If you ask someone about their favorite instrument of playing, you will get the answer as the guitar more than the half of the time. Well if you haven t guessed it yet, the answer is the guitar. For diverse reason the guitar has become a very known musical instrument amongst all regardless of the age or the gender or the fact whether it s an acoustic or an electric guitar. This article is going to be about one of the best things the guitar players like to do whether they are amateurs or professionals, and that is play guitar riffs.

Guitar riffs are a short series of chords, and these guitar riffs can be a certain part from a song or were specifically designed to be played as riffs only. The many popular of these guitar riffs are the ones that were made during the decades of 70 s, 80 s, and the 90 s.

The grandness of these guitar riffs are based on diverse factors; one of the main factors being that they are used to train novices; guitar riffs are also usually played by skilled guitar players just for the fun of it. Playing guitar riffs can also be very usable to players who have been out of touch for a while, as they would make the player concentrate on views such as finger positioning and replacement.

Another one of the reasons for the popularity of riffs among guitar players is that there are riffs designed for acoustic guitars just as there are for electric guitars, and there are even riffs for bass players as well; so every player has a riff to play with their guitar no matter what kind it belongs to.

guitar riffs also come in very favourable if you are someone who gets influenced into playing the guitar many of the time you see one, but you don t have time. Since riffs are short you could quickly finish playing one within about half a minute and move on with your other work; you d be surprised to know the number of people who does that.

many of the good guitar riffs available on the cyberspace require you to pay diverse amount of money and only the basic riffs are available for free. There also books of riffs and diverse of the good ones have a quite number of riffs in them. These books are chiefly designed for novices. Hence the riffs are ordered in such a way that the trouble increases as you move along, so if you are looking for a riff that is a bit challenging, then you should pick from the middle or the end of the list of riffs.

You’ve been working on your music career for 13 years now. Take things to the next level by purchasing a higher-quality microphone. You know, one with an XLR input. Ask any touring musician about microphones. They’ll all be like, “Dude. XLR all the way. You have to spend more than $5 on a microphone if you want to get a record deal. That’s how they keep the riff-raff out of the music business.”

Once you’ve got your own XLR mic, consider this XLR-to-USB cable for some reason. Couldn’t you just get an XLR cable that works with a standard 3.5mm microphone jack? Sure. But remember that you’re trying to impress people. And what’s more impressive than an XLR-to-USB cable? Besides putting stickers all over your instrument cases, that is.

Oh, just one more thing. You’ll have to order it from Japan. That’s extra cool points, though. It costs 4,980 yen – roughly $55.

USB-XLR Mike Cable [Thanko via Akihabara]

Translated version of Thanko’s page…

The Best $600 Acoustic Guitar, Period.

Not too long ago I decided to purchase a new acoustic guitar. I’d grown tired of my 7-year-old Ovation Celebrity Deluxe – the shallow-bowl Lyrachord backing makes for a plastic-sounding attack. I gave myself a budget of $1500 and set out to find an all-wood guitar that would meet all of my criteria: a natural, woody sound; even tone between strings and throughout the higher registers; and a great playability. My main buy targets were Martin and Taylor guitars, both well-respected guitars.

Down in Florida for Memorial Day weekend, I decided to hit the local guitar center to sample some guitars, figuring I would get a taste of what I wanted and refine my search later back in my home state of Tennessee. I found the acoustic section and began to look around. Since a clearly deranged individual occupied the “expensive” room, yowling and banging away on a two thousand dollar guitar, I decided to sample the budget guitars first just to get warmed up. The first guitar I picked up was a Taylor 110 acoustic guitar, which I eventually took into the classical guitar room in hopes of escaping the sounds of the Lithium-deprived individual and some nu-metal kid playing the same riff over and over.

What struck me right away, even before moving out of the noise, was how easy it was to play the Taylor 110 Acoustic Guitar. I knew the strings were mediums (I had played custom lights on my Ovation), and I had been out of practice, but it was still easy to play all my songs, even the technically difficult ones. Jumps from 1st to 5th position were just as easy as on my Ovation, and the narrower neck kept my hand from getting fatigued when playing hand-stretching chords.

After playing the Taylor for a little while, I picked up a Martin of a similar price and went back to my sanctuary. I was surprised to notice that the build quality of the Martin seemed inferior to the Taylor – there was a fair amount of buzzing on the frets (although the intonation was fine), and the Martin just felt more clunky than the Taylor 110 acoustic guitar for some reason. The strings unfortunately were rather dull – Martin strings their guitars with their own strings; Taylor uses Elixir Nanowebs, which in combination with the Martin’s darker, woodier tone made it difficult for me to get even sound on the higher strings, particularly in higher positions on the fretboard. I tried a more expensive Martin ($1100) that had less of the same issues but enough that I felt a bit disappointed.

By this time the psycho’s girlfriend or sister (or maybe his parole officer) had convinced him to leave, and I was able to venture safely into the “expensive” room. Unfortunately there was only one guitar in there below my budget of $1500, another Martin. I played it for a bit, but it just didn’t have the same feel as the Taylor 110 acoustic guitar and suffered from dull string syndrome as well. I went back to the Taylor, having fallen for its simple beauty, nice sound, and excellent craftsmanship.

I was a little shocked that the Taylor sounded and played better than a guitar more than twice the price and pretty excited about shaving $900 off my budget. The store sale actually pushed the price down even further on an already on-sale guitar, so when I added an SKB hard case, the total came close to $600 including tax – a steal by any definition.

To be fair to the other acoustic guitars, the Taylor 110 Acoustic Guitar isn’t perfect – it’s got a Sitka spruce top with Sapele laminate sides and back, which combined with the Elixirs creates a tone that’s almost a little too bright. The finish and inlays are really plain, and for this price you don’t get a preamp. However I couldn’t argue with the sound – I had a friend play the guitar for me, and it was “that sound” – the sound I’d come shopping for.

For around $600, you simply can’t buy a better guitar than the Taylor 110 Acoustic Guitar.

By Chris Scott Barr

They call the toilet the throne, yet they always look so boring. If I were a king, I wouldn’t want to sit on some boring white seat all day. No, I’d want something nice and fancy. Granted, these Jammin’ Johns Toilet Seats aren’t quite what I had in mind for a king. Unless maybe we’re talking about Elvis.

These rather unique toilet seats are fashioned to look like either a guitar or a grand piano. So if you need somewhere to sit and get musical inspiration while you’re doing your business, these might be for you. They might not actually help to inspire you, but at least people will know where you came up with that killer riff. $170 is a lot for a toilet seat, so you’d better write a few good songs and sell out to pay for it.

[ JamminJohns ] VIA [ FoolishGadgets ]

This, without the keyboard

Harry G. Frankfurt wrote a great essay on the concept of “bullshit,” explaining that it is the locus of truth and and falsehood, the “deliberate making of false claims about what is true.”

“In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all,” he writes. Well, the boys at BBG just picked up on a little pet peeve of mine: analysts and their various prognostications. To wit: Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray who has been predicting an Apple tablet “coming very soon” since 2007.

Gene Munster makes this prediction over and over again because it’s easy, and because he knows he will eventually be right. By the standards of his profession, his record is pretty good. More interesting is what the eruption of hype yesterday says about the quid-pro-quo relationship between analysts and reporters. Analysts are identified in print as experts, bolstering their credibility with private clients. And reporters use them to dress rumors as credible, multiple-sourced news stories.

Analysts are paid to sell advice investors. They’re about as impartial as the investors themselves – by talking up or taking down a company they help their constituency make investment decisions. It’s lazy for journalists to ask analysts what they think on a topic even though they do it all the time. Why? Because the average business journalist can’t talk intelligently on every topic every day and by making a call to someone whose “job” it is to cover a particular company or sector they can get an intelligent – but decidedly impartial – comment without much work.

This is “bullshit” in its purest sense. It’s a riff on the truth that is potentially damaging but ignored by the general public as innocuous. It’s not innocuous.

And yes, I know our own Dear Leader posted on the tablet and there is some truth to the tablet rumor, but I assure you Gene Munster doesn’t have inside line to God who is feeding him info on this potential multi-touch monster. He’s as in the dark as the rest of us.

T3's rendering of a Zune-Xbox portable gaming console.

(Credit: T3.com)

The Zune rumor mill has been churning for a while, with leaks of an alleged ZuneHD and maybe even a Zune smartphone. The latest rumor gathering steam is sort a riff on previous rumors: Microsoft is developing …