Digital modeling vintage '60s Clapton guitar tone
This was an attempt at getting that 1968 Eric Clapton sound which he calls Woman Tone...
...and I got it somewhat. It probably would have been better to try this with my Thinline Tele since it has a pair of humbuckers in it. But I felt like playing my Bullet Tele at the time, so that's what I used.
The sound I was specifically going after is the one Eric Clapton spoke about in a 1968 interview.
The "trick," if you will, to getting the sound aside from technique is also including the stage reverb.
I'll admit I went a little overboard with the reverb I used, but I think it works... sort of.
I'm not trying to be Eric Clapton. I just really dig the sound. Sounds great to my ear.
How to get this sound
This is the effects chain order. It's very simple.
Compressor > Amp Sim > Reverb
The specifics on the Line 6 Spider V 60 amp I use:
- Red Comp (meaning MXR Dyna Comp)
- Brit J-2000 #2 (I don't know what amp this is supposed to emulate)
- Chamber reverb with 48% decay, 69% mix
The other part to getting Woman Tone is purposely turning down the tone control on the guitar as Eric shows in the '68 interview.
This is incidentally why most guitarists can't get Woman Tone out of a Strat, because in a standard wiring setup there is no tone control wired to the bridge-only pickup selection. It's easy enough to wire that in, but without it, no Woman Tone.
Embracing the electric eye
After driving around with a dashcam for a few days, yeah I'm totally hooked on it.
As mentioned recently, I acquired a Garmin DriveAssist 50LMT refurb, which has a built-in dashcam.
To those want the know the main differences between the DriveAssist 50LMT and the DriveAssist 51 LMT-S, there are two. First, the 51 can be updated completely on its own wirelessly whereas the 50 requires a USB connection for updates. Second, the 51 records audio with its dashcam video whereas the 50 is just video only with no audio. I may go ahead and get a 51 model in the future to get that audio feature.
There have already been two instances while driving where I almost got into a bad situation. And the reason I didn't is because I'm an alert driver. But had something bad happened, the dashcam footage would have been invaluable. Even though I've not had this tech for a week, I already consider dashcam something I won't drive without.
Will a front-facing camera be a standard feature in every car at some point?
Maybe, but they probably won't record accidents.
As of May 2018, it's law in America that every new car under 10,000 pounds must have a rearview backup camera. But it's not required by carmakers to have a front-facing camera, such as having one installed in front of the rearview mirror.
Part of what my DriveAssist 50LMT does is driver alerts. If you stray outside your lane, traffic in front of you starts to move from a stop and you don't, you follow too close and so on, you get on-screen and audible alerts for that. And those are legitimate safety features a front-facing camera can provide.
If the NHTSA does say at some point that all cars also must have front-facing cameras, it will only be for safety features. Whether that camera will actually record accidents or not will be totally up to the carmakers themselves.
This pretty much means if you want the best benefit of a dashcam, it will still be required to actually buy one for years to come. It's a good thing they're cheap.
I personally really like the GPS + dashcam combo the Garmin provides. But for those on a budget, there are dashcams for under 25 bucks now. It's totally worth having.
Old music tech that sucks
Certain older music tech is just plain awful. Let's talk about that.
There's the argument that no technology ever truly dies, and yeah I do agree with that sentiment. Everything I'm going to talk about below is being used by someone somewhere right now, but that doesn't mean the tech is good.
And now, on to the suck.
Wah-wah pedal
First up is the Dunlop Crybaby, a.k.a. the wah-wah. It has a factory "installed" glop of lubricant directly under the expression pedal. That's normal. Every new Crybaby and other pedal of this type is made like this, and that's what makes it suck. Not only will that lubricant get worn out quickly, but it will attract all sorts of dirt since it's obviously used on the floor.
If there were an award for most-high-maintenance pedal, the Crybaby would be it. I've owned two of these pedal types in the past. The Crybaby and the VOX V847A. Both were great at first... but then as the lubricant wore out, dirt started collecting on the inside and so on, they just completely wore out in record time.
These types of wah effects use 1960s tech that has barely changed over the years. When they start breaking down (and they will), all you get is a crackly, noisy, nasty and totally unusable effect. Oh, you can try to maintain one, but that's a fool's errand. Re-lube and use dust removal spray all you want, but it will be a total waste of time. All you'll be doing is delaying the inevitable.
Never buy one of these. It sucks.
If you want a wah effect, go digital or get an optical wah such as the Morley CLW. No lubricant to worry about on that one. Simple, very rugged, easy-to-maintain. That's how a pedal effect should be. Whether it's used at home or stage, that thing is built to be used.
Anything that uses a floppy disk
This mainly concentrates on synthesizers of the past be they full keyboards or the rackmount units like the Ensoniq ASR-10 rack configuration.
Floppies, whether 8", 5.25" or 3.5", are all bad. Every one of them. A floppy is the worst possible way to store data. Out of every media format you could possibly use, this is the one where you have the most chance of your data going corrupt and never being able to read it again.
And let's not forget about proprietary data formats. Many of these things wrote data that can only be read on that unit. Standard PC readable files? Ha! Not happening.
Three means of storing data existed with synths for the longest time. Compact cassette a.k.a. tape, floppies and flash memory. The compact cassette was first. For example, a Roland Juno-60 from the '70s could have patches stored and sent back via a tape deck. Floppies came after that, and then finally memory cards.
Tape was too slow and didn't hold that much data. Flash memory cards could barely hold any data, were ridiculously expensive and proprietary. The floppy was, at the time, the best of the 3 formats. It held a good amount of data, it was affordable and it had decent loading speed.
But that doesn't take away the fact that floppies are the worst.
Thankfully, there are those out there making retrofit options to junk the floppy disk drive and replace with a USB interface, many of which are drop-in solutions - if it's 3.5". For the 5.25" and decidedly ancient 8", sorry Charlie, you're out of luck.
Any used electronic drum kit
Take the Alesis Surge kit. Buying one of these new is totally okay.
But never get an electronic drum kit used.
The reason electronic kits used suck is because whether the sensors are still working properly or not is a total crapshoot.
In the way these things are made, each drum is obviously not made "all-or-nothing" style where you could easily detect a bad one if a sensor is failing. If a part of a drum is failing, you won't know that until you actually set the whole thing up first. That's a lot of wasted time and effort just to save a few bucks on something you'll ultimately have to immediately send back - if you can send it back.
If you get a kit like this, buy new. Yes, it will cost more. It's worth it.
Solid-state guitar combo amps from the '90s
I don't like tubes and I do champion modern digital modeling guitar amplifiers. But I also totally admit that solid-state guitar combo amps of the '90s really sucked.
During the '90s, I owned guitar solid-state combo amps by Fender, Marshall, Crate and Peavey. None of them were good. They couldn't project good volume and the speakers were terrible.
The bigger guitar amp heads that connected to cabinets were decent (particularly from Randall,) but where guitar combo amps were concerned, it was sad times for solid-state in the '90s.
If talking about bass and keyboard solid-state amps of the '90s, many of those were actually pretty good. They could project and had great clarity to them. But on the guitar side of things, '90s combo amps are definitely one to skip.
The only good thing I can say about '90s solid-state guitar combo amps is that they could take a good amount of punishment. They may not have been very loud for stage use, but they could take a drop and/or get knocked over and still work fine.
Were there any truly good solid-state guitar combo amps in the '90s? Yes. One of them is the Roland Jazz Chorus 120. It is often said that Roland is "the sound of solid-state" in the best possible way. The JC 120 is definitely a good amp. And very loud.
Multitrack recorders of the '90s
I'll round out this list by also going to the '90s again, this time concentrating on multitrack recorders.
The interesting this about this is that in the '90s, analog and digital multitrack recorders were sold side-by-side. Analog units used compact cassette and digital units used hard disks or Hi8 tapes.
Take the Fostex DMT-8, which had an original starting price of $1,995. And that was considered a great deal for what it offered at the time.
I personally used the Tascam 424 in the '90s. Two of them actually, as I wore the first one out.
Here are the problems with all multitrack recorders of the '90s:
If it's analog, the belts over time get stretched out or dried out and need replacing. The drive mechanisms themselves also simply wear out. Belts can be replaced fairly easily. Drive mech however... not-so easy.
If it's digital, the #1 issue is usually data storage. Specifically, running out of available memory to store recorded data and what to do about it.
The DMT-8 above is a classic example of this. It has an internal 540MB hard disk drive. Can you expand this? No. You must back up your data once that's filled up. How? S/PDIF connection to a DAT recorder. And how long did a full disk backup take? Over 45 minutes.
Another issue with digital recorders of the '90s was the learning curve. The Roland VS-880 is an example of this. RIDICULOUSLY difficult to use, with an interface so complicated it's enough to drive anyone to drink. There are video tutorials posted to YouTube from back in the '90s on how to use this thing, and they're between 90 minutes to TWO HOURS LONG just to show you how to use the VS-880.
Oftentimes, modern is better
I'm not saying everything we have today is perfect. But it's a lot better - and cheaper - compared to what we used to have.
Dashcams are not overkill
My soon-to-be latest adventures in GPS and dashcam tech with a little rectangle thingy.
On the way to me right now is a refurb Garmin DriveAssist 50LMT. I wanted it because it has a dashcam.
Now before I get into that, my preference in tech that I use for navigation in my car is actually very similar to the tech I prefer for guitar sound processing and effects. Over the years I've learned that the fewer the wires, the better, and the less bulk, the better. Whenever I have the chance to slim down things into the least components possible to get the result I want, I will go for it.
While there are tons of dashcams available, what I wanted was one that showed speed and GPS coordinates on-screen while recording video. As it turns out, the DriveAssist does that and provides navigation at the same time, so it ended up being the ideal all-in-one thing to go with. Otherwise, I would have had to get a separate dashcam, resulting in two electronic things on the dashboard instead of just one.
Why my sudden interest in dashcam?
It's actually not sudden. I've been thinking about it for a while now. I'm going to be putting in some significant travel time soon, so the time was right to just go for it.
I don't think dashcams are overkill in cars as long as it's done right.
Dashcam done wrong is when it's mounted on the glass, because that's illegal in 21 states. Even though it's legal in Florida to have GPS or a dashcam on the glass, that could change at any time. I've always used a disc and don't mount anything to the glass at all.
I also believe a dashcam done wrong is any unit that doesn't have on-screen speed and coordinates. Without those two very specific pieces of info on the screen, the benefit of having a dashcam is diminished quite a bit.
Will I be posting video from my dashcam once I get it?
Possibly, but I don't plan on it.
Maybe I'll post an unlisted video to YouTube and then show it an article here just so people can see what Garmin DriveAssist footage looks like.
Truth be told, the vast majority of dashcam footage on YouTube is just plain boring. Most of the time, people drive from A to B without any problems.
If I do post any footage, I'd try to get some scenic stuff so it's not a total bore-fest.
12 string Fender Stratocaster XII
This is definitely a model of Stratocaster you don't see come around very often.
The Fender Stratocaster XII has temporarily made a return as a made-in-Japan model. And yes, it sounds exactly like you think it would...
...but is it worth getting?
Well, for that it all depends on whether a 12-string electric guitar is usable to you or not.
Here's some truths when it comes to 12-string guitars:
The best usable (keyword there) 12-string guitar is, without question, the 12-string acoustic. And they're not expensive either, even when Fender makes it.
For example, the Fender CD-60SCE is priced very well. It's a total bargain for what it is, and it's also an acoustic-electric as well. So if you want that classic "heavenly" acoustic 12-string sound, it does not cost much at all.
When you apply a 12-string build to an electric guitar however, it's a totally different animal.
More often than not, the best usable tone on an electric with 12 strings is the bridge pickup because it has that 1960s hippie/folk rock flavor to it. And yes, the Strat XII totally has it. But that may be the only thing it's good at doing. It might be a one-trick pony in that respect.
Still, it is a Strat, sounds like a Strat, feels like a Strat, but with 12 strings instead of 6.
There is no tremolo system on this guitar, thank God. Believe me, that's a good thing. You don't want any sort of trem system on a 12-string electric.
Is this guitar FSR (Fender Special Run)? Oh, yes. The Strat XII to the best of my knowledge has never been a regular production model.
I consider the price of the XII fair, as it is a very atypical Strat build with the Fender name on it. And they typically hold their value well.
Oh, and there's something else that definitely needs to be said. This is far and above way cheaper than getting a Rickenbacker 12-string. That's the main competitor of this guitar, and the Fender is far and above the significantly cheaper and arguably better choice.