Pedalboard Update - July

Here's what I'm running with right now:

Guitar -> (Fuzz Face) -> JHS Buffer -> MXR Compressor -> VOX Wah -> EHX POG 2 -> Bluesbreaker -> Morning Glory -> Signa Drive -> Tap-a-whirl -> Boss CE-2 Chorus -> Volume pedal -> Boss DD-7 (with tap tempo) -> DL4 (with expression knob) -> BBE Sonic Stomp -> Boss Tuner -> Boss RV-5 -> amp

I did what we all do and got sick of what was already kind of working, in favor of something that might work better. It looks really different because I moved a lot of stuff around, but the only actual new pedals are the Cusack Tap-A-Whirl, which I'm still getting used to, and the JHS Morning Glory, which is awesome. And also the Fuzzface, though that's not a normal part of the board, since I don't normally need fuzz, but it's really easy to plug in if I need it. I also cleaned up some of the mundane stuff. I moved the buffer underneath the pedalboard, like so:

So that all I need to do is plug in to the bottom of the board, and it looks pretty slick. I got a second Pedal Power 2+ and mounted it underneath, so now every pedal has it's own channel on a power supply. And because I now need to run two power cables, plus an amp send line, from the board, I home-made a pedal snake by getting two long power cables and zip-tying it all together. I think I need to get some kind of covering for it, though, since you can't run it through your hands. I'll look into that.

The only thing that I know will absolutely change in a bit is I've finally caught up with 2008 and ordered a Timmy. So that's going to go in the place of the Bluesbreaker pedal, which is great but isn't as versatile as the Morning Glory, which based itself upon the Bluesbreaker anyway. But for now, I'm using the Bluesbreaker as I would the Timmy; as a cleanish boost and to push the other overdrives. I love the expression knob on the DL4, since it lets me control whatever I want, which right now is just repeats on all of my delays. And so far the layout is working out pretty well, since it's protecting the pedals I want to protect (compressor, sonic stomp) from my foot while giving me good access to the rest of them.

As far as amps go, I'm digging my Valve Jr. for plugging straight in, but with the pedalboard I'm finding I like the ability to tweak some of the brightness out, so my Blues Jr. lets me do that. I've really only been working things out with my new Strat, though, so we'll see what happens when I try out my other guitars. But for a good Strat, this setup is pretty killer.

Tap Tempo Troubles...

(Sorry, this is a super technical and probably super boring entry, but if you're into electronics, enjoy! If not, just go watch that Ryan Adams clip I uploaded in the last entry. It's way more interesting.)

So you remember how I said that I had an ingenious plan to make both of my DD-7's sync up to one tap tempo? By home-brewing a Y cable that split the signal and sent it to each delay? Turns out my soldering sucks.

I would tap in a tempo, and first of all, the delays would only kind of get the idea. Like they'd catch three out of four times I'd step on it. Then one would be a few milliseconds off from the other, so they would drift in and out of sync. Kind of a cool effect, to be honest, but definitely not what I was going for. What could I do? I could of course get one of those cool tap tempo boxes that has two outputs. That would be the easiest. Though if you're looking at my current pedalboard, you'll notice that there's not much room left, so it probably wouldn't have fit. And this was more fun.

Step one involved ordering an insert cable. An insert cable is used to send and receive information from a device. It's got a Tip-Ring-Sleeve (TRS) end on one side and two Tip-Sleeve (TS) ends on the other, where one gets the signal from the tip, the other from the ring, and they share a sleeve. That's pretty much the only kind of split cable with 1/4" ends that you can buy without having something specially made. Since quality literally does not matter to me, I got an $8 job (with shipping and handling) from Zzounds.

Step two was to find a TRS jack. Radioshack to the rescue. $4.

So then a little bit of wizardry. I took out the old jack, saving as much wire as I could on the leads and making a note of what wire went to the Tip (or carried the signal) and what wire went to the Sleeve (or was the ground). Then I connected the Tip and Ring terminals together on the new jack with a little bit of wire that was laying around (you can literally use anything) and soldered it in place. The last step, solder the signal wire, which previously was attached to the Tip, to the Tip/Ring connection, and the ground wire to the Sleeve terminal. Put the little box back together, et voila.

Now, when I tap in a tempo, both DD-7s get a strong signal because I'm not compromising the integrity of the cable, and they both stay in sync. There is, of course, a downside. If I were to use a normal (a.k.a. unbalanced, TS, Mono) 1/4" cable, pretty much like all guitar cables you ever come in contact with, the Ring terminal will come into contact with the Sleeve, short-circuiting things and making it not work. So this is only a stereo tap tempo pedal from now on. Though I would think that if I used a TRS -> TRS cable, it would still work perfectly...something to experiment with. If only I OWNED a stereo cable...

...just don't tell Loopmaster. I may have voided the warranty. ;-)

Squier Classic Vibe 50's Telecaster

Ok, so after like a year of never being able to find one of these in a Guitar Center (a.k.a., the devil), I've found two in two different ones over the last week. This is extremely exciting for me, even though I have a fantastic Tele in my ASAT, and even though there's no way, musically or economically, I could justify owning two Telecasters at this moment, I just had to try it out. There's been a lot of internet hype about this particular guitar, so I figured I'd add to it.

First, I saw the one I really like; the original one they came out with, in a vintage white with a black pickguard. I believe that it differs from the newer model, which is sunburst with an alder body and a rosewood fretboard, by having a pine body and maple fretboard. I was in the South County Guitar Center (here in STL, we like to descriminate based on where you live. I live in prestigious West County, where the wine flows and every other area looks upon us and dreams. I only go to South County to do missionary work, and to teach the indigenous peoples the ways of culture and grace and civility. Also, I work there.) and I saw it, and so I did what came naturally; I plugged straight into a Blues Jr., this being the time of day when all Guitar Centers are quiet (around 1 p.m. during the school year), and I felt alive. So alive that I didn't think to do a side-by-side comparison with, say, a '52 reissue Tele, which is the same sort of feel that Fender has been trying to cop with the Classic Vibe series. But I did get one of the workers to ask me to turn down. At a Guitar Center? I was playing tasteful rhythm with a divine set of tools. How dare thee! I could have been ripping it up with Crazy Train 10 times in a row, like every other day in Guitar Center. I guess they don't like good music.

Anyway, about a week passes, and I find myself once again at a Guitar Center, this time in North County (where I have also been known to conduct works of charity. Also, my grandma lives up there.) and they had the other CV Tele; at the time, I couldn't remember what distinguished them, but I like Telecasters, so I wasn't too picky. As I had a lot of free time, I thought things out a bit more, but I couldn't find a RI Tele in the store that day, so I settled with another sort of standard, the American.

The issue I have, looking back, is that there's really nothing to distinguish the two at this point, other than electronics. The cool think about the blonde Tele is that it's made out of pine, and you can really hear something special in the tone. This alder version, it was certainly different from an American Standard tele, but not really in any way that I would say was better or worse. Noticeable right off the bat, the CV was significantly louder. The pickups seemed to be at a good height on each guitar, so it would lead me to believe that the CV's pickups are hotter than the American. The CV was a lot more unfocused, so while turning it down a bit gave you back some clarity, the tone remained a bit all over the place and messy. Again, not necessarily a bad thing. I've been thinking about guitar tone a lot lately (as usual), and I'm coming to find a lot of value in that sort of broken-in-half, messy, falling apart kind of tone. Like a good fuzz pedal, or an amp that's breaking up. Or me, before God. Tight and focused is great if you're in control, but I find myself, when really praying, just falling apart, so there's a sort of beauty in a guitar that's a little all over the place. Not sloppy, and not poorly played, but almost like the guitar itself can't help but tremble before God. That's ridiculous. That's where I'm at right now.

Which makes a nice segue into something I discovered on Thursday night: I will always* play electric in sandals, because it makes it easy to turn certain knobs on my pedalboard with my foot in a controlled way. The certain knobs I speak of would be the drive knob on a Tubescreamer, or maybe the repeat knob on a delay. I was playing How He Loves for the youth group kids on Thursday, leading from electric, and I felt compelled to end with the chorus by cutting out the rest of the band, doing some arpeggio work and turning the repeats up on the delay (that has of course been going the entire song) so that it just starts to feedback, then fading back out. I love delay.

Anyway, back to the review. Love. Love love. I don't need another Tele. If you do, get one, but try out both, because they are different. I prefer the blonde one (though my first and only mod would be to swap out the black pickguard for a white one, because I think that looks boss), and you might too, but the newer, sun-bursted model is not without it's charms. Biggest charm: $350 new. A 52RI tele will cost at least $1600 new. The Classic Vibe line is just great in sound and, honestly, in build quality, so as long as you don't mind having a big Squier logo on your headstock (which, let's be honest, we've all been that guy, and some, like me, still kind of are), you're getting an amazing tone-to-dollar ratio. If you don't have a Tele, now you don't really have a good excuse to not have one. I already have one. I'm considering getting another. If I had a wife, she'd kill me.

*probably not always.