Presenting the slimmer, sleeker pedal board:

I know, somehow it's less colorful than it has been in the past. So that's kinda sad.

What you're looking at is the result of the last year of deciding exactly what I needed and what I didn't, then trying to find the best of each thing that I could. Notable is that I only have one delay pedal (for now), the newly acquired DD-20, after finally losing patience with the awkwardness of the DL4. I still really like the way that the DL4 sounds, but I've been using my DD-7 on my leading board and have realized just how little I need dual-delays to get the big delay sound that I use most often, and, well, the DD-20 just does more for less space, and has an extra preset. The thing I will miss is that it's missing an expression knob/pedal, which the DL4 had, but I wasn't overly pleased with how the DL4 worked with the expression pedal. If I get a legit analog delay, I will probably be set. Also, no POG. Again, I really liked the POG 2, but if I'm being completely honest, I never used it. And that thing was a beast in terms of real estate, so it got the axe.

I put an expression knob on my Tap-a-Whirl which is something I saw James Duke do and thought it was a great idea. Just cannibalized it from the expression pedal that I was using on the gone-but-not-forgotten DL4. And my drive section is what it is. I was kind of surprised that my favorite drive pedals didn't make it on there, those being the Signa Drive and the Morning Glory. I love both of those, but each of these pedals just add more "weight" to the signal when they're on, and I thought that was probably the most important thing for a drive pedal to do, at least from this board. If I had room for one more drive pedal, it would be the Fulltone Fatboost because I love what that does to push other drive pedals, but I couldn't find a non-awkward way to get it on there. The Timmy has a new chip in it, too; I couldn't quite get behind the one that was in there, so this guy told me to try swapping it out since it's got a chip socket instead of just a soldered chip, and I did, and it kind of blew me away. The actual chip cost me $1.04 with tax from a local electronics shop, and is a version of an LM1458 (I think...). Which seems like I should know exactly what it is, but I don't feel like opening it up to check. But it took me exactly 30 seconds to mod, and man, that guy rocks now. I used to find it a little harsh, now it's smoother. And weight.

Anyway, the current chain (for the pedal nerds like me out there) is:

Guitar -> JHS Little Black Buffer -> MXR Dynacomp -> Vox Wah -> Gravity Drive (a.k.a. Bluesbreaker clone) -> Fulldrive 2 (non-MOSFET for extra street cred...also it sounds pretty awesome) -> Timmy with new chip -> Ernie Ball volume pedal -> Boss DD-20 (with tap tempo) -> Cusack Tap-A-Whirl -> Boss Tu-2 -> Boss RV-5 -> BBE Sonic Stomp -> Amp


...but it will probably change next week.

Yet Another Strat...

I got a new Strat today. Well, maybe "new" is a little misleading. Maybe "got" is, too.

Like I think I said before, I've loved my little Strat that I built, that was actually the impetus for starting this blog, but I've started to get just a little dissatisfied with some of it's quirks. Even with a good, professional setup, it never really clicked with me. Sure, it plays fine. Sounds okay. The tuners are solid. All in all, it's a very serviceable Strat. But it's just hasn't delivered that jaw-dropping tone that I've wanted it to. Not that I blame it; I had basically no idea what I was doing when I built it, let alone what it was that I wanted it to sound like. I was just picking pieces because of what other people told me and what was affordable.

Then I started playing real Strats, legit vintage ones, and I heard what a Strat was supposed to sound like, felt the smooth action of the neck and really just had an overall mind-bending experience. So I couldn't take it much longer. I had to fix things.

I decided to do a lot more "hands-on" research this time around. I went out to a really nice guitar store in the area and tried out as many Strats as they'd let me. Most specifically, I was looking for tonal differences between fretboard materials (they were all alder Strats, which was probably what I was going to go with anyway), and then tried out a few different neck profiles. Between the Maple or Rosewood neck, all else being held constant, I was pretty amazed at the tonal difference. It was subtle, but definitely there. The Maple neck was a little snappier, the Rosewood one a bit more restrained. I really like both, and could honestly see owning one of each at some point in the future, but I decided that for my one-and-only, I'd go with Rosewood again. Then I tried a few different neck profiles, and found the one I like. The thing that made the most difference to me? The radius. I'm a 9.5" guy all the way. Just feels right.

After that, I started thinking more about specifics. I came across a John Mayer video where he talked about the hows and whys of making his "Black One" Stratocaster at the Fender factory. The thing that struck me was when he talked about making his guitar with no paint on it. That really, really got me thinking about finish. I'd always heard that finish mattered, but I'd only ever owned guitars with a poly-finish, like most modern guitars. Then I got my Mustang, which is from '66 so it's got a nice thin nitro-cellulose lacquer on it. I love the way that guitar sounds. So nitro it is.

I wanted to not repeat some of the mistakes that I made with the first Strat I built, so I went searching for guitars that could fit my standards and not be so expensive that I'd feel bad for customizing them. My search brought me to the Fender Highway One guitars, mostly because they've got the 9.5" radius neck and a body with some nitro on it. Now, digging in a bit more (and confirming it mid-relic-ing), I found out it's more of a compound finish, with a clear poly covered by a colored nitro finish, but either way, it's a thinner finish than most Strats out there.

So to make a long story short, I bought one off of eBay (from 1993, so it's got the medium-jumbo frets, which I prefer, and a vintage-sized headstock, which I'm ambivalent on), swapped out the guts for those in my other Strat, and then got to relicing it. Here's how it turned out:

As you can see, it's not nearly as relic'ed as Mayer's Black One. Like he said, the idea isn't so much about the look as it is about letting the wood breathe. I also think that the whole "heavily distressed" guitar look can come off looking a bit cheesy, particularly when there's paint worn away in areas where there never would be, if the guitar were just worn from normal playing. The upper horn is a pick thing, the lower slant where the arm makes contact makes sense, and the back around the belt buckle is definitely something that happens, along with dents and dings along the edges and around the jack. But how are you going to wear out the paint inside the horns? That just doesn't make sense. So that's about the extent to what I did. Don't get me wrong; this is definitely pretty heavily distressed. But I could definitely relic it more. I also wiped the whole thing down with some lacquer thinner to just thin out the paint that much more.

Then, I rubbed the whole thing down with some black wood stain. The parts that are just wood colored are still covered in the poly coating, but the places that came up black are where I scratched all the way through to the wood. It added a lot of depth to the relic work, making it look way, way more realistic. It also added a nice tint to the plastic parts, aside from the pickup covers which were the same ones from the earlier Strat. If I don't like the way that they look next to the other parts, I'll relic up some white ones and pop them in. I also sanded the neck so it plays really smoothly.

The end result is a guitar that really sings. It's clear and aggressive at the same time. The pickups do most of the heavy lifting, but this guitar sounds an order of magnitude clearer than the guitar that those pickups came from. It's not quite at the same level as Mayer's guitar, which frankly is the best sounding Strat I've ever heard, even over YouTube, but it's close. Maybe chucking some of his Big Dipper pickups in there would take it to the next level, but I'm extremely satisfied. Maybe someday you'll all hear it...

Quick update

Was in Nashville over the last few days. Played a $15,000 Strat from 1963, and a $12,500 Strat from 1959. I get what it's all about. Maybe someday....

Legit updates coming someday. Maybe.

I wasn't sure this day would ever come...

In spite of my sporadic posts (which is, I promise, the last time I'm going to talk about that), I've actually been quite busy with moving around guitar gear lately. Too busy, in fact. Maybe one of the reasons why I haven't been posting much is because I could never figure out what gear to talk about, since I was getting so much new gear so often. And it's come to the point where I'm now doing one of the most difficult things I've ever done related to guitars:

I'm down-sizing.

I looked up the other day and I had 9 guitars. 9! I don't have 9 sets of hands! How could I have that many? The fact is, it just kind of happened over time. But it made me realize just how much money I had tied up in cheap guitars, with about four different plans to upgrade them and make them my own. But I can't justify 9 guitars. So I'm selling off two of them to make some money to, you know, actually upgrade some of the others.

Best example: I've had an Epiphone Les Paul forever. But what I really want it some kind of ES-335. So I bought and Epiphone Dot, with the thought that I'd eventually upgrade all of the hardware and the pickups and end up with a very good guitar. But what I've realized is, that was kind of my plan all along for the Les Paul. So what am I going to do? Sell the Dot and another guitar and finally make the upgrades that I've wanted to make. I still want an ES-335 someday. But if I upgrade the pickups on my cheapie Les Paul, then someday when I do get a nice Gibson ES-335, I can just swap out the pickups and have a guitar to drool over. And in the mean time, I can get pretty good tone from my Les Paul, and I can then sell it with the original pickups and not lose any money.

I'm not sure why it took me 9 guitars to figure all of that out. I've been putting money in to my pedalboard for years, only having recently slowed way down and concentrated more on upgrades than on buying new things because they're shiny. Amps are the same way; I got nicer tubes and am on the waiting list to have Bill M mod my Blues Jr., and in the mean time I've been digging my Musicmaster way, way more for how clear of a tone it puts out. And that's even with a 35 year old speaker. Something about the hand-wiring, I'm sure.

So yeah, this isn't an exciting post. More like a "responsible" one. How boring.

New Gear: Tom Anderson Crowdster

Apparently I can't stay away from red guitars. Well, this one was only semi-intentional. I've actually had this baby since the beginning of the summer; I'd saved up lots of money and decided that it was time to take the plunge, and I must say, it's awesome. I put on strap locks and it's good to go. Months of working later, it's still just as great as it was in May.

I really, really like working with it, since it never feeds back, but it does open up a few interesting points. One, you never realize just how much of your own monitoring of your guitar playing comes from the sound of the guitar hanging around your belly. I never use monitors if I can help it, just because most of the time it's just me, and I can monitor myself by turning the house sound up loud enough to fill the room, but when I'm playing with a band, I need a lot of my acoustic in the monitor mix just to hear myself. Also, this guitar has a surprising amount of low-end. Even though it won't feedback at high levels, it's big and boomy without any eq-ing, but just a few slight tweaks and you get great acoustic tone.

And, of course, there are the handful of times that I need a legit acoustic guitar, with no amplification. Luckily for me, those time are few and far between. On account of how I'm such a huge rock star. Boom.

...someday I'll come back to this blog....

So here are the things that have changed in my life since I last wrote here:

• Started using my Musicmaster to play out a little more. It's awesome. It makes me rely on pedal-based overdrive since it doesn't have a Master Volume, but I've been doing that anyway. It's also way lighter than my Blues Jr. and it sounds wonderfully hand-wired. If that's even a thing it can sound like.
• Took my Strat in for a complete setup and my Mustang in for repairs. Free plug for Skip Goez. He knows what's up.
• Am switching bank accounts. Bank of America has earned my ire.
• Wrote a whole new Mass for the upcoming changes. The non-Catholics here probably have no idea what that means, but it's kind of a big deal. I will hopefully have some YouTubes up at some point; right now I'm working on finding some compositional software to get it all written out professionally. Any suggestions?
• Speaking of writing, I've had two different book ideas pass through my head, and I need to get started on two talks that will be happening shortly.
• Have a Barber Trifecta Fuzz on the way that should be here today....and my board has changed, as it is wont to do, ever so slightly since the last update. But I've been playing out a lot more and I like where it's at now. But yes, the fuzz will require shuffling everything around, since fuzzes don't like buffers and as it stands right now, the buffer is the first thing in the chain.
• Turned 26. So that was fun.
• Still have to do a review of the Gravity Drive. Long story short, it's a Bluesbreaker clone! And I love it.
• I never thought I'd do a bullet-point-format post? I guess I am getting to be like Karl....

Splendid.

Ben

Fender Mustang

I figured since I'll be out of town again this whole next week, I should probably actually say something about the previous teaser post, rather than just leave you hanging. Basically, I traded a few spare pedals and a few hundred dollars for a '66 Fender Mustang. And I know I say it with every new guitar purchase, but I'm in love, all over again. I've never played a legit, vintage guitar (unless you count one of my good friend's pre-war Gibson, which is magnificent, but which I've only held and strummed for about a minute), much less owned one. I'll just say, I can see what all of the fuss is about. It needs some going-over electronically, which will be good because it will give me motivation to finally take my Strat in for a professional setup, but man, it sounds amazing, and it plays perfectly. It's definitely cooler than me. Look for some clips once I get it back from Skip.

Teaser post.

I'm going to be out of town for more than a week. Here's something to tide you over.

New Gear: Gretsch 5129

This one has been a long time coming, since I've actually had this guitar since March, but that extra time has also given me the chance to evaluate it in a lot of legitimate, gig-type settings. I saw it hanging on the wall in the used section of a music store that I rarely go to, and it called to me. I plugged it in to a few amps, turned some knobs, and fell in love. Behold!

If you've never owned or played a Gretsch, you're missing out. There is a difference between the bottom line (Electromatic) and top line Gretschs, but I think it's only the difference between solid wood and laminate, and some fanciness in terms of binding. The electronics, the build quality, everything else is on-par, and I think made in the same factory in the good old USA. What that means is that the tonal difference between a $2000 Gretsch and the $700 Electromatic version is there, but it's really subtle. I much prefer that to the Gibson business model, where an Epiphone Les Paul, we'll say, sounds just awful compared to it's big brother, and isn't even manufactured in the same country, let alone the same plant.

This particular one doesn't seem to be a part of their standard line anymore, but it seems to be in the same line as the White Falcon. It's got single-coil pickups, a Bigsby tremolo and a hollow body. Let me just say, this thing is awesome. I absolutely love hollow-body guitars for the extra grit and feedback that you can get at normal volumes. And something about all that extra space inside of the guitar really rounds everything out, controlling the highs and the upper-mids so that it becomes really difficult to get a harsh sound out of this guitar. Sure, you can go countryesque chicken-picking with it, but even those tones won't tear your head off like a Tele can. It's just a more mellow, smoother tone. Hard to explain.

I got turned on to Gretsch guitars by (who else?) Hillsong United. They use them. A lot. I saw them live a few times in the last year and it seems like everyone was using some kind of Gretsch with a Tele or Strat as a backup.

Also, I used this guitar with my Blues Jr. to record the clip of the Westbury overdrive from just a few days ago, so give it a listen and you can hear some of it's tones. This is probably my favorite guitar, and I've had it for the least amount of time. I try to play it every chance I get!

New Gear: Westbury W20 "The Tube" Overdrive

So the last few weeks have been a bit crazy; sorry! As promised though, here's a quick demo of a pedal that I got in a trade on Craigslist. I like it, but I can't justify keeping it so it's out on the Gearpage as we speak, with perhaps a stop on eBay in it's future. So if you like it and you're interested, shoot me an e-mail!

I present, the Westbury W20 "The Tube" Overdrive:




Here we've got a Gretsch hollowbody going into the tube, into my Blues Jr. And some less-than-spectacular playing, combined with some in-demo tuning. Recorded on the iPhone. All the makings of a rock star, I tell you....

It's an interesting pedal. Clearly, it's not transparent. The closest comparison I can make is that it's similar to a Tubescreamer, except that there's a 12ax7 tube in it so it's much warmer. From all of the information I can gather, it was made in Japan in the 1980's, then re-released by Nady once they bought Westbury. There are some people who really, really love it and seek it out since it's super rare. It does have some pretty nice drive at lower gain levels, but it's just got way more than I think I'll ever need. Maybe not though. I'm kind of on the fence, but I'm not in love with it.

You knew this day was coming....

I've been a little frustrated with my pedalboard for a while now. I know, I know, a guitarist saying that he's not happy with his gear is like...I don't know...something. Point is, we all expected it, right? Well, just this night I've undergone a pretty drastic re-imagining of my electric rig. There are some old favorites that have migrated back on, and some pedals that have been on the board since the beginning that are either absent, or will be quite shortly.

This all started when I got my shiny, legit Tubescreamer and the tone faeries announced their presence in a flash of lime-green light and with the unmistakable sound of a mid-range hump. And I (almost) never wanted to turn it off. Then, I thought, I like this compressor, and it should always be on, too, so let's throw that in there. Then, I started to play around with my volume pedal as a means to control how much drive my amp was getting, so that one was "always on", too. Little by little, pedals moved from my looper to just in front or behind it until I had more out than in. Then, I began to find some minor annoyances with the looper itself. Nothing drastic; an LED on the first loop that decides to work intermittently. The not-so-silent switching. The space/weight it takes up. It made trying to experiment with stereo amps very awkward. Some of the buffers in the pedals (most notably the DL4) would add a noticeable amount of treble just by virtue of being included in the signal chain when that particular loop was engaged. These are all minor points, to be sure, but I think you can see where I'm going with this....

Yeah, it's gone.

Not gone as in "gone forever" gone, at least not yet, but I gave my board a good, hard look and just sort of found myself subtracting off things that I never used. The backup DD-7 is cool, and it's not something I'll never do again, but I was using it so infrequently, particularly when I can just tap in a short quarter thing on the DL4 and get the same effect. I also literally never turned on any of my distortions (Aria Disnortion or the Keeley-modded DS-1) in a live setting, preferring instead to just stack my drives, so since they weren't pulling their figurative weight, I wasn't going to carry around their literal weight. The signal chain, as of May:

Guitar -> JHS Little Black Buffer -> MXR Dynacomp -> Vox Wah (modded for True Bypass) -> Analogman TS-9/808 Silver Mod -> Fulltone Fulldrive 2 MOSFET -> Voodoo Labs Tremolo -> Boss CE-2 -> Ernie Ball Volume Pedal -> Boss DD-7 -> Line 6 DL4 -> BBE Sonic Stomp -> Boss TU-2 -> Boss RV-5 -> Amp(s?)

Basically, this is all of the stuff I need. I've forgotten how much fun it is to play with a Wah and a Chorus. And literally the only reason why I can possibly do this board is because of the Little Black Buffer and the really good cables that I made earlier. That thing really is magic, because there's no discernible difference between my board and going straight in. I mean, I'm sure a difference exists, but it sounds amazing to me. The Fulldrive might turn into two or three other ODs, but for now it's versatile enough to stay on the board. The TU-2 acts as a kill-switch if my delays are getting ridiculous (the one biggest benefit to having the looper), and the outs on the RV-5 means that I can run in stereo if I so choose.

This definitely isn't the end-all, be-all, but it's where I'm at now. Having to lug around an 80+ pound pedalboard was getting tiresome, so even if this is 5 or 10 pounds less, it's going to make a difference!

Need to play acoustic AND electric?

So as is apparently my style, I posted furiously for a few days and then did nothing for a week. This has got to be murder on my readership (if any), but maybe it will make it sound cooler if I say that I was busy working on side-projects. That's what rock-stars do, right? Side-projects? Like when Bono teams up with Elton John to...help him move his couch...or...something. Bam. Side-project.

Anyway, despite the fact that I haven't said anything much about guitars in a while, there have been some updates/upgrades/poor decision-making on my part that you'll likely be hearing about in the next few days, but the punchline is that I have actually been quite busy over the last month, playing a lot of guitar and leading a lot of worship. Basically, playing music rather than writing about the things that help me play music. I thought I'd tease you with a shot of what I've been rolling with for about a month now. It's a good, small board for leading via acoustic or electric that has everything I need and nothing I don't and manages to get it all onto one Pedaltrain Jr.

It also draws inspiration from Kristian Stanfill, because of course I can never just make my own decisions, but the idea is, like he says there, just to have some basic electric tones and to let your electric guitarist really do his thing, not step on any toes, things like that. But The acoustic side runs through the Hardwire tuner, the Fishman magic pedal and the Strymon OB.1 and then to my direct box and on out to the house. The electric goes through the Boss tuner, the MXR compressor, the Tubescreamer and the Boss DD-7 to the amp. This lets me do a lot of rhythmic things, clean or dirty, and lets the guy who is focused on making electric guitar noises make the crazy, lead-sounding ones. And of course this board is getting broken up as we speak because I'm going to be playing with my big electric board over the Easter weekend...but I'll probably come back to this, or something like it, very often. Maybe with some reverb, too.....

It Might Get Loud

I love Netflix. Netflix + PS3 = streaming a lot of random things any hour of the day. Including "It Might Get Loud", a documentary starring The Edge of U2, Jimmy Page and Jack White. Just awesome.

Of course, being a worship leader, I'm intimately familiar with The Edge, so there wasn't much new I learned about him. But I'm ashamed to say I didn't know much about Jimmy Page, who apparently spent a lot of time in England as a session guitarist before Led Zeppelin happened. And then there's Jack White who I knew absolutely nothing about and was 100% surprised by how amazing he is as an artist. So real and completely focused on music as expression. Amazing.

What's coolest about the documentary is that it brought together three artists who have very different styles and outlooks on how to make music, but they're all successful in being musical artists. Jimmy Page was easily the most technically skilled of the three, Jack White is a big fan of rawness and purity of tone, and The Edge uses tons of effects to completely define his sound. They talked about everything from how they got into music, struggles in their careers, writing, influences, their favorite guitars, all that. And at the end, they all jam out and you can definitely hear them coming through their playing. Amazing.

See it. It's great. It made me re-evaluate Jack White and want his sweet Kay guitar.

New Mass Parts

It's been a little while since I've posted anything even remotely musical, but a few years back I wrote some Mass parts for Lent. This was back in school, when I actually knew what terms like "Dorian Mode" meant, so they're, of course, a bit funky and I think I did a good job of capturing where I was at that particular Lent. Well, they've also been my go-to Mass parts during Lent for the last few years, so now that I'm leading more places than ever (and have had some other people ask to do them all over the place), I went ahead and YouTubed (which is totally a word, Firefox spell-checker!) some sketches of them so people could at least hear what they sound like.

So check them out! I'll probably start posting a lot of stuff up there just because it was way easier than I ever thought. And it's pretty surprisingly good quality, considering it's just my iPhone4's video app. Just think, even ten years ago, shooting a video and putting it on the internet took thousands of dollars of equipment and hours of editing and uploading, and now you can do it with a $200 iPhone and a few touch-screen touches. Technology is a b.

On Transparency and the Theory of Guitar Tone; or, New Gear - Analog.man TS9/TS-808 Silver Mod

I get the feeling that with every bit of gear I get, I move further away from Karl and closer to James Duke. I still think Karl has some great tone and some of the things he does with delay makes me weep. I think James Duke is more like me, though. I'm really messy and stuff. I try to be transparent, but no matter how much I clean myself up, there's still going to be little bits of me left behind. Like a slight mid-hump. I think the thing I like most about his gear is that he's got a few pedals that are "always" on. Now, of course, that doesn't actually mean always. Just, maybe, 80% or 90% of the time. Or maybe actually always. With this last little bit of gear acquisition, I think I've figured out why.

"Transparent" is one of those gear buzzwords that people like to throw out there. From a technical standpoint, I suppose it means that whatever you put in, you get out. The equilization doesn't change, or the level is the same, or there aren't any little nasty digital artifacts or fuzzy analog distortions or anything at all. Or maybe it means that it will preserve your playing dynamics. Or that your guitar and your amp sounds like your guitar and your amp. As a marketing tool, it's an awesome concept. You can buy this new piece of gear and it won't hurt the tone that you've worked so hard to find for so long! As a logical concept, what the hell does that even mean?

What does "your guitar" sound like? Can you even hear "your guitar" in a vacuum? The very nature of the electric guitar is that it interacts with an amplifier. What does "your guitar" sound like? Largely, that depends on what amp you are playing through. A Fender American Standard Stratocaster is going to sound one way through a Fender Bassman amp, and a very different way through a Marshall "Bluesbreaker", and still another different way through a Vox AC-30. Even the impedance of the guitar cable that you use will change how your guitar sounds. And then, what about effects pedals? Every pedal, if it's True Bypass (another great buzzword that can mean pretty much anything) or buffered, is going to affect your sound. If it's connected to your guitar and amp, off or on, it's going to change things. The war is often in how much or how little of a change. Even the most "transparent" of pedals is going to affect your sound in some way. It would be impossible for it not to.

Here's the point. I recently was able to do a straight up trade of my Boss BD-2 with the Keeley Mod in it, for a pedal that I've been questing after the entirety of my guitar journey. From day one, everyone always said, you've got to have a Tube Screamer. Everyone has played through one at one point or another, and it's a major piece of gear that shapes the tone of some of the greatest guitarists who have ever walked the earth. John Mayer. The Edge of U2. Eric Johnson. Stevie Ray Vaughn. Rory Gallagher. The list goes on. So I researched it, seeing that there are many variations. The original Ibanez TS-808 is the Holy Grail, with vintage ones easily reaching $500. Then there are reissues, and mods, and copies, and "new" versions, and everything under the sun. My Fulltone Fulldrive 2 is (in "Vintage" mode) a Tube Screamer clone. The Tube Screamer is literally the most copied, most sought-after pedal in existence. So, naturally, there are good ones and better ones. Most people who are being honest will admit that there is a difference between the $500 one and the $200 reissue and the $100 sound-alike, but they will also admit that they're pretty small differences, not usually justifying all that extra money, and that they all sound "good" (if you're really interested in the full history, there is a really good rundown from analog.man). So as a result, I was happy with my Fulldrive 2, because it's pretty close to a Tube Screamer. Close enough for me, anyway. Until now.

What I got was originally some kind of TS9 (probably a reissue) that was modded to TS-808 specs and then beyond with analog.man's "silver mod". Basically, it's "better" than the original TS-808, but the changes are super subtle, so subtle that you likely wouldn't be able to tell unless you knew what you were looking for and you had both the original and the new version in front of you. In blind tests, most of the differences are so subtle as to be non-existent. But for many, getting a mod done is a good way to get vintage tone for a fraction of the cost and with some upgraded reliability. For me, it only cost me my BD-2, and considering I got that pedal for a significant discount, it was something I just couldn't pass up.

 Pictured above: Tone.

Here's where all of that talk of "transparency" comes back in. I've been playing around with this TS9 for a little while now, and I really like it. It's not "transparent" in the sense that it doesn't affect your tone. It does do a really good job of preserving the dynamics and feel of your playing, so in that sense, it could be called "transparent". At "unity gain" (a fancy term for the same volume level coming in as going out, and no extra gain added), my guitar sounds very similar to when the pedal isn't there, except that it's a little thicker sounding and it's got more sustain. For those of you who aren't familiar, those are generally good things. I know I really like it. Then you can play with the gain knob and get all different levels of distortion, and it's all really smooth sounding. Not harsh. Which is good when that's what you're going for.

I like the idea of an "always on" pedal, because if you like your tone more with it on, why would you ever turn it off? And I think this one is one of them. I've got a DynaComp in my chain right now that is always on, too. Is it going to give me the same tone as going from my guitar straight into my amp? No. But then, I'm not sure I really like that tone, at least not with the guitars and amps I have. It's thin and a bit brittle. Not awful, since my guitars aren't awful, and not something that can't be fixed with a few upgrades (which are most certainly next on the chopping block), but definitely not pleasing to me. I like my tone much better when I've got my compressor going, even though it is by no means "transparent". And now I like it even more with my modded Tube Screamer. It sounds like awesomeness. And I've still got all of the weight of my playing dynamics.

The point is, in many fewer words, if it sounds good to you, then it's good. If it inspires you, then it's good. Jimi Hendrix used a tone-sucking coiley cable his entire career. Mark from the David Crowder*Band has a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor pedal in his chain. That pedal, objectively, sucks. But ask him about it (because people definitely have), and he'll tell you, "I like my tone better when it's on." And really, that's all that matters.

Don't buy in to the marketing, or even feel free to disregard what I say. Play with what sounds good to you.

New Gear - Squier Classic Vibe 50's Telecaster

So remember way back when I posted something about this guitar? Turns out that when Guitar Center gives you a 15% off coupon and you've had your eye on something for a while, there's no stopping the brutal impulse to spend that follows in the 12-24 hours after consuming turkey.


So after trading off my ASAT, I knew it was only a matter of time before I really, really wanted another telecaster. I actually did logic this one out a little bit though. I knew I needed that Tele sound, and that I really liked the versatility that comes with a Telecaster, but I wasn't getting it from my ASAT because, well, the pickups weren't Tele pickups. And a few other reasons. It was a great guitar with a nice sound, but it wasn't what I wanted, and it was expensive to boot.

I could have gotten a 52-RI tele like everyone else, but I just straight-up liked the way that this one sounds. It sounds like rock and/or roll.

I put on the white pickguard because the coupon made it free. Also free with the coupon: tax. Oh, and for some reason Guitar Center wanted to just give me a Fender gig-bag. Now if I could just get that damn "Squier" sticker off of the headstock...

New Pedalboard

So, after having successfully predicted that I was done re-arranging my pedal board, I've re-arranged it some more! Things really haven't changed since May though, which is a shocking amount of time considering that I play electric guitar.

This was spurred by two events: one, my recent purchase of an MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay (which I need to play with more, but I've been looking for an actual analog delay for a while now, and I got a pretty good price on it), and two, I was watching Daniel Carson (Chris Tomlin's guitarist) take me through a song I already knew (Our God, in this case), and he finished with a shot at his pedalboard and something just clicked. He's definitely not the end-all, be-all of guitarists, but he needs to get tons of different sounds and he does so pretty simply. So I simplified.

First, I had to decide what effects I actually use. So off goes the Wah, the Chorus and the eq pedal, since I've never actually turned any of them on in front of people. I do intend to take a bit of good advice that James Duke (John Mark McMillan's guitarist) gave only to me (and anyone else who would read his blog), and that is that, just because it's not on your board doesn't mean you should sell it. I don't know how to use chorus, but that doesn't mean I never will, and my CE-2 is a really good chorus that would probably be somewhat hard to find again. And as much as tastes change with electric guitar playing, who's to say I won't want it some day in the future?

Once that was settled, I rethought my chain, mostly because I saw a cable in this video going from Daniel Carson's guitar straight into the volume pedal. And my volume pedal's always been in a loop. Which means I never turned it on as much as I'd want to. I decided that I wanted to try using my volume pedal as an always-on kind of pedal, even though it does suck some tone. If that really bothers me, I can just go find a good buffer. So here's the chain as of November:

Guitar-> Ernie Ball Volume Pedal -> Loopmaster bypass strip:
- Tuner out: Hardwire Chromatic tuner
- Loop 1: Fulltone Fulldrive 2
- Loop 2: Boss DS-1 (Keeley mod)
- Loop 3: empty
- Loop 4: Voodoo Labs Tremolo
- Loop 5: Boss DD-7 (with tap tempo, just to right of bypass strip)
- Loop 6: MXR Carbon Copy
- Loop 7: Line 6 DL4
-> Amp

With my pedalboard bypass securely fastened (via both velcro and a zip tie) to the top right corner of my board.

What I like about this setup is mostly that the volume pedal gets in on the action. I'm not very happy just setting my drive somewhere and keeping it there during the whole song. Hitting another boost or something just feels really...discrete to me. Mathematically speaking. Which, in this case, means the opposite of discreet. It was really noticeable to me when I kicked on a drive, and that kind of bothered me since I feel it should be a smoother transition from a clean part to a dirty part. Continuous.

What it all boils down to is that I've got more playing to do. I need to get a good feel for how my effects interact now. I also have an open space where I can plug in a flavor-of-the-week effect, be it a drive (I've had my eye on a Bluesbreaker for a while) or a POG or whatever. Maybe even something that can change from gig to gig. And I think I'm still on the lookout for a Trem with a tap tempo (really digging the Cusack Tap-a-whirl), and there's a good chance I'll end up with some kind of buffer before everything's said and done. But before I go all crazy and buy tons more stuff, I need to just get better with what I have! But that's not as much fun as buying new pedals...

New Gear: Taylor 314ce-LTD, and Bonus Gear Review: Fishman Aura

...so much for having a lot to write about, huh?

Seriously though, this month has been crazy busy. The biggest thing has been, in the last two weeks I've played in two weddings while attending three (including one that was my best friend). That's a lot of extra stuff to do when you already don't really have a weekend. I've got another wedding this weekend, and Halloween coming up the week after that...it's a good thing I don't have a day-job, because I'm exhausted!

Anyway, all that is a big fat excuse, which I don't like doing. What else have I been doing with my time? Playing with my new child. Meet the Taylor.


Solid (Sitka Spruce) top, solid (Brazilian Rosewood) back and sides. Ebony fretboard. Built in November of 2001. It's got the older pickup system which actually sounds pretty darn good with no effects. Satin finish which is not perfect, but nothing more than a ding or scuff which is probably pretty good for a nine-year old guitar. Speaking of the age, it's in a great place for an acoustic guitar; the neck is still perfect and the tone woods have really opened up. Great depth of tone fingerpicking, flat-picking or strumming. Definitely brighter than my Breedlove (I mean, it's a Taylor), but that helps it play even better in a full-band setting. And as much as I try to not be the guy who's affected by the name on the headstock, you can feel the quality in this guitar as you play it. I'm not sure quite how to describe it; "delicate" would be the wrong word, but maybe "fine"? The wood resonates together so that you can feel it in the guitar, against your hands and in your gut.

And it only cost me my ASAT. Sad to see it go since it was my first "real" electric guitar, but I honestly can't justify having a premium Telecaster that never gets played. This gives me two acoustics so I can have a backup (you know, when I'm wrecking it for 20,000 fans), and in fact was quite a bit in the black for me, as trades go. I just couldn't pass it by. Plus, I LOVE (in case you haven't figured it out yet) the Squier CV Telecaster if I ever need a Telecaster, which is a bit more cost-effective. I'm thinking I need an ES-335 of some kind first, though...

But anyway, the second half: Fishman no longer sells their Aura pedal in a locked-in flavor, like the "Concert" model that I bought sometime last year. Instead, they sell a one-size fits all pedal that comes pre-loaded with some Dreadnaught images, but comes with access to the entire library of images. Big bonus: if you have a Dreadnaught guitar, a Concert guitar and a nylon-string guitar, you don't have to buy three pedals. You can customize your one pedal to have any images you need. I thought that they should have done that immediately, but the fact that I could upgrade for really cheap is just as good. A bit more exciting is that there's a whole set of images for the Taylor 314ce, which means I didn't have to fiddle around too much to find some images that really make my guitar sound like my guitar. It's also great because there's no practical reason to have more than three or four images per guitar; I mean, how many different situations are going to come up where a different shade of tone is going to be just perfect? I've settled on a solo-acoustic tone, a band tone, and two different finger-style tones, but I can't think of any other needs. 16 presets is nice, but I only need like 3.

All in all, it's great having a brighter guitar that I can play with in a band and a more balanced guitar that I can play in a solo-acoustic situation. Or, having a backup acoustic that can be tuned to something crazy to make things go smoother when I play out. I keep telling myself that my Breedlove is going to be my workhorse guitar and my Taylor is going to be my "nice" guitar, but I can't seem to put the Taylor down...

Did you ever switch off an "always on" pedal?

So I was playing around with my strat and new amp tonight, and it sounded pretty good. I went to go for a solo, and instead of hitting the boost button on my Strymon OB, I hit the bypass button. And it was like the heavens opened up and choirs of angels were grooving on it. My electric chain has had this great compressor sitting first and foremost in my chain, and always on, for about six months now. Then again, my amp has been different.

Just something about my Strat straight into this amp is intense. Everything was so musical, open, alive. I'm not hating my compressor (it's awesome, and besides, I bought it mainly for my acoustic playing, I've just been really, really lazy about it), but it's like a light-bulb went off when my OB.1 did. Just the slightest bit of compression really changed the way that this amp sounded with this guitar. I wonder if that means that my Blues Jr. has a good amount of natural compression, so the difference was pretty minimal?

Point is: I LOVE THIS AMP. Clips coming this week, once I get a chance, because you've got to hear this thing.

Bits and Pieces and Guster

Played my ASAT at Mass this last weekend. Haven't played that guitar in a while. It was the tone I was going for all along, particularly on the closing song "Your Grace is Enough". Neck pickup, tone rolled off about 95%, Fulldrive 2 on light mid-humped drive and with the extra boost engaged during the solo, with some untimed analog delay going to make it sound huge. Perfect. I love playing electric. Can't believe I've been neglecting my fancy Tele for so long!

Which sucks because my constant opportunities to play electric may be numbered. Not sure yet, but I may be picking up another Mass to lead on Sunday morning, meaning I won't be able to volunteer anymore. I'll be lucky to play electric (without being the worship leader, that is) once a month!

Oh yeah, and I picked up a Boss CE-2 that looks like it's lived a hard life but sounds spot-on. Not that I use chorus all that much, but it really is a great, iconic pedal so I couldn't pass on it! So far I'm mostly using it to add some depth to my delay when I'm playing pad work, and using it on a heavier setting on occasion when doing some lead work. I really need to listen to more music that uses chorus, because it's not something I've got a natural affinity for, a lot like my tremolo. Though I did recognize some nice light chorus on an acoustic rhythm guitar that was being picked on a song that was huge in the 90's (and naturally I can't remember what song it was, but think of all those great bands from the late 90's).

And last point, I recently re-discovered Guster, after having listened to them almost nonstop in High School. I love that they don't take themselves too seriously, and their sound is so diverse and unexpected from song to song. A great band.

I'll leave you with one of my favorites:



Typewriter. Classic.