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.