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 [guitarrig2001, guitarrig1992, guitarrig1987]
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.
