Andrew Beacock's Blog

I don't often post about guitar stuff as I really want to keep this blog focused on the tech side of my life but I couldn't help but pass this YouTube link on: Delay (& Creative Uses for It) I started to watch it and was soon completely captivated by it, hope you like it too! Technorati Tags: Tommy Emmanuel, , Guitar, , Andrew Beacock

My wife was looking around for an external speaker for her MP3 player and in our searching we came across the XMI X-Mini speaker on Amazon . This little mono speaker has 105 five star reviews (out of 115) on Amazon and at the time was £20 (it's now £16.96 - was £15 for a short time). It's an absolutely cracking speaker - the internal (rechargeable) battery lasts for hours and this thing can really pump it out - with the bass expansion chamber opened up it sounds amazing. We have used it as a speaker for an MP3 player as well as an output speaker for a guitar headphone amp - true rock guitar sound on the move! If you are on the look out for a mini speaker for your MP3 player you will not be disappointed with an X-Mini! Technorati Tags: , XMI , X-Mini , MP3 , speaker , Andrew Beacock

Back in August I decided that I wanted to learn the guitar. It's been an instrument that I've always wanted to play and so I thought "why not just try to learn it?". I spoke to a friend who lent me his electric so now I just needed some lessons... After a search on YouTube I found a few half-decent videos and then I discovered Justin Sandercoe 's excellent JustinGuitar.com tuition site. It's packed full of lessons on almost everything and Justin has an excellent teaching manner - makes watching his videos entertaining and informative. I've learnt so much from watching them that it's pretty much the only place on the net that I go for guitar advice - his forums are also an excellent place to get more advice from other guitarists. Although Justin's content is free you can donate cash if you wish to help support him as he films these wonderful instructional videos. When people ask me if I'm having lessons I say "yes, from JustinGuitar...

Late on Thursday night I broke one of my electric guitar strings and being a beginner I didn't have a pile of replacements to drop in straight away. I'd placed a couple of small orders with StringsDirect over the past few months and had such fast delivery that they were my first port of call. I placed an order for a couple of packs of handmade DR Strings (one Tite Fit and the other Hi-Beam ) around midnight on Thursday night and what with the Christmas post service issues (along with various PO strikes) I had little hope that they would be with me before Christmas. They arrived on Saturday morning, nicely packaged, all the correct bits I ordered - absolutely perfect! So if you need any guitar accessories, take an online trip to StringsDirect , they have loads of items and the delivery service is second to none! As an aside, I picked DR Strings after Justin Sandercoe of www.justinguitar.com recommended them - his online guitar tuition site is second to none and I trust...