Guitar Playing Setup--Why Setup Is More Important Than Playing

Guitar playing methods are pretty simple and most players make it difficult to stay in the pocket and become an informed player. What I mean is they make it difficult for themselves to become better players.



Personally, I use a Wensen Bass and a 15 watt Boston amp. Now, this is the way I was taught, not to play first but to get a good tone with my Bass axe and amp rig. Actually, Dee Curtis my consultant here at Canadian Guitar Player told me many moons ago how to do it right.


Okay, this is the way I was taught to play in the pocket and get a good tone. Actually, Dee Curtis told me how to do it.First of all don't start learning how to play, what you need to do is learn how to set up your strings and tune it properly---Not perfectly.




And how to use the settings on your rig to get a tone that's not too low or muddy. To me that's more important than becoming a kick-ass guitar player on the a-list in 2 weeks. Dee also talked about having concerns about crappy tone,not from just his rig but his whole blues band. That's why its more important to do thorough sound checks not just at gigs, but at practice and jam sessions as well.

Keeping all this in mind I went to a well known guitar teacher and asked him to teach me how to set up my guitar and rig before teaching me how to play. he was more interested in teaching me to play, not set up my rig.


This isn't to put down this teacher--but most guitar teachers want to teach playing, not set up their equipment.

So if you find a good teacher, get them to to help you setting up your axe and rig Then after you learn setup and the Guitar or Bottom Feeder basics you can become an axe master. By the way I taught myself to set up my rig by way of internet.

In this video it just has an amp set up lesson, and in the next one I'll have it set up with the strings.




Here's a good link to a rig set up lesson.

http://www.easyguitarmethod.com


Mark Grove