jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

Wayne's the butthead with giant hair from static x? I would kill myself if I woke up next to that guy every day....

good point, although Leo's original "USA" amps, guitars and basses of the 50s and 60s were assembled by a staff of Mexicans immigrant, legal and illegal....

pardon me for being a dick about this, but compression and expansion is pretty complicated when compared with their cousin limiting and gating.... all these parameters can effect eachother... for instance the function of the threshold control changes based on the knee and ratio.... you should read about this in one of those informational thingies that educated kids before the internet.... umm, what do they call them? BOOKS!

but if you don't want to buy a book on audio engineering basics then just do a google search and find a good basic article but NOT a "for dummies" article. I could run through this for you as best as possible but just because I know exactly how all these controls interact and what they are meant to do doesn't mean I can define and explain them as well as a an experienced guy with experience as a technical writer and/or educator.

Compressors as a pre-amplifier effect or in an effects loop can be cool for country chickin' pickin', fingerpicking of all sorts and as a clean lead boost that can alter your attack and decay characteristics. But they are mainly just a source of noise, tonal coloring, etc... most guitar compressor pedals (like the ross and dynacomp), even the ones with a lot of knobs (wampler and keeley), have a lot of the functions you are questioning preset or buried inside the PCB on trim pots. They also are mainly based around a really primitive and lofi design from the early days of radio and lack a lot of the pizzaz of sharp-cutoff tube and opto designs as well as being less transparent and tweakable than dbx types of VCA designs... I thik only a few companies make studio-grade compressors for guitar level signals in and out and some are better than others. All of them are costly though. Most affordable studio compressors are line level and can only be sued with your effects loop when its set to line, though INTERESTING results could be achieved by running your guitar into a studio compressor via a DI or mic preamp's HI-Z input and then using the hot, lowimpedance line level output to slam the front of your guitar amp.... of course, once youa re pummeling the 1st gain stage it can defeat some of the point of compressing the signal because one of the main artifacts of overloading a tube besides harmonic distortion is compression prior to full-on square wave clipping (essentially limiting with huge amounts of distortion)...

man, I am probably confusing you. Read up.

Marilyn in reality (Brian warner) is just a pretty weird but normal dude and has kids etc. I think most of how he acts on stage and on camera etc is just a shock act.

At this point its a living for him (and a good one at that). Who knows about the early days, but now hes a lot like Bowie (may the mighty one rest in peace) and Alice Cooper. Theres a character he plays on stage.

I have a lot I could say to both you limeys about religion versus atheism, but I wish we would keep stuff like this as well as politics completely off the site. People get really emotional about deeply held beliefs and are uninterested in the other viewpoint even if they are willing to read it over in an ostensibly friendly forum discussion. I always think we should imagine EB as a dinner party, so no religion or politics. That's why I tend to poke fun and/or skewer at both sides when these things come up. Whether there is a god or not if it weren't for religion there would be no spirituals and gospel music and in turn rock 'n roll would probably not exist and soul music definitely would not. Although we could say the same thing for slaveryin the USA. But anyway, as Jim you need to see the good in every historical situation....

welp, if you are doing coil tapping in a fat-strat then the hybrid is really awesome as the custom coil is a nice strong single for a strat bridge sound. It should do good quack tones with the 2 singles....

I replaced the bridge with a 59/custom hybrid and I kept the neck to see if I was more into it with a different bridge pickup and I am happy enough so far. I wanted a hot bridge pickup for sure because a silver les paul is not about being mellow. The 59/custom is a very distinctive pickup. Its got qualities of a dimarzio or JB, PAF and P90 but is nothing like any of them when it al comes together. It can carry off twangy, hot tele bridge cleans and drives an amp into pretty outstanding, rich distortion but it doesn't like distortion and OD pedals much. Makes them sound very "pedaly" to my ear. The 59/custom's sustain is also outstanding even clean. The notes hand for days. Of course, both guitars I have put this model into have superb sustain anyway so YMMV... I also swapped the magnets between the hybrid and pearly in the washburn so its an A5 with pearly gates coils and the hybrid has the long A2 magnet from the pearly... I rather like that setup. I repotted the modified hybrid but I got rid of the pearly's potting to give it a little more real PAF character. I may buy an A4 bar to try in the pearly too, but the washburn sounds really good right now so its not a priority.

I love the hybrid, but I don't think its for everyone.

my uncle switched to bass from guitar at his church and got a fancy Eden head and cab that he loves. I think it sounds pretty good, but I prefer the family B15 ampeg that's in his basement. Its in really good shape and sounds way less vintage than you would expect.

I have never personally played bass through a markbass, but I have played with guys who had their big head and cab setups and they are really great for a modern bass tone. They sound wonderful. I also really liked the Ashdown MAG300 that briefly belonged to my band. I liked it more than the bassist did! Old sunn amps are fabulous for bass. I like the tube bass/general purpose models with no verb and trem (200S, 2000S) but have never owned one. They are very hifi, deep and punchy but with a nice tubey sheen when they have been kept up well. But holy grail? I dunno. I have heard bassist talk up Sunn's 70s solid state bass heads, but I've never heard one in person. They're uncommon on the east coast. Believe it or not I am NOT a huge fan of the SVT. Its a classic tone, but in huge tube bass heads I prefer the discontinued Mesa bass400. 400s can be ahd pretty cheap and they sound fabulous, though they cost a fortune to retube. Never owned one but I have borrowed them. Too much power for any of the bands I played bass in, but if you lust after the best loud, tube bass sound I say mesa 400.

no, the pros are potted, even the covers.... too much trouble. If they were open coil I woulda swapped magnets. I actually wound up liking the pro neck once it was with a pickup that could keep up with output-wise

Better Ringo than Paul... my beatlemaniac heart will break when Paul dies. I love that guy. Although Ring is Lucian's favorite Beatle (he narrated 2 seasons of Thomas the tank and sang Octopus's Garden after all) so my son is going to be crushed if he dies.

See, every musician who died this year added a year to Keef's life through Keef's long-running arrangement with Satan. I predict Keith Richards will be smoking and drinking for years to come. He will probably outlive us all.

Speaking of Mick, is anybody else excited about the HBO show he created with Scorses, "Vinyl" ????

original ampeg portaflexes are holy grail studio bass amps... the B15 is best known, but the B18 is a rare old bird and prized by bassists who know...

my favorite bass amps to use when I played bass were:

fender bassman 50 or 100 thru a 4x10 or 2x15

fender blackface dual showman through an 8x10 or straight 4x12 with bass cone speakers

ampeg B25B thru a straight 4x12 with bass cone speakers

I am getting into the idea of switching preamps and some analog effects around with the loops in G system or Helix... and of course utilizing a lot of the effects in them when required to have anything apart from great amp tones and maybe a basic analog drive like an sd1 for solos. I want to modernize a little so that I have more options but can still do all the things I usually do in my dinosaur style of electric guitar playing. I dunno though. I have yet to bite the bullet. I have so much going on right now that its fun to dream and impractical to buy anything I am not sure I will love. I shouldn't be speding on luxury items I am unlikely to use frequently. I have lots of amps, maybe I could justify another guitar, but I really should keep my hands off the helix and G system until my universe settles down into a more manageable routine. Its getting there. I dunno if I will change my mind about the effects processor/switching setup by the time I legitimately have funds available and the free time to enjoy more toys. I barely have time to enjoy the toys I already have LOL. Sometimes I think my son enjoys my guitar collection more than I do. He was really bonding with them on Sunday. He went through my pick bucket to get a pink pick and then I ahd to get all of Daddy's "buitars" out, all of em.

I used to use my rack as a set-and-forget thing to embiggen my sound with a cheap doubling effect on large stages and maybe some slapback. I mainly used it on stage with an old spx90 processor doing a stereo thing off the line out from my hot plate.... distortion switchin was all about amp switchin and I would occasionally have modulation and/or fuzz out front of the clean or dirty side. When I used effects on the road it was a mix of a few things used very subtley. I mainly worked with amp tone. Great, old-style tube amps turned WAY up have always been the backbone of my sound. I can never get anything else to do my thing except crazy expensive soldano heads, and ven those are not exactly the "Jim" sound... if I ever do another sideman gig I figure I will wanna have more effects options to please the musician I am playing for....

I'm going with Lou Reed. I know a guy who did FOH for Lou in the 70s and I can't even remember all the asshole things dave told me Lou did and said to his band and crew. He was a fucker. I understand he calmed down, but Lou was a pretty huge asshole in his heyday, like steal the change out of your pockets, miss the show because he's busy shooting up and write the crew bad paychecks at the end of the tour assholery. I remember in the 90s he said the Beatles were crap.... he was just a mouthy asshole at his best. At his worst he would steal your shoes and trade them for dope.

my SG had 300k's and ceramic discs so I put in some bourns pots and Mallory 150s

my LP has stock Gibson branded 500k but the same cheapo ceramic discs, I didn't bother to change them when I swapped the bridge pickup. I thought the controls responded fine, I just didn't care for the burstbucker pro bridge.

Its not a hard and fast rule. My lp platinum has stock pots that read in the 490k range. Gibson branded and everything.

nah, I always had my rack as a separate chunk of gear from stompboxes. I never used a lot of effects so...

I can't teach vibrato over the web, though I can teach it in person.... and yeah, I perfected my vibrato techniques by ear through diligent practice every day. I had a jumpstart too, having played classical stringed instruments prior to getting reallyinto the guitar as a 'tween. The methods are different, but I definitely came to the guitar with a good sense of how to approach the string with my right hand.

EDIT: I could skype with you and give you some vibrato lessons.I am usually busy as heck Tuesday thru Thursday, a little less so Monday and Friday, and on weekends I usually make plans with my son, but I stay up later Saturday nights.

Exactly. All the individuality is the cool thing about electric guitar and why its such an icon of freedomand non-violent rebellion. As long as you don't muffle the signal with tons of crap the guitar is like you personality amoed up tohowever many watts your amp produces. Or maybe tins if effects liading diwn the signal IS your personality. Like david gilmour.

And the guitar is easy. Everyone on earth bit my ex-wife can learn to play enough chords and licks to startexpressing themselves (though there are times I wish the guitar were more challenging so it would keep the morons out).

Guys, I've already said I don't play it that loud, and probably should play it louder,, though I can't without my parents excommunicating me. Read the whole thing.

With all those triode stages you should have plenty of gain for anything short of "chugga chugga scooped cookie monstuh metal" (raaahh) even before audible power amp and phase inverter distortion. Youcould take your modulations, delays and and maybe an mxr microamp or ehx lpb1 and get a pile of tones.

Ugh. I have to go to my day job the rest if the week.

No need to look. If they sound alright and feel good turning them its alrigjt, man. Electronics are really about what feels good to you and can allow you to sound the most like yourself. I sound so much like me anymore that you need to change several variables to skew my sound. Changing pickups or the amp won't take away my "jimness." but if you screw with all the electronic elements, maybe give me an ibanez jem and a mesa? Maybe i won't sound a lot like me without a lot of knob tweakin. But any older styled guitar with more vintage guts into an old amplifier design i will sound like myself. Anything nastier than 2204 or 2203 marshall and i have to really fiddle to find a sound tjat will allow me to get my tones. And i may need to play deafeningly loud to do it. But thru most people gear with their giitars i sound nothing like them. It can be so drastic people might think i flipped amp channels! All but the highest output guitars really sound different when I play them. Not better per se, just the way i fret abd strum and such is distinctive and hard to obscure. Everything i like is about accentuating that. Its great to sound like yourself.

I still want a Ampeg dan amstrong plexiglass guitar like keef used to play. Doesn't john5 have aplastic guitar with lots if leds in it? He always sounds badass and hes way versatile tooo.... See" plastic's fine.

generally good advice... I mix the hair dryer and razorblade methods warming the glue a bit so it is easy to get under the nut without cutting any wood. Not everyone has great vision and though I am 20/20 I really think a little warming is a good idea. Brass is a fun nut material and will really modify the guitar's frequency response in cool ways.

I just refuse to stress about stuff.... its in the back of my mind what made classic guitars rockin', but if a guitar sounds good and plays good for me? eh, who cares? I would play a chunk of plastic if it was comfortable and expressive.

I like linear...also try out log pots (audio is reverse log)... they are cool too

oh wow, hes not using a slide. I derped! played the audio without watching their hands and assume it was a mix of fingers and slide like Allman did on the album, but its not. Blame Lucian, he was on my lap wathing Thomas the Tank while I listened to Calpton!

what section are you referencing? All I ehar from Clapton and his sideman is GREAT hand technique... if you want to vibrato like Calpton you have to do what I did and practice every vibrato technique there is from age 12 to 21 forsaking all other gods, girlfriends and fun when there is technique to be mastered instead. Here he is using the "up&down. half a bend method" most guys use but he's employing it with extreme precision and finesse.... in 10 years you will have it! Is it the start point you marked with Clapton blazing away? because as I said, that's all mad skillz, yo! I didn't realize you had marked it til just now.

you should also practice the BB King "full hand trill" method of bending as well as the subtle but awesome method of varying pressure from light to hard to stretch the string harder against the fret... then there's the subtle violin method where you slide your finger and change the pressure within the fret causing minor pitch and tone variations.... when I am on about touch, these are the sort of things I am talking about. I have studied and practiced this stuff to an insane degree. its not the notes you play bt how you approach them to convey the feeling they were written to give the listener. You can increase that feeling or change it a bit, but its all in howyou attack the note. Every note on the page is a decision.

I have buckets of PIO caps around in tone circuit values. Lots of Russian stuff too ;-) I am just not knocked out by them. I think the magic caps thing is just a case of one-upsmanish between vintage guitar guys, "my player grade 335 has the original electronics even though the PAFs were stolen out.... the bumblebees are the bomb, your new one stinks!"... but my new one has great pickups in it, so eat shit, snobby!

Most of the tone is pickups, proper 500k pots or close to it, and WOOD! A thin finish helps too. Nitro is always pretty thin as is the ancient DuPont "duco" acrylic used for the 'car color' guitars of the 50s and 60s. Its not better than poly stuff, just easier to put on in thin coats. Poly, if applied with care? is a better finish for durability, though the toxic lacquers feel better under your hand sometimes. Less sticky when you are sweating. but yeah, resonant wood that is well matched tonally neck and body (sympathetic or the same resonant frequency), good pickups, proper pots, a good neck angle and a thin finish? That's the Gibson recipe for tone.

Oh yeah, and YOU, the player!

I've been there with the shielding paint for my (former) LP special.... its a pain, but if you try a sponge brush from an arts and crafts store instead of a real bristle brush you will be able to apply it in a more effective manner with less dripping. As you apply it, try holding your wife's hair dryer over it on HOT/FULL power to get it set in place too ;-)

Use long shafts. It will be easier. LPs and short shaft pots are a pain even if the top is routed to accommodate them.

Your math looks close enough. Honestly we are not talking about a lot of variation. Anything over 350k sounds right. I would worry more about getting pots with a smooth taper. CTS regular pots have a nice taper as do Bourns.

I fixed the typo! But woman tone is when you turn your neck pickup tone to half mast or lower into a really saturated tube amp. Its a Clapton trick from the cream days. its great with an SG or 335 (get why I am into it?).... It requires a strong neck pickup though, one with fat midrange... or you can do tone at 0 or 1 and volume at 3/4s into a cranked fuzzface into a mildly overdriven amp for a woman tone too....

cool score on the pio caps, I myself don't hear a huge difference, but YMMV... I have real black beauties in my Greco, but I don't feel they add a lot. And I use my controls too. Back before Hovland went outta business I put a Musicap in my frankentele, but honestly , while its better than a ceramic disc cap its not that special compared to a Mallory 150 or Sprague orange drop. And it cost a helluva lot more.

I am a middle-position fanatic with buckers. Besides working my volume controls to control my overdrive I also do a lot of things with my pickups selector and volumes to create tone changes without pedals.... especially on my knockoff 335 where the middle sounds are really pronounced when you vary the volume settings for each pickup.

Maybe I got into using the guitar controls because my feet have always been clumsy. I am a gangly and poorly balanced person when it comes to standing or walking, though fatherhood has helped. Can't drop the sprout when I'm carrying him so I have willed my equilibrium to improve. But I just find it so much easier to futz with myguitar controls while playng. I flip my tele plates to be volume-tone-pickups in order to better facilitate my style. I also wire everything 50s Gibson style to reduce treble loss without resorting to the notorious treble bleed network to preserve my high end when rolling volume off. I think treble bleed networks can sound hyped and artificial with intact treble but funky low end. using the tone cap to connect the volume and tone knob is way more natural sounding. Good pots completes the equation.

http://www.testequipmentdepot.com/weller/solder/wes51.htm?gclid=CP3RobLntsoCFVYYHwodPoYGUA

I swear by weller's top of the line analog controlled iron, get one before you burn out a pot with something less precise... low wattage heats pots slowly when you are grounding to their back and that can melt the carbon inside causing crackle, volume spikes along the taper or cut-outs

if you never do "woman tone" leads on your neck I recommend you mix and match. Try a 4 at the neck for firm rhythm with lower output but without the hard A5 top and a rock song bridge for a more traditional PAF bridge sound (though there are plenty of PAFs around with A4, they are just mostly from ES guitars, LPs and early SGs seem to have gotten mainly A2 and later A5 in the PAF era)... I don't think Gibson actually used A3, but it has glorious midrange and a nice soft top like A2. Very low power though and not great when overwound (unless you want a more P90 tone). My Greco Dry-Z's are long A3 bars (I have read) with mismatched,, low wind coils and they have a great frequency response that sits in a band mix better than any other PAF style humbucker without sounding wimpy under overdrive because theya re just so complex. However they are very low output, even lower than my old T-Top. While the DCR on a T-Top and the dry Z is similar the A3 magnets are so much weaker than the A5 bars. Even short A5 bars really pack a punch. If I were on a desert island though I would pick the A3 magnet for my PAFs over 2 or 5. I have not spent any time with A4 yet, though I have heard A4 buckers and like them a lot, especially in the neck position. I actually want to have Duncan make me some custom/hybrids with long A3 bars to try out and maybe match them with an A4 pearly gates-style neck. But that's for the future. Next tie I get a Gibby with lackluster pickups I am calling Duncan custom shop though. I am very happy with how all my guitars sound right now.

classic Gibson braided leads(s) are so easy....

nice touch right? not in love with the piece, but hey, he plays it with aplomb!

I am running my Line 6 successfully, and of course all the standard 1-9v-battery pedals. The Cool Cat Chorus takes two 9v batteries, but there's something weird about the voltage?

is it secretly a 12 volt pedal like the CE3 chorus? That ran poorly on a 9volt, but with a 12volt supply is aces (if you like colder chorus tones)... maybe the cool cat regulates the dual 9 volts down to 12 instead of charge pumping 1 battery up to 9? It would eb easy to do with a series of diodes and resistors I think. Got a manual, Nick?

if you are getting new pickups consider the tonerider PAF copies. I am hearing rave reviews fro friends and they are CHEAP! People really like their Alnico 3 PAF-style....

well good luck...

I guess I am just old school and really used to klusons and older grovers... it may not be for everyone.

yes you can program the amp along with your G system, plus have other stuff in the loops of the g-system! tempting, right? Just create a bank of presets for each song and have at it, plus the G system can easily switch to manual mode for on the fly jamming, there will still be switched you can assign to control the amp channels and switches for the remaining 3 effects loops. I was imagining loadboxing my ac4 and using it as a distortion generator right into the effects loop return of the Legacy power amp for cunchy retro-rhythms with the abilty to add effects before the input or after the output.... its all a big investment though. A solid $1200 in gear when I have plenty of perfectly good stuff... but I am, after all, a guitarist.

ooh, I dig it! never heard of him until now, thanks!

wait, we have 4... you are forgetting Natalie Cole. Famous jazz singer, daughter of Nat King? We have 4 dead musicians now.

"HE WAS AN ALPHA"

2 feet each is morr than enough.