u/iamsynecdoche

I've been thinking for a long time about upgrading from my Boss Katana MKII 50, possibly to a tube amp. I'd like something simple that I can just plug in and play with. I am a bedroom guitarist. I don't play gigs. I'm not sure what I should be looking at in my budget of around CAD$1000. I was looking into the Marshall DSL40CR because it has a master volume and an effects loop, but I feel like it's overkill for me.

Country/Region: Canada

How much are you looking to spend?: Around CAD $1000 with a little bit of wiggle room for the right amp

Do you wanna buy a used amp, or brand new? The used market is not strong where I live so probably new.

Genre/Style: General rock. Classic rock, alternative rock, indie rock. I mostly play clean / edge of breakup.

What are you going to use the amp for? Does it need a clean channel and/or high gain? I'm a bedroom player. I mostly play clean / edge of breakup. No metal or anything like that.

Volume & Size Requirement: I'm a bedroom player so I need something that I can keep quiet enough for practising when there are other people in the house. I don't gig. I like the idea of maybe jamming with some friends at some point, but I don't know anyone else who plays near me.

I have some gift cards for my local guitar store and I'm trying to decide how to spend them. I'm hoping to get some other folks' thoughts to help me sort out my own.

Context:

• I am a bedroom guitarist. I don't gig. I wouldn't mind jamming with some other people but I don't know anyone around me who plays.
• I currently have a few guitars: A Revstar Standard (P90s), a Sire T7 (typical Tele pickups), a Squier CV 70s Thinline Telecaster (HH), and a partscaster Strat (SSS).
• The Strat started out as an Affinity Strat that I got to mod. Over the years I've replaced the neck with a Player II neck (+ locking tuners) and replaced the wiring with an Obsidian Wire solderless kit including the blender mod. I also changed out the trem block for something more substantial and replaced the bridge saddles. I put in a set of inexpensive Bootstrap pickups that I like the sound of, but I don't find myself reaching for this guitar a lot.
• For an amp, I have a Boss Katana MKII 50. I struggled with it for a while but more recently have wrapped my head around it a bit better and I think it's fine.

Options

Here's what I am considering.

• Upgrade the Strat. I love the sound of a Strat but my current one has never really clicked. I've thought about buying a replacement body and putting all my new parts onto that and restoring the Affinity (I kept everything), but I'm also thinking about seeing if I can trade the upgraded guitar in and with the gift cards putting it toward a Strat-style guitar. The local shop has a G&L S-500 I have had my eye on, and a Player II strat I enjoyed playing.
• Get something new. I've wanted an offset for a while, but I have to admit that I haven't played one that I really loved.
• Upgrade my amp. Either get a tube amp or get a modeler.
• Change the pickups on the CV Tele. I think they're okay but they sound a bit muddy to me.
• Something else entirely. But what?

Any suggestions? Any thoughts?

I've been thinking about getting a Tonex pedal, but want to test be able to test it a bit before I buy. My local store doesn't have one in stock to demo. If I download the software and run it out to the same speakers I would use if I was going to run it through the pedal, would there be an appreciable difference?

(I'm thinking about getting a pedal because I 100% do not want to have to fuss around with my computer every time I want to play my guitar—I want to just plug and play.)

I've realized that I'm not great at strumming sixteenth-note patterns that require syncopation and/or muting. If the strumming pattern is simple, it's not so bad, but at any level of complexity it's hard.

I don't struggle with counting, but rather the syncing up of my strumming hand with the up and down beats. I might start okay but after a couple of repetitions of a pattern I get out of sync so that I am not strumming in the right direction (e.g. down on the beats and up on the off-beats); then I lose the rhythm altogether. I've read that my hand should be constantly moving up and down like a pendulum, but I struggle with maintaining that and making sure I am strumming/muting/not strumming correctly.

Can anyone recommend any resources that I can study or practice to help with this? I have a Truefire All Access account if there is anything there worth checking out.

My Replay All-Time data seems really, really weird. There are songs I've never heard on there. It says my all-time top song is "How I Made My Millions" by Radiohead, which is a song I know and have listened to before but certainly not more than any number of other Radiohead songs (never mind everything else I have listened to). It also seems to think I am obsessed with the Beatles and listen to them constantly. I mean, I like them well enough, but they are certainly not my most listened to band, and the songs it lists are not even the Beatles song I have listened to the most.

Not sure why it is as inaccurate as it is but is there anything I can do? I'm pretty much willing to reset everything to 0 if that is what it takes but I don't know if that can be done.

I lived in Victoria years and years ago and am making a long overdue trip back to the Island from Ontario in a few weeks with my partner and 12-year-old son. We're staying at a place in Jordan River and I'm looking for recommendations on some things to do around there.

We're planning to do a couple of day trips to Victoria to see friends, but even when I lived on the island I never went out toward Sooke.

We're not big hikers, but we do enjoy natural beauty. If there's a relatively easy trail (e.g., if we can do it wearing running shoes and without hiking gear) we might be game. I'd also welcome a recommendation for a good running trail. (I am planning to check out the Clover Point Park Run in Victoria.)

We will be with my older parents—my Mom is pretty spry and active but my Dad might have some issues with anything that is too great an exertion (even if he'd never admit it).

Anything that you can recommend for our little holiday? I'm mostly looking forward to showing my son the ocean—he's never seen it before!

Recently I've started to have an issue with my Katana 50 MKII where the volume randomly seems to drop. It doesn't cut out altogether but reduces a lot. It's not completely cutting out. It's like someone is turning down the volume knob on the amp. I can still turn up the volume on my guitar and it will get louder. (Then the amp volume returns and it suddenly gets really loud.)

I'm pretty sure it's the amp. I did have some pedals between my guitar and the amp but none of them were engaged. I've temporary removed them and am going direct into the amp for now to see if it helps, but I wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar issue and, if so, if you were able to you solve it.

Hello! I'm trying to find a book I had when I was a kid. This is probably a big long shot but figured it is worth a try.

• The edition I had was a slim paperback
• Late 90s or very early 90s
• Target audience was kids aged about 8-12 I'd estimate
• Non-fiction book about catching (as in baseball)
• Discussed different skills and techniques.
• The cover had a photograph of a catcher on it. I think it was a picture of Gary Carter but I can't be sure
• I would have got it new at a Coles (chain) bookstore in British Columbia, Canada

When does it make sense to put string trees on a guitar with staggered tuners? I've read that it can be beneficial to add them when the headstock is quite flat in relation to the neck even with staggered tuners, and it's obviously an easy mod, but in what situations would you want them? Is there a rule of thumb? Are there situations where you would NOT want one?

For context, I have two guitars with staggered tuners and no string tree. One's a Sire T7, and the other is a strat-style partscaster. I think it is a situation where if it's not broken, don't fix it, but I also heard that having string trees may help improve sustain or insure against rattling around the nut. The Sire's fine, but the Strat does have a bit of vibration sometimes and I was wondering if the string tree might be a low risk mod that could help (and presumably not hurt).

I am considering assembling a partscaster stratocaster. The body I am looking at does not have holes for the bridge pre-drilled—just the route to drop in the trem block etc.

One of the things I am nervous about is installing the bridge. I might be wrong, but it feels like it would be the part that's most critical to get right and because it requires drilling it could be difficult to correct.

Am I overthinking this? Or is there some simple trick to getting it right? For what it's worth, I am not stuck on having a whammy bar, as I don't really use it much. It'd be nice to have the option but if it makes things a lot easier...

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to memorize triad shapes, apart from just drilling them over and over again?

I've been working on triads for a while now, but it seems like they're just not sticking. I have some of the shapes in my head but it takes me a bit longer than I'd like to have to recall the shape and which note is the root. I can figure it out, but it's just not intuitive yet.

Right now I am just trying to drill them. Every day I pick a key and go through the major triads and inversions on each string set up and down the neck. Then I do the same for the relative minor key. It feels like it's taking forever to stick, though. I find myself having to stop and think hard about where the third and fifth is in relation to each root. In the past I've also played chord scales for each triad and inversion. I'm also trying to learn songs that feature triads.

Weirdly I am good at playing CAGED shapes (scales and arpeggios). I understand that the CAGED chord shapes comprise triads, but it's not necessarily making it easier for me to find the triads quickly. The major triads are a bit more comfortable than the minor ones. I understand the theory behind triads and all that; I just want them more reliably there under my fingers when I want them.

Any better exercises or drills to help me really memorize them than the basic drill I described?

What's the best way to purchase official merchandise in Canada? I want to get a specific shirt that's on the WASTE site but between the conversion rate from GBP to CAD plus shipping it gets a bit pricey for a tee. Is there a more local store or anything like that to buy from?

I took my 2015 Mazda CX-5 in to get the brakes and rotors done on Monday. The garage did it and didn't report any issues.

I didn't drive it much until yesterday (Thursday) and started to notice an occasional rumbling / vibrating feeling. I am having a hard time pinpointing exactly when it happens to reproduce it, but it seems to be when I am going slowly whether the brakes are applied or not. If I am lightly pressing the brakes to ease into a stop, I feel it, but also if I am slowly accelerating out of the top. The best way I can describe it is as though I've driven over a rumble strip. I notice it most when I am turning sharply, like to get into my driveway.

I took it back to the garage this morning. They looked at and said later that they think the noise was caused by a backing plate or a chunk of rust. They said they moved the front backing plate back from the rotor and after that didn't hear any noise on their test run.

My wife picked the car up and came home and reported that she was still experiencing the noise/vibration.

I think I should take the car back into the garage, but they are not open again until Monday. I have read that there is sometimes vibration and noise associated with a "bedding in" period for new brakes. Is what I am experiencing consistent with that? Or does it sound like something else?