Very happy for you, mate! It seems that it’s the most simple of things sometimes (I also managed to find the root cause of my pickup sounding trebly in the clean channel: I rolled the tone knob of the amp’s clean channel to the maximum and I completely forgot about it - in the immortal words of Dell Boy, “what a plonker”).
Which pedals are you planning to use in your chain?
Cheers, its been a little frustrating tbh.
Darn those knobs!!
Most of my pedals are pictured above but in short I’ll be putting the following in there in no particular order.
Fuzz
At least 3 overdrives I think or different flavours - One mid humpy, one bit more open and another trending more towards distortion. So it will be all or a selection of Fender MTG, EH Crayon, Lovepedal Amp 11 and a one off custom job I have which with the noise gone I have a chance of exploring properly.
Compressor
Tuner
Flanger
A combined reverb / delay pedal.
Equaliser.
Hopefully I can get them all to fit. Space will be tight!.
I find I need the equaliser to control the bass levels from the Spark amp and the P90’s in the guitar.
Happy to report that everything is at last working as it should. This also gave me a chance to properly test a couple of pedals that I haven’t yet run through the mill. Some surprises.
The amp 11 is some pedal. So smooth and monster sustain on tap.the boost side works wonderfully as a clean boost too.
My fuzz is also a cheap home built germanium hobby job that cost me £25 off eBay. I basically took a punt for nothing and it’s pretty damn good. Very smooth pedal.
The custom pedal is a tad noisy but not excessively on one side. The other is silent and again a good option. Bit like a Blues driver I think, which is why I got it.
The board itself to build now and a mission to cram them all on and then on with finding “my” sound.
I finally took the plunge and got an Earvana compensated nut installed in my Schecter guitar (I had some problems with tuning stability and intonation which pushed me over the edge in the end). Early days but I definitely couldn’t be happier with it! It solved both of my problems, I wonder why more guitars don’t use it. Turns out that newer Schecter models actually come out of the box with an Ernie Ball compensated nut installed. I don’t want to sound like an advert but the guitar now sings, especially when I play open chords on it. That said, I bought an extra Earvana nut in case I need it for my LTD as well but I don’t think I do at this moment (its tuning and intonation have always been more stable than on Schecter).
Cool beans. Still trying to get my head around them to be honest. But then I always say if it’s stupid but works then maybe it isn’t stupid. 
I think I mentioned at some point that I was talked into it by my friend-in-a-band (he owns a Gibson Les Paul Custom and an ESP LTD EC-1000, this one came with a preinstalled Earvana nut - in the end, he liked it so much that he put Earvana on his LP Custom, he says that he probably lost a bit of that classic LP feel on it by doing it but that he gained a tonne of stability and nigh on perfect intonation). I can’t stress enough that I’m still a beginner but before/after differences are audible to anyone.
The luthier didn’t even want to change the strings (they were about two months old) because he and my friend wanted me to hear it for myself, try to notice the differences and decide whether to leave Earvana. He carefully removed the preinstalled GraphTech nut in case I wanted to do a rollback. Having played over the weekend (both unplugged and plugged into clean and OD channels, with and without the OD pedals I’ve mentioned earlier), I don’t think I’ll ever remove it from Schecter, I think that compensated nut helped me find the sweet spot between the string gauge (Ernie Ball Regular Slinky pack), tuning (Eb standard) and playability and intonation. Who knows, one day I might even learn to play the damn thing! 
Great to hear. It’s the geek in me that wants to know what it does differently to a standard nut and how it does it.
They look pretty funky based on what I’ve seen but that wouldn’t stop me if that was a thing.
Well, you did ask for it…
As for the looks, I think it looks great when installed, especially compared to any regular nut I’ve come across so far but bear in mind that I’m a simple metalhead, so all things black and grey are an instant turn on for me, especially if they have an industrial look. I can post a few pictures of it if you like. There’s also a white version of the nut but you have to check whether your guitar model is compatible first.
I actually contacted Schecter’s support to ask if Earvana was compatible with Solo-II series guitars and they dismissed me right out of hand: “These guitars are not designed to be used with a compensated nut, so there isn’t one I can recommend since installing that type of part will change the intonation”. Yeah, thanks a lot. Fast forward a few months and I learned they actually installed Ernie Ball compensated nuts in a few guitar models of theirs, so that might have been the reason behind their snub. Anyway, I looked at the dimensions, measured a bit, compared it to LTD and it turned out it was an almost perfect fit. The luthier just sandblasted the bottom side just a wee bit and it fell perfectly into its place.
As a side note, the luthier guy’s a crazy genius in the best sense of the word, by the way (you can check his work here: Ilianni Guitars), he started off by making clones of popular guitars and is now producing guitars of his own design, mostly for all kinds of shredders from Balkans (I checked out some clients of his like Igor Paspalj and Muris Varajić - when I see miracles these guys perform on their guitars, I think of quitting the guitar altogether) but is slowly expanding West-wards. He doesn’t service instruments but he did it for me because of my friend-in-a-band, they’ve known each other for ages. Man, will I cherish that, the guitar’s completely transformed!
Got GAS for an Aristides order.
It’s difficult, is the guitar. I bought myself one for Christmas, started practicing Jan 2nd. I can play a lot of chords, but it still takes twenty minutes to go from one chord to another.
I’ve been trying to play Woody Guthrie’s Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key, but there’s something amiss with either me or the guitar.
When I first started learning chords, I started with songs like Let It Be. It has five different chords and at first it looked like I would never overcome the challenge of switching between different chord shapes. It took me a while but that song taught me the chord changes and I recommend it to you for the same purpose.
Are you really buying an Aristides? Those guitars are unreal.
Yeah saving up for an order
I really hope you get one, whichever model you set your heart on. I’ve always looked at Aristides (any model) and Music Man Majesty as spaceships among guitars. I think that musicians will look at them in 200 years (unless we suffer a nuclear holocaust in the meantime) the way we look at pyramids of Giza or Cologne Cathedral - you can’t help but wonder how a destructive society is capable of creating such timeless wonders.
Oh yeah JP’s Musicman Monarch Majesty is also on my long term list
Just catching up. Must build that pedal board now. I have all the bits. Just time. I have promised myself to cut all unnecessary spending from now on. I have everything I need, with me being the weak link in my hobbies. Time to just sit down and work.
Basically saving cash for house upgrades and more holiday time from now on. Increased household bills aren’t helping either.
So can someone explain to me what the issue with the riff is? Is it because it’s such a popular song that everyone learns it sooner or later?
Dunno if it was a thing beforehand but Wayne’s World has to take some of the heat for it.
Fuck, I’d totally forgotten about WW
I know. So long. I think there’s also a Zeppelin side to it where they refused to play it or something. Dunno.
I also suspect that it’s because of it being some ultimate rock anthem thing too maybe?