Archive for the ‘Guitar’ Category

The Black Strat : Minor Adjustments

September 15, 2014 by John No Comments »

black strat rebornLast summer I had my main guitar refretted by Mike Lull, luthier extraordinaire. I had worn down the frets on my black Stratocaster to the point where it was pretty difficult to play. Mike did a beautiful job of refretting the guitar, and it made a world of difference in the playability of the instrument. I took the guitar back to him last week to have a quick adjustment made to the neck, and while I was there I asked him to remove the stock “roller nut” and replace it with a standard bone nut. The roller nut on this model strat is a source of rattling and vibration dampening. I should have had Mike do this replacement when he was working on the frets, but it didn’t occur to me.

The overall difference since the nut replacement is very noticeable. The tone of the guitar is clearer, and I don’t hear that occasional rattle from the headstock. I also think it’s vibrating more cleanly, with less dissipation. I’ve only had a chance so far to use the guitar in a practice environment; the real test will be onstage this next weekend. I’m looking forward to hearing it in that context.

 

Pondering The Rig

November 8, 2013 by John No Comments »

My existing live performance setup is very good. I use a combination of great instruments, boutique pedals, a central multi-effect unit and a fabulous tube amp. I’ve been very satisfied with the tone and versatility of my rig, but it has some factors that make it challenging:

  • No presets for my boutique pedals. The only device in my system with any notion of “remembering” an effect setting is my Line6 M9. It does a great job of being the central nervous system of my pedalboard. Nothing else of my board has a preset mechanism, so making significant changes on the fly is limited.
  • No computer-based editor for anything. I would love to have an editor / librarian system for my effects and preset management. Back when I had the Line6 Pod Pro, I used its GUI software on my laptop to manage presets. I sure miss that!
  • Size and weight. My system is just about as small as I can make it, given my current requirements.

I have been considering the possibility of going to a fully modeled system, based around a central effect / amp modeling unit such as the Line6 Pod Pro HD X or the Fractal Audio Axe FXII. This would feed into a full-range flat response amplified speaker that would replace my tube amp. This type of setup would certainly address the issues I’ve outlined above, and it also gives me a single highly flexible system for guitar, bass and Warr guitar.

The challenge in this type of setup is selecting the appropriate modeler and foot controller, then completely recreating all of my tones. I have used Line6 equipment for over a decade and their newest lineup of gear is impressive; I’d say they have the front runner position based on my historic level of satisfaction with the company and their products. I have read a lot of testimonials from Axe FXII users and I’m impressed by what I’ve heard, but at 4x the price I’m uncertain of the value proposition. The next step in my investigation will involve some A/B testing. Stay tuned for details…

 

Split Brain – Playing 2 Parts At Once

July 18, 2013 by John No Comments »

In just a little under a month, The Dudley Manlove Quartet will take the stage at the Triple Door in Seattle for a fun night of music. I’ve been going back to listen to some of our songs to make adjustments to my guitar arrangements, especially where I’m covering two simultaneous parts. It’s an interesting process of deconstruction to take multiple parts and attempt to coalesce them into something that a single guitarist could perform.

In Jumbalassy, I experimented with covering multiple guitar parts by using a digital delay. In reggae songs there are usually a few separate distinctive parts:

  • The “skank”, a partially muted chord occurring on 2 and 4 in the measure
  • A rhythmic line providing interplay

These occur at the same time so there wasn’t a practical means of simultaneously recreating that effect as a lone guitarist. My solution involved a hall of mirrors: I’d tap the tempo into the delay using quarter-notes and set the delay for a whole note so it would take a full measure and repeat it once, remaining locked to the tempo of the song. Then it was just a matter of switching between the parts each measure… I’d play the skank one measure, then let the delay repeat it while I played the rhythmic picking part, then switch back the the skank while the other part repeated. It actually worked pretty well as long as the song didn’t have very complex chord changes. 

In DMQ I can’t get away with that kind of approach because the songs have complex arrangements and the guitar parts have significantly different timbres. It means my approach to layering the sounds has to be more of a compromise between the two parts, and sometimes requires a little technical trickery… one of my Stratocasters has a factory-installed Roland hexaphonic synth pickup system. I use it to drive a guitar synthesizer but one of the sneaky side-benefits of that system is that I can map different sounds to specific strings or zones on the fretboard. Again, it requires a careful arrangement of the parts to ensure I’m triggering the appropriate sounds.

The most challenging approach to this is in playing Warr Guitar, where my hands are independently performing on their own sides of the fretboard. It’s much harder for me to play this way. It might be due the fact that I never played piano with much facility, and I believe that type of hand independence would translate nicely to Warr Guitar. It takes me a bit of time to work out my parts on this instrument, but it’s very rewarding and fun. I’ve been considering using this instrument in the Dudley Manlove Quartet when we perform Depeche Mode songs; since I can independently route the signal paths for the two sides of the  instrument I could double the bass line and trigger a synth line at the same time.

In an upcoming post I’ll detail some of the songs that will involve a split-brain approach and discuss my approach to performing them.

 

Preparing For The 6/15 Bowie Set

May 6, 2013 by John No Comments »

On Saturday June 15, The Dudley Manlove Quartet will be performing at The Crocodile Cafe in Seattle, along with our pals “Halloqueen” for an evening of Queen + Bowie. DMQ is polishing up a solid set of Bowie songs and it’s been interesting to work on these transcriptions. I’ve stated in the past how important I think it is to completely understand the song in order to perfectly recreate the recorded performance, and for me the best way to do that is to make a painstakingly accurate transcription of the guitar part(s) and then memorize my transcription. Over the past few weeks I’ve finished writing out the entire night of material including some great solos by Mick Ronson, Carlos Alomar, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Fripp. Bowie’s rotating cast of guitarists included some fairly incredible players, and transcribing these idiomatic guitar parts is the key to decoding the style of the guitarist.

As we get closer to our first full-band rehearsal for this material I’ll be dialing in tones to match the parts. This show is going to require both my Les Paul and Strat, as  it will likely be impossible to conjure all those tones from a single instrument. This is the other aspect of recreating the sounds of the original recordings. I’ve made extensive notes in the transcriptions for the timbre and effect settings for each section of the songs, and in a few cases I’ll be doing some creative tap-dancing on my pedalboard to rapidly jump back and forth between settings.

I strongly encourage other musicians to work on transcribing music that you want to really understand. It’s a very powerful mechanism for analyzing song structure and playing style. I frequently notice new aspects to songs as a result of writing out charts and it gives me better insight into my own playing style, including some mannerisms that creep into my playing as a result of muscle memory. As always, hold up the mirror and pay attention. 🙂

 

Double The Fun

December 28, 2011 by John No Comments »

In the 1 Uppers I frequently switch between my stratocaster and my Danelectro baritone guitar. Our set lists seem to always be perfectly arranged to maximize the number of times I have to switch 🙂 After a recent gig at the newly opened Royal Room, I was lamenting the inconvenience of the repeated switching. I said (half jokingly) that I really needed a double neck guitar that had both a baritone and a regular neck. One of my bandmates immediately pointed out that Gretsch actually makes such an instrument. I did some hunting online and discovered the Guitar Center in Little Rock, Arkansas had one in stock that was used, with a very attractive price! After a few calls to the store I decided to have them ship it over to Seattle so I could give it a whirl.

It’s likely I’ll bring it along with me to the New Year’s Eve show at The Sunset, just because it seems like a perfect opportunity to try it out on stage. The overall tone is classic Gretsch, and you just gotta love that silver sparkle finish with the TWO Bigsby tremolo bridges! It’s pretty heavy so I don’t see myself playing marathon gigs with it, but I love its visual vibe. This will be a fun addition to the guitar arsenal!

 

The Life and Music of Wes Montgomery

June 7, 2011 by John No Comments »

NPR Profiles did a great job of putting together this 4-part series titled “The Life and Music of Wes Montgomery”. I’ve put links to each part in the post below. Dig those beautiful sounds.

 

Hot Rodding The Hot Rod Deluxe

June 2, 2011 by John No Comments »

In a previous post I mentioned that I intended to make some improvements to one of my guitar amps. I have had my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe for years and it’s been a great workhorse amp. Among my general observations of this amp:

The stock speaker is fairly flat sounding. It lacks dimensionality and punch.

I only use the clean and “yellow” lead channels. The “red” lead channel is useless to me. It has far too much gain and makes the amp sound fizzy and over-distorted.

The amp breaks up into distortion far too early in the gain stage. I want it to be louder and cleaner.

The amp has been retubed and rebiased ever few years, but it never seemed to address my gripes. I’ve discussed my wish list with a number of shop technicians and came to the conclusion that I needed to make some changes to the amp in order to tailor it more closely to my needs. I decided to switch brands of tubes from the stock Groove Tubes to JJ Tubes. Their sales tech was very helpful in tailoring the tubes to my needs. Here is what we decided to go with:

  • ECC81 ( 12AT7 ) in V1.
  • ECC832S in V2. This is a hybrid tube that is an ECC83S ( 12AX7 ) on one side and an ECC82 ( 12AU7 ) on the other side.  Essentially this will drop the gain in both the clean and drive channels and increase the headroom.
  • ECC83S for the phase splitter.

The next big improvement was installing a Weber Ceramic Chicago 12 speaker in place of the stock Eminence 12. This process was actually pretty involved. I had to remove the back panel of the amp, pull the amp chassis, remove the stock speaker, install the new speaker and re-assemble the entire amp. It took about an hour to do all this, but fortunately I had a great hockey game on TV to watch while I was doing the work. The Chicago 12 speaker is pretty stiff and dark sounding until it’s broken in. I had Weber perform about a week of initial break-in, and I expect that it’ll take a few months of regular gigging / rehearsing to really bring out the full tone of the speaker.

So, after those modifications… the amp sounds MUCH better. First off: the tubes made a huge difference in the overall tone. It seems bigger, warmer and cleaner. That pesky “red” lead channel is actually usable and great sounding; it has the nice bluesy grit I associate with vintage Fender amps. With the addition of the new speaker, the amp’s voice seems bolder and cleaner. I think it’s delivering higher volume due to the speaker’s efficiency. Definitely a big improvement across the board. I’m really looking forward to hearing how this amp performs at upcoming gigs.

 

     

    The Gold Top Arriveth

    March 31, 2011 by John No Comments »

    Last year Gibson did a limited run of reissue Les Paul Gold top guitars with P90 pickups. I attempted to order one but they sold out very quickly and then started showing up on eBay at a premium. I kept an eye out for one in smaller local stores, but never came up with one. About four months ago I noticed that Gibson was doing another limited run on these guitars, and I placed a pre-order hoping for the best. I was notified that the instruments were back-ordered, then on street date the status immediately changed to sold out.

    We left for a few weeks of vacation in Italy, and upon our return I found that the guitar had been delivered to the office! Hooray! I only brought it home last night and haven’t had much time to put it through its paces, but so far I quite pleased with it. This guitar will get a lot of action in the Dudley Manlove Quartet and the 1 Uppers.

     

    Gear For Sale: Posting Some Items For A Friend

    November 30, 2009 by john 4 Comments »

    Hey all… passing this along for a friend who is selling some gear.

    As you can see from the list below, this is all top-shelf equipment and has been treated with care. I’ve included the seller’s email address at the bottom of the list if you’re interested.

    • Raven Labs 2 Channel Universal Stereo preamp –mint condition $500—2 individual channels with EQ, or blend both channels into 1 output  http://www.raven-labs.com/pages/products/usip/usip.html
    • Raven Labs PMB – II  Master Blender:, very small two channel, with eq, mixer/pre-amp http://www.raven-labs.com/pages/products/pmb1/pmb1.html $300
    • SWR Henry the 8×8 cabinet (w/case) – $550 with flight case
    • SWR Triad 15, 10, horn (w/case) – $550 with flight case
    • 2(two) Euphonic Audio Cx3-10 Concert – 3×10”, with horn and tweeter. Full range tower design. With flight cases. $650 each, or take them both for $1100.
    • 2(two) Euphonic Audio VL-110 – 1×10” plus horn and tweeter. With flight cases. $400 each, or take them both for $700.
    • Switchblade 16 SoundSculpture $1000, 16 channel midi-programmable audio matrix with smooth crossfade between patches. precursor to this model:
      http://www.soundsculpture.com/products/switchblade_models.htm#GL
    • 2(two) Digital Echoplex’s, with one foot controller. Perfect condition. $800 each or $1500 for both.
    • Electrix Repeator $600, the classic four channel looping device. 
    • Lovetone Meatball – amazing envelope filter, $500 http://www.lovetone.com/meatball.html
    • TC Electronic Sustain EQ pedal – the classic $200
    • Line 6 Bass Pod Pro rack, great condition $250
    • Line 6 Filter Pro Studio Modeler rack, mint condition $250
    • Roland VG-88 $250 (without GK pickup)
    • Radial Tube Drive Classic $125. Nice stomp box driver.
    • MXR Phase 100 (orange) $100
    • Sans Amp Classic mint condition $125
    • Boss WP-20G Wave Processor (GK pickup in, pickup not included) $125
    • Boss AW3 Dynamic Wah pedal — $100
    • Electro Harmonix Linear Power Booster pedal, vintage box $60
    • Line 6 Pod $90
    • M-Audio DMP3 2channel mic pre $40

    For more information please contact tgweb@quodia.com

     

    Thoughts On The 11/11 Dudley Manlove Quartet Gig

    November 12, 2009 by john No Comments »

    DudleyManlove

    Last night The Dudley Manlove Quartet performed at the Tulalip Casino in Marysville. This was our second mid-week appearance at the casino; it made for a bit of a sleepy Thursday and I hope any future shows there will be on weekend rather than during the week. In order to simplify logistics I carpooled to the show with Jeff, which gave us an opportunity to discuss business strategy and music on the road. Once we arrived at the casino we did the customary check-in with security and were issued badges.

    The stage at the casino is very spacious and the room has a great sound and light system. One of my favorite things about this room is that their stage monitors are fabulous-sounding EAW wedges. This means I can have a good guitar mix up front without having to run my amplifier very loud. One characteristic about the Hot Rod Deluxe is that it gets gritty when turned up to its louder settings; it’s a great blues sound when driven hard, and I do take advantage of that when playing with The 1 Uppers. But I prefer a mostly clean tone when playing with DMQ and it’s always nice to have a lower stage volume. A good microphone on this amp provides a lovely tone with rich harmonics, and this means easily controllable feedback.

    We performed a number of guitar-centric hits last night including “The Final Countdown”, “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Sunglasses At Night”. I’ve been experimenting with different settings on the Pod XT Live and I’m getting a much more satisfactory tone from the unit, especially at lower stage volumes. Again, this is partially due to the gain stage characteristics of the amp and my usual instinct is to lower the volume and go for a more controlled stage sound. At last night’s gig I was able to verify something that I have been suspecting, but unable to test until now. There have been many times when I’ve thought my amp was distorting or losing clean head room at gigs. I find turn down the gain, lower the volume output from the Pod and yet it still sounds distorted. In our third set last night I began to hear that slight distortion from the amp and I wandered over to it to listen to it clearly. I was unable to verify it was distorting, but from my playing position several feet in front of it I would have sworn it was. The sound was unfocused, slightly dirty and over-driven. However, listening to the monitor feed proved this wasn’t actually happening! The guitar tone from the monitor was clean and sounded great. Apparently what I’m experiencing is some kind of psycho-acoustic phenomenon. I have a fairly high degree of faith in the validity of last night’s experiment since the monitor feed’s source is a microphone directly in front of my amp. If the amp was actually distorting it would have been present in the monitor. So, what does this mean? It’s got to be something that I’m “hearing” on stage that isn’t actually part of my amp signal. Very strange indeed. This might be a question for the band’s patron alien: Dudley, help me with your interstellar wisdom!

    I am continuing to plan my new pedalboard, which should take shape in the next few weeks. I’d like to put the Pod XT Live, my wah, wireless receiver, a few select pedals, and pedal power unit all together on a single pedalboard. In addition, I’d like to have a good case for the whole thing. The current top contender for the project platform is the PedalTrain Pro, and I’m beginning to look around for a deal on this system.