newdilemma.com

Sometimes I am just not in the loop. I don’t hear about things for weeks after they pass, and I just realized what a sorry company Gibson has turned into. How long have they been this way?

It all started yesterday when I received an email from Amazon stating that they now carry Gibson guitars. Interesting enough I figured so I decided to look through and see what they were now stocking. Lets see, they had the Road Worns at $799, the Studios at $1269, then from there a $2600 and even a $6000 dollar one. I thought to myself for a moment, wow, these guys don’t care if they run the company into the ground. In this recession there are very few people who are going to pay that instead a buying a fully outfitted Epiphone Les Paul. (Which luckily Gibson owns.)

Later during the day, I was reading a forum and it stated that Glassdoor.com annual study of best and worst places to work named Gibson the worst place to work in the United States. Wow, I would have thought working at a guitar manufacturer would be fun. Here is what an anonymous Gibson employee wrote:

“Good people overall…[but] An absolutely bizarre culture that top-to-bottom seems to revolve solely around trying not to upset the CEO.”

That’s sad indeed.

Then there was a fiasco where PG Magazine (Premiere Guitar) had a Q&A session session where Gibson decided to not to answer . There were some good questions asked, that also enlightened me a bit. For example I did not know they they were raided in Nashville for alleged wood smuggling. (So many bad jokes..so little time.) I also did not know thay had produced a Hendrix tribute type Strat in conjunction with Experience Hendrix LLC. Check it out:

Wow, if they did not rip Fender off there, then I have nothing left to say. Maybe Fender should make a Les Paul tribute?

Then there was the debacle that Gibson said that their consumer is not the end user (the musician) but rather the music stores which buy their guitars and products. Good business I suppose. Not.

Anyway, I always admired Gibson guitars from afar, but stayed away due to the price, now I have a slew of reasons to stay away from them. Boo Gibson…Boooo.

Ok well, I think I have found a set up that is going to work. I know by now you guys probably think that I am crazy because I change my musical setup so much, but I have really been struggling to find a setup that feels comfortable to me and sounds good as well. For quite some time, I have made you witness to the many changing faces of my setup, but I may be done this time.

Remember the ZT Lunchbox? Well oddly enough, it burnt out. I feel bad for them because they are a very new company with a cool little product, but they are going to need time to work out the kinks. I returned the unit to the Sam Ash retailer I bought it at and they gave me full credit for the price of the amp, so I checked out the rest of the store and found a lightly used Line 6 Spider Valve (the collaboration between Line6 and Bogner) and took it home.

Now, anyone who has followed this blog through two website crashes knows that I had a Line 6 Spider 3 2×12 pushing 150 watts in the past. I got rid of it because it would disappear in the mix of the band. I missed that amp, because with all the built in effects I could be super creative at home, it just did not cut it live. So I debuted this little 1×12 40 watt tube powered hybrid with the band yesterday. Honestly, I don’t ever think I got my volume above 3 or 4, this thing is loud and has nice tone to boot.

Now, keep in mind, I still run some outboard effects as I am not one of the “I’ll never need any other effects” kool-aid drinkers. So, without further delay, I present you with a graphic of how everything is now setup. Feel free to click on the picture to see a big view of it.

*Guitarist: If you have any of this equipment feel free to share your opinions of them and your favorite settings!

For every step our band takes, it takes one back, with the hopes of taking huge steps forward. Enough to give even the most seasoned vertigo. Let’s check out the situation:

*There is no singer for the band. He has left, or has been released (whichever term works). I personally seen it coming a mile away but in the hopes that my intuition was incorrect I remained silent. Now we must find a singer. I like singing, and though a certain member of the band is unwavering in his stance that we need a vocalist apart from ourselves, I do hope the opportunity to back or accompany the new vocalist presents itself, that would be fun.

*We are no longer a cover band. The guys I play with are top notch musicians. Awesome in every aspect of their expertise. I do not lie and have never lied when I say that I am the worst musician in the band. (I bring something different to the table: mainly color,lol!) We believe we can make our own great music and have decided that it is exactly what we will do. Though it doesn’t hurt that we have like thirty covers we can pull in an emergency.

So there you go. I don’t know if we took a step back or forward, but like it is commonly said, it is what it is. I’ll let you guys know how it all goes.

Here is an update of my pedal board. Remember I wasn’t adding anything, well, I guess I lied. I added a Moog Moogerfooger Ring Modulator and an MXR Dyna Comp Compressor. Let the tap dancing begin!

Even a good pie needs filler in between the chunks of goodness it is made from, and this blog is much like the pie, so as a filler, I will begin a new installment I will call “Songs I Like”. I will tell you a song I like every so often and what I can about the artist, or why it appeals to me, or whatever comes to my mind.

So this week, the song that is getting crazy airplay in my head is, The Widow by The Mars Volta. Something about it just strikes a chord with me. As a cool side note, The Mars Volta guitarist/band director Omar Rodriguez-Lopez has some things in common with me, check this out:
1) We’re both Puerto Rican.
2) We both wear glasses.
3) We share a last name. (Rodriguez)
4) We’re both left handed.
5) We’re both bad ass guitarist.

Ok, ok, maybe that last one was made up, he’s the only bad ass guitarist between the two of us, lol.

The video is a may be a bit weird for some, it is some weird metaphoric reference to black tar heroin I believe. The song is great in my opinion though. Enjoy.

Ah, guitar players, a fickle bunch. Everything has to be just perfect, until we decide it is not perfect. Lately, the rage just seems to be “true bypass this” and “true bypass” that. What does it all mean?

Guitarist usually use a effect in between their amp and their guitar. Now if I hooked my guitar directly to the amp, that would give me the guitar’s truest tone, your guitar cable being the only factor in altering the sound. (not taking into consideration your amp’s natural tone or your guitar’s) So back to the effects, if I place an effect pedal in between the guitar and the amp, the circuitry of the pedal may have a serious effect on the tone when not in use (When in use it’s supposed to affect the tone.) So, many manufactures have started using “true bypass” switches so that when the effect is switched off, it totally bypasses the circuits inside the pedals, therefore maintaining tonal integrity.

My Vox V847 Wah was not true bypass, so I decided to something about it. I hopped on Ebay and located a a Carling DPDT footswitch (true bypass) and ordered it. It arrived and soon it was installation time.

Here is what you need to begin:

From right to left:
A Phillips Head screwdriver
A Snickers Candybar (guitarist need help being satisfied,lol)
The Vox V847 Wah Pedal
The New DPDT footswitch
A 9/16 wrench (to loosen the footswitch)
Electrical Solder
A soldering iron
and just a bit of extra wire

First I took off the bottom of the wah pedal with the screwdriver, I eventually even removed the circuit board, it’s not like it’s difficult.

I then removed the original footswitch, just by placing the hot tip of the soldering iron against the post you can pull the wires off without snipping them.

In this picture, you can see the most notable difference being the DPDT switch has 6 post and the original SPDT switch has only 3 post.

Now all the wires are soldered in per the instructions (see below), I would have taken pictures of me actually soldering but it is hard enough to hold the wire, solder, and soldering iron without trying to add a camera into the mix.

Now I just cleaned up the wires a little, reinstalled the circuit board and the bottom was ready to go on.

After i put it all together, I put it back on the pedal board and played with it for about a half hour, and while it may sound a “hair” crisper, I think some people really go off the deep end over true bypass. I am sure it may come in handy, but it is not the end all be all off tone. Hendrix, early Clapton, Sabbath, Maiden, and all those bands that played back in the day didn’t even know what true bypass was, and the still rocked the hell out. In the end, I guess the only opinion that matters is your own.

**For those interested in the true bypass mod instructions, here are the instructions linked back to Fulltone’s website, don’t ask me why Fulltone has a mod for a Vox product on it’s site.

1) Unsolder wires to SPDT (stock switch), remove it, and Install new DPDT.

2) Cut Brown wire at “X” Mark where it meets PCB Quick Disconnect.

3) Re-route that Brown wire to DPDT Terminal #4 do not solder

4) Jumper a short wire from DPDT terminal #4 to DPDT terminal 3 and solder both.

5) Attach wire from Output Jack “Tip” to DPDT Terminal #5 and solder.

6) Run the Green wire (from PCB disconnect) to DPDT Terminal #2 and solder.

7) Attach wire from Wah Pot Terminal #3 to DPDT Terminal #6 and solder.

8) Attach a (ground) wire from wah pot terminal #1 to DPDT Terminal #1 and solder.

Congratulations….you’re done!