Recently when I visited the library I found a catalogue listing Ibanez Guitars, especially pricing information about old guitars, what the street value is today. That was interesting reading. My first Ibanez was a Flying V (clone of the famous Gibson version), it actually had a good sound but the tuning was hard to keep in place. And of course you could not really use it easily in studio sessions — but for stage presence it had it’s plus moments. I sold it long time ago. The catalogue told me that the current price is between $1500 and $1800. Ouch. 

My next Ibanez was a RoadStar II. Those were clones of the Stratocaster model. They were nice, light, but the tone was somewhat thin, but that’s what you get with Stratocasters, anyway. I still have it around. But I don’t think it’s a special guitar, exactly. The catalogue price was $500-800. Huh. 

My current Ibanez is an RG-750. I still think this is one of the best ever Ibanez models made, a high end system back in 1990-92. Custom made in Japan. Has the best tone and playability I’ve ever had. Still using it today. Catalogue price: $400-600. What?

Anyway, in case you have old Ibanez guitars in your attic, now is the time to sell them. As for current guitars, I do think that a large selection of today’s guitars, in the $400-800 range, are really good. You have to pay a lot of money to get the extra quality or tonality, and with effects and other parts it’s doubtful you could invest in that, unless you really know what you want. They are not vintage guitars — but frankly speaking I do think a lot of contemporary guitars today are really well made, compared with the old produces.

The reason is that a lot of today’s guitars are made with CNC manufacturing. The robots could cut out parts from wood that few craftsmen could do, 24 hours a day. The only bonus humans could achieve is in the really high end — think of the ’samurai swords’ of guitars. Super-good, but you pay a lot for that. I would actually recommend to watch the factory tour video from Carvin that shows how guitars are carved out with CNC systems — quite fascinating. You could also get the videos via the free DVD. Anyway, I think it will open up your eyes why you could get really good quality guitars and other equipment from countries like Indonesia today. An sell your old vintage guitar, now is the time!

I read some time ago Oliver Sack’s book Musicophilia. This was quite a fascinating book, I would recommend any musician to take time reading it, or think about the issues the book raises.

Oliver Sacks is actually a neurologist, and he has been involved with all kinds of strange states concerning brain and music. Usually after some kind of internal brain damage or accident, various people have strange problems concerning music and audio. For example, one person was struck with lightning, after this he became so passionate about music (not before) that he is constantly composing and playing, hearing songs in his head.

Others have annoying music loops playing over and over in their heads after an accident or problems. Some become totally tone deaf.

The book really points out that there are sections in the brain that controls the level of musicality for persons. A damage and it’s over. Or then something else strange happens and new patterns emerge. It would also explain how composers such as Mozart constantly heard music, all they needed was to write it down. And why for some others they can’t really hear much, even to a point that they attend American Idol and believe their voice is godlike, while they can’t even hold a tune.

It might even explain why I’ve had bass licks and melodies that suddenly started playing in my mind in mid-December, hence I’m nowadays a bass player.

Anyway, in practical terms it means that for us musicians, we need to take care of our brain. Never go out biking without a helmet. Use aspirin every day to make the blood elastic to avoid any sudden blood bursts in the brain. Check your blood pressure, take it down with all means, if something bad happens — like a bursted blood vessel — it might be the last time you could create music. Take down the overall weight. Take care of your brain.

Here’s another article on the web talking about how jazz musicians turn off certain sections of the brain and enact other when jamming together.

Anyway, there’s still the mystery why some get the right wirings in the brain and become amazing musicians — supposedly nobody in Steve Vai’s family is a musician — so there’s more than genes in action. And it can’t be just random patterns, that’s not logical. But that’s another deeper philosophical issue.

This is about chemicals. I had this somewhat old (10+ year old) Marshal JCM900 guitar combo amp that has been collecting dust in my studio. Not just literally, really.

And of course after such a long time of no usage, the potentiometers had squeaky sounds when I booted up the amplifier. I had a spray can of WD-40 back home, assumed that this miracle chemical would fix anything, but especially one of the volume knobs still didn’t work properly.

So today I stopped by one of the local Frys and looked at other solutions, I found Puretronics contact cleaner, it was a cheap can, $6, so I took one home. I sprayed the pots, and yes, now they work fine.

The local Starving Musician also sold me an old Marshall channel switcher, for $10, and of course this one didn’t work. So I sprayed it with Puretronics, and yes, now it works fine.

Lessons learned, keep a bottle of this around, there’s a lot of stuff in your studio that could get dust and dirt inside the volume potentiometers, sliders, contacts and so on. There could be many cases where you think your equipment is broken, while all it would take would be to fix bad connections with something like this.

The other lesson learned was that WD-40 is not that universal; use something dedicated for electrical contacts. No, Puretronics has not sponsored me. That bottle I purchased today should be enough for the next five years or more.