Tag: gear

Amp Sim

The RPM Challenge opened for sign ups for 2025 today. That seems a smidge early, but who cares. I haven’t signed up yet but I will. Soon. I am starting to feel the pull. I am starting to feel the anticipation. I am starting to look at my pedal board and recording setup at home and think about things I might want to change for this February’s challenge.

Last year I went entirely direct input into my USB audio interface. I have two amps with cab sim line outs and I used them both. Over the course of the last year or so there have been a ton of very good amp simulation pedals released into the world. Most are grossly expensive. TC Electronics has a series that is reasonably priced. Do I want to try one? They have one the sims a Fender Deluxe Reverb. I went looking for one on amazon the other day and they appeared to be out of stock. I checked again today at a couple of music vendor sites and they are definitely available. I must have misread the amazonian’s site somehow.

I would only ever want to use a device like this for home recording when there are people in the house. Otherwise I am playing through a real amp and just try to stop me. The demos for these pedals make it seem like they sound pretty good. Should I try one out? Should I take the amp sim plunge?

Or should I just splurge on an expensive new guitar? Or, should I splurge on an expensive new guitar?

Stuff

All this talk of the new Pentax half frame camera has me wanting stuff. What kind of stuff? I don’t know, stuff.

I’d like a bunch of new lenses for my mirrorless camera. I’d like a bunch of new lenses for my two film cameras. I’d like to get my hands on a decent medium format camera. Rather than stepping down the resolution with a half frame camera, let’s up the resolution with a great big honkin’ 120 film. Maybe a Pentax 67 or something. I think an old (ancient) folding camera would be cool. Maybe a Zeiss Ikonta. The downside being that these cameras were initially manufactured in Germany prior to World War II which means there may have been slave labor involved. I would have to make sure the manufacture date of any camera I bought would be post-war. Just for my own piece of mind.

I want a new guitar. A Les Paul Junior. A Les Paul Special. A Les Paul Deluxe. A Firebird. An ES-135. An ES-125. An ES-355. I want a new amp. A Marshall 1962. A Marshall Plexi. A Mesa Boogie California Tweed. A tweed 4×10 Fender Bassman. A tweed Fender Deluxe.

I want a new MacBook Pro. I want a new iPhone, but not a 15. I’m willing to wait for the 16.

Forgive the conspicuous consumerism. I am just in a retail therapy kinda mood for some reason. Not honestly though. I’m saving my pennies for not one but two future trips to Disney World. Well… that and getting film developed. There won’t be any money left over after those two things.

Still…

I want. I want. I want.

I Forgot My Amp Did That

So all of this early morning guitar recording has been with the guitar plugged directly into my USB audio interface. No microphones are being used because no speakers are being used. It’s a fully headphone setup.

I have been running the guitar through an amplifier though. My little Vox MV50 has a direct output on the back that includes cabinet simulation. Normally when you use a line out of an amplifier it sounds dog-shit awful. Not long ago the idea of digitally simulating a speaker cabinet and sticking it onto your line out signal has become a very helpful thing. There are all sorts of digital modeling amplifiers that do it now. Some are big rack mount devices, some are as small as foot pedals. My little Vox amp is an attempt at a tube amp in a pedal sized box. It uses Nutubes, which is something Korg came up with a few years ago as an alternative to normal vacuum tubes. They work off the same principals but they are extremely low powered. I think they sound okay in the amp’s pre-amp stage, but the power stage is still solid state so it doesn’t really feel like a tube amp. It sounds good enough to use, but it’s not really the same.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an actual tube amp with a line out that has a cabinet simulation? Wait a second… I think I actually have one of those! My Fender Bassbreaker 15 is a fully tube amp with exactly that kind of output on the back of the box. Why am I using the Nutube thing when I could be using the real sucker instead? Today I plugged it in and took the Fender’s cabinet sim for a spin. I think the Vox might sound better. I want to mess with it some more, but it doesn’t sound terribly good. It’s probably usable, but it’s a lateral move at best, if not a step backward. We’ll see.

I had completely forgotten about this, but when I first got the Bassbreaker amp I used the line out quite a bit for recording. When I got the Vox I used both of the amps in line out mode together for a two amp setup on an RPM Challenge. I think it was 2015 or 2016. It worked okay then. Maybe the thing to do going forward is split the signal to both amps and run with a two amp set up again. That could be fun. I mean, if I am stuck going direct again, maybe that’s something to keep things interesting. We’ll see. Next time I record rhythm guitars (tomorrow, I hope) I’ll use the Fender. Next time after that I might use them both. We’ll see.

Guitar/Retail Therapy

I am sitting here thinking about retail therapy and guitar gear and all of that and I am trying so very hard not to do it. I want to, but I don’t want to, but I want to.

For the pedal board, I want an MXR Brick and an MXR Phase 95 and one of those cheap little Mooer E-Lady flangers.

I want to trade in my Strat and do… something. Trade it for a Les Paul Jr? Trade it for a ’68 Deluxe Reverb? The money won’t work out for either of those, but what about trade it in for money and then…

Take the ES-335 to a repair shop and redo the frets and the wiring.

Or take the Les Paul Custom to a repair shop and redo the frets and change the pickups to something nice and boutique and redo the wiring.

Or take my gorgeous new Les Paul Standard to a repair shop and change the pickups to something nice and boutique and see if there is anything else that a professional would recommend doing.

Or take my SG Standard to a repair shop and change the pickups to something either nice and boutique, or something high output and mean sounding and see if there is anything else that a professional would recommend doing, specifically to the height of the action.

AAAHHHH!!!!!

Liquid Lunch

It’s almost 2:00pm and I am just getting to lunch now. When I say lunch, of course, I mean liquid lunch. I just had me a protein shake. Yummy. Will it still be yummy after tomorrow? Who the hell knows!

3.5 hours left in my work day and then I go on leave for a month. I am having a tough time wrapping my brain around that. A whole month away from work is just… weird.

It’s really loud in my yard right now. There’s a huge ass riding lawn mower tearing around like a madman. I forgot we booked a lawn service this year. It’s a good thing because we kinda don’t have a lawn mower of our own at the moment, and for the next month or so I am going to be no good to anyone.

The Bruins lost game one last night. Game two is tomorrow. I am guessing I won’t be terribly interested in watching. You know, other stuff going on.

Still no phone call telling me when to show up tomorrow. They said to expect the call between 3:00 and 8:00pm, so I am not worried… yet.

When am I going to be able to watch MoonKnight tomorrow? Do you think Disney+ will let me see it today? No? Even if I ask Mickey Mouse directly? No? Aww.

Musiciansfriend is going to deliver a new delay pedal tomorrow. I don’t expect to be able to play through it right away. You know how it is, right?

My wife Jennifer is my rock. I just wanted to share that. I couldn’t do any of this without her. She’s amazing and I am so in love with her.

What else… I don’t know. I am sure I had a reason to start typing this and I am equally sure that nothing I’ve written here has anything to do with whatever that reason was. I know that, even though I really don’t know what the reason I started this actually is. My 51st birthday is this weekend. I’d tell you all not to get old, but the alternative is really a lot worse so I won’t.

To do list for tonight:

  • Put gas in the car.
  • Clear a path in the cellar storage to the furnace. It’s getting a check up or something next week and I won’t be able to lift half of the stuff that’s in the way post-surgery.
  • Change the litter box.
  • Tell Jennifer how much I love her.
  • Text the kids and tell them how much I love them.
  • Call my parents.
  • Text my brother and sister.
  • Drink a protein shake for dinner.
  • Put away the laundry that I washed and dried yesterday.
  • Pack a bag.

My friends Larry and Mike have already gotten in touch. I got a text from Larry this morning wishing me luck. Last night I got a call from Mike. He’s been through this already and he gave me some advice for the recovery.

They told me not to wear any jewelry tomorrow. That means no wedding ring and no watch. I’m not sure what to do with my glasses. Maybe I’ll bring the case and ask Jen to hold on to them for me.

I’m not freaking out. Not really. I think I just want it to be over with so I can move on to the next stage. As scary as all of this is, it’s a good thing and I will have no regrets.

Okay, back to work for the home stretch.

Lerxst Amps Interview

I was feeling curious about the amplifier line Alex Lifeson released 2-3 years ago. They are way too powerful for my use (though I now know they can step down from 50 to 25 watts which makes them more interesting) so I didn’t look very close when they were first released.

Today I decided to poke around and I found this interview. Speaking as both a Rush fanatic and a gear nerd, this video is literally Gold.

He talks about stage volume and monitor mix preferences! Oh my god the gear dirt he shares! Can you believe it? Wow!

Pedal Board Change is Coming

This week’s episode of That Pedal Show is once again forcing* me to change things in the bedroom recording nook. They keep doing this to me!

The topic is using overdrive pedals in a band setting and it didn’t really teach me anything I didn’t already know. The what not to do examples were things that I used to do all the time, and the what you should do examples were things that I have decided were good ideas over the last 6-7 years or so. I guess I’m like Fredo Corleone. I’m smart.

Nope, what got into my head was just one of the pedals they used for the demonstration. They were using a Rat. Last year I bought a decent Rat clone. It’s on the table next to my desk but tomorrow it’s totally going on the board and getting used on some November Music stuff.

Inspiration, babie!

*Ain’t nobody forcing me to do jack. It’s just inspiration. Oodles of inspiration.

Straps

Now that I have a new guitar, I find myself in the market for a guitar strap. There was a strap included in the case candy, but I am gigantically huge and it was too small for practical use. It’s actually fine for me to use if I’m sitting down because I like to wear a strap while I sit and I want it way up high. That works out. It won’t do for me if I’m standing though. I measured it at about 55 inches long so I’m guessing I need something that is at least 60 inches if not a little longer.

Amazon has some. I would bet if I checked musiciansfriend.com they’d have some too. All well and good. Normally I just go to a music store and buy the longest one they have. I’m still planning on trading my Strat in someplace, probably guitar center, but I might do some research and find if there is any place in the city with a better trade-value reputation. There probably isn’t. I might just pick one up when I take care of the Strat. Who knows. Maybe.

What about etsy? There is a surprising amount of homemade guitar gear on etsy, are there straps? Yes, yes there are. Quite a few of them. The selling prices are higher than I was really interested in spending, but there are a few that are interesting. One of them is made out of recycled seatbelts. That sounds like fun. I don’t see lengths listed on the sales page though. That’s a deal breaker for me.

However the strap journey works itself out, I want to play tonight. I kinda need to play tonight.

Rock on, my friends.

G.A.S.

I told myself I wasn’t going to buy more guitar gear until at least my birthday, and then it was going to be fixing problems with one of my two 40+ year old guitars.

And then tonight I bought a Rat pedal.

What the hell is wrong with me?

It’s All Here and it Works

304/365

Lunch time came and I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. I pulled a power cable off of another amplifier and took the new (used) Vox AC15 for a spin. Much to my surprise it actually works. Jen was still working so I didn’t test the volume, but I did play it clean with the master volume and the channel volume low, and I played it dirty with the master volume WAY down and the channel volume cranked. I can still smell the tubes cooking. Nice.

Fortunately, while I was noodling UPS came with the missing power cable. The amp was eight days late. The cable was nine. It’s here though. My ES-335 is feeling like it might need some new strings. Other than that I think I’m ready to record some guitar tonight.

I should note that I still haven’t actually plugged in the new power cable yet. Am I counting my chickens before they hatch? Probably. Oh well. I’m sick of this shit. It’s over. Let’s boogie.