This week we wanted to try something just a little bit different. If you want to catch up on the podcast but don’t necessarily want to sit through 30 plus minutes, or don’t have the time to, – you can read the highlights below.
Guitarists vs audience perceived tone. Can the audience really tell the difference? It honestly totally depends. If you are playing a Boss Medal Zone on a George Straight country song – the audience might pickup on the out of place tone. AKA – “That fella doesn’t sound right.” But for the most part – that audience typically can’t tell the difference between a $3,000 guitar amp vs a $4,000 guitar amp. With that said, better sounding gear to a musician can instill confidence and therefore create a better atmosphere/ show that the audience can pick up on.
There are exceptions to the rule. If you Jack Pearson – you can play a $100 Squire Strat and make it sound fantastic. Seriously – it’s a real thing – check out the Allman Brother’s tribute on YouTube. Honestly – take a break from reading this and go check it out – it will make you hate your gear.
Wooten’s Law: Victor Wooten- bass player extraordinaire, came up with a pretty cool rule “Study a style of music you hate.” You might learn something tonally, melodically, or rhythmically that you might not have thought of. I spent the weekend doing this and learned a lot of stuff I can implement in my own style of playing.
E-Bay Woes: Travis finally found his dream (Marshall Bass and Lead 20), went to buy it, and somebody else had already purchased it. Tough break dude – wasn’t meant to be.
Princess Bride: Probably one of the best cult classic movies ever – and Brian has never seen it. “Anybody want a peanut?” was a quote we used by the character Fezzik (played by Andre the giant). If you haven’t seen “The Princess Bride” you need to watch it after you read this blog. It’s a very family friendly movie and it has Andre the Giant in it. The guy was huge and holds the world record for drinking the most beer in one sitting (127 beers in one sitting) – who wouldn’t have wanted to party with that guy?
Guitar Tone Words: “Fizzy” what is fizzy? Travis summed it up as: “If you cranked up the highest frequency on a parametric EQ, it will typically generate “Fizz”. Some pre-amp distortion can sound fizzy as well. ‘Think JCM 800’.” We’ve also found that if your amp has a bright switch, it will make a lot of dirt pedals sound fizzy. This isn’t the case all of the time – but most of the time we have created that fizz sound by playing with some high-end frequencies in conjunction with dirt pedals.
Humbuckers: Brian wants some new humbuckers for his Les Paul. Although he has a setoff hand wound pickups from Mr. Seymour Duncan himself!!! – he still hasn’t installed them yet. Why do I have a feeling that I will be installing these in his Les Paul in the future? Travis mentioned that he has heard rave reviews about the Joe Bonamassa signature pickups. I’ve checked them out – I hate to admit how good they sound.
If you would like us to talk about a specific topic on the podcast – please email us at [email protected]. Thanks for reading!