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Dwayne’s Guitar Lessons Present
Tools Of Rock Guitar Resource Guide ​ y B Dwayne Jenkins This resource guide will provide you with a checklist of tools needed for playing rock guitar electric and acoustic. No matter if you already have tools of the trade, this guide can help you to make sure they are the right ones. Learning to play guitar with the proper tools can help you to progress better, faster and make your journey to guitar greatness become much more enjoyable. So look over the checklist and see if you have acquired the proper tools to get up the mountain of success. And if not, this training guide will give you guidance on where you can purchase them.
1.) Guitars electric and acoustic 2.) Guitar picks 3.) Guitar strings 4.) Guitar Cables 5.) Guitar amplifiers
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6.) The right effects pedals 7.) The right training material.
1.) ​The Right Electric Guitar: A solid body electric guitar with a dual pickups. This will allow you to get a thick tone which is required for playing rock music. A guitar like the one pictured below should do fine.
You can also use the classic ​Fender Stratocaster
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Gibson Les Paul or Possibly a Flying V would work nicely too. Acoustic guitars In addition to having a good electric you might have or be interested in an acoustic guitar. Plenty of rock guitar players play acoustic. From The Beatles to the Stones, To Led Zeppelin and so on and so on. So having a good acoustic guitar in your arsenal of tools can be very beneficial to your learning. No matter if your just starting out or looking for an upgrade. Here are a few to take into consideration. Beginner acoustic Fender has always been known to make great guitars whether that be electric or acoustic. One that is very popular with beginners is the Fender FA-100 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar
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If your looking for an acoustic that is a bit smaller you can go with something like the Ibanez grand concert acoustic guitar
Which is a bit smaller and works well for those who don’t fit well with the bigger dreadnaught style. A smaller option for younger students A good choice for younger guitar players just starting out is the Yamaha CGS102A Half-Size Classical Guitar with nylon strings.
This allows the student to hold the strings down easier when forming chords. Which can always be a challenge in the beginning.
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A stage type of acoustic An Epiphone acoustic/electric guitar. Which can be plugged into an amplifier and played on stage.
Epiphone have been building guitars for over a century and are a trusted brand in the industry. There are plenty more to choose from you just have to take some time to find one that’s right for you, but these should get you headed in the right direction. 2.) The infamous guitar pick. Now you don’t have to play with a pick. But I do believe it can help with some applications. There are really too many to list, but here are a few recommendations.
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Jim Dunlop variety pack
As you can see they come in different materials, shapes and colors to fit your personality and style of playing. Fender premium picks
As you can clearly see there are really too many types and styles to list here. But these will get you started. It’s best to try out a few different ones to see which ones you like and play those. 3.) Guitar Strings Once again, we have too many to choose from and in the beginning you won’t need any. When you buy the guitar it will have strings on it that will work fine, but when it comes time to change them you might not know exactly which ones to choose. Here’s a few brands I recommend that will have strings for both electric and acoustic.
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Ernie Ball Strings
Ernie Ball Regular Slinky They also have Super Slinky & a Hybrid Slinky. Actually, any of Ernie Ball strings are great. You just need to find what works best for you and your kind of playing. If your playing a lot of chunky rhythm with a non-tremolo guitar, you might want to use heavier gauge strings. They give a heavier sound. But if your playing lead guitar with a tremolo, you might want to use lighter strings because they bend easier. But it’s strictly up to you. D’Addario Guitar Strings These are great strings because they are round wound with nickel plated steel for a distinctive bright tone.
All these strings come in different string sizes to fit both electric and acoustic. For all different styles of playing and is preferred that you try
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out some different types. Like I said before, these are just a few from many to choose from. 4.) Cables When it comes to playing acoustic guitar, no cables are needed. Unless it’s an electric/acoustic then you’ll need one to plug it in to an amp or P.A. system. But when it comes to playing electric guitar, you will need some. You will need an instrument cable, if you use pedals you will need power supply cables and daisy chain cables to hook the pedals together. Once again there are many to choose from, but here are a few recommendations to get you started. 1 Spot power adapter cable
This power supply works great for pedals of all different sizes, shapes and mfg companies.
1 Spot multi plug 8 cable
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This is useful for connecting multiple pedals together. And a necessity if you are going to use more than one pedal. And if you want to create your own custom cable set up you can use something like the Donner DIY patch cable setup.
Any way you choose to do it is up to you and there are many more options to choose from. You just have to figure what is best for you. Here is a pedal setup guide. 5.) The Right Amplifier. If you ask me, there is only one to choose and that’s Marshall. But just in case you prefer some other options, here’s the Marshall & a few other popular amps to consider.
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Marshall MG10. Perfect for getting started. Two channels and very Easy to operate.
Peavey Backstage. Perfect for practicing and dialing in a great tone. Comparable to the Marshall MG10.
If you’d like something a bit bigger with more bells and whistles (which is not needed in the beginning) but can be fun to play around with. You can also choose modeling amps such as.
Line 6 Spider. Great little amp with a built in effects and four channels.
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Also allows you to create custom tones of your choice.
Fender Mustang.​ Which is a nice amp designed for rock. Comes with effects and multiple settings of rock tones. All these amplifiers can give you the rock tone and just like the pedals, it is recommended that you try the out at your local store, check reviews online and see which one is right for you as they are all a bit different. 6.)​ The Right Effects Pedal: A nice quality distortion or heavy metal pedal will be best. Not all distortion pedals are the same so be sure to grab the right one. Here are a couple to try out:
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Boss MT-2 Metal Zone. Designed for getting the heavy metal crunch of Metallica The MT-2 Metal Zone is one of BOSS' most popular pedals. This stompbox provides some of the most over-the-top, insane distortion tones in the world—with huge mids and lows and an ultra-saturated sound.
DigiTech Metal Master. This pedal will give you the arsenal you need to tear the heads off of your crowd! Use the Morph knob to morph between a smooth high gain tone, to a scooped midrange sound, all the way to a punchy mid range heavy metal sound that will cut through ANY mix!
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MXR Fullbore Metal. This is another great pedal to give you the Metallica sound. This compact but powerful device is all you need to unleash the most devastating contemporary metal guitar tones ever heard. The Fullbore Metal turbo charge’s your guitar signal with lethal amounts of ultra high gain.
Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff. Another super pedal for getting the Metallica tone. The Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff with Top Boost is aimed directly at our metal-loving guitarists, and may just be the finest pedal for heavy metal ever created! The 3-band EQ boasts a midrange control that is perfect for contouring the mids, it’s like having two pedals in one. So a great value for the money.
I’d recommend trying out a few different ones at your local store or possibly checking out some demonstrations on Youtube. Here are a few additional popular pedals you might want to try out to give your sound a sonic boost.
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Delay pedals MXR Analog Delay
This pedal gives a nice rich all analog delay. Boss Digital Delay
This pedal has many applications and can give you ​many cool sonic sounds ​It is one of my personal favorites. In addition to that you have the Wah pedal
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Jim Dunlop Crybaby Wah Pedal
This is very cool pedal to try out. Very popular among rock guitar wizards and alchemists. There are many many many more pedals to check out. A resource guide could actually cover just pedals, but these are a few to try out and then discover more. 7.) Training manuals to get you moving in the right direction with your learning once you have the right tools of the trade. Electric guitar Electric guitar primer book for beginners Acoustic guitar Hal Leonard guitar method complete edition Music theory The guitarist’s music theory book. These are some books that helped me out over the years in my learning of guitar. Of course nowadays it’s all Google and Youtube but don’t overlook learning from books. They present the information in a different way and allow you to progress at your own pace. As sometimes with video, the teacher goes to fast or is as boring to learn from as watching paint dry.
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It doesn’t really matter how you learn, just as long as you find what works for you and stay the course. No matter if it be books, podcasts or video. I recommend all of them. Anyway, this resource guide should give you a good place to start. Anytime you look to get a certain tone with musical equipment, you need to take some time to learn how it all functions individually and then collectively. Acquiring the right tools of the trade is essential to preparing you for the journey you are embarking on. Your personal journey of success. Getting the right tone is quite easy if you have the right tools and learn how to use them to your benefit. Use this guide as a reference tool and you won’t go wrong. And as always if you have any questions be sure to email me. There are more tools you can use and as time goes by I will present them to you so to help you along your journey. I know this has some color to it, but I still recommend you print it out and Print it out and save it in your binder so you can look at for quick reference along with all other reference material you collect. Once you get the tools of the trade together, you can then start learning how to play guitar. That’s when the fun really starts. So get your tools together, get a good book or video course and start learning how to have fun playing rock guitar. Before you know it, you’ll be impressed with all you have accomplished. Thanks for taking the time to look at this resource guide and I hope it helped you learn what kind of tools are necessary to get you to where you want to go. If you need additional training, please let me know.
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Best of luck to you. Sincerely, Dwayne Jenkins Dwayne’s Guitar Lessons.com
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