p90jr

I've been playing a lot of cover gigs as a fill-in guy on guitar and bass, lately... I've done that for decades... Around here, you're going to have play Van Morrisson songs. Luckily, bands now just refuse to play "Brown Eyed Girl" because they're sick of playing it (and I swear, if you play it once, they will try to make you play it 5 more times that night... wth is it with that song?), but "Into The Mystic," sometimes "Moondance" if it's an act with accomplished players, and "Tupelo Honey." NOBODY PLAYS "TUPELO HONEY" WITH THE CORRECT CHORD CHANGES!!! The entire song is just Bb - E/A - Eb - Bb | Bb - E/A - Eb - F over and over again... everybody plays Bb - Dm - Eb - Bb | Bb - Dm - Eb - F... when I play it correctly, they look at me and "correct" me... and argue with me later that I'm wrong... I've noticed every "TAB" site (horrible useless dens of incorrect transcriptions that I never bother with to learn songs) has it incorrectly. it's really starting to annoy me. Does no one have ears?

"This is my last effects purchase ever, ever..." what I say to myself every day... last week the Maxon Chorus (the old purple Ibanez chorus from the 80s) as a Stupid Deal of the Day got me...

I did the exact same thing! I believe the Andy Summers pedal is the exact same thing with different graphics, so the DEM has been discontinued and replaced with it... the AS WOTM pedal is $129, incidentally... I didn't see that before I ordered the DEM, I probably would've just gotten the WOTM to kick Andy some love (he doesn't need the $$$, not after that reunion tour...). Of course, I have a big box old EHX PolyChorus that does Flange and the filter matrix thing... and my old 80s Boss Flanger (which I used to get Police sounds, thinking I should've been using a chorus, but it turns out Andy was using the flanger the same way), and a couple of other flangers and an HX Stomp that has every effect in it... but this will be small and pedal board friendly and easy to dial-in onstage... or that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I don't know if any of you have watched the film "The Sound of Metal"... it's very good, but it will hit you hard if you are a musician...

Cochlear Implant

I keep a Peterson Strobo Clip in my guitar stand case (one of those things that opens up and holds 6 guitars) because I use it for the "Sweetened 12String" setting for my electric 12, and it's handy for tuning guitars offstage before the set, or even checking and adjusting intonation... I did tune the guitars with that and propped up something to block the sun from my Boss TU2 or whichever one it is (I've had it forever) to do some tuning tweaking during the set...

I have one of these on one of my other smaller boards...

Among my formulative guitar heroes were Andy Summers from The Police, James Honeyman-Scott from The Pretenders, Elliot Easton from The Cars, Jamie West-Oram from The Fixx, Robert Smith from The Cure... so I like chorus... but the standard issue amp every cover band guy had around here forever was the Peavey Stereo Chorus, so they played everything with chorus on it... "Down on Main Street," "Take It Easy," "Wonderful Tonight," so that bugged me and made me avoid it usually and go in the other direction, unless it was something really out of left field I was doing...

so, to cap this off... We had a practice Monday before last, which I recommended by just a run-through like the show... a timer set to out time slot, no starting over, songs segue into one another, etc. What I found was that the levels I'd set in my living room with the Twin on 2 weren't right when the Twin was on 3... and the Nobels OD didn't like being stacked with the Vertex Steel String, and for some reason the Xotic EP Boost - which I had intended to use as a pickup booster since I can't find my Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster Pedal - was too much boost, even when turned all the way down. I did a lot of adjustments on the fly and planned to work on all of that over the week before the show Sunday. I went back to putting the NUX Steel String next to the Vertex (and discovered that the NUX adds more overdrive, has less headroom, but it was okay) on the board to act as the pickup booster. The EP Booster was replaced with the humble Mosky Golden Horse (a Klon Klone that I find is heavier on the overdrive and distortion than an actual Klon, but sounds nice). A few times when I had the house to myself I cranked the Twin and marked setting on the pedals (my preferred method is masking tape on top of the knobs, and I make a straight line on that to tell me it's where I want it... so if I look down and see all straight lines I'm good to start). Sunday we pulled into the fest... a major operation, we're directed to our parking lot and a van is sent to ferry us and whatever gear we're lugging to the stage we're playing, We joke that someday we'll rate a black SUV like the ones we pass awaiting the major star headliners later in the day... but no gear is lugged along in those, since their trucks and crews and tour buses have been set up behind those stages for hours already. We're the first act of the day on our stage, which is cool because we get to be the guinea pigs for the sound crew as far as extensive line checks and actual soundcheck with songs.A twin is wheeled over to my spot on the stage, then I hear someone say "Oh, it says a Twin over here, too... but we have one Twin and one Super Reverb." I say "I'LL TAKE THE SUPER OVER HERE!!!" The Twin on the other side of the stage is for one song in which a guy who switches between bass and acoustic guitar (while another switches between keyboards and bass) plays Bass VI. I figure the Super will be better for me at 45 watts and lower headroom... when I get my line check, with the Super on volume 4, I get asked to turn it down... it goes down to 3. I can't imagine where I would've been with the Twin... 1.5? Things go pretty smooth except for one thing I'd forgotten over the years since the last time I had to play an outdoor daytime thing: You can't see tuner readouts or lights on pedals with the sun right overhead, even if the stage is covered... a clipboard I keep in my bag for writing setlists or whatever in an emergency gets wedged in front of the tuner so I can see that... but the only way I know I've forgotten to turn some pedals off or missed clicking them off is that the level is higher or there's overdrive or backwards delay where there shouldn't be... I make a joke about it and apologize to the FOH soundguy for being a pain... he waves me off and gives me the thumbs up. I'll have to think of something for that in the future... I've seen bands at festivals with umbrellas leaning over their pedalboards. I have an afternoon outdoor gig this Saturday with a smaller board... my wife has had tons of stuff delivered so I'm going to scope the cardboard boxes that I can put on their sides and slide the board into... I'll bring my box cutter along for on the fly adjustments.

I used a Boss EQ pedal as a clean boost all by itself for years, getting overdrive from amps... no other dirt pedals. It's around here somewhere... it came in handy before and after my old Big Muff a lot, too. One of those programmable Source Audio EQ pedals is on my watch list... I didn't find any pedals that sounded "horrible" through the Twin when trying them out, just some kind of sound like a pedal being played through the amp as opposed to just sounding like the amp is being overdriven, if that makes sense. Almost the same feeling as playing an old POD... but I know it's not actually the same thing (latency, in that case)... it just sounds a bit artificial with some pedals... but you're right, EQ could probably get rid of the weird spikes or whatever is causing that...

I have never gotten into Tube Screamers... I always preferred the Boss Super Overdrive (I still have one or two somewhere that I was going to big out for this if needed, because I did use them with a Twin and Pro reverb back in the late 80s when dirt pedals were few offerings). The Nobels is kind of a refined Tube Screamer, I guess... and that made the cut for me... just edging out the Cochrane Timmy by a hair becuase the TImmy sounded a bit more "boxy," which it doesn't usually on other amps. I'm sure if I just cranked the Twin to OD, even on an outdoor stage, the stage manager would come bludgeon me to death.

It kind of spans from R.E.M.-ish jangle and Beatles/Byrds chimey 12-string (again, no overdrive) to some classic Who/Kinks/Beatles/Badfinger/Big Star/Dwight Twilley Band warm overdrive/light crunch... Most of the set is ending up being played on my 3-P90 non-Reverse Firebird, which is basically a Strat on steroids (it has coil taps that thin out the winding for a more Fendery sound from the P90s, too) and the Charvel Surfmaster 12 with lipstick pickups... a couple of songs need to be capo'ed so the Baúm Conquer (with it's smaller frets) is easier for that, and one song is on my Sqiuer Baritone Jazzmaster where I do a tremolo'ed solo kind of like "Witchita Lineman." THe Firebird and Bari JM are higher output than the Baüm and Surfmaster, so I want to do the FOH guy a solid and have that compensated for and equal coming out of the amp... there's a guy playing keyboards on half the set and bass on the other, and another guy playing bass and then guitar, and I bought a Radial Bassbone (2 bass switcher, which I need for another band where I switch between a Pbass and a Bass VI that wildly different in output) and - since they each use their own bass, a Fender Starcaster and an old Gibson Ripper - told them to get the output the same and the EQ roughly in the same ballpark before it hits the bass amp/DI for the sound man's benefit. The last thing you want to to do at these things, IME, is piss off a guy 100 yards away or whatever, because they stop bothering to mix you well.

When I gigged with a Twin back in 2008-10 or so I did use the Tech 21 Blonde and Liverpool a lot when it was needed for the room. And yeah, I love those things... I lent the Blonde to the guy who lent me the Twin the other day, he dropped it off as he was on his way to a restaurant gig where he backs up an acoustic playing singer and he just plugs his pedal board into that guy's Bose L1 thing... I asked how that sounded and he said "kind of bad, really... plinky and fake..." so I dug out the Blonde and told him it puts out a speaker simulated signal, so just treat that as the amp and plug into the Bose, and most of his pedals should even sound good going into the Blonde. He said it sounded really good and he was much happier. Everybody should have one of those character series pedals as an emergency backup... you can just plug into the PA and get through the gig. I once had a preamp tube die on my Blues Deville onstage at a street festival thing and I just plugged the Liverpool into the power amp input and used it as a preamp and the show went on just fine!

Well I don't have those... I have a Klon KTR and just got a Harby Centauri (the most accurate Klone?), and probably a couple of dozen other dirt boxes... The aforementioned friend/collaborator actually has a new '65 Twin reissue (which made him go get '70s Twins, which he prefers) and he let me borrow it to work all of this out and get in the final band rehearsal with it before the show. I have to say I've never appreciated the Klon circuit this much before, it truly sounds like the Twin is "naturally" breaking up like it is cranked, not that there is an artificial overdrive being played through it, if you know what I mean... the Harby Centauri sounds identical to my Klon KTR (Harby has a stash of the germanium diodes used in the original Klon Centaurs and pre-2020 KTRs)... I pulled out the $20 Wish fake Klon I bought as a joke and the Mosky Golden Horse, and while I never found them (or the Soul Food, if I'm honest) to sound that much like the Klon, through a Twin it's not even remotely close... people are usually comparing them usually though amps that are breaking up and using them as pretty much clean boosts. On a clean Twin they do not do the same thing. I haven't found a setting on the Crowther HotCake - which works on Vox and other lower headroom preamps by exciting the peramp tubes - that I really like on the Twin but it's not horrible... the Vertex (and NUX copy) Steel String pedals make the Twin more touch respoinsive (as you'd expect for Dumble-amp simulating pedals) but I'm searching for the right EQ settings on the amp that sound good with what those pedals add EQ-wise when engaged. My standard Twin setting from when I lugged one around in the late 00s a bit was bass-5, mid-7 and treble-5, bright switch off if I was going to use any pedals. I think the Steel Strings bring the mid-range with them so scooping the mids on the amp might be what's needed. The Vertex Ultraphonix (based on the Dumble Overdrive Special) is fun through the Twin... putting you in volume knob and responsive picking dynamic land and sounding very natural, but for this particular band - indie rock/power pop/Americana, where I jangle along, play lots of electric 12 string with a Janglebox compressor and even reverb/tremoleo'ed out Baritone on one song, and the solos are brief bursts of joy - I'm not sure that will be used. My old Timmy pedal sounds great through the Twin... so does my Nobels ODR-mini...and my Komet K.O.D.A., and the OCD if you keep it on the Low Power setting (though the light on mine is always on now, even when it is turned off...)... and now I have too many choices... huh.. well, I think I've decided... Coming off of the board I use for this act (who the last time we played shows prior to last week, pre-COVID, was doing a set of songs more on the Cheap Trick side of things, through my Supro Supremes) will be a Greer Ghetto Stomp, Lovepedal JTM, Lovepedal Eternity Burst and a Crowther Hotcake. taking their place will be an Xotic EP Booster (mostly to beef up the pickups on the weaker output guitars, the Baúm and Surfcaster 12), Nobels ODR-mini, Komet K.O.D.A., and the Harby Centauri (which has a better footprint/layout than the Klon KTR... sorry Mr. Finnegan). The Vertex Steel String will probably be on all the time just to add some clean sparkle and punch. I know it seems like I'm worrying too much, but given the nature of changeovers in festivals with backline gear, I might have 5 minutes to set up, plug in and get my tones and then the set starts. I'd rather get up there with a firm idea of where to start, at least. I've also enjoyed playing through this Twin reissue, even on Volume 1.5... I would not want to lug it around all the time, though, but I'd forgotten how nice they can sound. The Deluxe Reverb or Princeton or Blues Junior is a more sensible choice for most... The reason I like this message board and others like it is benefitting from everybody talking about their experiences and tricks and trials and tribulations. Good stuff to file away for when something comes up and you need it.

My fear is just being stuck (like I have been in the past) with an overpowered amp that is turned down below where it sounds like it has any life. And I know from experience that a lot of overdrive pedals sound "fake" through Twins ... like a canned sound being played through a clean amp, if that makes sense. Thanks for mentioning Sansamp... I do have Tech 21 Blonde and Liverpool pedals, one of which is always in my bag for an emergency... like when I'm forced to play through a spare solid-state bass amp or acoustic amp or go direct if something fails. I'm currently falling down the youtube rabbit hole of people going through which pedals do work with this amp and where you should start with settings on them, even, and I have a bunch of them, so I'm not worried. Thanks guys!

I play in a band with an English guy obsessed with Roy Buchanon... he showed up with two 70s Twins recently, with his Tele... Luckily someone had already shown him that pulling two of the power tubes on those knocks them down to a reasonable level. I don't think I can get away with that with the backline amp... the 70s Twin I used for a while that belonged to a buddy had been "neutered" that same way.

Inquiring to the hive mind of experience here... I will be playing at a festival in New Orleans in a couple of weeks and for convenience and sanity I will use the backline amp on stage... a Fender "Vintage '65" Twin Reissue. It is an outdoor thing, on one of the smaller but still big stages, but the act is not typically LOUD so I don't delude myself that I'll be able to turn the Twin up high enough to get the preamp and power amp tubes cooking... At the moment, my big pedal board has drives that work well with my Supro, Vox and Morgan amps... I know my Crowther Hotcake will be replaced by my Klon KTR as my base mild overdrive... the Hotcakes were designed for Vox amps and need a preamp section that wants to be nudged slightly into breaking up. I figured I'd dig out the Fulltone OCD, too, since I remember that being one that got talked about as sounding good with a Twin... Do any of you hsve any experience with this particular model of Twin (or any recent ones) and overdrive pedals you found to work well with them?

at this point I have some nice guitars, amps and pedals... and if I want to be inspired to write something I play the crappiest guitars I have through a little smokey amp or a busted old Silvertone with a 4-inch speaker that sounds like crap... because otherwise I'll sit there for hours playing Steely Dan and Dire Straits songs and thinking how nice it sounds. "Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness." - Pablo Picasso

That guy in Australia who did (does) pedal and guitar and amp vids with his daughter did this same video that Josh JHS did 13 years ago with the same conclusion... I have one of the first batch of KTRs. It's funny that he had to change some part due to unavailability, and though they sound exactly the same the early ones are more sought after now because of the change so the price of those has gone up considerably... It's cool... we'll see what it's worth when my daughter needs books for college in 8 years. Though I am a bit of a pedal junky... I hate this pedal culture... it's ridiculous. It has nothing to do with music, it's just people coveting objects based on everybody else wanting them and there being a limited supply of them... done for speculative investment. There are tons of other inexpensive pedals that could get the same result as the Bad Monkey in that vid... I saw a guy list about 20 of them and tell people not to worry about getting a Bad Monkey if the price soars, and one guy said "but those are still made so they won't be more valuable if I buy one." And that exposes the entire thing... and it's why the Bad Monkey was a $20 reject until he posted that video.

For me, this notch was filled by a Supro Blues King 12 that I got from a Black Friday sale at Sweetwater for $299... 6L6 tubes, not 6V6 (my Supro 1600 Supremes are 6V6), but 15 watts, a 12" speaker instead of a 10", effects loop, reverb, and "gain" and "boost" functions that are foot switchable. Everything flat out with those engaged and it has an old Chicago "broken" fuzzy thumpy sound... and unfortunately, that's all the early demo vids I saw bothered to do with it. It does a lot more... and it's small and lightweight and can be LOUD if you want... great by itself (with footswitch, or even without) as a grab and go for jamming with just a guitar, but is a good "pedal platform (I kind of hate that term, but it's better than saying "it takes pedals well")"... if I'm playing with a small quiet group (I back up a singer-songwriter who plays acoustic and there's also an upright bassist) then I can use it quiet enough but with the gain and/or boost and/or master volume get it cooking... (with a slight circuitry and cosmetic change these amps are now sold as Supro Delta Kings)

This song and its vibe and melody and chord progression/key shifts have haunted my brain for weeks... and of I course I had to fish out the nylon string guitar and play along with it the first time I heard it...

great, another Supro for me to want...

I think he just raised the price, but maybe not... I did see tons of people suddenly saying "I want a Jeff Beck Strat" on Facebook, and a guy said his store instantly ordered a bunch because they knew what was coming... and about a dozen guys came in looking for them that first day... A guy (embarrassed his name escapes me, because he's a well-known keyboardist) said in a facebook post that showed in my feed that about 10 years ago he was asked to accompany Jeff on a song at a memorial service for some music industry guy (again, embarrassed I forgot that name) and that day Jeff and his manager showed up with a beat up white Strat and small beat up old Fender tweed amp and they went through the song and he sounded amazing... then he left for a while, "and I couldn't resist picking up his guitar and checking it out. And nothing special, just a Stratocaster with really high action, surprisingly, and I turned on the amp... and let's see how it sounds... hmmm, I sound nothing like he does with it, not even close. I should add that during the performance, and the only other time this has ever happened to me was playing with Kate Bush, I got so overwhelmed by his performance and presence that I was lost in watching it, and almost screwed up." I'll try to find that original post and link to it.

Guitar Fetish specializes in expensive and decent (some say really good) parts... I think the very inexpensive brands (isn't Harley Benton the in-store brand for Thomann music stores?), even to the cheapest Squiers and Epiphones, are made expecting the electronics and tuning machines to be swapped out by anybody who can tell the difference. The magic of P90s, probably my favorite pickup (who woulda thunk it, eh?), lies in them being low-to-medium output... and I find that people now expect them to be as high-output as heavy metal humbuckers so in cheaper guitars aimed mostly at kids they are wound too hot... and are muddy and squeal. Sire has new Larry Carlton signature models with P90s... maybe that's your ticket!?! https://sire-usa.com/products/sire-larry-carlton-l7v

I was waiting for someone to do this after hearing the news of his death, and I didn't have to wait too long.. https://reverb.com/item/56572495-fender-stratocaster-2017-jeff-beck-artist