The Guitar Thread • Page 26

Amps: Vox AC10C1, Fender Blues Breaker, Princeton Reverb (pricey)
Overdrive: Fulltone OCD is kind of the holy grail for any style of music. I use a Emerson Custom EM-DRIVE for a clean OD.
Distortion: Crank your fulltone OCD
Reverb: Earthquaker Dispatch Master for crazy sounds, Holy Grail for more classic reverb.

edit:

if you want to rehearse live you might want a bigger amp. I know the AC10c1 can hold it down though

 

I use the Korg Pitchblack Tuner, which is often the Stupid Deal of the Day ($40 instead of $80) at Musician's Friend.

Totally backing the Fulltone OCD for overdrive (and on blast for distortion).

For traditional reverb I stick to the Holy Grail Plus; when going for something more atmospheric/soundscapy, I go with the Caroline Meteore. You can also tune that to classic hall tones.

 

Tuner: I'd go with the TC Electronic PolyTune. Lots of people default to the BOSS tuner and while that one's by no means bad, I definitely prefer the strictly bare-bones simplicity of the PolyTune.

Overdrive: Hard to go wrong with the Fulltone OCD although there's other really great drives out there. (The Ibanez Tube Screamer is a super popular and often copied one). But the OCD is, by my experience, super versatile and has excellent tone, and plays well with other dirt pedals if you're using it for boost or to color your tone a bit or whatever.

Distortion: I love the Walrus Audio Iron Horse, which is more or less their version of the ProCo RAT pedal, which is great too. This one's hard to narrow down because there's so many great dirt pedals out there, and that's not even including the massive amounts of excellent fuzz pedals. I'm also a fan of the MXR Super Badass Distortion.

Reverb: There's tons of great reverbs out there that go into full cavernous, spacey post-rock territory I could recommend but going off your playing style I'll just stick with something more low-key ha. A few posts back I recommended the Earthquaker Devices Dispatch Master to someone, which I'm gonna do again here since it works as a simple straight-ahead reverb AND a big-sounding cave feel if you decide you want to give that a shot. Bonus points for having a delay effect built in as well. Two knobs for reverb control, two knobs for delay.

As far as smaller amps go, I have an Orange CR60 solid state which puts the "no solid state amp sounds good" argument to bed, and a Marshall DSL40c which sounds incredible.

 

I back the sidereal rec. It's my favorite reverb ever (and Alex who builds it is the homie)

 

Also apologies for the double post but I picked up an old blood noise mondegreen delay and it is lifechanging.

 

I haven't interacted with him much at all aside from ordering from him but he seems like a good dude. I actually got one of the first Sidereals ever produced, #004. Always glad to see his stuff being used/rec'd.

 

Digitech's recent line of pedals is totally amazing. I have the Obscura Delay and it is great. It's crazy how they totally revamped their old pedals and now have this whole new sleek line.

 

I love the Freq out. Seems like a fantastic studio tool.


Also: I ordered a wilkinson roller bridge for my jazzmaster and a Strat-sized rails humbucker for my Squier Strat. Can't wait to get to work on both of these.

 

I've just moved house and haven't touched a guitar for about 3 weeks. All is sadness.

 

Might hit up Chicago Music Exchange today to try out some of the amps and pedals you all have gratefully rec'd me.

 

just bought this via Reverb, so stoked for it to get here

 

I got to visit that place when I was over in the US last year. What a store...

 

DAMN. She's a beauty.


Is it weird how badly I want a Les Paul with Wide Range Humbuckers?

 

I so want to go there someday. I've ordered a few pedals from them but never actually been to their store. I live in Indiana so it's kind of a ways off but if ever wanted to take a weekend trip or something, I'll definitely be hitting it up.

Yeah, ever since I read an interview with Mike Sullivan of Russian Circles where he talked about his gear and had that same LP Custom (from a different year but whatever) I've wanted one. So stoked I managed to find one used in really good shape for a solid price.

 

That sounds like a wild combo, I'd love to know how that would sound.

 

I'm trying to decide how to mod my Squier Classic Vibe Tele Custom. I'm either going to:

1) put Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound Tele pick-ups in and wire it to a 4-way switch (bridge/parallel/neck/series)
or
2) put a Duncan Quarter Pound Neck pup in, then in the bridge put a SD Custom Shop Pearly Gates for Tele and wire that to a 3-way mini-switch giving me series, parallel and out of phase options for that pick up.

I'm also swapping out the steel saddles for compensated brass and the mint-green pickguard for 3-ply pearloid parchment.

 

I keep telling myself I'm gonna learn to install pickups myself instead of having to take it to a shop but I fucking chicken out every time I watch a tutorial video or look at a wiring diagram bc i am an idiot who fucks up everything they touch lolol

guess i'm just gonna shill out $75 every time i want new pickups for the rest of my life. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Option one is close to a Baja Tele and those are damn cool.

On an aside, I went to a jam session the other night. First time I've played with other people for years. My lead playing is so so poor, but I picked up the jams pretty quickly at least.

What I could have done without was a foolish man who thought that a 10 Watt Vox solid state was appropriate for playing in a big rehearsal room, with a multiple guitarists, bass and drums.

I even offered beforehand to bring my Egnater and stereo cab along, as that allows someone else to bring a small head and plug into the same cab and he told me not to. Then he brings this little bedroom toy along, which couldn't keep up. I was using one of the rehearsal room amps and felt bad, so I turned down so that he could hear himself, but that just meant I was drowned out the whole night. Bah!

 

I love the Baja tele, especially that thicker neck profile on it.

 

The struggle is real, my friend. I'm the same exact way.

 

I'm the opposite. They do/did two version of the Baja. One had a more standard modern profile neck and the other had an absolute bollard. It was like a semi-circle, which I just couldn't cope with at all. It's definitely one of those guitars which punch way above their weight price wise.

 

I completely agree. Can't really beat that amount of tonal options for that price. But yeah with the neck, I own a Gibson SG Classic that has a thicker, 50's neck profile so over the years my hand got accustomed to playing a thicker neck and now it's hard to go back. Also, I worship Brian May from Queen and wanted to play like him, and his signature model guitar has a really thick neck so that was my inspiration to play thick-necked guitars haha

 

I recently got a hagstrom viking and a fender strat, love them both.

This is the hagstrom on a crate vintage club 30, sound is pretty meh since it was late in my apartment, really dig the riff though.

And this is the strat, louder because it was day time and I cranked it.

 

I decided today I'm gonna jump in haha. My professional guitar tech cousin promises it's not as hard as you might think, and he's given me pointers on getting it done. If I fuck something up I can always just take it to a shop, which I was gonna do in the first place so fuck it. Imma go for it.

 

Changing pickups is pretty straight forward, so long as you pay attention to how the original pickup was wired up.

And be careful where you put that hot soldering iron, it will make a real mess of your plastic parts and finish!