OMG - GC

 

I haven't been to Guitar Center since before the Flying AIDS started, for several reasons. We somehow managed to escape the gravity of the house and take a trip.

Even with well over a year between visits, the store did not disappoint me. There wasn't a single left handed guitar in the store. Not even a cheap acoustic. This is a record.

The guitar stock was decent, as always, but everything else had been cut back before the Flying AIDS, probably due to that little Chapter 11 thing.

I got to see my first Fender Vintera Strat. This looked like an awesome series of guitars, with not a single one being made lefty. I really wanted a 50s Strat and maybe a 70s. The 50s I picked up was decent, with an actual 7.25" radius and somewhat of a V profile.

I asked the knowledgeable (no, really) salesman about other necks that weren't the standard neck. He suggested one, probably the top line. It was a little nicer. What really got me was the frets hanging off. It's not just the over $1k guitars - every new guitar should have good fretwork and be ready to sell. 

Fender's gone a little goofy with the $2k Strats, kinda like Gibson. In addition, there's a ton of models, without a ton of knowledge about the differences. This is the Radio Shack Syndrome: Yes, we have transistor AM radios. We have 12. Which one would you like?  Alarm clocks? We have 37.   Not that I mind variety, but I'm talking business.

Never thought I'd see the day you could buy albums at Guitar Center. I wonder how they choose which albums they're going to carry, given the small amount of space they have to display them. 

So the verdict is that it's kinda like a year or more ago, only less stuff, less used stuff, and nothing close to vintage. I guess they gotta do what they gotta do to stay open.

At least there's a place to buy strings and cords.

Do yourself a favor and avoid the Cable Hype. Monster guitar cords are not going to sound any better, nor will Monster power cords. IF they were going to sound better, it would be on full frequency spectrum, like hifi. But even there..... these people are known as audiophools.

There's one manufacturer that sells different guitar cords for different music. There's a rock and a jazz. Seriously? If a rock player uses a jazz cord, will it sound like fusion?

During my time as a sound guy, I got bored sometimes, which is not always a good time to be around. An up and coming local act appeared. I had a ton of colored mic cables and told the singer that the bright orange one would go best with her voice (and her hair). She was not amused. The guitar player was, and we used a blue cord on his amp's mic.

Long after my time in sound there was my time as a performer. I got my stuff onstage and quickly noticed no mic on or near my amp. I politely asked the sound company what was up and they handed me a DI box. Look, I understand there are newbies, but this is an expensive event, and you don't run a guitar through a *$&#ing DI. It sounds like excrement (on a good day). This was before plugins and digital modeling.  Plus I brought along a wonderful vintage amp. Sound companies don't run Neil Young's guitar through a DI - they mic his ancient Fender Deluxe tube amps. I want my Deluxe mic'd too. I was still polite, as I've been them, but it took a while to get my chin off the floor.

But they were a great sound company. I heard bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and said "ground loop." The buzz continued, so I said "ground loop" louder. I was trying to help. Within 10 minutes they had the problem sorted out - there was a ground loop. I somehow managed to keep my mouth shut and pray people would be able to hear us through the p.a.

My entire life performing with a guitar was like this, sometimes much worse. One of my favorites was the resident sound guy who said my amp was making his overhead lunchroom speakers feed back. The amp wasn't even plugged in to power, but he insisted. The venue could not find a way to get him carried off and made busy while the show went on. Or the gig where the p.a. was literally a boom box. But it was a BOSE boom box, so I guess that made it ok.

• It turns out that Scorpions singer Klaus Meine is really talented. He has a high range and is very powerful. Give a listen - the album with the symphony will prove me correct.

I'm coming to be a Procul Harem fan, which is weird, as there's not a lot of guitar work, in spite of Robin Trower (initially). A really interesting song is 'A Salty Dog.' You can tell certain songs were written by piano players. How? The song starts with Dbm7-5.  Same with Stevie Wonder, but some of those changes will make your head explode.

I Shopped!

 After 8 weeks, I finally got to go guitar shopping. I call it guitar shopping, but let's face it - the likelihood of finding an acceptable lefty at a local store is similar to the likelihood of Michael Jackson returning, doing a hip duet and dance number with Jesus. I haven't been shopping since the Flying AIDS hit.  [shock!]

We hit Sam Ash. Unfortunately they are following Guitar Center's lead and reducing their inventory by 50%. I'm sure it's the Flying AIDS. To give you an idea, I'd never seen so many new, varied pedals anywhere, short of a guitar show. Last weekend, there were precious few.

As usual, the guitar guys were nice and knowledgeable. And as usual, they didn't have much over the Player grade Fenders. How am I supposed to check out the features on the higher-end guitars if I can't find any in the Philly metro area? 

Fender's Mod Garage recently reopened. This is where you can literally put together your own guitar. They have about 4 different neck shapes, none of which you can touch in stores to find out if that's what you like. Unlike last time, there are no 7.25" radius or chunky necks available. I think a 7.25 to 9.5 compound radius would be nice. It's odd... whenever anyone plays my older Fenders, they love them. Yet the majority of new Fenders all come with one annoying (to me) 9.5" C-shaped neck. The most important thing is the Mod Garage added the best paint option: pukeburst!  (aka antigua).

So for arguably $2k, you can put together your own Strat.

You decide if that price is ok.

So I've got a backlog of effects box kits to build. And when I say backlog, I mean I stopped most of the way through the first one and never went back to it.

But I'm having a blast with my living room setup. It's taking quite a while to get the reverb and delay set correctly (mostly volume) but I'm not short of gain... by far my favorite is the Lovepedal Superlead. It stays on most of the time. I'll have to try it with the larger tube amps (that are not well-suited for the living room).

If you're bored and want to torture your friends with perfect pitch, you need a 12 string fretless guitar.

Sweetwater sent an email with the subject 'What makes the Big Muff so great?'

That it's not on my pedalboard?

I'd like to see a 'Where are they now' on the musicians on Jeff Beck's Blow by Blow. Max Middleton (keys) is an MVP across the Jeff Beck Group albums, as well as these. To date, nobody can tell me what they used on his Rhodes on "Cause We Ended as Lovers'.

The League of Distinguished Gentlemen

Rumblings and Grumblings

 You might've seen this on our sister blog, ThermionicEmissions:

Billy Joel said Taylor Swift was the Beatles of her generation.

Taylor Swift said this 'broke her brain'

What the article didn't say was that Billy was promptly packaged up and taken to the Happy Place<tm>, then an exhaustive hearing test.

I'm always late to the party.

Working from home is the best.

On a particularly boring morning, with plenty to do, I brought up YouTube and listened to a few Jeff Beck concerts. The sound and video were off, so I couldn't watch, but I listened. Then Blow by Blow, my favorite album. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts. If you're wondering why it sounds better than any of his previous releases, it was because George Martin (Beatles) produced it. The band was exemplary. 

I set out to listen to my remastered cd, then remembered that optical drives no longer come on some laptops. Dammit.

We're weird with audio. I remember working diligently to get the most out of a cassette, then saving for a huge, expensive, many-watt receiver to play it through. I remember bitching about mp3s because of the compression. I remember the fight over albums vs CD (still going on). Now we're listening to compressed music through computer speakers or throwing it out to BlueTooth mono speakers. Worse yet, home studios are using small powered monitors, where we used large, unpowered speakers with 12" woofers. Looking at all this, don't tell me there's no difference.

I had to open my laptop the other day. Small wonder I never hear any bass: the speakers were oval and didn't quite reach 3/4". Apparently I paid for hardware compatibility with linux, not audio quality. Oh well, there's always the output jack.

 Memories, sweet memories.

Also watched Joe Satriani, live in San Francisco. It brought back all the excitement I had for Joe when he really started hitting it big. I think I figured out the source of Joe's fusion with Eric Cojeaux(?), his left handed rhythm guitarist: it's the synchronized sunglasses. I watched Eric adjust his for perfect timing. 

I'll bet Eric had no trouble calling Ibanez and getting what he wanted.

Speaking of Ibanez (I have a few), I'm known for having no filters, so I'm either fun or really annoying to be around. I went to an Ibanez artist seminar (Larry Mitchell was previewing a custom guitar). Eventually they got around to its DiMarzio pickups. I perked right up and told them I found DiMarzios  particularly helpful for holding large catalogs and phone books to the fridge. Both Larry and the guy from Ibanez were amused.

I got dragged along to another seminar, with the drummer from Gloria Estefan's group. When it came time for questions, I stood right up and asked what it's like, looking at her ass all night. People were amused, but I never got an answer.

I have this piece of crap Epiphone PR5 acoustic with electronics. The concept is unbelievably useful: it has an unmolested 1/4" strap button output, plus an XLR out with some electronics. At the last gig, neither of them worked - I was impressed. The guitar was purchased because I played a right handed one and loved the neck. Naturally the left handed one didn't have that neck. I had to do a Real Quick Recording one night and the studio guy said it sounded good acoustically. I was worried. Damn if'n he didn't put a pair of Neumanns on it and it sounded good. They must've been Magic Neumanns. I need a Taylor.

• The new Fender American Ultra Professional(?) sets Fender into the $2,000 category for a guitar. Perhaps they're trying to compete with the PRS Strat.
• it has a 'D neck'. That might be interesting. 
• NONE of my local stores have anything above midline Strats

No Satisfaction for Keef

 

Fuzz Was The Future: Satisfaction Guaranteed

Josh Scott (JHS pedals) goes into fuzz, specifically the Maestro FZ-1, and its effect on music.

I'm in trouble here. People look at me (more) funny when I say I don't like fuzz.

When I started lessons, I discovered distortion and loved the hell out of it. My teacher would distort a tape deck and I was knocked out. Then he got a Univox, which was pretty damn furious-sounding too. But I just never got along with fuzzes. I bought a Tube Screamer, but it failed to scream, so I got rid of it. Bummer, eh? It would be worth a few bucks now. I have one of those TS potato bug pedals somewhere, which doesn't work right.

I wound up with a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, that I decided to hang onto. I wasn't a huge fan t first.

Then I heard Eric Johnson and recognized how he did it. It's still not a favorite - I prefer smoother.

My first pedal was a Distortion Plus. What a POS. There wasn't a lot else. Eventually I got a Boss DS-1, which I enjoyed until I heard something better. Going back and re-listening to them, I shudder. The cheap DS-1 I got will need to be modded or sold. I heard a few mods on YouTube but wasn't all that thrilled with those either. Yes, they made the pedal sound better, but maybe it's just not the pedal for me. You gotta be careful with hyper gain white noise pedals - it's hard to make them sound good, live or studio.

There was a brief interlude with the Maestro fuzz. These were large and made of metal, good for assaulting people or defending yourself. It had huge knobs on the sides. The tone was pure compressed chaos.

Eventually I figured out amplifier output distortion was the secret, but it was far from practical with a Marshall or anything over 5 watts. I was an early adopter of the Power Soak. I referred to it as the Tone Soak and sold it immediately. [all attenuators eat tone but the resistive ones eat the most]

While looking around, I fount the Rat. Plugged in and liked it, plus Jeff Beck used one at the time. He is a pretty good recommendation. While the Rat had way more horsepower (ratpower?) than I needed, it sounded good dialed back. I sounded heavy, and different from other players.

Then one of my buddies discovered the Danelectro Clear Tone Overdrive. He preached and the rest of us bought. It was allegedly a clone of the Timmy pedal (medium gain overdrive). Timmy sued and Dano had to change things. Meanwhile, the pedal became a staple on my board, It could get pretty nasty, but I set it before that. It was the go-to pedal for most distorted tones. It's still on my board. One day, by mistake, I stacked it with a Boss OD pedal (the one with 2 channels) and boy did it sound HOT. The notes exploded out of the amp, like I imagine a Trainwreck or Komet would. Although Trainwreck/Komet is beyond the scope of this post, these amps are beyond lyrical. They just sing... I'll probably be building a Ceriatone clone of one soon.

After paying way too much attention to YouTube videos, I discovered the Dano pedal was decent, but the actual Timmy sounds better, as does the Tumnus. They're medium-gain pedals, which sound really good. I believe this class got started by the Klon.

Then, for reasons I cannot explain, I found myself with a few new pedals to check out.

First, The Dude, by J. Rockett. This was made to be a Dumble-sounding pedal. I've never had a Dumble, but this is a fantastic pedal. Think Steely Dan and Larry Carlton's leads. Singing, but no heavy metal distortion. I recommend it. It has a pretty wide range and you should give it a listen.

The Lovepedal Superlead is a sleeper. Not sure it's even being made anymore. From the name, it's supposed to sound like a Marshall Superlead. I'm not playing out now (bummer), but I'd be interested to hear the pedal live. It's got some gain in it, but sounds pretty damn fine as a main dirt box. Kinda AC/DC, but you can get a lot more gain. You should hear it. On my living room practice rig, this is the main pedal. There are actually a few other pedals made to sound like the Marshall JCM-800s, including a Lovepedal.

Last in the distorto-fest is a pedal that has interested me for a while - the Super Crunch Box (v4?). I haven't had a lot of time to play with it because it's a very serious pedal with many knobs and switches. It comes with a sheet of suggested settings for different sounds. Thus far, it's been a super heavy distortion. I need to mess with it a bit more to make it crunch and do the other things the Australian company suggests. You can't miss this pedal - it's VERY red. To be honest, the distortions I've gotten thus far just aren't for me, but I'm not a huge distortion fan. Very adjustable, but I need more time with it.

Things have really changed. 

You can buy 100 different fuzzes, overdrives, and distortions. People swear by their choice.

If you're of an electronics bent, you can build kits or build your own part-for-part clones. The schematics are on the web, just like they are for amps.

Just remember that you can buy or build a Fuzz Face, but you're not going to sound like Jimi or Eric.

Keep practicing. 

2021 Fall Philly Guitar Show

 It was glorious, just getting that little reminder card, that the GUITAR SHOW was coming back. Back from being a victim of the Flying AIDS, just like everything else.

If you were a lefty, you had your choice of exactly one guitar - an old Guild electric that looked like an SG. I forget its designation. Oh, and a 67 Tele, for only $17,500.

But I didn't let that bother me - I was among equipment! Amps. Guitars. Goodies.

There were a few 50s Strats, some for exorbitant amounts. Going by memory (never a good idea), there was an early 54 Strat for $150,000. Lots of expensive vintage Les Pauls too.

Not a lot of real surprises. We missed the t-shirt lady. Many of my monies have gone to her. Mrs. lefty adored her and her collection. I found a booth with ancient Marshalls that were for p.a., plus an empty p.a. speaker cabinet, complete with horn (see below). Can you imagine a 20-50w Marshall p.a.? Over your 100w stacks?

If you only see one booth, Jim's Guitars (Ohio) is the Wow Booth. They always feature certain guitars, this time being very old Les Paul jrs. If you don't like LP Jrs, you could see all sorts of beautiful guitars and very old amps. In the past they had Marshalls that were never made for the US. Old Fender piggybacks, and whatever else you wanted. 

People looked happy and there were a lot of them. There weren't as many vendors, but still a lot. There were women. Normally there are about 3, but there were many more. All were spouses except the one with blue hair. Although I like blue, I do not like it on hair. Mrs. lefty felt otherwise.  It's a good place to go if you're a female, looking for attention: there's almost zero competition. It's a much better place to go to get gear. Not only were the vendors helpful, so were the other players.

What I learned: the Yngwie Malmsteen pickups don't come with any attitude (or hair) and the Tom DeLonge Gibson doesn't come with a ufo.

I got a rock, Charlie Brown.

A blue DOD FX55 chorus. It was my choice because it's the only chorus with a delay time knob. Chorus sounds interesting when you push the delay time a little.  Around 30ms, it becomes flanging. A long time ago, in another guitarverse, I tried out a Deltalab rack delay. It had modulation, so set about building The Ultimate Chorus. It was really delightful at longer delays settings. Eventually I'll get another one, but rack gear is a PITA for me in general. If you crank the speed on a chorus, you can (very cheaply) approximate a Leslie at high speed. It's a trick.

Further out there: last band did Heart's Barracuda. I've never had a flanger pedal, so I made due with a rack box that did chorus, delay, flanger. It sat up against my amp. It made the right noise, but a pedal would have been much better. A different band would have been much better.

If you haven't been to a show, or you have been to a show, make sure to get to one. All that gear....

Type 'guitar show' into a search engine (duckduckgo.com) and find one near you.

Out of Phase with my Guitar

WIRING

 Ever since I got a guitar, I've operated on them, putting switches in to do things like phase, coil drop (aka coil splitting), and whatever else I could find. Even tried the Superstrat switch. For a while I replaced the blade switch on my Strats with 3 individual toggle switches. 

After all this time, I went back to the blade switch, and occasionally use coil splitting. On the rear pickup of a Strat, I use JBjrs or a JB, and have a coil split switch. I use it to get more authentic single coil tones. It's not a bad compromise at all, and blends well with the middle pickup. If you wire it right, it's humbucking. I found it also sounds pretty good to keep both coils and use it with the middle - there's more 'girth' to the tone.

The jury is still out on adding the rear and front pickups together. It was initially done with a pot instead of a switch, so I could vary the amount of the front pickup added. This will probably move to a push-pull pot.

The G&L Legacy, their Strat, has an incredible 'bass' control, that I will probably put on my other guitars. It's very effective, and can drop all the low end from the guitar, if turned down. The treble control is normal. I figure I'll add the treble bleed network across the volume pot that keeps the highs when I turn the volume down. My highly flawed memory tells me it's a 150k resistor paralleled with an .001 capacitor. Values can be messed with.

imo, the Jimmy Page wiring is silly and most people won't use most of the settings.

If you're anal and must have every possible combination, it's a great system. 

I grew out of needing everything because I wasn't finding most of it useful.

BOSS CAPS, MAN

Many companies are selling replacement assemblies and tone control caps with 'orange drop' or 'bumblebee' capacitors, stating this gives the best tone. I'm calling BS. When the tone is on 10, the tone cap is out of the circuit, so it could be made of concrete and won't affect the tone. There's a funny story about bumblebee caps... guys who repair ancient tube radios tell me the first thing they do is open them and replace all the bumblebee caps because they're crap and probably gone. The tone control works from the factory. If you wanna experiment, try changing the value-you'll hear more difference from this. If you're really desperate, change the cap. Just don't spend too much money... it's snake oil for audiophools. At one show, I saw an LP replacement drop in set for $75. It's four pots, two caps, and wire.

You'll also get a noticeable change through what Fender refers to as a Blower switch, which wires a pickup directly to the output jack, bypassing the pickup selector switch, tone, and volume controls.

Your call.

• If non-tube amps poo poo tube amps, why do they all advertise tube tone?

Didja ever pick up a different guitar and it almost feels like a different instrument? Or you're using someone else's fingers?

This happens to me sometimes when I pick up my Les Paul. Growing up with Strats, it's not hard to guess why. But sometimes it's ok... maybe it's the weather.  Then there's the guitarist joke that the LP has 4 knobs instead of 3, so that confuses us.

Jeff Beck said he liked Strats because you pick up a Les Paul and it's all right there. The Strat makes you work for it. If this is true, I guess I got used to playing the hard way.

Speaking of Les Pauls....

There has been a lot of talk of quality variance over the years and between models.

They're not kidding.

My LP Studio is .... well...   not quite the guitar my 58 Historic Reissue is. I was highly advised to pick up the 58 by a bunch of friends who had one and were over the moon. It was well worth it. It's a dream to play, with a baseball bat neck. The Studio... it's in perfect condition.. it's just not the 58. Strangely, the Studio is up for sale/trade. The easiest LP ever is the Ibanez 'lawsuit' LP copy. It feels cheaper, but plays really well.

I bought replacement pickups for it but was advised to use the originals. The replacements are Seymour Duncan's favorite set: the JB and the Jazz. I already love the JB. The Jazz works really well for me because I find LP neck pickups too loud and overdriven. The Jazz has less output and more tone. My favorite set too, Seymour.

I want this. Left handed, of course.

Hey, Look... a New Post

 David Lee Roth is retiring from performing.

How can an ego that huge leave the stage? He hints at his health and the loss of Eddie.

Don't get me wrong - I like him, and consider him to be one of the ultimate frontmen.

Original Foreigner frontman Lou Gramm is touring again.

Misses performing.

He went from Robert Plant to Van Morrison.

There is a new dating app called POM - Power of Music, that pairs people by music they listen to on their phones. 

I'm sure to find a total babe who's into Jeff Beck and Frank Zappa just like me!

When I first met Mrs. lefty, I examined her album collection. And there was Jeff Beck. I knew were were destined to be together. 

Tina Turner (81) sold the rights to her music catalogue to music publishing company BMG. Price could be north of $50 million.

• Walmart is selling tubes (at least in England)
• this is some sort of indication of the end of the planet

Pasadena prepares to unveil Eddie Van Halen memorial

Sadly, we're passing the first anniversary of his death

Google Search adds guitar tuner to its smorgasbord of built-in features

I never use Google, but in an emergency....

use duckduckgo.com - it doesn't track you

Go ahead - tell me you've ever seen John Bonham playing guitar