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Posts Tagged ‘gig report’

Gig Report 2: Simon & Patrick PRO Acoustic and Seymour Duncan SA-6 MagMic

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , on February 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Since I haven’t written on this blog very often for the last couple of years, I haven’t shared much about where I’ve been playing. Well, after about a 2 1/2 year hiatus from playing music in church, I decided to go back to doing a weekly church gig again. But this time, it’s at another church, and I’m happier than ever. It’s like making a fresh start, and that’s a GREAT thing.

So it was with a bit of nervous anticipation bringing my new acoustic-electric setup to church yesterday. It sounded fine at my restaurant gig, plugged into a board. But the real test was going be using it in the church where I’d plug it into my SWR Calfornia Blonde, then out to the board. With this setup, I run it through a small board that has Chorus, Delay, and Reverb, then into the amp, then out to the board. My big concern was maintaining the natural character of the guitar. Some guitars when plugged into an amp, sound a bit funky.

But all my concerns were laid to rest from the very first strum. I had the same visceral reaction I had on Friday, but it was even more intense this time because I was right next to the amp. The sound was absolutely sweet! Even my bandmates just smiled and said how good the guitar sounded, and one commented that he could tell how well-seasoned the wood was as the guitar just resonated. I have to say that with the guitar being almost 30 years old, it has a very special character due to its age. It reminds me of how my very first Yamaha FG-335’s wood aged so nicely. Before it had its accident and its neck snapped off the body, it had developed a gorgeous, woody tone.

The tone of my S&P PRO is deep, but with shimmery highs. But that wood not only projects the sound incredibly, it resonates. I can actually feel the vibration in the body – even with finger-picked notes. It’s pretty incredible.

Then to have it amplified with a great pickup like the MagMic, well, it’s a match made in and for Heaven. I’m the type of musician that needs to feel what I’m playing. It’s the emotion that comes from my guitar that inspires me. When I don’t feel I sound that good, it’s hard to get inspired. But when I’m playing something whose sound shoots to the core of my being, I become one with the sound. It’s hard to explain… And that was exactly what happened yesterday. I was completely lost in the sound of my guitar. 🙂

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Gig Report: Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 18

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on March 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Before I get into the actual report, before getting the TubeMeister 18, I never thought I would review a Hughes & Kettner amplifier, let alone own one. To me, they always seemed to be more Prog and NuMetal machines. But once I got mine — and I have to admit I bought it off my friend based upon the DI feature, and about ten minutes of test time — I haven’t been able to stop playing it.

Then looking at the H&K artists page on their site, the fact that one of my all-time favorite guitarists, Davey Johnstone, plays a Hughes & Kettner completely reinforced my decision to hold onto my new amp; admittedly, in the back of my mind I was thinking that if I didn’t like it, I could always flip it.

Based upon the silent recordings I’ve done with the amp thus far, I knew I was going to hold on to it at least for a little while while I write new material that has suddenly made its way into my creative consciousness. But after playing with the amp at a gig yesterday, I’m going to be holding onto this amp for a long time.

Yesterday’s gig was just a simple trio as the “opener” for a memorial ceremony. A former bandmate asked the other members if we’d play the gig. A couple of us could do it, so we got together before the ceremony, picked a list of songs, then the gig was basically a jam session as we were to only play instrumentally. For the gig, I brought my Slash L “Katie May” which was plugged directly into the TubeMeister, which went out to a 1 X 12 with a Jensen Jet Falcon speaker.

Clean or dirty, the TubeMeister just sang. But what was impressive with the lead channel, was the smooth distortion that the amp produces. I’ve been so used to Marshall-style break-up that tends to be open, in-your-face, and super mid-rangy. But the voicing of this amp is such that the tones are a bit deeper, so that distortion is super smooth. Then add the amazing sag and sustain of the amp (and apparently what H&K amps are known for) on top of that, and that’s simply a recipe for inspiration.

It didn’t hurt that I was playing with close close friends with whom I’d played music for over twenty years. We’ve learned to play off each other and it’s very natural, and we all take on our roles automatically. When you have that level of comfort with playing partners, it just frees your mind to be creative.

Probably the most amusing song we did was an instrumental version of “Crazy.” I started playing the lead clean, but after the first go-’round, I switched to the lead channel. I had set up the amp so there’d be very little volume change between the clean and lead channels, and set up my guitar so I could vary the amount of distortion using my volume knob. Then getting out of the blues mode, I went into major-scale, legato runs, and turned the song into a bit of a metal, prog version that made all of us laugh while we were playing. After the song, we laughed out loud, and I said that I couldn’t believe how expressive the amp it.

My mates also remarked how incredible that amp sounded, and I told them, “I daresay that this amp sounds so good, it rivals my beloved Aracom amps.” Mind you, it’s a completely different sound than the vintage-Marshall, snarling dog sound that I love. But this smooth sound is absolutely incredible to me as well.

Needless to say, it’s a keeper!

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Gig Report: Aracom DRX Power Attenuator

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , on December 17, 2013| 1 Comment »

DualRoxI’ve been using an Aracom DRX attenuator in the studio for the past couple of weeks and I have been absolutely blown away by its ability to tame my volume just as well as my now-retired PRX150-Pro. But this past Friday, Jeff delivered my own DRX that I had him build based upon my tests, and I just had to gig with it to try it out in a live-audience situation.

I do have to admit that the DRX is a little less convenient than the PRX150-Pro in that I have to hook up a couple of more things: The foot switch and power supply (for the footswitch). But that inconvenience becomes negligible when the DRX is in action!

First of all, the boost feature is an absolute god-send! With all other attenuators – and this includes my venerable PRX150-Pro – once you hit the volume limit, that’s it. You can’t go louder. But with the DRX, that’s no longer an issue. It was great to use this feature to boost my volume when I was doing leads and not have to worry if I had hit the limit (or set up my volume so that I stayed under the limit). With the boost feature, which is essentially an attenuation reducer, I can add a few or maybe even several dB of volume with the flick of a switch. It’s absolutely amazing!

But it doesn’t stop there. The Variable Dynamic Control, which varies the reactance between the attenuator and speaker, helps dial in my tone so I have the right amount of highs. While not an EQ, the VDC adjusts the reactance and acts like a very subtle high-cut filter. Fully right is full reactance, and as you move through the next four positions, the reactance is slightly reduced, resulting in more highs being cut. For my particular setup of an R8 Les Paul through my Aracom VRX18, I felt that the sound was just a tad bright, so I went down one position on the VDC, and my world was absolutely right. My tone was still bright and had plenty of bite, but not so bright that it was like icepicks in my ears.

For purely clean work, I completely defeated the attenuation, which was possible from the front panel. On previous versions, the bypass was on the back, and in tight spaces, wasn’t practical to reach around. But with it on the front panel, defeating the attenuation is a simple matter of turning a dial.

All in all, everything about this attenuator is a huge improvement over earlier generations of attenuators; Aracom and others. It comes at a premium, but we spend thousands upon thousand of dollars on guitars, amps and pedals, so I see no problem justifying the cost of this unit. It makes it possible for me to play an overdriven amp in ANY venue. Yeah, yeah, you can argue all you want that you can do the same with a clean amp and overdrive pedals. But diode or a even tube overdrive pedal will never be the same as the overdrive from a cranked amp.

To say I’m happy with this latest acquisition is an understatement. For the last few years, I played the best attenuator on the market. But it pales in comparison to what the DRX brings to the table. The funny thing though is that unlike other gear that makes a sound, this doesn’t produce any sound, so it’s difficult to put into words what it actually can do beyond helping me control my volume. But it controls volume better than anything else on the market, and provides versatility that none other can. And as far as “transparency” goes, well, arguments abound, but with the Aracom attenuation technology, you can rest assured that the tone and the dynamics that you expect from your gear won’t be lost. I can’t say that about any other attenuator I’ve tested.

This is the real deal, folks, and this is the future of attenuation!

For more information, check out the DRX product page!

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Gig Report: TC Helicon VoiceLive Play GTX

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on August 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Can you say Yowza?!!!

This is going to be a quick report, but all I have to say is that I’m totally sold on the VoiceLive Play GTX! I used it last night at my weekly restaurant gig where I play on the front patio of the restaurant in a rather expansive breezeway. The sound was incredible!

First of all, it was an absolute snap to set up, and a HUGE plus was the dual mono output setting that allowed me to have independent control over vocals and guitar. That was always an issue with my DigiTech Vocalist Live 4 when using it alone. Getting the right volume balance was always an issue, so I invariably had to run out of the guitar thru into the PA to control my guitar volume.

Even with light compression, my sound projected out and filled the space. It “felt” so much fuller and richer than with my old DigiTech Vocalist Live 4. I still have to tweak the presets’ reverb amounts a bit (they’re a little low for my liking), but I’m at a good starting point.

As far as the guitar processing was concerned, it’s good, and more importantly, good enough to use without having to run out to a pedal board. I’ll still probably run out to pedal board anyway, but there’s really nothing to complain about with the guitar sounds.

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Gig Report: DV Mark Little 40 L34

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , on February 26, 2012| 9 Comments »

Had a great time with the Little 40 this evening at my weekly church gig. I set the amp to full clean-headroom on the Continuous Power Control, cranked the master, then set the gain to a little before the edge of breakup so that a normal, light strum would still be fairly clean with the volume knobs on my R8 both set to halfway. Of course, at that setting, I had to use my attenuator because while it would work just fine in a club, it would be way too loud for church. But that’s okay because the amp retained all of its dynamics and tone.

Also, with the way I set up the amp, I could strum lightly or play fingerstyle and be clean, then get a nice overdrive by digging into the strings a bit. Then I could get into overdrive completely by rolling on either of the volume knobs on my guitar. Then for leads, I used a footswitch to activate the boost which saturates the power tubes by hitting the amp with 10dB of gain. Like my Aracom amps (and vintage Marshalls, for that matter), when the power tubes saturate, lots of sonic goodness occurs. The signal compresses – with the Little 40, it’s not too much, but the sound definitely “feels” a bit beefier – but more importantly, you get very nice sustain and these subtle harmonics and overtones get added into the signal that are total ear candy!

Once I set up the amp, I didn’t have to do any tweaking. My guitar was my control center, which is how I like it. But it does require that an amp be extremely responsive to dynamics, both from a playing perspective and from volume knob adjustments. It delivered all that in spades!

Here’s another extremely important tidbit that I hadn’t mentioned yet: The amp weighs just under 16 pounds! Dammit! That’s lighter than my attenuator! This is something that Marco De Virgiliis (DV Mark’s designer/owner) is known for in the bass world. For instance, my bassist uses a Mark Bass Little Mark II as his go-to bass amp head. That amp produces BIG sound, and it weighs less than 6 1/2 pounds! The Little 40 and its smaller and larger brethren follow the same pattern.

To top all that off, the amp looked so damn cool as DV Mark installed orange LEDs on the board that you can see through the amp grille-work. I tend to be fairly utilitarian about gear, not really putting too much stock on looks, but not only does this amp sound and play killer, it looks great on stage!

And speaking of stage, I actually did two gigs with the Little 40 today. The first gig was a mother-daughter church service at a local high school. Since there were lots of people attending, the service was held in the performing arts center, so I was up on stage. Before the gig, I had to run home really quick to pick up some sheet music that I left in my printer. When I returned, I looked at the amp on stage from the back of the theatre, and just smiled when I saw the extremely cool orange glow emanating from the amp. It was TOTALLY SICK!!! For that gig, I played all clean: Max headroom, Master full-on, then Gain set to pretty low. I controlled volume with my Gretsch’s master volume. The difference with that gig was that since we were doing a few different styles of songs, I adjusted the EQ to fit the songs. This is yet another area where the amp shines. You can dial up all sorts of different tones with the very-usable EQ! Nice!

Finally, if you happen to do some research on the Little 40 or other DV Mark amps, you’ll notice that it has just a single pre-amp tube (ECC83), which indicates that there are  solid state components in the amp. There are. You can see them; plus everything’s mounted on a PCB board. But who the f$%k cares when the amp sounds this good and performs so well? Besides, he does list the other ECC83 in the power section – which I totally missed at first. The important thing to note is that while there are solid state components being used, the important parts involved in the amplification are valves.

But solid state components? I know, we all suffer from cork-sniffing; especially with tube amps. But I’ve gotten over it. As JKeith Urban’s guitar tech said in an interview, “If it sounds cool, then it is right…” Especially with the DV Mark Little 40, I’m getting the level of performance and sound quality that I get out of my Aracom Amps, and like my Aracom gear, I paid less than half the price for the features I got with the amp compared to other boutique gear manufacturers’ wares. The Little 40 retails at $799.

So what about my Aracom Amps? Well, I will definitely still be using them. The DV Mark has a completely different tone than my Aracoms, which are based upon vintage Marshall amps; specifically the Plexi style, Blues Breaker amps. While I most probably will use the DV Mark the most on stage because of its flexibility, my other amps will still get lots of use in the studio, though the VRX22 will also get lots of stage time because it too is extremely flexible. As for the other amps, no other amp does creamy-smooth overdrive like my PLX18. When I need high-end bite, which I like to have for funky rhythm lines, I can’t think of any better amp to give me this than my VRX18. And thus far, none of these amps is collecting any dust as I’ve been using them all this past week to complete the demos for my new album.

Damn! It just occurred to me that I’m really trying to justify why I have all this freakin’ gear… 🙂 Or maybe I’m just rehearsing what I’ll be saying next to the wife when she queries me about my gear. Ha! ROCK ON!

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Gig Report: TC Electronic Corona Chorus

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I took the Corona to my weekly solo acoustic gig last night to give it a gig test. From the moment I started playing it, I was in love with this pedal! I actually got to my gig a little early so I could play around with the settings and find a “standard” setting that I could use. My thought behind this was that the pedal would just stay on all the time, except for specific songs that I just want my raw guitar sound.

My standard setting was Speed at 11am, Depth between 12 and 1, FX Level at just past noon, and Tone right in the middle. This produced a super smooth, lush, liquid, and sensual tone that also added a three-dimensional quality. It was total ear candy!!! Not only that, I was using no other processing, doing straight into the restaurant’s board and relying on the high ceiling to get my reverb. The result was absolutely stupendous!

I used the “standard” setting for the songs I play fingerstyle, which is most of the time. For songs where I was strumming, I backed the depth to noon. It’s a very subtle change, but an important one, as any chorus can muddy up your tone when you’re doing fast strums. I do this with all my chorus pedals. But the interesting thing with the Corona is that when I wanted to do any kind of adjustment, I didn’t have to move the knobs nearly as much as I would with other pedals. With the Corona, all the controls are interlinked, so it only takes minute adjustments to affect the overall tone. This is totally cool!

I didn’t use the TonePrint or TriChorus modes at all last night. I just didn’t feel a need to use them. As I mentioned in my review of the pedal yesterday, if the Corona only had the standard chorus mode, I’d still buy it. It sounds that good! I could get super-subtle chorus tones to gorgeous, liquid tones ala Andy Summers with this mode. In fact, I played “Every Breath You Take” last night, and just loved the chorus sound that the Corona produced for that.

Finally, a question I asked myself last night was: With how much I love the Corona, will it possibly replace my beloved Boss CE-2? Probably not. Not because the CE-2 is a better chorus, but simply because it has a distinctive tone that no other chorus I’ve every played can cop. Besides, I also like the slight gain boost that the CE-2 gives me when engaged. For bluesy stuff, that gain boost actually comes in handy. But for general chorus duties, I’ve found my go-to chorus pedal. This thing absolutely RAWKS!!!

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Gig Report: BOSS RV-5

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 20, 2010| 7 Comments »

What? No formal review? Well, being that the pedal is less than 24 hours old, and I gigged with it before doing a full review, I thought that I’d share how it performed first before giving it a rating.

First the back story…

I do a solo acoustic gig at  local restaurant every Friday. Rig-wise, my rig has been very simple: An acoustic/electric and a DigiTech Vocalist Live 4. I’ve brought amps in the past, but usually err on the side of convenience to keep things as simple as possible. The Vocalist Live has worked fine for several years, and it’s easy to hook up to the PA and go. Unfortunately, it’s showing its age and wear and tear from using it so much (I do at least two gigs a week where I use it). Lately, the guitar input has been crackling a little, so I’ve had to use the “Thru” jack to go out to the PA. That’s not a problem, but typically a raw signal into a PA can be a bit muddy and harshly so.

So yesterday, knowing that I would have to go direct to the PA, I went down to my local music store and got a great passive DI box from Radial Engineering called the “ProDI.” I’ll have a review of that in a bit. But since the PA at the restaurant doesn’t have any effect inserts or a loop, I decided to get a reverb pedal specifically for this gig. Enter the RV-5

BOSS may be considered a bit too mainstream for most people’s tastes, but I have to hand it to them. They’ve created some wonderful pedals in the past that have served to define certain tonal genres; for instance, the CE-2 Chorus. Now, I’m not saying the RV-5 is a standard by any stretch of the imagination. But considering how long BOSS (Roland) has been around, they do know how to get some great sounds. And the fact that almost everything they make is pretty affordable, that’s not a bad thing at all!

Add to the fact that BOSS pedals seem to last forever, and that is a testament to their build quality. My thought is that BOSS has always been able to produce “giggable” tones at a great price that may not be absolutely perfect or the ideal I may be after with a particular tone, but they’re well-built, reliable, and I can get my tones “close enough” so that most folks would never notice. Hell! I had my all-digital CE-5 on my board for years, and no one was the wiser (though, of course, it’s no match to the liquid, smooth tones of the CE-2).

I wasn’t expecting much out of the RV-5. After all, despite BOSS’s longevity in the marketplace, most of their new stuff is simply okay. But when I auditioned the pedal at the shop, going through a PA system, I was really impressed with its tone – especially with the “Plate” setting, which provides a nice, warm and snappy reverb that’s ideal for acoustic guitar. I didn’t play too much with the other reverb settings at the time, but I was really pleased with the Plate just the same. On that voicing alone, I knew I had a winner for my gig yesterday.

The other thing that REALLY stuck out for me was that the RV-5 is dead quiet. No errant hiss or artifacts at all, and that is a real delight, not having to deal with line noise.

So last night, I ran my guitar into the Vocalist Live, went out the “Thru” jack, into the RV-5, into the Radial ProDI, then straight into the board. I was crossing my fingers that it would work, and it work it did! I was pleasantly surprised about how transparent the pedal was! My Stratacoustic Deluxe has this quirky, but pleasing jangle from the Tele lipstick pickup in the neck that I absolutely love, and I was actually concerned that I’d lose that with the RV-5. But my concerns were all waylaid as that jangle was retained.

What I discovered through tweaking the pedal last night was that I actually like the “Hall” setting quite a bit, and switched back and forth between “Plate” and “Hall” all night. I really didn’t get into the “Spring” setting that much, and frankly, I’ve never really liked digitally modeled spring reverbs – even the Lexicon spring that’s on my Hardwire RV-7. But that’s just a nit. It’s not bad, but it’s not really my cup of tea. I tend to like a more spacious-sounding reverb.

So all in all, I really dig the Boss RV-5. I’ll do a full review in the next couple of days!

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Gig Report: VOX Time Machine Delay Pedal

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

As many might know, one of the first places I test out new gear is at my weekly church gig. Church services are especially great for testing gear that you normally use clean or with just a little grit, and it proved to be a great venue for testing out the Time Machine.

All I can say about the Time Machine is, “Wow!” It really was made for being run in front of an amp! I know that some people don’t like it because it can’t be used in an effects loop, but in front of an amp, it works great! Don’t know how VOX did it, but it doesn’t seem vary the output gain – at least as far as I could tell – so it didn’t give me pulsing grind when I set my amp at just the edge of breakup. That really blew me away because I was concerned about that happening as I always set my amp on the edge of breakup, so increases in gain, whether due to volume knob or attack will give me some light dirt. Amazingly enough, the Time Machine didn’t push my amp over the edge at all.

That gave me tons of confidence to really experiment with the pedal. As with most church services with contemporary christian music, the flavors of songs change throughout the service. This provides ample opportunity to test gear. Whether used in smooth ballads or rockin’ with some slapback, the Time Machine delivered on all fronts. I was particularly impressed with using the Time Machine on slow songs where I could dial in a real long delay (it can get a delay time of up to 5800 seconds). Setting the feedback to about noon and the level to around 11am, I was able to get this great ambient, ethereal tone with an approximate metronome setting around 58-62 bpm by using the tap tempo toggle.

I dig the tap tempo on the Time Machine. It’s always on, so making midstream tempo adjustments is simply a breeze. In one of our songs this evening, the group sped up for some reason, and it really threw off my delay tone. But a quick tempo adjustment – while I was still playing, mind you – got my delay back in sync. That was so incredible!

As I mentioned in my review of the Time Machine, I’ve been waiting for a couple of years to get a new delay after I gave my old DD-5 away. I’m glad I took the time to wait. The Time Machine is the bomb!

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Gig Report: Gibson Limited Run Nighthawk 2009

Posted in GAS, gear, gear reviews, gibson nighthawk, gig report, guitar, guitar gear, guitar gear reviews, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, nighthawk 2009, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

How gear performs in the studio is one thing, how it performs in a public venue is an entirely different matter. Unless it’s just not practical, I almost always take gear I’m testing to a gig because to me at least, that’s the best test of gear as gigs are so unpredictable – you never know what might happen, and good gear will almost always be adaptable to the changing environment of a gig.

So how did the Nighthawk perform? In a word, spectacular!

In my recent review of the Nighthawk, the word that came to mind for me to describe the guitar was “comfortable,” and that was completely evident when I played it at my church gig this evening. The Nighthawk is comfortable in every way imaginable; from its light weight to its playability, and its ability to fit into any genre of music.

Now before you poo-poo that a church gig is not a “real” gig, guess again. I’ve played in a variety of venues over they years, and playing at church is one of the most challenging venues to play.

The reason for this is that the music at a church service isn’t the same style from song to song. Since I do kind of a “rock” service, we usually start and end with rockin’ songs with copious amounts of overdrive. But in the middle or meat of the service, we have to back it off a bit. Sometimes it’s bluesy, softer, classic rock with a bit of overdrive, but a lot of the songs are much softer: ballads and slower tunes that require playing clean. So versatility is absolutely crucial with the gear that I use for the service, and the Nighthawk delivers the versatility I require in spades.

For this particular service, I kept my rig very simple. For my amp, I used my trusty Aracom VRX22 hooked up to my Aracom PRX150-Pro attenuator, then out to my custom Aracom 1 X 12 cab with a Jensen P12N. In front of the amp, I used just one pedal: my Boss TU-2. 🙂 I normally bring my entire board that has a variety of drives and modulation effects, but this time I wanted to capture the raw tone of the guitar, and all I could say after the service was, “WOW!”

The Nighthawk can produce some very nice grind with the P-90 and Burstbucker 3, but it can also produce rich and pristine cleans; cleans that’ll just make you close your eyes and soak up all the tonal goodness. The P-90 produces lush, fat cleans, while the BB 3 – as expected – produces bright cleans. But engaging the middle selector position allows you mix the two in varying quantities and this lets you dial in all sorts of clean tones, from super fat to ringing. The thin body of the Nighthawk is exceptionally resonant, providing great sustain and tonal complexity, producing an almost reverb-like effect. I was absolutely floored by the gorgeous clean tones I was able to dial in. It was purely inspiring!

For more overdriven tones, the middle pickup again makes this guitar so versatile. In fact, I played most of the service in this position, and simply varied the amount of neck and bridge pickup volumes to get the overdrive tones I wanted. For our more rockin’ tunes, I switched the amp to the drive channel. On the Nighthawk, I dimed the treble pickup, and when I wanted more heavy crunch, would just dial in more P-90. It was so cool! Dialing in more P-90 didn’t result in significantly more volume; a slight amount, but nothing significant. When I got to a lead break, it was a simple flick of the toggle to the treble pickup, and I could get that classic Les Paul treble pickup tone! F$%kin-A!

Interestingly enough, the Nighthawk isn’t a bright guitar. In fact, its tone is the deepest of any guitar I’ve gigged with, save my old ES-333, which was both darker and boomy. But that darker tone isn’t a bad thing at all because the Nighthawk has BIG HAIRY BALLS. There is nothing subtle about its tone. It’s incredibly expressive and in your face, whether you’re playing clean or dirty, and it forces you to engage in a never-ending musical conversation while you play it. You can’t be timid with this guitar. It won’t let you. There were times when I was playing where I would normally hold back, but with the Nighthawk in my hands, it seemed to coax me to go outside my comfort zone and do things I wouldn’t normally do. Damn! If I were single and the Nighthawk was a woman… no, I better not go there. 🙂

As you can tell, I quite simply dig this guitar. I know, I say that about a lot of gear, and it’s genuine. But there’s gear that I dig and there’s gear that I REALLY DIG, like Blondie, my Squier CV Tele, and all my Aracom equipment. The Nighthawk definitely falls into that REALLY DIG camp!

By the way, not that it really matters a lot to me because I didn’t even think about what number guitar I got in the limited run of 350, but to my very pleasant surprise, I discovered that I have #29 in the lot. Like I said, I didn’t even think to check this, but a member on the My Les Paul forum asked me what number I got – it was first time I looked. Not sure if this really means anything because I’m not really a collector – I’ll never sell this guitar. But it’s still kind of cool to get a low number.

There’s a certain magic about the Nighthawk that harkens me back to the first Harry Potter movie when he went to the wand shop. The shopkeeper told Harry (paraphrasing), “The wizard doesn’t choose the wand. The wand chooses the wizard.” And in the case of this guitar, despite the fact that I was going to pull the trigger on an R9 Les Paul, this guitar reached out and chose me. I have absolutely no regrets about passing over the LP in this case, and I’m looking forward to the magic the Nighthawk and I can create!

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Gig Report: KASHA Overdrive

Posted in buying gear, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, overdrive, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »

KASHA KA-ODP-A

OMG!!! Just gigged with my brand-new KASHA Overdrive last night, and I was in tonal heaven! Even though I’d done a pretty good test on it in my original review, there’s nothing like using gear in a live situation. So here are my observations:

  • Incredible Dynamics – The one thing that is readily apparent is how this pedal responds to pick attack and volume knob changes. It is so amp-like, it’s uncanny! I set the pedal up in unity gain with just normal strums on my guitar. But if I dug in a bit more, the pedal responded just like an amp with a bit more punch and volume. Frankly, the volume swell surprised the hell out of me. It’s not huge, mind you, but the response is so amp-like, it really does take you by surprise. I totally dug that while gigging last night!
  • Plays Well With Other Overdrive Pedals – I love stacking overdrives, and the KASHA OD performs beautifully in this role. I set it up as a based OD pedal, then stack it with my Tone Freak Effects Abunai 2. Those two together are an awesome combination!
  • Lots of Tonal Variety – While my favorite channel on this is the Classic channel that adds a chimey mote to your tone, I also played in the Hot channel as well, and the grit and grind was super-sweet. But add to that the dynamic response of the pedal, and what you’ve got is a pedal that has a lot of inherent tonal variety. Last night, I ran it mostly through the clean channel of my amp. But later, I screwed around with it a bit more in my studio, with my amp set at the very edge of breakup. This is where the pedal just warms my heart! With its touch sensitivity, when my amp is set up at the edge of breakup, I can take my tone from gritty and grimy to sweet and chimey with just a touch of dirt simply by modifying my attack or adjusting my volume knob.
  • Open Distortion Characteristics – No matter what channel you use with the KASHA Overdrive, the overdrive never gets compressed. It just gets dirtier. The cool thing about that is that any kind of compression will then come from your power tubes. I’ve rarely liked that compression in pedals, save for my Abunai 2, which compresses in a very pleasing way, but for most overdrive pedals, I don’t want that at all, and thankfully, the KASHA Overdrive remains very open, no matter how hot you go on the channels.
  • Simple Design – Probably one of the best features of this pedal that I appreciate is its straight-forward design. Notice that it doesn’t have an EQ control. It doesn’t need it. It takes your signal, adds a voice to it, and that’s it! Set your EQ on your guitar and/or amp to where you want it, then set the gain knob on the pedal, and just play. What could be more simple?

All in all, I’m pretty much done with my search for an overdrive pedal. I knew it from the first time I played this; and combined with my other OD’s, I can pretty much say – at least for quite awhile – I’m set in the overdrive department!

I’m an overdrive pedal freak, and I can safely say that this is the best overdrive pedal that I have ever played! It’s hard to believe that this little black monster does what it does. I’m totally blown away by it, and I’ve only gigged with it once! I can’t wait to really start using it in all its modes!

For more information, go to the KASHA web site!

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