Guitar talk: acoustic, bass, classical, twelve string? You name it! Pt II

[matthewr]

All this pedal board talk is making me want to rearrange mine.... watch this space

I am thinking of posting a picture of mine. But I am conscious of how utterly ridiculous it is for someone who can barely play guitar to own such a thing.

Also Claire's looks like the sort of board owned by someone in a punk band but mine looks like the sort of board owned by someone in chess club.

 

[claire.foxx]

Matthew, just do it... do it do It do it. This thread is worthless without pix.

Another song down, the muse has decamped into my brain and is going nanananananana[rhyme] bababababababa[hook] lalalalalalalala[riff1] lalalalalalala[riff2] dadadadadada[bridge], this time about the evils of capitalism and seven dollar coffee and desperately working shit jobs to afford your next spironolactone. If I refuse her visitation rights she might go off to someone else and this run of stuff is worth sleepless nights riffing and chugging

Flooding this thread because I am busy working for a gig on Friday in Edinburgh. And Just in time I got to double the fun. I got the second Trace Elliot amp for just £120 on eBay so now I have independent bass and gonzo punk amps and speakers. Much better separation and clarity when I play both guitar and bass parts together. I try and use two amps at rehearsal as well because it looks like this is where my signature sound is coming from. Not quite there enough to go ampless...

Trace stuff is so affordable compared to the big name stuff, people are virtually throwing away 4 x 4 cabs (£50) and the 2x10 & Horn was £100... I think this is amazing value and eminently fixable. Amps are all mosfet.

That’s It, that’s the rig. Nothing more to do except maybe a matching strip and repaint. Dunno.

Note I colour matched the cables to the amps. Super super nerdy about that and sound and roadies are ok with it too. My gear is obvs. I can setup in just a few minutes.

 

[gavreid]

I am thinking of posting a picture of mine. But I am conscious of how utterly ridiculous it is for someone who can barely play guitar to own such a thing.

Also Claire's looks like the sort of board owned by someone in a punk band but mine looks like the sort of board owned by someone in chess club.

I don't care if you're any good or not, if you enjoy it that's all that matters...

 

[Tony L]

I’m struggling to think of anything cooler than a ‘chess club pedalboard’.

 

[Joe]

Rift ordered! Just went totally stock (Brownface, brown tolex/wheat/10” ) spec via Andertons as the more I think about it that is what I want, and Andertons seem to have a far quicker delivery estimate (June 7th) than ordering direct from Rift (16 weeks).

PS I agonised over colour, but I think brown/wheat is right and looks good. It is the look of the original early ‘60s ‘brownface’ Fender Princeton of which it is pretty much a clone.

Has this arrived ... did I miss the post about it ? ...I did notice that after you ordered from Andertons the waiting time shot up to months.

 

[-alan-]

I got the second Trace Elliot amp for just £120 on eBay so now I have independent bass and gonzo punk amps and speakers. Much better separation and clarity when I play both guitar and bass parts together.

At the risk of sounding completely idiotic .. how do you actually do that - ecord one and play the other, or is it a cunning bit of signal splitting wizardry to make one instrument sound like the two ??

 

[Tony L]

Has this arrived ... did I miss the post about it ? ...I did notice that after you ordered from Andertons the waiting time shot up to months.

Not yet, I’m getting weekly lead-time bounces every week, i.e. every week the delivery estimation goes back a week. Currently 21/6 delivery to them, but I’m sure that will slip to 28/6 next week. Someone upthread predicted this was an Andertons trait...

PS In hindsight I should have ordered straight from Rift.

 

[Joe]

Not yet, I’m getting weekly lead-time bounces every week, i.e. every week the delivery estimation goes back a week. Currently 21/6 delivery to them, but I’m sure that will slip to 28/6 next week. Someone upthread predicted this was an Andertons trait...

PS In hindsight I should have ordered straight from Rift.

Ah.. shame.

Still...it saves me from being shit-faced jealous for a few more weeks.


Did you ever consider this option ... ?

https://www.riftamps.com/5e3weekend

 

[claire.foxx]

At the risk of sounding completely idiotic .. how do you actually do that - ecord one and play the other, or is it a cunning bit of signal splitting wizardry to make one instrument sound like the two ??

Both, I can do loop/trig, but it’s mostly signal split to two different types of dirt and chord technique (remember, I play punk bass which often tracks rhythm guitar closely). I’m gonna get all prissy on you now and say it’s my sound developing so it’s a sekkrit (but If you look at the pedalboard it’s possible to see what’s going on), it’s mostly dirt... and overdrive and pitch shift and whateverthefuq the Mimiq does... oh and secret sauce... some secret sauce underneath the board. I don’t comp, flange, chorus, echo, phase, wah or reverb. Yet. Just dirt... and sauce... dirtsauce...

It’s a big old tray of dirt. Working on trying a new splitter right now.

 

[Tony L]

Did you ever consider this option ... ?

https://www.riftamps.com/5e3weekend

It looks like great fun and is actually surprisingly good value, plus I already have the soldering skill to do it spot-on, but that just isn’t the amp I wanted to end up with. It is actually the valve-driven trem and spring-reverb I’m buying as much as the amp here (I never play without some reverb)!

 

[-alan-]

Both, I can do loop/trig, but it’s mostly signal split to two different types of dirt and chord technique (remember, I play punk bass which often tracks rhythm guitar closely). I’m gonna get all prissy on you now and say it’s my sound developing so it’s a sekkrit (but If you look at the pedalboard it’s possible to see what’s going on), it’s mostly dirt... and overdrive and pitch shift and whateverthefuq the Mimiq does... oh and secret sauce... some secret sauce underneath the board. I don’t comp, flange, chorus, echo, phase, wah or reverb. Yet. Just dirt... and sauce... dirtsauce...

It’s a big old tray of dirt. Working on trying a new splitter right now.

Don't worry - no way in I could spill your secret sauce Claire, I genuinely haven't a baldy notion whathefuq most (if not in fact all) of that means. But it sure sounds hellish impressive

 

[Joe]

Just to show that foo isn't restricted to HiFi....


https://beatmmm.com/collections/vendors?q=David Laboga

 

[matthewr]

Billy Strings! Bluegrass has changed since I last heard it. First track on here is amazing.

 

[cutting42]

My updated pedal board. I used to have a proper mixer in here as well and a different order of pedals but was getting some buzzing and humming so got rid of the mixer and rearranged the pedals. I also installed the wireless system and a Bluetooth reliever so I can stream Spotify from my phone into my amp for fun/inspiration or learning classic tunes.

 

[claire.foxx]

This week I am doing some work on the basses

• bolt on mods to the two PJ basses i’m doing it to so the necks can be interchanged rapidly and both fretless and fretted necks can be bolted on in a mater of minutes, this makes flying with two basses a lot easier.
• Fretted neck on black PJ i’m becoming the bassist and gonzo punk guitar and the voice of a 3-piece band and when singing my playing pitch and intonation goes to shit (it’s just too much to carry... a fretted maple neck is en-route... the plan is to bolt-mod it so the necks can be swapped fast and easy.
• New scratch guards, I fancy some Tort-love. A red tort on the black PJ and a brown tort on the Ash PJ.

• New Pickups! the G&L gets all the love right now because the PJ Pups are yer basic Chinese/Korean nonames, ordered high output EMG passives on the black and Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders on the Ash... might flop that. I don’t go a whole bunch on batteries inside basses (except the upright)
• New tone electronics come with the pups.

I dreamed I was playing a bashed up a pink 1951 Precision Bass with an antifascist sticker and a black star on the bodywork (it may have been the Trans Symbol) all scratched up — fortunately those are dead easy to build and already speccing a foo foo “relic” bass build That I really don’t need— except I do need it.

 

[Marchbanks]

I am thinking of posting a picture of mine. But I am conscious of how utterly ridiculous it is for someone who can barely play guitar to own such a thing.

We need pictures. I’m particularly interested in seeing how you achieved gooseneck kettle integration.

 

[Tony L]

I’m running an exceptionally minimal board at present, just a tuner, Boss BD-2 and DD-7. I’m amazed how much different stuff I can get out of these two with a bit of knob-twiddling and using the guitar volume, tone and pickup selection. The BD-2 spans everything from a little thickening through to something really quite dirty and distorted at the other extreme (though thankfully not ‘heavy metal’). The DD-7 gets no love whatsoever on TPS from what I can tell, but I really like it. It has all the digital delays one could ever wish for, plus does a very good impression of a DM-2 analogue delay and has a really nice Cocteaus/Durutti chorus delay setting. It can even do My Bloody Valentine reverse-echo sort of stuff if you stick it ahead of the dirt. I think you can use it as a looper too, but I have no interest in that. I use it mainly on the analogue setting, but do use the other stuff too. Whilst I do have other stuff I like (FZ-5 & DS-1) and could possibly make a coherent argument for a compressor and a chorus I don’t think I actually need anything more than the BD-2 and DD-7.

 

[matthewr]

We need pictures. I’m particularly interested in seeing how you achieved gooseneck kettle integration.

Tsk, guitar is a mere hobby. Coffee is #SERIOUSBUSINESS

 

[matthewr]

I’m running an exceptionally minimal board at present, just a tuner, Boss BD-2 and DD-7. I’m amazed how much different stuff I can get out of these two with a bit of knob-twiddling and using the guitar volume, tone and pickup selection. The BD-2 spans everything from a little thickening through to something really quite dirty and distorted at the other extreme (though thankfully not ‘heavy metal’). The DD-7 gets no love whatsoever on TPS from what I can tell, but I really like it. It has all the digital delays one could ever wish for, plus does a very good impression of a DM-2 analogue delay and has a really nice Cocteaus/Durutti chorus delay setting. It can even do My Bloody Valentine reverse-echo sort of stuff if you stick it ahead of the dirt. I think you can use it as a looper too, but I have no interest in that. I use it mainly on the analogue setting, but do use the other stuff too. Whilst I do have other stuff I like (FZ-5 & DS-1) and could possibly make a coherent argument for a compressor and a chorus I don’t think I actually need anything more than the BD-2 and DD-7.

I have an odd relationship with delay as I have one and whenever I fiddle with it I think it's really cool and all. But whenever I actually play anything I end up turning it off. About the most I ever do is a little bit of slapback (a la Dan's top tip on TPS) that thickens up the reverb a bit but mostly it remains off.

Sort of the same with Tremolo. I love the sound but can never think of anything to play with it other than big open chords that I just let sustain for a whole bar.

 

[Tony L]

I have an odd relationship with delay as I have one and whenever I fiddle with it I think it's really cool and all. But whenever I actually play anything I end up turning it off. About the most I ever do is a little bit of slapback (a la Dan's top tip on TPS) that thickens up the reverb a bit but mostly it remains off.

Some of my biggest guitar influences, e.g. Hawkwind, Vini Reilly, Cocteau Twins/‘80s shoegaze in general all rely on some degree of (usually tape) delay and mostly fairly long and used rhythmically. This is certainly the way I tend to use it. I’ve never really found a use for slap-back. If I was asked to pick my favourite FX unit on the planet my choice would unquestionably be a mint fully serviced Roland Space Echo. I’ve always lusted after those things, just superb on synth too.

Sort of the same with Tremolo. I love the sound but can never think of anything to play with it other than big open chords that I just let sustain for a whole bar.

That surprises me, I’d have expected your taste/playing to venture a fair bit into Americana etc and a subtle trem on a clean Fender with reverb sounds amazing in this context. Maybe try using less depth so its just adding a slight shimmer or movement without actually chopping to the extent it forces you into certain rhythmic patterns.

I’m interested to find out how much I actually use the tremolo on the Rift when it eventually turns up. My little MicroCube has a basic trem, but you can only alter the speed, not the depth, so I don’t use it a lot.