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Gear - Part 3: Pedals

2021-03-21T12:00:00+00:00

After many years of buying and selling pedals, I’m finally where I want to be with my pedalboards. I have three distinct boards, my main board, a dirt sub-board, and an extended use board with pedals that come both before and after the main board, such as stereo pedals for when I’m using my full rig. The Octa-Switch (os) manages presets for loops b through i. I made a few of these pedals myself. More on that process to come in a future post.

	Main Board: os: Carl Martin Octa-Switch a1: Colorsound Wah (vintage) a2: Korg Pitchblack Tuner b1: Dallas-Arbiter Rangemaster (homemade) b2: Frostwave Resonator b3: Colorsound Hybrid Tone Bender (reshoused) c1: Electro-Harmonix Mel9 c2: 4Leaf Audio Proton d1: Kelley Compressor+ e loop: next image f1: Dunlop VP Jr. Volume Pedal g1: Mooer Slow Engine g2: ADA PBF Flanger g3: Walrus Audio Julia g4: MXR Script Phase 90 (mod by Analogman) h1: Catalinbread Echorec h2: Boss DD-7 (tap tempo mod) i1: Catalinbread Talisman Plate Reverb
	Dirt Board: e1: ProCo Rat (Landgraff M’od, Homemade) bl: One Control Black Loop e2a: Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive (Cochrane Timmy clone) e2b: ToneConcepts Goo (Nels Cline signature pedal) e3a: BYOC Large Beaver (Big Muff Triangle Clone) e3b: Colorsound Overdriver (homemade) e3c: Butler Tube Driver e4: Boss GE-7 Equalizer e5: Fairfield Accountant Compressor
	Utility Board: When in use… …comes before a1: a0a: Digitech Whammy 5 mm: Molten MIDI 5 a0b: Gamechanger Audio Plus Pedal …comes after i1: j1: Kelley 30ms bo: Bright Onion ABC Splitter ls: Leslie Speed Switch (connects to BookerLAB Fusion LBB) k1: MXR Stereo Tremolo k2: Pigtronix Infinity Looper bb: Beat Buddy (MIDI-synced to k2)

The stereo outputs of k2 connect to my Reeves Custom 50 and Vox AC30 (normal channel). j1’s stereo output connects to the top boost channel of the Vox. The third output of bo connects to my Leslie 122 via my BookerLAB Fusion LBB Breakout Box (Not pictured, but a terrific product that lets you use your guitar with your Leslie Rotating speaker. They modded mine to also accept simultaneous input from my Hammond organ, a feature they have since made standard.) The Molten MIDI (mm) is a neat utility pedal whose potential I have yet to fully tap. It allows you to use the Digitech Whammy as a step sequencer.

I also keep a mini board with my Fender Princeton amp. Just a simple dirt > echo > loop setup.

Mini Board:
- BYOC Crown Jewel
- Earthquaker Devices Dispatch Master
- TC Electronics Ditto Looper

I’ve come a long way from the humble beginnings you can see in this picture of an early iteration of my board. I’ll just list the pedals that are gone. If I miss anything from this board, it’s the Crystal Dagger. It was too wild for me at the time, but I think I’d be happy to have it now. By the way, never use the barrel connectors you see in this picture. They’re very bad for your pedals.

Old Board:
- Blackout Effectors Crystal Dagger
- Electro Harmonix Big Muff w/ Tone Wicker
- Fulltone OCD
- MXR DynaComp
- Fulltone Deja Vu
- Boss Loop Station

Gear - Part 2: Amps, Keys, Etc.

2021-03-20T11:00:00+00:00

In Part 2 of my Gear series, I present my amps, keys and other equipment. I use Sennheiser e906 microphones to mic my amps.

Reeves Custom 50

A faithful copy of the Hiwatt Custom 50, notably used by David Gilmour. This is the ultimate in clean headroom. Paired with a 2x12 with Weber Thames copies of the classic Fane speakers, this guitar could peel the paint off the wall if I let it. Hence the Rivera Rockcrusher attenuator.

Vox AC30 CCH

A lovely complement to the Reeves, the AC30’s chimey cleans add a sparkle to the mix, especially through the 2x12 with the Weber Blue Dog/Silver Bell AlNiCo speaker combo. I play this in stereo with the Reeves. Think The Beatles or Tom Petty.

Fender Princeton Reverb Clone

A clone of a Blackface Fender Princeton Reverb lovingly made by Kicklighter Amplification. It’s a beautiful-sounding amp made with very high-quality parts. Probably puts the real thing to the test, not that I’ll ever be able to afford one to compare. This one is for travel and small gigs.

Behringer XR18 Digital Mixer and Crown XLS1500 Power Amp

The Behringer is a great space-saving option for home studios. The head just handles the connections while you change settings from your PC or tablet. Features high-quality Midas preamps. The Crown is a solid power amp. This model may be a little underpowered for gigs, but great for my studio.

Roland Lucina Keytar

A fun little instrument. Limited selection of sounds, but the ones it has are good. Easy to use and plays nicely.

Rhodes Suitcase 72 Mark I, Korg Wavestation, and Roland JU-06A

This is more my wife’s domain. Upstairs, we have the classic bright sound of the Rhodes Piano, the lush multi-timbral textures of the Korg Wavestation, and the haunting synth sounds of Roland’s JU-06A Juno emulator. Throw in a computer running Apple MainStage and you can get just about any keyboard sound you want.

Hammond T-101 Organ and Leslie 122

The real deal for rock organ. This model doesn’t feature the tube amp or percussion module of the B3, but especially through the Leslie rotating speaker, it still sounds terrific.

Gear - Part 1: Guitars

2021-03-19T10:30:00+00:00

I’m going to pretend I’m some sort of professional music act where everyone wants to know what gear I’m using. For the first post of my Gear series, we’ll stick to guitars.

'72 Gibson SG Deluxe

The SG once belonged to my Uncle Jack. It’s the first guitar I ever played and it means a great deal to me.

Musicman JP6

The JP6 is the John Petrucci signature model in a really neat color, Mystic Dream, that changes from green to blue to purple depending on the light.

Frankenstrat

I built the strat myself with a Fender body, a David Gilmour pickup set, a roasted maple Warmoth neck, and Tronical auto-tuners.

Michael Kelly Telecaster

A cheap guitar that plays well above its pricetag. Limited edition whitewash color. I replaced the pickups with Analogman/Lindy Fralin Jim Weider pickups. They could cut glass.

Douglas Hadron Baritone

Another affordable model from the makers of Agile guitars. I keep it in A-Standard. I don’t love the Floyd Rose tremolo on it and may get around to replacing it one day.

Fender Aerodyne Jazz Bass

This one is technically a Frankenbass, since the neck isn’t original. It’s another Warmoth roasted maple. These were made exclusively for the Japanese market and are one of few ways to get a JP pickup arrangement in a J-Bass body.

Yamaki Acoustic

Another of my Uncle Jack’s guitars. It’s a Japanese lawsuit era Martin-style guitar with exceptionally low action for an acoustic. It’s really fun to play and sounds great. I’m not sure if it’s cedar or redwood.

Ovation Celebrity Double-Neck Acoustic

I had to have this just so I could play Wonderful One by Page & Plant properly. It’s a 12 string and 6 string combo. It needed a lot of TLC when I first got it, but it’s in great shape now.

Córdoba Guilele CE

I prefer to call this a requinto. Córdoba came up with the name guilele because it’s a cross between a guitar and a ukulele. It’s just like a nylon string guitar but up a fourth. Conveniently this is up an octave from my baritone.

Favorite Jokes

2021-03-04T08:45:00+00:00

Just to kick things off, I’ll share my two favorite jokes.

An angel came down for a meeting of the American Philosophical Association. Greeting the assembled philosophers, the angel offered to answer a single question for them. Immediately the philosophers set to arguing about what they should ask. So the angel said, “Alright, you figure out what you want to ask. I’ll come back tomorrow.” And he left the philosophers to deliberate. Some of the philosophers favored asking conjunctive questions, but others argued persuasively that the angel probably wouldn’t count this as a single question. One philosopher wanted to ask “What is the best question to ask?”, in the hope that some day another angel might make a similar offer, at which point they could then ask the best question. But this suggestion was rejected by those who feared that no such opportunity would arise and did not want to waste their only question.
Finally, the philosophers agreed on the following question: “What is the ordered pair whose first member is the best question to ask, and whose second member is the answer to that question?” Satisfied with their decision, the philosophers awaited the angel’s return the next day, whereupon they posed their question. And the angel replied: “It is the ordered pair whose first member is the question you just asked, and whose second member is the answer I am now giving.” And then he disappeared.

And, on a simpler note:

A Zen Buddhist goes up to a hot dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything.”