Guitar Gear

A friend of mine and I were having a conversation a few days ago, and one of the things he mentioned to me was that a lot of the gear that I give great ratings to seem to be very versatile and able to be used in a variety of styles. Upon thinking about that, I had to agree. As I play at my church on a weekly basis, I play lots of different styles, from all-out rock to sweet, slow ballads, and my gear has to be able to deliver the tones that I require for those types of songs. Others might look down on playing at church, but to me, there are very few – if any – venues that are harder to play and sound good than in a church, and frankly, I haven’t found a better place to test gear.

Why? Of course, playing different styles is a great way to test the stylistic range of what some gear can deliver. But there are other concerns as well; especially volume limitations. In small- to medium-size churches, it’s completely out of the question to crank it up. But my trusty Aracom PRX150-Pro has helped me deliver on that front. But more importantly, because I can totally crank up my amps (my own or amps I’m testing), and still keep the volume at a manageable level, I’m able to test the full range of an amp’s capabilities. Sure, I test gear extensively in my home studio and use the attenuator there, but I feel the real test of gear is when it’s used in a performance.

For instance, yesterday was a real validation for me that my DV Mark Little 40 is simply the best amp investment I’ve made in a LONG time. Now granted, I’m known to be an Aracom Amp nut, but for sheer versatility, the DV Mark Little 40 is in a class all by itself. Normally, I choose songs for Mass that fall stylistically close, though of course there will be differences in tempo. But because I was gigging for consecutive days, when it came time to plan which songs we’d do yesterday, I drew a blank for half of the songs, so we picked them as a group during pre-Mass rehearsal. The end result was that we really varied in style, ranging from reggae to country-blues to ballad to rock. And on all fronts, the Little 40 delivered in spades.

When you can put gear through those kinds of paces; not just playing riffs specific to a style, but actually playing a lot of different songs you can push gear to its limits. So for all you church players out there, if you can, use your service to test out new gear. You’ll be surprised at what that’ll produce!

According to several sources, including this article from CNN, Van Halen is postponing 31 upcoming tour dates. Of course, that has caused a bit of stir among fans who were looking forward to seeing them. Hopefully EVH is okay and not relapsing into illness (cancer) or otherwise.

I know that many fans may be pissed off about this development, but I tend to be a lot more sympathetic as a gigging musician. I’m on my fourth consecutive day of gigging this week (I’m my own roadie, by the way), and I’m exhausted, plus in lots of pain from my arthritic hip. Most folks don’t realize the toll that gigging takes after awhile. Crap! I’m only on my fourth day! It’s hard to imagine the physical, mental and emotional toll that touring puts on you.

So I wish Van Halen all the best. Hopefully, this postponement doesn’t become a cancellation – one can only hope – but I personally hope all is well with the band and especially EVH.

Back in 2007 when I first started writing this blog, I befriended a really great guy, Ignacio Gonzales who wrote the popular but now defunct IgBlog. I also “friended” him on Facebook, and though his blog is no more, we still keep in touch. In any case, Ig’s birthday was a couple of days ago, and in his thank you to all the well-wishers, he said something that struck a chord with me. Here it is:

“Aging is automatic, but living is a choice.”

Wiser words could not be spoken. Having turned 50 this year, I took stock of my life and came to the conclusion that I just didn’t feel any “older.” Though more restrained (meaning less impulsive) and perhaps more refined in my approach to life, I didn’t see any reason to “grow up.” I will want to rock every day, still want to make love to my wife, still want to be actively involved with my kids’ sports; in other words, I came to the conclusion that just because I’m getting older in years, that doesn’t mean my approach to life has to get older.

Granted, I’m currently physically limited while await my hip replacement in July – yeah, physical aging sucks – but I still gig at least twice a week, and am even thinking of picking up more gigs. I’ve decided to teach beginning guitar and vocal and stage performance, and once my hip is all healed, I’m going to see if I can get back into coaching hockey again.

Yeah, living is a choice, and my choice is to ROCK TILL I DROP!

So thank you Ig for the inspirational words! They’ll be something I live by!

I was listening to a radio show yesterday on NPR called “The Science of Wine” in which a panel discussion took place on wine and the wine industry featuring two long-time wine industry veterans, Kermit Lynch and Randall Grahm, and hosted by Karen MacNeil, author of the “The Wine Bible,” and a wine expert herself. In one section of the discussion, the Karen asked Kermit Lynch about the “boldness” of many wines today, and how consumers, especially American wine consumers seem to be bent on bold wine, relating that to the apparent loudness of today’s music. Kermit’s answer intrigued me in that he said something to the effect of “there’s a lot to be said about exquisiteness in wine,” and “listening to the ‘music’ of the wine.” That one phrase hit a nerve with me with respect to how I’ve chosen gear over the years. With gear – at least to me – there really is a lot to be said about exquisiteness.

By “exquisite,” I’m talking about a certain delicacy and dynamic range in which a certain thing – be it music or wine or whatever – communicates a fundamental “message;” but is also accompanied by subtleties and nuances that provide layers of sophistication and complexity, which we in turn perceive as “depth.”

When I heard that phrase above, I immediately thought about all the gear I’ve purchased over the years, and though I’ve spoken a lot about choosing gear based upon its versatility, overlaying that has been this sense that the tone that gear produces has to have complexity and dynamics, not just produce a “wall of sound.” A wall of sound – at least to me – is extremely boring at best, and an assault to my senses at worst.

To me, truly great gear evokes a visceral response which in turn compels me to describe it metaphorically and qualitatively as opposed to purely quantitative. The sound of truly great gear reaches into the depths of my emotions, beyond the reach of mere language. This is the exquisiteness of a great sound; and it’s probably a huge reason I don’t get into really high-gain, high-compression types of gear or music for that matter. On top of that, when it’s so loud and super-compressed you lose dynamic range, and lose a valuable tool that can help you take your listeners on a the musical journey with you. For thrash and high-gain metal, that might not make a big difference, but for the music that I love to both play and listen, namely classic rock and blues, dynamic range is ultra-important to getting a message across.

In 2010, I went to see the “Experience Hendrix” tour featuring Joe Satriani. What a show! But I have to admit that I thought that Satch’s tone kind of sucked; especially when he first hit the stage. His tone was SO compressed and his volume so loud that it was almost intolerable; plus the compression just made everything muddy. The front-of-house guys fixed it a bit, and Joe made some adjustments, but it still wasn’t very good. On the other hand, Kenny Wayne Shepard’s tone was freakin’ amazing! Sure, his volume was loud – hell! it was a concert – but his tone was sweet. For me, he stole the show.

Circling back to gear, I realized that even more important than versatility in my decision-making process has been the gear’s exquisiteness in tone; be it a guitar, an amp, or a pedal. Truth be told, versatility is a close second, and if the gear’s not all that versatile, I probably wouldn’t buy it. But as I said before, there is a lot to be said about exquisiteness in tone because that’s what gets me waxing philosophically. 🙂 When something has the effect of inspiring me, I have to have it; and I’ll pay for it. That happened with my Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay. I had heard lots of people talking about it, but I was naturally skeptical because that pedal cost close to $300. But once I got to audition one, I had to have it. Not only did its sound completely blow me away, but I pictured using it in all sorts of settings. I actually use it more than my chorus pedal, which is something I use a lot!

The wine discussion panel also touched upon things such as much of the public’s focus on specific varietals of grapes used in wines. I think it was again Kermit Lynch who talked about not really paying attention to that, but how many of his customers ask what varieties were used for a particular wine, which in and of itself is innocuous. But he did mention that that particular question was asked within the context of inferring that a blend might be of less quality, which he did say was rather irrelevant. That made me smile because I take a similar approach in my wine tasting. My thought is that if it’s good, it just doesn’t matter if it’s a single varietal or a blend. It’s just good wine.

That part of the discussion led me to thinking about how so many people focus on the components that go into different kinds of gear, and how that somehow makes the gear better. But let me tell you that a DigiTech Bad Monkey sounds a hell of a lot better than some pedals I’ve tried that are five times the price using NOS this and that, and high-end jacks and such! It’s a $35 pedal constructed with overseas parts, for goodness’ sake! This component craziness is also akin to those who claim they can hear the difference between one of those high-end, $200 power cords (yes, power cord), and a standard power cord. I myself prefer to use medical grade power cords only because of their reliability, but not because I believe them to create a better sound. Same thing goes with speaker cables. I just use good ol’ 12-gauge copper-core cables. I’ve tried those high-end $100-per-foot cables, and perhaps they might make a bit of a difference – in your bedroom – but when you’ve got your amp cranked up during a gig, the tonal impact is not going to be all that significant. Hey, for the believers, they probably have way better ears than I do.

The point of all this is that we can draw a lot of parallels between wine and guitar gear and music. And as the only way to determine if a wine is any good to you, you have to taste it; so it goes with gear as I’ve said many times before: The only way to see if something’s good is if you play it.