, a black Squire Stratocaster. It is (I think) from 1995. My other guitar is a nicer Stratocaster from 1999. When I got that guitar I was torn between it and something more “shreddy”. If I remember correctly I was comparing it to an Ibanez JS1000, but in the end I wanted the bridge and middle single coils, so I went with the Strat.

Well, 20-odd years later, I finally have a “shreddy” guitar, a the amazingly named 

 in Weymouth, worth a trip if you’re in the Boston area looking for guitars. The color is Chameleon and I wanted to get it from a physical store, not online, because the color… photographs as a lot of different colors!

It’s fun and I’ve aggressively abused the whammy bar many times already. Now for next year finally following up on something I meant to 

20-odd years later, I finally have a shreddy guitar.

A New Guitar for a New Year

I’ve currently got my Helix LT updating to version 

. Updates for the Helix are interesting because every update gives you more value for your initial investment. It’s essentially free amps, pedals, better tones. This release fixes a lot of the issues with the stock cabs, including allowing you to easily do dual cabs with a simple delay and pan between them, which is something I used to do with every preset in Bias FX.

It’s nice to get new and exciting features in an update. Software updates are mixed bag these days. Some apps I prefer they never update (like Things, Bear), because I don’t want to learn new features all the time, I want consistency. Others update to the point where I feel like every time I use them I’m getting a new tutorial on how to use them and overwhelmed by the changes (looking at you Confluence). Others push new features at a higher cost that aren’t necessarily wanted.

Which is to say, shout out to the Helix team at Line 6 for continuously making the software more better and not charging for so many awesome new features.

The joys of software that keeps getting better.

built with coffee

Posts tagged: guitar

A New Guitar for a New Year

It’s free software