jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

bassist: James Jamerson

most overrated band? hmmm, Pearl Jam maybe? or U2? too subjective... that's the kind of question you ask your peers at school lunch

so back to pedalboards, what about a little pedaltain jr with your DS1, small clone, maybe a reverb or delay and maybe a light, transparent OD to start... maybe try powering it daisy chained off your tuner if possible....

or maybe dump the small clone and invest in a fancy, modern multi effects unit to cover modulation and time based effects like an eventide H9

my son says "no no not this song" to this wolf alice band, and he has pretty good taste, so maybe you are better off not knowing how they got their lead sounds.... or I can listen later when Lu is doing something else

without scrutinizing the trck they sound like big muff players

yes, but they have a nice, tight clean tone with a strong fundamental (but no sparkling tubey harmonics or steely twang) and they have Roland/Boss's best analog stereo chorus effect built in with 2 separate power amps driving 1 speaker each for true stereo spread... as far as the chorus goes, Roland spared o expense on the jazz chorus

most notable JC120 users use them in tandem with a tube amps.... Andy Summers mixed them with 80s marshall superleads sometimes, Billy Duffy of the cult used them with ac30s, johnny marr of the smiths paired one with a twin reverb.... you can hear them all over pre-load metallica clean pssages

they are popular on recordings as clean amps when a stereo modulation sound is needed in ANY genre

I'm not a huge fan of the jazz chorus, but I get the appeal. it just isn't the 'jim' sound

Thanks !

I brought your question about this band to one other guy I know who ahs seen them live and he mentioned that in the 90s the guitarist was using a bunch of boss pedals into 2 amps, a Matchless 2x12(probably a DC30) and a Roland JC120 combo. Very Bill Duffy rig... except the guy from concrete blonde plays a strat.

Yeah Boom, I don't set my browser to accept tracking cookies!

its a danelectro U2, looks vintage

you should delete this and repost in general.... at least that's what I'm thinking because lyrics have nothing to do with guitars really

in another few thousand mentions you'll be able to buy one

concrete blonde is pretty old school... they used to play that 'queen of new orleans' tune all the time at goth clubs when I was snot nosed teen... I will bet they are just using boss and Ibanez effects like most of their contemporaries

also, their guitarist doesn't use a pick which will have more influence on the attack than any effects used

yeah, but you are ignoring the psychological aspect, Boom.... and the villians... brute power is worthless if you are a victim of 2 dimensional characterization.... your story driven motivations will be your undoing

DC has been struggling to catch up to marvel in this department since well, always!

people who 'know so much' typically have great research skills and excellent memories ... i.e. they are pretty bright... most people are not so bright, they do and say foolish things, ask for advice they plan to disregard, and generally misunderstand everything while pigheadedly insisting they are constantly right even in matters that have no right or wrong answers... putting up with them can make some relatively intelligent people who one would expect to be extremely tolerant and open-minded VERY cranky after 20 or 30 years and when those people find a forum to vent their spleen? they are going to do so to avoid going crazy

there are so many now, its becoming annoying.... all of them sound good, none of them sound as big or complex as a distorting ac30

I cannot believe that the OP hasn't been back to flame me or Narcist....

I love EB. Everyone's so mellow.

In the words of Handy the hand-puppet from the short lived "tick" animated series, "read a book, you're making us look like jerks."

Just teasing you, don't take offense. But seriously, reading your comments I am reminded of the political expediency of media pundits. Your confusion and apathy is based in each side's attempt to reframe the debate in such a way that they will appeal to the large, anti-intellectual segment of the American populace. Believe me, most of these politicians are well-read, well-educated pseudo-aristocrats who can and will think and talk rings around the rest of us mortals. They are political scientists rather than political philosophers. As a voter you should get informed about the underlying principles and precedents before tackling the particulars of the day's debate. A great deal of knowledge is required to navigate America's rhetorical minefield or really develop an informed opinion on geo-political issues. But there's no test for voters (plato would be crushed) and if there were I doubt it would help because it would literally be impossible to create an unbiased exam. The rough and tumble of uninformed political action has on occasion lead our nation down the path to greatness as well as folly, so who can say....

at any rate, a politician is someone who speaks a great deal while saying very little while an intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. And of course a fool and his money are soon parted. How do you see yourself in that light?

Well, I mean in terms of diction. >

the word you are looking for is 'syntax,' diction is related but does not mean what you think it means.... I am not trying to be a dick, just saving you embarrassment if you are in a conversation with someone more combative than myself in future.

you may want to grab Xenophon's account of the trial and death of Socrates while you are there.... I expect they will have that too.

But damn, these books are dense.

and so you may find it instructive to read them multiple times... I've worn out multiple copies over the years... there, I've done it, used 'multiple' twice in a row when I could have said 'numerous,' feel better?

Plato is particularly enjoyable to read and reread because he writes in the form of dialogues between Socratese and his friends, characters you grow to love warts and all. I am particularly fond of Glaucon. Aristotle has a more authorial voice and is, therefore, a lot tougher for modern readers to digest, though his style is more emulated by post-Christian philosophers. Plato's writings are full of life (I am sure influenced by the Athenian dramatists who were so popular at the time) and practically read themselves. They are real page turners.

Aristotle was more of an encyclopedist sometimes.... read the Apology and the Republic by Plato before delving into Aristotle's Politics or his notes on the Athenian Constitution. Aristotle studied at Plato's academy so Plato is the starting point. You may be interested by Confucius as well. He's the father of eastern political thought. Once you get that digested you may want to consult Cicero keeping in mind that his point of view, while persuasive because of his rhetorical skill, should be taken in historical context remembering that he was a practicing politician and not merely a theorist. Antony was sending a clear message to the big mouths of the roman senate when he nailed Cicero's hands and tongue to the curia doors. Not unlike Machiavelli who worked in government before putting pen to paper, understanding Cicero's life and times will lend balance to his view point. For that matter, if you want to really wrap your head around Plato it won't hurt you to read Plutarch's lives of Solon and Lycurgus as well as reviewing Thucydides' History of the Peloponesian war.

My son has seen Tom and Jerry with my ex-wife now. I have never watched it with him, but we have watched some other, less violent classics together like Rocky and Bullwinkle. He is particularly fond of the metal munching moon mice.

read Plato and Aristotle and take it from there

ya feel like an 'arse' because in the back of your mind you are remembering that no one appointed you to the post of editor-in-chief and that because you have acted as if you occupy that non-existent position you've offended another musician who was just trying to contribute to EB in his own way.... if the original post was so incomprehensible, there may have been a more tactful way of handling it.

I am sorry we don't all come up to your high standards. The reason I took a time out and rewrote your sentence last night (and trust me, I had other things on my agenda) was to show you that no one is perfect and there is always someone out there more knowledgeable or more able than yourself (although in my instance it has little to do with any actual superiority and merely stems from the difference in our age, educational level and life experience, so no sweat). Best to worry about being the best Narcist you can be and let everyone else worry about themselves.... maybe correcting the grammar in this post to suit yourself was over the top especially after saying "You may be right, but you should improve your grammar and spelling." Perhaps you could have said, "you may be right, but I am having a little trouble understanding exactly what you're getting at because of the grammar, syntax and spelling."

Now that you apologized for being high-handed just leave well enough alone with the rokit monitors. One thing I love about EB is the lack of personality conflicts and flame wars compared with sites like gearslutz. I think a lot of other people feel the same way.

I believe St Paul was quite clear that all you need to honor god is to believe and pray and that all you need to make a congregation is a pair of devout Christians..... but I could be all outta whack here since I am not religious and haven't read anything ecclesiastical since I was young. I was just tweakin' noses because its fun. No harm meant :-)

everyone should follow their muse and do whatever brings them fulfilment

You sound like you have more to say. Remember, objective.

I can say it at the poles by voting my conscience. If my goal was to influence others into thinking as I do I would run for office myself or become an activist/lobbyist. All I can say to other Americans is that they need to read. Know your history and the history of the other western democracies and republics that have come before. Its good to think for yourself once you are informed by more than rhetoric. I value my right to my own opinions, but I also respect other people's political opinions (or even their feeling of apathy) and freely admit that I may be wrong. We all have a right to be wrong though. I am disinterested in engaging in a debate that I am likely to win, not on the merits of my position, but through forensic dexterity.... if it doesn't dissolve into bickering first.

The American system is set up so that when the populace as a whole is wrong things can't get too far out of hand. Republics are slow to change by design leaving ample time to make corrections. In some situations this can be an inherent weakness of mixed government (please research the Gracchi, Marius and Sulla as well as Machiavelli's thoughts on Roman agrarian reform even though they run counter to my own).

I will say that a lot of the reaction to Obama by voters in the middle of America's ever-widening political divide is a sense that we made an 'over correction', if you will.... additionally many people on the left feel betrayed by Obama's willingness to compromise in order to get ANYTHING done at all in the face of entrenched opposition. Personally I respect his refusal to resort to extreme political innovation in the style of Gaius Marius or Abraham Lincoln. Pushing forward a much-needed program of reform with strong arm tactics can have unintended consequences down the road. As well-framed as our constitution is compared with the Roman mos maiorum, the way that the supreme court interprets it is heavily influenced by precedent in the Roman legal tradition. A bad innovation in the name of a good cause may later be employed to push an agenda that is not in the interests of the people. Consider the precedent of unlimited dictatorship established by Sulla (who laid down his powers after completing a program of reform, the merits of which are still being debated today) but later used by Caesar and more overtly by Octavian, Antony and Lepidus to establish permanent autocratic rule on a scale unimaginable in our modern world... or just look at Vietnam in which a precedent of presidential authority to engage in small scale military actions was enough to commence a war in all but name without a declaration from congress. One heartening aspect of Bush Jr's presidency was that he did seek a congressional mandate to invade Iraq, though the means he used to obtain it were pretty nefarious.

Anyway, one man's statesmanship is another man's weakness and only posterity can make a final judgement. Until then we must all nourish our (hopefully well-informed) opinions and express them in November. As far as our British friends and their desire to block Donald's entrance to their country? Ask your Queen how she feels, aren't you all answerable to her in theory? Oh wait, you guys don't do that anymore. Well, you're a sovereign antion and you can think for yourselves. Just remember that it was only a century ago that your country was still the world's right-wing, reactionary, imperialist bully. Have some sympathy for the devil when you express your opinions about America. Shit's complicated everywhere my Limey friends.

In the words of the Fat Controller in the Tomica Thomas and Friends fan videos.... "I HAVE SPOKEN!"

I am just ribbing you, Narcy!

What about 'basic?' That't a nice, basic (hardy har) word that means simple.

I think we all know that women are bad drivers as a rule and the exeptions to said rule are so few that in classic fashion they only prove it. Stating that fact aloud will sound sexist to only the most hardcore, Gloria Steinam cave-women. Everyone knows this! At the very least we can agree that most women cannot parallel park.

Just kidding.... or am I?

no, really, I was just kidding.

Have you considered that many of EB's members do not speak English as their first language? In the words of Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins "in American they haven't spoken it in years." I find that observation to be doubly true in SoCal.

What is it about people completely losing all intellectual ability to write short, simple words with simple grammatical correctness when they lay their hands on a keyboard?

Why is it some people can't think of an interesting synonym for "simple" when making forum posts? Its a mystery..... although I don't know a modifier is really needed before grammatical in this situation, not to mention the fact that the ability to write succinctly is, a priori, an intellectual ability. Perhaps better grammar (and a more pleasing sentence) would read;

"Why is it that when people put hand to computer keyboard they lose all ability to compose short, simple sentences that are grammatically correct?"

Its a forum dude! I for one am posting from a phone more than half the time. In future we should all call our publishing houses for a proofreader before posting our thoughts. No one likes an Angry Grammarian.... except when tis the guy from Philly Weekly....

actually, though the Roman Empire was a more agrarian culture than our modern society the Roman world was not so different from our own otherwise... definitely not simpler

I'm not trying to hold devout Christians to Jesus' principles as I seemed to interpret them here, just having a little fun. Who knows what Jesus was getting at or if Matthew and the other evangelists reported it correctly writing from at least a full generation's remove. Heck, there's no documentary evidence for JC's very existence for that matter and some of the details surrounding his birth are unprovable or downright inaccurate when you look at Augustan sources regarding that census. Not to mention the fact that Josephus and other Jewish contemporary historians fail to mention Herod the Great' slaughter of the innocents (and given even Josephus' scathing criticism of Herod's reign it seems improbable he would have failed to mention the wholesale slaughter of male newborns), but I digress. We pretty much can all agree on some sort of historical character names Jeshua ben Joseph who did some stuff and said some stuff that really resonated with Europeans, near easterners and even some Africans back then. As long as modern people are taking something fulfilling from it that is working for them and they aren't bothering anyone else its a cool thing.

sure... I mean, its church music, I would think God will be happy that you are playing for him at all

and wouldn't Jesus want you to give your gear budget to the poor?

I get it because that looks like the case my pedaltrains had... I never had an issue with them though.

your PT1 case is a hardcase and its coming apart?

I tried the homemade pedalboard route back before there were readily available boards in anything but plastic cases. It worked well. It was pretty small, I removed the backs from the pedals andbolted them onto the plywood by drilling some through holes and then using the back plate screws and some washers to mount the pedal directly. Defintiely the STURDIEST board ever for stomping. It was a simple layout so I powered it off my tuner which was plugged into a furman that was mounted underneath. My radial ABY was plugged directly into the power conditioner. I think that board only had the switcher, a TU2 and an MXR blue box though. I think I skipped the vintage small stone phaser because it had a funky power supply like all the old EHX effects do, as I built up a few more effects in new songs I just added them in on the floor because they were all vintage and ran on batteries only....

so I am not sure how the DIY method works for serious pedal junkies. I've seen guys do it. I guess if your time is not valuable to you it can be pretty cool. I found a small board to be as much work as I had time and patience to build.

For a while after my band broke up I was working as a sideman and I was using my strat, later my esquire and a gretsch duo jet for that gig. I wound up with a small effects setup that worked really well. I had a little plywood board with the footswitch to a TC G Sharp processor, a Korg Pitchblack tuner and a Catalinbread Hyperpak CMOS overdrive for a fuzzy lead boost velcroed down. I ran my HC30 clone into a marshall 4x10 into a hotplate knocking off 2dB and then used the lineout on the hotplate to feed the TC processor set to 100% wet into another marshall 4x10 driven by a solid state poweramp. My wet signal was only vibrato for a stereo chorus effect on arpeggios or slapback for the really contry numbers and I think I had a few patches with those effects as well as some spring or plate reverb simulation. But the pedalboard for that began as a homemade jobbie and then upgraded to a pedaltrain jr I think (we were supposed to fly to Nashville so I wanted something more airplane friendly.... funny thing is that gig and the subsequent tour then fell apart and my little pedaltrain got traded off not long after). That board was streamlined as heck but it did A LOT -- 2 buttons for the TC and a tap tempo for longer delays, tuner on/off and the OD for solos and stuff. If I had added one more dirt pedal that effects setup would have covered all bases, but even with just 1 effect out front of the amp it covered everything this adult contemporary and country singer needed me to do and then some. Throw in some tasteful bigsby use and I had a happy employer!

Both times I tried a pedaltrain I was not as happy with Velcro as I was bolting the pedals to plywood, but it was a fair trade off for the good flight case and a metal board with no give when you stomp aggressively. I definitely recall needing to reinforce some of my pedal boards. Also, nothing really beats going Kurt Cobain style and just laying your pedals out in front of the floor wedge however you feel most confortable and then gaff taping them to the stage. But it can be problematic if you need to set up and break down quickly. That's still my preferred way of handling things and maybe the reason why I like to keep it simple.

I wasn't saying you are definitely an Edge kinda writer. Just philosophizing about pedal guys in general. But you don't have a tube amp of your own. Before planning your super pedalboard maybe consider putting all your beans into that perfect amp and seeing what it does for you with what you have. Spend awhile with the amp and a few core effects. Like only 1 of each type startung with what you use rehularly like the ds1. Play some gigs, ask your fiance how you sounded from the vack of the room at them... you get the idea. If you go the ac15 route its going to be a serious paradigm shift for you as far as overdrive goes. The amp provides a lot of subtle shades of not-so-clean at gig volumes. It slides into OD more subtley and earlier than a fender princeton or deluxe reverb because of its cathode bias scheme and higher gain. This what die hard fender guys have against voxes. The only fender that really behaves the same is the tweed deluxe. This is always why I stick with the ac30 even if 2 ioff mine have 1/2 power modes. When i need loud, punchy clean tone (not my usual sound) that doesn't break up when i dig in or i want a pedal platform i can use 30 watts. If the gig is huge i can take two 30 watters. Investing in more than 1 or 2 basic effects before getting a high performance amplifier is like eating a bowl full of gravy with no meat.

I think a lot of people who are into pedals find themselves saying, "I am going to get a ton of awesome effects and then they will inspire some amazing parts. I just need to build up and streamline a killer board!" That works for The Edge (at least in his mind). I always come up with a part and dig out effects if it needs something beyond what I'm doing with my hands and the gear I always rely on. The funny thing is, I LOVE effects pedals and rack processors, fiddling with knobs... but every variable you add makes gigging rougher and sometimes you get so out of hand you are taking away more than you are adding both from an electrical and musical standpoint. I like every idea to hold up well on acoustic guitar and/or piano. No frills. Reducing my options in my periodic pedal purges of the last decade has really sharpened my wits.

just the usual 1/4'' jacks?

yup... some are expensive midi 1/4" patchbay type racks with separate controllers like the Voodoo Lab GCX and ground control, other are fancy true bypass loopers that are all on the floor like the Carl Martin Octaswitch.

If I was to run a lot of pedals how do you connect them upto a foot controller to make life easier? seen a few boards with loads of effects connected to like a several button foot switch

the finer points depend on what foot controller you buy and whether its midi or mechanical, but they always wind up in discrete true bypass or buffered loops

because John 5 is an experienced pro who knows how to do a lot with a little

You're into spartan boards, eh?

I wouyldn't call Jonsi's pedalboard Spartan actually, its got a bit of everything if you include the reverb processor that's off-board..... more than I bother with

see, that's a reliable and versatile board for a guy who needs to reproduce some album textures... I am a big fan of having my echo type effects and even some modulations come from studio processors...

if something goes down it will be easy to figure out where the problem is without ruining the show. Its such a small footprint that you could take a spare with identical stuff to gigs.

Yes, 1 watt is a lot. My sister had in mind to buy a 100W Marshall once for playing at home ... Waht about Hiwatt? It would be perfect for what I play (Zep and Floyd), but I heard the small one are not particulary good...

hiwatt has not made amps since the early 80s, the company currently calling itself hiwatt is some other thing (maybe music go round bought the brand in the late 90s? anyone?), kinda like Orange is secretly Gibson's amp line and Vox is really korg now (but korg has more hits than misses in the reissue department while modern hiwatt has not maintained the craftsmanship or tone of their namesake though they have maintained the ridiculous sticker prices). Hiwatts are also very finicky amps, the big ones of the classic era at least.... even the later models like the OL and the Lead designs that are designed to overdrive more easily are powerful and clean compared to what most young guys are expecting. Love their sound when you set them right, but setting them right involves serious dB. Don't know about low power hiwatts, the smallest Hiwatt I ever encountered in person was the 30 watt 80s lead series 1x12 combo. It was louder than a Vox AC30 and had a sound all its own.