Aria 714-DLX
I bought an Aria 714 DLX on Thursday ($459 at Weathers Music in Salem), brought it home and played for about an hour and a half. For those interested, it looks like this except that it’s see-through blue rather than red:
Here’s the sales info:
Unbelievably versatile H/S/H pickup set has more possibility when it on the 714-DLX Electric Guitar.
The Duncan Designed humbuckers at the neck and bridge provide chunky rhythm and dense lead tone while the Duncan Designed single coil in the middle provides brighter, edgier highlights, plus the bridge humbucker, directly mounted on the body one side, on the pickguard the other makes its tone more identical.
The Wilkinson VS-50K tremolo, a solid alder body, a rosewood fingerboard on comfortable maple neck serve for your ultimate usage.
Out jack is recessed in exquisite angle for your easier plug in and your active, stress-free performance.
3 pickup (H-S-H)
Aria 714-DLX Specifications:
- Body : Alder Quilted maple film top
- Neck : Maple, Bolt-on Joint
- Fingerboard : Rosewood
- Frets : 22F
- Scale : 648mm(25-1/2″)
- Pickups : Duncan Designed SC-102 Single coil x 1, HB-103 Humbucking x 2
- Controls : Volume, Tone, 5-position PU Selector SW x 1, Coiltap SW x 1
- Tailpiece : Wilkinson VS-50K Tremolo
- Hardware: Chrome
Non-guitar players will be forgiven if, like me, the above effectively comes at you like a bunch of nonsense words. The essential take-away, from my perspective, is that the Aria 714-DLX is a versatile, well-made instrument, capable of producing a variety of sounds. I’ve been playing it through my old Roland KC-500 amp; I can’t wait to hear what sounds I can generate with it once I plug it into the MOTU Traveler and feed the signal through Apple’s GarageBand or Logic, both of which have a variety of amp effects.
It’s unlikely that the Aria will appear on Garden of Memories except to provide background color. I’m not enough of a player (yet) to do much more than chunk out some chords. Nonetheless, I spent 90 minutes playing on Thursday—until my fingers were too sore to continue. Having never even touched, let alone played, an electric guitar before then, I have two observations: First, playing electric guitar feels amazingly powerful. Second, it’s amazingly fun. If some of that joie de vivre found its way onto Garden of Memories, I’d hardly be one to complain.
Next album underway
I’ve begun compiling work for my next album, tentatively titled Garden of Memories. I should start recording a few of the songs next week and hope to have it released this summer.
Here’s the tentative track list (in no particular order): Everything, Elisha, Jillian, Swept, Halo (Measure of Love), Open Low, A Little Bit Zen, and 1938.
Garden will likely have about 12 songs total since 1938 is something of a multi-themed opus that, were we still living in the days of yore, would take up the whole second side of the record. As it is, the album should deliver at least 60 minutes of music.
It’ll be acoustic and keyboard-driven in nature. Having delivered a full-on rock and roll album already, I’m looking at this as a decided change of pace and something that’s actually much closer to how I actually write most of my music. I hope, when the time comes, you’ll choose to come along for the ride.
Updates on significant milestones to follow.
Blog issues
The WordPress database got bunged up somehow and I’ve spent the last few hours restoring from backup. That means some things won’t work for a little bit, but ultimately everything should be A-OK. (Whew.) Give me a few days and if you’re still noticing issues, drop me a line so I can get on top of it. Thanks.
Update: So far as I can tell all outstanding web site issues have been resolved. I even changed WordPress themes while I was at it. Hope you like the new look.
