Thanks for all your great uploads Javolenus couldn’t do it without all your work.

Thanks for this—appreciate the support. I think you’re such a superb musician—wonderful guitar tone. And you’re left-handed if I remember right? Anyway I’m left-handed too.

Yes I remember you’re left handed when I stared playing that way in 1960 everyone thought I was mad.

Just been looking through your uploads, huge body of quality work.

Hi and thanks for this—appreciate your checking out my stuff (probably far too much of it, but hey!). I was born in 1960 and started playing about 1971, by which time (thanks to McCartney and Hendrix) being left-handed wasn’t so exotic. My main problem back then was finding a left-handed guitar. I struggled with the guitar for years (lacking money for a teacher) and only advanced when I began singing in Jazz Rock bands, picking up tips from other people. Even now, I don’t really think of myself as a guitarist—it just happens to be the only instrument I’m familiar with.

Well I suppose really I’m a keyboard player, guitar was a second instrument; my first guitars were home done conversions. Later on I mainly stuck to British Guitars like Hayman then later Shergold because they would make left-handed versions in about 6-10 weeks and they were good solid no nonsense instruments much like Gordon Smith Guitars who’s still going today. I’d say over all a guitar is probably a more personal instrument and you do a fine job with it presenting your songs.

I’m not familiar with those guitar makes but will check out Gordon Smith. That said, I can’t really afford a new guitar (I’ve got a very nice left-hand Washburn semi-acoustic that took a few bad knocks and is in need of repair, so I guess that would be my priority if I get some spare cash). I think you’re right about the guitar being a personal instrument—eventually you develop a style you’re comfortable with. And very impressive that guitar is your second instrument! You always get a great tone—do you use any signal processing software? I’ve been using plug-ins like iZotope “Trash”, “Alloy” and “Ozone” for making cheap guitars sound passable.

My sound card is a Roland V-studio 20 so it has the Boss COSM chip built in I always use this for monitoring so there’s no latency. For the dry signal I use Voxengo Boogex, One of LePou Plugins Vst amps with a cabinet impulse response
Or AmpliTube Custom Shop (these are all free although you have to register and authorise AmpliTube.) For the reverb I either Voxengo OldSkoolVerb
or epicVerb from Variety of Sound. (Both of these are also free)
Guitars do take a battering over the years but they can usually be fixed
with a bit of research and care. I did this piece a few months ago on a Shergold that hadn’t been used for nearly 30 years and was unplayable so I set it up for slide and now It’s usually my first choice for bottleneck playing.

Thanks for this—some good and useful info there. I sometimes use “Ambience” or “GlaceVerb” for reverb—two decent and free plug-ins. There’s a good guitar maker in my home town and I should take my Washburn to him, as it needs a complete overhaul. I once had a very good left-hand Tokai Tele copy—one of the first to be made, but sold it many years ago when short of cash—really regret that!

Thanks urmymuse,

Thanks Numeron,

Thanks TheDICE,

Thanks trf,

These days I’m just grateful if my fingers do roughly what my brain tells them

Feel that!