So I went watch shopping today

[DarkTirade]

I was using my grandpa's cel phone to keep track of time, but something's funky with it so we had to send it to get fixed. I figured it's about time I get myself a watch anyway. Since I'm dropping him off and picking him up from dialysis 3 times a week, and I'm in school now, I've got places I need to be at certain times.

So I stopped by Target after dropping him off at dialysis today. I headed over to the jewelry department, as you do. Now, I don't tend to wear any kind of decoration or jewelry myself. I don't like wearing watches. I see this as a necessary evil.

As I'm looking at all these watches, suddenly a ray of golden light comes down and illuminates... this.





And it was even on sale.

So now I've got a rather nifty pocketwatch. No annoying thing hanging off my wrist. Just a rather classy, yet still cheap pocketwatch. :)



*P.S. - I was exaggerating about the ray of light. I didn't really like any of the regular watches there so I asked the girl behind the counter if they had pocketwatches. She's the one who pointed it out to me. :P

[Sanity Claws]

1. I suddenly saw you as a trainmaster in a past life

Do you have a thing for trains? ;)

[DarkTirade]

3. Nope, I'm a pretty plane kinda guy myself.

:P

[Kutjara]

5. Now you just need a waistcoat...

...with watch and fob pockets. I've often considered getting a pocket watch, but my pockets are usually so full of junk I really don't have room for one.

[DarkTirade]

6. My pockets are always full of junk

which is why I buy pants with big pockets.

... and does a big leather trenchcoat work? 'Cause I got one of those. :) Just repaired the left pocket too. Big rip on the outside, seams coming loose on the inside. Side effect of getting a bad-ass leather trenchcoat for 25 bucks at a GoodWill store.

[SacredCow]

2. Pocketwatches are cool in a retro sort of way...

I used to carry one, but the wristwatch is just more convenient for me.

PS- tell me of the bass! :hi:

[DarkTirade]

4. Well, it's handier than a cel phone. :)

And less uncomfortable than a wristwatch for me.

Ah, yes, the bass. 'Twas my surprise christmas present from my brother this year. He packaged it up in this HUGE box just to make sure I couldn't guess that it was something guitar-related. Now I can lay down my own bass tracks. :) I'm still learning, not very good at it yet. Don't know if I'll ever be. But you gotta start somewhere.

Besides, playing guitar isn't gonna get me anywhere nowadays... EVERYBODY plays guitar. But bands always need bass players and drummers, and since I'm a string player, bass is the way for me to go.

Since I ended up getting an amp to go with the bass, I also spent a couple bucks on a pickup for my guitar so I now can record my guitar without using my microphone. :) Although I like to do both, get a fuller sound. I was just experimenting with using both the pickup and the microphone to record the guitar track yesterday with http://www.stickmanltd.com/practicesessions/colorful.mp3">this song from the movie Rock Star. The microphone gives a little more 'live' a sound than the pickup, but the pickup gives a much more solid sound. So I put them together, made one track slightly stronger on the left channel and one on the right so it didn't end up sounding mono, and voila. Nice rich guitar sound.

[SacredCow]

7. cool...

every guitar player has to have at least 1 bass, after all... Mine is an old cheapie Squier that became the victim of an alcohol-fueled paint pen attack by a former roommate and his sister. It's just bizzare and profane and hideous all at once! Thanks, guys... No, really.... :eyes: At least they stayed away from my vintage stuff!

[DarkTirade]

8. I'm actually thinking about making my own instruments.

But to start out cheap, I'm gonna do piezo pickups instead of buying 70-200 dollar humbuckers. :P At least until I get a feel and see if A) I'm any good at it, and B ) see if I like making my own.

I had a nifty idea for my first one... instead of using a regular plastic pick guard/circuitry cover, I'm gonna use circuit board. And have it so that some of the wiring can be seen poking through it. Go for kind of a geek-chic guitar or bass, whichever I end up making first.

The only thing I'm worried about is the fact that I don't have a router. I'm wondering if maybe I could find some kind of router bit for a regular drill press... I don't know if that's doable. I've never had much experience with tools. I just like makin' stuff.

[SacredCow]

9. I recently bought a pickup from guitarfetish.com....

a P-90 to put into one of those Epiphone Les Paul Juniors (which for some reason comes with a P-100). It was only about 35 bucks. I can't vouch for the sound of it yet, though, as I have not had the time to install it.

I like the idea re the circuit board, though- certainly unique. I've always been tempted to buy the body blanks and necks from a place like warmoth.com and mess around. But then again, I can't seem to make the time to swap pickups, so......


Oh, and on edit: If you want the P-100 that I take out, I'd be happy to send it to you.

[DarkTirade]

10. I've got some free time these days.

Not a lot where I can make the kind of noise I'd need to make with the tools and whatnot, but enough that I could give it a go.

Might be a way to earn a little extra money without getting a real job too. :P Designer guitars.

But yeah, for the piezo pickup, since I'm just experimenting I wanted to go as cheap as possible. So I didn't even buy an actual pickup... just a 5 dollar piezo buzzer that I'm gonna convert into a pickup. :)

[SacredCow]

11. Fun stuff...

and making me want to get the soldering iron out and swap pickups. :)

[DarkTirade]

12. If I can't get the broken piece out of the tip of my iron

I'll have to get a new one. :\ I have a soldering iron/woodburner and one of the woodburning tips broke off inside there.

[mwb970]

15. Hey, nice recording!

The stereo effect on the guitar really works here. Much better than a mono track. What did you record it with?

[DarkTirade]

16. I've got a simple detachable piezo pickup for my acoustic guitar

that's plugged into the cheapest Marshall amp I could find. :) 'Twas on sale after christmas. And my microphone for the other channel is a Samson Q7. Fairly basic, but good quality for its price. Same microphone I used to record the voice tracks as well.

To give it a more 'live' feel I added a slight echo to both the guitar and voice tracks. And since I did the whole thing with something like 4 takes for the 3 tracks (screwed up the vocals once), and I'd just learned the song a few minutes before that, I didn't think I was gonna be able to get a polished studio recording type sound. Hence the attempt to go for a more live performance sound. :)

[mwb970]

13. My brother had a pocket watch for a while in the 60s.

It was about the same size, with the chain and everything. Pretty cool. Gee, I was planning to replace my broken-down watchband soon, but maybe I'll replace the whole watch instead!

[DarkTirade]

14. Yeah, the chain's handy.

It also came with a little leather holder to put it in that has a belt loop, but I'm not using that right now. I'm not wearing a belt, so I just have the chain attached to one of my belt loops on my pants. Makes it easy to pull it out of my pocket and check the time though, handy little chain right there. :)