Donovan Banks

I used to always have my amp standing on the floor when I played. I battled to get my sound right for ages.
What was happening was that the majority of the sound was hanging out on the floor, and what was coming to my ears was only certain frequencies, mainly higher tones.
So I got an amp stand and now I aim the amp at me, much like a monitor.

Being a musician is tough. Not only do we have to find money to buy great quality gear, we have to choose between a myriad of options, then we need to decide who to buy that from.
I paid a visit to Coastal Music in Durban to find out what makes my favourite local store tick.


Is it Stock?
Coastal music is fairly well stocked with everything you would need, guitars, keys, drums, recording gear, microphones, some wind instruments, strings, stands and most other stuff your average musician would need. They keep and can get all the big brands but seeing as it's not consignment stock, but a buy and re-sell operation keeping a R1million Steinway that one would probably buy once in a lifetime doesn't make much business sense. Dieter Bender, who runs the store, is part of a group that owns a few stores around SA, and imports music gear. He tells me that they will stock any instrument or brand that people ask for, provided enough people ask.

Is it Price?
Durban is a very price conscious city. I don't think anybody knows the reason for that and I'm sure the recession hasn't helped anybody. Generally in SA prices of gear is the same throughout. I have bought a very well priced Nylon String guitar from here before, and have also been shown a more pricey PRS that was in store. Dieter told me about a limited edition Takamine that was one of 80 made for the world that was sold for over R50,000, yet you can get a great set of strings for under R100. I'm not sure money matters too much as they seem to cater for everyone.

Is it Experience?
Dieter has been in the game for many years. He tells me that he was a production manager and got offered a job managing a music store, so he took it. Now he runs a very interesting ship, with all the staff being musicians with experience on the instruments. "The biggest challenge is getting people through the door," he tells me,"Everyone who comes in here does so for a reason and we want to make sure they leave having had a pleasant experience. Even if they don't buy something, they will tell a friend about how great it is to be in Coastal Music." As he tells me this I seem to click, and if you have been in the store you will too. How everyone is very approachable, they are all interested in you, even if you don't know what you are looking for.  I'll often pop in just to browse and Lee Loveridge or Ian Swart will show me the latest guitars or effect. We all know that when something bites you, you'll get it. I had a great opportunity to sit and test out the Roland GR20 and in the end I bought it from Coastal Music because they allowed me to experience it for quite a while, making quite a racket in the store.

Compared to the service you receive in other stores in Durban, Coastal Music is way ahead of the game. I remember once trying to look at a guitar in another store. A salesperson approached me, and before I could ask a question about the instrument, he reached behind me and turned the music up so I couldn't hear the guitar. I have never been back there again. I won't mention the name but it was such appalling service I do feel the need to tell all my mates about it.

Community Activity?
They do host in store workshops with the likes of Mike De Jager and Nibs van der Spuy. They have about 4 or 5 a year and invite the customers to attend. They also have a legendary sale once a year. People Wait in anticipation for this sale and even queue up outside the door before they open. I hope to get some video footage of the madness, there is no way I can describe it. The prices are so low and people go nuts for it.

I asked Dieter if he had any wisdom to give to musicians out there. "If you want to make your mark, you need to practice and apply yourself. Even someone who is tone deaf can play music by learning to read music."

Keep an eye on the Facebook group for info on the sale or ask a question, they are always glad to answer.

Not too long ago I purchased myself a keyboard to use for MIDI purposes in my music creation. It turns out I am not a keys player. I never have been and in the time it will take me to learn a whole new instrument I can make the money and hire someone to do it for me.

Then I heard about the Roland GR20 guitar synthesizer and figured this is a much better way to get the sounds I want, without having to hire a session musician.
It wasn't the cheapest of options but it certainly works well. But the toughest part is trying to play a guitar like you would a piano, or organ or trumpet etc.
Some of the sounds are very cheesy, others just don't live up to what they should be, but if I want a violin in the background of my piece, you won't know the difference between the real deal, and the synthesized take.

The pickup isn't very hard to mount and can be fitted on all types of guitars. As long as it has steel strings, or steel core strings then it will work.

One of the coolest things you can do is split the guitar and synth signal. You can split it after the pedal unit as well so you can send the guitar signal to a guitar amp/processor, and the synth signal to a PA or another amp.I have used this in a band situation, we didn't have a bass player so I split a bass signal to a bass amp, and my guitar to the guitar amp.
One can set the sensitivity of each string. In this case I had the top two strings on higher sensitivity and the bottom four on much lower. This prevented all my chords and general guitar work, from coming out of the synth and not sounding like a bass should. It would work wonderfully to use strings or other full sounding additions to really beef up your sound.

Here is part 1 of a 4 part video demo I put together.


Here are the rest, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Please feel free to leave a comment or ask questions. Have fun for now...

I never really liked the flying V so I advertised it for sale and I was traded a Samick strat style guitar for it. Value wise I reckon they're pretty much the same but the Epiphone has a more popular brand name. The Samick is a basic strat style guitar with two humbucking pickups and a floating Tremolo bridge.

I didn't really find time to play with the guitar much but when I did,
I found the D-string almost jumped out every time I used the trem. The guide at the bridge was broken and couldn't be held in place.


I obtained a new bridge hoping to just slot it in, but the plate was smaller than the current trem and it certainly wasn't going to be that easy. The next thing I thought I could do was to swop out all the guides.








There it is all done. The intonation, luckily, was spot on when I put the bridge on. The hardest part is adjusting the spring for the trem vs. the string gauge. Thankfully I've done that before and it was easier. It has a fatter neck than I thought it would but it plays very smooth and I can see myself enjoying it for a short while before selling it off.

I am starting to think it is easier to get a great tonewith a les paul than it is a strat.

Go to my myspace page and listen to Leap to life (done with the Les paul) and War in the back alley (done with the strat) and tell me what you think.

2 Years ago I had a 70's Fender Bassman in fair condition but it was looking tatty. I undertook to re-cover it in white vinyl. It was a wonderful sounding amp but it was too big for me to haul around so I sold it.

This is how it looked before. That speaker was from another old valve amp that died.




It was quite old looking and had a fair amount of damage to the tolex



I set about removing the old tolex from the head

and cleaned off the remaining glue


I used the pieces I took off to cut the new vinyl and used contact glue to stick it on.


I covered the front face with the only black fabric I could find at the time using staples

After cleaning up the metal trimming I assembled it again when the glue was good and dry



The Cabinet had water damage (have no idea from where) and it was made out of chipboard. When I tried to remove the tolex it just disintegrated. I bought some pine and made a new cabinet using the same face and back board but I put castors on it this time to make transport easier....

I also covered the cabinet in the same vinyl and black face cloth


It turned out much better and even made my guitar look cooler....


I had a good time with this project and I intend to do it again some time, although not with a new amp, I'll find another old one.

I know a few people battle with this so I put together this video on putting together rhythm arrangements for the BR600. I know the concept is the same for the Micro BR so knock yourself out.




The Song sheet can be found here...

I notice so many YouTube videos with sub standard audio. The audio on my videos aren't great, but if I were to use the camera audio as my main audio it would be terrible. As with everything you need to edit and clean things up a bit.

If I talk I use the camera audio. I will be getting a lapel microphone soon so that will be clearer as well but for now I just use the camera.

For the guitar I mainly run into my Boss GT8, then into a small mixing desk and into my Computer.


I use Samplitude 10 as my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and Magix Movie Edit Pro 15 as my video editing software.

recording the guitar separate gives me a great clean way to record without external noise influence such as the size of my room etc, so you hear the guitar clearly.

Take a look at my channel and see for yourself.

Yes it is....
Recently you may recall I was playing with a Boss Micro BR. I loved it however I was slightly put off by the lack of variety in the drum rhythm patterns.

I looked up the BR600 and it has a built in, velocity sensitive drum machine. I loved the idea and although I am not sued to fiddling around with a drum machine, it turns out to be easy enough if I have the manual handy.

It has a whole lot more rhythm presets to it than the Micro BR and even has more effects using COSM modelling for the guitar effects and a bass and acoustic simulator for the guitar. The bass simulator is a little slow for my liking so I'd rather use a bass guitar anyway.

It has 8 tracks available for recording and I figured I'd post a sample for you to hear.

I love the mastering toolkit and I plan on playing around with it a lot more. The only problem with this is now that I have used the Micro BR, and the BR600 I want the bigger Boss recorders... But for now I'll stick with what I have.

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 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.

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.

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?

I am getting myself an Epiphone Flying V. It is the Goth Series and made in 2002.

I like second hand guitars. They tell a story. I also particularly like guitars that I have to restore a little. It makes me feel like I have rescued an orphan that was being abused.










Now the next thing to do is take off that metal plate stuck on the front and restore it to the original goth beauty. I love the roman numeral inlay on the 12th fret.

I was playing bass on a Fender Bassman 100 recently. It had a constant annoying hum, but when the lead was unplugged or muted it went away. I asked the owner if he knew what the problem was and he said it had been like that since he got it.

It was being used in a church. On the stage each instrument is connected straight into a DI box, the signal is then split. One to the desk, and one to the amp for monitoring.

what happens with some DI boxes is that the desk supplies phantom power. It sends 48V up the cable to the DI box. In this case the phantom power was passing through the DI box and being fed into the amp, thereby creating the hum.
when I flicked the ground switch, the power was no longer passing through the DI but was being used up instead so the humming went.


I had a Fender Bassman 50 previously and it too had an annoying hum. although I never used a DI box the ground switch on that amp too was in the wrong position. If you have a hum, check that first before you start replacing costly parts. It could save you some good time and money in the long run.

In case you're wondering I thought I'd tell you about my gear.

1990 Squier Stratocaster
I bought this guitar off a friend of mine in 1999. He had a similar design in stuck on Vinyl, i just painted it on rather badly. It needs a bit of a clean up and now that I have more guitars I can afford to "decommission" them one by one and get them up to scratch. The N Series Squiers were remarkable and the neck on this guitar is pristine. It still has the original pickups and I reckon its about time for new ones. I am thinking of the Jeff Beck Noiseless pups. I love the tone and feel of this guitar and it was my first that I bought myself.








2006 Epiphone Les Paul 100
I found this guitar online for very cheap. I had a Les Paul Special before which was absolute rubbish. The difference between the LP100 and other Les Pauls (excluding the studio) is that the body of this guitar is very thin and excludes binding. This makes it a lot lighter than a standard Les paul but with similar electronics and neck. One major flaw in these is that they are made very cheap. I am changing the selector switch as it doens't work 100% and the D and G strings go out of tune after a song or two of heavy bending. New Machine heads are on the cards but I am going for grover Rotamatics when I have the budget available. I love the tone but I don't give full credit to the pups on this baby. They are standard but sound very sweet. I may keep them on. I also like the finish on this as it looks great

You have seen my Ibanez.

The amplifier pictured with the Strat is a Fender Bassman 50, made sometime in the 70's. It was black I recovered it with white vinyl and it looks sweeeeeeeet!!! I recently sold it as it was too big for me to use in gigs and I have a small car and an even smaller apartment.

I currently use a Laney TF200 amp. I'll get a picture sometime soon. Its a standard 120W combo amp with two lead channels (that I dont really use) and a Spring reverb unit which is quite nice.

For effects I have the Boss GT-8 effects processor. I am still learning to use it but the more I play with it, the more I learn. It is a superb item and is definitely cheaper than buying even 10% of the effects it holds.

I am in the process of getting a Boss Micro BR recorder. I say in the process as it belongs to a friend who wants to sell it and I am playing with it at the moment. It is a fantastic item and I will write more about it soon.

Feel free to tell me about your gear, I love guitar stuff in all shapes and sizes.