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The page here is a home to some guitar stuff. I built my first Electric Guitar as a project when I was at school. In those days it was not possible to go out and buy a truss rod for the neck and as many builders, and I have met a few will attest there simply was not the breadth of knowledge out there or the places where we could go for help. The WWW or internet did not exist! Andy Manson was probably just starting out having taken a course bespoke and fine wood craft adapting it from furniture to guitars. His guitars are truly beautiful made with such loving care and craftsmanship. My attempts at building a modified version of the Everyday Electronics Beta Guitar were fraught with all sorts of issues. With a built in Treble Boost and Fuzz circuit long before we had the likes of Andy Summers and others that later experimented with such things. Suffice to say it was a start and I still have some of the parts that I used to build it which includes a pair Baldwin pickups. This guitar was superceeded by trading some other stuff I had for a Teisco Top 20 Woolworths guitar. However as with many things, life happened and work took precedence and guitar was parked for many years.

I picked up a guitar again properly in 1990, some things I remembered but by then work was still a major priority, my circle of friends smaller and me not being a very outgoing sort of person anything I learnt had to be on my own. Enter Mansons guitars and Andy's brother Hugh then just starting out with a shop in Exeter, now sadly gone in 2023 but survived by Manson's Guitar works, and taking some lessons with Adrian Ashton and Jay Henson at Manson's Rackenclose lane shop. Sadly my lessons at Manson's didn't last as I suffered an illness that caused a lot of trouble best left parked here.

It took a while to recover and when I did it was work that was a priority to sustain family, house and home. Guitar took a backseat again from many years but remained something I kept coming back to. I got some much nicer guitars over the years but after an accident that broke the scaphoid, trapezoid and every metacarple in my right hand in 2016 it has taken some work to get to play again.

In 2022 I did a few days with Guitarbreaks and later that year I did an experience day with the 'That Pedal Show' boys Mick and Dan, which is something I'd recommend to anyone into electric guitar. A few pictures are presented in the links below.

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That Pedal Show November 2022

The next links are to stuff that I enjoy watching or where I may go looking when GAS takes hold.

Reaper Digital Audio Workstation, is truly first class tool that I use to record music and as a tool for practice. It is fully featured and has none of the limitations that many other DAW software packaged are encumbered with like iLok or other online phone home requirements to use it. I pair this up with a Roland Octa Capture audio interface for recording either using microphones to guitar speakers or other acoustic instruments. These are paired up with virtual instruments like Ezdrummer 3 drum vst or a Yamaha TG100 synth module and Samson Rubicon studio monitors. A mixture of amplification is on hand with a Marshall JMP-1 and Alesis Quadraverb rack equipment and home made Midi switching board, a well used ex Southerland Brothers and Quiver 1975 Fender Twin Reverb, a Fender Princeton Reverb 65 re-issue. If amp modelling is used then a Line 6 POD XTLive is on hand and a number of VST plugin amp simulators.

Truefire Guitar Lessons a wide selection of top players and the lessons they have created with backings and supporting videos and tabulature.

Aynsley Lister a great British blues guitar player well worth going to see if you get a chance. Sadly my last local gig I was struck down with covid and swapped my ticket for 4 pints of milk from a mate who got my front row seat.