ecently completed a restoration of his very first electric guitar. Instead of going the normal route, he modded it to be a Weird Sound Generator. The WSG is a popular kit sold by Music From Outer Space. His creation, dubbed Fender Bender, has a custom pick guard cut from an old motherboard. There are multiple knobs on the pick guard plus three buttons on the neck.

Guitar Pro v5.2 (Full with CD Key)

This update to the leading guitar-tablature editing software adds a realistic sound engine, improved imports from other formats, and a slew of minor enhancements throughout. Guitar Pro 5 is smooth both when composing new pieces and transcribing existing ones. It can display both tablature and standard music notation on the same page, and it also supports bass, banjo, drums, and other instruments. It performs two-way conversions between tablature and standard notation and can export in multiple formats, including ASCII tabs, WAV, and MIDI.

Guitar Pro 5's great strength, though, is convenience. Compared with the pricier Cakewalk Pro Audio, Guitar Pro offers a more accessible interface without sacrificing features. Unlike most ASCII-tab-editing programs, such a[/img]s TabMaster 1.3, Guitar Pro formats printed output so that no line of music gets cut between two pages. Other useful features include a metronome and a built-in digital tuner. The program gives easy control over tempo, vibrato, articulation, harmonics, bends, and virtually all other techniques used in notation. However, there's no option to include bends on standard notation. If you don't want to use the tablature (which can display bends), you can end up playing the wrong note; for example, if there's a note bent up from C, the program will list it as a standard C.

Guitar Pro 5 also gets high marks sonically. A new playback system called the Realistic Sound Engine (RSE) is based on recorded samples and digital modeling. I could add effects and equalize the various RSE instruments in order to create a better and more realistic sound. The system is a massive improvement over the program's older (though still present in this build) MIDI sound. It's not perfect, though. I occasionally encountered odd changes in volume between notes, especially when there was a large change in pitch, and this produces an unnatural sound. Also, when I combined RSE sounds with MIDI sounds, they sometimes seemed slightly out of synch.

As an all-purpose composition program, Guitar Pro is outclassed by more expensive software such as Cakewalk and Sibelius. For guitarists, however, the program has no serious competition. Guitar Pro's closest guitar-specific competitor is the freeware Power Tabs, which was last updated in 2000. Power Tabs lacks the RSE engine and sounds weak even for a MIDI-based program. Guitar Pro also outputs a much better track to use when you want a WAV file with every instrument except the one being played. Tab Editor matches the main features in Guitar Pro, such as the tablature, staff notation, and playback, but misses a lot of the important details; it exports fewer file types and can't import many types of tabs, including Guitar Pro tabs. Guitar Pro, on the other hand, can import Power Tab files.

Power Tab files are also more difficult to find on the Web than those created with Guitar Pro. The tabs posted by Guitar Pro users also tend to be of higher quality than the alternatives.

Overall, Guitar Pro 5 is a worthy update to the best guitar-tablature editing software around. The realistic sounds aren't perfect, but they're a huge improvement over the MIDI sounds of past builds, and the program's printed output looks great. If you're a guitar player ready to make the step up from freeware, this is the program to get.

Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/157664899/Guitar_Pro_v5.2__Full_Version_with_CD_Key_.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/157684325/Guitar_Pro_v5.2__Full_Version_with_CD_Key_.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/157693350/Guitar_Pro_v5.2__Full_Version_with_CD_Key_.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/157696162/Guitar_Pro_v5.2__Full_Version_with_CD_Key_.part4.rar

1978 Epiphone Les Paul - This is an older (more mature) version of the guitar pictured above. It really does all of the same things as the other Les, but has a slightly different look and tonal quality. This guitar is equipped with DiMarzio pickups which tend to sound a little sharper in tone than the 2001 Custom model. The pickups are so sensitive they sometimes capture sounds in the room, so I have to be careful if I'm not recording directly to digital recorder not to pick up things like TV. This can usually be filtered out with the noise gate on the GNX 3. Despite its age, this guitar is actually set up well to cover some of the newer bands like Fuel that use the Les Paul as a building block for their sound. The only thing I find strange about this particular guitar is the tuning machines. They are an opaque olive in color which doesn't come close to the guitar's color scheme. I was at a guitar expo in Fort Washington, PA a few years back and saw this in a dealer's stock. Some bartering later, I ended up trading a Peavey Bass and Steinberger guitar for it. While in list price I probably gave up too much to get it, this served as my main recording axe until I purchased the 2001 model when Zapf's music was going out of business. With all the music I was able to get out of it, I still find it to be a good deal.

2004 Galveston Triple Neck - Affectionately known as "The Monster" this guitar combines a Stratocaster style body with 6, 7, and 12 string necks. This is not for the faint of heart weighing in at over 25 lbs. It's also one of the more versatile guitars you'll find. You can activate one, two, or all three necks simultaneously to create a huge 25 string sound. You can play a rhythm piece on the top 12 string neck and solo over it with the other two. One of the nicer aesthetic features is a root beer colored curly maple top which no picture can accurately seem to capture. The six humbucking pickups on this giant produce a sound range from a chorusy 12 string to the gritty, dirty sound of a low tuned 7-string guitar. Since there aren't many triple neck guitars in production, this one is sure to hold it's value.

2004 50th Anniversary Fender Stratocaster - Like the one above, this is another versatile rock instrument from Fender. The sound has a slightly different shape with more midrange than the other Strat listed above. It has a smooth vintage style v-shaped neck, vintage gold tuners and gold tremolo arm (not pictured). The guitar was made to specs of the original to commemorate Leo Fender's 50th anniversary of starting the company. As you can see when looking at both pictures simultaneously, the headstock is 1950's model and considerably smaller than the one made in the 1970's. This guitar serves well for replicating vintage 60's and 70's guitar sounds along the lines of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and their guitar contemporaries. The sound is can range from silky smooth to a very crisp bite with a lot of clarity.

Digitech GNX 3 Guitar Processor - Nothing I know of on the market under $1,000 changes the shape of sound quite like the GNX 3. It can be used as an 8 track digital recorder, a signal processor, guitar tuner, amp modeler, almost anything you'd buy a separate pedal for is all rolled into one on this unit. I really use it for two purposes, recording and changing the shape of the sound that each of the above guitars makes. In order to do this, I'll start with a clean sound and then add one piece at a time until I've "built" the sound I'm looking for. Once this is done, I can then save it on one of the 65 memory banks and call it up when I need it with just the touch of a pedal. For songs that require more than one type of sound, I'll put the two or three that I'll need next to one another in memory so I can switch from one to the other with just a tap of a pedal. Recording is basically done the same way. I can use the tap pedals to start, stop, and pause the recording process. It also has a built in drum machine that helps with maintaining the rhythm of the song during recording. It's probably the one piece of equipment that makes the most difference in the quality of sound and recording I'm able to produce.

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