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Artist Profile: Doug Doppler, Guitar Hero Extraordinaire

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

Nestled in the hills in a small town east of the San Francisco bay lies the house of Doug Doppler, a man so unassuming and humble and possessed of such a warm heart that it’s easy to forget that he is just about one of the greatest guitar talents in the world. Last Tuesday, April 27, my close friend, Jeff Aragaki and I had the privilege to spend the day with Doug at his house for a behind-the-scenes look into the making of his upcoming DVD series, “Get Killer Tone.”

This meeting came about because Jeff lent Doug his incredible Aracom PRX150-Pro attenuator so Doug could use it on “Get Killer Tone” (I’ll have a video regarding this coming soon). Doug has since purchased the unit because in his words, “It’s saving my ears!” And taking advantage of Jeff’s relationship with him, I threw out the idea of getting a behind-the-scenes look at Doug’s process of creating the series; something Doug excitedly agreed to, much to my delight.

And a delight it was! My initial thought about the meeting would be that I’d just do a simple video interview with him that wouldn’t take more than an hour or so. But that hour turned into another hour, then another hour, then another hour, to the point where my video camera ran out of juice! Luckily I had brought my AC adapter! Needless to say, Doug had a lot to say, but it wasn’t at some condescending, “I do this and that, and look Ma! See how well I can play” level. What Jeff and I were treated to was a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse into the life of a musician who graced us with his passion, knowledge, and wisdom. All in all, we spent almost six hours with Doug, and honestly, I’ve had to let that experience sink in for a couple of days before I wrote anything about it.

It’s a given that Doug is simply an incredible talent on the guitar. That man can shred like there’s no tomorrow, but he can also play tons of different styles, and in his various demonstrations, he switched in and out of styles both seamlessly and effortlessly. I could go on all day about that, but frankly, that’s not what impressed me the most. What had the biggest impact on me was who Doug is as a person.

If I were to distill down my various observations of Doug to a single word, that word would be “genuine.” Doug is genuine about pretty much everything, and never in all the time we spent with him did I detect even the slightest air of falseness. When you spend time with Doug, it really is WYSIWYG!

Doug is also a very deep and passionate man, and he’s not embarrassed to share his philosophical or even moral views on various subjects; and it came through in our conversations. Even on the simplest subjects, Doug imparted a depth that went far beyond just surface chit-chat. This isn’t just some “Yo dude! Look what I can play” musician who leaves it at that. Doug is a deep thinker, and when you watch and listen to him play, he’s not someone who’s going to just do a bunch of “linked licks.” There’s real depth to the phrases he plays which is in turn a reflection of his personality; in other words, with Doug, there’s always more than meets the eye, and I mean that in a good way!

Doug’s enthusiasm about everything is contagious, and combined with his natural warmth and friendliness makes it easy to rap about anything; and he undoubtedly falls into the someone-you’d-love-to-hate-but-can’t-because-they’re-so-nice category because he’s such a nice guy that easily draws you in. He talks a million miles per hour, but it’s so incredibly engaging, you never get tired of talking with him.

As a guitar player, what can I say? It’s no accident that he was chosen to track the Guitar Hero game. His technique is absolutely incredible, and he weaves in and out of styles of playing seamlessly. Just watching him play was incredible! But the interesting thing is that he just did it. No pretentiousness, no attitude of having to prove anything. Doug’s confident about his playing without being condescending. Yeah, he’s a self-professed shredder, but after watching and listening to him play for a couple of hours, there’s not much he can’t play.

If you ever get a chance to see him (he does clinics for Ibanez and will be doing stuff for Orange as well), don’t hesitate to speak with him personally. Like me, you’ll find out just how great a guy he is! I’m very honored to have been able to spend so much time with him!

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Gear Review Video: Hercules Mini Guitar Stand

Posted in accessories, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar accessories, guitar gear, guitar gear reviews, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 17, 2010| 2 Comments »

Wow! I didn’t realize how fun doing videos would be! Expect to see more video reviews in the future! In any case, here are some key points:

Tone Bone Rating 5.0
Notes I LOVE this stand! I’m going to get a couple more! Very well built and lightweight, it’s a perfect stand not just for the stage, but also in the studio where its small footprint won’t take up much space!
Price $34.95
Pros Very easy to fold up and lug around
Cons May not work for bass – it works for mine, but fat basses may not fit (this is not really a negative, just a warning)

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New Gear: Earthquaker Devices Zap Machine Fuzz

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

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:

As I mentioned, it’s only available through Fat Tone Guitars, and this is a limited edition pedal, so get ’em while they’re hot! 🙂

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Thinking Small: On Tweaking

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

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.

So to recap the lessons learned:

  1. Aim small, miss small.
  2. Get the low-hanging fruit first.

ROCK ON!!!

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Revisiting the Tube Screamer

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2010| 5 Comments »

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!

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What’s the point of using an attenuator?

Posted in amplifiers, amps, aracom amps, attenuator, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar attenuators, guitar gear, guitar gear reviews, guitar tone, instruction, Music, musicians, PRX150-Pro, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2010| 6 Comments »

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.

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New Gear: Love Pedal Kalamazoo

Posted in GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, gear reviews, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, overdrive, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

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!

Here’s LovePedal’s Intro Video:

And here’s ProGuitarShop’s Demo:

For more information, visit the LovePedal site!

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A Great Wah Makes All The Difference…

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2010| 4 Comments »

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:

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Pedals Anyone?

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

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!

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First Impressions: VOX Big Bad Wah

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2010| 8 Comments »

VOX Big Bad WahThe 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:

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