Maybe it's a small step, but I was able to play bars 18 and 19 of Greg's arrangement of Greensleeves with both bass and melody. I struggled a bunch to get the hand independence but finally managed it. I REALLY love Guitar Pro - it's such an amazing tool. I can have it play the music and metronome and loop just the bars I want and I play along until I get it right. It's so amazingly helpful.

However, while I was doing that I noticed some crackling/dropout and so I figured the battery in my ACTV-2 was dying. I unscrewed the screw at its base but it wouldn't come out no matter how hard I tried, so I found reference here that someone else took the pickup off to do it... So I got up my bravery and started unscrewing... And you know what? It was super easy! I had the pickup off, opened, battery replaced, and back on in no time. It's so amazingly refreshing to have an instrument that is so user-serviceable in so many ways!

I haven't tried adjusting the bridge yet, but I'm guessing I will when my light string set I just ordered arrives - I'm switching from medium.

And I guess it's not such a crazy idea to have 1 instrument and switch between the ACTV and PASV as desired. So cool!

So if I get frustrated that I'm not making progress some day, remind me of my successes tonight, and that both seemed like a HUGE challenge before I got over them.

When I had a problem getting the battery out, I took a cue from my kids battery opperated toys. Tie a string, or strong thread to the wire as close to the black connector(if that is what it is called). Unscrew the screw and gently pull the thread and the battery slides right out.

Mike

It wasn't going to come out for me that way. When I had the back of The Block open and access to all the wires I tried tugging on the connector, and it just didn't have any length of wire to allow the battery to slide out.

Hi Dan welcome back! I had a similar experience with a simple hand independence exercise that I've been working on for what seems like months. When I tried it this morning, it actually sounded almost cool Whoda thunk it? I also recently replaced the battery in my Actv-2 and wased amazed at how easy it was once I got up the nerve to remove the pickup. Progress in baby steps...

Ideal for this is the ribbon that is use to in the gift wrappings; very flat and with a good tension strength. It's much faster than remove the pickup.


Cheers, Daniel.