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Archive for January, 2013

Gear Review: Slash L Guitars “Katie May”

Posted in buying gear, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, overdrive, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2013| 7 Comments »

5 Tone Bones - Gear has stellar performance, value, and quality. This is definitely top of the class, best of breed, and it's a no-brainer to add this to your gear lineup!

 Slash L Guitars
Summary: Yet another custom beauty from Perry Riggs, owner, and luthier of Slash L Guitars. This amazing through-neck guitar is not only aesthetically gorgeous, it’s capable of some incredible tones!

Pros: Lightweight (Perry lists at 8 lbs, but it feels even lighter). There’s a lot to be said about the through neck design. Tone comes from the neck and this laminated mahogany and maple neck creates both a jangly and lush tone, with sustain that’s on par with a Les Paul. I’m in heaven!

Cons: None. Absolutely none.Price: Call

Features:

  • Body: Quilted Soft Maple over Ribbon Sapele Mahogany
  • Neck: Grain-matched Flamed Hard Maple and Mahogany / Wide, Shallow “C” profile
  • Fretboard: Bound Honduran Rosewood / 24 frets – very nice
  • Nut: 1 11/16″ Bleached Bone Nut
  • Gotoh 510 hardware (my favorite – a wraparound bridge, and super-accurate tuners)
  • Lollar Imperial Pickups
  • Master Volume, Master Tone
  • 3-way pickup selector

Tone Bone Rating: Wow! Starting off the year with two 5.0 reviews! What can I say? I got pretty lucky! 🙂 Perry Riggs is a guy who loves building guitars, and the workmanship and tone of his excellent instruments never cease to amaze me!

What comes out of Texas? Great barbecue beef (especially brisket), a fantastic music scene in Austin, and Slash L Guitars out of Richmond. Perry Riggs discovered my blog a couple of years ago and asked if I’d like to review one of his guitars. He was a luthier whom I had never heard of, and after having a nice phone conversation, I agreed to review “Lana.” If I was impressed by Lana, I am even more impressed with Katie May. It’s clear that in the couple of years since I reviewed Lana, Perry has honed his craft even more. Katie May is an incredibly expressive and sophisticated-sounding guitar, and I’ll just say it now: If I had the money on hand, I’d keep this guitar, and make it my numero uno! That’s how good this guitar is!

Fit and Finish

When you purchase a custom guitar, you’re not purchasing something that you’ll resell. After all, a custom guitar is a pretty personal thing. Perry usually builds on commission, but then he occasionally builds some for inventory, like Lana and Katie May. I have to say that Katie May feels as if she was made just for me. 🙂 The neck is absolutely perfect, and dynamics and feel are EXACTLY how I like them.

The finish and workmanship that went into this guitar make it look like a piece of furniture! Everything about this guitar just screams organic. There’s a certain understated quality to this guitar that’s hard to describe, but it just looks “natural,” as if everything that should be on the guitar is on the guitar. There’s nothing extra, and there’s nothing missing. Check out some pictures:

The pictures don’t do the guitar justice. I wish I had more time to do a photo shoot of the guitar, but unfortunately, the demands of work precluded me from doing so. The quilted maple top is absolutely insane. I love how Perry used a simple stain then glossed it over with lacquer. I know, I’m really a burst kind of guy, but I’d use this on stage any day!

How It Sounds

The Lollar Imperials are absolutely incredible. They’re the perfect set for this guitar. Even though they’re just standard wound, they have a gain range that super-wide, and when dimed, they produce an absolutely velvety-smooth overdrive tone. When I gigged with the guitar over the weekend, when it came to leads,  I just closed my eyes and soaked up the wonderful tone of this guitar! Here are some clips (all recorded with an Aracom VRX18 in the drive channel cranked. The Lollars clean up fantastically!):

  • Middle-clean / Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi)

With this clip, I wanted to capture that simultaneous lushness and jangle that the guitar can produce. It’s best when in the middle position. When I gigged this weekend, I used the neck pickup with delay and spring reverb for a haunting, fingerstyle tone.

  • Neck-dirty

With that clip, I wanted to demonstrate the punch of the neck pickup, from which the guitar gets is super-lush, deep tones.

  • Bridge-dirty

This clip was all about “fun.” I used that song to demonstrate the “spank” of the neck pickup. It can create some searing lead tones, but with the volume backed off, will provide lots of snap.

  • Bridge clean and dirty

Remember I mentioned the spank of the bridge pickup? That’s most evident when playing a funky, clean riff. Combine that with an incredibly smooth and refined lead tone, and you’ve got a guitar that can create all sorts of tones!

By the way, my total rig for these demo clips was the guitar plugged directly into the Aracom VRX18 into an Aracom PRX150-Pro then out to my custom Aracom 1 X 12 cabinet with a Jensen Jet Falcon 12″ speaker. Amazingly enough, all clips were recorded at normal conversation levels. The PRX150 never ceases to amaze me! In any case, I miked the cabinet with a Sennheiser e609 instrument mic fed into a Presonus TUBEPre and into my audio interface. Everything was recorded using Logic on my Mac with no EQ or effects added, so what you hear is the raw guitar sound. I didn’t want to muddy the waters by running it through any effects.

Playability

Normally, it takes me awhile to get used to a guitar; especially a custom guitar. But Katie May was playable right out of the box. For me, the neck is absolutely perfect. It’s super-fast and the medium-jumbo frets just do not get in the way. They’re deep enough to provide some room for vibrato, but they’re low enough where they allow you to move around very easily. In fact, when I record the lead for the last clip, I actually had to take several takes because I kept on going too fast! That’s saying a lot for me because I’m not really a fast player.

Overall Impression

The rating says it all. Great looks? Check. Great sound? Check. Great playability? Check. This is a guitar that I would add to my collection any day, and I’m going to be jealous of the person who ends up with her. Kudos to Perry Riggs for creating such a masterpiece of a guitar! And by the way, Perry, if you’re reading this, I now hate you for torturing me with this guitar. I’m a horse, and Katie May is the carrot that’s dangled in front of me. 🙂

The rating says it all. Great looks? Check. Great sound? Check. Great playability? Check. This is a guitar that I would add to my collection any day, and I’m going to be jealous of the person who ends up with her. Kudos to Perry Riggs for creating such a masterpiece of a guitar! And by the way Perry, if you’re reading this, I now hate you for torturing me with this guitar. I’m a horse, and Katie May is the carrot that’s dangled in front of me. 🙂

The rating says it all. Great looks? Check. Great sound? Check. Great playability? Check. This is a guitar that I would add to my collection any day, and I’m going to be jealous of the person who ends up with her. Kudos to Perry Riggs for creating such a masterpiece of a guitar! And by the way Perry, if you’re reading this, I now hate you for torturing me with this guitar. I’m a horse, and Katie May is the carrot that’s dangled in front of me. 🙂

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Gear Review: Circus Freak Tattooed Lady Overdrive

Posted in buying gear, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, overdrive, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , on January 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

5 Tone Bones - Gear has stellar performance, value, and quality. This is definitely top of the class, best of breed, and it's a no-brainer to add this to your gear lineup!

 DSC_0344

 Circus Freak Tattooed Lady Overdrive
Summary: Whether you’re looking for a reactive overdrive or an amp-in-a-box, this pedal delivers! Combine that with great tone, and at least for me, there’s nothing to dislike about this pedal.

Pros: Superb dynamic response, with lots of volume and gain on tap.

Cons: None.

Price: $149.00 Street

Features:

  • Volume and Gain controls (volume has lots of output gain)
  • Independent Active Bass and Treble EQ controls
  • Amp-like dynamic response
  • Incredibly touch sensitive
  • Voice Toggle (up = flat response, down = slight treble boost for thicker-sounding guitars)
  • True Bypass
  • Can take up to 18v input power

Tone Bone Rating: 5.0 ~ I don’t give these out lightly; especially to brand-new gear manufacturers, but after playing with this pedal for past few weeks, I just can’t find anything NOT to like. I’ve thrown it in front of four different amps used it with three different guitars, and love its tone with every combination!

I’ll admit it. I find chicks with tattoos incredibly sexy. Not too fond of “tramp stamps” but tats on the rest of the body are a turn-on for me. So I suppose I had a predisposition for liking the Tattooed Lady Overdrive by Circus Freak Music. 🙂 But truth be told, I certainly did have an underlying excitement prior to receiving the pedal for review after having an introductory conversation with its creators back in mid-December. I felt that for the first time in a long time, a new player to the guitar gear market “got it,” bringing not only great technology but solid business acumen to the table. The guys at Reason Amps certainly got it when they came to market, and my very good friend, Jeff Aragaki with Aracom Amps gets it for sure. Lots of boutique guys are nice guys who make gear as a hobby and go into business after building up a local following, but lots of time, they get kind of lost in the background noise of all the outfits that come to market each year.

tl_bottomSo what sets Circus Freak apart from other pedal manufacturers? Frankly, they have a vision which ties their current lineup of products with their future ones. For instance, it’s one thing to say you’re eschewing the typical Hammond box for a custom box. Lots of folks do this. But it’s obvious that the customizations aren’t just to be different. They’re functional. For instance, the bottom of the custom box (shown at right) has been purpose-built for mounting on some sort of rail system – there’s definitely a pedal board on tap, even though they haven’t released one yet!

Who’s to say if a business will be successful or not. People have to like and buy your products. But having been a poster-child for startup companies in my career as a software engineer, I can tell you that having a unifying vision and executing on that vision – while not necessarily guarantees to success – certainly provide a foundation for success, and that’s what excites me about Circus Freak Music.

But I digress… let’s talk about the pedal, shall we?

Fit and Finish

DSC_0338Part of the vision that Shannon and AJ of Circus Freak shared with me was that they wanted their products to be likened to sideshow performers of old. One thing about sideshow performers is that they’re memorable, so it was important to the guys to create a visual package that people wouldn’t easily forget. Not only is the enclosure unique, as I mentioned above, but each pedal comes in a velvet bag, and boxed with a  box that has some incredible graphics! These guys put a lot of thought into their image, and their execution reflects the depth of thought. Of course, time will only tell how that will work for them, but they certainly have made a great start!

How It Sounds

As they say, “the proof is in the pudding,” and as far as performance is concerned, the Tattooed Lady provides the proof of operation and tone that back up their packaging. For the first couple of weeks that I had the pedal, I had it hooked up to my little VHT Special 6 combo. That amp has lots of clean headroom, so I really got a feel for how the pedal stood on its own. As an “amp-in-a-box,” I was totally blown away! I set the pedal to unity volume, which is just past 9am on the volume knob, and set the gain to about 3pm. At that setting, I could control the breakup of the pedal purely through attack and guitar volume changes.

The distortion that the pedal produces is nice and open. There’s a very slight compression, but it never gets squishy, even when I have my guitar volume all dimed. That’s very amp-like in nature! Because of time constraints (I’ve got lots of gear that I’m reviewing right now), I only have a single clip, but it’s a clip that really captures the dynamic range of the pedal. I first start out playing a simple  arpeggio chord progression with the pedal disengaged, and my Les Paul volumes both at under halfway. I then switch on the pedal. One thing you’ll notice is a sudden increase in definition with just a touch of volume increase. At this point, the guitar’s set the same way, and I’m still picking pretty lightly. Then I get into strummed chords and crack my bridge volume to play a Townshend-like chord progression. What totally amazes me is that even with fully-strummed chords, the note separation is maintained! Finally, I back down the volume back to where it was, and the tone completely cleans up.

Here’s the clip:

What turns me on about the open distortion this pedal produces is that it’s UGLY – in a good way. It’s got that edgy, snarling-dog quality to it, and with the church music I write and play, that provides a contrast to the much softer message in my songs. 🙂 I love the juxtaposition!

Mind you, this pedal is also very loud, and though I did test it to slam my pre-amp to break it up, and it does a fantastic job with that, I’ve relegated that duty to my trusty Timmy which I use as my transparent overdrive/booster. To me at least, where the Tattooed Lady totally shines is as an amp in a box. YMMV, of course… And don’t mistake my use of it as a pure distortion pedal. That’s a completely different animal and is square-wave. There’s a big difference between that and a soft-clipping device like an overdrive.

Overall Impression

I’m not returning this pedal. Sure, I’ll pay for it, but I’m not returning it – ever. How’s that for an overall impression? I’ve been looking for an amp-in-a-box overdrive for a long time, and this is the first pedal in that long line of pedals that completely fits my tastes. Sure, there are others out there like the Caitlinbread Dirty Little Secret or the GeekMacDaddy British Ball Breaker, but those are specifically full-strack Marshall-esque type pedals. I’ve been looking for an overdrive that was brand-agnostic. Honestly, I don’t know if it was ever meant to be used like this considering all the volume on tap, but that’s how I’m going to be using it – so there! 🙂

ROCK ON!

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I Actually Heard Something Interesting from an American Idol Judge

Posted in Guitars, tagged on January 18, 2013| 4 Comments »

I’m not really an American Idol fan, but my daughter was watching it and I had a bit of time to kill before leaving for my gig yesterday. So I sat down to watch the show. I didn’t know that they had a whole new set of judges on board – like I said, I’m not a fan and don’t keep up with any “Idol” news – so it was a pleasant surprise to see that Keith Urban was one of the judges. I dig that guy!

Not surprising to me was that it was Keith Urban who said something that struck me. The judges were discussing a person who had just left the room after their audition, and all the judges were commenting on his easy-going style and his natural feel. Then out of nowhere, Keith Urban said, “He’s like what they say about real musicians. They’d do it anyway.”

That struck me to the core and made me smile because I said something similar to that to my wife years ago when we first got married. She was trying to push me – lovingly, mind you – towards make music a full-time profession. I told her that the reality is that we have a family to raise and that takes precedence. “Besides,” I said, “I’d do music anyway, whether I was professional or not. It’s a large part of what defines me as a person.” I also absolutely love software engineering, and frankly, I wasn’t about to give that up; especially since I was experiencing so much professional success in that area and have had a lot of success to this day.

But I never gave up music. Like I said those years back, it’s part of what makes me who I am as a person. I just do music as a matter of course in my life and really don’t think about it too much. I write the occasional praise and worship song, I record when I can, and I gig a lot (I did about my average of 150 gigs last year). I get paid for almost all my gigs, but there are some I do gratis. I just love to play.

Speaking of getting paid, I remember lurking through a thread on a popular musicians forum a couple of years back where people were debating about whether they’d do a free gig. There were some folks who said they’d play for free, but most said they’d only do a gig if they got paid, and some were quite emphatic that they’d NEVER do a free gig under any circumstances. Though I didn’t reply, the thought struck me that those folks probably don’t gig all that much. I could be wrong, but to me, that’s a bit of a shit attitude.

I did a few free or very low-paying gigs last year. But my take on those was that I needed to take the long view with those gigs, because invariably, people would take my card when I’m done. I’ve been hired several times for gigs based upon people seeing me previously, so I I don’t get paid then, I’ll make up for it later. 🙂 But moreover, I just want to play. It goes back to what Keith Urban said about the real musicians. For me, I don’t claim ultimate virtuosity on my beloved instrument, but as the saying goes, I’m going to play anyway…

ROCK ON!

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Everyone Could Benefit from a Bit of Leadership

Posted in Guitars, tagged on January 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Yeah, seemingly a bit off-topic from this blog, but I thought I’d share it just the same because no matter what you do in life, there are always opportunities to both learn and teach leadership. I’m currently about halfway through this excellent leadership book by Col. Lee Ellis, USAF (ret.). It’s a fascinating story of his days in the “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp during the Vietnam War, and the subsequent leadership lessons he learned while incarcerated.

I purchased this book two days ago, and have had a very hard time putting it down. Not only is Lee Ellis’ story of being a POW fascinating, but his leadership lessons are just about the most pointed and frankly the best I’ve read (as a longtime technical manager, I’ve attended several leadership seminars and have read many leadership books). Take, for instance, his lesson on resiliency. Here’s an excerpt from the book:

“Authentic leaders know that life is difficult. They expect to get knocked down, and they have the proper attitude and outlook to persevere. You have a choice about how you will respond to difficulties. Confront the brutal realities of your situation, but never give up hope. Develop your plan, connect with your support team, and bounce back.”

That statement hit me like a ton of bricks! While it was more of affirmation lesson for me, that pointed statement distilled down a concept that I have always felt to be a tenet of great leaders: They bounce back  by never quitting, and calling upon the support they can garner to get the job done.

I look at my own experience as a music ministry leader at my church. When I first started, there were lots of naysayers; in fact, there were some that quite plainly and rudely said that my newly-founded group wouldn’t last more than six months. But here we are, 12 years later, and growing stronger each year. When I first heard that feedback, it admittedly depressed me. But I had a vision for the group that extended far beyond the limited perspective of the doubters and detractors, and I stuck to my principles, picked myself up, and fought through my own fear of failing. We now have a dedicated core group of adults and teens who come week in and week out; making their participation in the ministry a priority in their lives. We’ve even had a few of our younger members return to the group after moving away to go to college!

You see, that wasn’t just me doing the leading, but making sure that everyone – adults and teens alike – practiced leadership among our group and with the community at large. That was my vision. I knew that though I have a fairly “out-there and in-your-face” personality, that it couldn’t be just me that would make our group successful. It would have to be a collective effort founded on the dedication and inspiration of our members. It worked.

So when I read that passage in the book, it made me smile because it reminded me that true leaders – great or small – have the resiliency to bounce back in spite of adversity and overcome it.

ROCK ON!!!

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So… Fender Is Coming Out with the Fender Select Series in March…

Posted in Guitars, tagged , on January 16, 2013| 2 Comments »

When I read the press release a couple of weeks ago, my initial reaction was “meh.” But in anticipation of NAMM next week, I decided to give the new series a look. I have to admit that while there are – at least to me – some impressive guitars in the lineup, I’m still a little “meh” about the whole thing. That said, the guitars that did impress me were the Telecaster SH and HH models, and the Strat HSS; in other words, the axes with humbuckers. What about the Jazzmasters? Never really been a big fan of those for some reason. It’s not that they’re bad guitars, but they’ve just never appealed to me.

I think also that I’m actually a bit sick and tired of all the demos that do all those blues runs; especially with the Strats. Okay, there are lots of blues players that use Strats, but I’m pretty tired of hearing the same runs over and over and over again. I know that shouldn’t be a mark against the guitar, but when I hear those blues licks now, I sort of tune out. But that’s just personal preference. I’ll let you make your decisions. Check out the product demo:

As far as the whole “select” thing goes, yeah, I can see how the tone woods and figured tops can make a difference. Cosmetically, these are some of the most beautiful Fenders I’ve seen in awhile. But to me, the Select series is simply a product gap filler between the American Series and the Custom Shop models. The price point on these guitars ($2500 range) is not bad at all. But then again, for my own personal taste, I’d probably look to a Les Paul Standard for that kind of money. That’s just me though… To be fair though, I’ll have to play the guitars to see if I change my mind…

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More “New” Gear: Nady MicroMGT-16X Wireless System

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on January 9, 2013| 17 Comments »

I was reading Slash’s apparent “official” fan site called “The Snakepit” today. I say apparent because the site hasn’t been updated since 2004. But it has been around since the mid-1990’s (and looks it), so kudos to the creator of the site for such longevity! In any case, the article on Slash’s equipment mentioned that Slash preferred a now-defunct Nady wireless system. But since I hadn’t heard much about Nady as of late, I went to their site to see what kinds of things they’ve cooked up since I last checked (which was admittedly awhile ago).

Turns out that in September of last year, they came out with a compact wireless system called the MicroMGT-16X.

Nady is known for affordable devices (I have a Nady ribbon mic), and this system is only $199.99. What intrigues me about it is that it truly is compact. As opposed to being a rack-mount or standalone unit. the receiver plugs directly into your amp, or wherever you start your chain – mine would be my board; or to be safe, I’d probably run a male/female 1/4″ cable to put the receiver in a safe place. But in any case,  I love the compact size and the fact that it runs on  a single AA battery with an apparent life of 8 hours. Not bad.

The transmitter, which you can get in either offset/angled or right-angled, is truly convenient: No body pack and no cable, just plug in the transmitter and you’re set.

Now there are a couple of  caveats to this system:

  • It’s not frequency stealthy. You have to set the frequency with DIP switches. That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker if you run into interference.
  • With only 16 channels, it might be an issue to use this unit where there are a lot of other wireless mics or instruments being used. However, if those are frequency stealthy, then it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Here are the features from the Nady web site:

  • Miniature, lightweight transmitter plugs directly into guitar, bass (even portable keyboard)  output jack. No cord connection needed.
  • 16 user-selectable UHF frequencies for interference-free operation
  • Unprecedented wireless portability with single AA battery-powered receiver
  • ¼” plug for connecting receiver directly into amp
  • ASC™ (Auto-Sync Channel) infrared wireless download pairs transmitter to selected receiver frequency for quick, easy setup
  • Up to 250 ft. operating range line-of-sight
  • Transmitter powered by single AAA battery

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New Gear: TC Electronic Ditto Looper ~ A Looper I Will Try

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on January 9, 2013| 6 Comments »

You gotta check this out before I talk about it:

ditto-looper-perspAs Tore Mogensen, product manager for Guitar at TC Electronics was quoted in the press release I just got:

“At TC HQ we really wanted to understand looping before we went to market with Ditto Looper,” says Tore Mogensen, Product Manager for Guitar at TC Electronic, and continues: ”I mean, people do amazing things with looper pedals, but you almost need a degree in rocket science to make sense of all the functionalities. I think Ditto Looper is going to find its way into the heart of guitarists everywhere quickly. It’s non-intimidating, super-simple and intuitive, has a great price, sounds killer and does what you want right out of the box.”

Notice that I bolded “It’s non-intimidating.” That’s exactly what I’ve felt about looper. I got a simple BOSS LoopStation awhile back, which is a really nice looper, and one of the more simple loopers on the market. But even being relatively simple, it still came with a pretty thick users manual! I have a busy life, and I use most of my spare time to gig or record. I don’t have a lot of time to read a manual, and with the thick manual, I was admittedly a little intimidated.

After I read the press release, my first reaction was, “Holy S%&t! That is something that I can use NOW!” One knob? Check. One button? Check. Made just for guitar? PERFECT!

I’ve been wanting to do some looping during my solo gigs, so I could add some instrumental guitar. I tried using the LoopStation for awhile, but I could never get the hang of it because I used a footswitch along with the pedal, and kept on forgetting which one activated which feature. But there’s no guesswork with a single button.

Yup, I’m definitely going to check this one out!

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First Impressions: Circus Freak Tatooed Lady Overdrive

Posted in buying gear, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, overdrive, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 6, 2013| 5 Comments »

tl_pedal_bagtl_boxWhen I first made contact with Circus Freak Effects in mid-December, I came away from the meeting with the feeling that these guys mean business. It wasn’t enough just to create great pedals, the whole presentation was important from the enclosure all the way to the packaging, then to top it off, the pricing had to be such that the products would be accessible to a wide range of players.

Having been in various startups over the course of my career as a software engineer, this approach is something that has always reverberated with me. In the last few years, I’ve been in one successful startup and am currently in one that I believe will also be quite successful. With either of those companies, it hasn’t just been about the technology, but the whole package. The overshadowing philosophy is simple: Not only does our product have to be good, it has to look good and be priced competitively as well.

The guys at Circus Freak get that. When I opened the shipping box yesterday and remove wrapping from the Tatooed Lady box, I was blown away by the quality of the packaging. Sliding the cover off the box revealed a velvet-like bag that contained the pedal itself. Taking the pedal out of the bag, I was greeted by an enclosure the likes of which I’d never seen before. This wasn’t your typical Hammond pedal enclosure. This was a fully custom enclosure with a bottom that is obviously meant for something other than just sitting on a standard pedal board (in fact, Circus Freak is working on a board for mounting their pedals). tl_bottomFinally, included in the box was a small Ziploc bag with rubber strips for the bottom and a special Allen wrench-like tool for opening the enclosure (all Circus Freak effects will be tweakable). The point to all this is that the attention to detail that has gone in to every aspect of delivering a product to the customer is evident. Circus Freak means business, and they’re not going to settle on being a pedal company that looks as if it’s run in the garage of one of the guys’ houses. Here’s the kicker: The Tatooed Lady Overdrive is only $149! The packaging alone implies a much higher value, but to have it at that low price point makes it immediately attractive!

But of course, we’re talking about an effect pedal so not only does it have to deliver on appearance, it has to sound good as well. On that front, all I can say is, “WOW!”

That kind of reaction doesn’t happen to me very often. It’s actually unusual that I dig a pedal’s tone when I have everything set to 12 o’clock, but I totally dug this tone. For me, the first thing that I look for in an overdrive pedal is that my sound should “feel” bigger; that it’s my same tone, just more of it, and not necessarily volume. That’s what the Tatooed Lady does; it gives you more of your tone. But that “bigger” feeling is also attributed to what’s obviously a bit of compression being added to the signal. In some overdrives, the compression isn’t quite as evident. But with this pedal, it’s pretty obvious. But that is not at all a bad thing as my fundamental tone doesn’t change with the pedal.

For my initial audition, I plugged the pedal straight into my VHT Special 6. I was in my living room, so I didn’t really need much volume. But the VHT also has a lot of clean headroom on top of using a 10″ Jensen Jet Electric Lightning which gives the amp a lot of bottom end; making it sound A LOT bigger than its 6 Watts would suggest. The clean headroom would let me test the pedal’s drive on its own, and not rely on amp breakup. After playing around with it like that, this pedal could easily stand on its own as a clipping device!

In the time that I spent with it this morning, I found that I loved using the pedal purely as a breakup device. I set the volume at just past unity, cranked up the Gain knob on the pedal almost all the way, then set the Bass and Treble knobs to about 11 am and 1 pm respectively. At that setting, I could get this gorgeous, searing, but open overdrive with my guitar volume dimed, but I could also back off the volume on my guitar and the pedal would “calm down.” The dynamics are incredible, though I would fall short of calling them tube-amp-like dynamics. Suffice it to say that the pedal is very responsive to attack and volume knob adjustments.

The pedal also has some awesome sustain. I was absolutely digging playing long notes because the sustain of the pedal ensured that I’d get lots of overtones and subtle harmonics. Playing those long sustained notes what driving my little dog nuts as she started to howl whenever I played a high, bent note. 🙂

In my initial conversation with the Circus Freak guys, one thing that they kept on telling me was that they wanted to make sure that their pedals had LOTS of volume. They weren’t kidding. This pedal has lots of volume on tap, so whether you want to use the pedal as a standalone clipping device at unity volume, or use it as a booster to slam the front end of your amp, you have that choice. With the volume that this pedal is capable of, you can really get your pre-amp saturated quickly.

On a final note, I was very impressed with how quiet the pedal was when engaged; no line noise whatsoever, which made me think right away that I will probably be using this pedal for recording in my upcoming session.

Initial verdict? I love everything about this pedal so far: The way it looks and the way it sounds. I’ll be using it at my church gig this afternoon, so I’ll be writing up a gig report on it later. I’m so excited to try this out in a real live situation!

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Happy New Year!!!

Posted in Guitars, tagged on January 1, 2013| 3 Comments »

Have a great one! This year promises to be an awesome year! I’m looking forward to playing lots of gigs, checking out lots of new gear, and hopefully finding time to write more.

Taking stock of this past year, I actually slowed down with buying gear and instead concentrated on playing and recording. I finally started learning how to apply modes to my soloing and it has changed EVERYTHING for me! It took 42 years, but hey! Better late than never! 🙂

In performing, I made a huge effort to really “own” the songs I was covering. Not necessarily adding a bunch of vocal modulation that lots of pop singers do (which I think butchers good songs), but really making them my own; giving them my own brand. For the longest time, I tried to stay true to the original, but then after years of performing the songs, I felt I was getting a bit dry. Admittedly, it was pretty nerve wracking at first, but it has been worth it.

As far as res0lutions are concerned, I don’t really make them, though I always resolve to learn something new about guitar each year. So perhaps this year I’ll resolve to study even more about modes.

ROCK ON!!!

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