I mentioned last time that I traded my Sig:X amp for a bunch of other stuff, right? I got the ZT Lunchbox early last week, and it’s pretty cool. On Thursday, I got the big stuff: the VOX AC30H2 and the Fulltone OCD (v.4).
The VOX is nice. While it’s true that it was manufactured in China, which is not ideal, the craftsmanship is pretty excellent. It is a handwired amp, but it’s not point-to-point or turret board. It is a PCB type of construction, but all of the components are wired by hand, rather than installed by some giant machine. This doesn’t necessarily affect the tone, but it makes the amp less failure-prone and easier to repair if it does break down.
I read a lot of dudes on the internet who bash modern VOX amps because they’re inferior to the UK-built amps from the late 60′s. Well, you know what? The modern ones don’t catch on fire like the old ones did.
This AC30 is quite different from the Custom Classic series that Vox came out with a few years ago. The Heritage series doesn’t have tremolo, reverb, or an effects loop like the CC series did. That’s perfectly fine with me. I’m not a big fan of built-in effects like that. I’d much rather use outboard effects that I can access on a pedalboard. An effects loop would be nice, but it’s not really necessary since I’ll be running this amp clean.
Anyway, I took it to practice on Thursday, and I was having some issues getting it to stay clean. Even though the volume was pretty low (relatively speaking – this is a loud, loud 30 watts), I couldn’t get it to keep from breaking up. I played with it some more on Friday at the house, and I managed to figure it out. The amp has two channels: the top boost channel and the EF86 channel. At practice I was using the Top Boost channel, but I discovered that the EF86 channel is capable of delivering some massive-sounding clean tones that will not break up regardless of how hard you hit the strings. I had the volume at 12:00 (which is really loud), and full chords stayed perfectly clean when I hit them full on.
My pedalboard is currently undergoing some revisions. I picked up a Strymon blueSky Reverberator a couple of weeks ago, and it’s already gone. It’s a really great pedal with some amazing sounds in it, but it’s just too much money tied up in an effect that I’m really not going to use all that much. I’m keeping the Brigadier delay, but I’m picking up a Line 6 M9 to replace the BSR.
I already had the M13, and sold it because it was overkill. However, I really miss some of the weird loopy things that it can do. Things like pattern tremolo, pitch shifting, particle verb, step filter, sweep echo, etc are all really cool glitchy effects that I can use. The reverb sounds won’t be as good as the blueSky, but it’ll be close enough for spacey live stuff.
I also picked up a Musket Fuzz from Blackout Effectors to replace my diy Mayo clone. This thing is awesome. It’s kind of a modern take on the Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi. It has 6 knobs for tone shaping, so it’s really versatile for a fuzz pedal. It can go from mild overdrive tones to wall of sound fuzz. It’s pretty sweet.
I’m liking the OCD more than I thought I would. It’s really open-sounding, even at high gain levels. It’s not overly compressed and you can still hear your basic guitar-amp sound underneath the extra gain.
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In less happy news, I have run into a snag with my Jazzmaster purchase. I found the one that I wanted, checked the seller’s references and sent him payment. Unfortunately, he is now claiming that his paypal account is frozen and he is refusing to ship the guitar until his funds are released. I filed a claim with paypal, told him that I wasn’t okay with waiting and that he needs to ship the guitar as per our agreement. I haven’t heard from him in a couple of days. I know I’ll get my guitar or my money back eventually, but it could be weeks before that happens. Part of me wants to fly out to wherever this guy lives and punch him in the face.
I did a quick video demo of the new strymon pedals and thought I’d share. I’m using my G&L ASAT Bluesboy into my Fryette Sig:X clean channel. I’m using the RAILhead Effects PURE to boost the amp into some light breakup. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with lots of different settings – it just kinda gives you an idea of the character of these pedals.
Anyway, if there’s anything that you want to hear in particular, let me know.
A few months ago, in a haze of Gear Acquisition Syndrome I sold my Timmy overdrive pedal. That was a mistake, and I have regretted it. I’m back on the waiting list, but it’ll probably be another 6 months before my name is up. In the meantime I decided to take matters into my own hands.
There are a handful of websites where people disassemble boutique stompboxes and reverse engineer them. It’s nerdy, but it’s kinda cool. Okay, it’s not really cool at all. Anyway, I managed to find a layout for the Timmy overdrive. This ended up being a more involved process than I am used to. I usually buy a premade circuit board and put solder the right components in the right place. This time, I started out with a piece of stripboard. It looks like this:
That piece is too big to fit inside the enclosures that I use, so I cut it down to a more manageable size. Then I used a layout that someone else designed based on the schematic. This involves cutting certain traces on the bottom and creating new traces on the top as well as soldering the components into place.
Here’s the finished product from the outside. It’s not much to look at, but I don’t really care about the visuals.
Unfortunately, the insides aren’t much better.
You might notice that one of the capacitors (the blue one) is way bigger than the others. This is a result of me screwing up my parts order. Instead of ordering 2 1uF box capacitors, I only ordered one. I found the big blue one at Radio Shack so that I could at least finish the project. I’ll clean things up a bit once I get that smaller cap. It was really hard to cram four potentiometers into this small box. It took me forever to keep it from shorting out whenever I put it together.
It works, but I just finished it about an hour ago so I haven’t had a lot of time to mess with it. Based on the limited time that I have spent with it, I think it sounds pretty close to the real deal. I’m sure that a couple of the components that I’m using are the wrong material or value, so it may require some tweaking. At the very least, it should tide me over until the real deal comes along.
It’s been a while since I posted an updated picture of my pedalboard, so here it is.
I’ve had most of this stuff for a while, but the newest addition is the Mayo. It’s a clone that I built of the (now discontinued) Skreddy Mayo, which was a tweaked version of the Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi. It uses different capacitor/resistor values as well as different transistors. It’s the same general sound as the BMP, but it’s a little smoother/less raspy. It’s noisy, but it sounds great for thick leads as well as Smashing Pumpkins-type rhythm tones.
I have a couple of other DIY projects in the works. I built a clone of the Barber LTD Silver (David Barber released the schematic when he discontinued the pedal), but it didn’t sound quite right so I gave it to Maury in the hopes that he could get it working for me. Up next – I’m about to start working on a clone of the Timmy pedal. I used to have a real one, but I (foolishly) sold it. I’m going to get another one, but I figured that I would build one while I wait on the list.
Well, the board is pretty much together for now. I haven’t taken a pic yet, but I’ll get around to it eventually.
My signal goes Wah -Volume (tuner out – pitchblack) – io – PURE – DE-7 – DD-20 (w/external tap tempo)
Here’s the roundup:
Wah – it’s a Crybaby. It’s not “the best wah ever,” but it’s passable. I will eventually buy a new one or slap some new guts in this one, but for now it works.
Volume – I use this for swells and for killing my signal for silent tuning. It doesn’t have the smoothest taper, but it’s completely noise free and it works well once you learn where the sweet spot is.
Pitchblack – it’s a tuner, and it’s black. What’s left to say? It’s really easy to read on stage, and it’s pretty accurate (+/- 1 cent).
RAILhead Effects io – I have written a lot about this pedal, but I’ll write a little more. This pedal, as I understand it, is designed to be played in front of a clean amp. I think it’s based on a Marshall preamp gain stage (but I may be mistaken), and it gives you a reasonable facsimile of the fabled Van Halen “Brown Sound.” It’s basically a Marshall-in-a-box, and it is awesome. Discovery of the weekend: this pedal gets a really cool light overdrive tone when you roll off the volume knob on the guitar.
RAILhead Effects PURE – It’s a clean boost. I forget how many decibels of volume it adds, but it’s a lot. You can use it in front of an overdriven amp to push the preamp tubes, basically making the amp more distort more. If you have the headroom, it gives you a volume boost. I’m not really using this one very much at the moment – it doesn’t really fit in with my setup right now. I’ll probably replace it with the low gain overdrive that I’m working on (more on that later).
Ibanez DE-7 – This one is surprisingly awesome. I bought one because it’s known for it’s ability to self-oscillate and make crazy noises when you set it for high repeats and play with the delay time knob. Well, it does that and a lot more. The “echo” mode is a really great analog-sounding delay. The repeats are really warm and dark, and it just sounds fantastic. I used this all day yesterday at church and even managed to get some dotted-eighth type sounds (even though it doesn’t have tap tempo). Really cool, and cheap. They’re like $70 new and you can sometimes find them used for like $50. When I play with TLP, this one will probably go in the amp’s effects loop and I’ll just switch it on for solos or whatever.
Boss DD-20 – this is the working man’s delay pedal. It’s got presets so you can have up to 4 different delay settings to cycle between. This is really handy for going from an ambient/reverby kinda sound to slapback to dotted eighth to reverse (or whatever). It also has a jack for using an external tap tempo switch. It isn’t the best-sounding delay I have ever used (that would probably be the Damage Control Timeline), but it sounds pretty nice. It is extremely functional, and very affordable – I think I paid $150 for mine.
I’ve got a Voodoo Lab ISO 5 mounted underneath the board (Pedaltrain PT2) powering everything.
I still need to add a low gain overdrive. I used to have a Timmy, but I (stupidly) sold it after I bought my M13. I should probably get back on the waiting list, but for now I’m going to build my own. David Barber made the schematic for his now discontinued LTD Silver publicly available about a year ago, and a lot of DIY pedal guys have made circuit boards available. I bought one and ordered a bunch of parts, so I’ll need to dig out my soldering iron and get to work once everything shows up.
A couple of other things on the radar: the Strymon Brigadier Delay and the Strymon blueSky Reverb. I really want both of these. If/when I get the Brigadier, it will replace the DD-20.
Well, it was an interesting experiment, but the M13 is now history. There were a lot of really cool sounds in that box, but ultimately it wasn’t for me.
First of all, the delays and reverbs are really great. Not as good as the Damage Control Timeline that I used to have, but much more flexible. If you want to run 4 delays at a time, you can do that on the M13. Likewise, there are lots of great reverb sounds. I will definitely miss the particle verb setting.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of drawbacks. For one thing, not all of the effects are great. The overdrive and distortion tones leave a lot to be desired. Ultimately, I was able to get some decent tones after much tweaking and EQing, but I still wasn’t blown away. I didn’t really care for the wah and filters either. I’m getting much better wah tone out of a used $40 Crybaby. The modulation tones are pretty hit or miss, but I don’t really use chorus, tremolo, flanger, or phaser (except for one song) anyway.
Finally, the thing is huge. It isn’t part of your pedalboard – it is your pedalboard. That’s fine if you’re totally sold on all the effects, but I wasn’t. I sold it a few days ago, and I’m in the process of reassembling everything. I still had some of my old pedals, and I ordered some replacements. My new board will look something like this once everything comes in:
As always, the pedalboard is a work in progress. I would love to pick up some of the new Strymon stuff. The Brigadier delay and Blue Sky reverb look really cool.
Bottom line: pedals are more fun than multi effects, and they usually sound better.
I tried to not have a wah pedal on my board, but I couldn’t do it. I need wah. Maybe not in the way that I need air, but still. I traded one of my FV-500H pedals for an original crybaby. I wasn’t using the expression pedal enough to justify keeping it. I don’t use loops or pitch shifting or anything, so it’s kinda unnecessary.
The Crybaby is not a great wah, but I’m going to pull the guts out of it and drop in an Area 51 replacement board.
First of all, I have not lost my job. As far as I know, I am in no danger of losing my position. I didn’t want anyone to get wrong ideas about my occupational situation based upon the title of this post. No, I received my new, smaller, lighter pedalboard this week and it is now fully assembled and ready to go. It is pretty much a perfect fit for my M13 and 2 FV-500H pedals. I’m not using the MXR EQ anymore – I’m only using the EQs in the M13.
I spent a while dialing in some tones on the M13 last night. In doing so, I discovered the importance of using EQ. There are several EQ models that are geared towards different purposes, but I spent most of my time using the graphic EQ model.
I had the most success using the EQ after overdrive/distortion. I was able to change a sloppy rhythm tone into crisp, Marshally tone just by slightly boosting the bass/treble frequencies and slightly cutting the mids. By “slightly,” I mean that my adjustments were less than 1 dB in any direction – any more made the tone really harsh and fake-sounding. I found that the key is to make small adjustments.
However, I found that the biggest challenge is in balancing the tones with each other. Tweaking the rhythm tone caused some of my other scenes to be really lackluster in comparison. As a result, I spent about an hour EQing my other favorite scenes so that they are all somewhat compatible with each other. In other words, I don’t want to go from a clean tone to an overdriven tone and sound like a completely different setup (unless it’s intentional). Anyway, my tones are much more sparkly now. It’s amazing what a little EQ can accomplish. Of course, I’ll have to make some adjustments when playing with a band, but I’ll cross that bridge later…
Unfortunately, I’m having a really hard time dialing in a good lead tone with the M13. Everything that I have come up with just ends up sounding fake. Maybe I have just grown accustomed to the amazing natural tube saturation that my Sig:X gives me. Whatever the reason, I may have to keep an analog distortion in the M13’s effects loop.
I would like to be able to run the M13 without any external pedals for simplicity’s sake, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet. Fortunately, running a pedal in the FX loop doesn’t necessarily add another stomp to the effects switching thing, since you can set up the effects loop to be on or off in individual scenes. I can leave the distortion pedal on all the time, but if my “clean” scene doesn’t use the FX loop, then it will just bypass it.
I need to record another video when I get the chance. Of course, that will have to wait until I get my new speaker cab. I sold the Avatar 2×12 that I have been using, and I’ll be ordering a new Fryette cab in the next couple of days. It should be awesome. I’m probably going to get another 2×12, but I’m toying with the idea of a 4×12. I can get a used 4×12 for cheaper than a new 2×12, and I can’t find a used 2×12 anywhere. However, the 4×12 is (obviously) significantly bigger and heavier that a 2×12. It’ll have casters, but still…
Well, here’s the latest iteration of my pedalboard. [sarcasm] I know that my readers are always waiting with bated breath for the newest inconsequential pedal addition/substitution. [/sarcasm]
Anyway, Since my main amp has such amazing natural tube overdrive/distortion, I don’t have to use pedals with it. As such, I decided to experiment with taking all of my dirt pedals off the board. So, my signal is currently guitar – M13 (2 FV500H expression pedals) with the MXR EQ in the loop.
When I use this live with my Sig:X, I’m going to set up the filters, comps, and drive effects to come before the preamp stage of the amplifier. Delays, modulations, reverbs, and EQ will be in the effects loop. At church, I just run this into a clean VOX AC15.
I have been experimenting the with the drives that are built into the M13 and some of them are surprisingly usable, especially the tube screamer, tube drive, and L6 drive. There’s a lot of tweaking that can be done with these sounds to make them very natural-sounding. Of course, a few of the models are just bad and should probably be tossed out. All in all, I’m still pleased with the M13 and I think that I’ll probably hang on to it for a while. Once I get some settings finalized, I’ll probably record some clips to give you an idea of what it’s capable of.
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