karl321's Reviews

L.R. Baggs M1

Sounds excellent. It seems to add a slight amount of brightness, but in a good way. Glad they make it in Lefty too.

Polytune

I only got this because Tallest Man on Earth uses it and because I liked the design.

That said, it seems to actually tune my guitar faster and better than my Korg and Snarks, so I'm happy. My only gripe with it is that you can't tune to 432 HZ, the frequency of the universe, with this thing.

Keeley DS-1 Ultra Mod

Someone said you can play the entire history of rock n'roll but heavier with this pedal and it's true.

It's a huge improvement over the DS-1, but I'd argue that the stock DS-2 is better in some ways. The DS-1 mod has more bite than a DS-2, but the DS-2 kind of has a more fun sounding distortion tone to me, because it has less edge to it. These are the best distortion pedals you can buy, in my option.

Fender Mustang

This guitar has the best distorted tone in the world to my ears. The Mustang records amazingly, but isn't so good for live sound.

In combo with the small clone and DS-1 or DS-2 (I have the keeley DS-1 right now) it sounds just like the tone on Nevermind.

The clean tone is duck like, if that makes any sense, it's one of the worst I've heard, but the distorted tone is so good that it doesn't even matter. It's also worth noting that it sounds good through smaller speakers, and because of this. However, for a live show, when people are listening to a sound system or guitar cab rather than their car or computer speakers, I would steer clear of this guitar. Once you get up to a 12 inch speaker or larger, this guitar sounds really thin and lacking compared to other guitars like the Jaguar.

The aesthetics of this guitar were greatly improved when Kurt Cobain invented the Jagstang.

Fender Jaguar

This guitar has a five star tone with distortion, but clean, it's more like a two star guitar.

A vintage Fender Stratocaster has a much better clean tone.

For Nirvana fans this sounds the closest to the tone on Incesticide, with the Mustang with the Seymour Duncan humbucker being closer to the tone on Nevermind.

The best tone I've found out of it so far is with the humbucker adjusted from the factory settings, so it is farther away from the strings for more dynamics. This is easy to do, you just spin the screws to adjust it. It is hard to record because it has such a wide range of sound. It has tons of treble and bass. Even filtered through a wah, it still sounds fatter than a Fender Mustang. Super fatty tone. It sounds amazing live, but on any speaker smaller than a 12 inch speaker, it sounds abrasive and it's not quite right, like watching a movie on an iPhone. You can do it, but I wouldn't, even though I did for years through my monitors when recording with this thing.

Recently I've started playing this through a 15 inch speaker and it's by far the best tone, if you play in half step down or drop d tuning. It has a smoother attack and seems to sustain more than the typical 12 inch guitar speakers. If you use something like amplitude or guitar rig, the 15 inch speaker sim doesn't sound better unless you have a subwoofer, because smaller speakers can't replicate those tones physically.

I updated this to give it a more neutral rating, because I realized something about guitars since I last reviewed it. Almost all the tone of a guitar comes from the strings, tuners, and the humbuckers. Out of the amp, that might be where all of the tone comes from. You can put DiMarzio Super Distortion Humbuckers in a super cheap guitar, and get the same amp tone for a fraction of the cost of this Jaguar. Also, I never mentioned that I never had much fun playing this guitar... it can get some great rock tones, but you have to work for it. It's not practically effortless to get a good distortion tone, like with the Kurt Cobain Mustang, which I've always found to be more fun to play.