Tag: Guitar

Wait List

Back in March 2018 I added my name to the waiting list for a guitar pedal. The company is called Analogman and they make phenomenal stuff. Probably the most famous item in their catalog is a duel overdrive pedal called King of Tone. At the time the backlog of orders was taking about two years to process. I put my name on the list thinking I would probably have a King of Tone of my own by March 2020.

Remember what went down in March 2020?

By the time Covid hit the wait had already grown. I think I was expecting my number to come up in 2021 (I think). Then Covid slowed everything down more. I haven’t inquired when I should expect it to be my turn to buy a pedal, but I did just read a story that mentioned Analogman recently started working on orders placed in 2018. Hey, that’s me! The article also said they had to redo about 100 circuit boards because some prick managed to slip fake capacitors past them and they all had to be replaced. Damn it.

It will be my turn someday. Someday.

On a slightly related note, if you remember back in June of 2020 when George Floyd was murdered by police officers and riots broke out all of the country, I did a lot of bitching about a pedal builder who first decided that store windows were more important than police officers assassinating citizens before doubling down on his complete assholeness by verbally attacking his own customers for having the nerve to call him a racist when his behavior was about as racist as you can get. I declared I would never use his pedals again (he actually told at least one customer that they were not worthy of using his pedals so I guess he wanted me to stop using his stuff) and put the pedals I owned (there were two, with a third stuck at the band’s rehearsal room) into a box at the bottom of my closet where they can rot for eternity. Then Reverb and Guitar Center cut ties with his company as well. Now, two years later, he’s shutting down. I’m not sure if he’s going out of business or just scaling back to a tiny work-from-home type of thing, or if maybe he’s going to move manufacturing overseas, or what.

While I would never wish harm upon another human, I can’t help but think that going out of business couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, you know? As one who works in customer service… it’s not hard to not verbally assault your customers. Really, it’s not hard. It’s also not hard to not be a racist asshole, but that might be asking too much from some people. I guess.

Hopefully this is the last time I will ever talk about this prick.

Also, hopefully my turn to buy that Analogman pedal will be coming up soon. Four years is a long time, you know?

Play

I need to play guitar. That’s my lunchtime truth-bomb for the day. I need to play guitar.

I haven’t played in weeks. I have been focusing on screwing around with cameras so much lately that I have completely neglected music and that needs to stop. I need to find a balance between work, sleep, spending time with my family, goofing off with cameras, and goofing off with music.

I have a few songs queued up for car vocals and I think I want to try and get to them tomorrow, then I can add more guitar parts to the songs. That’s my entry way into getting off of my fat, quasi-musical ass. I also want to swap an overdrive pedal off of the pedal board and I want to put the attenuator back onto my amplifier and after I see how all of that works together, I want to play. I also want to play with the band, but at this point I just want to freakin’ play!

Fifty songs in ninety days is no longer in place, but an album in a month for September? That could happen. Then back into the re-recording project. Also The Lizardfish. There are things to do and things to work toward but I just have to play. I need to play guitar.

Together at Last

I haven’t had my breakfast yet, but I did play guitar for an hour. I put rhythm parts onto two faux 50/90 songs.

For the first time ever, my new favorite guitar played through my favorite amp and it was glorious.

Well… the second song was glorious. The playing was sloppy as hell but the tone was epic. The first song… I might want to try that one again. It’s sounds good, but I think I can get it to sound better.

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Together again for the first time.

Rough Night Tonight – Half Day Tomorrow

It was a pretty quiet day around here. Harry stayed at his dad’s house last night. Bellana stayed here but left for dad’s at around noon. We missed them both but made the best of it. Jen was busy so I mostly just goofed off with the new film blog and Instagram. The Instagram already has more engagement in two days than my main account has had in however many years it’s been up. It’s nuts. I put a couple of film related tags on each post and people are coming from all around. I’m getting more notice than I usually get from Flickr, and I do all right (by my own personal, meager, non- viral, non-influencer standards) on Flickr.

The rough patch came at dinner. I took one bite that was way too big. I knew it was bad as I was chewing it, but I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Nope. I got nice and sick. I felt queasy for a while and thought it was going to pass. Nope. My food tracking spread sheet has a column for nausea. On a scale of 1-10, that particular instance was a 10. The worst experience yet, by a long way.

I wanted to play guitar today but did not. I probably won’t tomorrow either. I took a half day in the morning because I thought I was bringing Bellana to the Registry of Motor Vehicles (or whatever New Hampshire calls it). Nope. Dad is bringing her. I am now on car inspection detail instead. I want to be out early enough to warm up the car and get to the garage before they open. If I can get in and out quick I might work on some song ideas before I punch in. Or maybe I’ll put that weight bench together. We’ll see.

Until then, g’night.

Today’s Lunch Break Projects

Lunch break project number one was finally unboxing the folding card table. It’s been sitting here waiting for me since early May and now it’s finally setup and useable.

Lunch break project number two was merging the two stay-at-home pedal boards.

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For the first time ever I have mounted a power supply underneath.

The chain currently runs:

  • Real McCoy Custom RMC10 wah wah pedal.
  • Korg Pitchblack Tuner.
    • I want to add one pedal to this board someday, but the power supply can only handle eight lines. If I ever get that little flanger pedal I have my eyes on, then this tuner will be the thing that gets replaced.
  • Earthquaker Devices The Depths uni-vibe pedal.
  • MXR Phase 95 phaser pedal.
  • Wren and Cuff Super Russian combination Big Muff style fuzz pedal combined with a clean boost (that I very rarely use).
  • Klon KTR overdrive pedal. The best overdrive pedal I’ve ever played.
  • Keeley D&M Drive dual overdrive pedal. One side is a higher gain overdrive, the other is lower gain with a big mid-range frequency push.
    • This pedal might be swapped out for a Wampler Plexi Drive Mini overdrive pedal. I need to test drive the Plexi through my Deluxe Reverb amp before I decide for sure.
  • MXR Carbon Copy Mini delay pedal

Now I just have to plug this sucker in and see how it all sounds together through my Deluxe Reverb. The Deluxe Reverb that is finally home!

My Amp is Home

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No, I didn’t play it, but I did set it up so I can play it later. I don’t know when I will get the chance, but soon.

New Les Paul, meet the Deluxe Reverb that has been away for 2.5 years. You guys are going to have some fun together. The pedal board that you can almost see in this photo will also change. I brought home what I used to call the stay-at-home pedal board that I also left at the band’s rehearsal space back in January 2020 (irony). I want to take two pedals and the power supply off of that board and add them to my current home recording board. Once that’s done I will be ready to get back to work on the fifty songs thing.

Oh happy day.