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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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Manage Your GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome)

Posted in buying gear, GAS, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars on February 5, 2008| 6 Comments »

GAS Comic

CHECK OUT THE AUTOMATED G.A.S. EVALUATOR I BUILT AFTER YOU READ THE ARTICLE!!!Every tone freak goes through phases of GAS; that is, Guitar (or Gear) Acquisition Syndrome. You hear a sound or lick, or you have a sonic vision of a tone you want to produce, and you’re suddenly overcome with an urge to go and buy that piece of gear that will satisfy your craving. If you’ve been playing for a number of years like I have, you probably have a garage full of gear that you don’t use any longer. You see, the worst thing about GAS is that it never goes away because over time, your playing style and gear needs change. It’s unavoidable. Another fallout of GAS, is that it’s a very impulsive behavior. You might be completely satisfied with your current rig, but something sparks in your brain, and BAM! You’re ordering new gear online or going down to your local music equipment store.So the question is: Is there away to control GAS? Sure. The obvious “controllers” are easy to identify:

  • You don’t have the money – that’s a great control.
  • Your partner won’t let you – I get this all the time, but I have my own “gig-money” bank account that she’s not allowed to touch, and since it gets depleted, I usually end up at point 1 anyway. 🙂

Those are certainly practical ways for controlling GAS, but they operate only on the physical plane. What about the psychological plane? After all, GAS is an impulsive behavior. For that, I’ve developed a series of questions that I ask myself before I press the “Order Now” button, or bid on an eBay item. They’re tough questions that require a lot of thought, but they definitely help to bring me back to earth, as it were; and I’ve avoided a lot of what turned out to be unnecessary purchases. Here they are:

  1. Does this gear solve a real issue right now, or is this something I just want to try out? Solution = +1, Experiment = -1
  2. Am I playing anything right now that requires this piece of gear? If yes give yourself a +1. If no, give yourself a -1
  3. Have I really taken the time to research and evaluate this product and make comparisons to competing products to determine if it’s a right fit for me to integrate into my overall tone? If yes, give yourself a +1; otherwise a -1.
  4. Now be honest: Do I really have the skill to use this gear effectively? Yes = +1, No = -1
  5. If I don’t have the skill, but have answered positively to the previous questions, do I really have the time to put into getting to a level of expertise with this where I can perform in front of people? Yes = +1, No = -1
  6. Am I trying to sound like somebody else with this? No = +1, Yes = -1
  7. Again, be honest: Will this gear truly expand my tonal palette? Yes =+1, No = -1
  8. Will this purchase have a significant impact on my available funds? No = +1, Yes = -1
  9. Finally, do I want pay for this with credit or cash? Cash = +1, Credit = -1, I can afford the monthly payment = 0

Now add up the pluses and minuses. You’ll either get a positive or negative value because there are an odd number of questions. With anything on the minus side, even if it’s a -1, I don’t buy the gear. But that’s just the discipline I’ve placed on myself. For positive values, I will only buy the gear if I score a 6 or 7, and it usually has to be a 7 because I have limited funds. Again, that’s just personal discipline. With respect to the last question, it doesn’t factor (gets a 0) if I’m willing to afford the monthly payment. But my personal philosophy is to only pay for my gear if I have the cash to pay for it.Ultimately, controlling GAS is about personal discipline; having the discipline to not react to our natural proclivity to be impulsive. With this series of questions, I’m not trying to cure GAS at all. In fact, I embrace the fact that we all get GAS. But after purchasing thousand of dollars worth of gear over the years, I’ve come to realize that I’ve got to have some discipline, and take some time to give my purchases a thought, so I can take action based on information, not emotion. That action can either be purchasing the gear or passing on it. I’ve passed on a lot of gear using these questions.Now here’s a sample evaluation for my latest purchase of a pair of THD Yellow Jacket tube adapters:

  1. Yes, this solves a real problem for me in that I need to get into breakup at a lower volume. As it stands, I’ve got to crank up my gain to get a smooth overdrive from my amp, which means a huge jump in volume. Reducing my output to 5W will allow me to do this at a much lower volume.
  2. Absolutely, at all my gigs.
  3. It doesn’t necessarily add to my overall tone as it helps me achieve the tone I want, but at a lower volume.
  4. n/a in this case
  5. n/a in this case
  6. Nope – just a quieter ME. 🙂
  7. This will expand my tonal palette because I can do the hard-driving stuff without having the rafters crash down from the ceiling. This is especially applicable at Church and in my home studio. With recording, I have to wait until the weekend to drive my amp hard.
  8. Little impact. At $100 bucks, we’re good.
  9. Cash for sure. I’ll pay for it with my debit card.

Admittedly, you can probably reason anything away, and I used a fairly simple purchase. But I’ve applied this “reasoning” to my desire to purchase a Les Paul Double Cutaway or a PRS DGT (as of late). In both cases, I scored a -6! No way am I going to buy either of these any time soon.So there you have it: Not a cure for GAS, but definitely a sane and reasonable way to control 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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Top Dawg: Sungha Jung

Posted in guitar, guitarists on January 29, 2008| 15 Comments »

Sungha Jung - this kid is amazing!!!I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t discover this kid. I stumbled upon him via GuitarFlame’s blog. I was so impressed that an 11 year old kid had chops this good that I had to list him here as a Top Dawg. You have to see it to believe it! This kid is absolutely amazing, and here’s yet another thing: He has only been playing for 2 years! Imaging what he’ll be like in 10 years! I think this kid is headed for guitar greatness.

Click here to see him play. Your jaw will drop!!!

You might be tempted to think that this is gimmicky, but let me tell you, it’s VERY rare to come across a true prodigy like this. Enjoy and be amazed!

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Hidden Gem: My Epiphone 58 Korina Explorer

Posted in gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear on January 26, 2008| 12 Comments »

Epiphone 58 Korina ExplorerThis past week, I was paging through an old issue of Guitar Player mag, and noticed a picture of Nancy Wilson [who wouldn’t notice that absolutely beautiful angel of rock] playing an Epiphone Les Paul in an Epiphone ad. Epiphone is a brand that guitarists know, and is considered to be the “bargain” line of Gibson. But I was curious to find out more, so I did a search to see if I could find a history of the brand. It’s an amazing story!

After I read the article, I remembered that I have an Epiphone 58 Korina Explorer collecting dust in my garage. I originally purchased it for my son as a Christmas present a few years ago, but sadly, he’s given up playing for awhile (he’s devoted pretty much all his time to ice hockey, and that’s okay with me). So I reclaimed it for myself. Unfortunately the Explorer has not been touched for quite some time.I think part of my not playing this guitar so much is that I had this bias about Epiphone being a “cheap” brand. But after seeing that ad in GP, and then seeing that a lot of other great guitarists play Epi’s, plus after reading the Epiphone history, I decided to take my Korina out, and give it a whirl. Also, I’ve had this view that the Explorer is more of a pure rocker’s guitar (think Matthias Jabs of the Scorpions), and I was admittedly very intimidated by the legacy of great players who play the Explorer. So it was with a bit of reluctance that I took it out to play it.

As the guitar had been sitting for a long time, it was obviously very out of tune. Luckily it was dust-free as it sat in a great hard case that I purchased for it all these months; and luckier still that before I put it in the garage, I restrung it with my favorite Fender nickel plated steel strings (Fender Super 250s – actually pretty cheap strings, but I love their tone), so I didn’t have to worry about re-stringing the instrument. After a quick check, and re-adjusting the low E-string’s intonation ever so slightly, I plugged the guitar into my rig, and tuned her up. Once I got her tuned, I strummed a chord, and was completely surprised by the “OH MY F^&KIN’ GAWD!” response that came over me.

The sound that this supposedly “cheap imitation” produced was absolutely gorgeous! Oodles and oodles of sustain, a real natural, overdriven tone, and a beautiful punch from the dual humbuckers. I gotta tell ya, I’m absolutely giddy from the sound that this produces! No wonder Michael Schenker has played an Explorer all these years! So let’s go into a bit more detail, shall we?

Sound

First off, this is a very mid-rangy guitar, when you’re using both humbuckers. Setting the switch to the neck position deepens the tone ever so slightly, and turning the volume knob down produces a beautifully clear clean tone. As one might expect, the bridge pickup picks up more of the high-freq tones, but it’s not “tinny” as many bridge position pickups tend to be. Mind you, this is a guitar that is not for the faint of heart with respect to overdriven tone. The Explorer wants to growl, and any volume position higher than 3 will produce breakup. That may be just this particular guitar, but it’s something I totally appreciate in it. As a side note, another reason why I didn’t play this guitar was at the time, I was a bit intimidated by playing with an overdriven tone. I didn’t know how to control it. But now that I do, I have a renewed appreciation for what this guitar delivers.

Did I mention sustain? The Explorer just loves to sing, and I was totally amazed at the natural sustain that this thing has. Adding my OCD to the signal, just enhanced that sustain with beautiful overtones and harmonics. Then punching in my TS-808 beefed up the midrange. While you might think this was overkill, the sound didn’t get muddy at all! It’s pure ear-candy!

Now even though this guitar wants to growl, it responds well to the volume knob. Increasing levels of volume add more drive and chunk, but the cool thing is that it’s very gradual. Some guitars I’ve played have a threshold where drive comes on suddenly at a certain point. That’s tough to control – especially if you’re in the middle of a song. With the Explorer, it’s easy to dial in just the right amount of break-up that you want. What I’ve done is set the volume knobs to about 4 or 5 to get a nice rumble, then let my TS-808 and OCD pedals add more texture. It’s a nice combo.

Finally, a very pleasing feature that I played around with is feedback. It’s even easier to get this puppy to feedback than with my ES-335, which is known for the nice feedback it produces. The feedback from the Korina is higher in pitch than my 335, and is much more subtle. The 335, on the other hand produces a feedback that’s very robust – a bit too much. But the Korina seems to just make the feedback part of its delivery, and it comes across almost like an overtone – nice!

Playability

The neck is narrow with a shallow, C-shaped back. In other words, it’s a very fast neck. I had my Korina set up with a pretty low action, and had the frets ground down a bit for my son. That was a good call on my part because that’s how I like my necks anyway. I don’t like to dig in too much, and rely on bending and rocking to produce vibrato.The rosewood fretboard (which is something I absolutely love), has a real nice feel to it, and begs you to dig in and apply all sorts of vibrato. Like other Gibson-esque guitars, the neck’s position in relation to the body really draws you to play in the upper registers. Contrast this to a Strat, where I have to move the guitar a bit left to get to the upper registers. It’s not bad, it’s just different.Frankly, even though the Explorer has a space-age shape, it’s a very balanced guitar. The pickups are perfectly positioned, so you can rest your forearm on the body a tad bit, and really articulate the strings with your picking hand. Also, I found that because of the position of the pickups, I could get pinch harmonics without moving around much to find the nodes. On the Korina, the strongest-sounding nodes are just in front of the bridge pickup.

Surprisingly enough, the Explorer feels even lighter than my Strat! The size of the body might suggest a heavy guitar, but it’s quite light, and will be very easy to move around with on stage.

Summing it up…

I should really kick myself for my “cheap” bias surrounding this guitar. After all, I chose a $500 Made in Mexico Stratocaster over a $2400 American Standard. Why? Simply because its sound kicked ass over the American Strat. Here’s the kicker with my Korina Explorer: I paid $200 for it, then spent another $100 getting it cleaned and set up. The guy I bought it from said it was a sweet-sound guitar that played much better than what I was paying for it. He wasn’t wrong. I’ve had a hidden gem in my collection of guitars for all this time, and I didn’t even know it!

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The Dawg Performs

Posted in guitar, guitarists, Guitars, performing on January 21, 2008| 2 Comments »

image-250.jpgI mentioned in a previous post that I played for an audience of 750+ folks. What a rush! Anyway, there was a great photographer flitting about the place, and he happened to get some shots of the The Dawg playing, so I thought I’d share them to put a face to the name. Based upon the capo position, I think I was playing “Something in the Way She Moves” by James Taylor.

image-251.jpg

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Awesome Experience!

Posted in guitar, performing, playing live on January 16, 2008| 3 Comments »

On Monday night, I performed solo in front of 700+ people; just me and my guitar. It was probably the largest crowd that I’ve ever played for as a solo act, and it was a totally cool experience. I did a lot of covers in my set ranging from James Taylor to the Beatles – even some Lynrd Skynrd. But the highlight for me was playing my new instrumental song, “Que Cosa.” I created a backing track that I downloaded to my iPod, which I routed through my PA, then played the guitar lead over the backing track. I’ve actually been rehearsing doing this for months, but finally worked up the courage to try it out in a real gig. I was really overwhelmed by the response.

I think the issue for me doing a purely instrumental piece had to do with some self-doubt. I really didn’t know if I’d be “good enough” to pull it off. But I broke through that doubt because there was only one way to find out if I was good enough. Based upon the response from the crowd, I guess I did fine. Of course, I’m always pushing to be better, but at least now I have the confidence to continue doing things like this.

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Top Dawg: Noah Needleman

Posted in guitar, guitarists on January 8, 2008| 1 Comment »

Here’s a guy who has absolutely excellent acoustic guitar technique, plus has a GREAT voice. The combination is very pleasing to the ear. The guy’s not flashy, but it’s clear that he has a real command of his instrument, and that’s something that The Dawg looks for in a guitarist, so I wanted to recognize him here. Check out his YouTube.com site here.

And here’s a cover he did of John Mayer’s “Heart of Life:”

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Sometimes you have to pay in blood…

Posted in guitar, guitarists, Guitars on January 2, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Okay, I admit it: I have a slightly obsessive personality. I completely lost track of time, and realized that I’d been practicing over three hours, trying out various riffs that have been running through my head for the past few days. Both my hands are numb, and the tip of the middle finger on my left hand is bleeding. I didn’t notice that until I started typing an e-mail and saw that my computer keyboard had little red fingerprints on the “e” and “d” keys. Yuck! But hey! I don’t mind. It was worth getting the licks down.

So what drove me to this single-minded, totally focused state where I lost all track of time? Simple: Developing vibrato and sustain using as little distortion as possible, or none at all; in other words working the strings with my fingers to achieve sustain and expressiveness. After listening to some of my favorite guitarists the past few days while on vacation, I realized that even though they use distortion, it’s very, very light; a lot lighter than what you’d think at first blush. But what makes them sound so expressive, even though they might be shredding is the subtle nuances they add to their solos employing several types of vibrato to eek out every bit of tone from their strings. It’s not easy! Not easy at all! And I’ve got the bloody finger and aching hands to prove it.

That’s not to say that I haven’t done this at all. But in all my years of playing, this was really the first time that I really focused on it. I’ve been a big promoter of playing as few notes as possible to get my point across, partly because I can’t really play all that fast, but also because some of the best solos I’ve ever heard don’t have a lot of notes – they’re just entirely expressive. Horn players know the value of a long-sustained note. It may start out as a plain old Bb – whatever – but as you apply vibrato to sustain the note, it changes color over time. Just listen to some Miles Davis, and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m now a true believer that 90% of your tone comes from your fingers.

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Gear Review: Digitech Vocalist Live 4

Posted in Effects, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, Guitars on December 27, 2007| 6 Comments »

Digitech Vocalist Live 4

I know what you’re thinking… this isn’t really guitar gear… BUT it only works by analyzing guitar chords, so it falls squarely in the guitarist’s tool bag. So… what is it? Put simply, the Vocalist Live is a vocal harmonizer. It’s unique in that the processor doesn’t analyze only the notes you sing, it analyzes the chords you play. This makes for much more accurate harmonization. For instance, harmonizing to a Bb in F major, is going to be a lot different from Bb when sung with a G minor.

I do a lot of solo gigs with just me and my guitar. I sing a wide range of songs from all sorts of genres, and a lot of the songs (like songs from the Beatles) sound a lot better with harmony. Now, with a press of switch, I can insert harmonies – live – without backup singers!

The Vocalist Live comes in two versions: Vocalist Live 2 and Vocalist Live 4. I picked the Vocalist Live 4 because it can do 3- and 4-part harmonies, whereas the Vocalist Live 2 does two-part harmonies. In addition, the Vocalist Live 4 can act as a mixer, which eliminates a piece of equipment, which is also a good thing for a solo musician. Not that the 2 isn’t good; it is, and would be appropriate in a band situation. But I myself prefer the more full-featured Vocalist Live 4. Plus, you can interactively activate more or less harmony parts on the fly. Oh so cool..

The vocalist live also has built-in vocal and guitar effects, plus a tuner. The guitar effects will never replace dedicated boxes, but they’re adequate for what they do, and hey, you can always output the guitar dry and still hook up your pedal board (which is what I do).

So if you’re a gigging musician in search of good harmonies, and whether or not you’re solo, the Vocalist Live 4 could be a solution for you!

View the demo!

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