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.

Pedalboard Update - October 2011

I figured I needed to put SOMETHING up here, so here goes. A lot of my gear has made rapid shifts in the last few months, what with buying lots of guitars and getting other ones setup, but the pedalboard has been relatively constant for a while now. Actually, strike that. It's been completely consistent. I can't really even remember the last iteration of my 'board that I put up here, but this one is only one pedal off from what I've been rocking for about 2 months, so there's that.

The main thing that's changed has been the positioning of a lot of the pedals. I usually find myself using the overdrive pedals to give me a different flavor, then use the RC booster almost entirely as a solo boost, which is why it's extremely easily accessible there at the bottom of the board. Next to it is the CE-2 because I love that pedal but it's on/off switch is really, really old, so sometimes it doesn't exactly respond when it gets stomped on. So it's in the bottom row so that I'm not all off-balance in the event that it doesn't go on or off right away. The sonic stomp and the Dynacomp are both always on, so their position doesn't matter as much; I really liked the Dynacomp in the position that I've had it in forever because it's out of the way, but I've been running out of room so I had to get creative. I did take off the speed-knob attachments though, so now it's nearly impossible for me to turn those knobs accidentally with my foot while I'm going for another pedal. And I was able to work a legit fuzz in to the board. I really like this one so far, but I need to play with it a lot more to really figure out how to dial in the fuzz sounds I like. But this one (the Barber Trifecta) plays nice with buffers, so it was nice to not have to put it first in the chain or anything like that. But as for the signal chain:

Guitar -> JHS Little Black Buffer -> MXR Dynacomp -> VOX Wah (Modded for true bypass) -> Xotic RC Booster -> Gravity Drive -> Analog.man TS-9 (modded to TS-808 specs) -> Barber Trifecta Fuzz -> Boss CE-2 Chorus -> Voodoo Labs Tremolo -> Ernie Ball Volume Pedal -> Boss DD-7 (with external tap tempo) -> Line 6 DL4 -> BBE Sonic Stomp -> Boss Tu-2 Tuner -> Boss RV-5 Reverb -> Amp

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this setup. I got another Keeley modded BD-2 that I love, but between that and the Gravity Drive (which is a Marshall Bluesbreaker clone), it didn't make the cut. I had it over my Fuzz, but now that I have a fuzz, I couldn't find the room for the BD-2; it will probably find a permanent home on my leader-board, which is my next project. But this setup lets me do everything I need to do. I've got a low-gain drive (Gravity Drive) and a medium-gain drive (Tubescreamer) along with a dirty fuzz (Trifecta) for when I need that. I've got a solo boost that will further drive whatever drive I have on, or that will make my clean tone sparkle for a lead or push the amp a bit more. I can stack the drives too, if I want (I like both the gravity drive and tubescreamer on at the same time). I can use a Wah and delay for some ambiance, or fuzz and delay for pad work. I can use tremolo, chorus and/or delay to do crazy stuff. My tuner also functions as a kill switch if I need to stop all of my delay or feedback or what have you. And with my buffer, compressor and Dynacomp, my clean tone is rich and full in spite of the 50+ feet of cables between my amp and guitar. The only thing I can't do is POG-type stuff, but I'm not sure what I'd cut to make room. Maybe the fuzz? We'll see how much use it gets.

Oh yeah. I also got a VOX coily cable. Because I want to be Jimi Hendrix. But mostly because it's really convenient to not be stepping all over my cable all day long. I do like what this particular cable does to my tone, though.

...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.

Beauty Spot Cocktail

Another twist on the Bronx.

Beauty Spot Cocktail:

• 1 oz. Gin
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth
• 1 tsp orange juice

Shake and strain into 3 oz. cocktail glass with dash of grenadine in the bottom.

A few things to learn from this one. First, it's maybe my favorite variant of a Bronx, being basically a "perfect" Bronx cocktail with some grenadine thrown in. Here, "perfect" is shorthand for having equal parts dry and sweet vermouth, rather than one or the other. As you'll probably see if I ever get around to it, it's a pretty common term. But the dash of grenadine is a nice touch, adding both in terms of presentation and flavor profile.

Next, and I can't stress this enough, fresh orange juice. The difference between just taking an orange, cutting it in half and squeezing out a bit of juice, versus using the preservative-and-sugar-laden store-bought stuff or the stuff from concentrate is, well, incredible. Something gets lost in translation when you use the frozen concentrate stuff, and the juice from a carton tastes like an approximation of orange juice. What it lacks in flavor, it makes up for in sweetness. Both of which are not strong qualities in a cocktail ingredient. So use fresh juice whenever you can swing it, which, in North America, is pretty much year-round.

And lastly, you'll find the Bronx is fine. It's not my fave, as I tend to find a drink that includes orange juice to be somewhat lacking, but this one came together nicely. Probably a 4 out of 5, if you'd like an arbitrary ratings system....

Beals Cocktail

Here we have another scotch-based cocktail, but this one is a bit more balanced.

Beals Cocktail:

• 1 1/2 oz. scotch
• 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
• 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth

Stir and strain into 3 oz. cocktail glass.

I've often heard that if you want to take a dominant ingredient and make it play well with others, you have to introduce an equally dominant ingredient. Fight fire with fire, if you will. Well, there's not much to dry vermouth, but sweet vermouth has a bit more...character. Dry vermouth is understandably more refreshing and light, whereas sweet vermouth is, well, sweet. And deeper in flavor. Simply adding a bit of sweet vermouth really does do a lot to balance things out. It's still very, very heavy on the flavors in the scotch, but it's bearable. Not my favorite, but yeah. Bearable. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but then, there really aren't a lot of "good" classic scotch cocktails. For a reason.

Beadlestone Cocktail

Beadlestone Cocktail:

• 1 1/2 oz. scotch
• 1 1/2 oz. French (dry) vermouth

Stir and strain into 3 oz. Cocktail glass.

Man...scotch is hard to mix with. I know I keep saying that, but even I, who happen to love scotch, had a rough time with this one. Granted, the old half-and-half isn't exactly the golden ratio of mixology, and with something as mild as dry vermouth, it's no wonder that this didn't quite work out. Not sure what else to say, other than "no."

I tried to get cutesy with the picture, though. So I guess that's something....

ProTools

So I went to start doing some recording when I realized that I didn't have ProTools on my computer anymore! That was kind of a shocker. But, now it's remedied, and I'll be doing some recording.

That's really all I had to say. I've gotten like 4 new pieces of gear since I last updated all that, and am rapidly approaching a fifth, so there's some stuff in the back-logs that I'll get to once life slows down just a tad, but for anyone in youth ministry, I'm sure you can appreciate just how busy summers can be!

Barton Special Cocktail

Barton Special Cocktail:

• 1 1/2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz apple brandy
• 1/2 oz scotch whisky

Stir with cracked ice and strain into 3 oz. Cocktail glass.

Oof. This is one of those cocktails for someone who likes alcohol. I've kind of touched on it before, but there are a few things that put a "cocktail" apart from a "drink", as commonly imbibed by your typical sorority sister. One of the more....uncompromising detail is that, if you're drinking, you should taste the alcohol. This one definitely passes that test.

A few potential reasons for it. The obvious is, it's alcohol mixed with more alcohol and a bit of water. But besides that, the scotch I'm using definitely isn't the smoothest. Granted, that's 100% by design. Scotch is really hard to mix with in general since it's such a stringent spirit, but great scotch is incredibly smooth. It's also hundreds of dollars. Decent scotch, like what I'm using, is a pretty good middle-ground between taste and dollars, but again, when you're mixing, it's often....fussy. In cocktails. Otherwise it's straight-up manly.

But yes, an intense cocktail. I'm not going to give it full marks because it's a little too much, which is saying something when you've had as much experience with alcohol as I have. But the combination of the smokiness of the scotch and the apple from the apple brandy is really nice, so maybe there's something there, waiting to be discovered....