I try and mix it with real blues vibrato if I remember or if I am less focussed on just avoiding wrong notes - if it's the 10s on the Hagstrom though the classical vibrato doesn't really work. The classical stuff is a hangover from a few years of going to classical lessons before a combination of RSI and feeling restricted by having to play pieces the same way every time kicked in.
