Posted in Guitars on August 15, 2009| 2 Comments »
I don’t have any details, but I just read that Ted Weber passed away yesterday. So sad.
Ted suffered from a lung disease that brought his lung capacity way down. He was on oxygen 24/7 and was awaiting a lung transplant. I guess his body couldn’t wait any longer.
I, for one, will send out a prayer for his family.
Posted in guitar, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged guitarists, Guitars, les paul, les paul dies, Music, musicians, news on August 13, 2009| 1 Comment »
Early this morning, I got a text message from my friend Jeff saying that Les Paul had passed away. While part of me is sad from this inevitability, a very large part of me is thankful to him for what he brought to the guitar and recording world. The man was a living legend while alive, having invented the humbucker, the reverb effect, and multi-track recording. His contributions, not only to the guitar world, but to the music world in general have literally shaped the course of musical history, let alone history, as artists the world over have made music – I believe the ultimate leveler in the world – with his inventions.
So while he will be missed, instead of mourning the loss, I for one will celebrate the fact that I had the privilege to live in a time when a legend walked.
Here’s a news story: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/13/obit.les.paul/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail
Posted in GAS, gear, gear announcements, goldie, guitar, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, Saint Guitar Company, saint guitars messenger, tagged GAS, gear, goldie, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, Saint Guitar Company, saint guitars on August 12, 2009| 4 Comments »
It is so hard to believe, but I finally have “Goldie.” I met Adam Hernandez this evening to pick up the guitar, and she is absolutely gorgeous in both looks and sound! I’m still kind of pinching myself because I can’t believe I finally have her. There is absolutely NOTHING like having a guitar that is custom made to your specifications.
Below are just a few pictures that I wanted to share for now. I will take more pictures of her in the morning. I need to play her a bit more before going to bed. 🙂
To see the full pictorial, check out my page dedicated to Goldie!
Sound Clip
I quickly recorded a sound clip of how Goldie sounds clean. In the “rhythm” part, I have both humbuckers going. It has a sweet, chimey, and big tone. The first part of the solo features the bridge pickup in single-coil mode. The second part to the end features the bridge pick in full humbucker configuration. The tones I’m able to produce with this guitar are just amazing!
This guitar has exceeded ALL my expectations, and her sound is so unique. With the coil-tapped humbuckers, I can get a gorgeous, chimey, Strat-like tone to incredibly beefy breakup! The neck is absolutely perfect. It is a perfect “C” at the nut, then tapers out to a flatter “C” at the joint. In fact, with Goldie, Adam discovered a new way to taper the neck that he will be using in future builds!
Goldie was an experiment with wood combinations. What I wanted to achieve with her was a bright toned guitar that had the ability to grow some big, hairy balls, yet at high gain, would retain its clarity. With its solid walnut back, maple top, rock maple neck, and ebony fretboard, Adam achieved exactly the tone I was after. And with Adam’s proprietary and unique neck joint, this guitar sustains for days! I’m absolutely in love with this guitar!!!
For more information about Saint Guitars, visit the Saint Guitar Company web site!
Posted in Guitars on August 11, 2009| 2 Comments »
Wow! I’m so amazed that Goldie is finally ready. It has been a long process, as Adam has worked in his precious spare time to build this guitar for me, but the wait has been worth it. If you’ve missed the build series, check it out here: https://guitargear.org/makinggoldie.
Posted in buying gear, cables, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, guitar cables, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, pedals, quest for tone, tagged effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, pedals on August 11, 2009| 4 Comments »
I asked myself this question this morning while having my morning cup. I was ruminating on various ways to make my signal chain a cleaner. It’s pretty clean as it is, and I pride myself on having little to no electronic noise when my rig is at rest. But I still want it dead quiet. I don’t know if it’s entirely possible, but I knew there were things that I could do. So I started coming up with a punch list of things including getting high-quality cables with good shielding; replacing any non-true-bypass pedals on my board that often cause noise; things like that.
Then I stopped and asked myself, “Where am I at with my tone? Am I reasonably satisfied with it? Is there any specific thing that really needs addressing?” And the answer to those questions was no. I looked at my list and decided they were nice-to-have’s but not really addressing and particular problem or “hole” in my tone. Truth be told, as of late, I’ve been using pedals A LOT less as of late. While I may kick in an overdrive pedal occasionally, and usually have my reverb on, I’ve been doing without pedals. In fact, for the past couple of gigs I’ve played, I haven’t used pedals at all, except for a tuner!
I guess this is the dark side of being a gear slut; it’s really a borderline addiction; an urge akin to an itch you can’t scratch, a unicorn that can’t be caught. Like the cursed pirates in the Pirates of the Carribean, the desire for gear is a lust that is never slaked, or at least easily slaked. At times it gets to the point of not even having a reason for getting the gear – I just have to have it! 🙂
I was actually surprised by my moment of lucidity, and actually relieved that I pulled myself back from the brink of investing yet another few hundred dollars into gear. I also realized that as far as my rig is concerned, I’ve sort of reached a point where the law of diminishing returns is starting to kick in. Yeah, it would be nice to have high-end, expensive cables (I still may do that just for my pedal board), but at this point, it doesn’t really buy me much – even my pedal cables. And while I believe I would get an improvement in my tone, I think the improvement would be more subtle than anything else.
So here’s some food for thought: The next time you want to buy some gear, ask yourself if you’re already satisfied with your tone. Be honest. You may be surprised to find that you are.
Posted in guitar, guitar lifestyle, guitarists, Guitars, inspiration, instruction, Music, musicians, tagged guitar, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, play guitar, playing guitar on August 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Courtesy of zentao.com
This will be a pretty short entry, but it is something that it seems I’ve spoken about with various young guitarists I work with on a constant basis, so I thought I write my thoughts about it here. BTW, this is not necessarily going to be an instructional article. For that, do a search on “guitar right hand technique” and you’ll be rewarded with lots of sites that provide instruction on right hand technique.
But that brings to light a problem I’ve seen with a lot of guitarists I’ve worked with over the years, young and mature alike. Many playes focus so much on the left hand and playing “lead” guitar that they completely forget about the right hand! The left hand my make the notes, but the right hand makes the sound and just as importantly, keeps the tempo. Music is a function of making notes and playing those notes in a rhythm.
Don’t forget about the right hand!
Posted in GAS, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged GAS, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitar thoughts, guitarists, Guitars, insights, Music, musicians, Tone on August 6, 2009| 2 Comments »
Visit any online forum and you’ll see countless topics in the form of, “How can I get this sound?” or “Tell me what I need to sound just like ______________.” These are quite popular threads as people will chime in with their knowledge; however complete or incomplete, with the gear that a particular guitarist used. The discussions sometimes get quite lively as some personalities collide in an ego-fed frenzy. Okay, I’m exaggerating… 🙂 But they do get quite lively. I read through those threads both for pure amusement, but also to get educated about others’ approaches to achieving a particular kind of tone. It’s amazing the gear that I’ve discovered just because of these kinds of threads.
One of the most amusing topics I’ve run across in the recent past is people asking how they can sound like The Edge from U2. Let’s face it: The Edge’s rig has got to be one of the most complex arrangements of gear around. No one really knows what his complete signal chain is except his techs who set all his gear up, yet so many people chime in (albeit in an effort to assist, and that’s a great thing) with their suggestions. Unfortunately, all they can really produce is a fraction of the picture, and considering The Edge’s rig, probably a minute fraction at best. For instance, I once read he runs something like a 40 foot cable between some devices so there is a built-in lag. Damn!
Mind you, I’m not trying to put anyone down, but to me, discussions about how to faithfully, flawlessly reproduce a particular tone is almost futile; and as much I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, and as much as someone would like to produce a tone exactly as they’ve heard, they may get close – real close – but they’ll never get there 100%. Why? Because there are lots of factors that contribute to tone; not the least of which is the guitarist who originally created the tone in the first place! On top of that, you’d have to have the same guitar, with the same strings, with the same amp, with the same pedals (if applicable), the same pick; not to mention the exact same cables that were used. Then you’d have to try to produce live what was a recorded sound, and you can bet that guitar signal went through quite a bit of audio processing to produce the recorded tone. Get the picture?
Like I said, I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, and perhaps these questions asked on the boards are purely out of curiosity, but I’m of the mind that if you truly aspire to be a great musician, let alone a great guitarist, you need to find the tone that pleases you. You may end up sounding similar to someone, but I think the best guitarists out there – no matter what their technical level is – are the ones that sound like themselves.
Posted in custom guitars, GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, tagged GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, sweetwood, sweetwood guitars on August 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Ever since I started this blog back in 2007, I’m always tickled by how I sometimes just stumble upon gear manufacturers. With Tone Freak Effects, I happened to do a search on “tone freaks” to see if there were any interesting site out there. I found Red Bear Trading picks at a local guitar shop, and bought a couple after trying them out as I was curious what a $20 pick would play like (it was wonderful, of course). In other cases like Saint Guitar Company, a visitor to GuitarGear.org happened to mention that he had just got one in a comment. I at first thought the comment was spam, but decided to do some research. I’m glad I did because I’m going to soon take delivery of my first custom Saint Guitar Company Goldtop Messenger!
A couple of days ago, I was viewing a video of Tonic Amps, and noticed a guitar that I had never seen before (click on the video link, and you’ll see it at about 1:50). It was gorgeous! Birdeye maple top, solid maple body and neck from a company I had never heard of before called Sweetwood Guitar Company. Of course, The Dawg rarely passes up the opportunity to sniff out new gear to activate his GAS, so I did a search and found the Sweetwood Guitars site. These are VERY NICE guitars! Very simple and straight-forward in their design, with a real vintage vibe going on.
Not wanting to stop at just looking at pictures, I went to the contact page, and was blown away! Sweetwood Guitars is local to me! In fact, they’re only about 15 minutes away from my house! Shit! I’m in trouble! 🙂 But it’s a good trouble!
Anyway, I gave Glenn, Sweetwood Guitars’ owner and luthier a call, and will soon be doing a test run on a couple of his guitars. When I called him, he was on the road traveling back up to the Silicon Valley from LA, where he has the finishes done, and he was bring back a bunch of guitars! I can’t wait to hook up with him and try out these beauties!
For more information, check out the Sweetwood Guitar Company web site!
Posted in gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, tranparency, transparency test on August 5, 2009| 1 Comment »
Lots of people – manufacturers and end-users alike – boast about the “transparency” of a particular device. Manufacturers like to use that buzz-word as a marketing ploy, but after spending the last few years evaluating tons of gear, I’ve learned to be very wary of manufacturers,’ and especially end-users’ claims of a device’s “transparency.” So to test out their claims, I’ve come up with a little test that doesn’t require measuring voltages or impedance curves or force you to perform complex mathematical analyses to prove a device’s transparency.
In fact, the test is so simple that when I tell you how to perform it, you’ll probably laugh! But believe me, to me this test is the ONLY transparency test that matters!
First off, let’s establish what we mean by “transparency” so we have a common reference from which to build. What seems to be the prevalent perception about transparency is that it is a function of both tone and dynamics; that is, a device’s transparency means that when it is engaged, you still hear your original tone, and you feel or perceive the same or similar dynamics of your original signal. Notice, no calculations or measurements. And mind you, I’m not just making this up. Go to any gear discussion board and search on transparency, and invariably the descriptions you will be given will be based upon what people hear. So given that reference point, let’s get into the test, shall we?
The Transparency Test
The test is so simple, you may be chuckling right now. But once you’ve done the test, if you’ve detected an audible difference in tone and dynamics, then the device isn’t transparent. I’m sorry, but there’s no arguing that. But lack of transparency is not necessarily a bad thing. But what we’re really talking about then is what’s acceptable tone, and there is a HUGE difference between what’s acceptable and what’s transparent.
Take, for instance, the Ultimate Attenuator. I hate to keep on picking on this device, but I’ve always had problems with the manufacturer’s and user’s claims of the Ultimate Attenuator’s transparency. This is an incredibly popular attenuator – probably the most popular out there. People love it, and as you know, I will never fault people for purchasing gear that sounds pleasing to them. So if the tone that the UA produces is acceptable and pleasing to you, keep on using it!
But let’s be clear here: The UA is NOT transparent. There is no way it can be transparent simply because once you hook up your amp to the UA, you are immediately hit with a non-reactive, 30 ohm, fixed resistor that essentially flatlines the load that your amp sees. This is compensated for by the UA’s built-in solid state amplifier, but that is the amp that is now reacting with your speaker. All the original amp is doing at that point is providing a base signal that is then re-amped with the solid state amplifier to produce the output signal. An amp’s tone is a function of its reactance with the speaker. In the case of the UA, it is the solid state amplifier that is providing the reactance with the speaker. But hey! The UA sounds good to lots of people, so I won’t knock the device itself. But what I’m illustrating here is the difference between acceptable tone and transparent tone.
So let’s circle back a bit. The point of this article is that you should be wary of people’s claims of a device’s transparency. If you do the test above, and find that the device really isn’t transparent, then you have to ask yourself if the tone it produces is acceptable to you? If it is acceptable and pleasing to you, that’s really all that matters!
Posted in guitar lifestyle, tagged guitar humor, Music, musicians on August 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Don’t you love double entendres, especially when they’re said completely by accident?
I was on the GuitarGearHeads.com forum this evening checking on a thread I posted to, mssmith, posted this in reference to the new Reason Bambino:
Last night my wife asked me what I want for Christmas, so I said a Bambino (we have 4 girls already) and she almost had a heart attack. Then I told her what I meant and got snubbed. Go figure….
I almost fell out of my chair when I read this! I have to pass this on to the Reason guys!
Guitar Gear 