Top Pedal Releases of 2016

2016 has been a rough year for a lot of people but there have been some amazing pedals released. While it isn't quite over most new gear releases will hold off until the 2017 winter NAMM show. So I thought I'd run down my favorite pedals released this year.

Digitech Whammy Ricochet- Whammy's are just fun, I had one for a bit but it never found a permanant place on my board. That said the Ricochet is perfect if you don't need the real time control of a rocker pedal. It can bounce your sound up and down for you via preselected settings.

DOD Carcosa Fuzz- A versatile fuzz that isn't a fuzz face or muff clone the Carcosa fuzz carves out a unique niche but also covers a lot of territory. It's also reasonably priced at $99 and only from PGS.

Keeley Bubbletron- Robert Keeley and crew have been knocking it out of the park lately. The Bubbletron incorporates a load of features including a flanger, phaser, and step filter that can be controlled with an envelope filter to respond to your pick attack. You can choose your sensitivity to the pick attack and roll it off for more traditional sounds. A must have for tone explorers or for people who like a lot of options but don't have extra space on their pedalboards.

Keeley Monterey Fuzz Vibe- This is my pedal of the year. I did a review HERE and can't get over how fantastic this pedal is.  While it may be Mr Keeley's Hendrix in a box it's certainly not limited to it. It's so easy to dial in other sounds as show in THIS post and so incredibly versatile. Don't let the $300 price tag scare you. You could buy 9 pedals and not have this range of sounds.

MXR Echoplex Delay- Man this sounds nice. Combining the Echoplex preamp with a Carbon Copy delay and voicing the repeats a bit darker makes for an incredible sounding easy to use delay pedal. It might be a one trick pony but it does that trick amazingly well.

MXR Phase 95 mini- If you love phasers or mini pedals then this pedal is for you! The Phase 95 has built in sounds from the Phase 90 and 45 as well as a Script and Modern switch. Still it's super easy to use with one knob. The 45 is a much more subtle sound so if you ever tried a Phase 90 and found it to be to much this might do the trick.

TC Electronic Corona SCF- This limited eddition pedal marks the end of the more expensive SCF pedal made famous by players like Eric Johnson and Paul Gilbert and is revered in studios around the world. But due to sourcing problems the SCF will soon be discontinued. Not to fear the Tone wizards at TC have made those sounds availble via toneprint and loaded them all on this pedal. It sounds heavenly.

I'm also looking forward to TC Electronics new bargain line. 13 pedals priced at $50 available at Guitar Center here in the states. Several of these sound really promising and while the cork sniffers won't like them I imagine I'll be adding these to my budget recommendations rather quickly.

What else did I miss? Let me know

Introducing Wylde Audio

What in Odin's name is going on?!?!?  A friend of mine noticed in Gibson's roll out at the end of last year that the Zakk Wylde Signature Les Paul seemed to be no more. I've also noticed that recently Epiphone has pulled any Zakk Wylde guitars as well. I just looked at all the big box retailers to find that there are NO Zakk Wylde Signature guitars!!! How can one of the most iconic guitarist in the business not have a signature guitar? Apparently Mr. Zakk Wylde has pulled some partners together to introduce Wylde Audio.

photo credit:@WyldeAudio

There are some guys out there that don't seem to like Zakk's larger than life persona or his blazing riffs and low end pitch harmonics. But I've seen this guy play piano parts on his acoustic (that was a mind blowing and mind expanding moment for me). He can play Al Di Meola style jazz fusion, he can easily cover the greats like Randy Rhoads and Jake E Lee as we all saw with his former employer and friend Ozzy Osborne. Oh yeah and he can chicken pick country riffs till the cows come home. But blazing riffs and low end pitch harmonics is where the money is at for Zakk and why fix what ain't broke. Personally I've always dug Zakk's playing. I love that he respects other guitar players playing. And that he is actively always working at getting better. 

Meeting Zakk Wylde pre-viking-beard

I've gotten to meet the guy on several occasions and he was always very cool and laid back. This is a pic of me meeting the boss man around '97. It was after the criminally underrated Book of Shadows album and before Black Label Society. In fact he told me at this meeting that "everyone keeps asking me when I'm gonna do some real heavy stuff, so that's what I'm working on next, this stuff is going to blow everyone away". Since then I've seen him play live several times with the crowds getting bigger and crazier every time. 

So what's Wylde Audio all about? I don't know exactly. I'm hoping it's Zakk's version of the EVH line. Quality amps and instruments at mostly reasonable prices with a few USA models to keep the gear snobs happy. There's not a lot of information yet but there is a sign up page at www.wyldeaudio.com and also a twitter page that has a few pics on it. So make sure you check them out. In the mean time it looks like I'll be changing the ADHD Zakk Wylde Gear Guide soon!

Finding Tonal Magic in Similarities

Most of us have more than one guitar hero. Focusing on trying to get that one sound is a lot of fun, and helps teach you what works and what doesn't. There is something impressive about nailing a sound and a style of a great artist and every step you take towards achieving those tones is an accomplishment. The question many people have is "why do you want to sound like that guy, don't you want to be yourself?" The answer is "because he's great" and striving towards greatness has never been a bad thing. I've heard a lot of Hendrix clones, a lot of Stevie Ray Vaughan clones, a lot of Eddie Van Halen clones, a lot of Zakk Wylde clones, and a lot of David Gilmour clones. But is Eric Johnson a Hendrix clone? Nope Eric sounds like Eric despite having very similar equipment and being very influenced by Hendrix. It's easy to find the differences but I've found that focusing on similarities helps you find tonal magic.

There is a reason this works!

The Strat Masters
Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour, Eric Johnson, Richie Kotzen and Yngwie Malmsteen. They all sound quite different and yet there are similarities in their tones. We'll start with the obvious one the Strat! Ok so Richie plays a tele but he also plays a strat at times. Strats are very versatile and easy to modify to your liking. Amp wise there seems to be two trains of thought here a crunchy, overdriven Marshall type amp or a clean amp with pedals but those pedals often sound like a crunchy old Marshall. David Gilmour and Eric Johnson are both known for using a BK Butler Tube Driver into a clean amp but compare those tones to a JTM45 and you'll start to hear similarities. Eric Johnson's setup is very Hendrix influenced as was Stevie Ray Vaughan's and David Gilmour's in the early days. If your using a lot of clean tones you may want to go with the clean fendery tones and pedals for your crunch and lead tones but if your mainly using crunch tones you can also clean up with your volume knob and then push it for leads. Once again focus on the similarities and you'll start to find magic. I find setting up for a nice crunchy Marshall tone with just a bit of gain a great place to start. Start with your EQ knobs at 12 o'clock and then add or take away depending on what you hear. All of these players will use their volume knob a lot to change the sound so dialing in your sound with the volume around 6 or 7 instead of on 10 will open up a lot of options. Another similarity is pickups, with the exception of Yngwie they all use weaker vintage voiced pickups. Yngwie uses a hotter more modern style pickup but you can also use an overdrive to get that type of sound if you prefer to use more vintage sounds most of the time. All of these guys use modulation to add a swirly effect. David Gilmour started with a Univibe, changed to a Phaser, then Flanger, then Chorus but he uses them all the same way. I was a chorus player for a long time but lately I've really gotten into phasers. These days I use chorus for subtle effects and the phaser for wilder craziness. With each of these players their style of playing is what creates their sound more than gear.

Hard Rock Heroes
My favorite rock guitar players have always been guys like Van Halen, Zakk Wylde, Jerry Cantrell, and Metallica. All hard rock players playing through high gain amps with few simple effects. Most of the time we focus on the differences between the sounds of these players but when I focused on the similarities I found tonal magic. I was able to dial in a JCM800 or a Dual Rectifier to cover all of these guys best sounds. The formula was simple. A slightly hotter bridge humbucker like an EMG81 or a Seymour Duncan JB, a high gain amp with most of the knobs past 12 o'clock, an overdrive pedal to push it for solos, chorus for thickening, delay and wah. If I needed ACDC crunch I could roll back the volume on the guitar. If I needed more cut I would use a TS9 type overdrive to push the amp and give a little more mids. Some people will get hung up on the guitar bridge and while it's an important part of your sound and playing style I've found that in heavier rock sounds it's not as important. I can mimic all of these players sounds with a floating floyd type bridge or fixed bridge as long as I'm using the above formula.

My point here is that it's easy to listen for differences but when you start listening for similarities you can often find something that works great for you. Find the similarities in the setups with your favorite artist and you'll be one step closer to finding your own voice.

ADHD Thoughts on Relabeling Pedals for Profit

I'll start out this post by saying I'm not going to call out any manufacturers. But I'm putting this out there so that you can know what to watch for if your doing research.

My Personal Experience with Deceptive Sales 
Several years ago I worked for a guy who was always trying to find a way to squeeze a few dollars out of people. He was very charismatic, quick with his answers, and seemed very sure of himself. In short he was a great salesman. One day one of our vendor reps was telling us about a product they had. It was a good product and suited our needs very well, and it was cheap about $38 for a Five Gallon bucket. We asked them if they had any problems with us putting our own label on it. They told us "we don't really care once we've been paid just don't ask us to stand behind it".  I thought it would be great to mark this up a little and resell it as a cost efficient alternative to other brands. But my boss had another idea "Let's sell it for a lot more, like $200 and we'll tell them that we mix it up here at the shop and at that price we could put a different name on it and sell it for multiple things." Not only we're we selling a cheap product at a premium, we were lying about where it came from. We were selling snake oil. A few months later, for a variety of reasons, I quit.

Deception in the Pedal Industry
So what does this have to do with guitar stuff? Recently a boutique manufacturer was outed as doing something similar. Taking a cheap Chinese made wah pedal (that was surprisingly good) putting "goop" on the circuit board to cover up components and putting his own label on it. The boutique pedal buying community is, of course, upset. Worse is that he has threatened legal action against forums in an effort to hide his deception. And of course this isn't the first time this has happened. A few years ago this happened with a popular cheap overdrive that I talked about here. Of course there is a line you have to cross to really make customers angry and for each of those customers that line may be a bit different.

So what is legal? We have clones and forgeries, forgeries are supposed to be illegal. Clones are supposed to change a bit not be built by the original manufacturer. I personally like it when brands say "we based this pedal on such and such and then changed some things like...". There are quite a few TS9 circuits out there with added bass, more gain, more available volume boost, and better switching among other things. I have absolutely no problems with this. Ghost building has been done by many brands, Ibanez did it with Maxon, and at the time Maxon wasn't importing in to the USA so for them it was a boom in sales and Maxon was building them for Ibanez. Ibanez has since moved production away from Maxon and both continue on. This is obviously legal.

But telling a customer that you are 1) building a product in the USA when it's being built in China, 2) that you are hand making some of the components when your not... well I guess I can see where someone who spent $250+ of their hard earned money would be upset. Especially when I've seen the original sell for $85 brand new. And it's not like he couldn't have sourced the components himself and done everything he was saying very easily. The wah is not a complicated circuit. I also have no problem with a company like Visual Sound who designs their circuits here and has them built overseas and shipped over. They are very transparent about where their products are made, it says it right on the label.

How to Protect Yourself
So how do you protect yourself? That's tough. The first thing is to do some research, I like to hit the forums over at www.freestompboxes.org to see if anyone has identified the circuit and any "changes" to it. I don't know that much about electronics but these guys do. Also I like to listen with my ears and not my pocket book. That's tough because it's easy to get caught up in the nostalgia of a product. Be aware that there are a lot of  guys on the internet who get pedals for free for reviewing them. (I haven't yet but if anyone wants to send me some... hint hint). Some of them like Pete Thorn and Bjorn from Gilmourish seem to know how to make almost anything sound good. If you notice on my pedal reviews I always say that I'm not being compensated and that my opinions are my own, if that is altered you might ask yourself why. When reading the marketing put out by a manufacture are they using vague terms like "musical" or more specific terms like "picking dynamics". You can tell if a pedal responds to your touch but will it make you more musical? Waiting to hear a product for yourself is always best, and if you can set up a blind test with some friends even better. One last thing going back to my salesman days, if someone brought up a competitors product we would always talk down about their product and talk about the benefits of ours, "why would you want to use that" is salesman speak for "I don't carry that but here is something I do carry that is sort of similar". It's a lot to keep in mind but your the consumer and it's up to you where you spend your money.

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 Vox V847A Wah Pedal Review

I love the Wah pedal. It might be one of my favorite effects of all time, and while it can be overused it's one of those effects everyone should have in their arsenal. I've played several different versions including various Dunlop Crybaby's, and the Morley Bad Horsie, but what I'm using right now is the Vox V847A. Right from the top the V847A has a classic look. I like the Chrome top and black base. If you don't know how to use a wah there are a lot of tutorials on YouTube. This one from Papastache is great.



There are a lot of very versatile wah's on the market. The Dunlop Dimebag Wah is probably the most verasatile of all of them. In fact I've read somewhere that when making an artist signature wah this what Dunlop sends out to start with. Then the artist tweaks their settings and sends it back and they make a prototype, and make changes from that. As much as I like flexibility, I'm pretty much a set it and forget it kind of guy when it comes to wah pedals. I mean, it only has to do the one thing, WAH! I like that Morley's are switchless, but that's not a deal breaker for me, and for me the crybabies that I've played have a brighter sound. If your playing bright clean sounds this might work better for you but I only use the wah when I'm playing with a distorted sound. My only two requirements for a wah is that one, I like having a power input so I don't have to worry about keeping batteries in it. And two, it has to sound good. For me the Vox wah has the best sound out of a straight up wah. Compared to other wahs it has a slightly darker sound, and is a bit throatier. To my ears it's more vocal sounding.

Vox V847A Wah Pedal

I tend to use the wah in two ways. One for solos, like Hendrix Voodoo Child, or Alice In Chains Man in the Box. The other way is to put it in a fixed position, either half cocked for a "tubey" type sound or all the way forward, or in the toe down positions for a cool low fi type sound. The last one sound really cool when the rest of the band drops out for a bar or two and then comes back in all at once.

Some people have complained about the buffer in the wah but I haven't found it to be a problem. If you try it and find an issue with it there seems to be two schools of thought. One is to add in a true bypass switch and disable the buffer, you can find instructions for these modifications by using Google. The other is to use a better quality buffer in front of it. This seems like the simplest solution but once again I haven't had this problem. It plays nice with my fuzz pedals and sounds killer to my ears. I'm always open to trying new gear and I'd like to try some of the new boutique wah's out on the market. But if your looking for a straight up, great sounding, and classic looking wah, this should be your first stop.

This review was completely unsolicited, I received no compensation for it and all views and opinions are my own.

ProCo RAT 2 Review

Back in the late 90's I was using a Tube Screamer with an older Peavey amp for my setup. I tried a few different pedals but this was what I kept coming back to. About the same time a friend of mine picked up a ProCo RAT 2. He used it for a while but decided it wasn't working for him. A few years ago he let me borrow it, at first I wasn't crazy about it but after doing a bit of research on the net and trying out some different settings I'm sold.

The history of the RAT is pretty interesting. It started back in the 70's ProCo engineers were tweaking and hot rodding pedals like the Fuzz Face to try and get that big Fuzz into Marshall sound at bedroom levels. They decided that they could build something better. The RAT has become a popular pedal used by a wide range of players like Jeff Beck, John Scofield, Andy Summers, Joe Perry, Jerry Cantrell, and David Gilmour. It has a rougher sound to it than the Tube Screamer but that doesn't mean you can't get smooth tones out of it.

The ProCo RAT II

note the power adapter

The RAT 2 that I have is based around the original LM308 chip. It features true bypass switching and a red LED light in the A. The input and output are located on the top of the pedal (or back depending on how you look at it) as is the power supply. It doesn't use a lot of power and a 9V battery will last you a long time. The power supply is not the standard Boss style but adapters are cheap. I use the Visual Sound One Spot Combo Pack and it came with the adapter. On the front of the pedal you'll see 3 knobs, Distortion, Filter, and Volume. The Filter acts like a tone knob but is a bit different, it seems almost backwards in that it gets brighter when you turn it counter clockwise. ProCo has now moved production overseas and doesn't use the LM308 but from what I've read they have found a suitable replacement chip and it's still housed in a small metal box. You can see in the picture how small it is next to other pedals. I really like that the inputs are on the top of the pedal because you can put the pedals right next to each other. Sometimes I wish all pedal manufactures would move to this setup. These are also popular pedals to pickup and mod. I don't have any experience with this but like the tube screamer circuit the modded RAT circuit is very popular with a lot of  boutique builders

The RAT along with a few of my other favorites. It's small!

While looking around on the interwebs I've found a few different settings to try. John Scofield likes to use his RAT with the Distortion at 7, Filter 5, and Volume 2 o'clock respectively. David Gilmour used a RAT in the late 80's and early 90's and while he has always adjust settings he seems to like using it with the Distortion at 1, Filter 2  and Volume 2 o'clock respectively. I've found that running the Distortion around 1:30 or 2, the Filter at 2 and the Volume around 2- 2:30 works very well for me. With my Strat that is loaded with Seymour Duncan APS II's and into a clean sound the RAT by itself is similar to a Hendrixian "Fuzz into a cranked Marshall" type sound. A little less bottom end and a rough, fuzzy mids and highs. But here is where I have fun, If I click on an analog voiced delay behind it, the sound gets very smooth. This is great for Gilmourish lead tones. While it doesn't sound quite like a big boomy Big Muff that Gilmour is famous for it is a lot easier to tame. 

The ProCo RAT 2 is not an amp in a box. But it is worth spending some time with. It's a great classic Overdrive and Distortion unit that many distortion units have copied over the years. It's still fairly affordable and sounds really great once you've learned to use it. If your looking for something other than the classic TS-9 circuit this might be right up your ally. 



This review was completely unsolicited, I received no compensation for it and all views and opinions are my own.

The Art of the Relic Guitar

So I'm sure you've seen them, brand new guitars that look like beat up used guitars. They call them "Relics" and every time I read a post about them, most people seem to look down on the idea. The comments range from  "Why would you pay extra to have someone beat up a guitar?" or "just play the thing enough and it will look that in a few years!" or "what a waste" to "man that's cool looking" or just "beautiful". As usual, beauty is in the eye of the beholder or, as it may seem,  the pocket book.

Always Check the Cheap Seats

Just a quick story if your out there. I took my kids to the flea market over the weekend. It was a pretty nice day for the middle of January, the kids were looking at toys, I always check the used CD's and DVD's. There is never any GOOD guitar stuff. NEVER. Always a few garbage practice amps and a few knock off strats. Except this day. As we were walking around, we went to the back, you know the area, where you move from the people who do this for a living to guys sitting on the back of a truck with a few items from their house laid out on a table that they are also selling. Yeah, the way in the back. My son stopped to look at some toy cars, and I saw a Valvestate Marshall and a Hammer Slammer strat knockoff. No interest.  Then my son asked, "Daddy, what's that pedal?" It was sitting on top of the Marshall and I had thought it was a foot switch for channel switching the Marshall. But it wasn't. It was an original Marshall Shred Master pedal! And by original I mean Made in England! I tried not to get my hopes up, "Do you know if this old thing still works?" I said blowing off the dust. "I really don't know" he told me. There weren't any outlets around, we were way in the back at this point, and so I shrugged and acted like I was going to walk away. "I don't know man, how much you asking?" He shook his head and said "How 'bout twenty bucks." I did everything I could to contain my excitement. "Twenty bucks, yeah I'll take a chance" As we walked away, I told my wife, "IF it works and I don't love it we can easily sell it for $150." Even if it didn't work I could probably have one of the many pedal guru's on the internet take a look. I kept telling myself all the way home that it wouldn't work, or I won't really like it that much. After all, he probably knew it didn't work and that's why he sold it so cheap right?

Well, it works. The pots are a little scratchy but it sounds AMAZING! For being called a Shred Master there is not a lot of gain. But it sounds huge. Early Van Halen sounds are easy. Any late 70's early 80's classic Marshall tones are there. I'm gonna do a longer review after I've had some time to mess with it, but here is the short of it. It sounds like an old Marshall, it is versatile... sort of. It's not going to sound like anything but a Marshall, but the contour control lets you go from scooped to mid heavy. I'm not telling you this story to gloat and say Hey Look What I Got. This was pure dumb luck.  We've all dreamed of running into an old Strat or an old Martin acoustic that the guy doesn't know what he has. And even though it's just a cool pedal, it's a great find. Keep searching, keep your eye out for stuff. And Always Check the Cheap Seats.

Top Ten Resources for Learning the Guitar

Learning to play the guitar with ADHD is difficult. But learning today on the internet couldn't be better. I wanted to do a quick run through of some of my favorite sites to checkout when I want to learn something.

Paid sites

1) Paul Gilbert If you don't know who Paul Gilbert is then look him up. He is one of the ultimate shredders, and has a great sense of humor about the whole guitar god thing. I've met Paul and can say he was a great, down to earth guy. Together with  the site ArtistWorks Paul is now offering class via the internet. He gives personal feedback. And while it isn't free it's a lot cheaper than some of the other internet lessons I've seen with players that are not as well known.

2) Steviesnacks If you want to play Texas blues in the style of the great Stevie Ray Vaughn this is it! Anthony Stauffer has created an incredible amount of material with over 200 FREE lessons on YouTube. He also has premium lessons for those looking to go more in depth that start at just $6 and go up.  Anthony has put a lot of thought and work into his lessons, and though he doesn't teach strict scales or crazy jazz chords. He teaches what you need to play Texas blues and classic rock.

Free on YouTube

3) papastache From modern radio hits to classic rock Papastache has it down. From Hendrix to John Mayer, and Iron Maiden to uhm...Lady Gaga? Yep! The guy can wail and doesn't get caught up in specifics. Learn the song and then make it your own.

4)Justin Sandercoe  While Justin has a website that is totally free, his YouTube channel is where it's at. He has a lot of great material and is very good at showing you how to play stuff.

5) Pete Thorn Pete is an incredible guitarist who's How to play Eruption series on YouTube has gotten rave reviews across the internet. He also does gear reviews for many of the hottest companies, all while touring with people like Chris Cornell, and Melissa Etheridge.

Gear

6) Speaking of gear I can't go on without mentioning http://www.gilmourish.com/  More than just a tribute site to David Gilmour, Bjorn Riis's passion project breaks down David Gilmour's gear by albums and tours giving you ideas for settings and tips for getting the sound right. I've learned more about how pedals interplay with amps and pickups by reading this site than any of the nonsense you read on most forums.

7) Chord and Tab sites

chordie is a cool site that has quickly become one of my favorites. This site pulls from other sites but has a cool chord transposer tool that is very helpful when learning songs or trying to find a different way to play it.

8) Books

With YouTube and tab sites most people just don't need to learn more. But if you want to get into understanding the guitar more, Fretboard Logic I & II is one book I always keep handy. You can look up the CAGED method and find a basic breakdown just about anywhere on the internet but Bill Edwards straightforward approach will give you a much deeper understanding of the fretboard. Your can check it out here.
Fretboard Logic SE - Special Edition The Reasoning Behind the Guitar's Unique Tuning + Chords Scales and Arpeggios Complete (Volumes I and II Combined) (Fretboard Logic Guitar Method Ser)


9) Metronome

If you want to get faster buy or download a metronome. Practice patterns, scales, picking exercises, whatever. Start the metronome slow and work your way up. When you get fast enough do two notes per click (or beep) then four and so on. You'll be amazed at how fast it works.


10) Play Songs


I can't stress this enough. If your not playing with others create a song list and run through those songs on YouTube or your Mp3 player or something. At night, after the kids go to bed I often run through the headphone jack on my Pod and pull up YouTube and play along with my heroes. Paul Gilbert told me if your not playing songs what's the point. That's why we all got into this right?

Gary Moore One Night in Dublin 2005

I just got done watching Gary Moore & Friends- One Night in Dublin. Again. Gary always inspires me, his Live At Montreux '90, '97 are two of my favorite DVD's ever. And it just kills me that he is gone. One thing that strikes me as strange is that I've never spend a lot of time listening to Thin Lizzy, and yet Gary Moore and John Sykes are two of my favorite guitarist. That bluesy, shreading, Les Paul through a Marshall thing is what I love. I'm always blown away by his control, he's got the Marshall's volume cranked up and is using the feedback perfectly. His Les Paul's have stock PAF pickups. His Marshall's were never hotrodded, even if he did through an overdrive in front of it. And he always sounds like himself. Here are a couple of my favorite clips from ONID.

In memory of Jim Marshall

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.

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.

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.

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.