Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

I know you are right Pete about playing with better musicians to push you foreward. Our Bassest has been around the block lots of times but he hangs with us because he can play and have fun. He constantly encourages me to experiment on the leads, and just gives me that look when I get out of key or play an H chord. The other night he said its just us here play it and if it sounds bad bend it and move on, then dont play it again. gotta love a band mate like that.
Ive got a V pedal but when I use it I can seem to ever get it right. Been considering putting a block of wood under the actuator as a stop to limit the travel some.

SANS GOT HIS BBQ!!!!

How does it taste sanshouheil?? Nice rich flavor huh..

They come stock with Groove Tubes. That's not bad at all. I gotta hand it to Carvin for that.

You made a good choice man. One you'll never forget. Steve Vai (my favorite guitar player, who I was lucky enough to see last year in at the House of Blues) doesn't play Carvin amps because they suck. I'll bet it sounds great. It's been a while since I've seen one around here myself. I went to the Carvin outlet store in Hollywood once. Small store, really cool stuff.

Here's my tribute to Sanshouheil and his new Carvin..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IrWyZ0KZuk

jw:

I use an A/B switch made by DOD that a friend gave me a few years ago. Works great, no pops when I switch, but thinking about adding a couple of LEDs so I know which one is running without having to check between songs or listen for it if I'm not paying close attention. (hey sometimes on songs you've played for 30 years you can drift off and be somewhere off in lala land before you know it..)

Sans:

Keep using the volume pedal, it takes time to get accustomed to it. I hated the first one I used, I was onstage with a friend's band, he asked me to sit in so he could hear me and know if I was a good enough player he could refer me to other bands, since I was looking for a band. First time to use a volume pedal, first time to meet or play with the band, 7' tall Peavey Butcher full stack and a Gibson 335 and I had to deal with that damn volume pedal...but the guitar player had told me if I used one for about a month or two I'd never play without it again...he was right, now I love 'em, even take my pedal and an extra cable if I expect to sit in with a band.

Another friend gave me a Morley Power Wah a couple of months later, didn't work and her didn't like it when it did. I replaced the light bulb and it worked perfect, I used it for around 10 years till it finally died and I stumbled on my current Schaller Fusschweller pedal at a garage sale, $5 and it's been stomped on for the past 15 years and still going strong. (I had to replace a couple of parts in the Morley, some of the copper traces got damaged and had to use jumper wires, it finally just got beyond repair without completely building a new board) And I literally stand on the thing sometimes if I'm doing vocals and fills, the fills have to be louder, rhythm parts need to drop back a bit, and I'm leaning into the mic so I'm basically keeping half my weight or more on it most of the song. It's built like a tank, all I've ever had to do is tighten the fulcrum nut and squirt in some contact cleaner now and then.

Like the guy told me, use your volume pedal a couple of months, get accustomed to it, and chances are you'll never play without one again. I love mine, I keep the guitar knobs on 10 and never touch the knobs, never have to stop playing to adjust, and have better volume control. If I'm too loud or soft I don't have to wait till I have a break between chords to change, I just move my foot...One of the best things is fading a note in from nothing to full volume, works better than using the knob by far and I can do quicker notes too. And I don't lose the treble as with using the volume knob, it's still running full pickup output, the pedal reduces the signal strength, not the pickup output. So I plug in my Peavey Patriot and it still chimes like a bell even at soft rhythm volume. I really can't think up a reason all string players shouldn't use volume pedals. Keyboard players have used them for years, there's very little difference, most keyboards have volume knobs too...

Paleopete,

I have a 70s era Morley volume/wah/treble boost pedal. It broke a few years ago, but I still have it. That was a great pedal, on my old Sunn amp if you wanted to do a lead you just pushed the treble boost and it would kick the front of the amp real hard. Those things are built like tanks, I need to see if someone can fix it for me and start using it again. My mother bought that thing for my 15th birthday. I wanted a crybaby at the time. That dude served me well.

Thanks Shredd6 that was an awsome clip the way that boy works a wamy is just sick. The Bar B Q was finger lickin good last night, our bassest just had this sh*t eatin grin on his face the whole time. Dont quite have the mesquite full flavor worked out but I have so many variations thru my delux strat it is really cool.

Pete, I am going to break out the old V / P Seem to remember it is an old E. Ball. Really need to vary between the little lead lick emphasis I do and the rhythm parts I am responsable for. Also I have sustain for days and need to be able to back out of the note and had a lot of trouble using the volume knob on my guitar during the song. Worked well between songs for tone modification. I am also going to try to work my wireless back into the picture I really missed that freedom last night perhaps with some tweeking I can minimise the color it adds to my tone.
Now if I can just drag our other guitar player back to the sixties with me

George,

I went and jammed with some guys last night. It was fun but they played so low in volume that I dont know if I can handle playing with them or not. Great folks, great room, a lot of songs I had never played before which is fun.

Is it possible to play to quiet?

I kind of set my amp by the level the drummer was playing at and after a couple of songs they were saying your too loud, so I turned way down to the point I couldnt hardly hear myself. The vocalist had great range but sang real quiet. I sang some and Im so loud vocally that I had to stand way back from the mic. In fact I could probably have sung without a mic. Oh well we will see how it goes. I guess I'll wait and see if they call me back. The biggest bummer was carrying a 4x12 upstairs.

It was great to play with some people again and I did bring along a bass player that I met on here, and he was great.

John if nothing more than getting in touch with a good bass is what you get out of it. The trip would have been well worth the exercise.
You know I really like to play loud and nasty but of late weve been working on some Christian contemp. cover songs where I will be doing a bright clean rhythm emphasis on the chorus. I will need to work up a country swing sounding lead for the break on one of these in G. I am looking foreward to that. Will be a challenge and learning exp. for me.
By the way I appreceate your input on the amp and settings. We recorded some of our practice last night and when I get it back from Ray's chop shop I will post it. For the rest of the week I will be working my G major scale positions. Used a little extended blues scale I like on it last night, not bad, we'll see how it comes out.

George, If you look around on the net you can probably find a diagrahgm of the blues pentatonic scale. Its scales in a box pattern that once you learn the pattern you can move it to any key you want to play it in. There are interlinking box patterns that can carry you up and down the neck.

When I was a teenage there was a guitar method book out by a guitarist named Pat Thrall. Pat joined the Pat Travers band and I think played on Boom Boom Out Go The Lights and Snortin Whiskey. You might remember those songs. Anyway his books outlined these scales which are great to memorize. I dont know if they are still available or not, if so they might help give you some ideas for solos.

Thanks John I'll check it out, there are so many damn scales it is confusing, Eric our bassest keeps tellin me "just play the guitar if it sounds bad dont play it again" my mind is so mechanical though It helps me a lot to have something spatul to work off of first then expand it by feel. Anyway my daughter has picked up my grandson so I,m off to the tubes
Latter.

George,

Check this site out. You just put in what key you want and what type of scale and it fills in the neck for you.

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/guitar_scales.php

Kind of neat.

Plug in your key and then put in blues pentatonic, I forgot there were so many different scales and modes. DUH

Is it possible to play to quiet?

Yep

Thanks again John, I put that one on my favorites, now I've got the new amp the boys think I'm a lead player I had come across some full neck diagrams of the pentatonic scale progressions as well. A big help for me. some times I just have to visualize how things fit together before it make sense. Been doing some review stuff online with Justin Sandercoe. A site Craig recomended. Yall will get to hear me gettin better. Now Ive got to go pay bills and buy some new scrubs
Latter dudes.

I'm not really sure how much this matters to anyone, but after a month of going through about 20 different 12ax7's and a few different types of 5U4's, I finally have my Shred custom sound Dual Rectifier.

Anyone who has a Mesa knows that the distortion is rather unique. Some absolutely love it, some can't stand it. It has a way of being saturated, and extremely loud.
In these times when music calls for distortion to be clean and tight, I still embrace the mud. As we are going through this era where guitar shredding is abundant and everywhere, I still continue to buck the system. I've been working on a way to sculpture the mud into a sound that suits my style.
To take the unique character away from a Mesa Dual Rectifier wouldn't be doing it justice as far as what it was created for. Would you really want to take Frankenstein and turn him into a refined marksman?? Well, I wouldn't. What is meant to brutally pound your face should just be given more steroids, to pound your face even harder.

The tubes I've chosen for my amplifier are for the legendary mud-slinging guitarists who believe in hitting you hard. From classic guitarists like Toni Iommi, to modern power-mudslinging-punchers like Munky, I've tailored my sound to hit you in the gut and make you wish you never stood 6-feet away from my amp. May God save your souls, I'm gonna hit you hard.

My Dual Rec. lineup:


Alright so.. Some may look at this and say, "so what, this isn't anything special".

Well.. It kind of is special.. After experimenting with a wide variety of tubes, you can learn a lot about how they react in every position. It's really not too different from my original design, but that's because I already kind of knew what I wanted out of my amp.

RCA and GE tubes are just freaking heavy. After my original design, I wanted something a little more clarified in V1, with the same punch as my RCA 12ax7a long-plate. 7025 tubes just give you that. They won't take away from the distortion what a 5751 or 12at7 will, but will articulate with just a slight amount of clarity, and still pump the gain through with a little less mud, but a fair amount to pound you with.

V2 and V3 are extremely hot and musical. Long-plate 12ax7a tubes have a lot of power, and hold nothing back. They're not focused on being low noise, that's what a 7025 is for. They just pound hard. That's their job.

V4.. I can't say enough about Mullard tubes. Of all of my tubes, this is the most refined. It's just freakin awesome. The clarity goes beyond everything else I came across, and could have easily been in V1. But in a Mesa Dual Rectifier, the effects loop is very moody. Mesa designed these amps to have the tone of the amp in the forefront of the loop. It usually causes problems for people who want to use modular effects in their loops. I personally don't. I use a reverb and eq through the loop, and I use the effects only when I switch to clean channel. A Mullard 12ax7a/7025a is the ultimate clean channel tube. I will always recommend a Mullard to anyone who wants the ultimate tube regarding clarity and warmth. They're just freakishly the best. The only reason it isn't in my V1 is because it's brighter than the RCA. I need the darkness for my distortion, and I set my Mesa to switch to the effects loop on the orange (clean) channel for the reverb. The Mullard is the ultimate sparkle for clean Channel.

V5, JW and I discussed in private about a 12BZ7. It's not recommended for a lot of amps. It draws twice the voltage of a 12ax7. It's also about a 1/2" taller. Although I loved the sound of it, and it is safe to use in the V5 position of a Mesa, I didn't see a reason to push my amp to that degree. It will make the preamp sound twice as big. After trying several tubes in this position, I did find a tube that gave me close to the same big feel that the 12BZ7 did, and oddly enough it was a modern production tube. The Sovtek LPS has made a liar out of me. It does have some big balls, and can serve a purpose as well as any NOS tube in the right situation. Sound-wise, it sounds very much like a 12BZ7 in this spot, and I don't have to risk pushing my amp to the degree that a 12bz7 will.

For the record, I also experimented with GE 5751's, Amperex , Sylvania, and Tesla's (nos, not modern JJ's) , and they just fell a little short for my taste. I've yet to try a Ratheon or Telefunken, they're just too expensive for me right now. Maybe next year.

As far as the 5U4's go... The SEDS are still the King!! They have a bold power that is equal to RCA any day. The only difference I found was in the construction of the tubes. Just look at a =C= NOS 5U4 and you'll see what I'm talking about.

So anyway.. There you go.. Take from it what you will. 7025 and longplate 12ax7's ended up being my favorites. Bold and clarified. This s**t will hurt you.

Shredd6, Let no man say you hath not passion for your gung fu.

Ill add to what Shredd says about Rectifier heads. In order to use these you have to open them up. I had been trying to pinch mine down too much. Ive gone back to running all my master past 12 oclock. I use the loop for all channels and run it around 12 oclock and then turn up the solo function a little past 12 to get a real solo boost. These amps dont come alive until they are pushed past the 12 oclock setting, if thats too loud for what you are doing thenyou need a smaller amp. I havent gone into experimenting with tubes like Shredd has, but its great someone has taken the time to tell the rest of us what they are up to.

Thanks Shredd