Why you need a Whammy pedal

We had a good show tonight opening for Steve Bell. Particle verb made its first appearance live on a new song. That effect needs just the right mix level to work. Too little and there’s no pad sound. Too much and you can’t control it and it compresses/volume drops your sound. We toned down the rock sound because Steve was playing solo acoustic. It was a little strange to dial back some songs and change parts to make the songs sound more chill. I brought the expression pedal for the M13 but unplugged it for the show since there wasn’t any Pitch Glide or Throaty (wah) action needed for this show. I drove down to Palo Alto and sold my Skreddy Pig Mine between practice and dinner before the show. It is a great muff/distortion with some fuzzyness around the note kinda pedal but it sounded better to me with single coils. My main guitar has humbuckers so it didn’t really fit my current setup and I like the Fuzz Factory and Lovepedal 200 lbs of tone (the pedal that was hyped during its initial release but now it “sucks” according to TGP) better. The cool/weird thing is that Marc shipped the pedal to me in a ziploc bag inside the pedal box. You never know when wet weather is going to threaten a pedal. I still have a Whammy WH-1 pedal and Whammy II pedal to sell on craigslist in order to make room for the Skreddy Echo and Lunar Module Deluxe arriving early this week.

Check out Nels Cline’s crazy guitar solo at the end of One Wing.
When I heard the original recording, I thought it was some intense Echoplex manipulation but it turns out it is the Whammy (and Nels Cline’s insane playing).
It’s why you need a Whammy Pedal!

What not to do when you’re a guest (paid) worship leader

I played last Sun in church for the first time since last Easter. It’s been a long time. They had hired a guest worship leader that flew up from OC to lead worship.

Here is a list of what not to do when you’re getting paid to be a guest worship leader.

• Show up with an sketchy acoustic guitar with a Dean Markley pickup jammed in there and say that you don’t know if it’s going to work. And say, if it doesn’t work, I just won’t play guitar.
• Show up without a strap. Did you think you were playing a coffee house and sitting on a stool instead of leading worship?
• Tell the team that you’re really nervous, and didn’t have a chance to practice the songs, and don’t know the chords or arrangements so well (or at all).
• Ask the director if you can turn around and look at the screen when you need help remembering the lyrics. He says – uh no, it’s better if you face forward.
• Ask the lead guitarist to play an E instead of using the lead guitarist’s tuner that has been offered to you for tuning up properly.
• Ask the lead guitarist where you should capo on each song and then say, man I’m really going to lean on you to help me through this. Where to capo? Uh, dude, that would be your call.
• Tell the keyboard player/background vocalist not so nicely to turn down her keyboards and vocals in the shared IEM mix because they are interfering with your vocals.
• Ask the keyboard player to go back and get the capo from your guitar case that is on the floor behind her. When she doesn’t understand your instructions, address her as ‘honey’.
• Make a decision not to play guitar when the team starts practicing and not tell anyone. That means that the lead guitarist needs to throw out what he thought he was playing and play your parts, which he didn’t practice.
• Halfway through practicing the songs and with ten minutes left, ask if there is time for you to go to the bathroom. And where is the bathroom by the way?
• Not lead the team which means that the pro drummer needs to step up as bandleader and hold your hand through practice, teach you the songs/arrangements, and overall get you through it.

It could have been a major disaster but it turned out okay due to everyone’s effort in overcoming this guy’s shortcomings. Some kids also raised their hands to start down the path in their walk with God – this more than canceled out the near-trainwreck vibe of the day . I would not have the same expectations with an all volunteer team that is learning how to lead worship. However, this guy was hired/paid to do this and he was not close to being capable of doing his job at all. Maybe he is used to not playing guitar and just coming in to sound like the guy in Third Day?!

The Big Selloff?

Before we bought the house, I was looking forward to having my gear out and playing anytime I wanted.
After we moved in and figured out where everything was going to go, it didn’t work out that way. My office is located on the first floor under my daughters’ bedroom on the second floor so it’s not exactly conducive to playing through tube amps at night after they have fallen asleep. I’ll blame that for not making more gear videos as well.
I’m considering doing a big selloff to buy an Axe-Fx + headphone amp/small mixer + some decent “cans” since I would need something for playing at home, occasional recording, playing at church/lazy setup (add old man with bad back after lazy in a few years). I don’t have to cut into the bone as they say in business but I would be moving a bunch of stuff that I’ve had for quite a while. I’m more of a buy and use for a long time instead of the buy/raveaboutit/sell/buysomethingelse thing you see on TGP because I’m too freaked out about stuff getting damaged in shipping (UPS – I’m talking about YOU!) or getting scammed.

Here’s the list:
Pearce G2r rack head – bought it new in 1991 direct from Pearce and played it as my only amp for years
Pearce G2x preamp
Egnater TOL 50 1-12 combo – because, as I learned at my last gig, serious tone only comes from 2 speakers! One 12″ speaker sounds so puny in comparison but it’s convenient when you only want to make one trip from the car.
Digitech WH-1 – I would still have my other one so no big loss.
Digitech Whammy II – bought in new in 1993 or 1994?
Lovepedal 200 lbs of Tone
Barber Burn Unit – small four knob pedal with the latest voicing that Dave made me in 2001.

The Chandler SDE may have to go at some point as well.
I was thinking about selling the Grosh to raise money for a used Anderson Classic but it seems to be doing everything it can to convince me to keep it.

I’m going to try my friend’s Axe-Fx Ultra in the near future before making a decision.
I could also go the isocab route but it looks like the only good sounding option, the Rivera SilentSister, is kinda expensive at $999.

I met with a guy at my new church last week and should be playing guitar pretty soon. They have a need in their youth ministry so I’ll be serving once a month on guitar during their service. I’m going back to play on the JV team! At least I won’t feel bad about bringing a 2×12 cab.

I’m going to see Guthrie Govan in SF on Fri night so hopefully the roads won’t be flooded (monster rain this week).
He’s more shreddy than what I normally listen to but he also has a lot of humor in his playing.
That old NAMM video where he plays the iconic melody from a cellphone ringtone is pretty great.

He takes the first solo here and has a pretty incredible run while playing in the context of the song.

2009 Gear Recap and 2010 Update

In:
Lovetone Meatball
Trailer Trash 30 x 18 blem board (factory second)
Zvex Fuzz Factory (circa 2003 with Myrold paint)

Out:
Peavey Valverb

On Order:
Skreddy Pig Mine – ordered 7/12/09 and 1-2 weeks to go according to Marc. It looks like NAMM this week is going to push the pedal delivery back a week.
Wolfetone Dr. V pickups – I ordered them on the last day of the 20% off sale and they should be here this week.

Update:
I played at Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View last Friday. It’s a coffee house that books bands on Fri and Sat nights and is run by a church in Palo Alto called the Highway. I believe Tom who posts on guitarforworship plays guitar at that church. The place is a non-profit but, as my brother-in-law says, their coffee prices don’t seem so non-profit! It must be the close proximity to the Googleplex. The sound was surprisingly good for a small space with no stage, wood paneling all around, and techie types on their laptops. All of the bands sounded good – credit some good soundguys who know the space. I met Pat who plays guitar for the Velvet Diplomacy and works at MONO. He got a killer sound from a thinline Tele through a converted PA amp in head form and Fulltone FD2, Digitech XP-200, kidney bean POD and controller, and some other pedals on a Pedaltrain. It was too dark to get too gear nerdy and find out what else he had but he got a lot of cool oscillating delays and big reverb washes from the POD. You wouldn’t have believed it was coming from the POD if you heard it. It sounds like MONO has some cool stuff coming out at NAMM this week.

I spent a couple hours re-arranging scenes and reprogramming the M13 for the show. At the show, I got to test out the Line 6 expression pedal with the Throaty wah model, Pitch Glide (root + 1 octave down to root – 1 octave) for the whammy. Boost-Comp + Tron Up can make it sound more like the Lovetone Meatball but it’s still not quite as cool. Boost-Comp + Panner is still my favorite tremolo sound. I can’t get the other tremolo models to sound as good as the Fulltone Supa-Trem. It was a small space with three bands worth of gear so I’m glad I didn’t bring the analog pedalboard to put in front of the M13. No one would have noticed either. I played the SG (first time live in years) and it is definitely harder to play than the Cobra. But oh so emo Seriously, I knew that I had to stop playing that guitar out when I saw David Bazan / Pedro the Lion rocking one almost like it in 2001.

I’m playing with my friend on Feb 6 who is opening for Canadian singer/songwriter Steve Bell.

I’m looking forward to hearing about all of the new gear coming out at NAMM later this week:
Strymon Brigadier delay pedal and Flanger
new Tom Anderson guitar model and their use of chocolate/vulcanized maple necks on a couple guitars
new Suhr guitars and they are also showing vulcanized maple necks
new Egnater amps
Way Huge pedals – any new models other than the Aqua Puss Re-issue?

Zvex Fuzz Factory

Youtube and craigslist are powerful enablers.
I picked up a used handpainted Zvex Fuzz Factory off craigslist yesterday so it looks like I will be selling my Lovepedal 200lbs of Tone silicon fuzz pedal. I just couldn’t resist for less than half the price of a new FF.

Isn’t the internet great?
You can get a picture of Doug Pettibone’s pedalboard (including his Fuzz Factory settings) and watch videos of him using that pedal on some searing leads with Lucinda Williams.

Yngwie in church?

I was watching this video and noticed the wide vibrato/sweep picking/string skipping/Yngwie style run at the beginning.
It’s kinda cool and funny at the same time to see this kind of “athleticism” in church.
I played classical violin for 12 years but would have to do some serious prep (and go from 11’s down to 9’s) if I was asked to play something like that.
If you’re not familiar with Yngwie J. Malmsteen, watch the third video.
It’s not from Spinal Tap.:)

Test equipment

Working on a bunch of stuff but I wanted to post a quick picture of the equipment to see how well wordpress on iPhone works.

Can you find the ’boutique’ solid state amp in the picture?
Chandler SDE in loooper, Lovepedal Echo Baby, and M13.
Disregard those whammy pedals on the left.
They are not the droids you’re looking for.

What are effects? Whammy pedal

The Digitech Whammy pedal is responsible for the following sounds. There are modern alternatives like the EH POG, Eventide Pitchfactor, and Boss pitch shifters but the Digitech just has the right amount of glitch. On a side note, I bought that first Muse album years ago and I’m glad they were able to move past trying to sound like “My Iron Lung.”

Has 30 Seconds to Mars been listening to Future of Forestry?

The Future of Forestry DVD is coming out on Nov 19th.
I’m going to see them play in San Jose in Dec.

I heard this song in the car the other day and the bridge section really stood out.
Skip to 3:28 in the song. Has 30 Seconds to Mars been listening to Future of Forestry?:)

It’s not as blatant as Hillsong ripping off Death Cab for Cutie (pointed out by Karl earlier this year).

Taylor Johnson’s Gear

I went to see Phil Wickham last night at CPC in Foster City.
Phil is doing a pre-release tour before his new cd is released in Nov.
Phil was kind enough to do a pre-show Q&A for some of the worship arts folks from the local churches.

Here are some pictures of Taylor Johnson’s setup.
His pedalboard for the tour is slightly different than what is listed here.

pedals:
Line 6 DL4
Line 6 MM4
Boss RV-5
Boss DD-20
Boss TU-2
Digitech Whammy WH-4
Fulltone FD2 Mosfet
Fulltone Clyde Deluxe Wah
Barber Tone Press
RC Booster
RAT
Little Lehle
Line 6 and Ernie Ball expression pedals

I didn’t get a shot of Phil’s pedalboard because he was tuning up and I didn’t want to bother him.
From what I could see, he is using a DL4, DD20, FD2, and a couple Xotic effects pedals. He played a Jazzmaster, a Telecaster, and his Taylor acoustic.

here’s a picture of his pedalboard from his flickr account: