Ah, the sweet sound of a Telecaster crashing into a delay pedal and then careening in to the glowing vacuum tubes, then resonating out of the greenback speakers of an AC30. It's a poetic collision of electrons that delights the ears, and wows the senses. It makes me want to weep for joy.

Melisa and I were able to join some friends of ours for an evening service at a local Vineyard, and their venue allows the band to crank it up a notch. The church I serve at is a little A-frame building that isn't as conducive to cranked amp tone, so it is a treat to really get the tubes warmed up on my AC30 from time to time when playing as a guest at larger churches.

I've been overdosing on my Les Paul lately, and neglecting my Tele a little bit too much. For some reason, I grabbed the Tele from the start last night, and gave the Les Paul a night off. And wow, did I have some fun. Getting to crank up the AC30 allowed the tele to have both bite and power. When I have to keep my amp turned down, all I get is the bite with the tele. But man, if you get those greenbacks pushing some air, the Tele comes to life.

It was a joy to play last night with abandon, and really make a joyful noise unto the Lord. I don't often get to just play lead guitar any more, due to my commitment to leading worship, so get that chance is a treat for me.

I think I'm realizing that some of my dissatisfaction with some of my gear is due to the fact that it is being mis-used. Electric guitars, by their very invention, are meant to be loud. My success at getting a decent electric guitar sound at a reduced volume has been limited. I think that's why I've been stuck on the Les Paul lately, because it has a chunkier sound at the lower volumes I play at during our weekly worship services. Obviously, the trade off is worth it. Leading a congregation in songs requires us to put others first, and to consider that most people can't tell the difference between the sound of a Fender and Gretsch.

I've been experimenting with an Epiphone Valve Junior head. It's a 5 watt class A tube amplfier that can produce some great sounds at low volume. So far, I've had mixed success. I've done some mods on the amp's circuit that have helped bring out the sparkle I'm looking for, but I've got more work to do. But it sure was nice to get to play 'the real thing' last night and remember why I got so excited in the first place about electric guitar and its potential for musical expression in worship music.

Labels: Gear, Worship Leading

I have been in the throes of contemplating a shift in my guitar rig. My rig has gone over a few changes in the last couple of years, and I've not really found anything that I love. I've acquired some nice overdrive boxes like the Fulltone Fulldrive 2 and the Budda Phatman tube overdrive that have stayed on my board for a long time. Maybe too long. The Fulldrive 2 has been the centerpiece of my overdrive sounds for about five years, and I think I'm satisfied with what it does. I am thinking about pickin up a new dirt pedal, though. Something with a little more spank and brightness.

The big change I am contemplating is effects. I've gone through several changes lately. I used overdrive pedals into a Boss GT-3 for several years, and it worked out really well. The GT-3 is a pretty impressive pedal, especially for the era in which it was released. Of course, it is very "digitally", but the ability to tap in multiple, timed effects was cool to me. A few years ago, I decided that my GT-3 was a little long in the tooth, and I tried to go to individual effects. I had my overdrive section running in to a Boss DD-20 gigadelay, a holy grail reverb, and a Boss tremolo. It was ok, but not really what I was hoping for.

My buddy, Brandon, is a heck of a guitar player and lead singer for the up-and-coming LA band, Matcli. He has been using the POD XTLive for a while now. He showed me some of the delay tones, and it sounded really great. I have been playing through one ever since. And up to this point I've been really enjoying the vast array of delays and effects the unit has. I've been disappointed with the amp modeling with it, however, and find that it is no better than the GT-3 for amp and cabinet modeling. Everything sounds squashed and compressed and lifeless. So what I've got is a really big and heavy delay pedal. And lately I've found that this pedal is putting me into a rut as a player. Because it is a multi-effects pedal, it has dozens of patches that are all individualized and unrelated. If I want to brighten my tone for a particular amp I'm playing, or tweak anything, I'm scrolling through menus and punching a lot of buttons. And what's worse, is that change isn't carried over into other similar patches.

So now I am contemplating selling off some gear to got to individual stomp boxes again. I used to have hours to spend tweaking patches and getting the right tones, but I have to face it: I'm in my mid 30's, married, a fast paced job, and I'm volunteering as a worship coordinator at my church. Do I have time to tweak my patches every week? Heck no.

So I'm stuck in a quandary. I have to choose between the Boss DD-20 Gigadely and the Line6 DL4. The Line6 DL4 is pretty sweet, except that you can't dial in tempos, and it won't do a "dotted-quarter" delay time. For me, that is almost a deal killer. As a worship leader, I try to keep the flow going, and nothing breaks the flow like punching in a tap tempo and having it be just a "little off".

But the DL4 has some gold-standard delay tones that the DD-20 just can't do. I thought of going with the DD-20 and piggybacking the Line6 Echo Park with it. The Echo Park pedal is an awesome pedal, and will do the big swirly delays that the DD-20 won't do. The DD-20 also cops the Boss Analog Delay that is the "holy grail" of analog delays amongst many players.

But the DL4 would give me a wider array of overall tones, and so many pro guys are using it......it has to be good. I haven't been able to pull the trigger, though. Of course, to pull the trigger means that I have to sell of other gear.......a true dilema!

Labels: Gear

Almost every musician has done it. Almost all of us have made that snap decision to buy a piece of gear without really thinking about it. I did that a few years ago when I snatched up a Hot Rod Deluxe for cheap at Hugo Helmer Music in Mt. Vernon, WA.

Hugo Helmers is actually not a bad little shop for Fender and G&L gear. Their prices are actually pretty good, too. But their shop is very subdued, and when I demo'd the HRDX, I really didn't ring it out. I get really timid and shy about playing in a music store as it is, let alone playing loudly. At low volume the amp sounded awesome. I snatched it up.

At the time, I was leading worship, playing lead guitar for the worship team at VCC Mt. Vernon, and playing in a little indie-pop band called Farewell Addison. I mostly used the amp for the band, because that little amp is LOUD. With a pair of 6L6 power tubes, it pumps out an honest 40-watts of power. After a few shows with F.A., I couldn't stand the thing. The overdrive sounded like you took a bunch of nuts and bolts, and put it into a coffee can and thrashed it around. Worse yet, my pedals and effects sounded terrible through it.

I put it away, letting it sit unused for about three years. I dug it out for three outings that I wanted to take something smaller than my AC30, and regretted it all three times.

I was ready to give up, but read about a few mods to try at the The Unofficial Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Owner's Guide!

The first mod was to disconnect the negative feedback loop, which is a circuit that keeps the power section from breaking up as quickly as it normally would. However, once the amp begins to clip, it doesn't breakup very nicely at all. This circuit seems to be in place because all Fender wants to empahasize the great "Fender Clean" sound. Well, I'm not all that into the Fender clean thing.

This first mod was important, because it related to my second mod. I wanted to convert this amp to a 15-watt EL84 powered amp. Groove Tubes makes the 928-PR Substi-Tube socket adapters that convert a 6L6 pair to an EL84 pair that is self-biasing. They also claim that it converts the amp to Class-A, but I think that is baloney.

The EL84's helped! Being a Vox fan, I knew they would. The amp began to become musical, but the EQ was hardly responsive. I began to wonder about the speaker.

So on a Saturday afternoon, I rigged up a G12 greenback out of my AC30, and played my HRDX through it. Wow! What a cool vibe. Finally that "quack" that the EQ could not take out was gone, and the EQ actually had some response. I was stoked. My birthday was coming up, and I tipped of the wife about it.

After my birthday, I had the money to get a good aftermarket speaker. However, the G12's in my Vox are British-made speaker. They are pretty top-notch, and the only aftermarket Celestion G12's I could find were Chinese re-issues for $120, or originals on Ebay for mega-dough. But then I read up on the Eminence Private Jack. It's a 50-watt clone of the G12 Greenback. Wow, perfect. It will work both with the EL84's or with the 6L6's if I need to pop those in for more power.

I got the speakers installed, and went away for a week on a trip to Indiana. After a wonderful time there, I returned to LA. I was chompin' at the bit to try out this new speaker. On Thursday, I had a chance during worship practice, and I was blown away. Wow, what an awesome difference. Suddenly I like my Hot Rod Deluxe! After being so ready to sell this thing off, I now am excited to explore more sonic joy with this thing.

A success! Finally. Of course, after adding tube sockets and a new speaker, I could have bought an AC15 reissue, but now I have something even more unique. It's like a Fender/Voxy hybrid. It's actually a bit Mesa-sounding. It sounds amazing with a Fulldrive II in front of it. Now if only I could figure out how to make a buck on the OEM speaker I just took out of it. Anybody want a real bad sounding speaker?

Labels: Gear