I’ve never hid from the fact that I own Aracom gear, and as I’ve said in My Rig page, I’m a faithful customer who just digs the stuff that Jeff Aragaki, Aracom’s founder, comes up with. I’ve extolled the wonders of his attenuator, the PRX150-Pro, and I’ve mentioned my Aracom amps, the VRX18, VRX22, and PLX18BB several times.
One thing I’ve learned over the years with respect to gear is that you go with what works for you, and my Aracom gear simply works for me! In fact, my Aracom equipment has had a lot to do with me using less pedals, and relying on the raw sound of my guitar and amps; especially when I’m playing straight rock and roll.
I have yet to play a bad-sounding Aracom amp. When they’re cranked to the hilt, they have such an incredible mojo that’s just too hard to describe. Of course, I couldn’t crank them without the PRX150-Pro attenuator. No matter, there’s magic in Jeff’s creations! To demonstrate this magic, I’m going to share an excerpt from a song that I’m working on. I just finished laying down the instrument parts. Give it a listen:
The rhythm part is played with my Squier CV Tele in the middle switch position, and running straight into Channel 2 of the PLX18BB, which was cranked up all the way. Talk about cranked Marshall-esque tones! It sounds even better live! The lead was recorded with my Gibson Nighthawk 2009 into my VRX22. Master was at 3pm and Volume was at 2pm. This setting gives me a sweet, singing lead voicing that sustains for days due to the awesome solid-state sag circuit! Again, the guitar was plugged straight into the amp – no frills whatsoever. I did add some reverb to both parts, but other than that, that the raw sound of the guitars/amps with no EQ. Pretty killer tones!!!
To top it off, both parts were recorded at bedroom level as both amps ran into the PRX150-Pro! We’re talking conversation level, so if you heard some transient clicks in the clip, it’s stuff that was making noise in my garage/studio!
You gotta check this stuff out. Jeff is a true wizard with amps! Both the VRX amps start at $895, while the PLX18BB combo starts at $1750 ($1350 for the head only). If you’re after vintage Marshall tone at a non-vintage price, you owe it to yourself to check out these amps!
Awhile back, I wrote an article extolling the musical prowess of Jeff Beck, and how he’s the full musical package; how he possesses an insane ability to make his guitar sound like nothing anybody else can duplicate. I know that’s a rather bold statement, but all you need to do is a search on Jeff Beck, and watch videos and you’ll see what I mean.
But aside from Beck’s technique and musical sense, there’s a practical side of him that I also appreciate, and what compelled me to write this second article on him. In the latest issue of Guitar Player magazine (June 2010), Jeff Beck talks about the virtues of using a low wattage amp, not only in the studio, but on stage as well. In fact, he said that most of his new album was recorded with a 50’s Fender Champ!
Over the past couple of years, I’ve spoken at length of using low wattage amps and attenuators on medium-power amps to get the tubes working. It’s a real affirmation to hear that someone like Jeff Beck is doing the same. Here are a couple of excerpts from the interview:
“Some people can’t do without lots of volume to get their tone, but I think if you can’t get it without four million watts, something’s wrong. Because a mic doesn’t read volume, it reads tone.”
When asked about whether the small-amp/less-volume concept could work for live playing…
“By using the P.A. to act in the way it was designed – which is play at low level and use all the distortion and whatever else you need, but make sure you don’t come out louder than the side-fill monitors or the front wedges – you can blow the house down, and I’ve done it.”
Beck went on to say that when he played with SRV, he used a 20 Watt Fender Twin, while SRV used “a rig that looked like an amp shop” and Stevie asked him, “What the hell are you using? Are your amps under the stage?” “Nope, that’s it right there,” replied Beck.
Then he went on to say in the interview, “Most of the time, though, you can get away with a couple of Champs – one clean, one distorted – and use the clean one to get more definition.”
The statement that really hit me in the interview was the following:
“The louder the stuff is on stage, probably the worse it’s going to end up sounding. Your hearing goes, your pitch goes, and yo ucan’t really hear any depth of field. If you have to question whether it’s too lout, then it is too loud.The power has to be there, but without the level.
This coming from someone who, over his career, has played HUGE arenas! The more I find out about Jeff Beck, the more I appreciate both his musical genius and his wisdom about delivering that music. Simply amazing.
Wow! I didn’t realize how fun doing videos would be! Expect to see more video reviews in the future! In any case, here are some key points:
Tone Bone Rating
5.0
Notes
I LOVE this stand! I’m going to get a couple more! Very well built and lightweight, it’s a perfect stand not just for the stage, but also in the studio where its small footprint won’t take up much space!
Price
$34.95
Pros
Very easy to fold up and lug around
Cons
May not work for bass – it works for mine, but fat basses may not fit (this is not really a negative, just a warning)
Imagine someone walking into or past an ongoing conversation between guitarists and hearing things like the following. I wonder what their responses might be. Here are some possible thoughts…
“…yeah, my G string sticks and makes it hard to play,” with the associated reply of, “Then you should lube your nut so that it moves back and forth more easily. A sharp pencil will work…”
If it sticks, it shouldn’t get hard… F$#k ME! A pencil? Where the hell do you put it? Oh well, to each their own…
—
“I must play on my G string a lot. Can’t believe how much crap gets built up on it.”
Naturally… and you wouldn’t even have play with your G string to get crap on it…
—
“Man, that thing has an incredibly tight bottom-end. You can really rip it up.”
Thing? As in dog? Donkey? Dude, you need help. This is one situation where sticking with your own kind is a good thing!
—
“…all in black. No exposed joints anywhere.”
What? You describing that nun, Sister Mary Elephant?
—
“…incredible lines on that one. Graceful neck, and a body with perfect curves. Just oozes elegance…”
Damn! I’m gettin’ all hot and bothered. I’d love to meet her…”
—
“Every time I put my fingers around her neck and move up and down, she just sings with joy.”
Man, that’s one f#$ked up chick! Hope you don’t leave bruise marks…….
Never really been into fuzz that much, but some of my latest stuff could really use some fuzz, so I was pleasantly surprised this morning to receive Fat Tone Guitars’ newsletter this morning that featured an announcement that they’re the exclusive sellers for Earthquake Devices’ new Zap Machine Fuzz. This is a brand-new pedal, released just this past Monday, and from what I can tell, it sounds VERY COOL! Here’s a video:
A few years ago, Mel Gibson starred in a movie called “The Patriot” in which he was a self-avowed pacifist who was pulled into the Revolutionary War to avenge the murder of his son by a British colonel, played by Jason Isaacs. In one scene where he and two of his young sons are ambushing a British patrol to save another son who was in their custody, Mel turns to the boys and says, “Do you remember what I taught you about shooting?” They replied, “Aim small, miss small.”
I was thinking about “Aim small, miss small” where I was talking to a close friend about an amp he recently purchased off EBay. The amp was one of those 100 Watt Marshall Plexi hand-wired reissues. The seller had done some major work on it, replacing the caps with original mustard caps, swapping out the transformer, swapping out resistors; in other words, lots of things. It was a pretty good price, and my buddy bought it on the basis of the upgrades. Unfortunately for him, when he compared its tone to another 100 Watt Plexi he has but with a PCB board, it sounded stale and “stiff.”
During our conversation about that amp, I shared some thoughts with him, “You know, if it’s one thing I’ve learned about tweaking, you have to do it incrementally. Making wholesale changes provides you with no moving reference point to fall back on, and if you don’t like the end result, you have no place to back up to but the beginning. Looks like what that dude did was make a bunch of changes at once, didn’t like the sound, so he sold the amp.” My friend agreed, but luckily he’s an whiz at electronics so backing out the “upgrades” won’t be too much of an issue for him.
This leads me to a discussion about tweaking. Remember: Aim small, miss small; that is, do small changes – one at a time – so in case you don’t like what you’ve done, you can easily back it up. After all, it’s easy to back up one step than several. Also, try to get the low-hanging fruit first; that is, change what is easiest to change first. In many cases, that could resolve a LOT of tonal issues.
For instance, I wasn’t digging the fizziness of the original pre-amp tubes I had in my Aracom PLX18-BB 18 Watt Plexi clone. I loved the dynamics of the amp, but it had a really fizzy finish. Some people like that, but I wasn’t bonding with it. Since I had a bunch of NOS 12AX7’s, I started there first. But I didn’t just start with replacing all the tubes. Sometimes it’s just a single tube, and since the fizziness was occurring on both channels, I decided to swap out V2 first. That reduced the fizz a ton, but there was still a little left. So I then swapped out both V1 and V3. That improved the tone even more, but it wasn’t quite there as I wanted a bit more bottom-end response. So I swapped out the speaker for one that had a great, tight bottom-end. The tone was perfect after that! I could’ve gone further and had Aracom swap out caps and resistors, or even have a “fizz” cap added to the circuit, as Jeff suggested. But I didn’t need to do any of that because I was able to get the tone I wanted with the simple changes I made. I felt that any further changes were just subjecting myself to the law of diminishing returns.
Some people may scoff at the diminutive Fender Champ 600. After all, it’s only 5 Watts and has a tiny 6″ speaker. But those naysayers may be missing the point about the Champ or any super-low wattage speaker for that matter. It’s not meant to be a performance amp; though you can certainly hook it up to an extension cabinet, and it’ll do just fine in a small venue – hey! I do that A LOT. But the secret behind the beauty of this little $149 wonder isn’t on the stage, it’s in the studio.
I’ve heard feedback from various people that they get frustrated with this amp because it’s missing certain features. Let’s face it folks, with a single volume knob, no tone control, and not much gain on tap, it would be easy to dismiss this amp as nothing more than a toy. But it’s no mistake that its venerable sibling, the Champ, has been a mainstay in professional studios for decades. It’s all in how you make use of what it has to offer.
First off, let’s establish what I think is the most important thing when recording this amp: The Champ is really good at creating your base tone, and that’s all that it should be used for. It’s up to you to shape it. Keep that in mind, and you’ll get more than a lot of mileage out of it. So let’s look at some key factors when recording with the Champ:
The Champ is naturally bright because of its small speaker. So microphone placement is absolutely critical. If you want to get a bright, twangy sound with lots of treble content, place your mic head on in the center of the cone, or just off center to avoid getting those treble “pops.” If you want less treble response, move the mic off-center, nearer to the edge of the speaker cone. I’ve found that the richest sound comes from angling the mic at about the same angle as the speaker cone, placed right at the outer ring about an inch off the grille cloth. The EQ response is a lot flatter there, and makes it easy to dial in your EQ in your DAW.
Even cranked in the high input, and even with humbuckers, the most breakup you’ll get is about “dirty blues” overdrive. But that’s why we have overdrive and distortion pedals, right? I’ve found that Tube Screamer and TS-type overdrive pedals work great with the Champ, though my Holy Fire distortion can make the Champ serve up some whoop-ass if dialed in just right.
Looking for Fender cleans? The Champ does raw Fender cleans – and quite well. Again, it’s all about mic placement when recording cleans with the Champ. My favorite is angled as I described above.
Do yourself a favor and replace the stock tubes with NOS tubes. I’ve never been a big fan of Groove Tubes (though I know some people like them). But with a great NOS pre-amp tube (I’ve got a ’59 GE long plate), and a solid NOS 6V6 (mine is a ’53 GE 6V6), you’ll immediately tame the harshness of the amp. In fact, I’ve never seen a need to replace the power transformer or the speaker because of this $50 investment.
So with those points in mind, go and record. What you’ll get after you’ve played around a bit is a great, raw guitar tone. But your work isn’t done yet – or it could be if you’re satisfied with the raw tone. Personally, I like to add filters and effects in production to make the recording sound like it’s coming from a much bigger amp. Yes, boys and girls, you can make it sound MUCH bigger!
A Word on Amp Modeling
One thing that I have also done with the Champ is to record a purely clean rhythm tone, then run it through IK Multimedia’s Amplitube plug-in to essentially “re-amp” my guitar. You can get some amazing guitar tones with the Champ when it’s re-amped through this software.
My Champ 600 Recording Process
A couple of people have asked me how to record the amp, so I thought I’d share the process I employ:
First, it starts with the guitar. Am I looking for a single-coil or humbucker tone. The cool thing about the Champ 600 is that what you hear when you play through it is your raw guitar tone. There’s no EQ so you have to establish that on your guitar. Simple enough.
Then I’ll determine whether or not I want to track with effects. Usually, I’ll only track with overdrive or distortion. I leave all the modulation effects to production.
Next, I place my mic head, dead-center on the speaker, then record a chord progression and perhaps some quick lead licks.
Then I’ll move the mic off-center and repeat the same thing I played with the mic centered.
Finally, I’ll angle the mic as described above and repeat the same progression. More likely than not, I’ll use this position because I like it the best, but different guitars actually sound better with the mic positioned dead-center.
Once I decide what mic position I’ll use, then I’ll record the track.
Once I’m finished, it’s time to apply EQ, filters and modulation effects. I like to use a hi-pass filter on most recordings with Champ to “tame” its natural edginess.
Here are some clips that I put together based upon the process above (I skipped recording head-on, off center):
Clean (Squier Classic Vibe Tele 50’s)
1. Mic head-on, dead-center
2. Mic angled along speaker cone, 1″ off the grille cloth.
Recording #2 with Graphic EQ, Chorus, Parametric EQ, Delay, Reverb, and Hi-pass filter applied
Overdriven with Tube Screamer for Extra Drive (Gibson Nighthawk 2009)
1. Mic head-on, dead-center
2. Mic angled along speaker cone, 1″ off the grille cloth.
Recording #2 with Graphic EQ, Flange, Delay, Reverb, and Hi-pass filter applied
It’s amazing what EQ, filters and effects can do to the recording! And it really didn’t take that much work to dial in the final version of what I wanted to ultimately print!
Finally, here’s a song I wrote and record awhile back (sorry for the over-abundance of bass). If I remember correctly, I used four guitars in six parts in that song (Epiphone Explorer, Gibson ES-335, MIM Strat, PRS SE Soapbar II), all recorded with the Champ – and with the stock speaker no less!
I had my weekly church gig yesterday. It was storming REALLY badly beforehand, and the thought of lugging my regular rig in the rain was just not appealing to me. It usually consists of my pedal board, a couple of guitars, an amp, a 1 X 12, cab, an attenuator, and a gig bag for cords and tools for spot emergency repairs (never leave home without some tools – I even have a soldering iron because you never know…). With all the rain, I just did not want to do that, so I opted for a solution where I could just make one trip, and that meant leaving my attenuator, pedal board, and main amp – an Aracom VRX22 – at home. I also wanted to keep things as light as possible, so I wouldn’t have to use my portable hand cart.
So I decided to use my little Fender Champ 600 and my 1 X 12 cab (because the Champ just doesn’t have enough bottom-end). The thing about the Champ is that you have to crank it up all the way to get some decent breakup, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but in a church environment, that could be problematic as even 5 Watts through a 1 X 12 can be loud. So my solution to get some grind? I took the dust off my old TS-808 Tube Screamer, threw it in my gig bag, grabbed my Tele, and went to church!
I have to say that that was one of the most enjoyable sets I had played in awhile. I hadn’t used the TubeScreamer in a LONG time, and I mainly used it yesterday because I didn’t want to “peel” an OD off my board. But I had forgotten just how good a pedal the classic TS sound; that is, if you use it right.
So I have a big admission to make: I’m not sure if I had ever really used the Tube Screamer to its full potential before I replaced it. I loved its tone, but could never get the drive that I wanted with it. So yesterday, knowing that I was playing the Champ, which is all about clean headroom, I cranked the Overdrive knob on the TS, and set the level to just over unity gain, with my guitar volume a little past halfway.
Cranking the Overdrive knob made the Tube Screamer absolutely come alive! To me at least, it has a tasty, mid-rangy tone, and turned up as high as I had it, added tons of sustain that amazingly enough didn’t muddy up my tone. There was just a touch of compression as well. But the best thing about it was that the TS was very responsive to volume knob and pick attack at that higher gain setting. Rolling off my volume cleaned up my signal immensely, and when I’d dig in, I’d get some subtle grind; perfect for playing rhythm. During lead breaks, I’d throw my Tele into the bridge pickup, crank my guitar’s volume, and I’d get a singing lead tone!
Granted, I’ve got some fantastic drive pedals on my board right now that I’d be hard-pressed to remove. But I’ll always have my Tube Screamer for those times when I just want to keep things simple. 🙂
Here’s a clip that I recorded this evening with the Champ 600 and the Tube Screamer. Both rhythm and lead parts were recorded with the Tube Screamer’s Overdrive maxed, and the level set to unity gain, and the Tone knob set to about 3pm – close to max. The rhythm part was finger-picked with my Tele in the neck position, while the lead was played in the middle position. I added just a touch of reverb to each part to smooth out the tones. They can be quite bright on the Champ 600.
Admittedly, the Tube Screamer’s mid-rangy tone isn’t for everyone. But I love it, and the sustain that it adds really does it for me.
With regards to my Champ, for a $149 amp, it really kicks some ass! I didn’t particularly like the tubes that were originally in it, so I tried several. My latest combination is a NOS ’59 GE 12AX7 and a NOS ’53 GE 6V6. That combination works great with the amp. I highly recommend getting some good NOS tubes to put in that amp if you endeavor to buy one. For under $50 you can get those tubes. My 6V6 was a “good pull” that I got for $15! The pre-amp tube cost $30. Totally worth it!
This is a hotly debated topic, and there are great arguments for or against using one. I’m of the former group and have used attenuators to great success over the years. To demonstrate how useful an attenuator can be, I put together a quick video. Here you go:
I wanted to be as non-technical about the usage of an attenuator because there are so many attenuator designs on the market. So I kept this video at a fairly high level. I’ll get into more detail in the next video when I discuss the Aracom PRX150-Pro.
Yup, you guessed it… yet another overdrive pedal. I came across this pedal while perusing the forums over at Mark Wein Guitar Lessons. Mark occasionally posts “Pedal of the Day” entries, and this was his latest. I know, lots of people complain about “yet another OD pedal.” But if you stop to think about it, there’s probably a great reason why there are so many OD’s on the market. What comes to mind for me is that no one overdrive can cover everything. Let’s face it, a Tube Screamer or TS-like OD can only take you so far tonally.
Don’t get me wrong: Not all OD’s are created equally. Admittedly, there’s lots of crap out there, which is a fallout of the boutique gear movement. I’ve suspected several boutique gear “manufacturers” of simply building gear based on kits, putting a nice paint job on them, then selling the pedal for hundreds of dollars; which is why I’ve always stressed to folks – try before you buy!
The LovePedal Kalamazoo is no exception to this rule. While it has some very cool features (I’ll list them below), you really never know how a pedal will work with your rig until you put it in your chain. But despite that, I’m really intrigued by LovePedal’s twist on the overdrive with the Kalamazoo.
So what’s to like? As you can see, there are two little knobs called Tone and Glass under the common Level and Drive knobs. I believe this is where the magic of the pedal lies. Tone is a treble content roll-off, while glass is a treble booster that doesn’t affect the lows. These are wired in series, so they interact with each other. From what I could gather from the demo from ProGuitarShops I’ve seen, these two knobs offer up a world of tonal possibilities.
Another thing that appeals to me is that I prefer a more “open” kind of overdrive to let my power tubes do the compression. To me, it sounds more natural that way. The Kalamazoo was designed to create an “open” type overdrive tone. With it, you can slam the front-end of your amp, and make that gain push the power tubes into compression.
And from what I could gather, the Kalamazoo is VERY responsive to input gain, which is demonstrated in the ProGuitarShops video.
Here are the pedal’s features (from the Love Pedal site):
9VDC Input
True Bypass LED Status
Compact Die cast Aluminum Case 4.37″ X 2.37″ X 1.07″
Controls:
DRIVE – Sets the amount of overdrive
LEVEL – Master volume control
TONE – Softens the treble content
GLASS – Increases treble without cutting bass response
STOMPSWITCH – Turns effect ON or OFF
Cost: $199
To top it off, the pedal has a mirror finish! I really dig that! My Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 booster has a mirror finish as well. Sweet! And at $199, this is a pedal that will not break the bank!
Some people may scoff at the diminutive Fender Champ 600. After all, it’s only 5 Watts and has a tiny 6″ speaker. But those naysayers may be missing the point about the Champ or any super-low wattage speaker for that matter. It’s not meant to be a performance amp; though you can certainly hook it up to an extension cabinet, and it’ll do just fine in a small venue – hey! I do that A LOT. But the secret behind the beauty of this little $149 wonder isn’t on the stage, it’s in the studio.
Guitar Gear 