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.
Looking back at 2000s guitar modeling amps
Sometimes timing is everything.
It's been a week since I traded out 2 guitars and an amp for a smaller and much tidier replacement amp, the Line 6 Spider V 60.
I can honestly say I'm happy with what I have. No regrets...
...but I'm keenly aware that what I did is not something I could have done even as little as 3 years ago.
Modeling amp tech at this point is pretty darned good. But there was a time when it wasn't. Early versions of digital guitar amps were expensive and had problems.
It's 2018 as I write this, and the Spider V line of amps from Line 6 didn't exist until 2016. And based on what I've seen, the V is definitely a significant improvement over the IV in all the right ways. But even so, the Spider IV series from Line 6 was pretty good.
However, if we rewind the clock back to 2000s, yeah, things were a bit weird then.
The example I'm going to use is the Fender Cyber-Twin. It is a 2x12 beast that was introduced all the way back in 2001. A later version came along later called the Cyber-Twin SE, but what I'm going to concentrate on here is the first non-SE model.
The Cyber-Twin was one of the most technically advanced modeling amps available at the time with a well-into-4-figures price tag. Fender claimed it wasn't a modeling amp, but I don't buy that at all. Yes, it was. It was big, it was heavy at over 50 pounds in weight, it was complicated, and sometimes it was unreliable.
Some owners of the first generation Cyber-Twin discovered the amp was not ready for prime time and had overheating issues. Not all Cyber-Twin amps exhibited this problem, but several did.
For those that didn't have a Cyber-Twin that overheated, they became frustrated with the operation of the amp because what Fender did with the control area was ridiculous. You had all the controls plus a few extra you'd find on a traditional amp and all the digital stuff on the top control area. This means you have 9 regular amp knobs, 4 digital knobs, and 12 buttons. Way, way too many controls.
What turned people off from this amp the most were the ridiculously complicated controls, the fact it was too loud for its own good and could not be played quietly (no way this could be played in an apartment), and the most damning thing: It didn't want to make you play your guitar.
When an amp is so annoying to use that it actually makes you put your guitar down, that's when you know it's a stinker. And that pretty much sums up 2000s digital guitar amp tech in a nutshell.
Where 2000s guitar tone digital modeling was concerned, the cream of the crop was rack units. Those were the processors that really sounded right. And that's exactly why I bought a DigiTech GSP 1101 back in the day. Later on when I parted with my 1101, I got the RP360 which has pretty much everything the 1101 had, except in a floor unit.
There's a whole swath of 2000s-era modeling amps from Fender, Peavey, VOX, Line 6 and a few others out there. A lot of people bought these things, and many still work.
Is it worth it to buy a 2000s digital modeling amp? No. If you already own one, that's a different story. But to actually seek one out really isn't worth the bother since newer models are so much better in every way.
Some amps are best left in the past.
Guitar modeling amps DO deliver what they promise
If you don't like the sound of your stock presets on your modeling amp or multi-effects pedal, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
If you ever listened to the guitar tone for Limelight by Rush, Alex Lifeson's guitar tone on that song is one of the best ever recorded because he does not use an over-trebly ratty sounding overdrive.
There are some modeling amps and multi-effects pedals that feature that exact sound as a preset. All you basically need is a guitar with bridge humbucker pickup, play the song, and you've got the tone...
...but the internet would tell you otherwise.
A longstanding complaint of all guitar modeling, be it in an amp or pedal, is that all factory presets regardless of who made the amp or pedal sound awful.
No, it doesn't sound awful.
The guys who program these things during development actually do listen to the original studio recordings, approximate what the tone sounds like, program it as a preset, test it many times until it's right, then send it out to production. The vast majority of the time, these programmers actually do nail it and get the sound right the first time.
The problem is the player and not the software.
Rewinding the clock back to the '90s for a moment, I'll talk about a multi-effects I unit I owned before for many years, the Alesis Quadraverb GT. That thing did just about everything well except overdrive/distortion. This was '90s early digital modeling tech, and it didn't sound right because of how new digital dist/od was at the time. The tech needed to get out there and mature.
Well, it has matured. In fact, it matured properly right around 2010. Virtual amps via PC software got the sound right first, then as the tech became cheaper and easier to produce, it trickled down into rack units, then to multi-effect pedals, then to amps.
And here we are. Now we have it all. And dopey guitar players (mostly metalheads) still complain.
Reminder: Most original studio guitar tracks of famous rock songs sound awful on their own
Flying High Again by Ozzy Osbourne is a good example of this. There are guitars in that song. Yes, guitarS. Plural. Very plural. Randy Rhoads had his guitars double, triple and sometimes even quadruple layered just to get them not sounding like total garbage - yet still do if you listened to them isolated. This tone is buzzy, ratty, muffled, overblown, has too much reverb, and is just plain terrible.
And when programmers actually program a sound like this as a preset in a modeling unit, they know it sounds awful but put it in anyway. After all, everyone wants that Randy Rhoads tone, right?
No. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants a trebly, nasty overblown mess of a guitar sound.
You got what you asked for
To anyone who complains about the stock presets in a modeling unit not sounding right, you got what you asked for. The tone is there. You just never liked the actual original studio sound to begin with...
...and that's why you're better off just programming your own presets with modelers. Tedious to do? Not really. You just have to sit down, learn how your modeler does what it does and create your own custom presets.
For multi-effects, it doesn't matter whether you have a DigiTech RP55, ZOOM G3Xn or BOSS GT-1000. For modeling amps, it doesn't matter whether you have a Peavey Vypyr VIP 1, Line 6 Spider V 240 or Fender Mustang GT 200. The fact of the matter is that with ANY of these things, you will have to sit down, learn the thing and actually do some basic programming.
And yeah, I know the word programming scares some people. Don't be afraid of it. Tone modeling is just one of those things where you have to craft your own tone and that's just the way it is.
However, on a final note, being I just recently acquired a Line 6 Spider V 60, I might write up a better manual on that. Maybe. I'm thinking about it. I personally think the amp is very easy to use, but again, the whole programming thing does scare some. If I decide to put a book together on how to use the amp, yes I will of course announce it here.
Thinning the herd (getting rid of guitar gear)
Over the past weekend I let go of a few things, and picked up 1 thing.
The 1 thing I picked up was a Line 6 Spider V 60 amplifier. The cost was nothing because I traded out two guitars and my old amp for it. I'll be doing a review on the amp later.
I've said before that gear hoarding is just plain dumb and that if there's stuff you're not using, get rid of it. I do practice what I preach, and that's exactly what I did.
For the rest of this, I'm going to concentrate mostly on the amp replacement.
The old amp was a Fender Frontman 212R. I bought that 48lb (22kg) monster years ago because my thought was that I "needed" something just as a loud as a half-stack setup. And oh yeah, it was loud. Too loud. There was absolutely no way to play it quietly inside my apartment. Not possible.
On top of that, because the Tampa Florida band scene sucks so bad, I never got to use it. Actually, correction. I got to use it once with a band at a practice - where I was promptly told to turn it down because it was too damned loud. Yes, this really happened. That Frontman outgunned a full stack tube-type Marshall with ease. So if you ever want an amp that projects, well, get yourself a 212R as it's definitely one of the loudest combo amps Fender has ever made. It might be solid-state but wow does it belt out the volume.
My 212R did nothing but sit and collect dust for years. The time came when I examined the guitar gear I had, thought about that big amp and said to myself yep, it's gotta go. But I still needed some amplification, and that's where the Line 6 Spider V 60 came in. It is much lighter at just 20lbs (9kg) and can be played quietly or loud. Is the amp as loud as the old 212R was? No, of course not. Not even close. However, it's more than good enough for playing at home or for small gigs when the time comes that I do those again.
Realizations
1. Guitar bulk sucks
I parted with a Jazzmaster (I now only have 1), an electric bass and an amp.
For those keeping score, yes this means there was one point where I had 3 Jazzmasters in my possession. That was stupid. It was even more stupid that all 3 of them were more or less the same guitar. At least with my 2 Telecasters, both are distinctively different as one is a traditional solid-body, neck with rosewood fingerboard and single-coil pickup configuration, the other a semi-hollow Thinline, one-piece maple neck, and dual humbucker configuration.
I'm happy to be rid of the bulk and don't regret what I traded out at all.
2. Digital is more usable
Nothing about the 212R amp was digital. It was 100% analog and it even had a real reverb tank in it.
The Spider V 60 is 100% digital and I've taken to it very quickly. I love the modeling options, the little drum machine it has in it (which actually sounds pretty darned good,) the fact it can be used 100% pedal-less because of all the built-in effects it has, the fact it's easy to use... it's just oh-so nice.
I also like that the audio over USB is super clean. Some amps don't do USB right, but the Spider V definitely does.
3. Sometimes going modern is just better
Where this amp replacement was concerned, getting rid of the bulky old-style analog rig for the light-and-lean modern digital rig was definitely the correct choice.
What if I had gone with a modern small tube-type amp?
I don't do tubes, as most people know. Tubes and I just don't get along.
However, for $100 more than the price of the Spider V 60, I could have bought a Fender Super Champ X2. Don't be fooled by the fact it only has 15 watts. That amp is a true tube-type and quite loud for what it is. And like the Spider V it has USB for digital recording. For weight, it's 24lbs (11kg,) which is 4lbs heaver than the Line 6, and that isn't too bad at all.
I don't deny that the Super Champ for many players ticks all the right boxes, and for a tube-type Fender, it's priced well...
...but again, I don't do tubes. For the sound I go after, solid-state has always worked better for me. And it's more affordable, which I appreciate.
Happy to have less
I'm feeling very good about my new smaller rig. I'm glad to have dropped some bulk while at the same time get something that works better for me.