That's actually funny. Yeah, I know Behringer is cheap, and I know people dump on them all the time. But, I don't play live where I'm constantly toting gear around, and I just don't play that much. For my hobby level, since Behringer is cheap, they work just fine for me. I have 3 other pedals, plus the X V amp, a Xenyx mixer, monitors and microphone all made by Behringer. I've never had any trouble with any of them. So, here's a funny update: I checked around, and it was suggested that the diode next to the power input was bad; that the previous owner of the pedal probably used the wrong adapter and fried the diode. I bought one at my local parts place for $4. While trying to the old one, I managed to stab myself in the finger with the solder iron. Ow. Anyway, new diode no worky either. So, yes . . . to the garbage can it goes.
Since you guys are talking about effects, I was digging around on the BYOC boards and found this setup. I think this guy has more money in his pedal board than I have in my whole rig. Just when I think I have a grasp on what I am doing....
My pedalboard is nowhere near that big (in fact, financial issues have made it smaller) - but at its largest, I was at about $3,000 worth of gear. There's just something about having a pedalboard. It's more affordable to have multi-effects, and some of the new shit is doing a great job of emulating the most used amps and pedals - but it just feels cool to have a collection of little boxes. I've got about five or six boutique pedals on my wish list that I can't wait to pick up.
I'm weird in that I've never been a pedal guy. My entire live pedal rig has frequently consisted of a Tubescreamer and a tuner, and sometimes not even a tuner. I see all these guys walk out of clubs with pedal racks bigger than their amps- I mean I get it but do you always need all of those pedals?
I think it depends on your gig. I am a pedal guy, but not in a professional sense. I'm a bass player - so all my pedals are just for my own fun and games. I had the money, so I bought them, and used them on my own recordings and songs my friend and I wrote. I have on my pedalboard (in order): Tuner Compressor a nice boutique Fuzz Chorus ...and I am going to be getting an octave pedal and an envelope filter, after I get some Christmas money. For paying gigs? I don't usually take my board with me at all, or I just bring the tuner and compressor. Now, some guys play in live dub-step bands, or Parliament/Funkadelic cover bands, and you need the pedalboard filled with synth, fuzz, filters, and all kinds of shit for those sounds. Most guitar players in Nashville are going from gig to gig, reading charts and playing on the fly, so they have a pedalboard of their core tones that they may need. And one of my friends back home has a tuner and a Tube Screamer, just like you, and he plays gigs every week. So you don't always need a shitload of pedals, but sometimes you do. And once you start down the path, you can end up getting a shitload of pedals. If money wasn't an issue, I'd be buying and trading pedals like crazy.
I'm not sure I should be posting in this thread much, as I don't qualify as a musician . . . and, I'm not sure if this should go here or in the "what I'm listening to" thread. But, does anybody else enjoy "Live from Daryl's House?" Having different musicians from different genres come in and play like that captures the joy of playing music, to me. I mean, when you're a teenager / college dude, you learn to play an instrument for the chicks. But, when you're older . . . I mean, that's what it's all about, what they do in that show. I know Hall & Oates' radio hits like everybody else, but I've certainly enjoyed what Daryl brings, and the give an take they do during the songs. I don't really care about the cooking part of it. Seeing like, Finger Eleven, sit around an talk with Daryl Hall is fascinating to me. Anyone who pours themself into craft and artistic expression shares that bond, and it's interesting to see how that commonality bubbles up while they play. I only knew Jason Mraz as "the remedy" guy until I watched that episode. By the way, I only just started watching when I upgraded my Dish to HD, when they show it on Palladia. But if you haven't see any of it, you can watch all the episodes online here. Just click on the "Episode Archive" pull down to choose an artist /episode. You can skip the setups and cooking and just do the songs. The "Wrecking Ball" one with Joe Walsh is good.
Musical guys: PM me if you're doing any Christmas shopping for guitars. I don't want to list anything on here, for anonymity's sake, but my store is selling some stuff at closeout prices (some of this stuff is currently priced lower than its value on the used market). I can get a list to you if you want.
Ordered one of these to put between my Les Paul Special and Vox AC30C2: Ultimately, I'm looking at setting up a pedal board like this: GLP Special > TC Polytune > MXR Dynacomp 102 > MXR 10 band eq > ABY Box > Double Hotcake > AC30C2 Clean-High > TC Corona Chorus > AC30C2 Top Boost-High Not really into effects, just want to get the most out of my guitar and amp and I think this will do the trick.
Very nice. It would be awesome if you could use the Double Hotcake as a stereo pedal, running one side to each side of your amp. But it looks like they give it a little different circuit in each side. The TC Electronic pedals are selling well, and have been all year. Have you used the TonePrint feature? I knew about it, but one of our associates actually did a demo of how it works with your phone, and it is pretty damn innovative.
Stereo, huh? Never occured to me until you mentioned it. Do you mean one side in the clean and one in the top boost or one in the input the other in the effects loop? Really, I only got the double pedal just 'cause. It's the original pedal (B) that I'm looking to overdrive the AC30s clean signal (which already has some good gain on its own). Figured getting the double couldn't hurt. I haven't actually purchased any of the rig yet (other than the hotcake). The TC Corona is available at a few shops around town, so I will definately try the tone imprinting along with all the other features before I buy. I was just really impressed by the demos online. Hoping the eq will be good for the top boost, which I've found to be lacking regardless of how I set the amp eqs. NatCH, do you have any experience with the Dynacomp 102? Again, I'll have an opportunity to try before I buy but you're input would be great.
When I was playing out, I did ok with the following rig (and we played Motown, Disco, Classic Rock, Funk): My two main guitars were a 2004 50th Anniversary American Strat, Epiphone Les Paul Ultra Fender Hot Rod Deville 2x12 60 Amp Tube (Three channels, clean, drive, overdrive) Tuner Pedal Boss Volume Pedal Ernie Ball Chorus Pedal Boss Crybaby Wah Every once in a while (when I played with another band - we did more rock stuff) I added a DoD Digital Delay. I never had too much problem covering all the sonic territory I needed to with that set up.
I don't really think the Hotcake will work in stereo. If it only has one "output," then it can't be in stereo. But the way you're planning on using it is cool, and should help you drive your amp a little harder. The TC Electronics TonePrint feature is something new they've done - bassically, what it does is work with an app on your phone. The app lets you download the "settings of the stars" onto the pedal. But the CRAZY part is that you can put your smartphone up to your guitar right above the pickup, and transmit the information to the pedal via your instrument cable. That's wild. The DynaComp is one of the pedals that I describe to customers as an "industry standard" - meaning, without discriminating, that it's been around for years and is still going strong, so it's earned a spot in the "good dependable pedal" category. If you want more "punch" in your sound, a DynaComp, or a compressor in general, can help add it. Let me know if you want/need a basic rundown of what exactly a compressor does.
This is driving me bonkers. I though I had seen something a month or so ago, and I can't remember where . . . and now I'm wondering if I imagined it. A friend of mine has the TC Helicon Voiceplay GTX, and we were messing around with it last night. I thought I had seen a device - can't remember if it was an iPhone app or what - that had amp and tone modelers built into. I know there are lots of those, but this one was uniquely different for it's ability to mimic sound. I thought you could either use your iPhone to "listen" to a song, or maybe upload a wav file or something, that would allow the modeler to copy the tone of a recorded song. Anybody know about this, or is it just wishful thinking? I was going to send my buddy a link to this magic device that I thought was so cool, but if it exists, my Google Fu has failed me.
I have no idea. There's a shitload of products that already have tones built in that emulate different songs - specifically Line 6 products like the Pod series - but I'm not aware of one that can listen to a song and then emulate the tone. Although it may be out there, I wouldn't be surprised.
When you're practicing your chord changes, divide the time half and half between strumming with a pick and arpeggios using finger picking. Sometimes I practice fingerpicking using this: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.guitarhabits.com/16-legendary-fingerpicking-patterns/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.guitarhabits.com/16-legendar ... -patterns/</a> The fact is, flat picking and finger picking produce different sounds, so it all depends on what sound you are going for.
I have a really important question. Can anyone tell me what instrument plays in old movies when a sexy woman enters? It's hard to ask this question in writing,but you know the one that's like "waahhh wahhh wah wahhhh wahhhhhh." Is it a trombone? Because I know that's what makes the sad "waaaahhhhhh wahhhhhh" sound, but the sexy one sounds a bit more guttural than the trombone music I've been listening to trying to find it. I also tried a muted trumpet, but that doesn't sound quite right either. I DON'T KNOW WHY THIS IS SO IMPORTANT TO ME RIGHT NOW BUT IT IS. It's the instrument that plays when Marilyn enters this scene:
Sounds like a muted trumpet to me. (A type of saxophone can be used for that sexy walk music sometimes, too.) There are a number of different types of trumpet mutes, from cones with bells designed for a wah wah sound; but, a lot of times, it's just a rubber toilet plunger operated by the player with an open-close motion. Related:
Yerp, just a trumpet and a mute going wahwahahahwhaha. Depending on the mute and playing style, it can make that scratchy sort of wahhing that you hear in the movie, or the smoother kind in the Marsalis clip.
Just a quick little review of my newest guitar...a Fender Showmaster. I'd never heard of these damn things and bought one off of e-bay. In short: Holy Shit! Picture a cross between a Les Paul and a fat Strat sound wise. I've owned a number of USA Strats and they always left me kind of meh. They were nice, but they didn't exactly light my wick. For most of my life I've played Les Pauls, with a few SG's and an Explorer thrown in. The sound out of this Showmaster is fat, warm, and crisp all at the same time. With sustain that rivals an LP. I did a little research and Showmasters were originally a custom shop offering and then moved to production in Korea. Made in Korea would've been enough to of turned me off even considering buying this thing had I known it beforehand. I'm glad I didn't. The Showmaster is roughly a 3/4 sized Strat. My only complaint is the ratty assed stock Strat tremelo, but that"s easy enough to block off. It comes stock with Seymour Duncan humbuckers and the workmanship is similar to a decent USA made guitar. Remember this gushing is coming from someone that has played almost exclusively Gibsons for years. This is probably the best compromise between a Gibby and a Fender I've ever encountered, and likely the favorite guitar I've ever owned. It's simply that good. I sat down with it last night and played for a few hours. It did everything I asked of it...it crunched playing hard stuff, it sang out crisply playing clean, the neck was fast and sure. It was like an old friend. You can pick one up on e-bay for $350-450 and I would highly recommend you do, they quit production in 2009. You can pay $300-400 for a new Epiphone mid line guitar or buy one of these instead, and as I stated before I prefer this to my $1000+ Gibbys.
We get a lot of people looking for these guitars, and for good reason. They're very well made. So smooth with that neck heel the way it is. The closest thing to this guitar that you can find new is the Fender Tele Custom HH FMT (two humbuckers, flame maple top). It's basically the Showmaster Tele, same Seymour Duncans, but no tremolo system. And honestly, I don't worry that much about the country of origin. Korean guitars are some of the more consistently well-made instruments that we get in the store. I've seen enough stock in three years to see custom Gibsons and Fenders made in the US that make it past the QC table with some pretty glaring issues. Japan and Korea are the top countries for quality (when it comes to overseas guitars). PRS makes their SE line in Korea, but they do all the QC in the Annapolis factory, with the same guys who set up the high-end models. Surprisingly, Lakland basses make their lower end stuff in Indonesia (where most Squiers are now made), and they are my favorite Fender-style bass, with great feel (but I'd still prefer a used Korean made Lakland). Which leads me to my review of the Lakland Skyline "Duck Dunn" model bass. We got a used one in the store, selling for $800 - and I'm hiding it until I get a gift card that I won in a sales contest. It's a typical P-Bass, but it has a bound neck with block inlays, and the nut width is similar to a Jazz Bass (and a thin Jazz at that - if you've ever played a Geddy Lee model, it's closer to that). I prefer J-basses, so I'm very comfortable with it. I strung it up with some flatwound strings and it plays very smooth. It's a Korean model from 2004, so it has some swirl marks in the finish, but no major scratches. And the pickguard is a black pearloid color - I would eventually put on a black pickguard and maybe even a metal pickup cover. Bass players, if you are Fender guys, and haven't tried out Lakland, see if you can find one. I've never disliked one of their P or J models, they have some of the smoothest necks I've felt.