The perfect amp?

I've owned quite a few amps over the years. Some of them I wish I still had, like my '66 Fender Bassman. Some were traded in for something different, the Bassman yielded to a MusicMan, which in turn yielded to an easily forgettable Peavey Deuce. Horrible amp.

After using tube amps for the last few years,  I've gone through a succession of modeling amps from the Vox ADVT series to a Fender Super Champ XD and to a Mustang II. The Mustang II has been my go to amp for the last nine months.

It's hardly the perfect amp, but it's weight makes it easy to transport, and there are lots of good tones, settings and effects to choose from. At 40 watts it can keep up with a drummer in most situations.

Plug the amp into your computer and you can tweak the sounds through the Fender Fuse software. Not surprisingly, the Fender Blackface tones sound amazingly good (at least to my ear). It's not quite like using my Vibrolux or '65 DRRI, but it's close, and well worth the money spent ($99 used at the local Guitar Center).

There are a few blindfold tests of the Mustang series on YouTube where you can hear one side-by-side with the real tube amp the Mustang is modeling. The results can be surprising.

Here's a good one:

Rabbit hole

Patty Lacy and Ray Hirsch.

You've been there, you know you have. 

What starts out as a quick look at a friend's band's video on YouTube turns into a 2 hour journey back into time; getting nostalgic, watching videos of the music you grew up listening to. 

I'm no different. 

Not too long ago I put together a video of vintage movie and TV dance clips to go with a tune I had recorded. One clip in particular kept haunting me. Who were these people jitterbugging and what movie did this clip belong to?  

The dancing was fabulous and the clip funny in a corny 1940's kind of way. One couple was clearly really good, they knew how to dance and I wanted to know who they were.  Thus began my Saturday afternoon journey down the YouTube rabbit hole.

After searching using lindy hop, jitterbug, 1940's dancing, etc., I eventually found them and the movie. 

"Mad Youth" was released in 1940 and featured 1938 National Jitterbug Champions Patti Lacey and Ray Hirsch (the two dancers I wanted to "discover"). It was re-released later with the title "Girls of the Underworld." 

The story includes jitterbugging (duh), strip poker and girls imprisoned in a prostitution/white slavery ring. Pretty lurid stuff. 

The amazing part is that Ray Hirsch is still with us and still dancing,

http://www.balboabattle.com/SwingValentine.htm and Patty Lacey is still living in Los Angeles.

The video I made using footage from "Mad Youth" can be seen here:

Cheap pedals

I've been using Danelectro pedals for 3 or 4 years now. They're inexpensive and sound really good for the money. My favorite is the Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive (version 1) and the even less expensive Tuna Melt tremolo.

All the Cool Cat pedals are in metal cases and are fairly rugged. The smaller pedals, like the Tuna Melt, are in plastic cases with very small plastic knobs that can break off easily if you're not careful.

The Transparent Overdrive isn't as transparent as I'd like it to be, it does color your sound slightly, but it doesn't give you that midrange boost that most overdrive pedals have. It also works well as a clean boost, with little or no distortion added.

The Tuna Melt pedal (and yes, it's named after a sandwich as are all the pedals in this series), has a nice swampy tremolo with depth and speed knobs plus a small switch to give a hard or soft sound.

I paid less than $25 for the Transparent Overdrive and $11 for the Tuna Melt, used. Not bad.

Here's my YouTube review of the Transparent Overdrive.

Flea market finds

This past weekend my son and I went to a local flea market (he's 9). This flea market has existed on Earth for about as long as there have been people, or so it seems. The buildings are well worn, the tables are barely standing, and the same could be said for all those who were selling or buying there.

There were a couple of farms selling produce: corn, summer squash, carrots and tomatoes were in abundance. But I was there for the junk.

On this particular Sunday, there was plenty of junk. Table after table had cheap alarm clocks from the 80's, headless Barbie dolls, used hot wheels, reproductions of antique signs and army jackets once owned by an uncle who served in West Germany in the 1960's. Remember when there was a West Germany?

This was not lost on my son, who was noticing how "vintage" everything looked.

After walking around for only a few minutes and viewing the "treasures," he announced to me that he had had enough.

"I want to go home," he whined, "these haunted souls are destroying my spirit.  No one gets out of here with their dignity intact!" he exclaimed. My wife later suggested that many had probably arrived at the flea market that way.

We did leave eventually, but not after buying some corn for the evening's dinner. 

You might ask, what does this have to do with guitars? I was hoping to find a guitarist's treasure, an old tube amp or maybe a guitar that the owner didn't think was valuable. Instead I found seven ears of corn and a son who has a gift of expression.

Building a guitar - update

I've been working on my Partscaster - adding a new neck and shimming the neck pocket. Usually the area underneath the neck gets shimmed, which I did initially. Before I installed the new neck, I added shims to either side to tighten up the connection between the neck and the body.

It made such a difference! It has less ice picky highs and more midrange. Some of that might be the neck, but my guess is that it's the neck pocket.

GAS

I know the prices are high right now, but I'm not talking about fuel, I'm talking about Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

If you play guitar, you've probably experienced this. It's the desire to possess that which you do not possess; to own that which you do not own, whether you can afford it or not or whether you really need it or not (you don't by the way).

I've been there and so have you, so own up. That handwired ACME Sledgehammer 4x10 EL84-driven touch-sensitive Class-A monster that Andy at ProGuitarShop.com has just reviewed saying "this amp's 'bloom' is unrivaled," is something you must have you've decided.

After all, this morning you watched some guy on YouTube (which made you late to work) who just bought one, say "it sounds like a Dumble at a fraction of the price ... " Of course that price happens to be $3500, and somehow that Peavey Bandit you bought used for $130 four years ago just ain't gonna cut it anymore.

So what do you do?

If you're like me, you begin plotting. You say to yourself, "What can I sell, maybe I can get some freelance jobs, rent out the kid perhaps?" "If I sell the Bandit and my Squier Strat, I'll have almost $260, and 260 minus 3500 is ..."

It goes on and on.

I remember reading a story about Ted Nugent meeting Eddie Van Halen for the first time. He couldn't believe the sound Van Halen was getting out of his rig. "Let me give it a try," he said. So Ted Nugent played through Van Halen's rig and low and behold, he sounded just like himself, Ted Nugent. He wasn't amused (and who could blame him?), but that's a story for another day.

On a bender

If you spend anytime at all listening to Telecaster players, you're likely to hear some pretty crazy string bending going on. Players like Will Ray, Forrest Lee, Jr., Jerry Donahue and Jim Campilongo just to name a few. Usually this is standard stuff for country players. You can either use your fingers to do the bending; even behind the nut bends, or use a crazy device featured in this video: Fender Classic Vibe with G Bender.

This is once again, another headless demo.

And also, as a reminder, I'm not a country player, but I play one on the internet.