Never really been into fuzz that much, but some of my latest stuff could really use some fuzz, so I was pleasantly surprised this morning to receive Fat Tone Guitars’ newsletter this morning that featured an announcement that they’re the exclusive sellers for Earthquake Devices’ new Zap Machine Fuzz. This is a brand-new pedal, released just this past Monday, and from what I can tell, it sounds VERY COOL! Here’s a video:
A few years ago, Mel Gibson starred in a movie called “The Patriot” in which he was a self-avowed pacifist who was pulled into the Revolutionary War to avenge the murder of his son by a British colonel, played by Jason Isaacs. In one scene where he and two of his young sons are ambushing a British patrol to save another son who was in their custody, Mel turns to the boys and says, “Do you remember what I taught you about shooting?” They replied, “Aim small, miss small.”
I was thinking about “Aim small, miss small” where I was talking to a close friend about an amp he recently purchased off EBay. The amp was one of those 100 Watt Marshall Plexi hand-wired reissues. The seller had done some major work on it, replacing the caps with original mustard caps, swapping out the transformer, swapping out resistors; in other words, lots of things. It was a pretty good price, and my buddy bought it on the basis of the upgrades. Unfortunately for him, when he compared its tone to another 100 Watt Plexi he has but with a PCB board, it sounded stale and “stiff.”
During our conversation about that amp, I shared some thoughts with him, “You know, if it’s one thing I’ve learned about tweaking, you have to do it incrementally. Making wholesale changes provides you with no moving reference point to fall back on, and if you don’t like the end result, you have no place to back up to but the beginning. Looks like what that dude did was make a bunch of changes at once, didn’t like the sound, so he sold the amp.” My friend agreed, but luckily he’s an whiz at electronics so backing out the “upgrades” won’t be too much of an issue for him.
This leads me to a discussion about tweaking. Remember: Aim small, miss small; that is, do small changes – one at a time – so in case you don’t like what you’ve done, you can easily back it up. After all, it’s easy to back up one step than several. Also, try to get the low-hanging fruit first; that is, change what is easiest to change first. In many cases, that could resolve a LOT of tonal issues.
For instance, I wasn’t digging the fizziness of the original pre-amp tubes I had in my Aracom PLX18-BB 18 Watt Plexi clone. I loved the dynamics of the amp, but it had a really fizzy finish. Some people like that, but I wasn’t bonding with it. Since I had a bunch of NOS 12AX7’s, I started there first. But I didn’t just start with replacing all the tubes. Sometimes it’s just a single tube, and since the fizziness was occurring on both channels, I decided to swap out V2 first. That reduced the fizz a ton, but there was still a little left. So I then swapped out both V1 and V3. That improved the tone even more, but it wasn’t quite there as I wanted a bit more bottom-end response. So I swapped out the speaker for one that had a great, tight bottom-end. The tone was perfect after that! I could’ve gone further and had Aracom swap out caps and resistors, or even have a “fizz” cap added to the circuit, as Jeff suggested. But I didn’t need to do any of that because I was able to get the tone I wanted with the simple changes I made. I felt that any further changes were just subjecting myself to the law of diminishing returns.
Some people may scoff at the diminutive Fender Champ 600. After all, it’s only 5 Watts and has a tiny 6″ speaker. But those naysayers may be missing the point about the Champ or any super-low wattage speaker for that matter. It’s not meant to be a performance amp; though you can certainly hook it up to an extension cabinet, and it’ll do just fine in a small venue – hey! I do that A LOT. But the secret behind the beauty of this little $149 wonder isn’t on the stage, it’s in the studio.
I’ve heard feedback from various people that they get frustrated with this amp because it’s missing certain features. Let’s face it folks, with a single volume knob, no tone control, and not much gain on tap, it would be easy to dismiss this amp as nothing more than a toy. But it’s no mistake that its venerable sibling, the Champ, has been a mainstay in professional studios for decades. It’s all in how you make use of what it has to offer.
First off, let’s establish what I think is the most important thing when recording this amp: The Champ is really good at creating your base tone, and that’s all that it should be used for. It’s up to you to shape it. Keep that in mind, and you’ll get more than a lot of mileage out of it. So let’s look at some key factors when recording with the Champ:
The Champ is naturally bright because of its small speaker. So microphone placement is absolutely critical. If you want to get a bright, twangy sound with lots of treble content, place your mic head on in the center of the cone, or just off center to avoid getting those treble “pops.” If you want less treble response, move the mic off-center, nearer to the edge of the speaker cone. I’ve found that the richest sound comes from angling the mic at about the same angle as the speaker cone, placed right at the outer ring about an inch off the grille cloth. The EQ response is a lot flatter there, and makes it easy to dial in your EQ in your DAW.
Even cranked in the high input, and even with humbuckers, the most breakup you’ll get is about “dirty blues” overdrive. But that’s why we have overdrive and distortion pedals, right? I’ve found that Tube Screamer and TS-type overdrive pedals work great with the Champ, though my Holy Fire distortion can make the Champ serve up some whoop-ass if dialed in just right.
Looking for Fender cleans? The Champ does raw Fender cleans – and quite well. Again, it’s all about mic placement when recording cleans with the Champ. My favorite is angled as I described above.
Do yourself a favor and replace the stock tubes with NOS tubes. I’ve never been a big fan of Groove Tubes (though I know some people like them). But with a great NOS pre-amp tube (I’ve got a ’59 GE long plate), and a solid NOS 6V6 (mine is a ’53 GE 6V6), you’ll immediately tame the harshness of the amp. In fact, I’ve never seen a need to replace the power transformer or the speaker because of this $50 investment.
So with those points in mind, go and record. What you’ll get after you’ve played around a bit is a great, raw guitar tone. But your work isn’t done yet – or it could be if you’re satisfied with the raw tone. Personally, I like to add filters and effects in production to make the recording sound like it’s coming from a much bigger amp. Yes, boys and girls, you can make it sound MUCH bigger!
A Word on Amp Modeling
One thing that I have also done with the Champ is to record a purely clean rhythm tone, then run it through IK Multimedia’s Amplitube plug-in to essentially “re-amp” my guitar. You can get some amazing guitar tones with the Champ when it’s re-amped through this software.
My Champ 600 Recording Process
A couple of people have asked me how to record the amp, so I thought I’d share the process I employ:
First, it starts with the guitar. Am I looking for a single-coil or humbucker tone. The cool thing about the Champ 600 is that what you hear when you play through it is your raw guitar tone. There’s no EQ so you have to establish that on your guitar. Simple enough.
Then I’ll determine whether or not I want to track with effects. Usually, I’ll only track with overdrive or distortion. I leave all the modulation effects to production.
Next, I place my mic head, dead-center on the speaker, then record a chord progression and perhaps some quick lead licks.
Then I’ll move the mic off-center and repeat the same thing I played with the mic centered.
Finally, I’ll angle the mic as described above and repeat the same progression. More likely than not, I’ll use this position because I like it the best, but different guitars actually sound better with the mic positioned dead-center.
Once I decide what mic position I’ll use, then I’ll record the track.
Once I’m finished, it’s time to apply EQ, filters and modulation effects. I like to use a hi-pass filter on most recordings with Champ to “tame” its natural edginess.
Here are some clips that I put together based upon the process above (I skipped recording head-on, off center):
Clean (Squier Classic Vibe Tele 50’s)
1. Mic head-on, dead-center
2. Mic angled along speaker cone, 1″ off the grille cloth.
Recording #2 with Graphic EQ, Chorus, Parametric EQ, Delay, Reverb, and Hi-pass filter applied
Overdriven with Tube Screamer for Extra Drive (Gibson Nighthawk 2009)
1. Mic head-on, dead-center
2. Mic angled along speaker cone, 1″ off the grille cloth.
Recording #2 with Graphic EQ, Flange, Delay, Reverb, and Hi-pass filter applied
It’s amazing what EQ, filters and effects can do to the recording! And it really didn’t take that much work to dial in the final version of what I wanted to ultimately print!
Finally, here’s a song I wrote and record awhile back (sorry for the over-abundance of bass). If I remember correctly, I used four guitars in six parts in that song (Epiphone Explorer, Gibson ES-335, MIM Strat, PRS SE Soapbar II), all recorded with the Champ – and with the stock speaker no less!
I had my weekly church gig yesterday. It was storming REALLY badly beforehand, and the thought of lugging my regular rig in the rain was just not appealing to me. It usually consists of my pedal board, a couple of guitars, an amp, a 1 X 12, cab, an attenuator, and a gig bag for cords and tools for spot emergency repairs (never leave home without some tools – I even have a soldering iron because you never know…). With all the rain, I just did not want to do that, so I opted for a solution where I could just make one trip, and that meant leaving my attenuator, pedal board, and main amp – an Aracom VRX22 – at home. I also wanted to keep things as light as possible, so I wouldn’t have to use my portable hand cart.
So I decided to use my little Fender Champ 600 and my 1 X 12 cab (because the Champ just doesn’t have enough bottom-end). The thing about the Champ is that you have to crank it up all the way to get some decent breakup, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but in a church environment, that could be problematic as even 5 Watts through a 1 X 12 can be loud. So my solution to get some grind? I took the dust off my old TS-808 Tube Screamer, threw it in my gig bag, grabbed my Tele, and went to church!
I have to say that that was one of the most enjoyable sets I had played in awhile. I hadn’t used the TubeScreamer in a LONG time, and I mainly used it yesterday because I didn’t want to “peel” an OD off my board. But I had forgotten just how good a pedal the classic TS sound; that is, if you use it right.
So I have a big admission to make: I’m not sure if I had ever really used the Tube Screamer to its full potential before I replaced it. I loved its tone, but could never get the drive that I wanted with it. So yesterday, knowing that I was playing the Champ, which is all about clean headroom, I cranked the Overdrive knob on the TS, and set the level to just over unity gain, with my guitar volume a little past halfway.
Cranking the Overdrive knob made the Tube Screamer absolutely come alive! To me at least, it has a tasty, mid-rangy tone, and turned up as high as I had it, added tons of sustain that amazingly enough didn’t muddy up my tone. There was just a touch of compression as well. But the best thing about it was that the TS was very responsive to volume knob and pick attack at that higher gain setting. Rolling off my volume cleaned up my signal immensely, and when I’d dig in, I’d get some subtle grind; perfect for playing rhythm. During lead breaks, I’d throw my Tele into the bridge pickup, crank my guitar’s volume, and I’d get a singing lead tone!
Granted, I’ve got some fantastic drive pedals on my board right now that I’d be hard-pressed to remove. But I’ll always have my Tube Screamer for those times when I just want to keep things simple. 🙂
Here’s a clip that I recorded this evening with the Champ 600 and the Tube Screamer. Both rhythm and lead parts were recorded with the Tube Screamer’s Overdrive maxed, and the level set to unity gain, and the Tone knob set to about 3pm – close to max. The rhythm part was finger-picked with my Tele in the neck position, while the lead was played in the middle position. I added just a touch of reverb to each part to smooth out the tones. They can be quite bright on the Champ 600.
Admittedly, the Tube Screamer’s mid-rangy tone isn’t for everyone. But I love it, and the sustain that it adds really does it for me.
With regards to my Champ, for a $149 amp, it really kicks some ass! I didn’t particularly like the tubes that were originally in it, so I tried several. My latest combination is a NOS ’59 GE 12AX7 and a NOS ’53 GE 6V6. That combination works great with the amp. I highly recommend getting some good NOS tubes to put in that amp if you endeavor to buy one. For under $50 you can get those tubes. My 6V6 was a “good pull” that I got for $15! The pre-amp tube cost $30. Totally worth it!
This is a hotly debated topic, and there are great arguments for or against using one. I’m of the former group and have used attenuators to great success over the years. To demonstrate how useful an attenuator can be, I put together a quick video. Here you go:
I wanted to be as non-technical about the usage of an attenuator because there are so many attenuator designs on the market. So I kept this video at a fairly high level. I’ll get into more detail in the next video when I discuss the Aracom PRX150-Pro.
Yup, you guessed it… yet another overdrive pedal. I came across this pedal while perusing the forums over at Mark Wein Guitar Lessons. Mark occasionally posts “Pedal of the Day” entries, and this was his latest. I know, lots of people complain about “yet another OD pedal.” But if you stop to think about it, there’s probably a great reason why there are so many OD’s on the market. What comes to mind for me is that no one overdrive can cover everything. Let’s face it, a Tube Screamer or TS-like OD can only take you so far tonally.
Don’t get me wrong: Not all OD’s are created equally. Admittedly, there’s lots of crap out there, which is a fallout of the boutique gear movement. I’ve suspected several boutique gear “manufacturers” of simply building gear based on kits, putting a nice paint job on them, then selling the pedal for hundreds of dollars; which is why I’ve always stressed to folks – try before you buy!
The LovePedal Kalamazoo is no exception to this rule. While it has some very cool features (I’ll list them below), you really never know how a pedal will work with your rig until you put it in your chain. But despite that, I’m really intrigued by LovePedal’s twist on the overdrive with the Kalamazoo.
So what’s to like? As you can see, there are two little knobs called Tone and Glass under the common Level and Drive knobs. I believe this is where the magic of the pedal lies. Tone is a treble content roll-off, while glass is a treble booster that doesn’t affect the lows. These are wired in series, so they interact with each other. From what I could gather from the demo from ProGuitarShops I’ve seen, these two knobs offer up a world of tonal possibilities.
Another thing that appeals to me is that I prefer a more “open” kind of overdrive to let my power tubes do the compression. To me, it sounds more natural that way. The Kalamazoo was designed to create an “open” type overdrive tone. With it, you can slam the front-end of your amp, and make that gain push the power tubes into compression.
And from what I could gather, the Kalamazoo is VERY responsive to input gain, which is demonstrated in the ProGuitarShops video.
Here are the pedal’s features (from the Love Pedal site):
9VDC Input
True Bypass LED Status
Compact Die cast Aluminum Case 4.37″ X 2.37″ X 1.07″
Controls:
DRIVE – Sets the amount of overdrive
LEVEL – Master volume control
TONE – Softens the treble content
GLASS – Increases treble without cutting bass response
STOMPSWITCH – Turns effect ON or OFF
Cost: $199
To top it off, the pedal has a mirror finish! I really dig that! My Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 booster has a mirror finish as well. Sweet! And at $199, this is a pedal that will not break the bank!
In my First Impressions article on the VOX Big Bad Wah, a reader commented that “I think this looks like the one Vox Satch pedal that they got right.” After playing with it for the last couple of days, I heartily agree. With both the voice, UK/US inductor and wah mode switches, the Big Bad Wah opens up a ton of possibilities with respect wah tone. So far, I’ve been happy as a clam with the Wah I mode and the US-style inductor (Voice and Drive don’t become active until you activate Wah II). I’ve been playing with Wah II a bit, and it really kicks butt. I dig the Drive knob that adds up to a 10dB clean boost, so you can get a nice gain boost for solos. I still have more experimentation to do, but so far so GREAT!
Having a really great wah pedal makes all the difference in the world to me. I used my Original Cry Baby only sparingly because it was so quirky, and because it was a bit noisy – even when disengaged – I sort of refused to use it on recordings. Well, with the Big Bad Wah, that’s going to change. The sweep on this pedal is perfect. It’s nice and even, which makes it incredibly controllable. It is really a joy to play.
In any case, here’s a clip that I made this morning. It’s a little minor jazz-blues tune. With this clip I wanted to feature Wah II with the darker, more “vowelly” voicing. No boost in this because I didn’t want the amp to break more. Signal chain is: Squier CV Tele –> Big Bad Wah –> Boss CE-2 Chorus –> VOX Time Machine Delay (for a little slap-back). BTW, the Big Bad Wah really plays nice with other pedals. I’ll have some other clips when I do my full review of it. But for now, here’s the current clip:
I was perusing the Gear Page this morning and came across an interesting post where someone shared that they didn’t understand why there was so much activity in the pedals forum as opposed to the amp forum. Several people responded with different reasons, but it brought to light an interesting turn to the conversation regarding the debate between using pedals and not using pedals.
There are many people that I know or know of that use no pedals, save a tuner. On the other hand, I know and know of lots of players who use lots of pedals. Some of these folks have very strong convictions on the use or non-use of pedals. But I think Doug Doppler, guitarist extraordinaire, Mr. Guitar Hero (yeah kids, Doug tracked for the game “GUITAR HERO Encore Rocks the 80’s”), and author of the DVD series “Get Killer Tone,” said it best in the thread when he replied, “I personally feel that too many of the players I encounter (myself included) just get caught up in what gear/style of set-up they’re using and their gear radar gets a little short ranged in the process. Seeing Kenny Wayne Shepherd at the Experience Hendrix show really reminded me about how the marriage of the right guitar, pedals and amps can just create an outstanding tone.”
Doug made an excellent point. It’s easy to fall into a trap where you get this sense of proprietorship, and form convictions so strong that it’s difficult to consider anything outside of what you’ve defined as the “right” combination of equipment. Doug should know. His house is absolutely crammed with gear on loan from manufacturers, and he puts them all to the test, demonstrating various combinations of the equipment in his DVD set. According to a close friend who has been to his house (I hope to get there very soon for an interview), Doug has so much gear that you have to watch your step! Talk about being a kid in a candy store!
In any case, to drive home the point, your tone and the gear that creates your tone is purely personal. It’s fine to recommend gear (hey! I do it here), but in the end, there’s no right or wrong. There’s only what YOU hear and what pleases YOU, and in turn, what music you make with it. Rock on!
The one thing about pedals is that eventually, they wear out; especially pedals that have moving parts like a wah. It may take years, but they do wear out. It’s a fact of life.
My Dunlop Cry Baby has been on the fritz on and off for the past few months. Not wanting to take the time to replace it, and considering that it is easy to clean and adjust, I’ve occasioned to just do a DIY job on it and get it working again. No problem. But I finally just got tired of doing that, and decided to look at a new one.
About a year and a half ago, I evaluated several wah pedals but finally just went with a used Original Cry Baby, figuring it would tide me over for my wah needs. It certainly served me well, and I got a lot of mileage out of it. At the time of my original search though, the VOX Big Bad Wah hadn’t come out, so I really couldn’t consider it. But time went on, and I completely forgot about it until I saw the announcement for the new VOX Ice 9 overdrive pedal. Then suddenly, a light went off in my head, and I just nodded to myself, “That’s right. Joe helped design a wah pedal.”
So I did a bit more research, and saw an excellent video on YouTube with Joe discussing the idea behind the Big Bad Wah, and I knew I had to try it. So I immediately hopped into the car and went down to my local Guitar Center to try it out. I spent about an hour in the GC isolation room playing around with the different settings, and I have to say that Satch and VOX really did well putting their heads together on this wah pedal.
One thing that struck me before I played it was a comment that Joe had made in the video and how he described how Jimi Hendrix used a wah-wah pedal as an “extension of the music,” and the notes that were being played, and not something that was merely a rhythmic effect within an ensemble. That really spoke to me because even though I couldn’t hope to have their chops, I’ve always looked at the wah pedal in that light. So it was with great hope that when I did play it, I could use it in that way.
To make a long story short, the Big Bad Wah (“BBW”) lived up to my expectations and even more! I was thoroughly impressed! The sweep is perfect on this pedal, and unlike other wah pedals I’ve tested, doesn’t have a “breaking point” where the wah effect comes on suddenly. It’s nice and gradual. The total physical sweep of the pedal was also well-though out. It’s wide enough so you can add subtle portions of the effect in, but not so wide that you have to travel a lot to create a dramatic wah effect.
The one thing that used to irk me with my Cry Baby was how it would sound REALLY thin when I got to its full extent. Not so with the BBW. It gets trebly at the top, yes, but not so much that it’ll shatter glass, which means that in the middle of a lead, you can peg the pedal and get some great trebly voicing! On the other end of the spectrum, the lowest setting didn’t put a complete muzzle on my tone. It’s more of a compression effect, with a bleeding off of the highs. That means that your notes still stay fairly clear. Very cool!
Another thing that got me diggin’ the pedal was the different voicings. It has two: Vintage and Modern. The Vintage is a classic VOX wah tone, while the Modern includes the Vintage voice and adds a 10 db boost which is controllable via a Drive knob. Not only that, the Big Bad Wah also has an inductor switch that allows you to choose between a classic UK type of inductor, or a more modern USA type of inductor. The tone shaping possibilities with the BBW are immense!
Needless to say, I walked out of the store with the pedal. 🙂 Once I got a chance, I got a backing track going from one of my songs called, “In the Vibe,” and recorded a quick clip. I realize that I could probably have been a bit more dramatic with the wah effect in certain places, but I’m still getting used to the sweep. I’ll have better clips once I do a full review. In any case, give it a listen.
Also here’s the video I was talking about earlier:
Debuted at Musikmesse 2010, the Ice 9 is the newest member of the VOX Joe Satriani line of pedals, named after a song with the same title on Joe’s “Surfin’ with the Alien” album. While it uses the same box and layout as the Satchurator, this is a completely different animal. The Satchurator is a distortion box, while the Ice 9 is an overdrive. Okay… so it’s yet another overdrive pedal entry into the already – excuse the pun – saturated overdrive pedal market. But the Ice 9 has some interesting features that are worth noting.
First of all, it has a Vintage/Modern switch. This switch provides different overdrive voicings. According to VOX, the Vintage circuitry models the classic Tube Screamer tones, while the Modern circuitry adds a bit more top-end bit and a bit of compression. In addition to the Vintage/Modern switch, the Ice 9 features a Bass knob for dialing in more bass response; perfect for getting really scooped, modern drive tones. Finally, like the Satchurator, the Ice 9 has the JS line’s signature “More” toggle, which adds a 10dB clean boost when engaged.
Pretty cool features, IMO. The Ice 9 is slated to be shipped in June. I don’t have any pricing information on it yet, but I don’t doubt that it’ll be reasonably priced if the rest of the JS line is any indication. Here are a some videos:
Some people may scoff at the diminutive Fender Champ 600. After all, it’s only 5 Watts and has a tiny 6″ speaker. But those naysayers may be missing the point about the Champ or any super-low wattage speaker for that matter. It’s not meant to be a performance amp; though you can certainly hook it up to an extension cabinet, and it’ll do just fine in a small venue – hey! I do that A LOT. But the secret behind the beauty of this little $149 wonder isn’t on the stage, it’s in the studio.
Guitar Gear 