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My interests include electric guitar, playing live music, writing MIDI sequences, programming in Visual Basic, dabbling in electronics, with a casual interest in popular science. I learned my craft with curiosity, trial and error in times before the Internet when much of this information was held secret by the experts. I have many years of experience in these fields, and use these Web pages to share my knowledge freely.

This site is offered in the hope that readers will better understand electric guitar technology, leading to creative use of your musical tools. Of course, only practice will improve your musical vocabulary and articulation. These pages have been online, without advertising, since the mid 1990's and I'm delighted to observe a significant improvement in general knowledge of guitar technology since that time. Of course, I don't pretend to take all the credit for that, but I do believe I've contributed.

It's probably inevitable that musical advertisements continue to claim their gear contains magical properties that will transform you into a guitar hero. Quite simply, just because a piece of gear may happen to be built identically to one allegedly used by a particular guitar legend (often conveniently now deceased), it will NOT make you instantly play or sound like him or her. It will give you a sound that may or may not suit your own style, abilities and other gear.

So please read and enjoy. I've attempted to describe this technology in lay terms and avoid technical jargon as much as possible. I've also attempted to write as objectively as possible, however, I expect you'll soon note my preferences for hearing tone from all components in the signal chain: the guitar, amplifier and speaker. This requires subtlety, restraint and control: less really is more. Those who've been around a while have had the privilege to witness many guitarists mature in their playing and tone with that exact formula.

Click on any of the topics at the left or below for more!

I welcome site suggestions and feedback: Email GM Arts

Spelling! - This is an Australian site, so some words have different spellings than other sites. Some examples are: words ending in "our" like colour and flavour, words ending in "ise" like realise and organise and words ending in "re" like centre and metre.

Also, in the context of these pages, "valves" and "tubes" are the same thing.