The Sound Of Moh

Movember Bash - 29 November 2011

2011-11-23T09:04:00.000-08:00

Rock Bottom and Axial View will be playing at a Movember celebration night at the Hatchet in Bristol city centre on 29 November. The do will start early so you can drop in straight after work, take in some beer and some music and still make it home at a sensible hour.

Come along, there's drinking involved :)
Should be great fun and will start you off in good stead for the festive drinking season!

Mitsubishi The Third

2011-11-10T02:27:00.000-08:00

Rock Bottom will be at Mitsubishi Bristol on Saturday afternoon for a set which, it is to be hoped, will be witnessed by the hordes at the latest Family Fun Day. The place is on Feeder Road and looks like this:

Just in case any staff were wondering...
And, of course, you can also catch the band later in the evening at the Afghan Heroes Night being held at the Queen's Head in Fishponds Road. Go on, make a day of it!

Now, About The Moustache...

2011-11-02T07:01:00.001-07:00

It's because it's Movember, it's not a sign of premature senility, honest. Look, go here and you can read all about it!

Howling at the moon: all part of the Movember fun
Grow, my little beauty...

Afghan Herores Night At The Queen's Head, Bristol, 12 November 2011

2011-10-28T00:47:00.001-07:00

Well it's that time of year again. Another of Hazel's birthday bashes, this year (as last, indeed) it's in support of Afghan Heroes and, of course, you're invited. Once again we're at the Queen's Head, Fishponds Road, Bristol, a joint famed for it's friendly atmosphere and remarkably cheap drinks. You really can't not love it.

Parking is available
The boat has well and truly been pushed out this year and, in addition to an Afghan Heroes stall manned by Denise Harris - the lady who founded the charity - there'll be four (yes, four) bands on. Who are they? Read on. In no particular order...

Why do they get through so many guitar players?
The Fraser Road Race Band are Shepton Mallet's second most popular export after cider (Blackthorn, Natch and countless other chemical follies come from there, you know) and are substantially better for your well-being than is the otherwise obscure market town's primary export. Unless you're a guitarist, that is, in which case you may mysteriously disappear after being exposed to them, but that's another story.

Axial View are blissfully unaware of the Curse Of The Vanishing Guitarists, so may have a slightly different line up on 12 November than they do on subsequent gigs.

Thankfully they appear to have guitarists to spare
The band, experienced giggers despite their youth, hail from Blackwell and Portishead and have an EP out shortly. Think Buzzcocks/Green Day and you'll be in the right ballpark. You can read more about them on their Facebook Page.

Variety being the spice of life, there'll be a break from the relentless onslaught of testosterone-fueled rock'n'roll'n'brew in the form of the oestrogen-fueled groove of the Sisters Of Swing. Time to grab yourself a mint julep and get dancing to classics like Chatanooga Choo Choo and Tuxedo Juction.

Women. What can't they do?
Rock Bottom will be familiar to regular patrons of the Queen's Head, who may be pleased to hear that the band have promised to drop the Walt Disney sing-a-long for this particular occasion. So you should just be in for some good-time Pub Rock. Just as it should be.

Men. What can they do?
And finally, whether you can make it on the 12th or not, spare a thought for those that Afghan Heroes is there to support.

Update: Many thanks to everyone who came along! Over £730 was taken for Afghan Heroes at what was a really great night. Cheers!

Axial View

Sisters Of Swing

Fraser Road Race Band

Rock Bottom

More photos when I get them.

Joe Trohman Squier Signature Telecaster

2011-10-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

At the risk of making this blog look like a Fender love-in, here's yet another new model from those rogues in California. And a right cracker it looks, too. It's the Joe Trohman signature Tele and it's a Squier, so it should be affordable. If you think it looks cool (and it does) wait till you see the spec.

We've got a 22 fret board with a very cool 12" radius, twin humbuckers in neck and bridge positions and a Strat single coil in the middle. Control layout is a tad quirky with a five-position rotary selector and an upper-bout kill switch, but there's loads of potential here for someone handy with a soldering iron. You also get proper traditional Tele through-body stringing.

I don't know if it's been a deliberate response on their part to the awful economic state of things (though I suspect it must be), but Fender really have put some great guitars into the just-about-still-affordable end of the market of late. Fair play to them, as they say around here.

Gig Alert - Monday 17th October - Sisters Of Swing

2011-10-14T08:42:00.001-07:00

Go and catch the gals at the Pill Music Festival. They're on the same bill as "Whispering Pauline McDade and Her Pleasant Pluckers", apparently. Awesome I suspect.

Look like a chirpy bunch, don't they?
Where's it at? Pill Memorial Club Dance Hall from 19.00. Half a dozen acts for a fiver - sounds good value to me.

Gig Alert - Friday 21st October - Rock Bottom

2011-10-14T00:54:00.000-07:00

Rock Bottom are back at The Star in Tickenham on Friday 21st October. It's a bit of a drive to get there, but the pub's a friendly, lively place with plenty of food on offer in addition to a decent range of brews. Big car park, too. Why not come along?

Another New Fender

2011-10-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

This looks interesting, a revival of the Marauder in the apparently entry-level Modern Player series. Note the "triple bucker" bridge pup...

No prices yet, but "entry-level" sounds good to me...

Update: there are now a few ads out offering these, going rate around £340. Not bad. Far Eastern or Mexican, I wonder?

National Star College Benefit - 24 September 2011

2011-09-09T05:35:00.000-07:00

Rock Bottom will be playing at a benefit evening for the National Star College on Saturday 24th September. Here's a groovy widget for the tech-savvy:

No, I don't know what it does, either.
The event is being organised by Mitsubish Bristol and will feature a BBQ and a raffle. Should be good fun for all. If you haven't already guessed, it's at the Queen's Head in Fishponds Road. With any luck they'll have finished digging up the road by then...

A Rainy Day In Bristol

2011-05-18T05:04:00.000-07:00

Raining here. Rather lovely actually, we've a great view up here on the top of a tower in the centre of the city and the drizzle has a sort of gentle freshness about it. A propos of absolutely nothing, I thought I'd stick this video in. Well, not exactly a propos of nothing, it's because I really like it. So here you are:

Meanwhile, I came across a band called Miss Skarlet on Twitter - they seem like a pretty decent lot, hence the plug. They've a couple of gigs coming up in Bristol in July so I hope to be going along. Come along too and we can do some drinking, as Caro is wont to say :)

Keep smiling. Or at least smirk from time to time.

Slightly Off Piste, As They Say

2011-05-05T04:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the whacky world of the Shepton 4's Mr Fisher, aka SpiderGod (something to do with cider, I suspect). It's not the usual rock/blues fare you'd expect here, and there's not a (real) guitar in sight, but nonetheless this ambient stuff crafted in deepest Wells is well worth a listen.

The link? Click here. Free download, too! Please give it a click/spin and leave some feedback - either put a comment here or mail Mr F direct.

Enjoy! Oh, and don't forget to vote!

Mitsubishi Japan Aid Gig - Update

2011-05-03T05:14:00.001-07:00

Many thanks to everyone at The Star on Saturday night, you raised £270 on the evening itself and there'll be some more to come via the collection jars on the bar. Excellent stuff :)

No, that isn't a "simulated earthquake" in the video, it's the effects of beer on the mobile phone operator I suspect.

Saturday 30th April - Japan Benefit - BS21 6SE

2011-04-28T04:57:00.001-07:00

If you've still any energy/money left after tomorrow's celebrations, BBQs, street parties and the like (well, all right, all-day drinking) then please come along on Saturday night to:

The Star Inn
Stone Edge Batch
Tickenham
BS21 6SE

for a Japan Disaster aid fundraiser organised by Mitsubishi. Rock Bottom will be playing, there'll be food and drink and a raffle featuring as prizes items as diverse as a barrel of cider and a car service.

Ample parking, I'm told.

Thank You Twitter People

2011-04-19T00:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the many Twitter users have taken a look at this blog via @julien's suggestion. I've received loads of really constructive comments on how to improve things - I've taken these on board, as some people are sadly wont to say, and you should see some changes and groovy newness here soon. Once again, many thanks for your help!

Lusting Through The Window

2011-04-14T02:03:00.000-07:00

These look fantastic. Something rather different that look like they really might do the job, at least for my tastes.

Mind you, I won't be able to afford one, so I shall just drool through the window. But a nice job, Fender, nonetheless!

Update: current prices, dependent upon model/dealer etc, between £550 and £650 or thereabouts. Fair, but I still can't afford one :/

Goldfish Don't Bounce

2011-04-12T02:04:00.000-07:00

They can boogie a bit, though. I saw them on Sunday at Bristol's excellent Golden Lion (not been there? Shame on you!). AC/DC, G'n'R and such covers and some originals served up with considerable style and energy and even smiles, which is as surprisingly nice as it is rare. A cracking way to end the weekend!

Their website is here - there are links there to various facebook pages if you're into that - so go there, find out when they're playing near you and go see them.

Up The Pinks

2011-04-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

Oh yes.

DR Neon Strings

2011-04-01T08:10:00.001-07:00

I spotted these a while back and thought an orange set might be rather fun at a charity do this weekend, since they match the charity's colours. Since I bought them they've been getting terrible reviews so I thought I'd chuck in my 2p's worth, writing up as things go along.

Fitting the things/Initial impressions: well they're guitar strings, and despite all the dire warnings on the packet about handling etc they fit just like normal strings. They *feel* like nothing on Earth (well, perhaps very rough, rather stiff cotton), but that's another matter. Bizarrely, they're packaged two-to-a-paper-packet (you know, the standard little packet that every one uses) 6th and 3rd, 5th and 2nd, 4th and 1st. Why?? Even the cheapest sets manage one packet per string. These things cost over £13 a set! This packaging is a bloody nuisance and totally unacceptable at this price.

I'm a little puzzled by the comment on the packing saying that the strings "aren't designed for contact with metal" - something of a design failure for a fretted instrument string, I'd have thought. There are also some fairly pointless comments about preventing the windings coming off the bass strings - unless you attach your strings with blu-tac this isn't likely to be an issue as far as I can see.

Well they're on there now and stretching in. I have to say I'm approaching using the things with some trepidation and will be making sure I take a back up with me. FWIW, John The Bassist has been using a set of the bass Neons for a couple of weeks and they sound OK. In fact, he really likes them. But then he's a bass player. The trepidation is rapidly becoming angst.

In use: The first thing I noticed once I'd started playing was that the claim of 180 minutes survival for the coating was likely to prove optimistic - a lump came off the top E on the first contact with a pick. The next thing I noticed was that these strings feel very, very odd. A little like nylon strings, perhaps, but an awful lot more like rubber bands. Whether or not this is a good thing is entirely a matter of opinion - I can't say it bothered me, but it would take a bit of getting used to if you're used to normal tension strings.

DR Neons - somewhat brighter on the DR website than in real life.

In practice I have to admit that I found the DR Neons to be pretty much as reported in the reviews I'd read: they lack volume, the string-to-string balance is awful and those strings you can actually hear (the top two being all-but inaudible) manage to sound both wooly and thin at the same time. Meanwhile, even under lights/camera flashes the stings don't look too clever - in fact, they have a curious "out of focus" quality which makes them quite uncomfortable to look at. Half way through our set I'd had enough and switched to another guitar strung with Ernie Balls. The difference in sound quality was staggering (and not in favour of the DRs) and the EBs sounded way, way louder (and this on a Strat with 56-style pickups as opposed to the Texas Specials on the one with the DRs on).

Conclusions? Well the DR Neons have a number of unique features, but none of them IMHO are actually good. The packaging is substandard, the finish neither looks particulary good nor lasts well, the playing feel is weird and the things sound awful. And they're staggeringly expensive.

"Just say no" I think sums it up.

2 April 2011 - Night Of Respect

2011-03-14T05:54:00.000-07:00

Come along to help support the excellent Afghan Heroes charity with a night of music, drink and food at the Queen's Head, Fishponds Road, Bristol on 2 April 2011. 19.30 onwards, though the pub's open all day.

Live music from The Fraser Road Race band and Rock Bottom. Cheap drinks. Hog Roast by Roastbusters.

Should be a great night and we'd all love to see you there!

Update: £469.49 raised for Afghan Heroes. Many, many thanks to everyone who came along.

Capitalist Music

2010-12-16T03:41:00.000-08:00

Here you go, there's a fair bit of stuff to hear at this site. There is more stuff out there, though, I believe, so if anyone's got it perhaps they could add it to the last.fm site?

Update: A lot of the stuff's vanished, its disappearance down to the demise of UKOnline I suspect. I'm sure of got copies of this stuff somewhere, I shall take a look.

Movember Insanity - Let's Do Some Drinking

2010-11-23T05:39:00.001-08:00

I know it's in a good cause and all, but whilst the Moustache thickens the joke wears ever thinner. Never mind, the month is due to end with an alcho-fest at the Big Chill Bar here in Brizzle. Rock Bottom will be playing, as will, we hope, a rocking Elvis band. Starts early, I'm told, so get there early, drink beer and eat burgers.

And please sponsor my Mo...

17 July 2010 - Queen's Head Bristol - Oliver Curd Charity Gig

2010-07-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

Come along to the Queen's Head in Bristol (junction of Royate Hill and Fishponds Road) this Saturday for some jolly Rock'n'Roll, a raffle and a fine BBQ. Free entry, very cheap drinks prices. What's not to like?

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who helped to make this event a real success. Over £360 is on its way to the Oliver Curd Trust.

FURTHER UPDATE: Peter the landlord of the Queen's Head has very generously made up the amount raised for the Oliver Curd Trust to £500. Outstanding.

Getting It Down: Power Tab Editor 1.7

2009-10-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sharing written music can be an absolute pain. Physically person-to-person you could use photocopies, or, at a push, copy the stuff in manuscript. Neither option is really ideal. Over the web things are little better - scan the the music as some form of image file, with all the problems that will present its end user, or find some way of representing it in ASCII.

Things aren't a whole lot better if you're just trying to get a paper record of something. You could get yourself some music notating software and save a huge amount of grief - what you might not save, of course, are money and the imposition of a substantial learning curve.

Enter Power Tab Editor. It's freeware, so it'll cost you nothing to use it, and it's simple to learn, so you can spend your time getting some work done rather than sitting reading helpfiles and tutorials for weeks. It's aimed at guitarists, though, so would-be Mozarts will need to look elsewhere...

Power Tab Editor has a functional and uncluttered interface.
As the name implies, this is a Tab editor. You enter your music onto a Tab stave and the standard music notation stave above is auto-populated, pitches following the tuning you have previously defined for the tab (absolutely great if you use loads of altered tunings but need standard notation that other instrumentalists may need to be able to read). Note lengths are edited on the standard staff. As you might expect, you can define key and time signatures, etc, indicate odd groupings, add expression marks and so forth. You also have access to the whole usual range of guitar technique indications - slurs, bends, slides etc.

The printed output from Power Tab Editor 1.7 is fantastic - clear and very professional. If you want to share stuff over the web then just send the file, the recipient will need a Power Tab reader (or the editing software itself) but these are free, so there's no problem there. Most of the Tab repository sites use Power Tab as one of their standard formats, btw.

This would be a fantastic tool for teachers, I have to say, but frankly just about any guitarist will have a use for this program. It's free, easy to install and use and you know you want it.

You can get it here.

Alden Full-Bodied Jazzer

2009-09-28T08:58:00.001-07:00

Here's an interesting instrument, and one that may seem uncannily familiar to regular trawlers of the "Guitars For Sale" parts of EBay and other internet sales sites. Alden are a range of far-eastern built guitars distributed by Cranes, a huge, well-known and (as far as I'm aware, certainly) well-respected music shop in Cardiff.

A quick Google will inform you that: "Alden guitars are the result of a collaboration between UK guitar guru Alan Entwhistle and one of Korea’s leading guitar companies. Alan has been involved in guitar design since the early 60’s and his wealth of experience is showcased perfectly in the Alden range. Alden guitars are inspired by classic instruments of the last 5 decades though thanks to Alan’s creative design input none could be even remotely described as “copies” All feature top quality hardware, Entwhistle designed pickups, premium materials, and superb construction supervised by the man himself!"

However, as I mentioned above, eagle-eyed readers may have noticed a not-insubstantial similarity between this guitar (and various other Alden models) and the offerings of a number of other "makers", notably Jay Turser - take a look here for example and note the headstock motif, which is identical to that on the Alden jazzers. What we would appear to be dealing with, then, are off-the-shelf basic designs tweaked a bit hardware-wise to suit particular distributors. The Alden does feature some unique and rather groovy Art Deco-style pickups for example.

To the best of my knowledge, these rather cool pickup (covers) are unique to the Alden range.

Of course, there's nothing wrong, or indeed new, about this approach to marketing instruments - just think of all those catalogue-branded Stellas, Harmonys, Danelectros and so on out there for example. But there is a problem in that it's not always clear what it is you're dealing with. Is this Alden really an embodiment of one British guru's experience and design expertise? No, I don't think it is and I *do* think it's more than a little misleading to advertise it as such.

It would be great to be able to judge each individual guitar on earth on its own merits but this would clearly be an impossible task even if we could leave aside all the subjectivity that we know will come into the equation. From a practical point of view, we need pigeon holes to put things in. If someone tells me "it'd be great for a £500 guitar, but at £750 it's a rip off" I've got some idea what I'm going to be looking at and the standards by which I should be judging it. Meaningful judgements aren't going to be relative only to the very best, because that way anything but the very best is going to be "second rate" and that sort of rating system wouldn't help anyone.

Some rather lovely faux-abalone purfling sets off the very pretty top nicely.

The central issue is one of context. Whilst it may well be true that to some extent you're paying for the name on a "name" guitar you're also buying into history and a company you can understand and research. It's a little like the difference between buying any other generic vs branded goods, be they pharmaceuticals or breakfast cereals. So here we have a contextless jazz guitar or uncertain origin. What to make of it?

Well it's solidly built and well finished *for an inexpensive instrument*. The fretboard wood might be anything, but does its job just fine, though the fretting is best described as "adequate". The truss rod cover is functional but badly fitted, there are a couple of minor blemishes in the finish. The rather groovy multi-adjustable and lockable bridge has roller-shaped sadles which suggest a bigsby had been anticipated, but the absense of said device doesn't render the bridge any less effective. The allen-key locking of the sadle positions and the bridge height are excellent features, I think. The pickups and switch gear work fine and a range of suitably jazzy tones is forthcoming.

How it plays is, somewhat unsurprisingly, dependent upon your string choice. "Proper" jazz benefits from telegraph wires here, as you might expect. What you might not expect, though, is just how much fun a bit of Rock'n'Roll or Jump Blues can be with a set of .10s on there. All round, it's a flexible, enjoyable box and big on the "grin factor". But it's *not* an ES-175, nor indeed anyway near.

I've really enjoyed owning and playing this guitar and if I lost it and needed a replacement I'd be more than happy to buy another at the right price. But what is the right price? I think Cranes were selling these new for between £250 and £299 - the former is about reasonable, the latter a good bit too much, I think. Personally I'd think a tad under the £200 mark for a new one would be fair. This one'll be on EBay shortly, so take a look and see what it makes...

Update: It's gone for £127, which I think is a good deal both ways. That's a lot of guitar for not a lot of money, too!

Genius At Work - Enjoy!

2009-09-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

Hofner Congress

2009-09-07T05:29:00.000-07:00

A little piece of British Rock'n'Roll history, the Congress was the first guitar of a number of great players, none greater, perhaps, than the man who epitomises early British Rock guitar, Hank Marvin. It was the cheapest in Hofner's arch-top range at the time, its more expensive siblings being the Senator and the President. Quite why the UK got these US-themed names whilst identical models were available in the States with only numerical names isn't clear.

The guitar we're taking a look at here is one I've had for a few years now and which I thought it'd be nice to record a few details about for posterity before I - somewhat reluctantly, I have to say - sell it.

This particular example, serial number 2290, is a fairly early one and probably dates from 1954. For an inexpensive guitar that's over half-a-century old it's in remarkably good condition, though it has plenty of mojo-tastic playing wear.

It's an archtop acoustic, with a fairly small (14 1/2" across the lower bout) but relatively deep (sides are 3 3/8", and the curve of the top obviously adds to that) body. Possibly because of the relatively small body, the 24" scale length seems rather longer than it actually is. The neck could probably double as a baseball bat, it's *really* chunky by modern standards though not unduly unusual for instruments of its age, and joins the body at the 12th fret. The neck has no truss rod. The back of the guitar is flat. In versions not much later than this you'll find the neck joining the body at the 14th fret and an arched back, but a truss rod didn't make an appearance until 1960.

The photo above shows a classic piece of Hofner eccentricity - a lovely carved rosewood bridge with a matching faux-tortoiseshell pickguard attached with... a nail! It's nailed at the neck end, too, though the attachment to the side of the body is a somewhat more conventional bracket-and-screw affair.

The Hofner logo is, rather oddly, stamped on the top of the guitar adjacent to the bridge, and the model name and serial number are hand-written on the label within the body of the instrument. In later versions of the Congress the logo moved about somewhat: to the upper bout around 1956/57 (note that there is little consistency in things Hofner, so finding something you hadn't expected on an instrument doesn't necessarily mean there's something fishy about it) before finally migrating to the headstock around 1959.

The finish on the guitar is simply gorgeous, the colour helped no doubt by a fairly lengthy aging process, and has proven to be remarkably hardy. The three-on-a-strip tuners work fine (well, as well as they ever did); on my particular example the sixth string's tuner button has at some point been replaced with a similar but somewhat whiter one. The nut (only a string guide really, like many European guitars this one has a zero fret) is perhaps a bit shallow-cut and aggressive sixth string bends will pull the string out. I suspect this may not have been an issue likely to have been foreseen by the guitar's builders, to be fair.

It's great fun to play, although hard work once you venture past the third position. Dead cool with a slide, though, it really sings! At the end of the day this is a 50+ year old budget guitar and its worth is more in its historical interest than its function as a working instrument. But in the comfort of your woodshed it's just an absolute joy to noodle with. And that, my friends, is what it's all about.

Update: I know I'm not the only one that Gordon's got selling off the family jewels. For those of you looking to price a similar instrument you might like to know that this one sold for £230, which I feel is a fair price - bear in mind this instrument is in very good nick for its age - there are far fewer of these around now than there were even 18 months ago.

Right Side Up Please! Boss BCB-60 Pedalboard

2009-09-01T06:24:00.000-07:00

Are you a lover of stompers but look on with envy when your mates whip out their plug-and-boogie multi-FX gizmos and are up and running before you've even got your Wah-Wah out of it's incresingly tatty cardboard box? A pedal board may be just what you need, then: the ease of set up of the multi-FX device with the sound quality and flexiblity of individual stomp boxes.

As with any good niche market, everyone and his dog seems to have jumped in with some or another product. Discounting high-end custom products like the Pete Cornish boards (which I would say are multi-FX units anyway), we have a number of broad categories: manufacturer/product specific boards, "controller" boards which aim to get the functionality of a multi-FX board but using stompers and general-purpose boards designed for use with just about anything. This last class is, unsurprisingly I suppose, the biggest and most popular. It's also the class into which the subject of this post, the Boss BCB-60, falls.

Whilst a lot of use-with-anything boards rely on velcro to attach pedals to the board - the board is faced with velcro and strips of the stuff are then stuck on the back of each pedal to allow them to be secured in place - the BCB-60 uses a fairly rigid half-inch thick foam sheet with cut-outs in which the pedals sit. This has the advantage that you're not lumbered with sticking velcro on the back of your prized pedals but the disadvantage that the pedals are not actually attached to the board - they just don't slide about. In use this is absolutely fine, but you will need to remember not to open the thing upside down. I've done this twice now and, yes, it is very annoying.

The supplied foam sheet (actually it's made of three bits which can be independently removed) has pre-cut shapes for Boss pedals, naturally enough, but can be cut to accomodate pretty much anything you like - the board will quite happily accept a Wah-Wah pedal too. Replacement sheets are available should you change layout, but aren't cheap, hence my current set-up uses sheets rebuilt with the aid of considerable amounts of gaffa tape - this works fine, though it's not particularly pretty.

The BCB-60 comes complete with a PSU and both power and signal hook-up cables. I know some people replace the PSU with a beefier device but I've always found it to be perfectly adequate for my needs. The thing doesn't exactly hold hundreds of pedals: it does hold more than enough for your average gigging guitarist though - you may need to give things a bit of thought but how many pedals do you *really* need/use?

So is it worth the money? Yes, I think so. It's flexible, built to survive (though be a *bit* careful with the latches) and is eminently practical. Provided you can avoid opening it upside down you'll soon wonder how you ever coped without it - I've been using one for three years now and am still very happy with it. There are plenty of alternatives out there but this really is an "all there in one box" solution. Recommended.

Project: Fuzz Face Clone, Part One

2009-09-01T05:01:00.000-07:00

I'm not entirely convinced by the boutique crowd's obsession with the Fuzz Face. I've owned a few of them over the years and have never exactly been bowled over by the things. I suppose there's the "rarity value" of the germanium transistors used in the originals and now in the more exotic (read "expensive") boutique clones, but I don't recall the germanium ones I've heard sounding particularly awesome - indeed, part of the problem with germanium transistors is their inconsistency example-to-example and their tendency to behave differently (and even stop working entirely) as their temperature changes, rendering them exceedingly unreliable as a live tool. At least silicon examples tended towards consistency and were prone actually to work. And they *still* sounded like cheap fuzz boxes.

However, there's no denying that the "cheap fuzz box sound" has its uses (even if it's just the guilty pleasure of wigging out with one in the privacy of one's own woodshed). But the little chaps are more than a little expensive these days, particularly when you consider what's actually in them. What better a project for the regular rainy days we've been getting, then, than building one's own?

There are no shortage of "how to build your own effects pedal" articles on the web. I'm not intending for this to be such an article. This series of posts will be from the perspective of an interested novice - me - researching the project, getting the bits and making the thing. More of an electronic travelogue, really.

The journey begins with me looking for the design I'm going to build. After a fair bit of Googling I've settled on the "Pelusa Face", which I found on the excellent TonePad site. Stage one of my plan is just to get the PCB made. There are a whole host of ways of going about this, I'm going for the most basic I can. If I get into this then maybe later I'll chance spending some money, right now "as cheaply as possible" is the rule.

The first stage essestials now sit on my desk, the hardware freshly purchased from my local branch of Maplins. Here we go!

UPDATE: Well I've now got a PCB I think I can use. I drew the design on by hand (taking, as you may be able to tell, a few liberties with the shape of the tracks) and then drilled the holes with a Dremmel and a 1mm metal bit. I reckon I've just about got away with this, but on a more complex circuit I suspect a tower drill would be a must.

It's not a work of art, that's for sure. Perhaps it'll look a tad groovier when it's populated. Next task is to order the electronic bits, and then we can see.

Boss TU-80 Tuner & Metronome

2009-08-27T03:20:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple of many people's least favourite aspects of practicing in one small and rather attractive - in a typical boss way - package. Does it ease the chore of tuning, or add fun to your daily scale practice?

The Boss TU-80 is a pretty cunning piece of kit. In its tuner mode you can select between "Chromatic" (tuning by any of the 12 steps in the chromatic scale), "Guitar" (tune by string name) and "Bass" (also tune by string name). It'll happily cope with 7 string guitars, 6 string basses and flat tunings, too. In metronome mode you can select rhythm style, beat and tempo - I've found this functionality to be *really* useful, I have to say.

Input is via standard quarter-inch jack, or you can use the built in mic for acoustic instruments. There is an additional quarter-inch jack for output, so you can use the device inline, where it will operate in true bypass mode. All jolly good.

Problems? Well, yes, a couple. The metronome isn't particularly loud, and you can't output it via the output jack. I appreciate the occasions you'd be likely to want to shove the metronome through your amp live will be next to nil, but Boss might have considered letting the output double as a headphone jack, perhaps, so you could hear the thing over anything other than an acoustic. On the subject of acoustics, the internal mic isn't insanely sensitive, so may be a pain in noisy conditions.

Overall? It's a very handy piece of kit. Personally I'd view it as a home practice tool that you can also get to double as a stage tuner in a push but I don't doubt that other people will be more than happy to keep one in their gigbag. It's not exactly going to take up a lot of space! All-in-all, a good-value, well-made product from a respected manufacturer. You can't go far wrong with that.

Essentials: Shubb Deluxe Capo

2009-08-25T00:57:00.000-07:00

A capo is an essential? For everyone who'd agree that yes, one really should at least be lurking in your case there'll probably be a dozen players who'll say the things are the tool of the devil and that you should learn to play properly. There are, of course, arguments in favour of both views but I think we've now moved far enough from the "Play In A Day" learning aids available in my youth that we can see the capo for the potential it has to expand our playing rather than viewing it as a means of never learning a non-open chord.

For the acoustic player in particular, especially I suspect ones with a penchant for non-standard tunings, the capo really is a must unless you're going to confine yourself to forever playing alone.

Capo technology has moved along, too, since the "Play In A Day" days, so you're no longer condemned to using one of those clothes-peg-and-elastic jobs that always seemed better suited to making running repairs to combine harvesters than adorning the neck of your prized guitar. The Shubb shown here is one of a range of three full capos, the company also producing a couple of partial capos. There are plenty of other manufacturers out there, too, so it's not as if you're short of choice.

The Deluxe Shubb differs from its siblings in using a roller and track mechanism (rather than a point-head) which is designed to offer a somewhat smoother action. I can't vouch for it's being smoother than the others, but it certainly *is* smooth to use. Adjustment to suit a particular neck takes seconds and then a lever action securely attaches the thing to your guitar with no adverse affect on your tuning or your instrument itself. It's tolerant of a wide range of neck/fingerboard profiles and should work well with anything you're realistically likely to ask it to and is surprisingly unobtrusive in use. It does the job, and does it well. You can get replacement pads for it too, should you need them.

I really like this little widget and, whilst I'll be the first to admit I rarely use it, I always carry it about with me and I do expect it'll be put into service at this weekend's birthday camp-fire sing-a-long.

I'm happy to recommend the Shubb as a part of anyone's kit, particulary for electric rock/blues players where it's likely to provide all you ever want or need from a capo. The adventurous might well want to take a look at some of the more exotic stuff out there - I have to say partial capos do sound like they've got considerable creative potential - you'll even find ones you can move with one hand whilst still playing. Someone is no doubt going to build a career around that particular feature - who knows, it might even be you!

Hi Ho Small White Box! It's The Burford Sonic Ranger!

2009-08-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

It's always struck me as curious that a lot of players spend their lives searching the web/pawn shops/Help The Aged for old bits of kit that their heros used "back in the golden age", despite the facts that a lot of that kit was junk then and is hardly going to have been improved by a 40 year aging process and that said heroes long ago moved on to more modern equipment that actually works.

But plenty of people want to try the back-in-time approach and a whole industry has sprung up supplying these people with reproductions of all manner of improbable kit, which should at least work and can be obtained without spending hours delving through racks of moth-balled de-mob suits.

The subject of this post, the Burford Sonic Ranger, is a modern clone of the 1960s Dallas Rangemaster, a germanium-transistor based "treble booster" used by a whole host of luminaries and which is perhaps most famously known as part of the Beano Album sound. This particular Alan Exley designed unit also features switchable mid/bass boost, a modification used by Sabbath's Tony Iommi amongst others. The Sonic Ranger is hand-made in England and can be bought new on-line for a very reasonable £52.

Sound-wise this has the potential to be the king of overdrives. It's got real presence, balls, brilliance and a wonderful organic, singing quality. Switch the thing on and the guitar seems to come to life in your hands. But whilst you're noodling away in guitar-tone nirvana, take a peek at your sound engineer. He'll be the one tearing his hair out trying to figure out what to do with all that noise your Sonic Ranger is producing and wondering exactly what language the radio station it's picking up is in. To be fair, the background noise is, whilst considerable by modern standards, (a) probably authentic and (b) acceptable in a live environment in a rock/blues band or such. I daresay the radio reception is authentic too, but it is somewhat annoying, to say the least. Again, you'll probably get away with this live, and you can mitigate against its worst excesses by keeping the level control on the device away from its maximum.

So what do we have here? A quite magical-sounding little box with a couple of problems you might rather it didn't have. Years of "progress" have given us modern little boxes which don't have these problems, but to an observable extent our newer toys also lack that magic. It's horses for courses, and all that. If you're looking for some real 70s rock tone, warts and all, the Sonic Ranger could very well be just what you need. Go on, buy one!

The Darkly Lovely DOD YJM308

2009-08-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

After a lot of EBay trawling I finally managed to get one of these, the Yngwie signature version of the old DOD 250 overdrive pedal Mr Malmsteen has apparently relied on for years. The YJM version - the number reflects the number of the widdlemeister's favourite Ferrari model, apparently - is based on the original grey version of the 250, not the more recent yellow reissue. Note that we're not talking huge variations in the circuit between models, more component variation. In fact, the DOD 250s/308 share a remarkably similar cicuit to the MXR Distortion + - so much so, in fact, that's it's possible to build clones of any of the units using the same PCB. But I digress, this post is about what you can expect sound-wise from the YJM308, not what you may physically find inside the thing.

What you will physically find on the outside *is* relevant of course. The surprisingly heavy little box comes bedecked with a pair of naff/groovy dependent-upon-perspective 70s-style knobs marked "Gain" and "Level", a heavy-duty switch which protrudes seemingly yards from the unit's surface (well, at least you won't stomp on those knobs by accident), in/out sockets and a side-mounted 3.5mm jack DC input socket (bonkers, eh? - you'll need the DOD PS125 DFX and FX Power Supply or at least figure out how to get your board's supply to pretend it's one). You'll notice I haven't mentioned a status light. That's because there isn't one. There's no easy battery access either - you need to remove the four rather large counter-sunk machine bolts holding the substantial base plate in place to gain access.

I'd been expecting to be able to brush aside the lack of a status light with a casual "don't worry, you'll know when it's on" but this is in fact not the case at all. The effect is in fact pretty subtle - most decidedly "overdrive" and not "distortion". It does affect the guitar's tone - adding an almost wah-wah like quackiness to the top end and a touch of brittleness which can reward good technique but is potentially rather unforgiving. As one might expect given the name on the box, fast runs are articulated nicely. I've read a few reviews of this box that describe it as "bright". I'd not go along with that, I'd say the sound is "forward" - this is a sound for someone who wants to be heard. The YJM308 is the sort of device that will only really come into its own at performance volume levels, where it might just inject that extra something into an already-overdriven sound that'll really bring things to life. It will, I suspect, not be lighting too many fires in woodsheds across the land, but then that's what true distortion pedals are useful for.

I'll be replacing the Allums SD-1 on my pedalboard with this for a while and I'll update this post soon to let you know how the Yngwie box fares in battle.

Update: OK, enough is enough, it's back to the Allums SD-1 for me!

The Boss SD-1 And Mr Monte Allums

2009-08-19T05:27:00.001-07:00

Looking, as most of us do, for a cheap way of getting something that sounds expensive I came across the Monte Allums pedal mod site, and that in turn led me to the Boss SD-1 and some quality time with a soldering iron. The SD-1 is a cheap-as-chips overdrive pedal, built in the usual Boss tank-like manner, employing a very similar circuit to the (rather more expensive) TS9 tubesreamer. Mr Allums offers a number of mod kits for this pedal, all at really rather attractive prices. Do these mods deliver and, if so, just *what* do they deliver?

Monte's mods basically replace a number of key components with ones of better quality and sometimes of different values to those in the stock unit. A couple of mods also provide additional functionality with the addition of a microswitch (or two) - one such mod allows you to select between the stock unit's normal gain and a x2 option, another lets you switch between Boss's patented asymetric clipping and the symetric clipping employed by the Tubesreamer and others.

The kits arrive (very quickly, I might add) in jiffy bags containing instructions and a plastic bag of parts, decent solder and some de-soldering braid. Personally, I'd suggest using a solder-sucker rather than the braid, but its inclusion is a nice touch. You'll also get the instructions emailed to you. The instructions really are as easy to follow as Mr Allums claims and if you've a modicum of common sense, some patience and some basic skill in handling a soldering iron (of the electronics project variety) then you'll have no trouble at all using these kits. I really enjoyed doing them, I have to say.

So do they cut the mustard? IMHO, yes they do, and very clearly so. Monte recommends listening to each individual stage in the overall mod as you've made it (a) so you know where you've screwed up if you're unlucky enough to - easy to correct with this approach and (b) so you know what each specific mod does to the sound. My first effort was the "standard" SD-1 mod, and very impressive it was too. The clarity and transparency of the modded box is quite remarkable, as a clean boost it's truly astonishing and my bass-playing mate Al has grabbed the thing and it's now a regular part of his rig.

For my second go I went for the SD-808 mod, intending to use the two-microswitch approach. In the end I decided against the switches and went with asymetric clipping and the x2 hard-set as, frankly, this is the way I like the thing and I didn't see any benefit in additional complexity. YMMV, but the fact there's a choice is what makes these mods cool. The thing sounds fantastic in the right setting and I'll certainly be keeping it for the long haul, though whether it retains its current place on my working board depends what else comes along, the search for that elusive tone goes on.

Update: well there's a lesson here, I guess. It's now April 2011 and the Allums SD-1 is still my go-to overdrive unit and I don't think I'll be looking for anything to replace it. I've got used to it now and learned how to get the sounds I want out of it and I'm constantly amazed at just how good those sounds are. The modded device is wonderfully transparent and it enhances rather than compresses your playing's dynamics. If you're a classic rock/blues player then you probably can't go wrong with one of these - and at the price you'll pay it's an absolute steal.