A Mark In Time
General Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Jackal on November 02, 2011, 01:01:02 PM
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Just thought I'd start a thread were the guitar playing gearheads among us can let out the geek in us without annoying "the others". We could also discuss various solutions, how to get certain sounds, how to solve noise problems, etc.
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You mean you will also post nice pictures of this shiny new blue guitar that Mark has? With the greenish colour, you know the one he used in Oberhausen??
;D
LE
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Well, why not? :)
Thought more about the gear we use ourselves.
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I was just making fun. After my last "stupid question from an untechnical person" thread i thought I scare you all by turning up here! I will better leave you alone and follow your "Junkie Gear" with a lot interest! Might be that I learn something!
LE
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I've been wanting to ask about a guitar section too. As the mkguitar site is dead!
I'd love to discuss geeky guitar stuff, at the moment I get my fix from Ingos wonderful blog.
If anyone cares, I'm playing a posh restaurant on Fri night, live to radio (I think). Using Strat into Deville via Boss CS2 compressor and maybe some chorus... Can't wait!!! Very excited.
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You mean you will also post nice pictures of this shiny new blue guitar that Mark has? With the greenish colour, you know the one he used in Oberhausen??
;D
LE
I noticed in Glasgow, and you can see in the pics on Guy's diary, that MK's guitar has a black cover on the back of the headstock.
It also has two serial numbers - Les Pauls usually just have one.
From this info we can deduce that it is part of the "Stinger" series made for a shop called Music Machine in 2003.
More info here:
http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94243
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I don't know much about Gibsons, but this is interesting nonetheless. Here are some photos:
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc242/LPCollector/Stinger2097.jpg)
(http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc242/LPCollector/Stinger3030.jpg)
Truly beautiful instruments, but I never was much of a sucker for that mid-range honk that mahogany produces.
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You mean you will also post nice pictures of this shiny new blue guitar that Mark has? With the greenish colour, you know the one he used in Oberhausen??
;D
LE
well, if you are gonna go all technical on us, I have to say the red one is best
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Do any member use a compressor live? I'm a BIG fan of the old CS2, it gives nice squash and a lovely warm feel. I've heard that the newer models aren't as great, so if you need a goody, check out eBay....
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No, I've steered clear of compressors so far. They are great for that country chicken picking thing, though. But I feel they "quash" the sound a lot.
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Only on my 12 string or for certain tele tones.
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If anyone cares, I'm playing a posh restaurant on Fri night, live to radio (I think). Using Strat into Deville via Boss CS2 compressor and maybe some chorus... Can't wait!!! Very excited.
Photo of our fri night action. I'm on the sunburst Strat, but some of you won't look that far.... ::)
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150385728539015&l=9285a2adfe
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Fletch, the tele the other guy in the band is playing, is that a Peavey tele? It looks a Peavey Falcon Custom strat I had back in the 90s. Excellent guitar with great specs! I saw it in the shop, it was kind of transparent yellow, like the one on the pic. It was "almost" like Mark's Pensa Suhr, and I just had to buy it. Borrowed money from my dad, and delivered newspapers in the night to pay him back. Those were the days ...
(http://peaveyguitar.net/files/2011/06/-204261107090224590.jpg)
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Very nice guitar Jackal. Must be a great neck to play? Rosewood is the best you can get for the MK tone!
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Photo of our fri night action. I'm on the sunburst Strat, but some of you won't look that far.... ::)
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150385728539015&l=9285a2adfe
Yeah, Fletch the other guitar (and guitarist) looks so much better and is right in front of us. Too bad the singer blocks the view, for your guitar! ;D No other photos, whatsoever?
I also have a sunbursts squire one. :'(
Anyway, how about giving us some kind of link to actually listen to your guitar cry or sing? Always fond of listening to music from fans. :D .
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Lars, I sold it in the late 90s, but it was great to play. Very fast neck. A bit wider and flatter than a regular strat. I didn't like the pickups that much. They were actually stacked humbuckers, so very quiet. If I had had more money back then, I would have swapped for a set of nice Seymour Duncans. I didn't get much money for it when I sold it, because it wasn't the "right company". But the quality was amazing.
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Seymour Duncan is always nice. Love them! I've had them in my Fender, will post a picture tonight. Brilliant things. For the bridge, I'd go to my local guitar shop and ask look what they say. If you have a quality bridge it's a very nice upgrade!
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Yeah, I have a mixed SD set in my strat; a Lil 59 humbucker in neck (can be split with a switch), an APS-2 Alnico 2 single coil in middle and a hot SSL-6 in the bridge. Makes for a very versatile guitar. I can also get the neck and bridge combination by using a switch.
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Jackal, the tele is hand made by our local luthier Craig Upfold, who is unfortunately dying of cancer. It's a nice guitar.
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Anyway, how about giving us some kind of link to actually listen to your guitar cry or sing? Always fond of listening to music from fans. :D .
Sorry, if you've seen this before VGONIS, but here's some stuff I've done http://www.amarkintime.org/forum/index.php/topic,1827.msg33003.html#msg33003 .
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No Jackal, I have missed that thread. Thanks for letting me know. Just heard "Birds of passage", very nice, has similar Peter Green feel from his "In the skies" days (maybe the background music led me to this conclusion) . Couldn't help but notice the Ansel Adams poster on the wall. Are you a photographer, or just admire Adams?
Gonna listen to your other videos as well!
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Black&white photography was a hobby of mine a long time ago. Now I just like photography as art. My favorite is still Henri Cartier Bresson. The Ansel Adams poster I bought at an Ansel Adams gallery in California. The quality of his photos are just amazing. Can't believe he pulled those large-format cameras up in the mountains and stuff ...
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Heard the "a perfect day" instrumental. Impressed! Tuning similar to Nick Drake's? Nice, moody! Thank you! Out of topic, but your song reminded me, Bert Jansch. Left this world a couple of weeks ago.
Bresson was blessed. Such a big body of work. Adams is THE American photographer. Equally for his fine printing and the nature. I kind of prefer Robert Frank. After all he is the one with the most rock credentials (photos and movies with the famous Beatniks, the Rolling Stones, Tom Waits etc.)
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Thanks, VGONIS, for your kind words. The tuning in the video is open C, i.e. CGCEGC, but I usually play it in open D. I'm quite happy with it. Played it at my brother's wedding, and it worked very well as a "mood piece", judging by people's reaction. Bert Jansch is a new name for me. Just checked him out on YouTube. Really great fingerpicker! Man, there are so many hidden treasures around.
Speaking of Adams, I visited a gallery (http://www.westongallery.com/) in Carmel, California, and they sold originals by Adams. One that I saw went for 150,000 dollars! Lovely stuff. Looked at some of Robert Franks stuff now. Wonderful stuff! There's nothing quite like top-notch street photography in B&W.
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Funny you haven't heard of Bert Jansch. No, he has never been that famous, but extremely influential. Jimmy Page owes much to him, at least his acoustic guitar playing.
Anyway, I thought that among the MK circle he is a bit more known, since MK thought highly of him even from his journalistic days, when he even wrote an article for Jansch's then group - Pentacle. His last albums were packed with collaborations from artists that wanted to play with him, like Johnny Marr (the Smiths-the well known) and Hope Sandoval (from Mazzy Star-if you don't know them , give them a try they had 3 albums out and they were great!).
Adams was the greatest B&W technician, his gray scale and three books The Camera, The Negative & The Print, are the bible for every photographer, at least for the pre-digital times. And the artistic value of his photos are great. But I don't get the prices they ask for anybody's photos. Maybe just for the fetish of the thing, a print made by Adams himself, would worth a bit more just for the history, but 150.000$ for a photo, that by nature is a reproductive art?
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As promised to Jackal I'd thought it would be nice to show my guitars.
From left to right: Fender Stratocaster 50's reissue. I replaced the pickup covers with black ( they were white) and the volume and tone knobs also. The guitar of my dreams, it plays and sounds so nice. Stagg western guitar, my first guitar, it's very cheap but it sounds good enough to practice on. Aria dobro/resonator. It was very expensive, but it is really worth the money. Again a fantastisc soundig guitar. The little guitar is my travel guitar, a Washburn Rover. If you want a small guitar that sounds like a real acoustic guitar: Get this one.
(http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/2211/29791811500171526763910.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/546/29791811500171526763910.jpg/)
(http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/6692/30726914392478904199810.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/543/30726914392478904199810.jpg/)
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Nice collection, Lars. One thing is for sure that a guitar does not have to cost 2000 euro to sound nice. They make so many good inexpensive both electric and acoustic guitars these days. If you for instance get an inexpensive electric which plays well and sounds good acoustically, then you can upgrade the electronics over time and then you have a killer guitar.
I have an early Highway 1 strat with all the electronics upgraded. When I'm done, only the neck, body and tuners will be original :D
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Very nice collection Lars! I am a bit jealous. Have you recorded anything to listen to? Would be glad to hear music from people that admire the same guitar hero, MK.
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Jackal, must be a very nice guitar a highway 1. Can you post a picture of that guitar? :) VGONIS2002, I have some music that I recorded, have to search on my other HD but I'll upload something tonight!
Lars
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It used to be like this:
(http://www.instrumentpro.com/fullsize/http://www.instrumentpro.com/Merchant2/graphics/.jpg)
Now it's like this:
(http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/.jpg)
A close-up:
(http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/.jpg)
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That looks absolutely great. Really nice colour and the amp too, loud loud loud ;D
Here is a little video, sound is not too good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMZKdHr_vZ8&feature=channel_video_title
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That sounds great, Lars. You really got that Knopfler thing going. I really love that rhythm style.
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Thank you very much Jackal! It was a lot of practice to get the tone as close to Mark. It's all in the fingers! Here's one with the dobro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiFBsXnLIZQ
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The dobro sounds nice too. A bit tinny, but that's the camera mic I guess. I used to have one myself, but sold it a few years ago. Great for slide.
I've never really bothered to learn much note for note. I know the Money For Nothing lick and the Sultans intro plus a few bits and pieces. I'm more into getting the "feeling" of the various guitar players I like. The only things I've learned or tried to learn by tabulature or by ear to get almost down to the note are Yakety Axe (the original Chet Atkins version), A Little Bit of Blues (Jerry Reed), Both Sides Now (Randy Scruggs version of Joni Mitchel's song). The rest is just a big stew of bits and bobs that I try to make my own :)
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The dobro sounds nice too. A bit tinny, but that's the camera mic I guess. I used to have one myself, but sold it a few years ago. Great for slide.
I've never really bothered to learn much note for note. I know the Money For Nothing lick and the Sultans intro plus a few bits and pieces. I'm more into getting the "feeling" of the various guitar players I like. The only things I've learned or tried to learn by tabulature or by ear to get almost down to the note are Yakety Axe (the original Chet Atkins version), A Little Bit of Blues (Jerry Reed), Both Sides Now (Randy Scruggs version of Joni Mitchel's song). The rest is just a big stew of bits and bobs that I try to make my own :)
I totally agree with that. I don't like to learn the complete sultans of swing solo so I can play it note for note(i'm to lazy for that also) but it's no fun. Just put something from your own in the sound that you like. It's just nonsense when people say: 'Hey Lars you play like Mark Knopfler' No I don't because I'm not Mark Knopfler. I've learned it myself with influences from Mark, Chet Atkins, David Gilmour, BB King etc. The whole point is that I've created my own sound, such as every guitarplayer does when you play for some years. That's how it should be!:)
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Lars what a nice sound you create! Thank you! Pretty close to our hero, could have fooled me.
I also see you have a thing with Coldplay!
Jackal, nice guitar, tell me more about the extra two switches next to the standard knobs.
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VGONIS, the top switch is for activating the bridge pickup so I get the neck+bridge and neck+middle+bridge combinations. The bottom switch is for splitting the neck humbucker. I usually only use one coil on the humbucker, but for jazzy stuff or fatter distorted stuff, it sounds great with both coils.
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Nice! I usually go with the middle+bridge combination pickups and I guess that a double neck coil might have helped greatly to make use of it. I am in novice state (and my finances are pretty bleak) to invest more than my Squire+ Marshall MG15+Digitech RP80 guitar processor pedal. Still I prefer my classical guitar, I can control it a bit better.
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The electric takes a while to be able to control, especially if you're used to strumming an acoustic. When I was a teenager and listened A LOT to Dire Straits, I almost only used the middle+bridge combination. Now I think the neck+middle and middle+bridge (out-of-phase positions) sound a bit "overused", but I use them, depending on the song. Mostly I use the neck.
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Nice set, Jackal
(...)The rest is just a big stew of bits and bobs that I try to make my own :)
That's the way to go for sure, but I admit that I used to learn some parts note for note in the past, just because I really wanted to know how he (MK) was doing it. I remember I spent a fair amount of time learning the middle solo of Calling Elvis (you know the one with a lots of twists and turns that flows so nicely between verses) and it was a lot of fun when I finally nailed it. I like to learn some licks note for note, it is a good way of learning new stuff and trying to apply the technique somewhere else. I know I will never be Mark Knopfler, but knowing some tricks helped me to improvise later on. Similarly to you, Jackal, I also learned a few fingerstyle tunes from tabs (that was too hard to learn by ear) and I have lots of fun in joining those bits and pieces together when I play my own stuff.
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I agree, Kooba. Especially something a bit difficult is good so you feel you are making some progress. I'm just a bit lazy, so the thing has to be very interesting if I'm going to learn it note for note. I'm more like this that I listen to music and suddenly I hear a lick or little line that I thought sounded great, and then I'll grab the guitar to try to play it. If I can get close, I'm happy. I'm mostly interested in improvising, and sometimes I record some chord progressions to practice on. I also enjoy playing a solo so that I am outlining the chord changes, like a jazz player would. Not that I can really play jazz, but I'm trying to get it. I also do some ear training where I try to identify the chord changes, which can be tricky in a blisteringly fast bebop piece. And I try to play some solo lines in my head and the same time visualising the fretboard. Later when I play it to check, I usually get it right in my head :) It's useful, because then you don't have look at the neck so much when you play.
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Awesome unit! A 30W (solid state) amp with a wonderful overdrive, all in a stomp box! Check out this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFpmAMzKv_E&feature=related
I also recommend that you check out Tim's other videos. Some of the sweetest playing I have ever heard.
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Interesting. I'm about to trial a Blackstar stomp box amp emulator in one of my bands - hope it sounds as good as that through the PA!
Otherwise I'll stick to my Deville mic'd with a SM57 which is just fantastic for gigging. Oh, and I'm still very much in love with the Boss CS2 - cant live without it!!
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GAS!
I'm in the middle of refinishing my guitar (want it black), and I decided to buy a new bridge. I use the tremolo arm a lot, so as you know, the standard vintage tremolo bridge gets very wiggly after a while. So, I went for this:
(http://g-jax.com/overseas/images/.jpg)
except my model is 510T SS2, i.e. it has saddles with rollers.
Unfortunately Gotoh is discontinuing this model, so I got the last one from the dealer. It's pretty high-tech stuff. It has a special block where the strings only touch one point, the tremolo arm is non-screw, and the hole for the arm is kind of prolonged so the arm is tighter and doesn't wiggle. It loses some of the vintage feel of the old bridge, and I'd prefer bright chrome, but I take function and quality over looks any day. Looking forward to testing it eventually. I'm so sick of that wiggly trem arm.
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Good luck with that Jackal. My two American Strats have very few tuning probs using the stock gear during 3 hour gigs, but my new Mexican is in need of further pimping!!!! I put some Texas special pups in and it sounds heaps better - I gigged with it twice before and really didn't like the standard mex pups - very harsh, is the only subjective word I can think of.
Just need to get some stability with the trem and I'll be very happy!!! But...... Must be chrome! ;)
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The tuning stability got a lot better after I changed the nut to GraphTech, but it's the wiggly trem arm that bothers me.
But before I get so far, I have a lot of sanding, priming and painting to do. Almost regret I started that process.
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Anyone using the new Fandalism app? Someone from AMIT invited me in and it seems to be a nice way for just musos to connect. Might be old news to some of you, apologies... But if you want you can look me up there , David Fletcher.
David Fletcher - Guitarist In New South Wales, Australia (http://fandalism.com/fletch73)
I've put up some of my sad attempts at music. Link up if you have your own I can easily listen too...
Cheers.
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So far so good. This what the guitar looks like so far. Still many rounds of painting, sanding, waiting and polishing to go, but I love the color combination:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Mo7NIGT4ACU/T6OIFhmd-3I/AAAAAAAAAXw/5KjzWfhe_1U/s512/.jpg)
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Is that a humbucker in the neck? That's a tad unusual???
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Yes, it is. Single-coil sized humbucker modeled after a 1959 PAF humbucker. Moderate, vintage output. I can split it for single coil use, but it's nice to have the humbucker sound for jazzy stuff or sounds similar to Song for Sonny Liston. It's also great for slide, I might add.
Here's a demo of the sounds I get from my guitar:
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Sounds great! I like the wood grain, shame you painted over it. Lol
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Cool! Glad you liked it. I think those pickups, with very different characteristics (neck - ceramic magnets, middle - Alnico 2 magnets, bridge - hot wound and Alnico 5 magnet) give it a pretty unusual sound, and a lot of possibilities. I don't really use all those possibilities very often, usually single coil neck alone, neck plus middle and middle plus bridge. Sometimes bridge for distorted sounds. But the neck plus bridge is also nice for that tele sound or funky rhythm guitar.
As for the grain, yeah, I used to love it, but the picture looks much better than in real life. Much duller in real. I think black and that pickguard looks pretty amazing. But the work, man ... I regret I started it. Lots and lots of sanding, I can tell you that. I'm soon done with the color coats, and then I'll move on to the clear layers. Like I said, lots of work, but you learn a lot doing this.
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So, last clear coat put on (4 primer, 8 color, 8 clear). Now it's time to let it cure/harden for two three weeks. I thought I was going to polish it to get that "grand piano shine", but at the moment it has this kind semi matte finish that I think looks amazing. Almost like a gun. I might keep it like that. What do you think?
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-uNfaATnT87o/T6o5s4wKiFI/AAAAAAAAAYg/YATJOwRYRqM/s1024/Paint%2520project%25203.jpg)
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It still has to "dry", but I couldn't resist checking out how it will look:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-VYmFA2JQrUY/T6tT04APDQI/AAAAAAAAAZU/ulFEjTkHuzw/s1440/Paint%2520project%25204_edit.png)
To me the matte finish gives it very different character. Would like to find a way to make the head stock look a bit more yellow. Maybe stick in a tanning bed? :)
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Looks cool mate - quite unique. :)
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Very nice guitar!
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Thank you, guys! I'm very excited, but actually I'm most excited about putting it back together, because it's been in pieces since before Christmas! Miss playing. One thing I'll do first though, is to shield the pickup cavities, like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_UnQbxtV7Y&list=PL2598BF7FD28790C2&index=2&feature=plpp_video
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Here we go:
(http://)
(http://)