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Archive for the ‘gear reviews’ Category

Review: Gettin’ in the Vibe…

Posted in buying gear, Effects, gear, gear reviews, Guitars on March 7, 2008| 20 Comments »

4 Tone Bones - Excellent gear, that exceeds expectations of its performance, value, and quality. Strongly consider purchasing this. Fulltone Mini Deja Vibe

Summary: Fulltone makes some of the best pedals in the world, hands-down. You pay for the quality, but you’ll almost never walk away disappointed for the coin you have to pay for a Fulltone pedal. The Mini Deja Vibe is a great take on the original UniVibe, and faithfully reproduces the old ‘Vibe sound.

Pros: Fulltone quality, and pure ‘Vibe sound. Chorus setting is intense and sweeping, and mixed with reverb and just a little breakup, you can easily get that Hendrix and Trower sound. Vintage/Modern switch provides great versatility.

Cons: Pricey for what you get. Vibrato is too subtle and intensity knob belies the narrow range of intensity this pedal should be capable of – at least for me.

Price: $249 Street
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! Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe

Summary: The MicroVibe does one thing and one thing only, reproducing the orignal UniVibe sound quite faithfully. A bit darker in presentation than the MicroVibe (think David Gilmore).

Pros: Super simple to dial in a great tone, plus awesome value for the tone that this box produces.

Cons: None

Price: $149 Street

With some of the songs I’ve written, chorus just doesn’t seem to be enough, so I’ve been looking at going the “vibe” route to get a more psychedelic sound. Over the past few days, I’ve listened to sound clips and read reviews, and narrowed my search down to two ‘vibes that I’m considering: The Fulltone Mini Deja Vibe, and the Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe. Both pedals’ manufacturers claim to faithfully reproduce the original UniVibe circuitry. And, at least to my ears, both do a great job. I recently had the chance to A/B boxes at the same time.

img10292143013.jpegFulltone Mini Deja Vibe

The “Mini” is a stomp box take on Fulltone Deja 2 pedal, with the same circuitry as its expression pedal counterpart. It has three knobs for Volume, Intensity, and Speed, plus two toggles: One to switch between a Modern and Vintage sound and the other to switch between Vibrato and Chorus. In general, I dig Fulltone pedals, and in general, I’ve been really blown away by the tones they can produce. So I was a bit surprised that this particular pedal just didn’t have that kind of impact on me. Mind you, the tone’s incredible, but to my ears, not spectacular – at least not enough to justify the $249 price tag. No doubt that it does psychedelic really well. On the “chorus” setting in the vintage mode, the tone was spectacular. But on the vibrato effect in either modern or vintage mode, was so subtle as to be practically undetectable. It’s there, you notice it, but there’s just not much to it.

I suppose it could be argued that you’re getting this for the chorus mode, which is what the ‘Vibe is all about. But I have a problem with expensive toys that have features that are practically insignificant. Mind you, I didn’t have the expectation that the vibrato should be more like a tremolo. But my expectation was that it would be quite a bit more profound. So combine with the high price, the Mini Deja Vibe gets 4 Tone Bones.

Voodoo Lab MicroVibeVoodoo Lab Micro Vibe

By comparison, the Micro Vibe is a lesson in simplicity. It does one thing and one thing only: It creates that sweet, Vibe tone. As with the Mini Deja Vibe, Voodoo Lab claims to faithfully reproduce the circuit of the original UniVibe, and like the Mini, it does it very well, though with just tad bit darker shading. But it wasn’t so dark that a little EQ adjustment couldn’t make it ring sweetly.

With just two knobs for Intensity and Speed, it’s very easy to dial in the right tone to fit your needs. I was really impressed with this pedal. It sounded great, it was very quiet, and I had a ball playing with different knob positions. I don’t know if it could’ve helped to have a volume knob like the Mini Deja Vibe, I certainly didn’t miss it. On top of all this, the pedal has true bypass switching. All these features together, plus the nice price of $149 gets the Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe 5 Tone Bones.

Now I know there are going to be some purists out there who will probably think I’m crazy for choosing the Micro over the Mini. But like I said, the Mini doesn’t sound bad at all. In fact, tone-wise in Chorus mode, the sound was spectacular. But if I could get what I was looking for in a smaller and less expensive pedal, and all I have to do is EQ a bit to make it sound a little brighter, the Micro Vibe makes so much more sense to me.

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Review: Fender Champion 600 Post-Mortem

Posted in amps, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, performing, recording on March 3, 2008| 17 Comments »

Fender Champion 600 Re-issueYou really don’t get a taste for how well gear actually performs until you use it in a performance or recording situation. After all, doing tests is one thing; mixing it up in a band or recording a track with it are entirely different animals. This past weekend, I had the chance to put my new Champ 600 through its paces in both a recording and performance situations. Before I go into specific details, let me just sum up for those who don’t want to read on: In my book, for what the Fender Champion 600 has to offer, it is an absolute champ! Don’t let the diminutive size fool you. Even in stock livery, the Champion 600 produces beautiful tone; that is, it produces the natural tone of your guitar. As long as you don’t expect it to be more than what it is and what it offers, this little amp will make you very happy! I’m very tickled by this amp and the experience I just had with it.

Let’s dive into how I actually used it, shall we?

Into the Studio

As some of you may know, I have a home studio, and if you’ve read my past articles, I’ve written several articles centering on gear that could be used in low-volume/small venue applications. I purchased the Champ specifically for this purpose. From the standpoint of volume, the Champ is a dream come true! It’s quiet when idle (some people have mentioned that it hums and cracks – thank goodness I didn’t get one of those), and amazingly enough, it’s a very expressive amp, despite its tiny six-inch speaker. With the single knob to control volume, this amp is meant to produce the natural tonal character of whatever guitar is plugged into it, and it does this incredibly well. But because it has zero bells and whistles such as reverb and EQ, those are things you have to provide, but it takes to pedals quite nicely.

Obviously because of its small size, there are some limitations. You lose a lot of the bottom end you’d normally get from a larger speaker in a bigger cabinet. But if you’re looking to record a high-midrange, ringy tone, the Champ performs like an ace in this range! The tone is gorgeous! Which actually puzzled me when I recorded with it this weekend because I read several reviews where people swapped out the stock speaker because they felt it was too flat. I recorded with it and absolutely loved the tone it produced – and the speaker’s not even broken in yet! Maybe my ears just aren’t as sensitive (which is a huge possibility) as the other reviewers…

Now addressing the lack of bottom end in the Champ, I decided to drive my Hot Rod’s speaker with it, using an extension cord. This is where the amp really shined, in my opinion. You still get the ringy tone, but with a larger speaker, the tone is oh so very rich.

Click here to listen to the song I recorded using just the Champ with three different guitars:

  • Gibson ES-335: I used this for the main rhythm track using the stock amp with the little 6″ speaker. For effects I added a smidgen of reverb, and layered chorus on top of that. The result was a gorgeous ringing tone!
  • Fender Strat with ’57 Tex-Mex Reissue pickups – This provided the second rhythm track with mild distortion. For this track, I drove my Hot Rod’s cab with the Champ. To fatten out the tone a bit, I employed about a 2.5 to 1 compression. Because my Strat doesn’t have a lot of natural overdrive, I added just a touch of drive using a combination of my TS-808 and OCD pedals, both set to very low drive levels.
  • Epiphone ’58 Korina Explorer Reissue – Again, I used my Hot Rod’s speaker cab. But there’s so much natural drive and sustain with this guitar, that I didn’t have to use ANY effects with it. This added the extra kick in the chorus of the song.

Of course, no sound engineer – amateur or pro – would be worth their salt without some mastering tricks. But truth be told, the ONLY thing I did with the guitar tracks on the song was to adjust their volume levels, and add just a touch of reverb (about 7%) to the Strat track. That’s it! I’m very pleased.

Live Performance

As a test, I brought the Champ to play at my weekly Church service. I figured that I mic my amps anyway, so it would be a great test to see how it performed. In this venue, I’m not worried about cutting through the mix – just having enough volume so I can hear it. Since we employ active mixing, our sound guy knows to pump up my house volume when I do leads or play the main rhythm parts for a song. So how did it perform? Well… a lot better than I expected, but I did miss the bottom end in my output signal. It wasn’t that I was dissatisfied, but in a performance situation, this amp will sound A LOT better driving a large speaker in a bigger cab. Other than that, I was generally pleased with how it sounded.

So to sum it all up, the Champ is a dream in the studio, and with the help of an extension cab, will perform great in small-venue/low-volume performance situations.

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Plug: The Tube Store

Posted in amps, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, tubes on February 29, 2008| 2 Comments »

Vacuum tubes @ thetubestore. New and NOS electron tubes for any amplifier.

Want to replace tubes in your amp? Look no further. The Tube Store is THE place to go for tubes. They have great prices, and more importantly, have tons and tons of knowledge about tubes. What’s even more amazing is they also know how a particular tube will sound in a lot of different amps. I’ve purchased tubes from these guys twice so far. Being a bit dense as far as tubes and electronics goes, I need a lot of help in choosing what to buy, and I’ve called them directly. In both cases, they’ve take a lot of time to explain and educate me on how a particular tube or combination of tubes will sound in my amp. We’re talkin’ old skool customer service here, folks! So with their permission, I’m giving them a plug here GuitarGear.org, and will also be displaying their logo on the site!

Great service needs to recognized!

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Review: Fender® Champion 600

Posted in amps, buying gear, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, recording on February 21, 2008| 4 Comments »

4 Tone Bones - Excellent gear, that exceeds expectations of its performance, value, and quality. Strongly consider purchasing this. Fender® Champion 600

Price: $149 (street)

Summary: Great tone can come in small packages, and the Fender Champ is a great example of this. Simple and straight-forward, it’s easy to use, and even easier on the pocketbook. Not really meant to be used as something you’d gig with (though you could easily add an extension cabinet), it’s a great amp for practicing and for the home studio recording artist looking for a low-wattage solution.

Pros: Vintage looks and great sound and quality for a small price.

Cons: You sacrifice a bit of low-end for the diminutive size.

Fender Champion 600 Re-issue

Recording in a home studio presents various challenges to the DIY recording artist. But no other challenge is greater than controlling the output volume of amps, especially if you want to push them into breakup. To get even a small amount of breakup, you’ve got to increase gain to push the pre-amp and/or power tubes; and invariably, this is accompanied by a boost in output volume. There are various ways to deal with this from creating amp enclosures to using attenuators or even installing tube adapters to use lower wattage output tubes, and they all work reasonably well. Another approach is to simply get a smaller wattage amp in the 5 – 15 Watt category. Most have much smaller speakers than their larger counterparts, so their output volume is naturally lower, plus with the smaller wattage, it’s easier to overdrive them at lower volumes, thus producing breakup without shaking tiles loose.

Among the 5 Watt amps available, the two seemingly most-popular amps are the Fender® Champion 600 and the Epiphone Valve Junior Combo. I recently had the chance to try out the Champ.

Vintage Roots, Great Sound: Bargain Price

First of all, let’s be real honest: The Champ is a $200 amp, sporting a single volume knob and a standby switch. That’s it. This is not an amp that you compare to a boutique amp in any respect, so don’t try to compare it to something like a Carr mini-Mercury – they’re in two completely different classes! A re-issue of the original 1950 Fender Champion, it employs modern mass-production techniques as opposed to the hand-wired, point-to-point construction from which most boutique amps are built. But for what you pay for this amp, and for the quality of sound that it produces, you just can’t go wrong. Bear in mind that the Champ is a no-frills amp whose sole purpose in life is to amplify the natural sound of your guitar. It’s not meant for gigging with a full band. On the other hand, it creates really nice tone (albeit with a little loss of the bottom-end). As long as you don’t try think of this amp as any more than what it is, it’ll make you pretty happy.

Looks

This is a very retro-looking amp, with the original two-tone brown on beige tolex design. It actually looks like a mini television! and the leather handle is a real nice touch – though I’d be careful not to strain the handle too much… It’s a little weird to see a single volume knob, but that just tells you that this is a no-frills amp, as I mentioned before.

Sound Quality

I’ve already mentioned that the Champ produces really nice tone, and even though I missed the bottom-end that you’d get with a larger speaker, the quality of the sound that it does produce is stellar. Besides, in a recording application, you can always tweak the bottom-end a bit with EQ, but I digress. I tested the Champ out with a G & L Comanche, a Strat, and a Les Paul Standard. As expected, the amp reacted very differently with each of the different guitars, but surprisingly, it retained the character of each guitar, which I thought might be lost because of its diminutive size. The Strat played clean and smooth, and position 4 (center/bridge) was twangy and ringy as expected. What surprised me even more was with the Strat, I couldn’t get the amp to break-up until I cranked the volume past 9 (it goes up to 12). There’s lots and lots of clean headroom with single coils, so if you want to get break-up, you’d be best served using an overdrive pedal of sorts.

It was far easier to get amp to break up with the Comanche and Les Paul, as expected. It was a bit more difficult with the Comanche as it uses the hybrid Z-coil pickups, but it was still easier to get breakup than with he Strat. The LP broke up nicely with volume at about halfway, and the volume knobs pegged.

From a distortion standpoint, the Champ produces distortion similar to a Fender Deluxe. It’s not creamy smooth, but it’s also not too gritty – though it does get really ugly at high volumes – probably due to speaker distortion, which is never nice. But dialed in just right, the Champ produces really subtle breakup which is very ringy and pleasant.

Being that you can’t really do much tone shaping with the amp itself, it’s up to you to throw whatever boxes you need to achieve the tone you’re after. But that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for most folks. Besides, in lots of cases, you may not want to put any boxes in your signal chain before this amp. Here’s a decent-sounding YouTube video that demonstrates how the Champ sounds. I think you’ll be surprised:

Value

For the money, it’s hard to go wrong with the Fender Champion 600. A cheaper alternative would be the Epiphone Valve Junior which costs only $129.00 for the head. I’ll be writing a review for that as well in the very near future, but if you’re looking for that nice, Fender clean tone in a low-wattage application, but don’t want to shell out several hundred dollars for even a small deluxe, the Champ is a great way to go!

Update: As you can see at the top, the price listed is $149. Fender dropped the price after I wrote the article. Of course, I paid the original $200+ for the damn amp, but there you have it…

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Review: G&L Guitars Comanche

Posted in gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, Guitars on February 15, 2008| 6 Comments »

G & L Guitars Comanche Solid Body

Review Setup: Solid Swamp Ash Body, Hard Rock Maple Neck with Rosewood fretboard. Z-coil pickups.

Price as configured: $1700.00 (custom setups available)

Summary: I give this 4.5 Tone Bones! The G&L Comanche is an excellent, hand-made, versatile guitar from the shop Leo Fender and George Fullerton started after Leo sold the Fender company. Incredible playability, and sweet, sweet sound from the Z-coil humbuckers. Not only that, with the flick of a mini-switch, you can engage all three pickups at once for a truly aggressive sound. This is a guitar that is not for the faint of heart. It wants to be played, not babied. Read on!

G&L Guitars Comanche

I love writing this blog because it forces me to check out gear that I wouldn’t otherwise take a second glance at, and sometimes make new discoveries of gear that I didn’t even know existed. This entry is the result of one of those chance discoveries.

I thought I knew my guitar builders beyond the mainstream and semi-mainstream such as Gibson, Fender, PRS, etc. So it came as a HUGE surprise to walk into a small shop in Sacramento yesterday and see what looked like Stratocaster and Telecaster knock-offs hanging on the walls, only to be informed by the shop owner that the guitars were made by the prototype shop that George Fullerton and Leo Fender (hence, G & L) started after Leo sold the Fender company. Building on the traditional Fender body shapes, their creations extend the lines with solid and semi-hollow versions with various pickup configurations that reach far beyond their corporate counterparts. The results are guitars that push the envelope with design and innovation, while retaining the visual pedigree that made George Fullerton and Leo Fender famous in the first place. Also, all G & L’s are hand made. I know that alone may deter some players from even considering this brand, but amazingly enough, they’re not as expensive as you might think; more on that later. I had the chance to play the solid-body Comanche with tobacco sunburst through a ultra-sweet Rivera Venus 3 (I’ll write a review on that later 🙂 ).

At a distance, when you first the see the Comanche, you recognize the familiar body shape and pickup positioning, and you might say, “Hmmm… nice Strat.” Then, as you move forward, you see that the headstock is slightly different from a Strat, the bridge is really different from a Strat. The body is also a little narrower. Then you notice the absolutely weird-shaped pickups. These are an invention of Leo Fender. They’re actually two, hand-wrapped and offset three-string, single coil pickups with reverse polarity to eliminate hum. They’re almost like hybrid humbucker.

Look and Feel

The Comanche I played had a gorgeous tobacco sunburst finish overlaying a swamp ash body, with a hard rock maple neck and a rosewood fretboard. Surprisingly, this wasn’t a light guitar. In fact, it felt a little heavier than my own Strat, but the feel was luscious. The only ding that I gave the Comanche was that the back of the neck is gloss-lacquered. I personally prefer a silk finish, especially with a maple neck. It might be psychological, but that’s what I like. Speaking of the neck, it was a nice, C-shape, and the rosewood fretboard was a dream to play. I’m a big fan of rosewood fretboards. They provide great tactile feel, plus add warmth to the overall tone.

Sound

The best way to describe the tone of the Comanche is “a bit thicker than a Strat, but thinner than a Les Paul.” It’s this balance that is very appealing about this guitar. Just like the body style, with the sound, you recognize the pedigree, but it’s… different. Since I’ve played it , I’ve read some other reviews and most mentioned that the Comanche has an aggressive tone. It does, but that aggressiveness can be easily tempered by dialing back tone and volume controls; plus, tone also depends on the amp you’re using. I happened to test the Comanche out with a Rivera Venus 3, and the tones it produced were sweet and clean, owing a lot to the high amount of clean headroom available in the Venus 3. In typical Class A fashion, increased input gain produced nice pre-amp clipping, and with all three pickups engaged, this guitar could get as dirty as the best of ’em.

Unlike a Strat, the “hybrid” Z-coil pickups add nice amounts of sustain, which is further helped by the resonant swamp ash body. Bends and slow vibrato created nice, subtle overtones. On top of that, the touch sensitivity, even at lower volume levels, was very, very nice. All in all, I didn’t find the Comanche as aggressive as other reviewers found it; certainly more aggressive-sounding than a Strat, but as I mentioned, not as fat as a LP.

Click here to listen to some audio clips.

The audio clips sound really Texas-twangy, which is actually quite cool, but the clips don’t really show what this versatile guitar can do. The Comanche is capable of showing many faces, depending upon how you adjust it.

Playability

As I mentioned above, this baby wants to be played. The action is just right, and the neck is real fast despite the glossy lacquer finish on the back. The rosewood fretboard is especially nice, providing excellent tactile feedback. As I mentioned above, this guitar is not for the faint of heart. It’s meant to be played and coaxed and caressed to produce its wonderful song. While it’s easy to coax incredible tones from this guitar, its versatility might scare away those who won’t take the time to discover all its virtues.

I recommend this guitar for serious tone freaks who are in search of a “fatter” Strat sound, but want to retain that natural high-end ring. While not cheap, it’s also not unreasonable, especially for a completely hand-made instrument!

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Review: THD Yellow Jackets

Posted in amps, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars on February 12, 2008| 9 Comments »

5 Tone Bones - Gear has stellar performance, value, and quality. This is definitely top of the class, best of breed, and it’<p><p>s a no-brainer to add this to your gear lineup! The THD web site says of the Yellow Jackets, “It’s like having a new amp…” and that’s an understatement! Pull your old tubes, pop in the converters, then plug in the EL-84’s and listen to your amp sing! Sometimes great things just come real easy! Read on….

If you follow this blog, you know that I just recently did a write-up of the THD Yellow Jackets. At the time though, they were just on order, and I hadn’t played with them yet. Well, they arrived today, and of course, I just couldn’t wait to get them installed. I opened up the packing box which revealed a little plastic box floating amidst a packing popcorn. I quickly pulled it out, opened up the box, and pulled out the instructions… er… what little of them there were. They basically just said, pull out your old tubes, plug in the converters, then plug in the EL-84 tubes that come with the converters. Turn your amp on, and play. That’s it. It took me all of three minutes to get the converters and new tubes installed.

In nervous anticipation, I plugged my Epi Explorer into my amp and switched it on, strummed a G chord on my clean channel and… No change. Just the same sweet sound produced by my pre-amp tubes. Then I switched to my drive channel and WAS TOTALLY BLOWN AWAY!!! You see, as much as I love my Hot Rod, the drive channel has been somewhat useless for me. Even with new 6L6GC tubes, the clipping was very rough and gritty. It was okay for some songs, but was just not pleasing to me, so I did the next best thing: I bought a couple of overdrive boxes to get that sweet pre-amp distortion.

But with the Yellow Jackets installed, I finally have a useable drive channel! The distortion is smooth, and it seems like the touch sensitivity has increased ten-fold! Not only that, it sounds like the converters introduce a little compression which really helps define the tone, and all this at bedroom levels!Mind you, installing the Yellow Jackets doesn’t reduce your volume (I think I might have mentioned that they do – my bad – they don’t). What they do is get the amp into breakup a lot earlier, so you can slather on the drive and distortion without having to shake the walls of your house! For home studio musicians, and most of us who play in small venues, being able to get great distortion tone at low volumes is akin to searching for the Holy Grail. I’ve tried all sorts of things from upping the input gain on my DAW to using modelers. In either case, the result is less than desirable. But with the Yellow Jackets, I’ve found the elusive grail, and I’m lovin’ it!

As I mentioned in the previous write-up, I ordered the Triode version of the Yellow Jackets. This essentially reduces my output to 5 Watts. Don’t be fooled – my amp’s still freakin’ loud. But what I’ve found in the last couple of hours playing with my three main electrics is that my amp is much more versatile. I can still crank up the volume, but I can get a lot more varied tones at lower volumes, and that is always a good thing.

By the way, you can’t buy the Yellow Jackets from THD directly, but you can get them for a great price at The Tube Store. I got mine for $99.95 (that includes two converters and two EL-84 tubes).

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Introducing a New Gear Rating System!

Posted in buying gear, Effects, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars on February 12, 2008| 1 Comment »

After I wrote my last review on the DigiTech Bad Monkey, I realized that I needed to change the format of my reviews, so readers could get an at-a-glance impression of the review, and choose to read the full review. As a professional web developer, “stickiness” is always a big issue, and especially with reviews, some people just don’t want to take time to read a full review. But studies have shown that if they’re intrigued by some quick summary information, they’ll read on. So, starting now, all the reviews on GuitarGear.org will start out with a 1-5 rating called “Tone Bones,” plus a quick summary of the review. Here are the descriptions for each rating:

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!
4 Tone Bones Excellent gear, that exceeds expectations of its performance, value, and quality. Strongly consider purchasing this.
3 Tone Bones Satisfactory performance, value, and quality, and meets most expectations, but doesn’t have many standout features or qualities.
2 Tone Bones Sub-par performance, value, or quality. Gear may have some standout features, but they’re outweighed by negative qualities, or the application of this gear is so narrow that you’d only use it in very rare circumstances. Take a lot of time to evaluate whether or not you want this gear! Caveat emptor!
1 Tone Bone Poor performance, value, and/or quality. Don’t even consider getting this!

Mind you, any rating system is going to be subjective, but I try to be as fair as possible, and for the most part, a lot of the gear I review I test in real-life situations. As I said above, what I want to accomplish with the rating system is to provide an at-a-glance summary of what I think of the gear in question!

Now on to reviewing!

GoofyDawg

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Review: DigiTech Bad Monkey

Posted in gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, Guitars on February 10, 2008| 11 Comments »

DigiTech Bad MonkeyI’m at once sad and amazed right now. Sad because I’m retiring my TS-808 Tube Screamer (sort of – I’ll get into that later), but amazed that I actually replaced it with a $50 pedal, the Bad Monkey from DigiTech. This pedal was originally touted as a Tube Screamer-like pedal, but as I’ve found, it’s way, way more than that. I tested this with three different amps: A Roland Keyboard Amp for dry output to establish a baseline, a Fender VibroVerb, and of course, my Fender Hot Rod. For guitars, I used Pearl, my blizzard Strat with ’57 TexMex pickups, and my Epiphone ’58 Korina Explorer Reissue. Here are my impressions:

  • The very first thing I noticed was that the distortion that the Bad Monkey produces is very smooth. In fact, it’s A LOT smoother than the Tube Screamer.
  • The distortion is also a bit more subtle in the Bad Monkey than the Tube Screamer. With the TS, even at lower gain and drive levels, it has a lot of obvious grit and grind, and I think a lot of that has to do with the huge mid-range hump that the TS is known for. I think what helps balance that in the Bad Monkey is the fact that you can dial in a bit more lows to fill out the bottom end – something you can’t do with the TS.
  • Speaking of the lows, where many overdrive pedals have one tone control knob, the Bad Monkey has a low and high EQ; that’s right, EQ. This is the feature that really turns me on about this pedal because I can dial in just the right amount of tonal balance to suit my needs for a particular tune. It makes for a very versatile pedal. Mind you, you won’t get that real fat sound if you crank the lows. That has a lot to do with the amp as well.
  • Surprisingly, the Bad Monkey is built like a tank! I’ve had DigiTech pedals in the past, and they just did not measure up to the build quality of Monkey.
But… DigiTech?
 
I know, that’s EXACTLY what I said! I’ve had DigiTech pedals in the past,  and their sounds were mediocre at best and their build quality wasn’t quite there. But the Bad Monkey really blows me away in both areas. Not only does it sound tres excellente, like I said above, it’s built like a tank! Kudos to DigiTech!  
 
Field Test
 
I actually started writing this blog post a couple of days ago, when I first started playing with the Bad Monkey. But I decided to wait because I knew I was going to be doing three gigs this weekend (it’s now Sunday, 2/10), and I knew I’d get a chance to really work with this pedal.  All I can say is that I’m very tickled after playing it this weekend. I used it in all three gigs, and came away smiling from how nice it sounded. What really impresses me the most about this pedal is it’s sensitivity to attack and volume and tone knobs.  With my Tube Screamer, there was always growl, no matter how far you turned the drive knob down. That’s useful for a lot of situations, but it’s not quite as versatile. With the Bad Monkey, you can go from clean to raging simply by rolling your volume knob and adjusting your pick attack. To take full advantage of this, I simply set the Gain knob at 12 o’clock. Set my volume knob at about 5 or 6, then adjusted my amp’s volume for the room I was playing. Doing nothing else, all I had to do was play little lighter to get nice ringing clean tones, then dig in to get some growl. If I need more distortion, it was a simple matter of dialing in more gain from my guitar.
 
Another thing that I noted about the Bad Monkey is that it adds a nice touch of sustain, even at lower gain levels, which was very pleasing to my ears as that helped to thicken up my tone; especially with my single-coil Strat. 
 
 
Okay, what about the Tube Screamer?
 
Well, I don’t think I’m quite done with it, so it really hasn’t left my board just yet. For grinding blues, the Tube Screamer/OCD combo just can’t be beat, and the midrange hump is what sold me on the TS-808 in the first place. I just love it, so it’ll always have a place on my board. But I’ll have to admit that I’m going to be relegating a lot more of the general “drive” duties to the Bad Monkey simply because of how versatile it is.  
 
Where can you buy one?
 
The major online retailers are all selling it for $49.95. But I looked on eBay and found a couple for under $40.00. I got mine at a local gear consignment shop for $30.00! I really lucked out there. In any case, the price point is such that there’s no excuse to NOT check this pedal out. Like me, you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
 
Finally, the DigiTech Bad Monkey is yet another example of getting good tone without paying a hefty price. Granted, in the bargain arena, you have to dig pretty deep to find the gems, but if you’re patient and, of course, willing to dig a bit, you’ll find some gems among the waff and chattle. 
 
 

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Turn that F&%kin’ Thing Down!!! Part II

Posted in amps, gear reviews, Guitars on February 4, 2008| Leave a Comment »

THD Yellow JacketOne of my first posts on GuitarGear.org was entitled, “Turn that F&%kin’ Thing Down!!!.” In that post, I introduced the Dr Z. Air Brake attenuator. Yes, I’m still using it, but I continued to search for that volume sweet spot. Even with an attenuator, my volume’s still pretty loud, but it’s much more controllable now than when I didn’t have the attenuator. However, an attenuator can only take you so far, because it is essentially a power resistor. It doesn’t reduce your power in any way. But all that’s changed…

Introducing the THD Yellow Jacket

I discovered this in the latest issue of Premier Guitar in the DIY amp column (don’t remember the original column title, sorry). Essentially, the Yellow Jacket is a combination adapter/tube replacement for 6V6, 6L6, EL34, and 7591 tube amps. Using lower-output EL34’s the output wattage of your amp is significantly reduced, thus lowering your amp’s volume. The following comes right off the THD web site:

What are Yellow Jackets®?
Yellow Jackets® Converters are a type of specialized adapters which permit the use of EL84/6BQ5 power tubes in place of 6V6, 6L6, EL34, and 7591 types.

How do they work?
They give you simple Class-A operation from any amp.Yellow Jacket® Converters not only rearrange the pin locations of the tubes, but also provide the necessary current limiting on the screens and cathode as well as blocking the amplifier’s grid bias voltage, while configuring the EL84 in a Class-A, Self-adjusting cathode-bias circuit. In other words, there are no adjustments to make and no modifications necessary, you simply plug the Yellow Jackets® into the amp’s output tube sockets, (in cathode-bias amplifiers) screw the ground wires under one of the output tube socket mounting screws, plug the provided EL84’s into the Yellow Jackets®, turn on the amp and play.

How will they change my amplifier?
It’s like getting a whole new amplifier! In Champ and Deluxe type amplifiers, the Yellow Jackets® output is smooth, strong and more even than with the stock 6V6s. When the Yellow jackets® Converters are installed in larger amplifiers intended for 6L6s or EL34 output tubes, the high plate and screen voltages are reduced as well as current limited to protect the EL84 and to drop output power. When a pair of Yellow Jackets® are used in a Marshall 50 watt or similar amplifier, the overall power drops to about 20 watts and takes on more of the character of an old Vox AC30. The distortion is smoother and more even and the output is both substantially reduced and more compressed due to the Class-A nature of the Yellow Jackets®. In a 100 watt amp like a Twin Reverb or Marshall 100, either two or four Yellow Jackets® can be used. If only two are used and the other two sockets are left empy, the output is dropped to about 20 watts. With four in place, the amp puts out about 40 watts and takes on a whole new warmth and richness.

In the cases of the YJ7591 converters, the overall ouput power remains the same, but the sound becomes fuller and the extinct 7591 are replaced with common and inexpensive EL84 tubes. In old Ampeg Reverb Rockets and the like, you experience a warmth and sweetness that you could never get with the now unavailable 7591 tubes.

Will they hurt my amp?
No! Yellow Jacket® converters are safe for all amplifiers and transformers. As all Yellow Jacket® Converters internally limit voltage and current they put no extra strain on amplifiers’ power and output transformers or internal components. Using the Yellow Jackets® in higher powered amplifiers actually reduces the strain on the transformers and internal components because it reduces the overall wattage of the system. Furthermore, the heater (or filament) current of the EL84 is lower than that of the 6L6, EL34 or 7591, so the Yellow Jacket® will reduce the strain on the filament windings of the power transformer as well.

I called THD about the Yellow Jacket to find out what was appropriate for my amp. Most Yellow Jackets come in two flavors: a Standard that lowers your output by 50-70%, and a Triode version that lowers your output by 70%-90%. I went with the Triode version for my Hot Rod so I could essentially have a 5Watt amp. According to the guy at THD, the great thing about the Yellow Jacket is that you don’t lose your tone. Just reduce your power. The Triode version also has a smoother distortion and earlier breakup – at lower volumes, which is what I want for my home recording, and playing Church.

So if you’re in search of lowering your volume but not having to invest in a smaller amp, look no further! The THD Yellow Jacket is it!

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Gear Review: PRS DGT

Posted in gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear on February 4, 2008| 9 Comments »

PRS DGT

When I think of PRS guitars, there are certain words that pop into my head: Distinctive, gorgeous, player’s dream. Generally, PRS guitars come at a price, but from the guitars I’ve had the chance to play in the past, I know they’re well worth the money.

So here I was perusing through my new issue of Premier Guitar, and came across a great article about the two new PRS models: The Mira (pr. “mee-ruh”), and the DGT (David Grissom Trem). After reading through the interview with David Grissom about how he helped design the DGT, I just had to go to the PRS web site to see a demo. I wasn’t disappointed. Check out the video of J Hayes from PRS giving a demo:

For those of you familiar with David Grissom, you know he’s played a PRS McCarty for some time. At first blush, you might think that the DGT is just a modded McCarty. It’s not. While it has the classic lines of the McCarty, I think it has an even richer sound. It’s kind of a different animal altogether. PRS has used a glossy nitro-cellulose finish on the body, and according to David Grissom, this has a huge effect on the tone.

I have yet to play this guitar, though I will be remedying this quite soon. In any case, here are some standout features that really turn me on about this guitar:

  • The neck length lies between a Strat and a Les Paul. This is actually really cool because the DGT is strung with higher gauge strings (.010 to .049), but with neck length plus the larger frets, bending is apparently very easy on this guitar.
  • Several PRS guitars employ coil taps, but I think PRS has definitely hit a home run with the DGT. I’ve played with guitars that use coil taps in the past, and I’ve typically stayed away from them because the single coil mode sounds way too bright. But with the DGT, you get a thinner tone that has incredible balance and expressiveness without being too bright. This is what appeals to me the most about this guitar. It’s incredibly versatile!
  • I love the narrow, C-shaped neck. That’s always been my preference, and this has it.
  • The DGT also comes with independent volume controls for each pickup. This makes it possible to dial in a variety of sounds by altering the balance of signal coming from each pickup. Yowza!

I want this guitar. Period. But at $2500, it’ll be a difficult proposition to convince my wife that I want yet another axe… Oh well, time to save my gig money!

BTW, here’s DG doing a demo at NAMM 2008. I just love the way he plays – simple, straight-forward, in your face blues.

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