You know me, I’m a low-wattage amp kind of guy. I find them really versatile and use them in a variety of venues and especially in the studio. But lately, I’ve been playing with a Sebago Sound 100 Watt Double Trouble – it’s a D-style amp – and I can say with confidence that I know what the big amp guys are talking about now. I have to use an attenuator with the amp, but even at lower volumes, there’s a certain thickness to the signal that a low wattage amp just can’t produce naturally.
Now, through the wonders of technology, I’ve been able to EQ low-wattage amps on recordings in such a way to make them sound a lot bigger than they are, but when an amp produces that fatness naturally, all I can say is “Wow!”
Tonight, I brought the amp to my church gig, and just couldn’t believe what I was hearing! The amp sounds great, yes (and I’ll have a full review of it soon), but the sheer power of 100 Watts – even attenuated – was something I hadn’t experienced before. It’s hard to describe what it was like, but there is definitely a certain dynamicism in the tone and – excuse the pun – a power that my low wattage amps just don’t produce.
Does this mean I’ll get rid of my low wattage amps? Absolutely not because they’re just great tools. But I’ll probably be gigging with something more powerful more often than not from now on… 🙂
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As kind of a follow-on to the original article, Jeff Aragaki of Aracom Amps and I spoke this morning, and the real difference-maker between the big amp and small amp – at least to me – is really evident when you have the power tubes in play. In my studio (read: garage), the amp at low gain sounded like any other amp – even my small amps – through a 1 X 12. But when I hooked up the Sebago to my attenuator, and opened up the master volume, all sorts of great things happened in terms of getting a much more complex tone; even clean. So yeah, the power tubes have A LOT to do with the thick tone of a high gain amp.
No, not the sexual kind – though we do like that – but the spring reverb kind. 🙂 Specifically, I’m talking about the Tone Candy Spring Fever. I reviewed the Spring Fever back in May, and gave it a 4.5 Tone Bones. But now that I’ve got it and after spending a few hours with it last night, I’m now giving it 5.0 Tone Bones! Here’s why:
As I said in my original review, the Spring Fever is just about the best spring reverb pedal I’ve ever played. It sounds incredibly realistic, and unlike many of the digital varieties I’ve played, while it’s jangly with some top-end, it also doesn’t lose bottom end, so your tone stays nice and rich. That’s a little disconcerting to some folks because they’re used to a brighter tone, but for me, the retention of the bottom end is really what sold me on its tone, plus with the Spring Fever, you can go from subtle spring ‘verb, to rich, spacious, swirling surf tones, so there’s lots of variety on tap.
What I didn’t get to test out in my original audition of the Spring Fever was its Volume knob which also acts as a clean boost if you turn the Reverb and Mix knobs all the way down. I’m not sure how much boost the pedal adds, but there’s enough boost on tap to slam the front end of your amp with loads of gain.
I particularly like the Volume knob because it solves a real problem for me when I play my acoustic gigs at venues where I have to plug directly into a PA board. My acoustics’ pickups don’t have much gain, and I usually have to crank up the volume faders on the board, which can be problematic as it makes it difficult to balance out the guitars’ volume with my vocals. I’ve solved this in the past by lugging my Presonus TUBEPre preamp with me, but that’s a bit of a pain to lug (read: extra gear, not because it’s heavy), and requires a separate 12V power supply. The Volume knob on the Spring Fever eliminates the need for me to bring a preamp with me. Nice.
If I have one complaint of the pedal, it has to be its finicky nature with power supplies, and will add some noise to the signal. Mike Marino explains this on the Spring Fever product page, and recommends some power supplies to use, such as the 1-Spot. I used the 1-Spot in my clips, and when the Spring Fever was activated, there was a slight, but noticeable hiss. This has to do with the power supply, and not the pedal. This also happens when I use my MXR Carbon Copy with the 1-Spot. When I hook it up to a regulated power supply like a Dunlop DC Brick, the pedal is as quiet as can be. So despite Mike’s recommendation about the 1-Spot, don’t use it. Get a regulated power supply like the DC Brick. Luckily, I have an extra DC Brick, so that will be powering my mini board.
How It Sounds
As I said, the Spring Fever is about the best spring reverb pedal I’ve ever played! Capable of producing a wide range of reverb, this pedal will be a permanent fixture on my board! I’ve still got to play around with it some more, but I recorded a few clips to give you an idea of what it can do. The clips below were all recorded using my 1958 Fender Champ output to a Jensen Jet Falcon 1 X 12. I start out each clip with a dry signal, then play it again with some “grease.” What that pedal adds with respect to spaciousness is amazing! All the clean clips were recorded at unity volume, while the dirty clips were played with the amp turned up to about 2pm, and the boost at 1pm with Mix and Reverb completely off. I wanted to demonstrate the clean boost and its effect on an overdriven amp.
Les Paul, Middle Pickup, Fingerstyle. Reverb: 11am, Mix:10 am
Left Channel: Les Paul Middle Pickup, Reverb and Mix same settings as above
Right Channel: Les Paul Neck Pickup, Reverb: Dimed, Mix: 8pm
I love the right channel track on this clip. Turned up all the way, you get this cavernous room sound, but with the Mix set real low, it becomes a much more subtle effect, providing almost a delay-like ambience without the echos.
Squier CV Tele Middle Pickup. Reverb: 10am, Mix 10am
MXR Carbon Copy with long delay time, Mix at about 10am
Les Paul Middle Pickup (biased toward bridge), Volume: 2pm, Mix/Reverb Off
Yeah, it’s pricey at $275, though you can find it at a lower price if you look. But I haven’t heard as a good a spring reverb pedal like this – ever. And the fact that it has a booster in it just rocks! For me, and especially for my acoustic gigs, this is a game changer!
I was so excited to finally get one of these several months ago! I played it A LOT until the original caps finally wore out and started to leak both fluid and the amp started leaking electricity (i.e. I could feel current when I touched the amp – not good!
So I had my good friend and amp genius, Jeff Aragaki of Aracom Amps overhaul the amp. I just got it back a few days ago, and it totally kicks ass! Among Jeff’s mods were:
Replace the original two-prong cord with a grounded three-prong cord. For this, he had to make some adjustments to the heater.
Replace the original caps with new Sprague paper caps.
Replaced the original speaker with a new Weber 8″ speaker.
Provide a way for me to use either the internal speaker or an external cabinet. This was done by connecting the output wire to a jack and running that into a custom switch box that he constructed.
But Jeff actually did one better, and that was to put the amp chassis in a larger tweed cabinet that had a 10″ speaker. What a difference in volume and tone!
That amp is VERY special, and it’s not a small wonder why Jeff Beck is now using Champs. He can get great tones at lower volumes! For instance, here’s a new praise song I recorded using just the Champ for the guitar tracks. The rhythm track was recorded using the 10″ speaker with the mic at the rim of the speaker cone pointed along the angle of the paper so I could capture more of the low frequencies. The “lead,” overdriven guitar used a closed-back external 1 X 12 cabinet with a Jensen Jet Falcon. It sounds like it’s coming from a much bigger amp!
For guitars, I used my trusty Squier CV Tele for the clean rhythm, and used my Gibson R8 Les Paul for the “lead.”
The thing that struck me about playing the amp was how it really responded and felt like an amp 10X its size. The touch-sensitivity and dynamics, especially when cranked, are spectacular with lots of overtones and harmonics. Being naturally brightly voiced, this amp never gets muddy. It’s actually rather unsettling to play this amp at times because it sounds much bigger than it actually is. That’s VERY cool!
Pictured above are an original 1959 Les Paul and Allison Stokke. Don’t know about her? Look her up on Google. For this particular article, any hot chick will do…
So… you’re on a boat and the captain is taking you to a remote, desert island to strand you there. He says, “I might be mean, but I’m not cruel. So I will give you a chance to choose between two things to have on the island with you. First, you can have a rare, 1959 Gibson Les Paul in Sunburst. I’ll provide you with a Marshall JTM45, and a power supply that can recharge with solar power so you’ll be able to play any time. Or… I let you have [pointing towards the gorgeous young woman] her. What be yer choice matey?”
The captain goes on to say that you shouldn’t be hasty in your decision and that you should consider these important points:
Both are incredibly beautiful
Both will make your creativity soar when you touch them
Yeah, yeah, just about every guitar blog has one of these posts, which is why I haven’t done one of these in the almost four years that GuitarGear.org has been around. The main reason was that I didn’t just want to post a “hot babe” list. I wanted to post women guitarists who are – to me – beautiful and talented and successful, and they have to be able to really play the guitar; in other words, they’re also great musicians, and not just eye candy. In addition, to make my list, to me, they have to ooze their femininity without resorting to raunchiness. Finally, and very importantly, I have to like the music they play.
1. Nancy Wilson
Topping the list is Nancy Wilson. I’ve had the hots for her since the 70’s! The she’s played the role of “sidewoman,” for Heart, she’s never been one to just look pretty on stage. She’s a great rhythm and acoustic guitarist!
2. Ana Vidovic
Ana Vidovic comes in a close second to Nancy and only comes in second because I’ve been in love with Nancy longer. 🙂 I first heard her play on a recording before I ever saw her, and loved her playing. Then to finally see what she looked like – OMG!!! By far, she is the most beautiful woman on my list, and her playing equals her beauty.
3. Sheryl Crow
Say what you want about Sheryl Crow, she is one of my favorite songwriters. I love her musical ideas and voice, and those just add to her attractiveness.
4. Gabriela Quintero
The female half of Rodrigo y Gabriela, this dynamic duo started out as metal players then converted to classical guitars and play a sizzling flamenco style, with Gabriela providing the complex flamenco rhythms to back Rodgrio’s solos. I first saw them a few years ago on a late-night show, and couldn’t believe the energy they had! It was marvelous! Then to see this gorgeous, sexy Latina ripping it up on her classical guitar. I was in love!
5. Tal Wilkenfeld
Okay, okay. I know, she’s a bass player, but she did start out as a guitarist, and she’s so damn talented and so naturally beautiful that I would be remiss in not including her in my list. As Jeff Beck’s bassist, she’s absolutely amazing. I could only hope to play solos on guitar as well as she does on bass. Her musical sense and phrasing is purely amazing.
I first heard of her through Ignacio “Ig” Gonzales when he had his popular blog, “igblog.” He was in love with Tal, and he spread his “Tal Fever” to all of us who followed his blog. If you’re not familiar with her, search for her on YouTube, and you’ll see what I mean.
Well, that’s my Top 5 List. Though my musical passion is rock and roll, I do listen to a lot of different music, and these chicks cover that territory for me.
One that I didn’t put on the list is Nora Jones, whom I’ve had a crush on for a long time, and though she actually does play guitar, and I love her music, guitar’s not her primary instrument, so she didn’t make the list, but she definitely would be in my top three were I to expand the instrumentation.
I keep track of search terms people use to find my blog, and the search term “ana vidovic” is #2 on the list!
For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why this was because if I do a search on Google or Bing, the link to the article that wrote about her doesn’t show up for several pages. But then I clicked on the search engines’ “Images” link, and for some reason, the image I used in the article is near the top! Ha!
While weird, I don’t mind because it means that people are finding my blog, which is a good thing. It’s also rather amusing that it seems as if people (read: guys) are more interested in looking at her than listening to her. 🙂 Granted, she’s stunningly beautiful…
And as to her beauty, to me, she’s the perfect woman: Gorgeous, she’s a great guitar player, and obviously intelligent to be able to play classical guitar as well as she does – which takes a lot of study. You go girl!
Wow! Been a long time since I’ve written a song – worship or otherwise – so I’m pretty jazzed about getting the inspiration to be able to get something down. I was getting a bit worried about not coming up with any ideas, but this one just came to me yesterday, so I worked out a simple arrangement. My band performed it at Mass this evening, and it went over real well. Can’t wait until we get the full compliment of instrumentation together to do this number again. In any case, give it a listen and let me know what you think.
As far as guitars are concerned, there’s a single one in this initial recording, and that’s my Squier CV Tele. For my amp, I’m using my ’58 Fender Champ that Jeff Aragaki of Aracom Amps fixed for me and put into a gorgeous tweed cabinet with a Weber 10″ speaker. We’re talking about actually making a head cabinet for the amp so I can hook it up to any cabinet.
While it’s just a single guitar, I recorded the amp off-axis with the microphone placed at the edge of the speaker along the line of speaker cone so I’d pick up more lows. And unlike most of my recordings, I EQ’d the guitar to bring out the bass a little more (not much bass with a single 10″ speaker).
Mind you, this is purely spec right now. I just wanted to get the idea and basic arrangement down so I wouldn’t lose it, so excuse the little mistakes I made; they’ll be fixed in the final version of the song. 🙂
I love to read, but sometimes, and especially with guitars, I just love to drool over pictures, and that’s exactly what the “Beauty of the Burst” is – at least half of it. The first half of the book has a forward by Ted McCarty (former president of Gibson), then jumps into pictures of Les Paul Standards from ’58 to ’60. It then briefly shows famous Les Paul guitar players, then closes out with very important information regarding the physical features of the guitar from the striping pattern of the flame down to the hardware.
There is a chapter dedicated to the PAF, which goes into a deep dive of the pickup. I found this chapter to be incredibly useful. In case you didn’t know, the PAF pickup is as the author of the book says, “the heart of the Les Paul.” It is an incredibly expressive pickup – not very high in gain – and it was responsible for giving the Les Paul its distinctive, singing sound. There was lots of magic in this pickup developed by Seth Lover back in the day, and it’s not a surprise why there are so many boutique pickup manufacturers that have been trying to capture that magic.
I wrote an article called “Gear That Has Changed My Life” last year where I talked about various types of gear that have had a huge impact on who I am as a guitarist. But today, I realize that there have been several pedals that completely changed my approach to playing, and I thought that I’d focus on them here.
BOSS CE-2 Chorus – This was the very first pedal I ever purchased, and I also sold it after a few years because I didn’t know any better. Kicked myself frequently until I finally got another one earlier this year. To me, this pedal produces the chorus sound that means “chorus” to me. There are some great ones out there, but this to me is the original and definitive chorus sound. And despite its little quirks, like adding a slight gain boost when activated, I can’t think of a chorus pedal that does it better.
Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay – I’ve had a love/hate relationship with delay pedals over the years. Digital delays always seemed so “processed” and analog delays were always way too dark-sounding to me. I got close to what I wanted with the VOX Time Machine, and I actually still use that pedal for some specific songs. But then I auditioned the Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay, and my prayers to find a delay that I could love all the time were answered! From adding just a touch of ambience to drowning in heavy, pulsating, analog echo, the Deep Blue Delay delivers, all without turning mushy or going dark in character. I got mine before the PCB version came out, so I paid a premium for the hand-wired version at $325. The PCB version is a more reasonable $199 and apparently sounds great (though a touch different according to a well-trusted source). But hand-wired or PCB, there’s nothing like this delay.
Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 – I mentioned this pedal in my previous article, but it truly has had a HUGE impact on me as I use it a lot in place of an overdrive pedal to push my amp into distortion. When I want to retain the natural overdrive tone of my amp, the Mk.4.23 is where it’s at for me.
Fulltone OCD – Though I sold this pedal long ago, it was my first “boutique” pedal. Up to then, I’d stuck with the mainstream. It really demonstrated to me that there were sounds beyond the mainstream. Unfortunately – or fortunately depending upon how you look at it – it also was responsible for me to go on a quest to test out other boutique gear. Now I have a lot of it. 🙂
DigiTech Bad Monkey – This pedal reinforced the notion that great tone can come cheap. A Tube Screamer clone for sure, the one thing that this has got over the the TS is adjustable bass and treble knobs. It sounds great to boot! I no longer have this pedal as I gave it to a kid in my church band, but whenever I get the inking to spend big bucks on gear, I look back to the Bad Monkey and tell myself that there is great gear out there that doesn’t have to come at a premium in price.
Dunlop Original Cry Baby – This was my very first wah pedal, and up to that point, I had NEVER even considered playing wah. But curiosity got the best of me, and I got a second-hand one at a used gear shop. I still love playing with it now and then, though my main wah is a VOX Big Bad Wah. But the Cry Baby opened a whole new realm of expression; and even though I’m not playing it much, I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of it.
I’ve gone through so many pedals in my lifetime, and something tells me I’ve missed something. But these are the pedals that come to mind. Care to share and pedals that have changed your life?
To the left is a shot of my 1959 Les Paul Replica. If you click on the picture you can see the finish checking and the little ding above the pickup selector toggle that was applied by the builder. It’s light, so for me, it’s cool. But truth be told, I don’t really get the relic thing. Give me a nice, bright, shiny guitar, and I’ll be happy. In fact, though many of my guitars have dings on them or their metal is a little tarnished, I’m cool with that because I did the aging through gigging and recording. And I will also add that while I don’t actively try to prevent aging, I do take very good of my guitars and make sure I wipe them down after each gig or session, so even though some of my guitars have dings, they still look fairly new – even the older ones.
On the other hand, my very close friend Jeff Aragaki loves guitars that have been artificially aged. In fact, he once got a gloss ’59 historic, and buffed it down to age it slightly himself. My reaction was, “WTF did you do that for?” He just said that he prefers the well-used look. Of course, I’m totally cool with someone liking that, and will never dis anyone who likes artificially aged gear, but it’s not for me. I’d rather do the aging myself.
Guitar Gear 