David Grissom Gear Guide

ADHD's Gear Guides at any Budget. I'm a firm believer that the tone comes from the hands. If your trying to achieve a certain guitar hero's tone you have to not just have the chops but you've got to get down their style of attack with your picking hand as well. That said every step you take toward finding the right gear is often very inspiring and WILL get you closer to “that” sound. I'm going to break these down into Guitars, Pickups, Pedals and Amps.

David Grissom Gear Guide

David Grissom is not one of the more famous guitar heroes in the world of guitar. But among those in the know he is deeply respected for his tone, tasty chops and resume. He has a unique style that blends Texas Blues with Americana and Nashville chops. He has played with Joe Ely, John Mellencamp, Buddy Guy, and The Allman Brothers Band as well as being a musical director for the Dixie Chicks among others. As with many players his style of playing is more important than his gear choices. 

Guitars- David Grissom was an early adopter of PRS guitars in an effort to stand out in the Texas Strat crowd. Finding a guitar that falls somewhere between Strats and Les Pauls while still retaining and vintage tone and feel. 

PRS DGT

PRS DGT- The Paul Reed Smith David Grissom Tremolo model began as a custom ordered McCarty model with a tremolo. David then had the neck reshaped the knobs changed and the pickups custom wound to sound more like the pickups in an old 335 he had. While doing sessions in Nashville several players started ordering guitars with the same setup from PRS so Mr Smith finally made it it's own signature model.

PRS S2 Custom22

PRS S2 Custom 22- Unlike the custom 24 the Custom 22 pickups are wound closer to vintage sounds. The S2 models are made in the USA and even though there have been a few cost saving measures they keep everything that is important to the tone.

PRS SE Custom 22- The PRS SE line is made overseas but Mr Smith was adamant that the quality had to surpass other lines made in south east Asia. They really are great guitars for the money.   

Pickups- David's choice of pickups are a vintage voiced humbucker. On his signature guitar they used PRS unique coil split that still keeps the hum in check. You will have to look on eBay or Reverb  for them because at this time they are not available through retailers without buying the whole guitar. 

Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates set- Made to replicate the pickups in Billy Gibbons favorite 59 Les Paul these are an excellent cost effective replacement set for vintage humbucker tones. 

Seymour Duncan Vintage Blues set- A little cleaner and smoother than the Pearly Gates set the Vintage Blues uses the popular Seymour Duncan 59 pickups and make an killer drop in replacement set for anyone wanting a great PAF sound.

Pedals- David likes to play around with pedals but keeps things pretty simple. He likes several delays and a couple of boost pedals to push the amp. A chorus and sometimes a tremolo round out the set. He says he'll throw a wah in the front if he needs it. Everything goes into the front of the amp. 

Psionic Audio Telos Buffer/Overdrive/Boost- The Telos pedal that David has been using for a while uses a fantastic buffer as well as a clean boost and drive pedal. The reviews on it are really great.

Xotic EP Booster- While not exactly a neutral boost the EP booster has become a favorite booster of
players everywhere. The boost circuit was taken from an echoplex another studio trick of famous tone seakers. David loves using to push his amp and other pedals past crunch and into distortion.

Fulltone Plimsoul- The Fulltone Plimsoul is renowned for being a versatile overdrive with a ton of amp like gain. One of the neat features is a blend knob that brings in a harder clipping section.

Joyo Ultimate Drive- The Joyo Ultimate Drive is an exact clone of the Fulltone OCD. It's known as a very versatile amp like overdrive pedal. While the OCD is better made the Joyo it is a favorite pedal of budget boards. I did a review of it here, and while it's not my favorite pedal I keep it a round for adding a vintage flavor drive when I need it.

Arion Chorus- The Arion Chorus pedal is one of those secret weapons that shows up on boards all the time. David uses a modded pedal that has true bypass to get an organ sound when he plucks chords. The original version sounds killer and is cheap.

Line 6 DL4- David like versatile delays and has used this as well as a Line 6 M9 both of which sound great and are programmable. But he has also warned that they are not the most road worth of tools.

Amps- David likes straight forward vintage style amps. No effects loops or no scooped tones here.

PRS DG30- David worked hand in hand with PRS's famed amp designer Doug Sewell for several years to develop a 30 watt and 50 watt version of an amp with a blend of vintage Marshall's and Vox's. The result is a beautiful and fantastic sounding set of amps that he makes sound like gold.

Vox AC15- Vox is one of the original big three amp builders and has carved out their unique sound in the amp world. They have several AC30's and AC15's at all price points.

Egnator Tweaker- The Egnator Tweaker became the darling of guys on forums for a few years and
with good reason. They are versatile, well made, and sound very good for the money. They also play great with pedals.

Obviously there are a lot of great pedals out there but these are a great place to start your tone search.

The Fulltone Fulldrive 2, the Ultimate TS Pedal

I'm an Overdrive junkie. It all started with a friend of mines Tube Screamer back in the early nineties. It was versatile and could be used for so many different sounds, whether or not you needed a boost for a solo or used it to smooth out or fatten up your tone it could handle the job. Or maybe you were trying to get the Stevie Ray Vaughan sound. It seems like there are endless TS variations in the boutique market. Some people on forums like to point to all the Tube Screamer variations and laugh but the truth is the TS9 circuit is very tweakable.  It can have more bottom end, or less of a mid hump, more gain, or more touch sensitivity, there are really are a lot of different variations to be had. And of course experimenting is part of the fun here. One of the original and best boutique clones out there is the Fulltone Fulldrive 2.

There are even different versions of this from Fulltone and a lot of boutique builders have used this version of the circuit as a jumping off point. It features more gain, more bottom end, standard or mosfet clipping (for even more smoothness) and a transparent boost at the front to push the pedal into even more gain. This is perfect for everything from Steve Ray Vaughan to Steve Vai. The other day while thinking about my next overdrive I happened to look up this monster of a pedal and noticed the price has dropped everywhere to $119.20. Not sure when that happened or if it's permanent but if your looking for an Overdrive and haven't tried one, I highly recommend this beast. Check it out below.

ADHD thoughts on Clones and Forgeries

Clones vs Forgeries

 It's no secret that a lot of pedal makers have taken Tube Screamer circuits and changed out certain components to achieve a similar, but different sound. They've done the same with Big Muff circuits, Fuzz Face circuits and a host of others. This is taking an idea and adding something that they felt is lacking in the original design or using better components and trying to create a better version of it. It's fun and creative and a lot of pedal builders seem to start off this way, as more and more people become aware of what they are doing. Analogman and Keeley both offer their version of the tweaked Tube Screamer with slightly different sounds than the current reissue. So, if you buy a current reissue TS-9 and would like it sound slightly different you can do the research and send it to someone to tweak.

For the purpose of this discussion I'm going to refer to clones as something where they have copied a circuit often using cheaper components, but are naming it differently and the pedal looks very different than the original. I've talked about the Joyo Ultimate Drive which is a clone of the Fulltone OCD. The parts are cheaper, the battery door doesn't close and I wouldn't expect it to stand up on the road like a Fulltone. I've also read that some of the Joyo pedal clones are closer in sound quality than others.

A forgery on the other hand is made to look identical and may or may not be sold to an unsuspecting buyer as an original. The forgery often uses inferior components and it may sound similar, but is rarely as good the real thing. Once again, I wouldn't expect it hold up if your thinking of touring with it. 

But I know the argument

Several years ago I worked for an artist supply store where we sold a brand of airbrush that was very expensive, at one point one of our sales reps brought us another airbrush that was identical for less than a third of the price. As it turns out, the more expensive brand was having this company build their product for them and now the manufacturer was re-branding it under another name and undercutting them. A lot of our artists were thrilled to have a high quality airbrush for $60 instead of paying the premium price of almost $200.

With a little bit of research you can find instructions for building fuzz pedals for $25 in parts. So, if a pedal builder is doing this and selling it $200 I can see where people would be upset. Visual Sound is a company who make no bones about the fact that their pedals are built overseas, they make a very good sounding and durable product at an affordable price. Most companies buy at least some of their parts overseas because they are not manufactured in the USA.  MXR and EHX both use overseas parts, but do their final assembly and quality testing in the US. Both are very affordable. 

What to look out for

So what about the forgeries? I read a sad story the other day from a dealer who said that a guy brought in his new guitar for a setup. He had just bought what he thought was used, but good condition Gibson Zakk Wylde Bullseye signature guitar off of eBay. It was a fake. This guy had spent a great deal of hard earned money on this guitar and it was not a very well built guitar. These new forgery pedals have the logos and looks and possibly the similar sounds, but are not built well. If you got a great deal on a used Wampler Triple Wreck on eBay only to get it and realize it's not as good as the one your friend has would you be upset? Or worse, if you got one and didn't have one to compare it to and it broke or didn't sound good would you then trash Wampler to your friends? Then talk about what a piece of junk it was? Now, you're hurting an honest guy who has worked hard to build a great business. You might even like the real product. Do you see where this goes? No where good. Nothing good comes of it. Something else I would like to add is that I believe that this happens in the Vintage guitar market more than people would like to admit. If someone can fake a guitar that sells for 30,000 dollars for under $1200 I'm pretty sure someone is doing it. 

It comes down to: know your product, know your supplier, know the return policy, and if a deal looks to good to be true, it probably is. I'd like to add that while we hear a lot of about these awful Chinese companies who are ripping off companies, I think that there are a lot good companies in China who are trying to better their quality and make an honest living. 

Know your product

A Few Things to Think About

A few companies like Lava Cable and VFE pedals make every effort they can to buy quality parts from US manufactures. This of course creates more jobs in the US, but you may have to pay a higher price. It should be noted that both Lava Cable and VFE have more affordable options in their lines that are priced at similar price points to their overseas competitors.

Having a pedal won't make you a better player. I really do believe that the sound of your guitar and amp is the most important thing. If you're not happy with that sound you probably won't be happy when you add in a pedal. If you like to learn and research stuff, there is a lot you can learn about building circuits so can you build a pedal that sounds the way you want. 

I've read a lot of interviews with smaller builders and they often talk about tolerances in electronics. They may specify a certain value in an electronic component but when they receive their shipment they often find that they have to test and sort each little component one by one to find the ones that actually are within acceptable limits. 

 Something else to think about is that if your not supporting the creative people who are creating and designing these products they won't keep doing it if they aren't making a living. They will be forced to go do something else. Most of these guys aren't making a fortune, they are creating a business that supports their families and sometimes a handful of other people. 

I think that there is a market for most of these different types of builders. Whether they are tweaking a circuit, building a clone, or trying to come up with something completely original. If their goal is to provide affordable quality options for real world musicians that is a worthy goal. If their goal is to only buy parts for their products from their home country, whatever that country is, I think that is awesome and patriotic. I personally would like to see more transparency from companies, I appreciate what Visual Sound does, as well as companies like MXR and Wampler and Analogman. But I drawn the line at forgery. 

The Joyo JF-02 Ultimate Drive and the Great Clone Wars

Clones are not exactly a new thing in our industry. Almost every guitar manufacturer makes a strat copy. Supposedly Marshall was copying Fender's Baseman when he started building amps. And while some people have plenty of money to burn most of us don't mind saving a few bucks on something that delivers the same sound. Enter Joyo, Mooer, and a host of other pedal builders that copy, without hesitation, some of the more popular pedal designs. You have to decide for yourself if you would rather support original designs or the cheap knock offs and whether it is ethical or not but here is my review of the Joyo Ultimate Drive.

 Lets start with the look. It's ugly. It has some sort of devilish tribal tattoo looking graphic on a matte black finish that I'm sure appeals to a certain demographic. The controls are a Gain, Tone, Level and a high and low switch and of course a true bypass stomp switch. For the most part that's pretty self explanatory, the high/low switch changes the mid frequency that that is emphasized. There is a lot of gain on tap and it sounds more saturated than a lot of pedals, more like power amp distortion than preamp distortion in my opinion. There is also a lot of volume boost available in the Level knob, so if you want to use it to push the front of your amp or another pedal it's great for that. The Tone knob is a bit different than other pedals as well. It rolls of the high end but not the low. If you like a nice tight bottom end this may not work for you. And this brings us to the overall tone of the pedal. It's fairly transparent and reactive to the sounds your using. As I mentioned above it works great as a booster. It sounds beautiful in low gain big loose bottom end type sound. And it's very reactive to your pickups and volume knob. I love running a fuzz into it too, together they make a very powerful combination. Some people feel like they sound great in any combination, but when I hooked up to a friend of mines amps it sounded thin and kind of anemic. This goes to show it really doesn't work for everyone and while I like the pedal, it doesn't stay on my board.

 This brings me to something I hinted at at the beginning of the review. With very little digging around on the internet you'll find that this pedal is confirmed to be a copy of the Fulltone OCD which is hailed by many people as the best Overdrive out there. There is a video on YouTube where a guys compares the OCD to a Suhr Riot. In his demo the OCD and Riot sound very similar. They are NOT. The Riot has a tighter type of distortion and a very tight bottom end. The OCD is much looser and spongier sounding to my ears. Both work great for different sounds. After reading a lot of reviews and being a fan of Overdrives I was planning on buying a Fulltone OCD but now I'm glad I didn't. I decided that I would buy the Joyo. I figured as cheap as it was it would probably break at some point and if I liked it I could buy the Fulltone which are better built. I like the pedal but I as I stated earlier it doesn't stay on my board and I probably wouldn't replace it.

 When I do use it, I like using it in the low gain range, and using the level to boost the sound of my amp. The low setting seems a bit smoother to me but it really depends on which guitar and pickups I'm using. As I said earlier I also like using it with a Fuzz running into it, it's kind of tricky but if you get it set up right it sound very alive. If you get the chance to try one of these or and OCD and you like it, my personal thought is you should get the OCD. If you like overdrives and haven't gotten the chance to try one of these the price on the Joyo pedals make them disposable. You can get three or four different Joyo pedals for the price of the one OCD try them out and not feel bad for having something expensive sitting there for occasional use. Of course the flip side is you really can't sell the Joyo for anything on ebay where the OCD will bring almost as much money as you paid for it. So is it the Ultimate Drive or a cheap knockoff? At this price it's easy for you to decide.
This review was completely unsolicited, I received no compensation for it and all views and opinions are my own.