Rig Rundowns, Gear tours, Cancer Bats, Periphery

Well its been a while since I've been on here but I thought I would put something up as I have a couple
of projects to be done soon that I may post up so I thought I'd get the ball rolling today.

Now as a Geek, and more importantly a guitar gear geek, I LOVE this gear videos. I see it a real
insight into how strange some guitarists are and how some of them get their sound. 

Check out some good Gear tours ones by Every Time I die and Stephen Carpenter from the Deftones.

The 2 i've been watching recently though are by Scott Middleton from Cancer Bats and by Djent
connoisseurs Periphery.

Now I am a big fan of Cancer Bats. They are one of those no nonsense solid bands with a sense of humor
and don't take themselves too seriously.

Now Periphery are one of those bands who are genuinly doing something revolutionary,
but by developing something else. You may have heard a lot about Djent, but if its a flash in the pan
like Nu Metal, or one of those under the radar favourites like Thrash isn't apparent yet.
The real reason I chose to post these two videos is the completly different approach to the backline
amps and gear both bands have.

Enjoy!

Wah Wah – The impact of the crybaby

There are few pieces of guitar equipment that do have a massive impact on nearly every genre of music. Maybe Fender amps, and all the evolutions of them, (Marshalls, Mesa’s etc all based their original designs on a fender circuit)

The Dunlop Crybaby Wah however is a boni fide legend. Often copied, sometimes bettered, but still after all these years pretty much the same. Not bad for an accidental invention.

Well now finally there official Crybaby documentary is available to watch for free here http://www.crybabydoc.com/full.html

Here’s the first part.

Watch it its very very good.

Thunderhorse!! New Dethklok Signature

I haven’t posted for a while, and what I’m posting isn’t that new. But look how pretty it is.

I’ve always been a fan of the Explorer. In fact a fan of the Firebird and Flying V too, but mostly the explorer. I Own an Ibanez Destoyer myself.

Im also a big fan of the Silverburst Les Paul Customs, and a fan of the Metalocolypse TV show.

Throw all that together and the above is what you get!

See the Gibson website here for the full info. The only thing that dissapoints me is the lack of EMG’s. But I don’t know if that was a choice from Dethklok creater Brendon Small or from Gibson themselves. Either way if I had £3000 I might consider not buying a car and buying one of these!

New Ibanez models

Its no secret that I am a fan of Ibanez guitars. And it seems at this years Musikmesse they have launched some new metal guitars.

Ibanez have upped their game a bit and seem to realise that they need a unique selling point and it seems they’ve found it.

 

After the launch of the awesome ARZ series at Namm, they’ve followed up with new RG’s and new X Series guitars.

 

Here’s the official words on the X Series

Ibanez has introduced three brand new guitars shapes, developed through day to day communication with artists, which combine originally designed shapes with killer tone and playability.

The Ibanez X-series are designed for players aiming to have guitars on the cutting edge and these three new blades, Halberd, Falchion and Glaive are sure to give just that!

HALBERD’s body design is inspired by the flow curves and offers easy access to high frets, a sleek, body-fitting back contour, and great balance, all which lead to excellent playing comfort.

Original CAP active pickups in both neck and bridge positions create massive, full-bodied tone and the headstock design is based on the legendary Ibanez Iceman with an additional cut to sharpen it up.

Among all the X-series models, the HALBERD is suited to a broad range of music due to its appearance and hard-tail bridge/tailpiece and is

Available in two colors “LUNA SHADOW (XH300-LSH)” and “MARS SHADOW (XH300-MSH)”, each highlighting the beautiful contrast between the body outline and contour.

‘A goal of ergonomic design’ would describe the FALCHION the best, recommended for those who seek identity, because this shred machine has a striking and unforgettable look.

However, you will never be able to tell how comfortable it is to play from its extreme appearance, with original Edge III double locking tremolo guarantees tuning stability even under aggressive tremolo use.

The original CAP active pickups are mounted for heavy, yet easy to control, sound, Available in “BLACK FLAT (XF350-BKF)” for the classic metal vibe, and “Red Iron Oxide (XF350-RIX)”, where the red burst finish emphasizes the body shape.

Despite its demonic appearance, the GLAIVE will surprise you with its solid form and comfortable ergonomics and it’s high-performance playability works perfectly for young guitarists longing for an extreme shaped guitar.

The killer tone, with roaring low end, comes from the CAP active pickups mounted in both neck and bridge positions, along with the string-through-body construction and is available in glossy “DARK NIGHT BLACK (XG300-DNK)” and the pure “SNOW WHITE (XG300-SWW)”.

 

Next up is the RG premium.  A line that seems to fit between the Standard RG line and the Prestige line. Look at that flame!!

What to say? Well its an RG but nicer. We all know the RG by no so instead of me going on about it, click here for the specs and here for a video

Boss Pedal modification

I have ended up with a spare Boss SD-1 which is a pedal i’ve always liked, and like even more now its being used to push a valve head.

Infact the vid below shows the difference between that and the tubescreamer.

The more mid-range and gain is actually deliberate. The idea being that for solo’s and in a band situation, the mid range is where your sound is and should make you be heard a bit more.

Well as I have 2 of these great pedals I’ve been thinking  of modding it to tubescreamer specs but worrying about how hard it might be. Turns out its not very hard.

I even found a few good video’s comparing the schematics.

(check the related vids for part 2)

So when I have the time I will be modding one of my SD-1′s to smooth out the gain like a Tubescreamer but leave the mid-range boost.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled, I will try and post some sound clips of the 2 pedals when I’ve done them

The Future of Valve amps?

I am quite new to valve amps. The whole thing seemed to be a bit of a dark art, with stories of regular expensive maintenence, the power ratings not being very accurate, overheating etc etc.

 

Then a few years ago, a few companies such as Orange, Epiphone Crate and Blackstar launched low wattage smaller “lunchbox” style tube heads for playing at more bedroom levels and for recording.

The next thing it seemed was switchable attenuated power built into an amp. The Malmsteen and Slash signature marshalls being a good example, and the Blackstar HT-100 that also had a style switcher to change how the tube sounds (british to american etc).

 

And now, Orange release a retrofit system the Divo (Digital Intelligent Valve Optimisation) which promises to not only automatically bias your amp, but it lets you lower the power, use different valves, and if a valve fails the amp will continue at a lower volume and not fail alltogether.

 

Don’t let me explain it. Let Orange

 

Its being sold at £299, which seems pricey but if you have an old plexi, or JMP that is unusable loud then this may be a really good investment as you can actually use it at a much more ear friendly volume.

 

The future maybe?

IronGear Pickups

I’ve heard so many good things about these pickups from the internet.

 

 

If your in the UK then before you throw £60 odd on Seymour Duncan or Dimarzio pickups its well worth looking at the website http://www.irongear.co.uk

 

They are all designed in the uk, then those specs are failthfully reproduced by an OEM company out in Korea. I have tried the Steam hammer and it really is great. So many of the far eastern produced pickups lack clarity but if you put the Steam Hammer next to a dimarzio distortion, I honestly don’t think it would have a big enough gap in quality to make me spend the extra.

 

Well worth the sub £30 for each one.

Seymour Duncan Factory Tour

As some people may already know, I am a bit of a pickups and pedal geek. This being the case this was an awesome find recently

 

 

 

Enjoy

>Pickup Swapping

>There can be a few reasons why you would change the pickups on your guitar. Noise problems, looks, replacing dead pickups. But usually the reason you change them is for the tone and sound differences.

I’m a serial pickup changer. I only have two of the 6 or 7 or so guitars I regularly play that has factory pickups in. There is something about one of them them that just works, and the other is from 1979 and has famed Ibanez/Maxxon super 80 pickups which sound awesome.

Choosing which ones is a minefield, because usually the sound you hear in your head is hard to replicate, and opinions and reviews are hard to go by because of taste being so subjective, and the strange need guitarists have to be different, yet always searching for a certain tone no one ever finds.

Anyway onto the actual post for today, I was going to take picture of a pickup swap and post them up here, but I then remembered that the mighty Seynour Duncan himself has some very good vids that should cover most solid body electric.

The first is the Les Paul which should cover any Superstrats or front mounted pickups too

I haven’t yet put one up for hollow body or semi hollow bodies because I have a 70′s epiphone casino I need a full electronics and rebuild which I will post pics while doing it and post up here.

Hope this gives you a bit more guidance and confidence about changing the pickups in your guitar.

>Hot Buzz!! – My Fender Telecaster Sheilding guide!

>I own a Fender Telecaster, as you may or may not know, can be a little noisy at times.

They tend to pick up the 60hz mains electricity hum, plus no end of other interference from TV’s and computers too.

This being the case I decided after getting a new Seymour Duncan Hot rails pickup I would do a proper job of Sheilding the guitar so that I can cut down on as much unessisary hum and noise as I could.

First thing I did was go to my 1 stop guitar parts shop, the brilliant Axesrus.com and ordered some self adhesive aluminium sheilding for under £5.

Then I stripped as much of the guitar down as I could without removing any electronics (bar the pickup as I was changing that anyway). It ended up looking all naked. like this!

As you can see it overlaps slighty onto the face of the guitar. I trimmed this back once the bridge and controls were back on. I had a large 2 foot by 1 foot sheet so I cut them into peices and let it overlap with each other untill all wood colour was gone.

I then put some on the reverse of the pickguard as well. I soldered the earth to the sheilding itself rather than on the back of the bridge, as I found that it would come loose from the bridge very easily. Make sure as always, but especially with earths, that the solder joints are nice and shiny. This ensures that its a good clean joint.

After soldering up the pickup I re-assembled it and bang it looked like this.

I plugged it into an old marshall 12 practise amp, as I know there are no fancy noise gates and was sounding great. Nice and punchy but with good lows too. Great pickup the Hot Rails. And I know its a humbucking pickup but, but I plugged in my guitar with EMG81/85 combo, which are active pickups well known for being quiet and you can barely tell any difference.

So all in all very impressed!!