Tag: Guitar Gear

Random Stuff

Some random thoughts on a Friday night shortly before bed when I am so tired I can’t think straight.

16 days until our next Rush concert. It will be my 28th dating back to December 1987. It is the last show we currently have tickets for. Will it be my last Rush show ever? I thought my last Rush show ever was in 2015 but I’ve seen them three times since June and that is a seemingly miraculous gift. I’m very thankful.

I watched the new TV version of Carrie. It was so fucking good. I read the book years ago and while it was fine it is not my favorite Stephen King novel. King might be my favorite author. If he’s not my favorite he’s probably top three… or top two… I’m a huge fan. Carrie though, that one is good but it seems somehow… lesser than most classic King stories. There’s something missing. I don’t have the vocabulary skills needed to describe what is missing.

The show though… Mike Flanagan made the show. I’ve never seen any of his movies, but I’ve seen all of his Netflix TV series and they are all fantastic. This show slots in perfectly. It’s so good. He’s supposed to be working on an adaptation of The Dark Tower and I can’t wait. I can’t wait. Did you hear me say that I can’t wait?

Now that I am through with Carrie it’s time to start watching Vision Quest. I’m also watching Dark Matter. That one is really good too.

I need to take the camera out this weekend and shoot a roll of film. I’m trying to shoot a 120 roll of both Kodak Gold 200 and Kentmere 100 each month. I already have a roll of Gold done for October but I still need to shoot the Kentmere. I just don’t know what to shoot. I won’t have time tomorrow (Saturday) so I hope to get it done on Sunday.

I want to write a couple of songs before October ends too. Think of it like releasing a single. I had an idea pop into my head yesterday but I didn’t have a chance to put it down somewhere and now its gone. I hate when that happens. I also want to replace an overdrive pedal. I don’t like Boss pedals as a rule but I bought a mod of a Boss overdrive pedal made by a boutique company a few years ago and I recently found out that the boutique company donated money to trump. Nope. Done with those fuckers. Now I want to find anyother boutique mod/clone of that Boss pedal that is better than the shitty standard Boss pedal. I hate how snobby I get sometimes but there’s no way I am using a pedal made by a fascist collaborator on the off chance that someone might someday see me playing it and want to pick one up for themselves and give money to a fucking fascist. Nope. Not happening.

What was I talking about?

I started rambling and started pissing myself off about the state of our shit country. I’ll change the subject.

Yesterday I wrote about our leaky tub getting fixed. At least I hope it was fix. We gave it all day today to let the fix set and dry and settle and do whatever it needs to do. I’m looking forward to running the shower tomorrow to see if we get any water in the cellar. Please no. Pretty please no.

Okay, I am really tired. I’m going to fall asleep. Correction, I am going to try and watch an episode of Vision Quest (episode two, to be precise) and then I am going to fall asleep. Hopefully in that order. Wish me luck.

Another Pedal Company Down

I haven’t been as out of control buying guitar gear over the last year or two as I was prior, but I have gone through stretches where I get hyper obsessed with making tiny tweaks to my guitar sound that require me to buy amps and pedals and accessories. I own a bunch of amps and a lot of pedals. I mean, a lot of pedals. Every now and then one of them bites me in my conscious’ ass. That seems to have happened today.

The first time it happened was when I found out the owner/operator of a boutique pedal company that made a really cool fuzz pedal that I really wanted had donated money to a church that sponsored pray away the gay conversion bullshit. When called on it he got defensive and just made a mess out of it. He also apparently ripped off a circuit from a woman and then got really ugly with his verbal attacks when he was called out. The woman was actually trans and he went after her and it was just bad. I never bought that fuzz pedal. I never will. I won’t do business with a putz like that.

Fast forward to 2020 and I put a second pedal company on the no-fly list when one schmuck in California went after people who were protesting the murder of George Floyd. He first implied that his neighbors store windows were more important than a human being’s life, and then when he was called on it he verbally attacked his own customers. He said if we supported the George Floyd protests we were unworthy of using his gear. Can you believe that? What kind of utter narcissist would say something like that? I owned three of his pedals. Two of them were on my main board at the time and one of them is still the best pedal of its kind I’ve ever heard. Those three pedals are now rotting in a box in my cellar where they will spend the rest of eternity. I don’t do business with assholes like that and I won’t let other people see me using his stuff on the off chance it might lead to a sale. Fortunately this asshole’s company went out of business not long after. Unfortunately, he has had some luck restarting it. 

Now there’s a new one to get pissed off about. Early this morning I saw a post on social media saying that the owner and operator of this very successful boutique pedal company that has been around since the birth of the boutique pedal market is a trump donor. The post included screen shots of receipts. I own two of this guy’s pedals. One of them is at my bass player’s house waiting for me to go over and pick it up. It’s possibly the best overdrive pedal I’ve ever played that isn’t made by Klon. The other is a mod of a well known overdrive that I put on my board about a month ago while looking to change up my sound for the demos I was making for the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. One great pedal, one very good pedal. I was also thinking about buying another overdrive that this guy sells. I had actually put it into my shopping cart on musiciansfriend.com but had not yet pulled the trigger. Thankfully. I will not do business with a fascist or even a fascist collaborator. Not in this lifetime at least. To hell with this clown. I’ll have to pull his pedal off of my board. I’ll probably replace it with a King of Tone because Analogman is on the record as being very anti-trump and… well… selfishly and musically… its one of the best overdrive pedals on Earth. So… win win, I guess.

I hate it when fascism and racism and sexism and religious bullshit make me feel bad about myself musically. Fuck all of those assholes.

I wasn’t going to name names, but screw that. The gay conversion donation came from JHS, the George Floyd asshole was Fulltone, and the trump donor is Keeley Electronics.

Pedal Board

I did a little work on my band pedal board. Specifically, this is the pedal board that I usually keep at my band’s rehearsal space… even though the band kinda doesn’t exist anymore… and I don’t know what the future holds. Whatever.

I replaced the vibe pedal and the analog delay and both of the overdrive pedals and the wah pedal. I also added the little compressor. If only I could have replaced the dust. This thing sat out for a really long time.

I also went out and ran some more errands earlier. Another obligatory look at the downtown clock.

And that is my Sunday so far, as of about 2:30pm. What else will the day hold? Well, I’m heading over to the Apple Store to pay a little homage. Dig it.

Boss

When I was a kid and starting to become obsessed with guitar gear, there weren’t a lot of options around. My local music stores carried pedals from DoD and Boss for the most part. You could find occasional Ibanez, MXR, or Electro Harmonix pedals, but for the most part it was DoD and Boss. The few pedals I owned were DoD. Every time I took a Boss pedal for a test drive I was massively underwhelmed. Those music store visits back in the late 1980’s lead to a lifetime of not liking Boss gear. To this day I have never owned a Boss pedal because I have never played through one that I liked. The closest I’ve come is a Keeley pedal (the Super Phat Mod) which is a modified version of a Boss Blues Driver pedal. I like the Keeley pedal, but I don’t love it (unlike my Keeley D&M Drive which I absolutely adore).

I have never consciously boycotted Boss, I just never wanted anything they sold…

Until now.

A few years ago a couple of companies released super sophisticated amp load boxes. Universal Audio put out the Ox, which seems like the greatest thing since sliced bread. Unfortunately you can almost buy a car with the amount of money you need to shell out for an Ox.* Boss released a similar item called the Tube Amp Expander. The reviews I watched made the thing look pretty amazing, though maybe not quite as amazing as the Ox. The price was similar though and I never gave it a second thought.

Not long ago Boss released a new product. It’s a smaller version of the Tube Amp Expander. It’s called the Tube Amp Expander Core. It has all of the functionality I would want but at a much lower price. Granted, $700 is a ton of money for something like this (in my book, at least) and I don’t know if that price is before or after the orange shit clown’s Japanese tariffs. It is a low enough cost to make me consider it, but probably still too high to actually pull the trigger. It would be really cool to be able to run a direct signal out of my Fender Deluxe Reverb and into my Audio Interface, or even directly into my Macintosh.

…….it’s Boss though…. if I tried one out, history dictates that I would be disappointed. Still…….. oh the places I could go with a box like that. We’ll have to see how the economy holds up in the near future. There’s a really good chance the orange shit clown could collapse the whole country which would take the decision to blow $700 on a reactive load box out of my hands, you know?

Anyway, here’s a video that I can drool over as I watch it over and over again.

*Slight exaggeration

Line Check: Complete

Band practice is supposed to start in 43 minutes. As of this moment we’ve all chimed in that we’re good to go for today. Fingers emphatically crossed that nothing changes.

I did a line check with all of the gear I want to bring today. I am massively downsizing the pedals and massively upscaling the amp situation. Also… I’m going to play the SG. I don’t know why. I am just feeling like today should be an SG day.

Everything is working. The new reverb pedal sounds cool. Here’s hoping nothing falls apart over the next 41 minutes and we actually have a practice today. It’s going to be painful. I have no calluses on my left hand finger tips. I’ve only played for about five minutes and already I am hurting, big time.

Bring it on, kids!

Gotta

Gotta go to IKEA to return something.

Gotta go to Best Buy to return something.

Gotta go into the city, Cambridge, to pick something up.

Gotta find two 9v power plugs for guitar pedals. I know I have a bunch of them around here somewhere. Probably need to grab a power strip too.

Gotta setup the guitar rig I want to use for the next practice (tomorrow?). Guitar (Gibson Les Paul Standard) -> Duel overdrive pedal (Keeley D&M Drive) -> Digital reverb pedal (TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2) -> Amp (Fender Bassbreaker 18/30 which does not have a built in reverb, hence the digital reverb pedal). We’re going simple for a while. My big pedal board is making a ton of awful, squealy noise and I want to rip it apart and see where it’s coming from (guaranteed it’s the power supply).

Gotta write and record some music. There are only three days left in March and I haven’t written or recorded any music this month. I still want to try and get something in for the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month challenge. Probably not likely, but we’ll see.

I also need a shower because… ewww, gross.

Delivery

The last time I bought something form guitar center’s website they gave me a delivery date, told me the package was out for delivery, and then didn’t deliver it. They did this two or three days in a row. When it finally arrived they had failed to pack the power cable and when I complained they asked why I needed it… it was a guitar amplifier… was I supposed to use it without power?

I had forgotten about all of that when, this weekend, I ordered a pedal from guitar center’s website. Today is the delivery day. It has been showing as out for delivery since 9:36am. The estimated delivery time says it should arrive between 11:30am and 2:30pm. It is now 2:47 and it has not been delivered yet.

Yeah, I should have known better. I’m never getting that (relatively) cheap little digital reverb pedal, am I. I’m an idiot. Just call me sucker.

ADDENDUM: I got an email notification saying the package was delivered. I guess all it took was me complaining about it on the internet. Heh, as if.

Oxblood

Question: What is the most expensive Gibson Les Paul on Earth?

Answer: Jeff Beck’s super modified 1954 Les Paul Standard, commonly known as the Oxblood Les Paul.

Question: How much did the Oxblood sell for?

Answer: It is commonly believed that Beck bought the guitar for about $300 in 1972, but two days ago it sold at auction for $1,315,708.

Beck’s wife put up his gear collection for auction and the results were pretty staggering. While the hope was the guitars would be bought by people who would actually play them, I think it’s safe to say that most of the big tickets are going to museums and private collections where they will likely be on display and never actually touched again. That’s sad, but at these prices what can you do?

There were a couple of guitars that I would have bid on if money were no object. The Oxblood and the Yardburst being the two big ones, but there were supposed to be some signature models and prototypes of signature models (of the Oxblood, at least) that I would have liked to get my greedy mitts on.

Still… I think I would rather we still had Jeff Beck playing all of this stuff rather than having to live in a world without him. That would be way better than this world.

Something I’m Thinking About

The RPM Challenge is about three weeks away. I’m thinking about what to do as far as guitar gear and I think I have an idea…

132/365

I would add a Crybaby wah pedal to this. It would be off the board to the right, but in the signal chain it would come after the Fuzzface and before the Dyna Comp. Pedal chain law requires a Fuzzface to come first. It’s an impedance thing. I’m not an electrical engineer so I don’t really get it, but it’s true. wah->Fuzzface sounds terrible. Fuzzface->wah sounds… okay.

I’ve wired this for power but I haven’t put velcro on the three new pedals. Outside of that and adding the Crybaby, I am all set to try this out… someday. Saturday? Sunday? Someday.

Guitar playing… I haven’t forgotten about you, my friend and favorite hobby and possibly unhealthy obsession. Just need to make some time.

He’ll be Proud

My step son, Harry, will be proud of me. I just finished watching Better Call Saul. He really wanted me to watch it. He was raving about it all the time. Now I’ve watched the whole series and he can finally talk to me about it without worrying about spoilers.

FYI, it’s as good as everyone says it is. Go watch it.

Subject change. I mentioned that I bought a few new guitar pedals over the last week. I haven’t had a chance to try them out yet. I’m debating whether I want to integrate them into the board I use at home, or should I make a brand new pedal board instead. I’m leaning toward a new board. Just for a while at least. Just for schnitzengiggles.

Subject change. We have a couch delivery scheduled for this morning. The delivery window they gave me is pretty long. It extends into my work day and it overlaps two scheduled meetings. Here’s hoping we get lucky and the truck gets here early enough to not mess anything up.

Subject change. Our mouse hunting cats had a target last night. We woke up in the middle of the night to see them chasing a gross little teeny tiny rodent around. At the time, the little bastard got away. We don’t see any signs of the prick this morning, but the cats are clearly still on high alert. We live in the woods. One of the biggest rivers in New England runs smack through our town. Mice are a part of life. Still… go get the little home invading asshole, cats. Do your job. Protect your house.

Okay. Time to go start the day. That delivery truck is going to be here… eventually.