I hit upon a lucky eBay find, and managed to acquire a mid-1990's Korean-made Epiphone Howard Roberts for a great price. It's a terrific jazz box, and is really fun to play.
As with many older guitars, the frets were tarnished and dull, so I decided to polish them using the Dremel technique from the Project Guitar.com site. I wrote about this technique before, so rather than rehash the instructions, here are some pictures of the process and results.
Soon after buying my Breedlove acoustic guitar, I decided to buy a clip-on tuner. There are many clip-on tuners available at all price ranges, and they all basically work the same way. They pick up the vibration of the strings through the guitar body and neck, and display the current pitch in a way that shows you the current tuning.
I opted for a cheap tuner, the Intelli IMT500 ![[B002Q0WSO8]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
. While it worked reasonably well, I noticed that the display would occasionally swing wildly to inaccurate values.
I also noticed that I could hear a slight buzzing sound when playing some notes on the guitar. At first I assumed this was an intonation issue, but after setting up the guitar and trying several types of strings, I ruled out intonation as a cause. Then it hit me: I removed the clip-on tuner, and the buzzing stopped.
If I shook the tuner a little in my hand, I could hear a slight rattling from inside the device. It struck me that this was the cause of the buzzing while I played. And I realized that this must also affect the accuracy of the tuner. If the tuner relies on vibrations to show the pitch, extra vibrations from the device itself would explain the wild swings I saw on the display.
This was easy to fix.
The tuner is held together with just two screws, and inside, the small circuit board is held in place with two more screws. There is some “play” where the edge of the board touches the housing, and that’s what causes the buzzing and extra vibrations. I grabbed a small bit of foam and cut it into bits that I wedged in between the circuit board and the housing. I reassembled the tuner, and that was that – no more buzzing, and much better tuning accuracy.
I used a Boss BF-2 flanger pedal for years. It’s a great pedal, especially if you can find one of the older Japanese-made models. But it could never really do that over-the-top sound from Van Halen’s Unchained. Eddie used an older MXR flanger pedal on that classic riff, and Dunlop/MXR now have an “EVH”-branded flanger that can do that sound at the push of a button: EVH Flanger Pedal
This is one heck of a flanger pedal. It’s rock solid, heavy, and has a heavy duty full bypass footswitch. It also requires a lot of power, either using two 9-volt batteries or the included 18v wall wart.
If you want the Van Halen Unchained sound, you can press a special EVH button to bypass the settings and go straight to the classic TIE-fighter swoosh effect. For the best results, you’ll want this pedal near the front of your signal chain, with a high-output humbucker on the guitar and distortion cranked on the amp.
But the pedal can do a lot more than just the Van Halen effect. The four tuning knobs let this pedal make tons of great sounds. In fact, I was in search of a good Leslie or Rotoverb pedal to get that early Charlie Hunter guitar/organ sound, when I realized that I could get an excellent version of that effect just by tuning the EVH flanger. Set the following knobs to get a decent H&K Rotosphere sound:
The EVH Flanger Pedal is a bit pricey at around $190 , but it is easily the most versatile flanger I’ve owned. It’s one of my favorite pedals.
When I got my new Breedlove guitar last year, I ordered my usual set of Thomastik-Infeld strings from JustStrings.com (my favorite place to buy strings). Unfortunately, the brand that works so well on my electrics and older acoustics didn’t sound right at all on the Breedlove. The normally soft and sweet Plectrum series just sounded lifeless and dead, and the standard Spectrum series sounded humongous but squeaky and not musical.
I went through several other brands and strings types, including D’Addario, Martin, and even the fabled DR Rares, but nothing sounded quite right.
I soon discovered that Thomastik-Infeld had commissioned a fascinating character named John Pearse to design some strings for them, and when I realized that he has been making his own brand of strings for decades (among many other music products), I ordered them immediately. I’m glad I did. His standard set of Phosphor Bronze strings are fantastic. They are perfectly balanced, with sweet clear highs, full bass, well-defined tone, and ultimately very musical. These strings brought the Breedlove to life, and will be my standard set from now on. Note that they are not coated in any way, so they’ll need changing on a regular basis. Fine with me.
Alas, John Pearse himself passed away just a couple of months ago, but his incredible strings should live on through his company, Breezy Ridge. I myself am now a life long customer. And I think I’ll order his video and book about Cooking with Wine…
My Guitar Rigs [guitarrig1992, guitarrig1987, guitarrig2001]
I put this rig together over several years, culminating around 2001. I was considering a new half-stack or combo amp, but couldn't find the right combo of preamp, reverb, and speakers, so I cobbled together some racks to suit my taste. Yep, it is post 2000, and I'm using racks. And it is the rig I still use today. I love the sound and versatility.
This is a basic "power strip in a rack." I don't recall why I chose the Samson PowerBrite PB9 over other racks, other than the possibility of a decent price. The only notable feature is a slide out fluorescent light that might be helpful on a dark stage. I've never used it. The power button on the front is a big push-button, which is a tad too easy to accidentally press.
The Rocktron Piranha is an amazing analog tube preamp. The versatility in tone is incredible, ranging from a beautifully smooth clean channel, to a standard overdrive, to a blistering nuclear metal distortion. The rock and metal sounds are the target design of the preamp, but the clean channel is so nice, with a perfectly tunable taste of overdrive, that I use this as my main jazz amp.
The secret sauce of the Piranha is the movable center point for the mid-range tuning. This effectively lets the Piranha take on the character of many other amp models, with excellent results all around. The only sound you won't get dead-on is the Mesa Dual-Rectifier, but if you want it, you can get close enough.
The Piranha is a cinch to set up, as it relies on familiar amp knobs and basic buttons, instead of a bunch of digital nonsense. The trademark Rocktron noise reduction is easily tunable, and the built-in effects loop is very handy. All presets are controllable via any MIDI foot pedal (like the Rolls Midi Buddy, which I own but never use), but once you dial in your tone, you'll rarely change between 2 or 3 presets.
I picked up the floor model from a Guitar Center for a decent price and have yet to replace the two stock 12AX7 tubes. I can't believe Rocktron discontinued the Piranha, as it might be one of the best tube pre-amps ever made. Good luck finding one on eBay.
TC Electronics is well known for their crystal clear reverb effects, and this budget TC Electronics m300 rack is no exception. It is actually two effect units in one, a reverb box and a delay/modulation box. The reverb section contains all of the usual TC reverbs, and the delay section includes all of the standard modulation effects, including delay, chorus, flange, phaser, etc. The most interesting effect for me is the "Dynamic Delay", which increases the amount of delay decay based on the intensity of the signal, i.e., how hard you play the guitar. The m300 has plenty of preset memory, and can be controlled with a MIDI foot switch, but I don't use any of that stuff. I keep the m300 in the effects loop of the Piranha, which is ideal for reverb and delay, but is on the wrong side of the preamp for guitar effects like flangers. But it works great for me, as I just dialed in a light reverb setting, a light amount of the Dynamic Delay, and left it there ever since.
I was (and am still) debating whether to get a tube power amp, but in the mean time, I opted for finding a reasonably transparent solid-state power amp. The Rocktron Velocity series is generally known for a clean signal, so I grabbed (yet again) a floor model Velocity 120 from Guitar Center. It does the trick, and gets painfully loud if needed. It is a stereo power amp, but I only use one channel. Being solid state, there aren't any "load" issues to worry about. Each channel also has a "definition" knob which can brighten up the signal. I leave it completely off.
One 70W 12" speaker is all I need. I was planning to build my own speaker cabinet around a particular Celestion speaker, so I grabbed the speaker specs from the net, and modeled the correct "tuned" cabinet dimensions by using some speaker cabinet design software. Just as I was about to buy the materials, I stumbled across a Three-Quarter Back speaker cabinet in the Mesa Boogie catalog that had the exact same dimensions, along with their own Celestion speaker. Clever designers they have there. So I bought it.
A little plywood, black paint, black automotive carpet, and rack rails. Piece o'cake.
After using strat-style guitars forever, I noticed a glowing review of the Godin LG in Guitar Player, and found myself ordering one. The LG is a Les Paul style guitar, with the shorter 24 ¾ scale neck. The model I have is solid mahogany, with a gorgeous transparent red finish and two red-hot Custom P90 single coil pickups. The Godin neck is incredibly comfortable to play, as is the general contour of the body. The mahogany is pretty heavy, but the weight is worth it when you hear notes sustain seemingly forever. I've never used a guitar with P90's before, and the ones in my Godin are fantastic. Using just the volume and tone knobs, I can swoop from clean and delicate to brash and loud. This is a guitar that can both swing and rock. The factory setup wasn't great, so I had Stephen White replace the nut and set it up. Now it plays beautifully. I string it with Thomastik-Infeld Superalloy 10's.
For the past few months, I've been looking for a nice-sounding concert-sized acoustic guitar. I have a fine Takamine Dreadnought, but the size is uncomfortably large for me to have in my lap while I practice on the sofa.
I played a lot of guitars, but was stunned to discover the value and quality of the Breedlove Atlas series. In particular, I couldn't resist the beautiful sound and easy playability of the Breedlove AC25/SM.
Solid Sitka Spruce top, Solid Mahogany back and neck, Rosewood fretboard, perfectly finished frets, a smooth cutaway, a compensated saddle, and basic Fishman Electronics. It even included an impressive gig bag.
There are two unique features to Breedlove guitars:
If you haven't played a Breedlove, I highly recommend getting your hands on one. I love mine.
I decided to shop around for a lightweight guitar amp, and the Roland CUBE 30X hit the sweet spot perfectly. Very affordable at under $250, the amp has a 10" speaker, the usual BOSS/Roland COSM amp modeling system, and weighs just under 20 lbs.
The only downside to the amp is an issue common to most small amps: an overly boomy mid-range and brittle high-end, neither of which can be "tuned away" with the basic tone controls.
A speaker-swap was in order.
Eminence makes a variety of guitar speakers, and they provide excellent performance details on their web site. The Delta Demon 10" speaker has the flattest frequency response and smoothest high-end of their selection, so I ordered it.
Wow! The sound quality of the CUBE 30X with the Eminence Delta Demon is stunning. I can't believe an amp this small can sound this big and warm. No more booming mids and amazingly warm high-end. No, this doesn't have the tube warmth of my main rig, but the sound is the best I've heard from any amp under 20 lbs.
It makes me wonder if Roland shouldn't market this amp with the Eminence speaker pre-installed. I'm blown away.
…as you've never heard them before. Take this stunning performance by Jake E. Lee with Ozzy, for instance. YouTube contributor StSanders has done a marvelous job with this collection of… "performances"... by famous guitarists.
These are the most hilarious videos I've seen on YouTube. Even funnier are the comments from idiots who didn't get the gag.
Caught on Dan's blog
After neglecting my Takamine acoustic guitar for a few years, the frets became tarnished and dull. Many guitarists would recommend rubbing steel wool against the frets to polish them up, but that's a fairly barbaric way to treat an axe. Not only will it booger up a nicely finished fretboard, but you'll get a million microscopic scratches from the filthy steel wool dust.
A better way is to use a Dremel rotary tool with some polishing compound, as recommended by this web site: http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/fret.htm. I already own a Dremel, so I bought the Dremel Polishing kit and some of the least "sticky" blue masking tape that I could find. The polishing process couldn't be simpler:
The results are excellent, and the shiny frets on my guitar play totally smooth.
Note about tape: My guitar has an ebony fretboard, so the tape didn't leave any residue. However, the back of the neck is varnished, and some tape residue did remain. A simple Dan Erlewine trick removed it easily: a little saliva on a cloth rubbed the stickum right out.
If you're in to the Tube Screamer sound for your guitar playing, the bargain pedal from Ibanez is the Tone Lok TS7. At around 40 bucks, it has the same circuit and IC as the more expensive $100 TS9 Tube Screamer and the ridiculous $170 TS808 "Tube Screamer Reissue." (I'm personally not a big Tube Screamer guy, but at $40, it is a nice pedal to play with.)
20 years ago, I used an Ibanez distortion pedal called the FC10 Fat Cat. I preferred it over the Tube Screamer because it had the same gutsy feel but with over-the-top distortion.
The Tone Lok TS7 has a "hot" switch on the top of the pedal, and when activated, it sounds exactly like my old Fat Cat. I even A/B'd the two pedals in my rig tonight, and the similarity is amazing. The Fat Cat is long discontinued, but it appears to be alive inside the bargain TS7 Tube Screamer.
I went to the Steve Vai show at the Fillmore last night. Most self-respecting guitarists can't pass up the chance to see the spectacle that is Steve Vai. And a guitar spectacle is was, but not just from Vai.
As the roadie crew was setting up the stage after the opening act, a tall, lanky, cowboy shirt-wearing Joe Bob Briggs of a young man bounded out on to the stage, grabbed a half assembled mic stand, and under a mop of Texas-sized hair said, "Hi, I'm Zach, and I'm going to play some guitar songs for ya." Without any stage lights, PA, or sound mix, and with the Vai roadie crew wandering around the stage with cables, stands and such, the kid plugged a strat into a twin on the right of the stage and proceeded to rip out the most wicked amazing ultra-energy chickin-pickin' electric blues imaginable. He must be seen to be believed.
With his no-frills all-energy stage performance during the Vai setup, I think half the audience was wondering, "Where did this kid come from?" The other half of us were in awe, wondering, "Where did this kid come from?".
Watch out for Zach Wiesinger. Wow.
I received a much-coveted MXR EVH 90 Phase Shifter pedal as a birthday gift. Wow, this pedal really rocks! You can totally get the Van Halen Atomic Punk sound, as well as crank up more modern "spacey" phase shifting. And more, the phasing is so clean that I've decided I can use this pedal instead of another rotary speaker emulator for clean jazz playing. I only wish the power indicator light wasn't so thermonuclear bright blue.
But finally, with the pedal on, I can play Eruption perfectly!
Yeah right… ![:-\](/images/blog_buttons/disappointed.gif ":-\"){kind=small}
My Guitar Rigs [guitarrig1992, guitarrig1987, guitarrig2001]
Here is my first guitar rig. I put together this collection of guitar stuff when I first started playing guitar, around 1986, and had the complete set in 1987. I still have the original amp and guitar, though all of the pedals were stolen several years ago. Over the past couple of years I reacquired them all on eBay, and I'm pretty sure I have the exact models from the same years as my originals.
After playing the rig again 20 years after I first had it, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it sounded. Not bad for a first rig!
Dan helped me pick this Crate G40C out from the used amp pile at Andy's Music. I couldn't afford a full-size amp with 12" speakers, but I wanted something better than the little Gorilla amp I was borrowing. The G40C has just two 8" speakers, but it must be the heaviest little amp ever made. Mine does not have the nice Jensen speakers found in other versions of this amp - instead, it has Crate-branded speakers that are ear-blistering at high volumes, and have almost zero warmth. The dirty channel has the usual Crate distortion, but I preferred using the clean channel as it had extra tone controls. A couple of notable features include a built-in chorus effect. Although it is really noisy, I would normally leave the chorus on with both control knobs set to zero, giving the amp a much needed bass boost. A special "Bright" button makes the sound… brighter. Very handy for crunchy teenage metal. The spring reverb sounds nice.
My beloved red guitar. My parents gave me this Washburn as a birthday gift. I picked it out at Andy's mainly because a) my friend had a Washburn, so figured it was good, and b) the RED color was so damned cool-looking. Even though it honestly isn't the best playing guitar, I still love the way it looks, and think it was a great beginner's guitar. The G-JR-V has a somewhat smaller body than a typical strat-type guitar, and is fairly lightweight, though I'm not sure what kind of wood it is. I replaced the bridge pickup with a very cool Ultrasonic humbucker from West Germany, and the neck pickup with a very delicate-sounding Carvin single-coil. Eventually, I replaced all 3 pickups with Ultrasonics.
My preferred strings were initially D'Addario XL .9-.42, but I wanted more strength on the low end, so I would take the bottom three strings from a .10-.46 set and mix them with the top strings from a .9-.42 set. This combo is so popular these days that it is sold as a custom set by almost all string manufacturers. D'Addario strings were much nicer back then, before they stopped giving them an "acid bath" that they claimed was bad for the environment.
I once sheered off a chunk of the original plastic nut when I was sloppily changing strings, so I upgraded to a nice graphite nut. I also upgraded the bridge saddles to GraphTech saddles because the height-adjustment screws on the original saddles would shred my hand while I was shredding the guitar.
Sadly, this guitar was the subject of several inexperienced experiments on my part, including the saddle upgrade, but also from an attempted Floyd Rose install, a cracked headstock due to a botched tuning peg replacement, worn frets, and dozens of nicks, dents, and bruises from various gigs. It isn't really playable any more, and I'm keeping an eye on eBay to see if I can spot a clone to use for restoration.
The G40C had an effects loop. I made my own custom effects loop box, since I couldn't find an original one from Crate. In the loop, I had several pedals that brought my sound to life. Here they are in order of signal path:
Another gift, the VL-10 pedal was actually made by Boss (Roland) and branded by Ibanez. It is a very precise passive stereo pan/ volume/expression pedal. I used it as a mono volume pedal, mainly as a noise gate, but also for some fun volume swell effects.
While everyone else was buying Tube Screamers, I wanted something with more crunch. The Fat Cat was Ibanez's answer to the Proco Rat. When I reacquired this pedal last year, I plugged it in between the guitar and amp and was shocked to hear it sound thin, brittle, and barky. Then I remembered that I used to put this pedal (counter-intuitively) in the effects loop, and whaddya know, I heard that fat warm crunch that I remember from 20 years ago. What a classic, rare pedal.
The Yamaha EQ pedal was a must to bring out a full tone in the little 8" Crate speakers. I left it on all the time. Although this pedal was the hardest to find when I tried to recreate my old guitar rig, it also turned out to be the cheapest.
This classic pink Boss flanger pedal was only just discontinued by Boss last year. Unlike recent Taiwan versions, mine was originally made in Japan (1984-ish), with the Japanese black label on the back. I can't remember if I bought this used, or if someone gave it to me.
With a top-end frequency response of only 4KHz, you'd think the DOD FX-90 pedal would sound terrible. In reality, it has an awesome vintage delay sound that still can't be replicated correctly by modern digital delays. This pedal is highly sought after - I'm glad I found one in pristine condition.
Caught this on http://www.Fark.com
Joe Satriani is letting fans listen to his entire new album Super Colossal on his web site. Even better, Satch introduces each song himself, talking about tech and creative aspects.
Like Charlie Hunter, Satch is yet another musician who seems to really understand how to use the 'net for promoting music. He's got links on his album page to buy the full uncompressed CD from amazon, and buy it compressed online from iTunes.
The Crowd Chant song, a call and response party between Satch's guitar and an actual crowd, is a must-listen.
He also gets my vote for having the coolest album cover of the year. 
See also isthereloveinspace
My Guitar Rigs [guitarrig1992, guitarrig1987, guitarrig2001]
I've had three main guitar rigs since I started playing guitar as a teenager. Here is my rig circa 1991-1992, when I was the rhythm guitarist in the seminal Hayward band, Mystic Rage. I no longer have any of this rig - I sold the lot to StickyC several years ago.
I bought the cab from another guitarist in the practice studio. I think I paid $100 for it. I soon blew up all of the speakers by using a high-powered PA amp instead of a proper guitar head. (Did you know that guitar speakers can make a psychedelic blue smoke?) My replacement speaker set was a Frankenstein combo of two Eminence speakers gifted to me from my band mates, one 70W Celestion I bought from a catalog, and one "mystery speaker" I found at a used music equipment store in Berkeley. The Crate logo fell off at a gig somewhere, so I replaced it with a logo from a Heineken store display. Everyone always asked where I got a Heineken speaker cab. 
Of course, someone eventually stole the Heineken logo.
I likely bought the Crate G600 used from Weenboy. At 60W, it just barely played loud enough along side Pete's drums. A solid-state head, it was extremely durable and… beverage-proof. The dirty channel was pretty nice, but I preferred the clean channel with the excellent Presence control and spring reverb.
The TwinTube was an overlooked jewel of a rack preamp that I used in the effects loop of the G600's clean channel. Not only did it have two 12AX7 tubes, it also had some really versatile effects tweaking. In particular, you could set two graphical EQs, one before the distortion, and one after. You could also set two compressors, again before and after distortion. Those settings were key in getting a huge Metallica-ish tone out of some low-budget equipment. Two things started to bother me with the TwinTube: 1) I spent too much time tweaking and programming the thing instead of playing my guitar, and 2) It was missing some high end. It was only rated up to 16Khz, and I'm sure it dropped of a little before that. At the time, I felt the missing high-end caused a lack of "crispiness" and clarity, though after playing metal for all those years, hearing anything at all above 16Khz is a rare treat.
I bought a few other components for this rig that I ended up never using.
I thought the DSP-256XL would add the high-end clarity I was looking for in the TwinTube, but instead, it sounded a bit dark. I'm pretty sure I could have corrected that, but programming the thing took hours, so I gave up.
The MicroCab was sold as a speaker simulator that you could use for recording at low volumes without a microphone. I never got serious about recording, and thus never used this rack.
Not sure how many times this Ibanez EX changed hands between StickyC and Don before I got a hold of it. Call it a lack of patience, but I could never get this guitar to stay in tune with that blasted Floyd Rose. I've never had a guitar with a Floyd since. I did put a sweet DiMarzio FRED pickup in this, but alas, never played the thing. The flight case was very nice.
Charlie Hunter's rockin' new album Copperopolis came out a few weeks ago. We saw him perform the new stuff at his annual x-mas gig at Yoshi's, and it's a fun departure from his recent jazzy albums.
Hunter has a long history of offering free downloads of his live performances, and now he's selling DRM -free versions of his recent albums on his web site . Even better, he's got the pricing model just about right: Around 10 bucks for the album in MP3 or AAC format, and around 13 bucks for the album encoded in the lossless FLAC format.
Although I wish the MP3 version was a little cheaper, you've got to commend an artist for doing everything so right:
(Some online music services also get it - take a peek at AllOfMP3.com and eMusic.com)
I have two acoustic guitars, a Martin Backpacker and a Takamine G330 dreadnought. I like both guitars a lot, but I'm looking for something a little easier to play, and more versatile and durable as an "everyday guitar."
The Martin Backpacker is a cool little guitar. It even sounds little (but very nice). It has 15 frets and a decent action, but the rosewood fingerboard is somewhat sticky, even after a lemon oil polish. I wonder if I screwed it up over the years somehow. The tiny body is comfortable, but it takes some practice to keep the little thing steady while playing. This a great guitar to use for practicing fundamentals.
The Takamine dreadnought was a gift from a beautiful lady. As you would hope with a giant guitar like this, it has a fantastic big, rumbly, yet warm tone. The guitar, including the back of the solid neck, has a thick gloss finish which I find a little sticky to slide my hands on. (Maybe I should use some talcum powder like Adrian Legg.) The guitar's size is somewhat of an issue for me - trying to play this Takamine while sitting on the couch is a little like holding a Volkswagen in your lap.
So what guitar should I buy for everyday casual playing? At the moment, I've got my eyes on an Ovation...
I've been looking all over for a simple clip-on light to illuminate sheet music on my music stand. Most everything I've found has been a heavy, hot, incandescent bulb that requires an extension cord.
I saw a clip-on, battery-powered LED light called Maestro in the April issue of Guitar Player and it looks perfect! The Kentucky based company, Q-Lighting, makes a bunch of LED clip-on lights, including a nifty light that clips to the bill of your baseball hat.
If you're a guitar fan, you're probably a fan of Joe Satriani. And if you're not, well, you will be after listening to Joe's latest album, Is There Love In Space?
This album is a dangerous one to listen to while driving. Things get started quickly and funky with Gnaahh, then the fretboard explodes with the ballsy rhythm and soaring melody on Up In Flames. By the time Hands In The Air gets cranking, I find myself literally driving 90MPH with my hands extended out the sunroof. Not recommended. Take the train.
In the world of electric guitar, Joe Satriani resides up in the rarefied air of superstar geniuses, and his latest album proves that he'll be there for a long time to come. Is There Love In Space? Satch knows the answer…
