Lunch Report Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Wednesday already! Hope your weeks are all going well. Things are kind of picking up at work, which is a good thing. However, the timing isn’t all that great as I’m taking tomorrow off to do some spring yard work. But be that as it may!

Lunch today is leftover chicken strips, sugar snap peas, a cheese stick and an apple with peanut butter.

G&L Question

There are a lot of options when it comes to guitar necks and fingerboards. I’ve been thinking about fingerboards lately. The Legacy HB I just got I ordered with a satin finish neck and fingerboard. To be perfectly honest, I wish I could have ordered it with a satin finish on the neck and a gloss finish on the fingerboard, but I didn’t see that listed as an option. (And if it turns out it IS an option and I just missed it, please do me the favor of NOT mentioning that right now!! ).

But this is really my first maple neck…well, except for my very first guitar, which was a MIM Fender Tele, but I didn’t have that guitar all that long, and it’s been 10 or 11 years since I sold it. But both my other Legacy and my Studio Les Paul have rosewood fingerboards. I went with maple on the Legacy HB for a couple of reasons…one, I was just curious, and figured if I had a Legacy with a rosewood fingerboard, I should have one with maple. Secondly, in doing some reading on Suhr Guitars web-site, he really discourages mating a rosewood neck to a Swamp Ash body for tonal reasons (tendency to be too bright?? can’t remember for sure).

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts on necks…are you strictly one or the other? Do you like both? And why?

Non G&L Question

One of my amps is a single-ended tube amp someone built for me, originally with a plexi-style preamp. When I got my Marshall a few years ago, I decided I had that covered and rewired the preamp to black face specs. And since it’s a single ended, low wattage amp, I wanted to maximize clean headroom. So when I use this amp, I use overdrive and distortion pedals for my drive tones. Currently I’ve got 4 pedals…Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde, BBE Green Screamer, MI Audio Crunch Box, Zoom Power Drive.

My overdrive sounds are nicely covered by these, but I’m not completely happy with the distortion tones provided here. For me, the MI Audio pedal was a big disappointment…despite the rave reviews it gets, it’s just a bit thin sounding for my tastes, and the bottom end is quite loose. The Jekyll & Hyde is much better, works very nicely with single coils, but really has too much bottom end for humbuckers…really noticed this with the JB pup in the Legacy HB. It has a trimpot for bass inside, but it doesn’t seem to control the right frequencies! So I’d like to find something in between the two…thicker and meatier than the Crunch box, but with a tighter bass response than both, and less boominess than the Jekyll & Hyde.

So what OD/Dist pedals do you guys use and love? Is there any pedal you would recommend that I try that might provide the kinds of distortion tones I'm looking for?

Last edited by Muleya on Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The only distortion pedal you have there is the hyde side of the VS pedal. Drive pedals are not designed as distortion pedals, they are not really meant ot crank high level of distortion into the amp, they are meant as a boost to push the tube amp into higher drive states it already has, and clip differently more than anything. Most have a slight mid range hump that lends well to tighting up the sound and clipping more in areas that you want (long clipping in the bass is what causes looseness, and due to the slower frequencies this is an issue as it stays longer). Unless you are using them to drive the amp INTO overdrive, not create it, you won't really get a good distorted sound out of them. Distortion pedals are more modelling the overdriven sound and trying to reproduce their own flavour of it. What kind of settings are you running these pedals with. Turning the gain down could very well tighten them up for you. As far as an actual distortion pedal I have heard good things about the blackstar pedals. The dual drive would give you a few options too.

Long Story short, OD pedals are designed to push amps into OD, not to model OD on their own, Distortion pedals are designed to model amps that are distorted.

Muleya, lunch here will be leftover Pork Loin and cooked carrots. It is always a hit with me.

My comments on necks are not going to include shape or size. I prefer Maple fretboards for 2 reasons. The first is that it is easier for me to see the positions especially if the lighting is low. Secondly, I do a lot of checking throughout the year of setup conditions. Things change in Minnesota due to seasonal change. This is especially true of the neck relief. I have found that the Maple necks are more stable to climate change. The rosewood fretboard models change more and If I were to setup a rosewood with .007 relief in February by mid to later summer it may be totally flat. It varies from guitar to guitar but generally speaking the Maples are more stable. My Parker Southern has the most stable neck of all. It doesn't change. I believe that it is a maple core sealed with carbon composite. I think that the G&L gloss finished neck is the most beautiful especially if they have the GOT and a matching body color. I prefer Ebony over Rosewood. I like the lack of grain in Ebony. I do not notice a difference in feel between gloss and satin poly. Nitro is a different story as they tend to be sticky. That has been covered well here. I have no opinion on quartersawn and I do have some. I am one of the lucky ones that has not had a bad neck. I would like to see all manufactures use the adjustment screw like Musicman and Parker. There are times I have looked at a pristine guitar only to find damage where the wrench goes in the headstock. This is a flag to me as the guitar has apparently needed frequent adjustment or had a careless owner.

I am not the guy to comment on pedals. Keep it coming Muleya!!-- Darwin

i have maple/maple, maple/rosewood, mahogany/rosewood, and mahogany/ebony necks...the 4 maple FB necks are gloss finish...i've found i like it better...
for me, it just depends on the guitar as each one of mine works great for the sound and feel i want from it...
the ES335 and PRS SC both are full and warm with mahogany/rosewood...
the Dean Soltero's mahogany/ebony is so smooth and has a bit more snap and brightness...
the AmDlx Strat and PRS EG and CE22's maple/rosewood have a mix of clarity and warmth that separate them from the others...
the 2 Teles, AmStd Strat, and ASAT produce that typical brightness, snap, and clarity that i want from them and their different designs and pups give me the different flavors i crave...

i've tried a wide range of OD and Dist pedals but a few years ago i found "it" for me...the Duncan Twin Tube Classic...it uses little mil-spec tubes and sounds better than any of the tube pedals i've tried before (albeit, the Mesa V-Twin is the best at getting the Boogie sound)...it gets me everything from added tube warmth to hard rockin distortion and beyond...i recently bought it's "Blue" version as well, but haven't used it yet...

I hate blanket opinions concerning wood combinations on guitars. Never order a maple fingerboard with an ash body?

What was wrong with all of the early 50's Teles and Strats?

It depends on the individual pieces of wood involved. I would order whatever you want. The real tone is coming from you anyway.

My preference is currently maple, just because I already have a number of rosewood fingerboards. I find that the shape of the neck is more important to me than the fingerboard wood.

I only have one guitar with a maple neck, and it is my 1975 Fender Stratocaster. It has glossy finish on the neck and it doesn't give me any problems. I have played a couple of maple necks with satin finish and I like them very well. But that is only based on a few minutes of playing. If my hand goes from dry to sweaty I may come to a different conclusion. I like my rosewood and ebony fretboard guitars, my favorite is ebony. I have ebony fretboards on my LE and my Yamaha SG.

I am strictly amateur although I do play with a hobby band that has played out. My signal chain is just guitar -> custom overdrive pedal -> Dan Echo -> amp. The custom overdrive pedal looks like this:





A person from another guitar/music board builds these for people who order it directly from him. It is a customized Tube Screamer circuit that he makes, starting with a kit, and adding other features to it. It has 2 main effects: overdrive and volume boost. The volume boost is just what it says. The overdrive has several modes of overdrive using different op amps in different logic paths, and different clipping modes. One final feature is a toggle on the left side of the pedal that allows me to select either boost before overdrive, or overdrive before boost, which gives the sound some more variety. The 2 effects are totally independent; I can use it just as a clean boost, or as overdrive, or both at the same time. Mine is custom painted, which he was willing to do, so it looks different than the 'production' version. The name you see on it is something I picked for him to put on it. The pedal is small, a little over 2" wide and about 4 or 5" long.

From what I understand an overdrive actually does not drive any amp any harder. All it is is an electronic circuit that creates a clipped signal (the characteristics of an overdriven op amp) and sends it to your amp to sound like your amp is actually overdriven, but I really doubt that the front end of your amp is actually clipping when you use an overdrive pedal. Most overdrive pedal also has a volume control so you can make the volume louder when you switch on the effect. That may be why players think their amp is being driven harder.

Kit

Sirmy - Actually the Crunch Box is a distortion pedal, as well. I know the others are overdrive pedals. I use them to produce both a mildy overdriven tone AND to push the front end of my amp, driving it harder...the latter mostly with the Marshall. With the black face amp, I use the OD pedals to provide soft-clipping to my signal. I'm pretty satsified with what I'm getting from my pedals there. It's just the distortion pedals that aren't getting me where I want to be.

Jaxx - you're not the first person I've heard with good things to say about the SD Twin Tone...may have to look in to that. A couple of folks highly recommended the Suhr Riot, but that things about $300! A little steep for me for a pedal that would only get occasional use.

Bassman - I completely hear where you are coming from, and for the most part agree with that. What he actually said was that he strongly cautioned people about it. And you know what, I just realized I said that wrong...he was cautioning about pairing a rosewood neck with a swamp ash body...I'm going to correct my original post. But obviously there are guitars like that that sound great and are iconic. I also found a site where a guy that owned two Suhr strat type guitars, one was alder body, rosewood fb and one was swamp ash body and maple fb. He swapped the necks and made recordings of each combination with all five pickup positions. It was an interesting display of how woods affect tone...but I found the differences fairly subtle.

Cool pedal, Kit...sounds like it's really versatile! Can I ask what this guy typically charges for one of these?

Maple, Rosewood, or Mahogany, I don't really have a preference.

I use a Fulltone Robin Trower Pedal for distortion and I think it works really well. I was using a Fulldrive 20th Anniversary MosFET which was a very good pedal as well. It had more versatility than the Trower pedal, but I typically just find a setting I like and leave it there. Here's a clip that I recorded using my Legacy HB through a Swart AST. The effects are the Fulldrive, Echodrive and then a Deja Vibe towards the end of the piece. The backing track is courtesy of Will Ray.

https://files.me.com/rickythompson/9h9u6c.mp3

Can't even remember what I had for lunch. I've worked more/harder since giving my notice than I have in quite a while. Yeesh.

Pedals...the only pedals I own are BBE, which have great sentimental value. Oh, I also own a Digitech GNX4, which is my 'interface' for going into the box for recording. I've never gotten into the whole pedal or amp versions of GAS. Maybe I should.

Check out some of Menatone's pedals, I have the Foxy Brown and it's fantastic. It's replaced my MI Audio Tube Zone.

As for the maple vs. rosewood thing, I'm not bothered about whatever tonal properties they may have but care more about the way they look with the finish on the body.

G&L Question: I don't have a preference for maple or rosewood or ebony, though IMHO maple necks tend to be more consistent. I don't like some of the coarse, grainy rosewood that is finding its way onto guitar fretboards these days. It's interesting that the best rosewood boards in my collection are on some older Asian made instruments (25+ years old). Those boards are dark, dense and smooth and are a joy to play. My US guitars (G&L, Fender) just don't match them. Is good quality rosewood getting hard to find?

Non-G&L Question: I like cleaner tones so I've never really built up a collection of overdrive and distortion pedals. I prefer overdrive that adds dirt but doesn't detract from the guitar's tone. My humble Boss OD-3 does this perfectly so I've never really tried anything else. I've found that nearly any modern amp simulator will give a variety of useable overdrive/distortion tones for practice and recording.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts on necks…are you strictly one or the other? Do you like both? And why?
Necks, got maple, rosewood and one ebony and I have been fond of maple since my youth for the snap and twang. Truth be told, no major preference for necks, the body and p-ups determine the direction I want to go.

So what OD/Dist pedals do you guys use and love?
Currently running Green Screamer, DS-1, MT-2, Proco RAT through Boogies and Fender so can't compare to Marshalls, but for distortion I like the Mesa channel followed by the RAT.

Good stuff!

No preference of the neck. I have maple necks with maple, rosewood, or ebony boards, all Indian rosewood necks, mahogany with rosewood and ebony. I just don't really care. The neck has to feel comfortable for my bid hands but that is about it.

Most of my overdrive tones come from my Express 5:25 itself. But I do have a Carl Martin Quattro which has 2 overdrive options and I like those tone. I only use them on the clean channel to kick the pre-amp a little harder. The others have enough in and by themselves.

- Jos

Lunch chips and salsa-I ate on the run.

G&L Question- I don't have a prefrence I guess if I did it would be maple with gloss finish.

OD/DS pedals- I used a DS1 for years for distortion. OD pedals I use a MXR Classic Overdive or,Bad Monkey,or Ibanez TS-9 or in a combo. I may try one of GFS(Biyang)or a BBE OD pedals.
Right now I have the Bad Monkey and MXR hooked on the board. But I never run them in series.

Chet

Looks just like a BYOC - OD2, but with a boost first or last switch added. All other features are identical. Still a fun pedal I am sure. An overdrive definitely hits harder though, hence the boost in the signal, the 'level' control. Increase in volume invariably means you are hitting your pre harder, unless your pre is completely saturated (in which case volume won't increase further really as it is clipped to the max).


Muleya, sorry about the mix up on the crunch box, not familiar with it, had it recommended to me once. I don't use 'distortion' pedals at all, given my Mark V is preamp dominated. Considering trying one of the blackstars for a psuedo 4th channel though. (maybe get the dual drive for a pseudo 5th channel ). That would be using the distortion pedal over my clean channel obviously.

I prefer a solid fretted maple neck but don't like how they look when worn and totalty agree with Darwin regarding their stability.

I've tried four or five OD pedals, they all sit on a shelf now. I'm just the guitar to amp and crank it up type, for my OD tones at a lower volume I love the Orange Tiny Terror I picked up last year, I recently pulled the JJ's it came with and installed a couple of NOS Sylvania 6BQ5's and two NOS GE 7025's in the pre amp section and this amp just KILLS!

I thought rosewood was used to make an ash body sound "warmer" as opposed to brighter? Anyho with a G&L you could always just roll of the unwanted frequencies. and as for pedals right now I am running my rig through a Vibrochamp XD so if I want some distortion I just switch it to a built in amp model so no help there I guess