Guitar Gear

At service this evening, though we didn’t have the full complement of players and singers, and our only percussion was a tambourine and shaker, there was something special about it. The band just felt tight. Unlike other weeks, we didn’t have all that much rehearsal time before Mass started, but despite that, like I said, I just felt we were tight. It was real crowded as well, as it doubled as a special service for kids coming up in the church; there were lots of folks that were not regular attendees. But we must’ve been doing something right because they got as into the music as we did.

Inspired, on the last song, we did Matt Maher’s “Your Grace Is Enough” and near the end of the song, I hit the switch on my EWS Little Brute Drive and started playing lead lines, then ended with kind of a long solo. But it felt and sounded so good with my Les Paul wailing, I kind of lost track of time. 🙂 After Mass, I just laughed and said, “Rock and roll!”

After I looked back on it afterwards, I realized that I really had a breakthrough this evening in that sometimes you just have to go for it. Doing that long lead was something I had never done. Oh, I’d play lead lines in the middle of a song, but to close out the service with a solo was something that I just never did before tonight. Mind you, it’s not something that is going to be part of the formula for me from now on, but the point is that if it truly feels right in the moment, just go for it. The other guys in the bad were with me, and they went along on my little journey. I could literally feel the great energy of the moment, though they did cut me off because I admitted went on a little long – I think I did a 32 bar solo.

But no matter, those moments don’t come often, and when they do, like I said before, you just have to go for it.

I read an interview with Antonio Gallardi, “The Wine Advocate” magazine’s new California critic in which he responded in the comments section following the interview, “A pro has to be able to tune out everything and focus just on what is in the glass. I have had several instances where wines showed better in my office than they did at the properties.”Mr. Gallari was speaking in reference to a question that was asked him about maintaining his objectivity when he tastes wine at an estate.

Since I write about both wine and guitar gear, objectivity has always been an important factor for me. I started writing about gear primarily because I felt that the mainstream gear rags seemed to be beholden to their advertisers; giving more than favorable ratings to gear that my own personal tests didn’t favor as much. With wine, though I don’t feel as if – at least for the ones I regularly read – wine critics don’t fall into this trap. But even when reviewing wine, whether at home or at a winery, having no predisposition towards a wine is absolutely important to me. For instance, I went to a local winery near my home this past weekend, and ended up tasting with a friend who just happened to be there at the same time. He and his wife are wine club members, and they were looking to get a bottle. Though the winery’s Cabernets were popular, and something they mildly pushed, I wasn’t all that impressed with them, so instead recommended the Tempranillo, Terolgego, and their lower price, non-library Zinfandel purely based upon the merits of the wines’ characteristics which appealed to me.

Congruently, with gear, I’ve spoken to lots of manufacturers over the five years I’ve run this blog. Many send me gear to review, but you’ll notice that while there are lots of reviews here, there aren’t nearly as many as I’ve actually reviewed. The reason is that I like to play nice, and I’ll never publish a review that’s less than 4 Tone Bones. When I do review something that I don’t like, I notify the manufacturer, give them feedback, and make suggestions on what could be better. I’m also absolutely honest with them when I talk to them the first time and communicate my process. I do realize that I can get pretty excited in my reviews, but I only publish what I consider to be the best gear.

The point to all this is that objectivity goes a long way. Especially with gear, you hear and read about so much hype that it’s difficult to maintain your objectivity. I know I’ve succumbed to the hype several times, and I have a lot of gear that I just don’t use or have sold off. Luckily I never went so far as to sell everything to get a Dumble amp. Though it is truly impressive (and I know my videos didn’t really capture the sonic and dynamic magic of the amp), my own amps and several others I’ve tested come close enough to those dynamics that there’s no reason to spend over $40k.

No, this is not one of those excited-puppy-dog-with-a-new-toy types of posts, though with the way I’m feeling about the Little 40, it could very well be. But excitement aside, I did another test of the amp early this morning. I’m not a big believer in doing demo clips for demo clips’ sake. I do them because people ask for the raw sound, but when I started GuitarGear.org, I did it with intent of evaluating gear within the context of its application; specifically, how I might apply it to my own rig. My thinking has always been that unless you’re actually using the gear, you never really know how it performs.

So this next test was done to get a feel for the dynamics of the amp within the context of a song. I recently finished demo production of a song I wrote several months back called “I’m in Love with You Lord,” but hadn’t gotten around to create a finished recording until this past week. The one thing about that song is that it has a gradual build-up in feel and intensity as it progresses, and the electric guitar track plays an important role in this as it is the instrument – besides my vocals – that drives the emotion of the song. And my personal requirement was that I needed to do the entire electric guitar part in a single take, which means the amp has to be ultra-dynamic.

Originally, I recorded this with my Aracom VRX18, which performed flawlessly. But I wanted to try out the DV Mark with the song to see if I could achieve the same level of dynamics that the VRX18 had. Not only did it deliver, I’m probably going to use it as I love the snarling dog growl it delivers. 🙂 Here’s the song: