2012 Gibson Les Pauls

Checked out the new 2012 Gibson Standards today. These guitars rock! They have Burstbucker Pro’s, Rosewood fretboards, 18:1 Grover Tuners, TonePros bridge and stoptail, and have great new features to their electronics.

I was very impressed with their new switching. Outside of the


standard 3 way, 2 volume, & 2 tone you find on a Les Paul, all 4 knobs have push/pull pots. The push/pull pots on either volume work as a coil tap for that respective pickup. The push/pull pot on the tone knob of the neck pickup works as a phase switch for out of phase tones when in the middle pickup position. When in single coil mode, the neck’s push/pull pot chooses which coil of the pickup to use as the single coil. The final push/pull pot on the bridge pickups tone pot is the pièce de résistance. When engaged, at any time it will access the “pure-bypass”. The pure bypass basically wires the bridge pickup straight to the output with no volume or tone controls. Putting the bridge pickup straight to the output gives increased volume and brightness, similar to what happens when you switch an esquire to the third position.

These instruments also have a their slimtaper neck profile and a compound radius of 10 inch radius at the neck and 16 inch radius at the end of the fretboard. The guitar plays great! They come in a some beautiful burst like honey burst, iced tea, & fireball, two translucent colors Amber & Black, and solid colors like goldtop, ebony, and blue mist.



What a cool Guitar!

Micing your amp

After you’ve spent all this time making sure you have the right amp, guitar, pickups, cables, and pedals, you’ll want to make sure it makes it out of the PA the way you want it to sound too. It would be a waste to spend all that energy and money building a guitar rig, only to have a mic slapped in front of your amp and fighting against the tone you are going for.

The mic is responsible for conveying the punch of your speaker and the brightness or darkness of your sound. Here are the steps and principles to micing an amp:

#1 Find your speaker

            You need to locate exactly where the center and edge of the speaker in your cab. You may have to use a flashlight directly on the grill cloth to see exactly where your speaker is.  Once you do, you need to know the parts of the speaker. The center is called the dust cap (which covers the voice coil). The edge of the speaker is called the surround. The speaker cone is located in the area between the dust cap and surround.

#2 Find your Mic

            The most common mic you see used is a SM57. This mic has been used for live and recording forever. This mic uses the exact same capsule as its counterpart the SM58. The main difference between the two is that the SM57 has a shorter grill which allows you to have a closer proximity to what you are micing. The SM57 is a rugged mic that will be a total workhorse to have in your arsenal.

            The mic I prefer is the Sennheiser E609. Like the SM57 it can handle loud amps well without causing the mic to distort. It has an increased frequency response from the SM57 (E609 – 40hz to 18khz vs SM57 – 40hz to 15khz). The increased frequency response gives you more brightness and clarity, which is something you may or may not want.

The MD421 is an amazing mic to use on your speaker. It also pairs very well with the SM57 or E609. The MD421 is characterized by  being brighter mic, but with balanced lows .

#3 Know where to place the mic

            This is an intense topic, and has been full chapters in books. But I am going to try to explain it in a few simple steps.

            Your mic should be placed about 1 inch from the speaker. Putting the mic on the grill cloth gets you pretty close to being an inch away.

There are a few principles to understand about mic placement in relation to your speaker.

-       Closer to the Dust Cap: Pointing the mic closer to the dust cap is BRIGHTER

-       Closer to the Surround: Pointing the mic closer to the surround is DARKER

-       Moving the mic away from the speaker causes you to hear more ambience and room sound, closer is best for live performance where you do not want the ambience from a noisy stage.

-       On Axis – Pointing the mic straight at the speaker.

-       Off Axis – Angling the mic inwards towards the dust cap. This is used to mic near surround or middle of the cone, but point inwards. It allows for a full sound as you get the darkness of being near the surround, but blends with the brightness of the dust cap.

Now knowing all the principles, Go experiment!

The reason I want you to know these things is that you don’t work against yourself. What I mean is this:

My Guitar is too bright, so I darken it in with my tone knob and eq on my pedalboard. But now I turn up my treble on my amp and then mic it close to the dust cap and end up with a brighter sound. Now I ask the sound guy to roll off a  bit of the highs. We just added and removed frequencies 5 times, when we might have been able to solve your brightness problem by rolling off a bit of the treble on the amp and then micing closer to the surround.

Ya dig?

           

Pedalboard Updated

I updated my pedalboard this week adding a Goodrich volume, EP Booster, Lovepedal Englishman, Malekko Ekko 616 & Vibrato, & Fulltone Clyde Deluxe.

Fun Times!



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Guitar Effect Pedal Order

A common question that comes up for guitarist getting into using effects is "What order should I put my pedals in and does it really matter?" The answer to the second question is yes and the order can change your tone depending on how you set it up. With that said, there is a "set" order you should put your pedals in, but this is more of a philosophy than a strict rule. I encourage you to move around your pedals and see how they behave in different positions on the pedal board. Now back to the first question, "What order should I put my pedals in?" If you scour the internet for what the proper order for your effects, you will find a variety of orders and nothing that includes all types of pedals. I wanted to go through all the different types of effects, the order they should be in, and the other places they could be moved on the board outside their typical order.
Types of Effects 
Dynamic - Compression Pedals work best near the beginning of the chain where they can compress your clean signal, they also can add gain to your signal and will drive your amp and other pedals. Other examples of dynamic pedals are boost pedals and noise gates. Boost pedals can work well before overdrives and distortions to cause them to clip harder by boosting the volume. You can place them after the distortion for a solo boost, causing a volume boost in your already gained up signal.
Filter/EQ - Wahs and EQ pedals can go in various parts of the pedal board, most prefer Wah before your overdrives. I have seen overdrives used in front of wah pedal to drive the wah, which can be a cool sound.
Pitch - Harmony, Octave, and Vibrato effects are best before distortion that way they can process a clean signal and have more accurate tracking. A vibrato pedal uses slight variances in pitch to create the effect.
Overdrive/Distortion/Fuzz - These pedals boost the signal and then cause it to clip at varying degrees to create the simulation of a clipped signal in a tube guitar amp.
Modulation - Chorus, Flanger, Phaser are examples of modulation. There are a few other types, but these are the basics. Vibrato and Tremolo are also considered modulation effects. Flanger and Chorus are time based effect that fall under the modulation category
Time Based - Delay and Reverb are found at the end of the signal chain, so they will delay the entire effected signal.
Volume - Volume Pedals and Tremolo are examples of volume based effects. Volume is best before your modulation and Time based effects. Tremolo works best at the end of your chain.
Effect Pedal Order

The breakdown of the correct order (and how and win to break the rules)
#1 Buffer - If you are using a buffer pedal, like the JHS black box, it should go at the front so it can drive your signal through all your true bypass effects
#2 Tuner - The tuner should be placed as far to the front as possible so you are tuning from a clean signal.
#3 Compression - The compressor should be at the front of your signal. It is meant to compress your clean unprocessed signal.
#4 Wah & Filter - Wahs and autowahs should go next. These work best processing a cleaner signal, however to break the rules, put an overdrive in front of your wah and check out the cool tones you get. 
#5 Octave & Harmony - Pogs, Micro Pogs, Harmonist, and Pitch factors go next. These are yet another pedal that work best processing the cleanest signal possible. Some harmony pedals do not track very well anyway and having more gain/noise getting in the way of your natural signal does not help them work any better.
#6 Vibrato - Univibe type pedals work best before your fuzz and distortion, this is how Jimi Hendrix would run his univibe in front of his fuzz face and octavia.
#7 Overdrive/Distortion/Fuzz - Cascading gains into each other is all the rage ever since Stevie Ray Vaughn used to tube screamers at the same time. Pedal boards now feature quite a few gain pedals. The typical rules here are to go from lowest gain to highest gain. To break the rules, try putting the gains in other positions. Using a distortion with an overdrive afterwords to boost the signal can be great for leads. 
#8 EQ - If you are going to use a EQ pedal with gain pedals use it after the pedals to shape your tone. Some use EQ earlier in the signal to shape their original tone of the guitar. EQ can also be used as a mid boost for solos to cut through.
#9 Boost Pedals - I prefer these going after the distortion to use as a clean boost for lead lines. Others use these before your gain pedals to further overdrive your signal into your gain pedals. Running it before the gain will cause it to clip harder and distort more.
#10 Volume Pedal & Gate - Your volume pedals should go before your delays, modulations and reverb. Placing your volume before your delay will help your swells carry after the volume has been rolled off.
#11 If you use good a gate, it should go after your drive pedals, to eliminate the hiss that can be caused from high gain
#12 Any modulation you use such as phaser, chorus, and flanger will go next. These are best to be used before delay or in the effects loop of a delay pedal.
#13 Delays & Reverb should be one of the last parts of your effect chain. Doing this will cause them to delay your total effected signal.
#14 Tremolo is a volume based effect and should be last in your chain to have total effect of your entire signal.

True Bypass or Not True Bypass...

True Bypass or Not True Bypass...
That is the question... 
After you use pedals awhile, you begin to hear about the importance of true bypass. True bypass refers to the feature of using a DPDT or 3PDT switch inside the pedal which allows your signal to be passed straight through the pedal's input jack to the switch to output jack without it going through the pedals circuit. If you want to test any of your pedals to see if they are not true bypass, you can remove all power from the pedal (battery & adapter) and test whether it functions in the off position passing the clean signal. If it does not pass your clean signal in the off position, it is not really true bypass. Examples of true bypass pedals are seen in most boutique effects, such as Fulltone, Keeley, Malekko, Lovepedal, etc. A pedal without true bypass uses either a buffer before the switch, electronic switching, or sends the signal through the circuit that is bypassed before hitting the output jack. Doing this processes the signal and can cause signal loss that is often noticed in the brightness of your sound. Typically, the more non-true bypass pedals you send your signal through the more loss you have. The next type of bypass is a buffered bypass. Examples of buffered bypass would be an Ibanez TS9 or Boss TU2. These employ a buffer when your pedal is off that is meant to retain your signal. The problem with these isn't that these pedals suck tone by themselves, in fact they help retain tone, it's that the more of them you chain together the more your tone will begin to suffer from being processed. This is a simple explanation, but will help with my next point.

Some guitarist refuse to buy an effect that does not have true bypass. This a great idea to preserve your tone from loss from a non-stop processing pedal, but the more pedals your run the more signal loss you will have due to the length of your cable run. After 18.6ft of cable, your signal begins to drop out. So going out of your guitar with a 18ft cable going through 10 pedals connected with a 6 inch cable each and then connecting to your amp through another 18ft cable will have about 40ft of cable before your guitar hits the amp. With no pedals on just using your clean signal, you will absolutely have some signal loss.

So the great debate of "refusing to buy any pedal that isn't true bypass" seems crazy when you think about the signal loss you have when you have 9 six inch connectors and 40ft of cable. At this point, we need some solutions to solve this problem. I'd recommend finding quality pedals that have a buffered bypass or buying a buffer pedal to reside in your signal chain. A buffer will add power back to your signal and push it strongly to your amp helping retain your tone.



In conclusion, there are a variety of problems that can pile up here. You can use all buffered bypass pedals and loose some high end and tone of your guitar. You can use all true bypass and have signal loss because of the length of your cable run.

There are some solutions to these issues, here are some ideas:

Buy a Good Buffer and use mostly true bypass pedals
1) Solidgold FX Buffer
2) Option 5 Destination Bump
3) JHS Little Black Buffer

Use a Looper pedal - Use these to remove some of your buffered pedals
1) Loopmaster
2) Keeley True Bypass Looper
3) Voodoo Lab Pedal Switcher
4) Musicom EFX MkIII
5) Providence PEC-2

Use Pedals that have good buffers sparingly at the beginning and end of your signal chain of true bypass pedals:
1) Boss Pedals
2) Ibanez Pedals

And with that...
Let the comments begin! Wooo!

Using & MIxing In Ear Monitors and Avioms

Using in ears and Aviom systems in churches has become very common. The name of the game on stage for a sound engineer has always been keeping stage volume as low as possible. Doing so allows you to have a clean mix and not have muddy signals competing with each other on stage. Using in ears is the logical next step to achieve a quiet stage. I have used in ears in a variety of situations from premixed at the board with a wireless to a self mixed on stage Aviom.
Avioms can be fairly dreaded by musicians for a few reasons. First, you are chained down to the box from the small amount of cable attached. Secondly, you are responsible for your own mix which seems like a great idea, but it's easy to create a bad mix for yourself. Finally, these can sound very compressed and have an unrealistic sound from how the audience actually hears what you are playing.

Here are a few basics to getting a good aviom mix:

Get a good set of in ears
Buying a custom molded in ear is great if you are on a loud stage and need isolation to be able to hear yourself best. If you are on a quiet stage, more than likely the in ears themselves will provide enough isolation for you to hear yourself well. I recommend getting at minimal a dual driver set of in ears. The addition of an extra driver will allow there to be more speakers handling different frequencies of the mix which will result in more clarity and you being able to hear crystal clear. I currently use the Shure SE535, but have also had the Shure SE315 and M Audio IE30s and IE10s.

Learn how to mix your in ears

There is a lot you can do to keep your mix from being muddy and help yourself to hear the instruments you need clearly. Taking a less is more approach to your mix will help with this. First, what do you need to hear to play? If there is an instrument you don't need in the mix as an reference? Then turn it off in your mix. Having less playing in your ears will keep everything crisp and clear. Secondly, get each instrument in their own layer in volume. Your guitar should be one of the loudest instruments in the mix. Next choose what you want to hear more of, and begin to work downwards to create volume layers. Finally, use the stereo space you have to keep the mix sounding open and clear. Pan your instrument a little of center. Pan similiar instruments hard the other direction. Instruments that are in stereo use pan hard left and right to get the full spectrum of what they are doing to create fullness. Start panning the other instruments left, right, or slightly off center to use all of the stereo space you have.
Here is a visual of what my current mix looks like:

Here are some helpful hints on how to achieve the best mix possible: 

• If you have your amp on stage, leave one of the ears out so you can listen to yourself from the amp. 
• Get a good set of in ears as quick as quick as you can.
• If you are regularly playing the same place with an aviom, save your mix in a few different channels on the box so it doesn't get lost or over written. I save my on channel 1, 16, & the channel of my guitar.
• Ask the sound guy if there are any ambient mics that can go in the Aviom mix. This is especially helpful on a very silent stage in a large room. You can get a feeling of isolation and have very little ability to hear the audience. 
• Playing with in ears can be like playing in the studio. You can hear every little mistake, flub, bum note, or bad technique. This can help improve your playing, but don't be over critical on yourself; the mix in the PA is more forgiving than your Aviom mix will be. 
• Know what your guitar rig sounds like at your amp and be confident in your sound. The in ear mix can give a false impression of your sound and may make you feel like you need to adjust your effects, levels, and compression. 

Basic Guitar Maintenance

An important part to playing electric guitar is knowing how to maintain your instrument. Guitar maintenance includes restringing, setting your action & intonation, caring for the wood and hardware, setting pickup height, and cleaning out pots.

Basic Tools you will need: 
Screwdrivers in a variety of sizes (flat head & phillips)
Polish (I use Gibson polish which won't damage a nitrocellulose lacquer guitar)
Lemon oil (for your rosewood fretboard)
A tuner (to properly intonate your guitar you need a strobe tuner)
String winder
String cutter
DeoxIt (to clean out your pots)
Allen wrenches (2 sizes to fit your truss rod & saddle height screws)

Restring Tips 
Remove all strings from your guitar.
Take this short opportunity with your strings off the guitar to wipe down the pickups, pickguard, and condition your fretboard with lemon-oil if you have a rosewood fretboard. To condition your fretboard, put a drop of lemon oil on the fretboard every 2 or 3 frets then go back and rub it into the wood. Allow it to be absorbed into the fretboard and then wipe off the excess.
When putting on your new fresh strings, try not to add a ton of windings around the tuning post. I pull the string all the way through the post then grab the string at the nut and pull it back to the first fret. This will give you enough winding, but not have a huge pile of string around the post.
Once you get the strings on, tune to pitch, then give each string a solid tug, and then tune again. Doing this will stretch your strings so they don't fall out of tune while stretching while you play.

Setting your Action
Action refers to the height of the string off the fretboard. There are two factors that control your action: neck straightness & saddle height at the bridge. To check how straight your neck is you can look down the neck from nut to bridge (and vice versa) using the strings as a guide to judge if the neck is backbowed or has too much relief causing the strings to be hard to fret. If the neck is not straight, you can adjust for a back bow by tightening your truss rod or add relief by loosening your truss rod. Remember, Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey. Once your neck is straight you can set the action at the saddles if further adjustment is needed. First measure the fret at the 12th fret with a string height gauge or ruler with 64ths on it, it should be somewhere between 2/64 to 4/64 to play well and not buzz. You can then change the height of each string by adjusting the saddle screws. Once they are raised or lowered ever so slightly, measure again at the 12th fret to achieve an even action across the fretboard.

Setting Intonation
If your guitar seems to not be in tune as you play further away from the nut and higher up the neck, your intonation is probably out of tune. Setting your intonation isn't rocket science, but does recor

You will need a strobe tuner to set your intonation properly. The basics start with tuning the string open. After it is in tune open, fret the string at the 12th fret and check the tuning on your strobe tuner. If this is out of tune, you will need to adjust the intonation screws on the back of your bridge. Moving the saddle forward will raise the pitch, and pulling the saddle backwards will lower the pitch. After adjusting, tune the string open again and check it again at the 12th fret. Repeat this process until you have the string in tune open and at the 12th fret. Do this on the rest of your strings and you will have a guitar that is in tune all the way up the neck.


Other maintenance tips
Check your input jack to make sure it is tight and doesn't become loose.
If your volume or tone pots become scratchy they can be cleaned with DeoxIt. It can be sprayed in the opening of the pot on the inside of the guitar and then worked through by adjusting the knob.
You can use Big Bends Nut Sauce or GHS Graphit All to lubricate your saddles and nut of your guitar with bigsby or tremolo to help it stay in tune when you do some sweet dive bombs.
Polish your guitar, especially if you have nitro lacquer, leaving sweat on it will damage the laqcuer.
Never leave your guitar in the car. It doesn't matter whether it is hot or cold, it will cause the wood to move, the neck to warp, and could potentially damage how your guitar plays.
Use steel wool to polish the frets and keep grime from collecting on them.


I am a big believer in knowing how to maintain your own instrument, and being able to understand the magic that is done if you get your guitar setup by a professional tech. In most cases, a guitar tech can put some extra magic from all the experience they have had doing setups. There is nothing wrong with taking your instrument in and getting it professionally setup from time to time, but I definitely recommend you doing regular maintenance. This will help you know how to fix a problem that could arise before a gig and keep you from going into panic mode.

Rock!
Ted Strange

Intro to the Nashville Number System

The Nashville number system developed in Nashville studios in the late 50's. It is great for musicians to quickly chart a song and makes it easy to transpose that song into another key without having to re-chart the tune.

The basics of the system is that each chord is numbered within their corresponding key. Using this you can chart a song and then be able to reuse it at another time regardless of what key the band wishes to play in.

Here is a breakdown of the chords that would be in these corresponding keys:

Majoy Key	1	2-	3-	4	5	6-	7°
A	A	Bm	C#m	D	E	F#m	G#dim
Bb	Bb	Cm	Dm	Eb	F	Gm	Adim
A	B	Dbm	Ebm	E	Gb	Abm	Bbdim
C	C	Dm	Em	F	G	Am	Bdim
Db	Db	Ebm	Fm	F#	G#	A#m	Cdim
D	D	Em	F#m	G	A	Bm	C#dim
Eb	Eb	Fm	Gm	Ab	Bb	Cm	Ddim
E	E	F#m	Abm	A	B	C#m	D#dim
F	F	Gm	Am	Bb	C	Dm	Edim
F#	F#	G#m	Bbm	B	C#	D#m	E#dim
G	G	Am	Bm	C	D	Em	F#dim
Ab	Ab	Bbm	Cm	C#	D#	Fm	Gdim

Minor Key	1-	2°	3	4-	5-	6	7
Am	Am	Bdim	C#	Dm	Em	F#	G#
Bbm	Bbm	Cdim	D	Ebm	Fm	G	A
Am	Bm	Dbdim	Eb	Em	Gbm	Ab	Bb
Cm	Cm	Ddim	E	Fm	Gm	A	B
Dbm	Dbm	Ebdim	F	F#m	G#m	A#	C
Dm	Dm	Edim	F#	Gm	Am	B	C#
Ebm	Ebm	Fdim	G	Abm	Bbm	C	D
Em	Em	F#dim	Ab	Am	Bm	C#	D#
Fm	Fm	Gdim	A	Bbm	Cm	D	E
F#m	F#m	G#dim	Bb	Bm	C#m	D#	E#
Gm	Gm	Adim	B	Cm	Dm	E	F#
Abm	Abm	Bbdim	C	C#m	D#m	F	G

It's important to know all the notes in each key and their corresponding chords based on that scale. For major keys you should always remember that the scale for each key is always laid out from the root: Whole step / Whole Step / Half Step / Whole Step / Whole Step / Whole Step / Half Step

Basics to writing a Nashville Number chart
Every number represents 1 measure unless otherwise noted.
Each Line represents 4 bars.
A "-" next to a number makes that chord a minor chord.
A number written inside a <> means to play diamonds (Chord played a sustained).
A small 7, 9, or ° next to a number means that number is a 7th, 9th, or diminished chord.
Rest, Time Signatures, Repeats, Codas, Crescendos, Decrescendos, etc. that are written in sheet music have the same purpose and use in a number chart.
Notes written before a || at the beginning of a line are pickup notesMore than one note being played in a measure is notated by putting those notes in a box or underlining those notes on a line,
I, V, Chnl, C, B, Ta, Solo, Tag are used to notate Intro, Verse, Channel, Chorus, Bridge, Turn around, Solo, & Tag repeats.



Here is an example of how to write a chart. This is a chart for Forever Reign. This is notated to be played in the key of C in 4/4 time. The first line has an I written for the intro which repeats C for 4 bars. The next line is Verse 1 repeats the 2 Bars of C and then 2 Bars of G/B. This line also has an additional two measures of C. Verse 2 is the same except for the notation of a crescendo into the chorus. I wrote this out quickly, but this is the basic gist of how to write a chart. The best part of this is when you learn to do this quickly and save the chart, you have an easily transpose-able chart you can play anywhere with.

These are not the Beatles you are looking for

New Pedal

We found out my pedalboard can power a label maker.
Maybe I can add this to the board...

Gibson Custom Shop ES330 with Bigsby

Check out this Gibson ES330!
Super cool guitar!

Pardon the weird look on my face, I promise I wasn't trying to stare into the camera...

Polytune Mini

This is a cute little tuner!
Perfect for saving space on a pedalboard.
The display appears to be about the same size as led's as the original polytune. There is a bunch of new compact/mini pedals coming out that have great tone and save you a bunch of space on your board. The polytune mini is the perfect tuner to save you some space and help you jam as many cool pedals as you can on your board. I used the original polytune for a year and loved the accuracy and how smooth the leds would move.

This is the perfect tuner for building the mini pedalboard of your dreams! 

2012 Tele Standards

Just got in the new 2012 Teles!

The new standards from Fender are pretty rockin!
The Teles have a new body contour, twisted tele pickup in the neck, and a broadcaster pickup in the bridge.

The Strats have Fat 50's pickups, aged pickup covers and knobs, and a copper infused high mass 100% metal bridge.

Both guitars boast of a thinner undercoat for improved resonance of the body.

Rock!








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chord Inversions

One of the first basic things you learn on guitar is that moving a chord shape up the fretboard changes the note, i.e. Barring an E chord and moving it up a fret is an F and so on. This concept is taught pretty early in your guitar education and at first seems to only apply to the E and A barre chord shapes. From there, you probably learned power chords and mastered the top 4 strings of the guitar and could play rock songs like a champion.

In worship music, the concept of the barre chord is typically seen by the use of the capo. Most people will capo on the second fret and play G, C, D, Em to play a song that is in the key of A. A lot of Chris Tomlin songs are played with the G chord forms and using a capo to alter the key. It sounds great on an acoustic guitar, but if you are an electric guitar player I would challenge you to not use a capo and to learn the alternate chord shapes to play chords higher on the fretboard. Playing chords in different positions will add dynamics and fullness to a song.

For the examples below, I have taken the key of E and transposed it to 4 different inversions.
The idea is the same concept you achieve when you capo a guitar and play standard open chords. If you capo'd on the second fret and played the chords G, C, D, and Em you would be playing in the key of A and actually be playing A, D, E, and F#m. Chord inversions are the exact same idea as using the capo and playing standard chords, they just remove the use of the capo and allow you to have full usage of the fretboard at all times.  The 4 inversions below are based on the chord shapes of E, D, C, & G, but are moved up the fretboard and allow you to stay in the key of E.
 
E Chord Inversion
You are probably very used to these shapes and chords, all of these chords allow you to play lower on the fretboard.

E in a D Shape Chord Inversion
This allows you to play in around the 3rd to 5th fret and uses a D shape chord form.
Think about this like being capo'd on the 2nd fret and playing D, A, G, Bm, etc.

E in a C Shape Chord Inversion
This allows you to play around the 5th - 7th fret and uses a C shape chord form.
Think about this like being capo'd on the 4th fret and playing C, F, G, Am, etc.

E in a G Shape Chord Inversion
This allows you to play around the 10th to 12th frets and uses a G shape chord form.
Think about this like being capo'd on the 9th fret and playing G, C, D, Em, etc.

Worship Guitar Rigs

A friend who typically plays acoustic asked me the other day what would be the basics and necessities to get to build an electric guitar rig for worship. I don't believe you have to buy the super boutique gear to get great tone, but we will get to that in a future post. I think tasteful playing, good tone in your fingers, and correct picking makes up a good amount of your tone. In the list, I left out most of the boutique-y gear and went with the tried and true basics. With all that said, here's a good better best list of basic gear I sent him. (Disclaimer: this is just my opinion, there is a ton of other cool gear out there, if you want to throw your two cents in, feel free to leave a comment)

Amps:
The guitar you play, pedals you use, and style you play will greatly change the sound of the amp, however a good tube amp is a must for an electric player

Good - Blues Junior or Vox AC15C1

Better - Hot Rod Deluxe, Vox AC30, Deluxe Reverb

Best - Hand Wired Vox AC30, Vibrolux, Orange AD30TC

Guitar:
The pickups that are in the guitar will have a lot to do with how your pedals are driven, how the amp is driven, and the brightness or darkness of your tone

Good - Fender Standard Telecaster or Epiphone Les Paul Standard

Better - Fender American Standard Telecaster or Strat, Fender Tele Thinline or Deluxe, Gibson Worn Les Paul, Gretsch 5120

Best - Fender American Vintage Telecaster or Strat, Gibson Les Paul Traditional Pro, Gretsch Country Gentleman

Pedalboard:
You will need a good board to house and power your pedals.

Good - Furman SPB-8

Better - Pedaltrain PT1SC or PT2SC with a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 (Soft Case)

Best - Pedaltrain PT2HC, PT3HC, or PTPRO with a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 (Hard Case)

Pedals:

Delay
This is something you will use all the time to fill space, add depth to your tone, and for ambience

Good - Boss DD7

Better - Visual Sound H2O, Electro Harmonix Memory Toy

Best - MXR Carbon Copy, Malekko Ekko 616

Tap Delay
The dotted eighth note appears in worship music quite a bit. That Edge-like guitar tone has become synonymous with Praise & Worship guitar tone. I recommend a Tap Delay that will allow you to set the BPM and save settings

Good - Boss DD7, Line 6 DL4, TC Electronic Nova Repeater

Better - TC Electronic Nova Delay or Boss DD20

Best- Eventide Time Factor, Providence Chrono Delay, Strymon Timeline

Overdrive
Your amp should be set clean and the overdrive pedals will add color and drive to your sound, which will help create texture and depth to your tone.

Good - Ibanez TS9 or Boss Blues Driver

Better - Fulltone Fulldrive 2 or OCD

Best - Timmy, Morning Glory, Sweet Honey Overdrive, Keeley Katana

Compressor
A compressor will even out your playing, by making increasing the volume of quiet sounds and lowering the volume of hard playing. It also can add a percussive sound to your playing, much like the clicking sound you hear in country style guitar. A good compressor is a must.

Good - MXR Dynacomp or Boss CS3

Better - MXR Custom Compressor

Best - Diamond CPR1 Compressor or Keeley Compressor

Volume Pedal
The volume pedal will be used for swells or to mute your guitar to send it to the tuner.

Good - Ernie Ball VP Jr

Better - Boss FV500

Best - Hilton or Goodrich Volume

Tuner Pedal
Best - Boss Tu3 or TC Electronic Polytune

Misc Pedals
Here are some more ideas of usable pedals that are not necessities but great to have on your board

Electro Harmonix Micro Pog - Adds an octave up or down to your original signal, great for chimey sounds or organ sounds.
Strymon Blue Sky - Reverb that has a shimmer effect, great for swells or filling space in songs.
Vox Wah - Creates that funk sound, also great for using a notch filter. 
MXR Phase 90 - Adds a sweeping swoosh like sound, adds some color to you guitar tone.

These are just some ideas to get your started, there are a tone more pedals that do different things and can make your guitar have tons of versatility and dynamics.

Please leave a comment if there is something I left out or a great pedal you want to give a shout out to!

Thanks for reading,

Ted Strange 

First Post!!!

Greetings! I wanted to take a second on this first post to introduce myself and give my idea for what I hope this blog can be.

My name is Ted Strange, I grew up playing guitar, and playing bass in church. I have worked for Guitar Center since 2001, and have had the pleasure of running the New Orleans, Memphis, and Central Dallas stores. I have played a variety of music, session work, and touring in bars, clubs, and churches.

My approach to worship guitar is different than most. This is due to most of my electric experience being in cover bands and in bars and clubs. My desire for this blog is to give some helpful tips from things I have learned and am still learning. Since my approach to worship music comes from a different style of playing than the traditional way guitarist play worship songs, I think this blog will offer an interesting perspective to playing electric worship guitar.

The following are some topics I hope to go over soon:
Chord inversions
Gear: Pedals, Amps, and Guitars
Using Delay
Practice and Rehearsing songs
Mic Placement
Amp Volume
Boutique vs. Budget
Pedalboard wiring
Looper Pedals
True Bypass
Stacking overdrives

Thanks for reading!
Ted Strange
Tedstrange@tedstrange.com