HAPPY EASTER

[Fumblyfingers]

Happy Easter to you and yours. Any plans for the long weekend?

[Scott Fraser]

Any plans for the long weekend?

 

I have a deal pending to pick up a used D-Tar Mama Bear on Sunday. Kinda excited about that.

[SEHpicker]

Happy Easter to you Fumbly and everyone else.

Quiet weekend here. Band practice Sunday night.

Wifey cookin up some good vittles.

Life is good.

[Larryz]

Happy Easter...only plans are hunting easter eggs with the grand kids...

[Fumblyfingers]

Happy Passover also.

 

Scott........dang dudely, I have been after one of those for a while. If for any reason you pass on it will you let me know? I can relate to the excitement!!!!!!

[Winston Psmith]

Happy Easter and Happy Passover to all!

 

I'm busy tweaking my new used guitar - well, not all weekend, but I probably won't put it down anytime soon.

[Scott Fraser]

Scott........dang dudely, I have been after one of those for a while. If for any reason you pass on it will you let me know? I can relate to the excitement!!!!!!

 

This was on Craigslist, only the 2nd one I've ever seen there. Guy's coming through town from Northern California. Salivating here.

[Caevan O’Shite]

Thanks, Lister!

[Bluesape]

Have a great one!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Getting ready to dash into the kitchen & do some cooking- friends & family coming over, and my cheflyness will be in full effect for the next few hours.

 

Have a good one, everybody!

[p90jr]

Any plans for the long weekend?

 

I have a deal pending to pick up a used D-Tar Mama Bear on Sunday. Kinda excited about that.

 

COOL, at last I'll have someone to chat with about using it! Still loving mine!

 

The guys I play with here won't consider anything more than the piezo into the mixer, which at this point is kind of annoying me. I have a BBE Acoustimaxx I bring along as a backup and I usually beg them to plug into that, which warms up the piezos and makes them a lot better sounding and they have to admit it's a world of difference, but they won't spring the $99 for one of those, even... just ask me to bring mine for them to use.

 

The Fishman Aura units are starting to turn up here for cheap, too, but people seem to be purists about preserving the natural sound of those piezos, which sound the way God intended garden rakes on cement to sound, IMO.

 

Hope the deal works out and you enjoy the MB!!!

 

And playing with mix-matching the settings is a lot of the fun. The guy I bought mine from on eBay followed up to check on things and it had never apparently occurred to him do much beyond match the pickup setting and use the model of the exact guitar he was playing. I use almost every setting over the course of acoustic gigs. The gypsy jazz setting is a lot of fun for me these days.

[Scott Fraser]

Any plans for the long weekend?

 

I have a deal pending to pick up a used D-Tar Mama Bear on Sunday. Kinda excited about that.

 

COOL, at last I'll have someone to chat with about using it! Still loving mine!

 

Great. I'll let you know. I may have to start taking my Ibanez Artstar archtop with the piezo bridge to gigs again.

 

The Fishman Aura units are starting to turn up here for cheap, too, but people seem to be purists about preserving the natural sound of those piezos, which sound the way God intended garden rakes on cement to sound, IMO.

 

"The natural sound of piezos". That's a good one. LOL.

 

Hope the deal works out and you enjoy the MB!!!

 

I'm stoked. Looking to get something more acoustically natural out of my Godins than the Boss acoustic simulator can currently provide.

[pinkjimiphoton]

and a blessed ostara to all, as well.

 

i'm chillin' today, recovering from last nite's gig.

 

it was probably threadworthy, that one.

[desertbluesman]

Happy Easter all, stay safe out there on those roads if you are traveling.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How I spent my Easter:

 

Went to vigil mass on Saturday, because I knew my Sunday was going to be spent in the kitchen.

 

My mom's closest cousin recently had his 2nd, 3rd and 4th strokes, and was depressed that he was now on an ultra-low sodium diet...in conjunction with the diet for his diabetes. He's been many things in his life, including a top-notch cook with a restaurant in New Orleans, but his new limitations have left him adrift at sea.

 

However, I'm on the same sodium intake as he is...and my mom has the same diabetes control restrictions. And I do most of the cooking in the family now, so I knew I could help.

 

So this Easter, we didn't exactly have our traditional creole Easter feast- mainly because he couldn't cook the crawfish- so it was my turn to prepare the meal.

 

I baked chicken wings & thighs with a mixture of lemon, dry white wine, unsalted butter and a host of spices; green beans with tomatoes & onions, cajun potatoes & corn, and a cherry pie blitz- all zero or reduced sodium. My aunt brought a reduced-sodium ham and made some reduced sodium Mac & cheese.

 

He not only enjoyed his meal, he left with a biiiiiig doggie bag. So sometime in the next few weeks, I'll be going over to his house to start helping him adjust his ingredients & recipes to his new reality.

 

The man has been one of my most important tutors in the culinary arts- second only to my mom- so being able to teach him something for a change was rewarding in the sense of repaying a debt, or reaching a goal he thought I could reach. It felt good.

 

[Fumblyfingers]

Mmmmm! Sounds great. I'm getting hungry all over again.

 

And so, Scott.........?

[p90jr]

Well Danny, I'm a Louisiana Creole, myself. Easter feast was Crawfish Étouffée at my parent's... my wife's uncle had his regular good Friday crawfish boil over in her hometown, Mamou. I feel a bit dehydrated at the moment, but c'est bon.

[Scott Fraser]

And so, Scott.........?

 

Mama Bear is sitting here in the studio. I spent about a half hour with an Ibanez Artstar AE200 semi-hollow piezo-bridge archtop plugged into a little Vox SS practice amp. I'm going to withhold judgement, since I didn't bring the manual with me & made no attempt to properly match the input with the type of transducer. Every setting thus far has a highly resonant ringing filter sound to it, like a flanger with the LFO off & the resonance/feedback turned way up. The piezo quack is gone, but replaced with a very processed electronic ring. I need to spend some time with the manual, run it through the studio monitors & try a couple of the Godins here. I'm going to call it not plug & play idiot-proof.

[Fumblyfingers]

Mama Bear is sitting here in the studio. I'm going to withhold judgement, since I didn't bring the manual with me & made no attempt to properly match the input with the type of transducer. I'm going to call it not plug & play idiot-proof.

 

Well I hope it ends up to your liking. You have a super critical and not easily fooled set of ears. I am sure about that. Do you think the average ear would hear that and do you think that within a mix the effect would be less noticeable and the sound more authentic?

 

The video's with Jorgenson sounded pretty amazing. I'm sure with a little tweaking you will get it to sound great. If I get one, I have my old Ovation Balladeer earmarked as the default input instrument. I just have a feeling it will work well.

 

The price was good on that, I saw the ad. Nice one! I hope you enjoy it.

[whitefang]

We went to a relatives house and had the usual crap; Ham, potatoes, different sides and a shitload of desserts. I always wondered why Americans, in tribute to the ressurection of the King of the Jews, eat HAM?

 

Then we watched the Tigers pull that 12th inning win out of their hats!!

 

I also wished a silent "Happy Easter" to my brother, who passed away on the 8th a year ago. Although he was near militant in his atheism, he LOVED ham!

Whitefang

[p90jr]

And so, Scott.........?

 

Mama Bear is sitting here in the studio. I spent about a half hour with an Ibanez Artstar AE200 semi-hollow piezo-bridge archtop plugged into a little Vox SS practice amp. I'm going to withhold judgement, since I didn't bring the manual with me & made no attempt to properly match the input with the type of transducer. Every setting thus far has a highly resonant ringing filter sound to it, like a flanger with the LFO off & the resonance/feedback turned way up. The piezo quack is gone, but replaced with a very processed electronic ring. I need to spend some time with the manual, run it through the studio monitors & try a couple of the Godins here. I'm going to call it not plug & play idiot-proof.

 

yikes.

 

matching the input to pickup seems a little important... mine had a list in the form of a sticker attached to the top. Input settings 11, 12 or 13 should be the ones for your Artstar, and then 16 is the "neutral" input that doesn't add compression to the incoming signal, so try that if you don't care for the other results.

 

here's a handy pdf of the manual as a backup:

http://www.d-tar.com/images/mam_b_manual_updated_web.pdf

 

I'd say electric guitar amps don't generally sound good with them, because the amps are voiced for what we expect from electrics. If I have to use a combo with it I bring a keyboard amp or even a bass amp, preferably, or if I have to use a guitar amp I bypass the preamp and plug right into the power amp (have done this on a Fender Blues Deville 4 x 10). Straight into a powered monitor works fine, too. I just mostly use this on solo or duo gigs with a small soundcraft/JBL P.A. I lug myself, but when I use it in clubs for acoustic bits or full-band things soundguys are usually very happy/relieved to deal with it.

 

I plug it right into a P.A. via the xlr output (which kills the output level knob, btw), but mostly I run

 

guitar -> Mama Bear (1/4" out)

-> tuner -> Flying Dragon clean boost -> octave pedal -> chorus -> delay -> Tech 21 Liverpool - > Akai Headrush (used as a looper)

-> P.A.

 

If I play electric through this set up for a few songs I hit the bypass button on the Mama Bear and turn on the Liverpool.

 

The only thing I've found is that I have to back off the input/output levels on the Mama Bear a bit or when I play back a loop on the Akai it can be distorted sometimes, but I have plenty of headroom and signal, anyway.

 

There is a phase button on it that's helped a few times when something sounded funky to me.

 

By the way, I've started stockpiling those power adapters (my Seymour Duncan Twin Tube pedal uses the same one... Duncan is the "D" in D-Tar) which are a bit of an oddball voltage, and the ones that came with each of the pedals were flimsy and died a bit of a annoying death pretty quickly, torturing me in gigs when they went. The Seymour-branded replacements I found on eBay are more robust, so they must've gotten some feedback from users about them.

[Fumblyfingers]

Do you like the Headrush? I know where to get one (2nd gen I think) for a good price...thinking about it. I have a Digitech looper. I don't need another delay.....but if they are good, I will get it.

 

I'd say electric guitar amps don't generally sound good with them, because the amps are voiced for what we expect from electrics.

 

True, but he was using a solid state amp, so pretty clean if you want it.

[Winston Psmith]

I have both versions of the Headrush, and I like it very much, but it's more of a Delay/Tape Echo Emulator than a looper in the mode of the JamMan. The memory is volatile - when you turn it off, your loop goes away - and there's no external storage, no memory card, no MIDI or USB.

 

The main difference between the two models is a switchable longer time for the Loop Mode (32 seconds), otherwise the maximum Delay time is the same for both (23.8 seconds). The E2 also has a much sturdier (and heavier) box, and two additional switches for the Loop mode. Otherwise, it's more straight-forward than, say, the Boss DD-20. There are only three Modes (Tape Echo, Delay & Loop), and the controls are easy to navigate. There's no battery access, and it has a pretty high current draw, 160 mAmps. I like it, but I love stupid lo-o-ong delays & loopers. If you don't already have a really long delay, and you think you'd have a use for that sound, the Headrush is pretty cool, but you should really compare it to the DD-20, instead of comparing it to the Digitech JamMan, or any of the Boss RC-series loopers. Hope that helps.

[Fumblyfingers]

That does help thanks.

 

I have a Boss Digital delay and a MXR Carbon Copy on the pedal board. I also have a Digitech Delay factory deal that is brand new and I don't use and several rack delays.

 

I was just wondering about the actual sound of the HR and how it colors the sound....good or bad?

[Winston Psmith]

I think the sound is good, but that's a highly subjective evaluation, IMHO. I find that most Digital Delays obey the GIGO rule. I haven't noticed any particular signal drop-off or tone coloration from the Headrush, but I play mostly mahogany planks w/HB's, and a legion of dirt boxes (not all at once, mind you). IME, the sound quality is comparable to a Boss delay - it's a pedal, not a piece of studio gear.

 

If you have the Boss DD-20, the Headrush isn't really going to give you anything but the added "Tape Head" Outs - if you have a DD-6 or 7, you'll be able to tap in longer Delay times. The longest Delay time you can set with the Delay Time knob is 5.9 seconds, which is also the Maximum Delay Time in Tape Echo mode. Anything longer has to be tapped in, so you can't dial in precise Delay times, in seconds or milliseconds, which you can with the DD-20.

 

BTW, I worked in a guitar shop where we had the Digitech Dist. Factory, Chorus Factory and Delay Factory, and I tried them all - I wasn't favorably impressed with any of them, but I liked the Chorus Factory the least. Incredibly poor imitations of some classic tones. The Delay Factory wasn't quite as disappointing, but I still didn't find it very convincing, either.