Oh the Ecstasy!

I've always wanted a Bogner Ecstasy. Its one of my dream amps, but they are pricey. And I can't justify spending $3000 on an amp head when much cheaper one will work. Of course over the years I've probably spent more than that on amps but still. At the 2012 Musikmesse guitar show Bogner previewed 3 pedals that will soon be in production. These are based on the preamp section of the famous Ecstasy Red and Blue channels and monstrous Ubershall. The Ecstasy sounds like the perfect overdrivin plexi and the Ubershall is just insanity x10. These pedals are going to be huge, and you can bet I'll pickup an Ecstasy Red or Blue (or both) at some point.

The Great Amp Debate in my ADHD Mind

I have a confession to make. I don't currently own a tube amp. I want one, but I can't make up my mind on what I even want or need. I sold my last Great Amp a couple of years ago. It sounded awesome and it was built like a tank. It was a Mesa Boogie Stiletto Deuce and I loved the sound of it. But I wasn't using it for anything. I wasn't in a band anymore, and it was LOUD, even when I knocked it down to 50 watts and switched on the built in Variac switch to knock off another 20 percent. Then I rewired my 4x12 cabinet to 2x12. It was still LOUD and had a ton of presence. I've owned Fender, Peavey, Marshall, Crate, and Mesa Boogie amps. I love the sound of a Les Paul through a Marshall. Last year I bought a Stratocaster and I've been exploring different sounds. Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour and even some country sounds. Clean sounds, with a little breakup and an overdrive pedal. I'm suffering from a common problem that the internet has made worse. Internet Information Overload causes something what I like to call Paralyses through Analysis. And for someone with ADHD I think its even worse. 

A few months ago I was reading an interview with Mike Piera from Analogman. He was talking about getting a pedal from a customer to fix and the inside looked like a computer. He couldn't fix it. This well known, very expensive pedal is now a door stop. His point was hand wired pedals are easy to fix. This got me thinking about boutique hand wired amps. There are a ton of them on the market, they sound great and if anything goes wrong any decent amp guy, or electronics guy for that matter, can fix it. So I started looking at some of the more popular manufacturers. Dr Z, Divided by 13, Fuchs, Shur, etc. I also looked at more obscure manufacturers like Valvetrain, and Samamp. I like that Valvetrain sources most if not all of his parts here in the USA. And Samamps built in VAC circuit would knock down the volume to reasonable levels when I'm playing at the house. Even Vox and Fender are getting into the game. So that should settle it, right?  

Recently in my research I stumbled upon this article on Bogner's site In which Andy Marshall of THD Electronics talks about using high end PC boards for consistency and also durability. I've also found this article on the Mesa Boogie site, where Randall Smith explains for similar reasons why they use PC Boards. He also talks about Point to point boards as subject to warping from moisture. They like to soldered parts that could break but use high quality PCB boards that will outlive most of us for areas that probably won't. Of course, it brings the price down too and that's always appealing to those of us who still have day jobs. Still, if something should ever happen I've got an expensive door stop. 

My mind goes back and forth, if I could afford them all I would buy one of each, but that's not an option right now in my life. I've always been impressed with Mesa Boogie and my guess is I might end up with the new Mini Rectifier or Transatlantic. Then again every year there are new amazing amps being put on the market, and I can't wait to see whats next.

Bringing Metal to the Children

Not sure what this book is about. But when Zakk Wylde tells a story, it's pretty funny. I've been a fan of Zakk's since the No More Tears album and have had the chance to meet him twice. He's a really nice guy, despite his tough guy biker image, who likes to boil things down and follow the "Keep it Simple" and "If it Ain't Broke" philosophys in life. I was bummed when he left Ozzy but thats Ozzy's decision. For now he keeps on churning out Black Label Society records and touring like there is nothing left to do. I'm sure whatever the book is about it will be one of the more entertaining reads this year.

St. Patricks Day

Most people who know me know I'm proud of my Irish heritage, and today is the one day out of the year that we stop and celebrate it. Several years ago we went to see Flogging Molly for the first time. If you've never been to Flogging Molly show it's amazing. There is so much going on and while the guitar work is more punk than shredder, it's a great time.  It's punk, it's rock, it's traditional Irish music all wrapped into one. And the best part is they love what they do. Every second of it, and you can just feel it. Seeing a video just doesn't seem to do it justice but here you go.

Fender guitars IPO?

Leo Fender must be rolling over in his grave. Fender Guitars owns a lot of companies including Jackson, Charvel, and has a huge stake in the new EVH brand. They had sales of 700.6 Million last year but executives are sniffing for more money. By going public they are hoping to raise 200 million in capital, 100 million will be used to pay off debt. Remember in 1965 when they sold out to CBS. They kept producing high quality guitars for a few years but then bean counters at CBS made them look for cost cutting ways that hurt the quality of the guitars. Not to say you can't find a decent '70's Stratocaster but the best thing that happened to the company was when Fender Chief Executive William Schultz teamed up with some of the company's international distributors and bought out Fender in 1984. In my opinion, the quality of guitars that are coming out of the USA Fender shop are 1st rate. But there are a lot of boutique builders that are building better Strat style guitars for a better price than what you can get out of Fender's famed custom shop for twice the price. But whats going to happen as boutique companies get bigger and Fender now has to answer to stock holders? And by stock holders I mean fund managers.  The bean counters will start finding more ways to cut cost. If your thinking about buying a Fender custom shop guitar I'm gonna suggest doing it in the next couple of years. Or start researching boutique builders that source most of their parts from the USA. For more on the story read here. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/08/us-fender-ipo-idUSBRE8270M420120308

The Future of Wah

A group of students at Purdue University's School of Mechanical Engineering have developed the Ghost Pedal. The Ghost Pedal attaches to the guitarist foot and uses two variable resistor sensors to relay the rocking motion to a micro controller that controls the potentiometer in the all analog wah pedal. It has 3 settings including a calibration mode, in which it learns your "sweep", a freeplay mode for actively using the pedal, and a sustain mode, which pauses the freeplay mode so you can move around.  Of course you could attach this to other effects like distortion or a rotary circuit  but the wah is the obvious 1st choice. Learn more about the project here.http://otc-prf.org/news/purdue-students-device-creates-guitar-wah-effect-without-physical-pedal

Feeding your Acoustic Addiction

I'm mostly an electric guitar player, but I would like to like acoustics more. The big problem I have is that I've only played two that really blew me away. One was an '79 Takamine that played nice but just sang and felt alive. The finish was messed up and I couldn't make a deal with the guy. The other was a 1943 Martin acoustic, and wow same thing accept better. It wasn't for sale. I've got a newer Takamine that I play every now and then and its fine. But I've always wanted to learn a lot more about acoustics.

Enter  www.acousticaddicts.com a new site where Richard Caruso and Carl Franklin have started a online TV show about, you guessed it, acoustic guitars. In the pilot episode they take a look at a '93 Taylor K20 (all Koa), a 2012 Taylor 714ce (Rosewood back/sides, Engleman Spruce top), a 2011 Santa Cruz Ray Southerner (Mahogany back/sides, Sitka Spruce top), and a 2010 McPherson 4.5 (Beeswing Mahogany back/sides, Adirondack Spruce top). Not only do you get to hear the differences, they talk about the different construction techniques and analyze the frequency spectrum of each guitar playing and E chord. If I was going to buy one of these 4 It would be the Santa Cruz. I hope they keep this up, I'd like to hear some uncommon woods as well as some more affordable models. Good going guys.

ADHD and Practicing guitar

If your living with ADHD practicing guitar has its own set of challenges. Songs with a lot of changes can be hard to remember, endless hours of picking exercises and running scales are out of the question, and sticking to a schedule is almost impossible. That last one has been the most important for me. Learning songs in a jam session has all ways been a weakness of mine. I have to write down the changes and go over them later or I'll never remember. I try to use TV time to do picking exercises and scales not just noodle. If the kids or your partner are watching something on the TV grab your guitar and work on whatever song your trying to learn. I'm normally working on 2 or 3 different songs at a time. One difficult song, and a couple of easy ones. Most nights, after the kids go to bed, I pull up 5 or 6 songs on the computer or Ipod, plug in headphones and play them over and over again till I nail them. Then I spend about an hour working on something tough. The last couple of months that has meant going back and forth between Van Halen's Eruption, and something from Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughn. I know that focusing on one thing will get you there faster but I can't do that. I have several ongoing list on my computer of songs that I'm working on. And if I just "don't feel like" I'll make myself run through my 5 songs. Most of the time this motivates me to keep working but if I'm still "not feeling it" then I just put the guitar up and do it again tomorrow. I'm going to go into each of these subjects into more detail in the future. If your reading this and have any questions or ideas feel free to post in the comments below.

Currently listening to: SRV Couldn't Stand the Weather

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Rambling through time and music

I've always been into music. When I was a kid I played music all the time, and listened to all kinds of music. Gospel, country, rock, broadway. It was all around me. My mom had a box of cheap instruments a triangle, sand blocks, a kazoo and a few other things. They bought me a cheap drum kit that I tore up within a few days. I think I was 5 or 6. My older sister wanted to learn piano and spent hours practicing. I would wait till she was gone and go figure out what she was playing by ear. Here and there people would show me stuff. I took piano lessons but my teacher fired me because I would just play by ear instead of reading the music and learning it her way. I was already playing stuff more complicated than what she was teaching me and I was bored. In middle school we had band and since everyone else was playing trumpet I picked the trombone. I remember my dad had an acoustic guitar but he never played it, there was an electric in our house to for a while. Neither of them were tuned but I would strum the strings and feel the vibrations. It was magic but I didn't know anyone who played. Just after I graduated high school in 1990 a couple of guys I was working with played guitar. I bought an old Gibson Sonex 180 Delux from a guy I knew. They started showing me stuff. One of them was real good. I still have that guitar, I love it. I don't play it as much these days but when I do its like coming home. Its so familiar and comforting but never quite as good as you remember. One of the problems I've always dealt with is that I can't focus on any one thing long enough to really nail it. I have to walk away from it and come back to it. I remember reading an interview with Steve Vai, he was saying that he would practice a single phrase until he nailed it. That he wouldn't eat or even go to the bathroom until he got it perfect. I can't do that. One minute I'm playing Van Halen, the next I'm playing Hendrix, (not as good as either) or trying to figure out how to play the piano parts to bohemian rhapsody on the guitar. I'm just kind of rambling here, but I figured Id put up some background.