Category: Uncategorized

Cro-Mag Comedy Contest Semi-Finals

Post author By joe
Post date April 30, 2014
2 Comments on Cro-Mag Comedy Contest Semi-Finals

Hi — I’m back from an amazing vacation, which I’ll tell you about soon. But first, I wanted to make good on my threat/promise of letting you vote on the funniest musician anecdote, a contest outlined here. I couldn’t narrow it down to 10 faves, so I went with 11. (In retrospect, I probably should have skipped the pre-selection stage, since all the stories were pretty darn good.)

Vote for the ones that make you laugh the most. The authors of the three most popular stories win one of my sketchy homemade stompboxes prototypes.

caveclown — I apologize. For appropriating this image. For posting it here. For making you dream about it.

The only rule: Be cool. Please don’t stuff the ballot box or resort on other sneaky internet tricks. If you win via subterfuge, I’ll still probably send you a prize, though I reserve the right to expose your cheatin’ heart to public ridicule.

Polls close a week from today on Wednesday, May 7th.

The stories appear in random order. The polling widget appears after the last story.

And oh — for the record, don’t take the words “Cro-Mag Comedy Contest” as a slur against our Upper Paleolithic ancestors. Cro-Magnons were fully developed humans, genetically, physically, and mentally indistinguishable from modern homo sapiens. So we can safely assume they did all kinds of stupid shit. Especially the drummers.

Uncategorized

Grüße aus Frankfurt!

messe

Howdy from Frankfurt! I’m here for the week covering Musikmesse for Premier Guitar magazine. Messe is like NAMM, only somewhat larger and way louder. With beer and sausage. And probably lots of accordions, because you can’t have beer, sausage, or music trade shows without accordions.

You can check the many daily pics and notes posted at PG‘s Facebook page. We have a strict “new gear only” policy. No NAMM retreads — only items being introduced here in Frankfurt. Should be interesting!

:pacman: :pill: :beer: (pretend the pill is a sausage)

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Tonefiend’s Half-Assed NAMM Report!

Post author By joe
Post date January 27, 2014
35 Comments on Tonefiend’s Half-Assed NAMM Report!

I just drove back to San Francisco from Southern California, where I got to hang out with family and spend a long, full day at NAMM. And while even the longest and fullest of days isn’t enough to see half the stuff at the show, I’ve put together a little slideshow covering some highlights and lowlights.

Per usual, my focus is the obscure and the absurd. For details of the big releases from the major companies, check out the excellent coverage by my Premier Guitar colleagues. (I’m the designated PG reporter for Musikmesse in March, but at NAMM, I had the luxury of stumbling around in a daze, pausing to gape at whatever shiny object happened to enter my field of vision.)

Disclaimers apply:

While I receive no payment or perks in exchange for coverage, a number of folks whose products I mention are friends, clients, or both.
All opinions expressed are strictly my own — especially the obnoxious ones.
You can’t hear a frickin’ thing in the toxic noise zone that is NAMM, unless an exhibitor provides a soundproofed listening booth or a private suite. I have no idea how most of this stuff actually sounds, nor does anyone else reporting from the main show floot.

Finally, an apology: I couldn’t figure out how to embed links within my slideshow captions, so you’ll have to do some typing to learn more about these products. Sorry — but I did warn you that this was a half-assed NAMM report!

r
:stupid:

Play Prev|Next

The very first thing I saw was a large group protesting against Bain Capital's Guitar Center for allegedly ripping off a cajón pedal design by Michelle Mangione and Steve Soest. Demonstrators included my eternal punk goddess, Exene Cervenka of X (pictured). Details at guitarcentersucks.com.

I finally got to hear Fishman's Fluence — an electric guitar pickup that uses the radical technology of printing magnetic coils onto a circuit board rather than by winding wire. The pickup transmits a flat, full-frequency sound, which is subsequently shaped by an active EQ stage. The three initial releases feature two tones each, though theoretically, there is no limit to the number of pickup sounds you could generate via a single Fluence pickup. (The Strat held here by genius guitar tech Gary Brawer, for example, toggles between a vintage sound and a modern hot-coil tone.)
The results are very impressive. Changing modes really does sound more like a pickup swap than a mere EQ adjustment. Also pictured: Frank Falbo (center), who worked on the project, and Larry Fishman (left).

Rear view of the Fluence system and battery pack, which provides 100+ hours of playing time between USB charges. Fender/Marshall vet Ritchie Fliegler also worked on this product, and his son, Jack, provided a shredworthy demo of the high-gain humbucker version, which toggles between an active, EMG-like tone and a high-gain passive humbucker sound. The third model in the initial launch is a vintage humbucker setup offering a choice of PAF-style and hotter-than-vintage tones.

I didn't get to hear them, but these fuzz pedals from the British Pedal Company certainly look authentic. The Rangemaster reissue even has a built-in output cable like the original.

No NAMM report is complete without the obligatory accordion pic!

Hiwatt's booth included this lovely relic: David Gilmour's historic rig.

Small enough to fit into a guitar case, the tiny yet ergonomic Fly Rig by Tech 21 includes two stages of SansAmp gain, plus nice-sounding digital delay and reverb. I could totally envision using this not only on its own, but as a convenient and travel-friendly backup rig.

Tech 21's Andrew Barta also showed me a prototype of the clever Clutch knob, an invention he didn't create, but may develop and distribute. It's a push/pull knob (not pot) that, when depressed, sticks in position while continuing to rotate in one direction. You might use it, for example, to dial back and forth between a wide-open guitar volume knob setting, and the exact spot you like for a rolled-back clean tone. I can think of many great stompbox applications as well. I want about 20 of these!

My pals from Voodoo Labs dressed as the cast of a certain film about bowling and ferrets. So much hipper than the usual black work shirt with embroidered company logo!

Cheap chic: The whimsical, retro-flavored designs from Trev Wilkinson's budget-priced Italia line: Always a sickly-sweet treat! 🙂

EPSi from Logidy is an impulse response reverb in pedal form. It reads IR files from an SD card, and yes, you can use your own. (If you don't know about IR technology, search for "impulse response" on this site. It's amazing and fascinating stuff.) I'd ordered one of these the instant I heard about it, and received it just before departing for Anaheim. My initial reaction: wowie zowie. I'll be writing more about this wily gizmo soon. (If you're interested, get one now at $199. The price will probably go up soon.)

I recently reviewed Magnatone's stunningly gorgeous (and, at $4,000, stunningly expensive) Super Fifty-Nine amp for Premier Guitar. Unlike its larger sibling, this compact 2 x 6V6 head offers true stereo vibrato, and will "only" set you back $1,700. To the extent I could hear it on the noisy show floor, it sounded gorgeous.

The prototype StrongArm Six-String Sustainer from Keith McMillen Industries looks promising. It allows you to blend sustained and normal tones and set the drive level via concentric pots. It definitely promises many exciting applications, but between the pots, saddles, and LED-enabled pickguard, it's probably more suited to purpose-built guitars than DIY installation. Stay tuned.

With their exquisite engraving and flamboyant surfaces, Teye guitars always attract a crowd. Most of them sell for north of $5K.

Stompblox specializes in modular pedalboards with snap-together sections. They also showed the Brick, an ambitious power supply/signal switcher.

I haven't had the opportunity to try Moolon pedals, but man, dig the beautiful engraving and eyelet-board construction!

My brilliant friend James Trussart with one of his new pinstriped teles. Also new is his groovy "flipped" jazzmaster. As always, the Trussart booth was an island of design elegance in a sea of vulgarity.

Famed Fender amp designer Bruce Zinky created the revitalized Supro amps, though the brand is now part of Pigtronix. This 6973-powered combo absolutely nails that "Immigrant Song"/"Communication Breakdown" tone.

More Sears & Roebuck chic: The new Silvertone line offers replicas of various ’60s models. These use modern construction, which, for better or worse, probably means they're more reliable but less freaky-cool than originals. I'm looking forward to checking these out.

The retro resurrections continue! Tim Lerch playing one of the newly reissued Kay guitars. They're budget-friendly reproductions of models from the historic Chicago brand.

More Kay coolness. I didn't get a chance to hear or play these, but they're so cool-looking, I almost don't care how they sound. 😉

Now that is an artist endorsement photo: the inimitable Wanda Jackson for Daisy Rock guitars. (Plus I have that pink guitar fixation ... )

Marketing FAIL from Black Lion Audio.

Mooer specializes in micro-stompboxes, especially ones in small rectangular 1590A boxes. Now they're doing a lot of effects in square 1590LB enclosures as well.

Hey, lookit! It's the back of Stevie Wonder's head!

New replacement bridges from Tone Pros include a model with nylon saddles à la certain 1950s Gibsons, and a Bigsby-friendly roller bridge.

This control kit from Touchmark flips the touch-pad equation: They're not for controlling external devices — there's no MIDI output. They simply replace traditional tone and volume pots. With practice, a guitarist could manipulate the controls while playing. The system includes a pad-programming computer app.

Aussie guitar monster Adam Miller tries out the first electric model from Falbo Guitars. (You saw luthier Frank Falbo way back in that Fishman Fluence pic.) Frank's acoustic guitars are quite magnificent, and I'm looking forward to checking out this Fluence-equipped model someplace where I might actually hear it.

This wireless system from FXConnectx offers remote pedalboard control. Ambulatory rock stars can even position multiple units around the stage.

Ooh, pretty! This two-tiered Aclam pedalboard hails from Barcelona, ground zero for shapely and organic designs.

This is the best NAMM report ever, because it has two obligatory accordion pics. That's one big-ass squeezebox!

Leaving the show, I chanced upon one last example of the taste and restraint for which NAMM is renowned.

Back at the hotel I flicked through the channels, only to encounter Steven Segal telling Mike "Women Can't Control Their Libidos" Huckabee about the awesomeness of his friend Vladimir "All Gays Are Child Molesters" Putin. Nice product placement!

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Resolution Rock

Want to torture yourself? Pause on Dec. 31st to consider the resolutions you scribbled down 364 days ago.

But not everyone is a resolution cynic. Check out the comments section below last year’s NYE post, and you’ll find a dozen entires from Josh Starmer, who pledged a year ago today to record an entire album, finishing one song per month.

Yup — he did it! You can read about his journey here.

Speaking of journeys: I emailed Josh to congratulate him, and he wrote back from frickin’ Cambodia on the day he was touring Angkor Wat.

Heck of a year, Josh!

I solicited words of wisdom. Josh’s reply:

For every one part challenging, it was 10 parts rewarding. Before I started, I’d never written a song before. I’d recorded little instrumental tunes, but nothing with words. I was pretty intimidated by lyrics early on, so I did what any awkward person would in such a circumstance, I sang about the weather. I then sent the song out to my closest friends and, over the months, their praise and complements kept me going, and their honest criticisms made me better. I’ll have an album out by mid-February.

Each month started out with one or two weeks of doubt and freak out. It didn’t matter how good an idea I had about what I wanted to record, it always seemed impossible. But, like everything, it was just a matter of starting, pressing record, and then putting the song together, piece by piece. The second two weeks of each month were always filled with immense pride as I watch the song materialize out of nothing. An idea in my head made real, and in many cases, better.

Along the way I developed a systematic method for singing in tune (which, sadly, is a different skill from playing any other instrument in tune), and I’m going to write about that as soon as I can. There’s a lot of bad advice out there on the internet, and I think what I came up with works really well.

Oh, and perhaps the most important thing – I can’t say enough about how cool it’s been to take an seemingly impossible task and just chip away at it each month in a disciplined way. I’ve found myself encouraging everyone I meet to do a similar thing – be it sewing a quilt, or writing short stories, etc…

How cool is that?

Anyone up for the “Starmer Challenge” in 2014? Or are you goals more modest? Or more grandiose? Please — confide your hopes and dreams for 2014 so that one year from today we can all join together to ~~laugh at your failure~~ toast your amazing accomplishments!

So what are my 2014 resolutions? Easy — same as 2013! :satansmoking:

angkor_kitty — Somewhere far, far away, all NYE resolutions come true.

Tags 2014, fiend, joe gore, josh, joshua, new year, new year's, resolution, starmer, tone, tonefiend

Pickups Uncategorized

Happy Humbucker-Sized P-90s!

Post author By joe
Post date December 19, 2013
69 Comments on Happy Humbucker-Sized P-90s!

Happy-P-90s

Just in time for the single-coil holiday season: my comparison review of 16 humbucker-sized P-90 pickups is live at Premier Guitar. This heartwarming holiday fun-fest has it all: Mouth-watering adjectives. Freshly baked audio clips. Irate manufacturers. Don’t miss it!

This was a fun, if challenging project. Comparison pickup reviews are such cans of worms! Not only are they sadistically labor-intensive, but the differences between one pickup and the next are easily overshadowed by other variables in the tone chain.

After much thought about how to create meaningful comparisons, we came up with an intriguing process: I tested all the pickups in the same guitar, with identical setups, and ReAmped them through the same combo amps with identical recording settings. If this were an amp or pedal review, I would have used the same performances throughout, but of course, each example had to be played anew with each pickup, so I spent much time matching performances to guard against misleading variations in touch and intensity. It’s not a perfect solution, but better than most, and in the end quite revealing.

And what did it reveal, exactly? You’ll find out at the link. Beyond that, I can report that:

All the products sounded pretty good.
They sounded more similar than you might expect.
I’m gonna find me a guitar to house a set of my favorites — though I’m not sure which ones are my faves! Really, they’re close enough that, say, the tone of a particular body wood alone would be enough to sway the decision. It’s not so much a case of “better or worse” as “brighter or darker” and “louder or quieter.”

As mentioned in the article, there’s no “gold standard” of P-90 tone — or rather, every P-90 lover has his or her own standard. Gibson’s ’50s original are notoriously inconsistent in their output, even their magnet type. Plus, the mere fact that you’re winding coils around a narrow, tall humbucker bobbin rather than a wide, low P-90 one has sonic implications. So I tend to think of this entire pickup category as either “single-coils that are ballsier than Fender single-coils,” or, in the case of hum-canceling models, “humbuckers with brighter highs and clearer mids.” (Or as my ol’ pal Steve Blucher from DiMarzio calls them, “humbuckers that hum.”)

Funny thing: I love P-90s, but don’t own any guitars fitted with them. Not yet. :satansmoking:

So talk to me about P-90s! Your faves? Beloved P-90 guitars? Fave P-90 players and performances?

Tags dimarzio, duncan, electric, fender, fiend, fralin, gibson, guitar, harmonic design, joe gore, lollar, P-90, passive, pickup, premier guitar, review, roundup comparison, seymour, test, tone, tonefiend, vintage

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Turkey and Stuff

thanksgiving_2013_02

It’s that time of year when we stop practicing, turn off the soldering irons, and ~~pretend to relate to~~ spend precious time with our loved ones. I’m off to Santa Fe for a visit with my wife’s family (it’s okay — they’re mostly musicians), and I’m especially looking forward to hanging out with my super-cool nephews. So please pardon this zero-effort post.

Reflexive snark aside, I’d like to thank all of you who have contributed your time, effort, musicality, and ingenuity to tonefiend since the last time I posted a poorly Photoshopped turkey image. If it weren’t for you, this site would be nothing more than a bunch of self-important pontification, instead of what it is: a bunch of self-important pontification leavened by your wit and wisdom.

Thanks, too, to you lurkers — I know you’re there! Truth be told, I’m a habitual lurker who rarely contributes to his favorite blogs, so I get where you’re coming from and invite you to lurk to your hearts’ content. (Though if you ever do feel like introducing yourself, I promise you a friendly welcome.)

I’ve got lots of interesting stuff coming up after the holiday. Your responses and suggestions to the Let’s Design a DIY Amp post have helped focus that notion, and I’m speaking with some smart people about creating a project/kit. I’ll also be reporting on some of the new digital gizmos and soundware I’ve been exploring in preparation for a performance at Strung Out!, a monthly San Francisco solo guitar event I’m launching with friend/acoustic virtuoso Teja Gerken.

And frankly, I’m glad to be powering down the soldering iron for a few days, because I just completed all the tech work for a massive pickup review I’m preparing for Premier Guitar, which includes recordings of eight rival humbucker-sized P-90 pickup sets, all tested in the same guitar/signal chain. The results are fascinating, and I managed to perform a couple of dozen pickup changes with only one second-degree burn and two small puncture wounds. (Yep — you heard it here first: The next big thing in humbuckers is hum!) I’ll link to the story when it goes live in a few weeks.

I’m thankful for having so many of you to thank. Have a lovely holiday, everyone!

Tags 2013, channikay, fiend, hannukay, joe fore, thanksgiving, tonefiend. tone, turkey

guitar Music Technique Uncategorized

Tonefiend Book Week 2013
Monday: Theory and Technique

Post author By joe
Post date June 3, 2013
48 Comments on Tonefiend Book Week 2013
Monday: Theory and Technique

Monday: Theory and Technique
Tuesday: Gear
Wednesday: Repairs and DIY
Thursday: Biography
Friday: Fiction

This week we’re talking about our favorite guitar/music books. The plan is simple: I discuss a few titles I’ve found particularly enlightening, useful, or entertaining, and then you jump in and do the same. I’ve organized the days of this week by subject matter. Today’s topics are theory and technique.

Tonefiend Book Week 2013 is an entirely selfish project. I expect to reap tons of great new info from you, smart readers. So don’t be shy about chiming in.

1. Ted Greene’s complete works

Yes, it's true — I studied guitar with Bigfoot! — This week on *Finding Bigfoot*, the BFRO team visits Encino, California.

Ted Greene’s jazz guitar books have haunted me since the ’70s. Chord Chemistry, Modern Chord Progressions, and Jazz Guitar Single Note Soloing Vols 1 & 2 remain in print, and are available in both paper and digital editions.

Ted’s books helped me understand the fretboard, tackle jazz harmony, and perhaps most of all, grasp the concept of voice-leading — that is, the ability to perceive chords not as static blocks, but as volatile structures resulting from dynamic melodies. Ironically, even though Ted’s books are divided into chordal and single-note topics, they go a long way toward erasing such distinctions. Melody generates harmony, Ted teaches, and harmony generates melody.

Not that I’ve completely digested Ted’s books. Has anyone? These tomes are dauntingly dense and complex. I just cracked open Modern Chord Progressions at random, and this confronted me:

Tags 2013, book week, books, chord chemistry, clarinet studies, classical, fake book, jazz, jazz single note soloing, modern chord progressions, pumping nylon, scott tennant, teachers, teaching, ted greene, tonefiend

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Fretboard Heatmaps:
A Lifetime of Playing in One Graphic

Post author By joe
Post date May 28, 2013
5 Comments on Fretboard Heatmaps:
A Lifetime of Playing in One Graphic

Saw this today on the Guardian‘s site: A clever programmer named Joe Cannatti decided to visualize the fretwork of a 22 well-known players. He used Ruby on Rails code to search the internet for tablature files, and then depicted the data as “fretboard heatmaps” — fretboard graphics with frequently played notes depicted in red. (The redder the note, the more frequently the player uses it.)

You can also view these visualizations on Cannatti’s website, which includes more details about how they were created.

I predict that, like me, you’ll find the results interesting but not surprising. Dave Mustaine and James Hetfield chunk a lot of low E. (James once told me that he could never play a guitar without a low E-string, adding that the only features he finds lacking in his guitars are beer holders of the type found on boats.) Dave Matthews loves open-position D chords. B.B. King doesn’t play many low notes — he’s got a band for that. Satch and Vai are busy beavers, their fretboards a smear of pink.

No less predictable: Damn, we guitarists can be argumentative know-it-alls! Check out the Guardian’s comments section, where dozens of players screech that the data is either meaningless or faulty.

I disagree. These results ring true to me. I’d be shocked if you were to examine the instruments of the guitarists in question and not find exactly the fret-wear patterns suggested here.

So what would your fretboard heatmap look like?

Tags fretboard heatmaps heat map joe cannatti tonefiend tone fiend frequency notes tab frets data visualization

Acoustic Amps Bass Effects guitar Recording Uncategorized

The View from Here

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed a recurring pattern: I attend some interesting event and promise to report on it, only to get subverted by work, crowds, jabbering with old acquaintances, and jetlag. True to form, I’ve spend the first two days either demoing TriplePlay, or staggering to the coffee bar. Yesterday I spent hours staring at these Guitar Grip guitar hangers, which are mounted on the wall right next to the spot where I’m playing. They remind me of the human-hand candelabras from Jean Cocteau’s La belle et la bête.

It’s been fun playing for so many hours, though I’m still not very good at the MIDI guitar/drums thing. I was having a fairly disastrous moment when John McLaughlin came by. Isn’t that always how it is? You’re having an off day, and then you look up and see that frickin’ McLaughlin. Is it just me, or does everyone hate that? :shake:

This is my first time here, but the old hands tell me that the show is relatively dead, and that a lot of manufacturers have either already given up on Messe, or are planning to next year. We’ll see what transpires tomorrow afternoon and Saturday, when the show opens to the public. (So far, it’s industry-only.) And I really will try to scope out some gear!

Now we're talking — refrigerators! — Now we’re talking — refrigerators!

Amps Bass Digital Effects guitar Pickups Recording Uncategorized

Grüße aus Musikmesse

It's wet. Will it be wild? — It’s wet. Will it be wild?

Howdy from Frankfurt, where I arrived this afternoon to attend Musikmesse. United Airlines was its usual scuzzy self, though a nice flight attendant found a place for me to stow my guitar. And my pedalboard seems to have arrived in fine shape, even though I had to checked it in its soft but reassuringly padded Mono case.

I’m here as a demo artist for Fishman’s TriplePlay, but I should have some downtime to poke around and look for cool stuff. I’ll keep you posted!

This event is gigantic — more than twice the size of NAMM. And even on a setup day like today, you can tell how loud it’s going to be, especially since they don’t enforce volume restrictions is stringently as they do in Anaheim. (I’m told it’s like Saturday afternoon at Guitar Center, squared.) And my demo area just opposite the big, loud Gibson stage. It’ll be an adventure! 🙂

Any of you guys ever been? Got any advice to share?