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Archive for the ‘Guitars’ Category

Okay… What really makes a guitarist great?

Posted in guitar, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians on March 12, 2008| 14 Comments »

Just read a great article in Guitar Jam Daily entitled: Industry Insider: The Cobain Backlash and it got me thinking about what really makes a guitarist great. I know, this is such a subjective thing that if you ask ten different people, you’ll get ten different answers. But I’d like to posit an idea about what makes a guitarist great. The idea hit me because of its simplicity, and it’s simply this: Musicality. I know, rather nebulous but – at least in my opinion – it’s the one word that truly captures the many facets of a guitarist’s greatness. It’s also a term that isn’t limited by style or genre.

Ana VidovicI began thinking about musicality being the key to measuring guitar prowess several months ago after reading an interview in Guitar Player with Ana Vidovic, THE babe of classical guitar. In that piece she talked about really focusing on her musicality, and got me thinking about my own musicality, which then lead me to thinking about musicality being the true measure of a guitarist’s greatness.

So what’s musicality? To put it simply, musicality is the relationship between instrumental technique and musical expression. Achieving a close relationship between the two requires a certain level of virtuosity in the instrument you’re playing and also a thorough understanding of the music being played: Where volume or rhythmic or expression characteristics can be applied within the body of a song. A truly musical musician will add subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) nuances to the things they’re playing; and while quantifying musicality can be a difficult thing, it’s very easy to discern between a musician with a high degree of musicality and someone who isn’t quite as musical.

Unfortunately, many of the guitar magazines out there seem to focus on shredders, so it has warped a lot of people’s views on who would or could be a great guitarist. In their view, the faster you play the better. But speed doesn’t mean at thing as far as musicality is concerned. But as long as we’re talking about speed, let’s look at a couple of pure, lightspeed-quick shredders: Yngvie Malmstein and Herman Li of Dragonforce. Herman Li is incredibly fast and he has tons of tricks up his sleeve. But listen to a few Dragonforce songs, and you realize that he’s using the same licks in practically every song. Where’s the musicality in that. On the other hand, Yngvie has so much more control not only over his speed and dynamics but also the tonal characteristics of the various phrases within his leads. So where Herman is a super great guitar technician, Yngvie is a true maestro.

But let’s not just look at shredders. Remember, musicality is not genre specific. What’s important is the relationship a guitarist builds between his or her guitar with the songs they play. From that perspective, let me list just a few of my favorite great guitarists:

  • James Taylor
  • Albert King
  • Elliot Smith
  • Joaquin Lievano
  • Neal Schon

This by no means is a complete list. I listed guitarists from different genres. None of them were the fastest, and in Elliot Smith’s case, not necessarily a real technician per se, but each brought a very definite musicality to the table in all the songs they play(ed).

So next time you want to compare what guitarist is better, you might think about comparing them on a different level other than speed and technique and ask, “Just how musical is this player?”

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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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Tone… It’s all in your hands…

Posted in guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars on February 18, 2008| 3 Comments »

pearl3.jpg

Read an interesting article by GuitarFlame (www.guitarflame.com) called: The science of playing the acoustic guitar where he talked about a very good shredder who picked up an acoustic guitar, and sounded… bad. That made me giggle a bit because I’ve seen the same thing with a lot of shredders. They sound horrible on acoustic guitars; actually I’ve heard several who sound pretty bad playing clean. As GuitarFlame put it, there’s more than meets the eye to playing acoustic. That’s certainly true, but I think it’s even more than that. I think a lot guitarists forget that 90% of their tone comes from their hands. Lots of guitarists, especially young ones, think it’s all in the equipment, but it’s not. Yes, equipment has a lot to do with the quality of the sound that you produce, but your hands and fingers are responsible for making the sound, and thus giving you your tone. How you articulate your fretting hand, where you pick, palm muting, finger picking, all these in their various combinations produce different tones. Pick closer to the bridge, and you get a tinny, chimey tone; closer to the neck and you get a fatter tone because of the larger amplitude of the string vibrations.

I’ve discussed at length with a close friend about this very topic – several times. He’s got the money to buy gear any time. And while he sounds a little better each time he buys a new guitar or amp, it’s only his sound quality that improves. I finally challenged him after this last round of acquisitions to not buy more equipment and work on his tone. I told him that the cheapest way to start sounding better is to simply… practice. Developing tone is free – you just need to take the time to do it.

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It’s a Groove Thang…

Posted in guitar, guitarists, Guitars, performing, songwriting on February 16, 2008| 3 Comments »

Mark Kendall

A couple of months ago, I was having a drink with an old-school, elderly jazz guitarist named Patrick before my weekly gig at the restaurant I play at. To this day, I still don’t know Patrick’s last name, but he’s played with great Black jazz greats like Ellis Marsalis, and that whole “N’ah-lens scene, bruh,” as he calls it, and over the last few years that I’ve known him, I’ve really come to respect his unique wisdom and approach to the guitar. We don’t see each other often, and almost all of it has been via chance encounters at the bar. But when we do meet, we always talk about guitar, and life as a guitarist.

One day, we were talking about comping out chords to provide musical and rhythmic counterpoint against the vocals and bass, and out the blue he tells me (in his thick southern drawl – though I won’t try to write it too phonetically), “I can tell you got some chops, bruh. But you more into the groove thang than playin’ all sorts ‘a licks. I like that. Ain’t a song that’s been written that don’t need a good groove. Don’t let nobody fool ya. Let those mutha-f@#kas go off and do their noodlin’. Lots of them dudes can’t hold down a rhythm no-how!” My obvious response was, “Amen!” followed by a high-five and a triple soul-brother handshake.

I was taken by surprise by his compliment because I always feel I need to improve (I guess that’s why I push myself so hard), but I was even more amazed by what Patrick said after that because it underscored a sentiment that I’ve held for a long time: The groove of a song is where it’s at. Not only does it establish the rhythmic foundation for the song, it also forms the character and emotional framework for the entire piece. Without a foundation, you don’t have a song. Period.

Unfortunately, a lot of beginning guitarists focus almost entirely on learning lead parts, and dismiss playing rhythm guitar as merely executing a repetitious chord progression. They learn the chords as an afterthought, but don’t realize that they’re missing all the expressiveness that goes with a chord in relation to the body of a song. Playing good rhythm guitar isn’t just striking a chord on a specific beat – it’s all the stuff that happens within the duration of a chord that counts.

In my work as a music minister at my Church, I come across a lot of budding guitarists who can play leads like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, I have a 16 year old kid in my band whom I’ve had to make unlearn what he’s learned so he could learn how to play effective – and consistent – rhythm guitar. That kid knows John Mayer’s licks down cold, and a lot of other blues lead licks (which I’ve actually learned from him J ), but he couldn’t read a chord chart when he first started with the band and worse yet, had little sense of the rhythmic quality of playing guitar; in other words, no right hand technique. He’s not alone in this ignorance, and I place a lot of blame on guitar teachers for perpetuating this ignorance.

My message to them is this: Stop teaching leads to your beginning students. Teach your students how to play the damn guitar first. Teach them how to recognize the groove in a song, and teach them the groove!!! If they’ve got the groove down, then they’ve got the canvas to paint the colors of their leads. They’ll have a deeper understanding of their instrument, and how it fits in a song.

How important is groove? Don’t let me try to convince you. A couple of issues ago in Guitar Player, Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs of the Scorpions were interviewed. Jabs is an incredible lead guitarist, but he mentioned in the article that playing good rhythm guitar was more important than playing leads. “After all,” he said (paraphrasing), “I’m playing rhythm guitar 90% of the time. Leads take up 10% of a song.” Then in the latest issue of Guitar World, Lenny Kravitz had some great insights into the importance of the groove of a song and playing good rhythm guitar. “You could have a guy that can play up and down the neck all day long, but playing a rhythm part consistently for four minutes without stopping is another story. It’s amazing to me when I see players that can play a lot of stuff, but they obviously haven’t concentrated on how to groove.”

So how do you learn how to groove? Listen to all sorts of songs from different genres. Forget about leads for the moment, and listen for the groove in each song. Learn the chord progressions, yes, but learn what each guitarist is doing in between chords. Are they scratching? Are they adding colorful motes of a couple of strings? Are they adding alternate shapes or a 2 or 4 sustain to a chord. Take that all in… But after having said all that, don’t copy what they’re doing note for note. Just like with leads, learn the technique, then incorporate it into your own style.

I’ll be the first to admit that learning to be great a rhythm guitarist is hard. In fact, I find it a lot hard to learn rhythm riffs than leads, mainly because with most leads, you can follow a pattern. But with good rhythm, you have to feel what’s going on with the song you’re playing then use different techniques to affect a certain groove. But remember, the groove is what you’re after.

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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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On Yoda, the Force, and Playing Guitar

Posted in guitar, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians on February 11, 2008| 4 Comments »

If you’re a fan of Star Wars like I am, I’m sure you’ll remember the following clip from the “Empire Strikes Back:”

Try not… Do or Do Not… There is no try…

I tell you, Yoda had it right. Of all the sayings I’ve heard in the hundreds of movies I’ve seen over the years, these words have always struck a chord with me (excuse the pun). They’re powerful words, and have been somewhat of a guiding force in my life. As a former youth minister, I used to use these words often to help kids learn about the true nature of commitment. Let me explain a bit…

How we approach life has much to do with the language we use. If we think a certain way, we talk a certain way, then act along the same lines. With respect to the word “try,” I believe that it’s one of the worst words to use in our language. Why? Simply because it leaves us a way out. “Try” means “to attempt to do or accomplish;” the operative word being “attempt.” To me, success is all about commitment, and it’s black and white: You’re either in or you’re out; you either do it, or you don’t do it. There’s no middle ground, THERE IS NO TRY. “Try” indicates a lack of full commitment, of not being completely committed to what you’re doing, and that’s a huge problem for me.

To drive the point home further, what’s even worse is that the word “try” is passed off as an action (it’s a passive verb “to try”), and that’s the biggest farce of all! If you’re game, let’s take a test, shall we? Grab a pen and place it in front of you. Now, TRY to pick up the pen. If the pen is in your hand now, I didn’t say to pick it up. I said TRY to pick up the pen. Replace the pen and repeat, and only stop when you’ve successfully TRIED to pick up the pen. Remember, don’t pick up the pen. TRY to pick up the pen. As you can see, it can’t be done…

To realize the true nature of the Force, you have to be committed – 100%. This is true for anything in life. If you want to achieve any kind of success in life, you have to be committed to achieving success. You don’t just try – you have to do it. Of course, I realize that “success” is purely subjective. Far be it from me to tell you success from my personal point of view. But irrespective of how we might measure success, we have to DO the things that are necessary to achieve success in anything that we do.

So what does this have to do with playing guitar? Everything. If you want to be good at playing guitar, you can’t just try it out. You have to learn, practice, play, then repeat the steps – constantly. Playing guitar is a voluntary and deliberate action that requires knowledge and practice to gain proficiency. To me, “trying” to play guitar is like a monkey humping a football. It’s the right idea, but the wrong execution.

I wrote this latest entry in response to a couple of my kids wanting to “try” the guitar. Mind you I’m not really an intense, Type A personality. But I wanted to drive the point home that if they wanted to shred like Herman Li of Dragonforce (which is why they brought up playing guitar), they’d have to put in the time. It wouldn’t happen overnight. But I also added that everyone has their own pace of learning. Some take a shorter time than others; others take awhile. But whatever pace they go at, if they want to achieve that level of proficiency of technique, they’ve got to stick with it. We’ll see how it goes… 🙂

YODA

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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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