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Gear Announcement: Orange Dual Terror

Posted in amplifiers, amps, Amps/Amplification, buying gear, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 2, 2009| 3 Comments »

Orange Amps Dual Terror

Orange Amps Dual Terror

I’ve always associated Orange Amps with metal until I actually played a Tiny Terror. What a great amp! It’s got nice, bright EL-84 tone, and for $550 new, it’s a great little amp! Hmmm…. looks like I should do a review of it… 🙂

But Orange is taking the amp a step further and has just announced the Dual Terror, which is a 30 Watt, dual channel amp that is switchable down to 15 and 7 Watts! Oooo… From the announcement I read, it looks like this will be a real versatile amp! Can’t wait to test one out. FYI, here’s a copy of the press release I just got from Orange….

Orange Amplification launches ‘Dual Terror’

British amplifier manufacturer, Orange Amps launched the Tiny Terror amp in 2006 and has already sold over 30,000 units, making it one of the most in-demand amps in the world. The concept of the Tiny Terror was simple: squeeze every drop of Orange’s unique signature tone into a lunch-box sized amp to create 15 watts of unmistakable Orange Class A Tone weighing only a few kilos – and at a price every guitarist can afford.

Orange can now announce the next generation of the Tiny Terror concept – the ‘Dual Terror’: a twin channel, 30-watt head, switchable from 30 to 15 or 7 watts giving more choice and options shrunk into a size that belies its power!

The 30 watt Class A dual channel amp incorporates the unique Tiny Terror channel and a new ‘Fat Channel’ bringing a new ‘fatter’ chunkier sound, whilst keeping the classic Tiny Terror sound.

The power options make this a truly versatile amp, capable of dominating at bigger venues and subtle enough to be perfect for recording, studio work and home playing. Switchable between 30, 15 and 7 watts and switchable between 4 and 2 output valves, the combinations of options provide for unmatched levels of performance and flexibility.

The Dual Terror OS-DT30-H is built to the usual Orange high quality standards, using top quality components and its roadworthy rugged construction (supplied with padded gig bag ) is everything you’d expect from an Orange amp. The proven ‘Orange Terror’ concept of combining portability, versatility and delivering most importantly a great sound, is all here.

The original Tiny Terror has legions of fans, with users including Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler, Steve Jones, Eddie Van Halen, Andy Dunlop, Kaiser Chiefs and Eddie Kramer. The new Dual Terror will have even wider appeal to professional users and enthusiasts alike.

For further information contact:
USA info@orangeusa.com or outside USA info@omec.com

home


Tel ; +44 208 905 2828
Fax ; +44 208 905 2868

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Songwriting: Stuck in a Rut…

Posted in guitar lifestyle, guitarists, Guitars, musicians, performing, playing live, songwriting, style, Worship Music, tagged , , , , , , , on February 2, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Stuck in a Rut

…but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel… At least I hope so. 🙂

For the past few weeks, I’ve been in kind of a rut with writing music. I’ve got eight songs for my new record, which I recorded pretty regularly over the course of about three months. And it wasn’t just eight songs I wrote. I wrote and recorded about 20 other songs before deciding on the ones that made the final cut. The process was incredible! A song would come to me, I’d grab my guitar or sit at the piano, and in a relatively short amount of time, I’d have a song. Then I’d spark up my DAW, and record a raw piece to make sure I captured it. No sweat.

But as soon as Christmas season hit, it seems that the stress of getting stuff done at work before taking a vacaction, then Christmas itself just sucked the creative juices out of me. Okay, I’ve written some jam tracks and recorded some short snippets of songs, but to date, I really haven’t gotten the inspiration to write a full song. But in spite of that, I’m feeling really positive as there is a bright side to this lack of creative energy.

As you know, I’ve lately been driven to be more academic about what I’m playing; partly because I want to be able to effectively teach what I’m learning, but also because I just want to be a better player. So in lieu of writing music, I’ve been working on my improv skills, and I’ve been really happy with the progress I’ve been making! All this practice is just making me a better player, and that is inspiring in and of itself!

For instance, as many may know, one of my regular gigs is to play at church. Before any naysayers start ripping me about playing at church, understand this: Do a worship service of ANY kind poses particular challenges. For instance, you can’t just rock out all your songs or pick music that is always up-tempo. Worship services need to take people through an emotion journey with respect to the music. Typically, the beginning and the ending songs are pretty upbeat, while the middle songs are much more subdued or, if you do have a more upbeat song, you don’t go all out and rock. The idea is that the music is not the focus, the worship experience is, and the music you play needs to enhance that. Furthermore, because it’s in a church, you can’t play at real loud volumes the entire time. As I mentioned above, you can get away with it at the beginning and the end, but even in those spots, you can’t really play at club or concert levels.

Sounds a bit constraining, doesn’t it? I’ve been gigging for years, and each type of venue poses its own particular limitations. The trick is to work around those limitations so that you can be as expressive as you can be.

All that said, considering the constraints, last night’s service was awesome! To add to our normal volume constraints though, I was missing both a drummer and a bassist, and all we had were two other guitarists besides me, one of which just started playing with us that day. So it was particularly challenging because being the most experienced guitarist put holding down the rhythm to the songs on me. But that was the cool thing. All the work I’ve been doing on my technique has allowed me to so much more than just strumming chords, adding little runs or double adorning some chords with arpeggios or arpeggiated double-stops. This is stuff that I couldn’t do six months ago! And despite not really being able to do any leads, it didn’t matter, I felt totally inspired!

So yes, there is a bright side to this rut. At least I can still play… 🙂

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Jam Track: Funky 12-bar Blues in Bm

Posted in amps, aracom amps, GarageBand, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, jam, jam track, Music, musicians, Saint Guitar Company, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 31, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I just dig it when I find a great guitar and amp combo! Featured in this Jam Track are the Saint Guitar Company Messenger Baritone and the Aracom Amps Custom 45R, both of which I’ve reviewed previously. (Messenger Review | Custom 45R Review). The Custom 45 has a really beefy low-end and a slight scooped tone, and the Messenger, while a baritone, has this incredibly bright-sounding voice. The two complement each other particularly well! Here’s the Jam Track:

You have just over 6 minutes to play around with this one. For the rhythm part, I used a fairly basic rock beat, but I also added some Latin drums underneath to take the edge off the heavy downbeat. And by the way, there’s no bass in this track at all. All of that is provided by the Messenger!

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Gear Announcement: VOX Satriani Big Bad Wah

Posted in buying gear, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, pedals, vox, wah, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 31, 2009| 1 Comment »

Big Bad Wah by VOX and Joe Satriani

Big Bad Wah by VOX and Joe Satriani

Ever since I tried out the VOX Satchurator a few months ago, I’ve been waiting for the this wah pedal to arrive. If it is anything close to the quality of sound that the Satchurator produces, I know that this is going to be a great pedal. The pedal features two modes: Mode 1 is classic VOX wah; while Mode 2 features the ability to variably adjust the gain and voicing profiles of the wah to dial in a variety of tonal possibilities.

One thing I take note of when evaluating pedals is if I can reproduce the manufacturer’s or endorser’s claims about a particular feature. For instance, when Satch touted the “More” switch on the Satchurator, during my tests, I was expecting more volume when my amp was clean, and more balls when my tubes were saturated. The pedal definitely lived up to that claim.

With the Big Bad Wah, VOX states, “Designed to Joe Satriani’s custom specs is the design of the pedal pot itself, delivering a smooth, musical tone throughout the entire sweep of the pedal.” This is huge, because I’ve found in my evaluations of different kinds of wah pedals that when you back off the pedal, your output becomes a bit muddy, so you end up never fully backing off because the wah will just suck your tone. Or seemingly to protect against this, manufacturers will narrow the sweep range, so the wah becomes much less dramatic. I found this to be the case with Morley Steve Vai Bad Horsie, which was very musical throughout its sweep range, but overall, didn’t have that dramatic of a sweep as compared to others I tried. So I ended up just getting a Dunlop Cry Baby, and despite its shortcomings, I’ve come to love it.

But I’ve always loved Satch’s wah tone, not because I want to necessarily sound like him, but because it’s just a killer tone, and highly expressive. And as with the Satchurator, Joe was involved in every aspect of the design process, so the Big Bad Wah promises to be of the exacting standards for which Professor Satchifunkilus is known. Once the Big Bad Wah is available in stores, which should be soon, considering the announcement of its release was made at NAMM, you can be assured I’ll be running down to the local shop to try one out!

Some online retailers like Sweetwater, are doing pre-orders for $219. That’s not a bad price to pay, especially for a signature pedal. And I dig the fact that Joe really wanted all his signature pedals to be affordable and within the reach of a wide range of people. In any case, all this combined makes for me taking a serious look at the Big Bad Wah

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Compression: Too much of a good thing?

Posted in compression, guitar, guitarists, Guitars, Music, recording, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 30, 2009| 2 Comments »

Soft/Hard Knee Compression

I’ve actually been thinking about writing this article for almost a year and a half. The back story behind it is that I was having a discussion with my eldest son about why I didn’t like the music he listened to. He was arguing that if I make the claim that I like all kinds of music, I shouldn’t contradict myself by saying I didn’t like his kind of (he was really into hardcore punk at the time). My response was that I actually liked the songs, but hated the vomit screaming vocals, and hated the total lack of regard for dynamic range in the music – it was all one volume from start to finish! I shared with him that I didn’t believe it was a function of the song, but a function of the mastering, and an endemic problem in music being produced these days.

To demonstrate, I grabbed an old Cars CD from my collection, and played a couple of songs for him. There were perceptibly distinct swells and dips in volume in all the songs – very dynamic. Then we put on one of his CD’s and listened to a couple of songs. After we finished, my son couldn’t believe the difference in recording technique used 20 years ago. Even he said the performances on my old CD seemed so much more alive, where the songs from his CD didn’t have nearly the amount of dynamicism, and they seemed almost muffled compared to the clarity of the Cars’ recordings.

I told him that it was due to the heavy compression that producers are using these days, and gave him a simple explanation of what a compressor does. I also shared that I believed that producers were just being lazy and using compression as a shortcut so they didn’t have to teach their musicians and singers proper mic and recording control. Heavy compression and limiting means you don’t have to fix the recordings as much, saving studio time, and thus getting a production out faster. I did say that compression is not bad, but it is overused. Correctly and judiciously applied, compression can really have a positive effect on a production.

But despite that, I didn’t write the article. I can’t explain why… Looking back, I suppose it may have been in large part due to wanting to focus more on getting gear reviews out, and focusing a lot on my own recordings. But I recently read an article in the new issue of Guitar World that covered compression: What it is, what it’s used for, and how to apply compression to vocals and various instruments. It was very instructive. As I eluded above, compression can be a very useful tool in the studio to tame wide swings in volume in a vocal or an instrument, and can add presence, and because of how it works, in many cases, a compressor is used to add sustain. At its most basic level, a compressor reduces the amount of dynamic range by reducing sounds that exceed a predetermined volume threshold; but because this also reduces the overall volume of the signal, makeup gain is added to bring up the volume of the quieter sounds. The end result is that you get a “fatter” signal.

I’m not going to go into any technical detail about compression. For that you can read this excellent reference. In fact, I’m going to assume you already know a bit about compression.

And while compression is very useful, as with anything you can have too much of a good thing. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t use it, but I am going to make an appeal: Don’t get sucked into the trend of creating a less dynamic recording. I can understand the need for compression over radio, but this trend is simply making for much lower audio quality and less dynamically expressive recordings.

Good Mic Technique

I was once speaking with this old timer named Patrick who, at 72, is still gigging and recording. I was talking to him about recording, and he said that young people don’t know good mic technique, and complained about the overuse of compression. His words, “Boy, back in the day, we didn’t have compression. So when a singer like Sinatra got to a phrase where he needed to pick up his volume, he just moved away from the mic. It ain’t goddamn rocket science. But compression made people lazy.”

Wow! What a statement, and it really is easy to do for a singer. But what about guitars? This is a bit tougher, but at least what I strive for is to make sure I’ve got a lot of dynamic range in my recordings by either tweaking the input or output gain so my waveforms have as much vertical travel variation on the track as possible. I will sacrifice volume for dynamics. After the fact, I may add a touch of compression, but only very limited, and to keep true to the natural output of the amp, use fairly short release times. This is approach can be a lot of work because it requires that I play fairly consistently, but that’s also good training. It’s also a lot of work to get a good mix, but in the end it’s totally worth it!

I believe if you just start with good mic technique, and use compression sparingly, your recordings will come alive.

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Gear Review: Aracom Amps Custom 45R (1 X 12 Combo)

Posted in amplifiers, amps, Amps/Amplification, aracom amps, distortion, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, Guitars, Music, musicians, Tone, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2009| 1 Comment »

4.75 Tone Bones - Almost perfect but not quite

Aracom Amps Custom 45R

Aracom Amps Custom 45R

 Aracom Amps Custom 45R

Summary: A great take on the classic Marshall JTM45, with some extra goodies like tube-driven spring reverb, a fantastic master volume (post phase inverter), half power switch (40 to 20 Watts), and bright and bite switches to add hi and hi-mid EQ bumps for more tonal contouring.

Pros: Very versatile amp with a tonal palette that can serve up gorgeous clean tones to thick, super-compressed power tube distortion.

Cons: Heavy – weighs in at 60lbs.

Price: $2195 street (as tested with 1 X 12 Combo)

Specs:

  • Pre-amp tubes: (3) 12AX7, (1) 6BM8
  • Power Amp Tubes: (2) 6L6GC or KT66 (as tested)
  • Rectifier: (1) GZ34 (5AR4)
  • Reverb Tank: Accutronics Long TankHi/Low B+ voltage switch (40/20 watts)
  • On/Off Switch
  • Standby Switch
  • Indicator Lamp
  • Custom Heavy Duty Aluminum Chassis
  • Custom Wound Transformers
  • Impedance Switch:  4, 8, 16 ohm
  • (2) Speaker Jacks
  • Custom Handcrafted Turret Board
  • Handwired

Tone Bone Rating: 4.75 – Sweet amp with lots of tonal variety, but very heavy at 60 lbs. in a 1 X 12 combo! I would definitely get casters for this amp.

One thing I’ve learned about reviewing gear is to never have preconceptions about what something might sound like, especially with guitars and amps, regardless of what the manufacturer might say. When Jeff Aragaki of Aracom Amps dropped his latest amp off at my house, then explained that it was modeled off a Marshall JTM45, but with a few enhancements, despite my normal resistance to those suggestions, I still made a few assumptions about what the amp would sound like. Mistake. I was expecting a Marshall tone; it’s there, but it’s also different. But let’s get into some detail, shall we?

Fit and Finish

All Aracom amps are very well built and constructed. The amp I tested uses the cabinet shown above, but is covered in green tolex, and the same acoutrements as the cabinet above. The cabinet itself is very sturdy and very resonant. The metal grille at the top of the amp is a nice touch, as you can see into the chassis and see the tubes all lit up. I dig that kind of stuff. Jeff uses all high-quality material from the chassis to the knobs, and everything is well laid out.

How It Sounds

This is one awesome-sounding amp! I was actually expecting a real scooped tone, but was very surprised that the amp is actually voiced quite evenly through the EQ range, with just a tad bit of lower-mid range. This gives the tone a darker, almost fatter feel. But still, the cleans are rich and crisp, not chimey like an EL-84 would sound. The huge KT-66’s this amp packs probably account for that.

The reverb is subtle – very subtle – but I really like the effect it has. It definitely won’t do surf. It was as if Jeff wanted to add the reverb as a nice decoration for the amp’s tone. If you’re looking for a deep ‘verb, this won’t do it, but the reverb it does give you, for lack of a better word, just “fits.” Here’s a sound sample that I recorded with my Strat playing the amp clean in the Normal channel with all the EQ’s set to their midpoints:

By the way, the clip is the raw recording, with no EQ or mastering or level adjustments (which accounts for a bit of the distortion as I didn’t apply a limiter). As you can tell, the clean tone is sweet and well, clean. And it has TONS of clean headroom in the Normal channel.

As far as distortion is concerned, before this, I had never played with a KT-66-based amp, so I didn’t quite know what to expect, but this amp can produce some serious distortion. When saturated, the KT-66’s really compress the tone, and the compression comes on with even just a bit of breakup. It’s a great sound, but it’s difficult to cut through a mix with that amount of compression. But hitting the bite switch adds a bit of high-mid-frequency gain, so that compensates for the compression by sort of shifting the EQ up a bit.

The bite switch works with both channels, but the bright switch only works on the Normal Channel. This switch boosts the upper-mids and highs. Don’t expect a ringy sound out of this – it’s more like an instance presence control, though the amp sports a sweepable presence knob as well.

I wish I had a sound sample for my test with a Saint Guitars Baritone Messenger. Even though it’s a baritone, the walnut gives it a fairly bright tone, and that is really complimented by the Custom 45R. I was enjoying myself so much with the baritone, I totally forgot to record a clip! Maybe later… In any case, this amp just LOVED the Baritone! The Messenger also sports two Duncan active ‘buckers, and the drive they produce really made the amp growl with a real savage tone. It was very heavy, and I was just diggin’ it! Yowza!

Overall Impressions

While I really like the tone of this amp, and am having a lot of fun playing with it, admittedly I still lean towards that chimey EL-84 tone or that “Fender” tone that 6L6’s produce. The Marshall-esque tone never has been for me, but if I were to be on the lookout for an amp with that type of tone, I’d definitely give this amp some serious consideration.

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Thoughts on the Fender Roadworn Series

Posted in buying gear, GAS, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2009| 73 Comments »

Fender Roadworn Strat

Fender Roadworn Strat

Ever since Fender announced the new Roadworn Series of guitars, I’ve been lurking the gear forums and googling for information about them and trying to get a feel for what people think about them. It’s still early in the game, but not surprisingly, opinions are fairly evenly split. Lots of people like them, lots of people don’t. I’m part of the latter crowd.

From my point of view, if I was going to play a beat-up-looking, “roadworn” guitar that’s broken in, I’d rather have done the breaking in myself, or have had it done by someone else – like my first electric guitar that my little brother gave me. It was an Ibanez Strat copy and it looked like a piece of shit! The paint was cracked and flaking in areas, the electronics were completely screwed up due to the jury-rigged wiring jobs my brother did on it. But when I had it working, that little bad boy could sing! Even my brother inherited from one his band mates. In other words, this guitar has a history, and it plays and feels like it has a history.

My problem with the Fender Roadworn series is that these are brand new guitars that are made to look like they have a history, but they’re fresh off a friggin’ production line! They have no history! Oh yeah, I can hear a Fender rep saying, “We ‘wore out’ some of the most common areas where guitars get worn, and added some other cosmetic blemishes to produce a guitar that looks and feels like its been played for 20 years.’” What a crock of shit! Sorry, not buying the rationale, nor the guitars. Besides, to me, it’s how the guitar sounds and plays whether it’s new or used that counts.

I suppose if you have to have a replica of a famous guitarists axe, hey! More power to you! But in the end, you’re the one playing it, and you ain’t gonna sound like the guitarist whom which the guitar was modeled.

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Review: Red Bear Trading Style B Heavy Pick

Posted in buying gear, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar gear, guitar picks, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, picks, plectrum, Red Bear Trading, Tone, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2009| 5 Comments »

Red Bear Trading Style B Heavy Pick

Red Bear Trading Style B Heavy Pick

 Red Bear Trading Style B Heavy Pick

Summary: Thick, meaty hand-made pick from Red Bear Trading. You might think a pick doesn’t really matter until you play one of these picks. They’re totally awesome!

Pros: Thick and tactile, this heavy pick gives you instance response as soon as you strike a string. Chords seem to ring out better. Don’t be fooled by the thickness – the beveling makes this pick glide across the strings!

Cons: None

Price: $20

Okay, I admit it, I am now a true believer in hand-made picks! I wrote a review about Red Bear picks a few weeks ago. In the article I asked, “Does a pick really make that much of a difference?” After nearly a month playing with a Style B Medium, and now a Style B Heavy, I can undeniably say that it makes all the difference in the world! In this short span of time, I’ve become a better player, and while I attribute that to quite a bit of practice, I have to attribute a lot of my recent improvements in both tone and attack to the pick I’ve been using. I don’t say this lightly: These picks have totally changed my life with respect to my guitar playing!

When you first hold one of these picks, your first reaction is: Damn! This thing is thick! And while its smooth texture kind of sticks to your skin, it absolutely glides over your strings. And because of its thickness, it produces sound much faster than conventional nylon picks that need to be before they make a sound. The sound the picks produce is also much more crisp.

For instance, playing my Ovation acoustic/electric, I’ve never heard it ring the way it rings – and it’s because of the pick. I’ve had that guitar for over 15 years now, and it quite frankly has never sounded this good! It always sounded awesome to me because of its thick tone. But when I strum it with one of these picks, it now has a gorgeous chime! F-in’ A!

At first blush, you might think that paying $20 for a pick is just way too much. But how much would you pay for good tone? We guitarists spend literally thousands on guitars and amps and racks and pedals and other accessories every year! But most of us tend to play them with inferior plectrums, never knowing what we’re missing by making a relatively small investment compared to the vast sums we spend on other gear. Sure, our standard picks are cheap, and it’s okay to lose them, but there is absolutely NOTHING that compares to the tone you can produce with a hand-made pick. And once you play with a great pick, you’ll never go back to the cheapo picks again.

To be honest and fair, Red Bear is not the only one who makes handmade picks. But Dave is the only plectrum maker who uses TortisTM, a polymer made from animal protein that looks and feels EXACTLY like tortoise shell. Dave has mastered cutting and shaping of the material, something no one else who has tried to work with it has been able to do.

What’s so special about this material? If you speak with people who have played with tortoise shell picks, they’ll tell you about how good it feels to play with one. But by the same token, to play with tortoise shell means that a sea turtle had to be sacrificed to create the pick. On the other hand, Tortis feels like real tortoise shell. In fact, when Dave first sent out his first prototypes, people told him he was full of shit when he said the picks weren’t tortoise shell! That’s how natural these feel!

As I mentioned in the previous article, Dweezil Zappa swears by these! And for good reason. The sound they produce, and how they make your playing much more precise is an absolute inspiration! For more info, and to order them, go to Red Bear Trading!

If you live in the SF Bay Area, and especially near Palo Alto, you can also get them at Gryphon Stringed Instruments.

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To Boutique, Or Not to Boutique

Posted in buying gear, custom guitars, GAS, gear, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, Saint Guitar Company, style, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2009| 4 Comments »

saint_msgr_brown

Imagine, if you will, that guitar to the left, in a glossy, goldtop finish. That will be the guitar that Adam Hernandez of Saint Guitars will be building for me. It was by no means an easy decision to make. As a tester for Saint Guitars, and ostensibly a rep for Saint Guitars (I’ve been careful about keeping that separate from this site – though news about it will be out within the next few weeks), I love every single guitar I’ve gotten my hands on. I dig Adam’s approach to guitar-building, and of course, I simply love his designs.

But despite the relationship, I was a little wary of actually purchasing one. Why? There are lots of factors, which I’m going to share here. But first, the juicy back story…

As some of you may know, I’m a huge fan of G & L Guitars, especially the Comanche line. Yngwie Malmsteen calls the Strat a perfect guitar, but I believe the Comanche improves on it even further, especially with its Z-coil pickups that still offer that gorgeous single-coil feel, but with much more output.

For the last few months, I had been saving my pennies to purchase a Comanche from my local G & L dealer. I’ve been skrimping and scraping every extra buck I could because I just had to have one. It’s an incredible guitar that just speaks to my soul. And about a month ago, I had enough to get my beloved guitar. Then Adam contacted me via e-mail a few days before I was all set to buy the guitar and said he wanted to construct a guitar for me based upon this “dream” goldtop I had described to him a month before that when he asked me what I think would be my dream guitar.

Now you might think I just up and dropped all my plans to get a Comanche. I didn’t. I’ve been very drawn to the Comanche for a long time, but as I’ve shared, I also love Saint guitars. In fact, though I received the e-mail early in the morning, I sat on it for the whole day, and didn’t reply until late that night. In short, I was seriously conflicted, and for several good reasons, which is why I’m sharing this experience. And perhaps by sharing this experience, I can shed some light on helping you make your own choice in whether or not to go with a custom-made boutique guitar.

Most people who come to GuitarGear.org have a serious and virtually incurable case of GAS. Several have custom guitars – a few even have a few Saint guitars to their name. So there is no doubt that what you ultimately get is high-quality, and tailored to your specific tonal requirements. But the conflict in my mind was something entirely different than cost, quality, build, tone, etc.. I know what Saint Guitars sound like, and they’re some of the most gorgeous-sound guitars I’ve ever played; cost would be an issue, but if I made the decision, I’d make it happen; rather, it was dealing with the “known” versus the “unknown.”

So, to boutique or not to boutique? That is the question I posed as the title of this article. If it wasn’t cost or quality or tone that was the issue, what do I mean by the “known” versus the “unknown.” I’m going to bullet-point the known issues first:

  • First off, the Comanche was a known quantity to me. I have played several over the last couple of years, and while each is slightly different – after all you’re dealing with wood which is by no means uniform from instrument to instrument – they’ve all generally fallen within the same range of playability and tone.
  • And because I’ve spent a lot of time playing that model of guitar, I knew how I’d fit it into my stable and what it could do for my tone, and how I’d use it in my compositions and performances.
  • The Z-coil pickup is what I believe to be Leo Fender’s finest achievement. Even though Leo was known for creating the Strat, what a lot of people don’t know is that he didn’t play guitar – at all. He didn’t even tune them until late in life! He was all about the pickup, and he built the Strat around his pickup invention. So there’s a bit of history behind the Comanche.

So what about the “unknowns?”

  • Being that a custom-made is a unique creation, I don’t have a precedent from which to follow. There aren’t any previous guitars made with the EXACT specs my guitar would have. In other words, I don’t have any similar models from which to reference.
  • I suppose there are reasonable facsimiles, and since I’ve had the fortune to test Saint guitars, I know how well they’re made, but the guitar I have in mind isn’t made of walnut, which is Adam’s choice of wood. It’s a solid mahogany body with a maple neck – similar to a Charvelle I played a few days ago – very nice playing guitar.
  • Also, with a custom guitar, what I found was that I really had to think and on top of that do research on tone woods and pickups and hardware. That’s something that I wouldn’t have to do with a Comanche. I’ve just had to play a bunch to find the one that I like. That kind of leads back to the first point that there are no previous guitars with my exact specs from which to reference.

But despite all that, I’m still going to have Adam build me my guitar. The uniqueness certainly plays into it, but I’ve been playing long enough now that I have a good idea of how a guitar sounds with a particular type of tone wood, so tone is not quite as unknown as I might have originally thought. But I think the thing that probably was the scariest thing for me was having to specify the different pieces. In other words, all the effort I’d have to put into getting the guitar created. And even though it’s a bit of a moving target, here are the specs I so far:

Finish: Glossy Goldtop

Body: Double-cut Mahogany
Neck: Maple
Fretboard: Ebony
Headstock: Maple

Hardware: Gotoh wraparound bridge, Gotoh 510 tuners (locking)

Pickups (still kind of deciding): Either Seymour Duncan ’59 in neck, Alnico Pro II bridge or 2 ’59’s or 2 Alnico Pro II’s. Both coil-tapped.

Let me know what you think!

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Gear Review: Blackheart Engineering BH5-112 “Little Giant” 5 Watt Combo

Posted in amplifiers, amps, Amps/Amplification, buying gear, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Home Studio, Tone, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2009| 7 Comments »

4.75 Tone Bones - Almost perfect but not quite

Blackheart BH5-112 Little Giant 5 Watt Combo

Blackheart BH5-112 Little Giant 5 Watt Combo

 Blackheart BH5-112 Little Giant 5Watt Combo

Summary: Nice, simple, and versatile studio/practice/small venue amp with sporting happening EL-84 tones.

Pros: Sweet and chimey EL-84 tones with Class A circuitry; simple and straightforward to use. Switchable between 5Watts and 3Watts, ensuring usability in just about any smaller venue. 3W mode kicks ass for getting power tube saturation at a reasonable volume.

Cons: I wish it had a Master Volume, but that’s just a nit.

Price: $349 street (used to be $249 when it first came out! Damn! Shoulda gotten one then.)

Specs:

• Single-ended Class A circuit
• All tube signal path
• One 12AX7/ECC83 dual-triode preamp tube and one EL84/6BQ5 pentode output tube
• Pentode (5W rms) Triode (3W rms) switch
• Solid-state rectifier
• DC filament power supply for all tubes
• 3-band EQ
• 16-gauge (1.5 mm) thick, folded and spot welded steel chassis
• Double-sided custom color PCB with 2 oz. copper
• 15-ply, 18 mm thick, void-free birch plywood construction
• Custom-designed 12″ Eminence Blackheart speaker
• 16 ohm, 8 ohm, and 4 ohm speaker outputs

Tone Bone Rating: 4.75 – Very musical and expressive amp. Nice cleans, with a decent amount of headroom.

I first heard about Blackheart amps back in 2007. They were so new that very few people knew about them. And while a local shop was listed as a dealer, only the owner knew about the amps, and they didn’t carry them in stock! Blackheart Engineering is sort of an overseas spinoff from Crate which produces cool, yet affordable tube amps. As a home studio enthusiast, I keep my ear to the ground about low-cost, low-wattage combo amps. When I first heard about the BH5-112, I was excited. I thought it was a bold move for Crate, and a smart one, considering Crate is a huge manufacturer with huge lineup of gear; adding even something cool like the Blackheart line would just get lost in the mix. But Blackheart was pretty low-key. No ads, spotty coverage on the Internet.

So it was a very pleasant surprise to see a few Blackhearts at a local shop yesterday, and among them, the Little Giant. I was actually there to play that G & L Tribute Comanche I wrote about last week; the last time I was at the shop, they didn’t have any Blackhearts, so I wasn’t expecting to see them at all. But with them there, I naturally had to try one out, and luckily they had the Little Giant.

Fit and Finish

This little amp has a real cool vibe going on. I really like the cabinet that Blackheart uses. It’s a closed back cab, and for an amp made overseas, it’s appears to be very well constructed. There were no apparent flaws in the tolex layering, and Blackheart logo on the front is killer. I dig the white vinyl trim used on the front around the grille cloth. Real boutique styling at a pretty affordable price!

The control layout is simple: An input jack on the left, volume and three-band eq knobs, an indicator light and an on/off switch, making it simple to plug in, dial in your tone, and start rockin’.

How It Sounds

I’ve really come to love the EL-84 tones, especially when they’re saturated, and the Little Giant doesn’t disappoint when delivering its sound. With the EQ knobs at 12 o’clock, the natural tone of the amp leans toward a slightly scooped tone with a bright voicing. Even with the specially-made Eminence 1 X 12, it’s bright, but it does retain a taut low-end that really smooths out the tone. Quite pleasing. I only tested the amp with that Tribute Comanche, but it didn’t matter. When I test an amp, I play it clean for a lot of my tests to see if it will deliver the natural tonal character of the guitar, and the Blackheart Little Giant fulfills its mission.

The amp is very responsive to volume knob and pick attack. With the volume set at about halfway, and cranking the guitar volume, I was able to get that AC30-like response: Clean and shimmery, with just the slightest bit of breakup when you dig in. Very pleasing to the ears.

Amazingly enough, even though its power rating is a minuscule 5 Watts, with the 12″ speaker, this amp can put out some volume! Hence its name “Little Giant.” It probably couldn’t keep up with a drum set and a band going all out, but it can pack a good enough punch to work well in a small venue where lower volume is critical, and it definitely could be put to great use in a studio!

Overall Impressions

What can I say? I dig this amp, much like I dig the Fender Champ 600. But unlike its Fender cousin, the 12″ speaker really lets the amp breath. And speaking of volume, I was quite impressed with the volume control. Unlike many amps that practically max out by 6, the sweep covered by the Little Giant’s volume knob is nice, even and more importantly, wide. Two thumbs up!s

Here’s a video (excuse the dude’s misinformation about Class A amps – damn! That’s even worse than my faux pas about modes 🙂

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