Hi Fabian from Costa Rica here, Just want to say Hi and express my hapyness because Today a dream came true to me, the arrival of my Chapman Stick Serial Number #5527 which was sold to me by the forum user Petary791, amazing! First I was impressed by hte lightweight of the entire box used to ship he stick, hardcase, gig bag, cables, etc... After opening the box I begin to sweat and my hands just shaked while I picked up the stick. I still can´t believe how beautiful a Chapman Stick is, the most impressive instrument I ever put my hands on, even over my 7 string bass, and the synths I played.
If anyone has any advice on what to do for a start, your welcome, I plug it into an amp, just to get sure everything is fine, and start working on the stick book that came within the package. It has different tunning but stil very useful.
Want to thank Petary791 for being such a great guy, not having any trouble with him, A+++++ feedback, a great dealing. Also I want to thank Greg for being so patient while I ask him guide on which instrument to buy. First he recommended me another instrument because I didn´t have the amount to go for this one, but since the other sellers won´t answer or answer so much time later, I get a little more money and get this. Thanks Greg for being so humble, and giving advice for me, things like those makes a great musician more than that, and end being an inspiration through time.
And finally I want to thank Mr. Emmett Chapman, as I am preparing myself to be a luthier, I´m impressed by attention to detail, the design and perfect set up of the stick, all about the stick is just great. Thank you Mr. Chapman for have the creativity to develop such a path in music, all of my respect!
God bless you all stickists, it is time now to start practicing to get music out of this new instrument I´m in love with!

Hi Fabian,

congratulations on your new instrument!
Your post brought back the moment when I first received my Stick. I remember these feelings well. Today I am still in love with my instrument, and I wish you the same, a long and inspiring relationship!

Best regards,
Johannes

Good fun. Congrats. Always feels like Christmas when a instrument arrives. Greg is a fantastic guy. I´ve not met one single Stick player that has not been a splendid person to be honest. Comes with the instrument it seems. Congrats again. All the best.

Sincerely//Jan

Hey the Costa RIca has a player! Cool
Maybe we could meet each other next year, I plan to visit this country next summer
BTW congrats, everytime I got a new Stick (I had 3 in my "career"), it's always been a moment of pure emotion!

Hi Fabian (and Jan, too),

What kind things to write. Thanks. I'm really glad it worked out for you, Fabian, and I wish you bon voyage on your new musical journey.

Thanks to all of you guys, is great to be now a real stickist, hope to get better on stick soon. Grozoeil, awesome, just tell me when would you be here and where and we can have a jam session with other friend of mine who has a stick!

Congrats!

Off Topic:
I just watched a travel dive show on Costa Rica--Great culture and beautiful country. I could move there!

Rob

Thanks Rob5280, we are really blessed with our country specially the natural resources, and people warmth. Your welcome whenever you want to come, hope some stickists visit us soon, bob culbertson played here on the national guitar festival. Shame I coudn`t do it to the show because I have a gig.

Thanks Fabian for your excellent words. And yes, the setup is by far the most important thing for sound and playing comfort (also for speed, dynamics and expression). And the capability for such a setup has to be built into the instrument, so it can always be adjusted and "fine tuned" by the player for low tapping action and light touch.

Your 10-string dark bamboo Stick was made and first set up on 3/1/07 with MR tuning in medium gauges and with Stickup, green linear markers and MIDI'd melody. (Good choice!)

My suggestion for starting up would be to go to our Online Videos page and find a player's style that best matches your musical goals. http://www.stick.com/onlinevideos/

Welcome to this rather small but worldwide community of like minded (but diverse) musicians.

All the Best, Emmett.

Thanks Mr. Emmett Chapman, it´s an honor for you to take the time to post a reply on my topic. I`m impressed of the detail of construction history that Stick Enterprises have for every single instrument, it inspire me to get that relationship with the instruments I will build in the future. I´m in love with my stick, everytime I use it, I just love it even more. Is so easy to express emotion in every tap, and for me music is about comunication and emotions. About the set up, Peter who sold me the stick put deep baritone melody strings on it, I keep them because my main goal now is to get used to playing music on the stick, because as a bass player all my world just flipped. With the melody strings it iss a bit easier to me because of the 4ths tunning.
I have a new set of MR strings that the seller included in the package, and I think it might be my favorite tunning, just look so natural to me. But I tried to contact Stick Enterprises for buying a couple of MR string sets, but I don´t know if maybe there`s something wrong with email. I have a google acount as greg recommended, but still no answer. So any recommendation for getting in touch with Stick enterprises will be welcome, for me is kind of difficult to contact them by phone because I`ve never done any international calls, and I don´t know if skype could be an option, and as you see my English is poor...
Thanks a lot for you all for taking the time of reading and for your support, your Costa Rican friend
Fabian "PaPa" Vargas