The problem with playing electric guitar is that there is always something better than what you have. Whether it’s your guitar, amp, distortion, delay, cable, whatever – there is always something better than what you have in your hands. I fall into this trap all the time.

The progression goes something like this: I am satisfied with my tone. I read about a new piece of gear online. I am no longer satisfied with my tone. I sell the piece of equipment that I am no longer satisfied with and buy the new gear that I have been obsessing over. Rinse and repeat.

My most recent gear rinse cycle has been amp related. I was satisfied with my Top Hat Club Royale until someone offered me a different amp as part of a bigger trade. This particular amp was a Matchless Chieftain. I have always heard magical things about Matchless amps, so my interest was piqued, and I agreed to the trade. As soon as I plugged in the Chieftain I was pretty sure that I had made a mistake.

I pretty much hated it right off the bat, but I did my best to convince myself otherwise. I mean, how could I hate a Matchless? I tried swapping tubes, different guitars, and I tried some really weird knob settings. I finally found a setting that I didn’t hate, but didn’t really love. I tried to make the amp work for about 3 months before I gave up and sold it.

I ended up buying a Bogner Goldfinger 45, which is a really cool amp. [I'll work on a review/demo at some point.] It has a really fantastic clean channel. It might even be the best clean amp that I have ever used. The first time I plugged it in, I was really relieved that I didn’t immediately hate it. The gain channel is good and really flexible, but it’s kinda tricky to dial in. I would like a little more gain, but part of that problem may be the fact that I don’t have any humbucker guitars right now.

Anyway, now that I have an amp that I am happy with, I have resolved to try to stay happy with it. I need to work on my chops and stop trying to fix my musical shortcomings with my wallet.

I’d like to talk a little bit about my newest piece of gear. It’s the Xotic X-blender, and I really think it’s gonna change things for me. Basically, it’s a little pedal that allows you to blend your clean tone with the tone of whatever pedals you stick in the effects loop. I have been using it with my overdrives, and I am very happy with it so far.

People on gear forums talk a lot about transparent overdrives, and it has kind of become a joke because the word transparent means something different to almost everyone that uses it to describe a pedal. I’ve read people say that a tube screamer is a transparent overdrive, which is ridiculous to me.

For me to use the word transparent to describe an overdrive, it has to do a couple of things.

1) It can’t impart it’s own EQ curve to the signal in such a way that it can’t be dialed out. Pedals like tube screamers (and the myriad variations on the circuit) and Klon(e)s have a very distinct midrange boost that you can’t completely dial out.

2) It can’t introduce an unreasonable amount of compression. Most overdrives add a ton of compression to your signal as you turn the gain up. I have only played a handful of uncompressed overdrive pedals.

The point of me saying all that stuff about transparency is that a blender basically allows you to give pretty much any pedal a certain degree of transparency. Some overdrives that boost the mids tend to muddy up your signal, making more complex chords somewhat indistinct. Blending your clean allows you to add a little sparkle, chime, or clarity (or any other tone buzzwords) back into your signal. An overly compressed overdrive can rob your playing of dynamics. A clean blend allows those subtleties to be reintroduced without getting rid of the dirt.

The coolest thing about the X-Blender is the big mix knob on top. It was designed to allow you to adjust the blend with your foot while playing. I don’t know about you, but I hate having to bend over in the middle of a song to tweak a setting on a pedal. If you need a little more/less dirt, you can just nudge the knob clockwise with your toe and shift the wet/dry mix a little bit.

Basically, it is a very cool pedal. It is especially cool if you are really into cleanish/edge of breakup tones. I know that other guitarists have used it with delay, reverb, and other effects, but I haven’t really looked into that possibility yet.

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that I was working on a trade for a Matchless. I traded my Top Hat Club Royale and my AVRI Jaguar for a ’96 Chieftain. I really liked the Top Hat, and wasn’t really trying to get rid of it, but this trade kinda fell in my lap and I found it hard to say no. I was mostly trying to get rid of my Jaguar, and this guy asked me about the Chieftain and wanted to know if I had anything else that I could add to the trade.

I have had it for a few weeks now, and I have spent enough time with it to be able to say that I really, really like it. A lot. At first, I wasn’t so sure. The first time I dialed in a tone, it was really bright and somewhat unbalanced sounding, and it wasn’t getting along with my overdrives. I was having a hard time dialing in a tone that I was satisfied with. I swapped the preamp tubes for some lower gain Jan/Philips and Tung-Sols (I really  don’t like JJ 12AX7s) and put some SED Winged =C= EL34s in the power section. That helped somewhat, but I still wasn’t totally satisfied.

I did a lot of reading on various forums, and people kept saying things like “the Chieftain is a loud amp” and “it’s meant to be played at stage volume.” The first opportunity I had to really turn it up, a lightbulb went off. As I turned the master volume up, that annoying brightness went away. As it turns out, there is a bright cap on the master volume that is intended to keep your tone bright at lower volume settings (or something like that). I may end up removing it, but I probably won’t, since this is a Mark Sampson era Matchless not that that necessarily means anything) and it might lower the potential resale value.

So anyway, with the master turned up to about 1:00 or higher, and the volume (gain) control set to 9:00 or so, The Chieftain delivers a really fat, well-balanced, albeit fairly loud clean tone. I am not very good at gear reviews because I don’t like using the familiar tone adjectives like sparkly, chimey, bell-like, creamy, woody, etc. I haven’t really delved into the natural amp overdrive, but I really love the cleans on this amp.

I have been on an amp tone quest for a long time, and I think I have hit a major milestone with the Matchless. I think I’ll hang onto this one for a while.

If the following conditions apply, then you should be listening to Punch Brothers:

1. you are a living human being
2. you enjoy music
3. you have a soul

You should be listening to these guys. If you aren’t, well, you may not have a soul.

I’m not even sure why I have this blog. I post like once a month. Maybe. Usually when I post, it’s only about new gear that I just bought. Yawn.

Speaking of which, I just bought some awesome new gear! I sold my bassman (why did I think I needed another amp?) and bought a Deluxe Memory Man Tap Tempo. It is amazing.

Other recent acquisitions:

• Walrus Audio Voyager – It’s pretty much a Klon from what I can gather. As an overdrive, it’s not very good, but it’s an awesome boost.
• Diamond Tremolo – it sounds awesome, but I’m still trying to figure out how to use it.
• Timmy – it’s awesome. Pretty much every pedalboard needs one of these.

As usual, I have been buying/selling/trading gear. Most recently, I traded my Duesenberg. It was pretty cool, but it was really expensive, and it didn’t feel like it was worth the price that I paid for it. I was under the impression that they were handmade in Germany, but it turns out that they are manufactured in Korea, while the final assembly is done in Germany. I paid like $1900 (used) for the guitar, which is way too much money for a Korean factory guitar. It didn’t really feel any nicer than any of the other MIK guitars that I have played that retail for about a third of what I paid for the Duesenberg. I started to worry about the guitars losing it’s value, so I just wanted to get rid of it.

Anyway, this is what I traded for:

It’s an AVRI ’61 Jaguar and a Bassman ’59RI LTD 4×10 combo. These guys sound like they were designed to be played together. The Jaguar is a pretty bright guitar, and the Bassman can be a pretty dark amp, so they really balance each other out nicely. However, I am not a big fan of the 7.25″ radius fingerboard on the Jaguar. It frets out on bends higher up on the neck unless I raise the action significantly. I’m still kinda figuring it out. I really want to like it, I just need to continue to tweak it.

I’m revamping my pedalboard situation quite a bit. I sold my big bradycase pedalboard and got another Pedaltrain – a PT3 this time. The Brady was just too big, bulky, and heavy. Another thing is that it’s not really good for someone who rearranges their board as frequently as I do. Everytime I wanted to move a pedal, I had to drill a few more holes and reroute patch cables under the board. The Pedaltrain is much more convenient. I still need to get a road case for it – my pedal collection is too expensive to carry around in a soft case for an extended period of time.

I recently discovered a newish pedal manufacturer – Walrus Audio. I bought their Voyager pedal, which is a boost/overdrive. From what I understand, it’s a Klon clone with different clipping diodes and an internal 18v charge pump. I also got their Iron Horse distortion (which should be coming in today). Again, this one has some clone rumors swirling around it. It’s supposed to be similar to a Rat with a switch for different clipping options and (again) internal 18v conversion. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do some demos or a review in the near future.

It has been a while since my last post. That’s kind of becoming the norm around here. I need to stop waiting so long between posts.

Hmm, let’s see. I haven’t bought or sold any guitars since my last post, but I have bought and sold a bunch of pedals. My most recent acquisitions are a POG2 and a Teese RMC3 wah. Here is the current board:

I really want to like the POG2, but I’m having a hard time figuring it out. It seems to have quite a bit of boost to it, and it adds some noise to my signal. The effect is cool, but I think it may be a little overkill. I may end up going back to a Micro POG.

I have been playing with a clean tone a lot recently. I used to run my amp overdriven and push it further with overdrives and stuff, but I have moved away from that recently. I still use overdrive a lot for rhythm, but I’m finding myself going clean more often than not. A lot of the nuance gets lost with too much overdrive.

I want to get back into playing classical guitar. I really enjoyed it in college, but I pretty much quit playing after graduation. It was too much effort to keep the nails grown out to the proper length. However, I have been itching to get back into it. Unfortunately, I don’t even have a nylon string guitar anymore. I guess that’s something else to put on the list.

I guess the thing that has prompted the renewed interest in classical guitar is related to my new job situation. I am now teaching at 2 school, from grades 7-12. The top group at the high school is working on some pretty serious literature, and it made me realize that I have been slacking off lately. I mean, I am a classically trained musician, and I barely even practice anymore. It’s shameful, really.

Another thing that kind of inspired me was the discovery of a band called Punch Brothers. They are a bluegrass ensemble fronted by Chris Thile from Nickel Creek, and they play some pretty progressive music. It is virtuosic, clever, extremely melodic, and fun to listen to. I was watching some youtube videos and I came across a performance that they did of the third movement of the Bach Brandenburg Concerto no. 3. That’s one of the pieces that we are working on with the high school group. I decided to start learning the violin 1 part. Most of it is really high and fast, and it is really stretching my chops. I have learned about 12 measures, so I’m about 25% of the way there.

::

In non-guitar news, we legally adopted the girls a couple of weeks ago. Brittany and Katie are now officially Hintze girls. Here’s a pic from adoption day.

Here it is:

As you can see, I installed the new black pickguard. The tone improved instantly. As I was screwing it on, I could hear the transparent bloom of string separation. It had notes of almond with a chocolatey finish. It also looks way cooler. Like someone on facebook commented: It went from a tuxedo t-shirt to a tuxedo.

Anyway, here’s my basic review.

First of all, the neck is great. As I have mentioned, I’m a big fan of the 25.5″ neck scale. It feels snappier and it doesn’t feel as cramped higher up the neck. I also like the flat 12″ radius. It feels so nice for playing lead. The neck profile is very comfortable for my hands. I hate fat necks, and I don’t really like the super skinny shredder necks either. This one is slim without feeling too skinny. It feels good. It is strung with 11s, but it’s not hard to play, partly due to the bigger frets. They’re not jumbo frets (like on my old PRS DGT), but they’re bigger than typical frets.

The sound: My first impressions were mostly positive. The neck P-90 is full-sounding without being too thick, and the bridge humbucker is nice and chunky without being too harsh. However, the in between setting was awful. Seriously. It sucked. I’m not sure what they were thinking with the wiring on this thing. The middle pickup selector put the pickups out of phase and split the humbucker. The resulting sound was thin, too quiet, and über-twangy. It sounded okay with a totally clean tone, but it was completely unusable with overdrive.

I cracked it open and decided to do a standard 3-way wiring setup. The result is much more pleasing and usable to me. It bridges the gap between the neck and bridge. On two-pickup guitars, I usually spend about 95% of my playing time in the middle position, so it was really important for me to get it working right on this guitar.

This guitar has a tremolo system. I don’t usually like trems, but I was really curious about this one. It’s kind of a variation on the Bigsby, called the Vibrola or something like that. Supposedly, it’s smoother, more stable, and easier to restring than a Bigsby. I have no firsthand experience with a Bigsby, so I can’t comment on that comparison. I can say that while it is very smooth, it is not 100% stable if you use it too vigorously. Some retuning is necessary every now and then.

At this moment, I am pretty happy with the guitar. It plays very well and sounds excellent. It has a very cool tone, and it looks and feels very unique. Some people think that they look gaudy and cheap, but I like the way it looks, especially with the black guard.

I have already gone back and forth with myself about the possibility of selling/trading it. I definitely wanted to get rid of it before I decided to fix the wiring setup. At this point, though, I’m pretty pleased with it. The only guitars that I would be interesting in trading for it would be luthier-built instruments like a Suhr tele or something like a Koll. I have no interest in another Gibson-type instrument. I think I’m done with Les Pauls. I mean, I wouldn’t mind having one, but since I’m not rich and can’t really justify owning a bunch of guitars, I have to limit myself to guitars that I actually play frequently.

For now, the Duesenberg is staying. However, I can’t say for how long.

I sold my Les Paul.

It is a beautiful instrument to look at, but I don’t enjoy playing it. I have pretty much decided that I don’t like the Gibson 23.75″ scale length – I prefer the Fender 25.5″ scale. In addition, I dont’ really like the tones that I have been getting out of it lately. It’s just a little too thick. A little too dark.

I was initially thinking about getting a Gretsch Duo Jet. I really want a guitar with filtertrons, and I have wanted a Gretsch for a long time. However, upon looking at the specs I discovered that they have a scale length of 24.6″, somewhere in between the Fender and Gibson scale lengths.

I was researching other Gretsch-like options and I came upon a company called Duesenberg. Apparently, they’re a German company that sources the bodies and necks from Korea and do the assembly themselves in Germany. I have heard a lot of great things about these guitars. I happened across a guy selling their Starplayer TV model on The Gear Page and was really interested in it. The Starplayer TV is a semi-hollowbody guitar with a P90 in the neck, a humbucker in the bridge, a Bigsby-like tremolo that supposedly is very stable, and a 25.5″ neck scale. It’s supposed to be a mixture of a tele, a Les Paul, and a Gretsch – three of my favorite things. I decided to take a chance and go for it.

This is the one that I bought.

It has a sparkly gold pickguard, which I hate, so I ordered a new black one. That’ll improve the tone, right?

Anyway, it should be here on Thursday. Fingers crossed!

For most of my life, I have been a skinny guy. I think I was like 130 lbs when I graduated high school, and I probably didn’t gain much weight in college, either. I’m 34 years old now, and I have put on a lot of weight since my school days. A lot of it is muscle, but a lot of it is… not muscle. Anyway, at the beginning of this summer I was close to 200 lbs. To me, that was unacceptable.

about 6-7 weeks ago, my wife and I decided that we were going to get in better shape. We decided to start watching what we eat and drink, and most importantly, we decided to start exercising regularly. We have been members of a gym for several years now, but we have never really taken advantage of it. We have certainly taken advantage of it over the last month or so.

I have been going to the gym 8-10 times a week. I have spent most of my time on the treadmill, but I have also done some basic weight training. I usually set the incline really high and the speed somewhere between 3.5 – 4 mph. It’s not very fast, but my goal is to get my heart rate up for an extended period of time. I usually walk something like 45 mins to an hour twice a day. According to the treadmill computer thing, I burn about 1200-1400 calories a day.

On Friday, I weighed in at 184 lbs. I don’t know exactly what I weighed when I started, but I think I have lost something like 12-15 lbs in the last 6 weeks. That’s kind of a big deal, I think. I can really tell a difference in the way my body looks and the way my clothes fit.

I have another week of summer before I have to go back to work. I have committed to continue exercising, even though I know that I won’t be able to continue the same regimen that I have been doing recently. I don’t want to go back to where I was, and I am confident that I won’t.