Vintage Fender Bassman Cranked up to 10

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of sitting down and cranking up a vintage Fender this video will be a treat. This is real rock and roll tone. I myself have a Bandmaster which sounds a little different but these old amps can do some serious growling. Check out the video, not only is the tone great, the playing is nice and tasty too. 

The only thing the video can’t capture is that punch in the chest feeling of all that air moving when this thing is searing like that.  Thanks to Tyler Grund for posting this on his YouTube channel. There are many more great videos there too so check them out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/gamedojo

 

Mellinium Falcon Guitar

This guitar will do the kessel run in 12 parsecs. Talk about taking some serious initiative. Brian Fisk made a fully functional guitar out of a Star Wars toy. Being a guitar player and a Star Wars fan this thing is just about the coolest thing I've seen since the the Lego guitar gear from a few years ago. 

I always admire the individuals who have a vision for something out of the ordinary but still have the ability to make cool instead of cheesy. Nice job Brian.

Cry Baby The Pedal That Rocks the World premier

Crybaby The Pedal That Rocks The World is now available online in 4 parts. This documentary dives full steam ahead into the pedal that screams rock and roll.

Featuring all the usual suspects known for their use and abuse of the Wah pedal. From Kirk Hammet to Zakk Wylde to Buddy Guy, there is no shortage of commentary from those who know this pedal best. 

You can check out each of the four segments online. The entire movie will be available on March 11th

Check it out here

Classic Fender Factory Footage

While surfing the Six String Bliss forums today I saw a post by our friend Clint Searcy that included a great video with footage shot at the old Fender Factory in Fullerton California.

This is truly witnessing rock and roll being born. 

Presonus Recording Basics

Presonus, maker of computer based recording interfaces and quality mic pre’s has really embraced their role as a home studio product line.  Their site has a lot of great info on their gear as well as some really well written articles about recording.

From syncing, to EQ basics, to the different uses of compressors, the Presonus web site is a great place to learn not only how to use your Presonus gear, but how to get some great sounds fast.

They also have a few short video’s on the basics including how to mic drums, recording guitars, and getting great vocals. 

Check out all of the great info at the Presonus site

Gibson Firebird X

Gibson Guitars announced a new guitar in it’s ever growing line of supposed revolutionary guitars.  The Firebird X is a new take on the Firebird design with some new twists.  The guitar features built in effects and some new effects controls as well as the now familiar robot tuning technology.  While it sounds enticing the price point does make you quiver a little. With an MSRP of $5570 this guitar is very expensive.  I’m not sure who the market is for this axe but as of this writing the popular opinion around the web is that Gibson has missed the mark again.

I can appreciate the nod to the original non reverse firebirds.  The triple mini humbuckers are a cool idea too.  But the design goes a bit of track with the exaggerated upper bout and the shrinking of the overall size of the firebird shape.  The headstock looks wrong to me too.  I know this is a new guitar, not a firebird reissue but man it just doesn’t live up to the cool of the original firebird design.

Sanyo Pedal Juice

The Sanyo Pedal Juice is a portable, reliable, and rechargeable way to power your pedals.  This sturdy little unit will power multiple pedals for hours.  The Pedal Juice is a great solution to powering your pedals.

The power from the Pedal Juice is clean and quiet. No hum or ground loops here.  This is great for working in the studio.  You can track for hours without worrying about unwanted electrical interference or running out of power.

I used the Pedal Juice on a gig recently where power connections were limited and there was no other need for power at the front of the stage.  Rather than run power out front I just hooked my pedals up to the Pedal Juice and played a worry free gig.

The three stage LED makes it easy to tell how much power you have on tap.  I played my entire two hour gig including sound check and the LED never went off the green setting.

The Pedal Juice is a great alternative to long power cable runs, noisy club AC, or just a reliable backup for your pedal powering needs.

MSRP $199

Pedal Juice official site

Guitar Odds and Ends, again more Odds than ends.

First we have an interesting take on male pattern baldness. Apparently Prince (I think he goes by that again) believes that playing his guitar has kept him from going bald. You be the judge.

Guitar Crime is on the rise.  Here we have another story of someone being assaulted with a guitar.  I realize that we call it an axe but c’mon, it’s not really a weapon.

 Air guitar tribute wins Bon Jovi contest.  An energetic 13 year old Air Guitarist dubbed “lil Jovi” won a contest for the best fan submitted video.  The video now plays on a big screen behind the real Bon Jovi during their live performance of Livin on a prayer.

Guitars are made out of all sorts of materials these days. This article highlights a man who makes guitars out of old license plates. Definitely different.

Play some geometric guitar lately?  Huh? That’s what I said too. Guitar Math is not my strong suit but if your interested check out the article here.

Guitar Blog Roundup July 3rd

Happy 4th of July Weekend everyone. Here is this week’s roundup of my favorite posts from the guitar interwebz. 

Guitarren has some cool sketches of potential guitar designs. He’s done a few of these posts and each one has some really cool ideals.

Boutique Guitar Resource has a great post about a new guitar from builder Nado Bailo.  The Whale guitar is one awesome looking axe.

Guitar Noise has some great tips on playing live. If your goal is to perform guitar in front of people then this is a good place to read up on some of the necessary things to do to be successful

Guitar International has a review of the new documentary about famous rock photographer Robert Knight. He’s photographed all the big names for the past 40 years.

Guitar World has some behind the scenes video from their 2011 buyers guide shoot. 

Play a little guitar has some guitar nightmares for you to ponder. I think I may have lived through a few of these. 

Pro Tone Blasko Overdrive Giveaway

Pro Tone pedals is giving you a chance to win a Blasko signature overdrive pedal.  Simply go on over to the Pro Tone pedals site to sign up.

“The Blasko Bass Overdrive pedal is meant to be as versatile as Blasko himself. In the course of an evening onstage with Ozzy, Blasko will need to cover a wide range of styles from tender ballads to hard charging metal anthems. This pedal performs perfectly in such an eclectic set list.

The unit comes equipped with a Baxandall EQ system for ultimate tone shaping capabilities and sits in the pocket of low to medium-high gain; at low settings you’ll be pleased to feel its vintage amp like response and tone, while at high gain settings you’ll get some spicy gain heating up your signal, sending it into a modern metal/industrial realm. Pushing the ‘Treble’ and ‘Bass’ controls will give you a more scooped mid-range and add additional grit to your signal. Additionally, the unit can be powered anywhere from 9-18volts. At higher voltage you’ll get increased clarity, more output, and an overall edgier tone.”

Click Here to enter at the Pro Tone Pedals Site.

YesterGear: Boss DF-2 Super Feedbacker distortion

 Distortion is one of the oldest effects pedals known to man. We strive to recreate that singing sweet sound of the overdriven amplifier with a small box stuffed with electronics.  Back in the mid 80’s, Boss decided to take it a bit further and recreate the feedback guitarists would get from a cranked amplifier.

The DF-2 was a distortion pedal with a twist.  If you held down the footswitch you would get some crazy sustain emulaitng amplifier feedback. Now you could get all that great Hendrix type feedback withough blowing the windows out.

The controls were Level, Tone, Distortion, and an Overtone knob to dial in the feedback.  I remember seeing these back in the day and thinking they didn’t sound too good. Fortunately, we now have youtube to find out if my memory serves me well.

As of this writing therer are several on Ebay with asking prices between $60-$100 and up. I don’t see a lot of bids thought so the real value of this pedal may be a little less.

Leprechaun Pedalboards

Pedal boards are a big business these days.  There are manufacturers from all over producing everything from tiny boards like the Pedal Train PT Mini to the custom giant boards that are the bigger than some of the stages I’ve played on.  Leprechaun Pedal Boards fits right in the middle of this mix.



Leprechaun Pedal Boards offers stand alone pedal boards starting at $59.99 for the 8x20 model. The also make cool boards that mount right over the Pedaltrain boards.  The company has also introduced a new pedal lock fastening system which looks pretty cool. They found a way to eliminate the need for Velcro to fasten pedals to their boards.

This is a dream come true for those who tend to buy and sell pedals frequently. Removing Velcro from a pedal before you sell it can be a nightmare.  For more info and pricing visit the Leprechaun Pedal Boards site.

guitar blog round up June 26th

Welcome to the weekend.  It’s been a buys week in the guitar world and here are some of my favorite posts from the many great guitar blogs out there.

What’s that dude play has a great video of  anew Vibe pedal by WIlson Pedals. I love the swirly pedals and this one sound great .

300 guitars has a cool post about a Valco amplifier site they found. If you dig old funky amps check it out.

I Heart Guitar has some video of the big 4 playing am I evil together. If you don't know who the big 4 are, you better check this out. 

Mark Wein has a great lesson on hammer on and pull off technique.

My Fender Champ has a cool post documenting the baffle board on a vintage champ.

Guitar Blogstar has an article about micing an amp. This is always a topic worth looking at again.

Forte Speaker Cabinets

We all want big sound out of small packages.  The typical gigging musician does not have room for stacks of amps. What if you could get some real big dispersed sound out of a small cab.  You can.

Forte Musical Instruments is making some cool cabs.  These thing are closed back but side vented to get some of that sound that’s bouncing around inside the cab out to the stage.

The inside of the cabs has angled reflectors to direct the sound out the sides.  According to Forte this provides a big sound with focused mid range and tight bass.  The construction is 5/8 “ 13 ply baltic birch with locking miter joints.

They offer 1x12, 2x12,and a vertical 2x12. They have lots of tolex  options and the prices are pretty reasonable.  With the 3D112 starting at $399 this big sounding cab won’t break the bank.

Check out Forte Musical

Set it up, tear it down

In the world of rock and roll there are some great stage crews out there. These guys put up the stage, the lights, the rigs, and the sound for the big boys. These top notch roadies know what to do and get it done right. Unfortunately for the rest of us, we are the roadies.  We have to set up and tear down our own gear. If you working a multi band stage you may have to do it in mere minutes.
Here are a few of the things that I have found to work well when setting up and tearing down at your gig.

The Set up
First, stage the stage.  What that means is, don’t drop your guitar over by the bass player and put your pedal board by the drums while you get your amp.  Put things in their logical place on the stage as you unload them. This will make things flow much better.

Work from back to front.  Get your amp plugged in. Get the footswitch to your amp plugged in. Get anything of yours in the back line plugged in.  You can then run power and cables to the front of the stage to get your pedals up and running.  Now you have a completely wired rig. But wait, don’t open that guitar case yet.
 
If you sing, get your mic stand up and your mic plugged in.  If you’re working on the house PA the  sound guy probably wants to get everyone leveled up as soon as possible.  Give your mic a quick check and your good to go. 

Now you can pull out your guitar.  The worst thing to have happen is to have your guitar sitting on a stand on a busy stage with people moving about. It’s just asking to get knocked off.  Now that your sure everyone is relatively set up you can plug in, tune up and make sure you have your sound. 


The Tear Down
I know, you just played the set of your life. You are hyped and you want to get to the schmoozing the crowd and having a drink.  You still have to tear down your gear though.  First, put that guitar in it’s case. Remember we don’t want it sitting on the stand just waiting to get knocked down. 

I like to go from back to front again. Turn off your amp, unplug anything in the back line and start coiling up your cable runs to the front of the stage.  Now you can pack your pedal board and grab your mic.  The sound guy will have them turned off if you using the house PA. If your using your own PA, make sure the PA is off so there are no pops when you disconnect the mic. 

Make sure you un-stage the stage.  Get your gear off as soon as you can.  Stack it neatly near the door you will be unloading out of so it will not be in the way of the next band. If there is no next band you may be able to leave it for a while.

These are my tips for what works for me. If you have any great tips for the load in or load out at a gig, leave a comment.

Guitar Blog Roundup June 19th

Welcome to the weekend everyone.  It’s been a long week and there was a ton of great stuff in the guitar blog world.  Here are my favorites.

The Fifth Fret has a post about the etiquette of browsing in a guitar shop. It’s about time someone laid down the law with the do’s and don’ts of guitar shopping.

Trufire.com has some cool classic rockabilly licks.  These are always fun to have in your arsenal of fretwork. 

Not playing guitar has some info on portable guitar recorders. These little digital recorders are a valuable tool for recording your practices or lessons.

Fretterverse has a list of classic must have metal guitar CD’s.  I own several of these so I am totally behind this list.

Effectsbay has some cool video of Zakk Wylde’s rig.  I love it when you can get a run down of the big boys toys.

 Playgtr.net has a cool post about a shirt that plays like a guitar. I’m not sure what this is all about or what the application is but hey, it’s guitar geek stuff.

Cool new site for Fender lovers

If you love cool old Fender guitars have I got a site for you.  I found this site called Joe’s Vintage Fenders.  Joe has some great looking vintage guitars.  There are plenty of photo’s of each guitar as well as some cool pics of old Fender goodies like guitar polish and hang tags from days gone by.

 

While he does have some Strats on the site the coolest stuff is the Jaguars, Musicmasters, and other offset type guitars. He seems to have the coolest colors, at least in my opinion.  He promises more to come but there is already a lot of good stuff there. Check it out.  

Joe’s Vintage Fenders

Yestergear: Charvel Spectrum

Back in the 80’s, Charvel/Jackson guitars were one of the go axes for any respectable metal band.  They were pointy, stripped down, hot rodded, and they looked freaking great.  Towards the end of the decade the company was sold and soon production instruments were manufactured overseas.  The quality and the brand went down hill in the early 90’s but in it’s final good year, Charvel produced one of the cooler guitars of the decade.

The Charvel Spectrum

The guitar was part retro while still maintaining a lot of that Charvel cool.  Offered in a variety of colors from pink, to surf green, to Desert Crackle, the guitar looked somewhat familiar yet decidedly different.

The Spectrum came standard with three hum cancelling single  coils, a Floyd Rose Licensed tremolo, a reverse headstock, and a vintage inspired half pick guard.  The coolest feature of the guitar and the source of its name no doubt, was the active mid control. This was essentially a wah built into the guitar. You could dial in that Michael Schenker cocked wah sound when activated and go nuts on Lights out in London.

I owned one of these for many years. It was basically a backup instrument but it still got a lot of use. I regrettably sold it a few years ago in some house cleaning.  I just wasn’t using and I figured it would be better suited in the hands of someone who would love it.

As of this writing I could not find any auctions on Ebay. I guess if you have one of these babies you aren’t selling.

Smashed, Bashed, and Trashed

Rock and Roll is always a bit dangerous. The energy can get out of control and cause some colatteral damage. That damage usually ends up on our instruments. Over time, some of these instruments may become almost unrecognizable as the original guitar they started out as.  I wanted to highlight these battle worn instruments.

I am calling out to the readers of rockguitarlife.com to send me a phono and the story of your smashed, bashed, or trashed guitar.  I will post the picture and the story on the site and even link to your MySpace or Face book page if you like. Just email me at the address on the Contact tab.

Today I am starting with my own personal instrument. This guitar started life as an off the shelf import Charvel model 275.  When I acquired it 20 years ago I changed out the pick ups to EMG”s and that was about it.  This was my main guitar for 5 or 6 years. It was played relentlessly.  I can’t count how many times it was dropped, thrown, and in the last fit of rage resulting in the third replacement neck, I even jumped straight up into the air landing on it with all my force.   

The fist neck was a casualty of my stupidity.  I left the guitar in my car in July.  When I got to rehearsal that night after work I noticed that the fret board started warping and separating at the first fret.  The second neck was a result of it being thrown across the room.  The third and final neck was actually a performance guitar neck that my friend had for years. I tried to get him to sell it to me for various  reasons and when I pleaded my case the last time he finally caved.

 

You would think I hated this guitar but it is quite the opposite. This is a great guitar which I love playing.  Like I said, rock and roll has collateral damage and it just happened to have landed on my guitar. The guitar has paint missing, cracks in the body,stripped out screw holes and a few war stories to tell.

Tube matching simplified

As I was going through some boxes in the closet today I found a couple of old power tubes. One was on it’s way out so obviously I pulled both and replaced them with a new matched pair. My son happened to be in there with me and asked me what they were. I tried to explain but he though they just looked like some cool Star Wars thermal detonators or something. I told him I was throwing them out because one of them was no good. That left him with an even more shocked look on his face.

To try to explain to a 7 year old why one power tube is no good by itself is a difficult task. If one of them technically works why do you have to throw it out?  I tried to explain that the pair needed to work together and that if one could not then the other would be no good.  I tried to explain that tubes all have their own special characteristics and that you need to use two that are just the same to make an amplifier work properly. 

At this point I though I was done, but he asked one more question.  Why do the two have to be the same and why are they all different.  The first part just came to me, “Its like getting on the see saw”. If  a 7 year old and a12 year old get on the see saw together they will be way out of sync.  One will push or pull more than the other. The second part was left as, “Tubes are like people, we are all basically the same in that we are all humans, but each person has their own traits”  I think he bought it. 

While this is very over simplified I think it works. I am still mystified by this sometimes too but I understand the importance of matching your power tubes to get the most out of your amp.

Here are a few more technical articles on tube matching.
http://www.tubeaudiostore.com/virofpowtubm.html
http://www.tubeaudiostore.com/tubmatdem.html