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Only very bad dogs like ring modulation! No disrespect to Chuck Berry, but I seriously doubt Johnny B. Goode played guitar just like a-ringin’ a bell unless he was using a ring modulator. That’s the only effect that can give you the complex, clangorous harmonics of a bell or a cymbal. Or make […] Since New Year resolutions expire at midnight, January 7th, I’m racing to realize my goal of finally becoming fluent with music notation software before the sands run out. A new way to feign productivity in cafes! I’d like to share some initial impressions about Notion. This isn’t a full-fledged product review — […] I tend to regard the New Year’s resolution like New Year’s drinking: not necessarily a bad tradition, but one I feel no guilt about ignoring most years. But since I have some specific musical goals in 2013, I figured I’d share ’em — and open the floor to anyone who feels inspired to […] UPDATE: Here’s a direct link via SoundCloud. The file is downloadable for free. Sheesh — never occurred to me that folks might, like, actually download it and overwhelm my feeble little DropBox account! While most people are baking cookies or lining up at the grocery store for 45 minutes to buy those frickin’ […] Some boutique stompbox builders pursue endless refinements of classic pedal designs, developing ever-more-suave iterations of the Tube Screamer and Ross Compressor. And some just want to blow shit up. Guess which category Portland, Oregon’s Devi Ever falls into? Hint: Her extensive line of guitar and bass pedals includes such anarchy boxes as the Little Shit, […] Just one problem… I’m psyched to announce a new guitar mag from some of the smartest and coolest folks in the industry. Pure Guitar is a new online-only publication spearheaded by my friend and music-journalism mentor, Jas Obrecht. He’s rounded up a stellar team of writers and players — including my pals and […] A homely clone cowers in the shadow of a ramshackle original. Okay, here’s an old weirdo I’ve been meaning to write about for ages. The Systech Harmonic Energizer is an ultra-rare filter/distortion effect from the ’70s that takes the fuzz-wah formula in some interesting directions. Its signature is edgy, ultra-resonant filter sounds. You’re […] 
Coming soon to a star system near you! Last week I dared all incautious chumps you to prognosticate about our guitaristic future. I knew the resulting comments thread would be fun, but I didn’t expect it to be that fun! And also oddly uplifting. Future predictions just seem to skew in an optimistic […] 
This effect order ALWAYS works great! Weird, isn’t it? You can explain the rules of thumb for ordering your guitar effects in about ten seconds, but you can still get stumped after years of experimentation. You probably know the conventional effect-order advice, which goes something like this (in order of appearance): Distortion effects […] |
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