Tag: Guitar Pedals

Guitar Tone School

I have learned more about making my guitar sound un-shitty from these two guys over the last couple of months than in all the reading and playing and studying and experimenting I’ve done with electric guitars since 1987.

Gig is Getting Close

The band’s next gig is December 30th. With Christmas and everything happening between now and then, the date is actually much closer than it looks on the calendar. Our drummer sent out a rough draft of a setlist today. Let then arguing begin! Personally, I like to wait until we’ve actually played through a set before I suggest changes. I just like to know how it all feels, you know?

I am going to be using my Fender Deluxe Reverb for this show instead of my Marshall. I really love it except that when I use my two Big Muff pedals together it sounds like an over compressed mess. I’m going to see about swapping out the second muff for an overdrive pedal and try to use it as a clean boost. I already have one setup that way in front of the first Muff pedal in order to give the signal a little extra push. Now I want to add one after the first Muff to try and get a volume boost for leads. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

Wah-Wah

I got my first electric guitar in 1986, I think. It was a Christmas present. A Hondo strat copy with one humbucker. It was a starter kit and it came with a little 5 watt (I think) Peavy amp.

The first pedal I bought was a Dod overdrive. The second pedal was the game changer. It was a Dunlop Cry-Baby Wah-Wah. Let’s just say that when it came to playing lead guitar, Hendrix and Trower and any other wah-loving soloist you can think of had nothing on me. I was out of control.

In 1990 that pedal, as well as every other piece of guitar gear I owned (except for that Dod overdrive pedal), including a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, was stolen out of my car. I replaced the guitar with a Les Paul Custom, my great big Peavy Chorus amp with a Fender Stage, and the Cry-Baby with another Cry-Baby. Exact same model. I still have it. It’s on my board at the band’s rehearsal space. It was relegated to the back up setup for a while, but I’ll get to that in the next paragraph.

In 2003 I bought my Marshall amp on ebay. The seller sweetened the deal by throwing a few pedals into the shipping box. I didn’t ask for them. I didn’t want them. I actually sold them all save for one, a Dunlop Cry-Baby Wah-Wah. I didn’t use it. I just kept it in the box. then in 2011 I tried to start a band. My 1990 Wah pedal was starting to sound a little worse for wear so I swapped them. The ebay wah was on stage with me for my first show with Lizardfish, but sadly not the second. During one of the last practices before the most recent show it fell apart. Did I write a post about that? I think so. the 1990 pedal went back into regular use, and the ebay pedal is being prepared for a Viking funeral.

Everything changes today though. The UPS man brought me a brand spanking new wah-wah pedal. For the first time in 29 years I won’t be playing a Cry-Baby. I bought a Fulltone Clyde Deluxe and it has way more bells and whistles than anything as simple as a wah deserves. Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be two days before I can actually play the sucker. There’s too much to do!

I expect it will make it’s debut on whatever passes for this years National Solo Album Month failure, and then it will be moved to the rehearsal space when our drummer comes home from his business trip. It’s going to be weird. I think I might feel like I’m cheating on the Cry-Babys…

For a second, at least. Then I’ll be over it and getting all acid rocky all over the place with my swanky new Clyde Deluxe Wah-Wah pedal.

Rock on, brothers and sisters.

Guitar Pedal Porn

I had this idea back in the late Spring or so. Rather than truck my guitar gear back and forth between home and rehearsal, I would set things up at the rehearsal space the way I want them for gigs, and then make a back up set up to keep at home for both practicing and recording.

Here is the rehearsal space pedal board as it was used at the last gig, and as it exists now…

The Band Pedal Board

The signal path is tuner->Wah->Uni-vibe->Phaser->Overdrive (used almost like a clean boost with just the tiniest bit of gain. I want my amp to sound a little broken up when I play clean, but not really too distorted)->Bass Big Muff (for fuzzy rhythm guitar)->Big Muff with Tone Wicker (for fuzzier leads)->Delay.

Before the next show I want to move the delay to between the Phaser and the Overdrive. I want all the dirt at the end of the chain, just before the amp. That’s contrary to most people’s preference but I don’t care.

Tonight I finally set up the home pedals. I’d been piecing them together a couple at a time while working on recordings and stuff. Tonight was the first time I ran them all together. Of course I took a picture…

The Home (significantly cheaper) Pedal Board

I tried to do the signal path from memory and got it wrong, and I also don’t have anything to sit it all on, but whatever. Tuner->Wah->Overdrive->Phaser->Uni-vibe->Delay->Nano Bass Big Muff->Nano Big Muff.

I will move the overdrive to after the delay and switch the phaser and the uni-vibe tomorrow… assuming I’m going to be doing some recording tomorrow.

I’m not really sold on the Nano Big Muffs. They sound… wimpy… I guess that’s the word… wimpy when compared to the band board versions. I have a NYC Big Muff reissue that is awesome. I might replace both of the nanos with it. I’ll give it some recording time and see how I feel later.

The tuner on each board is the same model, same with the cry baby wah. The Joyo Ultimate Drive at home is a clone of the Fulltone OCD at rehearsal. Same deal with the Joyo Vintage Phase, it’s a clone of the MXR Phase 90. I don’t know if the Moen Shaky Jimi Vibe I have at home is an exact clone of the MXR Uni-Vibe I have at the practice space, but it’s damn close. The only major difference between the two setups is the delay. The DoD at home is a digital delay while the Seymour Duncan Vapor Trail at rehearsal is analog and 500,000,000 times better.

I also have a Fuzz Face Mini and an old DoD Flanger that I haven’t decided if they will find a home or not. We’ll see.

I am such a gear glutton. If my 17 year old self could see me now… he’d probably look down at his crappy little DoD overdrive plus and puke with jealousy (although he’d be pleased to see I am still using the same cry baby wah), and that doesn’t even mention the amps or the three (3!) high end electric guitars I’ve snagged since then.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Gear Acquisition Syndrome is a real problem and I hope they never find a cure.

Band Practice

Tonight was our first band practice in something like three weeks. We have a gig in a month but rehearsal time has been hard to come by.

The main focus right now is getting a handful of new songs up to speed. Some of them are songs the band played with their old guitar player, so they are only really new to me.

I expected us to be rusty and sloppy and not very good, but we played surprisingly well. It was pretty intense too and my finger tips are burning. My calluses were not as hard as they should be, and the strings were digging in to my skin something fierce. I need to practice at home more than I do.

We have until Saturday October 8th to get our collective shit together again. We will be ready.

Guitar Gear Shopping

Let’s feed that gear acquisition syndrome by surfing the net for some guitar related things I don’t need but desperately want.

This will be fun (for me, at least)!

JHS MUFFULETTA


I’m torn on this one, but it’s still probably the top of my semi-realistic want list. The Muffuletta is not only a Big Muff fuzz pedal clone, it’s six of them. It clones five of the more noteworthy Muff models and adds an original circuit too. I lust for the original Triangle models. In my listening research they are by far my favorite, but I do love them all. The down side is the company, JHS, has a pretty bad reputation. They allegedly steal other companies designs, and I’ve heard terrible stories (that I don’t know for sure are true) that they’ve had some sort of financial relationship with a pray-away-the-gay organization. If that’s true, then they can rot. On the basis of rumor alone, I would only buy one of these pedals used.

Wren and Cuff Tri-Pie ‘70


Instead of the Muffuletta, I could go with a Tri Pie 70. This is another clone of the original Triangle Big Muff fuzz that I want so bad. The demoes I’ve heard sound amazing. I would love to get my mitts on one of these suckers.

Fulltone Clyde Deluxe Wah


I am a Wah addict going all the way back to my first day wanting to play guitar. I’ve always used Dunlop Cry Baby’s and never wanted anything else. The Clyde Deluxe though sounds like it might be a Cry Baby on steroids. It has features I never realized I wanted until I started reading about Fulltone. Now I know I want them and they will be mine.

Fulltone Deja Vibe 2


I’m not sure they make the model pictured anymore, but there is a Deja Vibe stomp box too that would do fine for me. I’ve had a couple of cheap Uni-Vibe pedals, but this is as close to the real thing as you can get. Being able to adjust the speed on the fly would just be that much more awesome.

Gibson SG


Heheheheheheheheh