Gigging Plans

 When I first got the D-15M, my plan was to use it at home for recording and keep it nice and safe. I think it might have been about an hour after I got it that I decided that I was going to play gigs with it. That wasn't really on my radar. I had thought it would be fun to do something like that after seeing some of my buddies doing it. I like the freedom of it. The idea of just me and my guitar up there sounds pretty dang exciting, I gotta say. As a drummer who has been relegated to the back of the stage all these years, it'll be nice to get out there and up front.

I picked up an LR Baggs M80 active pickup for the guitar, and it sounds great. It's not one of those piezo pickups that work off string vibration and produce this weird, alien, choked sound. No, the M80 sounds REAL. The guitar sounds like an amplified D-15M. The M80 has a humbucker that is somehow flopped under itself, with the bottom half hanging a bit freely to pickup body vibration while the other half picks up the strings magnetically, like an electric guitar. All-in-all, a pretty dope situation, and the sound makes all the difference. It can go active or passive with a switch, so no worries at shows if the battery goes.

I also picked up a case for the guitar. It came with a soft case, which is actually very nice and extremely well made, but still isn't as strong or resilient as a hard case. Plus the fact that it's easier to control humidity with a hard case over a soft one. As the sudden owner of a solid front/back/sides guitar that's quite sensitive to humidity, that's important to know.

Regarding the gigs themselves, I'll be doing a mix of originals and covers, but the covers will all be a little on the not-so-often-played side. Ultimately it'll be all originals with one or two covers, but until then I'll just keep grinding. 

Since I got this guitar, not only has my playing time increased, but so has my writing. I'm finding it very easy to write stuff, whether on the fly or working off some new thing I've learned. 

I was talking to my Mom about it this afternoon, and she was asking how things were going. She noticed that I seem to be doing better overall since I got the guitar, and she's right. We also talked about what an important tool it is, and how valuable it has become. She understands that stuff, and always has. She's been one of my biggest supporters my whole life.