Guitar Gear

I recently watched “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and thought that my ’59 Replica Les Paul was much like Sauron’s ring; always finding a way back to its master. 🙂 The reason I was thinking this is because ever since I started making a concerted effort to sell it, the sales have either fallen through or in one case I actually got a buyer, but he returned the guitar for some stupid reason I can’t recall. In any case, the guitar seems to gravitate back to me. I recently got another buyer lined up, but he ran into some money issues and had to back out.

All this led me to think: Is this a sign? Am I meant to keep this guitar?

Then yesterday, on a whim, I decided to use it for my church gig, so I put it in my gig bag and packed it up. Now I hadn’t played “Ox” for a couple of months – and not plugged in – so I was actually a bit excited to play him after all this time. I got my rig all set up, then slung the guitar on my shoulder to tune it. To my amazement, the Ox was still in tune! I had to make a couple of minor adjustments to the tuning, but I couldn’t believe that the tuning didn’t drift all that much. That really made me grin and think to myself, “You know, it’s the mark of a great instrument…” Whether that’s actually true or not, I don’t know, but that was my perception…

Then I switched on my remote unit and started playing. I had forgotten just how sweet the sound is that this guitar produces. The old-growth mahogany and Brazilian rosewood fretboard, combined with the Wolftone “Dr. Vintage” pickups create this dreamy, sustaining tone. On top of that, the asymmetrical neck makes playing this guitar scarily easy!

After warming up a bit, I stopped, looked at my band and said, “I’m crazy to sell this guitar. The way it sounds and how it feels makes me think we were made for each other. Nah, I’m taking this guitar off the market. I’m glad the last sale fell through” My band mates just chuckled. They knew how much I loved playing this guitar.

I think one of the things that compelled me to sell it in the first place was how bright the guitar was through my low-wattage amps, plus the speakers I was using, that had a bit more upper-midrange emphasis. But with an amp like my DV Mark Little 40 that has a nice, tight bottom end, combined with the fat Jensen Jet Falcon 1 X 12, they counteract the guitar’s natural brightness to produce a rich and luscious tone that’s still sits in the upper-midrange, but is bolstered by a great low-end. Needless to say, I was absolutely loving this amp.

So it looks like I’m keeping this guitar for now. I may again consider selling it in the future, but right now, I’m keeping it. What about my R8? Well, “Amber” will never be sold. She’s my all-around guitar and has a much warmer and deeper tone than Ox. I’m going to try gigging with both, using a different guitar depending upon the song.

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Back in my younger years, about 35 years ago, I was an avid skier. I lived for the sport and spent every red cent I had for equipment and lift tickets. To me, there was nothing like carving perfect turns down a slope; and as I got better, taking on challenging pitches that few would even think to attempt. I even did a bit of racing, as I had a competitive streak. In all those years that I skied, and even up to now, in my book, there was no better ski racer than Ingemar Stenmark, the Swedish legend, whose total World Cup wins has never been beaten and most likely will never be beaten. Here’s a compilation video of him:

The thing about Stenmark was that he was so good that for many years in the Giant Slalom and Slalom events, no one talked about who would be first, but rather, who would be second. And he was also so good that the Federacion Internacional du Ski (FIS), the governing body for all international amateur skiing, changed the rules such that he could not win the overall World Cup beyond the two titles he had won by requiring that to win the combined a skier also had to race the downhill event, which he did not; even though with his wins in both slalom and giant slalom he amassed more points than the winner of the combined!

For those of us who followed him, it was an injustice. But despite that, he will forever live on as the greatest skier of all time. So what does this have to do with playing guitar?

Think about how different groups or players completely changed the game in music history. When Dave Davies of the Kinks used a razor blade to cut up his speaker cone to create a distorted sound for “You Really Got Me,” that completely changed the game of rock and roll. I realize that that wasn’t necessarily borne out of skill, but it was a game-changer.

If you want to look to pure skill, then there are two guitarists in recent history that completely changed the game – at least in my mind. The first was Michael Hedges, the acoustic guitar god who sprouted a cadre of alternate-tuning, body-slapping, both-hands-players such as Kaki King and Andy McGhee. Watching him play was a transformative experience. Of all the players who had an influence on how I play, Michael Hedges is probably the biggest, as I learned to use percussive rhythm techniques in my playing that I carried over to electric guitar. They’re subtle, but they’re definitely derived from hours of watching Michael live and listening to his albums.

The other game-changer – and I think most will agree with me – was none other than Eddie Van Halen. When he hit the scene, he scared the living shit out of his contemporaries. Sure, it could be argued that Satch legitimized shred, but EVH showed the world what was possible with rock guitar, and rock guitar playing has not been the same since.

You may or may not agree with me with my choices of game-changers; it’s subjective, after all. But the point to all this is that those who are that good at what they do really change the game, and make everyone step up theirs to keep up. Thank God I’ve been able to witness masters in my lifetime!

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Before I go any further, watch the following video of Tupac Shakur:

This footage was taken from the 2012 Coachella Hip-Hop Festival. WTF? 2012? Yup, they somehow found a way to resurrect Tupac. For sure, the technology used to do this is nothing short of amazing. The digital wizards even had Tupac saying stuff he’d never said before! So it’s entirely possible for them to resurrect any artist, like Jimi Hendrix. It wouldn’t be too hard for a great axe-slinger who can cop Jimi Hendrix to lay down tracks.

But there is a darker side to this: Can you see record labels and music execs salivating over the potential revenue this could generate if they used it for other artists? This article seems to think that’s so…

Hate to rain on people’s parades, but I’m not sure how I feel about this technology. It would be cool to see Jimi once again, but… <loss for words> But no question, with today’s technology, an artist need never die.

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I was reading what was a ostensibly a big ad on learning to be a great singer, when I read the following words:

“Singers are only singers because they have the guts to be one! What about natural talent? You may have heard that if you were not born with it, you won’t have the natural ability to sing. It’s simply not true! If you apply yourself with the passion and discipline it takes, you too can become a great singer.”

I thought about that, and thought about my own progression as a performer. I’ve been working the same weekly gig at a local restaurant going on 12 years now. It’s a solo acoustic gig where I play both guitar and piano, and of course, sing. In that gig, I cover all sorts of songs ranging from opera, show tunes, rock and country ballads to classic rock. It’s a great gig where I get to play a lot of different genres. The first couple of years, I was really low-key about doing the gig, happy to get my hourly gig wage, and if I got tips, that was great. I’d do the covers as faithful to the original as I could and things were good. But the problem was that I started to get bored. Real bored.

So I decided one day to “own” the songs; still perform them according to what I felt was the original vision of the songs, but add my own feeling to them. When I was just thinking about doing this, I was admittedly a little nervous. What if people didn’t like what I was doing. It wasn’t as if I’d be performing the music so completely different that it wouldn’t be recognizable, but it would be my own interpretation of the music.

So one day, I just decided to go for it. I was nervous as hell. But I went for it in spite of my fears. It was the best decision I ever made. People seemed to like what I was doing, and they rewarded me in kind with some pretty nice tips.  But irrespective of the tips, I learned something very important as a performer since building up the courage to “own” the songs I play: What separates a good performance from a mediocre performance is literally having the courage to put yourself into the song; all your passion, all your love, all your pain, all your joy. Everything you are.

Whether you’re playing an original or a cover makes no difference. One might argue that if you’re doing covers you want to stay as close to the original as possible. I disagree. If all you’re just doing is copying, then you’ll just be an imitator. I’ve seen lots of cover bands in my day, and the best I’ve seen are the ones that don’t follow the covers note-for-note. That said, if you’re doing a tribute band, then note-by-note precision is probably important, but for dance/bar bands, I think capturing the general spirit of the song is good enough and note-for-note precision should take a back seat to really playing and expressing yourself.

Of course, “owning” a piece can backfire. But that’s the risk you take when you do own a song. It takes guts to do it, but in the end, I fully believe that when you’re expressing YOU in the music you play, you’ll have a much greater impact on your audience than when you just play the song.

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On Master Volumes, Variable Power, etc…

A friend of mine recently got a great tube amp, and one of the options he wanted to have added to the amp was a half-power switch. I spoke to him about it and said it really wasn’t necessary since he almost exclusively plays clean, so his main concern was to have maximum clean headroom. The only thing that half-power switch would do for him would be to help get his amp into breakup earlier as the lower power will saturate the tubes at a lower power point. I also mentioned that the half-power switch would only provide a 3dB drop in volume, which wasn’t significant. Then Jeff Aragaki followed up with something I thought I’d share: In order to get half-volume, you’d have to drop 10dB. That’s something a lot of people don’t realize when considering variable power.

If it sounds good, then it’s right…

I heard this a few months ago I believe from Keith Urban’s guitar tech, and I was reminded of it a couple of  weeks ago during a gig, and when I made the final demo recording for my song, “You Raise Me Up” where I used my EWS Little Brute Drive distortion pedal to get my crunch sound. For years, I had eschewed the use of distortion pedals and relied on my amp for distortion. But pedal sounds so damn good that I’m now using it all the time. It’s a perfect example of “If it sounds good, then it’s right.” It’s a great and humbling lesson that it doesn’t matter the make, model, or price of a piece of gear. If you feel it helps your sound, then it’s the right piece of gear.

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Yikes! Can’t believe how piled up my man-cave got, so I started arranging stuff so I could feel less cluttered while recording. It’s going to be a two-day job – there’s A LOT of stuff to move around; not just mine, but boxes of my wife’s books and sports equipment, etc. In the end, it’ll be all good. 🙂

As for my pedal board, I decided it was time to get all my frequently used pedals all in one place – yet again. For the last few months, I’ve gone with a simple, four-pedal board, but I missed things like my wah-wah and booster. So I decided to get my act together and assemble my board. Here’s the order:

BOSS TU-2 Tuner ->
Paul Cochrane Timmy Overdrive (transparent) ->
Tone Freak Effects Abunai 2 Overdrive (transparent, but compressed) ->
EWS Little Brute Drive Distortion (I LOVE THIS) ->
VOX Big Bad Wah ->
TC Electronic Corona Chorus ->
Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay (hand-wired) ->
DigiTech Hardwire RV-7 Reverb ->
Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 Clean Boost

I know that lots of players prefer the wah in front of the overdrives and distortion, but I’ve never liked that sound, so I put it behind them, and before my modulation effects. As for the clean boost, I’ve always preferred it to be the last in my chain to do a final boost before going into the amp.

FYI, I rarely, if ever stack my overdrives. The Timmy is good for stacking when I’ve done it, but I usually just use a single drive to dirty up my signal. Especially since I’ve gotten the Little Brute Drive (“LBD”), when I want a high gain sound, I’ve been using a distortion. The thing about the LBD is that it’s super gainy, but it’s also amazingly transparent. I wasn’t expecting that. In fact, what’s cool is that when engaged, it doesn’t give much of a volume boost, so I haven’t had to use my attenuator at church. I just play clean, then switch on the LBD when I need crunch. And the LBD with the Deep Blue Delay? OMG!!! Fuggettaboutit! What a sound! Gainy and ambient – perfect for leads!

Oh well… I’m sitting at a local Peet’s Coffee shop right now, waiting to pick up my daughter from ice skating with her friends, and all this talk and thought about gear is making me itchin’ to play! Dammit!!!

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A fellow blogger who focuses on wine recently got a hate letter from a winery owner who went a bit overboard with an email response to a review that he wrote of her wine. There was some pretty lively discussion around the letter, with people in support of either the author or the winery owner. But one commenter said something that struck a chord with me: “You reap what you sow…”

That saying couldn’t be more true, and which is why at the outset of this blog 5 years ago, I made the conscious decision to never post bad reviews. If I didn’t like some gear a manufacturer sent me, I’d let them know privately, and I wouldn’t write a review. My choice was to post reviews about interesting and/or “best in class” gear, as opposed to writing a review on something I find mediocre or just plain bad.

As a Wine Enthusiast reviewer, Steve Heimoff has to publish his reviews for the magazine, but I do have to question why he chose to publish this particular review. After all, he boasts tasting over 4000 wines per year; a huge amount from which he can choose the stellar wines. And though he defends himself in his article, and he’s right to question the sinister email, the question still remains why he chose to publish that. I suppose he could argue that he wants to give his readers the full range; a complete picture of what’s out there, but I don’t buy into it completely.

Part of the reason for me to publish only gear that I would rate 4 and above was time. Not so much now, but in the earlier days of this blog, I was reviewing LOTS of gear, and working full-time, I just couldn’t keep up, as my review policy had evolved to providing demo clips as much as possible. And so it goes with gear – and wine for that matter – that I wanted to buy. I just don’t have a lot of time to devote to searching, so I look for reviews of stuff that gets a high rating from a reputable source.

For instance, with wines, I don’t even think about buying wines in 80’s point range because I don’t drink wine everyday, and when I want to enjoy a glass, I want it to be good, so I tend to lean on the scores a bit in my search for wines. Admittedly, there are times where I question how the hell can this be a 90+ wine? But for the most part, the wines scored in that range have tended to be pretty damn good.

With guitar gear, I look to good, reputable sources for gear reviews. I’ll look at negative reviews as well, but once I detect ranting or unsubstantiated complaints, I’ll immediately dismiss the particular review. Stuff like, “This sucks…” or “This is just useless crap” with nothing to explain why are completely useless input for me in my buying decisions. That’s why forums are a bit dangerous. A lot of the feedback you hear – both positive and negative – tends to be plain opinion with no real testing. So buyer beware! Don’t buy into the hype if you can avoid it.

I know I talk about it a bit, but my Timmy pedal was a “hype” item. I originally heard about it on a prominent forum, and dismissed it because of all the hype surrounding it. But it wasn’t until I actually saw and heard it in action and got feedback on it by the player that I made my decision to get on the waiting list.

Anyway, back to reviewing, as a reviewer myself, I think it’s important to play nice. After all, at least in my opinion, you attract more bees with honey.

ROCK ON!

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Yesterday marked the 40th Anniversary of the release of Stairway to Heaven, a tune with a riff that whether or not you’re a Zep fan is a moral imperative for any guitarist to learn.

As for myself, I was never that much into Zep. I dug certain tunes like Stairway, Black Dog, and Lady, but never bought a Zep album. But I do have to admit that the Stairway riff had a huge impact on me becoming a guitar player. It’s so simple, but it’s beautiful.

Another riff that compelled me towards playing guitar was Black Water by the Doobie Brothers. I was so proud of myself when I learned that riff. That gave me my first taste of alternate tuning; albeit it was only dropping the low E to D.

And I have to say that it wasn’t necessarily full songs that drove me to learn guitar, but rather little riffs that I thought were cool. Of course, the musician in me wouldn’t just settle for the riff, but I would have to say I was riff-driven. 🙂

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