I really wish I knew this before buying new pickups

Greetings and salutations to all in Shred Nation!

Hello Hello Hello Hello! Turn down the echo echo echo... Hey glad you've joined me here again. It was getting kind of lonely in cyberspace. Since Justin Timberlake bought Myspace no one is really on here chatting with me anymore >;( Anyway we're about to drop some flaming facts and maybe even some curvaceous opinions so STRAP IN:

Read This Paragraph Before You Buy New Pickups
Another New Shredder to Lower Your Self Esteem
My Funny Luthier Idea / Happy Bday Long Beach Guitar Repair
Practice These Django-Inspired Arpeggios NOW
My Favorite T-shirts from the Renaissance Pleasure Faire

Need Pickups? Read this Now

Alright way back in the day, you used the stock pickups that came in your guitar or swapped them with other stock pickups. Starting in 1972 you could purchase aftermarket Dimarzio's from their Staten Island, NY factory. In 1976 Seymour Duncan started his company in Santa Barbara, CA and these two companies are STILL the two biggest aftermarket pickup companies around. If you are unfamiliar with these brands you should do a little bit of research and digging. Some of their models are so ubiquitous they would be worth knowing if only as a reference point. The Duncan JB, Jazz, Distortion among others and the Dimarzio Super Distortion, Activator, Air Norton are among the most used models. Dimarzios artist roster includes Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, John Petrucci, etc, while Seymour Duncan's includes Slash, Billie Joe Armstrong, Tom Delonge, George Lynch, etc.

Both have great sounding models and some real fucking doo doo models.

But all of this was just background info to tell you to not buy either and to purchase Gemini pickups instead! Hand made, hand wound in Newburgh, New York by pickup phenom Rob Banta. There's a lot of reasons why these are better.

They sound fucking awesome. Just straight up every pickup I've heard from Gemini and I own quite a few now and in various guitars and they've all been really clear, really full and they sound alive. I've been super happy with them and I can be a real piece of shit about stuff like this I'm constantly changing things in and out.
You're able to speak directly to the person that is building your pickups, so if you have any kind of specific customization that you're looking for you could actually make it happen. For example, maybe you want his humbucker model but you want it slightly underwound. Or you want the single coil with a tortoise shell cover. Or actually in Rob's case he can almost wind any type of pickup into any size case, I have a Walsh guitar with real humbuckers wound into old Soviet pickup cases which are somewhere between the size of single coils and P90s.
Gemini has a "Dualbucker" option, which allows you to split your humbucker into full strength single coils. If you've ever had your humbucking pickups coil-tapped you'll know that it kinda gets the feeling of a single coil but it doesn't reaaaaaalllly sound like an actual single coil. It has the essence of single coil. The 60 cycle hum flavor of La Croix. Anyway this Dualbucker option takes care of that which is rad.
They are roughly the same cost as Seymour Duncan pickups and in some cases even more affordable. Fucking blows my mind. I don't know of any other hand-wound custom made pickup company that offers pickups at this price point.

Gemini is definitely more in the vintage inspired space but they do have their own new inventions that don't exist elsewhere, a high gain humbucker, and will do tons of custom stuff. Dimarzio and Seymour have probably a hundred models each to choose from, but I'd rather have a smaller menu that you know is 100% exceptional and still covers your bases! Plus the added custom tweakability. Man and that price point like wtf. Unless you're in some major 80s teen movie pickle where your guitar pickups exploded and you have to rock the local auditorium or they're gonna pave over the animal shelter so you need to buy a Satriani signature pickup straight from the store and install it immediately, do yourself a favor and grab something custom for the same price.

Might As Well Quit Now

I like to keep you guys abreast of any Stan Lee style super humans to make you either want to quit guitar or practice more. Anyway here's Baxty and he's fucking insane. Just click on a random video they're all nuts. Some of the cleanest picking I've ever heard and flawless transitions between economy and alternate picking, tapping no extra noise and perfect execution. He has some cool exercises for sale on Patreon that I'll be diving into in the coming weeks that are mostly extended intervallic picking workouts that sound a lot like his music. Just when anyone else is playing them they're a lot slower and a lot sloppier. Check him out as I'm sure he'll be a huge name in guitar land in the near future.

Luthier Idea

Quick shoutout to my local luthiers Long Beach Guitar Repair! If you're in the LB area, or willing to make the drive from OC or the closer part of LA I want to say that LBGR does really great work and are the absolute nicest people. Owner Guillermo Rios is actually a really decorated flamenco guitarist who has played Carnegie Hall multiple times and also a Silver Star veteran of the Vietnam war. It's their 10th anniversary of opening this week so had to say Happy Bday.

Ok so I'm putting together a spreadsheet of aftermarket parts that I recommend, I want it to be pretty comprehensive so it's taking a long time. I was thinking of doing something similar for luthiers around the country? Like just a database for people traveling, or if you move to a new city, or if you're just looking for a new person to repair your guitar and you keep getting dicked around with shitty work or whatever. Any time I post stuff about guitar upgrades or when I posted my broken Kauer, SO many people suggested their local luthiers from all over and said "Hey reach out to xxxxxx in Utah, he's a master wood worker and he can totally fix this," or "My luthier Jimbo Johnson in Duluth can meld your broken guitar back together using only the power of his third eye. Trust me he did it for my nephew." So it's cool hearing personal endorsements from the community and it's also very cool to hear how much everybody loves their luthiers, and with good reason. When you find a good one you never let them go. It's like what people say about contractors. Or I think that's what they say?

Anyway, if you have a luthier local to you that you think is great and you think other people should know about them then respond to this and link me to their website, instagram, facebook or however people get in touch with them. If there's something they specialize in you can let me know that too and I'll include that in notes on my spreadsheet. For example, there's a guy here in Signal Hill (Steve at Blue Alien Guitars) who is an absolute madman with electronics. He can get new pickups installed in like 60 minutes I've never met somebody that does this shit so fast.

Also for those of you who do your own repairs that is awesome and good on you! For those of you who don't know how to do your own repairs but insist on trying anyway, THIS WILL COST YOU MORE MONEY IN THE LONG RUN. People will have to fix the shit that you have now made worse.

Ok that's my idea it's probably a dumb one but hey if it helps any local luthiers get more business / helps anyone get their guitar fixed properly then it was worth it!

Learn These Django Inspired Licks

Alrighty so you're probably familiar with the name Django Reinhardt because he is considered the absolute mack daddy of Gypsy Jazz and also there's not a lot of "Django Reinhardt"s in popular culture besides him. If you're unfamiliar with his work he fucking rips and he's missing a few fingertips. Here's a short video of him that features some faster and cleaner picking than most of us will ever achieve and it's also damn near 80 years old. If you like the guitar you should at least give him a listen. Ok that's the the background context:

Modern gypsy infused shred-lord extroardinaire Emil Werstler wrote some great articles a few years back teaching gypysy inspired arpeggio licks over a standard blues progression. This is cool for a few reasons:

Gypsy jazz is cool, it features a lot of really shreddy guitar techniques that cross over to metal and other kind of acrobatic guitar playing
Blues is a lot closer to most rock n roll music harmonically than your typical jazz standard, so these types of licks will work in settings the average "rock" guitarist will find themselves in.

Plus Emil is so fucking good dude. I'll be dissecting more of his playing and licks in some of my videos coming up, in my opinion he is massively slept on.

Anyway here are the licks, it's one full chorus of a fast blues. You can move this to different keys and get a ton of mileage out of it so don't just learn it where it's written! This is music to be played. And if you're interested, here is the rest of the article with more licks and where he explains what he's doing.

ALLLLLLLLLLRIGHTY that's gonna do it for this week. If you've enjoyed this newsletter or felt like you get anything useful out of it I HIGHLY recommend you check out my SHREDUCATION PATREON. I'm teaching a ton of shit over there and we're posting up new stuff all the time with p constant value adds. Not fucking around here.

I was at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire earlier today and sure there were some great costumes but I would feel remiss if I didn't share with you my favorite t-shirts from the day.

4) "You Can't Scare Me, I Have Two Daughters"

3) "Cremation Is My Last Chance for a Smoking Hot Body"

2) a lime green shirt with plain black writing that said "I survived gout"

And undisputed number 1 king of the pleasure faire today was this winner: