On my way back to my car I heard music.  More importantly, I heard the very distinct sound of Freddie King’s “Hideaway.”  At least I think it was Hideaway.

I turned the corner of a building and found two guys in the bottom of an outside stairwell playing guitar. One was on electric guitar (looked like a strat) playing through an amp plugged an outlet on the outside of the building and the other was playing rhythm on an acoustic guitar that was unamplified.

It was definitely more of a Freddie King sound with more treble than the Mayall Bluesbreaker’s Clapton version that is has a little more bass.  I was still on my high from sharing fencing, but it was cold. I didn’t join them and I didn’t get any closer, but I really enjoyed the fact that they were sharing their music. It was obviously something they love.  Nice job guys.

So here’s my question:

Should I worry about my guitars going through such extreme climate changes?  Heated home to no heat to heated home? They seem ok, but should I be worried?  Is five days nothing? Am I just being silly?  Is there anything I could do now to fix any impacts? Should I do something the next time there is a power outage?  Anyone out there in the interwebs know?

Lot’s of people put adhesive backed velcro on the back of their pedals. It works really well when your pedal board is covered with the opposite side of the velcro or some other material that works with velcro.

But I don’t like putting sticky stuff on my pedals.  I don’t like the sticky residue it leaves if I ever want to take the sticky velcro off.  So how do you attach velcro to your pedal without getting the sticky stuff on your pedal?

I use a small block of wood. I attach the plywood to the pedal using zip ties…

and then put the sticky velcro onto the wood.

It works pretty well, but keeps the flexibility of moving my pedals around on my pedalboard that makes velcro so popular.  In the pictures above I am finally attaching my Boss DD-7 to the pedal board using a 3/8 inch piece of plywood, a zip tie, and the self-adhesive velcro.  You can see I’ve done the same thing to my Electro Harmonix Holy Grail reverb pedal right below it.

For the pedals on the second row of my pedal board I used 1/4 inch ply wood to get a bit more height.  It doesn’t add that much weight and it negates the need for a second layer or shelf for the second row of effects.

almost.

First, I took all fuzz pedals off. That’s right. Blasphemy to some of you, but as I’ve mentioned before I just haven’t been happy with fuzz.

I also took off my Marshall Guv’Nor Plus 2. I’m sure it will go back on someday, but I decided to explore the two channels on my Boss SD-2 Dual Overdrive as my sole source of drive and distortion with the help of the remote footswitch I am almost done building…I just have to find an enclosure.

So first is my Boss TU-2 tuner that goes into my Boss SD-2 Dual Overdrive.

Next is my Morley Wah. I am still not entirely satisfied with the voicing and “sweet spot” of the sweep of this Wah, but I don’t use it a lot right now. I do like the external footswitch to turn it on and off. So much better than the internal footswitch on a Cry Baby.  I can set it at a specific sound and then turn it off and on when I want to use the Wah as a filter/overdrive/whatever.

Then I added in the effects loop/feedback pedal I modified earlier. It doesn’t currently have anything in the loop, but I can easily add effects via this pedal. I.e. my Digitech RP200 that I’m using to try to get a pseudo organ sound.

Then I have my DOD Flanger that I am trying to use more as a chorus pedal rather than a flanger. I hope to have a future post about what settings I use to turn this flanger into a chorus pedal.

Next is my Electro Harmonix Stereo Pulsar Tremolo. This is an effect that I didn’t really get at first (but for $5 at a thrift store, who’s going to argue), but I am using it more and more. A tremolo with tap tempo would be nice, but again, I’m just trying to use what I’ve already got.

That goes into my Ernie Ball Jr. Volume Pedal, which goes into my ModTone Analog Delay, which I use for swells.

Then I have my Electro Harmonics Holy Grail Reverb set to a mild hall setting to warm things up. However I do switch it to a heavy spring reverb when I want to get some twang or rockabilly!

Then I have my Boss DD-7 Digital Delay which I use mostly for the loop function or the dotted 8th note delay right now. The tap tempo pedal I made for this thing is invaluable for the dotted 8th notes setting!

All of this goes into my Morley ABY switch that allows me to choose between the Fender style preamp, the Marshall style preamp, or both preamps together on my amp.  Everything is powered by a VooDoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus.

How many times have we looked for the guitar version of Fotoshop by Adobe?

How can we remind ourselves that much of what we seem to focus on gear wise is often just the guitar equivalent of fotoshop?

First, I stopped at a Guitar Center with my daughter.  They had a used Gibson 61 reissue SG for a decent price (and wanted to move it). Too bad I’m not in the market. But I did ask to play it so I could help myself decide how much I want the 61 reissue or a Parker Fly.

I plugged the SG into an Orange Tiny Terror with 1×12 cabinet.  First I had to tune the guitar, but then I was able to start messing with the amp settings to get the tone I wanted for testing the guitar.  I was very pleased with myself at how quickly I was able to dial it in. I literally had to change all the settings, and then was able to dial in what I wanted to hear.  I found the tone I wanted very quickly. It is a nice little amp.

After playing the guitar for a little while my daughter asks me why I always play the same song on every guitar I play.

Uhm…

Uh…

I just like to hear each guitar play the same thing so I can hear the differences and better compare the guitar I’m playing to all the guitars I’ve played… Ya, that’s the ticket.

Ya, so anyway, thanks to the brutal honesty of a child for pointing out I need to learn a few more guitar licks.

The second tone thing this weekend was hearing Dear Mr. Fantastic by Traffic on my way home from the guitar shop.  I’m not familiar with the song at all. I really liked the tone of the lead guitarist.  I will have to listen to it again to see why, but just thought I’d share.