Donovan Banks

I got a Fender Jeff Beck Hot Noiseless pickup for a Strat. Its supposed to be a hotter pup with more gain and stronger tone.

The result is fantastic and I also changed the look slightly of my guitar.

Before


After

I need to find a cover that fits the HN.

Inside before


Inside After


Tonally it sounds very cool. I made a video of that as well,

I made a backing track to practice my scales. The first one is a simple blues progression in C#m.
The chords are C#m and A. Then E, F# and A.
Download the mp3 from my soundclick page.

Here I was messing about with it and my Strat.


I'll be doing some more soon. Maybe some Jazz and rock soon.

I wanted to see how different the Epiphone Les Paul and Epiphone Flying V sound.



I don't hear much major difference due to the distortion. Next time it will be clean. But the Les Paul has EMG pickups in and the V has Alcino Classic humbuckers in.

They both sound very usable to me.

There is one great lesson that playing music has taught me. When learning to play an instrument there are a lot of barriers that prevent you from being a maestro straight away.

Playing guitar you battle to get your fingers to be so precise. Then you have to battle to understand music itself, rhythms and timing. Then you try get even better and play faster, with different techniques, bending notes, vibrato, hammer ons and pull offs. You see masters playing amazing pieces of music and you want to do it so you try and try and you practice for hours until you can do it to.
we focus so much on the final result that all the work in between is nothing to us, it is a few steps we take to achieve our goal.

Why, then, do we look at other areas of life and not try as hard at it. School, University, Maths (I had to throw that in there), Sports, work, relationships, ourselves? We have proven that it is easy, there are only a few steps.

1. Identify what you want
2. find out what steps you need to take to get there
3. Do it

Isn't it simple. Sure, maybe the steps may seem difficult, but if there are millions of musicians in the word, millions of athletes millions of successful people, why do we still think we can't do something, when in fact, we can do anything!!!

Zerothirtyone recently went into Andiamo studio to record ourselves a demo.

We asked Neil Snyman to do it for us as most of us had worked with him before and he is one of the best around. (Plus he's a mate and a genius)

Our aim was to spend as little time and money as possible but to get the best quality recording for our bucks. We chose to do it live, seeing as we had 5 songs to do it should have been quick, and it was. Some of the songs we did in one take, with vocals being done over afterwards.

I wasn't entirely happy with my guitar parts but they will do for a demo. I'm sure with an endless budget we could spend weeks in there doing take after take in small patches. Kudos to the band, what a tight bunch to have done so much in such a short time, especially with Gareth having to use an electric kit. It must be a drastic change moving from an acoustic kit to an electric kit in such a short time with no practice on it.

I'm looking forward to hearing the final mixed product and then we'll take over the world from there...


Brendan and William


Steff doing his ting


Me in my Corner


Annien "Onion"


Gareth Rocking it up

What an absolute jol. I could do that all day every day....

I pulled the tread plate off the V. It was stuck on with double sided tape. The Goth Epiphones have a matte finish so any damage can't just be polished away.

It was quite difficult getting the plate off and in places the paint was slightly damaged but I got most of it off without much trouble. The main problem was getting the glue off the paint that was left behind by the tape.

I used Industrial methylated spirits and a lot of slow rubbing with a cloth. I did eventually get it all of.

I was also glad to see no electrical damage so the main problem was appearance. I then changed the nut and set the intonation and action. Next step is to redo the paint but I have too many guitars to think about that now.

This weekend we tried to break the world record for the most guitarists playing together. The record is held by a group in Germany with 1802 guitarists playing at once. I think in Durban we had over 1600 registered but only just over 1000 pitched.

It is stipulated to play Smoke on the Water which I guess most people weren't happy with but it was loads of fun.
There were some of Durban's best muso's out and about including Tree63's John Ellis, Steve Fataar and local guitar hero Barry Thompson. One of my Swell Bad Mates John Skuy was playing bass in the stage band and the guys from Zero thirty one were there as well.

It was good fun, if it happens in your area I suggest doing it. Even just to see some of the interesting guitars that pop up. I was astounded by the variety of people playing there.

enjoy the pics..


Zaine Higgins (right) and I


Richard Davies and his prize JEM guitar


Part of the crowd


More of the crowd


John Skuy on stage


The Helicopter that took our picture to count everyone


A group of youngsters at the "gig" I wanted this photo because it shows how diverse the crowd was.

Well it has been incredibly busy lately, not on the blog but in general.
I have now moved home, had to get my new Internet connection up and running, thanks to cybersmart.
I also have some new gear, I bought a mexican power strat, a Vox VT50 and a Boss BR600. I need to play with all of them a little more so soon you will hear sound clips etc.

I have to get playing soon so I'll get into this soon again, if anyone out there cares?